Transportation Committee (TC) Meeting Minutes, February 24, 2023
Present: Mary Day Mordecai (chair), Barbara Watkins, Earl Horn, Erin Hammerstedt, Ned Hulbert, Alison Weber, Steve Lamears
Next Meeting: Thursday, March 16, 2023, 8:30-10:00 am at HHI office
1) Welcome and introduction of Steve LaMears, our new police chief!
2) Discussion of SWRPC speed study
Henry Underwood recently sent the results of SWRPC’s before and after speed study at the two locations where we installed speed radars on Main Street and Route 137, funded by our 2020 MAST grant. We compared the results on Main St. to our data and confirmed that the radar is working effectively to slow traffic. We feel that the radar on Route 137 would work much better if there were regular speed enforcement there.
3) Update on school radars
We (Earl and Ned) need to adjust one of radars to shift the reflection of sun on radar, as the current position makes it hard to read the numbers.
Earl needs help from the TrafficLogix tech guy to set radars for holidays/weekends but, so far, he has not responded. Ned will call Mark Gregory, TrafficLogix sales contact, to expedite contact for Earl.
We believe that we need to have added speed limit signs along Chesham Rd. Mary Day will set up a talk between Steve and Robert Hyslop, our DOT contact, to explain the need and see if the DOT will respond.
Earl will meet with Steve LaMears to coach him on taking over the radar management, esp. software changes to assess speed data and to move radar from stealth to other modes, etc.
The TC has been doing a semi-annual radar data/speed report to the Planning Board and the Select Board (SB). Steve will work with TC to prepare this report, which the TC will discuss and then present to the PB and SB.
4) Church Street update
-The project has been delayed to 2024. Earl is still our TC rep on the committee.
5) Discussion of other road paving projects
Andrea has suggested that the Complete Streets Resolution needs to be raised with SB and Road Dept so that TC can be part of an agreed-upon annual process to advise upon upcoming annual road work at the front end. TC will seek to raise this with the new SB by early summer.
We discussed the possibility of pursuing JB Mack’s (SWRPC) idea that we write a MAST grant to hire an engineer who is able to work with the Road Dept, the TC and the SB to determine how to put Complete Streets concepts into practical action (where possible) and to educate all of us (esp. Road Dept and SB) to an agreed-upon Complete Streets orientation.
6) Agreement on how we will complete work on Master Plan and prepare the longer-term TC agenda
We need to work on an update to the 2014 Master Plan update for the Planning Board (PB), which we will address on March 16 with a special meeting. This discussion will lay the groundwork for us to build a plan for the long-term structure and direction of TC, which we will take up at future meetings.