MobileGR 2018/11 Agenda Items

This is a look at the agenda items for the MobileGR meeting of 2018-11-08.

2018 Meeting Schedule

Meetings have been moved to noon [lunch time]. MobileGR meetings are approximately an hour in length.

DASH Ridership

Information Packet Link

Going Strong!

Ridership Trends 2017-2018

Weekend Ridership Since August 27th, 2018 when DASH operating hours were extended to include Saturday and Sunday service as well as late night service (till 1am) on Thursday and Friday,.

Pavement Marking

Information Packet Link

The City of Grand Rapids currently maintains over 2,325,000 linear feet of longitudinal pavement marking lines consisting of lane lines, edge lines, and bike lane lines, 3,500 crosswalks and stop bars, and 6,700 pavements symbols such as turn arrows, “only” legends, and railroad crossings.
The current level of service is for all of these markings to be refreshed once each painting season (April – September) in waterborne paint.  Waterborne paint is a low cost material that is easy to install and has a life span of up to one year.  The annual cost to refresh 100% of the pavement markings each season is $447,000.

The is a proposal to improve crosswalk markings by using a more durable paint which has a lifespan of 3 - 5 years. The conern is that crosswalk markings are becoming faded before the next annual paint cycle. In a three year span all crosswalk makings would be replaced with durable paint for an ongoing cost of $624,000/yr.

Parking Rate Changes.

Public comment period will be opn until December 18th. MobileGR and City Commission might ct on the recomendations in January 2019

Information Packet link

• No increases are recommended to standard monthly parking rates.
  • Rates were significantly increased in 2016
  • There are currently 4,827 standard monthly customers.
• Increase monthly non-residential reserved parking by $50/space per month.
  • "On average only half of the spaces are utilized and do not allow the spaces to be available for visitor and event parking"
• Eliminate VIP parking and expand the night and weekend permits.
• Extending hours of enforcement for on-street parking
  • Enforcement is proposed to be extended to Monday – Saturday 8am – 8pm and Sunday from 12pm – 8pm

"Stop for Pedestrians" gateway signs

Information Packet Link

The City has been piloting and studying in road "Stop for Pedestrians" gateway signs, known as R1-6 treatments. Research has shown that these signs can be very effective in improving driver yielding (and stopping) for pedestrians within a crosswalk. The City has drafted specific gateway treatment installation criteria based off of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) "User Guide for R1-6 Gateway Treatment for Pedestrian Crossings." 
The City partnered with Western Michigan University in 2016 and 2017 to study pilot and temporary locations with varying configurations of the gateway treatments.  This research has helped to produce draft national guidance on the use of these treatments.  The results were also used to help develop the MDOT user guide.  The following shows the pilot locations and before and after evaluation of yield and stop percentages of drivers.

A draft of guidelines for where to place R1-6 pedestrian signage - which need to be removed in the winter and reinstalled every spring - is under development and will be a topic for discussions in 2019.