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HomeMy WebLinkAboutOUTBoard minutes 091907 1 MINUTES ORANGE UNIFIED TRANSPORTATION BOARD MEETING SEPTEMBER 19, 1007 MEMBERS PRESENT: Bryn Smith, Randy Marshall, Pascale Mittendorf, Jan Grossman, Nancy Cole Baker, Robert Peterson, Sam Lasris, Sandra Quinn, Eric Tillman, Jim Ray MEMBERS ABSENT: Al Terry, Alice Gordon STAFF PRESENT: Karen Lincoln; Donna Davenport OTHERS PRESENT: Pat Strong, Triangle J Council of Governments I. Call to order and roll call II. Consideration of additions to the agenda Karen Lincoln: We have several openings for board members and the last time we met we decided to send names to the commissioners. I told you that the BOCC would appoint an OUTBoard member at the August 21 BOCC meeting. I’ve been told that Commissioner Gordon had taken it off the agenda because she thinks she can get a transit member. Robert Peterson: I spoke with her after the last meeting and she thinks the person needs to be on the TCC or TTA. Karen Lincoln: Another issue is that Jim Ray’s and Al Terry’s appointed terms expire at the end of the month. I would like to get a recommendation from this board to reappoint them. Jim Ray: I think I need to come off the board now. I have a lot of things going on now. Karen Lincoln: I’m sure Al is willing to serve again. The Board can endorse Al and authorize Robert to sign the letter of recommendation. Al is at a conference this week. Robert Peterson: At some point we need to discuss filling these other vacancies. III. Board Comments Karen Lincoln: I sent a copy of the revised schedule for the Comprehensive Plan Update and on October 16, there will be an Element Lead Advisory Board meeting. IV. Approval of Minutes of August 15 meeting It was noted that several people listed in the minutes as being absent at the last meeting (Commissioner Gordon, Nancy Baker and Bryn Smith) had attended the meeting and the minutes listed James Ray in attendance when he was absent. Also, Mike Stanley, TIP Central Region Manager with NCDOT Program Development Branch TIP Development Unit, was not listed present. Sam Lasris: Can I get a copy of the presentation by Mike Stanley? Karen Lincoln: Sure, I brought copies for those who couldn’t attend the last meeting. 2 MOTION made by Jan Grossman made to accept the minutes with changes correcting the attendance. Seconded by Nancy Baker: V. Policy for Potential Board of County Commissioners Action Regarding Petitions for Addition Robert Peterson: Were there any points of contention? Randy Marshall: Basically, it was simpler than we thought. I had anticipated that we needed to ensure the roads were up to State standard but the petition goes to the State before it comes to us. We made a simple statement that we would approve it providing that it would make connectivity to adjacent or undeveloped land. Then the Board of County Commissioners can decide what they would like to do. The State would need to decide whether the physical standards met their standards. Robert Peterson: How would we define connectivity? Randy Marshall: We would have to decide into what areas we want roads to be connected. In some areas there would be no need. Beyond that the Board of County Commissioners can always make the determination of connectivity. Karen Lincoln: It needs to be part of the Comprehensive Transportation Plan. You can designate proposed new roads to make sure you get right-of-way. It would need to be approved by the Board of County Commissioners. Pascale Mittendorf: Has there been a draft of the Rural Connector Plan? Karen Lincoln: In 1997 or 1998 there was a proposed amendment of the Transportation section of a Land Use Plan to do a new functional classification of the roads. It was never passed. It was basically for existing roads. In the 1981 Land Use Plan there are super blocks where the plan recommends connection between two major roads through that super block. That is a beginning point. Robert Peterson: Does right-of-way mean only access to highways or maybe an opportunity to look at rural ways? Karen Lincoln: The Petition for Additions is for the State to take over maintenance for a subdivision road. If there is a bike lane on the road, DOT will maintain the bike lane. Randy Marshall: On private roads, the property owner’s land goes to the middle of the road. For State maintained roads, there has to be a public right-of-way the State requires. The homeowners would have to deed their roads over to the State if they want the DOT to maintain their roads. Karen Lincoln: They give up their private property rights for the roads to the public. The State does not want fee simple acquisition of the right-of-way because that would require a deed with a meets and bounds description of the road. Robert Peterson: That costs money. Randy Marshall: The State doesn’t buy the right-of-way. The owner gives it up. Jim Ray: If you deed your property to the State, does the County issue taxes. 3 Karen Lincoln: In the tax office, they remove right-of-way from the taxable acreage. The GIS files show most of the rights-of-way. Robert Peterson: Should that be part of this? If the Board of County Commissioners sends a recommendation and DOT takes over the maintenance for the road, does the County automatically know to make the adjustments? Karen Lincoln: No that doesn’t happen if the road was not platted as a public road. Major subdivisions platted with public rights-of-way are recorded as such, with lot lines adjacent to the right-of-way. Streets platted as private streets are included in the lot acreage and the lot lines go to the center of the road. The agreement dedicating the right-of- way easement to NCDOT is recorded as a separate document. That document is referenced to the deed. However, no new plat is recorded for Land Records to map for County GIS parcels file. Robert Peterson: The third condition (of the proposed policy) means the County is aware of it so we don’t have to put it there explicitly. Karen Lincoln: If the petitioner(s) file a plat and it is recorded, it would be exempt from local subdivision regulation and would have to have a certificate signed by the Planning Department stating that the plat does not meet the definition of subdivision before it can be recorded. Randy Marshall: If the right-of-way is staked, when DOT does maintenance on the road, they will know they are not on private property. Robert Peterson: You raised the question about whether this would affect taxes. So you are saying that the tax office takes into account right-of-way. Does this process automatically require that to be taken into consideration or is this something that should be explicitly listed as part of this process? Karen Lincoln: I can find out. Nancy Baker: Do you mean the reduction of taxes? Robert Peterson: Yes, when this process takes place, that there is a memo that is sent to the tax office saying this subdivision has been added or when you talk about the certificates of dedication does that mean it has it already gone through their office? Bryn Smith: Isn’t there already a process. This is a change of the ongoing process, correct? Right now all these roads come up before the county commissioners without any input from us. So there is already a process in place. Karen Lincoln: Recently, we have been getting a number of these roads that are going from private to public. That is why we are looking at developing a policy. Normally, public roads are platted as public roads and approved as such. Robert Peterson: Should we put it in as a reminder? Karen Lincoln: I’ll check on it. Randy Marshall: It seems the tax office would have to check with the land records office before they send out bills. Robert Peterson: If you subdivided land, there is a process. Randy Marshall: It would still be recorded somewhere. Jim Ray: If you give someone land, you will get a notice of tax adjustment. 4 Pascale Mittendorf: On page one, if you had a proposed new development with some lots over 10 acres and others less than 10 acres, would that whole subdivision be exempt? Karen Lincoln: It depends on what is being subdivided. If the parcels were being subdivided from one piece of land, it would not be exempt. It depends on what is being divided. Karen Lincoln: The other recommendation is to put language in the ordinance to let people know that if they develop with private roads and later they decide to petition NCDOT to take over maintenance of the roads, the County would like them to know what will be expected for the County to favorably recommend their petitions for addition to the Board of Transportation. I would like to present your recommendation at a BOCC work session on October 18 before taking this as a regular item to a Board of County Commissioners meeting. If this is approved, (proposed text amendments to the Subdivision Regulation) will go to the Planning Board. Robert Peterson: Does any part of this process cost the County money? Karen Lincoln: The staff time. Robert Peterson: It seems odd that people build subdivisions with private roads and then come to the County to take over the maintenance. Sam Lasris: They are paying taxes. Sandra Quinn: The fee should be charged to the developer. Robert Peterson: The developer will be required to tell the buyers. Karen Lincoln: There are a couple of places in the ordinance that does state that. The other place would be in the certificate(s) on the plats. Randy Marshall: Case number one shows everything we discussed but I don’t remember case number two. Karen Lincoln: We have had a couple of cases where the County has asked DOT to take over some unpaved roads that were platted prior to NCDOT requiring roads be paved in order for NCDOT to maintain them. The NCDOT will take over some roads, if the plats indicate that the roads were meant to be public roads, and maintain them to an unpaved road standard, and put them on the list of unpaved secondary roads to be paved. Randy Marshall: This makes it look like for case number one, if it provides connectivity, we would approve it and for case number two, if it doesn’t provide connectively, and we would approve it. The Board of County Commissioners could override any decision we make. We could have number one and take out number two and if the Board of County Commissioners does see issues for recommending the petition, they could do that. Jan Grossman: Who would pick up the costs if there is a subdivision and the road will be taken over by the State and the developer doesn’t build the road? Karen Lincoln: The subdivision should not be approved. Jan Grossman: I know of a road in our subdivision. Karen Lincoln: The developer is responsible for that (building the roads) and usually we don’t sign off on the final plat until we get a letter from DOT stating that the public road meets its standards. In some cases, we have the letter 5 from DOT and the plat is recorded, but the people who buy the lots can’t realize that they have to petition the State to take over the road. Residents sometimes don’t inquire about the maintenance until the road needs maintenance, and then the property owners must make repairs to comply with NCDOT road standards in order for NCDOT to process their petition. Randy Marshall: That is between the State and who owns the road at the time. The homeowners are responsible for making the petition to have it taken over. Then it would come to us. Robert Peterson: Are we going to strike case number two? MOTION made by Randy Marshall to eliminate case 2 and send this to the Board of County Commissioners with that change. Seconded by Sam Lasris. VI. Regional Priority List Robert Peterson: Karen Lincoln will discuss the list. Nancy Baker: Where did the numbers come from? Robert Peterson: The local jurisdictions. Karen Lincoln: There will be changes in the methodology for assigning criteria points for the next round. It is a work in progress. Previously projects for all modes were evaluated using the same criteria. This methodology separates projects by modes and applies different criteria for each mode. The project criteria sheets had sections for calculating points for bicycle projects and for pedestrian projects. At some point the TCC subcommittee decided if the project included both bicycle facilities and sidewalks, points would be added together. These scores are not the points for the individual projects. The points were assigned according to a quartile system. The range of points for all projects was divided into four quartiles based on actual points. Then projects received the number of points (from 0 to 3) according to which quartile the scores for individual projects fell in. Carrboro has brought up the connectivity issue, as well. This (quantitative ranking) is only one way of reviewing the projects. The elected officials will review this and will also consider other factors in prioritizing the regional list. Pascale Mittendorf: Who is providing this information? Karen Lincoln: The Technical Coordinating Committee of the MPO, which is staff from the local jurisdictions. We take the priority list approved by the Board of County Commissioners and the priority lists approved by all other jurisdictions in the MPO and apply the criteria …. Pascale Mittendorf: Who did the list? Karen Lincoln: All the jurisdictions. Each jurisdiction, the elected officials, approved a priority list. Pascale Mittendorf: Are projects from citizens included in the lists? Karen Lincoln: Sometimes, not always. Robert Peterson: These cannot. They are approved and sent to the TAC. Karen Lincoln: The reason our number one priority, the pedestrian bridge, is on here is because Nancy attended the Orange Grove Road meetings. Some of the projects have come from requests from civilians. 6 Nancy Baker: This is a compilation of a lot of different groups in the County, Town, etc. Is this from DOT? Karen Lincoln: No, DOT hasn’t seen this yet. Nancy Baker: What is the party that has compiled this list? Karen Lincoln: The MPO. Randy Marshall: Is it objective? Karen Lincoln: Yes. Randy Marshall: Local priorities should take a higher significance. For example Orange County 1st priority is rated 30th and Durham County’s 13th priority is rated 4th. There seams to be something wrong. Robert Peterson: This is only one tool that they are using. Randy Marshall: This obviates local jurisdiction priorities. Karen Lincoln: This is required by Federal Legislation for MPO. The priority list must include a quantitative ranking of projects based on some criteria used to measure the effectiveness of each project to achieve MPO goals. The local jurisdictions (TAC members) look at the list and see where their projects fall. They still say this is something that we really need and they will reorder these accordingly. This is the combined regional priority list. Orange County projects are funded thru division 7, which is separate money from division 5. Anything in Durham, we are not competing with. Jan Grossman: We are competing with Greensboro. Robert Peterson: The point is we still want this to reflect our number one priority. Karen Lincoln: The connectively points were given for the connectivity to existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities and there are none in the rural areas, and that is why we are not scoring as high as bicycle and pedestrian projects in the municipalities. Jan Grossman: Why is it that items #35, NC 86, and #46, Old NC 86, only have 2 points, and are not listed as arterial roads? Karen Lincoln: They are major roads, but this is by the federal functional classification. Jan Grossman: Why is item #22, Old NC 86, an arterial road and items #35 and #46 collector roads? Sam Lasris: That is the same road. Karen Lincoln: That is a good observation. I’ll check on it. Robert Peterson: Some of the thoughts are maybe we could check the data we submitted. Pat Strong: I’m hearing concerns that you are having. I’m wondering if you could go thru this and come up with a composite list of concerns that could be submitted to the DCHC TCC. Robert Peterson: That is a good idea. Why is it not part of our project to have a bike lane to the school? 7 Nancy Baker: DOT would have to redo the whole road. You may be able to get a bridge in place before the whole project. Nancy Baker: A girl was hit last year walking to school. Randy Marshall: The weak point on our pedestrian bridge seems to be travel demand. Look at #32, there are two schools within one mile of our pedestrian bridge. Two times two is four; however, within two miles, there are many commercial businesses. Robert Peterson: We only have 21 days so we need to know how this was ranked. Karen Lincoln: I was unaware of adding bicycle and pedestrian points until the priority list was presented at the TAC meeting. Nancy Baker: You are saying they would not allow us bicycle points so there are no trails or sidewalks. Karen Lincoln: No I didn’t calculate bicycle points because I considered this as a pedestrian project and didn’t know at the time that points would be added together for corridors requesting both bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Since bicycles would use the pedestrian bridge, it makes sense to calculate bicycle points. I can check with the Lead Planning Agency about submitting a revised criteria sheet. Sam Lasris: Do we have a bicycle trail from the bridge? Randy Marshall: How many employees do they have to have to be a major employment center? There are probably 300 employees at those two schools. Karen Lincoln: The project received points for the two schools. Nancy Baker: The DOT said we could not get sidewalks along Orange Grove Road until the whole road was redone because the sidewalks have to be placed behind the ditches or curb. Karen Lincoln: The schools or the County would have to obtain an agreement with the NCDOT to take responsibility for maintenance of sidewalks. Randy Marshall: The schools built sidewalks on their own property. Randy Marshall: Which comes first the bridge or the sidewalk? Nancy Baker: The bridge is very high but it’s hard to know what to do first. Robert Peterson: This has to be part of our comments. You are going to check on this? Karen Lincoln: Yes. I will check with Ellen at the MPO about the street classifications they are using and the points for travel demands and connectivity. Robert Peterson: The highway projects are next. Jim Ray: What are the first two? Karen Lincoln: TDM-Travel Demands Management programs that Durham and Chapel Hill have and ITS stands for Intelligent Transportation Systems. 8 Randy Marshall: On the news last night, they had a story about replacing stoplights in Chapel Hill and synchronizing them, is that TDM? Karen Lincoln: That is part of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). It is hard to quantify criteria for ITS and TDM. Robert Peterson: Next year, should # 6be our #2 priority? Where is our #2? Randy Marshall: It is listed as #5. Sam Lasris: Is the developer of that project going to be making improvements? Karen Lincoln: Waterstone? Yes, they will be making some improvements like turn lanes and they are suppose to provide the area with bicycle/pedestrian lanes. But I’ll have to check with the town to see what they are going to provide. Sam Lasris: The credit union will have to make improvements when it expands. Karen Lincoln: We are trying to get what we can. Jan Grossman: #13 is #1 for Chapel Hill, #2 for Carrboro and #1 for Orange County. Bryn Smith: Because it has a low accident rate. Karen Lincoln: Projects get points for being fully or partially funded in the TIP and that project is not funded. Sam Lasris: Are there any implications to being partially funded? Nancy Baker: Like Elizabeth Brady Road? They have spent years on the environmental study. Karen Lincoln: They get extra points because if DOT has put money in the project already, some work has already been done for those projects and it would not be good to pull those out. Pascale Mittendorf: Regarding Churton Street, why is it a “low to negative environmental impact”? Karen Lincoln: If the project will not extend the right-of-way, it is considered no significant impact. Sam Lasris: We need to let them know we want our projects higher on the list. Robert Peterson: Our number one project, we can submit comments on that point. In the next year, maybe we should reconsider Orange Grove Road Extension to be # 6. Why is it so dangerous? Karen Lincoln: The reason is because it doesn’t exist at this time so you use the crash data for the route that someone would have to take to get to the two points it is connecting. Jim Ray: How will you get over/under the railroad? Karen Lincoln: There is a crossing. We would have to talk with the rail people. 9 Jim Ray: I don’t understand why that’s ranked so high when Elizabeth Brady Road is less and it does more for the Town of Hillsborough. Randy Marshall: Why isn’t Orange County included in that? Karen Lincoln: Because the Board of County Commissioners said that they were not willing to put it on their priority list. Nancy Baker: We have never had it high on our list either. Randy Marshall: Would it give strength to the proposal if Orange County had it ranked? Karen Lincoln: How a local jurisdiction ranks a project in their priority list comes into play if two projects score the same number of points. Robert Peterson: We are going to make comments outside the meeting and then submit them to the Board of County Commissioners to submit to the MPO within 21 days. Will the Board of County Commissioners have another meeting before then? Karen Lincoln: On October 9, 2007. We could perhaps submit comments after the Public Hearing because the TAC won’t take action until November. Robert Peterson: Can we get these approved by the Board of County Commissioners within the 21 days? Karen Lincoln: No they don’t do business outside meetings. There is a possibility to get it in on the 9th. Robert Peterson: That would be past the 21 days. Karen Lincoln: A minimum of 21 days. If we could get them there before the last day, that would be acceptable. Sam Lasris: The Public Hearing is on the 10th. Robert Peterson: We are basically going to emphasize the positives on our number one project. Homestead Road, bike and pedestrian points need to be addressed in comments. Randy Marshall: Do we appeal to the DCHC MPO? Robert Peterson: I think that is what our comments will say. Randy Marshall: There were discrepancies in calculating the score. Robert Peterson: How do we get this outside our meeting to be able to get to the commissioners? Karen Lincoln: I have to submit an abstract and all attachments by this Friday to get this on the October 9 BOCC agenda. Robert Peterson: What is protocol? Karen Lincoln: Does everyone want to submit comments to me? Nancy Baker: Comments on the ranking system? 10 Robert Peterson: Is it possible to have the Chair and Vice Chair along with Karen to submit comments after receiving comments from board members? Randy Marshall: So moved. Jim Ray: Seconded. Randy Marshall: Who determined Orange County’s local priority rankings? Karen Lincoln: Our rankings had all of our projects ranked 1 through 9. Lead Planning Agency Staff (LPA) re-ranked the projects by mode. Whatever the first highest ranking road project we had the LPA ranked that our number one road project. Nancy Baker: I can’t believe Homestead Road was our number one. Randy Marshall: Homestead was one, South Churton was two, three was NC 86 North widening and US 70 bypass widening was number four. Sam Lasris: Does it matter past numbers one and two? There are people that are opposed to the #24, US 70 bypass widening. Is it worth our time to hear the opposition or do we have to go on record? Karen Lincoln: You can go on record. It is no where near being funded. Sam Lasris: As long as it doesn’t make a difference that right now we are for the widening but we might change our minds at a later date. Randy Marshall: We only had six roads on the Orange County list and the sixth one is ranked 6th. Bryn Smith: They’ve are in a different DOT region. Pascale Mittendorf: What puzzles me is that we had Homestead Road as number one. Nancy Baker: Was that being done right now anyway? Karen Lincoln: A lot of things have been done. That project had been one of our number one priorities because of the schools for a long time. It was fully funded in one of the TIP’s and about that time Carolina North came in view. Chapel Hill realized they were going to have to move their maintenance facility for the transit system. They asked DOT instead of Homestead Road to use those funds. So it left Homestead Road as an unfunded project. DOT worked with us and the board member approved to do the work around the schools. They have completed improvements but they did that using other funds not TIP money. Bryn Smith: As a project Homestead Road predates the current board? Karen Lincoln: Yes. Randy Marshall: Will there be improvements around the new Elementary School # 10 on Eubanks? Karen Lincoln: I think so. Something has to be done at Old NC 86 and Eubanks. DOT is working with the schools. Randy Marshall: Do those funds come from our pocket? 11 Karen Lincoln: This wouldn’t be TIP money. It may be partly funded by the school. VII. Road Improvement List Robert Peterson: Let’s go on to the Road Improvement List. The question is how do we start gathering this list? Randy Marshall: For the last two weeks, there were survey crews at NC 54 and Dobson’s Crossroads and I have stopped and asked what they are doing. Karen Lincoln: They are putting in turn lanes. They are also putting in turn lanes at NC54 at White Cross and NC 54 at a subdivision road. Those locations were on the NCDOT spot safety list. There is a limit on how much money for each project you can use from spot safety funds. Randy Marshall: Those are all well and good but those road improvements are things that we were not notified about. What is the order of things? Karen Lincoln: We need to develop a list of road sections that need improvements first. The spot safety program is based on road segments having high crash rates or where there have been recurring accidents of a specific type. The projects were chosen because the benefit/cost ratio indicated that the proposed improvements would yield the highest benefits at those locations. Pat Strong: The spot safety funding is roughly 10 million per year. Every two years there is a report issued that identifies critical needs. There is a ranking committee at the DOT that reviews the report and decides how that money is spent. Robert Peterson: The DOT does that based on their data and inspection. Jan Grossman: They may put more emphasis on car/car or car/property. Pat Strong: The Executive Committee may. For the bicycle and vehicle interactions, Orange County was overrepresented on that list. There are certain areas where there have been problems. I have the 2005 list. Randy Marshall: Are these areas being addressed and we don’t know it? Karen Lincoln: They review quarterly. Nancy Baker: This is a good opportunity to take a look at that list. Pat Strong: You will see excluded and non-excluded locations. That program is fail-safe to make sure the money is spent wisely. Robert Peterson: I think we have good representation on this board. There are many different people we could reach out to for input to develop the list of road segments. Jan is our bicycle advocate representative. Jan Grossman: I think the better input would come from motorists. They would know better than cyclists where they have problems with bicycle traffic. Eric would know other transportation providers who have better knowledge of road conditions throughout the County. Eric Tillman: We probably travel the roads more than the average guy. The places with construction slow us down. I may be able to get some input. 12 Robert Peterson: We will hold off on appointing the sub-committee but start thinking about sections of roads that are problems and also people we can talk to about issues they are having. Nancy Baker: I would like to have a meeting with people like Dave Stancil about the pedestrian rural ways before hand, and present the idea before they get in front of us. Robert Peterson: We can do this formally or informally if you want to have a non-motor vehicle connectivity sub- committee or if you want to do this informally make sure you meet with the people before they come here that’s fine too. Karen Lincoln: Do you want to contact Dave? Nancy Baker: Yes, I think this is a good way to start the conversation. Eric Tillman: We may want to bring the OPT into that loop. Nancy Baker: Do you know how the Hillsborough in town route is coming? Karen Lincoln: We are trying to get a contract with DOT for the CMAQ project. I have received the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Agreement from NCDOT. There are some things that we need to resolve with NCDOT. If the Board of County Commissioners approves the CMAQ Agreement, for funding the capital facilities: the park and ride lot, transit shelters and bike racks for the buses. The transit service would start next year fiscal year 2009. If they enter in to that agreement they realize they will have to start planning to put money in the budget to fund half the operations costs. Adjourn. VIII. Future Agenda Items Tina L. Owen, Minutes Preparer