Transportation Committee Meeting, June 7, 2009
Jun 7th, 2009 by reid
Summary: The SMILE Transportation Committee met and discussed a general overview of Transportation issues in the neighborhood. Two issues that came up multiple times were pedestrian and bike crossing safety and giving people entering the neighborhood a sense that they’d just passed through a gateway. In an effort to start with an approachable project that would accomplish both goals at the same time, it was decided to concentrate on Pedestrian and Bike safety on SE 17th, South of SE Tacoma between SE Ochoco and SE Umatilla. It’s five busy blocks where people are coming off of Hwy. 224 and off of McLoughlin on their way through the neighborhood. Peter Mortola will be drafting a petition and talking to businesses on the street about pedestrian crossing. Brad Heinz and Steve Szigethy will be helping to create a visual of what the optimum street configuration would look like to promote pedestrian and bike safety, as well as to establish a better neighborhood sense of place to those arriving in Sellwood-Moreland via the Southern Neighborhood Gateway, SE 17th Ave.
Barbar Barber: SMILE Transportation Committee Chair
Agenda:
Set goals:
10 minutes define transportation
10 minutes of chatting
5 minutes Get list together.
20 Identify current and future projects
5 What’s in play and who’s heading it up?
Future Projects
Prioritizing Future projects.
Solutions.
Beauracratic tools
Creative Solutions
Barbara Barber – Transportation Chair
Mat Millenbach – Land Use Chair
Eric Miller – Working on Sellwood Pedestrian Corridor
Steve Sigizvy – MS in Transportation
Tina Osterink – SMILE Vice President
Peter Mortola – Bike Commuter
Jim Friscia – SMILE Board Member
Brad Heinz – Working on Sellwood Pedestrian Corridor Project.
Reid Kells – Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Citizen’s Advisory Committee Rep. for SMILE
*AR for REID *Turn on “who” for the mailing list.
Tell people how to “Who” the list and send a note to the list.
Allow members of the list to who the list.
4:06 Start meeting
Transportation Chair Barbara reiterates that we’ll want to not have a death march.
Mat Millenbach mentioned that there’s a lot of overlap between Land Use and Transportation due to Zoning.
Brad Heinz says that’s important.
Tina Osterink – Trying to find solutions
Reid Kells – CAC Rep for the Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail
Jim Friscia – Interested in transportation. Working concerts for last 10 years. Security and Transportation is very important in that venue in particular.
Parking, for example, is important for those shows, flow into and out of the event, traffic control, all of that will be important.
Tina: Can you call the Pedicab folks to get them into that as well?
Eric Miller: Play groups and young children inspired his involvement. Brad Heinz and his work to finish the Tacoma Main Street Plan in conjunction with the bridge is what’s important. Pedestrian issues are big with him.
Peter Mortola – Met Brad and Eric through play groups. Lives in “So-Tacky”, near the yarn store. Bike commuting makes him hyper-aware of commuting issues.
17th South of Tacoma is pretty scary traffic-wise for kids.
Some signage might be good down there.
17th between Tacoma and ochoco are really important in particular.
19th between Tacoma and Ochoco are really important, too.
Signage is pretty rough in that section.
Steve Szigethy – Commutes downtown via bike and 41 bus. Walking, driving, did graduate project on Harold St. Station.
Brad Heinz – Worked his way into a large Pedestrian enablement grant for the Sellwood Pedestrian corridor via the Big Pipe Project.
One of his priority’s is also the 19th St. Biking route.
19th St. up to Tacoma.
He’s interested in gateways and routes and establishing a connection with the community in a visual way.
Barbara Barber – Focused on getting on the Sellwood Bridge task force. Largely around the love of the neighborhood. Wanted Sellwood to be able to call the shots on the planning for the bridge issues.
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Commuter traffic has a big impact on the neighborhood. Maybe there’s a way to alter how that functions if we wanted to do so.
Some comments here about signage from 224.
What is Transportation about:
Obvious: Peds, Bikes, Buses, Streetcars, Passenger Vehicles, Light Rail, etc.
Eric Miller: All sorts of things that SMILE can do like planting strips, beautification, etc.
Brad: Putting an emotional image out to people coming in is important.
Peter: Transportation should be defined as movement to and through the neighborhood.
Steve: Even something static like a gateway feature ends up being a transportation issue.
Mat Millenbach: Some projects are so large that the whole organization is focused on the issue, such as the Bridge. How can that be broken out so that new issues can be addressed?
Jim Friscia: Involvement levels rise and fall. It’s important to make sure people don’t pull back in.
Barbara Barber: We can probably sell transportation to people by letting them know that things can be changed. A lot of people think “that’s just the way it is” for how transport or ped crossings are set up.
General discussion of retaining input from
Mat Millenbach: How do you decide where the committee activity ends and the board activity begins.
Projects currently in play:
Sellwood Bridge
Tacoma Main Street Plan – Including the crossing at Tacoma and 19th.
http://www.portlandonline.com/shared/cfm/image.cfm?id=9093
Spokane Bike Boulevard
Business District 20 mph restriction on SE 13th and SE 17th.
Bidwell-Lamber Pedestrian Corridor
Springwater Corridor Sellwood Sellwood Gap
Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail
Bus Service – Cancellation of the 41.
Speed Limits along Milwaukie in Westmoreland are inconsistent and change North-to-South (on Milwauke N of Bybee).
Land Use: Umatilla Pump Station
Peter: 11th and Tacoma crossing was important as well.
New Projects:
Neighborhood Gateway, signage that establishes neighborhood place and distinguishes the neighborhood from being just a cut-through location – Kevin Downing has been circulating some emails about this lately.
Where 224 transitions into 17th is a good place to help people get out of “Expressway Mode”
Just South of SE Ochoco is a great place to put a gateway.
Peter: Bus stop, soon the bike people, trucking, vehicles,
Brad Heinz: Take a look at what happens in Linnton, on HWY 30, to get people to slow down. Figuring out what they do to slow people from 55 to 30 *there* would help us *here*.
SE 52nd & Hawthorne sign, for example.
Hillsdale is a great example of the benign City signs that look dumb.
Something artistic is what is important.
Mark Lakeman is a good person to talk to about that.
Linn St. Cut-through from people heading toward the bridge.
People begin to make a decision to cut through the neighborhood and get to the bridge that way.
Cut-through traffic in general is this.
Peter: in a way, SE 17th *is* cut-through traffic if people are going to the bridge.
Cut-through reduction on SE 17th-
Light change at SE 17th and 224.
Pedestrian Crossing across McLoughlin and over the Union Pacific Tracks at Reedway
More pedestrian crossings between SE Ochoco and SE Umatilla on SE 17th.
Mat Millenbach: More crosswalks might be helpful.
SE 17th bumpouts and crosswalks.
More crossings from SE Umatilla to SE Ochoco on SE 17th.
Steve: Why are there no crossings at SE 11th on Tacoma? That’s where everyone crosses to go to New Seasons.
Painted crosswalk there would be helpful.
Peter: Looking to count cars coming to SE & 17th intersections versus cars that come straight up Tacoma.
DEIS for the bridge may have that already.
Action Required (AR) for Peter and Brad: Get in touch with each other to create a drawing of what they want SE 17th to look like.
Crosswalks at 22nd and Bybee near the park.
Five weeks out. July 22nd – Next meeting.
AR for Tina: Look at the Capitol Improvement Project list for the City.
Email good city contacts to Barbara Barber
Peter: Will get a petition ready by July 6th for the first Concert in the Park series.
He’ll send a sample to the list to get feedback.
If we get this out before June 17th the board can weigh in with their support.
Focus: Make SE 17th safer w/ bumpouts & crosswalks, speed limit reductions.
It’s the Southern Gateway already.
We’ll make it safer with these tools.
Bring the map when we’re tabling.
General Consensus: Let’s start with SE 17th and focus there.
Barbara: Let’s “community-size” this street to begin.
Peter: Will take notes and update website after next meeting.