February 02, 2026 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
It does that sometimes. Yeah. And then I'm also gonna put the sign in, link in the agenda, back in the chat because people who joined don't get to see what was already in the chat. So if everybody could please use the sign in link, it's pretty quick. And then the agenda is there for your reference. With that, I'll read the public involvement announcement. And for anyone who doesn't know me, I think probably you all do. But my name's Emily Wiser and I am the non-motorized coordinator with Ammas, which means I'm also staffed to the bpac. So thank you everyone for joining. Welcome to the BPAC meeting. Public comments are welcome and encouraged with three minutes given to each speaker. After the committee discusses each item, members of the public will be invited to comment and as housekeeping items for virtual attendees. Please keep your cameras off unless you're speaking or if you're a member of the committee, I think you're welcome to leave it on. For those attending by phone, please press star six to mute or unmute yourself. Thanks.
Great, thank you. And if you'd like to share your screen, Emily, for the agenda for topic as we go, you can go for it now and I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda. This is Jesse. I'll second, or maybe first, I don't remember having worked this. I'll second. I'll second. Jesse and thank you Katie. 80. Any any changes or reordering for today's agenda
Or I do, sorry, I have a staff note. Sure. And this is my mistake for not catching this at when the agenda was posted, but, so item five B has kind of three comment letters combined. And just for the sake of our process, we'd like to separate those out into three different letters, which I have done so I can share my screen when we get to those. But they will be treated as three individual items. So we'll go through each of those. And I didn't change anything other than, you know, the, just separating them out and keeping the header and footer with them. So I guess we probably could use an amendment to just split that trifurcated, I guess, just to make sure we're keeping with the process.
Great, thanks Katie. Okay, any other changes or objections to approving the agenda with the tri? Okay, great. And then we've also have our minutes to review and discuss and approve for both September and December. So I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the previous meetings.
Great, thanks Katie. Do I have a second? This is Lynn. I'll second. Perfect. Thanks Lynn. Any changes or corrections or any objections to approving the minutes? Alright, hearing none, the minutes are approved and we can move into our action items for tonight. So the first letter is coming back around for the third time for the bpac consideration and I'll speak to it and welcome discussion or questions. But this is a letter we drafted regarding the Vision zero action and we brought it forward at the BPAC in September and approved it with the intention to send a letter to the two entities who are leading the Vision Zero work groups for our community, which is the Department of Transportation central region and the municipalities traffic departments. And just really is trying to elevate some of the action items within the agency's report that focuses on reducing pedestrian fatalities and severe injuries across our community.
You can see the memo here. We've revised this letter a few times based on comments and discussion that were had at the technical advisory committee and the policy committee. And so we're bringing this letter back after the latest round of, of edits and revisions that just work to address some of the questions and comments that we heard from those committees. So unless we wanna speak more in detail for the letter, I know many folks have already seen it and voted on this. Wanted to see if folks have any discussion or if we would like to move forward. So I'll open it up for questions and discussion. Alright. I'm not seeing any questions or comments from committee members so I can open it up for questions or comments from the public. Alright, I'm not seeing any, so if there's no questions or comments, I will entertain a motion to approve this Vision Zero action letter. Do we have a motion? So moved. This is Diana. Great, thanks Diana.
Thank you Katie for the second. Okay. Any objection to approving the letter as presented? Alright, seeing no objections, the motion is approved. Thank you. Alright, so that action item check, and again, I appreciate everybody who worked behind the scenes and many discussions to make these revisions and bring this letter forward. Again, is a Viking Pedestrian Advisory Committee experiencing this transportation crisis. I think it's still really important to continuously elevate this issue. So thank you all for that and we'll move on to item five B one, which will be consideration for the draft 2050 and MTP amendment number two. The AMATS has a comment period open right now for three items. And so we worked behind the scenes to have some conversations with potential actions to bring for the BPAC consideration. So these are all new before you today with the comment period ending on February 15th.
So thanks everybody for moving the meeting to earlier than as planned so that we could discuss these letters before the comment period. But the first item, it's an amendment that's going forward for the public comment. And when we drafted this comment, we were really thinking about the safety projects that were not being funded in our community, which we'll get to that, that hopefully will be funded going forward, so forward. We just bring this, this letter forward for consideration, just elevating the need to fund active transportation or non-motorized projects in our community. So, or any questions or discussion on this proposal Before you,
So a project that I'm very aware of that was proposed for the MTP several times and was not scored is the Glen Highway Trail connecting the Thunderbird Falls neighborhood back to Parus Drive. And my, my community council out here is submitting a formal request for that to be included in the MTP in the amendment process. I just wanted to bring that up for consideration.
Great, thank you. And I know the MTP process will kick off soon and the whole thing. And so this, this comment doesn't go big picture, it just is pretty narrow to the one amendment that's brought forward, which I believe is, is brought forward through the Department of Transportation. But thank you for sharing that.
Thank you. Any other questions or comments? And you can definitely raise your virtual hand, type in the chat box or unmute yourself. Okay. Any comments from the public on this one? All right. Hearing, seeing no comments or questions, I will entertain a motion to approve this comment as presented. We have a motion. I would like the motion for that. Mr. Thank you Lynn. We have a second. I'll second. Thanks Jessie, if there's no further discussion, do we have any objections to approving the motion that's presented? All right, thank you all. So this comment is approved and we'll forward it on through the task to the policy committee.
Alright, moving on to item B two five B two. Okay, so this is I Thank you for peel this out Emily. So this is focused on the current transportation improvement program. It's 2023 through 2026, amendment number four. And this first point I'll, I'll touch on a little bit, but I know other folks who are tuned in can speak to it more when, when committee members were putting this together and with this comment period, the safety improvement, the Highway safety improvement program projects were pulled from the amendment in December with a lot of public scrutiny to that decision since we're in the transportation crisis right now. And so just a week or two ago after the holidays, I recognized the Department of Transportation must have worked hard to figure out how to keep some of these projects moving forward. And they announced a revised safety plan for Anchorage that includes many of these projects funded through advanced construction funds instead.
So there's, there's already a draft amendment number five the I know in that staff are working on and we'll be bringing forward to put some of these projects back into our current funding plan. And the other two projects are in the future funding plan that we'll discuss next, which is 2027 to 2030. We're keeping them in this comment letter just because that's what's open right now for public comment. And it just shows, again, a lot of support for moving safety projects forward in our community. So I know it's a little bit confusing, but essentially we're saying it's really important to move these safety projects forward and to not push them off into the future. And we believe the department is planning to move these forward and I know lots of folks on this meeting tonight can speak to it better than I can, but that's that first point on number one.
And then just high level without having to walk through all the rest of it, I'll, I'll also share, we generally tried to pull out projects important for bicycle and pedestrian safety throughout our community and called out a few new projects that were added that could be additive to these corridor. And then that point number five, it's, it's really just a highlight. I know that the departments or aaps and the department may not be able to do anything about this for the Bega Street Corridor project, which I believe when the municipality received it, a la a Lane Diet was planned as you can see from the project description. And that has since changed. So we're really just asking for further information about why that change is there or what is going on with that. So the high level is just walking through some of these bigger pieces and I know had discussions with other folks so if anyone on the committee would like to speak to or comment on any of these, these points or if any committee members have questions, well now is the time. So open it up for committee questions and comments
Yeah. Hello everybody. Sorry I'm still, my computer's still running slow. It had a force reset today so I'm trying to make sure everything's working. So the first two projects, gamble Street Utility, pole Gamble, and Grove Overhead signal display, those are for actual construction. And the intent is last, we were told by DOT is CEA is gonna be out there this summer to do some of the boring on the Gamble street for the utility poles or for the utilities. You won't see the utility poles come down this summer because they have to do the boring and move their lines underneath and the lights are on the utility pole so they can't remove them until the rest of the projects are ready to go, which will be next summer. That is if everything goes okay and they get all their permits and get everything done. So we're still waiting for the department to work on that. But I understand they're moving forward as rapidly as they can. Northern Lights Boulevard Road Diet, that project is not moving forward at this time. The Anger Gamble Road Diet project is also not moving forward at this time. I believe that they're waiting for some additional analysis work on that particular project. And then the, a street Road diet is moving forward with the HSIP changes. So just as a reminder that a street road diet is from Fireweed to ninth Avenue. So it is not the entirety of a street, it's just that section in there and that is for starting the design work on that project.
My understanding is they'll be doing a lane removal, lane reallocation and putting some of that lane to non-motorized improvements in the area. I believe they'll be looking at removing some of the turn lanes. So there's a left turn lane I know is gonna be removed. Then there's a right turn lane that is right at 16th. You know as you get into the Sullivan Arena area, there was some back and forth about what they wanted to do. I think the initial analysis didn't recommend removal of that turn lane, but I think that is still under discussion. And then they're gonna be looking at adding a signal in at 16th Avenue.
Well, for the actual starting of it, it's dependent upon getting it into the tip, which what we're doing is part of admin mod number five. So it'll be a couple of months before it's ready to go and then they'll have, you know, five years or more to do the design, any of the right of way work they have to do, which I don't think there'd be any right of way, but you never know. And then the construction.
Thanks Katie. I have a second. I will second. This is Lynn. Great, thank you Lynn. Any further discussion or objection to approving the comment letter? All right, seeing no objection, this letter is approved. Thank you. Alright, now over to item five D three. So this is for the 2027 to 2030 transportation improvement program funding plan. Great. And kind of the high level summary of this, it's similar to walking through the TIPS amendment number four, looking at the different tables within the funding program and trying to pull up or highlight some of the projects that have pedestrian bicyclists priorities or really critical to our network. And so table or item 0.1, this points to some of those projects that are within the plan as part of the complete Streets table. Table two, overall supporting these projects and the additional projects that the, that are brought forward for consideration.
Minnesota Drive Sidewalk Repair, Tudor Road to Roosevelt Connection and Hyer Street Pedestrian Boulevard. These three projects are, are new into this tip, not in our current one. And then we, we had some questions just to better understand the plans and studies section of the table, recognizing we've, we've moved forward on the Minnesota corridor plan and there are Tutor Road and Northern Lights and Benson corridor plans that we're not seeing the table anymore. So trying to understand just the sequencing and phasing to highlight and understand when these these plans are created and how long it takes and what types of propo, what types of recommendations they have for pedestrian and bicycle safety.
And then continuing to move through highlighting the different trail pathway replacement programs. Point number five gets to some of those highway safety improvement program projects that were previously pulled but are now inserted back in. So I imagine this might change a bit, but elevating some of the, the lane reduction projects that were, were taken out I think temporarily, but due to additional analysis, supporting transit projects and programs generally. And also again, better have asking to better understand the street corridor safety improvements and how the lane reduction is not part of that. As well as highlighting a few few of the illustrative projects that support by comped safety and connectivity. So that's the general proposal brought forward. So again, open it up to comments or questions from committee members.
Lindsey's will I have, oh go ahead. Will I have four I guess amendments or projects that I would like to see asked for in this tip? So how would you like, would you like me to do one at a time or just bring up the four and then we can break 'em up later? How would you like that to proceed?
I think, sorry, I'll just jump in real quick with a staff note. I think I have that that's what you emailed to us yesterday right? Will, so I'll pull that up and share it. I also, yeah, thank you that Aaron May have some good news for you on some of those projects. So I'll let the chair lead the discussion or direct the discussion but he is standing by and ready to jump in on any of those also.
Great. Well whatever you guys think is best, I'll, I'll, I'll just start off with, we have a project out here to extend the Glen highway pathway. Another that, so it currently ends at Peters Creek. This would extend it through a really narrow corridor up to where the up to settler's drive. I don't know if you guys are very familiar but, but basically pushing it northwards about half a mile. That project has been in the current tip. However, in the new tip, the 27 30 tip, it was delayed after the Minnesota project. So the Minnesota project was added in and then bumped this construction off that. And it just is kind of disheartening to see a project delayed for a new project being put in there. And so I was asking if we could just change the years on that so that the, the existing project is finished before the new project so that the, the Glen Highway trail connection NMO 10 would be bumped one year earlier than the Minnesota project.
Yeah, I can clarify this a little. So the Minnesota project is in the tip. It has been for years. It was a pavement replacement project for pathways and trails. But because the cost exceeded what we normally do for Pathway and Trails, it had to be pulled out and put in as its own separate project. So that being pulled out and put into the tip did not delay the Glen Highway Trail project any and the current Glen Highway trail I've shown in the 27 through 30 tip is based on the current project schedule. So we can ask DOT if there's a possibility to move it up one year earlier, but at this time I'm not sure
Well, I mean the way that this is the funding as I understand it is that, you know, the funding from the Minnesota project changed pots, right? So it was in one pot of money and then now it's moved into the non-motorized pot of money. And that non-motorized pot of money is the same cost of these two projects. And it's just, I mean if you look at the overall investment geographically across the city, it's a little disheartening to see, you know, these small projects being delayed outside the core for these core projects. For the other, for the people who live outside of the core. I mean, I wish we had money for everything. I will take whatever you guys will, will give me, but normally I've been told that we have to, if we're gonna move some money around, we have to have a balance to do it. So. Okay. Just a request.
We support the construction of NMO 0 0 0 10 Glen Highway Trail construction project and ask that it be moved one year earlier in design right away in construction so that it will be completed in 2030. We request that it be prioritized over NMO 0 0 0 1 6:00 AM at Minnesota Drive sidewalk repairs rehabilitation project. And I can leave it right there.
My second request would be an to add an illustra illustrative, could I, I say properly, properly project of the Eagle River Road pathway from Mile High Road to Rener. This was a project that was originally a part of the Eagle River Road rehabilitation project that was removed from the current tip in amendment two because it was cost prohibitive. Half of that path proposed pathway is still in the tip. We're very excited about that. But the neighborhood was really bummed to lose that kind of, to have the rug pulled out from under them. I think the neighborhood is actually asking that it be scheduled into the tip for me. I think just adding it as, as an illustrative project would be fine.
Yeah, I mean, I understand the community's needs but it is a cost prohibitive project. You have a cliff on one side and a mountain with homes on the other side. So I'll be honest with you, the likelihood of it getting moving forward is probably pretty low because of that. It'll be significantly impactful to the people who live in that area to make this project happen. I don't think there's anything wrong with putting on the illustrative list, but there are a ton of needs that we have that have significant high priority as well. So just kind of keep that in mind. Thank you.
I can and and and I, I understand Aaron's point and I know he has to make the budget work, but this is having just a basic spine up the Glen highway and a basic spine out Eagle River Road are kind, are kind of the long-term goals of this community because there's no alternate, there's no alternate route. That's the only way to get from the Valley Inn. So I will state, we request that the Eagle River Road pathway mile high road to a ride near road be added as an illustrative project.
All right, I have, I have a third request, which is the same request that I made for the MTP that I guess failed. And that is the, an illustrative project that is a much smaller project that is extending the, the once again back to the Glen highway on a much, which would be connecting the Thunderbird Falls neighborhood to Tus Lane, which would then, it's this half mile section of Glen Highway that is isolating this most northern community from the rest of the network. So there's no way for this one, basically the eclu of Thunderbird community has a bike path, but it's a very short one. It does not connect with the rest of the non-motorized network. This would be, there's a half, it'd be about a mile and a half trip up. There's a half mile of shoulder, the glen highway that you have to get on for the kids to get to school or to the parks. So I would like that added as an illustrative project. So I, we'll take it to talk and then I can make a motion when you want basically the Glen highway from M Lake Tolu is the simple way to think about it on the mountain side.
I'll just, if I can, this is cb. I missed the last two meetings. I missed what was presented and so the reason I said abstain is I just didn't have enough information. So I'm sorry if I derailed the project, I just, or I mean, sorry, the vote. I just cannot, with good faith having missed trying to catch up. But I just, that's why I voted the way I voted for the record.
Yeah, thank you cv. And there really are a lot of projects in the tip, so really just encourage these requests to come to the committee ahead of time. So if you can get the requests in the comment letter, you know, a week before, so we can publish it, then we can all do our homework and make sure that we are up to speed on things. But it sounds like this is a, a project, it doesn't have a number or anything as a, as a assigned a project number and the tip, is that right? Will
Yes. Give me, let me, I apologize, I don't have it pulled up right now. Let me pull it up really quick. Sure. Okay, thanks. It's pulling up right now. So I'm calling this Glen Highway Pathway, Thunderbird Drive to Paradise Lane, tus. So we're asking that the Glen Highway trail from Thunderbird Drive to Tus Lane be included as an illustrative project. And to clarify, this is on the east or mountain side of the highway.
Nope, nope. That is it. This is the project that you also were working on. I have just pulled out a little, little tiny section of it because so often these projects are so big they don't get funded. So we've tried to take it a little bite-sized piece. So, but yes, it would connect, it would be part of that connection connecting to the native village eventually.
Okay. Well I would like to second it, but I would just like to ask Erin just about this project because the Anchorage Park Foundation did a study and I just forget how they all connect, but Anchorage Park Foundation got a grant to do a study for connecting the Alaska Long Trail and it's to Palmer and there's a couple of missing links and this was one of those missing links. But I just want to check in with Erin on how to move forward on, on this as part of that bigger transportation study and all of that.
Yeah, I don't actually know the exact recommendations from that. It's been a little bit, so I can't tell you what it would look like in this area, but I don't think it's a bad idea to put forward a recommendation to move forward on some kind of, you know, Glen highway extension. I will just remind everybody projects need to be in the MTP before they can go into the tip. So one of the things I would have to look at is whether this project is in the MTP or not, I want to say I don't think it is, but it's something to consider. Again, it is fine to put forward this recommendation because decisions can be made at any point to add projects in if there is available funding or if there is, is a desire to move things around. So I thank you for putting the actual termini that is sometimes that gets missed. So it's a little challenging for us. So I think the additional information provided for this has been very helpful.
Yeah, thanks. This is more of a general question or a a statement, but you know I've, I've lived in Anchorage all my life and I struggle with when people say, you know, where this road intersects that road and then it goes to this other road and that's where I live and I need a visual. I or I, I, I appreciate a visual I guess, and I'm not asking for one right now, but just as a general statement, visuals are, you know, actual maps are very helpful for people like me to understand what exactly is the scope of the project.
Yeah, so if, if you think about when you're driving up to the valley, you're at the top of the hill right before it drops down to the hay flats. The top of the hill is mirror lake and the bottom of the hill is Thunderbird ness. So it would basically be that section of highway where there's no houses on either side.
You know, I think I'm good for now. We don't, you know, so these are not passing. So I think folks need more information on projects that are outside the core that we've been working on for a long time. So we need to do some education within the committee. And I'm available if folks want to talk to me. I do need to apologize. My daughter is calling me so I'm gonna pop off for a little bit. Do we have more votes?
Thanks Will. All right, any other comments, questions, discussions or comments? Questions from the public? Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to approve the comment letter as amended. Do we have a motion? I'll move to approve the letter as amended. Thanks Katie. Do we have a second? I'll second. This is Jesse. Okay great. I was like who? Unclicked. Thank you Jesse, any other comments or any objection to approving the comment letter as amendment? Alright, letter passes. Thank you everybody and thanks for the good conversation and questions. Alright, we get to switch gears and go into our general information session now and I think I will turn it over on transit upon the move update and public comment period. I saw Maria here, I'll turn it over to people. Move.
Hello. Sorry my camera doesn't work but I have a quick little presentation for you. For those of you who are involved in other community councils, you get to hear it here first instead of at the community councils later this month or in March. But just to refresh everyone's memory on what transit on the Move is our acronym totem transit on the move is our transit development plan for public transportation department and it basically is our guiding document. It gives us a set of projects that we work off of based off of community input and feedback. Our current plan was created in 2019 and published in 2020 and we spent have been working on this 2025 updates since January of 2025. So we were involved with a bunch of different community councils and activities and block parties and street fairs and festivals all of last summer.
And I won't, I'll just go through these pretty quickly, but we were at 75 different events spanning from mid-April through September trying to get as much feedback and public input on our what should be in the update of transit on the move 2025. So the survey that we asked last summer was one major question, what do you value most in public transit? And these are the results from 1,541 survey respondents. So if I did see you out in the community at some point or if we did at some point last summer, thanks for participating with us. I have a breakdown of each of these categories and what they mean. This is gonna be posted on our website in a more detailed summary of our, our public involvement from last summer. It just gives you a little bit more context and details about why people said what they chose for their priorities based off of accessibility, which means do we need as a department need to focus on more bus routes in more places or more frequency or more focus on reliability.
So those are the three core goals that were established in the 2020 plan. And then people have the choice to select other and then comment on that as well. So we are starting our last phase of this chapter of transit on the move 2025. And what we're, we literally are starting this today. Our public involvement period opens with this meeting and this announcement, if you were at the CAC last week, we were almost there, but here we are. So basically this next phase is asking people to look at the projects that were identified by the public that we have consolidated into each part of Chugiak, Eagle River and Anchorage within our urbanized area, within our, our boundaries of people mover, anchor rides and ride share services. So our website has a bunch of links that you can pull up maps and kind of descriptions of what these projects could look like and they, they could range from ideas like micro transit, which may be new to a lot of people, but it's similar to an Uber and Lyft type of service, but within the public transportation department. So smaller vehicles shared ride app based that you can kind of give
Moments back maybe. Well that is rather unfortunate. Maybe I just stopped sharing my screen and if you can still hear me, just go to transit on the move.com. I'll put that link in the chat and I can also send the QR code or the, the link to the survey. But our survey is open from now until about the middle of April. After the transportation fair is when we'll close it down and then we'll have this full summary report. The survey is basically designed to prioritize a new set of projects for the department. So you can select your top five of all of the projects identified through the summer public involvement and then the leftovers from 2020 transit on the move. And then you get to rank them in your priority and that will give us a, a weighted list so that we can start to work on the next set of transit priorities that we can then put forward into the MTP and the tips and, and that kind of thing. So I'm, I'm happy to answer questions if you can still hear me and if not, if you're going to a community council next week or next month, we'll probably see you there.
Yes, I'm Diana. I work with Anchorage Park Foundation and we just held a Trails summit earlier this month, earlier Jan, January. And one of the things that came out of our summit was access to outdoor recreation. And I know that there has been a pullout somewhere along, you know, to get out to Kincaid there is a pullout. And so we were thinking maybe that would be a, a way to access, but I wonder if that came up at all in any of your, in your summer comment gathering, we have no access to the mountains. If somebody wanted to go to the mountains and thinking about equal, equal access to all Anchorage has to offer. I mean, Chugach State Park is so fantastic and I just wonder has it come up, is there a way for it to come up to think about access to outdoor recreation? And if so, what would be the likeliest place to think about going? I mean there's the lower, you know, one of those lower, not all the way up to Glen Alps, but how could we, how could one get public access to outdoor recreation and, and Anchorage?
That is, those are all great ideas, concepts, and questions I'll try and quickly summarize. Yes, we did hear public feedback and comments through last summer's involvement specifically to Kincaid Park, to different parks in south and southwest Anchorage. So there are spaces that were identified that people want to get to by bus access, but the, i I think maybe what could be advocated for is a micro transit zone in southeast Anchorage or the east side or hillside or wherever you wanna define it. It's very challenging to get buses, 40 foot buses up into those parts of our city. So that would be a, a big barrier to getting a actual fixed route service to, to any of those lower hillside areas. But a, a micro transit zone in that area would be, basically allows you to move within that zone anywhere in that kind of geographic area.
Some of it is designed and intended to connect you to the actual bus system, but some of it's designed like an Uber just to go to a grocery store or pharmacy or you know, whatever you want to do within that zone there, there wasn't a, and I, I guess there's not a project being presented right now that's in that area. One is in southwest, one's in midtown, one's in Northeast and one's in Eagle River and Chugiak for micro transit specifically, unless we hear from the public, that also needs to happen and we're happy to adjust hopefully.
One other idea that came up in it, one other idea that came up in it was transit to Girdwood and I think that's outside of the tip, which is probably why it's never come up. Like maybe we can't use federal funding for that to go outside of the tip. So that's one question. But then the other question would be, I mean potentially to far north Bicentennial Park, you know, out that road could that, that could potentially be a micro transit. There is another, there's a park bond that you got access service area process's looking at a trailhead and parking lot improvements. I don't know if you've thought about going out, you know, it's the BSer trailhead. Would that be someplace that a bus could get to down that road and into, if we were to create a project that had a turnaround through this, through the basher trailhead? I don't know. I don't know if that that road is big enough for a bus either.
Yeah, those are all great ideas. Basher, I'm not sure specifically to get to far north by Centennial. There is one project identified, thank you Emily for sharing the screen. It's the very dark blue, it's Elmore and Independence Park. So that would be a bus route along that gets you to that, that part of that park. But not inside it or not to kind of, even in the parking lots, it would just be a long Elmore, the bus stops would be a long Elmore. We cannot go beyond, I believe it's McCue Creek as far as bus service. That's our, the boundary that's defined by AMAs in the state.
Through the, the urbanized area. So gerd, yes. People still ask if we can go to GERD Wood people ask if we can go to the state fair or go to Palmer or connect with Valley Transit and other things up in the valley. But we're not allowed to go further north in Alu or further south than EW Creek Trailhead currently. Yeah.
There is the, Emily has this map pulled up so you can click on that and go to a, it's a different webpage. It's the host of that service, but you can comment specifically on a place this, this feature also existed during the summer and that map is also showcased of where we went to events and kind of what those comments were. So yeah, you can, you can click on the blue little icon on the top right of the screen and then select anywhere on the map and say, hey, I'd like a, either a bus service or a micro transit zone or you leave whatever comments you want on this map. And that directly comes straight to us. Hopefully it's a helpful tool to interact with the public. Yeah, thank you. Get good quality feedback. Thank you.
I just wanted to make a comment that I appreciate seeing some options for Eagle River, especially this last week I was going through town walking, PE watching people try to walk. The state doesn't plow the sidewalk here until, I don't know, it's like the last thing they do. So we have clear sidewalks to the main road and then you can't go anywhere. So I watched this old man with a cane going from parking lot to parking lot trying to get somewhere down the road and like, oh, a bus would be nice for people like that. Of course the buses can't always pull into the bus stops because the state doesn't clear them out. That's another issue. But I do anyways. I do appreciate seeing some potential options.
It's cb. I'd like to thank Steven. It's, I'm on, for full disclosure, I'm on the PTAB Public Transit Advisory board. I'm on all these commissions just to try to get 'em together or boards to figure out how to access the bus stops. We do a great job. PTAB, sorry, public transit does a great job with their short crew cleaning bus stops. But as a community we do a poor job getting to those cleaned bus job, bus stops and so I just want to beat that drum again. That's all I kind of ever do. And if we can lean on snow removal and maintenance to be able to walk to the stops, I think our community would benefit.
Thank you. Are there any comments or questions from the public? I, none. Thank you Steven and Maria, I'll just say that I'm impressed by people movers, outreach and public engagement tools and excited to be able to use these different systems and figure out how to meet the needs of the community. So thanks for all the work that you all have been doing.
Be great. Okay. So yeah, hi everybody. My name's Galen Jones. I'm with the Alaska Department of Transportation. I'm the project manager on the Glenn Highway and Hiland Road Interchange project. And with me, I have a couple of folks from DOWL who has been hired by the department to do the design for the project. And so yeah, if you guys wanna say hi real quick.
All right, fantastic. So yeah, thanks a lot for having us today. I think this is our first time actually presenting this project at Bpac, so really happy to be here. All right, so this is, this slide is the project area and we are talking about the first Eagle River exit out outside of town, outside of Anchorage. And so otherwise known as the South Eagle River exit it, but it's called Glen Highland because originally it only provided access to Highland Road. So originally this interchange was built in the 1970s and it wasn't built with the capacity or a design to accommodate the Eagle River Road connection, Eagle River Loop Road. I'm sorry that, that now is current, currently connected to the interchange. So as I stated before, it was really just providing access to Highland Road over the next slide. So the project purpose and objectives is we want to improve operations at the interchange, improve capacity. As I mentioned it was, it's, it's, it's vastly under designed for the current capacity that it has or that it, that it requires or the demand it requires. And then we want to improve safety for motorized and non-motorized users where we have the opportunity. And I will note that there is not a, a documented crash history for serious injuries fatalities for motorized users or non-motorized users.
So the objectives of the project we want to issue, we wanna mitigate queuing issues that are on Eagle River Loop Road. I'll show you a picture of that in a second here. We wanna enhance the highway merging for the southbound entrance. So really the, the problem that we have is in the morning commute that that traffic that's trying to go from Eagle River southbound onto the Glen Highway into Anchorage. And then the last thing we want to do with the project is to do some bridge maintenance. So just extend the design life of the bridge as much as we can. These bridges normally have a 75 year design life, so existing conditions. So right now you can see a photo and what's happening, this is looking to the northeast and what's happening is all the vehicles in the morning are queuing up in the inside lane to head towards Anchorage.
And that's because as most of you know, there's just a single left turn lane onto the highway here to go southbound. So everyone's stacking up in this lane 'cause they know they have to go left. And what that does is it blocks all the other roads. So you have VFW Road coming in here and you know, you also have the other ramp intersections and it blocks those. So the only way people can really get through is with these courtesy gaps. So when somebody kind of waves another vehicle through, and there are a lot of safety issues, not specifically with this interchange, but just in general with courtesy gaps. So it's not a good way to let an interchange operate.
Yeah. So sometimes these queues can back up almost two miles to the brakes bridge in the morning. So we're, we're talking about about a two hour congested period from seven to 9:00 AM So we have some constraints that we try to design to. One is that we want the, to maintain the existing bridge. It still has some good life left in it. So our design has to utilize the existing bridge. So we're not rebuilding that bridge at this moment, but it has to also accommodate a future bridge replacement when that time comes. We want to maintain or enhance non-motorized and transit facilities. And then we wanna address the traffic operational issues during that morning peak. So lane utilization, trying to spread out that the, the traffic into two lanes and then we want to increase that capacity for westbound to southbound vehicles and increase that ramp capacity southbound onto the Glen Highway.
And then we need to make sure that we're addressing the solid waste services access needs and the needs of their customers and their trucks that, that access the landfill there on the west side. And then also make sure we are accommodating over height vehicles. So vehicles on the Glen Highway that cannot go under the Glen Highway bridge, they'll need to go up and over. So we'll need to make sure we accommodate that with the design as well. So we went through an alternative analysis last year that we presented at the community councils in Eagle River. We had an open house and we presented at the Chuge Birchwood, Eagle River Rural Road Service area Board of Supervisors as well. So the design that was chosen was the diverge about, and we have a full memo on this, on the website that you guys can check out if you're more interested in getting really into the details on this.
But you know, the positives here is that it comprehensively improves interchange operations and performance for all the movements as opposed to just one part of the interchange. So vehicles that are entering the interchange at other parts, so like southbound exit ramp from EagleView Drive or, or from VFW Road or, or the landfill. These roundabouts give them also a shared priority as opposed to just one movement. So the non-motorized facilities have refuges and single lane crossings. It doesn't require high cost utility impact. There's a large gas line on the west side of the interchange that we can avoid with this design. And then it doesn't require acquiring land from J Bear or any federal government entities. And then it's a simple future bridge replacement. So we can design this to accommodate a, a future bridge replacement. A drawback of it is, it does have a small right of way impact to the MOA landfill, but it's much less right of way acquisition than other alternatives we looked at.
And it, it's similar to the diverging diamond interchange at Glen Muldoon except for it doesn't have signaled intersections. It has roundabouts on each side and then it will have higher impacts to the traveling public during construction than some of the other alternatives, but this does have a more comprehensive solution for the interchange than other alternatives. And we will be maintaining traffic throughout construction. So talking now about existing transit routes and non-motorized facilities. So kinda the big takeaway on this slide is there's, there's a transit route that goes through the interchange. So, so it goes to Glen Highway up through the interchange up top, and then it gets back on the Glen Highway, goes up to Eagle River, goes to some stops there, and then back VFW Road to the South and then crosses over the interchange and then back onto Glen Highway to the south. So we wanna maintain that route and the ability for the transit stops to be utilized still. And we've coordinated with other entities just to make sure that our design accommodates those groups' needs.
But I did also wanna mention, so a a, an important part about this project in this area is that the Glen Highway Trail, basically it, it comes up, it's this green line and then it crosses at this interchange. So it's on the west side of the Glen Highway, it crosses the interchange and then users go up VFW Road to Eagle River. So it's an important connection for non-motorized users to get to and from Eagle River. All right. So we originally had a design that was a, a more typical pedestrian circulation design. And as you can see, it's this green line and it went up and around the roundabout on, on the west side and then on the north side. And that follows basically where the trail or the current non-motorized facility goes now.
And we got some comments on that, some, some useful comments during our 75% review. And so what we did was we are looking closely at this new alignment where it actually crosses to the center of the roundabout and then it goes down the middle of the roundabout and then it crosses back over to the north side and then over to VFW Road. So previously, if I go back to this slide, the current pathway and then what the proposed pathway was doing was on the north side of the bridge. And this new one puts it down the center of the bridge and it has barriers on both sides to be protected from traffic and it simplifies the crossing. So on the previous design, there were eight single lane crossings existing out there now. So pre-design, there's seven existing lane crossings, and then this new design gets it down to six crossings.
So it has the, the, the shortest distance and it has the least amount of crossings and less than existing actually. So, so back to talking about, a little bit about the transit stop. So we've been closely coordinating with the MOA public transportation department. We wanna make sure that they can still utilize this route and adding a roundabout there does complicate it slightly. So what we are proposing to do is just have a, this orange line represents just a turnaround, a slip there. So when they come from southbound, sorry, northbound from Anchorage, they'll go into the roundabout, they'll go through here, they'll turn around, they'll hit that bus stop right here on VFW Road and we'll make, make sure that the park and ride is maintained. We're actually planning some enhancements to the park and ride and additionally some enhancements to the transportation, the bus stop as well. So shelter, lighting, things like that. And then the bus would get back on here and then they would continue their route up to Eagle River. And then similar to currently, they would then come back down VFW Road, hit the stop again, go through the roundabout, cross to the other side, and then go back to Anchorage. So we're still working through this design with them, but we're committed to making sure that the design works for, for all the operational needs of people mover.
Okay, well sure. Wrap it up. I'll wrap up. Yeah, I'll wrap up here in a second here. Thanks Lindsay. So yeah, it, it accommodates all the design vehicles, large trucks, things like that. And then we will have some right of way acquisition over on the MOA landfill side and you know, move the gate a tiny bit. And so we're working closely with them on that. And then here's the schedule. So right now we're 75% design and we'll hopefully be wrapping things up to bid this project for construction in the fall of 2026. And here is contact information. Again we're at glen highland.com, if you would like to check out more information, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Yeah, absolutely. And I just wanted to show people, I wasn't gonna go through this video, but there is a video and it shows, you know, a lot of things about like how the vehicles go through here and stuff like that. And so it's actually not as complicated as it looks, especially when you're staring down at the whole thing at once. It looks complicated, but when you're in in your vehicle it'll be very intuitive with signing and striping and whatnot. So thank you very much.
Hi, thank you so much Lindsey. Hi, my name's Nicolette Dent. I'm a park planner at the Muni and this is the Recreational Trails plan. The draft is now posted, we have a public comment period live right now. So I'll give you a little bit of background of how we got here. This is and a, that's a funded plan planning project. It will focus on rec the recreation, it focuses on the recreational trail system, meaning your trails and trail systems that are mostly on land owned and managed by the Parks and Recreation Department. And that includes Anchorage Parks and Recreation and Eagle River, Tru Parks and Recreation. Technically we are all part of Anchorage Parks and Recreation, but there are two service areas and two funding mechanisms for Park Park projects. So just to put that out there.
So this recreational trails plan that we have put forth right now, the draft is an update to the 1997 area wide trails plan and we're, it's a, it's a long term vision that's looking at the management, maintenance and development of the trail system in kind of the long term 20 year vision. Something that has changed since the area Wide Trails plan was created in 1997 was that Ammas published and adopted the 2021 non-motorized plan. So this plan sort of stems from that effort because during the non-motorized plan, it's my understanding that diving into recreational trails in too much detail was just falling outside of the scope of that plan. So that's why AM Ammas decided to pull this scope out for recreational trails and give it its own funding source. So that's how we got here. We've been working supported by r and m consultants in Betis Worth North and working closely with Ammas, with Eagle River Parks and Recreation along with two community advisory groups.
So as I mentioned, the draft that's published now is a result of about two years of public outreach. I can't believe it's been that long. We did an online survey with over 2000 responses. We did a bunch of pop-up tabling and we had four workshops in total, two in Anchorage and two in Eagle River at the Beach Lake Chalet. We just had those last week, our second workshops and that was really great. Thanks for those of you who made it out. So the big three takeaways that this plan is focusing on, based on what we heard is that people want safer trails both in design and their use. People want more focus on maintenance and people want our trail systems to connect. So that was the kind of biggest priority. When we asked people what was the most important thing to do over the next 20 years, connectivity consistently came up along with maintenance.
So our plan goals and vision attempt to reflect that what we've heard people want safe, you know, well-maintained trails that are predictable and available all year round. So the types of projects you'll see in the planned draft, they range from sort of functional upgrades of our multi-use trail system, such as tunnel upgrades, surface upgrades, replacing bridges, resurfacing and drainage. You'll also see some big dream projects such as the Northern Coastal Trail extension, which that's out in the Eagle River area. A long-term vision to provide a coastal experience connecting Beach Lake Park to mirror Lake Park and eventually beyond. We also have some of those big dream projects in Anchorage in the bull area, such as the Muldoon Perimeter Trail that would better link far North bicentennial and Chash State Park upwards north through the Muldoon area.
We also discuss kind of trail variety in this plan in terms of projects we've recommended, kind of moving forward with some master plan updates or revisiting some master plans such as section 36 Kinka Park that's underway. Thanks Diana. And before I show you the project website, which actually has the map where you can find more information, I will also just call out that the plan makes recommendations for a new system of trail classifications. So class one through five is typically what you'd see. It describes trails class one that are quite undeveloped, more natural things you'd see in Russian Jack far north, far north, things like that. Upwards towards a Class five trail, which is your typical green belt trail in Anchorage. Paved, you know, eight to 10 foot wide with jogging shoulders on the side. This plan is introducing a class six. So this would be a a guiding type type of design standard that puts forth a wider path that actually has lanes for cyclists and a lane for pedestrians.
So the lanes for cyclists would be two directional lane for pedestrians would be, you know, something smaller but also both two directional. But separating the types of users because we heard so many comments about safety in terms of different users sharing limited space. A great example is Westchester Lagoon. It gets really busy there in the summer. The trail isn't quite wide enough for all the use it gets, especially with, you know, our, our tourism sector booming and people jumping on e-bikes and you know, what better way than to get people out enjoying our local trail system and how extensive it is. But there are some design upgrades and criteria that we're proposing in this plan to better accommodate these modern uses that we're seeing. So I do wanna jump over to the project website. So we have a public input website, which is part of the ammas kind of standard website. We've created a story map which talks about the project list and this is where you can, for those of you who are visual minded like myself, jump into actual project details. So you can zoom in and around the Anchorage and Eagle River area, click on projects and that's where you'll get a description, the type of project, the priority categories. You'll see three categories, high, medium, and low. It's pretty general.
So yeah, I encourage you guys to jump in there to learn more details than I have time to share today, but this is the extent of the project map. Lastly, I wanna call out active transportation projects. I mentioned that the scope of this plan update was really stemmed from that non-motorized plan update because it was envisioned as recreational trails have different needs, there's different user groups and bringing those together are really important. But we did hear it kind of, it kind of confirmed that like people also use our trail network to get around without a car and that's really important to people and they wanna be able to do that more. So we have sort of separated out some active transportation project recommendations. As I mentioned, this is a guiding document really for the parks and recreation department. So a lot of this is things we could not accomplish on our own or perhaps really aren't in our purview, given limited funding and limited resources.
But things that we know to be important to folks. I know a couple of these have already come up. For example, connecting Mirror Lake and Thunderbird Falls, actually I think that's on our other map, but this one came up earlier, the Eagle River Road pathway connecting the nature center to the Eagle River downtown core. So check it out. I am available anytime for questions. The public comment period is through March 31st. I don't know that you, you all meet again before that time, but it's still in draft form. And then in the early summer is when we begin our approvals process, which would start with the parks commissions for each service area, Eagle River and Anchorage. And then we'd move towards the policy committee. So I believe that's our approvals process.
Perfect. We are getting tight on time, so I would like to transition to our next two presentations, but are there any comments or questions that are very brief, what we transitioned? No, just lots of big hearts and love. Thank you. Looking forward to digging into the different projects. Thanks for walking us through that. So our next topic is the AMS non-motorized safety campaign update. Not sure who to turn this over to.
Well I don't know if Emily's supposed to be something, but that's, that's me. I have two. They follow each other. This one is about the full amount of time. The second one is very, very short. So, so they're gonna balance themselves. Alright, so I'd like to, I'd like to share my screen. I also don't have a working camera. I'm sorry.
Okay, I, I'm Kim Carpenter and I'm with the Muni Traffic Engineering and this is the non-motorized safety campaign. Okay, just a little quick history. It started in late 2021 as a very small trial program. This is with the help of a former Ammas employee, Joni Wilm and the current head of Ammas Aaron Yone. And this was based on the fact that we were seeing a big increase in, in pedestrian crashes. So that was very alarming. The drop that you see on this graph is because of COVID. Now at the time the project started in about September of 2021. We didn't know all of the year statistics, but once we were able to see them, we saw that bicyclists had the same trend as pedestrians. So it was at this point that Aaron kindly proposed that we make this a tip project. This project is data-driven.
We use crash data, trauma, public poles, traffic volumes, and bus usage. We use anything that we can to help form and direct messages to target audiences. So a quick look over time, this tells us where our efforts should be concentrated. This is a heat map of non-motorized collisions. This is 2024, this is 2021, the pilot year. And this is 10 years back, 2015. So if you look at all these really quickly, 24, 21 and then 2015, you'll notice that the crashes are all in very similar places. That includes places like Downtown Gamble, Midtown Muldoon, and Diamond and Old Sewer.
So another thing that underlies this program is of course the crash trends. And this can include anything from lighting, weather, road surface, operator, ages, sex, and of course actions and behaviors. To date the center for Safe Alaskans has done a really great job and they've been a very valuable resource on an average in the Ammas area. They attend approximately 50 events per year where they provide education and safety equipment. And this includes things like giving presentations to seniors or disabled persons, native organizations, et cetera. Helmet fits for children where they discuss bike safety, they go to several different school events. This one is another helmet fit. They also go to community events. This is like bike to work day. They go to health safety fairs or health seminars and they go to several charitable functions. This one's with law enforcement and other municipal events. On an average in the AMAs area, nearly 2000 people receive some form of education from them.
Examples of other places that they go or other events that they attend and provide information and equipment is popups, car seat checks, car fit, which is making sure that your car seat usage and setup is correct. Correct community assistance like navigation or resource centers or public health organizations. They also do public events where they do directed traffic education. This is a picture of the first traffic garden where they were able to talk to future traffic users, let them practice proper rules of the road. And hopefully that ends up with safe travels, safety equipment and information on an average in the Ammas area, they give out nearly 8,000 safety items per year. The Center for Safe Alaskan originally polled people as well as they continue to do that on and off to find out what type of things they need or want or could use. So if we're trying to make sure that people are visible and seen as we, as we noticed from before, there's a lot of dark times and snowy and dangerous times in the municipality. We wanted to make sure that people would be visible. So we want to give them things that they actually will wear or carry or keep with them. So we strive to give them things that are bright or reflective like hats, gloves, bags, backpacks, vests, beacons, window clings, stickers, tape reflective stickers. These are often given to children and zipper pools, bicycle bells, bike lights, spoke reflectors, bike helmets, cleats and educational handouts.
So reflective tape, this is given out. It's also a big mail-in program in the Ammas area. They fulfill orders for nearly 15,000 pieces of tape a year. And this has been increasing every year. In 2024 it was 14,020 25 it was 15,000. So this program also includes media and this can come in different forms. This is print, these are coffee sleeves, which was an early effort in the program. These are stickers, safety cards, and then our current safety cards for the, in the moment there's interior transit posters and interior people mover, digital PSAs, public safety announcements. So what this actually is behind the driver and it actually scrolls different messages to them. This is an exterior bus, PSA, this is on the driver's side of the bus. So it's facing vehicles. And this is an example exterior bus PSA for the pedestrian. So it's on the door side.
We also do rear bus wraps. And I would like to take this moment to thank transit again for their, for all of their generosity because we, this little program could not have afforded all of this public service advertisements on people mover if they had not kindly, kindly cut us a very generous deal. So other forms and efforts that we do are social media, radio, PSAs and the state of Alaska was also very kindly expanded distribution of our PSAs. We've done safety videos and other efforts. When we sat back and looked at the crash data and the program goals, one of the things we really wanted to do was to figure out how we could educate young drivers up and coming drivers.
So that included things like the traffic garden. They, they made packets and sent them out to the schools where the teens were putting together packets for teen, teen driving month. So they did actually choose some of our items. And we also do ready assess, which is a small driving simulation. But it gives the, gives the students feedback so that they know things that they should work on. They also go to the driving schools and speak to the young drivers. They pack and distribute safe travel kits. This includes things like reflective vests, gloves, hats, beacons. We also give stuff to law enforcement for them to take out with them on community patrol. And they gain valuable public feedback by doing field polls and, and other types of surveys like the reflective tape surveys.
So this program may be all about safety but it's really all about the people. And this is from a thank you message sent to us by the Center of Safe Alaskans. And one thing that I love about this program is it's really all about community contribution participation. And we are so grateful for this. These are hats that are knitted by a volunteer group for at-risk children. Now we have nothing to do with the fact that this volunteer group makes these hats, which is wonderful. But the Center for Safe Alaskans did actually ask them if they would be willing to put in reflective thread so that these children would also be able to be seen under different conditions. The hats they tested doing it and they found thread that they actually liked. And so they are doing it now and you can kind of see that little thread going through there.
We also hired assets to help us assemble the, the things that we were giving away. So they put on window clings and reflective tape and bike stickers. And the radio station with the Ohana Media Group had actually read about the increasing pedestrian fatalities. They contacted the Center for Safe Alaskans and they offered to record our our PSA, which is what happened in our last one. And they also helped increase the reach that we would be able to pay for. So we were able to be on more stations and outwards a little bit more. And of course, like I said, the state of Alaska also helped increase the reach that we would be able to do in this small program. And, and of course I cannot say enough about transits help. So at this point just open it up for any questions.
Okay. Alright, so this is just a brief discussion about the 2024 annual traffic report. This is put together by traffic engineering data from information that we collect, process or calculate. And this is just to show you some of the things that are in it. This is not everything, just some of things. And all of this is available via our website or you can request a physical report. Okay, let's start off with traffic crashes. So here's a 10 year look at cyclist crashes from 2024 and of, of course, as you can see, unfortunately the crashes go up in the warm summer months, which is probably not real surprising.
Then we look at pedestrians over 10 year time period out of the nearly 3,500 crashes, 3,446 crashes in 20 24, 1 in 43 involved a bicyclist and one in 28 involved pedestrian. Other things that you can find on the site are when we look at the operators by sex, this is for bicyclists, this is for pedestrians. We also look at it seasonally. So this is by time of year for bicyclists and this is for pedestrians. Okay, quick, quick look at traffic volumes. These are traffic volumes along the roadway or halfway or along the sidewalk. So that's where we're able to look at the pads and the bikes. This is non-motorized volumes in the report. And this is along recreational trails, but we do not have the volumes broken up.
This is at our permanent count stations, which are along trails. They are, we have some on pathways and we have one on a sidewalk. And the, the counters that we've been trying to put out on trails now can also collect speeds. So we're able to tell how fast people are going. And this is bike to work day volumes. And we want to thank you for, for sending us your numbers. We used to go out and help you guys count and we actually set up some of your first counting forms that you guys used in the field. I don't know that you use those anymore, but, but we set up some of the first ones and we understand that events like this are affected by weather and so we wanted to show that in the report so people would understand why it was low in some years. Now you can view all this traffic information on traffic.muni.org and this includes not only the annual report but anything that you want to, to drill down into and find. So if you pull the annual reports, you just go to reports, search annual reports, and then you can pull down whatever year you would like to look at. This is a result screen so you, you can pull chapters of the book if you don't wanna pull the whole thing. So this one was short. Do you guys have any questions?
Thank you Kim. Great report. Really appreciated it. I am wondering if there are any like takeaways or trends that you can share with us about just the data on the trails, you know, just like as you know it, 'cause you've been doing this forever. Just like what are the trends? Has there been an increase in the Campbell Creek trail or a decrease or there, are there trends that you're seeing on certain roadways or anything as you've analyzed the data? Is there just little snippets that you can share?
So one thing that we've noticed is that since COID, the volumes on the roadways have gone down. They've never fully recovered. Several of them are back up close to what they were, but they've, they've never fully recovered before. There was always an upward trend continuously and that's not really been true. The number of crashes unfortunately have not gone down with it, which is pretty depressing and it's definitely a horrible thing to say that the, the number of non-motorized crashes have have increased and the number of fatalities has, has increased. So it's, I mean we have some years where it goes up and down, but the overall general trend is, is up the trails themselves. I would say that the trail volumes have actually been increasing over time. They, of course they hit record highs during COVID, which is completely understandable.
But it does look, I mean from what we can see from all of the, the permanent trail counters, we can actually can see that there are commuters on the trails. I don't know if the commuter number is exactly increasing. At one point it looked like it was decreasing, but it could be. It's, it's hard to gauge it all because it's impossible for us to track how many, how many bicyclists are out on the roadway. I mean, we can put out counters and we can count them in different ways, whether it's from signal cameras or from our own cameras or whether we put out travel time, travel time devices and we can see where they are because of course put bicyclists travel much slower than cars. So you can tell who, who is what, but we would have to have an unbelievable amount of count stations out there or count devices.
So all you can really get is a general trend. But it does look like, I mean, just kind of a, a comment on the side, it looks like there are more cyclists out on the roadway and it definitely looks to me like there are more cyclists in the wintertime than used to be. Our numbers used to go to pretty much zero when winter came. I mean if you look at the numbers, they're, they're low, but they're not what they were, which was oh, lots of cyclists out while it's bright and none in the wintertime. So there are people out there and they are bicycling in the wintertime and that is what we're seeing, whether it's on the roadway or whether it's on the trails, they're, they're definitely out
There. Thanks. Thank you Steve. I, I have a comment slash question that kind of ties the traffic report and the non-motorized safety campaign a bit because unless you're us and you know that there's a traffic report or a website to download data from uni traffic, I think it's really important to use to take that data and, and share what the trends are, especially around bicyclists and pedestrian collisions and fatalities and some of the behaviors around it because the public seems to think pedestrians deserve it or are drunk or just put a lot of blame rather than understanding the whole system system and how, how many challenges there are to get around our community. And you can get a lot of information from these reports. So ESAs are important, but I think there should also be education to media outlets to better understand the data and how they're reporting it and what context they could put it in or to have different conversations as a public in the community.
So my question slash comment is, is is there a way to kind of bridge these together? So when you're doing all of this outreach in the community, you're also educating about what's happening on the ground and you know, we're all here on the bpac because we wanna change the system as well and use this data for that. But it's the synthesizing and trend analysis and understanding the context is something that I think folks like you would be able to share. So I'm curious if that's part of it or if it could be incorporated going forward.
It would be nice if we could do that. I think in some respects it would be complicated for the non-motorized, the non-motorized plan, we spent a lot of time just trying to figure out ways and things that we can do to help improve safety or at least get some information out there. Actually trying to get people to understand what's happening on a bigger level is sometimes more difficult and the audiences that they, not all of the audiences would appreciate that much information. It runs this fine line when we, when they go out between what amount of information they can give to them and where they stop so that the audience stops I guess listening or taking anything away. And that's kind of a, you know, they have to be careful how much they give. Not, not because they can't give more, but because the person actually stops listening after a couple minutes. So they, they try to break it into small snippets As far as media goes. I'm, it's interesting because,
I'm not sure. We are going through all of the law enforcement crashes now and then we'll start putting together all the other pieces. The other pieces are, are painful of course, but the going through all the crashes is another, another story. The guys have been trying to get through 'em as quickly as they can. And, oh, if I can just add something on that last question that you mentioned. You know, when the media contacts us, we always give them our information and we allow them and we explain to them how things are working and what we're seeing. But what they decide to say or how they decide to frame it is kind of out of our hands so to speak. I mean, maybe we could, we could work on how we, we push a narrative so to out to them, but when they just call me and say, Hey, we, we'd like to see the data on this, or we'd like to know what this is, then even though we discuss it, what they actually print or decide to print, kind of, it just kind of goes with whatever they are wanting to say at that moment in time.
Alright, thanks Kim. I, I see you as having the keys to the data and how to tell the story. So I think it's important part of the safety campaign, but we have to move into comments and so I'll open it up to committee comments if anyone has anything to share. General comments after this tonight's meeting or for us to consider for next meeting. I'm not seeing what anyone, but I actually do have one to, to maybe share or ask for AMAs potentially for the next meeting. I know that the Department of Transportation has had some reorganization. I'm not sure if there's still a central region or not, but I know the director retired the central region director. And so it looks like on the Ammas policy committee, it's the deputy commissioner who's now serving for DOT. So I'm just curious if there are bigger reorganization changes at the department or how that might impact Ammas or the municipality. If that could potentially be a topic to be shared in the future or presented on, that'd be something I'd be curious of for the context for the bpac. Sure.
Hey, it's cb I'd like to, yeah, I'd just like to think forward next year if D-O-T-M-O-A-B-A-P-T-A, if we could all get on the same page that accessibility to public transportation and to our parks and to our public system. Sorry, it's the same thing. I, it's very important to me, but there's three agencies or four or five or 10 and it's, it's very easy to place blame on other people or other agencies. And so in this committee, I think it's important that we all share the same thing by pedestrian travel. To me that includes access to public travel. And I, I would just like to say that if there's a way that we could on the agenda, put the whole realm into our, our vision, I think it helps us. Thank
You, cbe. Any other comments? All right. Not seeing any, our next meeting is not until June 1st. We could potentially schedule a, a special meeting or work session in the meantime. So if anything comes up, please reach out to me or Emily and we can figure that out. But with that I'll entertain a motion. Tojo, hold on. Hold on. Oh, something else. We still have public comments on the schedule, so if there's any members of the public here who wanted to comment, we would need the motion to extend. Alright. I'm not seeing any or maybe they've all left. Okay. So I think I can entertain the motion to adjourn. I have a motion to adjourn. This is,
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