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HomeMy WebLinkAboutKCTAC Minutes- 2018-10-09 CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Cycling Advisory Committee met on this date commencing at 4:15 p.m. Present: Ms. L Paprocki, Messrs. D. Brotherston, E. Bliefert M. Drasdo, D. Hoshowsky, B. Jenner. Staff: Mr. D. Pimentel, Active Transportation Planning Project Manager Mr. D. Kropf, Active Transportation Planning Project Manager Ms. L. Christensen, Multi-use Pathways & Trails Project Manager Mr. J. Barton, Associate Landscape Architect 1. Final Survey - Advisory Committee Volunteers Mr. D Pimentel informed committee members to fill out the survey and send back to him and he will forward them to the Clerk’s office. Committee decided to fill out later and send in. 2. Westmount Rd Underpass – Mr. J Barton Mr. J Barton provided a drawing for the committee to view. The city is currently considering options to resolve some ongoing safety and maintenance issues with the Westmount Rd W trail underpass. This is a tunnel connecting trails through Filsinger Natural Area leading, eventually, to the Iron Horse Trail. The options are to either rehabilitate the existing tunnel to improve but will not eliminate most of these issues, or to realign the trail over Westmount Rd W instead. Further background and details of the proposed alternatives will be presented to the committee at the meeting. Mr. J Barton is looking for opinions and guidance from the committee. Asked who is familiar with the Westmount underpass. It’s narrow and unlite and dangerous to users. The lighting is subject to repeat vandalism and no solution has been identified. Mr. D Hoshowsky asked what has been done so far. Mr. J Barton says right now we have been cleaning off spray painted light fixtures and replacing damaged light fixtures. Safety issues with the north side, the trails runs a little awkward. Mr. J Barton says it’s not an ideal situation and we have looked at alternative solutions. First problem is that any harden structure we put in is going to be a target for vandalism. The entire tunnel is within the flood plain and with any lighting we add will need to be submersible which is expensive and therefore subject to vandalism. The trial is long and has low head light. Garbage issues, safety issues, access issues. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Second alternative we explored is what if we close the tunnel altogether and go over Westmount Rd with a Region of Waterloo support crossing. Mr. J. Barton shows where on his drawings that he is proposing the new crossing to be. Mr. B Jenner asks when you say connecting over Westmount Rd do you literally mean over Westmount Rd or as a crossing on Westmount Rd? Mr. J Barton confirms that it’s a crossing at Westmount Rd and not under Westmount Rd. Also not ideal and also not potentially region supported. The region supports us based on data. We provided them data through traffic counts. Just got the data back and its unclear if the region will support it. He thinks that if there is no support to the crossing that ends the issues for the road crossing on Westmount Rd. Mr. J Barton says that if crossing on Westmount Rd is supported than the tunnel would still need to stay open because it’s within the flood plain. The trail would need berm and planted. Mr. B Jenner says he used this tunnel every week during winter and summer. It not being light is not great. From personal experience it doesn’t matter to him. The tunnel links up to two different trails and would be disappointed if this were to close. Ms. L Paprocki asks what if we make the tunnel wider. Mr. J Barton replies says that the only modification would be to truncate the east end of the tunnel which will allow the entrance to be less severe and cut daylight opens as a close as you could to the sidewalks. Would need an Engineers opinion if this could be done and to possibly add artificial lighting. Not sure if the structure integrity will support that but these are the only feasible solutions that he sees for tunnel modifications. To replace the tunnel is too expensive ($1M) Mr. B. Jenner asks what is being vandalized. Mr. J Barton replies it’s mostly spray painting over the lights, and physically destroying them. It’s primarily the lights that are being damaged. Mr. J Barton also states that he has witnessed people sleeping down there, making it difficult for people to ride through the tunnel with someone laying across it. Mr. E Bliefert asks what the length of the tunnel is. Mr. J Barton says it’s about 120 metres. Mr. D Hoshowsky asks if we can truncate the west end. Mr. J Barton the transition is already accessible at the west end. East end is where the issues is. The aerial photo doesn’t show the embankment so that is a gradual embankment that holds the road and would require a significant amount of retaining wall. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Mr. D Hoshowsky asks if any investigations to if the lights can be done from the outside to help prevent damage and maybe to add fake cameras. Mr. J Barton says that this has been discussed and that this would create a false sense of security for users of the trail and the City will not entertain this. Lighting from the outside is one light source that becomes a target. A solution for the lighting, he is leaning towards creating openings where you can’t access them physically and provides natural daylight and artificial light in the evening. Mr. D Brotherston asks if any consideration has been made to making the tunnels one way in each directions. Mr. J Barton says that isn’t one we have explored. This would mean introducing lighting solutions to both sides and it could do one of two things, the size issues and potentially the lighting issues but it can also create double the problem and it does nothing to solve the vandalism problem. Mr. B Jenner says for a sense of security, if your main concern is people sleeping in there as your trying to navigate though, it seems unlikely that both tunnels would be occupied at the same time, so you can sort of choose at the time which tunnel you to use. Mr. J Barton says it might provide an alternate exit point so that an option we could consider. Mr. D Hoshowsky asks if this project is in context in formalizing and improving the approach on the other side with connection to Lawrence because this should be a highly used trail except the section that goes up the mountain which is difficult to get up on our bike and it’s hard to tell which way you should go. Ms. L Christensen answers by stating that we are proposing a 3 metre wide trail along the creek that it’s on our radar to be done in the near future. Mr. D Hoshowsky thinks that formulizing that section of the trail may also improve some of the safety issues. It will look less of an offbeat path and more like a real trail. Mr. J Barton states that that’s a good point and if we don’t get the numbers that the Region of Waterloo wants to support a crossing at Westmount Rd than we look at improving the connection to the Iron Horse trail on the west side leading up to the tunnel than retake the numbers and see if increased use or take a broader survey. Mr. B Jenner ask everyone if they think that the crossing on Westmount Rd would be preferable to the existing tunnel. Everyone agrees that the tunnel is safer and it’s too dangerous to cross on Westmount Rd. Mr. B Jenner asks how much resources are needed to do the potential upgrade to the lighting and fix the east end of the tunnel. Mr. J Barton states that he is not that far into the project and needs to see if either of the solutions are viable and can be done. The tunnel will require an Engineering assessment and the road crossing will require the regions consent and what they are willing to support. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Mr. E Bliefert asks for some signage to be put up on each end and keep up with maintenance. Mr. J Barton says if we do any tunnel upgrade signage will be a part of that. Not sure about warning signs but will include wayfinding. 3. Workshops on Wheels / Cycling and Trails Master Plan Mr. D Pimentel tells the committee that The City of Kitchener is working on a new Cycling and Trails Master Plan and there are two master plans that are going to be merged together. Part of that was to engage with the public and community and essential do what we call the Workshop on wheels. The intent was to gather information and shape some of the vision for this new master plan. This was come up with a fun and engaging way to gather this information that our department has never done before. The workshops consisted of 10 bike rides (1 in each of the 10 wards) and two walks (1 downtown, 1 suburban). We got a lot of media coverage and posted online to get the word out. 130 people attended. Downtown walk had about 40 people. Some wards had no one (Ward 5). We had all different ages. Families. Most of the rides had children. We went over at the beginning of each ride why we were doing this and we asked the rides to fill out a card about “why I ride”. We got lots of great answers. Mr. D Pimentel went through some pictures from each workshop. At the end of each ride or walk, we asked them to file out a survey. From that survey we learned some common themes. Gaps in trails, people would prefer protected areas for rider. Paving and widening trails. We asked what would get people out to ride more. Education and employee incentives like showers. Some of the key discussion items and general theme of the overall. People love our trails. Lots of emails back from people saying they didn’t know we had these trails and are using them more now. Wayfinding and signage, people getting off a trail and not knowing where they are. Trail road crossing. Separated bike lanes and multi-use trails. Connectivity. Better communication with the Region of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener. Talks about the issues at Ottawa and River and not having any where to go. They added a multi-use trail which ends at a sidewalk and nothing for cyclist to get onto the road. How does this happen. So a better collaboration between the Region and the City. Couple other points that were brought up are people riding on the sidewalks cause the felt safer. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Overall people enjoyed the bike rides and glad that we were out there. A different way for them to engaging with us. It was informal and candid and you could say what you wanted to. People are excited to be a part of this. People asked if we could do a ride that speaks to more commuting. Staff are going back and looking into doing some quick wins we can implement like wayfinding, signage, and curb cuts and find ideas we can implement while the master plan is being done. Trying to keep things fresh and take something out of the workshop we can implement. Mr. D Pimentel asks if there are any questions. Mr. E Bliefert asks if this information can be send to the committee members including pictures. Mr. D Pimentel says there is a chance we will be doing something like this again in the future and encourages everyone to join us. Everyone is welcome to participate. The Cycling and Trails Master Plan is under way. Interviews are taking place on th Wednesday October 10. Recommendation will be going to committee on th November 5, 2018 and we should have a consultant on board by then. Going forward we will be looking for a resident working group and would like to have someone from this committee be a part of that. 4. Online Bike Map Mr. D Pimentel talks about the new version of the map and it was brought to their attention that a few items that were missing from the map like secure bike parking, bike fix it stations. A layer is somehow got missed from the redesign of the map. He encourages the committee to look at the map and send an email with any comments and they will apply them to the new map. Transportation is trying to figure out a way to get this map out to the community instead of by pdf or jpeg. Transportation is looking at getting this map to be online. They have looked at examples from Ottawa, Hamilton, and Burlington. This is the vision they are going with. Any thoughts on what our online map should have? Mr. B Jenner asks if the map will have community points of interests. Reporting hazards as they come up. Mr. D Pimentel has brought up to GIS and IT the website bikemaps.org this is a crowd sourced. Its google mapping. You can go CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER on and report a close call with a cyclist and a vehicle and vice versa. Hazards on trails and roads can also be reported. Ms. L Paprocki asks if the terrain will be reported somehow. Paved vs. stonedust. Mr. D Pimentel says we don’t identify whether is a paved trail or a multi-use trail, and the concern with the bike map hardcopy it’s a bunch of lines and hard to read but we are hoping with an online map these things will be identified easier. Mr. B Jenner asked will this be an app version. Will we be able to access this without internet? Mr. D Pimentel says does not think it will be an app. Too much update required. Mr. D Hoshowsky is it maintained in the winter. It should be identified on a map and online. Mr. B Jenner asks can we put a filter on for how heavily used the trail is by cyclists. Also can we estimate the foot traffic for those who want to avoid that type of trail? I know this is going to be hard to do. Mr. D Pimentel says based on that not everything people suggest will be on the map but later on down the road these type of things can be added. Ms. L Paprocki asks if you have talked to any of the tech companies in town to get some help. If they would interested in helping. Mr. D Pimentel states that if we don’t have the capability to do internally than maybe we can go externally. Mr. D Pimentel asks what are using for maps now. Everyone replies “google maps” Ms. L Paprocki says she also used “all trails” app this is tails and community driven, all the content is generally recorded by users. 5. Manitou Dive Segregated Bike Lanes Mr. D Pimentel asks for general feedback about the bike lanes on Manitou Drive. Has anyone been on these before? Mr. E Bliefert says he has been them but has never seen anyone using them before. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Mr. D Pimentel describes that there is a travel lane with a mountable curb. Almost looks like a parking bay. Mr. B Jenner asks if they found a lot of people were parking there. Mr. D Pimentel says that at one time there was until signage and line painting was put down. Mr. D Pimentel pulls up google street view for everyone to see. Mr. B Jenner says it seems weird to have a full curb between the sidewalk and the bike lane. Mr. D Hoshowsky agrees that it’s far better than any bike lane. Agrees that why the separation between the sidewalk and the bike lane instead of bike lane and road but in this instance there isn’t a huge parking issues. It just seems backwards. Mr. D Pimentel says he has had feedback to the region about instead of opening the bike lane before the job is complete to have all the signage up before opening so we don’t create bad habits. States the the separated bike lanes ends at Bleams and then turns into just bike lanes. Committee members like them and would like to see more. 6. Complete Streets Mr. D Kropf says the committee was updated on our complete streets guide lines and let them know this is still on our radar and let you know what they are planning and brainstorm. Recap power point presentation:  Complete streets are streets for everyone no matter what your age or ability. Safe, comfortable and convenient for all modes of transportation.  We are completing these guidelines for specific details for how to build transportation facilities. What type of facilities and where.  The guideline is a vision and guiding principles for designing street in Kitchener  Street classification, cross sections, geometric standards, traffic speeds, green infrastructure design and intersections  Draft principles are prioritize safety, provide transportation choices, improve user comfort, deliver essential services, foster a sense of place and social connections, improve health, generate economic development, strengthen environmental sustainability, play for all season and prepare for temporary conditions. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER  City staff like transportation, engineering and parks, hired consultants and developers will use these guidelines.  These guidelines will be used for new roads. Existing roads being rebuilt and existing roads identified as being ideal for retrofit that reallocate road space.  Complete streets scorecard is for decision making and a reporting tool. The objective criteria is to help understand the “trade=off” every street designed requires. This will be specific to each street classification.  Complete streets scorecards criteria: what objective and measureable criteria could be included in a scorecard for each road classification? Local streets (access to properties), minor collector streets (movement within neighbourhoods), major collector streets (movement between neighbourhoods) and arterial streets (movement within the city)  Next steps are: City Council strategic session (January 2019), community engagement (March/April 2019), Draft guidelines (May 2019) and City Council approval (Summer 2019) Mr. E Bliefert comments on River Road where the trail is and the center median just an observation and the he is noticing more and more that cars are starting to stop and not knowing what to do and are allowing people to cross. Seems to him that this safer. Maybe in the future its adding lights. Seems that drivers are starting to give cyclist the right of way. Mr. D Hoshowsky says there are some problems with this and that what you’re seeing is that the right way is ambiguous drivers so they either ensure some drivers are going to stop and some don’t and we expect them to stop. Mr. D Kropf says that refuge islands is something we are definitely we would put some standards around. Mr. E Bliefert has a thought that we seem to go to Toronto and Ottawa and different areas and coming up with ideas for our area and having the same system. We should start adapting ideas from Cities that we know its working for them. There shouldn’t be too many deviations from that. How do we get to when they start talking construction where they are always 2 or 3 years out talking they are going to do these street and the committee is well aware of that and it should start out with having site visit and see what the flow is today and what the possibilities are and if they work cant all get down now we don’t wait 20 years from now to connect something because we don’t have enough budget money.. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Mr. D Kropf says that he would clarify that the Cycling and Trails Master Plan is our proactive at this what we build and our approach and that complete streets is for is to get at some of the missed opportunities. Mr. D Kropf talks about complete streets score card. He shows an example of a Streets Card from Calgary. They created one for all modes of transportation. He talks about wanting to create a made in Kitchener score card. This scorecard can be super helpful to report the cost benefit analysis. Mr. J Brenner asks what are the incentives and negative incentives. Mr. D Kropf replies saying that this is something that people have asked and we will have to figure that out and the first stage is getting this out to the public and getting their opinion. Media would pick up on this and feels that would help. Mr. D Kropf talks about the different categories. Local Streets Minor Collector: Union St, Heritage Dr Major Collector Margaret Ave, Glasgow St, Wilson Ave Arterial Streets: wellington, Belmont, Queen Street, River Rd, Blockline Rd. Starting with local streets are there particular things you would like to see in the guidelines Mr. B Jenner suggests sidewalk clearing. This would be great for pedestrians Mr. D. Hoshowsky suggest traffic calm promenade road. A type of road that is ultimately shared with cars. Mr. B Jenner suggests enough community trails that connect to larger streets and local communities. Mr. D. Hoshowsky says if you’re looking for a measurable criteria you could measure the difference between a straight line path and a walking path. Mr. D Kropf reminds committee of the time (6:00pm) and asks if there is any other criteria for the classifications and we can pick this up again another time. Mr. D. Hoshowsky suggests Crossing distance, corner radii, timed crossing, protect intersections, curb cuts. Mr. B Jenner suggests Score for a road that is designated for bikes. Looks at how road crossings affect our road bike ability. CYCLING AND TRAILS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES October 09, 2018 CITY OF KITCHENER Mr. D. Hoshowsky suggest distance between edge of bike lane and sewer grates. Mr. B Jenner suggest bike lanes and parking. Distances between car doors opening and the bike lane. Mr. D. Hoshowsky says that for artieral roads people are not comfortable using them unless segregated bikes lanes and suggest signage that would point you to an alternate bike route. Mr. D Kropf says our next steps are to do a strategic session with City Council in January. Community Engagement in the spring. Do an online survey with some of these criteria’s identified for them to rank and identify new criteria. Internal stakeholders input. Might do a complete street symposium where we bring in different stakeholders in and hash out these guidelines and criteria. Drafter guidelines would be written in May and take to Council in May 2019. Thanks everyone for their initial input. 7. Subcommittee Updates Due to time constrains this item was not discussed at this meeting. Meeting Adjourned at 6:05 pm.