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CC Minutes 1998 01 26CHANHASSEN CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING JANUARY 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino called the meeting to order at 6~35 p.m. The meeting was opened with the Pledge to the Flag. COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Mayor Mancino, Councilman Berquist, Councilman Engel, Councilman Mason and Councilman Senn STAFF PRESENT: Don Ashworth, Roger Knutson, Charles Folch, Anita Benson, Todd Gerhardt, Todd Hofknan, Kate Aanenson, Jerry Ruegemer, and Scott Hart APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Councilman Senn moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the agenda with the following amendments~ items l(e) and 2 were deleted, and Councilman Senn wanted to discuss lifeguards under Council Presentations. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS: Mayor Mancino~ The public announcements I would like to make is that on the table that we have here in the Council chambers is a brochure for our February Festival on Valentine's Day, February 14th. So be sure to pick one up. It is from noon to 3:00 in the afternoon at Lake Ann and the top prize is a trip to Las Vegas so please read up on it. CONSENT AGENDA: Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Engel seconded to approve the following Consent Agenda items pursuant to the City Manager's recommendations: a. Request for a One Year Extension for Wetland Alteration Permit 93-4, Alan and Mary Weingart. b. Resolution #98-11: Approve Contract Change Order; Roundhouse Park, Trail and Parking Lot; Expert Asphalt, Inc. c. Resolution #98-12: Establish 1998 Park and Trail Dedication Fee Schedule. d. Authorize Submittal of Loan Application to MCES for Infiltration/Inflow Projects. f. Approval of One Day Beer License, February Festival, Chanhassen Lions Club. g. Approval of Bills. h. City Council Minutes dated January 12, 1998 Planning Commission Minutes dated January 7, 1998 Public Safety Commission Minutes dated January 8, 1998 j. Approval of Cooperative Grant Application to the Minnesota Board on Governmental Innovation and Cooperation. All voted in favor and the motion carried. City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 I. AUTHORIZE TO PURCHASE STATE AND HENNEPIN COUNTY BID CONTRACT VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT; AUTHORIZE ADVERTISING FOR BIDS OF REMAINING 1998 VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT. Councilman Berquist: I pulled it, as I stated in the pre-Council work session, because of some questions that I have regarding vehicle usage by the city and city staff. Without getting into a lot of the detail, as I said during that meeting, I will not be voting approval of items 4 and 5. The second pick-up truck and an Explorer for reasons as I stated and hopefully we can get a list, as we had requested a few months ago, regarding vehicle assignments by department so with that I'll let somebody else move approval or whatever they want to do. Mayor Mancino: Well the only thing I can respond is to say is, number one, not hopefully we will get a list but we will get a list at our next Council meeting on February 9th, as we talked about earlier this evening. That we'll have per department, every vehicle and who is operating it, etc. so that will be available at our next Council meeting. Any other discussion on this item? From other Council members. Then may I have a motion please? Councilman Mason: I will move approval of item 1 (I). Mayor Mancino: IS there a second? Councilman Engel: Second. Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Engel seconded to authorize to purchase State and Hennepin County Bid Contract vehicles and equipment, and to authorize advertising for bids of remaining 1998 vehicles and equipment as presented. Councilman Mason and Councilman Engel voted in favor. Mayor Mancino, Councilman Senn and Councilman Berquist voted in opposition. The motion failed with a vote of 2 to 3. Mayor Mancino: The motion does not carry .... this comes back in front of the Council. Don Ashworth: I don't know of any reason why another motion couldn't be made. Roger Knutson: Another motion could be made if you want. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Berquist, do you want to make a motion except for those two? Councilman Berquist: I will make a motion to move approval, as detailed in 1 (I) of items 1, which is a dump truck with a chassis. Item 2, generator truck chassis. Item 3, a 4 x 4 pick-up. And item 6, a Chevrolet Lumina. Mayor Mancino: Is there a second? Councilman Mason: Discussion. I'm not seconding it. Mayor Mancino: Oh, okay. Is there discussion for that? Is there a second? Councilman Engel: I'll second the motion. City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Okay, discussion. Councilman Mason: Why are you okay with the Building Inspections pick-up and not an Explorer for the Fire Inspector? Councilman Berquist: The Explorer for the Fire, again as I talked in the pre-Council session, and I'm going to want to choose my words relatively carefully here. It has not been proven to me adequately that the need for that vehicle is in place. We talk about having a vehicle that has some rust spots on it and yet we also have a, we have had no major mechanical problems with it. We now have two individuals in the fire department administrative area that have, that are required to have vehicles. It seems to me that when we make that manpower decision, that I do not remember approving a vehicle for it. And also, just from a operational point of view it would seem as though if one individual were out all the time and now we hire someone else to do the training, you're still going to only have one person out all the time. So we have a 1989 Blazer that is perfectly serviceable. It may have some rust spots on it. It may have shakes and rattles in it, but nonetheless it is perfectly suitable for use for another year. It's not like these things go to Iowa every day. They go, they're in a very confined area. I simply do not agree that the expense is warranted for this year. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Berquist may I make a suggestion, and that is that we go ahead and approve and on those two vehicles, allow or ask for a cancellation of 30 days. If we are able to do that as a city and if the evidence is there that we should go ahead and buy that and we do have a 30 day cancellation, that you would be okay with that. So that we would make that determination at our next Council meeting. Councilman Berquist: The rest of the Council may choose to, if you, are you amending the motion? Mayor Mancino: Yes. I'm adding to your motion and saying that. Councilman Berquist: No. Principally, we're to the point where we can make do without it and principally we can go another year without spending the money for these vehicles and I honestly do not think that we will be hurt in terms of trade-in. I don't think we'll be hurt in terms of... I don't think we'll be hurt in terms of repairs. I could be wrong. But I think we need to do more with less. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Engel. Councilman Engel: Mayor, I think I see where you're going with that but it doesn't seem altogether clear to me how we're going to have a clear path. You're suggestion seemed to be more of a question and I don't know that we're going to be able to act on that in time to meet the State... Councilman Berquist: We may not. However, if four Council members choose to approve that amendment to the motion, that's fine. I mean part of what I'm doing here is principle and there are times when, well. I'll leave it at that. Part of what I'm doing is principle. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Mason. Councilman Mason: We have a shop foreman, the equipment superintendent for the City that thinks that's a legitimate purchase. I do not deny what Councilman Berquist says that we have a vehicle that lasts another year. There's no question. I also know the city sells vehicles that it no longer uses. Based on City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 principle, it seems to me we're going to end up losing (a), if we wait another year we're going to spend more money on that vehicle if we eventually approve it. We're also going to lose money on any trade-in or on any resale value we'd have with the current equipment we have so I disagree with that principle and I think we should go ahead. Mayor Mancino: Okay, so the motion stands and has been seconded. Councilman Berquist's motion is to authorize bids for number 1, the dump truck. Number 2, the generator truck. Number 3, the 4 x 4 pick- up. And number 6, the Chevrolet Lumina. It has been made and that has been seconded. Resolution #98-13: Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Engel seconded to authorize to purchase the following vehicles under the State and Hennepin County Bid Contract and to authorize advertising for bids of remaining 1998 vehicles and equipment: Dump Truck Cab and Chassis (Street), Generator Truck Chassis (Sewer and Water), 4 x 4 Pickup (Building Inspections), and Chevrolet Lumina (Public Safety). All voted in favor, except Councilman Mason and Councilman Senn who opposed, and the motion carried with a vote of 3 to 2. VISITOR PRESENTATIONS: None. APPROVE T.H. 7 YEAR 2000 SAFETY IMPROVEMENTS INCLUDING ACCESS CLOSURES/MNDOT~ PW067D1. Public Present: Name Address Richard Wing Julianna & Michael Chapman Frank Janecky George Harper Paul Quarberg Pete Keller Bob Swearingin Court MacFarlane B.J. Greer Jill Lidstone Paul & Carol Prenevost Hud & Barbara Hollenback Scott & Cindy Hanson Robert Bushway Howard Schmidt Andy Brisley Dale Hance Bill & Delores Ziegler Gary Reed Carol Riddle Linda Brisley Cindy & A1 Will 3481 3821 2661 6231 6781 6760 3530 3800 2771 3991 6351 6330 6201 2721 2810 2811 6480 6441 2461 4000 2811 2730 Shore Drive No. Manor Orchard Lane Fir Tree Avenue Country Oaks Road Country Oaks Road Maplewood Circle Leslee Curve Piper Ridge Country Oaks Drive Minnewashta Woods Drive Elm Tree Avenue Dogwood Sandpiper Trail Sandpiper Trail North Manor Oriole Avenue Oriole West 64th Street Leslee Curve North Manor Road Sandpiper Trail City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Anita Benson: Mayor Mancino, members of the Council. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has a proposed safety improvement project. Mayor Mancino: Can everyone hear? Okay. Again, if you can't hear, would you raise your hand. Anita Benson: The Minnesota Department of Transportation has a proposed safety improvement project scheduled for the year 2000 for Highway 7, between Trunk Highway 41 in Chanhassen, west to St. Bonifacius. At this point I'd like to mm it over to Mr. Paul Kackelmyer with MnDot to make a presentation. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Paul. Paul Kachelmyer: Hello again. Thank you for having me back and I really appreciate being first on the agenda. That's a really nice thing. For anybody in the audience who hasn't picked up a handout, there's a 22 page handout back here on the table. Mayor Mancino: Before you start Paul, how many people are here for this tonight? On this part of the agenda. Okay. Good, good, good. Everybody's here for this, or most people are. You're going to go through everything, correct? Paul Kachelmyer: I will go through as much as you want. I was here last time and spoke for quite some time, and I'll be happy to speak as long as you want. I thought what I would try to do is, you asked for a number of additional things to be looked at last time. I thought I would spend time going over those and I would skim over everything else and if you want me to go back over anything particular item, I'll be happy to. Mayor Mancino: Okay. So what we'll do, just so everyone knows and we will have Paul go ahead and give the presentation, the whole thing, and then we will take public input and I think what we'll do is, because there's so many of you here, we will take public input going from east to west about open and closures. And we'll do it that way and we'll start out at Oriole. The eastern portion and we'll go down. We'll go west and at that time when you come up, and if you have any questions, please direct them to me specifically. Now whether I can answer them or not, I'm not sure but I will then direct them to either our staff or to Paul to answer for you. Okay. So again we'll go from east to west and we'll take your input and everyone will have time to come up and ask anything or make comments. We will make sure we make time for that. Okay, thank you. Paul Kachelmyer: Okay, thank you. I have, since I was here last, that was 3 months ago, I have spoken with many, many people. My guess is that at least half the people in this room here have spoken with me on the phone. I've probably spoken with maybe 50 or more people from Chanhassen on the project since I was here last. On the first page I have some information on safety on the road. The stretch of road between Highway 41 and St. Bonifacius is a little under 8 miles long and in the last five years there have been 10 people killed on that stretch of road, and that's not counting in St. Bonifacius or at Highway 41. There's about two dozen people or so a year who are injured out on the road also, and the severity of the injuries, I you know can't speak for. But that's a lot of people injured and killed and our project in the year 2000 is aimed almost exclusively at trying to reduce that amount of injuries and deaths. And there are things that we know that we can do that typically do have an effect of making a road more safe, and that's where we're proposing to do the work and to spend our money. We do not have enough money to do all the things that we would like to do on the road. In fact we already have more things designed into the project City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 than we can afford. We're at the stage now of having to cut back to make things, determining which things have the biggest payback for the dollar as far as safety projects go. Tonight I think most people are probably concerned about the access closures that we're proposing and last time I went over three items where people typically object to access closures and they're valid objections and with every access closure I've ever proposed, there always are people who are unhappy with it and object to it. The first reason for people typically opposing access closures is convenience. If they use a road now and we close it, they're going to have to go, almost always further than they presently are going on their trips and we realize that that is just an effect of access closures. Last time I went over the concept that maybe the more important thing we can do along a stretch of road like this to make it safer is to reduce the complexity of the road and that primarily is in reducing the number of access points. The second reason why people often are unhappy with the concept of access closures is that if a street is closed somewhere else, that traffic has to go somewhere else and that somewhere else is by other people's homes and those other people, nobody usually likes the concept of having more traffic go by the street that they live on and that definitely happens when we propose access closures. The last area of concern is fire safety, ambulance. Is it going to take those services longer to reach an area that now has certain roads closed off. And yes, the answer is typically in some cases, depending on where the fire or police or ambulances are coming from, yeah. It would take longer. I have spoken with a member of the Fire Department here and he expressed the opinion that the access closures that we're talking about would not be of concern to them to the extent that they would think that it would endanger public safety. That the safety aspects from reduced access on the highway would outweigh those other safety concerns. I did number the pages this time. On page number 2, I'll just quickly go over this. Back in 1986 all the communities on Highway 7, between Highway 101 and out to Minnewashta Parkway, got together in a task force to determine what could be done long term to make the road a better and safer road. A number of things were proposed. A number of things have been done. There have been projects done. The most recent one was just this last year. The completion of the improvement of the Christmas Lake Road intersection. Access closures were part of all the projects that have been done in the last 10 years and there have been a dozen streets closed in those other areas as part of those other projects. The next page 3, page 3 and page 4. I just included them. These were handouts that we mailed out before our public hearing in early October, and they kind of summarize some of the work that we're proposing in the year 2000. I'll be happy to go back over any of the specifics on that later if anybody has any questions. Mayor Mancino: Paul, does everyone in the audience, do you have one of these that he's going over? Paul Kachelmyer: I've got a couple more if anybody needs one. I'm sorry to stop. I thought that they were all gone. There was one more left there. On page 5, I've got a drawing here that needs some explanation. A map with a lot of dots. These dots, each dot represents an accident that was reported to the Department of Public Safety in the three year period from 1994 to 1996. And we use, you know this type of map to zero in on areas that we should look at to potentially do something to improve the road. This map is by no means a complete accounting of the accidents that happen on that road. The only way that we know that an accident happened on the road is if it got reported to the Department of Public Safety, and our experience over the years has been that many, many accidents occur and do not get reported to the Department of Public Safety for a number of reasons. As an example, one of the fatal accidents on Highway 7 in the last 5 years in which two people were killed, a report never showed up at the Department of Public Safety so even for major accidents, we sometimes don't hear about them. And I just point this out in that later when I go over some of the specific closures we're talking about, I'll be mentioning numbers that are far higher than the number of dots that are listed here, and that's according to people who live near the intersections and have told me different than what we've got information from the Department of Public Safety for. Page 6. A map of the access closures that we're talking about doing. Since I was City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 here last I have changed this map in two regards. Fir Tree Avenue is now a street that we are proposing that we close access on. I'll go into that in a little bit more detail later. And at Leslee Curve we had previously showed that our preference was to close access there and now I show two more options there. One is to restrict movement at the intersection to right turn in and right turn out and the other would be to leave open but to add left turn lanes. However, there's a money problem there which we can get into in a little bit. There was a big question last time as to how much traffic was using these intersections and how, where that traffic would go if the access closures that we are proposing were put into place. So we had our traffic counting people go out and place their traffic counters in I think it was November of last year, and we got the counts that I show on the map there. On the next page, are the same number counts and in parenthesis, well actually in parenthesis are the counts from the previous page and the numbers that I list in type are the numbers of trips that we would anticipate at those intersections if the access closures that we're talking about were put into place. And the only thing I want to point out is down at Leslee Curve, I have not changed that number because that number's dependent upon which of the options that we would go with. Councilman Berquist: I've got one question on this. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: Fir Tree Avenue. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: Did I hear you right? Did you say that these are the number of trips that, the number of vehicles per day in and out. That's what's currently coming in and out of that, those streets on a per day basis? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: Okay. Now alright. Go ahead. Continue please. Paul Kachelmyer: Okay. And on the next page, on page 8 I list projected traffic volumes. I typed them out but in parenthesis are the numbers from the previous page, just so you don't have to put back and forth to try to make sense of it. Councilman Berquist: You mean the total's the same? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. You know sometimes when they take traffic counts, when you have a neighborhood, the counts show like more traffic coming in than going out or more going, and in this case it actually balanced out which is what it's supposed to you'd think, but it doesn't always. Traffic counting is kind of a, you know they can take a count one day and go out the next day and get a count, say 10% off. That's real common so all these numbers here are ballpark figures to get a feel for what the volumes are and by golly you could go out there today and measure and they would be different than the numbers I've listed. Page 9. We get into the specifics of what we're proposing. At Oriole Avenue, again I can go back. Last time I went through the reasons why we're proposing things and again, now I'm just going to go over kind of new things that have popped up and if you want me to go back over anything else, I'd be happy to do it. I've got several phone calls regarding how we would attempt to limit right turns at Oriole to right turn in, right turn out and we'd do that by extending a raised concrete median island that already exists just City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 to the east. And we'd just extend it down past the intersection so that cars couldn't physically move in and out. We could build the median island, they're only like 6 inches high, with a sloped concrete face so that as far as police and fire trucks go, if there was an emergency, they could just drive right over the island but normal passenger cars wouldn't be inclined to do that. Page 10 is a new page. The last time I was here I only included things regarding to access change where we were restricting something. I decided I should show what the improvements are that we're talking about at the remaining intersections so people have a feel. I did get quite a few phone calls regarding that. At Sandpiper Trail, we put in a right mm lane so that traffic that's headed east on Highway 7 would have a right mm lane to mm into Sandpiper. Then we'd widened the intersection itself so that it's a T intersection. People coming north on Sandpiper either have to mm right or mm left. We'd make it wide enough so that there's a lane for each line of cars waiting to do that. Mayor Mancino: So there's three lanes there? Paul Kachelmyer: There would be three lanes, yes. And we would also raise the grade of Sandpiper to make it fairly flat leading up to Highway 7. On days like today when it's slippery out, that's kind of a critical thing sometimes that cars have the best chance that they can of being able to accelerate out onto the highway. A lot of these intersections along this stretch of road have a really sharp, steep grade leading up to Highway 7 and that no doubt has caused many accidents I would believe over the years. Mayor Mancino: Would there also be signs out on Highway 7 saying, instead of the small street signs that you can't read. Would you have signs on the right-of-way, you know big signs for those of us that can't read the small ones at night, or even during the day would know that we're approaching that street? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Your city staff suggested that to us and I think that's a real good idea. Before, or now when there's so many streets along the way, we would not be inclined to really want to go out putting up big signs frequently along that road. But with the reduction in access points, that'd be really reasonable. It would highlight, people could see it you know far in advance that that's where they're going to mm. That's where they should start slowing down. I think that's a real good idea. Mayor Mancino: Would you do anything to, does your proposal show anything to do with lighting.., stay as it is or what is there now or would you increase that? Paul Kachelmyer: All the intersections that are there now, I believe do have overhead lighting and we would certainly keep overhead lighting at all the intersections. Page 11 is Washta Bay Road. I haven't made any changes in that proposal. We propose to close that. That was, we just went through one neighborhood there. Three accesses leading down into one neighborhood. Mayor Mancino: So that the only left hand mm going west hand out of that whole neighborhood will be from Sandpiper? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes, that would be correct. Mayor Mancino: And on Oriole, no one will be able to mm left or go west out of there because of the median or at Washta Bay Road? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: That will be closed completely? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. That's our proposal. Mayor Mancino: Prior to leaving that for just one moment. At Oriole, will you be able to mm left off TH 7 after you pass the TH 7 and TH 41 intersection, will you be able to mm left onto Oriole from Highway 7? Paul Kachelmyer: No. No. Access at Oriole would be limited to people traveling east on Highway 7, turning right in or people from the neighborhood turning right out to go east. Mayor Mancino: So again you'd have to go all the way up to Sandpiper? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: To get in. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Paul Kachelmyer: Moving into the next neighborhood, the Minnewashta Heights neighborhood. The first street that accesses that is on page 12 here, Arbor Lane. At Arbor Lane we'd make improvements. We'd leave that open. We'd add a right turn lane so that traffic that's headed east on Highway 7 would be able to turn into the neighborhood with a right turn lane. We'd widened out the intersection so that school buses could turn in and out easier. We have spoken with the school district quite a bit and there's a lot of streets along Highway 7 where they have problems with. The last thing we'd do at Arbor is we'd flatten the grade of Arbor at the intersection and we'd raise the grade a little bit. Right now people at Arbor, if there's a vehicle headed west and it's east of Arbor, there's a point at which a driver waiting at Arbor can't really completely see a vehicle headed towards it. If we raise the grade of the road a little bit, that should eliminate that problem so that there'd be really good sight distance there. On page 13. I have the same map on the next two pages also. We're proposing to close Cypress Drive, and the reasons there I've gone over before. Page 14 is something new. At Dogwood Avenue, Dogwood would be one of the three remaining roads that would end up accessing the Minnewashta Heights neighborhood. I spoke with the person who lives on the house closest to the intersection there at Dogwood and that person suggested that we possibly move the entrance for Dogwood to the west by 100 feet. The reason for that being is that, with the closure of Cypress and the closure of Fir Tree that we're proposing, there would be more traffic coming down Dogwood. And if we move the access over 100 feet, the split of that increase in traffic volume would be more evenly divided between Elm Tree Avenue and Dogwood so that neither the residents on Elm Tree or Dogwood would bear the main brunt of the increased traffic volume. That sounded like a reasonable proposal to me so that's what I've proposed. If the City wants us to do it, we will do that. We would have otherwise had to do some work at the Dogwood Avenue entrance because again it's quite a steep entrance leading up to Highway 7. If we build a new one 100 feet over, we can make it to the flat grade that we would like to see. Page 15. Fir Tree Avenue. There's only one set of streets along this whole stretch of road between Highway 41 and Minnewashta Parkway where if somebody gets in that center left turn lane, and somebody else gets in the other, gets in the center left turn lane to use another street, they're coming at each other head on. There's only 150 feet of separation between these two streets and I've probably spoken to more people, well at least a dozen or more people, residents have called me on this one and quite a City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 number of these people would repeat the same story and that was that, you know 2, 3, 4 times a year they're in that left mm lane and going to make their left mm and somebody's coming right at them and they've got to make an instantaneous decision. Do they swerve back out of the lane? Back into the thru lane when maybe there's, you know already traffic that was behind them that's now pulled up. A very, they see it is as a very dangerous situation. Some of the residents took up a petition and sent it into the city asking that we close that entrance. Out of that asking for the petition, other residents on the street objected to that concept. They, I think felt, they objected to it because it was going to be an inconvenience to them. Maybe some people are here tonight and they'll state other reasons. But again, closing Fir Tree was not something we proposed before. We do see it as being a good thing to do for safety purposes and we are proposing it now. The three accesses that will end up going into this Minnewashta Heights neighborhood, there will still be three access points within a half mile stretch of road. That's a higher level of access than will exist anywhere else. Mayor Mancino: Let me ask one other question. This is going to happen in the year 2000, so we could do some temporary barriers and see how it works out too prior, between now and then. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Yes you could. You probably maybe are thinking of the City of Shorewood, which asked us to do that. Maybe you're not thinking of that but the City of Shorewood, when they were pondering the same issues. Which streets should they close off that we were asking for. Shorewood had a little bit different issue. There was a whole lot of cut through traffic that was going from a major road to major road, through neighborhoods in Shorewood and they were really wondering where that traffic was going to go so last November we did a temporary, 3 week long closure of a number of streets there so they could see where the traffic was going to go. Unfortunately, just a few days after we removed that temporary closure at one of those intersections, a person was killed in an accident and that's, you know that's really sad that that came about. That accident there is typical of the random, but predictable accidents that we hope to eliminate by the access closures we're proposing. That wasn't a fluke. That was predictable and we'd like to try and reduce that. On page 16, the last street in the Minnewashta Heights neighborhood is Greenbriar Street and Greenbriar comes to the highway at an angle and school buses really have a difficult time turning there so we would just widened out the intersection a little bit so that school buses could turn safely. Moving on to page 17, Leslee Curve. The rest of the pages here all deal with the Leslee Curve access. There were a number of traffic related questions that were raised last time regarding Leslee Curve. First of all we have just proposed last time to close the access. Now we're proposing that two other options out here would seem acceptable. The second option would be to limit access at the intersection to people turning right in and right out. That would essentially eliminate half the traffic in and out of the intersection, but it would eliminate the half that we tend to see the worse accidents from. That is the left turning traffic. People turning left in. People turning left out. Right turning traffic typically has a far, far lower accident rate which is why down at Oriole we feel that right in and right out is a safe and acceptable thing to have there. The traffic counts that we did at Leslee Curve, we found about 450 trips a day there. That includes in and out, so it's a total of 450 vehicles passed through that intersection each day. There was a lot of discussion regarding Holy Cross Lutheran Church and the amount of traffic that it generated and if we closed or changed things, how much traffic would then be going through the neighborhood. We met with a number of people at Holy Cross. I would imagine some of them are here tonight through Planning Commission. They did traffic counts for how many people come and go, and it averages out to about 150 trips a day come and go from the church. Out of those 150 a day, about 50 right now come and go through the neighborhood and about 100 a day come and go through the Highway 7 intersection with Leslee Curve. Page 18. Yes. 10 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Berquist: Page 17, Leslee Curve. Anticipated increase in usage of this intersection from 450 vehicles per day to between 1,000 and 1,300 vehicles per day, upon final development of the neighborhoods to the south. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: And we're going to allow that to happen and not construct left turn lanes or any other, unless I missed something, any other methods by which that... ? Paul Kachelmyer: Well that's what we're here tonight to discuss. Councilman Berquist: That's what you're proposing? You say there's no funding, which I mean I can certainly understand that verbiage but wow. Paul Kachelmyer: Well, when we get to that, that's our last alternative to discuss. Councilman Berquist: Well let's assume that you build it just exactly how you want it right now. There's no discussion, nothing happens and in the year 2000, you get it done. At what point then do you go in and make improvements? Paul Kachelmyer: Okay, this is probably, this project on Highway 7 is probably the last project we'll have in a good 15 years on this stretch of road with the exception of, if there's a spot improvement at a location like say maybe Minnewashta Parkway where at some point in a future a traffic signal light might be warranted. Or well, with Leslee Curve, I do intend to discuss those questions in the next couple pages. If we don't get to them, just be sure to ask again. Councilman Berquist: Alright. Paul Kachelmyer: Page 18 contains some background behind those numbers that I was just talking about. A couple years back we did traffic turning movement counts at most of these intersections along here to see when somebody, you know like say drives on Leslee Curve up to Highway 7. Where they mm. Right? Left? It tums out that about ~ the traffic goes to the east and comes from the east, and about ¼ of the traffic goes and comes from the west. With the neighborhood that is developing south of the Pleasant Acres neighborhood, it would be expected too that the people living down in that neighborhood probably ¼ or so of their trips would be to and from the west. So that was part of how I based my traffic projections on is to, in the future, how much traffic might actually end up using this intersection. The neighborhood that's out there now, the Pleasant Acres and Country Oaks neighborhood. It's been there a long time. There's about 82 houses there. I could be off by one or two from that count. 82 houses and from those 82 houses, plus the church, this 450 vehicles a day is generated. Now people live there know that the area south of there is just going great guns with development. There's about 150 single family home lots platted in the neighborhood south of there, and there's room for at least 100 more, depending on how the platting process goes. It could be, well I don't know more or less, depending upon what size lots they want to build. So there's 82 homes there now. There probably will be essentially about another 250 who would have access to that intersection if it stays open for their daily trips. Now some of those homes will be pretty far south, down by King Road. Their easiest way in and out, depending on where they're going, would be Minnewashta Parkway. If they're headed west though, their shortest and easiest road would be up to Leslee Curve and head west, and again coming from the west, that would be the shortest too. So I didn't figure that any more than like ¼ of the trips from all those new homes would end up going through the 11 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 intersection, and it still works out to like at least 1,000 vehicles a day coming and going from that intersection, whereas now it's 450. So there'd be a significant change. With the accident rate, we'd expect a comparable increase in accidents there too. I'd spoken with three homeowners who live near the intersection. One who lives on the north side of Highway 7, Pipewood Curve, and all three of them told me that they observe about one, an average of one accident a month at that intersection. That's a lot of accidents and the rate would go up if the intersection remains open and the development to the south occurs. I have basically three, the three alternatives that we're talking about doing there at Leslee Curve. If we simply closed the Highway 7 access to Leslee Curve, all the traffic from the neighborhood, all the traffic from the church would have to go over to Minnewashta Parkway to come and go. That'd be about 450 trips a day. There wasn't anybody from the church here when we spoke last and I hadn't spoken with anybody from the church before I came, and that was a big question as to well, what do they prefer and the neighborhood people who talked, spoke of not wanting church traffic through their neighborhood for safety purposes for their children. Things like that. So alternative lB that I show here is the concept that we would close off access of Leslee Curve to the highway, but leave access for the church to the highway, if that was what the church preferred. Now the only reason why we would find this acceptable, we're talking about wanting to limit access and we do want to limit access, is that we'd end up with maybe 150 trips a day using this access for the church as opposed to 1,000 or more trips a day if we leave Leslee Curve open. We see the hazard of that 100 trips a day versus, 150 trips a day versus the 1,000 or so as being you know a proportionate thing that we could live with. However, the church has expressed a strong desire to be connected both to the highway and to the neighborhood. So that actually would not be their preferred alternative. Their preferred alternative more or less would be to you know have the access they have today. Alternative number 2. This right in and right out concept. With this alternative we see the number of potential accidents out there shrinking to practically nothing but there would still be accidents. The amount of trips using the intersection would go way down. It'd go from the present of 450 a day to about half of that. Upon ultimate development to the neighborhood to the south, the usage would probably be on the order of 500 to 600 a day, vehicles in and out of the right turn in and right turn out. Now the thing about right turn in and right turn out is it'd be really cheap to do. It's you know maybe $20,000.00 or so. It would be something that would be in our budget. It would make the intersection safer but a full access wouldn't be you know open to the neighborhood and the church. It would only be essentially half access. The last alternative on page 22, alternative 3 would be to go out on the highway and build turn lanes. With the Pipewood Curve right across the street, we'd actually have to build left turn lanes big enough to also service that. This would be a typical highway access similar to the neighborhoods to the east that have the center left turn lane now. Accident rate would be expected to go way down. Accidents would still occur there. MnDot would feel that this is an acceptable alternative. The only problem is who's going to pay for it. As far as the intersections in this 8 mile stretch of road that we're considering putting left turn lanes at, all the intersections that we're considering putting left turn lanes at have like at least 3 times the traffic volume that this intersection currently has. And have had a history of accidents reported at them. So as far as justifying where we're spending our money, that's where we're going to spend our money and. Mayor Mancino: Would you also, on Leslee Curve, upgrade it to like Sandpiper? Have three lanes. If you did a full intersection. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, we could do that and that'd be fairly cheap. Yeah, if we put in left turn lanes and kept it open, could we make a dedicated. Mayor Mancino: Left turn, right. Straight, da da da. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Yeah, we could do that. 12 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Okay. So alternative 3, funding source is a question? Councilman Berquist: Okay, then 150 to 175,000. Alternative 2 with a raised island, leaving everything exactly as it is, your budget was, what you'd say? Paul Kachelmyer: It'd be say $10,000.00 to $20,000.00. It'd be a cheap thing to do. Councilman Berquist: ... Alternative lB. That looks like a fairly spendy little number. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. That would probably be on the order of like $40,000.00 or so. Mayor Mancino: Oh, excuse me. We're not ready for public comment but we will be soon. Councilman Berquist: And item lA, to close it and abandon it completely? Paul Kachelmyer: Oh, that'd be really cheap. That'd be like $5,000.00. Councilman Berquist: To tear up the existing asphalt? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Councilman Berquist: Curb it. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Little bit of bulldozer work and we're done. As far as funding goes, I'll step just. If new accesses are proposed today onto a highway for city streets, for development, for housing development, whatever. MnDot seeks payment for the costs of the turn lanes that are needed from the developer or from the city. Cities sometimes decide that they will pay and tax back in some way or another the developer. In this case, whether there's an existing street but development is occurring beyond it, well it's another matter. MnDot has to issue permits for somebody to put a new street out to the highway, and when we issue a permit, if it's a new street or new development, we say you don't get the permit unless you build the turn lanes. Where there's a street already there, we don't have that control. But ifa new development were going in, you know they would pay and each property in that development would get assessed enough to pay for it. So from that line of thinking, if it was proposed by the city that we try to build turn lanes out there, my proposal back to the city would be that we would look to the city for a good portion of the cost of doing that. Councilman Berquist: We're unable to charge impact fees, so how in the world could we do that? Mayor Mancino: Didn't you say yes when they asked for these original accesses off TH 7? Paul Kachelmyer: I'm sorry. Mayor Mancino: Didn't MnDot, does it have to go through MnDot when the developer asks for an access off TH 7 to begin with? Paul Kachelmyer: Well unfortunately, now they do. But back 20-30 years ago when these were built. 13 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: They didn't. Paul Kachelmyer: And all the other streets along Highway 7, no. It wasn't. Mayor Mancino: I'm just trying to shift it back to you, as you can tell. Paul Kachelmyer: Well you're right. If we had had the review process in place now that we, or then that we have now, this wouldn't be an issue. I guess I'm done and again I'll be happy to, any items I didn't cover, please ask. Mayor Mancino: Okay. First I'll ask council members, do you have any questions? General questions at this point before we start with public. Concerns or comments. Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: Help me understand something. Okay, from a safety standpoint. You're basically taking the neighborhood, let's say the first neighborhood east, okay, which is according to your numbers, servicing around 1,065 trips, okay. And under your proposal you're funneling all of those 1,065 trips to one primary intersection and you're creating a secondary partial intersection. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: In the next neighborhood to the west, you're taking an area which is, according to your counts, generating 1,060 trips a day. And you're funneling those 1,060 trips to three full intersections. Then I go west more and under your proposal, you're basically taking, now let's see. If I'm understanding your numbers right, you have Minnewashta Parkway at 1,800 trips and Church Road at 1,900 trips. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: And you'd add 450 trips to that. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: To one primary intersection. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: Yet I, I mean I'm seeing huge disparities here in relationship to traffic volumes and intersection treatment, yet I'm not seeing any disparity in intersection treatment. Do you understand my question? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: Why? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, Minnewashta Parkway obviously is 3,700 trips a day coming from the cross street. That totally dwarfs all the others. Councilman Senn: But you're not doing anything to do deal with it other than to create a larger traffic jam on Minnewashta Parkway. 14 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Right. At some point a signal light will probably go in at Minnewashta Parkway. Councilman Senn: At some point? Mayor Mancino: Yeah, what does that mean? Councilman Senn: I mean you know, in my lifetime or somebody else's? Paul Kachelmyer: Traffic would, and this will really surprise you and probably not please you, but we do expect that traffic at that intersection, on the crossroad, will about double based on development of the area that's projected. When that point is reached, a signal light would meet our warrants for justification be put in. Mayor Mancino: And what is that? 8,000? Are you saying it's at 4,500 now? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Right, roughly double. You know 7,000, 8,000. That's counting on traffic volume on Highway 7 also increasing during the future. Councilman Senn: Well, I mean I effectively take and look at what you're suggesting we do and I have a real hard time in my mind rationalizing that this is going to make this a safer road. And the reason I have that problem is it seems to me all you're doing is, is taking a whole bunch of people and putting them in one place. Doing nothing to effectively make the access easier or safer, which is going to do nothing more than amount to, excuse me, frustration and tension levels and people zooming in and out and it seems to me you may end up with a worse situation. Paul Kachelmyer: The first two neighborhoods, east of Minnewashta Parkway, we do attempt to make the remaining intersections there as safe as possible. Adding mm lanes. Widening out the intersections. Those numbers coming and going from those streets are you know far lower than at Minnewashta Parkway. Those numbers are very acceptable numbers of trips to be able to handle by a cross street, if it's a safely designed cross street leading up to the highway. At Minnewashta Parkway, that's another issue. If we propose to close Leslee Curve access and all that traffic is funneled over to Minnewashta Parkway, which already has a lot of traffic on it, you're absolutely right. It will get more congested and be harder to get in and out of. Now there's this quandary regarding, Minnewashta Parkway's a main collector road. It's purpose is to gather all the moderate trip traffic from the neighborhoods that are developing and will continue to develop, and it goes and connects to Highway 7. Just the same as the more larger roads that presently connect to Highway 7 to the east have signal lights at them. Eventually when that cross road gets enough traffic on it to warrant a signal light, a signal light goes in. Along Highway 7 between Highway 41 and St. Bonifacius there's only two points where we see a signal light going in in the future. One is most likely at Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road, and the other is down at County Road 13, which is Rolling Acres Road and Smithtown Road which is proposed as part of this project. Councilman Senn: You're going to have a signal there? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes, a signal light go in. Down at County Road 13, which is Rolling Acres Road and Smithtown Road, meeting Highway 7. That intersection right now has about twice the volume of traffic that Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road has, and that's why it's warranted to get a signal light at it. 15 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Audience... Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: Back up to the two neighborhoods further to the east and I'd like to kind of go back to my question on that. I mean why, I mean how do you say that effectively one group of 1,065 traffic movements require three full intersections and the other one requires one? Paul Kachelmyer: Very good question. Very reasonable. Especially when there's many more access points today than what we're proposing. If a new development were to go in that would generate 1,000 trips a day, we would typically seek one access point for that development. It just so happens that the Minnewashta Heights neighborhood has five there now, and three out of the five are working pretty good. And we could go overboard and propose to close one more out of the five, bring it down to two, but we don't see a reason now to do that. We think that if the three out of the five remain, that it won't impede traffic flow on Highway 7, primarily because there is that left mm lane there, for all three of those access points. If there wasn't a left mm lane for all three of those and we had to look at spending $200,000.00 per site to add mm lanes, we wouldn't be proposing to add three left mm lanes for $600,000.00. In the neighborhood to the east, Sandpiper, Oriole, Washta Bay Road, it was proposed that well why don't we close Sandpiper and leave the two access points on either end open. And if those were good access points on either end, that was a suggestion we probably would have pursued. But the access point at Oriole is really, really just a real unsafe intersection. We see it as and so we don't propose leaving that open as a full access. Open as a half access so the neighborhood that that serves get essentially 1 ½ accesses for the neighborhood. The other neighborhood has three. That's twice as many. Yeah, that is a disparity. The number of vehicles that we anticipate using Sandpiper and Oriole though are well within what we feel are acceptable levels. Councilman Senn: Then the last question is, it seems.., being designed here is more the designed to fit a budget than a design to fit ultimate traffic or safety concerns. Paul Kachelmyer: There's some truth to that. We definitely have limited funds. If we didn't have limited funds, we'd go in and just build brand new access points where we feel that they'd work best. But we don't have that option. We definitely have a budget. The streets are laid out. They're there. If it was a new development going in, we'd do different. We wouldn't build them where they are. So we're using what's there. This we feel is the best we can come up with. Mayor Mancino: Any other council questions at this point? Councilman Engel. Councilman Engel: Yeah. Before we get started with this, I just want to, you probably already thought of this. Are we going to have some sort of a referee way to go through this? I think everybody's going to want to have a say. Say take from east to west so we can digest. Mayor Mancino: That's what I said. That's what we're going to do. We're going to go from east to west. Councilman Engel: From east to west. I just didn't know if we had had that decided on yet. Mayor Mancino: Yep. 16 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Berquist: One quick point. Two quick points. The Fir Tree Lane one. I mean originally I was looking at Fir Tree Lane and I thought, it's far enough removed from the, from any other intersection so as not to cause a problem. Now you've mentioned something in your discussion about head on's and that was relative to the road on the other side. Was the Freeman Park Road or? Paul Kachelmyer: Shorewood Oaks. Councilman Berquist: Shorewood Hills. So I, honestly I never looked at, what's the distance between those two? Paul Kachelmyer: It's about 150 feet, and if we were. Councilman Berquist: 100 and what? Paul Kachelmyer: 150 feet. And ideally to be a safe, a really safe distance separating the two, it should be more like 600 to 800 feet. Councilman Berquist: Well that's 150. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Berquist, here. Here is Shorewood. Is it to the east and here is Fir Tree. Councilman Berquist: Right. So he says ideally it'd be 600. There's hardly one of these that's going to be 600. Well that's alright. So that was the issue at Fir Tree. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: I'm looking at it as being relatively out there and alone and away from any distractions and yet with the left mm, people are saying geez, somebody's at me... Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Part of it, the map doesn't show it but there is a curve in the road there and that contributes to just one more thing that a driver has to take in. Councilman Berquist: One second quick question here. In looking at the counts, you're advocacy is to increase Sandpiper, I mean you virtually double Sandpiper. You go from 7, from 340 to 710 if your numbers are right. The next highest is Arbor at about a 75% increase. I received a letter from an individual that advocated re-opening of 64th Street out onto TH 41. Did you look at that at all? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. I spoke on the phone with that person. Actually that's a position that we could, would be willing to pursue. However we would look at re-opening it as only a right mm in only, with that 64th then becoming a one way street down to the neighborhood. And that would reduce, you know somebody who's got to take a left mm from Highway 7 onto Sandpiper, this right mm from Highway 41 down to the neighborhood would accomplish the same movement. I did some checking into why that street was closed off and there's probably people in this room who know far more about it than I do. I think it was, well it was back before the SuperAmerica and the little strip mall there on the comer was built, and apparently it was a tremendously debated item regarding all this new traffic for business and the traffic for the neighborhood and the ultimate result was that it got built the way it got built, which was the access to the neighborhood was closed off and so the neighborhood does not have any business traffic through it but then the neighborhood can't use the business access that's there. The 64th Street entrance that's there 17 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 would be a real bad position to have a full access intersection, or even in a bad position to have a right in and a right out, because it's the right out movement would also be fairly unsafe. But the. Councilman Berquist: ...to the business. Paul Kachelmyer: Relative to the business, plus relative to the fact that there's a real steep uphill grade there and, but a car turning in a steep downhill grade, that's fine. That's not unsafe, a steep downhill grade. They just go where they need to go. So if the City wished for us to pursue that, we could pursue that. There are no plans to upgrade that portion of Highway 41 in the immediate future, but as part of this year 2000 project, we actually could go in and build the turn lane that'd be necessary for that. Something I absolutely don't know about though is I think that road has been turned back into kind of a trail? And I don't know what would need to be done pavement wise and MnDot probably wouldn't have the funding to pay for that work. Mayor Mancino: We'll have staff talk on that in just a minute. Thank you. Charles, would you like to talk a little bit on 64th Street. Give us a little history and then will you end by telling what are your expectations for Council tonight. To pass this and give the blessing, etc. Charles Folch: Okay. With regard to 64th Street, I myself do not have the full history of what went on there. I can tell you in it's current condition there is a trail there now. Not only would the road have to be constructed, and there would be a cost associated with that, but I believe there is also a right-of-way issue where there would have to be acquisition to put that corridor back in there if you want to do so. But at this point I don't have any other background on what transpired discussion wise when that development with the mall, the strip mall and the SuperAmerica went in. Mayor Mancino: At one time it was actually used? It looks too narrow. It looks too steep. Charles Folch: Well apparently there was a connection at one time. I don't know how much traffic used that access but there was an access there. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Charles Folch: In terms of tonight, I guess I certainly don't want to speak for Paul. I know they would like to continue to move on with their process of decision making and design with respect to the plans for the project but I guess a lot of it will depend on the, how much consensus is reached tonight with the public regarding these access closures. If there's some issues that come up that you deem, or staff deems would require further study or investigation in order to make an informed decision, then certainly we would probably want to reserve the right to extend time for that purpose. But I guess tonight, well basically taking a step back. When this was first brought to you three or so months ago we really did not have a whole lot of public at that meeting so it is really nice to see that we do have a turn out of folks here tonight so that the Council can get a feel for what is the mood of these neighborhoods on these proposed closures so I think tonight can be used more as information gathering. If there is concrete consensus, then I think we can move forward. If there's not, then I think there's some more homework that probably needs to be done. Mayor Mancino: Okay, and Paul. 18 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Yep, that's real fine with me. I do view the accesses that we're talking about as kind of three separate neighborhoods and perhaps one, two, out of the three you have agreement on. Another you want, you know if it works out that way, it'd be nice to at least resolve what could be resolved tonight. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. And again you'll be on standby to answer any questions. Let's start from the east, Oriole Avenue. Anyone wishing to get up and make comments to the Council specifically on that avenue, and not that you can't talk about any others but let's just start there and try and focus comments as we go down. Councilman Senn: ... by neighborhood, otherwise I think you're going to make it real difficult for the people. Mayor Mancino: To get up and down, okay. That makes sense. And if you could state your name and address. Andy Brisley: My name is Andy Brisley, 2811 North Manor Road. On the map it looks like Sandpiper. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Andy Brisley: I have a couple questions for Paul, and then I don't know if I address them to you or however you want to do this but I have a couple concerns. Councilmember Senn made an astute observation of you're doubling the traffic on the road that I live on. Basically I'll ask you, how you contacted anybody because I wasn't contacted and this road is going to be double so you made a lot of mention of the people that you've contacted. I know that both of our neighbors weren't contacted so I'd like to know what is your requirement for contacting people. Also, have you thought about reducing the speed in the area, on Highway 7 between certain portions of it? That's another option. And I'll take advantage of being first, sorry Minnewashta Heights and Minnewashta Manor, or Lows but we've got a way that you can save money for those projects by leaving ours alone. Just trying to present you guys some options here. Again, you made mention of the Minnewashta Heights area has left turn lanes. We've got the left turn lanes as well. I don't know how this can be safer than what is currently there. What you do by taking the left turn away at Oriole is basically you eliminate our options that we can make as drivers based off of traffic conditions and weather conditions. So you're increasing the chance of accidents in front of my house. Don't want that. Also there's the wetlands right around Sandpiper and what effect will this have on the wetlands. We enjoy that area so anything else from Minnewashta Manor area? Come on up. Thank you. Mayor Mancino: Thank you very much. Paul, do you want to start by saying first how did you notify the notification of residents from MnDot. Paul Kachelmyer: Okay. Back in October, early October we had a public meeting, information public meeting on the entire 8 mile long stretch of road. Before that meeting we talked with the City of Chanhassen regarding what we proposed. My understanding is that you included a notice of that meeting and what was proposed, the type of work that was proposed in your city newsletter that was sent out. I actually never saw that so I'm not sure what went in that. But then in the local newspaper for the area, the Lakeshore Weekly News, I contacted the editor of that newspaper and he published a big article about the project, also before the October 2nd public information meeting. And then from the city we got a list of all the property owners from this entire neighborhood. From the entire Minnewashta Heights neighborhood. Well from this entire neighborhood. Oriole, Sandpiper, Washta Bay and the streets behind that. We sent 19 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 out direct mailing to every registered property owner informing them of the public information meeting in October, plus the City Council meeting that was later that month. Now it tums out about 2 dozen or so of those letters came back to me and we had addressed them to who was the current property owner, it turns out, that changed. So when I spoke with the city, the courts people back a few weeks ago, and they were going to send out notices for this meeting tonight, we talked about that and I believe that they decided that they would list a name or current resident, which would have helped in some cases. Mayor Mancino: One for tonight? Andy Brisley: Actually what happened, I'm also... Mayor Mancino: Okay, and that's for tonight's meeting? Audience... Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Paul Kachelmyer: Our intention was to try every means that we reasonably had available to us to inform the public of what we were talking about and you know what you hear is what happens. There's always. Mayor Mancino: So that's why there weren't too many people at the other meeting, that we had earlier? Paul Kachelmyer: No, everybody from the first three streets, area, got the same mailing as they would have gotten two weeks ago, with the exception that there were probably maybe a dozen or so residents in there who didn't get it because they weren't the current resident so out of, I think there's about 100 homes. Maybe 90% of them did get the notice. Plus there was the newspaper and there was the city newsletter and you know we, it's tough figuring out the best way to inform people. Mailings are also expensive and the next neighborhood over, Minnewashta Parkway, we initially were talking about just closing off Cypress. The affects of that were less than the effects of closing off also Fir Tree. So we sent notices out to everyone on Cypress but not to the rest of the neighborhood out there. We relied on the newspaper article in the city publication for that. And so definitely there were people in that neighborhood who didn't see the, you know didn't read the city newsletter and didn't see the newspaper who didn't know about it. Mayor Mancino: Second question. What about speed limits on Highway 7? Have you thought about reducing those? Changing those also, in pursuit of safety. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. We do not anticipate lowering the speed limit on Highway 7. That's a question that gets asked often. Not just about Highway 7, but about all other highways. Our traffic people talk about drivers on roads. Whether it's a state highway, a county road, a city street, or whatever. People tend to drive the speed that they feel is the appropriate speed for that road. And so if somebody feels that the appropriate speed for a straightaway section of Highway 7 is 60 mph and we put up a sign that says 40, there's going to be some people traveling 40 and some people traveling 60 and that tends to be a really unsafe situation. So the appropriate speed limit for Highway 7, due to it's design, is you know 50-55 mph and whatever it's posted now, I think there's one stretch where it's actually posted just 50 and the rest is 55. That's what it will stay. Mayor Mancino: And what is it posted, because I can't remember. I live close to TH 7 and use it all the time. What is it posted between TH 41 and Oriole? Is that posted 50 or what is that? 20 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: I'm actually not sure. Mayor Mancino: Okay, is that posted 50? Okay, thank you. Right after the light it is, okay. The next question was, impact of wetlands. How will the wetlands on Sandpiper be impacted and obviously from what I remember, as you widen Sandpiper to allow the three lanes, the right out, the straight and mm left and then the right in, you're going to go into the wetland. Paul Kachelmyer: We would, MnDot typically tries to do everything possible to avoid working in wetlands. For one thing it's expensive. And for another thing we just, our policy is to try to avoid wetlands if there are other options, and so we would look at widening Sandpiper to the, not necessarily equal distance on both sides of the existing road but maybe all to one side. All to the west where there isn't a wetland. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Was there one other question that you had? I'm sorry. Audience: ... question but a comment. Mayor Mancino: Okay, well then come on up please. Bob Bushway: Hi, I'm Bob Bushway. I live at 2721 Sandpiper Trail and I don't know if you looked at the number of homes in our neighborhood back there but I went out and counted them today and there's 112 homes in that neighborhood. And if you close Oriole, you're looking at approximately ~ of a mile access for those people that live way down behind the mall there and I don't know what you've looked at that. Or I think there needs to be some more looking into on the 64th Street. Possibly re-opening that so there is not so much traffic coming in that way. That's about all I have. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Can we hear some other comments on 64th Street? Please come forward. Frank Janecky: Well I...talk about Oriole. Mayor Mancino: Sure. Frank Janecky: My name is Frank Janecky at 2661 Orchard Lane. I'm right in the middle between Sandpiper and Oriole. I also drive a school bus for Minnetonka School District. I spend a good part of my life on Highway 7. Right in this area. I had the privilege of talking with Paul earlier in the week and he explained some things to me. I have problems, for some of the same reasons Paul did, just creating more traffic up and down my street. But I do think that's secondary to the safety aspects of Highway 7, so in that sense I'm in accord here. But having it turn left off of TH 7 onto Oriole to get to my home. Right at the time when Highway 7 goes from four lanes to two lanes is a very, very dangerous situation. I mean I'm making that turn probably 4 or 5 times a day and I'm always looking in my read view mirror waiting for a rear ender. Someday it will happen. And the trucks that come out of that area, off that light at Highway 41. They're up to 50 by the time they get to that left turn lane. So they are, everybody races to get first onto Highway 7 before it turns into two lanes instead of four lanes. So it's a disaster. The left turn lane that I have to use is only, will probably accommodate 2 or 3 cars. So again I agree that left turn lane is a problem waiting to happen. But I think there might be a better solution because I see the pressure on Sandpiper just kind of transferring this to other problems. At the light at 41 and 7, there's a big yellow sign that says that the lanes are going to merge to the left. Indicating to the westbound traffic. 21 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: It says right lane closes. Frank Janecky: Yeah. Mayor Mancino: It says right lane closes. Frank Janecky: Right lane will be closed in 1,000 feet, something like that. Mayor Mancino: And it seems like it's just the opposite. It seems like the right lane stays open and the left one is closed. Frank Janecky: Well that's the whole point. You're telling all of this traffic to get over to the left, and then I'm going and I'm going to make a left hand mm, they're following me. And the next thing you know I'm hitting my break lights and I'm showing them the left mm signal as quickly as I can and they still don't pay any attention. Then they've got to move over to the right and by this time there's all kinds of 60 mph traffic over in the regular lane so it's a problem. But I think one of the things that might be done, instead of extending the median further west, stopping left turn traffic. Mayor Mancino: Yes. Frank Janecky: Create a longer left turn lane while Highway 7 is still four lanes. So shorten the median. If you follow me. Mayor Mancino: Yep. Frank Janecky: So in other words, people that want to turn left there can get into a left turn lane when it's still four lane traffic. That will solve the, and it will also make a longer left turn lane for people like me that want to turn there. It'd probably be safer to get into that lane. And probably also keep the traffic over on the right side, which is going to be the thru traffic. Mayor Mancino: I think that's a good. Frank Janecky: So that left turn lane is a problem. It really is. But I think what I'm talking about should be done now, not two years from now. Somebody's going to get nailed there. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. That's a good solution. I've antidotally, because I certainly don't travel it as much as everyone else there but I went and made many, many trips in the last two weeks and found that it was actually easier for me to turn left there at Oriole than it was at Sandpiper. Because I had stopped at the light at TH 41 and everyone was going a lot slower. If the sign had been differently and it didn't say right lane, yeah. So what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Frank Janecky: And ifI may, people that hit the red light coming westbound on TH 7, are at 50 mph before, by the time they get to Oriole. If they go through Highway 41 on a green, oh. There's no end to it. But I still think that the traffic congestion that would pile up at Sandpiper, because you're going to have to have a longer left turn lane there, is going to be a problem so if you can get my traffic off of TH 7 as quickly and safely as possible. 22 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: ... are we going to have a build-up on, going west on TH 7 at the light if TH 41 is a red light, what's the term, what's the transportation term? Stacking yeah. Thank you. Will we have a stack on the, going east on TH 7 if you stop for the light and you shorten the median for the left mm lane? That would be my question. Paul Kachelmyer: Okay, the left mm lane that exists out there at Oriole right now is way, way substandard. It was, you know what could be squeezed in with the amount of space that was there. I could do some checking to see if it could be lengthen some but it could never be lengthen to the, to what we would see as a standard design for a left mm lane. Audience... Mayor Mancino: Wait, wait. Can you hold on? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, a standard left mm lane, on a straight away stretch of road takes about 500 feet of lane to be constructed. On a curve stretch of road, it can end up taking more due to the way things go on. I would have to look at that further to see whether or not it could be done but what was done there was what was done in the past by somebody who felt that that was the best that could be squeezed in. Frank Janecky: If I might offer. That's a wide median so to create a longer left mm lane, which would be on the north side of the median, wouldn't be too difficult. All you'd have to do is make the median a little bit less width, that's all. Mayor Mancino: It's certainly something to look at. Councilman Engel: How long is that mm lane now? Paul Kachelmyer: I don't know. Frank Janecky: You can't get more than 2 cars, or 3 cars in there at the most. And then they're out in the thru area. Paul Kachelmyer: A problem that wouldn't go away though, if a left mm lane. There are two problems that wouldn't go away if the left mm lane were to remain at that site. Is Highway 7 is two lanes headed west that merge down to one lane. And the merge occurs right in that very stretch of road. And what we find, you know with highways, with high speed traffic, driving at night, bad weather conditions, is the more things that a driver has to take in in one place, the more the likelihood of accidents. So let's say down at Sandpiper. Sandpiper's on a straight away stretch of road with no other streets around it. Everybody driving on that road east or west has got a very clear and steady view of what's going on ahead of them. For somebody to pull in a left mm lane there, there shouldn't be a traffic hazard for somebody pulling into a left mm lane at Sandpiper. Whereas somebody pulling into a left mm lane down at Oriole, there's a whole bunch of other decisions that other drivers are making right at that point and we see that as essentially yeah, an ac waiting to happen. Frank Janecky: Well Mayor if I may, one comment. My whole point was to get the left mm, left turning traffic into that left lane while it's still a four lane highway. Well before all of this other traffic starts to get up their speed and head west. In other words, they're out of the way and to me that sounds like, I'd feel a lot safer doing it that way. Thank you. 23 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Paul Kachelmyer: The existing left mm lane there also has one other problem that can't be avoided as long as it stays where it is. Due to the curve in the road on Highway 7 at that point, when somebody gets into that left mm lane, the person in the mm lane doesn't realize it but the ongoing traffic, the traffic that's headed east on Highway 7. The car in the mm lane is at an angle. The cars on Highway 7 are going straight but the headlights of the car in the mm lane are shining directly at the person who's headed east on Highway 7, giving the impression that a car is actually approaching them in their lane of traffic. Mayor Mancino: It looks like you're approaching a head on. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Whereas down at say Sandpiper, on a straight away stretch of road, when somebody gets into a left mm lane there, it still looks to the oncoming traffic as if somebody's still not in their lane. Councilman Berquist: But we're so close budgetarily that minor realignment of roadways are not within the scope of possibility? Paul Kachelmyer: Oh, in some cases that would be, yeah. Realigning a road can get really expensive in some cases, and maybe not too expensive in others. We'd have to look at you know individual cases. Councilman Berquist: I mean from what the gentleman that was just here said, it made a lot of sense. It sounds like you... Paul Kachelmyer: Right. Something like that might actually be you know a $20,000.00 project, whereas say realigning a road to create a left mm lane at someplace like Oriole, we actually end up. Or not Oriole, excuse me, Leslee Curve. We actually end up having to work on like a half mile of road. It's way more than a person would think. Councilman Berquist: You pointed out the negativity's of what he's saying but you're not dismissing them out of, I saw you doing some extensive note taking. Something that you're going to explore. Paul Kachelmyer: He made a lot of points. Councilman Engel: What does it take to light it? If you did extend that mm lane back. Paul Kachelmyer: Light it? There's a light there now at the intersection itself. Councilman Engel: ... so that people coming from the west would see that they're clearing not getting... Paul Kachelmyer: Lighting is something that's definitely done more and more on highways and you know it's a case by case basis. Lighting presents a hazard in itself because people hit light posts. So you know it's something that I could look into if it were the case that we would end up leaving that. That is probably, Oriole is the most, what we view as the most hazardous intersection along that whole stretch of road. That is one that we very much want to see restricted. We don't want to see a left turn lane stay there. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Do you want to come up please? 24 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Court MacFarlane: ...just one historical note on that. The median was extended by MnDot, I don't know how many years ago, to prevent people from making, eastbound traffic coming along Highway 7, preventing them making a left mm onto Lake Linden Drive. So it was at one time shorter. Mayor Mancino: I'm sorry, say that again please. Court MacFarlane: Eastbound traffic on Highway 7 used to make a left mm on Lake Linden Drive. MnDot extended the median to prevent that from happening. Mayor Mancino: Got it. Got it, okay. Court MacFarlane: And I don't know how many years ago that happened but it used to be much shorter than it is now so there was a lot more room. Mayor Mancino: Okay, which is on the west side of the strip mall there because it... on Linden Drive you have to, you can't get on TH 7. You have to turn east and go on the frontage road and then get onto TH 41 at the light. Court MacFarlane: ... still open there but I think that's one of the ones that.., that's one of the ones they're going to close. The reason they extended the median in the first place was to prevent people from making left turns. Mayor Mancino: That makes sense, thank you. Gary Reed: I'm Gary Reed. Just a little insight on this West 64th Street and the shopping center. When that went in, the people that were building the shopping center were required to close West 64th Street or move it and we own the property just south of the shopping center. So we had many meetings, etc and we decided the best thing to do was just to cul-de-sac you know West 64th Street and close it down. And now it is vacated. Mayor Mancino: Are you glad you did it? Gary Reed: Well it's, you know everybody's happy to be on a cul-de-sac, you know. A lot less traffic back through the neighborhood streets and the streets there weren't that good. They were narrow and curvy and hilly and so we did get a lot of traffic, thru traffic that would turn there and take a shortcut around that intersection and go down through West 64th Street at that time so the neighbors were all concerned about that. Funneling more of that traffic through there but my understanding is they wouldn't, the State wouldn't let them have that intersection anymore that close to the new one that they were proposing to put in. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, that was probably the position taken at the time. Gary Reed: So at that time they were looking for other options and one was to run it directly through my property on the south side and zig zag it through there, which wasn't an option for me. So anyway that's the way the thing ended up. I don't know whether there would be an option to put a left in. Mayor Mancino: A right in, right out. 25 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Gary Reed. Or a right in, yeah. Right out there. With that other intersection so close. Mayor Mancino: What are the guidelines Paul, for access close to each other on TH 417 I mean TH 41's an arterial, isn't it? Or a collector. Paul Kachelmyer: Highway 7 is a principle arterial. It's a road that goes long distance. You can go out to western Minnesota on Highway 7. Interstate highways are principle arterials. On a road like Highway 7 we would like to see local accesses, typically not closer than a half mile apart. That's certainly not the case for the existing neighborhoods but in newly developed areas like say when we get out to Minnetrista, those areas are developing. That's what we're trying to achieve out there and then further west from St. Bonifacius the same thing. This West 64th where it is now, in relation to the entrance to the SuperAmerica and those other stores there, that's very close. But what we found is that, you know right tums in tend to be a pretty safe movement to be made and that's why I feel that we could allow that movement there. The right mm out is, would not be a good thing, both for the upward incline and the fact that all these other people have just taken a right mm out from the SuperAmerica and they're trying to accelerate and they're going up a hill and Highway 41 now has a, I think maybe 12,000 or so vehicles a day on it. 10-12,000 and that's going to go up. Highway 41 is a highway. It's just not as high a level of highway as Highway 7. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Gary Reed: There's a lot more development going in on Highway 41 you know. There's how many hundreds of homes being developed there that's going to be dumped out on TH 41 and so you're looking at a lot higher traffic levels using TH 41. So we might consider that too in the future, which would be in the near future I think. The West 64th Street was vacated during that deal and then an easement was placed on that for the bike path and the maintenance, easement maintenance for the manholes and sewer and water and so on, so. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Anyone else in this neighborhood? Please, or come back a second time if you'd like, from what you've heard. If you have any other additional comments or questions, that's fine. Howard Schmidt: Yeah my name's Howard Schmidt. I live on Sandpiper Trail. One question I'd like to ask him is how long did you make the left mm going off of Highway 7 at Sandpiper Trail? I've already come down there where I stopped. You've got the yellow bars going across on Highway 7 like this. Can you enter them? Can you come off and pull off? Now I've had a State Patrol say no, you can't do that. Paul Kachelmyer: A person's not supposed to legally drive in that area. And. Mayor Mancino: What does it mean then? What do the bars mean? Paul Kachelmyer: A double yellow stripe is a, you're not supposed to cross over it. On a straight away stretch of highway, where there's double yellow stripes, there's no passing so these double yellow stripes that they put in, you know mm lane areas, have the same legal affect. A person's not supposed to drive into them. With the anticipated increase in traffic volume, if we consolidated these intersections, we can make the mm lane longer. For instance an average mm lane I mentioned, the whole distance is about 500 feet. I have a project down in Prior Lake where we're making the whole mm lane distance about 1,000 feet. 26 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Because it's on a curve? Paul Kachelmyer: No, because we anticipate a heck of a lot of cars waiting to mm. It's at a signal light. You can do that as opposed to making it a dual left mm which. Howard Schmidt: There's a... lot of people making a left mm into Sandpiper Trail, and if you're going to... on the main drag... Paul Kachelmyer: Restriping, that would not be a problem. Mayor Mancino: Okay, I'm sorry. What is it right now? Paul Kachelmyer: It's probably striped as a 300 foot long mm lane, plus 180 feet of you know angled in, which makes about 480 feet. That's almost 500. We could easily add a few hundred feet to that and so that when our project's all done, it would be striped that way. A1 Will: Hi. My name's A1 Will. I live on Sandpiper Trail. I think a lot of the problem is the steady stream of traffic. There's no break at all. Whether you want to make a left or want to make a right out in the morning, you're really bucking the traffic. And to me one of the smart things would be to spend the money, put a light up at Minnewashta Boulevard, create a break further down the line so people could actually go right and get out on that road. Another thing. If you look at the accident stats on page 5, he seems to have a lot more problem west of Minnewashta Boulevard than east. In-between TH 41. So I think the littles that you need to do in that area, and move your finances and budget to the area where you need it would probably do best for all. Mayor Mancino: So I'm sorry, you're saying, you think there should be a light at Minnewashta Parkway? A1 Will: No doubt. And that would create a break for those other two neighborhoods down the line. In the morning going eastbound towards work, to get out on that road, because if you're at that, like Sandpiper Trail now from 6:00 to 8:00 in the morning, it's steady. There's no break at all. But there's no light all way back to St. Boni. Mayor Mancino: And we could say do a traffic study and tell us if we need a light and already Paul has said that according to MnDot, a light is not needed until we get twice as much traffic, and we have gone through this with MnDot on Highway 5 and Galpin and other roads too. A1 Will: Well I think it's needed. I think it's needed now. I mean that's only going to grow but it's also going to alleviate another problem. Like I said, you could take that money that you're going to spend to come up with all these concoctions, when a light back at Minnewashta Parkway would at least create natural breaks in the traffic where people could get out in the morning. And those intersections, the two close in ones would be less you know, dangerous. The left turn lane going into Sandpiper, I mean do you ever stand close to a railroad train when it goes by you and you feel like you're being swished? The left turn lane is so narrow going into Sandpiper, that would really have to be widened to make anything safe. I almost feel safer, living on Sandpiper, sometimes to take the first one while the traffic's still going slow. Mayor Mancino: Yeah, I understand that. 27 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 A1 Will: I think you had the same experience, yeah. Thanks. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Anyone else on this part and then we're going to move west. Paul Kachelmyer: I can respond to just one or two things. Regarding accidents at Sandpiper and taking a left. I checked 5 years worth of accident records, and again these are the flawed accident records of the Department of Public Safety. There have been no reported accidents in 5 years at Sandpiper, which is about what I expected to find because it is a. Mayor Mancino: You're telling us which is, it's relatively safe. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Yes, it's a very safe design. It's a straight stretch of road with the traffic lanes divided and the left mm there. As far as how to design a road, if we were to build that stretch of road and that intersection now, we'd do it the way I'm proposing in the year 2000. Put in a right mm lane and widen Sandpiper but we'd leave Highway 7 the same. Mayor Mancino: Okay. But and we could extend the left mm lane though? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: Lengthen it a bit, okay. Councilman Berquist: The gentleman, I mean from what I heard he was suggesting was perhaps a little, I think he was saying we could put a stop light at, a semaphore in at Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road and Highway 7 and forget everything else. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. Councilman Berquist: I don't know how MnDot looks at things but was that ever. Paul Kachelmyer: Oh, okay. Many, many times a year MnDot receives requests to put signal lights in and MnDot's always reluctant to and there's a couple reasons why. One is, it's obviously if there's signal lights along a road, traffic on the highway has to stop. That slows down traffic. If somebody, you know people get on highways and they use those highway for long distance travel and the more signal lights along that road, the longer their long distance travel is. So just from that point of view, we don't want to put any more signal lights out than we have to. But then it tums out that from an accident point of view, most people wouldn't realize this but signal lights tend to cause accidents. Studies that have been done comparing all the signalized and non-signalized intersections in the state, on state highways, have found that the accident rates at signalized intersections is about double at what the unsignalized intersections, which means that for every million vehicles that travel through that intersection, at a signalized intersection there's twice as many accidents as every million vehicles that travel through another intersection that isn't signalized. That goes contrary to what most people would think. The concept had been raised a number of years back though was that the accidents wouldn't be as severe. That out at regular highway crossings, people get you know right angle accidents. They're killed. At signalized intersections that shouldn't be occurring that you'd get a lot of rear ending accidents. Fender benders that aren't nice but you know, nobody's getting killed. Well it tums out that's not the case either. The statewide statistics show that when the accident rate doubles at signalized intersections, the number of severe accidents stays the same. So that if there's twice as many. 28 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: That's counter intuitive. Paul Kachelmyer: It certainly is but it tums out, signals, there's a lot of people who don't stop for signal lights and it only has to happen you know once a month, one every two months or so, and somebody gets banged into and after a period of time, somebody's going to get killed and there have been people killed for instance at Minnewashta, or excuse me, at Highway 41 and Highway 7. And the little dot map that I've got on page 5 where the accidents are occurring, well down there at TH 41 there's more dots than anywhere else, which is. Mayor Mancino: I saw that. Paul Kachelmyer: Which is really typical. If I made a dot map for all the rest of Highway 7 going out to St. Boni and all the way into 494, it'd be the same case. The dots would all be congregated at the signalized intersections. So for safety purposes, we're really also reluctant to put in a signal light. The concept that it would create a gap in traffic flow so that a person can get out onto the highway on side streets, well that's absolutely correct. That would be the effect and it would make it easier for people on side streets to get out onto the highway. That's part of what's considered when there is, you know when it's being looked at to put in a signal light. So that's one of the benefits. But that's not, that's not a benefit enough to have us want to put in the signal light and cause the problems that signal lights bring. Now turns out signal lights are really expensive. Just the poles and the electronics and everything, it's about $200,000.00. And in this case the City of Chanhassen would be expected to pay half of that. But the City of Chanhassen would also be expected to go in and add turn lanes and stuff to Church Road and Minnewashta Parkway, which my guess would be another $150-$200,000.00. So the overall price of putting a signal light in at that intersection would be on the order of $400,000.00. Now we do plan as part of the Year 2000 project, putting a left turn lane in for eastbound Highway 7 to northbound Church Road. That will make that intersection safer. And it's something that would be needed for some day when a signal light would go in anyway. Audience... going in on Rolling Acres. Paul Kachelmyer: It's planned for the year 2000. We have some things to work out with the County, who's expected to foot part of the bill and it hasn't been worked out yet so. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Come on back, then we'll move on. Yes please. Just because it's all going to be taped and we want to make sure we've got. Andy Brisley: Again the name is Andy Brisley. Something I may not have made clear before, and we talked about it. I am the President of Minnewashta Homeowners Association, and we did have a meeting about this. Basically we want to just, we're very opposed to any of the, all these options that are laid out here in this formal proposal. The gentleman that has since left, I thought had a good alternative for Oriole Lane and I guess from the Minnewashta Homeowners Association, I'd urge the Council to not take action tonight until some of these other options are looked at, including reducing the speed in this small area of Highway 7. I mean I've heard a lot of, I heard Paul you say an awful lot of reasons why things can't be done. I guess I'd like you to maybe think out of the box a little bit and maybe how we can do these things and keep everybody happy, so thanks. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Moving westward. Anyone like to come forward and. 29 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Bob Swearingen: I have just a quick question...there were some rumors. Mayor Mancino: Do you want to come up so, you've got to say your name and address and get your vitals. Bob Swearingen: Bob Swearingen from 3530 Maplewood Circle. Were there any questions, I don't think there were, about widening Highway 7 to four lanes? There's been a number of discussions last year about that and that's not currently under proposal at this point, and I guess that was a quick question. Why I didn't want... Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Paul. Paul Kachelmyer: When we started talking about doing a project out here, I've been asked that many times. Mayor Mancino: Or at least widening it to Sandpiper or just going further west. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. The answer I gave a lot of people were not at all happy with that. We have no plans within the next 20 years to widen out Highway 7 to more than it is now. That goes back to this, despite the fact that the State has a huge budget surplus right now and everybody's scampering to figure out to spend that money. MnDot's not going to get a penny of it. To my knowledge. To my knowledge. I'm not... There hasn't been a gas tax increase in 10 years. We, a couple years back had to pretty much lop out, just eliminate about a third of the projects in the entire state that were programmed for road work and part of what a federal law required us to do was that, to come up with essentially a 20 year plan that didn't have us promising to do any more than we could currently afford with our current funding scenario, and based on that, Highway 7's not going to get widened in at least 20 years. Highway 41 also. Quite a number of other roads. The big 35 W job that was talked about, that's not going to happen. Improvements, 494 down by the airport, that's not going to happen. Mayor Mancino: Okay. There's your answer. Dan Stoppel: I'm Dan Stoppel at 3502 Maplewood. One, I would appreciate since I live right on Greenbriar, that had been notified because that would increase traffic but with it shutting down. But I think I've heard over and over again people relating to the fact that at the stop lights there's, it's like a starting block. People just step on the gas. No consideration for other drivers as they merge into one lane. And there only seems to be one common denominator and that is to slow down the traffic. Now how do you do that? You know what are the options of slowing down traffic? ... I live in the last lane exiting off of TH 7 and I drive it two times a day. My wife drives it two times a day. And so I get a chance to see pretty much the people that are exiting TH 7 between TH 41 and Greenbriar. If you think about it, I never really seem to be that many problems since they restriped it, where people seem to get off the road there. Or even getting on if there's some break in traffic. But there's an attitude that seems to develop as soon as they, or the light changes, people are like a race track. Out of the starting blocks. Who can get in front of the other car and it's kind of interesting. I'd be interested to see someone tape that. You know who's got the bigger engine or whatever, I don't know. So it goes right back to slowing down traffic. The guarantee express delivery trucks. That's another problem. They're pushing people down the road. I noticed when that area gets patrolled a little bit heavier, you don't see that happening. And so maybe that's an option. 30 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Just to respond to that. As far as, oh I'm sorry. Councilman Berquist: I just wanted to ask him one quick question, I'm sorry. Can I ask you one quick question? You live on Greenbriar, did you say? Dan Stoppel: Yes. Councilman Berquist: As it stands now you've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 vehicles that come in and out of that road every day. It's proposed that you'll have somewhere in the 270-280 range. No changes to the intersection proposed aside from increasing the turning radiuses for school buses. The note that I made to myself is, no acceleration lane... Is that something that would be advantageous? Completely unnecessary? Somewhere in the middle? Dan Stoppel: Acceleration lane. Councilman Berquist: The traffic's not going to be going left out of there... It's going to be mostly right turning traffic. Dan Stoppel: Well I don't think it's necessary. The only time you need that is because the traffic's so heavy you can't get in and people won't let you in. But it goes back to breaking up the traffic it seems like. Councilman Berquist: Okay. Dan Stoppel: ...question... Councilman Berquist: Well I'm just looking at a map here and seeing if I was reading something wrong. Is there an acceleration lane along there? Audience: Shoulders. Dan Stoppel: Shoulder, yeah. Councilman Berquist: Shoulder? It's not purely, it's not truly a lane? Audience: You can accelerate on it. It's... Councilman Berquist: What if there's a bicyclist on it? Audience: Pardon? Councilman Berquist: What if there's a bicyclist on it? Audience: I haven't seen too many... Councilman Mason: You know what? As much as I ride a bike, if anybody rides a bike on Highway 7, they deserve it. 31 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: That's why we're going to have a trail on Highway 7. On that south side. We're going to get a trail. Councilman Berquist: ... shoulder were to remain there, so in fact there is... and it is being used. Dan Stoppel: That's the way I use it. Councilman Berquist: Had it remain a shoulder, i.e. acceleration lane. Paul Kachelmyer: Regarding the speeds and enforcement. Just like on city streets, I mean the woman I spoke to lived on Dogwood. Wanted the police to come out there on Dogwood and enforce the speed limit on Dogwood. It's the same way with highways. Everybody knows that people speed on highways, and as long as you know a good portion of the population wants to go really fast on roads, or faster than they should, enforcement is really the only tool for slowing people down. And by changing a speed limit to lower than, significantly lower than a bunch of others are going to travel it, you know our experience has been that that creates accidents. It doesn't reduce them. Mayor Mancino: So as a Chanhassen resident, you have to take a pledge that you will not go over any speed limits or else we wouldn't all be here talking about how fast people are going because it's probably US. Paul Kachelmyer: As far as enforcement goes. My understanding is that it's perfectly legal for city police to enforce speed limits on state highways. So if the city wants to tell their police officers to go and spend more time up on that stretch of road, that's an acceptable thing to do. Mayor Mancino: Anyone else? For the rest of Highway 7. Mike Detterman: My name is Mike Detterman. I live on 6211 Barberry Circle. One of the things that I deal with daily is turning on Arbor Lane. The turn lane on Arbor Lane, barring that yellow barred off part, is about 75 feet long. I believe Seamans is going north right at that intersection. That they start that barred off area. And there is a no turn from eastbound Highway 7 onto Seamans because of the curve in the road. But every once in a while you still see one do that. The only marking is the signs on the side. They don't put any no turn markings on the road themselves. So that people can identify that as different than the rest of Highway 7 that's been barred off and turned into turn lanes. One of the things that I'd like to do is extend the turn lane so that I have time to slow down, get out in the main stream to turn on Arbor Lane. And I agree with the same thing. We do need a shoulder that is paved wide enough so that we can get out onto the highway while the traffic is coming. Otherwise you can't get on. Mayor Mancino: And... and that is to, excuse me. Can everybody hear me because I'm not next to the microphone? Paul, that is to be, on this drawing that I have, you will be extending that right turn lane. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: On Arbor. Paul Kachelmyer: We'll be extending a right turn lane on Arbor. I think you were, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're talking about a left turn lane? 32 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mike Detterman: That'd be the left mm lane from westbound to Arbor Lane. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. As long as Seamans was located where it was and still open, we get into the same situation with Fir Tree and Shorewood Oaks Drive. However, we've received approval from the City of Shorewood to close off Seamans so we'll be closing off Seamans. Then we can extend the left mm lane as long as it needs to be. Mike Detterman: That opposing road that they're talking about tearing off Fir Tree from. That road wasn't put in that long ago. When that subdevelopment was built, why wasn't that road aligned with Fir Tree at that time? Paul Kachelmyer: That's a darn good question and I don't know the answer to that. That was, that was not good planning. Mayor Mancino: Shorewood Oaks, I don't know. Paul Kachelmyer: I have to say that it was probably no more than 5 years ago that MnDot really started getting the staffing in it's plan reviews areas to try to prevent that kind of thing from happening in the future. Mayor Mancino: How old is Shorewood Oaks? 5? Mike Detterman: Yeah it's about that. It's within... Councilman Berquist: To add fuel to the fire. If you look at the construction, at the easement right past Shorewood Oaks, right across from Fir Tree, it's got that jog in there that, what is that jog for? Paul Kachelmyer: What page are you looking at? Councilman Berquist: I'm looking at page 13. Look at a lot of different pages. Pages 13. You see Shorewood Oaks, as you're coming west on TH 7 and then you see Fir Tree Avenue. Directly across from Fir Tree Avenue there's that little triangular out dent. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. I think that's a city limits between Chanhassen and Shorewood. Might be that little tiny line there. That little triangle and if that little tiny triangle line was continued straight west, that's where Shorewood is. I don't know. I've looked at maps and looking at where the boundary between Chanhassen and Shorewood is, that's as near as I can tell why that might have been done that way. Councilman Berquist: ... question why would they want that little piece there anyway. Paul Kachelmyer: That's a reasonable question. Mayor Mancino: Anything else Mike? Mike Detterman: Is there a way to align a road with the road across from Fir Tree? Mayor Mancino: Oh, to move Shorewood? 33 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mike Detterman: Well not necessarily move Shorewood but there's a city park right off of Elm Tree there. Does that, I don't have a map with me. Does that line up with the road across? Mayor Mancino: Across from, and it's not quite across either. From Elm Tree right now, just to the west of it, and I don't know how many feet is Freeman Park. And that road and that's going to be closed. Mike Detterman: Okay. Mayor Mancino: So Freeman Park will be closed. Mike Detterman: Cypress was being closed. Mayor Mancino: Cypress is being closed. Fir Tree will be closed. So Shorewood Oaks would stay open. And Dogwood would be moved... Paul Kachelmyer: I should clarify just one thing regarding the Freeman Park entrance. We hope to close it in the year 2000 as part of this project. That may not happen. Shorewood has made a commitment that that road will be closed but it's going to coincide with development of that nursery area right there. And they constantly are going through plans where they don't know whether that development's going to occur 6 months from now or 3 years and 6 months from now. But as part of our year 2000 project, we don't have a commitment to close that yet. Mayor Mancino: So it's on the agenda to close? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: Mike, did we answer all your questions? Mike Detterman: Yes. Mark Rogers: Hi. My name is Mark Rogers. A principal issue I'd like to talk about is Leslee Curve. I live at 3851 Leslee Curve. And first of all a suggestion on the notification. It seems like the most effective means would be to plant a sign next to each of the exits. There's going to be a hearing to talk about closing this road, you know January whatever. Mayor Mancino: Good idea. Paul Kachelmyer: That's a good idea. Mayor Mancino: That's what we do for on planning. Mark Rogers: First of all on TH 41. A brief comment with the Oriole thing. I agree that that's a tense intersection and with apologies to that neighborhood, you know. It wouldn't bother me to see Oriole closed but I think in general the signage or the lane draws or something has to, should be better about that merge from two to one. I mean you're always going to have that race car situation but I think it could be made safer than it is. Now on Leslee Curve. I believe that.., have better sight lines than Minnewashta Parkway does. I know I personally feel safer and more comfortable getting on TH 7, east or west, from that intersection for a couple reasons. Yes, the traffic's slower. It has good sight lines, and I don't have to 34 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 contend with traffic opposing me. You know on Minnewashta Parkway often times when you're turning right you're dealing with people who are even more frustrated than you coming south on Church Road who are trying to turn left so often times there's two cars trying to turn at the same time. So it has less contention you know, and if I want to for instance go up to my kid's school, Minnewashta Elementary, I'll mm right on Leslee. Go right out of Leslee and then left in at Church Road just to avoid having to cross two lanes. It provides better access. So I guess the bottom line there is if having that open provides better east and west access to that neighborhood, which if you took it away I think you somehow need to improve Minnewashta Parkway. And yes, I know the criteria for stop lights and so forth, but that really is a problem when you're trying to get, you know straight across the road. Or mm left or if your kids are trying to get their bikes across the highway or something like that, it's a very busy road. And towards this end I would propose another alternative. Your option lB. It wouldn't take much of a stretch on that one to instead of separating Leslee Curve from the church driveway, which is now moved, to keep that connection and now you have Leslee Curve connect directly opposite of Paddock and it removes a complexity issue that you mentioned. I don't know if that's a major factor in your criteria but it seems like that might be one way of improving the safety there. Mayor Mancino: You mean so it lines up across from Pipewood? Mark Rogers: Exactly. So essentially just keeping, you put the new driveway in and you keep the existing link open between what is now the church driveway. Mayor Mancino: Paul, do you have any questions on that? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, well I do have some comments on that. Typically if there's two streets in the area, we see the safest situation to be to have them line up as a four legged intersection. It tums out a much safer way to do things is to actually have two T intersections, if they can be separated by a good distance like say 600 feet or so. In this case these two are separated by only 350 feet or so. Mayor Mancino: To where they are right now? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Where they are right now is not really a big safety hazard. They're far enough apart so somebody can mm left out of Leslee and somebody can mm left out of Pipewood and not really interfere with each other. And Pipewood has got a very small amount of traffic coming and going. There's only a dozen or so houses there. If we were to make a four legged intersection, it'd be actually, well talking about wetlands before. See right immediately west of Pipewood there's a curve in the road and the curve curves around a wetland. The highway is very high in relation to the wetland. It's, I don't know, 20-30 feet higher. There's a steep embankment down there. If we are going to leave the intersection open, and the intersection was going to serve the neighborhood, we would see the same need for left mm lanes as if the intersection were left where it is now. To build left mm lanes further to the west there, it'd be much more expensive because we'd be into wetland effects. And you know, have the negative effect on the environment. Not just money. We try to come up with solutions that don't affect the environment so harshly. So while it would seem like a really good and reasonable idea, it tums out we think that like the price would be probably maybe double even to do that. Mark Rogers: I guess what I hear you saying then is the complexity really isn't a problem and you should scratch that off your list of problems. 35 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Small contributing factor. It's like say down at Oriole. There's a whole bunch of factors that contribute altogether to make that a very unsafe intersection. If there was only just one of those factors and not the others, there wasn't, well, it all adds up together to be a reason to look at doing something. Mark Rogers: Yeah. Well in deference to my neighbors who might have thought they remembered you know one accident there per month. You know I've never seen an accident there, and I take that road every day. I would tend to rely more on your statistics than, and even your statistics if you multiple it out, that's you know one accident for every 32,850 uses of that intersection. So I don't see the same type of, you know Minnewashta Parkway, there have been some really bad accidents there and I've never seen anything like that at Leslee Curve and I wouldn't want to see any more of that type accident happen at Minnewashta, which I think we would if we increase the traffic there. Mayor Mancino: Thank you, Mark. George Harper: George Harper, Fir Tree. I want to say thanks to the Mayor and Paul for returning my calls and keeping me informed with this. I think I've heard a lot about Fir Tree and how dangerous it is and I think we can take this opportunity to correct a mistake that was made probably because of the two counties didn't get together. One is Hennepin, if I'm correct, Shorewood Oaks is Hennepin County. Is that correct? Mayor Mancino: Yes. George Harper: So if you have drove, they kind of, the police sit right at Freeman Park and that's kind of their, they watch people for speeding and the high speed right at that curve at Fir Tree going eastbound and the westbound speed, that's kind of where you kick it down. That's kind of, you kind of see the country there and you just open it up. Well, it's right at that curve that you have to pull down onto oncoming traffic, if you're going west, and I'm sure they think that it's a car swerving to be head on collision right there at Fir Tree. So it's scary to say the least, and I think this is a good opportunity to correct that. When I talked to Paul he mentioned that it was actually illegal, and I don't know if that's true or not. I don't know if you can have an illegal road but if there is, I think Fir Tree, Shorewood was developed illegally and I think the situation should be corrected and we did take a survey, a petition of our neighborhood and most of the complaints were due to the fire and police, ambulance not, I mean the time being a little longer to get to the resident. The other comments were just go another way and that's what we've chosen to do. I think in this option, the only thing that I would be happy with would be a full closing of the road or, I would be okay with a right in, or a right out. But that left turn is, it's got to go. It's just too dangerous and at the speeds, you're playing chicken with Shorewood residents and whoever has the most guts to hang in there, is going to be able to make their turn. And when a semi is coming behind you and you're in that lane, you can't pull back out so that's the comment I have and appreciate it. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Paul Kachelmyer: Can I just respond to one thing, because it was kind of a serious thing said. There must have been a misunderstanding. I did not mean to imply that Shorewood Oaks Drive was somehow or another developed illegally there. Court MacFarlane: My name is Court MacFarlane. I live at 3800 Leslee Curve and I'm opposed to the closure of Leslee Curve with Highway 7. One of the main reasons is that where my home is located, I'm at 36 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 the comer of Leslee Curve and Glendale Drive, and every one of those 450 trips will now go past my house. Most of them probably past the end of my driveway, which is steep at the end of it anyway so I have a hard time getting out of the road as it stands right now. I agree with that speaker that spoke a couple, just before this last one. The sight lines are really quite good coming down TH 7 to mm into Leslee Curve off of TH 7, although I don't normally take that route. When I come off TH 7 1 usually mm on Minnewashta Parkway, and I've been doing that for 21 years, and my wife has been doing it for 32. She's part of the statistics at that intersection in that she's had two accidents that have caused injury to her. One was in 1974 and the other was in 1996. And she still suffers from the affects of those accidents. So I'd like to see some kind of semaphore situation at that intersection. It used to be much worse before they put the mm lane in. It's improved some since they've done that. I can remember coming down TH 7 and the sight lines are really very bad when you're coming west on TH 7 to mm on Minnewashta Parkway going south. It used to be that you'd have to wait until the last minute to decide if you're going to turn or not. Especially if there was trucks or cars coming behind you because you couldn't see over the hill. At night it was a little easier because you could see the headlights. But I can tell you from experience that there are a lot of times I went straight ahead because I was afraid to make the mm because of what was coming behind me. That was before the mm lane was put in. So I think it's a problem area and it's going to continue to be a problem area irregardless of what the traffic counts are. And the only other thing I would add is that, like closing Leslee Curve at TH 7, I think you're creating a giant cul-de-sac at this point. Everything's coming out past my house and I don't like it. I just don't think it's going to be very safe. I'd say any option other than closing would be preferable to actually closing that intersection as far as I'm concerned. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Jill Lidstone: My name is Jill Lidstone and I live on Country Oaks Drive and I, does anyone know, Kings Road is a plat drawing for Chan and it shows that Kings Road eventually goes through to Rolling Acres. Is that, do we know when that's going to happen? I mean that would go then west from Minnewashta Parkway all the way to Rolling Acres. Audience... Jill Lidstone: Okay, just a plat drawing. Mayor Mancino: That's your formal reply. Jill Lidstone: I won't do anything to make it earlier, I promise. I was just wondering. And Paul, there's money funded, there's money for this whole project which includes Shorewood and Chanhassen, right? And how is that divided up into how much Chan gets versus how much Shorewood gets? Mayor Mancino: I don't think you do it by city, do you? Paul Kachelmyer: There is no division by city. Jill Lidstone: Okay, so there's just a total funding for this whole project, right? And there's of course like none left over for their projects that we can use for. Paul Kachelmyer: No. 37 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Paul, I think you prioritize safety. It has nothing to do with the cities I would assume but. Paul Kachelmyer: Right, we prioritize safety. We see, you know you can have this for so many dollars spent, what types of accidents will be prevented. We could go in and spend another $3 million on top of this.., we're spending and further reduce accidents. But with each dollar spent it's an incremental less reduction in accidents than before. So unfortunately we don't have another $3 million. The $3 million went to another road somewhere else in the state. Jill Lidstone: Okay, I didn't know if there was a division based on the communities. And then my final comment is, it appears that the most area for growth in all these closures is at Leslee Curve. Is that a right assumption? Paul Kachelmyer: Within Chanhassen. Mayor Mancino: Well and Minnewashta Parkway too. Jill Lidstone: But nothing's going to happen with Minnewashta Parkway, right? I mean from the closures that you're showing or changing, the most area for growth or change in the intersection I would think in the future would be at Leslee Curve. Is that right? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. The other roads, you know Oriole, Washta Bay, Sandpiper, Minnewashta Heights, those areas, while there still probably are a few undeveloped lots down there, they're pretty much fully developed. Mayor Mancino: But all I'm saying Jill is people will have the decision to go. If we leave Leslee Curve open and have Minnewashta Parkway open, where the development is happening in that area, on Kings Road, etc, they could go either way. They could decide. They would have a choice. Jill Lidstone: That's my point. Mayor Mancino: Yep. Jill Lidstone: If Leslee Curve's closed, they can't and that's where the most of the growth is and all of the closures is in the Leslee Curve, Minnewashta area and if Leslee Curve is closed, the significant growth obviously, as we talked before, would go on one. That's my point. Mayor Mancino: Exactly. Court MacFarlane: Can I add one thing? Mayor Mancino: You certainly may. Court MacFarlane: When you're talking about coming down from Country Oaks down to Kings Road. If that road is not going to be completed anytime in the foreseeable future, most of the lots in the Pleasant Acres area and the Country Oaks area have already been developed. They've already been built on. I would say Pleasant Acres hasn't got more than one or two more lots left in it. Country Oaks, I'm not sure. There might be two more down there. So if there's 82 homes in there now, that will then be a total of 86. 38 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 If there's not a road there, then there's not going to be anymore homes that are going to access Highway 7 from that area. Because there's no other way to attach a development to the streets that exit through or will exit out on Glendale Drive onto Minnewashta Parkway. Jill Lidstone: The Hallgren. Mayor Mancino: Hallgren, yes. Jill Lidstone: The Hallgren property right behind Country Oaks, that all has access to... Court MacFarlane: Okay. Okay, because that doesn't show on here. Mayor Mancino: There you go. Councilman Berquist: Pardon me, I've got a quick question for you. Court MacFarlane: Yes. Councilman Berquist: You were, I just want to make sure what your position is. You had said that when the mm lanes were, you had said when the mm lanes were improved, the situation at Leslee Curve improved. Court MacFarlane: No, I meant Minnewashta Parkway and TH 7. There was a mm lane added on Highway 7. Mayor Mancino: Going east so you could mm right. Court MacFarlane: No, going west. While you're going west so you can mm left going down Minnewashta Parkway. Councilman Berquist: Alright, and you're advocacy is in favor of leaving Leslee Curve as it is. Court MacFarlane: As it is, yes. Councilman Berquist: Which is in essence realizing full well that the likelihood of traffic increasing as the years go by is... Court MacFarlane: I don't see as large an increase as I think indicated by MnDot. I just don't see it. Councilman Berquist: Okay, thank you. Cindy Hanson: Cindy Hanson and I live on 6201 Dogwood Avenue and probably the first thing I want to talk about is, I live right on the comer of Highway 7 and Dogwood Avenue and the way I found out what was going on was I got a letter copied from a person who lives in the Manor and was talking about the road closures and then I contacted Paul, so I'm the resident that's listed here, calling and proposing that they change the entrance. One of my main concerns is that the traffic coming in off the highway comes in dangerously fast. I've nearly been rear ended trying to pull into my driveway because I have my left mm signal on to mm in off the highway, and have it on to mm into my driveway and they think that I'm still 39 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 just coming off the highway, because I'm that close. If the intersection was moved over 100 feet, it would allow time for me to get off and it would slow the traffic down because Dogwood is a pretty much straight in street, and we've got a child with disabilities on that street. If the traffic increases 170 cars to, that's nearly 200 more cars going by, something's bound to happen. Mayor Mancino: Are there any homes, boy I don't remember this. Cindy, are there any homes on Elm Tree Avenue with the new access that's, you know that it would affect? Cindy Hanson: No, because the access would actually be closer to Dogwood than it would to Elm Tree so they'd still have pretty much the same access. It would just be slightly closer. There's probably, I'm guessing maybe 250 feet at least until you would turn to go around the comer down that street. But it would also divide up that traffic a little bit more and people would have to slow down when they come in, which is another good thing because there is a park right there and they come in so fast off the highway that it's a miracle that someone hasn't been hit. So I think if you can slow it down and spread it out, that's a real good thing to do. And I'm not against closing off some of these other accesses, if we can make this one safer and slow that traffic down. So that's what I'd like to see. Mayor Mancino: Move Dogwood, okay. Hud Hollenback: My name's Hud Hollenback. I live on Elm Tree and I would like to raise a couple questions about Cathy's ideas. Just for discussion sake. It's very unfortunate that we are going to be closing Fir Tree. The way the street's are laid out now, it makes it very easy for us to access TH 7, compared to all stacking trying to go out one or two. The sight lines on each one of those roads are beautiful both directions. As far as moving Dogwood, I have just a couple observations. Cathy made a very good point. Safety and people coming off fast. My main concern would be, as you come up Dogwood, and you look left, up west on TH 7, there's a curve. And the way it is laid out right now, if you see a car just coming around the curve, if you leave Dogwood and access TH 7, you can generally get up to speed just before he reaches your rear bumper. Now if we move Dogwood 100 feet closer to the curve, we're going to lose that much of a sight line. I don't know what the stopping distances are at 50 mph, but at 60 it runs anywhere from 125 to 175 feet. Something like that. So if we give away 100 feet, I don't know if it's worth the exchange. The other thing is, I don't know if people are coming off the road that fast, which I believe they probably are, I think we'd have to move Elm Tree farther into the park to give people room to come down and take a right hand mm or a left hand mm. I don't know how far we'd have to move it, but I don't think there's enough room there now to make that kind of an access, particularly if there's car waiting at a stop sign on both sides to enter, you know the road going up onto TH 7. Those are the only comments I have. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Paul, what about that? If we moved Dogwood over to the west, could we have on TH 7 then a right mm lane? I mean can we improve that to have a right mm lane? Paul Kachelmyer: There is a right mm lane there now. Mayor Mancino: At Dogwood? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. And there would be for the moved location. MnDot can live with the Dogwood access being at either one of those spots. We proposed the moving of it because it sounded like solve some of the problems. As far as the speed which vehicles go down Dogwood, obviously we've got this short little leg of a road. Vehicles coming off the highway would have to slow down very slow to continue on to 40 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 either Elm Tree or Dogwood, and being as how the park is right there, that would, I would think would be a desirable thing. However. Mayor Mancino: Traffic calming. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes, the overall traffic flow in the whole neighborhood would slow down. Mayor Mancino: Okay. You guys are wearing us out tonight. Come on Cindy. Cindy Hanson: ... wanted to express some of her views. Mayor Mancino: Good, thank you. Councilman Berquist: ...the numbers indicate 540 cars a day coming down that Dogwood entrance. 3:00 to 7:00 in the evening, what kind of numbers are you looking at? Paul Kachelmyer: Typically the peak hour flow in any given day would be about 10% of the overall daily flow. So if there's. Councilman Berquist: You conceivably have 54 vehicles at the worse time? Paul Kachelmyer: Coming and going. So some are coming in and some are going out. Councilman Berquist: At 5:00 in the afternoon, the likelihood of it being that nice is slim. So we might have 80 to 90 cars coming in within an hour's period of time. Paul Kachelmyer: Well, again I would expect 10%, and that's actually, typically a pretty accurate number. It could be higher but I wouldn't think that it would be as much as almost double. Could be, but not typically. Councilman Berquist: So none of the work of putting this together takes any, you don't look, consider that aspect? Paul Kachelmyer: How much? How many vehicles might be turning in any given hour? Councilman Berquist: As far as stacking. Paul Kachelmyer: Oh sure. Councilman Berquist: I mean this is the worse intersection here that I have seen, that I recall. Paul Kachelmyer: Right, as far as stacking goes, the stacking for vehicles waiting to turn in, the left turn lane on the highway accommodates all the vehicles that would typically you know be there waiting to turn in. So that stacking is not a problem. The stacking of people waiting to turn out, we could do the same 41 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 thing with this moved intersection as we were doing down at Sandpiper. We could create a separate lane for right mm out and left mm out. That would reduce, you know that would double the storage space for turning vehicles. And even if somehow or another there were enough vehicles stacked up to come to be waiting to get out of the neighborhood, be down onto the city street, the speed of the vehicles down there is you know, 10-20 mph. Councilman Berquist: Let's talk more about the cars, I'm thinking in my instance. I work out here in the industrial park. At 8:00 in the morning, 7:30 in the morning I'm heading west. I swing, I take a left into the industrial park. There's many times where I have 30 cars that I have to wait, and then I have a short area in which to turn. Go like hell and get past them. If in fact I had 60 feet let's say, or 50 feet before I had to hit the brakes, and now all of a sudden you put 2 or 3 cars in front of me and I'm shooting across that intersection. Now I've got to hit the brakes. One of two things are going to happen. I'm either going to hit the guy in front of me, or my tail end's going to be hanging out there. So the question is, given the number of vehicles that we anticipate for the intersections, is there consideration that goes into the design of the intersection? The scenario that I just outlined. Paul Kachelmyer: Regarding stacking? Councilman Berquist: Stacking. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. I think that there is adequate, there would be adequate stacking here. Councilman Berquist: Into the neighborhood in the middle of the aft. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: Upwards of 60 or 70 cars an hour. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. A vehicle coming in would be turn right or left at Fir Tree there, and it wouldn't have to slow to a stop. There wouldn't be a stop sign there that could take that curve at 15 mph so the vehicles that are even behind them turning in. It would flow fairly well. Councilman Berquist: That'd be a lot of traffic going in... Richard Wing: My name is Richard Wing, 3481 Shore Drive, Minnewashta Heights and I'm going to make an assumption that at 36 years I'm probably the senior representative for the Highway 7 issues, and also I'm senior fire fighter at the fire station. If there's been an incident, we've probably been there or seen it. I guess, by the way your patience tonight is phenomenal. But more important is the pride I take in the comments that were made by the residents that showed up tonight. I think you would have to agree they were probably as honest and straight forward and productive as any I've ever heard. I don't think there was any emotion. It was just fact and opinion and I was very appreciative of the comments that were made. I don't like change and I don't like growth and I was there first and I don't like traffic. Mayor Mancino: Shut the door. Richard Wing: What else can I do you know. Wyoming is getting crowded. Highway 7 was an incredibly bad deal, I will layman term, up until MnDot came in and put in the turn lanes and the center turn lane. I think we could liken it to a war zone. The activity level and accident rate on that highway, I could name off 42 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 fatalities out of memory, just boom, boom, boom, for up until that point. And the mm, the center mm lane on Highway 7 along with the right mm lanes that they've put in, literally took our statistics from a real tragedy down to nothing. I can't remember, I cannot, absolutely cannot remember the last time our fire station has been called out on an accident to Highway 7, with the exception of the fatality that occurred down on Wood Lane in November, which was very unfortunate, but a very typical accident. The majority of the accidents we see are T-bone accidents where a car darts out, whether it's traffic or not thinking or trying to race the ongoing traffic and they get caught by the other one so the number accident we see is a T- bone accident if they do occur, and they've been Minnewashta Parkway primarily. The other one would be a car that loses control, and if I remember accidents in the last 2 or 3 years it would be from Oriole along the Sandpiper area where there are no shoulders and it's soft and the car hits the soft shoulder. There is no shoulder. Tries to swerve back on and loses control, head on into traffic. I can remember three fairly well within the recent history of those. But other than that, the activity level along Highway 7 has been incredibly slow, which brings me up to the point that I want to make on one specific intersection and that's Leslee Curve. I would agree it should stay open. I think there's just too much traffic and impact in that area to close it, and I don't want to see it on Minnewashta Parkway. But saying that, it is with a heartfelt mandate that there has to be a center turn lane. That absolutely has to be controlled as the rest of the highway. There is no other way to do that intersection. Money isn't the issue. It's a fact that the only safe way to do it is to have a proper left turn lane for the westbound people and then proper lanes in and out of there so I would support Leslee Curve remaining open, but clearly with Plan 3. I don't think there's an exception to that and I would not touch that intersection without going to Plan 3, money or not. With that said I just want to close here very quickly. I think that Paul, and I've talked to Paul quite a bit lately and working with Shorewood and Paul and I'm very pleased with what Shorewood has done on their side. I think it's way overdue. That Shore Oaks Road should have never gone in. It was at a time when both cities were discussing the issues and the accidents and the access and then they threw it right into the middle of the thing and it was just archaic. I mean you just threw your hands up and you wondered why. But I think MnDot has come forward tonight. Paul and MnDot have come forward with their very best foot forward. With very limited funds. With our safety and our best interest in mind. I think that Paul and MnDot is forced right now to be purely reactive. There's no funds to be proactive and they're doing the best they can, and they're really not taking anything from us but rather trying to correct past mistakes and design and usage that none of us ever predicted. And I guess I just want to say finally that I really do support the plan as presented by Paul tonight, in it's entirety with one exception in that I would like a review process. I'd like to see the roads closed because most the comments, even though they were excellent, I support every comment that was made. They tended to be speculative, maybes and what ifs. I mean there's no facts. We don't know the facts. And like Shorewood, I'd like to see the roads closed down as presented, but clearly the neighborhoods have an opportunity to come back in. Let the dust settle. Look at the problems. Look at the issues that might arise and have an open mind to maybe re-opening the road. We may not want to close them, but we won't know until we do. I guess I would appreciate, yes. Mayor Mancino: So Dick you're saying, do a temporary closing of the road? Richard Wing: I would do a temporary closing, longer than Shorewood. I'd like to see a seasons change for instance. Close them now through spring and into the summer and see what the impact is on the neighborhoods. And if the complaints are there... I think they have to live with it and I don't want to present an opinion that, one way or the other, but I don't think we know the issues. I don't think the neighbors really know what it's going to be until we close them. Look at the traffic flows. Look at the problems and then if in fact there are issues, I think we ought to be very open to changing our mind and backing off Plan A if you will, and go to Plan A. The only exception I don't, the only thing I don't make an exception on would be Leslee Curve. Stays open and has to be done right or not at all. 43 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Pete Keller: Hi, good evening and I also commend your patience. It's going to be a long night. My name's Pete Keller. I live at 6760 Country Oaks Road and I actually served on a commission in Eden Prairie and I know it's often times a thankless job so thank you guys. I agree with almost everything Paul... as well as staff and appreciate you guys calling back so quickly and answering my questions. The map that I'd like you to quickly look at, it's on page 7. I support Leslee Curve being closed simply because I'm really, I agree with Mr. Wing that the only way to do it right, to do it is to do it fully right. On page 7, if you look, Country Oaks Road, you see Glendale and then you'll see Country Oaks Road. It is a 90 degree mm there. I live just beyond that 90 degree mm so as, there's another development that's just beyond Stratford Ridge with two cul-de-sacs that's not on this map, so there's five cul-de-sacs that recently just connected between Kings Road and I just did the math really quickly. I came up with about 172 lots there. When it was originally platted out, there were only 63 lots. I can easily see how we're correcting the past wrongs so I would prefer closure. It would send a lot less cars past my house, which isn't at all part of the deal that we're looking at tonight but would definitely have some personal benefit for me. But the intersection's very unsafe. We don't use it at all to make a left in from TH 7 into it. We'll go out and make a right mm, but I don't think that's going to be a proper safe end result. The only real way to do it is to do the, was it three? And the other entity is our church. Is there anyone from the church tonight? So I guess the only thing we can rely on is that they really wanted both accesses, from the neighborhood and out to TH 7 and, lB. lB. Where was the funding on that Paul? Is that entirely the church's responsibility? On page 20 that is. Paul Kachelmyer: No. Actually MnDot would pay for that but you see we wouldn't be putting turn lanes on the highway. Pete Keller: Right. Paul Kachelmyer: We could do something like that for, I don't know, $20-30-40,000.00, which is not chicken feed but it's not $200,000.00. Pete Keller: Okay. So the church is not going to be asked to come up with any of that? Paul Kachelmyer: No. But they didn't care for that option either. Pete Keller: Right. And that, is that, the part that they would probably like is the non closure of their driveway that connected to the neighborhood? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah I think the church you know sees. Pete Keller: lC I guess I'm looking for. Paul Kachelmyer: 200-300 homes going in south of there with the hopes that parishioners will come from there and don't want to be cut off from that. Pete Keller: How would that work? Is it possible to do that, to do the lB, just thinking out loud, but to not close their driveway? 44 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Well that's just it. If that was kept open, essentially everybody from the neighborhood would then have access out to Highway 7 and we'd be seeing, you know 1,000 vehicles a day using that entrance rather than. Pete Keller: I see what you're saying. So they have to go hand in hand? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Pete Keller: Okay, I understand. So that was my point was I, if we can't come up with the funding to do it or get committed to it, I'd hate to see that intersection stay the way it is. It's not safe and if the only good way to do it is to do it and if that's not going to be possible, I think we should close it. It's the cheapest and wouldn't be overly dramatic. It's definitely going to shift some traffic but I think it wouldn't be overly dramatic. Temporary closure is an excellent idea. I saw those along Shorewood on Highway 7. Caught my eye right away. Knew something was up. Hence my call to the city, I found out about the closure the same day. I was talking with Dave Hempel about another issue and he made a call up to MnDot. Got a hold of Paul and that was the day the City found out this was getting closed so, I think that the closure thing would be an excellent idea. Maybe a sign on there temporary closure with an extension here. We've got voice mail here at City Hall. Wouldn't have to bother staff. Call and leave a comment. Mayor Mancino: Good, thanks. Pete Keller: Thank you. Mayor Mancino: My only question about doing the temporary closures is, you know how good of a read will we get as we will do temporary closures but we won't do all the other things that are going to go with the real closure. I mean we won't have you know added the right lane. We won't have added the third lane, so we're going to have the temporary closures but yet we won't really have all the information. Paul Kachelmyer: Well you're right. You would expect without doing the right mm lanes and without widening out the intersection, to have right in, left out. Mayor Mancino: No, don't close them. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, and then down at Oriole too, we cannot temporarily close that median without going out and building something there. We can't just put some cones down the middle of the road. They wouldn't last. Mayor Mancino: Well I'm not saying I'm for or against it yet but I'm just thinking in my mind. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes it's, the only neighborhood where I think we could do it in, see in Shorewood we'd just shut off the road on the city side. That would work in the whole Minnewashta Heights neighborhood but not necessarily, well we could close off Leslee Curve. Mayor Mancino: Well we'll have, we'll listen to Council in a minute. Not just me. Anyone else? Andy Brisley: Can I just bring up one... Mayor Mancino: Yes. This is your last time. Come on up. You have to come up though. 45 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Andy Brisley: We were having... Andy Brisley from the Minnewashta Manor. What we were talking about in back was, if you were to only have one access point, if in the unfortunate happening that there was an accident, we couldn't get in and we couldn't get out, and neither could emergency vehicles get in and get out and what is your response to that? Paul Kachelmyer: Okay. Again, for the neighborhood Oriole, we'd make a mountable curb there so as far as emergency vehicles getting in and out on that median island, that shouldn't be a problem. If two or three vehicles did collide right at an intersection and blocked it, well I guess it would be blocked for a while, and if that was the only way to get out, that'd be an unfortunate. Mayor Mancino: Okay, thank you. Anyone else, this is it. Closing. Nobody else can say a word. This is it, okay. Cindy Hanson: My name is Cindy Hanson again and my concern about doing the temporary closings is, particularly at our street, it would not really be like you said, accurate because you don't have the wider lanes and I'm not thrilled about having nearly 200 cars go by my driveway because it's difficult to mm off the highway and mm into it as it is. And to have that increased traffic, even on just a temporary basis it's, I think it's crazy. Mayor Mancino: Council comments. Bringing this back to Council. I think let us start, let us go and come back tomorrow. No. Let us start and start with the east and kind of pull together some of the comments and start with the first neighborhood and what we'd like to see. If we'd like more information. If, what we'd like to tell all that we'd like to see. Councilman Berquist, do you want to start? Councilman Berquist: Well I've got a couple of questions for him first of all. In moving, I understand that there's some difficulties with the 64th Street, so I'll sort of pass on that... Paul Kachelmyer: Right mm in. Right mm in and right mm out. Councilman Berquist: I thought that's what I said. Paul Kachelmyer: Right mm in would accomplish the access that the people were asking for. Right mm out would be. Councilman Berquist: And let me move from there. In the event that.., access to Highway 7... advocate of that... Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: When you first began to look at the project, at one point I remember you saying something about you really are looking to try and do Oriole and the Washta Bay Road and close Sandpiper, but you, the difficulties of the intersections made that unfeasible, therefore you chose Sandpiper... Paul Kachelmyer: That's pretty close to being right. Councilman Berquist: ...two accesses for that neighborhood as opposed to the one. 46 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: That would have been nice, yeah. Councilman Berquist: Okay. And some of the information regarding perhaps road realignment and widening of the left mm lane, immediately past the intersection of TH 41, you consider to be worth discussing. Worth chewing on to determine whether or not Oriole could in fact be a left mm in, right mm out, you know full blown intersection. Paul Kachelmyer: I would not be at all supportive of that because I think there's too many other things going on with traffic in that location. That would always be an unsafe location. If we made the left mm lane longer than it is now, we can do that and I haven't looked at, it would probably be safer than it is now. But I just view that as a place where someday there's going to be somebody killed there. Councilman Berquist: And your argument in favor of not doing that is the straight away that gets you to Sandpiper and how the highway aligns and there's really no grading or no alignment to take place to make that in your opinion a very safe. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: In your original cogitating on all this, you wanted Oriole and Washta Bay Road to serve as your access point. How, what were you thinking you would have to do to Oriole to make that work? Paul Kachelmyer: Well, we'd have to move it further away from Highway 41, which we can't do. We'd have to eliminate the merging of two lanes of traffic down to one on Highway 7, which you know we can't do. We'd try to eliminate the curve in the road on Highway 7. Councilman Berquist: Would doing that, would widening the road, widening TH 7, would you have to acquire additional land to do that? Paul Kachelmyer: Oh yeah. Yeah. And immediately west of Oriole, on the north side of the road is a little lake. I don't know the name of the lake but again it's one of these cases where we've got just a shoulder that's only a few feet wide and guardrail and an embankment that's just, oh yeah. There would be a lot of wetland impacts there. We don't own the land for one thing. That would be a very expensive, I would say you'd be talking at, talking about like a half million dollars probably to extend the four lane section beyond that little body of water there. And that's the kind of thing we'd never do. We'd go and spend that half million elsewhere for better safety benefit. In fact if this road 20 years from now is expanded to four lanes in each direction maybe. Or two lanes in each direction. An exception might be right there at that wetland. Mayor Mancino: But you do have room to extend that right lane so it doesn't further to the west prior to the lake. I mean the right lane, instead of being cut off at east as it is next near Oriole, it could go a little further. According to the map I have. It could go another 50 feet. Paul Kachelmyer: Oh maybe, yeah. Councilman Berquist: They said, they used a good analogy, or they gave a good example of standing in front of a train. Feeling the wind come by you as the train passes and they were talking about the narrowness of the left mm lane currently at Sandpiper. There's no plans to widen that. It's simply in your opinion a safe enough intersection as it currently stands. 47 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: To allow for a traffic load that more than double. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. The 12 foot wide left mm lane is standard length all around the state. All around the cities here. There aren't really mm lanes that are wider than that, unless there's a real fluke. Councilman Berquist: Okay. Well, what happens if I move west? No, there's no point in even discussing the realignment of Shorewood Oaks Drive... Dogwood. We talk about, you know we talk about temporary closing. In the event that we were to ask for temporary closings, that's something that is not a true test but there are a few instances where it might be beneficial. Is it within the, you talk about being constrained budgetarily. Is it within the budget to put up barricades on a temporary basis? Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, that's a whole separate budget. Our maintenance folks pay that. So then you get less snowplowing. You know temporary closures, the cost wouldn't be a factor. It does cost something. The timing would be a factor. We might not be able to do the job in the year 2000, if we were to make those delays, you know take a few months. The temporary closures that we did in Shorewood, we did in November. We really did not want to do them in November. When there's snow out there and we go out and do something like that, we could actually be creating a hazard that cause an accident. But we did it because, it was supposed to be done before that and things didn't fall into place. So we tried to time it so that it could be out of there before any snow it. Some snowfalls did hit before it was done. At this time of year we would certainly want to wait until spring, which is only two months away, to do any temporary closure. Two long months away. So we could do it you know in January. In April, well probably not, you know the last half of April. Councilman Berquist: So it's doable? Paul Kachelmyer: It's doable. Unfortunately again, if we waited to make certain decisions on the project until, you know if it was done in April and the thing was completed in May and it was voted on by the City in May or June, we'd probably end up having to delay the project to the year 2001. Councilman Berquist: I know that it's very emotional for everybody that lives in an area that's affected by this and I certainly have sympathy for them and... I lived on a cul-de-sac that was opened up under the guise of allowing evacuation of the city, if it ever arose and the traffic going by at high speeds every single day and it really bothers me but, change and more and more people. More and more vehicles seems to be somewhat inevitable. From a MnDot perspective, you know we're talking so few dollars relative to total dollars that we're all used to discussing when it comes to... We're arguing over what will amount to about $60,000.00 or $70,000.00 difference on Leslee Curve. Putting in, the difference between doing one and doing another. Then you talk about it being a separate budget for putting up temporary closings. I mean forgive me for being so bold, but we just went through a situation on Highway 101 where we were promised certain things and now it feels like we're being blackmailed from a budgetary purpose again by MnDot. I know it's a different division. Tongue in cheek. But it's, you know it's a concern that I have and a feeling that I have. And a resentment that I have. I can't see, quite honestly, allowing taking it east to west. Allowing a 100% increase in traffic on one street, on Sandpiper when it would appear that we have some reasonable methods, you talk about firing land and stuff for Oriole. One of the problems with this job is you have to try and appear cogent and I sometimes have a hard time doing that. I have a hard time though with Sandpiper. Increasing the traffic load on that road by 100%. I do. I would like to be 48 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 able to see two accesses to that neighborhood. If West 64th Street is a possibility, it's certainly worth discussing. What I've heard though, it does not sound like it's a likely scenario and I don't know if it makes any sense to have Washta Bay Road and Sandpiper as accesses. You know there's just too many questions here to say yes, I like this or no, I don't like that. Arbor Lane. I think I'm alright with what happens at Arbor Lane. Is this how you wanted me to do this Mayor? Mayor Mancino: Well why don't we just stop with the Oriole, Sandpiper and Washta Bay, and then move forward. Hear Councilman Engel and then we'll come back. Kind of frame it up and we'll each take our mm... If you want to talk or have any more additional comments that you'd like on the first neighborhood. Councilman Engel: I'm going to net it out in one shot. Okay. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Engel: First of all if I was living in any one of these neighborhoods, had one of these streets that was going to be closed, or not closed but in effect have the traffic doubled in my neighborhood, I'd be right here too. I don't like it. I don't want it. I don't want to see it happen. So I mean I understand that. I think everybody up here would be lying if they didn't say the same thing. But being, but I don't live in that neighborhood, it's a little bit easier to be, I don't know, somewhat objective about this. And so I would just go to the far west and the far east and I'd, based on everybody that has talked tonight, there's no way to make everyone happy but I'd go to the west and I'd keep that open. Leslee. And I'd put left mm lanes on both sides. And I'd go all the way back to the east and I would widen that mm lane, like the bus driver said. It was a good idea. And I know that presents a problem back at the intersection so move it back and sign it farther. Don't try to sign it right on top of it. Condition the people coming into that intersection that there's going to be a congestion of traffic there. Sign it. Make them all know they got to move over to the right if they want to keep driving by. Light it. You know put some street lights. Put all 8 lamp lights in there so that people can see it coming from the west. They don't get the feeling cars are coming into their lane. So use a combination of things on either end of that thing, and then in the middle you've got Washta, Cypress, and Fir Tree. Nobody wants to see them just arbitrarily closed, but I think a temporary closure gives you a chance to study what's going to happen. It's not permanent. Close them temporarily and you sign them. You can get a feel for what's going to happen. I know that there's some structure that you want to put in place. Temporary parking curbs to accomplish your purpose if that's what it takes. Mike and I was joking, duct tape some cones to the road. Use something, but you can try some things. You can't dismiss every idea out of hand because there's not going to be a great solution either way to this that everybody's just going to accept. They're just not going to. So that's what I'd do. I'm trying to be concise. I won't say anymore. Mayor Mancino: And Councilman Engel, how long would you do the temporary closures. Councilman Engel: Through four seasons. Mayor Mancino: For a whole year? Councilman Engel: Yes. I want to see what it's like in the summer, in the winter, spring and fall. See what it's like when school's on. When school's not on. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Mason. 49 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Mason: Well, Mark's certainly right when he says if I lived in the neighborhood I'd probably feel a whole lot differently. I think all of us up here at some point or another have had to deal with an issue that we know for a neighborhood might not be the best thing but overall, we unfortunately or fortunately have to look at the big picture. People in the neighborhood don't, and nor should they. I think the big picture here is a safety issue. I drive, I don't certainly drive on TH 7 as much as you people do, but I do drive on it and I don't think there's anyone here that would say it's a safe road. Or as I don't like the idea of doubling traffic on Sandpiper, from a safety standpoint on Highway 7, it makes a lot of sense. If I'm just dealing with Oriole, Sandpiper and Washta Bay right now, I would, the bus driver, I think his suggestions are worth taking a look at. Telling traffic they have to shift to the right lane instead of the left lane. Extending that lane. It seems to me there might be some other options that can be looked at. If not, and if it can be proven that those won't work, I am in favor of the plan as. In favor's not the right word, but I support it as it stands right now. But I would like to see if there are any other options on Oriole Avenue prior to that. Now do you want me to just stop there or keep going? Okay. Mayor Mancino: Stop there and then we'll come back and we'll... Councilman Senn. Thank you. Councilman Senn: I, you know, I don't know. In Oriole's, I used to drive Oriole on almost a daily basis. It's a disaster. I guess if we're talking strictly about the eastern neighborhood at this point, I'm going to say the thing that bothers me the most about it is I'm not seeing any alternatives. And after what everybody's had to say tonight, I'd really like MnDot to go back and see if they can come up with any alternatives. Sandpiper, I'm extremely uncomfortable with. As far as putting that kind of pressure on that intersection. The sadder part about it is, if you do it and it doesn't work, you're, I mean it's going to be very difficult to... And I'm only going to reference it as a comparison. I mean I'd be honest with you. I'd feel fairly comfortable making some decisions on Leslee Curve tonight because I think I've seen some alternatives.., alternatives and I've heard what people have to say. The only place in this entire project right now I feel that way. I'd like to feel that way about both of the other neighborhoods, but I don't feel we've been given adequate options. Maybe they're not 100% options. They're not the best option. Maybe they're not your number one option. But I think I'm a lot more comfortable at least in my end, to see the options and understand them may result in a decision to your number one option, but it also may not because I think some people raise some good points but you know, some of the ideas I heard, I can't even picture, I'll be honest with you. And I'm not sure.., like this whole idea of the lane, extended lane coming to Oriole. I almost have to really go back out and look at that again. It isn't, I'm just saying the picture I form in my mind doesn't give me enough room between the intersection, nor does it do much.., what's there right now. Get the traffic together. I don't know how you'd back that up towards the intersection, but again, I mean that's not a picture I've tried to form coming in tonight so. I'd really like to see some more thought on this and if there are any other options. I don't care whether at this part or any part of this. I guess the thing that bugs me the most about this entire concept is, it's like somebody walking in and asking us to make a whole bunch of half baked trade-offs.., don't necessarily make any sense. And it's all because there is or there isn't enough money. Well, but I mean out of all honesty it kind of puts me in a framework of saying, well then screw it. Why should I deal with it. To me it's not very fair to walk into a policy body and say, here's your options but they're your only options and we don't have any money to do anything else. And the options aren't very good, but it's all we can afford in the budget. Mayor Mancino: Well I'll make a few comments. First of all I think, I want to thank everyone for coming and stay as late as you have with us and I also want to thank Paul for answering so many questions and being so articulate and helping educate us. No question about that. And I do think that safety is the number one issue but I think he's also telling us we have to be somewhat practical and realistic about what also can be afforded. From MnDot. And that you have at this point given us your best options for what's 50 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 affordable, practical, and what is the most safe. And so thank you for that. On this eastern part, and hearing all the input, driving it several times, Sandpiper, number one. The upgrades that you are making, I feel very comfortable with and that is extending the right in, making it three lanes. A right turn lane. A center lane and then the left lane.., traffic coming east to come in on. I feel that upgrade is very good and obviously I would be concerned about environmentally which way you're going so we don't have a problem with wetlands. Also extending that left turn lane in the middle, seems to be very important to the residents. And I must say I do, from driving it and from hearing residents.., somewhat comfortable in Washta Bay Road being closed. Meaning that I think, I do think that the traffic pattern will work.., see what happens there across from Washta Bay Road. The only problem, the only one that I'm not quite at ease with is the Oriole Avenue. Because of all three of those, it has the most traffic right now. The counts. I don't know what the answer is but is the one that I feel the most uncomfortable about. Yet it's, as you say, it's the worse one on Highway 7. So I'd like to direct you and not specifically, but what can we do about Oriole that is different than what we're looking at right now? Paul Kachelmyer: Well a point I think I didn't really make clear tonight. There were a few people who talked about taking left turns onto Oriole and being afraid that somebody's going to rear end them and that's definitely a real possibility with a real possibility of a fatal accident. What often happens is a person is rear ended while they're trying to make a left turn, even if they kind of have their own lane, is they're shoved into the oncoming traffic. And with disastrous results. Something I don't think I really talked about was the left turn out situation. Mayor Mancino: Oh, that's disastrous because of the grade. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah. Well, and because of the visibility. When somebody is waiting there, looking to the right, those two lanes of traffic merging together. Somebody getting into the left turn lane. You know there was a person killed at Wood Avenue last November. That intersection's far simpler for somebody taking a left turn than at Oriole. I know of no way of preventing people from taking a left turn out at Oriole if a left turn in were going to stay there. Mayor Mancino: Got it. Paul Kachelmyer: The comment was made regarding Seamans Drive over in Shorewood. That just because something is signed, you know that somebody isn't supposed to turn there doesn't really stop people from turning there. As long as we leave Oriole open as a left turn out, I just don't see any way possible that it's going to be made significantly safer than it is now, and I think it's extremely likely more than any other intersection along the whole stretch of road, that there will be serious injuries or fatal accidents there. Mayor Mancino: But don't you think right now that most people, either turn right going out of Oriole, or come left off of TH 7 into Oriole and they don't really turn left going west onto Oriole. Out of Oriole anyway. So if you put up a sign that said no left hand turn onto Highway 7, people would obey it. Paul Kachelmyer: Some people would. Mayor Mancino: Most people. I mean I think that would happen. Let me ask you Paul, is there something that you can come back with us, I mean some other options on Oriole, or do you just feel you've given us everything? Because I don't think any of us feel quite comfortable with Oriole. 51 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Some of the other intersections along this stretch of road, you know there's more options. At Oriole, an option would be, if there's the great concern about increased traffic volume at Sandpiper, is to work on Washta Bay Road. To keep that open. But that's got more potential to be a safe intersection than Oriole does. I didn't mention, since I was here last, the City of Shorewood did vote to close off four roads on, actually five, they hope to on their side of the highway. One road that we had not initially proposed that they closed was Pleasant because they had initially asked that that be left open, which is right across from Washta Bay Road. But they've since voted that they will also close off Pleasant. So the complexity of Washta Bay Road is simplified by not having that angled intersection askew from where it is. Councilman Berquist: So they're closing Seamans, Pleasant, Lake Linden Drive, or is that considered closed already? Paul Kachelmyer: Lake Linden and Wood, and they have a commitment to close the Freeman Park entrance. Councilman Berquist: Yellowstone Trail will continue to be accessible? As it empties into, you know that empties into Seamans there. Paul Kachelmyer: No, that will be closed off there. Mayor Mancino: So on this, again on this eastern section. Let's try and pull everybody together and give direction. Do we want to see a barrier put on Oriole and see what that does? Starting in the spring for six months. Paul Kachelmyer: If we did that for sure, you know without a doubt, that part of the project would be delayed out of this year 2000 project. Mayor Mancino: It would be what? Paul Kachelmyer: It would not occur in the year 2000. Our safety improvement project. Mayor Mancino: To put the barrier on Oriole and see how that affects everyone. Councilman Senn: So you're forcing a right in, right out you mean? Mayor Mancino: Yes. Forcing right in, right out. Councilman Senn: If we did an access, if we did something like that for like one month, we could still possibly get the project done in the year 2000 or it still might be delayed to the year 2001. Mayor Mancino: Do I hear a motion from the Council on this part of the roadway? So that we can give Paul some marching orders? Councilman Berquist: I mean everything he said about Washta Bay Road relative to Sandpiper has been, that looks like about 130 feet. Paul Kachelmyer: Just a second. That's 700 feet. 52 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Berquist: Is that 700 feet? Well so much for my. Paul Kachelmyer: IfWashta Bay Road was left open, absolutely no doubt about it would that North Manor Road would have to be separated. It could not connect to Washta Bay Road right near that intersection. Councilman Berquist: So would North Manor Road have to be abandoned then in essence? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: And all of that... Mayor Mancino: One house on the eastern side, yes. Councilman Berquist: Well I would. Mayor Mancino: Would you like to see him come back and show us that? How that would work? Councilman Berquist: I'd like... Mayor Mancino: Councilman Senn? Councilman Senn: You know as far as Washta Bay and Sandpiper go, they're very close together. I'm, I guess I'm not sure.., what would be accomplished by talking about leaving both of those open, one way or the other. Especially given it's proximity, and also given the ease of the traffic. The one that continues to concern me, given how terrible the traffic movement is, is what you do down at Oriole. You know I mean if you go drive that neighborhood, I mean it's one thing to look at a picture. It's another thing to understand the ease of traffic movements. The ease of the traffic between Manor and, or I'm sorry, Washta Bay and Sandpiper is relatively easy movement. The movement from the Oriole area over to Sandpiper is a very, very difficult movement. And it's going to introduce a lot of new traffic through the balance of that neighborhood. You know to me there's got to be another and better relief valve, but it's not going to be at the west end of the project. Or I mean of this neighborhood. I mean I think what they've suggested adequately addresses the west end. There's got to be a better way to address the east end of the neighborhood. Councilman Berquist: Can I ask a question? Currently Oriole you're showing as 490 trips per day. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: At what level would... ? Paul Kachelmyer: Even if the amount of traffic out there was half of what it is now, the configuration of the intersection is such that a driver coming up wanting to take a left hand turn, is still going to be presented with a situation of somebody getting killed out there. Very likely. I don't see that changing at all as long as that intersection remains open for left hand turns. 53 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Then maybe we need a new intersection. Maybe it's not at Oriole. It's a little west of... Oriole and there's a new road that goes, that connects into Highway 7. And that takes in the traffic so that you have Sandpiper and you have something in-between Oriole and Sandpiper. Paul Kachelmyer: There would, because of that wetland right there. Councilman Senn: Or maybe east of Oriole. I mean don't, I mean again that's part of the problem. I mean we really kind of need to go out and relook at that again because. Mayor Mancino: Well east is the 7 and 41 crossing, and then you get into...unless you want to take out a few houses. Councilman Senn: No, but there is an access point into that commercial area. You know I don't know. I mean again, that's not something looked at in relationship to tonight but I mean, I think we really need to go out and look again at that east, again at the east end or the east portion. Mayor Mancino: Okay. I think that I will go ahead and we'll move west. Would you like us to make a motion on this? Would you like a motion or are you getting pretty strong direction? And that is, making sure that everyone feels the same way I do. That Sandpiper and the upgrades at Sandpiper, that what we see, what we are seeing are fine and Washta Bay Road, to close that. But the Oriole and the eastern part we're still not comfortable with and we'd like to see another option. Paul Kachelmyer: Okay, we could look at the option of seeing what would be involved in opening up West 64th. I see that as being the only option there. Councilman Mason: Well let's take a look at that and see what happens. Mayor Mancino: Let's take a look and see what happens. Paul Kachelmyer: But this whole project is $3 million and we're over budget already. We're going to have some of these items that I listed as things that we're supposedly doing at way back in the handouts, some of those are going to have to come out. Mayor Mancino: Okay, let's go west to Arbor, Cypress, Dogwood, Fir Tree and Greenbriar. Councilman Senn. On this one, on the northern part. Seamans and Freeman Park, we're not sure what date but those two will be closed on the northern side. Councilman Senn: Seamans and what? Mayor Mancino: And Freeman Park. Councilman Senn: Oh. Well Freeman Park is an open ended issue so. I don't know. I mean looking at this neighborhood and looking at the proposal. I honestly don't know how you're going to find anything better than what's being proposed. You know short of just keeping everything open, you know. I mean you basically have five access points. You're leaving three of them open. You're taking the two outside and the one middle and you're closing off the two most impact access points. I don't know how else you'd do it. 54 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: Okay. And would you move Dogwood to the west? So that it lines up with Freeman Park. Councilman Senn: To me that seems like kind of a silly.., if Freeman Park's going to be closed off anyway. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Councilman Berquist. Councilman Berquist: Well I agree with what Mark says in terms of... you know, what else do you do? I think that, I like the offset, if I can find it here. I like what that does for the neighborhood. Offsetting the Dogwood Avenue entrance to the west. I'm concerned about what the gentleman said about the sight line of the curve. And while I'm certainly no traffic designer, I worry about stacking affects in the afternoon, although I'm sure you're probably righter than I am in it's ability to handle it. What else do you do? Mayor Mancino: Councilman Engel. Councilman Engel: I'm going to stick by what I said earlier. I'd go for the temporary closures. I don't, if you go with a different combination, you're just going to have, we're going to have the same meeting with the other neighborhoods. It's going to be the same. Same issues, just different streets so I think the temporary closures, the way you've got them lined out, are a way to test...You can put some temporary structures in there to accomplish that. Mayor Mancino: Councilman Mason. Councilman Mason: I would, on this issue, I'm not in favor of the temporary closures. I do think this one, like Mark said, what are you going to do. I do like the idea of moving the entrance to Dogwood to the west. I understand some of those issues that were raised. I do think in terms of cars dumping onto Dogwood, that will make Dogwood Avenue a little bit safer by moving it and I do think it will, as the report says, more evenly distribute the traffic throughout the neighborhood. Mayor Mancino: I have no new thoughts. I agree with the last ones that were given from Councilman Mason, and that would be to close Fir Tree. To close Cypress. Move Dogwood over and keep Greenbriar open too. Going west. Minnewashta Parkway. Church Road and Leslee Curve. Councilman Mason. Councilman Mason: Well. Personally it wouldn't bother me because I don't use it, to see Leslee Curve closed, which is a very tacky thing to say. I don't see how we can close Leslee Curve. Yes, I do think that's probably the safest, but I also think that if we go to, dog gone it, which way am I going here? I like Alternative 3. I know that's the most expensive. To leave the access open and add left turn lanes. I guess I'd like to see what would have to be dropped to be able to achieve that. I don't know how much we're going to end up throwing out by doing that and so maybe it won't work because of that but I'd be interested in seeing that. Short of that I see, I'm currently in favor, I would like to see Alternative 2 or Alternative 3 for Leslee Curve. There's just, I think that's just too much impact everywhere else to shut that down. But I also.., anyone else on Council. Councilman Senn: I was going to get around to this sometime, and I guess this is the point I was going to get around to it. I would really like to see an overview of the entire project, what's being done where and where the dollars are going. Paul Kachelmyer: I could tell you that. 55 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Senn: Okay, wonderful. Go ahead. Paul Kachelmyer: These are just really rough figures. We have $3 million. Unfortunately right off the top, about $750,000.00 has to come off just for paving the main lane of the roadway. So actually we're down for safety improvements, down to $2,250,000.00. Councilman Senn: Okay, so $750,000.00's an overlay basically to the area? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: Okay. Paul Kachelmyer: Paving shoulders, creating shoulders where there aren't shouldn't and flattening the slopes that go along with that work, would be about $750,000.00. And that includes, that means that we aren't doing, paving shoulders and flattening the shoulders except in the areas where it's cheap to do it. If there's a steep slope, something like that, we're going to live with what we have. So that's already limited from what, if we were going to pave 10 foot wide shoulders and flatten slopes along the whole job, we'd be double that price. Building right mm lanes. Putting up guardrail. A little bit of lighting. Kind of some miscellaneous things like that. Councilman Engel: Intersection by intersection basis then is by. Mayor Mancino: The whole project. Paul Kachelmyer: The whole project, right. So the concept is that if we were to take and spend $150,000.00 in one spot. That's $150,000.00 that would have to come away from somewhere else. Building quite a bunch of right mm lanes. That's about $150,000.00. Right mm lanes are something that really have a high payback for the.., amount of cost. We can build, you know like eight right mm lanes for the cost of one left mm lane. Councilman Senn: ... where are your right mm lanes going? Paul Kachelmyer: Right mm lanes. At Oriole, Sandpiper, Arbor, over in Shorewood at Eureka, down at Bay Cliff, at Kings Point Road, at County Road 11, and at Oak Road. That's out in Minnetrista. Councilman Senn: 11 and what? Paul Kachelmyer: And Oak Road. In Minnetrista. That's eight right mm lanes. Left mm lanes. At well, let's see. The rebuilding of Smithtown Road and Rolling Acres Road intersection. Putting up a traffic signal light there. That's about $750,000.00. Now the County's got to kick in more on top of that. That's MnDot's portion. Councilman Senn: ... 750, okay. Left mm lanes... Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, left mm lanes. There's a combination left mm lane at, well Smithtown Road and Rolling Acres Road. 56 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Senn: So that's in addition to the $750,000.00 in paving? Paul Kachelmyer: No. But you asked where we're putting them so. At Church Road, there's one left mm lane. At Bay Cliff Drive and Zumbra Drive, those are separated roads but there'd be a left mm lane. And at County Road 11 and Kings Point Road, is one that we'd probably have to drop out of the whole list because that's got, going down the priority list, that's the next one to lop out. Altogether, those left mm lanes would probably be about $750,000.00. Councilman Berquist: I thought this project ended at Rolling Acres. We're way out past 44. Paul Kachelmyer: St. Bonifacius. Councilman Berquist: So this goes, $3 million goes from TH 41 to St. Boni? Paul Kachelmyer: It gets spent real quick, yeah. It's why we're over budget. And initially there was a million dollars programmed. And then the last bit is about $100,000.00 or so for some miscellaneous things like guardrail and light and culvert extension and good things like that. So if we were to decide to spend money in one spot, if we would decide to put left mm lanes at Leslee Curve, that money would have to come away from one of the other things we decided to spend money for. Councilman Berquist: What if we take the paving out from Rolling Acres Road to St. Boni? Paul Kachelmyer: The one thing that will be done as part of this job will be paving. When it comes down to the first priority for where MnDot spends it's money, it's on preservation of the existing roadway. And that' s paving. Councilman Senn: What's your total project cost? Paul Kachelmyer: $3 million. Councilman Senn: And you just gave me $3,250,000.00 of it spent. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. So $250 has to come out and it actually might be a bit more than that. Councilman Senn: I mean, did you catch that? I mean based on what he just told us, they're already $250,000.00 over budget. Councilman Engel: I was going to say, I'm already in the red here. Mayor Mancino: Okay. And I also think, Charles. Charles Folch: Question for Paul regarding the potential cost for mm lanes at Leslee. Would it be possible to apply for MnDot cooperative agreement funding for projects such as that ancillary to this project? Paul Kachelmyer: Yes it would be. We, the City of Shorewood and MnDot, most likely within a month will finalize a cooperative agreement project where some of these access closures and improvements in Shorewood will actually be done by the City of Shorewood, with MnDot kicking in the majority of the cost. 57 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Typically the concept behind the word cooperative agreement. Both parties, and that would be the only way that I would realistically see left mm lanes happen at Leslee Curve is if the City decided that it was worth their while to invest some of their money into doing it. Councilman Mason: How much? Paul Kachelmyer: Well that's a good question. Councilman Engel: A dollar? Councilman Mason: No, seriously. I mean how does that typically work? Paul Kachelmyer: Well I anticipated... First of all, on the cooperative agreement process, I have no say whatsoever in it. Who gets money is decided by a group of individuals, some from MnDot, some from without, outside MnDot. Some county and some city engineers. And what they do on a yearly basis is they look at proposals, 2-3 dozen proposals come in from cities and counties as to this type of project. And there's a limited amount of funds available and the funds are allocated to the entities that propose essentially the most bang for the buck. And I can tell you right off the bat if you came in and said we'll pay a dollar and MnDot pays $200,000.00, it wouldn't be worth your while to put the stamp on the envelope and send it in. If you probably propose to pay less than half, it probably wouldn't be worth your while to apply. Charles Folch: But actually Paul, most of these cooperative agreement projects, MnDot funds 100% and up to 8% for engineering, and typically what the city will pick up is any cost above that 8% engineering but, and this would fit right in in terms of the category that typically fund about $4 million for that program each year and they try to fund projects less than $200,000.00 a piece so. Paul Kachelmyer: Yeah, some of those things that you just said are right, but things have changed a little bit. This last year there was only $2 million available for all the competition. And as far as paying the full cost, that's very rare actually now. The program's been going on for half a dozen years or so, and that might have been the case. Charles Folch: A number of times, yeah. Paul Kachelmyer: So it's a real viable thing. I think if the City came in and said we'd pay half. If you pay half, it'd be something that would definitely be considered. Now what's half? MnDot could potentially be spending, like I said, like say $40,000.00 to realign that church driveway out to Highway 7 so we'd already be spending $40,000.00. If the cost of left mm lanes are $175,000.00, the difference in price there is $135,000.00. Mayor Mancino: So every place where we've said we wanted left mm lanes extended, made longer, it's going to cost the City money? No? Paul Kachelmyer: No. The left mm lanes that you asked for, in that stretch of road between Highway 41 and Minnewashta Parkway. The left mm lane's already there. It's just that now it's striped different. And at Arbor Lane. Mayor Mancino: I just want to make sure. 58 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Paul Kachelmyer: Right. At Arbor Lane it was striped different because of the cross street right across the way, which is going to be eliminated. So that's a simple matter of just after the next paving job, going out there and putting the striping on the road in a different place. That's almost a free thing to do. Councilman Senn: And the differential you're talking about on Leslee then is somewhere between $110 and $135,000.00 really as far as what you're looking at funding wise then? Because you're saying you're already at $40,000.00 now. Paul Kachelmyer: $40,000.00 was probably a minimum cost for left mm lanes. It'd be like $175,000.00, so it'd be like $135,000.00 is the difference in price. Councilman Mason: You could find that in your budget couldn't you Charles? Paul Kachelmyer: As far as engineering costs and things like that go, if we do it as part of this project, you know it's going to be far cheaper than if it were done as a separate project. Contractors bidding on that similar type of work. Doing traffic control or not doing traffic control. Mayor Mancino: So if I'd like to see Alternative 3, Leslee Curve and I ask you Charles, to come back and tell us exactly, you and Paul to tell us exactly what part the City contributes, you can do that? Okay. Councilman Mason: If we were to go with, if we were to go with Alternative 3, would that mean, okay with alternative 2 there's no cost involved, right? Paul Kachelmyer: Correct. Councilman Mason: Alright. Mayor Mancino: Well no. $10,000.00 to $20,000.00, but not for us. There is a median that needs to be put in. Paul Kachelmyer: That's a minimal cost. Councilman Mason: Oh, okay. Alright. Alright, thank you. Mayor Mancino: I'm sorry, Councilman Senn. If was your turn. Councilman Senn: Well, what I'd really like to see is Alternative 3. If we can find out a way financially to do it, or do it through cooperative agreements. If 3 cannot be done because those means cannot be found, then in my mind the only alternative is lB. And I don't think it's fair to dump the church traffic through the neighborhood. The church wants it's access so I mean, I think you've got to take part of it and give up part of it. I think that's the only way that really works and affords the neighborhood some protection there in terms of added traffic. Mayor Mancino: I would also like to see Alternative 3 and get costs on that for the City and participation with MnDot. I do think it's important to have two accesses to that large neighborhood west of Minnewashta Parkway and I think it's important to keep Leslee Curve open. And I think that's it on my comments and the upgrade of Minnewashta Parkway that's being talked about. 59 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Berquist: ... Minnewashta Parkway is being. Mayor Mancino: Well we already have the intersection but aren't you, Paul, adding a couple more lanes there on the west side? Paul Kachelmyer: We, at Minnewashta Parkway we propose to put in a left mm lane for traffic eastbound on TH 7 to turn north on Church. Mayor Mancino: Right. Councilman Berquist: ... stop light, when a stop light goes in. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Berquist: ... even when a stop light went in, would you have to add right turn lanes? Would in essence everything be in place for it? Paul Kachelmyer: Everything would be in place for a stop light on Highway 7. If a stop light went in, we would expect work to be done on Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road. Councilman Berquist: And the cost of a stop light is born by? Paul Kachelmyer: The cost of a stop light first of all is roughly about $200,000.00 for a signal system and it's generally born by the entities that own the legs of the road. So where there's a cross street, four legs and one road is say the city and the other two legs are the city's essentially and two legs are the State. The State would pay half and the City would pay half. If there was a one city leading up to... Councilman Berquist: Okay, so who owns the legs? Paul Kachelmyer: Chanhassen. Councilman Senn: I thought two different cities. I thought Shorewood owns the north. Paul Kachelmyer: I think that the boundary. Charles Folch: We have both legs. Church Road and Minnewashta Parkway. Councilman Berquist: We own the whole kit and kaboodle? Mayor Mancino: No, we own two out of four. Charles Folch: Two out of four. Church Road and Minnewashta Parkway .... and then who's for that next intersection where that east/west road is, what is that? Paul Kachelmyer: ... our traffic office. 60 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Berquist: Your traffic office. So I mean if we went for Alternative lB, in effect we've got where traffic comes out of the neighborhoods and onto Highway 7 from Leslee Curve. We drive them all to Minnewashta Parkway. We save the potential costs of putting in a left turn and we may end up... do a stop light there in the very short term. Which would cost us roughly the same amount of dollars as if we put in left turn lanes along Leslee Curve. Paul Kachelmyer: Probably more. $100,000.00 for just the electronics. The road work for adding left turn lanes at Minnewashta. Councilman Berquist: ...two legs now. Paul Kachelmyer: Right. Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road, you'd be expected as a very minimum to add left turn lanes, and possibly to try to realign the whole darn intersection. Councilman Berquist: And left turn lanes. I thought you were putting left turn lanes as part of this project. Paul Kachelmyer: ON Highway 7. Mayor Mancino: On Highway 7 but he's talking about. Paul Kachelmyer: Not on the city streets. Councilman Senn: He's talking about Minnewashta and Church. Paul Kachelmyer: Yep. Is Leslee Curve is closed, the likelihood of Minnewashta Parkway and Church Road getting signalized is much greater. Which would mean a cost to the City. Some people have been asking for a signal light there. That'd be a way to obtain it. To avoid getting a signal light there might be the very thing, the other option of putting left turn lanes at Leslee Curve so that the traffic volume through Minnewashta Parkway is reduced. Councilman Berquist... Councilman Senn: Depends on how you define inevitable. Mayor Mancino: ... second access outside of that whole neighborhood there... Councilman Berquist: I thought I had a reasonably decent solution. Councilman Senn: Well I mean, he also alluded to it and come on, you're also kidding yourself that if you're going to upgrade that intersection, there's probably going to be a very serious discussion about realignment of that intersection too. Mayor Mancino: That's even bigger. Councilman Senn: Get into rather substantial dollars. Paul Kachelmyer: You could spend a million dollars there. 61 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Engel: You get the feeling the pentagon's involved in this budget? Mayor Mancino: We're almost done. Councilman Berquist: Alright. Councilman Senn: No, just the screws. Councilman Berquist: I'd like to see a method by which we can do Alternative 3. In the event that we cannot do Alternative 3, lB would be my next choice. Mayor Mancino: Well we're going to see it back before we make the final choice. Okay, so. Direction. Paul. Charles. Anita. Have it on all these. We want to see something coming back to us on Oriole and how to handle that. We want Leslee Curve Alternative 3. What that would cost. And going with the other closings suggested by MnDot, except for moving Dogwood over to the west. Everybody understand where we're going. When will this come back to us? On the alternatives that we would like to see? Next month? Paul Kachelmyer: It sounded to me like, I can be back in a month with alternatives on Oriole and Sandpiper and Washta Bay neighborhood. It sounded to me like there was a fair amount of agreement on the middle neighborhood. The Minnewashta Heights. It would be very nice if you'd be willing to vote on that tonight. Councilman Mason: I'd move approval of middle segment as stated in the report. Mayor Mancino: Now we need to clarify the Dogwood moving. Councilman Mason: It's stated in the report it moves west. In this one. Right here. It moves west. In this report and that's what I'm citing. Mayor Mancino: All I want to do is make sure that everyone who has stayed here tonight understands exactly what we're doing, and that is we're making a motion to vote on Arbor, Cypress, Dogwood, Fir Tree. Councilman Mason: Greenbriar. Mayor Mancino: And Greenbriar. And with those we would be closing, go ahead Michael please. Councilman Mason: Cypress and Fir Tree. Mayor Mancino: Cypress and Fir Tree would be closed. Councilman Mason: Dogwood would move to the west. Councilman Senn: And as I understand it, would essentially move to a midpoint. Is that between Dogwood and Elm Tree? Paul Kachelmyer: No, it'd be just moving 100 feet. I'll look at the map. It will be moving 100 feet west of where it is now. Whereas the midpoint would be like 100 feet west. 62 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Mayor Mancino: May I have a second? Councilman Berquist: Second it with a qualifier. I would like to see on, we talked about it on Greenbriar. That there is no acceleration lane and in your judgment there's no acceleration lane needed. You said it was only a shoulder and every other intersection... Paul Kachelmyer: We're not putting in an acceleration lane on any of those. There is a paved shoulder out there now, 10 feet wide. Councilman Berquist: That will remain as purely a shoulder. Paul Kachelmyer: Yes. Councilman Senn: Which is used as an acceleration lane. Councilman Berquist: Are we comfortable with leaving it as a shoulder being used as an acceleration lane? Mayor Mancino: Is there a paved shoulder? Paul Kachelmyer: It's a paved shoulder. Our traffic office would not allow something like that. Striped as an acceleration lane. If people choose to use it that way, that's their choice. There's only a white stripe there. It's not a double yellow. Councilman Berquist: How come I feel like I'm doing this with.., because of all the different offices? Paul Kachelmyer: Well unfortunately. Councilman Berquist: I second the motion. Councilman Mason moved, Councilman Berquist seconded to approve the safety improvement project with MnDot for the Minnewashta Heights neighborhood closing Cypress and Fir Tree, and moving Dogwood Avenue to the west approximately 100 feet. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Mayor Mancino: And we'll see the other ends come back to us. Thank you very, very much. Okay, a question Andy? Andy Brisley: Yeah, thank you... When we come back with the options, is there a way that we can see them before the meeting? Mayor Mancino: Certainly. Andy Brisley: ...to let people know... Mayor Mancino: What would be helpful is those people, do we have a list, do we have a paper or something for the people here that are left, for them to sign. And if you would like to be notified or actually what we can do is, who are we notifying now Anita in those two areas? The Oriole. 63 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Senn: I saw a sign up sheet that was going around. Why don't we just make sure we. Mayor Mancino: We've got everybody? Okay. Why don't we send a letter to everyone telling them when this will be back on the City Council agenda and that they can come to City Hall and get copies of the report prior to the meeting. Okay? Andy Brisley: All that stuff about.., and keeping Washta Bay open as opposed to Oriole, is that part of this... ? Mayor Mancino: As part of the, well we didn't specify that. Andy Brisley: ...thanks again for... Mayor Mancino: Why don't we take a five minute break. Come right back and then we will discuss the rest of the agenda for tonight. We will certainly do the next, which is number 4. The consider first reading of an amendment to the City Code to allow fast food restaurants. That will be the next thing on our agenda. Then we'll have a discussion on how much more of the agenda tonight we'll take in. (There was a short break in the meeting.) Mayor Mancino: Before we go forward, I do think this next item on the agenda, people have been here to wait for. What are other people here for in case we kind of continue our meeting to a work session? Can I kind of take a count of what people are here for. Other issues. For trails? Okay. Everybody else kind of for trails or for parks? Where's Todd? Todd, how long do you think that will take? Trails and parks? Todd Hoffman: The presentation can be... Mayor Mancino: Okay. Because I know that the trails and parks are also meeting with the Park and Rec Commission tomorrow night. And then it's coming back to the City Council and tonight we're just getting more information. We're not deciding anything tonight. Just so everyone who's here knows that. That we may ask some questions. We'll have a presentation but we're not making any decisions. Plus the fact we know that recommendations from the Park and Rec haven't come to us yet. So just so you know that. So if it's kind of quick, and then we'll still take public comments so let's try and get those things done and that would be, we'll do number 4, 5, 9 and Councilmembers also, please tell me your wishes too. And then I'm wondering if the other things on the agenda, we could continue on to next Monday night as part of our work session. Why don't you take a few minutes just to look at the rest of the agenda. Which would be number 6, approve the 2 million gallon water tower siting. Is anyone here for that tonight? Number 7. Approve acquisition of land for water supply Well No. 8. Is anyone here for that tonight? I can't believe it. Feasibility study for completion of Lake Lucy. I don't think anyone's here for that. And then the TH 101 north trail, I think we could, if that's fine with Council members, we'll wait and we will continue those onto our work session next Monday night and maybe we could start a little bit early but I'll come back and we'll talk about that. Roger Knutson: Mayor, on the executive session, could I suggest that you continue that until two weeks from tonight. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Until the 9th of February. 64 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Roger Knutson: There's no time crunch on it as far as we're concerned. Mayor Mancino: Okay, good. Thank you. That does shorten it up doesn't it. CONSIDER FIRST READING OF AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY CODE TO ALLOW FAST FOOD RESTAURANTS WITHOUT A DRIVE THRU IN A BN~ NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESS DISTRICT AND A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT FOR A DOMINO'S PIZZA~ SEVEN FORTY-ONE CROSSINGS CENTER. Kate Aanenson: I was just going to say, this issue really involves two action items before the Council. One is the Code amendment and the other is a conditional use. The applicant, Ed Carr, is requesting to put a Domino's Pizza at a neighborhood business center, located at TH 7 and 41. The neighborhood business district does not allow fast food. We are, the ordinance classifies restaurants as standard restaurant which is meals are eaten on the facility, at the site. Or fast food which is predominantly taken out. The Domino's pizza does not have any seating. It's strictly a delivery service, therefore we had to classify it as a fast food. In order to allow them to go into the facility, as I indicated earlier, it does require a code amendment. We felt that this would be a compatible use with the neighborhood, but we did want to make it a conditional use to restrict things such as hours and signage. The Planning Commission looked at it and felt comfortable with the use. They did want to review the house of operation. The applicant had asked until 2:00 in the morning. They felt really to be consistent with what's going on up at that neighborhood, they felt that midnight would be more consistent with the neighborhood uses and other tenants in the center. But they did also say that they certainly had the opportunity to come back and amend the conditional use if it seemed to be running well, and not a lot of complaints from the neighbors. So with that the staff is recommending approval of the code amendment and the conditional use and the conditions we could apply with a conditional use would be the signage must comply with city code. And that would be a wall sign. Operation. Comply with conditions of the shopping center. And the hours of the pizza operation would be 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. midnight. And also that the applicant obtain any building permits that may be necessary. Mayor Mancino: Thank you Kate. Roger Knutson: Mayor, just to point out your procedural posture quickly. This is the first reading of the amendment so, unless the second reading is waived, this would have to come back at your next agenda for second reading and approval of the CUP. You can't approve the CUP until the ordinance goes into effect. If you want to. Mayor Mancino: Only the Mayor can. Just kidding. Councilman Berquist: Be my guest. Mayor Mancino: Okay. Any comments? Any questions? Councilman Senn. Councilman Senn: Kate where, if we effectively allow fast food in the BN district, okay, which is what we're talking about, right? Kate Aanenson: Right. 65 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 Councilman Senn: Without drive thru windows. Kate Aanenson: Correct. Councilman Senn: Where else then will this effect? Or where else will this then be possible to go in? Kate Aanenson: There's one other shopping center in the BN district and that's where the daycare is. Great Plains and. Councilman Berquist: Where the Total Mart is? Kate Aanenson: Yes, thank you. Total Mart. Councilman Berquist: That's already in violation so this may put them... Councilman Senn: They have Domino's there? Kate Aanenson: Right. Councilman Berquist: Well they used to be. Councilman Senn: That's right, they're out of there now. Kate Aanenson: Right. Mayor Mancino: The other place, Galpin and TH 5. That little node there could possibly be BN. Kate Aanenson: We're going to address that with the new zoning ordinance changes. But the criteria that we put on there, what we didn't want to have is a free standing store so we felt if they're part of an existing center, which will eliminate the possibility for windows and.., felt that a fast food would work. What we didn't want to happen is a free standing building. Then you have the noise, the drive up window, the trash blowing so we felt as part of the center, you'd have less of that.., activity. Councilman Senn: So the only places are basically the Total Mart center and then the Galpin? Kate Aanenson: But there's an existing center. There is some other zoning that may come forward. Mayor Mancino: Because there also is on 212. Kate Aanenson: Right next to the Mission Hills development, right. Councilman Senn: Where else is future? Kate Aanenson: Well again we've just specified commercial. We haven't really said that it'd be neighborhood or not. That was our intent and that's something that we'll be addressing with the comprehensive plan, the zoning ordinance. The way our comprehensive plan addresses it, it just says commercial.., have a hierarchy so there could be some in the future but we'd have to address that.., when we zone it... development plan and we decide to give it a zoning. So there really is only two existing BN 66 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 districts. The one where the Total Mart is. They're currently zoned BN. There's other commercial land use designations but they don't have a B, neighborhood business zoning. Mayor Mancino: Any other questions? May I have a motion? Councilman Berquist: i'll move approval of, first of all i'll move, I'll waive the second reading of the amendment. Roger Knutson: if you want to, you can make it in a three part motion. Councilman Berquist: Let's do that one first. Councilman Mason: Second. Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Mason seconded to waive the second reading of the City Code amendment. All voted in favor and the motion carried. Councilman Berquist: Then I will also approve the amendment to... to permit fast food restaurants without drive thru windows as part of a shopping center as a condition... And i will further motion, that we recommend approval for conditional use permit #97-6, the operation of Domino's Pizza at Seven and Forty-One Crossing based upon the findings presented the staff report. And conditions of the staff report are applicable. Councilman Mason: Second. Councilman Berquist moved, Councilman Mason seconded to approve the amendment to Section 20- 694 to permit fast food restaurants without drive thru windows as part of a shopping center (not a free standing building) as a conditional use in the BN, Neighborhood Business district. And also to approve the Conditional Use Permit #97-6 for the operation of a Domino's Pizza located at 2407 West Highway 7 (7 & 41 Crossings), based upon the findings presented in the staff report and with the following conditions: 1. All signage must comply with the City Code. 2. The operation must comply with all conditions of site plan review #86-2. 3. The hours of operation shall be from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 midnight. 4. The applicant shall obtain a building permit for the interior remodeling. All voted in favor and the motion carried. PRELIMINARY REVIEW~ CITY CENTER PARK AND BANDIMERE PARK AND PROPOSED MASTER PLANS AND PROJECT BUDGET~ PRELIMINARY REVIEW~ 1998 TRAIL PROJECT AND BUDGET. Mayor Mancino: Preliminary review of City Center Park and Bandimere Park and proposed master plans and project budget, and at the same time we will be talking a little bit about the trails. Their preliminary 67 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 review and again, let me make this very clear that, as I understand it, the process that we are in right now, number one. City Center Park and Bandimere Park have gone to Park and Rec and they went with three plans. And the Park and Rec Commission said out of these three plans, we're going to pick one and then, but yet we'd like that one changed to some degree so it went back for more design. They are going to be looking at it tomorrow night. The Park and Rec Commission and saying yea or nay. When it comes back to us, or when it does come back to us, I would like to make sure that not only do we see the final design that the Park and Rec has suggested, but we see the other preliminary ones too. So let's go with that. Todd Hoffman: Thank you Mayor Mancino, members of the City Council. Briefly, just to go over schedules so everyone understands. On November 18th we met with the residents and the interested stakeholders in a work session type format to talk about the elements which were desired in both City Center and Bandimere Park. Brauer & Associates then went away and did their work, bringing back the schematics to the January 13th Park and Recreation Commission and members of the public for a schematic design review. They did just what Nancy said. Sent direction back to staff and the consultant to prepare a more finalized master plan and that is being presented tomorrow evening at the Park and Recreation Commission meeting. In the midst of that, the Council asked that we do an interim check in with you, which we are here for this evening. And following tomorrow's night meeting we're back with the City Council on February 9th for a master plan and project budget review and authorization to complete construction documents. On the March 9th for construction documents and cost estimate review and authorization to bid. And then April 13th to review those bids and authorization to award bids. So as of to date that is the proposed schedule. That, like Jeff Schoenbauer was retained by the City Council to give you a brief review. Again 10 minutes or less on where the project is today. Mayor Mancino: Thank you. Jeff Schoenbauer: Mayor, members of the Council. I'll be very brief and just give you a quick overview. If you have any questions, I'll answer from there. I'll start with City Center Park. And essentially what we're looking to accomplish with City Center Park is to create a civic campus if you will that ties together City Hall, the school, the fire station and the neighborhood, adjoining neighborhoods into a common park area. Within the context of that we're also looking to supply or support the community with athletic facilities, community park setting and so forth. Very briefly, within the context of the plan that we're moving forward with at this point, and keep in mind that we have a number of refinements to go through yet. We're showing four youth ballfields that would be for very young children. For rag pitch and coach pitch type baseball. In addition to that, it shows some additional soccer spaces that are adjacent to those fields. One of the concerns or one of the issues that we'll be continuing to debate is the, whether or not these areas here should be soccer field dedicated or have an overlay of ballfield, and those are some of the issues that we still have to resolve with the Park Commission tomorrow evening. We're looking to aggregate a lot of the play areas and so forth that are spread out around the school in a general area internal to the park. We think that that can not only improve the usability of that but make it, of that play area, but make it safer with respect to parking areas and also more accessible with respect to community use of those facilities. And essentially getting more maximizing the potential use of these areas relative to the school and the community at large. Also looking to reconstruct or remodel the hockey rinks which are in need of repair and renovation. We're also proposing on the plan some additional, potential road realignments and parking lot expansions and essentially what we're trying to do is keep the parking out of the interior of the park and expand the current lot adjacent to the school as well as expanding the lot adjacent to City Hall in combination with the through road. And the through road serves a couple of purposes. It creates an edge for the park to work against and more of an interesting open environment, but it also provides a more reasonable access to these parking lots by the school from the boulevard over here. Hopefully reducing the 68 City Council Meeting - January 26, 1998 extent to which people park along Kerber, which is known to be a concern at this point. Beyond that, we're looking at as much as budget will allow to improve the overall aesthetic qualities of the park, introduce some areas of accent points where pedestrians would enter the park and just improve in the overall appearance of the park and make it more of an inviting community space. With respect to budget, we have done a preliminary cost overview that we'll be going through discussing with the Park Commission tomorrow evening and at this point we are a little bit over budget. About $100,000.00 over budget so obviously as we go along and refine our plans we'll have to start to reel it in to the budget limitations that we're working with. I'll move right on to Bandimere real quick and then I'll just take any questions that you might have. Bandimere Park, we're working again with the local athletic associations as well as the park commission to achieve both an athletic complex, primarily focused towards youth as well as community park and neighborhood park. Within the context of this park we do have some significant constraints and perhaps most imposing is the Williams Pipeline that runs through the park which essentially cuts off a section of the park for usability. And that affects ultimately the number of facilities that we can comfortably get on this site. The local youth athletic association would like to see an additional field, ballfield on this site and we did do a quick schematic that I think you received in your mailing with respect to the impacts. And essentially what the long and short of it is, is that we feel that it'd be very difficult to accommodate that additional field without losing the soccer field or a portion of that soccer field to accommodate the field as well.., the other was we felt we didn't want a big monolithic.., northeast comer. And what that does is help... (There was a tape change at this point in the discussion. The following tape was defective and the recording was very poor quality. Therefore the remainder of the meeting is summarized. ) Jeff Schoenbauer finished his presentation. The Council asked some questions and no action was taken on this item. Dave Nyberg gave a brief presentation on the status of the 1998 trail projects and that the item was going to be discussed further at the Park and Recreation Commission meeting the following night. No action was taken on this item. Items 6, 7, 8, 10(a) & (b) were tabled until the next City Council work session on February 2, 1998. The Executive Session was tabled until the February 9, 1998 City Council meeting. Mayor Mancino adjourned the meeting at 11:30 p.m. Submitted by Don Ashworth City Manager Prepared by Nann Opheim 69