08-24-11 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

MINUTES CITY COUNCIL AUGUST 24, 2011 park and ride was proposed about five years ago, but did not move forward given concerns with traffic in this area. Now that the bridge project is being completed, traffic studies show that there should be no major impact on traffic flows once the park and ride is completed. Yu felt that the park and ride should not proceed until the bridge project is completed and there is some experience with how the project is working. The City Administrator indicated that based on the traffic study that was done, taking into account the additional traffic from both St. Jude Medical and the park and ride, there will be no resulting congestion at the Rice Street /County Road B /Highway 36 intersection. Plumb indicated that at its worst, the traffic levels rate at a level D and would have to be at a service level of E or F before there is congestion. Plumb reported that a D level will have times when a driver is waiting on average 35 to 55 seconds at an intersection. Level E is 55 to 80 seconds, and level F is anything over 80 seconds. Blesener noted that the intersection reaches a level D in the year 2033 based on anticipated traffic growth. McGraw asked the timeframe that buses will be in and out of the park and ride. Rimstad indicated that in the a.m. hours there will be seven buses in and out of the park and ride spread out from 6 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. That would be one bus every 20 to 25 minutes. In the afternoon the same number of buses would be spread out from 3:30 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. Rimstad indicated that about 60% of the activity will take place over a one hour period in both the a.m. and p.m. hours. Rimstad noted that the park and ride will be operational Monday through Friday. McGraw asked what direction the buses would be coming from. Rimstad indicated that most of the buses would originate from Metro Transit's 35E /Pennsylvania bus garage. The City Administrator indicated that the loss of trees is unavoidable, but noted that the City has a Tree Preservation Ordinance which requires replacement of 30 caliper inches per acre of trees lost. The City Planner reported that Metro Transit is exceeding this requirement and will plant 75 caliper inches. Montour noted that many of the trees on the site are scrub trees. The City Administrator indicated that this property is a fill site, and there may be some contaminated soils that will have to be dealt with. He also noted that the Watershed District will be acting on the development proposal at their September meeting. There was no one else present from the general public wishing to comment on this matter. 10