Johnson/Gorham Two-Way Study Discussion at the Council Meeting

From last night’s meeting, with bk comments.

When this item came up it was kind of confusing. I don’t know what was going on. Mayor Paul Soglin finally says that he has lost all control of the meeting. And in a slightly annoyed tone he calls on Bridget Maniaci, who seems to be the source of the confusion. He tells her she is speaking. She’s trying to get Shiva Bidar-Sielafff to talk. Soglin asks her who she is speaking for. Maniaci says Bidar-Sielaff pulled it off the agenda. Soglin says, ok so I should call on her? When her mic gets turned on Bidar-Sielaff says “I feel like I’m back in school”. Which was a good analogy, as Professor Paul was schooling them on how to act professional on the council floor. Soglin asks Bidar-Sielaff who she has questions for.

QUESTIONS OF STAFF
Bidar-Sielaff apologizes for keeping staff here and them being the last item. She asks about the budget for the study, where does $75K come from, was it budgeted for this year, was it part of the overall study and design?

Rob Phillips, the City Engineer says yes, the 2011 capitol budget has Johnson St in it, and the budget for that item is $490K, that funding was for design of Johnson St, the preparation of plans and specs and included is evaluation of one way vs. two way options for Johnson St, it is in the budget.

It’s in the budget, its item 28 in Major Streets and it says

Johnson Street, East Project No. 28 Acct. No. 810571
GO $490,000, Other O, Total $490,000
Limits – Butler Street to North First Street: Construction Year-2014.
Funding – Federal ($2,435,000) and City of Madison ($2,925,000).
Description – This project will reconstruct East Johnson Street

Sure, crystal clear its in the budget, right?

Bidar-Sielaff asks if we foresee spending that 490K, will it be more than that?

Phillips says they reauthorized a portion of the money and recommended to delay some of the borrowing, and put that in 2012 capitol budget, the services they are talking about are for a study of traffic on Johnson St is $75K, we had intended to hire a consultant for the plans and specs, we decided to do the bulk of the work with our own staff in city engineeering and traffic engineering, so just the study is going out to the consultant.

Bidar-Sielaff says that she saw the bids Sorry, tried to get them electronically, but you have to go to their office to see them, this was the lowest, have we done similar studies that we used consultants for, was this in the ball park?

Philips says they have done other similar studies, there are two parts to the work involved. First is to determine where the traffic will re-route in the event that the roads have less capacity, there is the analysis to look at where traffic will go, through the isthmus there are only three corridors, that is the big picture. The second part is to look at the intersections to see how they would function and if they can carry the traffic that was determined to go there in the first part of the study. This can be and iterative process, the fee is reasonable, they have had other studies, traffic engineering can more talk about that, we have had larger studies than this this effort is concentrated.

I could be wrong, but isn’t the bulk of this work already done?

I think this is more about the neighborhood wanting a second opinion, but then they were cut out of the selection process for the people to do the study by their alder who kept this secret til last week when the Marquette Neighborhood (across E Washington) discovered it, so I’m not sure how much credibility they study will actually have.

Bidar-Sielaff says it is the long standing desire from neighborhood residents, tell me about that history and how far back it goes and why this is the right time to do this.

Philips says that they would like to reconstruct East Johnson in 2014 using federal funds and they want to stay on that schedule, they want to be able to utilize those funds and show that we can deliver so we can get federal funds in the future. In order to prepare the plans and specs they need to address the issue of one-way vs. two-way, it was brought up in 2008 with the Tenney-Lapham Neighborhood plan that called for them to look at speed and volume of traffic and as an action item to request the study take place. The Downtown Plan Not yet passed also calls for a larger study in the isthmus area as well and I think we hear from time to time from neighbors interested in this change and those not interested in this change as well. There are two sides to it of course, but in order to move on and forward in plans and specs we felt needed to address this issue.

Marsha Rummel says that this was a surprise to many on the near east side, she supports it, but she heard from many citizen traffic planners they would have liked to have had more information. This didn’t come up in TIP (Annual presentation to the council as well as several committees that is rushed through before a council meeting and they usually get cut off with no chances for questions. The TIP is the Transportation Improvement Plan and it is the council’s chance to see what road projects the staff is planning on doing. If they don’t raise the issues in the TIP, the staff starts working on the projects and then suddenly its too late to stop the project) and there was no communication with anybody except the alder and staff, but not the broader neighborhood. One of things that Tenney-Lapham did in 2008, they helped amend the Comprehensive Plan to ask for an east isthmus traffic study. Many neighborhoods would support that. She says midway though her tenure in the Marquette Neighborhood Association activists from Marquette, Capitol Neighbohroods, Tenney-Lapham, Schenk-Atwood and others came together and they figured it all out, but the money was lacking. They wanted Johnson/Gorham two-way, they wanted to restore parking to Willy and Atwood, fix the John Nolan/Butler intersection and put all the traffic on E Washington, which is just one point of this study. The question is how get to the larger issue of traffic planning and what will the standards will be for the impacts on Willy and E Washington?

Phillips says that issue of standards is that we are only going to provide information, consultants and staff will provide information, we don’t have set standards about what would be tolerable right now, but the information we provide will attempt to give everyone a feel for what additional delay or volume of traffic certain arterial streets will pick up as a result of the changes. From that, the common council and mayor can make a decision on how best to proceed. As far as the process goes, there will be extensive public involvement, it is true that has not happened up til now, but in terms of developing the scope that was a very technical part of this. I guess they think the public is just too stupid to be involved? but they will certainly have an inclusive process as we move forward with the information coming out of the study and the preparation of the plans and specs for the project. Once again, the city made a decision without the public and will then let us get involved after they set the parameters, leaving us to tinker around the edges. I can’t wait for this shift in thinking to take place in city hall and to see a return to welcoming public participation. The damage done in the last 8 years in terms of secrecy and cutting out the public is so disheartening. This study is not isthmus wide, it is wrong to characterize like that, this is to study this one potential change on one of the three arterials, a more isthmus wide study would have to be budgeted for and undertaken in the future.

Rummel says that early on Cover had a gleam in eye and talked about a transportation, how do you see this fitting in with larger planning process?

Steven Cover, the Director of the Planning and Community and Economic Development Division says that one of the needs is to look at the transportation network, they are interested in pursuing that as soon as next year, this project has come along pretty far, it is worth performing the work proposed to get a feel for what needs to be done in the future. This is a subset of information that can be incorporated in a future master plan, this work is worthwhile.

Rummel asks about if this is additional money to the federal money, Rummel says federal $490K, how is this money fit in to the bigger amount?

Phillips says construction is 50% fed and 50% local, design is all local, $490K is all City of Madison funding and the amount for this study is $75K, its all local.

DISCUSSION
Bridget Maniaci says “Alright”, where we sit is at the nexus of plans and what happens when plans start happening, E Washington is moving along here, for many years stretching back to 2004 we have been talking about this, and a transportation study for the isthmus, not long ago we updated the Comprehensive Plan, that included the Tenney Lapham plan which calls for a study of Johnson/Gorham two-way, but they neighborhood understood that this happens in the scope and context of a greater isthmus transportation study. This is the opening salvo to a greater discussion. Now that the RTA and the train are off the table, we have to look at it all on our own and we have to look at the next 5, 10, 15 year policy for the city. As you heard, what happens here impacts your constituents, the Tenney Lapham plan has ideas of how to manage increased residents, commercial and what happens to residents there and how to mitigate traffic coming through. She hopes they support this, it won’t answer question of all one way traffic downtown, the traffic demand or how effective our multi-modal infrastructure is. We have spent significant resources to encourage bike infrastructure, pedestrian scale streetscapes and this is a small part of moving forward. She hopes they support it, if they want to spend and afternoon there is lots of text about lots of transportation goals in the Tenney Lapham Neighborhood Plan, my neighborhood understands that we are a pass through for many folks but how they pass through is important.

Paul Skidmore says that he is on the Ped, Bike Motor Vehicle Commission and when the Marquette (Ahem, Tenney Lapham) neighborhood brought their plan to the committee a number of passionate people came who want to solve their problems with two-way and they did not consider the impact on the rest of the city. Oh, bullshit, the neighborhood was asking for the larger multi-modal study so that we could make sure that we were not doing this in isolation and causing problems for our surrounding neighborhoods. We had meetings with the neighborhoods and Downtown Madison Inc (business community) to build a coalition to ask for the larger study, and we were shot down by Mayor Dave.) We on the committee said they should study it, they recommended the study, its a good idea, he stands behind it, and many people support having the study, but he is not exactly sure what the study will conclude or how he will come down on it. But from talking with David Dryer, Traffic Engineer doing two-way streets would have a huge impact on E Washington and Williamson, so there are a whole set of issues to deal with, this will impact people to east and west and downtown. This study, like the pioneer neighborhood and Junction Road will point out problems and issues and how it will impact traffic. This is a logical plan and that is why we supported it on Board of Public Works, not cuz he knew what would happen, this is getting more answers they will have to answer before they do anything anyways.

Bidar-Sielaff says that she supports with much trepidation, she is not sure that it is too wise to spend this money when find ourselves financially challenged. City staff could answer the questions, however, we want to be understanding of the plans that the neighborhood worked diligently on and have answers from an independent source. Which is why the public should have been involved in setting up that independent study, because now it is tainted. She will support in deference to the citizens who feel very strongly and live there and support this. Part of the trepidation is that these are critical corridors and wishes the study was in the context of a larger transportation plan, which is actually what the neighborhood wants too but we are looking at a few neighborhoods and not overall, we are doing this in a haphazard way. She understands the 2014 deadline, that is why they are pushing forward, even though not it doesn’t include the rest of the plan. She wants to say that those issues are important issues for her and hopes that they look at in overall city transportation plan. She will say for the record that she is in another neighborhood and district affected by pass through and commuter traffic and we have two-way streets on Regent and Old University, and they should look at patterns in other parts of the city and see if those two-way streets have made any change in speed, traffic and economic development. She thinks points of comparison can be drawn, and wants to make sure to support neighborhoods and plans they worked on.

There is a pause, looks like no one else wants to speak but Brian Solomon is attempting to speak, and more goofiness ensues.

Brian Solomon gets his mic turned on and says “Don’t give me the sigh, I’ll be fast” He explains that over in his corner there was a huge audible sigh because he wanted to speak. I believe that sign was from Maniaci. I don’t understand why frequently the council gets pissed off whenever he wants to speak, I think they are very disrespectful to him.

Solomon says this is not just about the neighborhood and traffic ptterns, but revitalization. Studies have shown two way streets revitalize what are stale neighborhoods, it is critical for the city, $75K a lot of money but it is a worthwhile investment.

Steve King says that something the mayor mentioned is important, we should keep this in mind as go forward, the city should have capacity to do this, he has voted multiple times to vote on planning – we should have internal capacity to do this.

The motion passes on a voice vote with one lone woman voice saying no, but I didn’t catch who it was. Johnson? This is why roll call votes are important.