03-06-2014 1 MESILLA VALLEY METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION
2 TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
3
4 The following are minutes for the meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Mesilla
s Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) which was held March 6, 2014 at 4:00 p.m.
6 at Dona Ana County Government Building, 845 N. Motel Blvd., Las Cruces, New Mexico.
7
8 MEMBERS PRESENT: Mike Bartholomew (CLC Transit)
9 Larry Altamirano (LCPS)
10 Aaron Chavarria (proxy for Harold Love - NMDOT)
11 Jolene Herrera (NMDOT)
12 Louis Grijalva (CLC Public Works)
13 John Gwynne (DA Flood Commission)
14 Bill Childress (BLM)
1s Jack Valencia (SCRTD)
16 Greg Wake (NMSU)
17 John Knopp (Town of Mesilla)
18 Willie Roman (CLC Transportation)
19
20 MEMBERS ABSENT: Luis Marmolejo (DAC)
21 Jesus Morales (EBID)
22 Debbie Lujan (Town of Mesilla)
23
24 STAFF PRESENT: Andrew Wray (MPO staff)
25 Chowdhury Siddiqui (MPO staff)
26 Orlando Fierro (MPO staff)
27 Tom Murphy (MPO staff)
28
29 1. CALL TO ORDER
30
31 Meeting called to order at 4:00 p.m.
32
33 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
34
35 Mike Bartholomew motioned to approve the agenda.
36 John Gwynne seconds the motion.
37 All in favor.
38
39 Roll call was taken to establish quorum. A quorum was present.
40
41 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
42
43 3.1 February 6, 2014
44
45 Jack Valencia had a correction on the members present, his organization should be
46 SCRTD not SCRDT.
1
1 Larry Altamirano motioned to approve the minutes of February 6, 2014.
2 Mike Bartholomew seconds the motion.
3 All in favor.
4
s 4. PUBLIC COMMENT— No public comment
6
7 5. DISCUSSION ITEMS
s
9 5.1 Functional Classification Discussion
10
11 The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) recommends that states review the functional
12 classification of their road system every 10 years (following the decennial Census).
13
14 Current Functional Classification in the MPO region does not group 'Collectors' into Major
15 and Minor subcategories. The new guideline necessitates categorizing Collectors into one
16 of the two classes.
17
1s Chowdhury Siddiqui gave a presentation.
19
20 Valencia: Could I hold on for a second. Let me just ask you one question with regard to
21 the classifications in 1 thru 7. Is there a categorization, well not
22 categorization, is there certain traffic movements, local is less than 10,000,
23 minor collectors are 10,000 and above or something, is there a number
24 generator that can give us a little bit more familiarity.
25
26 Siddiqui: Yes Mr. Chair, there are specific numbers as far as annual average data
27 traffic goes and we have tables in Chapter 3 1 believe that documents all the
28 numbers.
29
30 Valencia: Does that have a financial implication as far as grants and application of
31 grants?
32
33 Siddiqui: Yes, as far as the manual says that, I'm going to read from here, the Federal
34 aid funding is one of the most significant uses of functional classification of
35 the State DOT and local planning partner's perspective, and that's on page
36 2.2-3 in Section 2.2. Apart from that it has other implications as far as the
37 statistical reporting goes.
38
39 Valencia: Let me stop you there for a second with regard to the Committee. Does the
40 Committee have any desire to pull out specifics for discussion? It is an item
41 that is not for approval so its discussion only. I think it would best serve us
42 collectively if we were to possibly look through this if we had items in which
43 we want to discuss futuristically then we can inform staff to be prepared for it
44 at our next meeting. Is there another pathway that you all would like to take?
45 Are you alright with that Mr. Murphy?
46
2
1 Murphy: Yes.
2
3 Gwynne: Mr. Chair, I do have a question. On this list there are quite a few streets from
4 171 down that have a lot more than 6,300 ADT and so wouldn't they be
s labeled something else, arterials or something? Some of them carry quite a
6 bit of traffic.
7
8 Siddiqui: Yes, especially from 185 to 188 it has more than 10,000. I'm not sure; I'm
9 going to defer to Mr. Murphy regarding this.
10
11 Murphy: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Walke, what we would have to is look at each of those on
12 an individual basis. A lot of that of that will depend upon their spacing with
13 existing arterials where they, how much physical separation there is between
14 those roadways as well as the land use around them. For example, we have
15 Espina which carries the highest ADT on this list but you know it is really
16 close geographically on both EI Paseo and Solano, two facilities which carry
17 even more so in this case at least staff feels and when we updated the
18 functional classification last during the Transport 2040 adoption it was felt that
19 in this case Espina should be labeled a collector based on that context even
20 though it does have a higher AADT than your typical collector.
21
22 Childress: I have a question, could you once again describe the break off points that you
23 were referring to?
24
25 Siddiqui: Absolutely, the first breakdown that I referred to was for minor rural collector
26 and that has a range from 150 to 1100 so I took 150 and was kind of thinking
27 segment number 21, Cortez Drive till so to 221 maybe automatically be
28 considered as minor rural and anything above 300 which is the minimum
29 range for major rural would be automatically considered as major rural
30 collector and that is something beyond segment 24 so segment 24 to 28
31 becomes a major rural collector. For the urban collector since it does not give
32 us a breakdown we statistically found that 41470 is the number that has a
33 natural break between if we classify them into two separate groups so any
34 segment that has ADT more than that number which is going to be 160
35 number segment West Madrid Avenue, anything above that would
36 automatically qualify as major urban collector but for determining minor we
37 take the minimum which is 1100 and assign them minor urban and then
38 anything in between, maybe we focused a little bit more and think about it.
39
40 Murphy: Thank you Chowdhury and I'd like to just kind of interject here that when
41 we're looking at the ADT's this really is our first level of evaluating these
42 corridors. If u find on page 3-1 of the guide that was passed out, there are
43 seven factors which we need to consider when determining the functional
44 classification of which AADT is only one of those. There is the context lane,
45 other factors which I briefly alluded to earlier so I don't all of us to get bogged
46 down in the ADT numbers and just to let you know staff is using that as the
3
I first pass over and then particular facilities can move up or down based on
2 those other factors, we're just using the traffic counts just to get it started.
3
a Herrera: Mr. Chair, Tom or Chowdhury I'm wondering if you guys have, so you said
5 this is kind of your first pass over and you just use the ADT but do you have
6 recommendations? I mean have you gotten that far yet or are you kind of just
7 analyzing the data right now because there are a lot of roads here so I'm
s wondering if you have specific recommendations or specific things that you
9 want this Committee to look at because I mean we would have to go road by
10 road basically.
11
12 Murphy: I think what we wanted to do is bring this issue to the attention of the
13 Committee and get you thinking along those lines. The next time we come
14 back we'll have some specific recommendations really based on the
15 surrounding land use, the lengths and of that nature but we didn't want to
16 throw that all at you at the first meeting next month, we wanted to introduce
17 you to it slowly. Kind of along those lines there is kind of a question that's
19 being debated among the different MPO's that are undergoing this exercise
19 and that is frontage roads and we two series of frontage roads along 1-10 and
20 then one on US 70 and whether those are classified as collectors or arterials
21 is something that we need to decide on, concurrently we have them as minor
22 arterials but our MPO neighbor to the south, EI Paso, has them listed as
23 collectors so that is something that we will need to during this process also
24 evaluate so I would like to plant that seed, have you think about it whether the
25 length of them justifies arterials or their functioning really justifies collectors
26 and definitely encourage you to read through the first couple of chapters of
27 the manual so that when we do come back with recommendations that you
28 will feel comfortable sending those up to the Policy Committee.
29
30 Valencia: I guess my question is as far as progression what kind of time frame are you
31 looking at? The next meeting is discussion familiarity, we're familiarizing
32 ourselves now so you're not going to come at the next meeting and I would
33 think not that you're going to come up with a desire to adopt or kick the can
34 forward or is that your........
35
36 Murphy: I think we may have to come back with an action item. I need to check with
37 the planning unit up in Santa Fe or ask Jolene to do that. They need to have
38 some results back from us as well so I'm not sure of their time table right now
39 but I know that one exists and we may need to move quickly after next month.
40
41 Herrera: Mr. Chair. I can talk a little bit about that so the consultant originally hoped to
42 have kind of draft submittals from all the MPO's and RPO's by the end of
43 March so that's not going to happen so I think their next kind of deadline that
as they would like to hit is May because they also have submittal dates and
45 requirements of when they have to turn things into FHWA as drafts and
46 things, so I'll go back and check. They did a really good presentation and it
4
I had a very specific timeline on it so I will make sure that I send that to MPO
z staff so that it can be sent to the members as well.
3
4 Valencia: Continue.
s
6 Siddiqui: Mr. Chair, that is all that I had.
7
s Valencia: Is there any discussion from the Committee with regard to MPO staff and the
9 DOT with regard to the progression. I see that as being our sense of
30 importance of becoming familiar with the material, moving it on forward in an
ii informative, inquisitive manner at our next meeting while trying to maintain the
32 time commitment and adoption of what we're doing so is there any discussion
13 with regard to that.
14
is Murphy: I'd like to add a couple extra points on that. Just kind of historically, we used
16 to have urban major and minor collectors in MPO areas about 15 years ago
37 FHWA went away from that and only retained minor and major collectors in
is rural areas so for many years our MPO only had collectors as part of our
19 function classification. That is one of our things that we're compelled to
20 update at this point. Also additionally based on those percentage guidelines
23 that Chowdhury went over we have knocked a couple of previous collectors
iz off of our list and they are now classified local roads. These percentages kind
23 of grant more ability to put roadways to be included on that. I think they need
24 to meet the tests of functionality, land use, all those others first but I think
25 there is room for additional collectors into our system based on these new
26 numbers and if you or agencies are aware of any local roadways that you
27 would like to have into that mix I do know at the Policy Committee level there
za have been some roadways that they've discussed that they would like to be
29 reclassified from local to collectors. In addition to the funding and statistical
30 impacts at the federal level, at the local level there are also implications
31 particularly in land use, just to cite an example I've seen most often is the City
32 of Las Cruces Zoning Code allows churches to be located on collectors or
33 higher roadways; therefore, a roadway not being designated a collector
34 prevents some flexibility for that land use to be located. Also with the
35 subdivision developments in both the City and the County, collector roadways
36 are required to be built by adjacent or half a collector is required to be built by
37 an adjacent developer where they are required to build an entire roadway so
38 the phasing of those road improvements would also be affected due to the
39 decisions that we make and what we include on this list so I just wanted to
40 leave those thoughts with the Committee so in case there is anything that you
43 would like to bring to the attention of MPO staff you can certainly do so
42 between now and next month's meeting, thank you.
43
44 Knopp: When we were (inaudible) ten years ago I suppose, I know there was
45 discussion about lane widths and were all the lane widths adequate for the
46 status of collector, do you know at present. It looks like the lane and shoulder
5
I and all isn't very much and I know there is some and I'll mention like Idaho
2 where they don't even allow parking but it's not official, there are no signs and
3 yet I know the residents along there are not allowed to, now that's Las Cruces
4 not Mesilla but roads like that that serve that purpose. Do we have data?
s
6 Murphy: I don't think we have the exact data you are looking for. A lot of that is
7 controlled by design standards that each of your governments have on these
s roadways and then a lot of times in the case of Idaho it is deemed as a non-
9 conforming roadway in regard to the design standards but also additionally
10 sometimes their even constructed not to the design guidelines and that's
11 really something that's decided or agreed to upon at the Planning & Zoning
12 Commissioner level or the council of the governing body but what we're
13 seeing here from FHWA are merely guidelines that help us think about
14 classifying them.
15
16 Herrera: Mr. Chair, Tom, Chowdhury, I'm wondering if there is any roadways that
17 you've identified for, I guess declassification or a lower classification than they
18 currently are. I know that we found a few in the EI Paso MPO area and in
19 other areas of the State, they were classified probably not what they should
20 have been in anticipation of development coming in and then that didn't
21 happen so that's probably something that we should look at.
22
23 Murphy: Mr. Chair, Ms. Herrera, we'll certainly look at it to align with that. We went
24 through this exercise with the Committee when we went through Transport
25 2040 and we updated and we actually did give the axe to a, we did
26 downgrade a lot of roadways to local at that point. One of which I alluded to
27 that we're hearing conversations to the Policy Committee to bring that one
28 back. I suppose there could be others on here; staff is going to look at that
29 but just to let you know we did do that specific exercise back in 2010.
30
31 Valencia: Any other additional comments on Item 5.
32
33 Gwynne: Mr. Chair, I wonder if it wouldn't be helpful for the members of this Committee
34 to also see what the existing classification is of these roadways that you have
35 here that are on this list.
36
37 Murphy: Mr. Chair, Mr. Gwynne, the existing classification of these roadways is urban
38 collectors and we're endeavoring to divide them in to urban major collectors
39 and urban minor collectors.
40
41 Gwynne: Very good, thank you.
42
43 Herrera: Mr. Chair, also if I could add in the manual itself there is a link to a website.
44 I'm trying to find the exact page that it is on but as part of the contract with our
45 consultant they are maintaining an online tool that local governments can use
46 to see the current classification of all the roadways in the area and then it's
6
I also open to the public so that comments can be made, so if there is a
2 roadway that is currently classified as local and someone in the public thinks
3 it should be an arterial or whatever then they can go onto that website and put
4 their comments in there and I'll continue to look for that link. I know it's
5 somewhere in this package.
6
7 Valencia: Any other additional comments?
a
9 Siddiqui: Mr. Chair, if I can just add a cautionary statement, the road network that the
10 consultant has in the website does not reflect our current adopted functional
11 classification so there are.....
12
13 Valencia: differentiating material that conflicts between the consultant and what we
14 have.
15
16 Siddiqui: Yes so what we have is the latest and what's on the web is a back dated so
17 you might find some roadway segment...............
18
1s Valencia: Just for the Committee to be aware that there is potential conflict in
20 information.
21
22 Siddiqui: Yes but we do have functional classification on the MPO website and that has
23 the differentiation for the different classification systems so that would be a
24 good resource for the Committee to look as well.
25
26 Valencia: Ms. Herrera, did you find the link?
27
2e Herrera: I didn't but I will make sure to send that to MPO staff along with whatever else
29 1 was going to send.
30
31 Valencia: Appreciate it and with that I'll just go ahead and close the discussion on Item
32 5.
33
34 6. COMMITTEE AND STAFF COMMENTS— No comments
35
36 7. PUBLIC COMMENT— No public comment
37
38 8. ADJOURNMENT
39
40 Meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m.
41
42 Mike Bartholomew motioned to adjourn.
43 Greg Walke seconds the motion.
44
45 — l}" 17'Zq ,
46 C it
7