Transportation Commission - February 20, 2025

e e
welcome to the city staff Transportation
oh no nope we're good you're good sorry
y okay we'll start over so good evening
this is chair Miller and I would like to
formally call the meeting to order
welcome to City staff Transportation
Commissioners and the public to the
February 20th Transportation Commission
meeting meetings are being held in
person televised on Cox Cable channel 11
and streamed online at scottsdaleaz.gov
for the public to listen and view the
meeting in progress I'd like to ask for
a roll call to begin this evening's
meeting chair Miller here thank you Vice
chair will coxon here thank you thank
you commissioner marman here thank you
commissioner pytz here thank you
commissioner Cardella here thank you
commissioner
CTI here thank you and commissioner
Davis here thank you all
present spoken comment is being accepted
for agendized and non agendized items
the request to speak forms must be
submitted no later than 90 minutes
before the start of this meeting do we
have any requests to speak chair Miller
members of the commission um we have no
written comments this evening but we do
have one request to speak form for
agenda item number
three and Kyle will we take that when we
get to the agenda item correct correct
yes we'll have the presentation and then
at the end of that we'll have an
opportunity for um the citizen to speak
thank you thank you so written comments
are being accepted for agendized and
non- agendized items and should be
submitted electronically at least 90
minutes before the start of this meeting
these comments are also emailed to the
Transportation Commission and post it
online Kyle other than the comment that
you mentioned do we have any comments
written comments we do not thank
you great and so with that we will take
up the approval of the meeting
minutes does anybody have any comments
on the meeting minutes
now um I did notice that there was one
tiny typo it is on page
four under number five where the motion
is in the very second line it says
strategic
Transportation so you can make that we
can make that change absolutely I
thought that's what we voted
for transportation okay uh with that
I'll take a uh motion to approve the
minutes with that
change I move that we I move that we um
approve the minutes with that
change second thank you we have a motion
in a second Kyle will you take the rule
yes we'll do a roll call here um chair
Miller approved thank you Vice chair
will coxon approved thank you
commissioner merman approve thank you
commissioner panowitz
yes thank you commissioner
CTI approved thank you commissioner
Cardella yes thank you and commissioner
Davis yes thank you minutes are approved
as
amended thank you next up is the
approval of the annual Transportation
Commission report um we had tabled that
from last month and had it corrected and
updated um any comments on the report
no with that do we have a motion to
approve uh chairman so
moved thank you is there a second I
second and a
second Kyle take the vote Yes perfect
and chair Miller approved thank you Vice
chair will coxon approved thank you
commissioner merman approve thank you
commissioner panowitz
yes thank you commissioner cile approved
thank you commissioner Cardella yes and
commissioner Davis yes thank
you thank you Kyle next up is the
Clarendon Avenue variance
request ch and members of the
Transportation Commission my name is
Helen Dominguez senior traffic engineer
and the item I would like to discuss
today is a variance request to the
neighborhood traffic Management program
um warranting criteria for Clarendon
Avenue from 82nd Street to Granite Reef
Road going over a summary of the agenda
we'll first discuss the commission's
role and what we're seeking today we'll
go over over the warranting criteria to
the neighborhood traffic Management
program um we'll be providing an
overview of this site location um and
describing physical characteristics of
the study
segment we'll be providing the results
of the um speed and volume data that was
collected as part of this request um
we'll be providing um a staff
recommendation and then finally a
recommended action for the commission to
um so starting with the commission's
role um the neighborhood traffic
Management program is the mechanism that
we use to evaluate requests for traffic
cming devices such as um speed cushions
the steps to um the ntmp are shown on
the slide um so we received a request
from a resident who lives on Clarendon
Avenue they contacted the city and
discuss their concerns they submitted a
letter of interest form um and we
collected the traffic data to determine
if the traffic hming device was
warranted um and that's where we are
today um the results of the data show
that this street is close to but does
not quite meet the minimum criteria in
the
ntmp um so what we are requesting is a
variance to the warranting criteria um
so that we can move forward with the
next step in the process which is the
neighborhood petition and then finally
the last step would be to obtain
commission approval for construction so
I want to highlight that um the purpose
of today's item is not to approve the
construction of a traffic calming device
it's to approve a request um for a
variance to the criteria in the ntmp
here's a summary of the warranting
criteria um for traffic cling devices
the first is that the street must be
between 660 ft and a mile long in length
the street must be paved and planned for
only one um through Lane in each
Direction the volume Criterion is that
the street must have between 500 and
3,000 vehicles per
day um the speed the speed Criterion is
made up of two components the first is
that at least 40% of traffic is
traveling 5 miles per hour or more above
the speed limit the second component is
that at least 20% of traffic's traveling
10 miles per hour or more above the
speed
limit the last criteria is that the
street must have at least 50% direct
residential Frontage um with exceptions
made to streets adjacent to
schools or designated as bike or ped
routes um here's an overview of the
study segment so Clarendon Avenue is
located halfway between Osborne Road and
Indian School Road um the segment
between 82nd Street and Granite Reef
Road is a quarter mile in length it's
classified as a local residential
roadway that is paved and has one lane
in each Direction
um and the study Street segment has
direct residential Frontage on 100% of
its length so um the subject Street does
meet all of the physical criteria um
described in the
ntmp some other features to note is that
this street is um significantly wider
than both um adjacent parallel local
residential streets um as well as wider
than what's requ required by the dspm
for this
classification the speed is posted at 25
milph and the street does not have any
pavement
markings um so going over the results of
the data after we um received a letter
of interest form we collected data um
this middle of January of this year at a
location approximately halfway between
the study limits
um and the results of the data show that
the street segment has approximately 458
vehicles per day 43% of cars are
traveling 30 miles per hour or over and
20% of cars are traveling 35 miles per
hour or
over um So based off of the results the
volume Criterion is not met um it's
short by 42 cars
um the speed criteria are met both
components um we
also um reviewed crash history from the
most recent five years to find segment
related
crashes um along the street segment and
this excludes intersection related
crashes um on either end of the street
segment but there was two crashes that
occurred within the past five years the
first in July of 2020 it was coded as a
rear end crash um resulting in no
injury the second crash happened in
January 2023 this situation was a
vehicle who was speeding and ran off the
road struck a fence on a residential
property and then ultimately crashed
headon with a parked car um and as I
noted uh speed was noted as a factor in
the crash report for this crash
um So based off of the data that we
collected for the study
segment um traffic engineering staff
does recommend that the variance to the
ntmp warranting criteria be approved for
the following reasons um the main one
being that the majority of the
warranting criteria is met with the sole
exception of the volume Criterion um
however the measured volumes are within
10% % of the minimum threshold and so we
feel that a traffic cming device would
still be appropriate on this street
segment um related to that the measured
speeds um show a notable speeding trend
on this street segment um typical ntmp
requests that we receive Street segments
meet the volume Criterion but typically
do not meet the speed Criterion so um it
it is notable that this street has such
high speeds there is a history of
segment related crashes with with at
least one being related to
speeding and then the last thing is that
um the segment of Clarendon Avenue is
near Puma elementary school
so um drop off and pickup activities
from the school may be affecting traffic
patterns along this segment of Clarendon
Avenue
so the last thing is the recommended
action for the
commission um so we recommend that the
Transportation Commission moveed to
approve the variance to the ntmp
warranting criteria for Clarendon Avenue
from 82nd Street to Granite Reef Road in
order to proceed with the initiation of
the neighborhood
petition thank you that's are there any
questions
first oh do we yes okay yeah chair
Miller uh members of the commission I
will call up um try hell to the podium
and you will have three minutes if you
wouldn't mind stating your name and
address for the
record thank you
is it right hello can you hear me okay
hi my name is Troy hudnell U I live at
8326 East Clarendon Avenue I been a
resident of Scot Hill for since 1978
I've lived in the same house for the
last 38 years with my wife and my three
children who have now left me thank
god um I'm here to represent the the uh
the citizens that live on this
particular segment of Clarendon when I
bought this house back in
1978 uh it was a nice quiet neighborhood
we love the home um in just in the last
7 to 10 years I've watched Scottdale
explode with population and uh growth
from autos and businesses and what have
you and now Clarin has turned into a
mini 101 as I call it refer to it I have
been calling the police department in
reporting speeding on a daily basis
which I have since ceased to do uh
because Sergeant Anderson of the Scot
Police Department told me that there are
only six uh motorcycle officers uh the
officer that did do a uh an hour and a
half on our street uh cited two two uh
cars for speeding over 40 mil an hour he
said the average speed was between 27
and 37 miles an hour and I I didn't want
to ruffle his feathers or or stir the
Pod but I thought well the speed limit
is 25 and and you think that that's
acceptable well it's not acceptable to
the residents that live on that block
and it certain isn't acceptable to me
the street is 37 feet wide uh and it's
10 10 feet wider than all streets in
either direction in the hallcraft
development uh we have no cars usually
as a rule parked on any side of our
street so it's like a free-for-all and
when you come the the traffic comes off
of the 101 usually the westbound traffic
if you look at the at the uh the numbers
and the that was compiled the data it
shows westbound is worse than eastbound
well the westbound comes off the the
interstate
101 and instead of going from Pima to
Hayden they cut through my neighborhood
they cut down Granite Reef and then and
I walk my dog every day I watch this
happen all day long and they make the
turn and and it's just a beine
free-for-all to the next drop sign and
this has been ongoing for years and it's
getting worse and worse and worse we
have many many children that live on the
street and in one day something else is
going to happen uh I saw that I was
amazed to see that they that you you got
an opportunity to see that there was a
fence of a of a neighbor taken out that
fence was a a 8-year-old daughter's or
8-year-old girl's fence where she was
playing in that in that confined
area and and the the people that own the
house are the messenger
family of of scottsvale the messenger
right over here on Indian School in
Miller that's that that's the woman that
that owns messenger it's her house so I
mean these people that come these are
neighbors these aren't just people that
are coming off the freeway these are
these are residents these are vrbos
these are uh the uh Airbnb people
they're there there people that just
don't care there are residents that live
in the community it's a feeder Street
back in my community and it's got to
stop I almost got broadsided the other
day turning into my driveway for God's
sake because I didn't turn my turn
signal on to to to to let them know I
was going to turn left into my driveway
and they started to pass me on the left
and I just happened to look at my Rew
mirror or my side Mir mirror and I saw
them and I hit my brakes and they just
went flying past me Mr hudnell we are at
3 minutes
so anyway I mean I I thank you for my
time here tonight and uh I hope that you
uh will approve this uh a petition thank
you thank you Mr
Hill now uh Vice chair
wxon uh yes thank you uh chair Miller
and um thank you uh for the presentation
just had a couple of questions um the if
approved and I know know we're just here
to talk about granting the variance but
if it goes to if we approve it and it
goes to the petition and gets approved
what are we talking about as far as
traffic cming is it just speed humps or
what is it what are we looking at um
well we would still need to do a formal
evaluation but just um as a prelimin
preliminary design we would go with
speed cushions um just based off of the
geometrics of the roadway would be the
best solution there okay and then um the
only other question is uh you said it
was near Pima Elementary is uh Pima a u
does it have a lot of kids from the
neighborhood walking to Puma do we know
oh I'm not sure I could look into um let
me see if I can go back to the
map um so it is a very residential
neighborhood and um just based off the
location of Puma I would assume kids
come from all around the school um so I
think it would make sense that students
are using Clarendon especially since
it's more of a major thoroughfare than
some of the other um local residential
roadways okay in this neighborhood all
right and then I'm I'm assuming I think
I know the answer but I'm assuming we
don't know there's been no license plate
study so we don't know where the traffic
is coming from if it's local or if it is
cut through primarily things like that
yeah we don't know exactly where the
traffic is coming from the
the volume that we take um and the
criteria that we consider um captures
this issue of cut through traffic so if
there is a large amount of cut through
traffic it would be represented in the
data um and like you said we don't know
traffic patterns but just based off of
the layout of Clarendon Avenue it is a
quarter mile Street um as well as a
Granite Reef so it would
potentially
um lead to
cut through traffic going through
Clarendon Avenue thank
you thank you commissioner
Maron thank you good
presentation um I see the in
the
ntmp regulations I see word exemption
but I don't see variance is there a
difference between exemption and the
variance oh no there's no difference um
this is is just a request to approve um
a certain case that just does not meet
the minimum criteria yeah that's what
variance is supposed to mean would you
go over again why you think we should do
it based on the low traffic
count yes so um this section of
Clarendon Avenue measured speeds that
were very high um based off of the
requests that we've receiv received
received at least
recently the speed Criterion is um very
rarely met um so just based off of the
speed um the speed cushion would still
be appropriate the volume is only
marginally lower than the minimum
threshold um and we feel that this is
acceptable um just based off of the
other characteristics of the roadway as
well
okay thank
you commissioner
cile commissioner
penit so a question for staff it looks
like this is the Half Mile Road and I
heard a couple of things I heard no
pavement markings wider than usual and
head-on crash
I'm wondering if staff is looking at
these types of roads for bigger traffic
calming projects commissioner uh wilon
bring brought up the point of maybe kids
walking to school but who would want to
walk to school with traffic zooming by I
wouldn't send my kids walking in those
conditions and we know that the design
of the road or lag thereof has a lot to
do with that I don't have a problem with
cushions but it seems that in such a
long stretch of road even the whole
length of
Clarendon um there is a lot of
opportunity for traffic calming I live
uh in South Scottdale and Roosevelt from
Scottdale road to Hayden Road is sort of
a cut through also it's like the the
halfway point and there are a lot of
traffic calming features there so I'm
wondering what are the bigger projects
for for the street besides speed
cushions that if a person that quite
honestly at a 25 M hour road can hit a
fence or have a head on Crash um could
probably go over these and fly somewhere
else yes so I'm not um fully well versed
in what would um what a CommunityWide
traffic homing City would entail um but
we could consider just the other um I'll
call them major um residential streets
through this neighborhood to try and
evaluate more of a comprehensive plan
that incorporates maybe the entire
length of Clarendon not just this
quarter mile segment um maybe at 82nd
Street in Granite Reef Road but um for
now that is um not the plan that we have
in place um the petition was just for
Speed cushion
um on this specific segment but as I
said um we will consider that and look
into
that chair Miller and commissioner
pinkit I just wanted to add uh if the
speed cushions are spaced effectively uh
it will have the same effect of pretty
much any other traffic cming device
maybe maybe better um so that that's
kind of the key thing that we that we
look at when we're doing these projects
is making sure that they're um spaced at
at appropriate intervals uh because then
you you can you can control the the the
rate at which people speed up in between
the traffic calming devices um and
that's what we're we're looking at and
we don't really do traffic calming um
outside of this program uh most of the
streets um it's it's actually really
rare to have two crashes in a five uh
year period on a street like this so um
we don't have a whole lot of local
streets like that uh in the city
so uh yeah and and then the other the
other part about traffic calming is it
can be controversial sometimes residents
you know for as many people who want it
sometimes there's that many people who
don't want uh traffic cing on their
street um this and so that's why we have
this uh citizen Le process that includes
a petition in the interest form uh to
make sure that the whole uh neighborhood
is on the same
page thank
you my other question is um we're asking
for um a variance and I see how the the
we almost meet that
threshold are there any guidelines
for criteria that you can have for these
variances so maybe if you check two out
of three like you kind of mentioned on
the one slide that talks about near
school or you know uh unusual crashes
and things like that so that these
things maybe don't have to come to the
commission every time and if a street a
particular Street meets I don't know two
other criteria that a resident doesn't
have to be waiting for this whole
process um thank you yes I see your
point um the policy is written in such a
way to where um the criteria must be met
met there's not too much wiggle room
allotted to say engineering judgment um
which is why we're here today um to
request that exemption but as you
mentioned that takes time um so that is
also something we'll take into
consideration um in the development of
the
policy thank
you any other
comments commissioner
Davis um how did we determine um the uh
the vehicle trips per day threshold of
500 as as the cut off before we would
consider
implementation um I don't have the
history specifically of how that
threshold was chosen um I will say that
500 vehicles per day is generally
typical for
municipalities um as a threshold for
traffic cming devices um I'm not sure
Sam if you have more
background uh thank you uh chair Miller
uh um yeah so we've had that volume
threshold since the early 2000s I
believe uh and and at the time we would
have um I don't know exactly um but I
imagine we would have um done a uh a
peer review of other cities and other
agencies that have traffic calming
programs and um that's where we would
have gotten that number from
uh thank you um yeah I just didn't know
if this was a a point where we would
consider you know potentially amending
that for the future but um are you aware
of any other situations where we've
granted
variances for the uh for this
program yes um there was a variance
requested back in
2023 it was Oak from
72nd to
hayen I'm sorry I don't remember off the
top of my head um but it was about a
little over a year ago that I was
requested and it
was similar
presentation um however the
request um staff recommendation was to
not approve the variance in that
situation um that variance request had
come up as um a resident petition um
whereas in the
situation the case was close enough to
the warranting criteria that we came to
commission um to recommend approval for
the
variance do you know what the um what
which CR criteria the variance was
requesting to which are the
three was trips for day or the or the or
the two speed thresholds for the
previous case um I believe it did not
meet the speed or volume threshold thank
you and then um final question I I
understand that this is not a vote to to
move forward with construction it goes
to the citizen to the petition process
could you maybe explain what that what
that final step is before it comes back
one more time yeah sure um it's not the
final step but the second to last step
um the neighborhood petition involves um
creating a notification area and an
affected area so um the department
evaluates
the neighborhood to determine which
residences will be affected by the
installation of the traffic cming device
after we identify um that area we um
create a petition where we collect
signatures from Property Owners um the
the petition requires that 70% of
property owners approve of the traffic
calming device plan um and after the 7
20% approval is obtained that's when we
come back to Transportation Commission
to um request the final approval for
construction okay so this so this is a
um kind of at that point it's more of
it's a city Le process of of GA of um
talking to the
residents it is a resident L process to
collect the signatures okay understand
okay very good thank you thank
you commissioner CTO
hi um I had a couple of thoughts uh that
were triggered by uh commissioner P pz's
questions just mostly relating to that
second that the the part we're not
talking about here from 8 second to
Hayden uh during that citizens petition
I mean it let me all right let me word
my sorry does it continue to be 36 feet
wide uh over 82nd Street I I believe it
does yes the width is constant from
Hayden all the way to Granite Reef and I
believe it might narrow east of Granite
Reef but um the segment you're just
you're describing yeah it's the same
width and does uh is there any reason to
believe that the traffic speeding the
the speeding would be less on on that
part there on that second
part um I believe that there may be
reason to believe that people are going
slower just based off of the fact that
it's closer to Hayden Road and people
are turning off of it um we can't say
for sure we would need to collect the
traffic data and the data
collection um is sort of governed by
these requests um and the letter of
interest forms that are
submitted um that's how we determined
where to collect the data but without
having the data in front of me I
couldn't say um whether necessarily we
could expect more speeding on that
street or not
so I guess the only real comment I would
make then would be I uh I I would be
interested in seeing if there was
something the city could do to uh have
this project be the the full half mile
or especially if we're going to be
working in that area anyway um that that
that would be something I would want the
city to consider uh maybe expanding that
especially if we're going to have the
citizen Le petition it's just you know
it's just the extra quarter mile there
to to get the petitions and to uh and to
contact the uh residents because uh it
would seem like they would they would be
experiencing the same issues even if
they haven't spoken up so thank you
thank
you any other
comments I I will just comment um that I
live south of there honestly I have used
that street as cut through come down
Granite Reef but I go down 82nd Street
to cut back to Osborne to Granite Reef
to come south of
don't speed that much but I cannot
imagine sitting in my house and just
seeing 20 cars speeding by in a day so
thank you for bringing that this to our
attention and with that we've got a
recommendation from um City staff I'll
take a motion to accept that
recommendation change the
recommendation yeah um I move uh to
approve the
variance to the nmp warranting criteria
to proceed with the initiation of the
neighborhood petition for Clarendon
Avenue between 82nd Street and Granite
Reef we have a second I second we have a
motion in a second Kyle will you take
the role yes chair Miller um approved
thank you Vice chair will coxon approved
thank you commissioner merman approve
thank you commissioner pitz approved
thank you commissioner cile approved
thank you commissioner Cardella yes
thank you and commissioner Davis yes
thank you
approved thank you thank you so much for
your presentation sir thank you for
coming and bringing this to our
attention and we'll see you again on the
next
step thank you
commission next up strategic
uh Transportation safety
plan it's like the first big
presentation in a long process for the
safety plan first of many to come so
we'll kick it off with a a good
conversation about where we've been and
what we've seen from
uh Community similar to ours and what
they've done in their plans to uh to
address safety so thank you commission U
thank you chair and commission members
um I'd like to start first by um
correcting something that I said last
meeting I said that we only had one
intersection on mag's top 100 dangerous
intersections we in fact have two one at
Camelback and Goldwater and then uh
Indian School sorry Thomas and Hayden so
I needed to correct that before we
started to say that there was two
instead of
one um so tonight's meeting we're going
to to talk about the Department's
history safety in both our plans and our
practices and then I will turn it over
to our consultant T Linn to talk about
our common practices assessment and what
we've seen from other communities and
their safety plans
so uh both regionally um as well as
across the
country so starting with safety plan we
have over 20 years of
of dedic at safety planning uh history
in this city we have several plans that
have um expressed uh safety initiative
safety goals in them starting with the
2003 plan and I'll go into more details
we go into the other slides but dating
back to 2003 we've we've written down
goals and policies aligning with
improving safety on our streets and in
our transportation network uh we have
several uh common safety countermeasures
that we've been applying employing into
the city for the past 20 years and then
I'll show the crash Trend data over
those last 20 years and show that it has
had some level of an impact um moving Us
in the right direction um the key thing
is over time the common theme to is to
reduce injuries in our transportation
Network that has started all the way
back in 20 2003 plan and has just been
refined modified and improved on
throughout each one of these additional
plans so starting with the 2003 master
plan it was the first plan that that
really established um prioritizing
safety as a goal uh in balance or
alongside transportation system capacity
so the first time we really wrote that
down into a plan and established that we
wanted to start prioritizing safety in
the projects that we did and and in the
the ways that we looked and interpreted
transportation in the city um one of
another goals that was brought up in the
T 3 plan was that the Transportation
Commission as a body should look to
prioritize projects from an offes of
safety to reduce injuries as well as
other factors so proba we were
definitely looking at that as a
component in transportation before 2003
this is the first time we really wrote
that down and made that an established
goal and policy for the
city 2008 we really expanded on it by
multiple multiple pages in the in the
2008 plan if anybody seen the 2008 plan
it's a very very big document um so we
had uh six or seven pages devoted just
to safety um um one of the overall goal
for safety in the 2008 plan was the
reduction of injuries and deaths in the
transportation related causes so that
was the overall goal um then it went
into several different uh sections and
factors including how could we improve
on enforcement public education
engineering including its improvements
and roundabouts uh Collision analysis
and safe routes to school so emphasizing
with engineering that these two
improvements are are Key Safety factors
that can be used to reduce the serious
injuries and deaths um due to
Transportation related causes so really
this started the really strong
foundation for what this future plan
would be building off of this plan um
highlighting and going into detail about
the types of uh counter measures and
goals that that would align with how to
improve safety and
transportation 2016 expanded on the 2008
by uh greater importance of information
based on datadriven Solutions so really
focusing on how are we collecting the
data related to safety as well as
volumes and and how are we using that
data um it was it established the
roundabouts first policy um established
a requirement or a a a goal to have a
traffic volume and collision report
prepared every two years a vital report
that we use um on a daily basis uh we
were doing that long before this but
this just established that we needed to
continue having that report every two
years so we could keep that that string
of data going uh throughout the course
of our time and have a good trend line
showing where we're going and how our
safety is is performing through the
years and then comprehensive speed limit
studies so we wanted our Traffic
Engineers to keep looking and reviewing
what is the speed limits are they
effectively doing what we need them to
do on our roads so can we keep looking
at those and keep improving on the speed
limits then we went to the the general
plan and the 20 20 22 action plan and
the 20 and the 2022 20 the general plan
for 2035 both came out around the same
time um both emphasizing uh several of
the same things uh the biggest thing
from the general plan was it recognized
the primary role of the automobile but
also looked to fully integrate other
modes so how could we understand that we
are a autod dependent Community but
looking to make sure that other modes
safely and effectively can get to where
they need to to go Transportation safety
goals included in the general plan was
to improve Transportation corridors for
safety and efficiency that being that
overall goal that the general plan had
and then more refined goals was a really
strong emphasis on reducing conflict
points between modes so that would be
between Cars and Cars as well as cars
and the other modes active modes and
Transit just how can we reduce those
conflict points that that lead to a an
increase in crashes um retrofitting
aging infrastructure in streets a strong
emphasis was this was put on this in the
transportation action plan also
emphasized in the general plan that we
wanted to look at our infrastructure it
was getting to a point where it's aging
how can we retro retrofit that and
improve that condition and then creating
non-motorized connections so
establishing more connections for
non-motorized
activities along with the general plan
and in compliance with the general plan
was the 20122 transportation action plan
that looked for preservation and
refinement of the existing
transportation system and then a
stronger emphasis on additional bike and
pedestrian safety facilities so um
uh grade SE sorry I was trying to figure
out what I was grade separated Crossings
was a big emphasis in here so how can we
um address pedestrian bicycle movement
while eliminating that conflict point
with cars so that was one of the key
emphasis as well as various other ones
in there extending the net work for
bicycle and pedestrians increased safety
and also looking for ways to improve on
the uh standard common uh counter
measures related to bicycle and
pedestrian
facilities Uh current safety measures
installed in the city over the past 20
years um going through several of the
different types of safety measures that
can be implied and these are the ones
that we generally do currently and have
done over the past uh 20 years so we
have our five-year pavement plan our p
friction management we have a a a good
group a concentrated group of staff that
is looking just to improve the condition
of our pavement that's their sole goal
is going out there repaving our roads to
the appropriate measure whether it's a a
extreme retrofit or one of those small
slurry seals to just keep the the
condition improved so their goal is to
keep our our payment condition index as
high as possible which will improve
safety Road safety audits our traffic
engineering team does many road safety
audits all the time they get requests
for that they do it themselves to look
at several corridors look for
improvements along those corridors that
we can address through some kind of a
CIP project or through any of our other
accounts to to add safety improvements
along those ways Road Safety plans as I
expressed just now we have addressed
several components of a safety plan in
several of our transportation plans this
would be our first
concentrated safety plan so we want to
keep the effort of our safety planning
um moving forward by adding this sole
safety plan to our to our repertoire of
things that we look at and use um
neighborhood traffic management you just
saw as hel uh presented on we use our
neighborhood traffic Management program
to look at those neighborhood roads as
they are brought To Us by the public
evaluate it and see if there's ways that
we can improve the safety on those local
roads that don't quite get the same
emphasis that we would put on our
collectors and AR materials but are
shown as a concern to the residents to
live along
them intersections are obviously one of
the major uh nodes of safety where all
the conflict points are or most of the
conflict points so looking for ways to
install safety counter measures at
intersections is one of the most
important aspects of of what we do in
safety planning or safety engineering uh
lagging left turns has been an
established practice in scotdale for a
long time longer than 2023 so one of the
early um efforts for us to to provide
safety at our intersections flashing
yellow arrows is something that we're
starting to incorporate into our city we
have several dedicated funding sources
towards adding those flashing yellow
arrows allowing for Less confusion when
it comes to um turning left while
there's a green light so we see that as
a necessary safety Improvement and are
looking to implement and expand that
throughout the city roundabouts we have
26 roundabouts at this point um we have
found them as a successful practice for
improving safety at intersections they
are known to reduce serious and fatal
injuries on at those
intersections and so we' have seen
success at our inter at our roundabouts
at preventing serious injuries and
fatalities quarter access management one
of the key Parts when we're doing
development assessments is making sure
that we are managing how much access is
at our collectors and arterials uh
yellow change intervals a key thing is
monitoring how our its and our our TMC
is is reviewing how our signals are
working and seeing how much of a yellow
change is needed in order
to prevent those uh red light speeding
and see how that works backlight
retrofit borders we've used this mostly
at the Hawks but are definitely open to
using this at at the signals as well to
make it easy easier for people to see
the lights the lelos we just gave a
presentation on that but the left in
left outs at non- signalized
intersections have become a key feature
for us making safety improvements at
those non- signalized areas to reduce
conflict points and make sure that
people are are abiding by how they
should be performing at that at that
place and then dedicated left and right
turn Lanes is a maybe somewhat obvious
but definitely key thing to make sure
that
there's reduced conflict points
throughout the
intersections uh speed management
another key part we have a uh various
levels of speeding throughout the city
we want to make sure that we have the
appropriate speed limits for all users
variable speed limits have been
introduced into the city on Camelback
specifically as you can see in the
picture to um
address possible needs for for adjusting
and changing the speed limit through
that quarter and then speed safety
cameras we have several speed safety
cameras and speed safety camera program
for the city both permanent speed safety
speed cameras as well as as the mobile
and portable uh towers that will go out
in various locations we partner with PD
a lot on where those are located and
they give us the data coming back from
those on a regular basis so we can
interpret how those are working and
what's happening at those
locations bicycle and pedestrian safety
counter measures we do leading
pedestrian intervals we do great gr
separated Crossings as I presented I
think sorry that was at uh p and Trail
subcommittee but um I'll say it here we
have well over 100 grade separated
Crossings throughout the city mostly
along our multi-use paths we find this a
vital resource to to prevent those
conflict points between bikes and
pedestrians the vulnerable users that if
they get hit by a car is uh definitely
more concerning than if a car hits
another car not saying that that's not
concerning just the vulnerability of a
pedestrian B is something to be noted
and something to be um definitely
uh highlighted and and needing extra
emphasis on Hawks and rfbs are are key
throughout the city you can see the one
on scottow Road between the two malls
right there one of the most heavily used
Hawks um definitely increases um
people's ability to walk M to cross mid
block uh crosswalk visibility
enhancements we use this mostly on
crosswalks that are uh attached to one
of the multi-use paths but we definitely
uh want to use heightened paint
heightened lighting heightened things
that will um allow cars to recognize
that there is a pest or bicyclist in the
crosswalk and and prevent that that
Collision from occurring pedestrian
Refuge Islands a key part where if we
cannot or it's not warranted to put a
hawk or an RFB we'll put a pedestrian
Refuge so people can take a break break
mid block mid Crossing in the median and
and make their way safely uh walkways we
want to make sure that there's as
limited gaps in our sidewalk and
multi-use path Network as possible gaps
lead to uh unconventional approaches to
the network and we would like to avoid
people from making decisions that they
wouldn't normally make if they had the
connections they would one of the Keest
examples and I know that our solution
for this is a uh
grade separated Crossing but we have a
sidewalk Gap or stop at Goldwater in
Scottdale the northern part of Goldwater
in Scottsdale where the where the
sidewalk just stops we've seen and we've
observed people walking along goldw
through the terrain the thick rocks in
order to continue their path we know
that if we prevent and eliminate as many
gaps as possible people won't make those
tough decisions they'll just continue
along the pathway and stay safer bike
Lanes including buffer bike Lanes is a
very important way for us to reduce
speeds along many roads but also keep
bicyclists safer buffer bike Lanes show
a heightened level of comfort and
security for those bicyclists as well as
reducing speeds on heavily speeded
roads um DMS standards uh we have a very
extensive book of our of our engineering
standards that we want to apply this is
important for us to use on both our
major roadway projects or just roadway
projects in general but also for
developers so when we when the
transportation department requests
additional features from a developer
coming in we want to add those safety
counter measures that we would like to
see in the network so we have um a long
list of safety improvements that are in
the dmpm that we would apply to new
developments as well as ourselves when
we do a roadway two of the examples that
I have one being preventing something
from being in the Network that we would
find a safety hazard would be no
Boulders in meetings or landscape
buffers this is obviously a very dense
piece of material with Cars Moving it's
a it's a safety hazard for us and so we
do have in our standards that we do not
want Boulders in the medians and
landscape huffers and then just a a
point of reference and something to
follow and use as they are developing
their plans or we're developing our
plans is to avoid negative left turn
offsets in the future so keeping those
sight lines available and making sure
that that people can see the cars coming
when they make those left turn
decisions there's an extensive amount of
lists of other things that we ask for in
the dmpm these are just two examples
that I had to show dmpm is a key feature
that we use in order to improve safety
throughout our Network so going to the
results over the past 20 years and even
Beyond we have data going back but I
wanted to reference just the last uh
couple decades that we've had a
significant reduction in the serious
injuries throughout the city I don't
think we can take full credit for that
right there's been advancments in cars
car safety there's been there's been a
level of of behavior definitely takes an
impact in it but we have made
infrastructure improvements throughout
these 20 years and we've seen a
significant reduction in the injuries
going down from going from uh well in
the
300s um a year so 300 serious injuries a
year in the 90s to about 70 now in 2024
so that's trending in the right
direction we'd like to keep it trending
in that direction the fatalities have
stayed very stable um bouncing between
seven two in the low teens every year so
uh that's just been a flatline we'd like
for that to go down but we definitely
see some uh encouragement by the trend
of that serious fatality line and so
I'll talk very quickly about this and
then I'll pass it over to Ryan from TY
Lind to talk about the safety the common
practices that we saw from other
communities but so from a regional
context and from a fatality rate per
population we do still are in the the
scale of a high fatality rate to a high
population so in comparison to the rest
of the the region we do have some work
that can be done and improved on so we
can possibly change our color and move
down to the low fatality rate high
population range that Gilbert and
Chandler are in so I'll pass over to you
and if if you have any more expanded on
on this otherwise you could just shift
over and introduce your
guys uh Ryan starts his
presentation that we've uh implemented
two safety features this past week just
kind of wanted to bring because it
corresponds with Nathan's
presentation one is on Thunderbird Road
from Hayden Road over to northsite park
there were were um that roadway included
bike Lanes but they were 17 foot wide
lanes and a 15ot wide Lane our standard
is 11 and so uh that Corridor had a lot
of input from the community regarding
speed and so we elected
to um try a Paving solution first so we
added um additional buffers for the the
bike lane and with that we narrowed
Lanes down to the 11 ft that is standard
for our streets so we're looking to uh
see how that how that works it should
work well it's done well in other
corridors in the city uh it also look
Works to add buffering also for the
pedestrians and those using trails in
that Corridor
too a second solution was a new speed
feedback sign put on chaperel Road
between Hayden and and Miller so those
two are citizen
requests um regarding safety and just
wanted to bring that to your attention
thanks good evening Commissioners chair
um my name is Ryan
wak I am
a senior Transportation planner uh
working for the T I'm joined by two
talented colleagues Chris Milner and
Alison um and so just wanted to
introduce our team we are a
multi-disciplinary team that uh doesn't
sound all that shaking but when you
really dig down into it I think that we
provide a very interesting mix of
Consulting powerhouses between all of
the teams um because the Specialties
that exist to help deliver this um
everything from very expertise vision of
vulnerable Road users lots of experience
in this category lots of understanding
of how Behavioral Health and uh Public
Health factors into this and then a
strong team uh with uh Northern Arizona
University with familiarity with doing a
lot of traffic safety analysis for the
city of Scottdale uh joining our team
and then even locally blue zones
providing that public health and traffic
safety uh backing uh on that blue zones
team is a a gentleman who will be
leading some walk audits who was
actually the inventor of the Walk audit
and been doing so for many decades so um
just real back to quickly back to the uh
Regional context Scott Still's had a lot
of success gets kind of lumped in in
this us do story
map uh in terms of the regional context
and I think that's just interesting to
to think about and reflect on that
Scottdale residents travel in and out of
Scottdale other people travel in and out
of Scottsdale uh so the roads and the
public resources of a transportation
system are something that's shared
regionally and it's it's important to
think about how the culture the safety
culture of Scottdale reflects on the
broader
region so a lot to check in on in terms
of the purpose statements of tonight uh
the why is always an important thing to
really dig on early on in the planning
process so that we don't have to shuffle
back and reflect on on purposes that we
missed out on so being very clear and
open eyed and verified uh going in is
important for tonight a note about
language um we'll get into that there's
a lot that are in the in the world right
now in terms of distrust or trust of
government and I want to just go ahead
and speak to that headon in terms of
what we plan we definitely plan to pay
full difference to the people of
Scottdale to the advisers of Scottdale
and to the elected officials of
Scottdale and there's no questions that
we have any hidden agendas so I just
want to make sure that that's very
clear then there's the the common
practice assessment that some of that
questionable language or language that
may be seemed as bias will be found
throughout other communities that does
not mean that it has to be applied to
Scottdale and we will take a very
Scottdale specific look Scottsdale
tailored look at the plan that's most
appropriate for Scottsdale so with that
said let's dive
in so you saw the success that Scott
Sals had had over many decades and that
is in contrast to the National story
though the national story is that
fatalities are on the rise that it is of
a national crisis that it is noted that
these vulnerable Road users are paying a
heavier burden of using the
transportation system than the motoring
public so what do we do when we consider
the fact that this tailor this comes out
to an economic
impact to the country of $340 billion do
in 2022 and that this overall harm to
the economy is over a trillion US
dollars so given that everybody is kind
of called to evaluate what are you doing
with your traffic safety programs what
do you what can you do and think of it
more holistically using the best
upto-date best practices that are at
your disposal so with that part of the
reason why Scottsdale's had success is
that you've invested in maintaining a
high competency in your transportation
practice your department your practices
so this is just more of that more of
that tradition um and then if we can do
anything to help join that team and
evaluate from a third party perspective
to be to evaluate that and help make an
impact of anything that can be improved
through the process through
collaboration that's what what we are
tasked
with so the next slides will continue to
list more of these rationals for the
Strategic Transportation safety plan but
on this list I just want to check in and
maybe this can be a little bit more
collaborative as we make our way through
this is there anything on this that you
want
to Bunk is there anything that doesn't
that seems out of place on this list
okay seeing
none move on but this is part of the
validation
process all right back to that note
about
language so for the record personal
biases will not be distorting this
process the craft of making public
policy so leaders are responsible for
determining what is the appropriate
language
right we will strike any word that seems
to have any bias that raises hairs on
people's necks that doesn't seem to be
evidence-based unmit excuse the the the
conversation we want to dive into the
real matter of the issues we want to put
into practice things that people
understand we want to use language
that's
understood and for
example what you might see in other
communities is the word Vision zero what
you might see in decades of
Transportation Planning is the word
Equity but for example we can replace
these words not out of any need to hide
our intentions but just simply to
clarify our intentions for example the
practice of a school zone speed limit
could be perceived as an equitable
approach you are not equally in speed
limits to all collectors you're taking a
mark a specific approach one that's
tailored to a certain subset of the
population being schoolage children who
have different perceptions of traffic
safety who have different needs of
traffic safety and that difference is
what makes it not equal but Equitable
but we don't need to use the equity word
if that's going to cause conflict what
we want to do is we want to be clear
about our
intentions so are there any concerns
that this board or this body has with
regards to words that you want to voice
now or concerns you want to voice now as
to language that we should use moving
going
forward would you repeat that discussion
about schoolage children again and I
wasn't following that okay so schoolage
children have a different perception of
safety they do not have the same life
experiences as adults so they do not
judge how to keep themselves safe next
to fast moving traffic the same way that
an adult would so school
zones by practice will reduce speed
limits adjacent to the schools to make
the route to school safer for B walking
and biking populations of school aged
children and so that's what we mean or
have traditionally meant in
Transportation safety as an equitable
approach because it takes a special look
at a subset of the population and says
is equal treatment appropriate
here and that's really the basis of that
that
consideration I'm sorry I'm not sure I
followed any of that okay um so school
zone is a school zone I mean what how is
equity working in there it only works
because the school zone was never always
a school zone when it when the program
of the school zone was originally
established somebody had to raise a
question about if equal treatments of
all collectors are appropriate if equal
treatments all collectors were
appropriate then that school that
collector Street along the edge of the
school would have just been given an
equal speed limit because somebody Rose
the question and thought about the
subset of the
population's you know unique needs for
safety it was
adjusted I I I hear what you're saying
i' got to digest that a little bit thank
you uh thank you chair Miller um and
thank you for the presentation and also
uh thank you for the
um sensitivity to this issue I
um am in safety myself in in the ADOT uh
in my day job I'm a big fan of vision
zero and I'm a big fan of equity and
transportation but I also know the
realities and I I do know that
um it is very easy to
um that branding does work or does um
send a message both ways and I
I uh while I encourage you to be aware
of that I also recognize that it's
important that
um uh the city does have a vision of
where it wants to go with safety and in
an effort to
avoid being swept up in any
any um drama of the word Vision zero or
the word Equity uh it's important to
recognize that um we do still need to
make sure the plan is doing its job and
that it communicates that we're trying
to do the job so um thank you for being
sensitive to
it thank
you commissioner
C just to follow up on that point and
really make it clear I guess the city
recently passed an ordinance saying that
uh the city will not fund anything
having to do with diversity Equity or
inclusion so uh I appreciate you being
sensitive to those goals and I would
think that the city these
current concerns are around Financial uh
concerns and so I would say uh
definitely as you had earlier you
mentioned how much uh
crashes cost uh the economy and uh and
so I would like to continue to make to
make that a point to continue to keep uh
the costs of not
only in action but uh you know not not
only what what it would cost to do
something but what would be the cost of
continuing or not doing something like
that I think that would be something
that would be important uh for the
messaging to to keep that in mind also
so any other comments commissioner
pit so I understand that um as my peers
have mentioned there is a lot of
triggers about certain words however we
know at least from the National Data and
I'll be honest I don't know what the
scotdale data looks like that people of
color and people of a lower
socioeconomic status are more likely to
be
killed in crashes and most likely to be
pedestrians and we even know that uh we
all have to sacrifice several thousand
doll a year just to maintain a vehicle
to have Rel viable transportation and
even on a onear
household that is a low income
household uh whenever bills come due and
you cannot maintain a car pay for gas or
heck pay for registration you will see
around Scottdale a lot of uh expired
license plate Vehicles so people that
still need to get to work on time and I
will challenge you all to think about
your daily commutes and how comfortable
they are in a vehicle versus how they
would be if you were in a wheelchair or
if you had to walk or bike to where
you're
going so I want to uh just ensure that
the socioeconomic aspects of Scottdale
are taken into
consideration so that we know if there
are areas of the city that are more at
risk or people that are more at risk and
um a lot of people in Scotsdale I I
doubt that they would want to uh walk
just for sport but a lot of people are
are required to to get do what they want
to do because they cannot maintain a
vehicle or maybe they're not physically
able to drive a vehicle and it is it
would be a shame to exclude that just on
the basis of one word that's triggering
people chair Miller and commissioner
pengin I think we look to
address risk through the network by
looking at the Aging infrastructure
looking at the conditions along the the
the network so if we had some of the
the streets or roadways that were were
older with less of the safety amenities
that we've seen in some of the newer
projects we would like to retrofit those
as part of our original plan so we could
look at the the risk of let's say along
the the transit lines or along um our
ADA compliance along those corridors and
look to address and and highlight where
we see those kind of of amenities for
say if you are a carless household and
you're you're relying on the transit
system to highlight that connectivity to
the transit system or connected
connectivity through one of the older
communities of the the older
infrastructure in the communities how
can we retrofit and and upgrade it to
our current safety standards in our and
our current uh proven safety measures
that weren't necessarily around back in
the 60s when one of those roadways were
were done so we want to look at our um
High inury Network that that our
consultant is trying is creating for us
and looking at how we can prevent those
kind of safety issues along that Network
when they look at the risk and assess
the risk on that the stuff so hopefully
we can address all the concerns through
through looking at the infrastructure
and
um with a particular emphasis towards uh
um sidewalk gaps Transit Network and and
how we can connect to the transit
Network as well as as all of our ADA
compliance that we need to adhere to
every single time that we go out and do
a roadway so uh if i' if I've missed
anything in that comens of thing ways
that we can still
address the needs of of communities that
aren't necessarily
um as affluent to have the the cars that
that's certain parts of our community
have I would love to hear it and we can
address it and and how we can make sure
that we're adding safety components to
all parts of our
community sorry thank you chair Miller I
I I um did have another comment and I
don't want to lose sight of this in the
discussion of this slide but I did want
to uh congratulate City staff on the
pretty phenom drop in um series injury
crashes and I don't want to forget that
uh that's a huge accomplishment and I
think um that falls on to some extent
the people using the roads but to a very
real extent uh the city staff who are
making sure that the roads are managed
and operated in a safe safe manner so I
I just want to make sure that that
didn't get buried in the discussion of
this thank you
okay I think it's good to go proceed
thank
you so our starting point really to help
us be on the same page and become a a
full team member of this effort was to
highlight some common practice
assessments for our team here at and at
the staff level so that we can be on the
same page so that they can review a lot
of these Municipal planning documents
with a focus on Transportation safety
they drot down their ideas their their
Impressions and then we gain insights as
to their
preferences of
local implementation local presentation
of what these plans stand for and how
they can be effective so really that's
what the purpose of the common practice
assessment was for us us and helps us be
on the same page moving
forward um the practice of pro producing
safety specific plans for local
municipalities has taken up an uptick in
in in lots of new practices applying
modern-day common pract or best
practices um and so but this is really
standing on the shoulders of a long-term
tradition uh and we have lots of
statistics and evidence to stand done so
that's how we plan to move forward and
what will inform uh the following
meetings and drafts and ultimately
what's
proposed one of those practices that's
seen an uptick in recent years is the
safe system
approach this is taking a more
comprehensive look at various elements
and then being aware of the sub elements
within a system
and so that means people move
differently there's a variety of
vehicles that are on the road there's a
variety of First Responders who have to
deal with a crash Care at the crash care
after the crash um there's a variety of
road conditions there's a variety of
context sensitive
speeds that all fall in under influence
of Mo or contemporary
Technologies
contemporary uh understandings of our
shared culture our safety culture and
also uh a more improved understanding of
what it means that humans are vulnerable
and make
mistakes so there's lots to sort of pour
over when it comes to existing practices
and being apply applying this sort of
phas framework of best practices as we
move forward as technical advisory
working groups come together to help
make this plan possible we are making
sure that all of these elements are
really reflected in our working
group as we move forward we'll we'll
probably create a bit of a SWAT analysis
along the lines of the safe system
approach to understand strengths
weaknesses opportunities for improvement
going forward um and I I can pause here
if you have any thoughts as to what uh
elements of the safe system approach uh
is means to you now if you have any
questions about it going
forward commissioner k um I just wanted
to on the safer speeds uh part of uh
Nathan's uh presentation talking about
safer speeds and then since have it here
I was struck about CU our previous
because I I believe we used uh or best
practice is the 85 percentile is how we
set speeds is that correct do you
know uh thank you chair Miller and
commissioner Cel uh that is um part of
how we set speeds but we also look at
the context of the road uh and so that's
plays a big part as well U so we do have
some uh some streets in the city that
have a um posted speed limit much lower
well probably more than 10 miles per
hour below the 85th percenti speed but
we also try to not get too far away from
that um you know is it in the last in
that presentation about speed
determination um I kind of mentioned
it's a it's a it's a tricky balance um
you if the further away from the 85% of
speed that you post a uh speed limit um
the uh the less compliance and the the
bigger um uh variation you have in the
different amounts of speed that people
are driving and that can lead to unsafe
conditions um it makes it harder for
people to judge gaps in in traffic
because one person might be going 65 and
another person's going 50 and they might
expect you know it makes it harder to um
know what uh people are going to be um
how people are going to be driving on
those streets so yeah it's a kind of a
long answer but um we try to be
um look at all the factors when we're
sitting speeds to to add to what Sam
just uh stated I think we've all been on
a road certainly not in Scottdale but
that was designed for a speed
significantly higher than what it's
posted right you know a road that's four
lanes that is posted at 30 miles an hour
and you're just struggling to keep at
that speed limit so I think we like you
said we try to design our speeds to be
related to how the roadway is designed
and and built that
is and if and if that speed is too fast
then we would try and redesign that
roadway so it would be better reflected
and and and help with people's behavior
on that roadway to stay at the
appropriate speed but if you build a
road that's built for 60 miles hour and
then post to speed for 30 miles an hour
it's going to be hard for people to
comply with
that thank you uh it would that's that's
pretty much what I was thinking about is
it for our last item you know I was
looking at the data that was collected
and so the 85 percentile for that for
that previous Street was if I'm reading
this right 37 miles an hour and so the
city's
taking uh proactive steps to rather than
adjust the speed limit to that 85
percentile instead this hopefully the
city will uh design a safer Road and so
I guess the the main comment I wanted to
make on that is safer speeds is i' I'd
like to see the city take in the context
what is intended on there and then work
to make the road safer rather than
trying to alter uh driver behavior on on
that street because uh as just said if
it's away from the if it's too far away
from what it feels like people are going
to do whatever they feel like and humans
as used to have on there people make
mistakes people are going to drive what
it feels like so I just wanted I I just
the 85 percentile never made a lot of
sense to me um and so I just want to
keep keep that as the focus for for this
plan is to focus on safer streets and uh
when it comes to Safe
speeds uh think about the context more
than what the average speed of the
person is the average driver thank
you move
on okay I touched on this a little bit
earlier um but part of behavior is
building a culture of safety uh in your
city and so
to a lot of people how do you measure a
culture seems like a a big task um but
there are social sciences and ways that
lend us some idea as to how to AFF
effectuate culture how to measure
culture how to even understand whether
or not a a place is ready to take on you
know uh an aggressive or you know make a
change sometimes change is is so so
overdue and sometimes change is so
overwhelming and so sometimes uh the
culture of a place will tell you where
you're at and so
by filling out questionnaires and
understanding finding common values is
is a really great place to kind of start
to understand where a culture is because
from common values you can then
understand where their shared beliefs
and where there's shared beliefs versus
where there's uh existing observations
where those things are different you can
measure that there is a d desire for
Change and where there is the desire for
change comes the willingness to change
and change is then possible so there's a
way to format messaging format uh
education and and formats Your Design
practices to meet your culture and
so Montana State University has a great
Center of health and safety culture
providing guidance along these types of
things and this is something something
that we can reference as a segment of
the plan as an element of the
plan I actually have a question or sure
comment on that because uh um you know
Scottdale uh residents certainly have a
a culture um but because we have such a
large tourism destination is
there is there some sort of
standard culture that visitors have for
places that they don't live I guess
that's something that I would consider
as you're as you're doing it I don't
live here I don't care or I don't live
here I'm vacationing I do care there
there must be some sort of uh um
research about
that yeah how how can the culture of a
place be imparted on the tourists on the
visitors of a place and I think that's a
it's a fair question it's not one that
I'm prepared to answer tonight but I I
appreciate think you had that off the
top of your head commissioner P but do
follow up on that I visited New Zealand
and when you rent a car there the
steering wheel has a notice that tells
you that 80% of traffic accidents are
caused by tourists because you're
driving on the left side of the road so
and I must have it somewhere in my house
I I I will look for it but it gives
several tips to keep people aware um
when they're driving a
vehicle interesting thank
you that's certainly a uh unique
approach to educating uh drivers not
just the everyday drivers but people
that are new to the to the area so I
appreciate that
comment so vulnerable Road users uh this
is a common term that you'll find in
safety practices uh
safety plans often have to take a look
at this because of the simple fact that
kinetic energy on our roadways has only
grown
because physics observes that half the
mass times velocity squared
equals deadly impact for people who
don't not do not have protection we just
have vulnerable bodies with vulnerable
organs um so the everything from Hood
Heights changing on vehicles over the
years to the size of vehicles uh over
the years the weight of vehicles over
the years all play into the amount of
kinetic energy upon
impact
so what we intend to do is take take a
really critical look at that um as speed
is one of those critical factors again
going back to that equation of half Mass
velocity squared velocity squared is the
exponential factor in kinetic energy so
understanding speeds and managing speeds
is very important for vulnerable human
bodies so with that with that
acknowledgement we do intend to be very
cognizant of vulnerable Road us in our
analysis in our high Injury Network and
we want to raise those concerns now when
it comes to vulnerable Road users
there's a lot of different ideas out
there it's it's probably one of the most
um varied of of practices varied of
opinions that you'll find uh in
commentary about safety practices for
some separating vulnerable Road users
under or over the the street seems
unacceptable why does The Pedestrian
have to get out of the way of traffic
well we're just trying to separate their
their exposure right we're trying to
limit exposure so maybe that isn't a a
valuable tradeoff and it has proven
success here in Scottsdale it has been
the standard method of approach some see
the it's the Driver's Responsibility to
be accountable to vulnerable Road users
that it's really behavioral it's the
more responsibility needs to put be put
on the driver more needs to be put um
how the road is marked and lighting and
and flashing lights and you name it all
sorts of ideas but all
this you should know has been very well
studied in terms of what's effective in
Crash factors crash counter measures and
so as we really peel back the data as we
understand the types of crashes the
people that are involved in the crash
that we're going to be very concerned
about applying the proper counter
measures to the the types of crashes
that we find so I guess with regards to
vulnerable Road users do you have any
questions concerns or guidance on this
matter that you would like to suggest
going
forward I mean I I just had one question
uh which was related to um so we we in
Scottdale our crashes have been going
down
and uh but it on the previous slide on
the earlier slide it was just one number
and it didn't really break out between
uh Vehicles crashes and injuries versus
pedestrians versus cyclists and uh and
so I would I would just look for I I'd
like to know more information about how
that breaks out and I I hope The
Pedestrian information the vulnerable
Road user matches the driver or exceeds
it but um uh but yeah I'd like to see
more of that breakout
there I just uh
also a discussion that we've had many
times were things like electric bikes
electric scooters um just today I saw
someone on a motorized wheel um driving
down the street splitting the lane so
how does that impact because they're
fairly new there's not a lot of history
to look
at commissioner
Pan
um I think it's important to note the
the role of heat in in the city
I've you know when you're walking at 105
degrees and you see shade across the
street and you feel like you're going to
pass out you're more likely to take
risks if you're waiting for a very long
time to cross the street you're more
likely to take risks um I've
unfortunately reviewed crashes where
people are running after a bus because
they don't want to wait another 15
minutes in the Heat and likewise just
the role of um or the interplay between
transportation and pedestrians uh just
now I saw someone coming over here to to
this meeting that was missing their bus
and he was sitting in the middle middle
of Scott slow road kind of signaling to
the bus uh to please stop and I mean the
bus driver is not going to stop and
incentivize this person to cross the
street at 5:00 pm with like high volume
of traffic but uh we tend to see a
higher volume of pedestrians commuting
when you know people in vehicles are
commuting and um it has a big impact if
you uh ride a bus and and you miss it
whether you're getting back home or you
know going to work
so thank you for that I can I can at
least assure you that we have uh
collected as part of our data set um
Transit ridership and we are going to be
evaluating the correlation between
crashes and that ridership because we do
factor in the fact that yes not only the
uh heat Factor but time is uh of
precious commodity for Transit users and
when faced with uh a longer wait for
their bus transfer versus sometimes
having riskier Crossing Behavior Uh
they'll they'll choose the riskier
behavior so we'll take a look at that
and we'll see what sort of messaging we
can do what sort of additional Comforts
we might be able to recommend um to help
with people who uh who would otherwise
um maybe make a smarter Choice a safer
choice so thank you for that
go
ahead okay so as I alluded to uh we'll
be extensively looking at collision
factors um extensively to help make
sense of the proper approaches to
mitigating those factors or mitigating
the the risks that come along with those
factors there's um the I think a really
good example especially with regards to
the speed of turning movements your left
in left out policies that have been
doing you well wherever that capacity or
being more stingy with the maneuvering
space of vehicles means that there's
less space for misbehavior right so um
it can uh definitely yield some uh good
uh benefits so factoring in all those
elements and making a very clear uh case
for telling all the factors Pro gives us
direction that for appropriate counter
measures for appropriate educational uh
content and for appropriate enforcement
strategies will all come into play once
we have this analysis complete and then
just the history suggests that you know
going back for the 20 years that
Scottdale has been at this balancing
safety and capacity uh seems to be uh a
point of pride a point of uh something
to hang your hat on a point to to to to
keep uh trying to perfect um and so I'll
just kind of pause there to again see if
there's any validation or or questions
uh with regards to uh this
approach looks good see
n okay this sort of is a a bit of a
teaser slide it's not this is not our
data night at all uh but this is just
some initial shown uh mapping of how we
come to data driven outcomes how we make
sure that everything that we do is based
on data and the quality of the crash
data will always be something that we
wish were were better right but we'll do
what we can with the crash data that's
collected there's no doubt that the
minimum standards of of data collection
are being met Scottdale even does a
great job at retaining a lot of records
for bike and ped crashes that would
otherwise get deleted out of the
database so we recognize that already as
a strength um if there's any other sort
of recommendations that we can make
along those lines to improve data
collection to improve these mapping
exercises uh we can do that I will note
that this slide shows the the crash
concentrations not only in the southern
Scottdale region but also along the
101 and we will be sensitive to pulling
out the crashes that are on ADOT
facilities versus City jurisdiction
facilities so that there's an
understanding of responsibilities and
kind of keeping Scottsdale's priorities
purely within Scottsdale's
jurisdiction um I guess with that I can
also take a quick pause here and see if
there's any observations that kind of
jump out to you as to the content that's
on this
slide yes thank you is Insurance
Collision data available for use
I am not uh aware of insurance Collision
data looking at my colleagues not
familiar with that as well well you want
to have an accident and you report it
may not be a police report
but it's an
accident it is common uh practice to
start off with crash data that's
collected at the police records uh that
can be supplemented but not geolocated
in the same way by looking at uh
hospitalization records and and health
records of that nature um so it's not
exactly a perfect science of like this
crash that happened at this intersection
that had an injury was this record at
the hospital right so there's again
there's um there's imperfections in how
this data is collected and we can only
do what we can uh to the point that was
made earlier disaggregating by different
vulnerabilities is our Our intention so
that we understand vehicle to vehicle
crashes vehicle to ped vehicle to bike
um all that will be uh pulled apart also
can be looking at the segment type is it
an arterial is it an arterial with very
you know numerous Lanes is it a more of
a minor arterial is it a collector so
we'll be looking at all the factors and
all the intersect uh crashes per
intersection crashes per segment uh and
understanding all the contexts and so
that we um provide a really in-depth
look at all this as best we can with the
data that we have thank you
commissioner
penquins but just to clarify your high
Injury Network will only have serious
and fatal crashes and this map just
shows all crashes and then fatal crashes
yeah that's so the high Injury Network
can is is typically fatal and serious
injuries there are some communities that
have been open-minded and saying that
that data set is so in insufficient that
we'd also look at minor crashes uh that
you know have similar factors involved
as the the serious crashes uh we're not
here to make any recommendation as to
the high the specifics of the inputs of
the high Injury Network tonight but that
will certainly be a discussion going
forward if you have any recommendations
of MERS well yes because looking at our
item number three today it is very
unusual to get like a fiveyear crash
data of such a small segment of a
residential road with with two crashes
and that both seem caused by speed and
there are some features of that roadway
that were mentioned where even like some
simple
striping may may help uh obviously
cushions may help but all of those like
halfway points between arterial streets
if they are being used at cut as cut we
points and we have an accumulation of
crashes particularly fiveyear data it
might be worth looking at because um
perhaps people are not getting as
injured but then people in those roads
are not even walking on them so they're
not getting the health benefit that they
could because of the behaviors that
occur on those
streets thank you for
that so how I I'm going to try to uh
make that implicit more explicit a
little bit and see what you think in
terms of how I'm interpreting uh your
comment these smaller segments with
higher crash rates that are definitely
uh won't necessarily show up as as
strong as maybe a intersection um in a
simple heat map what we would want to do
is then come up with a multiplier that
makes sense for these types of segments
especially given the fact that there's a
there's a extra sensitivity to this
condition because of the 100% resident
itial Frontage or because of a a school
zone Frontage or or things of that
nature to be a little bit more sensitive
to the context of the land use the
development type and just sort of being
more aware of that this context is meant
to be a a safe residential space and we
would want to then factor in those
crashes with a little bit more
sensitivity yes I think I mean if I have
a choice between walking on Indian
School versus walking on Clarendon my
mind would tell me I want to walk on
clearand if cars are going at you know
speeds way above of that then it feels
like I'm an Indian School um it kind of
takes away the benefit of that
residential street for people that want
to bike or
walk thank
you go ahead
okay safety counter measures there's uh
uh giant databases of these uh that
exist uh thousands of counter measures
have been studied statistically uh
proving their efficacy um there's uh
standards for both how effective they
are and how sure people are of the
research so there's like a qualitative
measure and a quantitative measure uh
fully uh creating uh in-depth toolboxes
toolboxes that already are existing at
the city
uh being developed uh we can go through
that and see if this is an appropriate
list for all of the crash types and
crash factors uh that we monitor uh
given our data driven uh approach so
this is just a quick taste of that again
we'll get more into that into more of
our data specific or countermeasure
specific nights
um so this is to contrast uh the
state's strategic Highway safety plan
versus the more local strategic
Transportation safety plan and
understanding that what you see here in
terms of strategies may look different
than what you will see in local
strategies um specifically
because there's more neighborhoods
there's more schools there's more uh
that uh factor that um different
contexts of Scottdale versus a very
Highway Centric plan uh but nonetheless
this is applicable for facilities within
Scottdale and that we'd uh
play a part a complimentary role uh with
such a
plan a quick review of the timeline
shows you that we're here tonight uh in
February we're reviewing that similar
communities still taking input making
sure that we understand what similar
communities have done the stakeholder
input engagement days uh we've had a
quick test night at Canal convergence
we're pretty excited about what we see
as an Innovative approach to help people
understand what it feels like to bike
within Scottsdale we understand that the
biking population of Scottdale is only a
certain percentage but we can reach the
broader uh audience the broader
stakeholders of Scottdale um by giving
specific experience using virtual
reality technology capturing
360° video so that no matter where you
look you get the sense that you're in
the bike lane or a bike uh uh Trail or a
you know buffered bike lane or protected
bike lane or uh a more um collector
Street uh experience so we have all of
that recorded and tested and we're
pretty happy that we can get before and
after experience Reflections uh through
questionnaires uh that uh will help form
again that vulnerable Road user and
contributing hopefully to a more
informed questionnaire s uh filled out
uh a more empathetic s questionnaire
fold out um
and yeah just um contributing to
something positive within the safety
culture of Scottdale while we're in the
engagement phase beyond the the the VR
biking engagement there's going to be
General engagement a general uh website
uh with you know a broad questionnaire
for all St for all residents and
stakeholders um we're going to have
handson uh walk audits thanks to Dan
Burton from Blue zones helping lead the
charge uh we will be looking at those
physical conditions the feeling the
stresses the uh hands-on experience of
what different contexts whether we were
at a busy intersection or a modified
intersection or a Transit hub
uh will'll be taking different looks uh
through South Scottsdale Central
Scottsdale and North Scottsdale to sort
of get a good feel for different walking
experiences and giving people a chance
to reflect on what they see in terms of
the built environment
conditions we'll get to City Council and
have a meaningful dialogue there uh like
we have had tonight checking in
validating a lot of these assumptions as
we move forward and we'll have open
house uh with uh broader public involved
making sure that we're reaching broad
public um then when it comes to the
development of the plan sir there's can
I just ask a quick question how are you
involving Young Drivers and school
children Young Drivers and school
children so our the specifics of our
engagement plan are still being
um created so if you have suggestions of
that th those are important populations
that we uh must reach not just have good
intentions of reaching but must reach uh
we certainly make note of
that but I would just you know encourage
you to reach out to the school districts
and you know U new drivers tend to
be more
vulnerable um and certainly as we talk
about pedestrians and and bicyclist
finding out how we can make sure that
that places are safe for our youth it
would be
important understood yes I understand
those
concerns when it comes to development of
our plan um beyond the engagement uh we
will be making sure that all of the data
fits within our geospatial high-risk uh
mapping or high injury mapping um
there's the policy assessment that will
be guided by a lot of what that data
shows for us um concentrating our focus
on policies that we think make the most
sense
to uh evaluate based on the crash data
that is presented how the data presents
itself to us um we'll be back making
more presentations to this body staff
will be making presentations to this
body as this work continues carrying out
forward um ultimately we want to we want
to make this plan very implementable
very straightforward that gets out of
its own way doesn't become a burden uh
to try to figure out what it is what
it's trying to say how it necessarily
effectuates change so implementation is
very important and thus prioritization
of projects of programs that ultimately
uh will will come out of this uh
planning
effort and then finally we want to make
sure that the draft is in your hands
that you have a good chance to review it
and that we can uh address anything
before reaching a final pre-final and
then final plan um all of that will be
summarized and hopefully uh easily
digestible using plain language language
that makes sense to Scottsdale has full
difference to the leadership of
Scottdale after going through our first
draft there's going to be more
stakeholder engagements before we even
reach the final draft so lots uh to say
there in terms of how we pull out the
that VR experience too there's going to
be a lot of pop-up engagements uh
finding people where they're at um um
and neighborhood HOAs uh being reached
out to uh more meetings with this body
before we reach final draft and then
ultimately
council's uh authority to adopt and
ensure that we publicate out of that
plan there's going to be lots of uh
communication that uh comes about
there's going to be lots of public input
uh that help promote a successful
plan um and essentially words matter
matter um on the screen here we have
person hit and killed by a car
um you know the car probably was uh not
responsible uh the the driver so these
are the types of language that we can um
take into account when having
communication that really affects
behavioral change right uh I don't think
the car's behavior is going to change um
it's ultimately
people and uh finally we'll get to
recommendations and an action plan that
makes sense for for everybody involved
um if there are examples from other
places uh you can do your own common
practice assessments take a look at the
uh memos that's been provided to you by
staff and see what you what you think
makes a lot of sense before we get it
give you a ton of content to review go
ahead and feel uh within your authority
to start familiarizing yourself with
other community Safety Action
plans because ultimately we want to
reach
uh uh well informed uh ready to go
positive safety culture and you're
certainly part of
that with that that concludes tonight's
presentation ready for questions and any
further discussion that you might want
to have at this
time commissioner
marman thank you madam chairman um right
before you started your your Pres
presentation which I thought was very
good there was a
slide that uh outlined the current
safety measures that the city's doing
and once again I'll make full disclosure
that I was sideswiped by a car coming
out of the low L Lio lanes because I
wasn't seen at
night um the NAU studies which which you
provided us were really good thorough
mathematical analysis but they were
based on very very little
data and they only addressed two-thirds
of the operation meaning left in left
out and even with their little data they
had a lot of
conflicts so I think the the third part
of the Lio movement the right hand slip
turn into traffic hasn't been addressed
and it's it's been ignored in the
studies um so I think the design I
looked at the design manual and there's
very little guidance on how to design
these things and there's very little
signage associated with them so I think
we need to do a more thorough analysis
of the the liol
lanes even like 60 of them
now to make sure they're
safe I think I found that very few other
jurisdictions are using this
movement and I think it's
dangerous the other thing I want to just
say is that on my way down here there
was another really bad accident at an
intersection with fire engines and
everything and it just
underscored the way we're going with the
roundabouts I think that approach is
really really good that's all that's all
I have thank you thank commissioner
CTO uh again thank uh just uh e Echo
commissioner Marmon uh this fantastic uh
presentation
um the one thing I I had questions about
which was again on what Scottsdale's
currently doing is uh I just had I just
didn't know if we have any raised
sidewalks and if that would be something
we could look at as part of Road design
to help the vulnerable Road users so
that uh as you
mentioned uh separating people or adding
or designing the streets to be safer so
where there are those Crossings maybe
force the drivers to go up and over
rather than uh pedestrians to go down
and then up uh as they cross so that was
the only real comment because I don't
think we have any raised sidewalks uh in
the
city uh chaired Miller and commissioner
Kow we actually have a a couple we have
one um on Camel Back East of
Hayden um and then we have one off of
Trail side east of Pima
they look more like uh speed tables um
but you know we are limited on where we
can put those just based upon speed
because they they are considered a
pseudo traffic calming um we can't put
them on a 30 or 35 m per hour anything
really higher than that because
um it could damage vehicles and that
sort of thing so um we are a little bit
limited then we we would only put them
prob at uh a multi-use path Crossing um
on a lower Speed Street so it kind of
limits where we where we can use them
but we have used
them yeah that that's that's what I was
thinking is those kind of lower speeds
uh the multi-use path especially um for
me uh as a user of the path a lot the um
when you come out it's uh at at chap
just north of chapparel and um and
Hayden when they're coming out of the
shopping CER Center there the drivers
always pull and just completely block
the the path there and I understand CU
they can't see they need to pull forward
to see the the the cars move the other
you know the other drivers the other
cars moving but that that seems that
that little section there seems to be
where it could use some uh some
help thank
you commissioner
Cardella thank you I wanted to get
clarity on the data that's being used
I'm not sure if I'm understanding that
all of the Collision data is only
related to injury accidents so if the
accident Collision did not involve a
injury then that is not being
considered thank you for the question uh
a point of clarification all crash data
is collected regardless of injury um but
they are
coded unsuspected injuries uh minor
injury suspected ser injury suspected um
you know fatality uh everything to to
not uh an injury so all of that can be
factored into uh understanding the
geographic spread and concentrations of
crashes it's just that um in order to
get the best priority of of our time and
effort to address crashes we're trying
to save uh as many lives and improve as
many lives as possible so that hinging
on the serious severity of the crash is
really uh our primary focus at this time
okay so I so that's the standard that it
focuses on injury I suppose I do think
even if there's not an injury there's
clearly a emotional aspect as chair uh C
or I'm sorry commissioner Maron talking
about his accident that he's had and it
feels like you would have more buyin
from people uh and the safety aspect of
just even avoiding an accident
regardless of injury is still a
motivation to want to have a plan for
the
city we can certainly address um crashes
uh holistically yes commissioner
Cardella commission Cardel chair Miller
I think we can definitely add a
component of looking at all crashes what
the highry network would help us with is
um focusing priority of projects when we
when we look at safety uh where's our um
Investments going in how can we improve
the overall Network so the the high inry
network
is important for us looking at when
we're going to do a retrofit of a
roadway or changing that roadway I
understand that we look at all crashes
and we can make some small modifications
but that high inury Network would get
priorization of where we're spending the
most funding to really reduce those
those crashes that are are repeatedly
giving us
um serious injuries and fatalities we
know
several
intersections that uh have repeated um
serious injuries and multiple fatalities
those would be the ones that we'd really
want to hone in on and make sure that
we're um tackling those as fast as
possible so we can definitely add all
crashes to an analysis but we want to
really highlight those highry networks
because we need to stop those crashes
right away thank you if I could expand
on that a little bit to
um uh the highend injury crashes will
also have certain um environmental
factors and certain design factors
certain um you know traffic counts and
pedestrian counts and things of that
nature and where we see that there's
Trends or crash types that are of most
concern we can look for where maybe some
uh intersections are performing better
than the the worst and we can also be
thinking about predictive crashes as
well so that we can take a proactive
approach roach to how standards and
improvements are made throughout the
system again addressing that near
probably lots of near misses probably
lots of high stress conditions that
would improve people's experience um
even if their life isn't uh any lives
haven't been lost chair Miller sorry I
just want to add one other thing to that
um we do look at all crashes every two
years as you know and as part of the
traffic volume and collision report
uh we've been doing that over 20 years
so um and we will continue to do that um
but one of the things that you know it's
been brought up before and it's kind of
missing in that report is a a deeper
look into injury severity of those
crashes and that's not included in the
in the traffic volume and collision
report so um I think this plan focusing
on that will be uh a good thing to do uh
for us and and it might be something
also we add into the Vol the traffic
volume and collision report in the
future thank you
commissioner um I'm assuming you're also
looking at time of day right yeah and
then I I haven't really seen this in um
sa Road Safety plans but we are seeing
an increase of
like attacks uh people on vehicles going
into crowded spaces markets and things
like that um and I know that uh we
obviously want to focus first where
people have died or have gotten serious
injuries but there are several streets
throughout Scottdale that during like
the festival season get closed and
perhaps planning for ballards uh for
those locations that are removable or um
as a
precaution um
I don't know I don't know if that's
that's worthwhile but I know that we are
seeing an increase in those
incidents chair Miller and commissioner
P um director Mel jao has definitely
directed us to highlight that in when we
come back for uh our enforcement
component of this of this chapter we
definitely want to talk to PD as well as
talk to
um um several of other departments about
how ways that we can highlight that in
this plan and introduce ways to prevent
those kind of of events from happening
we do have several events we know we
just closed down uh Greenway and Hayden
for the Waste Management Open um we have
the prodel soul so we do have several of
those events that are Street related
closures so yes we do want to we want to
put that in the plan we want to hide
like that and and really hone in on how
we can address that from our perspective
and make that safer and better so yes
absolutely
thanks commissioner
Davis uh thanks for the presentation um
I'm uh excited to see this uh uh plan
move forward I think the timeline you've
laid out is very good I like the fact
that there is um lots of iterations and
and Loops that we can get better
feedback from the community um as well
as city council um I'm especially
interested in seeing um some of the
insights that you find uh with um
Chandler and Gilbert with similar
population sizes I think your map showed
a lower incid fatalities um perhaps
that's because they're uh newer
Transportation networks that have some
design features I'm very interested to
see what we can um you know leverage
from their experience to help improve
our safety culture so thank
you wonderful again thank you for the
presentation it was very informative
thank you for taking questions along the
way as they occurred to us um and I want
to thank the Commissioners for their
involvement in this as well it's uh uh
it will be
an an interesting and enriching
um Journey we will be taking over the
next few months so thanks a lot thank
you and thank you for all the questions
especially the ones that force me to
clarify those are the most important I
want to make sure that we're
communicating as clearly as possible so
thank you very
much and I guess we have one more slide
just to give a a teaser are a uh
notification on to attend the next
Transportation Commission meeting that
we will be discussing the initial goals
and policy discussion so adding on to
this discussion and and highlighting our
different sections of the plan and and
the goals and policies that would be uh
at least in draft form for you guys to
um take a look at give us your feedback
on in any other additional ones that we
want to put in so coming coming March
20th we'll come back and and have
another discussion about
this thank
you and now you're going to tell us all
about
lepes yes we've been here for a while so
I'll try and keep it brief this is just
a a uh a introduction into the lepes and
a and a possible action for us
recommending us to uh update the lepes
all right so the local area
infrastructure
plans so we're going to talk about the
local a infrastructure plans where
they're located how we use them and then
the
recommendation so uh the local area
infrastructure plans are they help guide
us on neighborhood specific
infrastructure so we're talking mostly
up North mostly dirt roads with mostly
dirt trails so so very rural very low
density environments um the plans serve
to help guide City staff mostly
Transportation staff on when we get
development proposals land divisions or
single family reconstructions rideway
abandonments these kind of individual
requests from Individual property owners
in relation to in their neighborhood how
have we planned out the um connectivity
of that neighborhood and and how can we
keep
everybody having um access to the the
roadway Network so when when these
development proposals and requests come
in the lpes are one of the most key
assets we have to evaluate what they're
requesting and what the city has planned
for that
environment as you can see on the screen
these are the local area um
infrastructure plans with the areas that
they are are um have their own dedicated
infrastructure plans they are
neighborhoods mostly in the northern
region including East sh
that do not have HOAs or not planned
developments so some of our older
communities that we inherited when we um
acquired this land from the county and
so how can we keep that Rural and
equestrian character in these Northern
neighborhoods that when they were County
Land now city land while also providing
that connectivity to those single family
lots that need to happen so we have
Desert Foothills desert Highlands
Dynamite Foothills East Chay uh Horsemen
Park and Whisper rock all very very
distinct and unique uh situations when
each one of these individual um parcel
requests come
in uh transportation's use of the lepes
is a key tool for us determining the
right of we dedications in the
neighborhood so most of these areas
still have their Glo easements those
easements given back over a 100 years
ago to make sure that we had land set
out for rideway and connection for these
par
so we use the
glos if they haven't been uh requested
to be abandoned yet as R of way but when
they get requested to be abandoned we
look to see how much ride of way we need
from that parcel in order to accomplish
the mission of keeping uh the roads
going in the connectivity throughout
this neighborhood uh designing what
streets are going through versus which
ones are C ASCS so the plans show which
ones are designated to be streets which
ones are cold sex and there's lots of of
negotiations interpretations and
conversations with neighborhoods up
there about uh how they feel and what
they think should be and should not be
clarifying what the areas um should have
unpaved Trails so alongside with the
dirt roads we have the plans and the
laid out Network for the unpaved trails
on the side of the roads so as we talked
in the fall about the unpaved trail
connections going through some of the
neighborhoods the lpes show key uh
routes and locations for where those
trails should be going um it aderes to
the goals and values of the 2022
Transportation action plan so it takes
its guidance from our our already
adopted and accepted General plan and
action plan so that's where it gets its
its kind of uh Authority uh this is an
example of what one of the laes maps
look like we have about 50 or 60 showing
each one of the individual neighborhoods
you can see the parcels you can see the
City boundary sometimes if it's in there
um The Preserve most of these
neighborhoods are surrounding The
Preserve so a key feature to highlight
that the The Preserve is there then we
have existing Trails planed Trails
proposed roads and then proposed Street
Alternatives so whenever one of these
Parcels will come in they're looking to
subdivide they're looking to abandon
some of their their rideway they're
looking to abandon the Glo we get out
these plans and take a look at what's
been planned out and what
um how the connections are looking and
should look so that we make sure that
every parcel has access to rideway that
is the key feature of this as well as if
we have a planned Trail there we're
certainly going to take that into
account when they're asking for an
abandonment of that easement or that
RightWay so we make sure we have access
for both the trail future and proposed
Trails as well as the
roadway um so issues with the labes
currently it's not Council or commission
adopted so we're going to look to as we
move forward um meet with the with the
residents on a on a neighborhood by
neighborhood basis we want to uh kind of
fin finalize and formalize the labs we
want to move through this commission and
possibly Council depending on on the
need of that to kind of formalize it and
then most importantly we have no formal
or established process existing for
updates or changes to the lepes so the
lepes have been around for us for about
15 years some of these these changes
have been um introduced into the network
some have not yet so how can we um
formally update those when those changes
get made as well as if there's a request
for a change to the LPE what kind of
process could we have similar to the
neighborhood uh traffic management
process how can we formalize that
process so if somebody wants to make an
official request to change the leps we
can go through an official process and
and make sure that we give them their
time to to present that in front of a a
body like the Transportation Commission
as well as maybe paths and trails
commission to um have their their their
concerns or their voices heard
the
the picture right there is a one of the
situations of the lepes and and the lpes
have most of the roads up there are
connecting five or six homes so we get
very intimate situations happening where
somebody will dig out a wash on the on
the road to make it impassible and then
we'll be called out to to to assess is
it part of the lapes um should it be a
roadway going through some things look
like roads that should be going through
they're really driveways some look like
roads that that shouldn't be part of the
ls and some are supposed to be roads
that have now been dug out or or moved
around so that they can't be passed
anymore so so this happens quite a lot
where we get called up to to take a look
and assess this uh just down that way
somebody put a fence in the Glo in order
to kind of since it's a dirt road it's
kind of a little more fluid than your
pavement road so so they can stop people
from driving on one side of the tree
than the other and the the road's
supposed to go on the the one side of
the tree so then it forced the traffic
to go around the tree the other way
which took it on the private property
and then we get called out to so just
several of the the features that happen
when uh there's no established way of
making a change to the lapes they kind
of just take it upon themselves to
barricade the lapes uh the roads and it
it causes certainly problems with that
so we want to kind of establish a formal
process a way that we can handle those
kind of situations in more of a formal
way uh it's outdated in many cases like
I said we've made changes um and we need
to just update it get it to current
standards it's been a great process a
great tool for us it's made changes now
we just need to reflect those changes in
the current plans and the current maps
and let it exist and last for another 15
years and then uh needs to be reviewed
by the public in the area we've had
landowner changes we've had development
happen up there we want to go out to the
public and review the map and the plan
of how to connect to every network with
the neighbors
themselves uh steps moving forward we
want to undergo a public Outreach effort
for the communities coordinate closely
with the impacted departments so
including water as and storm water those
are also um departments that are
definitely impacted when we do these
single family um development reviews uh
establish a formal process like I said
for requesting an update to the lepes or
a change to the lepes and then present
the Transportation Commission the
processed results and the updated maps
at a future time when we talk we're
going to it's going to be quite a while
for us to do this it's um a lot of
communities we have to go talk to um a
lot of times and there's going to be
definitely a lot of um strong emotions
about how these networks should go so we
want to hear them out we want to give
them the time to to make sure we get it
right and then we'll come in and present
that back to you guys so with that
questions discussion and then and then
possible action moving forward to
recommend that we move forward with
updating the
lebs thank you Commissioners any
questions comments commissioner
Davis uh for areas of the city that that
don't fall under a LPE how do we um how
would we manage
uh uh infrastructure plans is it is it
through the JS system is
that there's a tool right that we use
where we where we note what what the
plan infrastructure is for other areas
yeah so most of the other areas in the
city have paved roads or established
curb gutter so so it's got definitely a
much more formal layout of the network
and maybe I'm misunderstanding your
question no no that was I I just didn't
know if there I guess I didn't know if
there was a um if there was a better
tool than than a LPE if there was a a
way in which we were managing
infrastructure plans elsewhere that we
should be applying to these areas or if
this is okay I got you sorry so
commissioner Miller I mean commissioner
Davis I the lepes are in the Gs we we
make the changes through the GS system
these are just the PDFs that are are
presented and put onto the website so we
definitely already have them into a GIS
system that we make the changes into and
we'd continue doing that process we
could
put on the website very easily an
interactive map so people could see it
better but uh we just have it in PDF
form here we definitely have that data
in GIS okay thank you
thanks
Kaa I just uh I've been wondering about
this for a while almost every single
city council meeting I go to on the Cent
agenda there's always some abandonment
and it always kind of bothered me that
we just keep every every couple of weeks
we give away more of our rightaway uh so
it's really I'm really glad to hear that
uh there is a review process and we are
making sure that the trails and the
connectivity and all the things that
make Scottsdale great is kept in mind
when when those abandonments come up so
thank you uh very much for this
presentation certainly uh commissioner C
and we definitely meet we just met today
we meet weekly to review all the cases
that are coming in and and definitely go
around the table making
sure if there's a rideway abandonment
request um making sure that we look at
every
possible thing that could be impacted if
we gave up that right away and we don't
take that lightly to give up right away
um unless there is a um no real need for
the city currently or in the future so
certainly the future takes a big impact
on whether we would would abandon or
right away that is there a possible need
for for that for the public to to use
that so certainly we take that very
seriously if we're going to abandon any
right
away and if I understand what you are
looking for is a motion from this
commission to proceed
with just to recommend to staff to
update the the local area plans and
create a formal process for requesting
changes Vice chair will cookson uh thank
you Sherman Miller I uh um move that we
uh adopt staff's recommendation to um uh
update the local area infrastructure
plans and create a formal process to
request
changes is there a
second
second there's a motion in a second Kyle
will you take the vote yeah we'll do a
roll call here um chair Miller uh
approved thank you Vice chair will coxon
approved thank you commissioner merman
approved thank you commissioner Crile
enthusiastically approve thank you um
commissioner panowitz
yes thank you commissioner Cardella yes
thank you and commissioner Davis yes
thank you
approved all right thank you all thank
you and with that I see nothing else on
the agenda so I will take a motion to
adjourn
so
moved
second all those in favor I I any
opposed no thank you so much thank you
staff really appreciate all the
presentations thank you uh folks from TY
Linn we'll see you next month