Joint Work Meeting

Chuck Gillette stated this discussion is to get the Planning Commission and City Council up to speed on what the Transportation Master Plan actually says and help form some decisions with updated data. Aaron Baker showed an exhibit out of our current master transportation study that they used to look at our intersections that was last updated in 2015 and looked at those same intersections and what the change in traffic was from 2015 to 2020. We are trying to emulate the traffic we see on a normal regular day. Chuck Gillette stated Covid might delay a final draft of this report until things are returning to normal or forego those traffic counts as part of our Transportation Master Plan. We also look at accident data. We go back 3 years and look at what's been happening. No fatalities but we have had severe crashes and all on Highway 91. Two were bicyclists. The importance of bike lanes are paramount. There was also a vehicle that left the road and caused a fatality on Hwy 91. We have a map that is compiled by the State of Utah and you can see where the clusters are and the heat map matches where the traffic is and most is in St George. We do have 200 East and Center Street and a cluster of accidents there at that roundabout. We expect to see higher incidences of minor accidents at roundabouts. They lower serious injury and fatalities but it may cause additional minor accidents. At Snow Canyon Drive and Snow Canyon Parkway there have been no serious accidents, just minor ones. A lot of what our master planning is about is understanding how we want our roads to look like, in asphalt widths, curb and gutters, sidewalks, trails, landscape buffers and that is the essence of what our Master Plan does is identifies what these corridors are going to look like. How many travel lanes, bike lanes, so we are going to be spending some time looking at these cross-sections. Our pavement section is 28 feet for a residential standard road. We use a 50 foot right-of-way, but we generally don't see a lot of 50 foot right-of-ways anymore because a few years ago we introduced the residential alternative cross-section that got rid of the space between the sidewalk and the back of curb. We have another alternative which is the 38 foot section which only has sidewalk on the right side. We only allow that on roads that we project to have traffic less than 200 vehicles per day. We opened that up because it seemed to be successful in some of our private subdivisions and a lot of developers have done these other right of ways. We used to have a note here that said where there was a two and a half foot high-back curb, sidewalk may be reduced to four and a half foot width. Researching some ADA information, we realized we are not able to do that. Sidewalks have to be five foot width. So that will be on this new master plan is eliminating that. Councilmember Dennis Mehr asked for some examples where they are already being used so they can visualize it. Chuck Gillette stated look at Eagle Rock and Copper Canyon. That was when we would only allow that cross-section if it was a private subdivision. We have since made it possible in public subdivisions as well. Haven at Heritage Acres is using that cross-section 400 South and 400 West. Silver Sage used a wider width on 200 South because it was a minor collector. Mayor Hart inquired if most of what is developed here other than in the rural cross-section out in Kayenta has been the 38 foot right-of-way? Chuck Gillette stated both 43 and 38. 38 is working in more places than he thought it would. Basically if only 20 homes are going to use a road, we can allow the 38 foot section. There are about 10 trips per home generated. Our old standard was 35 feet of pavement. We reduced that down to 28 feet. If you count curb and gutter as part of the driveable surface, that gives us 32 feet of width. That is just wide enough that the fire code doesn't require a sign that says no parking. That is the narrowest we dare go and still allow parking on both sides of the street. Residential private rural cross-section is only allowed on private streets and it is the Kayenta cross-section with a little road base on the shoulders and drainage runs down the edge and inlets. They have an underground storm drain system that picks up most of their water. We had required them to armor them with rock so there are lots of inlets in their pipe systems out there so they didn't have to armor with rock. One of the ways they see low impact development being achieved is eliminating curb and gutter because if storm water can naturally go in the ground that will reduce the amount of stormwater runoff, and thus pollution. The Federal Government and now the State is saying we really like the idea of no curb and gutter. We may want to consider if we want public streets to adopt a similar cross-section. Certainly not in high density areas, or even medium density areas. Any thoughts? Commissioner Doug Clifford stated the hazard of the Kayenta cross-section is bicycle and pedestrians are using streets as well, and the sloping and the gravel makes people not ride on that. Riding on the road is something that will happen if we don't have sidewalk space for them.Chuck Gillette stated if we did it then we should have extra pavement to avoid no parking signs. Obviously there is still a need for pedestrian traffic. We have required them in areas where more than 200 trips per day is where that applies. Otherwise an 8 ft asphalt path on one side or 5 ft concrete sidewalk on both sides shall be installed. Councilmember Sue Gordhammer stated it sounds like the benefit of Low Impact Development is to prevent runoff and allow moisture to soak in. In Kayenta when we get rain quite a bit flows down streets but does not build up. Is soil a factor in whether it will absorb? Chuck Gillette stated some water running down streets is unavoidable in bigger storms events. We design storm drain facilities to handle once in every 10 year storm event and no way to get away from lots of water running down. Every year events we don't want to see as much runoff in those. In Kayenta underground basins are taking place, so you may not see it going underground but that is why water does not pond up. Councilmember Sue Gordhammer stated if we do not have curb or sidewalks this would be done on 25 mph speed limit areas? Chuck Gillette stated we don't have to have curb to have a sidewalk but we will require a path or trail or sidewalk on any road that has more traffic than 200 vehicles per day.Mayor Hart stated on all other cross-sections we require a sidewalks on at least one side and this is troubling to him to force people onto the street. In general, he does not see that being workable throughout the City. Chuck Gillette stated that we could adopt a version of this with a pedestrian facility required on one side. That could be an option. Mayor Hart stated that the other thing about this cross-section and the way it is drawn shows them sloping down onto the road from both sides. Generally when you see this type of cross-section there is actually a depression on each side of the road so that the runoff has a place to pond. That is probably an oversight on the way this was drawn. This doesn't translate generally throughout the City. We have made concessions to Kayenta that date back quite a while, and would probably not be allowed in most areas now. Council Member Miriah Elliott inquired if an example of this would be on Tuacahn Drive? Is that what has been done there? There are pedestrian facilities on one side, no curb and gutter and it has that depression. Chuck Gillette stated yes. The drainage there moves away from the street because it is kind of built up. Mayor Hart stated that trail there is relatively new. That road existed for 20 years with nothing there to accommodate pedestrians and it was a real problem. We had a high school up there with kids on bikes and walking. We got a grant that helped us build that trail and it has made a huge difference. It works well in a rural cross-section. When there is not curb and gutter, there is almost always a swell on the side of the road that functions like a gutter to convey water and runs off the road rather than create ponding. Councilmember Dennis Mehr inquired that when the decision was made to put curb throughout the historic area of our City, would we say today that is something we would not have pursued? Mayor Hart stated that one of the huge issues we had during that was that the North/South sloping streets would cut sand ditches, and some of them were not little, and carry mounds of mud onto Center Street. Part of the storm water solution in the township was the paved road and curb and gutter. If we had used this section in the old township, every time we had a big rainstorm, we would have the same problem. Streets on a slope are a different animal. Chuck Gillette stated may need to approve on a case by case basis, so it sounds like the Council would like to just leave it the way it is for now. Mayor Hart stated but we are being systematically forced towards this direction and the day will come that it will be imposed on us. Aaron Baker stated the value of curb and gutter has been debated for years and years. We are talking about drainage now, but it also stops asphalt from raveling so you don't have to repair edges. It is a cleaner area for sweeping and makes a nice hard edge for when maintenance does have to happen. There are a lot of good reasons for curb and gutter or flat edge to hold the road together. It saves on maintenance. Mayor Hart stated he has seen versions of rather than curb and gutter there was a flat curb so the asphalt can abut and keep it from flaking away. Tuacahn Drive edges have started breaking away. It is a maintenance issue. Aaron Baker stated that we are watching the LID movement in a lot of rural areas and have not seen it a lot yet, but our community will see it first. Chuck Gillette stated it starts July 1st they say that is this is one method out of a dozen methods to achieve this. Commissioner Bryan Pack inquired that if the benefit is to soak into the ground and our water doesn't really do that, it rushes on down and so what are the benefits of doing this? Chuck Gillette stated the benefits are lower cost, maintenance perspective and cost. Long-term, it might be a better solution to not have curb and gutter. Kayenta likes it because they think that it makes their development look more upscale.Mayor Hart stated the reason they want this cross-section is that it maximized the landscape. No sidewalks, no expansive roads, no edge. If you travel out to the Staheli Farms area those swells on the side of the road are filled with 3-5 inch river rock so that on a slope the water just isn't carving depressions off the side of the road and carrying the mud down. if we are ever to choose or forced to make a choice, his version would be to have that kind of requirement so that it slows the seepage down. Councilmember Miriah Elliott stated that she thinks there are places that it makes sense but she is not sure what works in this area. Mayor Hart stated when you reach a certain traffic level that narrower cross-section with essentially no shoulder makes it quite dangerous for the cyclists. He doesn't know what the level of traffic needs to be, but there needs to be a wide enough paved shoulder for cyclists to get far enough off the road. Three of the four fatalities involved cyclists so that needs to be addressed. Is there a traffic size that now we reach? Aaron Baker stated he is not sure if there is a hard and fast number for volume of cyclists or vehicles. It depends on a lot of factors, width of the road, what is in the clear zone, grade, etc. Curb and gutter would have a lot to do with that as well. Mayor Hart stated for now we won't draw that in for the rest of the City. Councilmember Miriah Elliott stated that it seems challenging where there are areas where it doesn't make sense. She hears the concerns but we should keep open to the idea and revisit it as we get more information. Chuck Gillette stated looking at some LID options, a simple solution is disconnecting roof drains from the street and requiring roof runoff to run through a vegetative strip. We have gotten information for this whole region that shows maybe we can achieve 70% to 75% of the LID requirements by just doing that one thing.Mayor Hart stated he has probably had 50 requests over the years from people living in Padre Canyon Estates if we would put curb and gutter through there. They do not like the way that road system works. Chuck Gillette stated that one is bad because they don't really have drainage on the sides of the road. Everyone kind of drains through their back yard there. So cross-section 3 is a residential collector and we don't have a whole lot of those in the City but higher volume road where homes still front it. Minor collectors carry a bit more traffic and usually homes do not front them and bigger landscape buffer, 20 feet. We would like you to consider areas where we have put a 10 foot trail and a 20 foot landscape buffer, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for vegetation. Consider whether or not we could put a bigger landscape buffer in those areas. Another option would be to narrow the trail down to 8 feet, which is the minimum we would want. Councilmember Dennis Mehr stated that he would keep the trails a little wider. On 200 East just south of Lightfoot's, how much landscape buffer is on that road? Is that a major collector? Chuck Gillette stated yes where it fronts homes we have a bigger landscape buffer. The City owns the trail but homeowners landscape and maintain to the curb. In other areas there is no room for landscape between the trail and the curb. Councilmember Sue Gordhammer stated she likes the idea of a larger landscape buffer, but how many minor collectors do we have? She thinks it is good on anything over a minor collector to have that extra landscape buffer. Chuck Gillette stated yes this 20 foot landscape buffer is for both minor and major collectors. Mayor Hart stated they don't appear to be pinched at all for landscaping. They look good. Chuck Gillette stated they dedicated excess for a density bonus. Commissioner Doug Clifford stated that if you add more space, you add more upkeep. We don't need it to be a park but people work hard trying to keep that area clean. He would keep it at 20 feet. Chuck Gillette stated that it sounds like we are leaning that way. Puerto Drive is the last cross-section we approved and we were putting a sidewalk on the west side of Puerto Drive and a shared-use path between curb and gutter and the travel area using some sort of separation curb. We have not been able to figure out how to fund this project and the 5 ft sidewalk, but beyond that we think we have a good chance to get safe routes to school funds to put this sidewalk in. Instead of tearing up people's landscaping and redoing driveways to get the sidewalk to work and getting easements, we decided it would be better to move the curb, gutter and sidewalk into the road section 5 feet and put the sidewalk right where the curb and gutter is. We could get a grant from the State on safe routes to schools to fund that because of Vista School and all the congestion around it. We would like to discuss a different cross-section on Puerto Drive. Mayor Hart inquired why we wouldn't do curb and gutter on both sides? The big problem on Puerto Drive is the driveways all drop down to curb and gutter elevations. There would have to be all these transitional driveways. Chuck Gillette stated there are more homes on the west side, but we may get funding easier if we do it on west side because it is on the same side as the crosswalk. We got a request from John Reed that we update our traffic study to include a bike lane on Puerto Drive, because he said it was a great route for cyclists. We have an example of how we can do that and still have parking on one side. Or eliminate parking on both sides.Councilmember Dennis Mehr stated it looks odd. It sounds like we are telling people that live there that they can't have visitors or their own cars, that they have less priority than the passersby riding through a neighborhood on a bike but doesn't live there. He doesn't think that is going to work. Aaron Baker stated our standard shows 48 feet but it is like 45 feet. Chuck Gillette stated that Puerto Drive currently has 45 feet and the cross-section shows 48 feet. If we do curb and gutter 5 feet now we only have 40 feet of asphalt with 2 eleven foot lanes. You can almost park a car in the remaining 6 feet, not a truck. Mayor Hart stated that bike lanes are different when it is against curb and gutter than it is when it is against parking because most times cars are not parked there.Chuck Gillette stated good point. Councilmember Miriah Elliott stated that there is some confusion about driving and parking lanes and making that a clear differentiation.Chuck Gillette stated when you are making a right on Puerto Drive from Center Street some people will drive down the shoulder instead of the lane. That will be fixed with our next striping project next month. Mayor Hart inquired how much width do you need for a parking lane?Chuck Gillette stated 7 ft. Aaron Baker stated yes that is a good minimum.Mayor Hart stated and a 4 ft bike lane is pretty much what we see down the Parkway.Chuck Gillette stated yes but they have curb and gutter next to it which gives a little extra space. Councilmember Sue Gordhammer stated she thinks having the bike lane on the inside of the parking is odd. We may not have a lot of cars parked there, but she would run it by John Reed since he was the one requesting it to get his sense of it. If you have a lot of cars parking she doesn't know how much use we would get, and she wonders if cars wouldn't end up parking in the bike lane. Chuck Gillette stated it is confusing to consider. Maybe we should just do 11 foot travel lanes and 4 ft bike lanes and eek out parallel parking on what remains. Councilmember Dennis Mehr stated some cities don't have the real estate to create bike lanes, it is understood that car and bike are in the same lane. This street is 25 mph so maybe bikes ride with cars from 400 up to Center so we don't try to cram all this in. It is already a curvy, windy road. Those people don't want that traffic all the way from Center Street down to Harmons past their house. He doesn't believe we should create infrastructure to invite more people to increase that path. Maybe the bike lane will be on the new road that is going to go from the lava to Harmons through the Black Desert project or down 400. Maybe we should be thinking about how to get traffic off Puerto Drive rather than on Puerto Drive. Chuck Gillette stated that we have a bike lane planned for the Western Corridor. The thing about John Reed is Harmons is a hub for cyclists so they will probably use that road whether there is a bike lane or not. One thing nice about narrow lanes is it does avoid speeding. Mayor Hart inquired so you are saying having bike lanes encourages more traffic down Puerto? Councilmember Dennis Mehr stated yes it brings more bike traffic down an already congested road because of the school and Harmons. Are we attracting more people to this road by creating infrastructure? That parking lane would be really awkward. That does not compute for me. Mayor Hart stated that if anything happens with bike lanes it will have to be two travel lanes then bike lanes and parking against the curb.Chuck Gillette stated if we do that we are abandoning the idea of any type of path going up Puerto Drive. We are basically saying we have a sidewalk and bikers will have to use the lane instead of the path. Councilmember Dennis Mehr inquired what is a shared-use path? Chuck Gillette stated they are intended to be shared between cyclists and pedestrians and cyclists have to can go slow. Councilmember Dennis Mehr stated John Reed would never use that shared-use path. So he is fine in saying that the shared-use path has to go. Mayor Hart stated that the question is if at any time we think we will need a sidewalk on the other side of the road. We will need to continue this work meeting discussion to another meeting.