January 15, 2025 Meeting Minutes
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1 MINUTES OF THE TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION MEETING City of Chandler, Webex Meeting Wednesday, January 15, 2025, at 4:00 p.m. CALL TO ORDER / ROLL CALL Chair Heineking called the meeting to order at 4:01 p.m. Ms. Sheri Passey completed roll call. Quorum present. Members in Attendance: Chair David Heineking Vice Chair David Lucas Commissioner Molly Olsen Commissioner John Repar Commissioner Luis Heredia Commissioner Dan Henderson Commissioner Dean Brennan Members Absent: None Staff Members Present: Jason Crampton, Transportation Planning Manager Nancy Jackson, Transportation Planning Program Coordinator Hezequias Rocha, Transportation Planning Program Coordinator Sheri Passey, Recording Secretary, Management Assistant John Knudson, Public Works & Utilities Director John McFarland, Transportation Manager Raymond Huang, Traffic Studies Engineer Webex Attendee’s: Ryan Peter, Strategic Initiatives Director Eric Watkins Danielle Larson, AZTEC Grant Thompson, Chandler Chamber of Commerce Sean Nugent Public Attendee’s: None 2 SCHEDULED/UNSCHEDULED PUBLIC APPEARANCES None. CONSENT AGENDA None. Chair Heineking: Reminded the commissioners that when to please state their name for the recording secretary. The first order is to approve the meeting minutes from July. ACTION AGENDA 1. Approval of the Minutes of the Transportation Commission Regular Meeting of July 17, 2024. Chair Heineking: Has everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes from the July 17, 2024, meeting? Commissioner Repar: Moved to approve the minutes from July 17. Vice Chair Lucas: Seconded. Chair Heineking: I have a motion to approve. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? None. Minutes approved. Motion passed 5-0 by all Commissioner members present. 2. 2025 Transportation Commission Meeting Schedule Mr. Jason Crampton, Transportation Planning Manager: Mr. Chairman, we have a draft schedule in your packets, including today’s meeting. It follows the same format used overs the past several years - meeting every other month on the third Wednesday of the month at 4:00 p.m. The Commission has the opportunity to make any adjustments to the proposed schedule at this time. The 4:00 p.m. meeting time was started about six years ago and the commission has continued to give consent for that meeting time. 3 Vice Chair Lucas: Mr. Chair, the April meeting is out of order in terms of the cadences. Is there a reason for that? Mr. Crampton: Mr. Chairman. Yes, the third Wednesday in March is over spring break so we pushed the meeting to April. Sheri Passey, Management Assistant/Recording Secretary: Provided more history. In 2024 the commission made a motion to move the March meeting to a different date because of spring break. Therefore, we continued that same recommendation. It can be moved back to March if that is the commission’s desire. The meeting in April is also on the first Wednesday of the month instead of the third. Vice Chair Lucas: Mr. Chair, do the other commissioners have conflicts with the other dates? Mr. Crampton: Mr. Chairman, I have not heard of any conflicts, but if you want to wait and get their input as they are running late, you have that discretion to act on this later in the meeting. Vice Chair Lucas: I will move to accept the 2025 meeting schedule. Commissioner Olsen: I second. Chair Heineking: Any discussion? None. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? None. The proposed 2025 Transportation Commission Meeting Schedule was passed 5-0 by all Commissioner members present. 3. Title VI Implementation Plan for Transit Services – 2024 Update Chair Heineking: Next item is the Title Vi Implementation Plan Update, and I understand this is necessary for a council meeting. Mr. Crampton: Introduced Hezequias Rocha to make the presentation on the Title VI Implementation Plan. 4 Mr. Hezequias Rocha, Transportation Planning Program Coordinator: Thank you Jason, and Mr. Chair. This topic has been presented in a previous meeting which discussed the different types of Title VI plans we have in the city. This is a presentation for the required update and needs city council approval. Title VI is a Federal law from the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law prevents discrimination based on the grounds of race, skin color or national origin, or being excluded from participation in or denied benefits of any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. All Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grantees must comply with Title VI. The City of Chandler is a subrecipient and must submit our Title VI Plan to our recipient, which is the City of Phoenix, every three years. Our last update was in 2021 which the City of Phoenix approved and became part of Chandler’s Title VI Plan. The first part of the Title VI Complaints and Investigation Procedures which includes the Notice to the Public, and complaint forms and logs. Any complaint received in our transit services, based on the law; we are required to report in our plan. The plan includes efforts during the past three years of our Public Participation Plan and includes programs, activities and outreach of our transit services. Our plan also includes Limited English Proficiency Plan which is an assessment of other languages that should be included. Our plan identifies Spanish as a secondary language requirement and other language may also be supported. The 2024 Plan Updates (changes) include updates to the Public Notice to follow the City of Phoenix, the Title VI complaint forms, which come from Valley Metro who made updates, the Public Participant plan to reflect 2022-2024 activities, Limited English Proficient Plan, new census data, and the Transportation Commission membership. Additional updates include the Service and Fare Change section with updated route changes and the new Valley Metro fare system. Our plan now requires the inclusion of Chandler Flex services due to the Federal funding in July of 2025. A separate Complaints and Investigation Procedure is required for Chandler Flex. The plan you received in your packet does not include the Chandler Flex procedures yet that was a recent change required therefore our deadline was extended by the City of Phoenix to April 5 and going before City Council in March. He concluded his presentation and asked if there were any questions. Commissioner Brennan Asked: The number of complaints that have been filed in Chandler, if any? Overall, how many in the past twelve months - 2024? Mr. Rocha Responded: I don’t remember the exact number (he displayed the page in the Plan on the computer screen that reflected the complaints). There were two. Mr. Crampton Responded: Usually there are any where from zero to two every time we update the plan, and we look back every three years. Commissioner Brennan Asked: What type of complaint was it? Are those example (referring to what was being shown on the screen)? Mr. Rocha Responded: Those are the actual complaints. Commissioner Brennan Commented: I believe there was a federal law update in 1987 that expanded the types of groups that could not be discriminated against which included all the protected classes (elderly and disabled, not just race, color and national origin) do you know if that’s the case? Mr. Rocha Responded: I am not familiar with that law but the Title VI rules that we follow are from the City of Phoenix and are based only on those groups mentioned. Commissioner Brennan Stated: That’s based on the original? Mr. Crampton Responded. Our 2021 Title VI update plan included those additional groups, and the City of Phoenix requested those groups be excluded because it is not a covered class under Title VI. It may be a protected class under a different law but not for the Title VI population which only includes race, color and national origin. Commissioner Brennan Asked: When discussing notifications, you mentioned signs at the Park and Ride. Are there signs anywhere else? 6 Mr. Rocha Responded: These are the signs (displayed on the screen) posted in English and in Spanish and they are posted in the Park and Ride and the Transit Center facilities. Chair Heineking Asked: On the buses? Mr. Rocha Responded: There are signs posted on the buses but those are supplied and managed by Valley Metro. Commissioner Brennan Asked: But they are not in the shelters (bus stops)? Mr. Rocha Responded: No, they are not in the shelters. Mr. Crampton Added. We also have posting at City Hall and signs will also be posted in Chandler Flex. Commissioner Brennan Commented: It seems like it is difficult for people to learn what Title VI is. I know Valley Metro conducts surveys on the buses once a year but I’m wondering if it might be helpful to do a survey or include information about Title VI to help people understand it and what they need to do to educate the public. Mr. Rocha Responded. We will take note of it and make sure that whenever we are doing survey outreach or working with Valley Metro, we keep that in mind. Commissioner Brennan Commented: There is a minor typo on page seven (7) of the Title VI Plan, investigating your Title VI Complaint…at the end of the seven steps. Then he asked - If the complaint is denied by the City of Phoenix, who can it be referred to? Mr. Rocha Responded. A person has 180 days from the date of the event to file a complaint. A complaint can be filed with the City of Phoenix, Valley Metro or City of Chandler. If they filed the complaint with the City of Phoenix and don’t like the outcome, if they are still within the timeframe may file that same complaint with another agency. However, not sure there will be a different outcome because at that point the FTA most likely will reach out to the City of Phoenix to see what the procedure was and what was the outcome. 7 Chair Heineking Asked: Any other comments or questions? We are looking for a motion. Commissioner Olsen Made a motion: I move to recommend approval of the Title VI Implementation Plan for the 2024 Update. Commissioner Brennan: Seconded the motion. Chair Heineking Asked: Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Any opposed? None. The commission recommended approval 7-0 of Title VI Implementation Plan – 2024 Update. BRIEFINGS Chair Heineking: Next up on the agenda Traffic Studies Briefing. 4. Traffic Studies Briefing Mr. Raymond Huang, Traffic Signals Engineer: I will be presenting on my teams’ responsibilities. Please feel free to ask any questions during the presentation or ask at the conclusion of the presentation. What do we do? We review all temporary traffic control, review and issue permits and inspections, conduct traffic studies, signal warrant studies and traffic calming studies. When the term warrant is used in traffic engineering it means a set of conditions need to be met. We review all the traffic crashes for the City of Chandler and find out if there is any pattern or anything we can do to improve to reduce crashes. We are involved with development and CIP projects as part of the review team and we work with the three different school districts in Chandler (CUSD, Kyrene and Mesa), in addition to the many charter schools helping with school pick-up, drop-off and circulation. We handle special events like the Ostrich Festival and the Christmas parade, and review, process and issue block party permits. Temporary Traffic Control is to protect construction workers by diverting traffic out of the way and protect divers alerting them they are in a construction zone. 8 Many questions are received regarding temporary traffic control, but one of the most frequently asked is “why is no one is working in the work zone?” There are several answers, but the top answer is it’s not a work zone. In order to move traffic away, it takes up to a half a mile. Other reasons include the work may be underground, waiting for the next phase of the project or miscommunication between the contractor and the traffic control company who sets up and removes the traffic control. Recently City Council approved a new policy, passed on January 9, implementing a Traffic Control Deposit (TCD). For any temporary traffic control permits a deposit is required when a permit is pulled. The deposit fee depends on the size of the project. If the project finishes within the timeframe stated on the application one hundred percent (100%) of the deposit is returned. However, every day after that deadline five percent (5%) of the deposit will be deducted up to twenty days. The goal is to encourage and give an incentive for the contractor to finish the job and get out of the right of way. Traffic Studies: We conducted a lot of traffic studies. We collect data like volume and speed which is plugged into our model, and we complete warrant studies to justify any changes we might have. The most frequent study request is for a traffic signal control at an unsignalized intersection. The second most popular request is for traffic calming (mainly related to speed). Certain conditions must be met in order to implement speed humps. The most critical is the request must be for a local street. Speed humps cannot be installed on an arterial street. Our definition of a local street is it must have six driveways (connecting garage and roadway) within 500 feet and a speed of 25 miles per hour or slower. Other considerations are traffic volume and excessive speed. Definition of excessive speed is 32 miles per hour or faster. And finally, it requires the support of the speed humps by the community through a signature on a petition. Traffic Crash Study: We get our data from ADOT and then put it in a format we can complete a systematic study for all the intersections. We do this type of study to see if there are any trends to go up and down with crashes and/or if there is a CIP project that we can make safety recommendations. For every private development or CIP project we have a process called pre-check. If a developer comes into the city before they do anything we will provide them a list of requirements they will need to complete to do their project. School Traffic Safety: We work with a lot of schools especially at the beginning of the school year regarding traffic circulation. We have no jurisdiction over the schools, but we work with the district and/or headmaster to make 9 recommendations. Only the schools and PD can enforce any rules, and it is up to the school to develop a plan. Special Events and Block Party: We issue the permits for special events to assist with circulation ensuring people have a safe path of ingress and egress. We also process block party permits. Residents can come in and apply for a block party permit to shut down a local street at no costs to them. We provide them barricades and yellow tape with the consensus from the neighbors. That concludes my presentation. Does anyone have any questions? Vice Chair Lucas Asked: On traffic calming - does the city not use speed cushions as opposed to speed humps? You mentioned one of the negatives of installing speed humps is they slow down emergency response, but speed cushions allow fire engines and other emergency vehicles to staddle the cushions, Mr. Huang: Asked for clarification. When you say speed cushion, are your talking about those things that go up and then there is a flat area and then they go down? Vice Chair Lucas Responded: No, that would be a speed table. Speed cushions are smaller segments rather than a continuous hump so the larger fire vehicles are able to straddle whereas a passenger vehicle cannot. Mr. Huang: Responded: Those are designed for parking lots or parking structures to reduce traffic to 15 miles per hours and a lot more aggressive and does not slow down bigger vehicles. In the public right-a-way we do not use speed bumps instead we use speed humps as they are designed to be more gradual to slow traffic down to 20-25 miles per hour. We don’t want to slow down to 15 miles per hour. Commissioner Brennan: Asked. Is the annual traffic report available online? Mr. Huang: Responded. It currently is not available online, but you may submit a public request for a copy of the report. We send a report to PD once a year. Generally, the report is available around August/September as ADOT releases the data to us during the summer. The report is always released a year behind. In May/June the 2024 report will be released. 10 Commissioner Brennan: Asked. Does the report include vehicle vs pedestrian crashes and vehicle vs bicycle crashes? Mr. Huang: Responded. Any crashes within the City of Chandler and the report is comprehensive. Commissioner Brennan: Asked. Where can I get a copy of the report? Mr. Huang: Responded. You can make a public records request through the city clerk’s portal. Commissioner Olson: Asked. Quick question about the deposit program. Do a lot of other cities in the Valley have programs similar or we have one of the first? Mr. Huang: Responded. We looked at other cities and most have a rental fee. Other cities don’t require a deposit. They charge contractors per mile per day and those are non-refundable. The City did not want to put a burden on a contractor to do business in Chandler but to incentive them to get out of the right-a-way as soon as possible. If they do their work and are a good player, they will get their deposit back. Mr. John Knudson, Public Works and Utilities Director: Added. This policy does not apply to our capital improvement program. We were concerned that if we did apply it to our capital improvement program, it would implement new language within our general conditions. Chair Heineking Asked: Are there any questions or comments? Our previous meeting when we did not have a quorum, a few of us received a briefing on Prop 479 prior to it being passed. 5. Prop 479 Briefing Mr. Crampton Presented. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Proposition 479 passed with 59% of the vote. There was a legal challenge (lacking 60%) but was dismissed. This is a continuation of the half cent sale tax of Proposition 400 which was a continuation of Proposition 300 and has been in place for almost 40 years. Prop 479 extended it for another 20 years. 11 The region wide investment plan includes 330 miles of freeway, 134 lane miles of new HOV lanes, 1,000 new or improved arterial lane miles and transit operations. No sales tax will support light rail construction that will be provided by federal funding. Prop 400 allocated approximately 33% share of the revenue collected for transit but that increased to approximately 40%. The freeways and arterial streets are still being heavily funding through this program. Overview of the arterial and freeway program. New freeway construction is in blue and arterial streets in orange and are spread throughout the valley. A major project is SR-30 in the west valley and construction on Loop 101 and 202 including in Chandler. The region will continue to fund bus service (current service level), but an additional formula funding is available for transit. This may be used to either expand their transit services or help cover the costs for cities paying with local funds. In Chandler we would like to use the formula funding to replace some of our local funding to free up funding and grow Chandler Flex. Quick comparison between Prop 400 and Prop 479. Prop 400 had arterial, freeway and transit programs but also had smaller programs for bikes, competitive air quality and ITS. Prop 479 is more diverse. It has the three major programs plus more including emerging technology, safety, and arterial widening. Reviewing the projects funded in the southeast valley by Prop 400: New Freeways/Widening: south mountain 202, SR-24, Loop 101, Loop 202, 1-10 and US-60. Arterial Streets: 99 different projects (30 were in Chandler). Transit/Bus Operations: 30 bus routes; $800 million for East Valley ($130 million in Chandler). And then light rail construction in Tempe and Mesa. Impact of Prop 400 Chandler Projects: The green lines concentrated in the north and west portion of City is our funded bus service. The blue lines indicate arterial street widening project mostly in southeast portion of City. Impact of Prop 479 Chandler Projects: Continuation of the bus service. The funding for the Ray Rd bus operations will move from local funding to the use of the formula funding. We will extend the bus route along Arizona Ave to Ocotillo Rd to serve Hamilton High School and Snedigar Park. And there are arterial 12 street widening projects in north Chandler, and a few in west and south Chandler. The local funding savings being realized through the transition to the formula funding will be utilized to expand Chandler Flex. If you want more information or have any questions, I would be happy to address them. Chair Heineking Asked. When does the funding start? Mr. Crampton Responded. January 1, 2026. Commissioner Heredia Asked. You mentioned a legal challenge? There was a proposition passed? Mr. Crampton Responded. Yes. There was a proposition that was passed that requires any new tax increase must have 60% or more voter approval. Commissioner Olson do you remember when that was passed? Commissioner Olsen Responded. I believe that proposition requiring the 60% passed in 2022. I believe it was dismissed partially because it is not a new tax and partially because it’s not a statewide tax. Commissioner Heredia Asked. Are they going to appeal? Mr. Crampton Responded. The legal challenge was dismissed. Chair Heineking Asked. Questions? (None). Information Items 6. January 2025 Project Status Update List Chair Heineking Moving to the next item – Project Status Update List. Mr. Crampton Spoke. Mr. Chairman, I will review a few key updates. If you have questions, please let me know. There was a public meeting for the Chandler Heights Phase Three project on Monday. We apologize for the late notice to the commission but plenty of notice 13 went out to the public. There were seven people who attended with mostly positive support for the project. Frye Rd. Protected Bike Lanes Project received a successful bid from Granite Construction. It is going to council on January 23 to award a construction contract. Assuming council support will host a public meeting sometime in February. Paseo Trail/Riggs Road we applied for a Design Assistance grant we were awarded $60,000 grant to study. Currently the trail stops at Riggs Rd and does not continue south. Part of the challenge is that is Maricopa County jurisdiction, but we are looking into a safe crossing and then extending the trail as far as we can. We are hoping to work with the county to see if we can coordination or collaboration on this project. Roadway Safety Action Plan. We were awarded a $560,000 grant to complete a citywide study on a roadway safety and develop an action plan. We will work with Raymond’s group, our police department as well as the other transportation group in the city. However, there is a backlog at the Highway Administration to finalize the grant agreement due to the volume of agreements. It is a waiting process. But we will involve the commission with the study which will take approximately 18 month or longer. Chandler Flex – We are considering several different options for the future of Chandler Flex. However, we will start using federal funding so a new RFP was issued, and the new contract will begin July 1. All FTA rules regarding federal funding are required and will be followed. In addition, we are looking at possible expansion areas for Chandler Flex to serve more areas in Chandler. Those were the key projects. If there are any questions? Chair Heineking Commented. Chandler Flex is an amazing program and very successful. Good job bringing that to Chandler. I imagine we will see if copied from the valley, if not elsewhere. MEMBER COMMENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS Chair Heineking Asked. Member Announcements? 14 Commissioner Brennan Announced. There is now an organized bike committee called Bike Chandler. We will be ready to provide some information on the committee in time for the Family Bike Ride (if the date is finalized) and provide more information at that time. Mr. Crampton Asked. Nancy, do we have a date on the Family Bike Ride? Mrs. Nancy Jackson, Transportation Planning Program Coordinator: Yes, it will be the first Saturday, April 5. Chair Heineking Reminder. We did approve the upcoming meeting schedule. Any other comments or questions? Thank you everyone. The meeting is adjourned. CALENDAR Next meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Meeting was adjourned 4:58 p.m. ________________________________________ _____________________________________ David Heineking, Chairman Sheri Passey, City of Chandler