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CBF Comments on Kalispell traffic calming 4-25-2022Citizens for a Baru Flathead PO Boy 2198 Ka6pell, M9 59903 4U0-756,8993 www Klerke Litrens org 4/25/2022 To: The Kalispell City Council Re: Work Session on Traffic Calming Policy Thank you for the opportunity to comment on your draft Traffic Calming Policy. We applaud your efforts to put in place a policy and offer the following comments and questions for your consideration. The Scope of Impact (cause) and Need for Traffic Calming —need to be revisited • It appears that the focus/premise of this draft policy is on single site locations and those living in closest proximity. Additionally, this policy, as proposed, places the decision -making responsibilities and potential cost to address these impacts on residents within 330 feet of such improvements (see more questions on who pays below). • Yet the factors leading to the need for traffic calming are rarely, we would argue, generated from a particular neighborhood, but rather from local government decisions impacting the pattern of growth citywide as well as from the increasing tourism traffic. • As proposed this policy fails to reference or integrate with the City of Kalispell's Complete Street Policy or with the Downtown Plan. Additionally, it does not provide criteria to ensure that new development or inf ill development is required to provide for traffic calming to address added impacts that such new development may bring off site. • While the use of special improvement districts may be an appropriate tool to fund some needed improvements, and a handful of "neighborhoods" may be willing to tax themselves for improvements with clear site -specific impacts, this is likely the exception. Thus, this policy, we feel, needs to provide for a much more comprehensive criteria for traffic calming and how the city prioritizes and pays for such improvements. This report Traffic Calming Benefits, Costs and Equity Impacts from the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute I1h ti2.2.: / as as rti aii.gpFlg ` provides some useful information and suggested criteria. Public Participation and who has a voice? • Demonstration of public support as outlined in section 5.2.1, which excludes renters is likely illegal as Montana courts have held land use decisions that exclude renters from public input illegal. Renters should have a voice in how the city plans for traffic calming. (Special Improvement Districts on the other hand as a self -taxing tool can be limited to the vote of property owners.) • Here again the cost and benefits of traffic calming we do not believe can be tied to a specific site proposed traffic calming proposal and public comment should be sought citywide. Perhaps it would be more equitable for the city to periodically (every two years maybe) accept citywide, requests for site specific traffic calming projects and develop criteria for the public to provide comment on which should receive priority by asking the public to rank the importance of the criteria to them for projects like those identified in section 5.1.6 on page 10. This criteria for traffic studies provides an example of a criteria that is not simply based on a yes or no. • A yes or no vote by those within 330 feet of a proposed project can be problematic. Providing criteria instead for ranking proposed projects helps inform the public of the complexity and pros and cons of projects. For example, looking back at the MDOT proposed roundabout on the hill above Woodland park, neighborhood leaders generated 100's of names on a petition opposing the proposed roundabout without requiring those commenting to rank alternatives or consider identified pros and cons. Public ability to bond and who would become libel? • Under section 5.2.4. Funding, it is not clear that the public or residents in an area have the legal ability or capacity to bond for traffic calming improvements, and if they do, then what is the liability that they may incur? • Again, we would ask the council to again revisit factors leading to the need for traffic calming and how the city could justify that this burden falls on a site -specific location rather than on the decisions the city makes on how and where it will grow. Public Education We would encourage you to include a glossary for terms and acronyms used in this guide. In reading through the draft, I found myself repeatedly needing to back track to find what an acronym stood for. A glossary would make this guide more user friendly. 2. We would encourage you to provide some local examples of where such traffic calming has been successfully installed where possible. 3. We would encourage you to include a section for additional information with links to other resources. As this guide proposes on page 9 to allow for requests for traffic reviews for traffic calming facilities to be initiated by city residents, business owners, Homeowner Associations (HOAs), Property Owner Associations (POAs), city staff, other government agencies, and the general public, and suggests that the "requestor" or "complainant" may ultimately need to gather public support in the form of petitions or in the forming of a Special Improvement District that would create a taxing district to where residents within 330 feet to pay for the installation of traffic calming, the public will need access to considerably more information to evaluate the options that might address their concerns. 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