public comment is speaking about no piss or speaking about mtd you will need to mark the items three or four and if you have comments for anything not pertaining to the i'm gonna i'm going to assume that all of the speaker's lips i have received are for milpas or eastside safety concerns so i'm gonna open up first uh a few places i walk around the by the missionary and i live on bath street so some of the things places i've notice that are dangerous and bad and i have talked to transportation and also the administration about these and have gotten very little support back so one is at juniper own at gart and garden street and laguna there's these ditches for drainage and i noticed that  have been fixed but these are about two feet if somebody steps down and you know about these this is pretty dangerous to me if i'm walking tonight or coming from a rose garden it's really a safety area that needs to be looked at and fix so i really asked this mister allen to look at this please another one is bath street in a nepali going onto the freeway and coming off the freeway there's no there's one there's no stop signs well there are stop signs coming off the freeway i think this needs to be a four way because and there is a three way or a three way because there is a three way on castillo street but not on bath there's a lot of traffic people don't know what to do when they come on the other apollo in fact i was there waiting and waiting and waiting to go from the freeway to go on the bath street and another truck comes over and he thinks he's got the right away and so i almost ran into him so this happens all the time so i wish transportation would look at this and also the you need a chiropractor when you go across the street by the way it's really bumpy pretty bad and last one is on i was there today and i saw somebody in a wheelchair and she was trying to i was thinking she was trying to get over on juniper oh and i believe garden street on the other side of the street is a ramp for wheelchairs but on this side of the street there's no to the city if they have concerns about the roadways just call the transportation division five six four five three eight five and kim will for them to the appropriate person great thank you seeing no further public comment again all comment about milpas will be addressed when we speak about the milpas item after we speak about our next two items so item number four so next i guess would be the approval of minutes  do have a couple of comments about the minutes are there any other comments about the minutes mister taber if you'd like to begin i think i was a little i went through these little differently because i there's a little bit different style to the minutes then we have previously seen probably more of a summary styled and of kind of a road for repetition of everything that went on so it was kind of important to get the gist of what happened here and i think the main one i have was the kind of summary at the end on page fo r my recollection was that most of the folks felt that the i guess the summarizing was the potential benefit of the right of way may have been outweighed by the public safety concerns i thought it was important to us the state that though its kind of sums up it says some members of the committee would not support this closure however it was agreed that public safety was a prior if we c after the word however that i think the majority found that potential benefit was outweighed by the public safety concerns i think it was some that up better for mine from my recollection and also on the front page i'm not i didn't have copies of previous minutes and i guess that i could have gone back through our our directory on the city web page but have we always listed of members of the public on the first page of the minutes when they come and speak at a meeting or do we just list them on the on the on the item for instance on the volunteer eo street trail easement the members of the public who spoke are listed in there and i was surprised to see them listed on the public comments both positive and negative regarding the issue and i feel like those were not adequately represented well i have in the past expressed a desire for more concise meeting minutes i think these were too condensed to be a useful reference and so in fact i would prefer that maybe we can get past for these minutes but i'd prefer in the future that they'd be a little bit more specific and but i'm willing to pass these minutes all for motion to pass the minutes so second second okay all four  thank you okay on to tonight's item i'd like to introduce the review of september october november and december mtd monthly reports i believe that we have a presentation  is that case yes mister chair members of committee sherrie fischer the general manager from the santa barbara mtd is here to present the annual report and answering these questions the committee might have on the other reports great thank you so much mister fischer for being here and briefly i'd like to comment to everyone here in the audience thank you all so much for being here we requested annual report of these presentations that we get from mtd so thank you for your patience in waiting through the m have to say about milpa street as it relates to mtv so i'll be staying to listen to you so back in the s mtv created something that we called the shopper hopper which was a little mercedes minibus that ran up and down state street did all right nowhere near the success that we have now and that shopper hopper morphed into a agreement with the city to run some electric vehicles pretty much the only electric vehicles of this size fleet in nation at this point and as you can see we now have in a one year span five hundred twenty six thousand passenger trips a lot of services going up and down the street a lot of passengers trips riding and also we know besides that a lot of times when we didn't have enough space for everybody sorry to say there are many times when somebody has to stand and wait for the next shuttle or perhaps walk down the street we're pleased to have this ongoing agreement with the city the city certainly does support the downtown waterfront shuttle to a great extent and am i holding i am holding this  oh the keyboard okay thank you thank you this route map shows you the two different parts of the downtown waterfront one of them going up and down state street purely turning around at the dolphin fountain the top a sola street and victoria and that's what we call of course the state street portion of it the red line across the cabrillo boulevard or our beach boulevard providing what we call the waterfront portion of the service ten minutes and six p m to p m on friday and saturday every fifteen minutes the waterfront ten zero to six zero every fifteen minutes and from six to nine p m on friday and saturday on the east beach side only turning around at the zoo sorry i'm forgetting that i'm doing my own button here and in the fall schedule a little bit less service to ten zero o'clock in the morning runs every thirty minutes and then ten zero to six zero p m running every ten minutes and again waterfront every thirty minutes during most of the most of the year so five hundred and twenty six zero passenger trips to do that we provided fifteen zero one hundred and ninety revenue hours and there was a cost to us to operate it of one million five hundred twenty eight thousand but the city provided out of that over a million dollars of subsidy so that in fact instead of charging the passenger our usual dollar seventy five or ten ride tickets etc were able to charge the passenger a quarter fare and that is in fact what the city does for this service out of those quarter fares quarter at a time we received over one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in revenue and we look at things from a performance point of view to see how many passengers per hour you see up there it's thirty four point six or almost thirty seven thirty five passengers per hour and for each passenger it cost us three dollars and one cent we also provide another service in cooperation with the city called the  any any input that brown might have about how the lot is run and how people can participate in this program but this service goes as you can see figueroa korea and to the extent of castillo and santa barbara street basically it is transporting people meant to transport people from that lot down to the places of business although anybody may ride it people who have an agreement with the city to use that a lot get to ride for free anybody else can pay a quarter to ride it so this is weekdays only seven fifteen to nine thirty a m and to six twenty p m again the peak hours picking up people before and after work runs every ten to twelve minutes and there's no as i said there's no fare charge if you've paid the city to park in the commuter lines twelve thousand one hundred passenger trips one thousand two hundred and fifty five revenue hours and a total cost to mtd of a hundred and thirty thousand seven hundred with the city pain the vast majority of that over one hundred and two thousand that's about nine almost ten passengers per hour and it costs us ten dollars and seventy eight cents for each passenger trip and one more service that we work on in cooperation with the city and not that we don't work in cooperation with the city on everything i should back up and say of course we work in cooperation everything but another city supported service and that's the crosstown shuttle you've seen these buses going back and forth i'm sure between the west and east one hundred and fifty seven thousand five hundred ships in the fiscal year that just ended in june and for those of you that aren't familiar with it this service is turning around at the westside mountain  mitchell training bridge and i'm pleased to say we're going a little faster across that bridge than we used to not speeding but we do now have some lithium ion batteries that we're using in this vehicle and it's giving us a little more power over the bridge we still get honked at some times but this service goes down anacapa across to the east side on coda street coming right by our main building coming right by here in fact and turning around at katara's and to the street as you can see and then coming back up polit through our transit center starts a m in the morning in the evenings only weekdays and i just described the route to you twenty three minute headways i know that's an odd number to give you but that's what it takes to get around again the same number of passengers one hundred and fifty seven five hundred i talked about six three hundred revenue hours and it costs us just a little over six hundred fifty six thousand to support this the city supports this with a hundred and one thousand because they are in fact supporting the portion that is used by commuter lot shuttle riders or that's the intent so again there's an agreement with the city that if you ride if you use the you may ride mtv for free in this service and we receive from passengers one hundred and thirty one thousand eight hundred in fare revenue and you can see there's almost twenty one passengers per hour and it costs us five dollars per bite each passenger trip thought i'd tell you a little bit while i'm standing here about the entire mtd system we provided seven point seven million passenger trips last year in the fiscal year on all of our routes and there they are can you read those that i'm joking with you this routes one through fifty you probably are familiar with one and two that's east side west side that's a lot of the reason i want to listen tonight to how we're doing on memphis the line three which is oak park the line for to the mesa and the five six which goes out state and hollister seven and eight are more focused on the goleta and the county area but they come from santa barbara going out to county health line nine fifteen you're gonna hear me talk about fifteen a lot if you're listening to me any place that i go recently and i'm looking at share france and hoping that the bicyclists in the room are also listening we have an overwhelming amount of passengers riding on the fifteen x which goes from santa catalina we used to think of that as francisco torres through viola vista ucsb and then to city college that bus is so crowded that we have left people behind therefor the one bus that's supposed to come at seven thirty in the morning getting you to class by eight zero we've had to add two bus three bus there's four buses going at the same time that's creating a financial difficulty for us on the other hand we don't want to leave the students standing behind at the bus stop so we are now in a an agreement with nova a bus manufacturer that we may borrow from them and articulated bus and i'm the other word that some people use is accordion basically the middle of this bus flexes and that bus will carry about fifty percent more passengers both seated and standing we intend to try it out on this service to show ourselves in the community whether it works well and if it does work well we would anticipate b some vehicles of that size in the future if it doesn't we want to hear that from the community as we go along and from ourselves of course then you'll see the sixteen and seventeen those are both services that also go to the mesa with twenty and twenty one our carpinteria services coming into santa barbara the twenty two which is old mission and if anybody is listening please write that old mission bus it's doing so poorly in spite of the wonderful locations that unfortunately it's always at risk twenty we've showed you the already the dwe the thirty six is at the twenty seven i stories also ucsb service the thirty six is the seaside shuttle in carpinteria the thirty seven you see we just talked about that as the cross town and that larger bar on the right side there the two zero those are services that we provide before and after school we are not a school bus company nor can we be one however if you are going to school at any of our high schools and junior high's we're traveling past your school at the appropriate times to allow you to use our service and because of the fact that there are so many people who are which again is a great problem to have we provide additional service so those are some boosters  exactly what our other rods do but they add to the service so there's more seats and there they are in order of their use just in case that i just want to give you a feel for the service levels of use here in santa barbara that's about twenty six zero passenger trips a day so we thank all of you who ride and want to listen to you and i did want to make sure i mentioned articulated buses and got you all thinking about that th you so much miss fisher for for being here tonight are there questions about the report no i mister chair i just want to note adding adding things up there one seventy five million real quickly miss fisher on the last slide i don't know if we can go back but what are the ret what does the red indicate those are the services that are supported by the city of santa barbara there's not anything wrong with the color red we're just pointing out that those are the ones we were talking about specifically miss during our roll call i did not introduce we have our council liaison present tonight thank you kathy maria for attending and thank you to all everyone here i see city staff police officers downtown parking we also have members of the santa barbara city police department present to answer any questions that might come up regarding a law enforcement and other city staff that might be available to answer questions that might come up so i'll open this up to mister kelly community meetings we had just recently and also members of the audience at these meetings derek and i listened to a lot of people's concern for their own and their family's safety of  we returned to the community to with some solutions and an analysis of those conditions that how to improve those in those conditions i sense that we've defined a process that we can work together with to reach a community solution we believe where we first start here with the tcc and then we will then follow up with a similar presentation to our neighborhood advisory committee in early february and then return here at the end of march with a joint meeting of the neighborhood advisory committee and the tcc hopefully by that time we'll have had an opportunity to mull over many of the ideas that will be presented here tonight so we can reach hopefully a community consensus derek and i were reminded at our  council meeting last tuesday by our city attorney of you know the law and in the fact that the interests of the law and the public at large that expect any solutions regarding traffic control devices that are that they will be scientifically engineered for the interest of public safety i believe that we believe that we have done this tonight that derek's presentation i'll show that an analysis that type of analysis and with that i like to introduce  thank you pat members of the board members of the community thank you all very much for this chance to speak especially the community we need your input and your ideas and we can't move forward following that tragic accident pat kelly myself and some members of our city police staff we attended to very emotional public meetings last november and at those meetings  heard a lot of frustrated people about the traffic conditions on memphis and some of the things that i took away from that meeting about people's frustrations on milpas was that there seems to be a lot crammed  memphis if we look if we look at the city's right of way which is from basically house or storefront on one side of the road to the other side of the road we've got four traffic lanes a center turn lane and all of those lanes are ten feet wide that's as narrow as they can be just outside of that there's parking lanes that are seven feet wide again that's as narrow as they can be and then again outside of that we've got beautiful big street trees and sidewalks and the thing about those beautiful street trees is it pinches down the sidewalks when when people are walking by and as well as you can see in the picture here there's street lights fire hydrants so we've squeezed a lot into the into the roadway  in addition to the motoring public that we see here in pedestrians bicycles also use the street and transit everybody is using the street and part of the problem that's happening out here is  to do with the to do with elaine wits one of the issues is when i was reviewing all of the crash history up and down the corridor there's a lot of sideswipe crashes out here that's one issue there is no space for bikes  you can see there's a cheryl marking in the road there but what that means is share the lane there's no exclusive space for bikes out there bus stops buses are large wide vehicles and when they pull over into the ollie the amount of traffic the width of the road and those to his intersections are not signalized the crash last october th very tragic accident young m street there a vehicle in the inside lane the fast lane stopped and yielded to sergio but a second vehicle according to the our police department's investigation going almost fifty miles an hour twenty miles an hour over the speed limit swerved around that first vehicle that had stopped and struck him in the crosswalk two contributing factors to this crash speed obviously and passing driving up and down memphis trying to understand how people use the street reviewing traffic count data crash data and looking for solutions at the meetings that we were at the not just to get everyone to feel for how much traffic is using milpas in the upper left hand side of your screen here that's the neighborhood north account and perdido elpis is one lane in each direction it's about eight thousand six hundred cars a day use that section now as we move south past ortega climbs up to about fifteen thousand seven hundred and then once we're south of hailey all the way down to the freeway we're in excess of twenty thousand cars per day so  the traffic really transitions from lower volume in the neighborhood to quite busy near the freeway this is the process that we're proposing to move forward tonight presenting some viable solutions to the community we need community input we need reactions from the tcc we're also going to be taking this presentation to the neighborhood advisory committee two weeks time and then in march we're planning on having a joint meeting between the tcc and the nac where we'd like to get a final recommendation that we can take to our city council and get some improvements  are not a viable option we should not leave things the way they are they were a good solution when they were installed decades ago but now traffic volumes are such that they're no longer a viable alternative traffic signal when we study whether or not a traffic signal should be installed we it basically comes down to two things will the traffic signal improve safety we'll the traffic signal improve efficiency and what we found is not only will the traffic signal suggesting we got from one of the community meetings was a pedestrian overpass this would be very costly the the approach ramps for pedestrian overpasses or under passes are very long and it be very difficult to construct in those locations and as well it wouldn't really fit in with the character of the neighborhood at the community meetings we attended there was a very strong focus on traffic signals and the need for traffic signals at those two intersections and i want to spend a little bit of time just talking about that and  why i don't believe that traffic signal will improve safety at these intersections traffic signals do not make crashes go away crashes happened to traffic signals if you look at our top fifty crash locations in the city forty eight or at signalized intersections based on our experience operating other signalized intersections along memphis i've looked at the number of broadside collisions that are happening broadside collisions in an urban environment are among the worst type of crashes we can have property damage injuries potentially loss of life these are the kind of crashes that we would definitely want to avoid as well going so some viable alternatives there is some good news we have some viable alternatives it may seem counterintuitive but removing or relocating transit stops could improve safety we'd be reducing the pedestrian crossing activity out t intersections and the pedestrians could cross and access bus stops at signalized intersections and as well this may also seem counterintuitive removing the mark crosswalks would be an improvement safety wise research has shown that in high volume wide streets like milpas pedestrians are more likely to be involved in a crash in a marked crosswalk than an unmarked crosswalk no this isn't our preferred alternative but it is an improvement over existing jana and ollie some viable alternatives for the north end of memphis median refuge island with pedestrian activated flashing lights or a neighborhood transition striping plan this is a concept of a median refuge island for arteaga what a refuge island does is it essentially turns a pedestrian crossing into crossing two smaller roadways you only have to deal with crossing half the road at a time one direction of traffic at a time so it's essentially you're crossing a few lanes you get a break and then you can deal with the other few lanes you don't have to look for a gap in traffic and try and analyze both directions of traffic as a pedestrian all at once  what we could do at ortega is build new pedestrian ramps just around the corner from the existing sidewalk ramps the existing sidewalk ramps are right at the corner what that would do is  would align the crosswalks such that we could have an actual refuge we could build the median island that a pedestrian could actually wait in the middle that gives the pedestrian a sense of protection on both oh i do need to mention in order to find enough space to install a median refuge island we would have to eliminate some parking like i said earlier everything out there right now is as narrow as it can be so we  don't have any ability to steal any room from existing traffic lanes it's what we'd essentially have to do is bend the lanes around the center of the road so that we could fit something like this in and that would take away a number of existing on street parking spaces and those parking spaces are important to our businesses on along that street so that's a very important consideration as well we could supplement the median refuge island with some pedestrian activated flashing lights we looked at several different kinds of lights we looked at just beacons a flashing yellow beacon what we found with those based on research is they have very low driver yielding that type of device feasible we also looked at in in street in pavement flashing lights again the director yielding rate wasn't so good like fifty to sixty percent and as well as some of the jurisdictions that we talked to that have them  there's maintenance problems they're not very reliable so again we don't consider those feasible either the one i'm showing in the picture here is called an rr fb that's a rectangular rapid flashing beacon was recently approved for use in the state of california this this picture was shown here is in the city of saint petersburg florida these have shown to have a driver yielding rate in the eight thousand and ninety percent range which is quite good federal highway administration did a study of the installations in saint petersburg as well as some installations in washington dc and chicago illinois and what they found was driver yielding rates even on streets as wide as memphis can be in the eighty to ninety percent range i've got a very short video that i'm going to show just so people can see what they look like this is from a manufacturer i'm not endorsing their product but they've got a good video on on you this is in berkeley california you can see they're quite noticeable they they really grab a driver's attention now one difference between that street that you just saw and milpas is milpas is wider that street had three lanes of traffic and a parking lane milpas including parking lanes of seven lanes wide so these devices  alone probably wouldn't be as effective as they would be elsewhere just the reason being they'd be off to the side of a drivers cone of vision so the advantage of having a median refuge islands we could install a third device in the center of the roadway that way as a drivers approaching you've got these three devices in front of you have really grabbed your attention another alternative is a neighborhood transition striping plan when i showed the traffic volumes earlier the traffic volumes were lower up in the neighborhood like in the range of eighty six hundred today a day  ortega the volumes were about fifteen thousand seven hundred today a day with those types of volumes we can do this type of lane configuration basically providing one lane in each direction center turn lane  bike lanes and parking lanes we could only do this north of kota though south of kota the traffic volumes are too high and we'd be causing considerable congestion some advantages to this layout is there's that's positive there's space for bikes and as well we could make all the traffic lanes a little bit wider that would reduce the number of sideswiped crashes and as well parking maneuvers would be easier because you're separated from the traffic lanes this picture that i'm showing here is taken of upper de la vina street near trader joe's this street is fifty six feet wide no puss is sixty four feet wide so eight extra feet on memphis that means we could do a striping plan similar to this and have better than memphis but it's still not easy so while this would be an improvement going even further and installing a median refuge island with a configuration like this would be an improvement yet so  there is an option to mix and match the alternative so to speak like i said this could be done north of coda of course there will be some increase in delay to traffic and that's very important to consider as well the place where to be most noticeable is at the signalized intersection of de la guerra pardon me that is the only traffic signal that this roadway striping plan would go through so any restriction in traffic when the light  is where that would be noticeable on average during the peak hours vehicles would probably experience about an extra five seconds of delay going through that intersection but that's an average so for everyone that  right through the intersection there might be somebody else that experienced ten the twenty seconds of delay perhaps even more the queues during red lights will be longer but everybody that arrives on a red light will get served during one light i don't think anybody will have to wait multiple lights to get through  viable options for jana and olli because the traffic volumes on milpas at yun and ollie are that much higher than they are tort eiga the striping plan just isn't feasible we'd be causing considerable congestion down in that area so the bible  option at yun and ollie is a median refuge island with pedestrian activated flashing lights the configuration again and all you would have to be a little bit different because of existing driveways street lights and fire hydrants there isn't the opportunity to move the ramps around the corner and send the cross walk through the median instead the pedestrian would be waiting at the end of the median if they had to wait at all but the positive thing about this configuration is that it gives us that place in the middle of the road to add that third device rectangular rapid flashing beacon some things to consider about this layout just like it ortega we would have to take up some existing on street parking spaces to make this work and as well there's a business on the northeast corner with a driveway grade about where the curb where it is their left turn access would be affected if on street parking and that access  losing that is not feasible another alternative is actually eliminating a left turn lane and left turn access into one side of the road of the other i'm not showing this alternative but it is an alternative as well that would give the p an space in the middle of the road to to wait and deal with one side of traffic on one side of the road at a time like i said again this could be supplemented with some pedestrian activated flashing lights  additional improve options that we could improve traffic safety on memphis is we can improve the traffic signal indications the side indications along memphis these guys right here and as well the indications that face the side street they all have eight inch lenses traffic signals come in two sizes eight inch lenses and twelve inch lenses the one on the mast arm hanging out over the road that's twelve inch the surface area of that light is twice the size of the eight inch lens so it's more noticeable to people people are more likely to stop at red lights when we have a red light running problem that's one thing we usually do is we get rid of the heads with the eight inch lenses and replace them with twelve as well most of the signalized intersections on memphis do not have pedestrian indications parallel to memphis so if you're walking from this corner closest to us here behind the tree and heading over there towards the signal pol shown there's nothing telling you whether or not you can walk or how much time is left in that phase so we're proposing we could add pedestrian countdown timers there as well not wouldn't that would give pedestrians more information and improve safety  just to recap the viable options for the north end we could consolidate the bus stops into other locations we could remove the marked crosswalk we could install a median refuge island with or do a neighborhood transition striping plan or a combination of all of these ollie like i said the neighborhood transition striping plan would not work so there are three alternatives consolidate bus stops remove crosswalks or install the median refuge and pedestrian activated flashing lights  the next steps where we go from tonight we need input from the community and reactions from the tcc there's some very important questions to consider what does the community think about moving bus stops or eliminating bus stops  what does the community think about potentially eliminating a traffic lane what does the community think about losing on street parking or left turn access associated with the median refuge islands these are all really important questions that we need to talk about in two weeks time we're going to go present to the neighborhood advisory committee and then in march we'll be back here to have a joint community meeting with the tcc and the nac where we hope to get a recommendation that we can take to city council and with that i'd be happy to answer any questions thank you so much mister bailey it was well researched and appreciate your presentation should we move to meetings with the neighborhood advisory committee and then the joint one when where are those the neighborhood advisory committee meeting will be february th six p m sara do you have a location franklin community center  okay how about yeah if you could just fill out one of these slips okay well then it'll come up thanks any of there great thank you so much mister bailey i'd like to move to thank you comment thank you to all of you for your patience and for your time tonight like to start with mister levi sacks and four year olds information i'm going we're really only gonna have two minutes per speaker i'm going to time you and if you start to go over two minutes i will try to politely wrap you up i apologize if if i come off in politely so to start mister sachs to be followed by mister good friend mister sachs movie mister taber can get you a microphone right there thank  what he was showing and it worked very well and it was a very dangerous and then they took it away i don't know why they did that you drive around people are standing on the corner trying to cross the street i don't see anybody stopping anywhere it's like it's a law that nobody knows about the pedestrian has a right away once they step off the off the curve they have the right away even if they're just facing the street they have the right away i think those blinking signs is the best way to go i think the parking issue on know this is really the biggest hazard of it all you have buses going down they're taking up a street and or a lane and a half and this is just obvious to anyone if you go down in a truck of any size you're gonna go in the center lane because there's not enough room on the on the right lane that there should be either no parking or parking on one side of the street only that's all i so if you noticed if you're on state street this is on if you're on state street there's a light every block you know that's a cruising street right i mean we know that if you're on state street you're not gonna go anywhere fast but every every block there's a light now i think the transportation department they have this mindset of efficiency over safety and this is ludicrous to me that safety should come first if i talk to somebody in transportation the first thing i said i hear is no we can't no we can't no we can't no we can't you hear the negative always always a negative today the same thing you're we can't do this because we can't do this we ne know find viable ways where things are safe and not so efficient della vina cabrillo street is horrible you know you try to cross there and people can't see you you know if one person stops one car stops that you can't see i mean it's ludicrous again not to have lights on career but we're talking about milpas so put a light you know spend some money put a light on each block of milpas tennis dangers not none of these crosswalk old town has a great crosswalk i didn't hear that and it's all lights and everything but just spend some money put a light so nobody gets killed there's not no accidents i think that's that's a best viable way otherwise make it a two lane street that would be interesting but i think putting lights up would cost money but it's going to bring safety and i hope they're transparent transportation part department changes the consciousness to yes we can and we care about our to keep everything in mind that she just heard and think about it and she's gonna go through all that she wants to say thank down she stepped on it and i was walking with my two children so if there was a car coming on this side the same way that i was walking if he wouldn't have walked  there's no um no ramp for disabled kids or on wheelchairs that's another thing that i seen those are the only things i have to say thank you so much missing bar to be followed by leslie seama but you do not make the intersection any safer on the contrary for those people who still do cross there it's less safe because they're now even fewer pedestrians and cars expect them less it's also made high our hands because the numbers are now down and we may not qualify even for the flashing beacons and i would like that to be addressed to what kind of thresholds there are for these flashing beacons because i know some of these do have warrants attached to them certain numbers that you have to meet so i would urge you to go very carefully and be very careful about moving bus stops around i've heard that proposal in other places as a solution it is not okay  alternative one removing a crosswalk with our due respect i do not feel it's a viable solution i was surprised to hear it presented as such it's obviously counter to city policies and i would w say no more about it alternative to the median a refuge i like that idea i would like to see it explored if it's feasible especially if it's combined with one of those rapid flashing beacons i've heard good things about those and i think that you know in combination could actually be a fairly safe solution you know given the fact that we're not going to get a signal we don't need the warrants so  it doesn't look good for that still is the best solution for me but i think that is the next best the other thing is enforcement i would like to hear word from our friends in the police department i have not heard anything about  and that's an important part of any kind of traffic safety analysis or solutions for milpas so please if our friends would like to say a word or two about what enforcement they're going to conduct th diet that's interesting but it needs a lot more studies so i would like to hear more about it before i even can say what you know i think about it so i think we we look forward to hearing more about it thank you thank you missing bur miss simone to be followed by rose al don have the alpha thrift now the bus stop and the junior high and there's constant foot traffic across ortega on one side of memphis especially bikes on the sidewalk everything and i  have felt that if our light would be better but the crosswalk thing sounded pretty good to me i am the with the flashing lights and maybe having just one crosswalk instead of two because people have to watch to cross or you know drivers have to watch the activity and two crosswalks at the same time but i wanted to ask you about the medium the medium sounds great too because you need an island to stand in missy moon could you please speak to  microphone and mister bailey if you'd be prepared to come up to the microphone and answer her okay i wanted to ask if that's going to eliminate the possibility of turning left onto ortega okay no okay well i basically it's just a very dangerous intersection and it seems like a light would be better but yeah this crosswalk might be okay not it won't be better for a trap you know driving we all avoid that intersection that's why probably that question is a good question and it really leads to why moving the crosswalk back a little bit to here enables us to send the cross walk through the media if you compare this outline and if you look where the end of the median nose is right there and then if we look at the the one for jana and olli if we were to do the same thing here and have a median on either side of that crosswalk that crosswalk has to be in a straight line between the ramps that's going to be a fixed fixed feature at jana and ollie if we were to build a median on either side of that crosswalk it would stick out into the intersection and it would be awkward to drive around people would hit it and people would people pulling off the side street would be spending more time and  focus trying to maneuver their way around that median island and that sets them up for a broadside that's not good that's what we want to avoid so it's purposeful that we keep the median out of the intersection i so to go back to ortega would the extension of that median island prevent left turns or would the vehicle move more into the middle of the intersection and still be able to make a free miss i believe naomi green hi i'm rose al donna and the reason that i'm here is i've just following up on on a petition that i submitted to city council on november th it's a petition signatures the majority of the signatures were residents from the neighborhood overtaken milk baths and yon anole street area and they do request lights pedestrian lights for the reason is is that they prefer to walk to their neighborhood stores they prefer to walk to church to the schools to avoid driving and and that's that's their preference and the reason that this was put together was because of the concern of the deaths that have happened in the neighborhood furthermore just in conversation about these matters i've come across a gentleman that his grandfather was crossing bond on m s by kentucky fried and as he was crossing someone off of milpas made a turn and hit him killed him ten years ago well i i can obtain the actual name and police report to  like but it seems that we need to slow traffic down i know that we have the bus lines like i think that eliminate and eliminating the bus stops is not a good thing it seems to me that flashers in street on an island is somewhat frightening i would think with so much traffic going by so the beacons as well as pedestrian lighting it seems would make more  sense so is that all corners all four corners in all corners on milpa street along that one mile stretch from the freeway to cannon perdido have lights and everyone has public safety it from pedestrians to bicyclists to the drivers on mopeds motorcycles or cars everyone is safe even though it you know there is that pedestrian that says okay i'd like to cross we have flashing lights it may slow down the traffic just for that what is it fifteen seconds twenty seconds to cross but at least everyone is safe thank you misess obama thank you we appreciate your work naomi green to be followed by our last speaker sharon byrn if anyone had not submitted a form and would like to speak i'll give you your last opportunity to speak on this item after misess byrne thanking the screen name is naomi green and i'm a longtime resident of  are hills and you can't see so i would like if we are looking at the milk whisk our adored the milk miss issue i would like to ask that maybe other streets be looked at and alesis is going to be more traffic because once the freeway access to the beach opens you'll be able to access it through elise o's right so it's going to be a major north south north south a beach mountain street so that but above and beyond above and beyond the leas milpas i would i would just like to urge that we think less in terms of traffic efficiency and more in terms of people on the streets of people of encouraging people to take buses of encouraging people to walk and some of the things i've heard proposed are not encouraging a one to walk for instance i'm a senior citizen i take the buses so to accept to eliminate certain bus stops means i might have a fifteen minute walk to a bus and i wanted to thank the the mtd woman who spoke i'd like to say that buses have been reduced the thirty seven for instance at the thirty six thirty seven isn't it the time between buses has been reduced why don't we think maybe about instead of reducing buses having a tram up and down mill up and down notice the way we have a tram up and down state why don't we think about milpas more in terms of the way we think about a state then as simply as a car and  a traffic card and that would mean traffic lights that would mean cutting out lanes that would mean cutting out parking spots that would mean having a bike lane all those things which we're told are not in the interests of efficiency and i don't know efficiency it means that having cars move it doesn't seem to mean that you care about people so that's that's it that's what i wanted to say and i'd like to urge i'd like to urge the committee to look at those to think about those issues  i'm actually miss bern to my mother's disappointment you still single i'm with the memphis community association and i want to echo some of the things that some of the other speakers have said the neighborhood would like to ask very much that in your planning and you looking first we are disappointed that there's not going to be traffic lights that is something we had felt would be the ultimate safety precaution the neighborhood pedestrian lights are however a good short term solution we're okay with that i think i would like to to say that one of the things that we've noticed about memphis streets probably nothing that you haven't noticed it's a very heavily trafficked street for a lot of reasons for major supermarkets a lot of construction industry a lot of gardening industry a lot of restaurants and guess what a lot of people do drive trucks and cars to use those businesses and do business with those businesses at the same time there's a large residential surrounding area and there are a lot of walkers bikers the street is fairly pedestrian hostile and that the sidewalks are only one person wide in many places this is a really big concern with the recent approval of fresh and easy right that there was you know very little sidewalk space and the store goes right to the edge of it what we would like to ask you is to please think very long term in your process that this is an old la 's style traffic street it does have a large traffic volume we expect that understand that not asking you to constrain it but you could use the elimination of the parking lane to do something more constructive like extend the sidewalk out further remove the ficus trees that are causing a lot of problems already on the street put in a real bike lane with a curb and i think some of the businesses would be very very interested in that especially if we use some of the underutilized space on the street for public parking and had a tram like naomi described in other words please redesign this street please think of a long term strategy for that street that embraces all uses of it not one over the other not disadvantaging one of the other just very balanced that accommodates the type of traffic pedestrian and vehicle and bicyclist that likes to use that street and it keeps everyone safe thank you thank you so much all right that was a lot of information thank everyone who spoke and everyone who's here let's start again i don't know mister tabor to put you on the spot but we can go comments through the table that's what i'm here for thank you everyone for coming as a land use planner i was trying to think of how to describe milpas but a lot of the terms we typically use kind of escape description of this area it's a kind of the general plan process a lot of the things that we were trying to force on downtown already happening on milka street it's a lively dynamic mixed use busy a lot of stuff goes on there a lot of people are out enjoying that area all at the same time and it's  great little community with that comes some problems has some difficulties driving around the city and kind of look at something to compare this to there really wasn't anything to compare to you look at de la vina street and  vina street is open and this is obviously it just seems less busy even though there are more cars on the street it seems less busy there's less people walking there's less park cars it's not as wheezed together  d in a small space it's the upper state street cliff drive there really is no comparison to what is going on here i think staff explained it well and describing the ten foot lanes and then the seven foot parking lane try to get a seven foot parking space approved by the land use people in the city of santa barbara they would not allow that yeah but that's what we have there and i think any of us who have parked on milpa street or used to park on milpas tree i'm one of the people used to park in mill the street and i'm the guilty of going over under on the side streets to park because it's hard to get out of your door and there are side swipes it happen along there all the time so it's it's it's with that busyness comes come some issues i'm glad to hear that we're looking towards solutions  are i think if there's a regularity it it it seems more normal and it seems it picks away some of the busyness and i think that is why i think there may be at least a glimmer of an argument for  having traffic signals at yana nollie and ortega street i think the driver is coming down the street no there's a signal at every intersection they will know how to proceed through that neighborhood and then word early in fact orderly way rather than having things different every at every intersection but i understand the arguments and don't want to cause any more broad side collisions i'm  e the the the flashing signals i was in washington dc and rented a car and was driving through the city and it's a very exciting city to drive through and all of a sudden there was just it seemed like i'd want a game show or something things were lighting up on the street and they'd get it got my attention and all of a sudden go well there's yellow signs there there's somebody crossing the street and it was one of those one hundred and twenty footlong streets and there's a long time to wait for it but but it those do get your attention and i think if there were even though it's busy with the trees and the signs and the lights and the parked cars and everything on the sides the idea of getting one of those in the middle of the street i think would make that a very very noticeable feature that  that our our busy commuters would pay attention to it's hard not to pay attention to something like that  the street and then coda street is where the junior high is so it's kind of a logical breakpoint there anyway to get kind of people in and in and out of the junior high school and hopefully make things a little easier for for kids getting back and forth along there so i  would support exploring that i also agree with the comments about the bus stops i think the more we've heard that walking is something people avoid they're moving the bus stops and make people walk more i think just in that alone would make it a bad idea so encouraging bus use encouraging pedestrian activity to me would mean having having the bus stops where they are i don't mind shifting them but i don't like i don't think the idea of combining them is a good i do want to thank everybody for coming it that's what makes the most sense is hearing from the community and i know it's a big challenge to get out in the evening so thank everyone for coming one of the main issue for me is the safety of the pedestrians in the area and in my experience having seen what to happen in cliff drive with making fewer lanes and experiencing that as i live in that area it makes me think that that reducing the number of lanes given that how crowded it is on milpas with all the lanes is really a good idea and it would serve so many purposes for safety of all the people that are using it drivers as well as pedestrians bikes buses every every mode of transportation so  had the experience of in my area the west side is got san andres going through it and there was an almost identical accident in some ways identical i can't remember how many years ago it was but at san andres there was also a young woman a young girl actually crossing at a crosswalk at san andres and nichol tarina i believe and a car stopped for her and another car did the same thing went around very fast and didn't see the pedestrian until she was hit and she was paralyzed and so having seen that and and having been affected by that and by mister romero same situation i feel like that the most important thing is to have fewer lanes and safer for everybody and i really like the idea of combining some of the other with the middle median and the flashing lights i was happy to hear that it wasn't to flashing lights far on the sides adding more clutter to the to all that what's going on in those streets visually but adding one to the middle so that  it would be much more visual and the last thing is that i would just mention is i didn't really hear too much of a discussion about changing the mtd bus stops and i don't really understand what the what the options are there but i was glad to hear the comments on those things so that's it thank you so much this one i'd like to pass on three unsafe that there are serious safety concerns for pedestrians and the entirety of the milpas corridor the next comment i'd like to pass on is from marc bradley who sits on this committee was unable to be here tonight  he agrees that moving the mtd bus stops might be a good idea but it's not significant compared to what we're attempting to do removing the crosswalks is something that he has a conflict with while it might statistically make people more safe it it's it's not really viable does not address the problem at hand and lastly he favors adding the median island and  flashing beacon at both intersections even if this requires a removal of a number of parking spaces that would be a reasonable price to pay if it would reduce the chance of another fatal accident lastly i'd like to thank m  one was immediate steps such as targeted enforcement a speed trailer indicating speed of passing traffic repainting just adding paint to the existing set to the existing crosswalks for improved visibility and placing a paddle sign saying state law yield to pedestrians and crosswalk just putting something out there remind people as as you mentioned sir campaign to and that they will work on a media campaign to slow down milpas the targeted enforcement is something i'll ask a question if we have perhaps officer hunt one of our police officers in a moment midterm steps they feel that adding signals or taken an analogy street will be the safest and least confusing solution to the problems we've been experiencing and then the long term solution we call the city of santa barbara to form a blue ribbon committee to develop a comprehensive long term milpas revitalization plan that would include updating and re engineering the street to make milpas safer for all users and a place where businesses can thrive the group would include city representatives  stakeholder groups neighbors and local business owners so thank you for those comments and i'll pass on to miss blacker bean okay quite a few and i want to thank everyone for coming out tonight whether you spoke or  not it really means a lot to me that you're standing up for your community and obviously with the tragic accident that unfortunately sometimes is what it seems like is what it takes to spur folks into action on safety i really appreciate the the compassion with which mister bailey's presentation was given i mean i i see if the city has a real understanding of there's a problem and we have to solve it i really really appreciate that i do think that it's kind of been mentioned a lot of times with the the engineering hat on ideas like you know definitely i understand the warrant situation for a traffic signal that it's not legal basically to put them in but i also understand from a community level moving or eliminating bus stops and just eliminating crosswalks well that may technically be an engineering solution is obviously not a solution at all and would would shut down the neighborhood even more pedestrian wise  question i had was the speed limit throughout the corridor i don't know if i saw that written on there i think i know what it is but if you could share just at the public good tonight mister bailey yeah the speed limit is thirty miles okay yeah we recently did a speed survey as part of our study and  the the results of the speed survey i should have made this into a slide i'll have that ready for you next time and i can certainly distribute it but with the speed limit of thirty miles an hour there's about ninety six percent of traffic is going below thirty five so there's only four percent that are going over thirty five and based on my experience working with a lot of streets that's actually quite good part part of the thing is people don't feel comfortable going all that fast on memphis if you're if you're around other traffic you feel constrained it's not comfortable to go fast one thing i should have mentioned during my presentation that i didn't is that while we were doing all our traffic counts is really interesting that we found that two thirds of the traffic using the inside lanes only one third is using the outside lanes and that was really interesting and i think it just speaks to how uncomfortable people are driving that close to parked cars buses at the bus stops you know i found a lot of sideswiped crashes out there saw when the new fresh and easy was framed out and i saw that there is absolutely no setback it made me sick it made me sick that in our city people lose it if there's not a setback downtown and the fact that that got approved in our city was shocking to me and i wouldn't walk on the sidewalk right there i'd be terrified and there are other it's pretty unconscionable but hopefully that never happens again we can't knock the thing down simon built yet but the fact that it would be that close to the roadway is is frightening to me  i like the idea of the of the neighborhood transition striping or road diet as eva mentioned it's been extremely effective in other places in our city i live near that  that do you live in a corridor and it's there aren't a lot of pedestrians but i think for a few other reasons um but traffic flow is lovely and also cliff obviously we've seen recently how much better that can be i i'd personally like the idea of that transitional striping the idea that we have marked bike lanes as much as i love sharrows which are better than nothing a bike lane is obviously better and safer and i also support the the median refuge with the flashing lights on either side and in the middle i think looking holistically at the mobis corridor is something we should have done a long time ago i hate that it had to happen this way the other thing that i would note would be in the video they had they showed the pedestrian pushing the button and it said you know proceed with caution press button to activate signal lights proceed with caution i would i would i'm not going to assume that this would be done but i would request that those be bilingual i'm in english in spanish and really any to others and as far as the whole kind of the whole area that the woman who spoke about salinas which is an absolute speedway and is terrifying as well you know looking at things like that as we kind of move out further and pay a little more attention to eastside i think is is really important have just shows it on the north side is that what the plan would be only on the north side of those intersections one side or the other at ortega what makes fitting something in difficult is on the southeast corner great in this area here the curb actually bulbs out into the road slightly by four or five feet and the problem with that is though there isn't quite enough room to put something in there anyway would because the curb sticks out into the road right there there isn't enough room at a yawn and ollie is just an example it could go on either side okay so if in this particular  particularly on this intersection i do like the idea of the you know transition striping to reduce the lanes there did staff look at doing curb extensions where the seven feet on each side where the park cars normally would be to make the pedestrian more visible to cars did you look at that off yeah a particular one yes yes sir that's um it's an alternative as well when  when we look at doing combinations of things we could do the striping transition in combination with the median refuge and curb extensions i mean there's there is room for all of those features that was the price you didn't put that as an option for this i actually have a drawing of it i didn't include it in the report but next time we come before the the committee i mean i got i cannot see it working further down because of what the lanes being so wide but for up here if they do the transition striping and if you were to do it just the seven feet or whatever the width of a part car would be i would think it would make it pedestrian a lot visible and build across okay well thank you so much for that if i could add one comment to that one thing about the curb extensions with the the striping transition there's a lot of concern in the community about curb extensions and their impact to traffic and people hitting them one thing about doing it in combination with the striping transition is they'd be quite visible if you can i'm just  lanes so visually you'd have these two thick white stripes running down the side of the road guiding path traffic past those curve extensions so that  because the bike lanes would still be inside of where the curb extension yes sir okay great thank you you know mike my other comments are like you know i think it's so important with having so many schools especially you're on the ortega area the junior high school and the high school that we've got a look at pedestrian access and encourage people to walk to school so i definitely like the idea of the transition lanes and the upper area of milpas street with all the bells and whistles that have been talked about tonight with the i like the idea the curb extension i like those new flashing  and and the medium island i think all of those i think are would work very well up at the ortega intersection i do not like the idea of moving bus stops i do think it's counterproductive we're encouraging people to ride buses and to make them to walk further to a different bus stop i i don't think that is the way to go with the city now the other intersection that janna and ollie further down definitely i can see what you cannot change the lanes so it looks like the best route for that would be to do the you know the medium island with the flashing lights and i don't think the curb extensions would work down there they maybe i'm wrong but i just think it'd be too much going on down there for that but i definitely the medium island with the flashing lights i think would work well there and that's really i mean you know if i had my way i say let's put signals in like everyone else is saying but you know unfortunately the state has their rules and warrants based on a number of traffic counts and you know i've been with other intersections in the city where the signal wasn't allowed so we had to go other routes which thank goodness other routes went recently but i would say that you know both of these we need to move forward  and solve these intersections i mean the idea of a whole milpas plan corridor i think you know years ago we did the upper state street plan to look at the whole area as as a whole and i think that's something that should be looked good evening everyone and thank you for the opportunity i won't comment on the proposal because it'll end up coming to me but i do want to talk a little bit about tonight in the process first of all good evening to signora romero on behalf of the city council i expressed my support as you grieve your son and come to these meetings as we try to figure out how we can prevent such a tragedy from happening again on tuesday night we talked about cliff drive which is owned by the state and we our hands are tied to make changes it feels so good tonight to know that we can do something on milkis and this is very heartening and very exciting  that we have power here i'd like to recognize our public works directors she's back there christine anderson and thank you to sherry fisher from mtd for staying and we have a lot of fine city st here as a testament the the commitment to making changes and and helping safety on memphis street and mister bailey i don't want to embarrass you but i think you're an incredible asset to our public works department and and to the entire city and i feel good things ahead for for the city with your with your contribution mizell donna we need to respond to your petition i need to talk to the mayor about if if you haven't received any kind of response to the fact that you've given a petition we need to figure out a way just to say we received it we're thinking about it same thing ava i think coast pueblo and memphis community association sent us an email with some suggestions and i think you are asking for a response which maybe didn't come so again we need to figure out a way to at least acknowledge that you know that we've received that kind of input we need a process to at least acknowledge your communications and that's my those are my comments mister chair okay thank you so much  i would love to ask one of our police department representatives i have a quick question for you regarding our request from the public from the group of memphis community association pueblos and i'm sorry mister nac i'm wow i'm blinking the neighborhood advisory council on the request for in terms of immediate steps for targeted enforcement and perhaps a speed trailer in that veneering and during the past year the police department's been in a position where we haven't had much enforcement because we haven't had any traffic officers basically to be able to go out and do that enforcement i'm the sergeant of the motor squad  and over the past year we probably have only had two motorcycle officers but on any given day those motorcycle officers were taken out and put into a black and white animal calls for service so the reason that that happened was because of the staffing levels at the police section was down to the level that it was i'm happy to report that recently we've received our motor officers back so a lot of them that were assigned to patrol temporarily have been assigned back to the motor squad and we'll have about five motor cycle officers including myself that will be patrolling the city and doing specific enforcement in different areas right now the officers are being assigned beats so that's kind of the same idea as a beat coordinator system so we'll have officers on different beats in the city we have six beats in the city and each officer will be responsible for that area that doesn't mean that they're the only person that's going to be there because if we have an issue we're going to have we're going to tackle it with every officer that we have available and we will be doing things look for pedestrian crosswalks things coming up real quick probably next week or two those are when we go out we have an undercover officer that steps out into the crosswalk we'll have about five or six motorcycle officers hiding around the corner and we write a lot of tickets it's pretty amazing how many tickets we do how many violations we see i mean there's just a lot of very righteous just blatant violations and and a lot of very the near misses very close near misses so and that happens all around the  city not only on milka street but we have done that on mill tha's in ortega in the past so right now that marching order orders are for the officers that are out there to give milpas high visibility and enforcement right now so i hope that you've seen more motorcycle officers in the area because you know i appreciate the public eva it's been a big supporter of the motor the motor squad and and just getting our numbers back up to where they should be so i appreciate th to just discuss any problems that might be going on throughout the city so as a beat cop or the traffic oscar we talk about this and say hey we've seen this going on and see if there's any kind of engineering angle that we can take to approach a traffic problem or the radar trailer so usually twice a week i'm talking to john russo from the traffic engineering department and he gets that trailer out if i get a request he's got it out real quick so that it's usually out that day okay but we only have one i think yeah we only have one trailer so there's a lot of like i said there's a lot of complaints at hidden valley north and milpas so we have to move it around to different neighborhoods but but that's what we do with that and i just like to also come in derek bailey as well he's been just a pleasure to work with since he's been here and he's really taken just some leadership and and  been he's been great to work with especially through this tragic incident that we have and my heart goes out to the romero family and everybody's taking this very seriously so proud of the city and and we're here to help  phone numbers eight nine seven three seven two zero and i would suggest that if you have any traffic problems to please me because we will assign that to to an officer you will get follow up you'll get a phone call we'll go ahead with the traffic trailer with a crosswalk sting is there any precedent to have something put out that's a reminder or some kind of visual cue or would that be something that either city engineering or that pd could do or even  is that even legal to put out a reminder that that the law is to yield to pedestrians i suppose that we could the the traffic trailer does you are able to put out messages on that so that could be something that we could do at the area we're going to announce before we do this things and after we do this things we're going to announce that we're doing them okay and i just let people know that if you do violate the crosswalk laws you're gonna get a ticket and you know it's it's it's serious it's dangerous and it all right i'd like to put in a couple quick comments to echo points made by by our speakers by our community members present tonight first off i am struck  i have to say and to echo your comments blackerby that we're responding to tragedies and the city of santa barbara is about being proactive and and striving to make this city great on an ongoing basis and a critical part of that is the safety and the lack of a need for fear of our neighborhood residents to walk and live in their neighborhood and i'm curious obviously we're talking about immediate steps and this intersection in specifics but what is on the drawing board for this for the mil and for the eastside safety in general in terms of midterm and long term planning well i can tell the committee we do not have anything in the near future and or to have to approve a program to do any type of neighborhood transportation planning in the neighborhood we mister bailey can take a look at the streets that were mentioned in tonight to see if there's anything we can do from a traffic engineering standpoint and in terms of you know the neighborhood planning we've efforts we done in the past we it's not budget and we don't i believe a near term future plans to do anything at this point i'm great so is that a question in terms of the neighborhood traffic calming project is that just on hold since the oak park project or are those have those funding ceased for those planning projects w answer the question is yes for both so we have not budgeted any money for it for that primarily because our budget is tight you know our capital program budget is very tight and we're struggling just to maintain our roadways you know so we don't have the money to do and they would ma this might be a good question i don't know if misess anderson is still with us in terms of upper state street which has been mentioned as a mirror for the potential of milpas what was the what underwrote the upper state street or should i say outer state street corridor study and i was that paid for how was that paid for what was that process that was paid for out of the general fund and that was remember the city council had authorized the community development department to move forward with the plan santa barbara the general plan update and that was put on hold to do the upper stage street study which you know some of the work was involved in and general fund monies were used to to pay for that  question as you know we have probably in the last two years been more constrained with fiscal limitations than santa barbara's experienced for for many many years and i think we were fortunate in being able to hold on to a level of service that many communities were not able to to achieve but it didn't mean that we it did not mean that we were not untouched and  the focus for the for the planning efforts i think has been channeled into the plan santa barbara update process and that was the primary planning effort that the city was engaged in as a unit and we had the program that supported neighborhood traffic calming that had been put in place several years earlier as a circulation element support program and that was one that  removed from our budget process in about two thousand and nine as i recall two thousand and eight was was the last time we really had it identified in the budget we're going through our budget adoption process for the second year of our two year budget  we don't at this point anticipate significant changes to our current level of service but the i can say that our most recent revenue picture is at least stabilizing so i think it's going to be important to hear from the community about the interest in what things they're missing and that would be important for us to be prioritizing as we look at going into both the coming budget cycle and the next two year budget cycle planning effort but currently we just don't have anything in the two thousand and twelve budget that would enable us to launch a neighborhood transportation planning effort great thank you  so obviously it sounds like we have a lengthy process ahead of us we have a planning commission meeting and then a joint meeting i'm sorry i'm sorry neighborhood advisory joint meeting is that correct brunning yep that's great great so i don't think we need to get into too many terrible really technical questions but actually mister bailey if i could ask you just a couple more um almost letting you off the hook for the night so in terms of the traffic the adt the average daily trips how does this compare not just to de la vina but cliff drive was not too long ago and this is similar in terms of that that option not just to have the p beacon but the median island i'm sorry with with the median island necessitate that those lane reductions or those are separate options the median island could go with either the existing land configuration and like i said the there isn't enough room in the road right now just to add something we have to create that space from somewhere and if we want to keep the existing lane configuration of two lanes in each direction plus a center left turn lane that space would have to come from the other side of the road and they basically mean bulbing the lanes i would around that median refuge island a median refuge island could also be daily trips than lower milpas would that call in the question the safety of that median island obviously i'm imagining if if you had to bulb around the median island it might not be as safe of an option if more space was created not i guess we're all after is what's the safest option here and it sounds like you've a lot of options on the table and it seems like without with with only a five second average increase in time a llegar we could reduce the number of lanes in those in those blocks which are immediately adjacent santa barbara high school and santa barbara junior high and  have double stack through the light you could actually everybody should in most reasonable circumstances be able to make it through the day llegar light on milpas in one cycle so it sounds like those are both options without lowering our level of service significantly significantly is the the key word there yeah when we talked about a levels of service for talk we used letters of the alphabet a is good f is bad just like our grades in high  school these intersections along upper milkless right now are all operating in an a some movements might become a b the congress to reduce take away lane and unfortunately level of service does not include hostile that many sections here are pedestrian hostile so it sounds to me if in in one of the worst scenarios we're looking at level of surface from a to b and we're looking at doing everything we can for so from a driver's perspective as long as there's not a pedestrian there there'd be no change from what they experienced today other than the alignment which they travel through that intersection would change  the options on the table now i don't know what consideration those will have but i think city staff is doing everything possible to improve safety in these for these two intersections i think mister bailey asked us to consider the questions of moving a bus stop of potentially losing parking for this intersection improvement and for the considerations of neighborhood transitions striping that might involve the loss of a traffic lane  it sounds like to me the bus stop is not something that makes a lot of sense but actually while we're discussing this and this fischer it's a pleasure to have you here tonight for both your presentation and for you being here for this presentation if you could speak to the issue of the bus stop i very much appreciate it and again this is moving a bus stop from its current location the good news is that in the case of melisandre hey get going up there is another bus stop that's within about a block or perhaps even considered less so that the loss of that bus stop would not be a big loss to those passengers in terms of the steps that they would need to take although i recognize that i say that gently because i'm a walker and that for some people that would be more difficult if it's a way to make that intersection safer we would be happy to drop that bus stop and again i say that gently i know for some people that's not an option but it looks okay to me as far as jana nollie southbound it's a little bit further to the next bus stop the one that would be passed that would be right in front of mcdonald's giving them a little plug bear straight in front of it again if that if from a traffic engineering point of view that's the way to make that intersection safer we would be willing to drop the stop i'm hearing from a lot of other people they don't like that option does just hearing that tonight but for us it would be acceptable so i know that sounds wishy washy but i want to do what's the safest thing  thank you so much for addressing the concern of the bus stop the traffic lane again  if i could just out a few more bits of information about the bus stop with this configuration at ortega by building a second wrap around the corner right here this is right in the middle of the bus stop so if keeping the bus stop is very important to the community  we could still do a median refuge island here but it would have to look like the one we're proposing breanna and  something like that that way the bus stop could stay right here another thing to consider about the bus stops is buses are big vehicles the bus stop again and olli is here southbound a bus stopped in this lane right here might obstruct the flashers again we would have them in two other locations on the road but it is something to consider if that's something that committee is interested in obviously we'll make a bus available to you to take you to that stopped as  is something normally that this community does not do i think we've only done it once i think this pershing park project but certainly that's something that we could agendize would be a agendized noticed meeting and we could do it in advance of the march meeting if that's something that committee would like us to do great is there enjoy it definitely sounds like this is something that and i think you mister bailey for clarifying that that would be important for both the option of removing the crosswalk and for this option of the median island so that said this needs to be considered our members of this committee i mean able to having a field trip if necessary it's also we could i don't know if we need to have the whole committee to do that it's a it's it's a very important consideration is there a way that doesn't need to be a a properly notified meeting if it's less than four let's say i'm not clear about the purpose if it's to see the traffic there which a visit would show but in which i've done an independently or if you really want to talk to people which would be very random the your idea of benefit of it good so i would clarify the benefit would be consideration of removing of that bus stop and so it would be worth just to see and  again i don't think we necessarily need the full committee to be there and one group this happens every day how many times a day you know lunch break go out or certainly a small group of us could could go out without violating the brown act just so when this comes back to us in our joint meeting with the neighborhood advisory council we could better get a feel of whether or not we think that's a fair trade off to remove that bus stop but yes i don't really see why it's particularly burdensome to just notice it and have as many members of the committee come as possible if they can't make it they can't make it but like said we can pull the committee and i think it's important also i mean in theory we would have someone from mtd there would have someone you know we're gonna derick there so that we could you know ask questions and and see what it looks like okay so what i would also suggest is in the future meetings maybe amending the powerpoint slide a little more maybe for the neighborhood advisory committee in february of if you move it or remove it where do you move it  to because that's not it's kind of hard to get your mind around just imagining that it might either go away or move up half a block or whatever so seeing those options at future meetings i think would be helpful but i'd love to do a site visit i'd drive past her all the time but to actually get out of my car park it somewhere safely and and walk around or ride a bus heaven forbid right then we could get a good picture and i think it'd be good for all of us to see great is that a motion i don't know if we need a motion why i think we have some consensus i think it's an issue it's gonna be scrutinized very carefully and if that's what it takes to scrutinize it carefully i think that's  share france and members of the committee i also want to echo what mister bailey said about a near side bus stop being difficult for drivers to see around us we are nine feet wide out of that ten feet that the lane has we're taking up most of it so that if you are waiting to cross the stop there it's much more difficult when the buses stopped near side again the conversation about where will be where we won't be and the nice thing about coming out to do a site visit is you would be giving the community an opportunity to come talk schwartz planning commission liaison to your committee as i've listened to both the community and your committee tonight i'd like to reference go back to the state street upper state street design guidelines that allowed us to take time out from our general plan update process and with a subcommittee of the planning commission along with other stakeholders engage the community along with city decision makers in a very rigorous and thoughtful and comprehensive process so that we're not just approving projects or changes to our city on a one off basis a fresh and easy project comes along for better for better or worse we hope for better for the community because it's a one off project and i think the the desire even the anguish that's come out of this very tragic incident with the death of sergio romero really should give us pause to not only look at the short term tactical measures improvements on milpas but i think and i'd like to suggest this and i'd like to talk with councilmember murray oh and another time about this galvanizing us at this time even with fiscal constraints as miss anderson mentioned to undertake a long term vision and strategic planning process for the entire milpas corridor and the east side i think the time is now certainly there's a pent up desire by the community for this and i don't think we should wait until there's possibly such such time in the future when we have much more financial resources because i don't know that's going to be coming anytime soon and i don't think that we can afford to continue to put long term strategic planning of the milpas quarter and the east side on the back burner any longer thank you thank you so much so great the bus stop i'm really glad taking this blackerby for for pushing the suggestion that we all meet that is a very good idea and they'll be open to the community thank you for the idea that i do want to mention the other two items that mister bailey brought to our consideration were considering removal of a traffic lane among those blocks and also losing parking  these need a lot more outreach to adjacent businesses and to the community again we this is a very charged and important project but these improvements and i want to thank the city for a very well considered process where we're not making a decision suggesting to council today we're bringing in a lot of input so that we can make a vetted community decision and we've seen some of the technical information but that's needed to go out to the community we need to and i don't know what's going to happen in terms of noticing to the local businesses and residents of these considerations is there brandon can you speak to that mister allen well one of the purpose is the primary purpose is tonight's meeting is to introduce the options that the city has come up with for address and the concerns on memphis street and it's televised hopefully members of community are watching as well as the people here in the room and we have a representative from coast we have a representative from the memphis community association and you know and we need them to w in you know as a group to let us know which of these options they will support before we could bring it back before this committee so the reason we're coming back at the end of march is to give us enough time to engage the community to give him put to the city into w input great thank you so that's it i think that's the balance of my comments clearly there is strong desire to address with all the options available to us  safety improvements for memphis and ortega and opus en nelly clearly there is also a strong desire and a need for a more comprehensive process so that we're not as as planning commissioner schwartz is mentioned we're not just constantly talking about one offs this intersection in that intersection and responding in crisis and tragedy instead of proactively and so that's something that hopefully this process also help to better galvanize and and the community coming and sitting at a long evening meeting like this is what's going to help make that happen bologna less comments extension for very obvious reasons over the past two years but i gotta say you know i really like to see our city i think things have changed i think if you look at who's sitting at this table right now obviously things have changed in our city leadership and so instead of being gun shy and assuming that the community will come after you with pitchforks if you propose a curb extension which actually does make it safer for  good planning practices good traffic safety practices sometimes include curb extensions and that's okay and i would like to see you know if it's something that mister kauffman gray brought up that seems fairly feasible then that should be listed as an option you can always say no it down whatever but giving us all the options possible and not not being gun shy which again i understand but giving us the full palette of things to work with so that we can make our city safer is really appreciated sax yeah if you'd like to make a comment i appreciate your time so please do obstacles a lot of different ways that people can physically see that someone's crossing the street i wondered if it would be feasible if the city got ahold of the news stations and asked them to make a statement at the end of the show pedestrians have the right of way watch out for pedestrians crossing the street bob barker who ran what price is right process and i think it would be a cheap and very effective and it would go way beyond memphis it go over everywhere people are not aware of this law like i mentioned earlier but i think it would be great very helpful and something you could do t mister sax i appreciate that that's a very helpful suggestion we have members of the news media here tonight and again that's it's it must be understood that drivers  the option of in the future as funds and political will and interests would be available for widened sidewalks and the fresh and easy example miss black could be brought up milpas especially has some of the most narrow sidewalks you know you kind of have to move sideways to walk through at least on a hay lien and milpas so thank you for for putting that that mention out there one thing i want to say it is known in the biking walking community that there are safety in numbers as more people walk and bike in their neighborhoods motorists see them and motorists take into account that if somebody is slowing down they shouldn't swerve past them that it's likely that they will see a pedestrian or a bicyclist and well everything that we can do to encourage walking in our neighborhoods is also encouraging safety in our neighborhoods because of a statistically well researched and well shown fact that there is safety in numbers for pedestrians so again thank you for the staff for presenting very well thought out very well articulated options for the community and and for laying out a well thought out and well timed process for us to bring these suggestions ultimately to council so that said we are only h receive a report so so any final comments from the group thank you so much and thank you to to everyone here tonight to speak on this  chair we have a traditional one year cycle where we alternate members of the committee as chairs i don't know if we've had the time to properly mention to to everyone the council i know miss miss horn as per the rotation you would actually be selected if you're willing to serve as the vice chair this black y you would be selected to serve as the chair i believe you have been better prepared for that position as vice chair to step up as the chair miss horan that is absolutely at your pleasure pleasure and your your preference whether or not you are willing to serve this committee as a vice chair i don't know if you have a comment or thought on that well i having served one year i'm not prepared to take this process and your interest and willingness to serve as chair of the transportation and circulation committee formal and i'm interested i'd be happy to service chair as long as we don't call it a chairmanship anymore and i know i know it's been a long time coming but before i got on the committee there were no women on it at all so it's it takes time takes time to to change the language about it but um no i all kidding aside i'd be happy to and would you know  if there's anyone else on the committee and this horn that would be willing to to serve as vice chair be happy to have you i know we've got some very experienced folks on on the committee as it is so be interested to see if anyone is interested in being in that role again are there any any comments any expressions of interest for any members of this committee as a vice chair and we're not a full committee today so i'd love to hear any any comments i'd also love to perhaps forward a motion to appoint a chair and not yet  vice chair unless we have willingness to serve in that capacity well i'll move to a point hillary blackberry as chair of the tcc for next year all right miss blackerby our chair so the motion thank you for taking on that responsibility and and in terms of a vice chair just to remind the committee mark bradley who's not here tonight was the chair in two be a total leadership void going into the following season so i think that's that that's a concern that you know we want to look into before we step off that void yeah one thing we didn't mention is as for as per our membership we may lose a member and i may also step down from the committee depending on what my work committee how would we proceed any vacancies in the committee would be handled in the smi and recruitment that will handle handle dis spring right and it really it shouldn't we were only probably have one meeting where that would be blackerby i what i'm wondering is it could we select a vice chair today and at any point that person i mean throughout the year if they decide that they don't want to do anymore or can't we can well traditionally the committee was first greeted would meet the fourth thursday of every month if we had a need and then we moved to quarterly and it was a fourth thursday and a quarter and the requests thursday so what's before us is fourth thursday which is what it was originally okay did anyone have standing conflicts on that day do we want to do off month tcc are we an off today and we're only doing this due to the pressing need for milpas or would we actually like to transpose the off we just discussed with the change in august change in december and then obviously january we're here right now is there a motion to approve the schedule members just how to contact and i know ii think we didn't get it last year but the year before what browning has in his book and i know it's only given to the members as a confidential list but i think it's very helpful for us to have that we can get you a current list okay that'd be great because i this last week i wanted to contact somebody and i realized i did not have their email address that won't be a problem okay   i know that some members of the committee of express registration to me and i have my own frustrations about communication from staff when items that have come before committee go to council that we're not necessarily we're not all watching what's happening at council every week or what's coming up and so letting us know if there's something that's coming up like this past tuesday there were two two items cliff driv perdido some of us figured it out because we were watching and some had no idea so i i personally would really appreciate just keeping us in the loop just with an email of saying hey next week this is coming up