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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-1-20� i =' I V \k r Town and County of Nantucket ROADS AND RIGHT OF WAY COMMITTEE Meeting of 20 January 2015 Conference Room of 2 Fairgrounds Road FINAL AND APPROVED MINUTES 1. Call to Order, Approval of the Agenda, Approval of Minutes, and Public Comments A. Chair Allen Reinhard called the meeting to order at 4:01 pm. In attendance were D. Anne Atherton, Leslie Forbes, Nat Lowell (4:08 pm) Joe Marcklinger, Allen Reinhardj$ert Ryder, Lee Saperstein, and John Stackpole; there was a quorum at all times. Guests: Mike Burns (4:18 pm) and Dave Fredericks B. The agenda was approved by acclamation; a motion to approve the minutes from December 16, 2014, was made by John Stackpole and seconded by Joe Marcklinger. D. Anne Atherton offered an editorial change to her comments in Item 6. of those minutes. Approval of the edited minutes was unanimous. C. Public Comment. There was no public comment. 2. Sidewalk Survey Project: Town Manager workgroup to focus on plan. Dave Fredericks, a volunteer citizen advisor to the Town on transportation planning, joined the Committee for this discussion; he was formerly Vice - President for Operations for Southern New England for National Grid where he was in charge of many planning exercises. The Town Manager has asked the planning staff and the DPW to do something about repairing or renovating sidewalks in the Town center. With their improvement as the goal, she would like a plan to accomplish this. Dave Fredericks introduced himself by saying that he was talking with Mike Burns, Transportation Planner, about the forthcoming amendments to the Nantucket Regional Transportation Plan that belongs to the Nantucket Planning and Economic Development Commission, NPDEC, and that is required by the state to be updated every four years. As he explained it, he is an avid walker and he was interested in the position of sidewalks in the newest revision of the plan. He and Mike Burns talked about a three - category inventory, based on the survey work done by the Committee, for sidewalk segments: good condition, those that needed repair, and those that are in poor enough condition, including streets with no sidewalks, to need to be replaced. He felt that this inventory would be for entire streets and not specific to individual addresses. Eventually, Mike Burns and he would like for this sidewalk plan to become an integral sub -set of the total revised Regional Transportation Plan. He visualizes the incorporation of our Sidewalk Survey Report into the plan in an abbreviated fashion with, perhaps, the details supplied as an appendix. He hoped that the Committee's review of sidewalks and walking paths would extend into routes from mid -Island to Town with the goal of including these routes into the overall Regional Transportation Plan. Both he and Allen Reinhard said that the next steps after the physical survey were to create a forecast of costs for repair and replacement and a reasonable schedule for construction. John Stackpole commented about the good fortune that led to our sidewalk survey coinciding with the Town's interests. D. Anne Atherton wanted to know if there was a potential for State funding of a sidewalk - rebuilding project. Dave Fredericks felt that if all of the planning pieces were in place, then there would be a potential to apply for grants and funds. The completed and approved Regional Transportation Plan would provide the basis for such applications. Nat Lowell explained about previous use of State money in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) projects on Nantucket. D. Anne Atherton wondered, if we accepted State money for sidewalk improvement, would there be design requirements that were counter to the historic nature of our sidewalks. Mike Burns, who had just arrived, told us more about the Regional Transportation Plan including his wish for us to comment on key features of the entire plan. To this end, he gave us handouts: a draft of the goals and objectives of the revised plan, a copy of the 2012 Chapter (4.) on the Regional Roadway Network, a map of multi -use paths and bike lanes, and a copy of the 2012 section, 14.4.2., on the "Public Acquisition of Private Ways," which is based on the Committee's earlier recommendation to the Board of Selectmen for priorities in road takings. Allen Reinhard asked about the potential, in the near term, for funding the various projects listed in these documents. Mike Burns said that once the revised plans were in place, they would be able to look at funding sources such as the Town's Capital Projects Budget, operating funds in the Department of Public Works, external grants, etc. Mike Burns said that his interest would be to ensure that the Roads and Right of Way Committee work was incorporated into the Regional Transportation Plan. Allen Reinhard explained that the committee originally had intended to write a separate report to the Board of Selectmen just for the Sidewalk Survey and he then shared a draft of the report's outline. Now that we understand the nature of the Regional Transportation Plan and its incorporation of sidewalk issues, he asked Mike Burns if this draft was still appropriate in light of the work on the Plan. Mike Burns, Lee Saperstein, and Dave Fredericks each talked about the assignment of priorities to the work involved in repairing sidewalks, i.e, using cost and usage elements in addition to the existing work that has been done on the physical survey to arrive at priorities. D. Anne Atherton asked whether these priorities would balance the overall needs within the Regional Transportation Plan against potentially available funds or would they be just for sidewalks. Dave Fredericks asked about the level of detail to be included in the main plan with the implication that the detailed surveys might be presented in summary form only. John Stackpole said that we should not send anything to the Board of Selectmen until we were well coordinated with the Transportation Planning Staff. Allen Reinhard agreed that we would not report until the timing was appropriate. Lee Saperstein said that we were 80 -90 % done on data gathering but had not yet embarked on potential fixes and cost assignments. This meant, to him, that coordination was paramount. Nat Lowell suggested that the repairs would need to be tailored to the problems. Dave Fredericks said that we might come up with a short encyclopedia of repairs that could be fitted to particular problems: tree roots, historic encroachments, narrow streets with driving and parking on the sidewalks, etc. Nat Lowell suggested that the Town will need to create a funding mechanism for continuing maintenance of sidewalks that might include a dedicated capital fund category, a defined operating budget category for the DPW, and even improvement assessments. Dave Fredericks said that the plan should be well - formed, well- referenced to its origins, and well publicized. The publication of the plan should be welcomed rather than contested by the Town's citizenry. Mike Bums said that the big plan needs to be done by the end of June and that our draft would need to be done by April. D. Anne Atherton suggested that the maintenance plan should be part of the DPW budget. Several people responded that this was a good proposal as far as it went but would not include capital costs for those streets with no sidewalk. Allen Reinhard finished by saying that by working together we should be able to produce an excellent report. [Action. The committee should finish its active survey of sidewalks by its next meeting and then discuss potential model repairs for commonly seen problems, i.e. tree roots, uneven curbs, rutted and uneven brickwork, driveway encroachments, broken asphalt surfaces, etc. Action. Committee members should review the handouts from Mike Burns and the topic of roadway improvement should be added to a future agenda.] 3. Encroachments: rocks and vegetation blocking roadways and sidewalks. Allen Reinhard reminded us that the Town now has an encroachment policy. He reminded the Committee that the Director of the DPW, Kara Buzanoski was ready to start picking neighborhoods in Town or areas out of Town that she would pinpoint for a campaign of reduction of encroachments. Properties with encroachments would receive notices asking them to remove them; if no action resulted, the Town would do it and charge the property owner. He also said that our future task would be to identify areas or neighborhoods with "egregious" incidences of encroachments. Leslie Forbes asked if the new policy was on the web; she said that she would check. [Action. Encourage DPW to publicize the encroachment policy] 4. Public and Private access to Mill Hill Park and neighborhood public areas. Allen Reinhard told the Committee that, with the hospital's abandonment of the pursuit of Mill Hill Park, we should look at maintenance and upgrade of the trails and ways in the park. Earlier, the Committee reviewed a presentation by Mike Burns on an upgrade to one trail and the paving of a bike path to connect Prospect Street to the public way in the new subdivision. Jim Kelly told Allen Reinhard that the hospital is still concerned about the status of the two abutters' ways next to the Hospital grounds. It is their intention to use those ways for any construction that might go on in the hospital lands. Ultimately, they intend permanently to "improve the access" of these ways. D. Anne Atherton asked if there was not an opportunity to increase parking for Mill Hill Park in the prospective plans. Allen Reinhard was at the park this afternoon. The roadway for the new subdivision has been "roughed in" and reconstruction of the existing paths as detailed to us by Mike Burns should be underway soon. 5. Railroad trail project update. Lee Saperstein said, that with his trip off Island, he did not have anything new to report. He went on to say, though, that he and Bert Ryder would meet to discuss revisions to the proposed sign. He will then take the revisions to Nantucket Carving to see if they can produce another draft for submission to the Sign Advisory Board. Allen Reinhard said that the Nantucket Island Land Bank has already agreed to marking the trails in addition to the public's ability to use our trails. Lee Saperstein suggested that once we had an approval for the sign, we should approach the Town and the Nantucket Conservation Foundation for their consent. 6. Old, New or other business. Mike Burns asked about recreational trails in the open spaces of Nantucket. Allen Reinhard said that we had cooperated with the consultants who were renewing the Open Space Plan and had reviewed their first suggestions on trails. He was disappointed that the report was not yet ready for review by the public. Joe Marcklinger told Mike Burns that the railroad roadbed route is mapped and that he would send him a copy. Mike Burns would like to get the railroad trails onto a future transportation plan, even the one that is in preparation. Allen Reinhard talked about the proposals for Greenways that the Committee had discussed and that had been submitted to the Open Space Plan consultants. Bert Ryder asked if there were any missing pieces in the cross - island trails ( Greenways). In response, Allen Reinhard said that the three North -South trails are complete and able to be marked whereas the one East -West trail did have some gaps. In a separate issue, D. Anne Atherton asked about the status of the One Big Beach easement. She felt that the Committee should have an update given to us by Andrew Vorce of the Planning Department. She is also interested in the use of the "rolling easement" in the One Big Beach easement agreements because they allow the easement to survive beach erosion. Perhaps, she said, we could get this issue onto a future agenda. 7. The Committee, having completed its agenda adjourned at 5:25 pm. Next meeting: February 17, 2015, 4:00 p.m., 2 Fairgrounds Road. Roads & Right of Way Committee Outstanding Projects List: Projects Under Way: • Downtown Sidewalk Survey Project. • Nantucket Railroad Trail Project. • In Town Bike Path from Washington St. Ext. to Rotary. Projects in need of advancement: • First Way Pedestrian/Bike Access and Road Improvement Safety Project. • Nantucket Open Space Plan Update. • Boulevarde to Airport road takings, and reconstruction as Public Ways. • Installation of sidewalk from Prospect St. multi -use path to Upper Vestal Street. • Bike path linking Surfside, Hummock Pond & Madaket Bike paths via Mill Hill. • Nantucket Greenway and Footpath System. • Spruce Street viewing platform. • Surfside paper road/abutters way takings. • Harbor walk. • Update Potential Takings List and process used to evaluate priority for takings. Completed projects needing implementation and follow up: • Access to Sconset Footpath, maintenance and signage. • Work with DPW on maintenance plan for public way monuments and trails. • Oversight of maintenance West Chester St. Ext., Crooked Lane and Cathcart Road. • Chapter 91 Public Access License Enforcement: Harbors Plan Implementation.