okay are there any changes to the agenda no there are no changes okay slip for public comment  try again thank you ralph's verdict presented santa barbara bicycle coalition just returned from pro walk pro bike conference in chattanooga tennessee and i just cooked it's the eighth one that i've gone to and this is also conference that we brought to santa barbara in  ninety eight so very exciting i have to say that on the way there i stopped in a small suburb of atlanta georgia to visit high school friends i hadn't seen in in decades in a long time and they live in a community which appalled me it was very beautiful rolling hills lots of trees all the roads were like narrow maybe eleven foot lanes on either side there were no buses there were no taxis there were no sidewalks there were no bike lanes the only way to get around was by car and they took me by car about a mile to a wonderful a path that they have it's like one two miles long and it was very nice it goes through the woods it goes along a creek and people would drive their cars or  parking on at the end and they would get their bikes out of the pickup truck they would get out of their cars and they would walk or bike one two miles they turn around and come back one two miles and they turn around again and do it again and like this is what they did for exercise instead of walking to the drugstore walking to school walking or biking to shop it was appalling i'm glad i live here that so much of the country is like that and i'm glad that city of santa barbara is so so so much better in that way when it cometh at the conference that went on for four days and there were like seventy five different breakout sessions divided into eight different periods was frustrating because there were so many things that are happening around the country and each session it was very i wanted to go to all of them there were things happening everywhere and it's amazing the different advances that are happening in different cities and estates and different jurisdictions around the country and i feel i wish that everybody here and members of the city council and planning commission could all be there to is there were so many ideas we call benefit from i'm going to just comment that one thing that surprised me was a new group that joined there is a spa sure of it have to say going back twenty years the one thousand nine hundred and ninety one the ice t the intermodal surface transportation efficiency act the first one after the internet inter interstate road program was essentially finished money was available for other things and the first people on board were the bicyclists because bicycles were organized all these bike clubs all these bike projects were ready to go so essentially was facilities for bicycles which got the funding for quite a few years about fifteen years ago we were joined by pedestrian groups added in we had a lot of things in common and more people walked and bike actually but anyway it made a lot of sense to join in mutual interests and move forward then about ten years ago the health industry and professionals realized that inactivity was had surpassed smoking as the greatest cause of early death in people in the country and everybody's been alarmed by obesity  diabetes all the complications of it of inactivity so they came on board because they realized that walking and biking can be easily woven into the fabric of everyday lives not everybody wants to go to a health club and sit on a ex for you know half an hour when they can get there by the bike instead there was a publication something that came out at the last meeting was from the national association rear leaders and they had a publication which they passed out on common ground and they have one thousand five hundred associations around the country make a trend tens of the trends of the decade and the cover is about bicycling and one after the other the others talk about what is happening in terms of housing in the country how much people are willing to pay extra for being in a walkable bikeable community instead of one that isn't how we're bike paths can be put in how livable streets can be conducted so it's something that surprised me is i never thought of them before that they're ones whose livelihood depends on how savvy they are about the future so they're on board more people are coming on is a very exciting time things are moving forward thank you very much i fertig i hope that if you hear anything from the conference that could be used in santa barbara i hope you'll come back to a future meeting and give us some more details on it a lot of things that i hope ok great thanks yeah i saw kind of a sad picture of a health club that had a an escalator on the outside so people wouldn't have to walk up ten ten stairs to get into the health club so okay um well i also want to give you a are the bicycle coalition a little kudos for the bicycle valet parking at the santa barbara bowl i wasn't there the other night and so if anybody listening wants to avoid the the parking reference was several speakers i just like that defined in here in the final version or just do a global search and replace it write it out instead of b your name to the minutes and so with those with those changes all in favor accepting the minutes any opposed okay accepted  let's see next is a report mtd annual reports quarterly and annual reports for july and june two thousand  are we getting a presentation on this or this is an informational item okay you know like in the past if you have any questions and sure steve will be able to fill them for you soon okay what does prepare them does anyone have sure okay so are we are we noticing a trend that ridership is slightly down that's what it looks like to me or maybe if i'm missing is there a certain chart or table in here to call our attention yeah ridership was spiked greatly in the previous year and fiscal year oh nine due to the high price of the drop in the price of gas and also the depressed economy resolving in furloughs and layoffs so yeah we've seen that and that's very common around the country actually in the last year that there's been a drop from the from on how the trends observed by mtd are similar or different from nationwide trends just like you mentioned is that okay because i think it's really good to have for the record you know if you know we're all into bus transportation ships down you know have a pretty obvious explanation that it's down everywhere and for instance people don't go to work as much as they used to because they don't have jobs so there's no reason to ride the bus for fun you know that's part of the trend increased substantially by by almost forty three percent to a total of about seven hundred and fifty zero rides last year city college i believe i can tell you that no no i'm sorry i don't have that one with me city college was was up some i don't think to the extent that ucsb was last year thank you deborah schwartz from the city planning commission would you like me to start again or should i just pick up from the last question that i was starting to ask you oh we might as well start again just to  my question was to mister moss to find out first of all what percentage if we know is the college student ridership these are the total ridership of our services and i think you mentioned that ucsb is about seven hundred and list last year seven hundred and fifty zero which represents a forty three percent increase and then you didn't have city college numbers a handy is that correct that is correct so my next question was going to be  ether mtd has been asked to had been asked proactively to review ucs b's long range development plan visa the possibly increasing there's financial support for  city services that are impacted by current student ridership and other services of course but today we're just talking transportation and then with their proposal to increase student population i believe undergraduate by around five  students how does that play out for you we we did initially back in two thousand and eight now we wrote a comment letter on their original draft dir and then more recently we've had we had a series it doesn't commit that they will give provide more financial resources to mtd but it does commit that they will work with mtd on a transit plan to to resolve those issues that you're that you're discussing so we were we were happy with that resolution yes to to empty satisfaction yes okay i'm interested in continuing to support however i can on behalf of the planning commission any incremental needs in the wa subsidies that that mtd might feel are appropriate coming from ucsb when i read the letter on behalf of the city that was going to be incorporated into the regents package i believe i felt that it could have been strengthened we didn't we weren't involved in a timely way such that the planning commission could have that kind of input and crafting the letter but going forward i'd like to support support that in any way that i could be helpful to you thank you very much thank you thank to serve that trip if you go by cliff drive at certain times a day you to see dozens of students at the bus stops i guess some of those sometimes they can't all even get on the buses i think so just a suggestion that at a f meeting we could invite kinetise in from traffic solutions they have a really interesting new federal project i went to a meeting on it the other day it's dynamic ride sharing cell phone based iphone based ride sharing where people can in real time find people to give them rides from isla vista in isla vista the city college is one of the main corridors are testing it in also ventura commuters from ventura in santa barbara so i think the committee member members would be really interested in hearing about that it's very cutting edge they got a federal grant and a really competitive process for that jessica grant public works department i'm here to talk about the capital improvement program but specifically i'm here tonight with the sole purpose to seek input from the address the city's infrastructure and major equipment needs and typically we evaluate the six year cip on a two year interval but because of our economic situation the past few years have been actually visiting our yearly our budgets on a yearly basis so that will be the same for fiscal year two thousand and twelve so just a little background and a refresher for fiscal year two thousand and eleven the primary focus of that budget was on the maintenance of existing infrastructure and safety and as a little recap that's up on the screen this was part of our fiscal year two thousand and eleven budget and again focused mainly on maintaining what the city already has and then some safety portion of those funds were from a grant so of that four million dollars about half of that the city has discretion over two million and of that two million it's  about one point five million is taken from the utility users tax and the other half a million is from measure planning commission adopted by council and then we understood at those meetings that the transportation circulation committee and planning commission expressed a desire to provide input on the ranking of projects so we dig dug back  files and the last time tcc played a heavy role in the ranking of projects was back in two thousand and two and that during that time it was a twenty year cip forecast and there was four main categories that went into the ranking of the cip projects and so the first one was need the degree of improved access the number of people served the importance to the community and timing of to the relative to the other projects second one was environmental issues the you know how complex it was the environmental review for a specific project circulation element did the project have us tie two days circulation element or a bicycle master plan and then lastly it was in any community complexity that probability the probability of controversy based on the complexity of the project or requirement to build consensus as part of the project scope so included in your staff report i believe it's exhibit b was that twenty year l and i'm not going to go over it in detail go over what the categories were as beautification so those a lot of our corridor projects and there's bicycle projects and marketing projects parking projects  walking projects traffic management projects and transit but what was neat to go over that twenty year cip list was about of the forty nine projects that were listed there seventeen of those projects are completed and ten are in process and fourteen are on the current six year cip so we consider that a good thing we've been doing i've been very busy doing a lot of work and we seem to be right on target for that so what we're proposing and this is what we'd like to get your feedback on tonight we were looking at  ranking our projects due to these five categories it's in the five categories exposure cost of deferral project delivery leverage and city policy and i'll go over a little diagram that we put together and so for exposure we'd have it ranked on a point system and then there would be a multiplier like i had mentioned the bulk of our past cip budget years really focus on maintenance and safety so we had assigned the higher multiplier for those categories of so exposure and cost of defer so for example if there was a safety concern like for a intersection has the highest amount of collisions in our city and so that one we would fill with need immediate attention so requires maybe within two years span so that would be rated at given three points maybe another project so cost of deferral well what is that in relation to to do it now versus in the future a good example of one that would be rated high in this category would be the under the streets capital would be this pavement maintenance that we try and do it now because if you forecast in the future with inflation all of that it's much more expensive to do it out yes than it is to try and you know do it on a regular basis  project delivery again when we think of review process a lot of its tied with environmental review can this be done in within city review or or state or federal review which is common for our streets projects under six months would it be between six months in a year or over a year and then leverage again would be on a point system so the ones that would be rated higher in this category is if they have grant funding some projects that come to mind that are high in leverage in our streets capital would be our bridge projects where we're getting either a hundred percent or or eighty percent funding on those and the last one would be city policy and that would be again directly related to this circulation element bicycle master plan master plan or council direction of a certain policy so just to give a quick example of how it would be there would be state projects a b and c funding and yes it's under one of our policies and project b maybe it's not as high on our the safety list the deferral that whether you do it now or later not too much of a difference and anticipated cost delivery for that one maybe you can get it through city state federal processes rather quickly leverage maybe we have some grant funding for that so anyway when we go through and rate all the projects we'd end up with totals and then the weighted totals and that would we're hoping to use this sort of system just as a tool we'd like to think still we would use  human judgment on top of this as well so say for example we have a maybe five very similar rated projects like project a and we're continuing to move on those but maybe there's a gap in time where maybe project b we can slide in between the project eight time frames or and that we would maybe bounce that to you know higher on the list because of that so anyway that's what we would like your input on tonight and again we do have i have an exhibit a the list of the streets capital projects and they're approximately a hundred projects that we are dealing with the list that i have again is in draft form and we hope that at the next meeting have the final yes list of projects but again with that and with the fiscal year two thousand and twelve budget we'd like to get your input as far as a ranking of the projects that concludes my presentation happy to answer any questions excuse me okay does anyone have questions let's see let's that we would improve the visibility and attractiveness in some way by having sharrows in there which will be installed during the next pavement management cycle which is going on right now ok so actually specifically on that question with the sharrows then because for example on milpas there are sharrows but not within i don't know what the spacing in between them are it's and i think the sharrows as a as a bicycle route is less than three hundred feet per share oh so with the paving process those will be more standard right the the installations on opus followed the manual at the time when we did the installations and now the manual specifies  three two hundred and fifty feet separation so kind of a beginning of block and mid block and then again at the beginning of the next block so we'll be correcting the cheryl's that are installed on milpas currently which is only about a three block segment and we'll be trying to fill the whole length of milpas or the most um okay we yeah keep that image up there so so these ranking criteria are there your proposal right now on how to deal with what's the list like a hundred or more potential projects that in prior years would see the list and go okay it all looks good so i like this approach though i will recommend a different multiplier and that would be the project delivery multipliers should should be a one instead of a two the leverage multiplier should be a two instead of a one and the city policy multiplier should be a three instead of a one and essentially this means that projects that are implementing an existing policy should be higher priority higher ranking at all and by reducing the project delivery multiplier that means sometimes the project still important and it takes a nasty neg deck to get it through and that and the complexity of the environmental review or shouldn't really affect the importance of a project so i'm proposing to dip that down a little and leverage is a higher multiplier in my proposal just to take advantage of outside funds and you know if there's a very ripe grant program that usually drives most city projects to chase chase them down so so just admit that and give that a height slightly higher multiplier but you know it'll be interesting to test this with say our next ten likely projects and see how they come out with this ranking protocol but i think it's very rare that the transportation committee actually recommends policy about anything but this is one in my judgment right now so if we need to make a motion i'll morph that into a motion if we want to get to there because this is policy and there's a staff proposal and the committee may have other ideas and those are my that leveraging funds is important also is this threat is this sort of ranking to be used both both within categories and across categories so to compare a bicycling bicycle project to a marketing project or some other type of project is that the idea discussing in terms of writing the project this is something that we use as staff and prioritizing projects to help us assist us and what projects we are going to be recommending to the city council for funding you know so  exercise that engineering as well as the transportation staff will go through in terms of what projects will be recommending a big being and bringing back to this committee at the next meeting for your your review i just want to be clear that year you know it's your in this case you're advising staff rather than the city council right okay thank you that helps i was wondering if total project cost also comes in there somewhere if say you have a a bike lane or crosswalk project that just involves a little bit of design and road paint and doesn't cost very much it seems like that would get you know potentially get higher priority just because it's gonna be so easy to implement so i wonder if that comes in somewhere okay i think that's all i have and i could be fine with making upping leverage up right upping the multiplier on leverage and maybe changing it on project delivery as well the only thing that concerns me about the city policy being moved from a from what it says in the staff report city policy being defined as direct mention of the project and the circulation element bicycle master plan pedestrian master plan or other council adopted policy to me as long as it's in the circulation element bicycle mas master plan that feels safe man what i'm wondering i mean you guys want a stable way to to rank these what concerns me  is the possibility of a council adopted policy that says we don't like pedestrian improvements or or bicycle improvements in a certain way i mean it's not all the realm of possibility and i don't know what if that would have to be an ordinance a resolution from council or just since the kind of vague term policy is in there that would concern me  i'll leave it at that i don't think it will always be forward thinking when it comes to transportation policy and capital improvements and prioritization so that's my question maybe that i see nodding heads but if if there's any way you can make me feel better about that policy portion or could it could it be just anything that council decide anyone welcome to answer uh huh well then that's fine that's enough answer for me browning i i think yeah but those are those are my feelings on the city policy things personally i would i would leave it where it is and like you said about the human element of when we do go to look at and when council goes look at capital improvement plans there is the you know human element of you when we bring our projects to you is it consistent with the circulation element of the bike master plan or whatever but it still must go before council and they're the ones who have the final say so you know so that's why we really want to have a policy we and with the multiplier of one because we're looking at as i understand it and correct me if i'm wrong this list is just for our information of what was used at the time by the committee or by staff or who used th did develop the criteria at a staff level we brought it to the tcc for i think maybe several reviews and evaluation using low medium high as as the system for ranking across these four categories there was commission ranking in a third column and the way out of kind of meld everything together to see where they would rank overall and but those were rankings based on those four things based on these okay and we're and we want to move more towards the thing that's proposed right okay yeah i think that's great because the community complexity part that already exists obviously out there and ultimately at council but i don't think that i think we should be looking at it as transportation policy and not controversy so um yeah i possibly switching the project delivery and leverage but i think leaving city policy at  multiplier one as appropriate gray yeah i found the packet a little confusing and now that i see the slide presentation i wish the ranking criteria would have been part of the packet so i think it would have been a little more clear to what we're getting ourselves into tonight because i wasn't quite sure if we were posed to sit here and try to rank all these projects tonight you know because i've i remember right i believe in two thousand and two i had just gotten on so it was already in process but i believe we had a subcommittee that worked on it from the tcc and then brought it back to the full committee but i could be wrong on that but i think what we did in two thousand and two is we have several meetings yeah it was done ethel i think was done at  committee we just asked you many members to go back and take a look at it and kind of do your own ranking and we would come back and we're not asked not asking you to rank them tonight this is just an introduction of you know look at their criteria do you think is this a good way to go  i i do think this is a lot better way to go than how we did it in the past as far as changing anything right now i like staff to look at it and maybe look at a committee member pritchard suggestions and see if that makes we did is in engineering had a methodology they they have been using it for a couple of years and then drew being the numbers type person see want to put a more of a quantified method together so we have actually show some rankings so it was just yeah we think this is the best project you know how did we come to the conclusion that this is a highest ranking project well i think this is a good way to go in the future so i'm looking forward to seeing so do i understand that you'll come back to us with all of these projects after you plug in the numbers and see how they come out ranking and then we'll discuss it after that that's correct okay that would be at the next next meeting in work shooting at having a another tc seating dance now hold on next month so two months in a row so we'll be number twenty eight okay i i do have to mention something real quick on the projects here de la vina and figueroa on one page it says in progress i assume that is because that has already been funded so that is in the planning stages as last april i heard it was in the planning stages is that still correct yes correct okay and then the other two on daily on a daily being are further down it says unfunded so i previous method of ranking where it says that direct mention of the project in neither the circulation element bicycle plan or pedestrian plan so that sounds to me like we need more than just a zero or one then if that's the case because that would say if it's not mentioned but yet is still consistent with the policy it wouldn't it would get zero so maybe be a possibility of putting at least a one in the middle there or something okay okay i i think your multipliers are fine i don't have any any problems with those and that's it in the idea of complete streets and the idea of our roadways addressing the needs of all users you know be they handicapped folks needing accessibility pedestrians bicyclists motorists what have you  and in fact this complete streets movement is pays homage to the city of santa barbara's circulation element as a predecessor and early lead in this idea that our streets should serve everyone there should be any inequality of modes now paying attention to what other cities and other states are doing with this complete streets concept i think it's relevant to this prioritization process because they have a different construct a different structure for decision making and obviously we have an existing infrastructure that you know they're pedestrian gaps or bicycling gaps or accessibility issues  but it seems like some other leading and states have an opt out so if there's going to be a project and for some reason it can't have any quality of modes or there's an area that there's funding going to for given reason and there can't they cannot achieve in equality of modes it comes to a committee like this that basically grants the power to opt out of a project now i understand our structures different it's kind of comparing apples and oranges but it seems to me that in some ways we are kind of an opt in and for example the the circulation element needing direct mention for a city policy item to have direct mentioned the circulation element or the bicycle master plan which in effect the bicycle master plan needs to be brought back to us again because it was react without any real consideration and so there probably aren't that many new projects because there wasn't that many sought after and included so if you all could address my concern at all i feel like city policy obviously you know the final stamp of approval is city council but in terms of the projects that staff bring forward to that i mean i could just be totally off here but i'm just concerned about the circulation element not being strongly enough represented with the slate of projects and the prioritization process as compared to some newer structures for complete streets or other cities okay thank you mister france yeah i also have a general comment the i know we've talked i see the the parking master plan and a few different guises there and we've talked in this committee about the importance of parking master plan you know a lot of the evidence from around the country shows that parking policy is probably the most effective in changing the way things operate in the downtown area now i know with plans santa barbara it doesn't look like we're getting closer to any consensus on parking policy but i just want to sort of reiterate the importance of not just letting that slide through the cracks forever and keep pushing if i could request staff to keep pushing for that to happen at some point for the column on points i suggest and hope others agreed like like what steve moss was mentioning perhaps we could have two points if the project is specified by policy one point if the project is consistent with policy and then zero points if it's not relevant to the policy and i think that'll help get a little bit more of a spread because as someone else read the more specific definition of that and when a simple a clear interpretation would be that that planning document from ten years ago had t identify that street and intersection by name in order to be you know in the plan so by having a concept it's in the plan versus consistent with the plan i think that gets to where we want to go that a proposed project it gets a little more recognition so let's let's have the the range of points you know zero one and two and if i could maybe compromise with policy category is also about our existing bike plan pedestrian plan parking plan all these great guidance visionary documents at times so  maybe the multiplier could be a you know i originally said three but maybe it could be a two to give a little more emphasis in our in our process that  we really should respect what the plans are all about and not do not have it be so small a number that being in a plan or not in a plan ends up being kind of irrelevant on how to pick projects and a concern that  if it's in a plan or if the council says something about it i get that completely but at the same time if the council as a peeve about a pedestrian project as being good or bad they're gonna have that outcome anyway regardless of what the staff recommendation is and we've seen that plenty of times so anyway am i suggesting in summation for this use a multiplier of two instead of the staff proposal of one i originally said three  have that spread of points zero one and two instead of zero or one right now and then as browning setter so we're really going to see this at our next meeting you're going to apply these criteria okay so maybe you can take our consensus of committee proposed criteria run it you know cuz you're a whiz with spreadsheets and then do it your staff proposal tonight and run it we'll see if it even makes a difference in the end may not may be subtle so that that's a procedure way to go if we indeed are having a meeting next month which is great and have one other question very off the criteria point a couple of weeks ago at the city council there was an action to spend another twenty thousand dollars to design the  project from the capital program where is that twenty thousand dollars coming from which budgets getting cut to find that twenty thousand dollars actually we had money in the curio anacapa street project citied monies that we were going to transfer out to use on another project so we're just not transferring twenty thousand dollars  other projects so you thought it would be under budget but now it's not gonna well you know we got the grant yeah we got the highway safety index grant for this project so we were going to free up city monies that we were going to spend on this project so for for construction  like the sidewalk in your neighborhood  anything further on this on this topic yeah i mean the question obviously that wasn't a motion that and i'm not ne but my question to staff would be does i mean it's not like you just pulled this out of the sky right i'm guessing that true and and you folks actually you know thought about it and says what you're trained to do does the how does that hit you but is that just that you think that throws everything off if the two ideas of adding another step in city you know in terms of adding you know one two and three or two one zero in city of policy you know we're okay with that that makes sense a multiplier we want to talk internally about it that's something we can take a look at and you know i'll talk to my staff why we bought it before you and we'll see how it's gonna shake out right thank you i guess the criterion i mentioned about total costs might come under project delivery that is not just the length of time for review but also to find the funds and do the project okay our next item is plan santa barbara update could i not have walked in at a more perfect time so good evening tcc members my name is rob dayton transportable transportation planning planner and i'm here to show you a stack of documents which represents the end of probably about three years of work over about five years time and it is the end of planned santa barbara as we know it the twenty year planning document that lifts twenty years into the future that talks to our speaks to our policy in our city and gives us direction for where we're supposed to go and how we're supposed to be more sustainable and the last time you saw it we were kind of button the traffic modeling effort which we just had a i think a very very successful time identifying where we need to be what are the challenges that are set before us and and and what we need to put in our general plan for transportation future so i'm gonna just just kind of walk you through some of the documents all of these are on the on the you plan santa barbara dot org website but also you're welcome to borrow any of my  copies if you want to you want to we can also get you some some cart hard copies too just to look at because it's very expensive to print all these things but the first document i want to show to you is the the general the general plan document this is the first time that we've had various parts of the general plan under one cover in other words not just a land use element the housing element the circulation element will all be under one cover with direction allure a guiding principle for the process and inside here under the transportation you will find many good things i hope you are able to look at that and see how it's changed how it's morphed it has changed somewhat from when the planning commission recommended to the council you'll recall that they were recommending a a robust tdm strategy and they have pulled back a little bit from that based on what we've heard we've pulled back a lot and the the tdm strategies that are in this document are more of a of a will be folded into the adaptive management program in other words so as the as we move forward in time and and the city incurs congestion or their problems arise they'll have the tools which is the tdm the transportation demand management tools in this document they're reference to pick from to then implement as they see fit to avoid or reduce congestion as it occurs so and that adaptive management program was always viewed as a is a very strong asset of this document in other words that it can change over time that there we it's it's a it's a tool to add or adjust our course so we're not waiting twenty years to adjust course but we're doing it over time as things happen so those are all in appendices to that and then the final the final program environmental impact report which has all the the traffic modeling information and all how the travel demand management strategies impact traffic what can we expect over the next twenty years one of the other things that the council adjusted is you will call the planning chemists commission was recommending a million square feet of commercial over a thousand years or not we call it non residential it's easier to say commercial that for understanding is excuse me for twenty years is that we have it's now a one point five million so it's just a little bit more square footage and they they dropped the housing the density is a little bit more reserved you have to look at that you know all there's there's all bunch of changes and i don't want to go over all of them with you but have you be able to look at the documents the planning commission is going to be certifying hopefully this document next week the the planning commission meetings will will be wednesday and thursday of next week and you know you're welcome to come the  planning commission does certify the environmental document and then they will forward the general plan and make recommendations to the council which will be at their you know tentatively scheduled for october t october th of next month and if everything goes right we'll have an adopted general plan at that time so i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have we've left it on your agenda so that if you want to make any kind of last words final say to the planning commission and the council we've we've made that provision on the agenda also another a great document that i'm sure you'll you'll love to read is the response to comments this is every single comment that we received on the environmental document has a response in here it's it's actually a good piece of work and then the the final anticipated that he would take pieces of each alternative and put them together to form the most appropriate alternative and that's what's been done the hybrid represents the the best of all the alternatives that the council sees thought we should move in the direction so we' finalized an environmental document just for that alternative and that's what this represents so i love to answer your questions okay i'll start at the other end this time mister moss just just a quick question  there was something involved with the circulation element and but i don't know the answer the question up but i will find out and let you know and then one other question to the hybrid pir piece is basically then what's in that that's the one that is then proposed as the general plan so that sort of matches am i understanding that right committee member moss it's not exactly that the the environmental document is is intended to consider  the proposed project or whatever the end the final project is our final alternative as best you can the one thing you want to do is you want to you want to make sure that you've analyzed for environmental purposes anything that we do the count like for instance the council could at the end of the day they could make changes to you know the planning commission that could say hey you know we like what you did here's our recommendation here here here and then the council could make further adjustments we what we've done is we've we've tried to accommodate every possibility for public disclosure when the invite within the environmental document and we feel like we've done a good job so they may not be exactly some synonymous in terms at the end of the day with the hybrid like for instance in the hybrid alternative because the council with the travel demand management strategies didn't want to assume them in the next twenty years but rather draw from them as tools we took them completely out of the the traffic analysis in the hybrid so there there is no effect considered for tdm in that environmental analysis thanks i really don't have much to say i mean i like the way like you said they incorporated all the different elements into that general plan it's been a long process it's not over with yet there's still a lot of meetings coming up i just want to say i think so far i think it has drawn the community's input and i think the city has done an excellent job trying to outreach to as many people as possible to get to where we are now like i say it's not done yet but you know i want to commend the city for trying as much as possible to get the community involved in this process and i know it's probably not as many people as we'd hoped to get involved you know but you know i think there's been a lot of citizens in this town that have really worked hard to come to meetings and do their input and so i want to thank the city for doing that  and you know it's going to be tweaked between now and you know the end of october so you know i just hope all citizens that aren't sure about the general plan to come to those meetings and voice their opinions still on this environmental document thank you um i have a couple questions but first i do want to say i think the process has been good i think the city has done as much as you can with a giant task like this to reach out to the community and i think that's reflected in a lot of the and those stacks right there in front of you but my question i mean i'll just say at the outset how disappointed i am  not a part of it um i know how much money the city spent on our amazing travel model i know how much time was spent on it i think it's exceptional  think the fact that it was tailored to our city is special that's why it cost money and that's important and i don't think that's appreciated enough so there's m disappointment my question is as you were saying if it's not in the general plan it gets kicked over to the adaptive management program functionally how hard or easy is it how  down the road some we adopt this general plan and we decide oh look the level of service at many of our intersections is much worse than it was in two thousand and ten as we knew it would be member blackberry i think that the the deal is lacking sorry plus there's the i'm just trying to think about the answer is that we you know we still haven't finalized the how the adaptive management program gets implemented that comes after the process we're going to go through the details but i can tell you that we we will we have all of the the tools spelled out and the costs and the effect level effectiveness effectiveness and which one you know and and so it's all spelled out and and ready to go how you do it and then and then also as we move forward in the next five years there'll be other more effective ideas that will arise to that we can add to the plan but you know for the most part we you know we think you're right we're anticipating more congestion over time just like we did in the past twenty years and and then the and and you know but there also could be other circumstances that arise you know like what happened with the the gas prices really influenced travel behavior so there's there's a host of things that could happen and so the adaptive management is an appropriate tool yeah and the other thing that i just wonder is what how does it happen when when cities adopt general plans and so much work and money and time goes into it i just think it would be unfortunate if if all this work went into it and then we adopt general plan and then it goes and then we try to kind of talk about changes and like reopening things and adaptive management and people go come on we just passed a general plan did all that work we're sticking to what's in that book of what was adopted by council that that's just a concern and that's not a question i guess my last question is what happens if it goes to council and for whatever reason they don't adopt it great question that is their choice or perhaps they're they can't reach agreement and it doesn't get it opted we'll move on with the existing framework  appreciate the staff and and the consultants in doing a really good analysis and you know educating people about travel demand management and the potential also very disappointed  about how far it's gotten the and worried about adaptive management we've seen with flynn santa barbara how long it takes to get the city to make a decision and  i agree you know i i wonder if you can even call it planning to do adaptive management i mean it's it's you know by the time you see the problem it's usually going to be too late to really put in a solution that will do anything until a few years down the road so that's my biggest reservation also i have to say if i was on if i was on the planning commission or the council i wouldn't pass the hybrid alternative even with all the good housing features in it a part of the reason is because i'd be worried that someone will sue the city because you you're passing an alternative that has class one environmental impacts in it that aren't mitigated consciously not mitigated so i don't know i think i don't know if you've checked with your attorneys on that but now that we have the plan with all the elements in one binding what revisions have been done to the circulation element in fact our staff memo for tonight encourages us to review the circulation element to get a better understanding of the council's direction so do we have a way to tell what's in the new circulation element you just waved around tonight versus the current  hasn't told us to change that document what we were doing was i think the what we were mainly doing in recommending the policies that we did in the new framework is that we were saying these are the these are the points that haven't really been implemented in the circulation element the one we have and that they're there their considerations they don't they haven't really moved forwards like the parking policy management stuff we haven't really touched it's very controversial we brought that to the to the surface and said you know the this is what it takes after we did the modeling effort we said this is what it takes if you really want to go to the next level of congestion management and  what's in here really had represented you know the next step beyond the more the more the more purposeful policies the more intentional circulation element policies it represents a or higher level so it's been edited to be a little bit more like the circulation element is now which is more you know consider if you get like foot parking pricing it's all about it's written to be about stakeholder involvement and agreement with downtown business owners as to moving forward and so it has that language that gives you the room so you're not saying at this point we're doing this now you're saying no we we want to consider these things but we're not doing them now and you know as it is you know it is a twenty year horizon so we in and we've said all along you don't have to start these these tdm policies now but you do have to start preparing to do them and so you know over the next let's say five years we'll probably be bringing them up again as congestion levels riser or don't and saying this one's appropriate this one you know you might want to look at this or start the conversations that are needed with stakeholders to see if the timings right as the economy turns around that kind of thing okay so so what i heard is the preferred project now does not include the transportation demand management tdm that we talked about during many meetings that's out but it's not in the description right now so what it is but it's in and it's described though and saying these are adaptive management options for the future right if that's in the general plan you've got a section called you know a menu of adaptive management it's my paraphrasing because it's in a general plan assuming it gets approved does that really matter does it is what is the obligation or the process to start using those tools in the box or picking from the menu of adaptive management whether or not it's in the general plan at all does that do those adaptive management measures have some higher status or are they easier to pursue instead of just ten years from now traffic is worse than ever and the council says well what can we do about it and then they do a project what is what's the practical difference between those those two processes well the adaptive management program will most likely be tied to our land use implementation so as we move forward it's you know it's all about the transportation portion is all about supporting the land use we've approved  and as you know the last twenty year period we really ratcheted down the amount of commercial which is going to be consistent for the next twenty year period and as you also know we have a pretty stringent standard level service standard that developers have to come under in other words they can't add traffic to intersections that have that have an impact already so as we start beating up against the ceiling like you know no one can develop which we were freely moving on milpas so as we reach the ceilings again and developers can't develop then that'll represent a you know a an apec so that we need to address it you know it's like well the development can't go forward is there any you said apex i was thinking trigger right so there's any kind of work requirement or you know the the the intersection is level b and then stuff happens over five years and it becomes level d so so what they're what's the process or the trigger of the requirement to say now you have to implement the adapt you have to adapt and implement the management in the plan is that  i'm trying to get to the point of like what's the point what what's the reason for doing this unless there's some kind of process the requirement or apex or trigger does it exist through the general plan is the hypeeeee the famous hybrid alternative is that a project alternative in addition to the four that's correct it's not enough number five or whatever yeah that's great so is that so in the finally ir it does it describe the hybrid as one of them is it given the full analysis like the others that's correct it's a it's not a it's not a full blown analysis and we didn't do a model an additional model run for it right but the but there was a qualitative analysis actually i'll just i'll just start passing around some of this stuff and almost so sort of why did you make a separate bound document that you just put on the table instead of putting it in the fat finally ir dr i think that was maybe mainly timing issue okay so does the hybrid alternative increase congestion at a number of intersections to to worse than level of service  yes it does there's a range of it's a it's about i think six intersections worse than planned santa barbara when you don't cuz plant santa barbara do alternative yeah if you recall plant santa barbara had a moderate at edm yeah and that's just a word that says you know that there's still the same menu of tdm strategies except the strategies aren't as comprehensive as was in the rob in that moderate tdm program the the plant santa barbara that was doing quite a bit to to lower or offset congestion in the future so without that plan there there are more impacted intersections predicted and so is that considered a class one or class two impact under that alternative it is considered a class one impact as you know our thresholds in the city of santa barbara are very stringent so require a finding of an overriding considerations that's going to prove that alternative that's correct the planning commission next week will have to make a conscious decision to increase congestion it is right it will have to make a finding of overriding considerations th aim for a class one what is the status in the finally i are of redefining the level of significance that has been floated during some city council meetings well we we haven't done any work on that  okay and can does your the whole planning process have a way to tease apart the housing element and slam that through to the state to meet the deadlines and let the rest of it keep getting worked on that'd be a great question  mister bradley's comment that the general plan relying on sort of these future options to adaptively managed to deal with the problem way in the future if we want to does way i'm paraphrasing it that's not really planning it's you know it's it's putting off tough decisions and that's the thing about traffic is it's just very creeps it's very gradual and so it's like weeds in my garden you know they just well six months later it's full of weeds well it was all gradual because i just watched it every day from that kitchen window grow traffic congestion is going to be the same way and maybe if we do the the plan b and have to appro the housing element separately and deal with the rest of it the chase five votes we can do more real planning in a year or two that's all th barbara there's more commercial yes five hundred square feet more okay five hundred five hundred thousand five hundred thousand more in five hundred okay and less housing okay so so the jobs housing imbalance is definitely an increased factor so certainly an increased factor for the transportation the use of our roadways that we will have to deal with  obviously i'm in the comment stage i have a few i've spent a decent amount of time reviewing what's available from the plan santa barbara website so please bear with me first off i'd like to say that i'm deeply disappointed that the political leadership in santa barbara has elected to remove the tdm strategy that was developed with community input and very significant staff resources towards the clear intent of reducing traffic congestion i'm very disappointed that this has been removed from the general plan for the city of santa barbara for the next twenty years as currently drafted i would like to say it seems clear that this is a departure from the spirit of planned santa barbara in that the community input was was valued throughout this process and clearly and i'd love to actually spend some time going through all of those documents and all of the community input received because traffic congestion is a clear concern as as well as walkability bikeability livability of our streets and traffic congestion can obviously make that worse  also i'd like to make a comment on the adaptive management tool and mister dayton if you could address this concern it was written in the the last document that i ran santa barbara document not i didn't actually see the wording adaptive management i saw the wording experimental so that any tdm measures enacted would be considered experimental and actually have more significant restrictions in terms of bureaucracy and stakeholder approval as opposed to less is that does that seem consistent with no you'd have to you'd have to point that out to me but that doesn't occur you know we're not experimenting that we were the the particularly the same way all this work to develop this results that has demonstrated the traffic model and then then we also and specifically when i say shown or empirically shown what i mean is that the same strategy was done in another community and had similar results in reducing peak hour congestion exactly all of the tdm strategies have been shown empirically to reduce traffic but remember our since we have a purely traffic model our goal is sharing bike sharing those four i think mainly although they have been empirically shown to reduce traffic all trips some amount there is no at least at the time we did the study empirical analysis that showed how much they would have reduced in the peak hour which is our as our kind of our goal to get it what what how do they reduce the congestion so it's not experimental they're they're real strategies that can and will work hey i totally agree i like to actually just call to everyone's attention the the use of the term experimental in this document and probably either just control find experiment and tdm or as well i mean there's even specific mention of you know approval with the downtown organization of any future parking policy so it seems like it seems clear to me that there's additional restriction as opposed to easier use for the adaptive management tool congestion city streets and intersections increased vehicle trips caused the number of intersections exceeding the city's level of service standard to increase from thirteen to between twenty and twenty six so not so yeah a potentially double as well intersections that are already congested would also get worse also in this document to you know two important statements application of robust transportation demand management mitigation would substantially reduce projected impacts and then on that same page a list that the hybrid alternative does not include any assured expansion of city tdm programs beyond existing levels so in other words we know that these t policies that have been vetted through a statistical process are beneficial to addressing this environmental impact and we also are choosing not to include any of them aside from city existing programs which are different from this as you're saying statistically vetted mitigation so under the hybrid alternative congestion on local city streets and intersections would increase when compared to the plan santa barbara  class two impact no reduction of per capita vehicle commute trips so there certainly will be probably increased trips but definitely increased residents with increased housing and we are looking at policy elements of the hybrid alternative would contribute maintenance of the status quo so we will have the status quo for vehicle commute trips so overall it will increase so there will be more trips so not including the moderate expansion of tdm programs would result in additional impacts to traffic congestion win compared to the plan santa barbara project it is also noted that if combined with more vigorous tdm programs impacts to traffic air air quality energy and climate change under the lower growth alternative which is the hybrid could be further reduced so in other words it seems clear that if it's still politically feasible inclusion of tdm programs moderate tdm programs would make the hybrid alternative environmentally superior so i just wanted to share that that was my brief findings reviewing the documents available on plan santa barbara org actually one other comment i'm not certain if it's fitting for the committee but i would like to put forward a motion to address our concern for the lack of tdm policy in the general plan i think i might help if you state the motion you sort of you just said sort of the subject matter but not the actual motions and you know what was a product in mind a state a  statement i think the goal and i would really appreciate any any committee support and making a more clear statement i think the t it behooves the tcc to make clear that in terms of transportation the the general plan hybrid alternative is is less it is environmentally inferior i might go further and say it's not consistent with the goals of the city and the circulation element but of you know increasing access by all modes and  reducing traffic congestion but motion was what was it was it something along lines of where the tcc would like to i guess would be boarding comments to the planning commission and the council saying that we are it's our opinion that the hybrid alternative without any tdm policies are is environmentally inferior are not consistent with the circulation without the tdm policy in place is environmentally inferior and is not consistent with the circulation element that's  so is there any discussion before we have a vote on it i i just have a further question about this i'm fine with the motion so we can do the motion then i might have it another question obviously it's not it's not done yet still give a good with plan commission and back to the council for final approval as we discussed a hundred times looking at the different charts where there's i'd like to retain my sanity but with regard to the plan santa barbara but i want to i'm just wondering we saw the robust tdm obviously did the most to manage congestion  the other parts and we know which part of it does the most which is the parking pricing downtown the other pieces is that the understanding of staff that the direction of council was we hate it all we don't want to see a single stitch of it in our general plan or because as we said like most the most good done from tdm is from parking pricing but there are the other items do you think that there's any chance that a council might bring up or discuss adding the little slivers of the tdm that were the parking cash out and the the bus passes and all the other lesser the less effective ones but still better than zero items in the general plan is there any understanding that they might possibly do that well i think that i think that first of all it's important to understand that this issue was very contentious and i think that there was a void and so again because of the controversy but i think that what we did hear some unanimity on is that we're willing to move forward with tdm where there is stakeholder and community support and therefore we're instead of assuming that it's a done deal and the staff just going forward with those action steps without further input that they're instead put as strategies that will be discussed individually and move forward with stakeholder and community support individually so from that perspective everything that we've talked about is on the table nothing been removed in the in the general plan framework that i passed around it actually you can see the yeah the verbage that we've used that holds them out to be available and then in the in the environmental document it explains exactly what the steps are to take and there's there's actually baby steps and there's big steps and so you can implement slowly  with parking pricing it's you know this i think we heard that if the downtown business owners stakeholders want to move forward with that the council will consider that and and you know i think what we heard was who would i who am i to stand in the way if that's what they want to do so i think we'd be looking with a you know working with the council and the stakeholders in that situation perhaps with the bike lane we'd be working with the people the business owners where the parking would have to be removed for a period of time right so there's so we're aware the improvement would be we'd be dealing with those individuals that are most directly impacted by that strategy but not the individuals that might but i'm just thinking when we think of stakeholder what i'm hearing is we think of the downtown organization for what for one it understood their big organization downtown connecting the business owners when you say bike lane well we'll talk we'll make sure that we get you know sign off from the business on that street what about the person who might use the bike lane it's kind of and i understand and this is not this is not coming from staff i understand that i understand the political realities of our city council right now but there are other people in the community who would like to be able to like parking pricing would create just come park downtown and use those downtown businesses i'm just it when when we talk about stakeholder issues and community issues we need to think about the whole community and the definition of a stakeholder i think but thank you thank you yeah i would i would agree with that if there's gonna be if stakeholder and community input is support is used as a criteria and there needs to be an objective way of measuring that and i know the city has methods but the one used for the oak park samarkand traffic calming a few years ago certainly didn't work very well so there needs to be a  otherwise it just boils down to politics and who you listen to so karen yes speaking of listening to i think we've honed the issue pretty well in this discussion especially defining all the stakeholders when we say stakeholders so it's not just code but i would encourage i would encourage us to set up another joint meeting with the downtown parking committee we talked about tdm a few months ago at one of their meetings and we had a we got to a great point of defining all the points of view but then we ran out of time because they end at nine o'clock understandably we ran out of time to then start to come up with solutions or work moving forward because the the basic question which which that meeting never got to which we is still hanging out there is certainly for the downtown business climate paying for car parking is bad for business to a point at a superficial level at the same time more congestion to get to those businesses is bad for business and i think people sort of get that but there aren't moving forward about how to synthesize a solution that can work for everybody so i would hope we can have another joint session to focus on that specific question or are the the planning commission could be a host for a work session you've got plenty of them already but i just want to move forward and or the downtown business organization could have a special seminar of their own they're good at that and invite us just some kind of format to get to the basic question about paying for car parking has its upsides and its downsides and increased congestion which we now know is going to happen definitely has a downside because if the customers can't get there they're not buying anything and those are i think the variables were still very far apart on figuring it out so that's my suggestion you know i join meeting is sort of a standard  product but other opportunities are good as well thank you well also just one comment on there was a statement that there's no good evidence that bicycle and transit improvements reduce peak hour congestion but i think there's a lot there's probably even a lot of numbers in santa barbara i know mister fertig in the bicycle coalition have been doing bicycle counts for years and show really high numbers in the peak hours compared to the off peak hours the same for mtd so you know it i'm sure if you want to do it do an analysis that you could make a convincing case for those services taking peak hour trips off the roads well we don't we don't have to convince anybody i mean well the document clearly states that the more bicycle improvements do does reduce peak hour travel adjust we just don't know empirically to what extent okay any further comments on our questions on this one okay the next item is format of tcc minutes in mind the fact that we are in a pretty significant budget issue kim is doing double duty she's working in transportation as well as working in engineering we would like to you know scale back or condense the minutes you know someone not have as long and detailed minutes and move more in the into the realm of action minutes and obviously if there's a comment that the member of this committee wants to make sure it's read in the minutes you know that would be in their social in written form especially if it's something we're  pritchett it's certainly great to get full respect for our committee to have video archives like many of the other boards and committees do that's it's fine to use the video as the detailed record instead of literally it's like a transcription in our meeting minutes what i want to get to is what's happened to the video recordings of prior bunch of them because i'm asking that because the the city tv staff told me that after a year they discard it so they don't keep a video record because you know memory is so expensive you know to store it on a server so i just glad you all have a dvd and i'd also like i think it's very simple now that we we have such awesome written minutes from the past let's put those up at the website and and even if they have a long list going back months or a couple years i think that's fine not a problem because there you post them there anyway and then they disappear so i'm just asking that they don't disappear just keep them up  ecause then you know we can search for things pretty easily if we can get  we make sure and they asked us how many years back so i think we have like two or three years of fire tcc reports ten minutes on the website now and you know obviously you know if city tv is only gonna maintain stuff for a date you can just duplicate the disk right but yeah so how so after i'm eating tonight what's the best estimate of when one will be up at the website or if it's or is it automatically there now well the recording will be there i would think the final version will be made public monday or tuesday okay that's great that's a very quick yeah and it is gonna have the jump reference so you supposedly can pick an agenda item on the i don't know they answer that question but that's something so we'll explore and i'm sure the folks at city tv are listening to that question so we'll probably have an answer of as i understand it the the part that takes up time is sort of making the link between the agenda and the time code don't do that just get the video there and the date as long as it's there that's serving ninety nine percent of our interest well look into that call but just real quick the city clerk's ins notices out on applying for being on the committee that you get your applications in so you don't lose out on consideration if you want to continue to be on th