DATE: April 22, 2024
RE: Active Transportation Plan
Attendees: Jason O’Brien (PPACG); Danelle Miller (PPACG); John Liosatos (PPACG); Ross Williams (El Paso County); Gayle Sturdivant; Todd (COS); Abha Dwivedy (Fountain); Scott Skinner (CDOT); Victoria Chavez; Lan Rao; Allison Burns; Becky Frank; Tara Evans; Jared Verner; Jessica Bechtel; Jeff Gutherie; Jeremiah Reichert; Ted Ritschard (Olsson); Kyle McLaughlin (Olsson); Jenna Friesen (Olsson)
Project # 023-03399
WORKSHOP NOTES
- Identifying Regional Trails, connections, etc.
- The Rock Island Trail would be a great regional trail as there are currently large gaps in it. This would be an east-west corridor and would require a multi-jurisdiction effort.
- We should prioritize on-street facilities only if they help make a key connection.
- Comment regarding rural facilities: currently the rural roads do not have a designated shoulder. It would be nice to add a 6-8’ multi-use shoulder when doing road improvements in the future.
- Briargate area is adding some 8’ wide sidewalks that could be used as part of a regional corridor. El Paso County has aligned their plan with some of those corridors with wide sidewalks in Briargate.
- Fountain’s Plan is dated (2015) and would like to see some connections to the El Paso County facilities.
- COS connection idea – connect the Midland and Foothills trails just west of US Highway 24. This would involve multiple jurisdictions.
- Connecting the Homestead Trail to Rock Island trail at the drainage under Constitution Ave (west of Powers). There is currently a gap to the Rock Island trail.
- Connect the trails north of Bluestem Prairie Open Space to the Fountain Creek Regional Trail.
- Poster Notes (Post-its) – Projects
- El Paso County LRTP Projects
- Homestead to Rock Island (east side of COS)
- Midland Trail across US 24W to connect to Foothills Trail (E Ridge Rd)
- La Foret completion and better connections under I-25 to the Santa Fe Trail/Pikes Peak Greenway.
- Midland Trail
- New trail system mapped/planned for area of new developments.
- SW Springs (avoid 115)
- Bluestem Prairie Open Space trail network to Sand Creek trail terminus.
- Output of Plan/List of Projects
- Is it a prioritized List of Projects?
- Is it a ranking or grouping of Projects?
- COS thinking that it would be beneficial to group Projects by corridor since there are trail programs associated with trail corridors.
- Group by Primary User? Corridor?
- If the proposed Project meets the need of an active transportation corridor, then it should be given a higher ranking.
- Look at Trailsheds (Ross Williams)
- Organize Projects by Timeline/period.
- CIP/TIP – Tier 1
- LRTP Projects – Tier 2
- Local Plans/no funding tied to Project – Tier 3
- Poster Notes (Post-its) – Grouping/Tiers
- Grouping by Project type, Project benefit, and goals. Then expand on each of these (for example: safety, operations, capacity, etc.)
- By corridor with a subgrouping of user type
- Looking at top corridors and top missing links.
- Final Thoughts
- Identify Priority corridors / this will be helpful for Project consideration.
- Create a narrative for corridors and linkages.
- Regional connectivity – the goal is to connect communities.
- Need to understand the right connections between neighborhoods and employment centers.
- Olsson next steps:
- Identify Project corridors (GIS)
- Use existing Project GIS layers for identifying corridors.
- LRTP Projects
- Regional Non-Motorized Plan
- Tri-County Active Transportation Projects
- Local & county plans
- Use a buffer analysis to determine coverage and gaps.
- Map out Project corridors and send to Jason for reactions/review
- Future considerations: create corridor snapshots with key information, similar to ConnectCOS
- Use existing Project GIS layers for identifying corridors.
- Identify Project corridors (GIS)