June 27, 2024 — City Council Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

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[6:23] we good to go okay it is 601 and good evening and welcome to tonight's study session of the Boulder City I'm council member wallik and I thank you for joining us we have on tonight's agenda three items our first item will be a discussion on the area three planning Reserve Urban Services study update draft scenario evaluation it's quite a title our second item is the core arterial Network can Iris Avenue transportation Improvement project update and our last item will be a a very brief discussion on whether we

[7:01] want staff to engage with the petitioners on the language of the two airport uh petitions ballot language uh initiatives um with that uh before we go into our work items I'm going to outline how the meeting will be conducted we will review staff's presentation for each item and then we will have a time for questions at the end of the presentations we will conduct our Council disc discussion with staff so if you have questions please wait for staff to complete their presentation uh we will now turn to our very esteemed city manager Nua Rivera Vander to introduce our first item Nua you have the floor thank you so much uh council member and I know we've got a lot of items on the agenda so I'm going to be very brief and turn it straight over to staff this evening because we got a lot to talk about um and with that I don't know KJ if you or Brad are going

[8:00] to kick us off and I see that you are up so KJ take it away thank you naria and good evening city council always a pleasure to spend a Thursday evening with you umh Christopher Johnson comprehensive planning manager I did want to start uh the evening with just some framing comments for you all to consider before I pass it off to Sarah horn and the AECOM team for the presentation and discussion this evening uh related to the area three planning Reserve so the full name actually of this first step of the process to explore the planning Reserve as it is defined in the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan is called the Baseline Urban Services study now we intentionally remov the term Baseline uh just because it made the name very long but also we wanted to avoid confusion with Baseline Road since the planning Reserve itself is located on the opposite side on the north side of the city however in in reflection in

[9:00] particular for the discussion this evening and ultimately as we come forward with the final study later this fall that term of Baseline is very important because it helps to really clearly Define the purpose of the study which is to establish a baseline of foundational information upon which then we can analyze the potential impacts of urban development in the plan reserve on the rest of the city um that Baseline then in the future can serve as a as a tool or as a floor by which then we can measure and inform future conversations around a variety of policy choices and tradeoffs and alternative Solutions so the Baseline that we're creating and that will be documented within the urban Services study is really based on very high level 30,000 foot assumptions to evaluate an order of magnitude um understanding of the infrastructure improvements but it does not accom odate really detailed land use design or full

[10:02] engineering so that's a bit of caveat for everybody to just understand and really you know in other words the the study is intended to help us all identify those pinch points and really highlight the critical questions that will be asked in future steps but it will not advise on creative and innovative solutions to ultimately resolve those questions so the goal for tonight is to give you an opportunity to weigh in on the framework of the demand scenario bookends that we've established and provide a glimpse into some of the preliminary considerations that are starting to reveal themselves through some early analysis um I will guarantee that we will not have all the answers tonight and that additional financial and infrastructure analyses are still part of the project and are yet to come as part of that final Urban Services study later this fall um I I sympathize it's going to be really easy for everybody to jump ahead to those future

[11:00] conversations where we're talking about Innovative and alternative visions that will be analyzed and then ultimately the policy choices um to be discussed but I ask Council uh to do your best to try to stay in the moment and help us create this Baseline first so with that I will pass it off to Sarah horn for the presentation thank you sorry muted um it's a pleasure to be with you tonight it's my second time to with you in um a couple weeks so um it's a whirlwind tour but I am glad to be here I'm gonna share my screen can you see the presentation okay so as KJ said we're here tonight to talk about the area 3 planning Reserve urban urban Services study um and again I'm Sarah horn I'm a senior Planner on the comp planning team um and I'm joined as you know by Christopher John son our planning and

[12:00] develop our Planning and Development comprehensive planning manager and Brad Mueller our planning and development services director we also have members of our consultant team AECOM joining us along with reps from various City departments and while this project is being facilitated by the P&S comp planning team we're working in close collaboration with colleagues many of whom are on the call tonight from utilities Transportation Parks and Recreation police fire Finance the city managers and the city attorney's office and they've all been really instrumental in providing the information our consultant team needs to complete the study successfully so the purpose of the study session item is three-fold and KJ talked a little bit about it um to review the service demand scenarios and Associated assumptions to provide information to you on the analyses planned for the urban Services study and to see if there's additional information that should be included in the final evaluations for our agenda I'll start with a review of the project background in the area three planning Reserve

[13:00] service area expansion process as um council member Wallock said quite a mouthful um then aeom will talk about the urban Services study in more detail um and they'll provide a quick summary of existing conditions and then talk about the service demand scenario development and then I'll go over next steps and key questions so in terms of project background as you may know in 20122 city council identified the initiation of a baseline Urban Services study for the area 3 planning Reserve as a priority project their stated desire at that time was to complete the study prior to the next major update to the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan and their reasoning was that it could be used to inform a decision on whether we should continue with the service area expansion process as part of that update what is a service area expansion you may be asking yourself well it basically means making the city geographically larger by adding more area which necessitates the provision of urban services to serve the subsequent increase in population and urban services and

[14:01] related infrastructure and facilities are some of the things the city provides to support a strong Community the Boulder Valley comprehensive plan states that adequate Urban facilities and services are a prerequisite for new development the plan defines seven services that are being analyzed as part of this study they're highlighted at the bottom of the slide and AECOM will discuss them in more detail a bit later the area 3 planning Reserve is the location where service area expansion is possible the city's 1990 Area 3 planning project led to the creation of the reserve in 1993 it's highlighted with the pink location icon on the map on this slide it's approximately 493 acres in size and it's located just north of us City uh US 36 um and it sits just outside the current service areas which are areas one and three highlighted in light yellow and light gray on the map of those approximately 500 Acres the city owns approximately 220 of the total Acres about 270 acres is privately owned

[15:02] and the US Forest Service owns Five the reserve was formalized and incorporated into the comp plan in 1995 and it's identified in the plan as the portion of area three where quote the city maintains the option of expansion for future Urban Development in response to Priority Community needs that cannot be met within the existing service areas so the process for service area expansion that was also set in place at this time to ensure a methodical approach to potential expansion of the city then about 10 years after the planning Reserve came online the process in 2015 was revised to incorporate the urban Services study as the first of three steps in the process you can see all three steps on the slide and this evening we're going to focus on step one so per the comp plan the purpose of this study and again I quote is to learn more about the feasibility and requirements to provide Urban services to the area and to understand potential phasing and

[16:01] logical areas of planning and potential expansion it doesn't assume expansion is a foregone conclusion once the study is complete you Council can take one of three directions the first option is to accept the study and then planning board and Council would hold public hearings to determine whether to move to step two which you see in the middle of the slide the unmet community needs study if authorized staff will incorporate this study as part of the 2025 comp plan major update once that evaluation is complete a determination would need to be made regarding step three which is a service area expansion plan so that's your first option the second option is to accept the study and decide not to proceed with step two at this time or you can choose not to accept the study and not to proceed with the process if you choose either of the last two options you still maintain the ability to revisit acceptance of the urban Services study in the future basically you can reinitiate the three step process at any

[17:01] time so now back to Step One the urban Services study this is a technical report and as we've mentioned a couple of times it doesn't make policy recommendations or plan for the future of the reserve its goals are to document existing conditions um the urban services and public infrastructure conditions and to understand how they could be extended into the planning reserve it also is meant to objectively analyze and describe the type and extent of services needed in the reserve under a range of service demand scenarios and to develop an initial understanding of the potential impacts costs phasing and funding of providing these services and finally to give decision makers as KJ said earlier Baseline information to help determine if the city should continue to explore potential service area expansion policy decisions and the type of development that might be possible will be considered at a future time if Council chooses to continue with this process so to need these study goals staff settled on a 12-month timeline to

[18:01] complete the study and to date AECOM has completed tasks one and two the existing conditions research and the demand scenario development they're now starting to evaluate these scenarios and based on feedback from you tonight they will work to complete the evaluations hopefully by September and then the study is expected to be finished by October of this year in advance of the comp plan update in accordance with the council request from 2022 and then finally related to the process our engagement strategy as a technical study rather than a policy setting process we're using the inform level on the city's engagement spectrum and to date staff have sent Communications to Council on three occasions and we've shared each of these communications with planning board we sent an IP memo last October to discuss the scope of workan schedule in February of this year the city manager's office sent a heads up to you to um let you know that the project was proceeding on schedule in April of this year we sent an IP member that described the initial

[19:00] existing conditions analysis and we're here with you tonight and then um just one more thing we do update the website regularly and so with that I'm going to turn it over to Dean Weber from aeom to go into the actual study thanks Sarah hopefully you can hear me okay yep we can hear you great thanks so let's dive into the existing conditions of the 49 3 Acre parcel on the next slide you'll begin to see that there's a number of parcels beginning with the city of Boulder parcel located at the yellow there further to the north about 30 Acres there's also additional acreage of Boulder housing um Partners parcel in in the orange there there's a US Forest Service um in the dark green and then the predom um acreage that the city controls is in the green area to the east it's about 180 9 Acres the

[20:00] Boulder Valley comp plan identifies that as future Parkland um generally the slope is pretty gentle it's about 1 and a half to 2 and a half% slope gently gently sloping to the southeast there and as you can see within the border the the dark um black site boundary there's a number of out Parcels um privately held Parcels that really present um an opportunity for future development but also potential constraint since they're not controlled and owned by the city next slide within this process as we begin to look at the urban Services um we'll give a highlight here and dive into a little bit more detail in the next slides but there's no existing City water lines no Wastewater infrastructure and no storm water master plan and flood planes that are currently mapped out and as you know we proba we have identified limited transit services the boulder fire station number five is the closest fire station approximately a half mile

[21:01] away and the closest police station is the north Foothills police Annex about a mile and a half away and as mentioned earlier the 189 Acres on of the planning Reserve projected to be used as Future Park Parkland next slide within when we think about the future planning considerations there's limited Transit service and roadway connections across us36 um also limited or no City infrastructure currently serving the site so additional analysis will really be required to understand some of the offsite improvements including water and wastewater treatment capacity and infrastructure as well as storm water infrastructure impact of flood plane on the development um and also wildlife and vegetation resources that are currently not part of this um immediate study next slide when you think about the service demand scenarios um to begin that

[22:01] process on the next slide you'll begin to see here the we had an imperson scenario workshop with several City departments we're really exploring land use and Associated infrastructure we're looking at relative scale proportion and dimensions and outcomes in essence we're really looking at the bookends of understanding you know to scale approximately total number of um population as well as potential um residential and non-residential uses we've identified three different scenarios we'll share with you this evening and they represent really a range of outcomes that are really not intended to be exact choices but again as I mentioned those bookends of commercial gross floor area jobs residential units and population and that really helps us frame of rough order magnitude cost to really understand Revenue impacts on City infrastructure and public service delivery next slide so when we look at

[23:01] those assumptions we are assuming we have a mix of uses non-residential and residential uses the tax generation revenue and finance data I'm going to have Chris Brewer briefly mention a little bit about that information now I'm not sure Chris if you're on mute there make it all happen apologies there we go you're back um sorry about that apologies uh part of our our goal with the scope is to ultimately understand the land use scenarios in terms of their fiscal consequences to City general fund and Enterprise funds so ultimately being able to take the increase in housing units and built real estate and turn it into uh both gross and net change in uh property tax sales tax revenue and other utility Reven revenue streams to provide that uh clear understanding of cost

[24:02] versus revenue for the project thanks Chris in addition to looking at mix of uses you know there's obviously Parkland and digging a little bit deeper into the residential we've made the Assumption of no large lot single family residential anticipated in the project it would be attached um residential units and we anticipate a mix of all types of housing units um typically though from the eight dwelling units to to an acre all the way up to approximately 50 dwelling units an acre which would really start pushing really the limit of your um height limit within the city um certainly for transportation looking carefully at multimodal paths um pedestrian and bike facilities as well as as I mentioned Water and Wastewater demand based on the utility data and then emergency services so next slide starts to indicate what

[25:00] those Alternatives look like I'll go through all three of those and then show you a summary as I mentioned earlier these scenarios were developed based on um workshop with City staff and and v v various different departments in this particular book end on the lower end we're anticipating approximately about [Music] 4,300 housing units estimated population you can see there approximately about 9,000 and then the gross floor area of the non-residential so it would be mixed Commercial Services approximately 725,000 it's really this scenario is about a mix of really nodes surrounded mixed um a variety of commercial and residential nodes surrounding by a mix of residential densities in the next scenario scenario B you'll see that we're increasing in the density we've got almost a million

[26:01] square feet of non-residential this really focuses on mixed use commercial residential development it assumes that 100% of the commercial would be on the ground floor we have approximately 5,300 um dwelling units which puts us at a population of about 11,600 and again we're increasing the density on this to be approximately about 12 to 50 dwelling units per AC so that's in that Medium density attached residential um and you can see the the Parkland associated with each of these scenarios and then on the next scenario being the most dense um over a million square feet of gross floor area of commercial space it's really mixed use commercial residential assuming um that the commercial space has um three levels approximately three levels of residential above the commercial on the ground floor we've got about 6,700

[27:02] dwelling units and about 4,500 for population you can see again the density there anywhere from 12 to 50 dwelling units per acre um and the associated Parkland as well in this scenario so this summary slide really looks at scenarios a b and c really kind of framing the conversation this helps us really begin to understand the total number number of jobs um amount of housing units what the population is and Parkland and then this helps us then have our technical leads look at the infrastructure improvements Associated on those types of densities the next slide here talks a little bit about the um preliminary takeaways with regard to our technical analysis that we've completed to date and there's still more work to be done first regarding public water um will basically be looking at the water will

[28:00] need to be modeled in the future to determine the existing water supply and the proposed water supply needs certainly preliminary evaluation has indicated on and offsite upgrades will be needed to the transmission and distribution infrastructure to basically Inc increase the capacity that we need on the site itself as for public infrastructure or the public sewers um we have projected Wastewater flows that are being developed and those flows or the loadings will be identified with the capacity to understand what increase in capacity is needed to accommodate the additional um development storm water um infrastructure also um will be needed it would if the project moves forward it would be a new Standalone storm water plan that would be developed to allow really understanding the storm water

[29:00] distribution and discharge po um for the future development and as related to multimodal and transportation preliminary analysis you know suggests that c do May request um some capacity improvements but no detailed conversations have been had with SED do at this time um so it's an assumption based on um potential um development but certainly the opportunity to Prov provide Transit pedestrian bike improvements that would be required associated with the development and on the next slide Chris will help take us through some of the preliminary information from his interviews with fire and police thank you Deanna so as part of our process we met with uh staff associated with uh fire protection as well as police protection um those interviews uh we also ultimately vetted them with um city manager as well just for context and I think on the Fire side there's an at least an initial expectation that staff

[30:01] capacity is probably going to be sufficient there is at least a sense that you know if we add again8 to 10 to 14,000 new residents we would probably see an increase in ambulance and Medical Response uh and the third bullet is that we did talk about um questions related to Wildfire risk and a wildfire hardening we understand that uh city council is currently pondering changes to the code related to wire Wildfire issues so that's one thing that um there's going to be an impact and we have to pay attention to uh on the police side we do see a couple of impacts and again part of this relates to the you know expectations about the pace at which uh Area 3 builds out in the future but obviously a faster Pace would dictate a uh maybe a more urgent need to think about police response in terms of just you know adding that many residents and then adding staff uh but we also think that there will be a need to shift some of the boundaries in terms of Police District boundaries again

[31:00] given the size of Area 3 and and some of the density expectations um and then last but not least we also talked about amenities uh obviously the significant um City purchase of land within uh funded from Parks and Recreation fund the Permanent Fund um I think fundamentally the the the clear policy guidance we've got is that you know over the next several years uh all the undeveloped Park land is going to be needed to meet uh expected City benchmarks for open space per resident so the space will be needed I think one of our big conversations during the our process has been what kind of Park is it what sort of different sorts of Park options so uh it becomes one of the key things that we've been thinking about carefully in this process and we'll continue to think about as we move forward as we go to the next slide um there are a number of ongoing work efforts right now that are in play um number one consequential conversations about uh what are the likely

[32:01] infrastructure improvements both on offsite and offsite what do we think the order of magnitude construction costs are for those Investments and then ultimately putting those construction costs in context with what we think the additional tax revenues are going to be uh both onsite and off-site so um for our purposes that's going to be a pretty Our intention is that that be a pretty detailed conversation so not only general fund but Enterprise funds uh to understand both on a net and gross basis what the the net position to the city would be over time based on how this may build out in the future so a lot of work to do but a solid basis that's been established at this point Sarah back to you thanks Chris um so and before we get to the key questions for you I'll just quickly go over next steps um the project team is also going to provide this same update to planning board on July 16th and between July and October of this year we'll continue to work with AECOM to evaluate the three service

[33:01] demand scenarios to develop a more detailed analysis and understanding of the required improvements and fiscal in impacts and costs and then staff um we hope to review the final Urban Services study in October with you and planning board um for review and acceptance respectively and then with that um I'll just remind everyone the purpose of the study is to generate information that will be useful to you in the future and so what would be really helpful for the aeom team and staff is to know if you have questions or comments about the assumptions we've used for the scenarios or the scenarios themselves and if you have questions or comments on the urban services and infrastructure areas that will be analyzed and with that I will give it back to council member wallet thank you so much actually if I may uh council member just before uh going over and just frame a couple last comments um just as a reminder of the three scenarios those really are are

[34:00] presented not as um Alternatives per se or uh scenarios for for kind of policy framing but really just for analysis and and to put a finer point on the more dense so dense denser and densest uh that represents the 50 dwelling UNS per acre represents uh what could be built uh as limited by the city's height limit for example Le so just wanted to uh provide that context as well as the context of um of the park uh area being Park and not open space I know there was some U conflating of terms when we when we discuss that but appreciate the opportunity to bring this forward tonight and look forward to your feedback and questions okay let's start with questions um for staff and Consultants uh the first hand I see up is our mayor um followed by

[35:01] Tina um Mr Mayor you're up thanks Mark and thanks so much uh staff and aom teams for this has been very enlightening in the memo and the presentation uh just a couple questions for you and maybe I'll have a little bit of feedback later on one is so in terms of the scenarios that was helpful framing Brad but one thing that surprised me when I was reading the scenarios was the quantity of commercial space that was included in those um because you know decisions will be made in the future about if if this area is developed what mix of commercial and residential but that seemed like a high starting point of 30 to 40 acres and 750,000 to a million square feet of commercial so I'm just wondering why that was the Baseline that was chosen as a as a minimum for the scenarios um this is Chris I would uh or Sarah I assume I can I think when we

[36:00] looked at the scenarios from a commercial standpoint there was an expectation that given the scale of the residential footprint that we would see uh at least a neighborhood or Community scale retail program included so that might be uh you know 150 to maybe 250,000 square feet um I think we also anticipated that within that footprint or that acreage you would also consider maybe whether it be office Flex um office showroom type development so there was at least a consideration for some level of employment oriented uses within that program uh so we wanted to make sure we had allowed for it and then obviously some of that retail would also be in a mixed use environment so retail at street level with residential above so I think a certain amount of it was judgment based on experience what we've seen elsewhere as well yeah thanks Chris the only thing I'd add to that is you know certainly you know it's it's a flexible number um

[37:02] in terms of the total commercial um grow square feet when we look at um first floor out of mixed use to be commercial when we look at the carrying capacity of the land that's that's one scenario of how we've looked at it as well and then the other scenario really looks at how can we minimize trips and create an opportunity where you could maybe live or work close to where you you also shop and frequent um so so that's one of the strategies is to minimize the number of trips um associated with vehicle travel as well very good and Mark do you mind if I just respond to that while I've got the floor yes go ahead so just that that's helpful to understand and I guess I would just just put out there I'm actually looking out my window at the office space across from my house where I officed for 20 years so like a big believer in that kind of mixed use being able to to work where you live um but just I guess my thought would be the

[38:00] 750,000 to million seems to incorporate maybe some employment centers above and beyond neighborhood Ser serving retail and opportunities to work in small offices within your neighborhood so just wondering if that that's the appropriate minimum for us to start with and then to and then do you have a sense of like would the numbers drastically change if that number were more like 350,000 square feet of commercial then that went to residential instead or would that mess with all of your assumptions or would the larger analysis still work out uh I I think in general terms the analysis remains flexible I think um Again part of the you know since the scope didn't presume an actual Market study to Define what the market would require I think one of our policy goals with the fiscal impact study is to provide some sense of you know for every new square foot of space you add there will probably be a shift in

[39:02] the market so some of the sales will shift from one store to another so always want to think about the net sales tax benefit versus the gross benefit so to simply answer your question I think obviously we can adjust the scenarios and reduce the amount of of commercial space um wouldn't be a problem if it needed to happen very good appreciate that and my one other one um Ali roads are you on the call here I think I see you she is she was having trouble with her internet but she's here hey folks Ali rhods director of Parks and Recreation thanks for for responding Ally I just wonder if you might address that you know there's there's been some discussion about the level of park services kind of necessary and you know a significant percentage right now of this area is is owned by the parks department I we we chatted about this a little bit offline a couple days ago is there some potential flexibility to work

[40:02] in a robust Parks system in this neighborhood but not necessarily have all 100 is it 90 Acres go specifically to Parks uses yeah so I'm gonna answer for the full Council a little bit the way that I I shared with Aon when we spoke the other day when that policy question comes to council we're going to provide a lot of information to help you make that decision um and you're going to want to look at three things you're going to want to look at neighborhood parks so depending on the mix of residential that you have the comp plan requires neighborhood parks and it it specifically calls out developed Parkland because there is a difference between passive op space and what can happen in developed Parkland so there is a standard in the comp plan that you have um a neighborhood park of at least five acres within a half mile of every residential unit now you're going to want to look at that thought fleak because if it's a really dense area we would suggest you'd want a bigger neighborhood park because it's going to need to be everybody's backyard and facil itate the children playing and dogs walking and connecting that might

[41:00] happen in single family homes so that's one consideration you'll also want to look at that this is a large swath of Parkland regional parks are one of our classifications where neighborhood parks are for that close to home Neighborhood use Regional Parks serve the entire community and they're The Limited places where you can have large Gatherings they have parking and all the amenities that can associate them existing regional parks are um velmont city park the flat iron golf course and the boulder Reservoir and so you can see how each has unique needs that are met only at that site and not anywhere else in the community the third thing you want to consider and to Mark uh eron's point is the system so one of the things that Park systems measure themselves around is acres per capita and that's just talking about do you have enough Green Space for people it doesn't consider where it is um density of the housing around it but acres per capita were right around median according to National then hook marks and the trust Republic land benchmarks currently we would want to

[42:02] develop every single acre that is not developed at fo Hills Community Park Valmont city park and at area three to maintain that median and so a policy question before Council will be is do we want to maintain that that that that acres per service capita and then the other question will be does it all have to be met there I would suggest there's other places in the system so for example um city council uh approved a purchase of land in area 2 at Hogan pan cost with Parkland of potential use that's 20 acres and so if that were to become Park acreage that adjust the calculus so again when that policy question comes to council I think you're going to want to be very very thoughtful about it given the price of land um and I'll be the first to tell you about the value of Parkland but we're going to do everything we can to give you information to make a really good decision when that time comes thanks ell that's incredibly helpful and to be clear we very much want a very healthy Park system in this area and Citywide so no no saying

[43:00] anything against that but just wanted to see what the lay of the lane might be for that that's all my uh questions I'll have a couple comments later thank you next up is uh council member Marquis followed by council member ferz and council member Shard okay um thank you so much for all the information um my first question is just when we think about the total amount of water with new develop vment do we have any kind of limit on how much development we can uh using the water we have or is there um and I know there's a lot of Water Analysis but what I'm getting at more isn't how to get our existing water to and then the sewage out of the area but to to understand do we need to get new Water Resource to um facilitate this development does that make sense yes it does I I will certainly defer or two our colleagues um in utilities and I see Kim Hutton popped on

[44:01] the screen who um oversees the water supply side of things so hopefully Kim can provide some insight on that yeah thank you good evening council members my name is Kim Hutton I'm the water resources manager uh so one of the one of the um things that we do in water resources and utilities is look at uh sort of long-term water supply planning and we don't necessarily have a um sort of a a capacity a curing capacity study for uh how much you know how much we can build out under the existing water supply the way that we analyze our system is we look at what the projected buildout you know uh demands are if I can use the term buildout and from there we we do an analysis of are we able to reliably meet those projected build out demands and so as part of this analysis what we will be

[45:01] doing is adding this additional demand um onto our system and then doing an analysis there to see can we reliably meet those demands and the criteria for Reliable is based on some level of service goals that were adopted by city council um a number of decades ago actually and they speak to the frequency with which we can Implement water use restrictions uh so that that is a policy um consideration as well the level of service or reliability criteria um that that may come up uh in the future with Council as well okay can I ask a follow-up question mark council member wallik um does our long-term modeling include sort of scenarios where there's drastic changes in the water supply um largely downward would be my guess do we plan out that far or do we how do we look at those different scenarios yeah so what one thing that we

[46:02] are doing in terms of I think what will be the most significant impact um on our ability to serve is climate change and so we have we are modeling a variety of climate change scenarios um and under some of the climate change scenarios they they range from all of them are warmer some of them are much hotter but actually they kind of range from being wetter to drier and so um we are we are seeing in some of those hotter uh and drier scenarios that uh the demands outdoor demands will increase um because it's drier hotter um and the available Supply from precipitation will decrease so that's kind of like a double double you know whammy on our our ability to serve okay thanks and then my other question which is not related to water um is do the people who own the land

[47:01] that's obviously not the park land are they um engaged in this process or do we wonder what they're curious about U developing in this area so our go ahead Sarah oh no you go you can go ahead Chris I was just gonna say I think that we haven't quite gotten there at this point in the study but Chris you I I think our scope of Services well thean will correct me I'm wrong but I believe our scope of services did not uh uh did not expect that be reaching out to the property owners I think there would come a point where you would definitely want to reach out to them to understand their interests I think one of our big strategic questions is how does this area actually develop um do you have a you know multiple developers a master developer what's the role of the city like these become again not questions for today but questions down down the road yeah I'll just go ahead Sarah just

[48:01] to pick it back off that councilwoman Maris um it would really probably happen in step three of this process and just so you know we have looked it up and there are several Pro it's not like there are just two Property Owners or three there are quite a few private property owners in the area okay thanks so much that's all I have for now okay before I I turn to council member Focus uh council member Adams did you have your hand up I wasn't clear me well forgive me for that I I I did not pick it up I will catch you right after uh council member Shard if that's all right with you no you won't I actually was before them so I'm gonna I I yeah if if yall don't mind I would I would like to take my turn take your turn thank you so much the brown hand is hard to see alas um I have several questions so thank you so much for this opportunity um this is my first opportunity to ever be involved in anything like this and um it's one of

[49:00] the reasons why I ran for office so um and you know the first one is just going to be I'm curious what lessons have been applied from the previous planning efforts um that are now being um considered in this plan as it relates to Transportation like how are we innovating um how are we um you know again we know that we are aridif Ying sorry humidifying and um desertify um and so I'm just kind of wondering where the Innovations are um where are um you know what are the lessons that we've learned um and how are they being applied now um particularly around climate as you can imagine but I I did have Curiosities as I'm coming on and and just getting a little bit more history on that so that's just in your framing um I'm curious about that um I also had questions about um I'd say the biggest question I have is just what the rationale was for the selection of

[50:01] inform um as it relates to our community engagement framework um as some of you may know um our community engagement Spectrum ranges and it starts with inform which is the lowest level of Engagement that you can make with our community is inform and that's just providing the public with a balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding a problem Alternatives and opportunities and the promise that we make to the public is just to keep them informed I didn't run to keep people informed I ran because I really wanted people to be deeply consulted and involved and create a more collaboratory um experience and so um I I am I am concerned that that that that inform the lowest level of Engagement that we could have for a whole new neighborhood a whole new part of our community um um is concerning it's especially concerning

[51:00] because when I look at um our boards and commissions which we've had conversations around um even our Council um our staff the Consultants that we're working with all exceptional but not necessarily representative of all of the perspectives that we have in our community and the expertise and experiences that we have in our community and so I'm just curious of the rationale and if there are opportunities to at the very least move to stage two which is consult to obtain public feedback on public analysis Alternatives and or decisions and that the public promise from us is that we not only keep them informed but we listen to and acknowledge their concerns and aspirations so again I suspect that this type of Engagement may be um allowed or authorized later on in the process but I urge us this is where the most powerful decisions are being made and so this is where um this is the place where

[52:01] marginalized voices and others have not had an opportunity to meaningfully participate and so I just am really curious about the rationale um with that I have two three more things um that I agree with Mark's um hotline on the fiscal note it's clear to me that you all have numbers because you've referenced a couple of them and so I'm just hopeful that we can get more information because with the lack of that fiscal information it's hard to put these numbers into context um and so again I just want to continuously I will Echo it until I see them um and I know that they are on the way um but again and again and again we need them and so I want to urge us not to look for perfection in what those fiscal notes can look like but really maybe we can have some iterative processes or roll out of the grain size so that at the very least we have some fiscal anchors to keep us grounded um the employment

[53:02] assumptions so we know that there's going to be some I'm sorry experts in employment have informed many that there that we can anticipate significant en changement changes in employment over the next 10 to 15 years related to generative AI I've heard things anywhere from 30 to 40% across industry and across socio economic and so I'm just curious what um the formula or considerations in the employment section was and then lastly because I don't only care about housing and jobs for people but I'm also thinking about um all of the living organisms that are needed for humans to thrive and that includes our Wildlife so I'm curious about the wildlife impacts and the analyses there so those are my um questions and I look forward to um receiving um just some some of that thought um and um responses and any questions that you may thank you

[54:01] yeah thank you uh council member Adams for those questions um maybe to touch on some and all of them uh together I I do want to affirm what you were confirming which is you're you're right when this comes to you as a final study it will have the numbers uh the uh the fiscal numbers will be a little hard to give in in real terms because we're talking about a unknown buildout scenario but but certainly the the intention behind your point is well understood and and also frankly the the whole intention of this and we very much share your uh expectation and anticipation that the public will need to be U involved in a level Beyond just informing um after this step so the steps two and three and this is exactly the information uh provided for you as as Council so that you can make and the public can start to

[55:02] make those kind of qualitative uh values-based kind of conversations to to put an example on it we want to make sure that you've got the information that if um 100 homes meant that a uh a million doll pipeline had to go in but 150 homes meant that a $600 million pipeline went in just those order of magnitudes of differences under the scenarios we want to make sure that that's um some baseline information that you have going into into it um we anticipate that there will be uh Innovation brought both to uh from the participating public and yourselves as Council as we engage in that question of need and then if if the decision is made by councel and step two for need in step three to actually innovate what that land use uh mix and and and uh nature is

[56:02] um to your question about the employment and the employment ass uh assumptions I I would turn to somebody from aom to maybe articulate what the Baseline assumptions were for employment uh Behind These models so in in simple terms um we're trying to be very sensitive to you know the impact of hybrid and remote work to come up with you know defendable assumptions for square feet per employee um based on the type of use I think again since this is a conceptual level study um we're talking ultimately about non-residential space so there could be a broad type set of jobs that we're thinking about um yeah I could I could build on that a little bit too Chris just that through um in previous comprehensive planning process and certainly as we move forward into the next update starting before the

[57:00] end of the year we we have assumptions based on a variety of different employment types and the number of square feet per employee that go into our land use projections we're in the process of actually revising updating those based on more recent data so that we can start to reflect and understand the impacts of covid and hybrid work now um so all of those assumptions are are continuing to be um you know revised and updated to the best of our ability through additional Studies by consultants and others and as far as your you know your comment too the impacts of of AI and things like that I don't quite honestly I don't think we've thought quite that far ahead to you know try to make those assumptions I'm just not sure if we haven't been enough understanding yet to um to make those adjustments okay um and again it's not it is the job loss that is being anticipated by generative AI um and so I

[58:01] look forward in the next iteration to get some more um detailed information and just in general I would love to know um what what assumptions are being used to inform right I think that's absolutely critical so this is very helpful Christopher so thank you so much for that additional layer and Chris Christen Christoper um for that um Wildlife impacts yeah I can I can touch on that one as well so um as this is really a study that's focused on those seven Urban services that are defined within the comprehensive plan we we have not taken a close look at Wildlife impacts um one thing I will note that though is that when the planning Reserve was established in 1993 there was a study of all the area three lands um around the city and this was an area that was identified as having sort of the leas limitations related to open space quality Wildlife impacts flood plane

[59:01] impacts that type of thing so I would say at a very sort of macro level this area probably has some some fairly minor uh you know Wildlife considerations but certainly as we move forward and ultimately if this moves forward into uh a much more detailed expansion plan those additional studies would would absolutely be part of those conversations just not right now I think guess I'm just going to have a chat with you in a minute but um that's where I'm looking for the Innovations right when I'm talking about what Innovations are we using now to you know inform to be better planners right and so I guess where I'm saying is to me we should be considering how Wildlife now right it's not humans first we we know what happens when we do humans first and so I'm just hopeful that we can get into a deeper balance I know this is question time but I just wanted to um speak to that um thank you very much you've answered all my questions I added to more Community Center was that a consideration in there

[60:02] a Community Center or some kind of I saw residential commercial I was curious if Community Center was something that was on your radar screen and then also indigenous voice yeah I I was gonna speak to the first one maybe Christopher you can to the second but um community centers and and really all nonresidential uses are encompassed in that uh earliest category that came up in the discussion uh with the mayor so the retail and Commercial uh just articulate and put a finer point on it is all of those kind of other uses institutional places of worship uh Community Gathering uh spaces private and public so those those are encapsu okay and again I just offer that I think I'm hopeful that we can be exp more explicit around that specifically the community center and community space I know that's something that has been pretty consistent in and something we don't have in other part in any part of our community um and so I'm just I'm

[61:01] grateful I asked that clarifying question thank you and I'm sorry councilwoman Adams I just want to mention too that Parkland can include Community facilities so especially as I mean our policy currently is that that is set for regional park so that could entertain a Community Center thank you Sarah and and if I'll I'll touch on your your question around indigenous voice um so we we haven't specifically you know reached out or considered that as part of this process um because we because we made the choice to stay at that informed level because we are um focused on the infrastructure component and the fiscal impacts um I will say that as we've started to you know have more conversations around the scope and engagement strategy for the comprehensive Plan update which would incorporate you know consideration policies around this particular location

[62:00] um we are we've had some conversations already with Philip Yates um who Pam Davis who are are Liaisons to the indigenous um working groups about how we can incorporate indigenous voice into the C plan process so that is definitely something on the radar for for that much bigger Community engagement process and any land back considerations uh not at this time okay thank you okay and then I'm sorry I just want to sorry offer one more thing councilwoman Adams that um in the second phase when we do if as I said earlier this isn't a foregone conclusion that this area three will be developed so that's something to think about and when the community is involved in step two those that will be a time when some of these conversations like you're talking about it will be very appropriate to have those and to see what the community is interested in and and if there are unmet needs so just so you know if you keep deciding to move forward those will

[63:01] be those will occur in the next step good thank you all right uh uh council member Adams again I'm sorry I I did not see your hand up but uh my apologies for that council member fets Shard Wier and spear questions please thank you Mark um so I just wanted to Echo something Sarah said real quick I think it's definitely not a foregone conclusion what we're going to do here I I think there's still a lot of um thinking to go into this um in terms of questions I guess I have quite a few at the beginning we were talking about orders of magnitude and how this is really about understanding orders of magnitude but when I look at kind of these different scenarios it's not clear to me that

[64:01] these different scenarios are orders of magnitude different it's there it seems like there's a pretty linear relationship between sort of the different things that are being weighed in each scenario and so I'm curious um why we are looking sort of just at essentially residential um square footage and Commercial square footage as the basis for looking for different scenarios as opposed to things like um you know what kind of construction we might Envision if this is an Eco Village versus if this is 1950s construction versus this is code compliant with today's construction these are all going to be have huge impacts on um what kind

[65:00] of how they impact our infrastructure needs potentially more than the spread I see in terms of residential units and square footage of commercial space so if if I might just really quickly um ask for a little bit CL clarification so it sounds like your question is is well maybe it's twofold in terms of the actual sort of spread of densities numbers of units assumptions around nonresidential versus residential but then there's a second component that's based on the sort of type of construction or the sort of energy codes or other codes that would potentially be part of that that have an impact on water use energy use that type of thing am I understanding that correctly I guess I would be more interested in knowing do we expect to find a linear relationship between kind of the residential square footage and the commercial square footage um and can

[66:02] we look at other things besides those things that have a linear relationship to each other when we're looking at different scenarios sure well I think so basically you know we we made some assumptions around what uh what would be sort of an appropriate or an expected minimum amount of density in in the planning Reserve so we you know we look to the neighborhood as a good comparable within the city that we're you know that we understand we kind of have a sense of what that feels like that felt like if you know if the city was to Embark upon extending infrastructure and costs related to that to expand into the pled Reserve we didn't feel like kind of large lot rural residential um single family dwellings was was an appropriate level of density so that's why we set our lower Baseline at holiday neighborhood densities in general um as we got to the other end of the spectrum

[67:00] as we mentioned the you know the height limit and other um existing restrictions really kind of put the put put the breaks on those higher levels of density that were really 50 units an acre is is about as far as we could go um and so then that you know left us with those two kind of larger bookends but then we also you know wanted to be able to describe something that was a bit more in the center of of that um you know one alternative that we did not prepare that you know we talked about but just didn't feel like was maybe a realistic or worthwhile solution or scenario to evaluate was something that was much much higher on the non-residential side so really more of an employment center a you know warehousing District like those kinds of uses as opposed to residential first of all we you know we're not entirely sure that there's that much demand or need for that but also you know just looking at the site its location um and understanding kind of the the direction of council through

[68:00] other planning processes that's why we focused on heavily you know residential set of scenarios okay I I don't really think that answered my question but I can move on um so what kind of assumption are we making for the amount of utilities that we're thinking about these residential or commercial floor areas are using like are we basing that on averages of our current Community or what our current code would require or what a new potential code could require yes we're we're using existing data and certainly you know folks from our either Transportation or utilities departments can Chim in if I be your off course here but yes we're using using existing data looking at some of our existing use uh characteristics also

[69:01] using um you know best practices from and other comparables from other municipalities that kind of thing um but we haven't we haven't necessarily projected forward to new types of codes or new limitations or you know those kinds of alternative Solutions we're really trying to establish this um you know really just this kind of Baseline understanding under some fairly traditional assumptions know that in the future we may have to innovate and have to mitigate some of those impacts in order to you know address some of the some of the resulting expansion of infrastructure other kinds of effects if development was to move forward in the planning Reserve so that's why we're that's why we're staying fairly traditional at this point so that we have something to measure against going forward okay and um in term terms of costs I think one of the things I would also be interested in

[70:01] understanding because I know that there is a relationship between um density and um you know tax based so while having additional units might create more upfront cost there is also likely to be lower maintenance costs over time um so having an idea of or you you know distributed for the tax base it's more cost effective for the city to maintain um Can is that something we can include in this um framework Chris an idea of how that would work yeah Chris I'll defer to you on that our expectation for the fiscal analysis is that we will be able to discern a a difference in general fund impact based on different levels of density so a more dense project should yield slightly

[71:02] lower costs than a lower density project so that's something we we're focusing on in the fiscal impact study to make sure that we can uh delineate that could we also see how a higher percentage or lower percentage of residential might impact that yep that's part of the plan and would looking at different types of construction like trying to you know if this was a Cutting Edge Eco District um is that possible in terms of what could be included in this so I think for this scope of work our focus is going to be on you know we're going to work with our cost estimating team to make and consult with City staff to be clear on what the expectations for building in this you know know Wildfire prone area would be so we want to make sure that at minimum we have the appropriate construction

[72:00] standards to get at that um I think beyond that we would have to you know talk with City staff and ultimately work with you in future phases to clarify those Alternatives and how we would cost them correctly um if they are too non-traditional or too if there aren't solid benchmarks that allow us to predict it I mean this kind of idea is pretty common I I know 10 years ago studied Eco districts in Europe and the redevelopments that were happening there and you know the kinds of things they're pushing are much farther than what seems to be suggested by this study so it's not like cutting Ed like totally agree with you I think in the near term just given um construction costs the way they've been I think we're just trying to make sure that we can deliver a clear construction cost against a clear type of construction just to be as straightforward as possible um I'm not disagreeing with you at all

[73:02] though I understand from a the utilities themselves that the technology and you know not wanting to guess a lot there but those things seem like they would mostly impact the amount of utility and not the construction of it so the cost should be not significantly hard to calculate yeah I mean I know we've been talking a lot about geothermal applications in the last six months so um probably the best thing we can do is work with staff to clarify some of these alternative Technologies and think about how we can approach them for the study okay thank you um if I may uh before I I um call upon our last three um council members we are running substantially behind our schedule on this so I would urge you to be as concise and piy as you can um so

[74:03] that we can move into the comment section which we have not even begun so council member uh Shu hard uh council member Wier and council member spear in that order thank you thanks Di and team I have a couple-ish of questions um I saw the subheader on multimodal transportation and um was thinking this would be a good place to look for how we're going to double down in transit service and and and um expand our Bikeway network but what really jumped out was that preliminary analysis suggests that we may need to widen the highway and I know it's preliminary but I'm curious if you could say more about that about um I guess the bookends of what that means as far as what what lengths or widths we're we're talking about and if we know anything about like what would actually trigger that and if we could manage this strict stly to avoid an outcome where we're widening

[75:02] highways yeah I can I can pop in I see Natalie and Garrett also um chiming in and and I'll just provide a little bit of real quick um you know introductory remarks let let Garrett really take this but you know the the intention and really those preliminary types of analyses is is based on these traditional assumptions and what a what a typical outcome would be if you know if you're adding that level of density if you're adding that much population and the vehicle trips associated with that the likely outcome would be to consider expansion of the road now that again is just a baseline uh you know understanding and something that we can then use to say and have future conversations around well if we don't want to expand the road what are the options that we can do um and what are the things that we can do to mitigate that I'll pass it to Garrett from there good evening Council my name is Garrett Slater I'm the capital projects manager for the transportation and mobility department and um so a few

[76:02] thoughts about the question from council member Shard um the first would be um that we would uh want to take a look at a model that was used comparable to the CU South annexation where we take an analysis in the next phase of work to examine the available capacity in the system and then generate a trip budget within which we would identify what additional impact we could create to the system within our existing infrastructure and then from there uh anything above that we would use a a host of um transportation demand Management Solutions and strategies to mitigate the impact that the land use would create to the existing system and of course that would entail a whole host of the traditional approaches that are identified in our transportation master plan such as bike bicycling infrastructure pedestrian infrastructure Transit use and um also being mindful of

[77:00] some of the commentary that's been heard this evening thinking about future Technologies and um um transportation network carriers such as uh um the U the the lift um line and some of the technologies that we're using in place today thinking about how to accommodate that would all be part of The Suite of solutions that we would take a look at um and I also want to because this is directly adjacent to Highway 36 it's important to note that's a sedot facility um sedot has demonstrated the willingness to be consistent and Transportation uh Vision with the city's approaches on uh abapo and co7 as well as um other corridors that uh are part of the city uh and they've been a great partner with us as we look to um convert general purpose Lanes to Transit lanes and expect that Seda would continue to be a really great partner with us in the future as we look at area planning Area 3 and so I I I don't expect that they

[78:02] would um take a Hardline approach to that traditional methodology but look to be a willing partner with us as we look to explore um ways to mitigate the impacts to to the system thanks that's all I have appreciate it thank you council member Wier you're up okay um my my biggest question is is I am kind of looking for a magic density number that doesn't put too much stress on our system with flooding and strapping our resources that wouldn't put stress on us cost-wise and would also give us some middle income housing right which I know that's not what we're talking about today but my question is is I'm hoping and is it possible for when we get this uh uh as we go forward would you be able to give us like some sort of a Tipping Point where let's say to Ryan's Point uh

[79:03] we we would at this at this density we would need to widen the road but if you just stay there we won't or at this density it would have less environmental impacts um water impacts but if you stay here you won't so we can make uh good decisions when it comes to um density that's my my first question so other words is you know is there a will there can there be tipping points where ABS absolutely and that really is the the purpose of of the study and ultimately the the financial analysis and and better understanding you know we use these scenarios to generate what those impacts are going to be then we can analyze the the financial component to that through that information that's going to be able to provide all of you uh and the community a better understanding of where those tipping points are whether it be related to density or the type of use or the

[80:01] type of infrastructure we're just we're just not quite there yet okay great yeah if I can piggyback on that too and this uh may sound obvious so I don't mean for it to be but uh you know there is no expectation that uh a scenario a b or c would ever actually get built out in the future right it's a it's an order of magnitude model that again gives uh Council uh the ability to just say uh yes we we'd Envision if if you determine the needs is there as as step two and step three to be able to say well okay let's let's do this but we know that because of this study that was done a year ago two years ago that if we if we do this much more to your point we're going to have to add a road or we're going to have to build a whole new water treatment plan for example so um so that really is what how this is an uh

[81:02] a document that will inform those discussions the discussions with the public and also our our own use in being able to help uh provide you better information for these kind of policy questions in the future okay great and my second question has to do with me going over some of the information packets and have uh a question there give me one second to just pull it up Talk Amongst yourselves for just one second just kidding um so it says it it references 1977 and it says Area 3 was defined in 1978 1977 to not accommodate Urban Development so that the rural character could be preserved and protected are we still trying to do that or is like I'm wondering if there's a spirit of Area 3 planning Reserve that we should know about since most of us haven't been around that

[82:01] long yeah that that's a great question and and we will we will get into a lot more details about areas one two and three as part of the comp plan update coming up but um you're correct so area three was this that that whole planning area concept was established in 1977 that created areas one two and three originally the area three is intended to um and provides for that Rural Preservation essentially the green belt around the city that separates Boulder from our other communities in the county uh in 1993 actually started in 199 I think it was adopted then in 1993 was an area three study that I that looked at all those area three locations around the city and determined if there was an area where we wanted the city wanted to maintain an option for expansion in the future that is how planning Reserve came to be so by identifying the planning reserve it really kind of reinforced the

[83:00] notion of the rest of area three as Rural Preservation and planning Reserve is is that one other additional area where the city could potentially expand as you know planning Reserve has such a bucolic sound and so when I saw like mega mega density I was like that just doesn't sound like a area through planning thank you that's all my questions for now okay uh last up is Mayor protm Spear and then I will have one question myself thank you um and is it okay my last question kind of leads into one comment may I just blend those or do you want me to wait you better blend them because our comment brief indeed all right I will do that then H so first question I'm just looking for you know quick it's not it's not a long question um what do you anticipate being the timeline for steps two and three so in other words if this moves forward W um when would development start and when would we have a fully functioning neighborhood just

[84:00] again ballpark kinds of things on the timeline uh yeah um councilwoman um spear I think that it like step two would start with the comprehensive planning process and then we would move through that and then there would be public hearings after that and then we could move to the service area expansion process but to be quite hon Hest it wouldn't nothing we would probably see nothing at least until the end of the decade yep so 2030 for sort of development and just kind of timeline for like fully functioning neighborhood like 2050 Beyond yeah probably I mean around that yeah I mean it would take that long to build out um and I just just for a point of clarification I just you know want to make sure um these are really great questions in terms of this analysis right now it's kind of an order of magnitude to say we might need a few pipes or we might need an entire new

[85:00] water treatment plant so these are these are the things in front of you and then depending on that you might say we don't want to do this at all or let's keep moving forward but it's a very like 30,000 level kind of analysis so just for everyone to keep that in mind and yes it would take a long time y okay thank you yeah and that's that's what just wanted to clarify that thank you and um and I just 30,000 foot timeline is what I was looking for um how do we think about U and incorporate into some of this um some of the study the changes that are underway now that will influence the services needs in the future so the assumptions for example around energy use water use um those won't necessarily be the same as we're making more energy efficient buildings um as we are increasing our drought resistant landscape and um increasing absorbent

[86:00] landscape uh as we are you know maybe needing more Personnel for more fires and floods and things um as we're increasing multimodal Transportation um we don't need quite as much you know we don't we don't need to plan for quite as much car traffic for example so I just I guess I don't really have a good sense of how we're incorporating some of that the changes and innovations that are happening now into thinking about this especially given the timeline that we're looking at is so far out yeah I mean if I if I might just offer we're we're doing the best we can right we're doing the best we can with the information that we have from you know uh existing conditions and uses that that are you know that are provide you know using water that we can measure and we can understand you know what the what the consumption looks like we can certainly make some assumptions around kind of future adjustments and things like that and look at Trends and and try to anticipate but um we you know we've

[87:02] been a little bit cautious about doing that because we really want to try to establish this Baseline number of point in time here's where we are I will say this is very much not the only analysis that will occur if this process continues forward so if we get to the service area expansion plan process there will need to be a number of additional studies and analyses done to really dig into that and then even if that is accepted and adopted then individual properties would need to go through annexation process there's development review all of those things are going to require traffic studies and you know storm water and all the other kind of engineering components to that um so again we're just we're doing the best we can with the information that we have today and um hopefully that is uh you know sufficient and acceptable at this moment in time yeah thank you and sorry I don't mean to you know be be pushing you harder it's I'm just trying to think about how we make these decisions even as policy makers um and

[88:03] um so my other uh question is just um and and it's okay again if this isn't happening right now um it may come later but just thinking about the uh Regional Housing needs assessment that's been going on um and some of the information that we have from the state demographers office in terms of what uh population projections are looking like 25 years into the future in terms of age distribution and household size and all those kinds of things um does that or will that guess factor into some of our decision- making as well or some of the analysis I would say it won't enter into the analysis as much right right now um unless Chris I saw you come off mute unless there's something kind of related to some of the financial components but as far as like the specific types of Housing and all of those kinds of things that would be part of those future needs conversations and ultimately an expansion plan to better understand

[89:02] that I will just briefly add that the basic premise of a dense denser and densest scenario does account though for the fact that um the basic uh policy uh environment around housing is captured so hence the comment Christopher made earlier about the there's no single family detached you know large lot development in a scenario so hopefully that reinforces it just at least at at the very basic level okay um thank you and just kind of going into my comments what I've heard some of my colleagues say tonight and what I'm kind of taking away from this too is it would be really helpful to have just a a list of kind of the assumptions that are being made um what kinds of uh modeling is being factored in like I you know heard about climate modeling as it relates to water uh availability and and use and things too but just some of these assumptions that

[90:00] are in there so I think that is what I am most um interested in knowing for kind of future as as we move forward with this work if we choose to um what are those things that are being taken into account are they all the things that feel In This Moment like they're the things that are going to or the the issues that are going to impact the kinds of decisions that we're making um as we move forward so just be nice to have that kind of clarified in a list or something that we can look to and and then let you know then you know we're not saying hey have you considered this and this and this but rather be able to tell you if there's anything in there that that feels like it may be missing um I don't I don't need to know what exact model or anything is being used but um just just the types of things that we are using to predict what we're going to need in the future would be helpful so but thank you so much for all this work I I really appreciate it it's fun to see this starting to come together a little bit um after all the work that everybody has been doing on it for so long so thank you all right um I'm going to ask my one

[91:02] question and then I will turn it over for uh the briefest and most uh incisive comments possible uh as many of our questions have already verged on commentary uh and we are just about out of time my one question is um I have argued in my um hotline that if we want to see a great deal of affordable and or Middle Market housing developed at this site we're going to need to uh use a government-owned land to do it is it possible to do a model uh that at least explores the feasibility and the costs of utilizing the uh 200 Acres uh that we own for that purpose would anybody like to take that on that was a question oh go ahead KJ otherwise

[92:01] I can speak to it yeah I don't you wanted to do it okay yeah no I think yeah thank you for frankly for the request council member I I I do think that that is um something that we could certainly explore as as an additional you know scenario we we were cautious about you know making assumptions without gu from Council to do that but if that is certainly your your wishes we can we can build that in um and we can speak with aom just to make sure we've got scope and budget to be able to do that that's my request and the end of my questions um council member Focus thanks Mark and thanks for bringing that up I think that's a really interesting point and I would be I would vote for also um understanding that better I'm not going to sugarcoat my opinions on the rest of this I am

[93:00] fairely frustrated I think it's so problematic to be looking at the Redevelopment of this area with the only the baselines of sort of the average of the existing construction standards I think um if we were to develop it that way that would represent a huge failure and um in order to make a decision about how we move forward with with this I think we really need to understand how um how we can reduce some of these infrastructure costs by taking things by by making small changes um you know one of my big ones is going to be uh storm water management I think in the memo there was a suggestion that we could tie sites together because sites are small and storm water is going to be an issue but this is one of the only cities that requires us to deal with storm water in the way that it does typically you can store storm water underground and most

[94:00] properties are capable of managing the entirety of their storm water on site so the idea that and that's going to have a huge impact on the kind of infrastructure that would be needed so without at least taking a cursory glance at what kind of basic changes might allow us to do I think we don't really have the information we need to really understand what development of this area would require in terms of infrastructure thank you okay now I'm going to turn it over to our very time efficient mayor Brockett uh yes thanks uh thanks so much everybody just to follow up on my previous question about the um commercial space just would encourage you as a comment uh to look at a a baseline there that includes neighborhood serving retail and local jobs for people who live there but doesn't include this as an as a

[95:00] employment seter a new employment center in and of itself so which I'm guessing is less than the 750,000 sare foot but that that that's my comment on that side and then on the on the transportation side I was glad to see flagging the multimodal and the transit improvements there as you all know the transit is not entirely in our hands right since we have to work with RTD on these things but I think it's still critically important that we get transit up here so that's a kind of delicate balance to strike but this is one where I really hope that we cannot just apply formulas and I think you're hearing that from a number of different people in a number of different ways which I think makes this challenging but also you know there there would be creative ways to get people across the highway um and there would be creative ways to get you know um Paratransit in um and or micromobility and things like that in ways that would not require us to just just that where a formula might say widen the highway but how could we spend a similar amount of money and do

[96:00] multimodal improvements that would not require us to wipe the highway um so I know we're making this a little bit challenging for you all but I think if we're thinking some of this like I feel like the Wastewater pipeline is really just a kind of a formula driven but if we can um be thinking about how Innovative approaches might not uh lead us to a formul approach for some of the other calculations um I think we would benefit from that so thanks again for all the amazing work and looking forward to the next stages of this and last as I see it is laser focused council member Shu hard thank you I have five laser focus points number one two of the basic premises I am hearing is that we need more housing of the right kind and we're willing to spend considerable effort uh to develop new land to get it and I would like to see as we go with future analysis at additional consideration of the underused area within the city that could be used for infill to fulfill those purposes especially parking lots

[97:02] and other paved surfaces where creative Arrangements could be made so that we might fully understand the opportunity cost of doing it there versus um with new land um second one this this is a blank slate for us and um we should be looking at scenarios that are very dreamy and at the very least we should have a strict philosophy that we will will not be Crossing thresholds that will require widening highways this should be a chance to reduce our car um infrastructure um third one is as we as we go forward I would suggest incorporating the following principles as soon as possible one we have 15minute neighborhoods in strategic plan we should that that should be there number two in our clim 2021 climate action plan there's a focus on needing innovation in land use so those are related I'd like to see more of that I would I would hope that um we're looking at scenarios that consider an all electric micro grid semi-autonomous microG grid as we go forward that probably is down the road

[98:01] but I just have to say it now and I also think about schools so this is probably down the road but bvsd and being a thinking about what that looks like um my fourth Point um de talked about climate scenarios and this is not a nice to have this is fundamental to our physical future our basic needs in the economics of this future neighborhood and I just I really look forward to more Str it's much stress testing and real talk about what we're seeing with that um in our math as possible and my fifth laser point is um probably for Natalie's team and which is recognizing that Transportation infrastructure service development can take time I'd hope we look for No Regrets things we can do as as we do this in parallel in the north part of the city with respected bikeways and Transit connections so that if and when this this place is developed that we've got um got things that are going to plug into it thank you all right as there are no further hands up um it's Taisha I think the problem is the brown hand is over the black part of

[99:02] the I see it now okay you're up but I will be brief and I will Echo all the comments that are being shared and I just wanted to lift up I wrote it down then you can't and I couldn't read my handwriting but I think it says something like I look forward to to me this is an opportunity to reimagine who gets to make decisions in our community I would argue you said something about 1977 and I just want to remind people that there has not been any black people on Council from 1977 until juny got here I just I it this feels like a very planning has been historically a very insular process and so I'm hopeful that as we move forward for the next planning area that for for part one that we bust this little bubble of who gets to make this primary decision first but since that's already sailed I look forward to deeper uh relationship and participation by our local climate experts we have so many at the federal state and local

[100:02] level who are in our community and I'm eager for them to get involved and engaged in these analyses and scenarios and projections the other is the business Community as we're thinking about retail and all these things to not have the business community at the table when we are talking the Latino chamber at the table when we're talking about this it just seems like we are making decisions that are core to the foundation of this project without the perspectives and the feedback by those who have expertise that we don't have and then lastly of course our NGO Community um who have been serving and and quite honestly holding the space of those of the governmental failures uh because we don't have the funds to do what we need and so again I'm just excited for increased participation and to really push us towards that collaborate um side of our um engagement Spectrum so thank you so much all right um I will first turn to

[101:00] uh staff um uh yeah thank you and thank you all uh council members for the feedback on this this is extremely uh valuable and exactly what we you know hope to get through the study session um I do want to reflect on the fact that um you expressed an interest in making sure that there is clarification in detail in the final report uh detail about assumptions uh and also maybe even challenging or questioning or providing a um a a stress test or that's not the right description kind of a a area of Tolerance uh for those assumptions and thinking outside of the formula uh one thing that uh I think we could get a little uh clear Direction on is whether uh there is a majority that wants us to seek uh a fourth scenario uh regarding taking the Parkland out um I indicate

[102:02] that saying that I don't quite know if that would be in the scope of the project I'm sure we could expand the project uh with the consultants if needed um and it but it may also have implications on whether we would be able to get the final report to you in October as planned uh if you needed that information before giving say a consensus or not of five we could get that to you in the next couple of weeks and and resolve that through uh through that mechanism mayor yeah BR just to ask you to maybe sharpen that you know is that maybe the request to to look at um incorporating a scenario where not all 190 acres are used for parks where there's some flexibility in terms of using the par nobody wants to eliminate it right like yeah that's important clar fire that would be fine that would be fine uh so let me ask uh uh my colleagues is there uh a notify for doing so all in

[103:01] favor I see the hands okay um thank you for that clarification and just just to put a finer point on it is that include with the qualifier that will get you the data on any implications on the timeline or should we just plan on it regardless timeline for bringing the report forward repeat that I'm not sure I understood um so I had mentioned that one option would be we could let you know within two weeks whether a fourth scenario pushes out the timeline for the report significantly or not um but if if the consensus is to just more move forward regardless of the implication on the timeline we can do that and make that decision now U if we're going to do the analysis we should do the analysis it seems to me okay one talked about is just the intersection between this and the airport so for example if the airport passes then what are the implications

[104:02] to that or to this project if that passes so again I'm just kind of thinking about that as well so I guess you know you know really a lot some things are going to need to wait until November to see where we land um on that I'm just curious if there you know if that passes in whatever iteration um would that have applications on our capacity to consider area three or any of the other areas so that's just something that's I I would respond these are both such long-term projects uh not one of us will be on Council when they are completed uh at some point in the distant future so I don't know that there's any immediate conflict um well we're deciding though Mark whether or not we're we're making decisions right now though on both of those I mean on on this one potentially so that's where I'm saying think in the next three years and the update to the comp plan as well so that's where I'm I'm I'm having this special wondering that I do think is

[105:01] relevant so again not necessarily for this conversation but I do think there are implications uh either way I guess where I'm going is if it's after you know I I would like to know how much longer um it would take to add this this component if it's going to be two or three months versus a month then you know I think that might be something and and you know Brad come back to us when you know that and uh we can discuss it again we will do that yeah thank you all right um and Brad do you have uh uh enough from us in terms of the 75 suggestions and questions and comments that we have uh made to you this evening think we do but I'll just check with the team for a thumbs up or or comment we can always give you more thank you okay thank you uh all right uh I am well we only dropped 11 minutes and I think that's uh we did pretty well at the end um I'm now going

[106:01] to turn to our city manager again Nara Rivera Vander to introduce our next topic thank you council member and I appreciate the conversation it was a technical discussion and uh that really speaks to a lot of what will be coming in the Boulder Valley comp plan and I know that's to come and know lot more of these discussions in what really is a huge body of work so just appreciate you all because this is to me the tip of the iceberg on what we're really going to have long conversations about in the future for now another conversation uh that has also um generated quite um a lot of dialogue in community and without more I'll uh send it to our director of transportation and Mobility that Stiffler thanks Maria good evening Council um we are very excited to be here tonight to share an update on the

[107:01] iris Avenue transportation improvements project one of the priority corridors of the core Imperial Network that we call can um as you recall the can is an initiative that you reaffirmed at your most recent Retreat as a priority work program item for the city and it's so great to be able to share the progress on this Corridor with you this evening I know you often hear say this but it's really incredible the progress the transportation mobility department has been making on improving our arterial streets as part of the can and the vision zero action plan following on the heels of successful implementation of the Baseline Road phase one project tonight you will learn about the work that the team has been diligently conducting for over a year now to get to this point I want to lift up that traffic safety in our community's vision zero commitment is at the heart of this project specifically looking at how to redesign and transform Iris so that when mistakes do happen they don't result in death or Serious injury it's also about our overall Transportation Network

[108:00] ensuring there are intuitive comfortable connections along and across our big arterial streets and that these streets aren't the barrier to our community members getting to where they need to go safely and reliably to meet our community's climate goals we must offer robust connected and safe mobility choices access if you will to the everyday destinations and opportunities that our wonderful city has to offer with that I'll hand it over to Melanie Sloan and she'll begin the presentation tonight thank you hello everyone let me share my screen okay so uh thank you um my name is Melanie Sloan principal project manager with transportation and Mobility I'm joined today by Lindsay Ms uh civil engineering uh

[109:04] manager tonight we're pleased to bring you this update on the iris Avenue transportation improvements project and we'll start with some background on the project and our ongoing design and Community engagement process then we'll walk you through the four conceptual design Alternatives that were presented to the community in late April after that we'll talk about some of the key differences between the conceptual Alternatives and the next steps for the overall process the focus of this St study session is to dive into the wealth of initial analysis and design considerations that will form the basis of the full project evaluation that you all will consider later this fall this will then lead to your decision as Council on selecting one preferred conceptual alternative to move forward into final design and eventual implementation no decision um is being made this evening and there is no recommended conceptual alternative at

[110:00] this stage of the process good one how's that before we dive in it's important to understand how we got here uh the city's Vision zero goal is at the center of it we regularly collect and analyze crash data in our Safe Streets report and then develop a multi-year vision zero action plan one of our main Vision zero actions is our work on the core arterial Network or can and that's where 67% of traffic crashes resulting in death and serious injury occur using the Safe Systems approach division zero we both look reactively at where crash patterns emerge over time and also proactively at where common risk factors for future crashes exist this is known as the city's high-risk Network or hrn for short the vision zero action plan prioritizes work on streets that are on the hrn and on the can which includes

[111:03] Iris in addition to the city's Vision zero action plan Iris Avenue is identified in several key policy documents as a candidate for multimodal improvements for example iris is designated in the low stress walk and bike Network plan as a street that should receive vertically separated bike lane upgrades as well as improvements to The Pedestrian realm this is important for uh not just for addressing safety and our communities Vision zero goals but also our policy goals around creating an interconnected convenient and intuitive multimodal Network to offer people the mobility choices that will help achieve our community's climate commitment and as a quick reminder iris is on the can and that's that set of core arterials prioritized by City Council in 2022 to advance our vision zero commitment and that interconnected Network the can is a multi-year work program that relies for the most part on external grant funding to achieve our

[112:00] community's vision for highquality multimodal Street Transformations you can see Iris Avenue shown as a priority Corridor on the map running east west in North Boulder where there is a need for enhanced network connectivity Iris uh provides both local connections for the community to schools shopping and daily needs as well as Regional connection connections such as from the diagonal Into the Heart of folder so now I'm going to turn the presentation over to lindsy to talk about the project process design considerations and next steps thanks so good evening Council I'm Lindsay M a civil engineering project manager with transportation and Mobility so today we've conducted extensive Community engagement both local to the corridor and Citywide um so to inform our design process we've grounded this project in an equitable transformative Community engagement approach that really has gathered a range of people's

[113:00] lived experience and traveling along Iris so we've also completed data collection and some technical analysis that together with our professional best practices really informed the development of the four conceptual design alternatives for the configuration of that street so we shared those conceptual designs with the community for feedback at an openhouse at the end of April and tonight we have the opportunity to also hear your feedback before we enter the next phase of the project which is the formal conceptual Alternatives evaluation and then your selection of the preferred alternative this fall next so the project team conducted extensive Community engagement over the past year so this included 34 engagement activities and resulted in more than 3,100 comments so through a variety of Engagement activities we did openhouse meetings walk-in talks we we met with community members where they are near the schools and the parks and even along the corridor and the team really wanted to ensure that there were plenty of

[114:01] opportunities for the public to share their day-to-day experience and then voice their opinions and concerns next so Community feedback had several things themes that emerged so safety is the primary and most common concern participants though also reported like high vehicle speeds it causes excessive Street noise and feelings of inse security for people traveling in all modes there was concern about increased traffic congestion as well as requests and support for making biking walking and Crossing Iris safer and more comfortable there was a desire for the city to consider the importance of Iris Avenue as a main East West driving route along with requests to remove the bike facility from Iris and place it on a parallel street inste so these in-person and online conversations made it clear that for every person who opposed any change on Iris there was also someone else who supported the changes to the street and is often the case most folks

[115:00] kind of fell towards the middle than those that were strongly for or against next an inperson and online openhouse in April 24 followed by several popup community events we hosted those to share the conceptual Alternatives and we wanted to gather feedback and priorities from community members over 500 people participated in conversations with staff and really among themselves and 411 people completed the project questionnaire when asked for their priorities for Designing Iris answers were grouped into three distinct tiers highest medium and lowest priority vehicle travel time reducing crashes on Iris increasing walking and biking comfort and safety and reducing speeds emerged as the top priorities next as the project team was working on gathering this community input we were also collecting existing condition status to help the team understand how does Iris operate today and then help determine the conceptual Alternatives that would actually be the most feasible so listed on this slide

[116:01] are the types of existing condition conditions data that was collected which were gathered between September and October of 20123 so this data was collected it was all shared in your council member memo and it's on those one pager informational sheets as well next so today Iris generally has two vehicle travel Lanes in each Direction they have standard bike Lanes against the curb that aren't that currently not separated from Vehicles by any kind of buffer or even concrete protection sidewalks are in need of repair in many places and bus stops don't have many amenities the buses cross over the bike lane to pick up and drop off passengers the speed limb is 35 miles an hour but most people are driving 40 to 45 miles per hour or even more so the corridor is located in the 100-year flood plane and conveyance Zone which which creates limitations for some of the project Design Elements and behind the curve the RightWay width and existing easements are not consistent next so from 2016 to

[117:03] 23 there are a total of 345 vehicle crashes on Iris that averages to about 43 per year and among these six were severe crashes the most common types of crashes included 143 rear end collisions 58 crashes where the cars turned across oncoming traffic and then 22 incidents involving pedestrians and cyclists now the intersection of 26 and fulam accounted for 45% of these crashes and in all cases that involved the pedestrians and cyclist the driver was at fault for not yielding at the intersections and driveways I want to also note that the time period of 2016 to 23 was used for this data because that was the same data set that informed the vision zero action plan next so earlier this year the team the design team we began the process of identifying potential conceptual designs for corridor improvements and a long list of 13 possible designs was considered each with the range of bike and ped

[118:01] facilities and vehicle L configurations this long list was narrowed down or screened and this was based on the criteria shown on the slide and informed by existing conditions data and preliminary analysis now four conceptual Alternatives were considered feasible to move forward and more detailed information can be found in the attachment to your memo next as the four conceptual Alternatives were Advanced further several elements emerged as fundamental to the overall design intent of the project so to make Ira safer more comfortable and connected for people no matter how they want to get around a number of Design Elements will be implemented regardless of which conceptual alternative is selected and these improvements include endtoend protected bike Lanes safer Crossings and optimized signals next so the project limits are from Broadway to 28th Street it's about 1.3 mile long stretch and we're also looking at traffic calming on surrounding neighborhood streets as a secondary study area area as a

[119:01] concurrent project um one important thing to note is that our initial or the preliminary traffic analysis tells us that the bookins of the corridor so think 28th Street and then Broadway um support people that are walking biking rolling and driving the most and so changes to the bookends which are shown in the light blue on the map will optimize existing Crossing and connections to shops and businesses and frequent local and Regional Transit service however the number of vehicle travel Lanes will not change at the bookends this is in order to maintain the travel reliability along the corridor changes to the overall roadway width or the reorganization of space within the street would apply only to the area shown in black on the map which is roughly 13th to fome and that's the stretch where we've developed the four alternatives next so what are the what so what are the ideas on the table so Alternatives A and B would work within today's curve de

[120:00] curb with to accommodate upgrades to the existing bike Lanes A and B do this by reorganizing the street to introduce a two-way Center turn lane and then repurpose one travel Lane in each direction to make the space needed for those upgraded protected bike Lanes reorganizing the street is a proven safety counter counter measure for moderating speeds and addressing many of the rare crashes and right angle crashes between turning vehicles and oncoming traffic that we are seeing in our crash data A&B would also have spot improvements to the existing sidewalks and the bus stops now alternative C and D would expand the overall RightWay width of the street and make space for the same walking biking and bus improvements but preserve the existing number of vehicle Lanes um Alternatives A and C have the oneway protected bike Lanes on each side of the street and B and D have the two-way or uh the bidirectional protected bik plane on the north side of the street and so these Alternatives represent different ways we can organize a street and each one have their various

[121:01] tradeoffs next so let's take a closer look at the design elements that would be incorporated at the bookends of the corridor so these would once again apply to the project no matter which alternative is selected so as mentioned on the preceding slides the vehicle Lane configuration would not change at the intersection of Broadway and this that section is highlighted in yellow on the M however there will be improvements made to provide protection and safety for pedestrians and bicyclists the slide shows a comparison of one-way versus two-way protected bike Lanes extending all the way to the intersection to make a direct connection to the path that continues West to Foothill Elementary and the Newlands neighborhood other Universal Design Elements at this booken include we're going to optimize the signals and dedicated bike signals and pedestrian phases so similar today when all vehicle movement is held well the pedestrians are crossing and the transit stops are upgraded to a shared bus stop to provide larger boarding areas and accommodate the protective bik Lan next

[122:02] so the other bookend 28 Street the vehicle Lane configuration is also not proposed to change under any alternative so east of 12 East of Elmer's 2 Mile underpass the protected bike lanes become two-way sidewalk level facilities on both sides of the street that provides direct connections to those shopping centers to the transit stops to the PA on 28th Street to the routes East to the Wonderland Creek Greenway and then the planned diagonal Bikeway driveways will be constructed to meet current standards and that westbound left into the Safeway parking lot will be prohibited due to recurring left turn crashes now the project team will continue to coordinate with the stakeholders and the business owners at these shopping centers as the design moves forward next so alongside sweding and on Iris Avenue there are some in the community who are concerned about speeding and cut through traffic on nearby side street and that changes to Iris could make this increase so this

[123:00] map shows that there are no neighborhood streets that provide a continuous East West alternative for a diversion of traffic from Iris however there are several segments today that experience greater vehicle volumes and speed than others and these are definitely worth a closer look as the design process for Iris moves forward so these are segments like lynen in Calia in 26 North on the North side and then Glennwood on the south side and as a concurrent effort and to address these Community concerns the project team will identify specific locations along those segments that can receive some traffic calming measures like speed humps and speed tables and turn restrictions to manage traffic volumes and speeds next so now that we've discussed the design elements that would be part of the project no matter which design alternative is selected let's switch gears and take a look at the components of the project that actually differ so across all four conceptual design Alternatives the main differences come from whether we work within the existing

[124:00] curb to curve space or if we need to widen the curbs out to accommodate features so comparing these differences is at the heart of the formal project evaluation and your Council decision this fall next so two of the design Alternatives A and B would make changes to how the road is laid out so this is referred in your information pack packet as roadway configuration or essentially using the existing space on the street between the curbs in a new way and according to the Federal Highway Administration this approach isn't just about moving things around it's really about safety so by redesigning the road rear end left turn and right angle crashes are reduced Crossing safety for people walking and biking is improved because there are fewer Lanes to cross this additional space provides opportunities for other safety features like median Refuge Island for Crossings similar to what you see at 15th in Iris dedicated left turn Lanes or dedicated just turn Lanes in general for vehicles and then protected

[125:01] intersections and the benefits of roadway reconfiguration would address common crash Types on Iris and respond to community priorities for the street including crash reduction vehicle speed and biking and ped pedestrian safe and comfort so the fhw says roadway reconfigurations are a good fit for roads up to 25,000 Vehicles a day so even though Iris sees a lot of traffic the numbers are generally steady so from 13th Street to Fon 26 it's about 20,40 cars per day and it's been that way for about 20 years and even with a 25% increase Iris Avenue would still be within the fhwa guidelines for roadway reconfiguration next so again roadway reconfiguration from four lanes to three on iris is only being considered as part of Alternatives A and B within the Alternatives Development Area which is highlighted in black on the map between 13th and bson alternative CN D would keep things pretty much the same as they are today the two travel Lanes in each

[126:00] Direction and no Center turn Lanes so this means CN would not feature the safety improvements documented by the Federal Highway Administration like the fewer crashes speed moderation and better Crossings for Peds so traffic wise Iris Avenue West of 26 fum is similar to other roads around Boulder that have one lane in each Direction so think of places like AA Avenue West of Bolam Valmont Road East of 47th and 28th Street north of payow Parkway these roads carry similar levels of vehicle and manage traffic with one lane in each Direction and dedicated turn Lanes the roadway reconfiguration under alternative A and B would operate similarly it will be all about balancing how do we make Iris safer and easier to use while keeping things flowing smoothly for everyone who wants to travel next so both A and B feature two-way Center turn Lanes through a roadway road reconfiguration so tener Center turn Lanes have several safety benefits such as they decrease the total number of crashes because it's providing

[127:01] a dedicated space for vehicles to turn it lowers the risk of right angle crashes by reducing the number of lanes that side street drivers have to cross it enhances traffic flow because we remove turning vehicles from through traffic and it enhances safety for Peds and pedestrians and cyclists because we reduce the number of lanes they have to cross which shortens their Crossing distance next now protected intersections are designed to encourage people driving to make slower more careful turns they physically separate people walking or biking from vehicles and they make it easier for everyone to see each other in Alternatives A and B repurposing the lanes from four to three creates the space at the intersections for these protected elements this means it'll be safer to cross the street and lower the chances of crashes the best part is this can be done without needing to secure easements from nearby Property Owners but in alternative CND it's a bit trickier we wouldn't be able to add these protected intersection elements unless the public RightWay is expanded

[128:01] through additional easements or property acquisition and that means we might not be able to make things as safe at the intersection next so responding quickly to Everyday emergencies and natural disas disasters is an important consideration and when evaluating each alternative it was ensured that the current eastbound Lane set up from Broadway to 16 and then from 25th to 28th remains unchanged this maintains the city's ability to respond to both everyday emergencies and major disasters unchanged from how they operate today so discussions on the roadway design features that we'll need to use for the center turn lane to use that as a second eastbound evacuation Lane East of 16th are being continued with Boulder fire rescue Boulder Police Department and and the office of disaster management so as depicted on the S the slides the center turn lane of A and B would enhance day-to-day Emergency Operations because this center lane provides a dedicated Lane for emergency vehicles and alternative B ands the two-way protected

[129:00] bike Lanes they are wide enough to accommodate emergency vehicles and would serve as an emergency priority Lane during the disaster next so the conceptual designs propos two options for protected bike lanes that would provide a direct low stress route between Broadway and 28 these example photos show Baseline routes oneway tall curb protected bike lanes and a 6in curb protected two-way bike lane in Cambridge Massachusetts for Iris the vertical element will be D determined in a future design phase so oneway Lanes running on both sides of the street follow the direction of vehicle traffic and they provide reduced conflicts with turning Vehicles however they are generally less there's generally less safe efficient than the two-way Lanes which is particularly important on a constrained Corridor like Iris now two-way Lanes allow people biking to move in both directions and are aligned on one side of the street the additional width can allow for passing and side by side riding however there is increased potential for

[130:00] conflicts with turning Vehicles as drivers have to look for cyclist traveling in both directions these conflicts can be Min minimized by locating that two-way protective bike lane on the side of the street with the least side streets and driveways and through other mitigations like the signage and pavement markings you see in the photo the vision zero action plan identified signalized and unsignalized intersection as two of the top six risk factors that account for the most frequent and severe crashes Citywide with both PR with both of these factors present on Iris and a history of pedestrian and bicycle crashes at intersections along Iris all of the Alternatives assume signal changes to separate vehicle and bike movements in accordance with industry best practices for protected bike Lanes so as a result end to end vehicle travel time does increase for all alternatives to ensure that intersections are safe for everyone who uses them and so as we laid out both types of bike Lanes on Iris we found that the one-way bike Lanes in Alternatives A&C would have more conflict points overall because there's

[131:01] a higher concentration of driveways and intersections on the South Side the north side two-way Lanes proposed by alternative CND D would have more sun exposure in the winter and have a wider effective width which would make them easier to maintain and then allow for the side by-side writing and with major destinations along Iris concentrated in the book end areas and the north south bike routes utilizing signalized intersections to press Iris we believe the two lane Lanes will be safe comfortable and intuitive for people biking next so Iris Avenue is currently 50 feet wide and changes to the corridor can be achieved in two ways we can use the existing curb width or we can widen the roadway expanding the roadway width involves impacts behind the curbs such as acquiring easements relocating storm water systems and removing Street trees alternative CND necessitate roadway a widening alternative C expands equally to the North and the South while D widens only to the north but both Alternatives require more private

[132:00] property easements utility adjustments and tree removals consequent consequently alternative candy would be more expensive and take longer to implement Than A and B now A and B fit within the existing R uh 50 foot rideway they result in fewer impacts behind the curve so therefore fewer private property ements or affected utilities and that rev re move significantly fewer trees and therefore would be less costly and can be implemented more swiftly next as we are still in the early stage of design for this project we don't have enough detail to generate full cost estimates to compare Alternatives however these high level order of magnitude estimates are based on what we know from recent projects like the cam Baseline phase one and two effort and the 30th Street Corridor and so from these we estimate that alternative A and B would cost around 5 million alternative C and D would be approx ly three to five four times more costly than Alternatives A and B and this is really due to the fact that reconstruction of the curbs and the utility relocations and the tree

[133:00] removals and the easement Acquisitions really require additional time to design and construct and CND would take about three to four times longer to construct thanb and this longer duration leads to Greater impacts to adjacent property owners and theu Community as construction detours and noise is part of their daily life for longer next so the project team understands there will be concerns about increased travel times our preliminary traffic analysis for all four Alternatives was conducted in such a way to inform you all as our decision makers and the community of what everyday trips might be like as well as the occasional Peaks or the worst of the worst and so in our profession we know that people driving tend to remember those outlier moments even if they happen less than 5% of the time and only during certain days of the week or times of the year so for this study session we want to lay out the full potential range for you what are most people driving experiences as well as those off chance Peaks that they'll remember next so what

[134:01] most people driving will experience falls into the average and the 95th percentile or the most trips categories and the Peaks that people remember represent the maximum category and these are shown along the top of this graphic currently it takes about 3 to four minutes to travel from the intersection of 28 28th street through the intersection of Broadway and there are rare instances that reach could reach up to four to 5 minutes so based on the modeling for all Alternatives the end to-end average travel time could increase by up to 1 minute and 3 seconds most trips might see an increase of up to 1 minute and 4 seconds and the Very slowest trips could add 2 minutes and 9 seconds as mentioned a few slides ago all Alternatives the soon signal changes to separate the vehicle and bike movements and so this results in end to-end vehicle travel time increases under all alternatives to ensure that that intersections are safe safer Alternatives A and B do experience slightly higher travel times in C and D due to that road reconfiguration between

[135:00] the bookends and so what do these numbers mean for someone's actual Driving Experience so in general a travel time increase of about 40 to 60 seconds or less are mostly imperceptible changes that you would really wouldn't feel over time from 1 to two minutes people driving might occasionally feel that delay drivers may experience an extra stop at a signalized intersection the red light or spend more time in acute traffic now around 2 minutes or more people driving may feel the delay more frequently every now and then you may have to wait in an extra signal cycle if you're at the back of a queue um at at the back of the Queue at some point in your journey so these are professional rules of thumb but I think they're helpful for your consideration of a topic that can be very subjective so travel times vary by time of the day day of the week season of the year and any more variables and so the numbers on in the table on the slide are a tool to help estimate how the operations of the street might change as a result of this project now so to effectively compare

[136:02] and evaluate the four design Alternatives staff applied 17 specific consideration categorized into five groups shown on this slide so for each alternative staff conducted a preliminary analysis to determine whether its proposed features would result in improvements worse in existing conditions or lead to no change and these were shared at the open house and on the project website and they're found in your packets and so the next phase of the project process involves a formal evaluation of the four conceptual Alternatives the community and environmental assessment process or the seep is bolder's formal review process that assesses the potential impacts of capital Improvement projects to help select the best alternative so the CF uses the established seat checklist it uses some Project Specific evaluation criteria and also that Community input to identify a recommended alternative next so for next steps staff will complete the formal SE evaluation of the four Alternatives and identify a

[137:00] recommended alternative in Late July we're going to host a third open house and we're going to share the recommended alternative with the community um and just a quick side note we'd really love to invite Council to assist in getting the word out about this upcoming Community engagement as well as participate because we did really appreciate seeing those of you that came out to the first two so in August we're going to incorporate feedback from the community that we gathered at the open house um and the submitted comments and we're going to finalize the seep and in early September we're going to bring that seep and recommended alternative to Tab and they will make the recomended they will make their recommendation to council for the seep approval in late September this item will appear on council's call up check in agenda and if it's called up by Council the item would then appear on the October 10th council meeting for a public hearing and then the approval decision on the seat and the recommended alternative and after that if approved the council the project would enter final design over 2025 and so with that we invite Council

[138:01] to consider the following questions as you begin your discussion and we really do appreciate the opportunity to bring this body of work to you this evening so thank you okay um well thank you for that presentation and um are you going to leave that slide up for us or we going to return to uh um uh we put those questions in chat council member so we can take them down thank you okay that's Great's always ahead of me so um we're gonna start with questions um and move on from there first uh questioner will be council member Marquis hi um thank you for uh the presentation and for being clear about what our goals are um and that there's still time for Community engagement uh the first question I have is um given the level of collisions

[139:00] we've seen what are some of the short-term gaps that we're implementing right now to address the quick are there any quick hits and I noticed a couple things on the chart that you evaluating some areas around Elmer's 2 Mile and fome um but is there anything we can do right now uh since there seems to be a long timeline regardless of which uh Direction should we go thank you for that question Tina um I'm going to kind of act as the traffic controller because I imagine there's going to be a lot of questions we have a big team of folks here um this evening with us both staff from the department and also um our consultant so I'm going to act as kind of diving out questions and I think for that one I will ask Devon jaws and our principal traffic engineer to um respond thank you yeah good Council my name is Devon Joslin I'm the city's principal traffic engineer um thank you for that question with respect to some of the quicker implementation items that we're looking

[140:01] at for Iris Avenue one is you might recall in December uh Council passed a resolution to allow for the use of expanded photo enforcement on arterial streets and Iris was one of those streets that was designated in that resolution so that is now an option for us um to get some speed enforcement out on Iris um a second thing that we could look at as an interim solution would be um kind of a quicker build um um Access Control at that Safeway access um on the 28 Street bookend side of the corridor that is a location that we know has um a pattern of crashes that is correctable by removing that westbound left turn movement and that could be done um through kind of a quicker build process if if that was something we decided to move forward with at that location um the other thing that is on the agenda um to be reviewed

[141:01] more thoroughly is our left turn um and Signal timing practices and there could be some options for um alternate phasing at intersections to um reduce the potential for left turn crashes and just to follow up for something like the um since we already passed a resolution around photo radar and also with respect to the um ending the left-and turn out of Safeway is that's something that the traffic group can do without Council direct Direction you don't need to come to us for that that is correct okay um so then I just wanted to clarify that uh just because some of the crash data in that area is it seems like we should try to do whatever we can um since most of these options are going to take a little bit of time um the other question I was curious about with engagement is how we're interacting with the people that are commuting in and how it affects their uh ability to access employment in

[142:04] Boulder yeah thank you for that question um I'll let Valerie Watson speak to that one in more detail I'll say that we did get the word out along the way to um our regional partners and to basically engage with folks that are coming in from other cities to access their jobs and services within the city um but Valerie do you want to add more detail around that yeah sure um you know I think Natalie covered some of the coordination that we've been doing um with our regional Partners I'll also highlight um some of the um business engagement that we've done in partnership with Boulder chamber um you know there are a lot of employers that actually um are located along this Corridor and we've held a series of Engagement activities where we've been able to speak um with business owners business operators um and and talk about

[143:00] the needs of their employees who um very often are coming from outside of our community to work um so that's been another um arena in which we've been able to get a lot of feedback that helps us understand you know what is their experience when they're traveling to work um and you know I think we did hear a lot about that um end of the corridor at 28th because that's just where a concentration of businesses are I'm sorry for the record Valerie Watson is deputy director of Transportation sorry about that thanks Natalie um okay thank you and then another question I had was around um just maintenance in general so Iris right now has a lot of maintenance issues that are unrelated to the crashes and how um and I and I know uh neoria has talked a lot about deferred maintenance or a need to increase our maintenance budget um do we feel like we're we have enough money that we're putting in funding to maintain whatever it is that we do not just on Iris but in

[144:02] general yep so I'll start with the high level response and then Garett Slater our capital projects manager can speak in more detail um so at a high level certainly as we approach each of these corridors we're thinking about maintenance um Scott schle our maintenance manager is involved in the in these projects in these project conversations and just what we need from a resources standpoint not only from like pavement condition but also to to do snow and a removal once we build facilities like we're talking about this evening um so that's an integral part of it and we think about what is the kind of life cycle cost related to those maintenance needs um and and that's certainly like an improvement we' made we've made over time I think as an organization to be thinking about those future needs um but Garett do you want to speak to Pavement and how we try to kind of time these projects with our our pavement Management program yes I think we can turn to

[145:01] Baseline Road as a great and recent example of how we have phased work with our Capital maintenance programs U prior to delivering Capital enhancements projects and in conjunction with those Capital maintenance delivering enhancements so phase one of Baseline Road introduced The Tall curb treatment to provide greater protection for cyclists on the bicycle lanes and that was done in conjunction with the repaving effort uh we have other um recent examples for example we just finished Morehead just this past week on the on Paving and providing some Mobility enhancements there and while it's still premature I suspect that Iris would be very similar to these recent efforts and that we would look to integrate some early action improvements to the corridor as part of the paving efforts because iris is I identified as a a corridor that we're looking to provide some preventative pavement maintenance for here in the coming years okay and then I just had two quick other questions um one is the we're

[146:04] looking at a two-way bike track but I haven't seen that on other roads in Boulder is that just being proposed because of the unique character of Iris or there um is that something we would look at at other roads or would this be an anomaly I am going to give it like so many people from the team could take this one but I'm gonna actually have Daniel sheer speak to the 2A U two-way design of the cycle of the bicycle lane related to b& good evening Daniel sheeter principal Transportation planner and the transportation mobility department thank you for the question um yeah we kind of spoke to it a little bit in the presentation but just to kind of reiterate um we do think that the the character of irus with many of the destinations being um at the the book ends um and not a lot of intermediate major destinations along the corridor that it can be suitable to a two-way facility so um it it kind of fits that

[147:00] character of the street um and anomaly I not sure we have more quarter projects to consider bike facility designs on um but we do think it's a it's a good could could be a good fit for for Iris um I would add the Morehead project Garrett mentioned we did Implement a very short segment of two-way on Street prot by claim there to make a path connection to improve a path connection so can experience A short segment of one now um that was just completed this week so okay and then my last question uh doesn't really need to be answered but I I and I understand you can't give us um proposed budgets right now or timelines but and I understand that that that these options are magnitudes more expensive than other ones but it would be helpful to understand just ballpark what we're talking about in terms a visit one year versus three years or you know $10 million versus 50 it's because we know we're going to have we have a lot of different priorities so it it

[148:00] becomes relevant right yeah and I I think we can speak to that tonight at a high level um we mentioned in the presentation learning from Baseline phase one and phase two and also 30th Street um those projects that are similar um in ways are about five million you could say about $5 million um and and so we expect that and would fall somewhere in that realm where C and D would cost three to four times that just from the sheer need to take right away to be able to to expand the footprint of the road um as far as timelines go um we are we have budget and we've we expect from a work plan standpoint to be able to move forward with design um you know final engineering design to lead to Construction in 2025 um the funding to actually Implement any of these options we would

[149:00] need to continue to to identify through the coming year to be able to be ready to implement it in 2026 or Beyond like Baseline um we we broke that up into phase one and phase two so with phase one we were able to identify local funding to be ble to identify phase one um recognizing that to be able to implement the entire project we needed to look for grant funding and that's that's the way that we often Implement Transportation projects because they are just expensive projects to build transportation is expensive um and so we would be looking at certainly external funding to be able to implement the the full scale of the project um whether it's a through D um but the likelihood to be able to do one quicker than the other is as we've identified A and D would certainly be on a quicker timeline than CN okay that's extremely helpful thanks so much I'm done all right next up is Mayor protm

[150:03] spear thank you thanks so much for uh the presentation and a couple of questions related to your second question um one is just around um thinking about the differences in the designs is the use of the bikeways and walkway is impacted At All by whether they are um two-way on one side or one way on each side of the road like is there any data from other cities or anything about that um Valerie Daniel either one of you want to take this one yeah I you know I think I can start to answer and then turn it over to Daniel and um I'll properly introduce myself this time Valerie Watson deputy director um you know I think your question is uh you know does does just to restate does a two-way protected by a clan impact its usability being on just

[151:01] one side of the street um you know I think in general what um when folks are making connections they may not always be traveling from one end of the corridor to the other right so they may be um Crossing to get to um you know a route that they're going either north south or east west so um you know you can kind of think of a two-way protected bike lane is that little connective tissue um along a corridor like this and I'll hand it over to Daniel because you may have some other um points you'd like to add um yeah just I think you know with the crossing points along Iris at at the signalized intersections and the enhanced Crossing we have at at um at 15th Street to kind of travel north south just to kind of expand on what Valerie said um that 2way facility can can provide that connection between those Crossing points and because they're controlled right they're either enhanced or controlled with signals um and and still be a um you know kind of

[152:03] intuitive uh way to travel um across the corridor as well as along the corridor um for trips that might go end to end or or north and south so okay thank you and there's no like are studies or anything that look at the differences or anything like that I'm not aware of I mean I think fewer conflict points fewer access points or intersections and there is a um three to one I think um or three times as many conflict points on the South Side versus the north side um so that was informative there and then we have two-way facilities kind of like I mentioned in the last response there's a path connection at the West End which is a two-way facility to Foothill Elementary and into the Newland neighborhood um and then paths along 28th Street um and Points East along the diagonal in the future plan diagonal Bikeway that there's some symmetry with there so thank you um and then my other

[153:00] question is sort of a a data one as well does the usage of of side streets by cars um increase or does vehicle speed change or anything like that following a four to three lane conversion Valerie do you want to take that one yeah sure so um if I heard that right do do speeds along the corridor change and council member spear what was the second part on that so I'm thinking about side stets right so some of the emails that we've been getting have been people concern like if you reduce the number of lanes here people are just going to um move to side streets and they're going to speed through them and they're going to you know use them as the new Iris um I personally since it's been probably 15 16 years since I lived in North Boulder um I would get completely lost if I deviated from virus and so I'm just I'm curious if there's data on when what um

[154:01] when others have done conversions of say four lanes to three lanes do side straight see more traffic as people try to you know wind their way through um right yeah okay thank you for that question um so you know I think we we know that anytime we make changes to roadways um especially for long stretches you can see um traffic patterns evolve and adjust um and you know with this project it's something we've really been thinking about from the beginning we did a lot of Engagement with the community last year before we ever you know really put pen to paper in the conceptual design process and it was a very strong sentiment from the community that they were experiencing um you know higher speeds or volumes of traffic on the neighborhood streets than they would like and you can kind of see evidence um of previous investment by the city in traffic calming devices on many of the streets in in the area in North Boulder um around this Corridor

[155:01] you'll see things like speed humps um you know turn restrictions things like that that have already been installed in certain places um and so you know one of the things we really made sure to do in our initial data collection is just get a good Baseline of uh volumes and speeds along our neighborhood streets so that we could understand the impact of changes if they were to be made in the future and you know what that tells us is that some neighborhood streets um experience a little bit higher speeds and volumes than others today and so um because that was really something we heard as a strong request from the community um throughout our engagement um over the past year and a half um you know we and I think we said tonight in our presentation we are looking at um neighborhood traffic calming as a concurrent effort um to this project and we'll be able to through the final design process really Advance some ideas of where we could install those types of traffic calming measures that could look like speed humps or turn restrictions um

[156:02] things like that speed feedback signs that that really help address um the issues where they're present so um you know I hope that um that's something that's very clear is that that we have been thinking about that since the beginning of the project and um it will be addressed um if any changes are made to the corridor thank you that kind of leads into my last question uh which is on the uh engagement end sort of ties into number one and two of your questions um what plans do we have for communicating back out impact so say one of these moves forward um what is the plan for you know coming back to this in a few years after um the changes would happen to report back to folks to listen and hear about anything that they're noticing say things like that yeah that's a great question um so and I kind of alluded to a little bit of the timeline so if we once Council gives

[157:01] us Direction this fall on how we move forward we'll move forward with design um in 2025 and then we would look to um begin implementation dependent on funding in 2026 and the coming years um as we often do once we Implement projects and we we look at um just speed data and how our corridors are essentially operating um over the years and so that would just it would just become a part of our kind of normal um evaluation and monitoring like we do um with all the other corridors across the network that's that's largely what drives our Safe Streets report that we update every few years and so this would be a part of that data set and we would be able to learn um you know essentially how it's being activated um with folks using the new

[158:00] facilities great thank you so much and thanks for the the presentation and all this information all right next up is council member Shu hard followed by council member ferts thank you Lindsay Melanie Daniel Valerie Garrett Natalie and team uh I am incredibly excited about this uh for its um the role of of rebalancing the way our materials work Citywide that Iris will play but also as a as a neighbor who lives near Iris block or two away and in a driver cyclist with two small kids pedestrian a runner and there's so many parts of this that you're going to improve and um like I was like my last run on Iris I had to jump into the street and make traffic stop because because there were tweens like 10 year-olds trying to get across and and that's just you know to the ball fields and nobody would stop for that and that's just one of the the many users that um I know you're gonna you're going to Ben up here so appreciate staff's

[159:02] intense and comprehensive work to to do this and I also appreciate our previous council's recognizing this is a values based decision about what kind of transportation we want to have Citywide so um I'll go to question the questions now um the the first question um I don't have questions about the um the process really at this point I think it's clear that Council ask you to do this in 2022 at their retreat with can the the direction to make protected bikeways on Iris was explicit you've given us a framework that has everything we've asked for and more and I think this has been a showand tell not only of the design options but of your capable staff that has anticipated pretty much every question that I've heard from anybody so um I have no big big picture questions um I do though maybe just going to question number two on design um options I I've talked to a lot of folks about a versus b or I guess more generally the idea of the the bikeways on both sides

[160:02] of the road versus on on the other side and I often you know just as a thinking about it as a user sometimes think about the difference between maybe going down fome um whether on both sides or South Broadway it's it's not maybe the best analog but they're on the other side um but then I you know I find myself um comparing subjective experiences of others and thinking that's you know I'm a little anxious then suddenly that we have council members who might um be I suppose projecting their own their own kind of experiences on this the too much so I guess my um my my question and I and I prepared this looking at the list of questions in the memo that was phrased a little differently but it would just be that um as you as you go to to making recommendations that I guess this is as a comment because this is what I prepared for but um that if there if there's ways to think about further fleshing out some objective criteria for to to evaluate the the um the merits of a versus B for example

[161:02] I'll give you a few uh that are in addition to what you have in table four which I think is a great a great um four of it but one would be legibility so what design options are most understandable and comprehensible to users particularly cyclists and pedestrians um number two are there any time time diff key time differences between both bicyclists and pedestrians if there's any way I don't know if there's time to do modeling but I'm just thinking like this is a utilitarian um uh question really like who where are the the the socks and flows of cyclist get going from where to where that that if there's any way to kind of get at that I think that that really does underpin the question of like which which of those is more um efficient for for users another one if there's a way to address it would be um are you you got this a little bit but like really what what are some of the additional risk uh factors that are introduced with with either the the the bikeways on both sides versus the other I think each of

[162:00] them have some pros and cons and maybe to see those side by side might help um and then finally um just thinking again between a and b or the the two sides versus one just um a little more like the experiences of specifically pedestrians specifically quor users um and then kids seniors and people with disabilities so I'm just thinking like I just I personally I I can't evaluate on my own what's what I like better versus those two so um to the extent that there's data to support any of those or or any other ways to add like some additional objective criteria I think that will help um Council as we consider the recommendation to to really evaluate in an objective way um the difference um mostly what I had um although I guess I did have one question um Natalie this is this was kind of in the in the other category which was question in the packet um and I'm just I didn't see this forgive me I missed it but I'm wondering about the engagement process overall the

[163:02] engagement approach and I wasn't sure if this what what um from our community engagement approach framework um this is this our approach has stemmed from like did it come from you know the inform and so on spectrum and can you can you just talk about the decision to for like what's the template for this engagement approach yeah I'm happy to do that and um Erica feel free to to jump in um if I get anything wrong um so we we tend to with um projects that especially are that fall into the category of a seep um that's more on the um involve and collaborate end of the spectrum um and so that's certainly where we've been we have um for the last year been engaging heavily with the community I think we we kind of summarized that in it was like 34 touch points or something where we've been engaging with Community um and and

[164:02] many of those are is what shaped the Alternatives that have come forward um this evening and that as as we mentioned there will be another touch Point um as we share the staff recommendation here in a few weeks um with community and then we'll will include their input um as we finalize the seep and bring that recommendation to Tab and City Council in the fall so and and with our seeps we that is typically where we fall we fall in that more in involve collaborate with the Spectrum um because that's kind of what what's been expected um in the community over the years Erica did I did I missp or get anything miss anything thank you thanks Natalie and can you just clarify what what gets this tagged as a seep like what's a seep project it's essentially just an alternativ analysis process that um is

[165:01] unique to the city Boulder that we've developed but like what I'm saying what when do you use when when do you use seep and which leads us to the involve and collaborate versus not when there will be um essentially impact significant impact to the community and that there's policy tradeoffs associated project okay great thank you and then my final question this might be rhetorical but if you can answer now please do um I'm just wondering as we go forward with can in other corridors Beyond Iris if there might theoretically be options for public engagement that are more centered in the Citywide can system as a whole and what it will take to make all of the pieces of it be successful and engaging at that kind of full City system level and be more Consolidated at the at the street by street level like does that I guess theoretically seem like an an opportunity theoretically anything is possible um so I think the it really is a matter of council's Direction um that

[166:02] can obviously stem from a council priority um and we have we took that as each Corridor we would conduct it kind of a unique alternative analysis process as we approached each Corridor um and that involved a heavy Community engagement process um to get us to where we today and in the coming months um and so our expectation I think from from my perspective and From staff's perspective is that we would continue that approach um unless there's different direction from Council to um consider a different Community engagement approach as we move forward with other priority cers thank you and thank you again to you and the whole team for this great work okay next up is council member folit followed by council member Wier and mayor

[167:00] Brockett yeah so my question is going to be a little similar to Ryan's I was wondering about you know potentially looking at like Street typologies or diff you know if there are ways that we could potentially streamline this it just and maybe I'm the only council member who feels this way but it feels like we took a really deep dive into flushing out sort of a pretty full design for each one of these four scenarios and in my opinion two of the scenarios don't really provide the safety um and sort of Crash reduction um that to me seems like one of the core goals of this project and have a cost and timeline that make them not infeasible but but not not nearly the same kind of strong contenders as the other two options um so I guess I'm just wondering could you see a way of

[168:00] restructuring in for future um corridors that might streamline a little bit more than what this process was suppose might want to wait until we see how smoothly this goes yeah so I think I mean similar to response to Ryan I think that um our perspective is that each Corridor presents its own constraints and context that requires different policy trade-offs As you move you know from Corridor to Corridor so um you know Baseline was different from Iris and Iris will be different from pson um and then Street you know the next street after that right and so I think that's where it's really up to council like we would look for policy Direction on how we want to approach the work um and so there's always that opportunity when we come forward and um you know we provide regular updates around kind of what the scope is going to look like For an

[169:00] upcoming project um and so if there's input on what that kind of Engagement process looks like we are definitely open to that um but typically because of just the nature of each quarter being so different um it's important for everybody to really understand and go into kind of eyes is wide open of what those tradeoffs are as you approach each Corridor Lauren you're on mute I appreciate that it's a public Street and like an Engaged level of um community outreach I think is important at the least so uh thank you for your work on this and that was my only question okay all right council member Wier you are on stage can you hear me with my microphone yes perfect um my question mark is am I going to have time to give comments later or is this like a question comment

[170:00] combo situation I would do questions but we will have a fairly truncated comment section as we're not making any final decisions tonight I don't okay so when do you all want to hear my perspective since I have driven on two-way bike Lanes you want to hear that later or you want to hear it now now later okay then we can go to the next person okay uh mayor your hand was up your hand is down it's a comment sorry I will ask a couple of quick questions myself then um one of the questions I raised in my hotline um are we getting the the the most impact out of the investment on Iris as opposed to other um uh arterial roadways in in Boulder I mean I I knowe that uh Iris serves about 130 uh bikers per day um which is not

[171:02] that robust um would we have been better off looking at someplace else first Val do you wantan to take this one sure thank you for the question council member wall uh you know really take a systemic um and Safe Systems approach to uh traffic safety with our vision zero approach here in Boulder and that means that we look both you know at where crashes have occurred you know kind of you know reactively um and um we also look proactively at where there is risk for future crashes to occur and so I think um if I understand your question you're wondering if there's like a cost benefit ratio um to speak to um and you know that's something common in the engineering profession um certain Grant programs are even based around that um what's the likelihood that uh the

[172:01] intervention is going to have a crash reduction Factor um so a cost benefit ratio I think um you know our vision zero approach and the profession in general through work at the fhwa is really shifting to looking at both proactive and and reactive um approaches to Traffic Safety and so with Iris it's really been elevated as a corridor that we're working on because um it was found to be on the high-risk Network that's part of our vision zero action plan and it was identified along with three other corridors um for quick action by 2027 um because it not only has um a higher rate of serious and fatal crashes but it has five of the six most common risk factors in Boulder um for future crashes to occur and so um you know when we are looking at implementing um safety improvements across the city um we really look to policy documents like our

[173:00] vision zero action plan our low stress walk and bike Network plan which is part of our transportation master plan and we look to those to help us um you know develop our work plans as a city and so in the can you know was really created as a work program for us to pursue um it was predicated on um the fact that our arterials um in the city are really where we have that higher um incidence of crashes but also that higher risk um so that would be I think a a way to frame why we're working on this Corridor now um and I think that that that would be the best that we can kind of offer as a cost benefit we are trying to um you know make sure that when crashes do occur across our system where we know they're more likely to occur that they don't result in death and ser Serious injury you've convinced me but my next question is $5 million is a a nice piece of change have you sourced the money where is it coming

[174:00] from we haven't identified ination okay and my last question is in light of the financially constrained circumstances in which we find ourselves does it make any sense to immediately Implement sort of the interim steps that that You' described to tonight um and see if that actually has an impact on the iris Corridor um before going full boore with a $5 million capital investment and some so that was kind yeah that's that's a great question and I think that was what I was trying to allude to is that um once we kind of have direction of where we're headed we would move forward with design and then at that point would be able to kind of break it into phases either phase one and phase two or whatever it means some a funding standpoint and we would get to those kind of lower cost lower hanging

[175:01] fruits but but certainly effective in solving some of the bigger safety concerns that we have in the near term and then continue to seek funding for full implementation okay that that finishes my questions um we're going to go into the comment period perod which I know everyone will be extremely brief um uh just to point out that um uh the only thing that stands between us and our summer recess is us so uh keep that in mind as you make those comments um would anybody like to kick it off ah mayor Brock please yeah thanks for that Mark I have a 72 Point set of comments uh if you can just 45 minutes to an hour and a half I think we'll get out of here pretty quick it's done no I I I just my comment is just just a huge thank you to the whole team um you all have done really remarkable

[176:00] work the analysis level is extraordinary and I know we're not finalized yet but I I look forward to the finalization of of the criteria in the analysis because I think you know we are elected officials we are not Traffic Engineers and so we rely on you all to do the research and the analysis and um and you've done a phenomenal job so far and I look forward to the next steps and um yeah I you know I've some directions I'm kind of pointed in but I do want to hear the final analysis before I'm making any decisions so look forward to hearing more the one very um uh anecdotal thing I'll just say I was just traveling out of the country and rode on some really lovely cycle tracks so I'm more used to One Way by claims around here but um looks like we have some good Alternatives out there so thanks for what you've done and looking forward to the next steps and also just the last thing of how uh it was the retreat two and a half years ago where we kicked off the can we didn't kick the can down the road but but but here it is

[177:02] developing um in a very physical way so really I'm great to see the work under fruition thanks again okay council member Wier you've waited patiently for your comments well first of all I want to talk about my two-way bike lane experience who just happened convenient this past May when I was in California um in ananus and I was a little worried because you know I don't like new things but I will say that it was a great it was a great experience and it was super fun and it also felt safe really safe and the other thing that was great was I had an ocean view now I know we won't be getting that here that was also great um so any questions you can call me and I'll give you my full experience not under time constraint but I give the two-way bike lanee a big thumbs up I really loved being able to also have a section where people could ride side by side for a short time you know depending on who's coming the other way of course so now I

[178:00] want to go on to um my feelings about Iris which is I would not even go on Iris I'm so petrified taking my life into my hands so actually when I'm even trying to cross Iris I decide to just turn around and go back the other way that's how I feel about Iris so I'm pretty excited about this and I hope the community does understand that it's really about safety and um it's just so incredibly unsafe uh it feels unsafe and it is unsafe it's combination of actual facts and feelings um but I do really like be for the reason that besides it being a unique fun experience it's also less expensive and easier um and I will end with saying thank you to first of all Lindsay that was an incredible presentation you hit all my you know how I like pros and cons I mentioned at The Retreat pros and cons you gave me all my pros and cons Natalie you gave me all my it was like pros and

[179:00] cons Fest today that's all I can say um and you had so much expression Lindsay so I do want to thank you for a riveting presentation and thanks to the entire um department and everybody who spoke for really giving us a great information I enjoyed this presentation very much okay uh with that we turn to council member shuart okay I squeezed off most of my comments earlier because I didn't know we were going to have this period so um just just two things um I think maybe staff is too polite to to share this expression but there's a there's a there's a phrase that is um you know we don't know if we need a bridge by looking at who's swimming across the river and the idea is places that are so hostile and dangerous don't attract people to use them to begin with so we don't have we don't have a lot of fatalities with people on bikes on Foo Hill Parkway because that's that's not a place that anybody would go near and so I think what's exciting about this project is we see the opportunity to create a more Humane existence along Iris that will that will draw people to to want to go there and create a better balance for everybody um so my only

[180:02] final thing to say is um I I've already um gushed at how happy I am with what staff has done on this but I just would ask us all to reflect on the exhaustive work that has gone in to answering and and um answering questions and and and being extremely patient um maybe a first time through doing a pro process of this magnitude and with that will we have a chance after after we make decisions on Iris to think about how to accelerate the process of of implementing Safe Streets which will probabilistically save lives and safe lifechanging injuries um every month we can we can deploy things faster the more we're going to save so um I just ask us to to leave thinking about that thanks everybody all right um I finally recognized tesa's uh hand up signal and you're up followed by mayor protm awesome thank you very much um I have to

[181:02] Echo the awesomeness of the presentation the materials I just I feel like I can see the whole picture but then I can also get into the really minute details and so again I just I too want to thank you for that um I also want to thank all those who have written in um and and expressed their concerns and I too had concerns about the evacuation routes um but you know I talked to the emergency response team or whatever that word is um and I felt good after talking to Mike and Mike you know he's got a high threshold he's really thinking about all the things and I I I walked away from that conversation feeling confident that these changes A B C or D would not signific you know would not have the the negative impact that we are thinking right um in our minds but that we can still do the evacuation that is necessary um so that was one thing I just wanted to lift up and be real clear on the other is the about some folks had

[182:01] raised about the commuters um and commutators coming in and how this will impact them and I want to honor that I've noticed a lot more folks using ebikes to commute because you can come in farther so I just want to honor that we are changing and using bikes in different ways more I mean my bike is my car and so I really need safe Lanes I need them protected um I prefer the one that has the two sides it on two sides you know on one side rather and not the two um I I believe u Matt Benjamin brought brought up the tree panopy and I mean if we can keep as much existing canopy as possible over anything that would disrupt both sides I'm a big fan of um so I I I wanted to just lift that up um and then just in general um you know this is not a Commit This is there we will be inconvenienced right um whether it be one second or one minute or whatever it is but this inconvenience is

[183:00] not just about us this is about our future Generations being able to live and Thrive here we must change the way we do business we know car Centric is not the way so I'm just really grateful um to be able to continue to extend in their wonderful work that had been done by the other you know previous councils and staff and community members to get to this point and to carry this forward because I believe in it um I used to live in uh North Boulder for eight years and biking on Iris was always very scary um and it was essential to get through and to Nicole's earlier comment I would take the alternative but it would take me forever to get anywhere because it's really hard so again um thank you for this um and I think again I'm hopeful that this very thorough process um can now now we've tried all the things and know the ways that we can um try to figure out ways to streamline because we

[184:00] uh streamline this process and um to to Ryan's earlier comments I I wanted to Echo and agree with those as well but in general thank you so much all right U mayor protm spear followed by uh council member marus and council member fogus I just wanted to Echo um some of the the thanks and just say what I really appreciate is how thoughtful you've been bringing together so many different goals um safety all this engagement with community and hearing about their needs and desires for the area thinking about our City's goals as well as um our finances uh just bringing all of this together and I'm so eager to hear your recommendation I feel like you know I've just finished that first book and and I really want to see what happens in the equal so really looking forward to when you all come back with the recommendations so thank you you council member Marcus thank you um yeah this was really

[185:02] helpful in this iteration of learning about Iris where there's from my perspective more of a focus on the impact both the impacts and increases of safety and also really being upfront with the impacts to people who use the um Corridor in different ways including vehicle traffic time so we know we heard a lot from that Community there's a lot of concern about it um and also being very clear that this meets the thresholds for our U Medical Response teams and our evacuation teams um to the extent that we can underline and highlight that part of the solution with any communication we do to the community I think is important um and finally to the to the notion and I'll I'll just speak um a little bit off the cuff but I I think think there might be a way to think about further analyses of these traffic patterns that um focus on you know if an impact to a vehicle trip is over x amount then it comes to the council kind of like a callup sort of

[186:01] thing or if the budget is over a certain amount there's a lot of things that traffic needs to do for safety and I think they're they're very clear and I I like that you're already looking at that Safeway exit and of course you can do that without Council but um I would like to to think about and be cre of how we can um how we can help the engagement be more focused and based on impacts and not so much on the design piece if that's possible thanks I don't know if that made sense Cil member Focus thanks yeah I think um the work is so great thank you so much for such a thorough presentation and I think my only concern kind of Echoes what Ryan was saying of how do we do more faster you know it's the next question after you do such an awesome thing um so I think um Tina brought up

[187:01] you know how can what can we Implement sooner a part of this proposal and I would um be interested in that as well and then as others have mentioned the streamlining in future um projects we don't want a short Change engagement um but I you know how do we balance those two I think is really the question so thank you so much member Wier are you double dipping I am you know I rarely do that okay maybe sometimes yeah I did want to just speak a little bit um to the community uh I think it I forget who was it tonight that was talking uh thanking the community for all the letters and I understand that there's a lot of people worried about those uh Drive times and I get it because I drive too but um I I'm looking at the data and the data says that it's really going to be like a minute or two which I think is well worth the risk but I do want to say for all the

[188:00] non-believers out there that years and years ago when they were going to change 30th to like three lanes I freaked out and went to a uh went to some sort of a meeting I was just a regular non city council member and I said don't do this to me you're going to root my life I don't know what I said but I said some sort of crazy speech and um then you know 30th Street was recently became just two lanes with a center stage because there was a lot of construction and I can't remember one time that I ever slowed down that entire time that the the tunnel was the underpass was uh at 30th in Colorado not one time so I'm hoping that the Comm so that I really do believe it's not going to affect traffic by just a barely just a minute or two so I'm hoping that the community gives it a chance and is positive because I was not a Believer either but your 30th Street went right along back and forth I went

[189:01] and really just never sat in traffic so I just wanted to bring that up thanks Mark for letting me double dip tonight and I am going to um make my comments which will be actually concise and very brief uh I want to thank staff for a great piece of work um you're doing uh extremely well in in this process I look forward to our next conversation and I cannot thank you enough for uh the work and the diligence you're putting into this project thank you um with that I am going to return the controls to uh uh our city manager to introduce our next topic which will actually be brief well this is a topic that came up and perhaps I might turn it to our City attorney but it really is a question and well maybe it's just more of a question um that posed to council there was uh in

[190:02] the matter of um a recent ballot initiative there was a question that came up on whether Council as a body would like to give staff a direction to negotiate with petitioner and uh I believe that's really a straw poll and a yes or no question at this point um without more discussion uh City attorney Teresa Taylor Tate is that an acur accurate request uh hi good evening Teresa Taylor Tate City attorney um that's that's accurate um and and I want to be clear um that there's that a decision to um ask staff to engage with the petitioners does not does not presuppose any decision about the airport uh rather there there

[191:02] could be a few discreet areas um for conversation um that still uh completely leaves the decision to council for the July 25th meeting about about uh the future of the airport okay on that basis uh we should take a straw poll um uh I assume we can do this by show of hands um if you're interested in having some discussion by staff with those petitioners uh on the language of the uh initiative raise your hand the eyes have it and uh I think we're done with that subject we appreciate that Council if staff has an interest and we will keep you posted all right and seeing no other

[192:01] matters today I I see I had failed in my 05 but uh 907 will have to do uh and I hope everyone will enjoy their recess uh I think it's well earned and uh with that I am going to gavel this meeting to a close at 907