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 road. 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 sidewalks 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 sidewalk 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 street context, the speed limit, the right of 1 December 15, 2020 way, whether or not there were already existing facilities, including sidewalks or bike lanes 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, curb 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 streets, 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 Complete Streets 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 bridge. 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 Parkway 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.