Study Session - 12/3/2024 5:30:00 PM

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good evening everyone welcome to the
Gilbert Council study session for
December 3rd 202 I'll call this meeting
to order we just have two items on our
agenda this evening first one is
presentation and discussion on quiet
zones within Gilbert so excited to have
this discussion
Jason mayor
councel uh my name is Jason Hafner I'm
the transportation planning manager for
the town I'm joined today by Casey
Ambrose
uh she's a CIP project
supervisor so in
2015 Council gave direction to staff to
not actively pursue a quiet Zone however
when we had CIP projects where a rail
was in the vicinity of the project that
we would apply safety elements of a
quiet Zone to that
project today we're here to give give
you an update on the status of projects
that we've completed and that we've got
planned and then also to reaffirm that
Council direction from
2015 today I'm going to give you some of
the background of both quiet zones and
some of the uh elements of the Town
Casey is going to talk to you about
active and planned
improvements uh as well as some of the
unplanned Loc where we'll need to do
anything if we ever do choose to pursue
a quiet Zone and then we're going to end
with the reaffirmation of that direction
that we
got so in 2005 the federal rail
Administration or f as I'll probably
call it several times tonight uh
instituted a rule for safety measure
that any train crossing a
roadway was required to sound a
horn
um based on feedback that they got from
cities and other towns they implemented
a second rule that allowed for a quiet
Zone if a town did certain safety uh
construction projects to that Crossing
to make it in their minds as safe as the
horn
sounding uh we wanted to point out this
second bullet in particular that uh
quiet zones aren't necessarily an end of
all noise from the trains particularly
because the uh Engineers can still blow
the horn if they feel unsafe or anytime
they want
really uh this is a list of some of the
safety elements that are potentially
required for uh Crossings obviously some
of these are very easy landscape removal
we do already the signage upgrades when
we know the signs are um out of date or
not reflecting as they once did we
already go ahead and update those uh
however some of these are a little
trickier particularly the median
extension uh if we were to implement a
quiet Zone anywhere in the town we would
have to uh extend some of the medians to
an extent that it would block access to
some of the uh current
locations businesses and also some of
the roadways that would be blocked by
those median
extensions uh this is obviously a map of
the uh of the rail through the town uh
the colors don't really matter for our
conversation today but what you can see
by those numbers are all the crossings
that we have and there are a few things
that we wanted to point out here Gilbert
averages about four trains per day
according to uprr that go through the
town um we did an analysis of how many
residences were within a mile and a half
of the trail or sorry the Rail and we
came up with 58,000 households that are
within that area we think that's
probably about the number of places that
are impacted by the sound and the other
thing that we learned during our
analysis is that since the
implementation of Gilbert 311 33
addresses that are unique have submitted
uh concerns about the train noise here
in the
town so this is just a quick timeline of
some of the things to keep keep in mind
as far as Council action uh in 2005 like
I said is when the train horn rule
became effective uh in 2007 Council
determined not to pursue a quiet Zone in
2013 the issue came back before Council
and the direction given to staff was to
proceed with a diagnostic review a
diagnostic review is sort of like the
first step if you looking into a quiet
Zone um uprr staff as well as F
officials will come out you walk the
locations and they point out some of the
safety elements that would need to be
updated in order for that Crossing in
particular to qualify as a quiet Zone uh
the results of that diagnostic review
were B brought back before Council in
2015 and that's when Council gave
direction to staff to not actively
pursue the quiet Zone but to include
safety elements consistent with a quiet
Zone in any CIP project that was
happening already
and was near or bisecting the tracks and
that brings us to
today uh at this point I'm going to turn
it over to Casey Ambrose and she's going
to talk through some of the projects
that are planned and
current thank
you all right so we're going to discuss
the uh improvements or the active and
plan projects that we currently have um
in our system so utilizing council's
direction from
2015 uh we look at this or the town has
looked at this approach uh very
similarly to how the town has approached
a lot of our uh building projects and
implementing lead certification which is
uh creating buildings with sustainable
elements we don't necessarily chase the
lead certification but we do apply those
elements throughout our building so the
same concept is what we're applying here
when we proceed with our projects that
are bisecting The Rail lines we're
applying element that are appropriate to
that project for safety measures that
can apply to a quiet Zone later without
necessarily chasing the quiet Zone
itself so we have had three uh active
projects in the past um two are
currently finished the very first bullet
and the bottom bullet have been
completed uh the middle bullet actually
came in front of council few months ago
uh we were moving forward with that but
the very top project was a railroad uh
Crossing improvements study this was
another diagnostic that we went back to
the diagnostic review performed in 2013
what we used this diagnostic review was
to verify that the improvements
recommended in
2013 uh either didn't change or if they
did we were making sure we were now
implementing the right safety measures
and and the right uh opportunities with
the right projects as we move forward
the uh last bullet project the Cooper
Road and Guadalupe project uh this was a
massive project it did preemption at
signals it did incorporate a lot of
elements to the quiet Zone however as
the top study came back to prove those
quiet Zone elements and those safety
elements have changed and now additional
improvements should we choose in a
future date to go after a quiet Zone uh
regulation we would need to do
additional improvements to that item and
then the uh middle project again came in
front of council recently we are looking
to install medians at the Gilbert Road
Crossing uh it was recognized by up r r
and it was at their request that these
medians be installed uh currently the
gate arms do not extend across all the
uh travel lanes and so these medians
would help improve and prevent vehicles
from going around the uh the gate arms
when they're down so uh the total
estimate at the B bottom is uh for these
projects now again keep in mind these
projects were created without a quiet
Zone in mind they were created for other
CIP uh through their our CIP Pro program
with our stakeholders so they're not
driven by a quiet zone so the the cost
you're seeing at the bottom is the cost
for the project with all the other
safety improvements outside of a quiet
Zone we just added a few smaller
elements to these
projects then we have a couple of plann
studies uh in the future um currently
going and in the future um a couple of
them are for Gap analysis for Trails we
have a lot of Trail users our Trails do
cross uh the railroad Corridor so we're
looking at how to better improve and get
our uh residents and pedestrians and
Trail users over or under or around the
railroad um the uh so we have three
studies related to those and then the
the third bullet down the rail Crossing
elimination study this is a study to
look at all the crossings along the the
railroad Corridor um what this is going
to do is evaluate each of these
Crossings and then it's going to rank
each of these Crossings where our high
priorities are where we should actually
eliminate and when we say eliminate the
crossing it means we're going to take it
at a grade separation and what that does
is it separates the rail line from the
actual uh vehical traveling public so
either the cars are going to go over the
rail or the rail is going to go over the
cars and we need to do that with a a
study to see where are the most
important areas or the high priority
areas are we have planned for three
projects in the future and that'll come
up on the next slide uh but those are
projects we have looked at this study
could change and rearrange some of those
projects and where those locations are
at so these are our planned improvements
these are the three projects I alluded
to this is what that rail study is going
to show hopefully or maybe it'll change
but these projects are programmed out
into future years so we can get the rail
study underway really plann for our
future um these projects are also tied
to the prop 479 funding so which is also
why they're planned for future events
but we have these three Crossings I gu
these are planned projects for safety
concerns these do not have to do with a
quiet zone so all of these projects
we're showing are on the CIP books
they've been on the CIP books they were
presented but not for quiet zones they
were presented for other CIP needs or
town
needs so then if the town were to
explore a quiet Zone we do have some
unplanned improvements that need to
happen that's what was shown in the
diagnostic review we did previously in
the past couple of
years so of the 13 or of the 16
Crossings we have in the town 13 would
still need some kind of upgrades to them
13 are not planned in our current CIP
program we don't have any projects close
to the vicinity of a rail with these
areas or locations two of those
Crossings are maintenance only so that
goes back to just landscape removal
roadway markings and signage upgrades
eight of those Crossings would require
some form of maintenance M or
construction improvements and those
construction improvements can vary from
Warning Systems modif modifications to
Gates signage uh changes in traffic
Lanes medians sidewalks um even fencing
requirements for pedestrians so that
they're forced to look up and down the
railroad tracks um so a lot of different
moving Parts we'd have to nail down for
these Pro projects and then we have
three private Crossings we'd have to
address uh what it is is those Crossings
are private today so what that means is
the train horn does not sound at those
locations because the train engineer is
not expecting a vehicle or a pedestrian
to be on the tracks at the time that
they're Crossing this
location we would need to in order to go
to a quiet Zone we would need to create
those into a public Crossing and once we
create that as a public Crossing then
the train horn would now need to sound
because now they are anticipating
pedestrians and uh vehicles to be
Crossing at those locations and that
train horn would remain in place until
we actually got approval of a quiet Zone
from the federal rail Association and
Union Pacific
Railroad uh as you can see we are
estimating the cost of these future
projects they are not programmed they
are not planned in our CIP book they
would be solely driven by the council
choosing to chase after a quiet Zone and
we're estimating those to be at about
$86
million so with that we're coming back
to council to reaffirm the council
direction to uh continue to add quiet
Zone safety improvements again just
adding elements to current existing
projects that when we BCT a rail line
with a project we would add certain
elements that make sense or are
appropriate to that project um and then
to not to reaffirm that we are not
pursuing a quiet Zone designation at
this
time and with that we will take any
questions thanks Casey does anyone have
questions for Casey or Jason at this
time council member Bon Giovani thank
you mayor
um this may be the dumbest question ever
asked from this Das but can't we just
make longer rails so or longer Gates so
they go past the
median yes that you can but uh most of
them go to what a is called a quad gate
system and in order to do that you would
have a a gate closing in each Direction
both in the north and southbound Lanes
well this case on Gilbert Road it would
be in the north and southbound lanes and
so they would have a gate on the outside
and a gate on the uh inside Lane I don't
know the extent of how long the gate
arms can possibly be but then that is
also a major in uh increase cost
increase to the arm system that's to be
supported okay and at 8886
million 33 complaints 2.66 million per
complaint
I need my own quiet Zone if we approve
this I mean I just that makes no sense
to me
whatsoever any other comments or
questions council member tilki thanks
mayor um I guess my comment is I'd like
to keep the current policy that we have
in place I I think that it doesn't
justify the cost and um the railroad was
here long before any moved in so um I
appreciate those who don't like the the
noise but um I can hear it me too yeah
and I'm fine with it thank
you council member
Koski Casey Could you um I might have
missed it but in regards to the projects
you included those three private
crossings that would have to be
converted so without those conversions
to public Crossings are you saying that
the entire town could not be eligible
for the quiet zone no the the town could
still be uh eligible for a quiet Zone it
just makes it a little bit more
difficult there's other improvements we
may need to do more significant
improvements to other Crossings um it
kind of is a very give and take
relationship with what you do at one
Crossing can affect what you may or may
not need to do at another Crossing um
there's there's some other impacts to
how that that applies but no we don't NE
necessarily need to make those public
Crossings um but if we do not there's
other impacts that the town needs to be
aware of by not doing that okay um in in
the planning history there was one
component that was excluded I think
around 2019 2020 there was a study that
evaluated the railroad crossings to
determine what would need to be changed
for these quiet
zones um I I know we haven't had a lot
of complaints coming in through through
311 but it is something that I've heard
from residents over the past several
years that it is desired but I can see
that I I don't want to put this huge
Capital cost into this if it's not going
to have that same benefit and we're also
talking about something separate and
that's doing the grade separated
Crossings I know that in prop 479 all of
Gilbert's projects are grade separated
Crossings and I'm wondering whether for
the next 20 years out of that program
whether we want to actually devote those
funds only to those types of projects
because we may have greater needs that
would serve more of the public so I
guess from my perspective I would be
more inclined
to um I would like to see the quiet Zone
but I I don't know whether it's worth
that Capital cost and the other
priorities that we may have
and I'd also like to know in the future
um where we would rather spend potential
Regional monies um aside from all those
great up rated Crossing projects um
because I know those can be very
expensive and I do see the benefit it
may be one or two more in the community
but not every single
one mayor council member uh there is a
number of funds in prop 479 for GR
separated Crossings but is not the
entirety of the L alcp it's probably
closer to half as far as the project
number goes there's also other benefits
to the town of us
removing um atg grade Crossings uprr
currently has a rule in place that you
have to eliminate three atg grade
Crossings in order to build a new atg
grade crossing so in order to build a
new atg grade crossing were the town
ever to want to do such a thing we would
have to eliminate three current
Crossings and so part of
the reasoning for putting those three
grade separations into the alcp as part
of prop 479 was so that we would have
the opportunity someday to build an atg
grade crossing if we were so
inclined thank you for the additional
information that ACR Crossing might be
on nearly perhaps I'll just I'll just
throw one out there that doesn't have a
Crossing in place at this moment that
could be in the future required or
desired vice mayor
Anderson um grade separation for
railroads is extremely expensive and I'd
be surprised if we could do it for the
for what's shown here
um does the railroad or federal
government have any money to contribute
towards
this uh mayor council member um Casey
mentioned the rail the grade separated
Crossing study uh if Council remembers
we brought that before you we applied
for an F Grant to apply for that funding
to do that study uh we feel if we're
successful it will help us be um more
successful in the future in applying for
the same fund source to design and
construct those great separated
Crossings so in a from a staff point of
view our philosophy is if we can get F
sort of with some skin in the game by
funding the study and then we can set
that study up part of the study will do
15% design plans for three locations and
we think if we're able to get that study
uh the funding for that study and move
forward with it that those 15% design
plans will help us be very competitive
for future Grant funds from F in the
future to help pay for the design and
construction and if that happens we
could reallocate those alcp funds uh to
another project in the town
I tend to agree with council member
tilky the the railroad has been here a
long time and the town is grown up
around it it's kind of like an airport
and that's the reason airports buy so
much land around the airport itself is
to prevent this from happening um but I
kind of I agree that U the railroad was
here first and sometimes we just have to
live with that
so I will say um I have a funny story
that just happened in the past couple
weeks I had to get down to Chandler
Gilbert or like I like to call it
Gilbert Chandler Community College one
morning and there was a train stuck on
the tracks and I live at Lindsay and
Elliott and had to get to Gilbert and
posos right so I had to go east on
Elliott to Greenfield and thank goodness
for that Crossing because I could get
under the track the train wasn't that
far in in this case but it was the only
road that I could go to go south to go
back to um Gilbert Chandler community
college and that was i' I've had we've
had the train stuck before and from my
house I mean um council member tilky and
I live gosh a Stones Throw from each
other and the Lindsay Crossing I can
hear it cross Gilbert Road Elliot Road
Lindsay Road Warner Road and Valvista
from my house if we have our back door
open no kidding every single one of
those Crossings and I'm sure you can can
too um and and like has been said the
train this town wouldn't exist if it
wasn't for a train
spur in reality and I've been on Console
N9 years total and maybe get one email a
year maybe get one email a year about
train noise and 33 complaints
on Gilbert 311 just doesn't justify the
cost the only thing that would change is
if we need needed to add a new Crossing
and I used Neely as an example I think
it's a perfect example in this case if
we needed to add a Crossing there and I
think that's been our hesitation all
along is we know that we can't do that
because it would cost an arm and a leg
to add some new um Crossings and I just
don't think that we can justify that at
this point I think there's just too many
things that we need here in the
community that we can justify the use of
funds so much better than that and I
have a friend who was a realtor and she
told me this story once that she took a
family to see a house and they crossed a
railroad track saw the house left the
house crossed the railroad track went
and had coffee near the house crossed
the railroad track left the coffee
crossed the railroad track and as they
were talking she said what did you think
about living that close to a railroad
track they never noticed it so if you're
moving into a house and you're not
looking at the things that are around
you shame on you right
and we build homes and neighborhoods on
that train track and I'm sure those are
the people that we're getting the
complaints from and I can tell you there
are there are train drivers that are
blasting those horns in the middle of
the night sometimes and um this isn't
going to help that because they can
still like you one of you said they can
still if they feel there's a safety
issue blow that horn so I can't justify
this at this
time thank you for your presentation it
was great and 50 out of 58,000
households how many households do we
have in Gilbert Jason do you know I know
it's probably over 92,000 I'm
guessing Kyle's guessing about 100,00
100,000 so a little more than half are
impacted by train noise and how do we
choose where to go quiet zones versus
not quiet zones how do I think that's an
even bigger mess that we would get
ourselves into yeah so thank you you got
direction thank you mayor Peterson yes
counc member Buckley has a comment oh
I'm sorry I forgot that she was on for
study session council member Buckley do
you have a
comment she is
muted mayor I'll try to get a hold of
her and see if she's having any issues
okay thank you we can get I I don't know
if she's got has
a can you hear me now yes we can I'm so
sorry um no I just uh I just wanted to
say I'm going to be short and quick and
I don't want to reiterate and say all
the same things everyone else has said
but I there's no way I would support
this right now there's so many other
really important needs for our community
right now that I I just can't support
this thank you council member thank you
thank you thank you both thank you next
item up for discussion this evening is
um the TNR assistance
pilot good evening
Robert good evening uh mayor and Council
thank you uh very much for having me
this evening uh Robert carono with Parks
and
Recreation we'll see
all right so tonight we're going to talk
about the uh pilot program that we
discussed uh last time so before we get
started just a little brief history on
the Trap neuter return program uh we've
talked about TNR uh a lot quite recently
uh this is just a brief reminder that it
is allowed on private property uh per
the Cur Ordnance just not allowed on
Town owned property quick uh look back
at history it uh really started in 2015
um where the ordinance first came into
place that it was unlawful to feed or
place food Outdoors specifically at the
repairing preserve except with some of
the categories that we've that we've
discussed below when it was updated in
2018 it did include all town-owned
property and public right of way um if
and it could be uh you know upheld if
the parks recreation director um
authorize specific uh people at
particular
locations went one too fast but that all
took us to uh April 16th uh which is the
last time we discussed this item at that
point uh we did talk about Council
requesting staff to proceed in drafting
the framework of a pilot program um
we're coming back tonight to briefly
talk about that and at the time that we
discussed it we were looking at a total
not to exceed $10,000 for that first
year of the pilot program so with that
being said really the overall goal is to
make sure that we're we're protecting
Wildlife from the the impacts of the
frail cat population but also supporting
the nonprofits who are um you know
managing the fra cap populations and
with that we use that as the main
drivers to come up with what that pilot
program could look like so with that
being said we are looking at starting uh
that program on January 1st um which
would be uh available and specifically
design designated for those nonprofits
uh doing TNR Services um this would be
available through the town website with
all the information being there and as
we discussed it it would be not to
exceed $10,000 that would be requested
through the use of contingency funds
since that wasn't a budgeted item at the
beginning of the fcal year uh when we
first discussed it it would also be
separate from the town's nonprofit
assistance funds which has already been
you know largely uh distributed so this
would be a separate program from that um
overall and at the end of the the
program or the utilization of all the
funds the department uh would would
provide an update to council to be able
to discuss you know all the happenings
that took place from that pilot program
to dive a little bit deeper uh we took a
look at the eligibility requirements for
assistance um tried to make
um you know friendly from the
perspective of really allowing the TNR
you know nonprofits to to perform uh
those services but also making sure that
it was within uh proper um you know
confines of what we'd like to see uh so
some of those being to make sure that
there's permission from the private
property owners um the agreements being
made with the local you know vet clinics
uh where those neutering Services would
be taking place and then obviously a
history of having um those TNR progr
programs and services uh just to kind of
name a few of some of the things we'd be
looking for in in our partners for
this couple of the other highlights um
these were some of the suggestions from
the Department uh we we would expect
that $10,000 would move relatively
quickly there's a there's a couple of
different nonprofits that work within
this um work within this sector with TNR
so we're looking at a $1,500 Max um to
at least start per organization so that
we were able to distribute the funds to
to several and create those
relationships but if those funds were
still available those organizations
being able to come back and ask for for
additional funds um you know in those
applications making sure that we have a
couple of different departments
including parks recreation legal
procurement um you know verify that
those nonprofits are are in good
standing and would meet the criteria
that we've that we've set forward and
then have it be a reimbursement based
program so not having that $1,500 be
upfront but have that be reimbursed when
those uh nonprofits are able to show us
the reports of of what took place in
those receipts um we would then be able
to reimburse those those funds through
the pilot
program some of that implementation
reporting to make sure that we're
capturing the right data to be able to
to show Council into the future um would
be to understand that uh having those
monthly progress reports to understand
how many how many cats were trapped in
return what those expenses were and any
issues uh that encountered throughout
those Services um and then being able to
have that final report you know
summarizing the activities and outcomes
uh when it came to those those
spe specific colonies you guys know me
well enough normally I don't do that but
I'm a little tired this evening the kids
have not been sleeping but um you know
being able to to have those available um
so that when we do come back to council
it has a a very you know Global grasp at
at the success of the program or what
happened within it and with that I know
that it's a broad overview um but happy
to take any questions or suggestions on
on sort of the the direction of that
pilot program thanks Robert we'll try to
be specific about it thank you just
kidding
Anderson Robert have you been in contact
with these organizations because the
last time that they were here and we had
discussion about this left with what I
felt was the impression that it was
freefor all time to do TNR in Gilbert
and I don't want them to think that I
think I want them to to abide by the
rules of this program very carefully and
uh monitor them very
closely yeah mayor and vice mayor that
we've talked to a few of them but not in
depth about the actual pilot program we
wanted to make sure to have that
conversation first with Council to make
sure that we're going in the right
direction but our next step would be
that we would have that Outreach with
the organizations and understand what
that looks like um I think we've been
very clear what the the ordinance over
overall States and I think through the
pilot program through the application we
could um better Define what that Outlook
looks like and what those expectations
are as part of the program so our hope
is that we continue to build those
relationships as part of it thank you
council member telki thanks mayor uh
Robert I was curious um when the
nonprofit requests reimbursement I'm
assuming the information they'll share
with you is the address of the property
owner and and my question is town of
Gilbert only and how does County Island
properties um are they impacted yeah
mayor council I think that's a great
question I think um The Way We Were
approaching it was really just the town
of Gilbert uh properties well not town
of Gilbert within the you know private
properties within the Gilbert boundaries
um was how we were initially approaching
it um but if there's other direction you
know from the council we can discuss it
but that's at least how we were going to
approach the the application process
overall so I would say within the
Gilbert planning area which incorporates
the maroba county islands that are
within our plan planning area that does
that make sense yep than Council mayor
Bon Giovani thank you mayor um Rob I
take it that um we're going to be able
to tell the difference between a feral
cat and domestic cat so you know if
she's if a cat's wearing a thing that
says Tinker Bell we're not going to
neuter it right I mean we're going to
make sure that we can somehow say this
is a domestic cat versus feral cat yeah
mayor council Bon I think that goes to
the vetting process of of the types of
nonprofits that we work with who do this
um you know consistently across the
valley and understanding some of the
successes and challenges that they have
had and make sure we we partner with the
right organizations who who have the
trained professionals as we kind of
talked about during the eligibility um
and it's also making sure we're
monitoring any issues that happen within
the pilot program so if that did happen
by accident um that we were able to
understand that right away and
understand some of the implications but
overall I think that's part of the
process and and partnering with the
right groups and making sure that that
application um is able to show that the
the training is there with the the right
types of of people in the
organization thank you Robert took me
four years but we have a pilot program
in place since I was the one that called
called the cat killer in 2020 amongst
other things so I appreciate finally
being able to get this um across the
Finish Line at least for a pilot program
and $10,000 worth so I hope that it
continues into the future I know that
the organizations here in gartt would um
very much appreciate that and I know
that there's a process they tip cat's
ears they tip an ear when it's been TNR
and and rep and put back but the problem
is is that the the people that go out
and do it on their own independently
sometimes grab people's family cats and
take them and hopefully those family
cats have already been neutered too if
they're out and about in the
neighborhoods and it's mostly the feral
ones that we're really concerned about
and multiplying so thank you all very
much I appreciate it I don't have anyone
else with any comments so well done
thank you very much have a good evening
hope you get some sleep tonight we'll
try all right those are the only two
items that we had on our agenda this
evening and I will go ahead and adjourn
the study session
SC