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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTSMinutes_2007_06_14BROOKINGS TRAFFIC SAFETY COMMITTEE City Hall meeting room Thursday, June 14, 2007 12:10 p.m. The Brookings Traffic Safety Committee held its monthly meeting on Thursday, June 14, 2007, at 12:10pm in the City Hall meeting room. Members Present: Louis Skubic, Daryl Englund, Skip Webster, Jackie Lanning, Matthew Nelson, Keith Bruinsma, Connie Bridges, Brian Lueders, Members Absent: Dennis Bielfeldt, Jerry Sikkink, Tim Heaton, Becky Thompson, Brad Whaley, and Margie Wagner-Carpenter. Others Present: Duane Everding, Gregg Carlson, Mark Mathies. Call to Order: Skip called the meeting called to order. Matthew/Jackie moved to approve minutes of the May 10th meeting. All present voted aye. Motion carried. Old Business: New Business: 1) Request to remove some parking along Castlewood Drive. Last month Jackie passed out a map of Castlewood Drive. Jackie also invited all the homeowners. Two people contacted her, both living on the north side, and Gregg Carlson was present to visit with the committee. Gregg said he is against this for several reasons. He lives on the north side and occasionally parks his company vehicle on the street; in the winter he never uses street parking. He feels the problem lies with David Kneip who owns the duplexes on the south and only provides enough off street parking for two vehicles per house but most of them have four to six vehicles. Jackie said they did meet the parking requirements at the time they were built. She thinks our parking requirements are stiffer now, but it is looked at as use, not ownership. Gregg has lived there for 14 years and this has been a problem for quite awhile. He went around town and measured streets and noticed variances. He felt streets such as Christine and 12th Street South shouldn’t have street parking either, and his street is only one block long. He felt the only time this is a big problem is during the winter months. He said vehicles don’t get ticketed or towed so the snow plows can’t get through and clear the street. Keith asked if the complaint came from snow removal issues. The request is from last month’s meeting; Duane Everding felt there is a real safety issue for emergency vehicles because of the narrowness with parking on both sides. Skip noted we deal with these issues as they become a problem. Gregg also noted traffic is minimal. Skip explained the only reason the north side was picked to possibly remove parking was because the mailboxes are there. Duane said he and other residents have not received their mail more than once because vehicles park in front of the mailboxes. Keith/Louis moved to remove parking from the north side of Castlewood Drive. Keith, Louis and Jackie voted aye. Daryl, Connie, Matthew, and Brian voted nay. Motion failed. 2) Request to remove parking along Minnesota Drive east of 22nd Avenue. Louis said he was by there yesterday and it looked like it was newly painted. Jackie said this morning her and Gus drove the area, exiting onto Minnesota Avenue. To the west side of the driveway there is no parking to 22nd Avenue. To the east side, as seen on the aerial photo, there are quite a number of cars parked on the street. When leaving the lot there was a SUV parked right there and they couldn’t see around it. Jackie said there is a light pole about 40-50 feet away, about 2 ½ stalls, and wondered if parking shouldn’t be removed to that pole and the sign could be mounted right on it. This would be on the north side of Minnesota and east of the bank driveway. She did not drive through the clinic driveway which was said to have the same issues. It was noted the parking lots are not full so there is plenty of parking available. Skip suggested starting with 2 car lengths and if more is needed then further action could be taken. Daryl/Connie moved to remove parking on the north side of Minnesota Avenue, east of the bank driveway to the pole. All present voted aye. Motion carried. 3) Insbrook Lane, SE corner of t-intersection, yield or stop sign needed. Jackie asked if anyone remembered there being a stop or yield sign there. Daryl didn’t remember, but noted there is a lot more traffic now, especially since Rainbow has moved there. Jackie said there are rules in the MUTCD book and it talks about warrants for stop signs and visibility is one of those. The pedestal in the corner has created a new problem; the smaller one was taken down a couple years ago. Mark noted a stop sign would control the traffic. Keith asked if we dealt with this 2 or 3 years ago, but that was a parking issue. How the sight triangles work, Jackie said, is if you have an uncontrolled intersection your sight triangle is actually bigger because none of the vehicles are being controlled and stopping. Jackie hadn’t measured it, but with a speed limit of even 20, your sight distance triangle is 125 feet back either way and she is sure that pedestal is right in the middle of that sight triangle. If you put in a stop sign your sight triangle is going to be smaller. Marked asked if that was 90 or less. Jackie wasn’t sure, but knew it was a lot smaller. Skip asked if we had enough evidence to warrant a stop sign. Jackie couldn’t say for certain since she didn’t measure it, but she could for next month if that was going to be our justification. Skip thought we should do that. The City Council would have to approve the stop sign so we’d need some justification for it. It was agreed to table this until next month. 4) Jackie wanted to discuss removal of parking stalls on Elm Avenue. Dave from the bus garage had requested the City look at this because of a bad accident that occurred. A bus hit a car while trying to enter the bus loading zone from the north. They are requesting we take off three stalls. Jackie called the high school to see how the principal felt, but she has been unable to make contact. Brian said he was over there yesterday and talked with them about it. He said it would actually be more than three stalls. After talking with Doug and Paul, they would like to remove it all the way from the corner to the bus drop off. He said the bus drivers had a hard time making that turn. In the accident, the parked vehicle was cited because they were parked too close to the street corner. Jackie/Louis moved to remove the parking on Elm Avenue from the corner to the bus drop off zone. All present voted aye. Motion carried. 5) Election of new officers: Skip/Daryl nominated Margie Wagner-Carpenter as Chair. All present voted aye. Motion carried. Daryl/Matthew nominated Skip as the Vice Chair. All present voted aye. Motion carried. Additions to Agenda: Member Reports The next meeting will be July 12, 2007. Meeting adjourned. Submitted by: Deb Burckhardt