December 15, 2020 A Special Meeting of the City Council of the City of Hickory was held in the Council Chambers of the Municipal Building on Tuesday, December 15, 2020 at 5:45 p.m., with the following members present:

Hank Guess Tony Wood Charlotte Williams Aldermen David Zagaroli Danny Seaver Jill Patton*

A quorum was present. *Alderwoman Patton attended simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom.

Also present were: City Manager Warren Wood, Assistant City Manager Rodney Miller, Assistant City Manager Rick Beasley, Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall, Community Development Manager Karen Dickerson, Public Works Director Steve Miller, Public Utilities Director Shawn Pennell, Executive Assistant Manager Yaidee Fox, City Attorney John Crone, Deputy City Clerk Crystal B. Mundy, and City Clerk Debbie D. Miller

Representatives from Alta present: Mr. John Cock. Ms. Heather Seagle attended simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom.

I. Mayor Guess called the meeting to order. All Council members were present except for Alderman Williams. Alderwoman Patton attended simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom.

II. Presentation of Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan – Presented by Alta

Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall thanked Council for coming in early to hear the presentation and consider the bicycle and pedestrian plan. He advised Council actually approved the contract for this plan approximately one year ago. Staff started the process last fall. They started talking with Alta last November. They had their first kickoff meeting in January of this year, before everything kind of went south. He recognized a couple people. Attending simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom was Lindsay Stockman, from Live Well Catawba and the County Health Department. He mentioned her because Live Well Catawba contributed $25,000 to prime the plan to get it started. He recognized some people that served on the committee, Community Development Manager Karen Dickerson, Aaron Kohrs with Greenway, and Public Works Director Steve Miller.

Mayor Guess interrupted Mr. Marshall and advised Alderwoman Patton was attending simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom.

Mr. Marshall introduced two of the developers of the plan from Alta Planning and Design. Present was Mr. John Cock. Ms. Heather Seagle was attending simultaneously by electronic communication via Zoom. He asked Mr. Cock to the podium to being the presentation.

Mr. John Cock presented a PowerPoint presentation. He commended the City for the implementation that was already started out on the . The City had a lot of great projects underway. He commended Council for this project that also had funding from Live Well Catawba as well as the City. They don't see many projects that have that kind of cooperation. They started at the beginning of 2020 effectively. They were lucky enough to be able to have their first steering committee and first public meeting in person, back when they could do in person meetings. The Mayor came to their meeting at the Ridgeview Center. They did surveys and public outreach and were able to do a lot of things in person at the beginning of the process. Luckily, they got that in before the pandemic hit. They had been meeting with the committee and staff virtually since then, but they also met with the Friends of Hickory as part of their early work. He advised he would present the results of the planning process and what they heard from the public. They were at the end of the process and Council would have a plan they could use with DOT (Department of Transportation) to ensure that the City could get their participation in funding some of these projects going forward on NCDOT (North Carolina Department of Transportation) roadways. He referred to the PowerPoint and advised big themes in terms of vision, connectivity, equity and access for all, increasing safety, increasing health and livability. Again, Live Well Catawba was a partner in this. Supporting active and accessible new development and making sure that the Hickory Urban Bike Loop was part of the priority. They had great public participation, both in person in public meetings as well as online. They had a map where they got input from people. He advised a little over half of the people or the respondents said they were comfortable walking in Hickory, but about that same number of people said they were not comfortable bicycling in Hickory. That left lots of people, even on the walking side, who would like things to be better. When they asked about the top priorities for types of investments, the kinds of things that the City was doing now, bike facilities, paved paths and greenways was the number one thing, followed by and safer crossings. In terms of destinations, people want to get to shopping, but they also want to get to the City’s parks and to other neighborhoods in town in terms of top destinations. He turned the presentation over to Ms. Heather Seagle.

Ms. Heather Seagle presented via Zoom. She advised she worked with Alta Planning. Building off of their public input in the early part of the project they developed network recommendations for pedestrian and bicycle facilities starting by looking at the existing network and the multiple paths and bikeways that are located in town. They examined the roadways and the gaps. They took the public input on key destinations and key corridors that people wanted to travel and built off of the existing sidewalk network to develop a pedestrian network recommendation. She referred to the PowerPoint and pointed out the identified key sidewalk gaps that could be built up over time, as well as multi-use paths along some busier corridors. In developing the different facilities in this network of recommendations they were looking at the context, the speed limit, the right of 1 December 15, 2020 way, whether or not there were already existing facilities, including sidewalks or bike and trying to make the most contextually relevant facility recommendation throughout the City. In addition to the pedestrian network map in the report, Council would also find a bike network recommendation map that again builds off the existing facilities. She referred to the PowerPoint and pointed out some short segments of existing bike lanes on 5th Street NE and there were quite a number of multi-use path projects. They built off of that, again, looking at the street context throughout the City, speed limits, right away, presence and tried to make a contextually appropriate bike facility recommendation throughout the City. Whereas in the pedestrian network, you have sidewalks and multi-use paths, those multi-use paths also served as bike facilities. They also recommended bike lanes, standard bike lanes on certain , advisory shoulders, buffered or separated bike lanes more in the City’s downtown city center streets on more urban context. There were recommendations for paved shoulders in the more rural stretches in the outskirts of the City. They made recommendations for short bicycle pedestrian connectors connecting some small dead-end streets and cul-de-sacs to enhance the existing network bike recommendations. There were descriptions of all these facility types in the report, which they shared with Council. They also spent some time really honing in on the Hickory Urban Bike Loop, which was a concept developed by the Friends of Hickory Group and the Bicycle Advocacy Advisory Committee within that group. This loop had been identified by that group the main corridors that bicyclists like to travel on that get them to all four corners of the City. They recommended the best facility type for creating, dedicated bike facilities all around that loop and connecting the whole City.

Ms. Seagle discussed highlights of some upcoming NCDOT projects (North Carolina Department of Transportation). She referred to the PowerPoint and pointed out the corridors that are already on the calendar for projects and improvements in the coming years. Given NCDOT’s new Policy, where they will fund a complete streets facility including bike ways and pedestrian facilities. This plan had identified appropriate bicycle pedestrian facilities on these streets, so when these projects are completed by NCDOT these are the facilities that they will implement on those corridors. She asked Mr. John Marshall to share more details on some of these projects.

Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall discussed a few of these projects and how important this plan was moving these DOT projects forward with the City. As everybody knows 321 was going to be widened. The City was going to take over the north bound . The City was building a trail from the bridge all the way up to MDI in conjunction with DOT. Also, 127 going into Alexander County was going to have a multi-use trail going over the new bridge that they build over the Catawba River. We are going to have two multi-use trails crossing the Catawba River in the future. He advised 127 in Mountain View; they were also planning a multi-use path along that when they widen it. Startown Road, when they get to that point, they were looking at trying to connect all the development that was going to happen along Startown Road with some kind of trail system. He advised 29th / McDonald would have some type of bicycle and pedestrian facilities on that as well. Springs Road and 127 were a little further out, but they would also consider that at the time as well. As Ms. Seagle said, once the complete streets policy was adopted by DOT there had always been a cost share if they put in sidewalk, or if they put in multi-use trail, or bike lanes with DOT. With them adopting the complete streets, if they have this in a plan, which is critical to adopt this plan, they would participate on these amenities 100 percent. That was a big change in DOT’s philosophy. That made this even more important.

Mayor Guess asked how the delays from DOT were affecting this.

Mr. Marshall advised all projects had been pushed back slightly, but as the economic situation with DOT gets better, projects will integrate will move back up eventually. They just don't know at this time, but the situation looked pretty bleak when they pushed all the projects out several years, but they would eventually move forward.

Alderman Zagaroli asked if the plan that Mr. Marshall had showed Council previously, the bike loop, was that the original one that they went on.

Mr. Marshall confirmed it was, he had changed slightly around 17th and Clement, because they were going to extend 17th up to Clement, and then they were going to be able to tie it back in and have a safe crossing over 321. They made a couple little tweaks to it, but it was better than it was.

Alderman Zagaroli confirmed it was basically what they did a year or two ago.

Mr. Marshall commented basically the same.

Ms. Heather Seagle continued the presentation. Building off of these, projects for NCDOT , the City, John Marshall, Karen Dickerson and some others, and the steering committee helped them identify some priority projects along City maintained streets. These would be projects that the City of Hickory could pursue in addition to the NCDOT corridors. They identified 12 priority projects, four on-street bike projects, four sidewalk projects, and four multi-use projects and developed some cutsheets and detailed design pages around these priority projects. She advised she would highlight a few of those but in the full report there were detailed cutsheets for each of these projects. The first one was the scenic lake route, which they developed as a concept for dedicated bike facilities up on the northwest end of the Hickory Bike Loop. They recommended on this highlighted portion of the loop, which included 6th Street, 21st , and then 12th Street Drive, was changing the cross section just by repainting and resurfacing the road rather than having two lanes divided with a double yellow line, there would be a single travel in the middle with advisory shoulders on the outside. This was a new type of facility for the United States. It had only been implemented in a handful of cities across the United States. It was more common in Europe, but essentially it creates a dedicated space out in the area of the roadway for bicyclists and vehicular could travel down the center lane and only move into the shoulder space when 2 December 15, 2020 they encounter oncoming vehicles. She referred to a photo on the PowerPoint of what this might look like. This loop, as it currently exists, had marked shoulders, but they were bumpy and uneven with the curb and gutter pans on the side, and so they're really not suitable for bike use. This whole loop was a very popular area for bicyclists and the traffic volumes on this loop were very low and would warrant a much lower, quieter kind of street cross section that could create more space for bicyclists and create a signature area for bicyclists to go access Glenn Hilton Memorial Park, Jaycee Park, as well as the river and the new greenways projects that are going in along the riverfront up in that area.

Alderwoman Williams asked for clarification. Was it still going to have two-way traffic?

Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall advised yes; the center lane was only for cars that get in the center lane to pass bikes. It creates bike lanes and then the center lanes are for traffic and then they move back over when they are not following bikes.

Alderwoman Williams questioned how they would know.

Mr. John Cock advised it was like a one lane bridge condition. If somebody was on the bridge you merge over, but if there's no cyclist there then two cars could use the full road space and they pass each other. This only works if there's low enough traffic volumes and good sight distance. You wouldn't do this in some types of curves, for example. It's a way to creates some space without having to widen that area of a challenging roadway.

Mayor Guess commented there would have to be a tremendous amount of education he would think related to that.

Mr. Marshall commented that it was a concept. It was something to look at and something to consider.

Mayor Guess thought that it almost seemed like it would work better than the yellow line down the middle.

Mr. John Cock commented they had started with the most challenging one, the ones after this were less challenging. He encouraged Council to keep an open mind.

Ms. Heather Seagle discussed the next project which was 17th Street NW and 17th Street Extension. She referred to the PowerPoint and pointed out the straight section which was 17th Street, and then there was a new section that had been proposed to connect 9th Avenue up to Clement . On this stretch of roadway, they were proposing widening and adding bike lanes as well as sidewalks. The City had already proposed an extension of 17th Street from 9th Avenue up to Clement Boulevard with a similar cross section of bike lanes and sidewalks. These would help create a continuous bicycle facility on the west side of the Hickory Urban Loop, starting with the existing bike lanes down on the south end of 17th Street all the way up to Clement Boulevard. She referred to the PowerPoint and advised the current cross section of Clement Boulevard included two travel lanes in both directions and a center turn lane for a width of 60 feet. If the center lane were removed, and the street was restriped you could fit some nice bike lanes on Clement Boulevard to create a better connection between 17th Street, out to Winkler Park and the Hickory Crawdads Stadium. They also looked at the traffic counts on this section of Clement and they were sufficiently low, and they thought that a lane reduction out here and adding bike lanes would be a good solution to create a more complete street that accommodates bicyclists and pedestrians.

Ms. Seagle discussed the next project that they were highlighting, 17th Avenue NE. This was a priority sidewalk section in order to create better connectivity to Civitan Park and also complete some of the Hickory Urban Loop up in that area. Switching to the opposite side of the City in the southwest corner along the Urban Loop was the 3rd Avenue, 15th Street and 7th Avenue sidewalk project. This group of sidewalks was kind of clustered together in a single project to create more sidewalk connectivity in the southwest corner of the City. And within this project they also included a crossing improvement at the of 7th Avenue and 13th Street. Currently there was a single crosswalk there with two white stripes. They recommended high visibility crosswalks, painted and a rectangular rapid flashing beacon being installed on the south leg of 13th Street to help people cross this wide roadway, which was four lanes wide. Ultimately, 13th Street would become a when the 321 project was completed, which should help lower traffic volumes and help people cross in this area. In addition, their bicycle network recommendations called for this very wide outside lane on 13th Street, she thought the outside lane was 18 feet wide, which was plenty of room for a travel lane and a bicycle lane. This project and the bike way projects would really transform the bicycle and pedestrian connectivity in the southwest corner of the City. She discussed the 12th Avenue multi-use path project. This created a great connection between 6th Street and 321 and kind of cuts off the bottom half of that scenic lake loop that she highlighted previously. This corridor was a key connection for bicyclists and pedestrians, but it does not have any sidewalks or bike lanes on it as it is. The City had identified this corridor for a sidewalk project in their sidewalk inventory that was completed prior to this project. They recommended upping that recommendation to a 10 foot side path so they could provide a bicycle facility as well along this corridor because the current right of way was narrow enough that you would have to repave and widen the road if you wanted bike lanes. Whereas, the multi-use path could get the bicycle and pedestrian facilities within one project. The plan also includes program recommendations to round out the infrastructure-based recommendations. They included some questions in their public input survey and their open house to get feedback from residents on what types of programs that they would like to see and built off of those initial suggestions. Some of the priority program recommendations were to establish a Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator staff position within the City of Hickory staff. To start the process of becoming a recognized bike and walk friendly 3 December 15, 2020 community. Create some wayfinding signage and some special signage around the hub loop to help people identify safe streets for walking and biking and how to get from point “A” to “B”. She referred to the PowerPoint and showed some examples of some concepts that they had developed for other cities, that could show people distances as well as travel times to key destinations around the City. Other program recommendations included education programs for motorist, bicyclists and pedestrians, general safety education, as well as if a project like the advisory shoulders on the scenic bike loop were implemented you would certainly want to implement some education around how to use advisory shoulders, both as a motorist and cyclists. Other programs that were well received by the public and also promote biking and walking in the City were open street for ciclovia events that had become popular throughout the United States, where streets are shut down to motorists and people get to see how a street or neighborhood could deal with bicycle and pedestrians being the priority mode of travel. Creating a citywide bike map that could certainly build off of these recommendation maps could be a great tool for people wanting to find the best route through town walking or biking. The plan also included policy and regulatory updates. To update the design standards within the City Code for sidewalk with landscape buffers along the roadways to create a more pedestrian, streetscape, requirements for building sidewalks and multi- use paths with new developments, that type of thing.

Mr. John Cock added for the policy and regulatory updates that was something that Council could do for free, but it helps to get people who were investing in building in Hickory to help to pay for the infrastructure. Council could change regulations to help get some of that built by folks who would be investing here.

Ms. Heather Seagle discussed the next and final steps, which were to hopefully get this plan adopted by Council and finalize it and print the report, so Council would have copies. They would share that with NCDOT, so they have these recommendations on their books. They would also like to schedule a final meeting with Mr. John Marshall and Ms. Karen Dickerson to talk about next steps for implementing some of these projects and Council’s next steps were to continue pursuing funding and implementation of and build off the great projects that they City already had underway including this concept bridge that was going to be built over 321. The City has a good momentum going already. They hoped that this plan could help the City carry that through. She asked Council for questions and comments and any clarifying needs that Council might have. She thanked Council for their time.

Alderwoman Patton asked to go back to the regulatory updates and policy. She asked who would give Council the guidance to give to Planning so that they could incorporate this into the City’s policy.

Ms. Heather Seagle advised there was a table in the report that included the City’s current policies and then some recommendations for how to strengthen those policies or modify them, as well as examples from other key cities throughout North Carolina and the United States providing best practices for policy and regulatory code.

Mayor Guess asked if there were any other questions from members of Council or staff.

Alderwoman Williams commented she was presuming they were piggybacking on a lot of our new construction and development. Correct?

Mr. John Cock replied correct.

Alderwoman Williams commented that would be the initial kind of timeline. Capture that in the short term. She asked what the recommendations were in terms of short term, medium term, and long term.

Mr. John Cock advised short term, near term and medium term was the map that Mr. John Marshall showed Council of the NCDOT projects. These are project that would be either designed and funded and implemented. He would say any of the priority projects, the 12 projects that Ms. Heather Seagle listed, would be great things that could be tackled. They don't have to be tackled in that order per se, but they were all near term priorities that provide connections to the investments that the City was already making. He thought the City’s engineering group was doing regular sidewalk maintenance. Anytime there was an intersection project or resurfacing that NCDOT was doing, they could begin to implement these recommendations, including they should be implementing the ADA, infrastructure along a route when they do resurface.

Alderwoman Williams commented they don't really have a clear timeframe.

Mr. John Cock commented that part of it depends on the level of resources committed by the State and the City. The full recommendation was probably a 30-40 year build out. It could be sooner depending on what the City invests and what the State invests.

Mayor Guess thought the City had a really good start on this plan. The fact that the City could do some things for the State to be able to come on board and represent the City in funding a 100 percent. He thought that probably should be one of their priorities to get that implemented so they could get some help on the future projects as they come on board.

Alderwoman Williams asked if there was any kind of private funding that they could seek.

Mayor Guess interjected grants or something.

4 December 15, 2020 Mr. John Cock commented one of the biggest sources of private funding he thought that Council would see for this type of project was the folks who were building commercial and residential development in Hickory. And if they could get them to participate in building along their frontages that would be a very significant way to get pieces of this done. In terms of other private sector funding they had seen in many cities across the United States, some of the major employers, whether it's the hospital or industry who also contribute. He advised that Ms. Seagle had showed a slide where Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas, sponsored some of their bike routes signage. And they did that because for the same reason that Council was investing, they want to attract residents, they want to retain workers, and they want to kind of put their money where their mouth is in terms of investments that they're making locally.

City Manager Warren Wood advised Council every year in the annual budget which Council adopts, they include about $200,000 for sidewalk and bikeway plan implementation. He thought it was the third generation. They had the sidewalk and bikeway master plan that went back, he thought to the late 90s, then they updated it. As conditions change, this would need to be updated again. This was not going to stand as is for the next 30 years. In addition to the $200,000 that Council does for sidewalks annually, that would continue to go into funding this. It may be a case where they have to bank two years-worth of money to do a project. They were also in anticipation of hundreds of millions of dollars of NCDOT projects. They had been setting aside additional money. They had hoped to do $100,000 year over five years to have $500,000 to go in. He advised they were on year two of that. This coming year would be year three. If the economy holds up, there would be another $300,000, $400,000 and $500,000, so there was a funding mechanism for some of this.

Mayor Guess asked if there was an estimated cost on just the Urban Loop.

Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall advised no, that was very complex because there were so many different solutions to get that 13 miles, because you could put sharrows in some area, which was relatively economical. Some places you would have to push the curb line back. Some places you may be able to put bike lanes in there. It was going to be such a combination until they get more detail on that he couldn’t really give Council a cost estimate.

City Manager Warren Wood mentioned also the right of way acquisition.

Mr. John Cock advised Mayor Guess that they had included cost estimates on the 12 priority projects. Cost estimates were in the plan for at least those segments.

Alderman Wood mentioned that he had the opportunity to live in Holland for a couple of years, and they were a very bike pedestrian centric Country. There was a distinct difference in law enforcement, the mentality towards law enforcement when it comes to pedestrian and bicycle traffic versus motor vehicle traffic. He asked if the towns and the cities that they were seeing being successful were they seeing that difference in the mentality and how does that happen? Does law enforcement have a seat at the table in this plan?

Mr. John Cock responded that they did have police representation. He commented that was a great point because, he and Ms. Seagle both live in a town where people know you need to drive what the speed limit is or there will be a consequence. If people don't know that, then that sign means almost nothing. That was easier said than done, because there's lots of things that police need to spend their time on, but that was part of the equation. NCDOT has got a great program called the Watch for Me program, which was about safety and education of motorists and people walking and biking, and a lot of it was done in conjunction with law enforcement.

Mayor Guess commented along with that the City has police on bicycles anyway, so that would be incorporated he was sure in part of the education concept as well.

Alderman Wood asked if he saw vigorous enforcement of distracted driving laws in the communities that are seeing success with this. That was at the top of his mind. You could go out now and see people on their phone, and when you combine bicycles and pedestrians and cars with distracted drivers, that's a recipe for disaster.

Mr. John Cock commented if you look at some of our neighboring States like South Carolina at the State level, has more aggressive distracted driving laws on the books. He thought they were going to need some help from the State Legislature for that. He thought there was a role for the local law enforcement as well.

Alderman Seaver mentioned that he had actually observed a person texting while biking.

Mayor Guess asked for any other questions. He commented that he hears all the time from the community how excited they are to see what the City had already done. And of course, those that have attended these meeting was excited for the future. They were looking forward to moving along with this. He appreciated Mr. Cock, Mr. Marshall, Ms. Seagle, everybody working on this, the folks that were present, those that were not present that worked on the committee, and the staff. He thought this was something that was needed, and the community would be really proud of once they could get it up and running.

City Councilmembers thanked the presenters.

City Manager Warren Wood advised Council they would need to take action to accept the plan.

5 December 15, 2020 Transportation Planning Manager John Marshall advised Council could take action to approve the plan or adopt the plan.

Mayor Guess moved seconded by Alderman Zagaroli approval of the Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan as presented. The motion carried unanimously.

III. There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 6:27 p.m.

______Mayor

______City Clerk

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