Tag: transportation committee

Sidewalk projects: Bloomington city council committee set to apply new criteria for decisions on limited funds for 2022

At noon on Jan. 6, the Bloomington city council’s transportation committee is scheduled to meet to continue its work on allocating money to add new sidewalks and traffic calming to the city’s street network.

Since 2007, a total of about $4 million has been allocated for new sidewalk projects, which reflects incremental increases each year starting in the low $200,000s in 2007.

For the 2022 budget year, the city council has $336,000 in available sidewalk funding to allocate.

At its Dec. 9 meeting, the committee voted unanimously to adopt a new approach to ranking potential projects.

It’s not just that the ranking criteria have been revised. The starting point is different.

Previously, the approach has started with a list of projects  that have been requested through various channels. Those projects have been ranked, based on an objective metric. The metric has included factors like cost, safety, roadway class, pedestrian usage, destination points, and linkage to existing facilities.

The newly adopted approach starts by analyzing all locations in the city, based on a mathematical expression. The output of that expression is a collection of areas that would benefit most from an added sidewalk. Continue reading “Sidewalk projects: Bloomington city council committee set to apply new criteria for decisions on limited funds for 2022” →

Bloomington city council committee sets group interviews for two public bus board appointments, excludes applicant who’s currently suing the city

Looking southeast at the corner of Walnut and 4th streets in downtown Bloomington at Bloomington Transit’s downtown transit center, on Nov. 18, 2020. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)

Two seats on the five-member board of the Bloomington Transit board of directors have been listed as vacant on the city’s board and commission website since Aug. 1.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the city council’s four-member standing committee on transportation, they decided to use a couple of group interviews to consider just seven of eight applicants for the two vacant BT board positions.

Not in the mix for the committee’s group interviews will be Republican Andrew Guenther, who ran for the District 2 city council seat in 2019 that was won by Democrat Sue Sgambelluri.

Committee member Isabel Piedmont-Smith objected to the inclusion of Guenther, because he is currently a party to a lawsuit against the city of Bloomington over his appointment to a plan commission seat.

Supporting Piedmont-Smith’s position were the three other members of the committee: Steve Volan, Ron Smith, and chair Kate Rosenbarger.

The committee will make a recommendation to the city council, which will make a final decision. The city council appoints three of the five seats. The mayor appoints the other two.

The two incumbents for the seats on the BT board now listed as vacant are Nancy Obermeyer and Alex Cartwright. They will be part of the set of seven who are being invited to sign up for slots for the group interviews. At the same time the transportation committee met on Tuesday, Obermeyer and Cartwright were handling the business of the board at its regular monthly meeting.

Under the state statute on public transportation corporations, the BT board is required to be balanced for affiliation with political parties.

Obermeyer is a Democrat and Cartwright is a Republican, assuming that this June they both participated in the same party’s primary as in 2019. Participation in the most recent primary of a party is one way the state statute defines party affiliation. Continue reading “Bloomington city council committee sets group interviews for two public bus board appointments, excludes applicant who’s currently suing the city” →

Bloomington council committee digs into road funding to weigh repaving of College Mall Road against other transportation goals

College Mall Road south of 3rd Street looking south.
Extracted from the Bloomington’s “full build bicycle network” in the transportation plan.
Looking northeast at the intersection of Sare Road and Moores Pike.
Looking south on Sare Road. The path in the right of the frame currently veers away from the road through a wooded area. It would be extended along Sare Road as a part of a planned project.

A Wednesday meeting of the Bloomington city council’s four-member transportation committee has set up the full council for a possible animated discussion next week.

On the council’s May 20 agenda will be an item related to funding for the repaving of College Mall Road between 3rd Street and Moores Pike.

The agenda item is a hearing on an appropriation ordinance that includes the College Mall repaving. The appropriation also includes some fund transfers that are needed for a couple other transportation projects.

The other projects involve intersection improvements at Sare Road and Moores Pike, and a multi-use path to be built on the west side of Sare Road south of that intersection.

The May 20 meeting could also include a final vote on the appropriation ordinance, which got a first reading on May 6.

On Wednesday, the committee gave the appropriation a mixed reaction. Continue reading “Bloomington council committee digs into road funding to weigh repaving of College Mall Road against other transportation goals” →