SARASOTA COUNTY BICYCLE/PEDESTRIAN/TRAIL ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING SUMMARY DATE: December 13, 2016 TIME: 5:30 P.M. LOCATION: Laurel Park 509 Collins Road Nokomis, Florida 34275 Members Present Bud Gaunce Fred Whitehouse Richard Stammer Carol Conrad Elayna Goodman Sgt. Darrell Seckendorf Kathy Schmitz Crystal Allred Mark Usher Jeffrey Shivers Members Not Present Joseph Hochadel Douglas Minich Cherie McKeon Ray Bergeron Elizabeth Harris Michael Belle Staff Present Patrick Lui, Sarasota County, BPTAC Liaison Melanie Marsh, Sarasota County, Administrative Support 1. Call to Order & Committee Member Roll Call Vice Chair, Kathy Schmitz, called the meeting to order and took roll call as Crystal Allred was running late. Quorum met. Patrick Lui introduced new committee member Jeffrey Shivers. Jeffrey stated he is a retired pathologist from Pennsylvania. He was until April of this year an avid bicyclist riding 150 miles a week, but his shoulders have given out and he cannot ride anymore. He stated he was very interested everything to do with bicycles. Committee members had a discussion regarding recumbent bicycles as an option. 2. Adoption of Agenda: On a motion by Mark Usher, seconded by Jeffrey Shivers the Committee voted unanimously to adopt the agenda as written. (8-0) 3. Approval of Previous Meeting Minutes: Correction noted by Carol Conrad to change word statics to statistics. On a motion by Richard Stammer, seconded by Bud Gaunce the Committee voted unanimously to approve the September 20, 2016 regular meeting minutes. (8-0) 4. Open to the Public: There were no public speakers. Page 1
5. Presentation: No Presentation 6. Discussion a. 2017 Committee Topics Committee agreed to skip to number 7. Staff/Member Updates until Chair Crystal Allred arrives. Crystal Allred said it is time to identify major committee topics that the committee would like to have presentations before us. Crystal Allred asked Patrick Lui if there is something in the Transportation department that the committee could use to identify projects. Patrick Lui responded you can go onto the County website and on the bottom left is Capital Improvement Projects and if you click on that link you will see all of the Capital Improvement Projects in the County. Crystal Allred suggested going around the room to get input. i. Richard Stammer - the plans for Benderson Park and the plan to turn it into a bike community. ii. Mark Usher - east of the trail in the City of Sarasota; the Bee Ridge project and changing traffic patterns. iii. Richard Stammer plans for renovation/expansion of Fruitville between U.S. 41 and 301. Patrick Lui said the City of Sarasota is still having public meetings that can be found on the City of Sarasota website. iv. Kathy Schmitz Legacy Trail is going forward. She would like the committee to be considering the areas leading up to the trail so we don t end up with a situation like Clark and Honore where you have people wanting to get on the trail and no way to get to the trail. She stated getting to the trail is almost as important as the trail itself. So she would like to see the committee focus on little connections wherever they can be made. v. Crystal Allred discussed access management for the trails. Patrick Lui stated that Parks is reviewing a resolution to allow for private access for residential communities. Patrick said he can coordinate for Parks staff to come and do a presentation and get the committees input. Crystal Allred stated that we are dealing with individual subdivisions as well as trail heads and accessibility for other areas. Committee members discussed various areas with connection issues. vi. Jeffrey Shivers suggested the committee conduct a survey of Tour to Parks and Sharkey s Tour the Beaches cycling groups to see what they think about our roads and bike conditions. Patrick Lui noted the Trails Master Plan will have a survey, but it might not answer all the committee s questions. Committee members discussed what might be done with the data and the need to separate recreational riders and transportation riders. vii. Kathy Schmitz said she would like to see the committee be more involved in educational programs that reach out to not just to bicyclists attending an event but a more generalized program to the general public and people that do not ride bicycles or walk, but to actual motorists who need to share the roads. Kathy thinks the committee needs to reach out through social media and television. Patrick Lui said Sarasota County does have a Facebook page for Ride & Stride and requested the committee members give Patrick content and links. The page is Sarasota County Ride & Stride. Kathy Schmitz stated she would like the information to go out to people who are not looking for it. Page 2
viii. Patrick Lui explained the Walk Wise presentation was held at the county and invited some neighborhoods. Patrick said every time he talks, he promotes Walk Wise. ix. Crystal Allred stated years ago, The Great American Bicyclists education program had motorist awareness as one of the talking points. She stated they went to various home owners associations. x. The committee discussed various outlets for public service announcements that would not cost. Kathy Schmitz stated that local radio stations do not require payment for air time, they are happy to do community announcements. Patrick Lui said they can also use the county s Access 19 TV through the county s communications department. xi. Mark Usher stated they should also look at cyclists that are breaking the rules of the road and educate cyclists to not do things that will antagonize motorists. xii. Richard Stammer asked if the driver test focuses on pedestrian, cyclist in driver education. Elayna Goodman stated she took driver s education a couple of years ago and there was not any pedestrian, cyclists education. xiii. Crystal Allred summarized the committee s ideas. 1. Presentation by Parks & Recreation 2. Survey 3. Educational Programs 4. Communications type programs xiv. Crystal Allred stated the Comprehensive Plan Complete Streets would be another good topic for the committee and a presentation. xv. Mark Usher suggested integration with the School Board in terms of pedestrian traffic to and from schools. Patrick Lui noted the committee does have a member from the School Board, Elizabeth Harris. He stated Elizabeth Harris is retiring and not in attendance, but once her replacement is appointed, that might be a way to facilitate this discussion. b. 2017 Committee projects i. Crystal Allred discussed the subcommittees and asked if perhaps some of the subcommittees would be willing to take on some research on some of these topics, for example a survey. ii. Patrick Lui explained that last year this committee elected to implement subcommittees. These subcommittees can meet anytime, but they have to be advertised and Patrick, as staff liaison has to attend and record the meeting. They asked each committee member to sign up for a subcommittee based upon the 5 E s of bicycle planning. Patrick asked Jeffrey Shivers to send an email to Patrick if he would like to join one of the subcommittees. Jeffrey Shivers asked if the committee is involved in any off road trails. Patrick answered yes, the Trails Master Plan looks at primitive and off road trails. Jeffrey Shivers stated off road groups would be good to add to the survey. The committee discussed having a subcommittee develop a survey and vet questions. The subcommittees are 1) Engineering, Evaluation and Planning 2) Education and Encouragement and 3) Enforcement. Patrick Lui will send out the subcommittee roster list so all members can sign up and update the subcommittee roster. Crystal Allred said at the next meeting, after the list is updated, the committee can plot out the course for the subcommittees. Page 3
7. Staff / Member Updates a. BPTAC Annual Report to the Board of County Commissioners Patrick Lui said Crystal Allred gave her presentation to the BCC this morning and she did very well. He stated all will be able to watch it online tomorrow. b. Mark Usher said two things that keep coming to him from other people are the lack of bike paths on Honore north of Clark and the northern extension of the Legacy Trail. c. Jeffrey Shivers said Dave Borans has resigned from The Plantation Board. Patrick Lui explained this is a neighborhood in Venice on Rockley Blvd. which has a bicycle, pedestrian committee and Dave Borans was the president of that committee. Jeffrey explained why he believes this will be a good thing for the Plantation s bicycle committee. Committee members discussed initiatives pursued while Dave Borans was the president. d. Patrick Lui said they have finalized the scope for the Trails Master Plan which the county is going to be updating starting in 2017. The consultant named Atkins is going to be taking that on and will provide updates to this committee. The committee will likely be identified as a stakeholder group and will be asked to participate in public workshops, etc. Patrick said the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan was done in 2013, but the Trails Master Plan has not been updated since 2006. He said the ultimate plan is to combine the two plans. This Trails Master Plan is looking at all trails and networks and prioritizing and looking for funding. He said he thinks one of the main reasons this committee was formed is to review plans like these and provide valuable input. Patrick said Gantt was just paved this year and had sharrows put on it. Patrick discussed the two applications of sharrows, painted and thermo plastic. Patrick said there is a process where this committee can make recommendations to the county on which material should be used. The committee discussed which surface material is the best and least slippery. Patrick updated the committee on North Legacy Trail Extension and said the county did complete the appraisal process, but he cannot share that right now because the county is still in negotiations on the contract price. He said once we have an agreed upon price, it will be a money issue. Patrick explained the design for the trail has not been done, but there was a feasibility study done in 2015 that the Board adopted and there were two options. One was rails to trails and the other option is rails with trails. The feasibility study gave the rails with trails to be at about 20 million dollars and the rails to trails to be at about 16 million dollars. Patrick explained that we did not get the Sun Trail grant because they were looking for projects that were shovel ready and obviously if you don t own the land you are not shovel ready. They were also targeting projects that were 3 million dollars or less and our request was way higher than that. Patrick said we will take a different approach where we will concentrate on purchasing it then work sequentially. He said maybe even acquire and build trails in phases. He said then when we apply for grants the request is much more manageable. Page 4
e. Carol Conrad noted that Honore north of Fruitville to 17 th Street was in bad condition. Patrick Lui said that is identified on the county five year plan and currently scheduled for repaving. Carol Conrad commented on the Master Trails Plan and stated she hopes it does not leave out environmentally sensitive lands as the current plan does. She stated it seems the county departments were not in communication. Patrick explained that now the county will have an internal kick off meeting where you invite everyone from each department to obtain a level of coordination. He said they then have a lot of planned public consultation and engagement. f. Chair Crystal Allred arrived at the meeting and Vice Chair Kathy Schmitz passed the gavel to Chair Crystal Allred. Chair Crystal Allred apologized for her delay. Chair Crystal Allred stated that she gave the annual report to the Board of County Commissioners this morning and they had two messages for the committee. One of them is the county only has so much money and message number two is they wanted to encourage the committee to continue doing the good work particularly as we go into the update of the Trails Master Plan. Kathy Schmitz commented that she thinks it is clear the county has told the committee numerous times that the committee has no authority to promise any money and the committee should not even present anything to them unless the committee comes with a funding source as well. Crystal Allred stated that one of the Board s priorities is the expansion of The Legacy Trail so anything we can do to help identify a funding source would be welcomed. Committee members Mark Usher and Kathy Schmitz expressed that the committee is not expected to figure out funding, but represent the citizens of the county. Crystal Allred said that the Board was only referring to if they knew of anything out there beyond the county funds. Crystal Allred moved on to item 6. 8. Location for the March 21, 2017 Meeting On a motion by Kathy Schmitz, seconded by Mark Usher the Council voted unanimously to hold the March 21, 2017 meeting at the Administration Building, 1 st Floor Training Room, 1660 Ringling Blvd. 9. Other Business Fred Whitehouse stated that he has an info booth at the Farmer s Market at Phillippi Creek Park on Wednesdays. He said they pass out a lot of pamphlets from Legacy Trail. He welcomes any other handout information the committee would like to hand out. 10. On a motion by Mark Usher, seconded by Kathy Schmitz, the Council voted unanimously to adjourn the meeting at 7:03 p.m. Page 5