AGENDA #5c
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to: |
Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager |
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from: |
J.B. Culpepper, Planning Director George Small, Engineering Director David Bonk, Long Range and Transportation Coordinator Kumar Neppalli, Engineer Services Manager |
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subject: |
Status of Timberlyne Community Mobility Recommendations |
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date: |
June 11, 2007 |
This memorandum responds to the petition received at the May 7, 2007 Council meeting from Timberlyne Community residents requesting a neighborhood mobility improvements update (Attachment 1). This memorandum provides an update on the following items:
In 2003, the Town received a $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to promote active living through programming and physical design. The grant proposal included the preparation of a mobility assessment for the Timberlyne Community. A comprehensive mobility program for the Timberlyne Community was proposed. The project worked with local community leaders and residents to evaluate mobility issues. This evaluation included a resident assessment of barriers to increased pedestrian, bicycle and transit use, and developed a program of improvements (Attachment 4).
On February 26, 2007, a community forum was held in Timberlyne to receive citizen comments on the results of the assessments and survey. Residents provided recommendations for the Council resulting from the forum discussion.
On March 8, 2007, Timberlyne residents presented recommendations to the Town Active Living by Design Advisory Committee for comment. The Committee endorsed the recommendations.
On April 28, 2007, Timberlyne residents presented a petition to the Council with recommendations based upon the information from the National Walkable Workshop, results of the Mobility Assessment, the Activity Survey and the Timberlyne Community Forum.
On May 7, 2007, staff presented a Status of Timberlyne Community Mobility Recommendations to Council.
The Timberlyne residents’ petition raised the following concerns:
Comment: The Engineering Department has completed an investigation of the lighting requests and proposes placement of an additional eight lights in Timberlyne (Attachment 3). According to Town standards, street lighting should be installed approximately 220 feet apart. The Town standard residential lighting fixture is 9500 lumen high pressure sodium “economical traditional” luminaire mounted on a 12-foot black fiberglass pole. For anything other than the Town standard pole, an additional charge is made by Duke Energy.
Comment: The Timberlyne residents contacted the Traffic Engineer about traffic calming at the intersections identified or the attachment with red circles. A petition was sent to residents to be returned to the Engineering Department. After receiving and reviewing the petition, a survey will follow for residents regarding traffic calming on their streets following the normal procedures of the Town Traffic Calming Guidelines.
In addition, crosswalks and bike lanes are scheduled to be painted as a result of the November 2006 National Walkable Workshop and the Active Living by Design Timberlyne Study (Attachment 4).
Comment: After review, the Engineering Department will install the speed limit sign on Kingston Drive near Weaver Dairy Road.
Comment: The informal paths identified for improvement in the petition are on private property. As part of the work of the Northern Task Force, we anticipate that informal paths may become part of the study of pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements. Town staff is reviewing a future process for establishing informal path guidelines which will also help to address the Timberlyne paths.
Staff is continuing to work with residents in the Timberlyne Community to review the recommendations and will also refer the petition to the Northern Area Task Force for comment. Attachment 4 shows where current improvements are being implemented in the community.
We will develop guidelines to address new informal paths as well as retrofits for pre-existing paths. We believe that the existing Town sidewalk work group is the appropriate group to review requests concerning informal paths.
We are investigating a segment of sidewalk along Kingston Drive that is incomplete as its construction may have been a condition of a nearby development’s special use permit.
1. Timberlyne May 7, 2007 Petition to Council (p. 4).
2. Timberlyne Lighting & Traffic Calming Requests Map (p. 5).
3. Timberlyne Lighting Staff Recommendations Map (p. 6).
4. Timberlyne Current Implementation Map (p. 7).
