This is the discussion and updates from CCOC (Common Council Organizational Committee) on Tuesday, and some of the concerns and some really good questions from some of the alders. With [bk comments.]
A guy named Chris from Engineering was filling in for City Engineer Rob Phillips and started a presentation for the group. I feel bad I missed his last name and couldn’t make an educated guess. Sorry Chris. Janet Piraino was supposed to be there as well, but was late.
Chris explained that there are three city project teams, WisDoT is concerned with two of them, the station and the corridor committees. The third committee is dealing with the planning parking and development around the station and they are less involved with DOT. He notes that last Thursday the governor announced the station at 101 E Wilson was announced, he shows a rendering. (Side discussion ensues about if Nolen is spelled correctly.) He says the groups have been “meeting for months”. [Yeah, don’t mind us, when we get it all figured out, we’ll let the council rubber stamp it and have some “public input”] They held the public workshops in June, now they are working on finalizing the EA (Environmental Assessment) and over the fall and winter they will do the final design.
Lauren Cnare asks who the architect is.
Chris says there is not one yet.
Marsha Rummel asks what they consider in the EA.
Chris doesn’t know, he never did one. He has done them on highways and it includes things like looking at if they are filing in wetlands, noise, air pollution, animal and plant displacement, etc. He says that one they approve the EA, then they will do the final design and hire the architect.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff asks who is on the teams for the city?
Chris and Janet Piraino contribute that Rob Phillips is on the station group. Chris on the corridor team. Piraino and Chris are on all the teams. Planning, metro, transportation engineers and many others are on the teams, they are big teams.
Bidar-Sielaff says it would be good to know that information.
Rummel asks if the same people are on all the teams.
They say no.
Bidar-Sielaff wants to know who chair is or team leader.
Janet Piraino says they are big unwieldy groups, put on everyone who could be impacted, corridor and station, even the cops have a member, they don’t need to be there, but they wanted to make sure they have a rep and are connected. [Note, they made sure everyone has been included “for months” except the alders. Interesting.]
Clear asks what is city’s involvement is on station design and implementation, is DOT or city leading, what is our role?
Piraino says she was late because she was on the phone with DOT. DOT and consultants are driving the bus, but we are on the bus. They changed that to they are driving the train and we are on the track. [That sounds more fitting.] She says that this is their process, but they are working closely with us. Next step in the process, after the big announcement, is to figure out what the traffic impacts of the station will be. [Wait, they’re figuring this out after they decided where to put the station? Isn’t that backwards and wasn’t that part of the decision making process?] David Dryer and our staff are collecting data, doing traffic counts, where will the multi-modal and drop off points for busses and people be? The next step is the purpose and need document, they are working on a draft of that , that is the next step in EA and they will have that in one to two weeks.
Bidar-Sielaff asks there will be an open public comment period on that?
Piraino says it is not set yet, but they will have a meeting at the end of the month. They will have the draft document in next few weeks and then present it to the public, that is the station. Architect and renderings will be at end of month.
Rummel asks if they will have both the EA draft and renderings at the end of the month.
Piraino says yes, there will be some renderings to get public input, there will be alternatives and they will try to incorporate that publicly. {??}
Cnare asks if they will see the station at urban design and plan commission?
Piraino didn’t seem sure, she says they think so.
Chris says probably this fall, they asked us what the requirements would be.
Bidar-Sielaff says if UW has to go through that process, the state does too.
Chris says Brad Murphy is working on that.
Mark Clear says the renderings were just for show at the meetings.
Piraino says it is just a concept, based on an idea, less than a beginning point of what it could look like.
Rummel says there are not many other options of where to put the building besides where it is. She says the real question is what do they do with commuter rail. Do they build it side by side or on the other side of John Nolen.
Piraino says DOT was nervous about saying this is what it will look like. Piraino says the city encouraged them to use the photos, but it’s just a concept. They were getting questions about if they would tear down DOA.
Chris says parking, traffic, connection with busses and intercity rail are all questions too.
Bidar-Sielaff asks for project timeline, she says it would be helpful to have for us and constituents.
Chris shows the timeline on the DOT website.[It looks like this is a history timeline, not a forward thinking one.]
Bidar-Sielaff wants more details, not just “fall 2010”.
Chris says these are the major milestones.
Bidar-Sielaff says its a short time line and more details are needed.
Piraino says every public meeting needs a document and renderings, and this is the best they can do.
Cnare asks if the timeline will be updated.
Chris says they promised to update it quickly.
Clear says rest of site is. [Continuing in his apologist role, no problems here.]
Piraino says they will continue to update the council. [After the decisions have been made.]
Chris says that DOT is concerned about whole corridor not just Madison.
Rummel says that corridor process at some point, knows people who want to meet on backyards, who do we direct these people to, they mentioned work team with alders and neighborhood folks, is that what really is going to happen? They said very specifically about stakeholders, we don’t want to get to late 2010 and then find out they didn’t talk to us again. People will say they didn’t talk to us and its hard to refute that when that is what they see and feel.
Piraino says that they got a signed contract for the consultants on the corridor, there is another meeting on the corridor this month to go through specifics, she says it kind of sounded like a workshop, it will be a meeting on corridor, they will have maps and have people look at them.
Rummel says she expects them to come look at the back yards.
Chris says he is the rail corridor team leader, Rob Phillips is the station team leaders, you can always come to us.
Piraino says that at the meeting they should have the process in place to have the details people need.
Rummel says that corridor team on board and its HNTB, that’s a big deal.
Clear asks what we know about governor candidates pledge to stop the train, if elected, can they accomplish that?
Piraino says they won’t get elected, and then quickly says I’m kidding. She says it would be tremendously difficult to do that, hard to do it right now and even harder in January when people are at work building the station and upgrading the tracks and all the public input and frankly she has heard that there has been polling that primary republican voters do not like the station, they don’t like the whole project, but primary voters want that and one of them are going to have to deal with general election voters who want something different, they will have to turn on a dime, its not realistic.
Rummel says that they also talked about a team to reach out to businesses and labor, how do we make sure that people get jobs in our local community to the extent possible?
Chris says that as part of corridor diagnostic team that he sits in on and idea is that they are going to each crossing and analyze in person to figure out what safety measures will be needed at each crossing, the results of that is coming, they will look at gates, what will be closed, etc. He is not a member of the team, but can see what is going on. That will get talked about at the public meetings as well.
Michael Schumacher asks how fast the trains will go and how long it will take. [Seriously, has he not been paying any attention at all?]
Piraino says that about 1 hour 15 minutes and speed varies depending upon what going on, Madison to Watertown, 110, slowing down in Madison, don’t have exact speeds yet, it will reduce to 79, then 60s, then 40s. She says that also remembers that tracks will be upgraded for 79 miles per hour, not 110 until positive train control, computerized system.
Bidar-Sielaff says its slow speed rail.
Piraino says it will be concrete ties, no click clack any more, very quiet and smooth, from noise and vibration perspective.
Cnare asks if there are other impacts.
Chis Schmidt says that the trains are disturbingly quiet.
Bridget Maniaci asks about costs for tickets, who is operating the station, is a private contractor selling the tickets, is it Amtrak?
Piraino has asked and there are many different models, airport in Milwaukee does not have staff, you get a ticket by machine or print out on-line, the multimodal station has staff, amazing all the different varieties of ownership and operating you can enter into. She says she hopes they have some idea about what a city of our size would be.
Maniaci asks who sells tickets, who owns the trains?
Chris says DOT owns the trains, not sure if dot or Amtrak sells the tickets, they do note that when they applied they said it would be $22 – 33 dollars one way in application.
Maniaci asks if buy ticket Madison to Milwaukee, Milwaukee to Chicago or can you buy a ticket Milwaukee to Chicago.
Piraino says buy ticket based on final destination, at the end of July she thinks there will be two meetings, one on the station, one on the corridor.
Bidar-Sielaff says she’s worried about dates, they have a neighborhood development project scheduled for months ahead of time, people need to put it on their calendars, including us, but our constituents for sure if they hope to attend the meetings, if they could just choose the date sand then work on content that would be fine, people need a sense that it is happening, not just “we’re going to have a public meeting”.
Piraino says they will pass that information along as soon as they know.
Clear asks Schmidt, Bidar-Sielaff and Eagon if this briefing satisfies the resolution or want more topics and venues? He says this was done prior to both announcements by governor, some of it is moot, but will continue to get updates.
Schmidt says he thought we would have been talking about the station, he says they need a presentation to whole council, materials, state update, to hear from the 3 teams, station and parking should be brought to them, they should talk about government east and economic development potential, they should go over current status of it, where would buses go? how interact with station?
Bidar-Sielaff says that we don’t want to micromanage, but more information is better, the more we can choose what is relevant to us the better, if there are minutes for team meetings those would be good to get. We can read and if have questions can ask, even just to get those things by email people can choose to read it, but would have access to info so not get to final decision and then have questions, the process is already so focused, would be good to get trickles of info so can ask questions.
Piraino says that she will ask about updates to the website, the state made that commitment.
Bidar-Sielaff says even highlights of meeting would be good.
Piraino says they are only meeting sporadically. She says if they want a briefing, name the place and time and we’ll be there.
Cnare says it should be done routinely, like the first council meeting of every month.
Piraino suggests they open CCOC up and invite other council members.
Clear says from logistical point it would be good to do it at CCOC.
Bruer says that some people won’t come if they aren’t on the committee because of the politics.
Bidar-Sielaff says no, council members not available at 4:30, we are, but it is hard for people, she says 5:30 or 6:00 would be more convenient.
Schmidt says that could satisfy the resolution then update CCOC monthly.
They decide the next update will be Aug 3 at 6 – 6:30 in council chambers.
Bruer asks that they send out something earlier rather than later because of the politics of who knows what.
That’s it . . . please hold, we’ll let you know what we think you need to know when we decide to tell you.
