Title
REQUEST TO ADD-ON - Consideration of Citizen Petition Related to the Future Lane Configuration of Central Avenue
Description
This report provides the City Council with information in response to a citizen petition submitted by Antonio Pacheco Contreras at the March 21, 2018 Formal City Council meeting. Mr. Contreras submitted a petition requesting that City Council “consider and enact within 15 days a resolution, ordinances, or measure that assures South Central Avenue will remain with four vehicular lanes of traffic with the light rail expansion and suspend further development until this is resolved” (Attachment A).
Report
Summary
The South Central Extension (SCE) expands light rail six miles from Downtown Phoenix to Baseline Road along Central Avenue. Extending light rail along South Central Avenue will connect the existing 26-mile regional rail system to South Phoenix, bringing much needed public transportation and addressing mobility needs of residents, businesses and students in the area, while maintaining the history, culture and character of the community. The SCE is planned to open in 2023, and construction is scheduled to begin in late 2019.
In November 2014 the City Council approved the SCE lane configuration and station locations and gave direction to move forward with the federally-required environmental assessment. Extensive design and pre-construction work has progressed since then. The lane configuration includes as many as six vehicle lanes at large intersections, four vehicle lanes at remaining signalized intersections, and a minimum of two continuous through lanes. The configuration recognizes the extensive work of the South Central Community Working Group and their recommendation to maintain the integrity of the South Central area and preserve existing local businesses and buildings as much as possible. Along South Central Avenue, many buildings are located near the property line and very close to the sidewalks. Also, throughout the corridor there are significant limitations on available right-of-way, which is why so many businesses and buildings would be impacted by further widening of the street.
Additionally, a change to the right-of-way area within the approved federally-required environmental assessment would mean a restart of the entire federal process, resulting in an extensive delay of the project of at least another three to five years. Such a delay will remove the project from the federal pipeline, will result in significant increases in the costs for engineering and construction, and will put the entire project at risk of losing federal funding. Additionally, the substantial amount of needed right-of-way, additional building demolition, and business relocations would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost and likely make federal funding infeasible.
This report provides additional information regarding several years of extensive work and planning with the community, technical analysis of alternatives and potential impacts, and significant progress of the project.
Community Outreach
Since 2012, approximately 340 meetings have taken place with community stakeholders to discuss and gather feedback on the South Central rail extension (Attachment B). In the years leading up to the necessary approvals by the Phoenix City Council, the Valley Metro Board, and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), City of Phoenix and Valley Metro staffs conducted extensive community outreach and public engagement campaigns along the alignment, to include public meetings and one-on-one stakeholder meetings with business owners, residents, and all stakeholders. As outlined in the Environmental Assessment (EA): “Environmental analysis and community outreach have been an integral part of the South Central Light Rail Extension Project since its inception in 2012. A comprehensive Public Involvement Plan was developed and implemented to coordinate with - and obtain input from - public agencies, private interests, community and faith based organizations and the public at large for the development of alternatives, selection of the Build Alternative and completion of the environmental analysis. Public involvement would continue during design and construction of the Build Alternative.”
Outreach included discussions regarding the project as a whole and focused on issues such as the lane configuration and plans to address impacts to businesses resulting from changes to the roadway and construction activities. City of Phoenix and Valley Metro staffs have continued extensive outreach and community stakeholder meetings, and will continue to do so throughout the project’s progress. The attached excerpt from the Environmental Assessment, including information on outreach efforts to date, provides a summary of outreach activities conducted early on in the South Central light rail extension project (Attachment B).
Since the public outreach process began a variety of methods were utilized to inform and engage stakeholders of the project and to receive community feedback. For example, 10 to 14 days prior to each public meeting, bilingual meeting notices are distributed door-to-door ¼-mile from the Project area (7th Street on the east, 7th Avenue to the west, downtown on the north, and Baseline Road on the South). Also, many recent stakeholder meetings have been one-on-one meetings with individual business and property owners to identify and address specific needs. Additionally, a project-wide stakeholder meeting was most recently held in March 2017 at the Rio Salado Audubon Center. In anticipation of that meeting, registered letters were sent out to local businesses, property owners and residents inviting them to discuss any aspects of the project. Of the 205 business owners contacted, staff received the certified mail slip from 149 (73 percent return rate). Of the 141 property owners contacted, staff received the certified mail slip from 91 (65 percent return rate). A total of 57 stakeholders attended that meeting.
Project Progress
Beginning in 2011, the South Central Feasibility study and a separate Alternatives Analysis were initiated to identify a locally preferred alignment (LPA) that best meets the mobility needs of the south Phoenix community and the region as a whole by improving and expanding transportation options in the corridor. Those studies were the result of successful federal grant awards as part of the high capacity transit project development process. As a result of those studies, the LPA for the South Central Extension was approved by the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee (T&I Subcommittee) in November 2013 and by the City Council in December 2013. Recommendations for that approval included the selection of light rail transit along Central Avenue between Baseline Road and downtown Phoenix, and direction to further study station locations, roadway configuration, and potential transit extensions along Baseline Road.
A subsequent study identified the lane roadway configuration now under design: flared arterial intersections with six lanes (including dedicated left- and right-turn lanes), remaining signalized intersections with four lanes (including dedicated left-turn lanes), and a continual through lane throughout the corridor as the recommended SCE roadway configuration. The configuration minimizes impacts to private property and buildings while maintaining automobile capacity at arterial and signalized intersections.
In November 2014, staff brought forth for City Council approval recommendations for the South Central Extension to include roadway configurations (number of lanes, flared intersections), station locations, and use of a TIGER grant for completing the environmental review and commencing preliminary engineering. The recommendations for the lane configuration, station locations and commencement of the environmental assessment were approved by the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee and full City Council (Attachment C).
In August 2015, Phoenix voters approved Proposition 104, known as Transportation 2050, a plan developed by a citizen-led committee of transportation experts and community advocates. The citywide street and transit improvement plan increases the number of light rail miles in Phoenix by adding 42 service miles across the City, with the South Central Alignment included as “new light rail” on a map printed directly on the ballot.
Following voter approval of Proposition 104/Transportation 2050, which provided the necessary dedicated local funding source for light rail expansion, the City Council approved advancing the South Central and Northwest Extension Phase II (Metrocenter) rail extensions to open in 2023.
The SCE environmental assessment was submitted to the Federal Transit Administration in November 2016, and the project received clearance to move forward with a “Finding of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) on Jan. 6, 2017.
In April 2017, the T&I Subcommittee and full City Council approved an amendment to the Valley Metro funding agreement for the SCE to move forward with final design and preconstruction work.
In January 2018, Valley Metro conducted community meetings to present and obtain input on the 40 percent Design for the project.
Roadway Configuration
As outlined in the Locally Preferred Alternative Report from April 2014, a Community Working Group (CWG) was established as part of the project’s development to incorporate the views of stakeholders into the LPA. Community Working Group members included representatives of local businesses; local residents; not-for-profit community and social service organizations; educational institutions and school districts; chambers of commerce; and faith-based organizations. The CWG’s task consisted of reviewing the following for purposes of refining the LPA:
Lane configuration.
Station locations.
Transit connections.
Park-and-Ride locations.
Other physical and operational elements of the proposed LRT system.
The report also included a listing of outreach conducted with a multitude of community members and businesses up to that point in time.
Additionally, appendices to the SCE project’s Environmental Assessment (EA) include background information and responses to community members as to the rationale for the planned roadway configuration. This includes the following examples of the discussion regarding the roadway configuration:
“The option of preserving both lanes of traffic was analyzed. To maintain the current number of general traffic lanes on Central Avenue, many businesses along the corridor would need to be relocated. Nearly 80 buildings, some of which house more than one business, will require relocation as opposed to the two buildings being relocated under the current Project. Furthermore, the acquisitions will have resulted in remnant parcels, which can be difficult to redevelop and potentially blight the community if left undeveloped.”
“For the current light rail system, lane reductions have occurred at several locations outside of South Phoenix: on (North) Central Avenue from approximately Jefferson Street to Camelback Road, on Washington Street between Priest Road and 1st Avenue, and on Main Street in Mesa from Country Club Drive to Mesa Drive.”
“It was determined that reducing the lanes from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction will be preferable to avoid business and residential displacement that would result from having to acquire the first row of buildings located on one side of Central Avenue.”
“Applying the City of Phoenix Street Transportation Department’s criteria, the analysis concluded that there would be no adverse impacts (degradation of LOS) on Central Avenue resulting from the Project.”
“The overall goal is to develop South Phoenix by converting Central Avenue into a multimodal facility and making necessary roadway improvements where needed along 1st Avenue and Central Avenue and adjacent parallel arterials to maintain the safe and efficient traffic operations.”
“No study intersection on Central and 1st Avenues would have a degraded level of service (LOS). The minor street intersections that were experiencing longer delays on side streets would be signalized in the Build Alternative.”
City of Phoenix and Valley Metro traffic and engineering staff have further analyzed the roadway configuration under design within the approved corridor included in the federal environmental assessment and concluded:
Traffic capacity is limited by how much traffic can go through signalized intersections rather than how many lanes exist between intersections.
Flared intersections (wider arterial intersections) allow for dedicated right- and left-turn lanes together with through lanes.
Signalized intersections have dedicated left-turn lanes to ensure traffic is not held up by one vehicle turning left. If two through lanes were forced within the federal environmentally cleared footprint, there would be insufficient right-of-way for left-turn lanes at 21 separate points in signalized collector street intersections.
Accommodating four lanes would in some areas require very narrow lanes side-by-side without buffers along the curbs and gutters, which would be considered unsafe for drivers and pedestrians and result in collisions as well as congestion. It is important to note that standard local buses are 10.5 feet wide with mirrors and typical commercial vehicles and box trucks are about 10-10.5 feet wide with mirrors.
The Rio Salado Bridge is not wide enough to accommodate four lanes and light rail, so a transition to one lane, and potential resulting traffic bottlenecks, would be required for one or both directions for the entire length of the bridge.
Mesa’s Main Street light rail opened in 2015 and four through lanes were reduced to two along a commercial segment; however, traffic volumes have not decreased, as flared intersections and dedicated turn lanes maintain traffic flow. Mesa residents also supported continuing the lane reduction further east on Main Street for a light rail extension currently under construction.
In 2015, there were 33,600 estimated car and bus trips per weekday along the corridor. In 2023 when light rail opens through 2035 with the approved lane configuration, the number of trips including both cars and transit is estimated at over 35,000.
Project Status
City Council approved the SCE lane configuration in November 2014, and all design and pre-construction work has progressed since then based on the approval, including the federally-required environmental assessment. Expanding the lane configuration to safely and efficiently allow four lanes would require significantly more property and removal of existing buildings and businesses, which would result in restarting the entire federal process and delaying the project at least another three to five years. Such a delay will remove the project from the federal pipeline, will result in significant increases in the costs for engineering and construction, and will put the entire project at risk of losing federal funding. Additionally, the extensive amount of needed right-of-way, additional building demolition, and business relocations would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost and likely make federal funding infeasible.
Options for Council Action
Accept the petition and begin South Central Light Rail Extension project anew, which would put the entire project at risk of losing federal funding.
B. Deny the petition and ensure extensive community outreach and business assistance programs continue as a major component of the project.
Location
Central Avenue from Jefferson Street to Baseline Road.
Council Districts: 7, 8
Department
Responsible Department
This item is submitted by Deputy City Manager Mario Paniagua and the Public Transit and Street Transportation departments.