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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTSMinutes_2015_06_11BROOKINGS TRAFFIC SAFETY COMMITTEE City & County Government Center Thursday, June 11, 2015 12:10 p.m. The Brookings Traffic Safety Committee held its monthly meeting on Thursday, June 11, 2015, at 12:10pm in the City & County Government Center Suite 230, Room 300. Members Present: Skip Webster, Jackie Lanning, Tim Heaton, Pete Kirchhevel, Gary Gramm, Becky Schmieding, Tony Sonnenburg, Gregg Jorgenson, Brian Lueders, John Howard, and James Weiss. Members Absent: Carol Rettkowski, Jeff Miller, and Shayn Damm. Others Present: Mike McClemans, Troy Anderson , and Jeff Fritz. Call to Order: Howard called the meeting to order. Lueders / Webster moved to approve the minutes from the May 2015 meeting. All present voted aye. Additions to Agenda: None Old Business: Discussion on request to allow parking on the south side of 17th Street South between 7th Avenue South and 9th Avenue South The City received a request from Mike McClemans for the Traffic Safety Committee to discuss the parking restrictions on 17th Street South. Currently, parking is allowed on the south side of 17th Street South between 9 PM and 7 AM. Mike McClemans stated he installed additional parking on the east end of 17th Street South and there is also parking on the north side of the condos in the back. McClemans made references to other comparable housing areas in Brookings. He handed out a summary of the parking on Castlewood Drive, Dakota Trail, Sawgrass Drive, Torrey Pines and Bluegill Avenue. He stated Castlewood Drive has 6 duplexes on one side of the street and has parking on the south side of the street, Dakota Trail has 8 duplexes and has parking on both sides of the street, Sawgrass Drive, Torrey Pines, and Bluegill Avenue are also populated with duplexes and allow parking on one side of the street. McClemans stated the parking ban is one sided and the 17th Street South area was held to a different standard. McClemans mentioned he does all the snow removal on the street in this area. He also mentioned City workers, cable companies, lawn care companies and the day care people were violating the no parking times and sometimes park on the street for 2 hours at a time. Schmieding stated she was concerned about people not following the rules and they needed to stay away from the driveways. McClemans stated the police would have to enforce that. He said there are two mailboxes between the two houses on the south side of 17th Street South and there are 3 mailboxes together on one post on the north side of the street. He said with no parking on both sides of the road, it made it difficult for homeowners or tenants to have gatherings. Webster mentioned the issue of tandem parking and was concerned about vehicles parking close to the driveways. Lanning stated she visited with Dan Hanson and the new ordinance requires 2 parking stalls per unit and one stall for each bedroom over two bedrooms. The existing condo units have 5 bedrooms which would need 5 parking stalls according to the current regulation. Schmieding suggested allowing parking on the south side of 17th Street South on the east end of the street. Lanning updated the committee that she received phone calls from Tammy Herold at 707 17th St. S. and John Storsteen at 715 17th Street South, who both stated they would like to leave parking the way it currently is but could not make it to the meeting. Webster reminded the committee that Rettkowski stated at the last meeting that the committee wouldn’t look very cohesive by changing the parking every couple years. Howard stated he wasn’t on the committee at the time of the previous decision, but there were safety concerns listed in the minutes. He said the concerns were the daycare, the cars were parked all down the street and the vehicles couldn’t see around the corners. Sonnenburg stated since the parking was removed, McClemans has added parking spots. Weiss mentioned if the homeowners are all new now, they would not know how bad the parking was before it was removed. Heaton recalled there was a safety concern because vehicles could not see near the intersection with 9th Avenue and they would have to drive in the oncoming lane to get around the corner. Schmieding/ Sonnenburg made the motion to allow parking on the south side of 17th Street South from the east most driveway on 17th Street to 9th Avenue South. All present voted no. Motion was defeated. Schmieding/ Weiss made the motion to allow parking on the south side from the west most driveway on 17th Street to 7th Avenue South. All present voted. Motion passed with 7 aye votes (Heaton, Kirchhevel, Gramm, Schmieding, Sonnenburg, Jorgenson, and Weiss) and 4 no votes (Lanning, Howard, Webster and Lueders). Discussion on request for crosswalks for pedestrian traffic at 15th Avenue and 4th Street Lanning said a concerned parent contact her about this area. She was concerned about children crossing the street to get over to Hillcrest School. Lanning visited with Shari Thornes the ADA coordinator for the city. Thornes stated if we were going to paint the crosswalks, the ADA ramps would need to be installed. Lanning stated new ramps were not currently being planned at this time. Lueders stated the children could get a false sense of security if the crosswalks were striped without signage. Lanning said one option would be to remove parking on both sides of the driveway to increase visibility. A committee member also stated another option would be a 3-way stop sign. Lueders said the enrollment should be about 150 fewer students with the new school. Lanning suggested on monitoring this area and put it on next month’s agenda. Discussion on pedestrian access to Dakota Prairie elementary school from the residential developments near Western Avenue South (Esther Heights Addition, Valley View Addition and Moriarty Heights Addition) Lueders described his concerns with the children walking on Martin Boulevard and crossing Western Avenue which is a gravel road with no crosswalks and also the children crossing 20th Street South near Larkspur Ridge Drive. He described the hill on 20th Street South and vehicles may not see children crossing the street. He asked if there was some type of signage that could be installed to alert the traffic of possible pedestrians. Lanning didn’t recall any pedestrian signage the City has used on gravel roads. She will research possible signage and bring back to the next meeting. Update on yield sign request at 17th Avenue South and 24th Street South Tabled until next month. New Business: Discussion on request to remove parking from portions of 32nd Avenue South, south of Lefevre Drive Lanning passed out an aerial map of this area showing the area that Jeff Fritz from Daktronics proposed for removal of parking. The location is south of Lefevre Drive, and Daktronics uses a parcel on the east side of 32nd Avenue for warehousing. He stated that visibility is difficult for trucks entering and exiting the property. Fritz would like 60 feet of parking removed from the west side of 32nd and 50 feet on the east side of 32nd south of the driveway to allow big trucks to get in and out of the warehouse. Weiss asked if the vehicles that are parking there Daktronics employees and if they have a place to park if the parking was removed. Fritz mentioned the vehicles belong to Daktronics employees and they have plenty of parking in the company parking lots. Jorgenson / Gramm made the motion to remove 60 feet of parking on the west side of 32nd Avenue and 50 feet of parking on the east of 32nd Avenue South. All present voted aye. Motion passed. Member Reports: • Gramm stated there is poor visibility on 8th Street and Western Avenue to the north of the bridge. The next meeting will be July 9, 2015. Meeting adjourned. Submitted by: Chris Larson