University Transportation Committee 23 July 2012 | 11:30 a.m. | Gerberding 142 Present: Josh Kavanagh, Transportation Services Celeste Gilman, Transportation Services Peter Dewey, TIP Representative Ron Kahler, Fleet Services Alicia Halberg, Transportation Services Chuck Treser, Faculty Representative John Schaufelberger, Faculty Representative Matt Weatherford, PSO Scott Baebler, ICA Dan Erickson, ICA Bob Ennes, Health Sciences Patricia Riley, UWMC Miranda Leidich, SLU Evan Smith, ASUW Absent: Miles Fernandez, ASUW Sean Wilson, ASUW Austin R. Bell, ASUW Melanie Mayock, GPSS Colin Morgan-Cross, GPSS TBA, GPSS TBA, Faculty Representative Luther Martin, WFSE April Millar, WSNA Laura Davenport, SEIU 925 John Vinson, UWPD Steve Kennard, Real Estate Office Mark Stanley, Student Life & HFS Rebecca Barnes, Planning & Budgeting Kristin Francisco, Disability Services Office Charles Kennedy, At-Large Representative Jean Garber, Dentistry, At-Large Representative 1. Call to order a. Quorum is called, initially quorum was not met. However, with Evan Smith proxying all three of ASUW’s voting members, quorum came to 13, the bare minimum to meet quorum.

2. UW-Fleet 12 passenger van training update – Ron Kahler a. Ron Kahler circulated a letter for Fleet customers, it is attached to these meeting minutes. b. Question (John Schaufelberger): How often will these training sessions be held? i. Comment (Ron Kahler): As often as needed to meet our customers’ demands. We will see how these classes fill up. Already 19 people have been trained; the next session is on Monday. 1. Slots are filling up quickly, however there are still spots available. c. Question (John Schaufelberger): Will there be weekend training sessions? i. Comment (Ron Kahler): Weekends can be difficult for in-van training sessions because the vans are often taken or rented out for trips. d. Question (Chuck Treser): What happened to the $300 training charge? i. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): It’s coming—the transition has been bumpy on this, and Ron has found some room within the Fleet budget to cover some costs for the time being. 1. This will not last long as Fleet has seen a significant increase in liability insurance charges. Transportation Services will come back to the UTC with a plan for how to distribute those charges within Fleet’s rates. This will likely include a substantial increase in prices for 12 passenger vans because they are a large source of the increase in liability insurance charges. e. On July 10 SWERVE, a national driver training company, began training UWPD officers. Each of the six officers received more than 40 hours of training, becoming certified to train others. Each class is taught by three UWPD officers. i. Fleet hopes to merge classes so they aren’t back-to-back. ii. Fleet is looking into getting more trainers from SWERVE to help with the initial surge of new customers needing training at the beginning of the school year. f. Those who complete training will receive a plastic card to certify that they have completed training. i. Question (John Schaufelberger): How long is the training good for? 1. Comment (Ron Kahler): One year. After that, customers will only need to take a refresher course every year. The refresher will be shorter and faster than the original training. 3. Basic driver safety training requirement – Ron Kahler a. Most everyone has completed Fleet’s basic driver training at some point. However, Fleet seeks to make sure its customers complete a basic driver training refresher each year. This training would be entirely online and customers could take it at their leisure, printing out a certification card at the end. i. Many group members pointed out that this is similar to the annual asbestos training that many employees are required to take.

b. Comment (Peter Dewey): It would be helpful to have some sort of notification or communication process set up so that customers know when they need to take or renew their driver safety training. i. Rushing into the training leads employees to simply click through, rather than taking their time with the training. 1. Comment (Ron Kahler): The new training will have questions, similar to the asbestos training, so that customers aren’t able to simply click through. c. Question (Chuck Treser): Is there a way to spread out the training? Otherwise there will be a large number of employees all accessing it on the same day. This would also impact TS’ ability to communicate with those customers effectively. i. Comment (Ron Kahler): Eventually renewal and expiration will tie in with a person’s driver’s license. This would spread out the so-called “September flood” eventually. d. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): This is something TS could implement on its own, however, Josh would love to do it with the endorsement of the UTC. i. There is a motion to endorse Fleet Services’ proposal to require annual basic driver safety training for use of all UW Fleet vehicles. 1. The motion is seconded and is passed with all UTC members in favor, none opposed, no abstentions. 4. Minutes Approval – Josh Kavanagh a. Chuck Treser made a motion to approve the June meeting minutes, Peter Dewey seconded. The UTC approved the minutes with all members in favor, none opposed, no abstentions. b. Josh Kavanagh offered a welcome to Dan Erickson who will be replacing Scott Baebler as ICA’s representative to the UTC. He thanked Scott for his years of hard work on the UTC. 5. Faculty/Staff U-PASS Subcommittee update – Matt Weatherford a. The group is still putting together its meeting with Matt Lund of the Attorney General’s office and looking at the regulatory environment at the UW. b. Subcommittee members have looked at other programs around the state, such as the STAR program and WSDOT’s CTR program and will continue to look at these moving forward. WSDOT’s program particularly has some value in components that the subcommittee will examine. c. Recently the group looked at faculty/staff responses to the Student Transportation Task Force survey two years ago to see which funding models were most favored at that time. d. Comment (Chuck Treser): We’re also asking for data on who uses which TS products, since different products have different costs associated with them. i. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): And as of last week there is a new data reporting tool for ridership data at the group level.

e. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): I’d like to thank the group for the hard work in getting out ahead of this issue. I bumped into a colleague from WSDOT and he was very impressed by the great questions coming out of this committee and the potential resolutions associated with it. 6. South Campus Transportation Subcommittee update – Bob Ennes a. There is little to report as there was no full committee meeting last month. The next meeting is this Thursday. b. The allocation systems subcommittee did meet and discussed TS’ hope to not have allocation exceptions. The current process hasn’t been very clear. Going forward the group decided that if an allocation is added in one place, then an allocation needs to be given up elsewhere. i. Details of this will be flushed out more in Thursday’s meeting. ii. Revamping the allocation system has taken longer than TS’ Deputy Director Michelle Rhoads perhaps once thought, but the subcommittee expects it to be a pretty long process. c. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): S1 is the epicenter of the issue, but the allocation system expands more broadly to all parking areas with an S-designator. 7. Universal Student U-PASS Advisory Board – Evan Smith a. The group’s last meeting began with discussions of the Nightride and Nightwalk LEAN projects coming up. Students will be a part of this project by looking at the programs themselves, what they want them to look like, and how to get there. b. The Advisory Board has been following the UAW arbitration closely and it will be an ongoing item at future meetings. The students are waiting for the University to officially respond. c. The board is looking at its own internal aspects, looking at electing new leadership for the coming school year and what the process will be like for renegotiation this universal fee, if the universal fee stays through the arbitration. d. Finally, the board is working on its annual report and ensuring that it stays transparent to its stakeholders. e. Comment (Josh Kavanagh): Josh offered a “tip of the hat” to ASUW and GPSS for having continuous engagement in the Advisory Board from the highest levels of student government. This engagement will be important in ensuring the program’s stability as the MOU and transit agency contracts are renegotiated later this year. 8. UAW Arbitration – Josh Kavanagh a. There isn’t too much to add about arbitration from what Evan Smith brought up in the Universal Student U-PASS Advisory Board update. b. The most interesting issues are some privacy concerns which have come up as HR seeks to understand the liability associated with the arbitrator’s decision. They have asked for information and TS has made it very clear that individualized trip data is not available

and will not be available. In turn, they’ve asked for more “broad strokes” of this individualized data – seeking to understand the student employees’ U-PASS utilization. TS is learning how to balance these requests with privacy concerns. 9. 520 construction and plans – Peter Dewey a. Chuck Treser had requested more information about the 520 construction at the June UTC meeting. Peter Dewey’s PowerPoint presentation is attached to the meeting minutes. b. The new SR-520 will have HOV lanes from SR 202 in Redmond to I-5 when completed. Different phases of this project are funded separately. c. The current phase has seen anchors placed in the lake and soon there will be pontoons placed north of the current bridge. They are currently floating out from Grays Harbor and Tacoma. i. These were built just large enough to fit through the Ballard locks, and should be quite a sight to see. Peter expects they will be floating through the locks sometime this month. d. Congestion management project i. Tolling changed traffic patterns pretty much as modeled prior to it taking effect. There was a steep drop off at the beginning as drivers diverted to other locations, times or modes; gradually that growth has returned, though it is still less than what it was. e. The floating bridge and eastside improvements will be completed by the end of 2014, and that is all that is currently funded at this point. This leaves the west end of the project largely unfunded. i. It is likely that WSDOT will soon receive a $500 million loan to pay for a fraction of the west side improvements. 1. This is enough to construct a trestle bridge north of the existing trestle bridge, connecting the new floating bridge to Montlake Blvd. That would allow for continuation of the HOV lanes and the new bicycle/pedestrian path to Montlake Blvd. only. It would not cover a lid or a new Montlake bridge ii. Because there is no funding for the other west-end components, construction will be very slow. iii. Question (Chuck Treser): At some point they had talked about building a ramp straight off of the floating bridge at the Arboretum into the Pacific/Montlake intersection area; is that still being considered? 1. Comment (Peter Dewey): No, that plan had been considered 5-6 years ago but it is now very unlikely to happen. f. The unfunded plan is to build another bascule bridge parallel to the current Montlake Bridge. This would benefit cyclists and pedestrians the most, with minor benefits for transit and very little benefit to traffic.

i. There is vocal opposition to the parallel bascule bridge plan from some people in the Montlake neighborhood. The City is therefore un-enthusiastic. 1. The state legislature commissioned a report to establish triggers that would lead to consideration of the new bridge. There are a few triggers that may sway decision makers to support the bascule bridge – including those indicating that pedestrian, bike, transit and off-ramp queuing conditions have deteriorated. g. The project will have impacts on many areas on the Westside, and therefore WSDOT will fund a number of mitigations, including: i. A public park will be going in at the Bryant building site, where UWPD is currently located. 1. The University is currently in negotiations with WSDOT about how much it will receive for that property. ii. Union Bay Natural Area restoration 1. This would include removal of parking at the E-5 lot, which would be restored to its original wetland state. iii. WSDOT peninsula and arboretum restoration 1. Currently the arboretum peninsula is partially owned by WSDOT, UW and a private non-profit. 2. The footprint of the new SR-520 bridge will be much larger than the current bridge on this natural area. The current bridge is composed of four, 10-foot lanes with no shoulders. The new bridge will have six, 12foot lanes with shoulders on each side and a 12-foot multi-use trail. a. If the group is interested, Peter Dewey can find someone from the project to present more about the Westside mitigation projects. iv. West approach community construction management plan 1. This has to do with how SR-520 will connect to Montlake Blvd. h. Traffic impacts i. Traffic will only be impacted on the weekends, and WSDOT expects these disruptions to be pretty minor. ii. When the Westside project is funded, specifically the connection from SR-520 to Montlake Blvd., then there will be more traffic impacts and concerns. Peter Dewey will keep the UTC updated about these issues as they come up. i. Other impacts i. The new bridge will have a raised profile compared to the current bridge and this could impact plants and sunlight in the arboretum. There is some talk of adding artificial lights or mirrors to help mitigate this. ii. Currently the new bridge’s multi-use path will not connect into the UW or the Burke-Gilman, for example because the west span is not funded and neither is the parallel bascule bridge. j. Question (Matt Weatherford): What are they doing with the old span?

i. Comment (Peter Dewey): The project currently has enough funding to remove the part of the bridge that is being replaced, but the west span will stay until the new bridge and removal is funded. 10. Pacific Street HOV lanes – Celeste Gilman a. The city contacted Celeste Gilman this morning because they are interested in making the HOV 3+ lane on Pacific approaching Montlake Blvd. into a transit-only lane. b. The lane designation was initially created to act as a queue jump for transit, and this is partly why it is an HOV 3+ rather than 2+. c. The lane’s performance has been poor, and there are high levels of SOV and HOV 2 violations. d. Celeste Gilman recommends making it a transit-only lane, the primary detriment would be to those commuters who are legitimate 3+ carpools. But this would benefit transit and most commuters would be better served by making this change as the queue-jump function would only be activated when a bus is present. e. There are some concerns about right-turning traffic out of the medical center into that lane. Patty Riley suggested better signage could help ensure that drivers get into the correct lane. i. UWMC is considering a reconfiguration of this front area, this change could impact their plans. Though it is likely that vehicles would still exit right onto Pacific. f. Some group members brought up the difference between a transit-only lane and a BAT (business access and transit) designation. i. The city did not use the BAT terminology when talking to Celeste, but she will clarify their intentions. It would be dangerous to make a right turn into the medical center from the middle lane. ii. Comment (Chuck Treser): The intersections here are already dangerous to pedestrians, particularly during peak periods – this should be a noted concern with any potential changes. g. Question: Are private shuttles included in “transit-only” ? i. Yes. h. Chuck Treser made a motion to endorse changing the lane to a transit-only lane, contingent upon addressing safety concerns at the entrance to UWMC. Bob Ennes seconds the motion and it passes with no opposition or abstentions. 11. Next meeting’s agenda – Josh Kavanagh a. Pacific Street HOV/transit-only lane update – Celeste Gilman b. 12-passenger van training – Ron Kahler c. Fleet rate update – Ron Kahler d. Managed Fleet program – Ron Kahler e. Husky Stadium TIP update – Dan Erickson f. Parking system replacement and business rules – Peter Dewey

g. UAW arbitration – Josh Kavanagh h. Regularly scheduled updates from UTC subcommittees and related committees.

SR 520 Project Update University Transportation Committee 7/23/12

SR 520 Project • Replace floating bridge • Construct HOV lanes SR 202 to I-5 • Phased construction – Eastside HOV lanes under construction, complete 2014 – Bridge pontoons under construction. Will start placement later 2012, open 2014, complete 2016 – West side largely unfunded, but a near term federal loan for a north “West Approach bridge” and various mitigations seems likely. Will know by autumn 2012

Construction Traffic Impacts •

•

Impacts from the “Medina to 202 Project” and “Floating Bridge and Landings Project” are expected to be weekends only When the north West Approach bridge is funded: • •

An interim connection to Montlake Blvd will have to be designed and constructed. More information about construction traffic later

Impact on WB off ramp

Ouestions?