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11-3-22 TSAC MinutesTransportation Safety Advisory Commission Minutes Thursday, November 3, 2022 5:30 PM The Transportation Safety Advisory Commission (TSAC) convened for a meeting on Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 5:30 PM in the Council Chambers, Building #4, 1400 Schertz Parkway, Schertz, Texas 78154 TSAC Commissioners Present: Dziewit, Richard, Chairman Cornelisse, Chuck Heyward, Ferrando Icke, Steven Ragsdale, Roy Stevens, Ronald Wiley, Paul TSAC Commissioners Absent: Freeman, Allison Hormel, Christopher Dominguez, Andres Winter, Michael Staff Present: Mark Browne, City Manager Brian James, Assistant City Manager Kathy Woodlee, City Engineer CALL TO ORDER at 5:30 PM by Chairman Richard Dziewit. ROLL CALL HEARING OF RESIDENTS Garreth Ball, 1628 Bench Trail, Schertz — Note: The main portion of Mr. Ball's presentation was not audible. Therefore, notes and his email were used for the minutes. Mr. Ball sent an email to TSAC with pictures requesting additional street lighting in his neighborhood after his truck had been stolen. Adding additional lighting will discourage a criminal and assist the as well for the victim being able to see what is happening. 11 -03 -2022 Minutes Transportation Safety Advisory Commission One light was out and he put in a city work order and it was fixed. The other light is covered by trees down the street. Commissioner Heyward asked what the approximate distance is between the two streetlights and Mr. Ball responded greater than 100 feet. Commissioner Wiley remarked that when GVEC upgrades the lights to LED, they will emit more light. Mr. Ball remarked that the one that was recently replaced was replaced with an LED light and the light produced is significantly brighter than the older style bulbs. Will be placed on a future agenda. 1. Minutes: Consideration and /or action regarding the approval of the minutes of the September 1, 2022 meeting. Motion was made by Commissioner Stevens to approve the minutes of the September 1, 2022 meeting. Seconded by Commissioner Ferrando Heyward. Motion passed. Vote was unanimous. 2. Schertz Parkway — Ashley Park Signal Warrant Analysis: Report from Staff. Kathy Woodlee reports that we received the final study from the consultant and a signal is not warranted at that location. We have a couple of improvements that were recommended. There are nine warrants that are looked at when performing a traffic study. Refer to attached PowerPoint presentation, pages 5 -6. The outcome of the study of this location is on page 7 of the presentation. Commissioner Heyward asked what the volumes were for this location for future reference. Kathy Woodlee reported that she can give the numbers for the volumes for the multi - way stop criteria, which are much lower. One piece of the criteria is that the major street volume exceeds at least 300 vehicles for any 8 hours of an average day. There are other items to consider, but that is one piece. Schertz Parkway does meet that piece of the criteria. Commissioner Heyward also asked what the timeline would be for the restriping. Kathy Woodlee reported that it is something that could get done fairly quickly, unfortunately Public Works could not attend this meeting, but they generally add striping on a fairly regular schedule. Because it's a recommendation, she believes it could be bumped up on the schedule. 3. Updates on Various Requests and Studies: Report from Staff. • Issues referred to consultant — Pedestrian crossings on Savannah Drive and Homestead Parkway; Schertz Parkway — Curtiss Avenue stop sign warrant study o Kathy Woodlee reports that we do have the reports but they haven't been evaluated by staff on the pedestrian crosswalks on Savannah Drive near Willow Ranch and Homestead Parkway near the amenity center and the request for the enhanced stop sign at Curtiss on Schertz Parkway. • Speed Concerns — Misty Woods, Dimrock, Woodland Oaks, Bench Trail, Cliffside Drive, Rhine Valley, Westchester, Columbia, Wild Cherry o Brian James reports that most traffic counts are conducted due to speeding concerns in residential neighborhoods. Our standard for when speed humps are warranted is if the 85% percentile is 5 mph or more above the speed limit, which is typically 20 mph in a residential neighborhood. There are a few other criteria, but normally it's the question of are people speeding fast enough to warrant that solution. What we've run into is the count data is inconsistent. In a couple of cases, we put out our traffic counters on several locations to take counts to see what's happening throughout the neighborhood. What we found from the data is that some of the data was odd — we would have a couple of areas where there wasn't a real speeding issue and then we'd have an area where there were 11 -3 -2022 TSAC Minutes 2 speeding issues. Some of the data was significantly higher — 45 mph on a residential street at the 85% percentile. Some of the sections of street were fairly short and they weren't sure that the data was accurate. They performed a study by lining up the pneumatic 10 -12 tube traffic counters on Community Circle. The tubes calculate speed by the tire driving over the tube it pushes the air and when it travels to the counter, it determines the distance and it calculates the speed. The two pneumatic tubes are placed a set distance from another and based on the wheel going over first and then the second, it calculates the speed. The other tubes also calculate the vehicle type /axle class. The counts that seem to be off have a greater variability in the axle class and the numbers didn't match. They've tried performing the tests a couple of different ways. So, this week they lined them all up and they had one of our employees in a vehicle start at one end and try to maintain a speed of 18 mph, drive over all of them, come around and do it again. They did it five times, same direction, 18 mph, 23 mph, 28 mph, and 32 mph. The report generates in 5 mph increments, so it will give you how many cars were going 0 -19.9 mph, 20 -24.9, 25 -29.9. We picked those speeds so they would fall in the middle of that grouping so if they were going a little bit faster or little bit slower it would still show up in the same category. They then did it with a pick -up truck and then the opposite way and repeated it. They were out there a couple of hours. They just provided the data yesterday and after an initial look, we found that two of the counters where the 85% percentile was 5 mph faster than all of the others and on the initial look, the axle class readings are off. We think that the pneumatic tubes on the counters are probably good if we're doing something on Schertz Parkway and it's okay to be a few mph off, but that they don't read that accurately where that narrow window that we're typically looking at where a few mph makes a big difference. Even where we didn't get an anomaly on the axle class, we would have cases where the vehicle would cross at 32 mph, 32 mph, 37 mph, 32 mph, 32 mph — really odd where the variable isn't consistent and it didn't make sense why it would jump the way it did because they were spaced four feet apart. We're still looking at it, but we think that the pneumatic tube counters while good in some applications, just may not be as fine - grained for how we tend to use them which is this narrow window of residential speeds where a couple of mph off makes a big difference. The other part of it is you get a greater variability at the 85% percentile than you do the average so even where we get those anomalies, the average may only be off a 1 % mph, but that variability when you look at the 85th percentile it increases it and because that's what we use for the speed hump, that couple of mph average translates to 5 -5 t/2 mph with an 85% percentile. Because of this, we had hired a private company to study the Fairhaven neighborhood and their counts had some anomalies as well. We may have to look at a different type of counter that relies on a radar /lidar application to see if those get a more accurate read at the lower speeds. Because of these variances, we can't rely on the data. That's not to say we're "behind the times" on our technology — everyone uses the pneumatic tubes. If we can't be confident that our data is correct, it undermines the whole study. We may find a company that uses a different system to perform a demo to see if that will be an option. o Commissioner Cornelisse asked if we have a time frame when we might have them operational. Brian James responded that in a couple of weeks we will look at another company because we haven't been able to take a accurate counts in over a year. 11 -3 -2022 TSAC Minutes 3 • Request for four -way stop — Aero Drive and Oak Street • Request for evaluation of four -way stop — Woodland Oaks and Kline Circle o Kathy Woodlee reports that both of these requests are dependent on us collecting traffic data. 4. Chapter 86 Proposed Amendments: Update on Preparation to Present to City Council. • Kathy Woodlee reports that it's a slightly similar situation, but different technology we've been struggling with. We have all the data and we're working on drawing out what's needed to come up with a register we can use to support. 5. Staff Updates Kathy Woodlee reports that this is the last meeting under the leadership of Dr. Mark Browne. A new city manager has been named — Steve Williams — and will be on board December 1. • Since the last meeting, Suzanne Williams, Director of Public Works, has gone and today is the last day for the Assistant Director of Public Works, Scott McClelland. This is impactful on TSAC. Larry Busch from Engineering is acting as Interim Director of Public Works. Larry Busch had previously worked with TSAC and is familiar with how the commission operates. 6. Future Agenda Items Requests from Commissioners: Commissioner Cornelisse asked since Doug Letbetter is not present today, a lot of slurry of the streets is happening and for residents whose streets are not up to par or the quality they're expecting, what's the protocol for reporting their concerns. Kathy Woodlee responded that they can contact Public Works or Engineering to voice their concerns. We do have a program to address streets that are in various states of deterioration. The PCI study was done and we should be able to see trends of which streets are going downhill fast, which ones are maintaining, etc. Those studies determine what gets put into our program for street improvements. Commissioner Cornelisse clarified that he was meaning the slurry work that has been done — if there are concerns that the work is not up to par — not new requests. Kathy Woodlee reports that they've gotten mostly positive feedback, but there have been a few snags. For the most part, if there's something that doesn't seem quite right, it will be right by the end of the job. You can report to Kathy or give her name to anyone else who asks and she will get with the project manager. 7. Adjournment: Motion was made by Commissioner Cornelisse to adjourn the meeting. Motion passed. Vote was unanimous. Meeting adjourned at 6:13 PM by Chair Richard Dziewit. Attest: R' -hard Dziewit, Ch rperson 11 -3 -2022 TSAC Minutes 4 Cy di Simmons, Recording Secretary (Not . esent at meeting — transcribed audio only)