HomeMy WebLinkAbout2019-04-23 Transcription Page 1
Council Present: Cole, Mims, Salih,Teague,Taylor,Thomas,Throgmorton
Staff Present: Frain, Monroe,Andrew, Dulek, Fruehling, Ralston,Nagle-Gamm,
Seydell-Johnson, Knoche, Havel, Bockenstedt, Hightshoe, Bothell,
Laverman, Weinard, Byers
Others Present: Stewart,Wu (UISG)
Review the preliminary traffic accident analysis and related set of recommendations and
hear from University of Iowa Professor Jodie Plumert on her related research; discuss
approach to on-street parking regulations for narrow streets (IP3, IP4, IP5):
Throgmorton/ So I'm gonna open the Iowa City City Council work session agenda for Tuesday,
April the 23t, 2019. Our first topic is to review the preliminary traffic accident analysis
and related set of recommendations. It's pretty loud, isn't it? Yeah. And related set of
recommendations. (mumbled) now it's down softer. And hear from University of Iowa
Professor Jodie Plumert and Joe Kearney, uh, on related research. And then I guess we'll
discuss an approach to on-street parking regulations for narrower streets! Okay, so....r
was just imagining we turn things over to....that's right! Kent! Good evening, Kent!
Ralston/ Good evening, Mayor, Council. Uh,just quickly, um, as the Mayor just indicated,
there's sort of an evening of transportation, uh, on the work session. Uh, in addition to a
discussion about, uh, the collision analyses that's, uh, that was in the IP last week, and the
discussion of on-street parking, uh, with us this evening are two distinguished professors
from the University of Iowa, as you just mentioned. Uh, Dr. Joseph Kearney is a
Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Also the Interim Dean of the College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences. And also,uh, with us is Dr. Jodie Plumert, who is a
Professor in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. Uh, the two co-direct the
Hanks Virtual Environments Lab, which houses high-fidelity bicycling and pedestrian
simulators,uh,to safely and systematically study perception action problems with real-
world consequences, such as how pedestrians and cyclists cross traffic filled virtual
roadways, and I was able to watch just a little bit of what they have to present before the
meeting and I think it'll be pretty exciting. Thank you.
Throgmorton/Thanks, Kent. So, Jodie, are you gonna take over?
Plumert/The lights (mumbled) here (mumbled) see this a little bit better?
Throgmorton/Yeah.
Plumert/ Okay. So as Kent said, I'm Jodie Plumert, my colleague Joe Kearney. We co-direct the
Hanks Virtual Environments Lab at the University of Iowa.
Throgmorton/Excuse me, Jodie, would you try to speak into the microphone?
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Plumed Can you hear....
Throgmorton/Is that better?
Plumerd Can you hear that? Okay! I'm not used to standing up at a podium talking into a
microphone! Um...so John Thomas came and spoke with us, I think about a year ago, at
our lab, to hear a little bit about our research, and so this is kind of the outcome, I think,
of that meeting, is to present some of the work that we do, um, to the City Council. Um,
so .....broadly speaking, our lab uses virtual environments as laboratories for studying
human behavior and it turns out that the human behavior we've been studying quite a bit
is road crossing, um, with children and adults, um, both as bicyclists and pedestrians. So
our lab creates realistic immersive virtual environments that allow for full-body
movement,um, and we study human behavior using virtual environments. So how do
child pedestrians and cyclists cross roads with traffic; how do texting pedestrians cross
traffic-filled roads, which I'm sure you've seen a lot of them around here; how do peers
influence risky road crossing when you have two kids crossings roads together near a
school, for example. So just to say a little bit about child pedestrian and cyclist injuries
nationally, urn, so there are about 8,000 child pedestrian and 5,000 child bicyclist injuries,
um, in collisions with motor vehicles each year in the U.S. Um....(mumbled) yeah, and
motor vehicles are involved in 33% of all bicycle-related brain injuries and in 90% of all
fatalities. So it is important for bicyclists, of course, to wear helmets,but the problem is
is that if you have a high-impact collision with a vehicle, having a helmet on probably
isn't going to help you. So what we wanna do is to prevent those kinds of collisions from
occurring. About a third of fatal bicycling crashes occur at intersections. So that's one of
the reasons why we're especially interested in this road crossing problem at intersections
or at other, urn,places at the roadway. Also, one of the things we're starting to get into a
little bit is looking at how bicyclists and pedestrians operate at night. So it turns out that
75% of pedestrian fatalities happen at night. And in terms of prevention, from my
perspective as a developmental psychologist, we wanna understand why these collisions
occur, what is it about being a child for example that puts you so at risk for these kinds of
collisions with vehicles, and also, um, we use virtual environment technology to better
understand the risk factors for collisions with vehicles. So it allows us to really test some
things about children's vulnerabilities or say texting while you're crossing roads that you
absolutely could not do in the real world. So we can't put a child at the side of the road
and say, 'Hey, see if you can cross the road,' and so that's why this virtual environment
technology has been so useful,because it's highly realistic, as you'll see in these videos,
and also it allows us to very systematically control all the factors we might wanna
control. So for example we can control the speed of the cars, which you couldn't do if
you were doing it outside in the real world; uh, we can control the gaps between the cars
so we can kind of look at how that impacts behavior. So mostly what I'm gonna do is
show videos,because I think that's one of the best ways for you to see what we do, and
please feel free to stop me or interrupt if....if there are things that aren't clear or you
wanna pursue something that, um, we're talking about here. So this is a picture of our
current bicycling simulator. It's a little hard to see right here,but this is a large screen
virtual environment so there are two side screens that are like 14-feet to a few inches
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long. So these long side screens. A front screen that's 10-feet wide, and so it's like a
three-walled room, that the bike is sifting in the middle of, and so we're projecting images
with, um, projectors, rear projected images, urn, onto all of those screens, plus onto the
floor. So it's a very immersive kind of experience when you're in the simulator,because
you have full peripheral vision and, um, it's also what we would call completely
interactive. So that means like as you move, you appear to be moving in this virtual
environment. So that's, um, what the bicycling simulator looks like. So that bike, we're
instrumenting the rear wheel. So we are sensing the rear wheel speed rotation, the
steering angle. So what happens is that that information then gets fed into a network of
computers that are controlling the projectors that will then project the images onto the
screen in real-time that correspond to what the rider is doing, whether they're turning,
speeding up, slowing down, braking, or....or so on. And this is the same simulator
configured now as a pedestrian simulator. So we can take that bike out of there so now
it's just a, you know, big platform, urn, inside the cave, and we can also have people
physically walk across a virtual roadway and cross the road that way. Of course they
have to stop when they get to the front screen and then they have to come back, but they
can still move around within the virtual environment. Urn, so most of the time the traffic
is in a single lane. So this is, um, more simplified than in most real-world situations. So
it's a single lane of traffic usually coming from the left-hand side. So the task usu....in
most of these studies is for the pedestrian or the bicyclist to be up at the edge of the
roadway. They're watching the traffic come and their job is just to try to cross the road
without getting hit by a car. And so then we're also tracking their position at every
moment in time so that later we can go back and we can find out exactly what they were
doing in that situation, what size gaps they chose, how they timed their entry into the
roadway, how much time to spare, what their margin of safety was, um, when they
cleared the path of the cars. Joe, feel free to jump in if there are things I'm forgetting
there. Okay, so here's an example of,this is actually our older simulator, but um....
crossing two lanes of opposing traffic. So he bicycles, he's actually coasting up to
(laughs) the intersection, and there's traffic actually in this one in two lanes, coming from
opposite directions. So he's gotta figure out a gap in both sides that he can get through
without getting hit. So that kinda gives you an idea of what that bicycling simulator is
like. Now one thing you'll notice is like the visual angles in these, urn, videos look funny
to you,but that's because the camera is back a little bit further,but from where his head
is, everything looks like a perfectly normal continuous environment, so it looks very
realistic to him. Um.....so one of the things that we found, this was a study we published
before, um, with this two-way traffic, we had kids, uh, 12 and 14-year-olds and adults do
this,urn, task, and this is something that even at age 14, kids are not that great at being
able to do this kind of task. That's the other to note with this work that we do is that we
always set up situations where the traffic is continuous, which means that it doesn't stop,
and that's something that I want to return to when we kind of get to the end here, and so
this is a pretty....this is like crossing one of those roadways where the traffic doesn't have
a stop sign, there's no stop light, and you have to choose a gap to kind of get across, and
there are plenty of those places in Iowa City, um, which I'll also show you at the end.
Here's a video of a child crossing a road. Um, you can see he has this, um, funny hat on
and that's just, um, so that we can track the child's position as they're in this, urn,
environment and also make sure that the viewpoint of the scene moves with the child as
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the child is walking in that environment. It looks like a little Martian hat but it's....00ps!
Yeah (mumbled) (pause) So he just walks physically across the.....we're having slow-
motion problems. Hmmm! This could be problematic. But you can see walking across
the road there. Urn, so one of the things that we found with, urn, kids, and we've looked
at child pedestrians who are six, eight, 10, 12, 14-year-olds and adults. One thing that we
found is that,um,they.....will often delay their entry into the roadway. So they decide a
tap that they wanna cross, but then instead of cutting in nice and tightly behind the lead
vehicle in, uh, the gap that they chose, they wait. They kind of delay. They don't do that
nice and precisely, and with adults we see that they're very good about very precisely
timing their movement. The problem with delaying your movement, urn, into the gap is
that then you're gonna have less time to spare when you get to the other side of the
roadway, and that's critical. So they have a less large margin of safety when they get to
the other side of the roadway. So here's an example....if this is gonna work.....of a child
(several talking in background) yeah.....(several talking in background) Right, so the
images....oh boy, this is really slow-motion, um......the images look double because
these are stereo projectors,but the kid is wearing shutter glasses so that everything
appears in 3-D. (unable to hear, speaking away from mic) ...here, I'm not sure....oh! I
wonder if we should quit out of it and then (talking in background) It's so slow-motion!
(noises in background, people talking) Okay, so this'll be really slow (laughs) kid's going
into the roadway. So...so she (laughs).....(pause)......so not really paying attention...
yeah. Unfortunately sometimes it seems like the memory gets....with big videos, it gets
(talking in background) Let's see, how can we do it with not.....(talking in background)
Oh, yeah, sorry! (laughs) It's still running really slow. (pause) But now she goes, so
that's really slow, so you can see that real delay there. Okay, well we'll try this. Um
(mumbled) no, I'll just do it like this, cause it(mumbled) so this is a study looking at how
texting pedestrians are crossing roads, and also looking at whether vehicle to pedestrian
technology might be helpful. So I know that Iowa City's been involved with some of like
the driverless car stuff, this really high-tech kind of, um, technology, and so...we, cars
now have this, you know, ability to sense the cars that are around them, so they're
communicating with other cars around them. So that also means that cars can
communicate with your cell phone, theoretically, and so in this study we were looking at
if you have people who are texting while they're crossing roads, which many of them are,
can you actually send alerts to their....to their cell phone that tells them when a safe gap
is about to arrive that they could cross or send them a warning that tells them, 'No, you're
trying to step into a gap that's too tight.' So we've looked at this kind of technology. The
bottom line with this is that it does help people, uh, cross the road more safely, they
choose larger gaps, but they also show less situational awareness. So they tend to off-
load their decision making to the device, and so they tend to just rely on the device—they
don't watch the traffic anymore because why would you watch the traffic when your
device is going to tell you what to do. Um....00ps! Sorry! (pause) Boy that doesn't
wanna run at all! Okay. (mumbled) Okay, well this is completely died. Um...we've also
looked at, urn,how parents and children cross roads together. So we can put two people
in our simulator and ask them to cross together, and we're very interested in how parents
might teach kids about crossing roads, and so these are studies where we had parents with
their six, eight, 10, or 12-year-old kids and their job, again, was just to cross the road
together, decide when they thought it was okay to go so they wouldn't get hit by a car, urn
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and we recorded their conversations,urn and how they made decisions about crossing the
road, and how they also performed in the road-crossing task. This is also just not gonna
work. Urn, looking at children crossing roads with friends as well. So, um, these are, uh,
again two kids who are together crossing roads, and this is also a concern because when
kids are together and crossing roads, does that hurt or does that help them? Basically
what we found is that when kids are together crossing roads, they don't allow really for
the other person....the time that's needed for the other person to get across the road and
so they, um, are not actually choosing larger gaps like they should be. We've also looked
at crossing roads at night, urn, as I mentioned earlier. This probably isn't gonna work
either. Urn, this is part of a project that we're doing with Toyota, because Toyota's
interested in, urn, adding adaptive headlamp systems to cars that would actually with
radar detect when a pedestrian or a bicyclist is at the roadway at night and then shine a
box of light around them and project a warning icon onto the roadway in front of them,
and so we've been looking at, well, how do bicyclists and pedestrians actually respond to
these systems. Um, and here's another, urn, project that might be of interest to you guys
also. So we are also looking at how, um, cars and bikes interact at intersections,
depending on bike infrastructure, and so right-hook crashes at intersections are an •
important problem. So you have both bike and the car going down the roadway and then
the car wants to turn and the bike wants to go straight and so those are called right-hook
crashes and those,um, can result in some, urn, serious injuries for bicyclists, and so this
project is looking at do these protected, um, bike paths, which is on the right,help when
bicyclists and cars get together at an intersection. It's those kinds of;urn,protected, urn,
bike paths do have a wider turning radius for the car at the intersection, so that's supposed
to give a better angle so that the car can see the bike better and the bicyclist can see the
car better, as compared to when you have the, um,bike path right next to the cars on the
roadway. So that's a project that we have ongoing, urn,to see if that's....whether one is
better than the other in terms of, urn, these potential right-hook kinds of collisions. So,
let.....just wanna get to the take-aways here from our work that I think could be helpful
for you guys in thinking about pedestrians and bicyclists,urn, in Iowa City. So one thing
that we've found is that child pedestrians don't show mature road-crossing skills until at
least age 12. So this was actually kind of a surprise to us and again, this is crossing these
continuous roads, you know, continuous traffic, where they have to choose a gap and get
across. It's not like a place where, you know, the cars come to a stop and then you can
cross,but in this kind of situation even with a single lane of traffic, we're not seeing
mature pedestrian road-crossing until at least age 12 and maybe even age 14. With child
bicyclists, they're probably not showing mature road-crossing skills until after age 14,
especially when you have these complicated situations, like you have traffic corning in
both directions. The other thing that we found in our research,urn,because sometimes
we've looked at how pedestrians and bicyclists deal with sort of high-density traffic,
where they get a whole bunch of sort of small gaps at the beginning that they can't really
get across and then they have to wait for a gap to open up that they can get across.
People hate to wait, and we've seen people take far more,both kids and adults, take far
more risky gaps when you put'ern in a situation where they kind of have to wait, and I
think that's interesting when you're thinking about design of roadways, when you have
situations where somebody has to wait for a long time. That, I think, is likely to push
them into more risky kinds of behavior. Urn, as I mentioned we're looking at this vehicle
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to pedestrian technology. This could be something that comes down the road, I mean...
for Iowa City. Urn, sending these warnings to texting pedestrian cell phones increases
their safety,but they become less situationally aware. Urn, we're also currently working
on a project to,um, make these cell phone warning systems work for,um,more mobility
impaired individuals, so especially older individuals. So this is a tricky problem, because
you can't just have a system that has a one-size fits all in terms of like, oh, this is gonna
be enough time for you to get across the road. You really have to take into account for
say an older pedestrian. How fast can they actually get across the road and then your
warning system has to take that into account and so we're working on that problem right
now. So...in terms of the things that we've thought about for policy implications, um, one
is I think this importance of creating crossings where the traffic must come to a stop, and
the reason I say this is just because we're seeing that, urn, it's pretty late in terms of kids
development that they actually can cross these roadways where there aren't stop signs or
stop lights for the traffic. So children seem to be at much greater risk of a collision when
they're crossing this sort of continuous traffic. Um, the problem here also is that
everyone wants to take the shortest route, which means that,um, you often are gonna end
up in situations where you're crossing this sort of continuous traffic, so I thought it would
just,urn, show you where I live, which is in the Twain neighborhood. So....Mark Twain
School is there on the bottom....I have a pointer here. Urn, my house is there in the blue
circle there on Ginter Avenue and so when my kids were in elementary school, they had
to cross over Highland. It's not marked there but you've for Friendly and then the next
one is Highland and then Deforest, and the problem with Highland is that it's one of these
thorough...throughfare kinds of street, where the traffic doesn't stop, and I remember
when my kids were in....were at that age, there was all that construction that was going
on at Lower Muscatine, and so a lot of people were taking Highland as a....as a way to
kind of get around that construction. And it was sort of scary to us because it was like,
you know, we had these second graders, third grader, fourth grader, um, crossing
Highland, where they essentially had to make that decision about,you know, is....is this a
safe crossing for me, when these cars are not gonna stop. So we did ask the school about
that and I think that they carne to the City and then they did put up some signs to kind of
say, you know, slow down,kids are crossing here. So then when my kids got older and,
urn,were at City High, then they wanted to cross over, uh, Lower Mus...Kirkwood and
Lower Muscatine. So that, uh, Church of Christ, right where it....uh, goes into a corner,
urn.....(mumbled) (laughs) Sony! Oh,there it is! So, urn, so that nice little tunnel that
goes across the Longfellow,urn, into the Longfellow neighborhood. So they wanted, you
know, to cross over here so they could get to City High up here. But there isn't a stop
sign on Kirkwood Avenue from,um.....Summit. There's Summit....there's a stop a sign
now, all the way down to wherever First Avenue here, it's a little hard to see. So that's
another example of where four kids, to get from our neighborhood, over to City High,
cause they couldn't take the bus—they're too close—they would have to cross one of
those sorts of streets. I think another sort of policy implication would be trying to slow
traffic in residential and urban areas, so ways that we can do sort of traffic calming, slow
the traffic down. Um, again,this is something that John Thomas talked with us about last
year is that there are many streets in Iowa City that are just sort of thoroughfares, meant
to get cars quickly from one side of town to the other side of town, and when you have
like one-way streets, you know, two lanes of one-way, you know, people get going fast on
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those sorts of streets, and so that's another, urn, kind of policy implication, I think, is
trying to slow that traffic down. Urn, I don't know about areas where there's high-density
traffic that you need to avoid these long waits for pedestrians and bicyclists,but that's
another thing to think about, urn, cause I think that puts them at risk. Urn....possible, uh,
future vehicle to pedestrian technology for pedestrians,urn, could be corning along. So
that's all I have. Just wanted to thank our lab and, um, our many funding sponsors for
this work and we're happy to answer any questions that you guys have or tell you more
about what we're doing or what....how it might have implications for transportation here
in Iowa City.
Throgmorton/Thanks, Jodie. I assume you're pretty frustrated about the technology and....but
you did a great job (both talking) fine!
Plumert/I don't know why this always happens, when you have these big videos is that they just
like die,they slow down....yeah. (laughter)
Throgmorton/ Okay, folks, you have questions for Jodie or Joe, for that matter?
Cole/One of my favorite pieces of infrastructure on First Avenue,near the east side of Hy-Vee, is
a pedestrian island. Urn, have you studied those in particular, and if....have you been
able to quantify what impact, if any, they have on promoting pedestrian safety, cause I
know when I walk along there with me....with my daughter and my wife, it's...cars really
seem to get those visual cues. The very busy street on First Avenue,but I always feel
very comfortable and it strikes me that I'd really like to see those expanded where
feasible. So have you studied those in particular?
Plumert/Yeah, we haven't studied those in particular, but I think others have looked at that.
Kearney/ I try to go to the, uh,National TRB meeting, which is the National Transportation
Research Board meeting in Washington every year, and so I've learned some from
listening to talks there and the refuge is, uh, areas in the middle of particularly large,uh,
roads, uh, do promote safety, and they....they.....they allow you to do sort of a divide and
conquer crossing. So you cross one and then you cross the other, and it makes the
decision easier for the pedestrian, and I think you're right—it also makes the pedestrian
more visible for the driver.
Cole/It's always amazing to me how far away the cars can see you and they actually slow way in
advance than otherwise would. (both talking) I'm also wondering just as a follow up
question to that, you had mentioned some of the policy implications. Is there sort of a
best practices, um....uh, policy organization that makes recommendation, in particular
related to pedestrian safety...in physical infrastructure?
Kearney/Yes there...yes there are, there are sort...I mean this is, again, from Transportation
Research Board, and I'm.....since I'm not a planner, but I know that planners do have
documents and they put out recommendations, so there are best practice documents for
pedestrians, and there're a collection of pedestrian and bicyclist organizations now that
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are putting out recommendations for best practices that promotes, uh, pedestrian and
bicyclist safety.
Cole/Thank you.
Kearney/And we could, if you're interested in any of that, we could pass any of that on to ya
later, if(mumbled) help to connect ya up to those things.
Cole/Okay, thank you.
Teague/I found the right-hook,uh, when they were,uh, the car and the bicyclist. Urn, that was
pretty interesting to me. Um....and so I know that you said that there's.....you don't
know what the difference between either havin' the median in the middle. Urn....any
thoughts on what might be the....the best practice I guess?
Plumert/Well theoretically the best practice is supposed to have the....are those protected
intersections,just because they're supposed to create that larger visual angle and so the
cars are already like making....they're not in the path of the bike, but they've already
turned and so the driver should be able to see the bicyclist a little bit better. But the one
thing that we're not sure about this is that when you have these protected bike paths,
between intersections when you're riding down the block, it could be that it's kind of like
out of sight, out of mind, that the,um,pedestrians are in their own little path there. The
drivers don't have to think about them,but the big problem of course is that when they
come together at intersections, they have to be aware of each other, and so we're not
exactly sure what we're gonna find with this,because it is possible that people would...
kind of not be thinking about the other, you know, the bicyclist and drivers, to the driver
or vice versa. Um, our colleagues over at,urn, University of Massachusetts are doing it
from the opposite side, looking at how drivers are responding to bicyclists, like, uh,
animated bicyclists that are either in these bike lanes right on the roadway or these
protected bike lanes.
Teague/And texting, I...I just wonder, um, if you're gonna potentially have some,um, some
device within a car. Would that be potentially conditioning, you know,pedestrians to be
texting? You know, if....if(both talking) (laughs)
Plumert/There are so many complicated issues I think with that because like our study, you
know, it was...it was great in the sense that they did behave more safely. They chose
these larger gaps,but then they stopped looking at the traffic,because it was just like
(both talking)now I can rely on my device, and I think that's true in cars too, as you
know you have more of these technologies in the car, you get more used to those and you
kind of,you know, aren't maybe quite as vigilant yourself. So all of this technology is,
you know, like going full speed ahead and it's very interesting, cause it's not clear....what
the pros and cons are gonna be, or maybe a better way to put it is the unintended
consequences of some of it.
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Throgmorton/I have lots of questions,based on experience here in Iowa City, as being both a
bicyclist, a driver....well, a bicyclist, a driver, and a pedestrian.....cause I do all three a
lot. So, and I'm wondering if you have tried to...examine what happens in these kinds of
situations, like driving into the sunset going west on Burlington at the spring and fall
equinox. When you can't see(laughs)
Plumertl Right, and so we haven't looked at those things specifically,but,urn, I think that there
might be(mumbled) out there on those kinds of driving conditions,but yeah, there are
all....those kinds of things....we know are a problem, and so I think that argues also for
slowing traffic on some of those roadways,because it's like the faster you're going, the
more catastrophic a collision would be with a pedestrian or bicyclist under those kinds of
conditions.
Throgmorton/Yeah, about 20 years ago a friend of mine was killed riding in a wheelchair. He
was killed crossing Burlington Street,not at Clinton,but at,uh, at Linn Street, I think
(both talking)
Plumert/ ...yep! Yep.
Throgmorton/Yeah, so....I think the driver couldn't see her.
Plumert/Right!
Throgmorton/Yeah. Uh, the next thing I think of is driving at night, when people are wearing
dark clothing.
Plumert/Yeah! (laughs) Yeah!
Throgmorton/And they walk in front of ya, and you....I can almost literally not see them at all.
Plumert/Yeah.
Throgmorton/I....have you been able to test that any?
Kearney/Well the....so....other studies have shown that pedestrians way under-estimate their
(mumbled)when they're crossing roads. It's the, uh,what I think of is the "I can see you
so you can see me"phenomenon(laughter) and so they...roughly estimate that the...the
distance that they're visible is about twice what drivers actually report that they are
visible. So, uh, pedestrians at night, there are a collection of things that are known to, I
mean wearing reflective clothing helps, wearing,uh,reflective clos...clothing that sort of
highlights your....your limbs, because it....it signals biological mosin...motion, and
people have very,uh, deeply....they perceive biological motion that's sort of deeply in-
breed in you. So, um, if you can highlight biological motion, that helps a lot. Course
pedestrian lighting on the sides of the roads to make pedestrians more visible is really,
really a good idea. Um, part of the problem is that headlights focus on the road. They
don't focus on the sides of the roads and so when pedestrians do come out in front of
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drivers,they emerge from....from the shadows and so that's a problem. So all of these
things, um, the.....the, probably the most dangerous time to walk and bike is at dusk. It's
that transition zone that's the worst,but then,uh, dead of night is also a serious problem.
Throgmorton/ In the rain!
Kearney/ In the rain, yeah, yeah, yeah! Yeah, and the snow and(laughs)
Throgmorton/Yeah, um...how....how bout roundabouts? The larger roundabouts. Have you
been able to test them to see how people cross them safely?
Kearney/Um, we haven't, although some of our colleagues have. Uh, roundabouts tend to be
great for drivers and not so good for pedestrians and bicyclists. That's just sort of the
outcome, because, um,they....they don't have, um....uh, you know,there aren't good
places for pedestrians to cross at roundabouts and because the drivers,urn, as you enter, I
mean imagine you're entering into a roundabout and turning right, um, your....your
attention is completely focused at the entering traffic coming from the left, and so you...
you tend not to see things that are on your right and so the right-hook turns, if you're a
pedestrian trying to cross on the....on the, uh, right side of the driver, that can be very
dangerous. Urn, so yeah, there aren't good solutions. The, some of the solutions people
are looking at are sort of pushing the, uh, the crosswalk. They(mumbled) up the...the,
uh, entry to the....to the roundabout and so it takes them out of the roundabout,but what
it means is pedestrians have to take this very long path to get around the roundabout, and
that can be safer,but, uh, pedestrians hate (several talking) people don't like to walk
longer routes.
Plumert/Yeah.
Throgmorton/I have a couple other questions, but I don't wanna monopolize here so....
Taylor/I was just gonna mention one quick thing. We've heard some members of the
community,uh, complain about jaywalkers. I don't know if in your study you touched on
that at all. You mentioned that people oftentimes wanna take the shortest distance and
that's what jaywalkers oftentimes do. So aside from citing them, obviously the auto
technology,that would be helpful,because it would sense that person, but any other ideas
or thoughts on that?
Plumert/Yeah, I think that's a really interesting problem,because...it's hard when, you know,
pedestrians and bicyclists don't really obey the rules of the road. I think,um, for....
bicyclists, one of the things that I find most difficult as a driver is them being on the
sidewalk and then they're flying into another section, from a place that you do not expect
something moving that fast. You expect pedestrians to be on the sidewalk. Urn, and I,
you know, and coming out of drives, like coming out of the parking,uh, lot over when
Seashore parking lot was still open. I almost nailed a bicyclist who just came flying there
and there were cars parked in front. I couldn't see this person and, you know, those are
the kinds of things that also are risk factors and I don't know how you really encour....
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you know, bicyclists are funny because they want to behave like a car when it's beneficial
for them to do that,but then they wanna behave like a pedestrian or use pedestrian, you
know, infrastructure when that's useful to them, and so I think that there has to be some
awareness on the part of bicyclists and pedestrians of how they can make things really
difficult for drivers when they're not kind of following what they're supposed to be doing.
Taylor/Thank you!
Throgmorton/On that point, in our town there's...ongoing confusion at Market and Linn, and
Jefferson and Linn, about whether people on bicycles are pedestrians. Drivers don't
know often. Bicyclists don't know. So there's just (laughs) confusion there, and then a
lot of people just don't stop anyhow.
Plumert/Right.
Throgmorton/(both talking) ...the cars.
Plumert/Yeah
Throgmorton/What can we do about that?
Plumert/I mean....I think it's not against the law for like the bicyclists to be on the sidewalk or,
you know, doing that, but the best practice for bicyclists is actually to be on the road.
Like it's actually a safer place statistically speaking than to be on the sidewalk, even
though people feel like it's safer on the sidewalk, it's not; especially because of driveways
and intersections. So, urn....yeah,that's a....difficult problem. I know the,you guys
have been talking a little bit about Market and Jefferson, you know,being one-way and
maybe changing those into opposing, urn, lanes of traffic, and I think that would be good.
One of the things that I, you know, don't like about those signs that they have in the
middle of the roadway with those one-way, two lanes of one-way traffic, is that if a car in
the first lane stops for a pedestrian over here, a car can come up along and not be able to
see that pedestrian at all, and I think that that's a really kind of risky situation, whereas if
they were coming from opposing directions, they would see that pedestrian. Urn, so that
seems like another way to...maybe it's not such a hard fix, but to make things safer,
especially because it's so close to the University and there's so much, you know,
pedestrian and bicyclist traffic there.
Throgmorton/Are there other questions?
Cole/I'm curious if you've looked into the statistically impact of lane width and street width in
terms of the impact on pedestrian saf....safety. Um, I know one of my favorite
neighborhoods, the Longfellow neighborhood, has very narrow streets, and I always feel
very comfortable there as a pedestrian. Ha....have you been able to quantify the impact
on the lane and both the....lane width and street width....in terms of reduction of
injuries?
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Plumert/Yeah, I....it could be...I, we haven't done that kind of work, but I think for a pedestrian
it might work. What's hard for bikes though is that if you have very narrow streets, then
people are....and people are parking alongside those streets, you...you know that door
....dooring problem is really serious, and so,um, that's another issue I think to consider
with these, you know, everybody wants to have parking alongside their streets,but if it's a
very narrow street, then cars can't move over for bicyclists, I mean, I go down Summit
Street every day to get to work and it...that's always a tricky...every time it's a tricky
negotiation with bicyclists who are going down the street, urn, and the cars, you know,
and there's not a lot of room and there's people parking on the sides too. Yeah. So
sometimes what's good for pedestrians might not be good for bicyclists, I think.
Throgmorton/Are you ever gonna be able to do a simulation of...pedestrians and bicyclists
tryin'to get eye contact with the driver?
Plumert/ (laughs)
Throgmorton/You know what I mean? Cause you have(both talking) to know whether it's safe
to cross and whether they're gonna stop (both talking)
Keamey/ ...really good question. This comes up in lots of different ways. So one of the....I'm a
bicyclist, and um, I have to cross, uh, Riverside and Benton to get in and urn, I....I will
not cross in front of a car if I can't look the driver in the eye(laughs) to make sure they
see me. Um....and one of the problems with, uh, autonomous vehicles (mumbled)
autonomous vehicles don't have drivers, and so they don't have eyes and so you can't look
an autonomous vehicle in the eye(laughs) and this is one of the concerns that people
have as they're looking at interactions between pedestrians, bicyclists, and the....and the
upcoming autonomous vehicles is how can....how can pedestrians judge the intention of
the autonomous vehicle, and whether the autonomous vehicle is aware of them or not,
and there are various people....actually we're gonna do a study coming up this fall,
looking at putting, urn, simulated eyes on the cars. Some other people have done this. So
that the car itself can have eyes and sort of simulate eye contact in order to....to show, to
make that link. Um, we're also doing a....a project now, uh, with the National Advanced
Driving Simulator to connect our pedestrian simulator with their driving simulator, so we
can have a driver in their driving simulator see our pedestrian crossing the road,urn ,and
part of that will be....we're not, it's a ways yet, but um, part of that will be to try to....to
create,um, an opportunity for them to have eye contact. To do that we need to create
avatars and those avatars have to simulate....we have to be able to track the motions of
the drivers and the pedestrian, and then create avatars in the other device that....that
mimic the motions and....and can show the eye contact. So that's a really (laughs)
challenging technical problem at the moment, but one that we're working on.
Throgmorton/ I guess I personally have one last question. Back to the real world (laughs)
instead of the avatar world. So I'm thinking about...how....sorry! Suddenly losing my
train of thought. Uh....it happens to mayors! Mayors lose their train of thought (laughter
and several talking in background) That's right, uh, so let's see....uh......sorry! It's....it's
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completely gone right now (laughter and talking) 30 seconds or something. Are there
other questions?
Thomas/ I...I just(clears throat)would like to mention how I, I don't know if you recall how I
met or was introduced to Jodie's work. I was watching a video of a talk being given in
Ireland by the founder of the'20 is Plenty' movement and, urn,he referenced Jodie in his
presentation, you know, and I was just....wow (laughs) you know, someone in....in Iowa
City's who's being referenced in this presentation in Ireland that we're traffic safety. So
I....I reached out and, uh, had a great conversation with Joe and Jodie as a result of that,
but it's....it's funny how certain things work out.
Throgmorton/I do remember my question. So, if I heard you correctly earlier, Jodie, I think you
said that 75....nationwide, 75%, roughly, of pedestrian-vehicle collisions occur at night?
Plumert/Fatalities.
Throgmorton/ Fatalities, okay.
Plumert/Pedestrian fatalities (both talking)
Throgmorton/Where's Kent? Kent, is that consistent with Iowa City? We don't have any, really,
many fatalities though so that maybe we could just talk about collisions.
Ralston/Yeah, uh, we do have that data. I'd have to look in my pile here,but we do have that
available. Uh, it (mumbled) the collision, um, reports that the police identify and then
send to the DOT, so we do have that.
Throgmorton/Okay(both talking)
Ralston/ ...see if I can find (both talking)
Throgmorton/Mainly I'm wondering what would you say are the most important things we could
do to avoid....those kinds of fatalities? Or even bad collisions (both talking)
Plumert/I think that, you know, making sure that there's adequate street lighting is probably one
of the biggest things is just to....because that's gonna create more visibility. Um, that's
not always feasible so I don't know if there are other programs where you can encourage
kids, college students (laughs) to wear more reflective clothing and that sort of thing. I
mean it's....I'm amazed at how many people, you know,people like to wear black colors,
you know, and they just....I do too, and so then you end up not being visible at all at
night, and it's a very strange thing where you can see the car perfectly because this bright
light's shining on you and it feels like, 'Yeah, we're seeing each other!' and that driver has
no idea that you're there. Urn, so helping people kind of understand that, I think, is
important. I do see bicyclists a lot in Iowa City with, you know,pretty good lighting on
their bikes, um, you know, more of these high-intensity,um, lights, and I think that that's
a really good thing that people are doing more of, but just, you know, for....on a
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defensive side for pedestrians and bicyclists, they really have to, you know,be aware of
this problem that drivers just don't see them.
Throgmorton/Okie dokie. Uh, if there are no more questions, I....I just wanna thank you so
much for coming in and sharing your knowledge and....and experience with us.
Plumed/Yep!
Throgmorton/Thank you.
Plumed/And please if you guys have any, uh, questions afterwards, things that you think of,
you....you can email us any time. We'll be happy to follow up on things.
Kearney/And if you wanna come see a demo sometime(both talking)
Plumed/Yeah, there would be a participant in that research (laughs)
Throgmorton/That sounds like fun! Bruce, we're counting on you! (laughter) Okay, well there
were several other items to touch on, so, Kent, are you gonna come up and help us?
Ralston/Yeah, thanks. Kent Ralston,Transportation Planner. Uh, if okay with you, sh...I think it
would be nice to transition to the collision analysis portion. Uh, the work that, urn, Dr.
Kearney and Dr. Plumed did is a good segue way into ours, not so much in identifying
solutions just yet,but identifying the problems. Um, in your packet was a reposting of
a....of our collision analysis that we discussed back in January, uh, where I gave a brief
presentation on the report. It's the 2015 to 2017 traffic collision analysis;uh, again that
was reposted in your, excuse me, in your April 8t1i info packet. Uh, for many years the
collision analysis has been completed as part of a metro-area, uh, collision analysis, but
as I mentioned, uh, again back in January, we completed it exclusively for Iowa City this
time as it showed up in the strategic planning efforts. Uh, the report ranks all
intersections and mid-blocks with three or more collisions using the DOT's, uh, weighted
formula that includes raw numbers of collisions, uh, the severity of collisions, and the
collision rate given the location, uh, that we're talking about. Uh, while not yet complete,
staff will complete an analysis of all of those locations, uh, sometime hopefully this
summer, urn, and that's where the analysis and the research that the University of Iowa's
doing,uh, could come in very handy. Uh, the things we will look for in our research, uh,
and our, uh, field reviews, uh, will relate to signs, pavement markings; uh, we could do
speed studies if we think appropriate; uh, signal timings; and then we can even do more
infrastructural changes, like road diets and some of the things that we have, uh,been
working on with you in the past. Uh, what is shown on the screen are the top 10
collisions by quadrant. So this is actually the top 40 collisions,uh, collision locations in
Iowa City, by quadrant. Uh, what is on the next slide are actually the locations of those,
uh, those different locations. Uh, there's 171 total intersections in Iowa City that had
three or more collisions over this three-year period. Uh, what I want to....1 don't wanna
belabor the point,but what I did want to drive home is,uh, this slide that shows collisions
between 2013 and 2015 and then 2015 to 2017, uh, although we have 171 locations with
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three or more collisions and certainly we have some locations that need work,uh, we're
doing pretty well. When we compare ourselves to the top 10 largest communities in the
state, as well as our, uh, sister communities here in the metro area, we're actually doing
pretty well. Uh, you can see North Liberty, uh, has the lowest number of collision per a
thousand, uh,people, urn, and I'm not sure how they're doing that,but they're doing very
well. Urn, and then there's sort of that cluster in the 40 to 50 to 60 range, uh, that we fall
into. So although, like I said, there's work to do. Urn, I think we....we should be proud
of the work we're doing and we're doing pretty well. Uh, I would also argue that in Iowa
City,urn, logic would tell me that we have a little bit bigger challenge than some of these
other communities, because of the commuting traffic that we have. Because of the
hospital. Because of the University. Because of sporting events and so on, uh, I think we
get a much more, I think, diverse crowd that comes from all over the state, uh, you know,
into our community, where that may not be true in some of the other communities shown,
uh, in this diagram. Uh, next at.....at your request, urn, we also posted in your April 18`h
info packet some additional analysis that was requested back in January with respect to
bicycle and pedestrian collision data. Again, ranking that data using the Iowa DOT's
formula of; uh, raw collisions, severity of collisions, and collision rates. Urn, what we
note are that there's 15, uh, and it's in your packet, that there's 15 total locations in the
community that have three or more collisions, uh, that involve bicycles and/or
pedestrians. Uh, what is shown here are the pedestrian locations. So there's actly...
actually only three locations in town that had three or more pedestrian collisions,um,
when we did our analysis. And that again is between 2015 and 2017, so three years of
data. Uh, the next slide,uh, are the bicycle collision locations. So there's four locations
that showed up that had three or more, uh, collisions, and again, similar to the vehicular
collision data, we will also be going out this summer,uh, looking into each one of these
locations and seeing if we can address, uh, any issues that we find. Um, one of the things
we will look at, Mayor, you asked about earlier, are,uh, time of day, and specifically
nighttime, uh, collisions. Uh, while it's not in the actual collision analysis that's in your
info packet, we have that information available and we'll take that with us out in the field
and try and identify what those issues might be. Uh, overhead street lighting is always,
urn, one of those things we look at. The City has a policy to have overhead street lighting
at every intersection, which I believe we do. Uh, there might be a few we're missing,but
I believe we do have some overhead street lighting at every intersection,uh, and we
certainly have been, uh, increasing some of that with the change to LED lighting over the
last few years. That is what I had, uh, for tonight. I didn't want to get too far into it since
we discussed some of this, uh,back in January, but I'm happy to answer any questions
you might have about the analysis.
Throgmorton/One thing that comes to mind is the prominence of Clinton and Burlington Street,
if you combine the pedestrian/bicycle collisions, uh, with cars, uh, that particular
intersection stands out.
Ralston/Yeah.
Throgmorton/And I've had many conversations over the past several years with Charlie Funk
and Midwest One about that and he always tells me, 'Take a look at that intersection, Jim.
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I'm tellin' you, it's a bad place. There're lots of accidents there.' So, uh, I'm hopeful that
....the restriping, etc., is almost finished, at least right there at the intersection, the...the
last bit of construction work arid then the rest will be done.
Ralston/Yeah.
Throgmorton/And hopefully that will improve the situation(both talking)
Ralston/Clinton and Burlington, Mayor, is that the intersection we're talking about? (both
talking) Clinton and Burlington, is that right?
Throgmorton/That's what I meant. What did I say?
Ralston/No, I think that's what you said. I just wanted to make sure. So, yes, so, um, yes, the
project should be done, um, yet this spring, early summer. Uh, one thing I think that will
help there is the addition of turn lanes, which is part of the project for north and south,
excuse me....yeah, north and southbound traffic. Because now we'll have turn lanes, we
should be able to have some,uh,protected left turn. So I'm not sure if they'll be protected
(mumbled) or just protected,but when you get the green arrow, um, there wouldn't be a
conflict between pedestrians and vehicles. At least during that protected phase. So I
think that could help the situation, and in addition to looking at nighttime collisions or
time-of-day collisions, we'll also look into what those specific collisions,how they
occurred. The actual cause of the collision, and if they're right-hook collisions, left-hook
collisions, those are the things we'll look into, um, when we actually try and address
some of the signal-timing issues at this intersections and others as well.
Cole/Kent, you indicated that we're not necessarily....we're identifying the problem, not
necessarily the solution. Urn,but do you see staff, after you have an opportunity to
evaluate,uh, all these various issues in these high collision intersections coming back
with some solution infrastructure, you know, capital improvement project or....or what
do you see happening?
Ralston/Yeah, we certainly can.
Cole/Okay.
Ralston/I mean we'll certainly be tracking what we're doing and we've already done a few
things. Um, Highway 6 shows up, uh....if I go back here.....for collisions, you can see
that, it's a little hard....here. The lights go off. Um, I failed to mention, but logic would
also tell you that most of our high collision locations are where we have the most traffic.
Uh, same with bikes and peds. Uh, so you can see in this, primar....it's a little hard to see
but, urn, quadrant four and quadrant three, uh,the dots, the....the dots that follow through
the corridor there are Highway 1 and Highway 6. You can see Burlington Street, Gilbert,
Dubuque....it's really all of the locations, all of the arterial streets that you would guess
would be high are higher. So....
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Cole/Do we need a waiver on anything we'd be doing on Burlington, from the State Department
of Transportation, or how...how would that work if we had a proposal for that?
Ralston/It depends what it is. If it's signal timings, we usually just alert them to the change, uh,
and they don't usually weigh in. Uh, infrastructure changes certainly would....would take
more than that.
Cole/Okay.
Thomas/Kent, you...on the, urn, more recent report there's reference to the counter measures....
Ralston/Uh huh.
Thomas/ ....that staff would be,urn, considering.....
Ralston/Right!
Thomas/ ...in terms of their recommendations. Who....who developed those counter measures
and when?
Ralston/ So those are sort of a generic set of counter measures that they won't be only what we're
looking at, but it's sort of a generic set of counter measures and then some of the, urn,
responses to whatever it is. Uh, those are FHWA counter measures.
Thomas/Okay.
Ralston/ So those are sort of generic counter measures that we get (mumbled)
Thomas/ I....I know I brought this up the last time we...we talked about this, you know in
looking at some of the counter measures, uh, you'll find widening the lanes (laughs) um,
prohibiting parking, creating one-way streets, um....so.....so I hope in terms of....the
counter measures, we....we also look at, uh,NACTO and of course (clears throat) Jeff
Speck's new book Walkable City Rules, you know, which there're 101 ways in which he
recommends....creating the, you know, addressing and promoting the walkable city. Urn,
cause I think they may be...perhaps more relevant and up to date(laughs)um, you know,
as we move forward, and I think, you know, the presentation we just saw was a really
good, uh, sort of preliminary in terms of understanding, um, some of the principles of that
'vision zero' concept, which you know I brought up when we were in the budget session
and 'vision zero' at its foundation talks about how collisions are preventable, first of all.
So even though relative to other cities in Iowa, you know, we....we can and should be
able to reduce these collisions, cause in my view, the United States as a whole(laughs)
you know, is not the greatest measure to compare one's self to. I mean if we were to
compare ourselves to cities that have more....balanced approach toward mobility, I think,
you know, we'd see the difference. They als...:vision zero' also acknowledges that
human error is a significant factor in....mobility and traffic safety. And, so it's....it's the
vulnerable in particular who I think are most at risk, and to...to sort of keep them in mind,
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um, you know, as our reference point in terms of what....what will truly be a safe, you
know, safe city in terms of our mobility.
Ralston/No, I agree with all those points. Um, and....and with respect to the counter measures,
if what is...is in the report, as I mentioned, are sort of generic,but we'll certainly get more
creative on that. Urn, the other thing I do caution you about though is not to get our
hopes up too high, and I only say that because when we go look at the Highway 1 and 6,
for instance. There's not a lot of bicycle and pedestrian, uh, interaction, to be honest. I
mean there are some crossings, and....and some of those, uh, could certainly be made
better. Um, but when you go look at those corridors, being that they are still part of the
State highway system, there's only so much we can do in teens of tweaking signal
timings,uh, making sure that we have backs on all the signals so you can actually see the
color of the signals better, um, adjusting the ped signal timings, freshening up markings,
signage, and so on and so forth,but it gets at some point a little bit hard for us to be
creative enough to actually make some of those corridors better. So,um, I'm more
confident in sort of the downtown area than I am some of those, uh, well (mumbled) for
instance. So it gets a little bit tougher, but, um, but I'm hopeful we can....we can
certainly make (both talking)
Cole/Speaking of getting hopes up, Big Grove is a very popular establishment, and a lot of
people bike and walk there. Urn, is it....is it at all possible to have better, urn, pedestrian
and bicycle access on that South Gilbert,because I think of, you know I was thinking of
that traffic study, and that's....that's really my (laughs) family on occasion when we go
there, urn, where you are looking for those gaps and I always really, you know, my wife
and I always bracket our daughter, so if someone gets hit we do,but is that possible to...
to increase that or is that on the horizon,because that is a very popular area and, uh, it
just strikes me that with the pedestrian component to that, that that...and biking, that that
is an issue we really need to look at.
Ralston/Yeah, I think there's two projects that come to mind. One is that in the capital
improvements program we have tentatively scheduled the road diet for...most of Gilbert
Street. That section I think, um, we've talked about in the past, gives us a little more
trouble cause it's the highest volume, uh, section of Gilbert, which is also probably why
you're experiencing some difficulty. Um, the other one that comes to mind is that there's
actually some....it's not in the capital improvements program yet, but some idea to
reconstruct that section between Highway 6 and Kirkwood as part of the Riverfront
Crossings plan, and there's actually some, urn, design...well some preliminary concept
and some design work that's been done included in the Riverfront Crossings plan. So I
think there is definitely some things on the horizon that could help, uh, that particular
section.
Cole/(mumbled)
Fruin/Just to....just to add on to that(clears throat) excuse me, the....when we're doing
rezonings down in that area, we are, um,requesting and requiring additional right-of-way.
So for example when....when Big Grove, Pleasant Valley, the lumberyard redeveloped,
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urn, we did get I believe it was an extra 20-feet of...of right-of-way for those corridors
that we can't really put to use now, uh, because we don't have the entire stretch of...of the
block, urn, but as property continues to redevelop there, we'll....we'll get that extra right-
of-way, and that will allow us the flexibility to look at protected bike lanes, urn, any
number of street improvements that could help that area. It's more of a longer-term
project,but at least we're preparing for that.
Mims/ I'm (both talking) Oh, go ahead (mumbled)
Stewart/ Looking at Burlington and Highway 6, kind of a,um, as you said, they were kind of the
higher intersection....excuse me,the higher, uh....um, collision sites. Are we going to be
looking at those, um, streets as a whole or by intersection, um, when we're trying to make
these improvements?
Ralston/So a little of both, urn, we also do mid-block collisions. I don't have it in the....the
presentation for tonight,but also included were mid-blocks, so we'll be focusing
primarily on the intersections, if it's the intersection issue but if it's a mid-block issue, um,
we'll be looking at that (mumbled)
Stewart/Okay, so a combination of both.
Mims/ I was just gonna comment that(signs) these microphones are outta whack tonight!
(laughs) Ur....you know, we spent over an hour talking about collisions and everything,
and I think it's....it's good information, good to kind of review this and get it in front of
us, but I think sometimes it's easy to, when you spend this much time talking about
things, some....about one particular topic for people to maybe get the impression that this
is a huge problem, and I would just kinda.....I don't think we have a huge problem.
When....when I looked at these and saw that we had only three intersections that had had
three or more pedestrian, uh, collisions, uh, three or more bicycle collisions, I thought
that was pretty good. I was kinda surprised. I mean we have a lot of intersections, we
have a whole lot of bicyclists, and obviously a lot of cars. I think our numbers in terms
of the vehicle collisions, as you said, were down maybe in that lower third, lower 40%,
whatever, compared to a lot of the cities. I'm not saying we shouldn't improve.
Definitely wanna work on improving,but like I say, we don't spend an hour talking about
topics usually unless there's some really major issue, and I think we're actually doing
pretty good. We can always do better. So....
Throgmorton/Any other questions for Kent?
Taylor/I've had some comments, it doesn't show on here cause it's not one of the top 10, but urn,
some business owners along South Gilbert and Stevens Drive, that uh, although in your
data it did show that that, uh, at Gilbert and Stevens and Gilbert and Southgate, there
were I believe at least four collisions, uh, and people along there are concerned about that
and, uh, so they were looking at solutions to that, whether that would be a stop sign,but
obviously I think that should be on the radar too, as well as the locations that have, uh, 10
or more.
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Ralston/Yeah, thanks for that and I think should the road diet move forward, uh,in the next few
years, I think that will help both those intersections as well, so see how that goes.
Throgmorton/ Okay! Great. Thank you, Kent.
Ralston/Thank you!
Throgmorton/ So we can get off this traffic thing, uh (laughs)
Ralston/Parking next?
Throgmorton/Parking(both talking)
Ralston/On-street parking.
Throgmorton/Yes, thanks!
Ralston/ Okay. I'll try to be brief. Uh, okay! So in, also in your April 18th info packet was a
memo to Geoff Fruin dated April 15'h on on-street parking prohibition policy. Uh, what I
wanted to do is quickly, urn,just mention that the question of how staff recommends on-
street parking prohibitions I think has come up a....a few meetings over the last six
months or so. Um, and the memo outlines the current on-street parking prohibition
policy we....we currently use. Uh, for this, un....for this presentation I think we should
focus on....on streets that are 28, less than 28-feet wide, which is what I'm calling a
narrow street. That's not necessarily true, but a narrow street. Uh, for streets that are 28-
feet or wider, typically parking on both sides just isn't, uh, an issue. There's enough, uh,
space curb-to-curb that we don't worry about that too much. So, for the....for the sake of
tonight's conversation, we're focusing primarily on, uh, less than 28-feet wide,back of
curb to back of curb. Uh, for background, the City's current subdivision code is very
clear on on-street parking prohibitions. Urn, for newly-constructed streets and for local
and collector streets that are wider than 28-feet wide, again, parking on both sides is fine.
Less than 28-feet wide, it's restricted to one side, uh, as....as part of the subdivision code.
However where the code is not clear,uh, is for, uh, parking (mumbled) regulations for
existing streets, and the code simply states that parking can be prohibited along one side
of the street when the street does not exceed 30-feet in width, and can be prohibited on
both sides when it does not exceed 20-feet in width. That's really all we have. Urn, there
are a lot of specific, um, parking restrictions—you can't park in front of fire hydrants, too
close to intersections, and that sort of thing,but generally for the actual on-street parking,
uh, it's not nearly as specific as (mumbled) as it is for new streets. Uh, with that I wanna
quickly just run through the bullet points that were in the memo for how we, uh, currently
identify parking prohibitions. Uh, first I wanna mention that on local and collector
streets, on-street parking prohibitions are generally, uh, limited to one side of the street.
It's very rare where we have a street that does not have parking on either side. Now again
that's for streets less than 28-feet wide, uh, discounting most of our arterial streets,being
wider than that. Uh, second, when a request for a pro....a request to prohibit on-street
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parking is generated by management of a City department. Uh,we typically look at that
very briefly and then we bring it to you all for action. So for instance if the street
superintendent says that he cannot get a garbage truck, uh, down a street, that's obviously
an issue for that neighborhood. We'll go out and make sure there's nothing else that could
be done,but assuming there's still parking on both sides of the street, we'll bring some
sort of parking prohibition to you all for....for action. And I would....do wanna stress
that we typically....well, we will always follow up with the manager of that division,
rather than just,uh, getting a call from a snow plow driver or someone who's frustrated
with the on-street parking situation. So we'll make sure we follow up with the
superintendent, uh, of that division. Uh, next when a request to prohibit parking is
generated by a resident, we'll conduct an initial review of the existing conditions. Uh, if
the street's less than 28-feet wide, we'll document when vehicles park directly across
from each other and if we can document that, then we'll bring it to you all for, uh, action.
If we can't document the vehicles parked directly across the street from each other, it
might be sort of a checker pattern, where they jockey from side to side. That's not so
much an issue for us. It's just when they're parking directly across from each other. Um,
the actual width of the street gets to be problematic for....for large vehicles. Uh, when
the request to prohibit parking is generated by a resident and staff deems there is no
action necessary, uh, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's nothing we'll do for that
neighborhood. We'll actually,uh, request that a, urn, a petition be generated by the
neighborhood, with 50% or more sig....signatures from the affected area, then we'll
actually do a mail-back survey and if a....a super majority of that neighborhood wants to
move forward with a parking prohibition, then we'll bring it to you all, uh, for action.
Uh, I also want to mention that when we're doing these things, um, we also consider
street topography, a number of access points, surround land uses, parking prohibitions,
um, that are already in place and that, uh, if there's anything else that might make it more
difficult for homeowners. So we take all that into account, um, when we're doing our
field reviews. In terms of solutions, um, what's shown on the slide, uh, the....the City
currently has approximately 140 streets that are less than 28-feet in width, uh, comprising
of more than 18 miles of roadway that currently allow parking on both sides of the street.
So for this slide, um, all of these streets are....that are colored are either 24 or 25-feet
wide,back of curb to back of curb, and the ones in red, uh, show where there's parking on
both sides. So there's about 140 of those. Urn, we also have two other,uh, maps that
were included in your packet, but this is primarily the bulk, uh, of those streets. In fact
over a hundred of the 140 are 25-foot wide back-to-back. This image shows, um, an
example of how these corridors function if vehicles are parked....directly across from
each other and a large vehicle's present. Uh, this happened to be bor...borrowed from a,
uh, a community in Illinois, um, but I actually went through and sort of measured these
out, and it is accurate. Um, this is exactly the situation we would have if you had the
situation on any of those streets that were colored in red on the previous slide. So this is
the kind of issue that we're....that we take, uh, pretty seriously. Um, the other thing I
would caution you about is that these two vehicles, the private vehicles, seem to be
parked right up next to the curb, um, which isn't always the case, and in fact our code
allows a vehicle to park 18-inches away from the curb. So if both of those vehicles are
parked 18-inches away from the curb, you can take three more feet away from this, uh,
scenario, or three more feet away from the fire truck in this case that's trying to navigate
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the street. So that's the scenario that we take very seriously and....and would bring to
you for some action. Uh, in terms of solutions, uh, I think to ensure passage of large
vehicles, um, we can do two things. One, we can continue down the existing policy,
where each request that we get, we basically look at in the context of the situation and
then....and then bring a, urn, solution to you. Or we could proactively prohibit parking to
one side of all of those 140 streets that....that we've been discussing. Um, I think the
issue, or the disadvantage with sort of that blanket prohibition, um, are that we may
increase vehicle speeds, where some of the parked cars, as....as John Thomas mentioned,
uh,previously, can help calm traffic. Urn, and we may cause some potential ard...
hardships for folks that already have, uh, limited amount of parking. So there are a few
issues with....with doing that. Uh, there's also a cost involved. I've estimated, I think
we....we probably spend less than $5,000 a year, urn, actually addressing these issues,
where we will bring an issue where we're asking to prohibit parking and actually follow
through with that. It's....it's something like less than $5,000 a year. Uh, I also estimated
that if we chose sort of the second path and did a blanket prohibition, uh, it'd be
somewhere in the neighborhood of$65,000 is the ballpark figure to do that. Um, our
recommendation is that we would continue down the path we're currently using, um,
because I don't think we get....we probably get a handful or....or less than a dozen a year
requests for a parking prohibition. Um, in some cases we're going to request to add
parking to streets so, um, so I don't see a compelling reason to do a blanket prohibition,
um, but we certainly could. I also had that discussion with the Fire Chief and he also did
not think we needed to go down the route of a blanket prohibition, um,just yet. With that
I'm happy to answer any questions you have and, uh....if staff could get some direction,
that would be helpful!
Throgmorton/Any questions for G...for Kent?
Mims/No,but if he wants direction I would say I would agree with your recommendation to stay
the course. I....I think to do a blanket one is gonna invite all kinds of, uh, dissent within
the community....with....with an unneeded proc....trying to solve a problem that doesn't
exist in many locations. I think if....if vehicles can't get through, either our staff is gonna
let us know and/or the residents are gonna let us know. So I think to continue to address
it, um, on a complaint basis like that, I think makes the most sense.
Thomas/The....the only....I agree. I think the existing policy makes the most sense in terms of
getting the benefit of...of having the cars parking on both sides, which is....does have a
traffic calming effect. Uh, I....I am aware, and I.....there's....asked Geoff to include it in
our late handouts, uh, there is a....an alternative to parking only on one side of the street.
I brought it up, I think, at our last meeting, and that's the notion of a checkerboard
approach, where you, um....you.....you basically are....are trying to avoid a situation
where parked cars will park opposite one another, and so you...you space the parking, uh,
in such a way that, um, it alternates from one side of the street to the other. So if you're
if you're can imagine sort of looking down a street with that checkerboard pattern,
you get a feeling that the affected roadway width is relatively narrow, so that helps
promote traffic calming. My....what I was suggesting was that, um, in addition to the
idea of having a one-side only approach, that, uh, we consider the idea of the
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checkerboard, um....and.....and see to, and just offer it as an option, um, as we move
forward on this, so that, uh,the residents....would have an alternative if they chose to
consider it. Urn....you know it....it's listed in....in the NACTO's street design standards
as an option. Um, it seemed to me a...a reasonable one and it would preserve the benefit
of the, uh, parking on both sides, which has to do with traffic calming. If you....if you
limit them to one side, there's potential...parking to one side, there's potential for the,urn,
the speeds to increase because the....of what's left in the roadway for....for driving. So
it seemed to me there was no harm in(laughs) trying that approach, and I talked to....
to, uh, Kent before the meeting and....and he seemed to agree that it's....um, something
we can explore, basically, uh, test it, see....see if there's interest in the community for
that.....that option.
Cole/Do you currently have the discretion to do that, if you would want to?
Ralston/Yeah, yeah we do. Urn, I think what....sort of what John is describing is sort of a,
almost a slalom effect as you go down the street. Urn, yeah, I think we do. When we
bring those prohibitions to you all for action, we can clearly just spell out exactly what
our plan is and I don't think there's any reason, uh, why we couldn't.
Throgmorton/Are there any....John, are there any...in your imagination, are there any particular
spreets....streets that have a speed problem that could be alleviated through this
checkerboard kind of design?
Thomas/Well I mean the street that comes to my mind would be,urn, a straight-shot street, uh,
with long distances between the intersections would....would be the most likely, uh,
candidates for potential for speeding. Um, and then topography could also come into
play. Urn....so yeah, I mean I think....just, you know,just observationally, when I travel
around town, I can see where, you know, the one....there's certain segments of one-way
streets that I've walked or driven on or bicycled on and where it seemed there was the
potential for the....the one-way, or one side only parking option of generating higher
speeds.
Cole/ Once....one street that's always sort of concerned me, and I'm looking at it right now, that
Church Street doesn't seem like an arterial. Urn, I drive up on the Northside quite a bit
now. I also walk it quite a lot with my dogs, and um, that always seems like a much
busier street than the adjacent street. So, um, I....I would agree to sort of stay the course,
but in terms of identifying what parts are currently prohibited, where you can't park on
either side, identifying where would it make more sense to do, parking on one side. It's
my understanding in the evening there is parking allowed on one side a por....of Church.
Urn, so that's something I would like to see, cause I think in terms of the traffic calming,
and I think even in some of our more suburban areas of town, we've had a lot of requests
for speed bumps, and it would be nice if we could identify,um, you know, parking is one
way to alleviate some of the speed concerns, as opposed to just the....and those streets
are so wide, urn, but I just feel like well we can maybe correct that with some one-sided
parking. So that's at least something I think would be good to possibly explore but....
Church does seem to be a street that doesn't feel like an arterial, but such as it is.
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Ralston/Yeah, and when I was talking to John before the meeting, um, I certainly don't think
there's any harm in trying it. There may be some drawbacks to the...to the sort of
checkerboard, um, style parking, uh- garbage collections, snow plowing, you know,
those sort of things. Urn, more signs, which people typically don't like in their yards, I
found out over the years, but uh, you know, there's certainly no harm in trying. Urn, at
this point I don't know what the benefits would be, but that's why we could try.
Thomas/Yeah, I...I....I'm always, um, supportive of the idea of case-by-case, and um....giving
....giving the residents an option.
Taylor/I think (clears throat) that point that John makes, case-by-case, uh, there are some just
small side streets. I'm thinking of one in my neighborhood, that there's facility that, uh,
has events, uh, like every Friday and it's very narrow side street, uh, and folks were
parking on both sides of the street, clear down to the stop sign, but uh, the City carne
around and added 'no parking corner to here' signs for quite a distance on both sides of
the street, and that really helped because before barely one car could get up and down.
There was a little bit of a hill, and it was very dangerous. So there are other options
besides prohibiting it on the entire street.
Ralston/Yeah, and that's sort of the reason we don't proactively go out and look for these issues.
Urwe use it as a....a case-by-case basis, contact sensitive, and we try to do a lot of
that(mumbled)rather than remove parking altogether. It's just pull parking back from
intersections, open 'em up a little bit, uh, increase visibility, and....and hopefully reduce
collisions at the same time.
Teague/ I'm not sure if you get any emergency vehicle concerns about any of these streets. We
do have, urn, some of the streets that have alleys, where, you know, the garbage truck
isn't actually goin' down the middle of the street, which would be an indicator to the City
—there's a problem with the street. So that's the only thing that, you know, kinda
question, uh, in my mind is,urn, you know, emergency vehicles,makin' sure that we
are certain(laughs) that, you know, certain neighborhoods, you know, maybe the...
you know, people are always parkin' 18-inches away, urn, or somethin' like that,but
makin' sure that, you know, those, um, emergency vehicles would not have a hard time
gettin' through,but that's the only thing that I wanted to add.
Ralston/No, I appreciate that, and the first call I always make is to the Fire Chief, to make sure
he's okay(both talking)
Teague/Awesome! (laughs)
Throgmorton/He'll let ya know!
Ralston/Yes he will!
Clarification of Agenda Items:
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Throgmorton/Okay, thanks, Kent. I think we probably need to move on so we can hit on any
agenda items that perhaps need to be discussed right now. I wanna bring up one. It has
to do with the rezoning of North Dubuque Street and I don't intend to discuss anything
substantive. I just wanna ask a question about process. So it's my understanding right
now that two of us have recommended some additional conditions, pertaining to the
rezoning. First of all I want to know if anyone else has recommended any....and those
two have had written material appear in our packets. So I wanna know if anybody else
has any conditions they wanna recommend. Or that they intend to recommend that are
really conditions to the rezoning.
Taylor/I just had one. It was more kind of a consideration on the part of the developers. Uh,
goes along, I think, with all your environmental issues was, uh, there's going to be
potential for a lot of pavement, and I would like to encourage them to do,uh, permeable
payment. If that's possible. Per...permeable....per....am I saying that right(laughs)
Throgmorton/Okay, so (both talking)when John's discussing his proposed conditions, maybe
you could chime in cause there's a pretty tight, uh, relationship there.
Taylor/Right.
Throgmorton/Anyone else?
Salih/Are we gonna discuss, like say I read John thing like have like a lot thing, are we gonna
discuss each single one? And vote for it separately?
Throgmorton/No.
Salih/Are we gonna do the whole thing?
Throgmorton/I think probably not, because we also have....we the Council has also received a
memo from Geoff, which made a suggestion...what, which provided information about
what the developer/owner is willing to do,but also he's made some suggestions about
how many of the items recommended in John's memo in particular are actions that the
City staff, the City could take, uh,not so much items that should be a part of a
conditional rezoning.
Froin/Yeah,just real quick. Um, the developer tonight will, um, describe some changes, uh, that
they are, um, willing to make, uh, after hearing some of the concerns at the first meeting.
I do think that will address a num...the changes that they will describe tonight will...will
address a number of those concerns. Um, and also I would encourage, um, all of the, um,
all of the conditions that are focused on the...or the proposed conditions focused on the
roadway, that we take that up with their tax increment financing request. At this point the
road is not designed. They have the road layout, uh, engineered,but the actual road
design will not....is not complete. We will complete that road design as part of the
development agreement process, so we can....it's helpful to know exactly what you want
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out of that road design,but we don't necessarily need to place conditions on the...on the
rezoning to achieve those.
Salih/And also I think the housing is gonna come separately,right?
Fruin/Yeah,they....they will,uh,have a presentation tonight to answer questions about the
housing,uh,that were raised.
Throgmorton/Okay so....related to this,the third item that I recommended was not a condition,
but it was a suggestion that has to do with us,uh, scheduling a work session. Uh, so I
think this is a good moment to bring that up. So I seek your advice about this, and it
pertains to future large-scale developments, namely should we amend City code to
require the staff and applicant to consider the effects of the proposed projects on future
carbon emissions and absorption capacity, carbon absor....absorption capacity, and to
take actions that will help us achieve the City's carbon emission reduction goals. So I'm
just asking if there's support for putting this topic on our work session....our list of
pending work session topics.
Cole/Yeah, I would support that.
Salih/I support that,but I know that you are requesting this for the current(both talking)
Throgmorton/No, no (both talking)
Salih/ ...rezoning.
Throgmorton/ ...no, no, I'm not, Maz. What I'm talking about right now is about oth...(both
talking)
Cole/Future.
Throgmorton/ ...other future topics.
Salih/Yes, anything for the future I'm supporting it,because it have to be on the(unable to
understand)really strongly.
Throgmorton/Okay, so I think I'm hearing support for that, majority support. Okay, thank you.
Are there other agenda items that people wanna bring up?
Salih/Is, uh, corresponding?
Throgmorton/Yeah.
Salih/(mumbled)
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Teague/While Maz is findin'that, I...I just had one question about the owner's, um....thoughts on
Council not bein'involved with like the design. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Fruin/Urn,the roadway design?
Teague/I don't think it was the roadway. It was the actual (several talking)
Fruin/Oh the (several talking)the renderings and elevations,that was one of the....the,urn,
recommendation...well, one it was talked a little bit about in Planning and Zoning, is my
understanding,but it was also included in Councilman Thomas'recommendations, and
that would be a condition that would require,um,the renderings of the....of the buildings
to be approved by, I believe you had Planning and Zoning Commission, but some....
some legislative body of the....of the City. Um,the developers are,urn,reluctant to agree
to that. Um, it adds a significant amount of time and cost, and....and uncertainty,urn,to
the approval. Urn,they would rather rely on the existing design standards that we have in
the code. Urn, also with the rezoning,they're essentially agreeing to,uh,the footprints of
the building that you see in the plan. Those can't change significantly without coming
back to Council. They understand that,but that rendering's a whole 'nother layer of
approvals that they have to get, and that just, uh, brings some uncertainty, uh,to the
project,as they look to sell those lots or develop those lots,they don't have that final
approval that they know that the City will approve. They'd rather work directly from our
design standards and and move forward with that certainty,knowing that if they
submit something in compliant with those standards, it'll be approved,they'll get their
building permit.
Teague/I do understand that, as far as the design standards and,urn,thanks for explainin'that.
Now are there design standards for modular homes, or manufactured homes?
Fruin/There's gonna be....there's gonna be.....some. It's not nearly as detailed as our multi-
family design standards, but I....I would say that if you have design concerns with the
manufactured homes, that would be appropriate to take up tonight. So if there's (both
talking)
Throgmorton/(mumbled)(several talking)
Fruin/ ...that's gonna be tonight.
Teague/Thank you.
Salih/Yeah, I would like to talk about corresponding 8a, b, and c, all of them talk about the
bannin'of the pet store sales and....I really would like to know, if Geoff have any idea
how we could respond or can we just,uh, ask Animal Control to look into this and give
us some recommendation? What we gonna do about this?
Thomas/I'm sorry,which....which item (both talking)
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Throgmorton/Items 8a, b, c, which all...which have to do with"puppy mills." Two of'em say
you should do something about banning this retail sale of...pets sourced from large-scale
commercial breeding operations, and the other says, 'Hey, we run a pet store and there are
standards we have to meet,' and all this kind of stuff.
Salih/ Sure.
Throgmorton/So, I....I'm not persuaded we need to do anything. But you did mention, Maz, you
mentioned Animal Control. I don't know if our...A...Animal Services Department has
anything to say about this or any information that would be helpful for us....I don't know
if there would (both talking)
Fruin/I can't answer that now but....
Salih/ Can you just contact'em and say if they can do something or not?
Cole/I guess for my purpose, um, maybe this would be good, instead of a work session, a memo
from staff in terms of....I think this has generated, as I understand it, the conversation
that was up in Cedar Rapids. You know they are actively planning it, and then the
question was, well what do we do here? And I think you're right, Jim. This is a
complicated issue. I mean this is someone's business, that they followed the rules for a
long period of time, um, standards do evolve over time. So I just think we need to get
some facts and information about....about the issue, and if there are some tweaks that we
can make, maybe we could just get it in the form of a memo. If the memo persuades us
that we don't need to do anything more, then we just sort of live with the status quo,but
you know I think of our...our late friend Kurt Michael Friese talked about slow food.
Think slow policy is going to be very important in this, so we don't make any sudden
changes. So I would at least like to see a memo from staff, maybe reaching out to Cedar
Rapids, seein' why they think it was necessary, allowin' our friends from Petland to sort
of respond and tell us maybe why it's not necessary. Urn, but I don't think we necessarily
need a work session at this point. I don't know what people think about that.
Taylor/Well I....I think this is (both talking)this is a concerning issue but my thoughts on this
were, uh, we basically have the....the one, urn, business in Iowa City, whereas Coralville
has two major, uh, stores. So I think that if we ourselves as the City of Iowa City did
anything, it wold be rather ineffective and not very efficient, uh, considering Coralville
has two of them. Uh, it is something I think we need to keep an eye on and our ear to the
ground about.
Mims/(sighs) I'm not sure what we gain by dumping this on staff to generate another memo.
Um, in reading all the information that was in there, it's very clear that there are different
viewpoints, urn, about the regulatory industry, what would happen if we....if we said that
they can't sell from large commercial producers. There's a question whether all large
commercial producers are "puppy mills" or are....respectable, good breeders who care
about their animals and treatin' them properly. Um, there certainly has been a lot of
question about the funding of the USDA and the extent of their inspections, urn, of a lot
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of the breeders. There's no question about that. I....I don't.....I don't feel that staff is
going to be able to get information on a complicated issue like this, with a lot of different
perspectives that are....that's gonna help us with an answer. Um, I thought it was
interesting that one of the articles or letters in there was from somebody who used to be
the head of the American, uh, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who had
really, assuming that that was a legitimate letter, take it at face value at the moment, um,
totally flipped his position in terms of looking at a lot of these breeders, and it....if you
question where I'm coming from, I'm an animal lover. I've had dogs since I was a kid and
had dogs since before I had kids, once I was married. Urn, and...the mistreatment of any
animal....I find very troublesome and disgusting, but I think this is a complicated issue
and I....I just, I'm concerned about dumping another....topic on staff to give us a memo
that's not gonna give us any answer to how we move forward on this, and without a way
of doing it that can confirm, uh, that....a business owner is....is doing it in a proper way,
um, that's not putting an incredible amount of extra burden. Again, if you wanna take
them at their word, I was very,uh, compelled by the fact they'll take people on their tours
of the breeders with them, etc.,urn, I don't see it as something that is,uh, that we should
be acting on or adding work to the...workload to the staff.
Teague/I....I think for me I, urn...I did a little talkin' to, um, some of the individuals that were
against,um, well, that are against puppy mills, you know, as they call it. And, you know,
I think the perception, and my walk-away, urn, I....I would encourage all of you to
actually sit down and talk to them. Um,but the walk-away is this: from...from their
perspective,um, nationally in order to really get at, um,people...puppy mills that are not
doin' the right thing, their thoughts are....let's just stop,um, you know, pet stores from
buyin'puppies,because some of them want, some of them, not all of the owners, want to,
you know, get by with cheap animals. Urn, you know,buy'em cheap and sell 'em for a
lot of money. But it's not everyone, and so for me, when I think about Iowa City and
we're talkin' about, um, an owner in Iowa City, we're talkin' a out....we re....we re tryin'
to, you know, stop them from bein' able to sell somethin'.....you know, that they like put,
pour their heart and soul into. Now, I can't vouch for them. Only they can tell you from
their perspective, um, their values and stuff like that as they've wrote in their notes to us,
urn, as Council. So for me personally, um, I think staff could do a memo, but....I think it,
it really is a one-on-one conversation,urn, with the people that are against puppy mills,
um, and the owners, urn, not only in our community but elsewhere, to really get your
own, um, sense of direction, I think that, urn, there's a lot of perspectives out there. Urn,
you know one of the things the puppy mill, urn (laughs) individuals talked about was
takin' out the middle man, and...and that's the owners and they're sayin'if you take out the
middle man, then, urn, Iowa Citians can travel and...200 miles to find a puppy, go to these
puppy mills and then you will see the condition and make the decision for yourself. Well
one of the challenges there is, um, if....if I went to pick out a puppy, one, I don't know if
I'm actually lookin' at the real conditions, cause they can show me what they want me to
see. I believe that,urn, owners are (laughs) they have experience in goin'to a place and
seein' above and beyond what a regular person can see. So for me, you know, the puppy
mills, I...I would suggest that everybody just speak to, you know, do your own research,
talk to people, um, I....I think we have a owner in our community who is dedicated to
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providing good puppies. Urn, that doesn't mean that they are without concern at times.
Most businesses have concerns at times, and so I....for me, I would just leave it at that.
Fruehling/We do have someone coming to do a presentation. It's Ron, uh...Solsrud.
Throgmorton/Yeah, from (both talking)
Salih/When?
Fruehling/During the formal. (several talking)
Throgmorton/Yeah, I'm not persuaded that, uh, there's a serious problem in Iowa City that we
need to do something about. If somebody can persuade me with evidence, uh, then yeah,
I'll go that way,but I'm not persuaded yet. I don't think we need to do anything.
Salih/Okay, I....let's go to the next one then. 8j, (mumbled) letters about (mumbled) meeting.
Throgmorton/I'm sorry, which one?
Salih/ 8j.
Throgmorton/ 8j.
Salih/Uh huh.
Throgmorton/Oh, yeah,Austin's up.
Stewart/Um, I can quickly talk about it. So essentially, urn, we...I read an article, um, that from
Ames essentially and Ames and Iowa State do a, urn, a joint meeting between their
Student Government and their City Council to kind of talk about those issues that you
might not talk about, uh, directly at City Council meetings. Talk about student issues at
large,urn, more than just me because I'm just one student. So it might, I guess, get a
broader outreach to the student population...understanding issues, so (mumbled) there
would be a specified agenda, um, about certain topics, and it would, um, allow for an
open conversation, urn,just wanted to let you...get your thoughts and see if this is
something you're interested and wanting to do for next fall/spring,that Austin would
obviously work on.
Throgmorton/ I personally think it's an excellent idea. It'd be (mumbled) eager to participate.
Salih/I think so too,because when I read the article from, you know,Ames, I really like it and I
think we should do that.
Thomas/Yeah we....we've talked about having conversations, uh, with, you know, the Student
Government. This seems like a very nice way of handling it.
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Salih/Uh huh.
Mims/I think it's definitely worth giving it a shot.
Throgmorton/Okay so, Kellie, maybe you could help us find a time to have that kind of joint
meeting, sometime in the fall you said, after students (both talking)
Stewart/Something like that, yeah.
Throgmorton/Okay.
Salih/Last one is 8n.
Throgmorton/This'll have to be the last one, I think, before...
Salih/Yeah, that the last one anyway. Yeah, is 8n Sara Barron:Affordable Housing Coalition
about like collecting rent. I know that Geoff send....did you (both talking)
Fruit)/Just today, so it'd be in your late handouts.
Salih/Yes. Okay. And, uh, and I don't know if this....you just think that's illegal to do or...
Fruin/Urn, I....I think there's....I think there's concerns and Sue could speak to these about
requiring people to submit their rent dollars, uh, their rental amount with the rental
permit. Um, certainly we can make it optional, but uh, I'd have to defer to Sue on the
legal aspects of requiring rental amounts on the permit.
Salih/It would become like one of the question on the application, is that something illegal?
Dulek/Well we can't interfere with the relationship between the landlord and the tenant. And
that's, when we don't have the Home Rule authority to do that.
Salih/How you interfere when we ask (unable to understand) question of like how much....
Dulek/We are requiring the landlord to tell publicly what they're charging their...their tenant and
I think there are concerns. If you certainly want a....a memo from....from Eleanor, um,
or one of us, we can certainly do that, but there are....there are concerns that we don't
have the Home Rule authority to do that.
Salih/Okay.
Throgmorton/I think it'd be very helpful to have that information,but I've heard this point many
times before.
Salih/Yeah, that's what will help us a lot if we can do (mumbled)
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Throgmorton/Okay, it's 19 or 18 till. I think it's probably a pretty good time to break, unless
there's like one very quick point that anybody wants to make about an agenda item or if
you need some information or whatever. Okay, so, uh, we'll adjourn this for, till the
formal meeting, which begins at 7:00, and then reconvene the work session after the
formal.
(ADJOURN TO FORMAL MEETING)
(RECONVENE WORK SESSION)
Information Packet Discussion:
Tluogmorton/ I think there are two things we need to touch on, and I would suggest we not try to
deal with anything else on...on that. So I gotta find the right page here.....things that I
think the staff needs guidance on. (mumbled) get to the right page here. All right, so the
first is....so to get started. We're lookin' at the April 4th packet, then the April 11th packet.
So now where is that? Uh....(mumbled)....oh yeah, IP#6, request for information
concerning a partnership with Iowa City Parks and Recreation, concerning the Lee
Recreation Center. So you'll recall that we received a memo from Juli Seydell-Johnson
indicating she had received....staff had solicited letters of interest from non-profit groups
interested in partnering on the use of that little part of; uh, the Lee Recreation Center.
Letters of interest were received from the Bike Library, Public Space One. They're
included in Juli's minnow...memo and staff requests authority to negotiate a partnership
agreement with the Iowa City Bike Library,based on a lot (mumbled) So, that's a
question to us.
Mims/I support staff recommendation. I thought when you looked at the two responses, urn, I
just thought they had a really, really strong....both....both great organizations, but I just
thought they had a really strong proposal. Urn, as staff mentioned, uh, in a better place
financially to do the renovations, and I just felt in reading them also that they would have
a tendency to reach a lot more people, of a lot....of a much broa much greater variety of
socioeconomic status, uh....and so I felt that they would be a better fit for the Rec Center.
Cole/And Public Space One, they have an opportunity up in North Market Square, correct?
Fruin/That's correct. We're talking (both talking)
Cole/ So I think you're right, Susan. Two terrific organizations, um,but as I think about the Bike
Library in this location, I figure our socioeconomic goals in terms of justice, community
exercise, our carbon emission, community well-being, the Farmers Market, non-profits,
our...I've always wanted to do a makerspace. Well I think that learning how to work on
bikes is maker skills. So I think with this, and I think the fundraising is...is key, we could
be achieving like nine different things that we wanna try to accomplish, all with one
entity, and....they're a very well run organization. I mean they really have passion,
purpose, and good leadership. So I'm really thrilled, um, that they're gonna have this
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opportunity and I'm equally thrilled that Public Space One will have an opportunity,
possibly in another venue.
Taylor/I agree and along with, urn, Susan mentioning, uh,the....the broad community
engagement and that's...that's part of the...uh, Parks and Rec's mission is to have
community engagement and advocate for the benefits of recreational involvement, uh,
with the general public and what better recreation than to ride bikes since we're
encouraging all the bike lanes in town.
Cole/I got my bike from the Bike Library. So....should I recuse myself(laughs) (several
talking)
Throgmorton/Yeah, so I...
Thomas/It was a great proposal (several talking) It's also....I found it interesting that what is
now(several talking and laughing) will be not only(several talking and laughing)
structures, so it's...it was really fantastic and hopefully we find an opportunity for Public
One...Public Space One.
Mims/Their renderings of their ideas for that space were just phenomenal.
Throgmorton/Yeah, absolutely. (several talking) reassuring! Okay, so I think our opinion is
pretty clear. I wanna jump to the April 18 packet....to, let's see which item is it...uh,
number, number.....I think it's#9, maybe I miscounted, but the employment status
analysis. (several talking) Yeah. So, um,my notes say....my brain cannot take this in
right now and defer the topic to our next (laughter)
Cole/That sounds good, Jim! Your brain's right!
Froin/This is, um, this....this is an item that's fairly complex and you shouldn't feel rushed to
make the decision. We are...we can limp along and....and continue to fill in that front
desk. If you're comfortable makin' it tonight, great,but it's late. If you wanna defer it,
that's okay too.
Salih/Is that really hard decision to make or....
Throgmorton/I wanna understand it and frankly....I wrote that earlier today, not right now, and
you know, my brain's fried right now(several talking and laughing) defer it so that I can
read the thing and understand what's in it and....
Salih/Okay! That's fine!
Mims/That's fine!
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Fruin/ I....I also would note that AFSCME did have some folks here for the work session. They
did not stick around, understandably,uh, so....by deferring you may give them an
opportunity to participate(several talking)
Cole/And well that's my key point is throughout this process....I thought it was going to be sort
of a collaboration between AFSCME and staff,with the direction of the staff that like we
want this to happen but leave AFSCME and staff to figure out the details. Is....is my
preference. But I....
Taylor/This one is....is one position in particular, though, as well as the broad picture,but you
want a decision on that one(several talking)
Fruin/ ...this is one that we brought forward because we have a vacancy. You know we've fully
informed AFSCME. They....they saw the memo before it came out to you. They
completely understand the analysis that we're doing,the positions that we're looking at.
We....we can't compel them to give you feedback. They have to do that on their own.
We can just make them aware(both talking)
Cole/(mumbled)
Fruin/ ....if they choose(mumbled)my guess is they're gonna choose to weigh in on some
positions and maybe not all of them.
Teague/And I did have a quick conversation with AFSCME and it was a very positive one and
so I would encourage the Councilors to reach out, if you have questions. So, I'm
encouraged!
Throgmorton/Okay, so everybody okay with just deferring this to our next meeting? (several
talking) ...be in the next information packet or something like that.
Fruin/Yeah. Would you like us to carry all the information packets over or just this one item?
Cole/ ...couple I wanna(several talking)
Throgmorton/Well just...maybe we could focus on what those two are and...and carry them over.
Cole/Well there's two that I wanted to...IP#8,related to manufactured housing, you know,
updating the affordable housing policy, and the other's a little more idiosyncratic, urn, I
don't have the IP number in front of me,but urn, IP7, from April 18t, on the at-large cat
ordinance. Um, it is sort of topical,but I'll provide more details,if we could just keep
those in the packet and I can seek Council approval at the next meeting,right?
Taylor/Can I just go back to #9 again,just real quick. In your opinion, Geoff, is it causing any
undue stress? I know each of the departments is kind of sharing and,uh,putting someone
in that position at the front desk. Is it....does it seem to be causing any undue stress, I
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mean that's gonna put it down another four, three to four weeks,before...you could make
a decision on filling that position.
Fruin/We handle vacancies all the time(laughter) continue to handle this one.
Taylor/Good!
Mims/Very diplomatic! (laughs)
Salih/And...also I would like to add, you know,the letter from Sarah Baron. I thought I can add
this to what Rockne and I proposed. Maybe you can talk about this together. What you
think? She....
Mims/Why don't we just do this. Why don't we just list all three of these info packets as part of
our work session for next time, some of'em there's not much in but then....I mean if you
just know you need to review these, cause we haven't gone through the three info packets.
(several talking)
Salih/I just wanna....I don't know how you, we can add this to the....the (both talking)
Fruin/Which one you lookin'at?
Salih/ Sarah Baron for the....
Fruin/ It's the same as Councilman Cole's item, it's the mobile home,or the(both talking)
Salih/ She want us to form a committee and....
Fruin/Yeah, so that'll be, um, 1P8 on the 4/18 info packet.
Salih/ Sure. Okay. Yes. (both talking) Okay.
Fruin/Yeah, you can get into study groups(mumbled)
Salih/ Sure. That's it?
Throgmorton/I think that's it! (several talking) Yeah! Uh,we're adjourned from our work
session. (several talking)
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