TO: Mayor Collins and Town Council Members
FROM: Kevin Burke, Town Manager
Eva Cutro, Community Development Director
Paul Michaud, Senior Planner
DATE: March 22, 2018
DEPARTMENT: Community Development
Staff Contact Paul Michaud, Senior Planner 480-348-3574
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AGENDA TITLE:
Title
Discussion of the Walk & Bike Plan
Body
Town Value(s):
☐ Primarily one-acre, residential community
☐ Limited government
☒ Creating a sense of community
☒ Partnerships with existing schools and resorts to enhance recreational opportunities
☐ Improving aesthetics/creating a brand
☐ Preserving natural open space
The Walk & Bike Plan meets the Town values of creating a sense of community by establishing a plan that aims to focus pedestrian and bicycle facilities onto collector and minor arterial streets. The plan seeks to have the Town do more outreach toward education and enforcement. This outreach specifically looks to improved partnerships with resorts and schools.
Council Goals or Statutory Requirements:
Preparing the Walk & Bike Plan meets both an implementation measure of the Town’s 2012 General Plan and a Town Council Quality of Life initiative.
RECOMMENDATION:
No action will be taken at this meeting. As directed at the time with the Statement of Direction, a citizen review meeting will need to be scheduled along with the public hearing on this item. The citizen review meeting is tentatively set for April 26, 2018.
SUMMARY STATEMENT:
The Walk and Bike Plan is a large and detailed document with important policy issues throughout. As such, the adoption process is expected to be incremental. The March 22, 2018 study session will provide an overview of the entire document. Council will then be given two weeks to review and submit questions, text edits, and policy challenges to staff who will consolidate and present back the list to the entire Council in a public study session on April 26. From this meeting, an updated draft will be constructed and presented at a public meeting for community feedback prior to adoption.
While the draft document is the ultimate outcome, please take time to review the other attachments to this Action Report. The “Compliance to SOD” document in particular will be important to Members of Council to show exactly how the document achieves the Statement of Direction they set forth.
Lastly, in overview, the Walk and Bike Plan is considered a Specific Plan both in planning verbiage and under state law. Specific Plans are sub-plans to the General Plan required by state law and adopted by the voters of the Town of Paradise Valley. Therefore, the connection to the 2012 General Plan is important and emphasized throughout this review.
Planning Commission Recommendation
The Planning Commission on February 20, 2018 has forwarded to the Town Council their recommendation for approval of Resolution 2018-06, accepting the Walk & Bike Plan and the associated Minor Amendment to the 2012 General Plan. This approval included some minor revisions to the plan, such as including consideration of a speed study for a time of day variable speed limit zone similar to that used for schools related to the traffic study area along the Hummingbird Lane/Quartz Mountain hillside neighborhoods. There were also some grammatical and graphic edits. The Walk & Bike Plan attached to this report reflects these edits. The goal, policy and implementation references to the 2012 General Plan and "new" will be removed in the final plan. These references are in the plan as an aid to understand how the plan compares to the 2012 General Plan.
2012 General Plan
A starting point in the project was the 2012 General Plan that was ratified by Town residents. It includes a map of bike lanes/routes and several goals and policies on non-motorized transportation. Approval of the Walk & Bike Plan allows this plan to be a supplement of the Town’s General Plan effectively amending the following portions of the 2012 General Plan:
1) The deletion of the goals and policies of Section 4.2, Non-Motorized Circulation, replaced by the goals and policies of the Walk & Bike Plan;
2) The deletion of the Implementation Measures 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 14 of Section 4.5, Implementation Measures, of the 2012 General Plan, replaced by the implementation measures of the Walk & Bike Plan; and
3) The deletion of Section 4.6, Map and Standards, of the 2012 General Plan that includes the maps, facility definitions, and typical street cross-sections, replaced by the maps and standards of the Walk & Bike Plan.
Plan Process
The efforts to develop a pedestrian and bicycle plan began with an implementation measure in the 2012 General Plan that identified completion of a plan between 2016-2020. Staff, with the aid of a Planning Commission representative, completed the Request for Proposal process in the first half of 2016. In May 2016, Town Council approved the hiring of the consultant. The Town Council provided the Planning Commission a Statement of Direction (SOD) after the first draft of the plan was completed in February 2017. The plan process factored in three revisions to the plan, understanding that changes were likely to have a plan that fits Paradise Valley. The planning process has five phases: initiate, analyze, define, refine, and approve. The plan is now in the approval phase. See the Plan Process Summary attachment for more information.
Differences from 2017 Draft Plan
The June 2017 Statement of Direction (SOD) shifted the focus of the Walk & Bike Plan. A copy of the SOD and how the Walk & Bike Plan complies with the SOD is attached to this report. Differences in the 2018 draft plan from the 2017 draft plan include the following:
• Less emphasis was placed on trying to accommodate a separate pedestrian shoulder and bike routes on certain local streets that were either designated as a bike route in the 2012 General Plan or had existing conditions showing heavy usage. The 2018 Walk & Bike Plan focuses more on traffic calming and enforcement to mitigate conflicts.
• The SOD resulted in identifying the general as-is condition as the preferred facility type on Lincoln Drive, Tatum Boulevard, and McDonald Drive. The 2017 draft plan had several options for consideration from adding bike lanes and shared use paths, to leaving the existing facility system unchanged. In general, and except for a designated resort loop, the 2018 draft plan leaves the existing facility system in place on these streets.
• Less emphasis is placed on signage. In particular, route identification signage was removed. Although, by the Planning Commission request, the 2018 draft plan includes the possibility for route identification with pavement markings along the Resort Loop.
• In response to the above-noted differences, the goals, policies, and implementation measures were edited accordingly.
• The format was simplified, and hopefully is now more user-friendly.
Summary of 2018 Draft Plan
The 2018 Walk & Bike Plan is broken into four sections: Introduction, The Plan, Projects + Costs, and Moving Forward. The format of the plan is geared toward the online user.
The Introduction summarizes the guiding principles developed through public input and the Town Council Statement of Direction process. This section explains the mission of the plan. The mission was based off the non-motorized intent in Section 4.2 of the 2012 General Plan. The rest of this section summarizes the public input process and five phases of the plan process. Also, it provides benefits in walking and biking, safety tips, and education and enforcement approaches.
The Plan section includes maps, typical roadway cross-sections, and a description of the Town’s preferred facilities and elements (or toolbox) related to its walking and biking system. The Proposed Pedestrian and Bicycle Map illustrates the future end state of the various walking and biking facilities for the Town. The Pedestrian Map and the Bicycle Map look at each system separately. These maps provide an understanding of what facilities already exist, what facilities are in the 2018-2022 CIP, and what facilities are proposed. The Street Classification Map replicates the street classification map in the 2012 General Plan. There are no changes in street classifications proposed. The typical street cross sections build off the street cross-sections in the 2012 General Plan, with revisions to make them consistent with the Walk & Bike Plan. The Toolbox section describes each of the pedestrian and bicycle facilities. It also lists the supporting elements of the system related to traffic calming, crossings, and wayfinding.
The Projects + Costs section provides a worksheet template the Town Council or Town staff may use in prioritizing future CIP projects. It also describes in more detail the projects illustrated on the pedestrian and bicycle maps of this Plan. Estimated costs and rough time frames for completion are provided, but may change as projects are funded during the annual Town budget process or as future circumstances develop. The attached cost estimates reviewed by the Planning Commission were the basis for the costs in the plan.
The Moving Forward section lists the six goals and related policies developed during the plan process. Many of these goals and policies came from the 2012 General Plan. This section continues with implementation measures, performance measures, and methods to fund the proposed improvements.
BUDGETARY IMPACT:
Implementation of the Walk & Bike Plan has a budgetary impact since it includes construction of pedestrian and bicycle facilities. The plan does anticipate spreading out the cost of such improvements between the years of 2018 to 2030. Also, funding opportunities to reduce costs may exist through seeking grants, combining improvements with future projects, and/or stipulating improvement with approval of a future development.
The Projects + Costs component of the plan estimates approximately $5,150,000 to construct the pedestrian and bicycle facilities envisioned in this plan. This dollar amount does not include the 2018-2022 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budgeted amount for sidewalks along Lincoln Drive, 56th Street, Tatum Boulevard, and 32nd Street. The CIP budgeted $4,035,000 for those improvements. This CIP also includes reconstruction of Mockingbird Lane and Indian Bend Road related to the Ritz Carlton project. Much of that cost is the responsibility of the developer. Furthermore, only part of the Ritz Carlton improvement is related to pedestrian/bicycle facilities. Similarly, the $3,300,000 budgeted for Doubletree Ranch Road between 64th Street and Scottsdale Road includes other components such as improvements to the travel lanes and landscaped medians. The costs exclude any additional expenses for maintenance, education, and enforcement above the current staffing levels and expenditures.
ATTACHMENT(S):
1. Resolution 2018-06
2. Plan Process Summary
3. Compliance to SOD & SOD
4. Cost Estimates
5. Minutes
6. Presentation
7. Walk & Bike Draft Plan
C: - Case File
Note: Past information on the plan, including public comments, are available at <http://www.paradisevalleyaz.gov/555/Bicycle-Pedestrian-Master-Plan>.