Travis County Commissioners Court
May 17, 2005
Item 14
14 is discuss and take appropriate action on Travis County comments to campo board of directors regarding draft 2030 transportation plan.
>> > there's just two items I want to update you on. I did have an opportunity to meet with the bicycle -- a representative from the bicycle community, and members of our campo technical advisory committee. Specifically on the proposed amendment to the bicycle-pedestrian policy. And I hope I fairly represent the sentiments of the bicycle community, but their main concern was the change that took the policy away from the expression of the federal guideline. As I pointed out to you, the graft policy, the original draft policy was not really an accurate representation of the federal guideline. It took from it, but it wasn't -- didn't clearly state exactly what the federal government was trying to do with regard to bicycle and pedestrian facilities. With that said, what the bicycle community is mostly interested in is the measurable commitment by the transportation agencies to invest in bicycle and pedestrian facilities. To that extent, the 20% fresh hold was very important -- threshold was very important and they wanted that restored. They basically want the policy to as closely as possible reflect the federal highway administration's draft or advisory guidelines to the n.p.o.s around the country. This is my own proposed redraft of what we had brought to the Commissioners court to perhaps get back to more of a true representation of the federal policy, which also restores the 20% level. And I want to make a few points. One, the federal policy clearly applies to the urbanized area. It was not broadly the entire study area of Travis County. And that was one of my points. I thought that there had to be a rational fit to where you invest in pedestrian-bicycle facilities. I think the federal policy clearly does that. Its intent is primarily to the urbanized area as I proposed you with a copy of that as defined by the census. I think it is in that area where you clearly have the den advertise that generate the bicycle and pedestrian demand that would warrant investment. Secondly, the 20% figure, basically I want you to include bicycle and pedestrian facilities where the cost would not exceed 20% of the cost of the project. Well, that wasn't 20% for bicycles and another 20% for pedestrians. The federal policy was the combined cost of bicycles and pedestrian facilities should not exceed 20%. Which is, you know, considering you may -- 20% is a fairly large number if and of itself of a multi-million dollar project, but it would include both bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Thirdly, there is a basically a clause in the federal policy that says if there's an absence of need, the policy doesn't apply. It just basically says they are not trying to take money and put it where there's no need for it. If there's a demonstrated lack of need, then you're not bound by this. And then finally, the -- oh, there's a -- basically a rural, urban split. In rural areas what they would have us do, for instance, is on any road that has a thousand vehicles per day is to put wide shoulders on the roadway.
>> who is "they"?
>> they recognize there's a difference between urban areas and rural areas. In rural areas what they would have us do is on any roadway that has a thousand vehicles per day on it or greater, that we would in the process of upgrading or reconstructing that roadway, we would put on shoulders that would accommodate bicycles. And I have provided you a list of the roadways in Travis County, at least on our system, that would warrant such a shoulder.
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>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
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>> ...unfortunately we are not everyone represented on the technical advisory committee agrees with that position. There are still concern amongst some of our other cities in particular, that the 20% threshold is too high. And so we will meet again tomorrow as a technical advisory committee to see if we can't come to the middle on this policy. But I think that we had some fairly candid discussions with the bicycle community. They heard our positions. They gave us their positions and I think we are still working on try to -- to try to come to the in I would.
>> do you have another meeting -- to the middle.
>> do you have another meeting scheduled with the bicycle group?
>> we do not at this point. We do have a meeting of the technical advisory committee tomorrow. At what time expect this draft policy to be discussed again.
>> if in fact they agree with your interpretation of the federal requirement, I guess your application over the Travis County roads, would that require a tweaking of the campo language?
>> yes, it would.
>> I read the original backup comments from the city of Round Rock. And what they put down here related to the bicycle and pedestrians in terms of commenting as did we, they put the city of Round Rock is committed to integrating bicycling into the community by improving bicycle connectivity. As adopted by ordinance in the city's transportation master plan, the city uses a combination of within right-of-way -- excuse me, within roadway right-of-way facilities and trail off-road facilities to achieve this connectivity. As previously discussed with campo staff, the policy as stated in the draft plan does not provide local jurisdictions with any flexibility for exceptions other than where bicycle access is not permitted. As a result, the city of Round Rock cannot support or comply with this policy. Do you think the draft language that you have come up with might get them to a -- to a better place.
>> well, let me first explain the underlying issue and then the answer to your question is yes. But the bicycle community does not want to be relegated to off road paths. They feel that they -- they use the roadways as a path for commuting. That's where most of them want to be within the roadway right-of-way. So the original draft that the technical advisory came up with had a sentence that said that the policy could be met by demonstrating that -- that the agency provided off system trails. And the bicycle community said, no, if that is intended to shuttle us off to the side on these side paths, we do not support that. Round Rock's response was that was not the intent. So as a result of that dialogue, this last sentence was added, that says this policy may also be addressed, may be met by demonstrating that future demand will be addressed through implementation of a comprehensive interconnected system of on roads and off road bicycle and pedestrian facility. It's what -- basically compromise language that said this is not to prevent a city from doing off road facilities. But that the need needs to be met with both on road and off road. Round Rock didn't have a problem with that because it wasn't the intent of their policy to only provide bicycle facilities off road. So I think that this language gets to where the -- to the Round Rock issue.
>> the other thing that I was struck aside from Travis County and Round Rock, in the backup, we had some questions put in from buda and from Pflugerville and one city council member, I am beyond struck, by the lack of detailed comment by the jurts dixs that make up campo to this plan and I don't know if silence means we don't have any issues with it but certainly we just found all sorts of little technical things that we needed to get fixed as did Round Rock, and I’m just -- can you bring that up tomorrow, where is everybody's comments? Because at some point I have to interpret their silence as meaning they don't have any comments and the plan is groovy just the way it is.
>> you might also read it that most of them have their own separate transportation plan, so it doesn't have the significance that it does for Travis County. This is one in the same transportation plan -- this is our plan. So we pay a lot of attention to it. We don't have an alternate plan that directs other things at the county. I think when you go to some of these other jurisdictions, they have their own separate transportation plan, land use plan, campo is really just a side issue for them.
>> except if there are roads that are within a regional roadway plan, that enter these jurisdictions and jurisdictions are accepting federal fund. They can't all of a sudden act like the campo plan is meaningless. They can't eliminate a regional road. Let's just throw out arterial a, Williamson county as being an example. It is not a plan, therefore it is not relevant. It is in the regional plan. Yes, it does have to be accounted for. I understand these tweaks, but when these injuries dirks are accepting -- jurisdictions are accepting federal fund, we will call it the price that you have to pay, you have to sign-off on the campo plan. You can't just blow off sections that you think are irrelevant and take the money and do as you please.
>> it's going to be entertaining.
>> did you ever ask what their positions are on the draft campo plan?
>> I believe campo certainly circulates the plan for comment. Whether or not these jurisdictions take the opportunity is really up to them.
>> because I think we need to know before the meeting what Williamson county's position is on arterial a. Don't we? I mean, I would hate to take the position --
>> yeah.
>> I mean, I don't know that I have -- any keen interest in what happens to arterial a in Williamson county anyway. But I certainly don't -- I mean, I would appreciate knowing where they stand on it before I vote.
>> all right. We will seek out their opinion on arterial a in Williamson county.
>> and Cedar Park and the city of Austin. I think everybody is kind of landing that there needs to be some serious corridor studies out there and figure out what needs to happen because campo admitted at the last meeting that they had made some certain assumptions that certain things were going to happen with the 183 a related to the frontage roads and found out those were not only incorrect, they were very incorrect in terms of whether there would be frontage roads and in some sections there aren't any frontage roads. They were assuming passage up there of cars on free roads that simply are not true or act crt or do not exist. So it's a problem. Do we need --
>> joe, is there any recognition from the bicycle community, this may be a moot point given that inner city is city of Austin versus Travis County, but is there any recognition to the fact that most bicycle miles traveled, if that's a way to determine bicycles, is really recreational versus commuter? I mean, is that -- is there a recognition within the bicycle community that that -- I think that that is an absolute. I mean if somebody can prove me wrong and say, no, here's how many people use it as their major mode of transportation, their commuting mode, is there any recognition of that from the bicycle community?
>> I have not heard that. As a matter of fact I think they would probably articulate that there's enough commuter traffic that it would weigh as heavily as recreational traffic. Not that there's not recreational traffic, but if you included for instance, elementary school kids going to school on their bicycles as transportation, you might have an argument that there's a larger population there that is truly using bicycles as a means of transportation. Not just your long-term commuters from north Austin to downtown. Quite frankly, that's where Travis County puts most of its effort in getting children to and from school whether it's a safe sidewalk or a bicycle path, because we realize that is a population where truly this is a mode of transportation. So but that's usually within half a mile of the school. And that's a -- a lot of what we are being asked to do at this point on, our rural road system, is probably more of the flavor of -- of recreational or sports use of bicycles.
>> do you think it's safer for a child to be on a bicycle on a bicycle lane in a road or on a sidewalk?
>> oh, I think it's clearly more on a sidewalk on a separate path.
>> I do, too.
>> so --
>> again that depend on the roadway.
>> that's another one of the things that I would like to ask the bicycle community, is that the promotion that you want? I’m not trying to pick a fight with the bicycle community.
>> no.
>> but I really want sensibility I’m which is what we're looking at, I mean, within 90 days of taking office, I sat down with five or six of them, it was pretty much if there's a road that has a 14-foot wide side of the road then we have the right to be on that road. Well, that may be, you know, hamilton pool road may be 14 feet wide, but I do not think that hamilton pool road is a safe road for bicyclists to be on, but I’m -- but I was willing to, I told them, I said, if you can identify 8, 10, 12, 15 road, whatever it is in western Travis County, not to say that eastern Travis County isn't also a bicycle community, when you get out in new sweet and all that area, but what I always fear is that if you create some of these things, you do create the ability for those folks to get out there to it. The problem is, you can't always get to that final destination that you are going to except for having to get on 71, if you are going to hamilton pool road, bee cave road is wonderful to go on. But until you -- then when you get on 71, 71 is not that safe to get all the way over to hamilton pool. So I -- maybe I need to have another meeting with them, but those are some of the questions that I would have with the bicycle community.
>> let me make another statement there.
>> the bicycle community clearly typifies different users, not all bike users are the same. They do recognize by the type of use what facilities are appropriate, what are not. So they do have a high end where you have an experienced commuter, the low end for the children users. So they don't lump everybody the same. They certainly wouldn't recommend that you us use the same type of facilities to satisfy the demand for all of these different groups.
>> should we have it back on next week.
>> you bet.
>> I think we ought to know what big issues have surfaced. And what the consensus of opinion seems to be on them. Don't you? A lot of minor things that are in the plan I think and not so much worried about them as the big ones. Spearnly the ones that may be controversial. Especially the ones that may be controversial.
>> across the whole --
>> in the plan, in the plan. Next week there will be a report back from the technical advisory committee as well as some sort of update on the bicycle issue?
>> fine.
>> is that okay?
>> that's good.
>> okay. Judge are we authorizing joe to take this new draft language just for purposes of discussion tomorrow; is that just direction from us or do we need to give him formal authorization to bring this --
>> I think that to the extent joe can interpret our comments today, directions.
>> just wanted to give him some input.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 7:54 AM