correction on page it's very minor page five for the approval motion it says five and i believe there were six people that approve that because on the following motion it says six people  informational item ronnie yes informational items so it's just for the committee's information if you have any questions we happy to answer them any questions okay just one comment for the public it there was a slight little decrease not very much but ridership has been pretty stable i think for the last few months okay so  before before we get to that item i just wanna someone asked me this week what was the best thing that happened in two thousand and fourteen and you know i i thought about it for quite some time and the thing that i thought of it was the best thing that happened to me in two thousand and fourteen was see peter brown and and he and that's why i'm here to introduce to you our new mobility coordinator peter brown and he comes with a lot of experience working in larger cities small cities with different agencies he has a very broad background in transportation planning so he's gonna he hit the the streets running so to speak or bicycling and he comes to us and has already done so much work as a temporary employee getting the bike corral for one and doing many other things and so it's just with great pleasure that he comes up and gives the next report that i introduce to you officially now our mobility coordinator thank you rob for that kind introduction chair copland great members of the committee peter brown with the transportation division i believe it was miss blackerby who asked about this program when we spoke about the cip a couple of months ago  it was actually a good time to come back and talk about sidewalk infill and for me as a new staff member to learn about the program so you've all received the written report i tried to do a couple of things kind of remind the committee where we are in terms of the program and a little bit of its program background and and when the program got adopted in one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight the city council shortly after the circulation element adoption of general plan officially began the sidewalk infill program at that particular time there were dedicated funds for the program and there was a list i believe of over about six hundred gaps in santa barbara's sidewalk network those gaps have been greatly reduced we're going to talk about a few of those details in the next few minutes but the other thing that happened over time as many of you recall is the city's income went way down along with a lot of other people's income and the county assessors income and one of the programs that took a hit was this one and so i think going from about four hundred thousand dollars a year as recently as about five or six years ago down to a zero dollar amount to fund this program from the city's specific budget what we do have are still a lot of grant opportunities we're gonna talk about some of those and and how successful the city has been and then the street dollars that that mister allen manages are used primarily for matching funds and i'd like to actually thank committee member france for sending me an email in advance and asking me some specific questions about how those match dollars work and i'll explain those in a slide or two here the only other thing i would point out in your report is the criteria i think they're the bullet points on probably the second page of your report that we still ask the same questions i think that might have been me is a location currently being used by pedestrians that is is there a beaten path does the potential sidewalk lead to parks or rec areas is it a short gap to fill is it a location to a major destination or neighborhood and the final two are can it increase access to transit stop or route and what are the traffic volumes adjacent to the gap so we still use those same criteria the next section of your report kind of highlights some of the bigger projects that we've completed lately and they're listed one through four and then we have five pretty interesting projects four of which are from the active transportation program that we recently received quite a bit of money from about four and a half million of the eight two million that the city received are categorized as sidewalk projects so the slide show i have for you today highlight some of those programs so i believe you all received a handout that that covers some of this accounting so you don't need to squint too hard for this but this basically answers the question of what kind of a match is the city paying and right now the leverage rate is about eighty five percent so i looked at the projects that are in your staff report the completed projects at the top what the city's cost was of those projects versus the grant fund and the grant source and then for the ones in design that we've recently received funds for measure a and then the three active transportation program projects our match amount is even lower for those but in the aggregate when i averaged it the city is paying about fourteen percent of the cost of those particular projects which to me is a great great deal in terms of public resources another question that i got from mister frantz via email involved private development and how the city deals with private development projects when there are gaps in the sidewalk system adjacent to those new developments the short answer is those are determined on a case by case basis based on the type of devel that occurs and the nexus between the development and the sidewalk network but i did was able to pull up a couple of recent projects that were approved in the amount of lineal feet that was put in by the developer and in this particular case of the city of course in order to grant approval is conditioning that these sidewalks be built up to standard and then the next few slides are just kind of some pictures of before and after the loma alta hill sidewalk was non existent there was a kind of a beaten path on the one side on the other side there was a guardrail that's the picture on the left and then on the right is the completed project with a brand new sidewalk la colina as you can see on the left the no sidewalk before the project and after the project the sidewalk has been infield the mckinley school sidewalk a little bit interesting project it's not a classic sidewalk it's an asphalt pathway in this particular case but  certainly is better than the prior condition we did have an access ramp project in there and i just wanted to give an example of one of those you can see the aba standards since eighty eight was adopted in one thousand nine hundred and ninety one have changed i think four or five times the standards that cities have to meet and so one of the things that our engineering crew has to do is is update when possible and you can see on the left there there's a full curb cut on the near side and on the far side no curb cut and you can see the new improved condition on the right in design right now so we've gone from the completed projects to projects in design this is a measure eight grant funded project and it shows the dollar amounts there and that's the existing condition and one of our engineers  working on that project i got a lot of this information from him and then here here's the big pot of money that we've recently received and i have some slides just to kind of orient and familiarize all of you with the program  i believe the orange line is labeled sidewalk infill and and this is a very exciting project for the neighborhood here the montecito street bridge replacement you can see that top picture it's a narrow bridge i've been over there many times there are no sidewalks there currently but that will be a needed improvement on the east side again the orange is indicating the places where we're doing sidewalk in l for the montecito street bridge this is the cacique soledad pad and bike bridges there are there's currently one bridge there i believe if i'm not mistaken there will be two in the future and so this is  project that's in design as well thanks to the state money we competed for and here's a look at the sidewalk infill portion of that again in orange and then the multi use path i wouldn't call this a classic sidewalk into a project but because it is a multi use path and there will be plenty of people walking on it we believe that this total project will cost between ten and fifteen million dollars but the amount of money we got i did want to show one other thing and that is the map with our ratings insufficient data for image we're able to  or maybe we won't look at this is it saved to the hard drivers it's still running from the flash drive okay okay well i think we may be in business here  literally and figuratively okay apologies for that so the thing i wanted to show you all is what's in the queue i believe many of you are aware and i think mister dayton spoke at your last meeting about the mission canyon corridor community consensus proposal that is in design and and we're looking at options for that and so that's highlighted this map shows priority rankings the redder or orange the hotter the issue the more ripe it is for funding so that is one project that is being extensively looked at in a partnership between the city and county in terms of the city's program and potential future sidewalk infill i would say the next two projects are located next in the queue rated the highest for our cdbg program would be a long oak park there is no sidewalk for a long portion along a lamar here on one side of the street and then lower down on both sides of the street so just to give you a heads up based on the criteria adopted by council and what we're doing in the future those will probably be the next two projects that we'll go after so that concludes my presentation on the euclid sidewalk the council appropriated one hundred i'm just curious about which criteria the euclid sidewalk   because of the decrease in city funds that the the funding for this infill program is either extreme airily are exclusively coming from grants different times is that correct that's true as long as you're including the city match which typically comes from our streets funds okay and so what what is there some  some some monies for this program yeah the interesting thing is when you bring grant funding in you kind of have to move away from your strict criteria that the council adopted in other words you have to look at the grant program and what they're asking for in the terms of the kim yuna development block grant program a lot of times those are dealing with lower income areas so then all of a sudden our focus becomes those neighborhoods with the active transportation program one of the criteria obviously is what what's your adopted ped master plan and bicycle master plan say and so those are obviously are also filters for how we determine which projects and which funds we go after thank you and the other only other fourth source of funds that we have available that we can go up the grants is the measure a the regional measuring monies that we have recent successful receiving and there's a pet bike portion of it and there's also a safe route to school portion of it been able to go after so yes any questions yeah let's do questions and comments from the committee comment i'm the fact that and and this is sort of what i was wondering when i brought this up when i asked to see this was what's the deal with  park because it's so hard to to get out which i've lived lived right near for almost eight years and friends of mine and myself when i've  stroller or friends and wheelchairs getting into the park from the i guess state street side of oak park is you go off roading and it's such a well used park by families and people who you know yeah it's just it's massive and it's impossible to basically get to without either walking in the street or  some kind of rough terrain so i'm really excited about that because i think that'll be a huge benefit for for a lot of folks that frequent the park not just people who who live in the neighborhood and it's really great to see the this map presentation and congratulations and thank you for being the city of santa barbara's mobility coordinator you're welcome so i like to echo the comments of really  being being pleased to see the different projects like oak park that are considered i think there's a wide range of projects and i think when we see the cip and we see the four hundred thousand dollars and then years past where some of those funds have been been waived for the sidewalk infill it's really relieving to see how diligently city staff has been leveraging that small pot of money both through through different grants and also i was really pleased i was just going to have a question for you as pleased that you're able to to include on such a short time frame the projects that have had sidewalk infill as a part of them and so your presentation really shows me that the city is is really on it in terms of the sidewalk infill program and i'm really pleased to hear it well i glad and i appreciate your your questions in advance i won't say that they were quick to answer but getting that information and the question in advance enabled me to pull the information together so thank you for that the infill with real property and i was thinking particularly of where the street might mean here over and if you if you fill in a sidewalk you know does that cut into the easement of the property what about how does this sidewalk and of course the code for the width of the sidewalk regarding wheelchair access and that sort of thing how does that all kind of fit together well i'll take a stab at answering that and then i might have mister allen chime in but what a loaded question no that's okay one of the things that one of the reasons why we referenced the real property issue was because there are certain neighborhoods and i would just point out sandro key and the riviera where sidewalks are not there in going out into the community and asking folks who live there if the existing condition is okay with them most of them do not want to see the sidewalk built so if we were to do it indeed without going below our minimum standard for fire access on a roadway widths we would have to build sidewalks in folks whose excuse me property owners properties so that's what that issue gets at yeah we do have areas in town where people have encroached into the public right away many times without having an encryption permit which makes putting us i walk in a little challenging so the engineering staff has to work closely with the transportation staff when we have to go out and talk to the property owners about the fact that they  have vegetation maybe in some cases they put a fence that needs to be moved so we can put the sidewalk in but we just don't go in and bulldoze whatever they put in in order to put the sidewalk and we'll sit down and we'll chat with them and have a conversation with them and in there was one picture in there that you showed that you said that engineering was going to start and there was a big bush and a huge tree right in the middle of where a sidewalk would go and i was just wondering is that private property or is that city or how do you deal with that yeah that's the lucuma prog right i think one of the things you'll notice as you stroll around town is that the city at least in my opinion has a relative newcomer here has done a great job of preserving street trees and working pedestrian pathways around large mature trees i know in speaking with the engineer mister goodall on that project they he's talking with the city arborist right now about the health of that tree number sidewalk on what happens with that tree i just had a question is i'm thinking of a city tree that was put in in a on my street in some of the front of some of the houses city trees and i'm trying to figure out is there from the curb over is there sometimes green space we're at their plantings and then sidewalk or is the sidewalk always like right next to the curb community member horn we typically call that a parkway and that is an area between the edge of the face of the curb and where the sidewalk begins and there are many places in town where we have parkway and then i believe there's also other places where the sidewalk goes right up to the front of the curb so that condition changes depending on which part of the town you're in we look at see how much right away we have which they are already existing and if we can't put a parkway in and then the sidewalk we try and do that to give a little buffer between the the street and where the pedestrians will be walking you're going the commercial area you're you won't see park ways for the most part you'll see the sidewalk up to the curb but we also have street furniture would it be benches or trash cans or whatever that get somewhat of a buffer for the pedestrians yeah and and my street which is just one block long they yeah i just have a couple comments well first of all thank you so much for putting this report together i mean we just had our meeting last last month and you were able to come back with us with this and really appreciate it  the question is okay the city is doing a wonderful job of leveraging grants and to get these projects for we would not have these projects going which is really great news is this going to be the wave of the future instead of trying to put money in the you know in the cip just for sidewalk infill or are we just going to realize that there's really no money we never can do that anymore so we're just going to be doing by grant by grant basis to get these projects done that need to be done well the answer your question for the foreseeable future it's going to be strictly going after grants you know we in terms of being able to maintain our infrastructure we don't have enough money right to do that you know so you know you think john mentioned at the last meeting john w and so we're all in all we have a huge need for capital money and until we can come with another funding source all we're gonna be able to do is go after grants and trying to be as aggressive as we can and seeking grant funding you know i think this is working i mean you seem to be doing really well with this you know i'm just when you get to little projects so which really might not a grant might not do that i'm wondering if there's going to be some small little projects that might go by the wayside because you know we're going after the bigger projects and maybe missing one street that has two houses without a sidewalk for three blocks or something i mean i don't that's a hypothetical that's something we can take a look at we do have what's called tra transportation development act funds that we get like sixty sixty five thousand dollars a year that could be used for something like that but right now that's part of the funds that we use for matching funds for the grants we go after no i think this is you know it's working i mean it's great we're getting a lot of projects done that wouldn't get done at all you know so thank you for pursuing all of these grants yes you refer to in the beginning of your talk you said there were this many hundred a feet or something or areas of infill that needed to be done and that it had changed by now i just wondered what the difference was now like what how many places are left it also gets to the point that the chair kauffman gray made and that's to spend a little time with the maps that were provided that these pdf maps they show where the gaps are in the city and what's interesting to me when i studied it is there are there are not a lot of gaps remaining so that tells me that the city over the last years i don't know how long this program has been going on has done a pretty good job of closing those gaps the remaining gaps are gonna be most successfully funded okay we'll move on to the status of the bicycle master plan chair kaufmann gray members of the committee a brief update here really good news we have a contract that city council awarded on tuesday melendez landscape architecture and urban design firm they're based out of los angeles they come pretty highly recommended to us they've teamed with fair and peers who also has been managing a lot of our traffic analysis and city traffic model so they're very familiar with the city and as many of you are aware the focus of the bicycle master plan update will remain on seeking community input  from every member of the community that's interested in participating and specifically from five groups that we've identified one of which of course are people who are interested in cycling but we also want to talk to property owners who live on current or proposed  bike facilities the business community transit riders and folks who typically drive for most of their trips there's a lot of reason to believe that in the bike planning community the urban planning community that that really well designed facilities can benefit all transportation users so that is the tact that we're going after we have a kickoff meeting next week with the consultants so we're starting right away and we should be moving forward in january in february and likely have our first community meeting in february and march of next year great thank you very much well it looks like that concludes actually a complicated figure just make a quick comment on job i think it's interesting thinking about this next year's process with the bicycle master plan we talked about sidewalk infill we talked about closing the gaps and nobody's questioning the need for closing the gaps for sidewalk where it's not there and it is you know the city process and that you all have gotten some good input from our city leaders about the need to really go out into different subgroups in the santa barbara community and solicit feedback  and at the end of the day there's a lot of quantifiable value value added just like having a great sidewalk network just like having a great bike way network and i really hope within the public engagement process that a lot of that is data oriented so we're not asking people what do you think about bike ways just like you could ask people what do you think about sidewalks should we have sidewalks should we not have sidewalks no you know what what's the value of having comprehensive sidewalk network what's the value of having a comprehensive bike way network i think that's the question the community has to ask and thank you all for diligently pursuing the bike master plan committee member france i will just say i am a data driven person and and i believe the way our rfp was written and the way the proposal has been responded we will take your advice and we will look at a lot of hard numbers to make our  twelve years bob years on this committee so i want to personally thank you for your service on the committee over the past twelve years and wish you well and be looking at other opportunities for other city committees and i mentioned to you when we had coffee last week we're looking for a member of the downtown parking unfortunately we will be one member short for the next six months till the next recruitment period because we only had three applicant three people showed up for the interviews and it's our three standing members so so we'll  small feat and i know you've been it was great to have you here since i've been on as kind of institutional memory of remembering things of like we dealt with this a decade ago and now it's finally getting done and things like that and that's always really helpful to have that perspective and so just wanted to thank you for your don't get fingerprints on this but your commitment and your many years of service to the  i just want to thank everybody in the city for i mean every time we these reports that you bring to us all the work you have to do to do these presentations i think a lot of times we take that for granted and you know we ask these tough questions and the city will turn around just like what happened just with the sidewalk in fields you do the research and bring it back and i've been amazed all the time i've been on this committee how over the years you know you keep responding to us with  tough questions and you know i've learned so much i mean i have no background in transportation but you know through my volunteering for different committees you know like this the enhanced transit subcommittee i was on the infill the lighting committee that for the lights in the city i've learned so much over the years and anybody that's out there that's thinking about joining a committee i really recommend you to do it because it's really it you learned so much about the city of santa barbara and how it works and i think it's you know we give input but it takes a whole whole residents of the community to be involved to make the city as great as it is so anyway thank you so much and i really appreciate it