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HomeMy WebLinkAbout03-10-2010-Doc15968 • • MINUTE S PUBLIC WORKS/ELDERLY AFFAIRS CONIlVIITTEE March 10, 2010 A meeting of the Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee of the Council of the County of Kaua`i, State of Hawai`i, was called to order by Councilmember Tim Bynum, Chair, at the Historic County Building, Room 201, Lihu`e, Kaua`i, on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, at 11:59 a.m., after which the following members answered the call of the roll: Honorable Tim Bynum Honorable Jay Furfaro Honorable Daryl W. Kaneshiro Honorable Bill "Kaipo" Asing, Ex-Officio Member Honorable Lani T. Kawahara, Ex-Officio Member Excused: Honorable Dickie Chang Honorable Derek S. K. Kawakami Minutes of the February 10, 2010 Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee Meeting. Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Kaneshiro, seconded by Councilmember Furfaro, and unanimously carried, the Minutes of the February 10, 2010 Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee Meeting was approved. Minutes of the February 24, 2010 Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee Meeting. Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Kaneshiro, seconded by Councilmember Furfaro, and unanimously carried, the Minutes of the February 24, 2010 Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee Meeting was approved. The Committee proceeded on its agenda item as follows, and as shown in the following Committee report which is incorporated herein by reference: PWE 2010-3 Communication (2/26/2010) from Committee Chair Tim Bynum, requesting the presence of the Administration to discuss the status of the Hardy Street Improvements and Traffic Circulation in the Lihu`e Town Area [This item was deferred.] TIM BYNUM (COMMITTEE CHAIR): Thank you. Committee members this was originally on the agenda two (2) weeks ago regarding Hardy Street and the Administration asked for a deferral while they studied the issue. They also asked for a deferral today which I understand but we did broaden the communication to talk about traffic circulation because in our recent discussions about the Lihu`e Town Core Plan and the Civic Center Plan, lots of the dialog was about traffic circulation in the whole town area, parking, what that experience is, safety and so we broaden this a little bit and it started with Hardy Street but it's also come to a • • encompass parking issues in the Civic Center and traffic circulation and pedestrian circulation in around Lihu`e Town. You know this was sparked initially by the decision the Administration made and communicated to State Highways to move funding from Hardy Street improvements into another CIP project in Kokee and my understanding from the Administration is that they communicated with State Highways that they're still reviewing that decision and so it's not set in stone at this point and so I want to honor and appreciate that they... and my dialog with the Administration that they are looking at those issues and will be here eventually to discuss that. But I think it's really important and so what I'm suggesting Committee members is that this agenda maybe here for a couple of ineetings to discuss Hardy Street, traffic circulation... traffic and pedestrian circulation in downtown and also parking. But I didn't want to try to do that all at once. I do have a presentation that I want to do today to begin that and it... more specific to the Hardy Street and the history of Hardy Street so... any comments before I do that or concerns? Hearing none. So I think we're set up and ready to go, all I have to... See if this magically comes up. (Technical dif~'iculties) This was working before the meeting today. Let me call for a... Let me call for a very short recess. There being no objections, the Committee recessed at 12:04 p.m. The Committee reconvened at 12:10 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Mr. Bynum: Let me call the meeting back to order. We are experiencing some technical difficulties and we have like fifteen (15) minutes until we need to break for lunch and we're having a certificate for "Get Fit Kaua`i" at 1:30 so we're going to put this in recess and return back in Committee after the certificate at 1:30, thank you very much. There being no objections, the Committee recessed at 12:10 p.m. The Committee reconvened at 1:36 p.m., and proceeded as follows: Mr. Bynum: Good afternoon everyone. I'm going to call this meeting of the Public Works/Elderly Affairs Committee back to order. It's kind of a perfect segue just having Get Fit Kaua`i here and their taskforce on the built environment before we went to the lunch break, we have a communication from myself to the Administration to discuss the status of Hardy Street improvements and traffic circulation in Lihu`e Town area. This was on the agenda a few weeks ago and it was prompted by the possibility that funding from Hardy Street improvements was going to be delayed significantly after we had waited for it to move forward. In our dialog about the Lihu`e Town Core Plan we came up with lots of discussion about traffic in and around Lihu`e Town parking, walk ability and some of the issues we were just talking about, about the environment and so you know what I said to the Committee is... I have a presentation today, the Administration announced or told me that they had no final decision had been made on the funding regarding Hardy Street and that asking for a deferral for a few weeks while they research what options are available. So expect them to be here in the future but this item may take a few meetings because rather than try to do it all at once, I wanted to break into some discussion about Hardy Street, then some discussion about parking here in the Civic Center and then finally about walk ability. But for today I have a presentation to give some background to this and on the Hardy Street in particular and I'd like to... so I'd like to ask our Vice Chair Furfaro and Committee member if he would Chair this during the period of time I make this presentation. 2 • • Mr. Furfaro: Fine. Mr. Bynum, I might go to the other table so that I'm not blocking the screen but are you ready with the presentation now? Mr. Bynum: Yeah. Mr. Furfaro: Very good, the floor is yours. Mr. Bynum: Thank you, Mr. Furfaro. So Hardy Street for those of you who don't know is right here in Lihu`e Town bordering our Civic Center, one of our main traffic circulation routes and it has been scheduled for S.T.I.P. funding (State Transportation Improvement Plan) for about three (3) or four (4) years but we hadn't got the thing going. So, but this is part of plans that have gone on for some time. So the first slide is just an overview of some of the highlights of the discussion that have led to both the Civic Center Plan and the Lihu`e Town Core Plan and the funding of Hardy Street. This is not a complete list, it's just highlights but it really starts off with the General Plan that had a vision for downtown Lihu`e of revitalizing Lihu`e, having it be really be the town core, having it being a living, walk able community in trying to address some of the things that have pulled energy away from the town core, like Kukui Grove which took the shopping somewhere else but we wanted to keep the downtown viable and it is our... our county seat. So that led to... the General Plan led to the Civic Center planning and the environmental assessment to redevelop the Civic Center. As you know our Civic Center, big portion of it was once a shopping center and it's still has commercial elements and it probably will for a long time because in today's communities downtown's have that mix use of residential, community, commercial and office. And so the Council funded a Civic Center master plan and environmental award in 2003. As part of that study there was a downtown traffic study done at 2004 to look at how traffic circulates. In 2005 it was the first council workshop that I'm aware of where a PowerPoint was presented about you knowing the kind of the planning process for downtown up to that point. So the council continued to have input. In 2006 as part of you know the downtown redevelopment was when Hardy Street improvements was first on the Statewide improvements and what that means is there was earmarked, not earmarked is a bad words these days right but it was set aside about four point five (4.5) million dollars of Federal Funds that the county would match in order to do improvements on this very critical street in our downtown area. In August of 2006 as the Civic Center Plan had... was kind of reaching its conclusion and its preferred kind of alignment the Administration came to this Council and asked in consistent with the Civic Center Plan for the closing and I still have controversy about the pronunciation of this street, some people say Eiwa, some people say Eiwa but it's the street between the Historic County Building and Big Save Market and part of the Civic Center plan as we'll see calls for the closing of this street. The Council at that time I think quite wisely under the leadership of then Public Works Chair Jimmy Tokioka said to the Administration "no it's premature to close Eiwa and to make that decision" we need to do the traffic circulation and improvements in Hardy Street in order to really grive that a good test, so there's a quote there it says in October of 2006 the Council received that Resolution and said considered closing Eiwa Street after improvement Hardy Street and installation of a roundabout at Hardy and Umi Streets. In September 2007 the Civic Center plan and final environmental assessment was accepted so you know the planning process was complete. You know I didn't put in a lot of details about 3 • , • this but at the same time there was a Lihu`e Town Core Plan, which this Council accepted and passed ordinances consistent just this month and March of 2009. So the planning dollars that have been committed, mostly expended for these two (2) projects focusing on downtown Lihue are five hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars ($527,000). The Lihu`e Town Core Plan is complete. The Civic Center Plan has still funds available that for design and those are total prices after change orders and some additions. With that as a background I just wanted to go with a little bit more detail. This is downtown Lihue that we all know and love. Rice Street is the main... here and Rice... and Hardy Street is this street here that ends up connecting with Rice Street, goes around Wilcox School and then 'in this area comes between the Credit Union and Civic Center. Eiwa Street is this street in between, so just to get everyone oriented. This is from the Lihue Civic Center plan and part of generated by the traffic study and what the traffic study said was that we had difficulties with good traffic circulation at these areas where there's red circles. At the corner of Hardy and Umi, at the corner of Ekahi and Eiwa which is misaligned, so there... they don't line up across from each other and we all know the people that work or how difficult some of these signals can be and congested they can become. Particularly here at Hardy and Kuhio Highway, where it's really difficult to make a left turn and traffic backs up. But also at Haleko, at Kele Street by the Post Office and by Eiwa and Rice Street. So there's difficulties with all of these that were identified in the traffic study. To get a little more specific, traffic engineers rate intersections based on level of service is one of the measures and this slide tells us that the level of service and it goes from (a) to (f) and. it includes (e), unlike other things but (e) and (f) are considered failing. That the intersections are failing, so particularly pointed this out to where level of service is (f) on Umi and Hardy and Hardy and Kuhio, also coming off of Haleko and at... Eiwa and Rice so in the narrative it says a level of service (f) not only mean long delays but could also indicate hazardous traffic situations, as drivers become impatient, take chances and make turns through smaller than acceptable gaps. And for those of us who spend a lot of time in Lihu`e we see that every day. You only would have to stand out there for a minute because the level of service that (f) means people might be waiting a minute or two (2) minutes to make a left turn. And so they see this little gap and they rush into it if there happens to be a pedestrian in the crosswalk at the time, it's a bad scene. This is from the Civic Center Plan and I'm going to read this part, this is about Hardy Street and it says Hardy Street is proposed to be a two (2) lane roadway with landscape, center (inaudible) and turn lanes, bike lanes will be striped on both sides of the street. The intersection of Hardy and Kuhio will be signalized. Existing traffic levels already warrant signalization of this intersection which will improve left turn movements. A new four-way intersection will be created at Hardy and Akahi Street and the relocated county driveway. Traffic signals maybe... will be installed when increases of traffic levels make turning movements difficult that is not the case now and so this plan did not include signalization of that. Breaks in the median are provided at every driveway on Hardy Street and left turn (inaudible) lanes will be provided particularly at the new Hardy... Akahi county driveway intersection to allow through traffic to pass cars waiting to make left turns from Hardy Street. So again Hardy Street has this offsets where the... you know people are turning left into the Big Save parking lot or they're turning... and they're not lined up across streets and we know we cars waiting to make that left hand turn, it backs up traffic behind so this roadway improvements not only... really are what we call a complete street. They have 4 • • sidewalks on both sides, they have landscape planters and a median landscape and that median, that part in the middle of the road can create left turn lanes, so when people go to turn into the driveways, they're not backing up traffic. Besides making this a street that everyone can use, people with disabilities and people walking and people biking and being more attractive, it improves the flow of traffic and its efficiency and that's the Council wisely saying until we have this improve traffic flow, don't ask us about making this other changes. So this is the master plan for the Civic Center and just to point this out what we're talking about is this would be a changed... right now there's one (1) entrance off of Hardy Street into the Big Save Civic Center area, in this case there will be two (2) so there will be additional entrances but there'd be lined up with Akahi Street so we didn't have those offsets. And it would have left turn lanes. So what it says in that plan is and this is a big question that the Council asked about at that time and has recently... you know how do we phase this in? Can we afford to make the Civic Center overnight? And I can answer that question "no" we can't afford to do it overnight. So the proposed phasing plan for Lihue Civic Center improvements project is broken down into eight (8) phases. Phases axe not tied into any specific length in time and can either be combined or extended over time depending on the availability of funds. However the design of the improvements to Hardy Street is expected to commence later this year. Now that was in 2007 because the funding already had been identified. And so these you know assume that these improvements on Hardy would start in 2007 or 2008. Now I want to point out that these improvements on Hardy go all the way down Hardy to Rice Street, okay? If you look at this phasing plan though, phase two (2) also addresses traffic concerns. Phase two (2) addresses lining of the entrance to the county parking lot differently across from Kele Street at the Post Office and creating... and recreating the crosswalk that was taken away from there a few years ago and making it a safer intersection. And so there are future phases that you can see in this but that does not have to do with traffic so we'll save that discussion. This is from the 2005 presentation showing the enhanced crosswalk near the Post Office and landscaped median so this situation now without a crosswalk and we've all seen people j- walking there. And this is an artist description of what it would be like with a median in the middle and with crosswalks. Medians also help with pedestrian safety because it gives pedestrians... they can kind of deal with one (1) way traffic and then you know have a resting point. They don't have to deal with all straight through. So that's this area right here. So this is the way it intended to be, not the way it is now. So before I move on to that. I wanted to go back actually; this is the way... well we already did that. One of the things that we heard a lot about is this roundabout, people are concerned about whether that's the right way to go. The traffic study said and recommended it and I personally think that roundabouts are new to Kaua`i, we all know the first one was in Kapa`a and I think everyone pretty much understands that it moves traffic efficiently. The concern has been about pedestrians and what I want to say is that that and for those of us who knows that history, at first DOT didn't put any pedestrian accommodations which didn't make sense, we had housing on one (1) side of the roundabout and a park on the other and the people couldn't get through it and there was complaints and then the intersection was redesigned to put in the sidewalks but it wasn't designed properly and so roundabouts are very efficient but they're new. And anything new takes time. And so I wanted to you know this was discussed in the plan, it says at the intersection of Hardy and Umi Street, a roundabout is recommended due to the ~ unusual geometry of the intersection. So the intersection doesn't line up exactly 5 • • right if you... you know it's kind of at a crooked angle and the difficulty of signalizing the intersection... the roundabout would not only be cheaper than traffic signals but it would provide an opportunity to create a landmark for the Civic Center and it would not require condemnation of adjacent properties. Crosswalks are and this is an important part I think, crosswalks are setback from the vehicle entry and exit points to provide drivers with a clear view of pedestrians. Splitter islands near the roundabout will help shelter pedestrians crossing the street so this is a diagram from the internet about proper roundabout design and these splitter islands are this areas here where as you come into the roundabout a driver... they're setback at least one (1) car length sometimes more from when you have to merge into traffic, so it allows the driver to see and deal with the pedestrians and then see and deal with the traffic right? So it... by breaking that up it makes that much safer and again the splitter island meaning it has this area in the middle where pedestrians can deal with one side of the traffic and then deal with the next. Unfortunately, our experience on Kaua`i with a roundabout was not designed this way. This is our current roundabout on Olohena Road in Kapa`a and I think we all got used to how it works and you can see the island here but there was no pedestrian accommodation put in, this sideway which normally would be setback away from the roadway was put in afterwards because of complaints from people who said we can't get there. And this is where that sidewalk crosses right there where you merge in. There's no setback. Now this is also not complete yet because DOT put this in but the County as of yet has linked up this sidewalk to get to the park so we've actually created a pedestrian thing here and unfortunately there are many instances on Kauai where we have pedestrian amenities that don't connect on either end and so particularly for a person with mobility challenges or a person with disability, it really doesn't help. So that's one of many places we need to get it together. This is a roundabout in Colorado that has the appropriate one (1) car lane, this is the minimum and the splitter island and it's kind of attractive you know. My other issue about Kapa`a is we didn't really determine anything about esthetic you know, it's kind of ugly. So this is a roundabout... I took this picture in Seattle and I thought this was particularly attractive and I think that us putting some additional energy into things like pavers like this but it has the traditional elements of a roundabout but the middle is landscaped and the apron you know this truck apron is or larger vehicles, the cars would stay in the roadway but large trucks for Fire trucks you know can easily do roundabouts when they're designed properly. This is the same roundabout with two (2) car lane setback, splitter islands, it gives a very short distance for pedestrians to cross and it's quite safe. This is also an example of a complete street. This street, this is approaching the roundabout has sidewalks on both sides, median in the middle and bike lanes. So this is... a complete street is a street that accommodates everyone that wants to move not just cars. So regarding pedestrian safety, roundabouts actually handle traffic very efficiently. You have to move through them slower you know if you get a green light on an intersection you go through it the speed limit, forty (40), fifty (50) miles an hour. You definitely have to slow down in roundabouts because you just have to because you're making turns and so when there are collisions or when there are difficulties they happened at a much low speeds. But despite moving through them much slower they get you there quicker because you don't have to wait at the red light, so they handle the volume better, they reduce travel time for people in cars and they're much safer. This is from Federal Highways saying that roundabouts compared to intersections, overall collisions thirty percent (30%) reduction, injury collision was seventy-five percent (75%) reduction, fatal collision at ninety percent (90%) reduction and pedestrian collisions, forty percent (40%) so I hope that we can 6 • • deal with this idea that understandably it came up in Kaua`i that roundabouts are not pedestrian friendly. When they're designed correctly they're much better for pedestrians. This is ariother way to illustrate the reasoning for that is this is a typical intersection and there are thirty-two (32) places vehicle can come into conflict, and twenty-four (24) places where vehicles and pedestrians can come into conflict. From a traffic engineer's point of view, compare that to a roundabout, where there are twelve (12) places where there are vehicle to vehicle contacts and only eight (8) places where there's vehicle to pedestrian contact potentials. And again all of these... if the contact occurs it's at a much slower speed. So that's kind of a primer of roundabouts, I thought it was important that we educate people because these are new things to us. Our second roundabout by the way is Po`ipu, it's beautiful but it's very large and that's that way because it is a gateway, it's seen as you know something to say that you're at Po`ipu and it's very beautiful but if you look closely it does accommodate pedestrians appropriately. Again going back to the timeline, I had a real concern about Hardy Street so to bring it up to date, I came on the Council just...in 2006 just before I came on the Council is when the Council under Jimmy Tokioka and some of the people here said no we're not ready to close Eiwa Street, we need to do these traffic improvements first and see how it goes and then we'll consider this and I think that was a good decision but we... the Council then all expected that Hardy Street improvements would happen that year. Well two (2) years went by and they didn't happen, okay? We came into a new Council term and i found myself of Chair of this Committee, the Public Works Committee and one of the first things I said is how is it that we have federal money for three (3) or four (4) years and the project hasn't started, especially one that's this important to people in Lihu`e and to a big large constituency of our citizens. All of those people on the CIC for the Lihu`e Town Core Plan, all of the people who testified and have addressed these issues and now as we know Get Fit Kaua`i coalition asking us to improve the built environment, ADA advocates asking us to improve the walk ability of the downtown and comply with the law and we spent five hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars ($527,000) I think sometimes people on Kaua`i get frustrated that we spend a lot of money on plans that don't get put into action. And so this Hardy Street was our phase one (1) of this project. You know I asked those questions in March and March at this Council we were told it would probably be in this year's agenda for the matching funds and Public Works reassigned the project, worked hard to get it out and just a few weeks ago, I was told that we weren't ready to obligate the funds for design build of Hardy Street, which means we would start the project right away. And then I heard that the funds were reallocated to Kokee road. Now Kokee road is also an important thing but we have plans, we have these plans, we do five (5) years CIPs so all of us in government are on the same page so we have credibility so when the community says to us when is this going to happen, we say this is the plan. So I've asked the Mayor to look at that decision and he's agreed and we'll hear from him in the future. With the Committee's indulgence, I have two (2) other things that will take just a minute and they're kind of unique. Let's see if I can make this work, just wanted to g7ve you an idea of what... you can find anything on the internet... keep going... and it's supposed to be moving... oh hit play. Okay so this is a time lapse of a roundabout and it's ten (10) minutes long and we're not going to watch all ten (10) minutes but it gives you an idea just this traffic flow, this is pretty heavy traffic and you can see people come up and when they stop, they only stop for a little bit and then they move and the traffic flows is happening pretty, pretty good. You can see the splitter island for pedestrians back here, so if a pedestrian came walking through here, the car would see the pedestrian and then deal with the roundabout. And if we watch this long enough you'd see a pedestrian 7 • • not do the right thing and stagger right across this island. But we're not going to go that long. But I have one (1) other quick video I wanted to show. And it is right here... Okay let's take a look at this one for some contrast... Hit play again... This does illustrate a couple points I was trying to make, people can go through intersections very quickly and then the collisions are what we call t-bone collisions, if you have a collision in a roundabout it's kind of a glancing blow on the side, this is pretty amazing video here that, this is the same intersection. So this is not ten (10) minutes and I think we probably seen enough but... Mr. Furfaro: It should be noted that that's European traffic. Mr. Bynum: Yes this is in Russia. Mr. Furfaro: That's how the Russians handle it. Mr. Bynum: Apparently from watching this, either there's no signal or nobody pays any attention... that's the end of my presentation. I just want to say that I do appreciate the Administration hearing the concerns about moving these funds and how long that would delay something that I in my view is long delayed already. But you know that's the plan that never gets started that takes the longest to complete and so. You know I'm hopeful that we can get these Hardy Street improvements soon and that we can continue this dialog about our downtown and making it a walk able and safe place. Thank you very much. And with that I'll... Mr. Furfaro: I'll suspend the rules if there's anybody who would like to comment on the presentation. There being no objections the rules were suspended. Mr. Furfaro: No there's no comments. I would also like to point out though that the three hundred and thirty thousand (330,000) is actually in the Civic Center is a budget controlled by the Building Department and the two hundred twenty (220) is a budget controlled by the Planning Department. Mr. Bynum if you don't mind me g7ving clarity to that. Mr. Bynum: No. That's correct. Mr. Furfaro: And on that note since... we'll call the meeting back to order, I'll turn it back to you. Mr. Bynuni: Thank you very much. Any questions or comments from other Committee members before we end this section? Seeing none I would ask for this matter be deferred for a future meeting. Mr. Furfaro: Move to defer. Mr. Kaneshiro: Seconded. Mr. Bynum: Any discussion? All those in favor? Mr. Furfaro: There's no discussion on the deferral. 8 0 ~ Mr. Bynum: Oh that's right. Hey you got me. All those in favor? Committee Members: Aye. Mr. Bynum: None opposed. Motion carries. Upon motion duly made by Councilmember Furfaro, seconded by Councilmember Kaneshiro, a unanimously carried, PWE 2010-3 was deferred. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 2:31 p.m. Respectfully submitted, 6"" %U-MlD1VL~~ Darrellyne M. Simao Council Services Assistant I APPROVED at the Committee Meeting held on Apri17, 2010: TIM B M Chair, Public Works/Elderly Azbdrs:Commuttee 9