Committee Minutes

Grand Forks City Council Service/Safety Standby Committee
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - 4:00 p.m.__________________________________

The city council of the city of Grand Forks sitting as the Service/Safety Standby Committee met in Room A101 in City Hall on Tuesday, June 3, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. Present at roll call were Council Members Bakken, chair; Gershman. Absent: Kreun, McNamara.

Others present were Al Grasser, Jane Williams, Earl Haugen, Chief Packett. .

1. Overview of 2008 traffic system improvements..
Jane Williams, traffic engineer, made a brief presentation of upgrades and improvements in lighting projects above and beyond routine maintenance. Not long ago traffic signal would have been installed and except for normal monthly maintenance, very little have been done but in today's constantly changing world of technology given opportunity to upgrade and improve signal systems. To be valid these changes must be fiscally and technologically sound investments that will best serve the entire community and the following is a summary of the traffic signal improvements that will be accomplished this year, and will increase efficiency of our signal system, thereby reducing the time vehicles wait at red lights, improve air quality, save fuel, save dollars and save time; and will also save traffic signal maintenance costs, operational energy costs and improve safety.

Protective left turns for north and southbound traffic at intersection of 32nd Avenue South at South 34th Street and 32nd Avenue South at South 38th Street. Construction of 5-section head and installing in the field. Work is being done by city crews. Warrants were met for separate left turn phasing for north and south at each intersection and when improvements completed, intersections will operate as 8 phase intersections. Grasser stated one of his goals is to try to get directional signs on the mast arm so when can't see striping get some way to line up so know which lane you are in - left, straight, right, etc. On most of capital projects we are trying to put down plastic pavement markings. We have several signals with 8 in. heads and those are going to be changed out because being phased out according to the MUTCD. all heads are 1 ft. in diameter, and are all LED's too. Ms. Williams stated they are putting in the signing and one of the things slowing us down on the signing was that it took 2 1/2 months to get a response from the pole mfg. to let us know whether the wind loads would handle another sign on the poles, and there will be signs that go up for all the lanes. Signs will meet new reflective guidelines. Field wiring in the cabinets and change over the one 3-section to the left turn because it was a through end and Public Works provides our signs, we put them up and Public Works restripes the intersections and putting in left turns; that we coordinate the project with them so they work with us on that. She stated that at 38th they are waiting for the camera to come in and will need to put video detection in for southbound traffic and that will go up on one of the lights there - that will be done by city crews. The whole job is being done by city crews - big savings. She stated they spent above and beyond for equipment, is about a $40,000 savings.

Corridor Coordination: 32nd Avenue South - I-29 Southbound On-Ramp east to South 20th Street. Williams stated they have been working on this and final piece of interconnect went in last year and finished installing our 2070 controllers, and they are going to allow us to in shop or in City Hall develop our coordination programs and directly download into the controllers instead of hand punching in every number - tremendous savings of time. MPO has put out contract and engaged contractor to do coordination study, starting June 10 and contractor has contacted them to get information. Looking forward to get that done very quickly. That will provide us with software that will be used city-wide.

Regulatory Sign Changes at Traffic Signals:
Williams stated this is joint public works and engineering project, the current signing is the no turn on red and we have new signing with the MUTCD with the little symbol, but adding a plate that says "when bicyclists or pedestrians are present", and this will allow everybody to make the right turn on red when school traffic isn't there, Sunday morning when there is not traffic, and will keep the flow of traffic going and everybody moving and increase the flow of traffic. Grasser stated that 80 to 90% of the time when there is no conflicts. Williams noted that when children are not out walking or on their bikes, and is another energy saving thing, have been trying to come up with ideas as far as energy savings, fuel savings and this has been one that they have come up with to do that.

South Washington at 13th has pedestrian timing that requires all vehicular traffic to stop when the pedestrian pushes the button, only signal in Grand Forks that has this type of timing - the timing was implemented when the school boundary for Ben Franklin included homes on the west side of Washington and that is no longer the boundary and no kids are crossing Washington to get to school. Traffic in all four directions waits and sometimes backs up all the way to DeMers - Grasser stated they have received lot of complaints from drivers. Installing countdown pedestrian heads will standardize the intersection and will eliminate the ongoing cause of major backup at the intersection and still give the pedestrian positive direction as to when to step off the curb, how many seconds they still have left on that crossing before it goes "don't walk" and still get across that street. All of our intersections are going to be going to this which is the MUTCD standard and by starting with the intersections that are near schools, start doing this and children will know what to do at every single intersection and get rid of the major problem, because this intersection when it starts having problems, it causes problems at DeMers, at 17th and like a domino effect. Because of the special timing, they took the left turn phasing to do that so couldn't put left turns at this intersection and by getting rid of that special timing, we can put in our left turn phasing for east and west, that will clean up that intersection and improve the capacity at that intersection.

Traffic Signal Pole Painting
Williams stated this is another project and very cost effective project, that we hire summer intern and they paint poles, intern costs are approx. $4,000 to $5,000 year and get 30 to 35 street light poles and from 7 to 8 intersections painted, and in the past have contracted out and have got one intersection painted for that amount - no longer contracting but hiring and supervising and very cost effective program. Keeps regular maintenance to keep them looking decent.

Uninterrupted Power Supplies (UPS) - Battery Backup Systems
North 5th Street at Kittson Avenue
6th avenue North at North 42nd Street
University Avenue at North Columbia Road
Williams stated these were required to be installed at all intersections that had the pre-empted signal set railroad crossings - have 3 left to do this summer and needed to be done in 2010 and we are way ahead of doing them but also have them at major intersections and hope to continue to put them at more of our intersections as budget permits; and in the event of a power failure we will continue to be able to get the signal to operate and clear tracks. UPS systems have come down in costs since we moved to LED's because LED's are so much more efficient - old ones cost $7,000 to $8,000 and have 15 batteries and now downsize that and get smaller batteries and have same operating time. DeMers and Washington went down the other day and went for 3 hours and automatically switched to the UPS system and the Xcel crews didn't realize they had turned it off.

Traffic Signal Cabinet Replacement
University Avenue at North Columbia Road
University Avenue at North Washington Street
DeMers Avenue at North 5th Street
It was noted that they are doing 3 intersections this year. that technology has overtaken this cabinet and finally to the point where add any more and because of aging of wires, etc. have to replace the cabinet and are also subject to salting of the roads because not practical to keep. Pictures of new cabinets were shown and have controllers, detector units that take messages that come from the units in the street and give the messages to the controller and have opticom for police and fire (and buses if run behind schedule on main routes) and also conflict monitors and banks of switch packs.

Energy Efficient LED's
They are finally finished with all of red, yellow, green LED's and now have moved onto pedestrian indications, switching out the old ones. Big savings on energy.

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Phase I and Phase II
Phase I is almost complete, have been working on Columbia Road and have whole thing to talk to each other - big problem was between 11th and 2nd Avenue North, couldn't get over or under the RR tracks and with technology with the wireless at 2nd Avenue North and have antennas at both intersections and are now connected. They are now working on wireless and upgrading to get the mechanical/electrical stuff down these corridors and then can start programming and getting them to work in sequence. When they start getting their masters being able to talk wirelessly will be able to get rid of all the motives which they have which are six phone lines and about $300/month savings on telephone lines. They have the radios in the electrician's trucks and they have been installed and lab top links have been completed and once done, will be completion of Phase I.

Phase II which is proposed in our 2009 capital budget consists of installing an access port which is on Purpur Tower and that will be the main interface with our master controllers and will put antennas in transceivers with them, and will have a seamless interface between everything - this will allow our technicians will have their laptops in their trucks and be able to, if get phone call that down at Washington and 32nd, etc. and if gone into flash, can call it up on their computer and do a diagnostic and can fix it there rather than running back and forth across town, save tremendous amount of time in fuel dollars and staff time. Grasser stated that sometime in the future would like to get some computer software that monitors the entire system so that when running your system can see over time will have a certain pattern as to how an intersection works if something goes out of whack and have that computer monitored to take a look at it, because can have detector loops, cameras but at an intersection maybe problems for week at a time until somebody brings it to their attention.

Gateway Drive at N. 3rd Street
CDBG Underpass Project
This is one of the lighting projects and starting work with that project, this is one of the LED lights that they will be putting in and replace old lights; and will be doing some other things along with it. LED lights are a plug-in unit and plug into existing head. There are 3 lights and they will be replaced with LED fixtures also.

Olson Drive
2008 Street Light Maintenance Project
This is our 2008 maintenance project, have maintenance money in our budget and this light is in the abandoned or vacated right of way that had to be moved, and have had problems along the area with the wiring and keeping lights lit - have a light on a wooden pole and that this is not cost effective to continue to fix and more cost effective to do a project and will remove these lights, feedpoints that are in people's backyards on poles but will get our electrical feedpoints out of there and put in new feedpoints and new lights. These are Excel lights where we pay for lease or rental every month.

Williams stated these projects are being done, with exception of Gateway project, but we are doing project management on that, developed all the plans in house and saved $16,000 by doing the photo-metric for the LED's in-house.

Committee stated this was very good report.

Adjourn

The meeting adjourned at 4:50 p.m.

Alice Fontaine
City Clerk