METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION REGULAR MEETING MAY 12, 2005 The Metropolitan Planning Organization convened this day in Regular Session at the Historic Pasco County Courthouse, Dade City, Florida at 10:00 a.m., with the Honorable W. Cliff McDuffie, presiding. Also present were Pasco County Commissioners Pat Mulieri, Ann Hildebrand, Ted Schrader, Jack Mariano and Steve Simon; Councilmember Marilyn DeChant, Councilmember William Dennis and Port Richey Mayor Mark Abbott. Representing Staff were Mr. Doug Uden, Manny Lajmiri, and Mr. Robert Sumner, County Attorney. Representing Florida Department of Transportations were Mr. Bob Clifford and Ms. Carin Watkins. 1. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Chairman McDuffie gave the invocation and led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. 2. CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL Chairman McDuffie called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. Ms. Elaine H. Hicks, Deputy Clerk, called the roll. Commissioner Ann Hildebrand was absent. Councilmember Marilyn DeChant arrived to the meeting at 10:08 a.m. and Commissioner Pat Mulieri arrived to the meeting at 10:27 a.m. 3. MINUTES OF THE MARCH MEETING (TO BE DISTRIBUTED IN JUNE) Chairman McDuffie indicated the March minutes would be distributed in June. 4. PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT AND CAC REPORT Chairman McDuffie suggested the Public Comment be moved between agenda items seven and eight. The Board Members were in agreement with moving the Public Comment between agenda items seven and eight. Ms. Christie Zimmer, Vice-Chairman of the CAC, stated they had their first meeting in the Land O Lakes area, which was one of the best turnouts that they had at all of their meetings. She said it would be easier for everyone if some of the MPO meetings were held in Land O Lakes at the School Board Office. Page 1 of 10
Commissioner Schrader said because of the equipment that the Clerk used for recording the meetings, they would have a problem with that. Ms. Zimmer asked if the Clerk recorded the School Board meetings. Commissioner Schrader explained to Ms. Zimmer that the Clerk did not record the School Board meetings. Ms. Zimmer said they had several vacancies on the appointment roster for alternate positions. Commissioner Schrader and Commissioner Simon both had their alternate and primary members filled. She suggested to the remaining Board Members to consider who their appointees and alternate appointees were at the CAC meetings. She said at yesterday s meeting, a motion was made to approve the project that was on I-75, north of Bruce B. Downs Boulevard to the south of S.R. 56 of the Hillsborough County MPO s TIP. She said with the amount of accidents that were taking place and for safety concerns, they wanted the MPO Board to see what they could do about moving that project up as quickly as possible onto their plans. She thanked the Board for moving the public comment to item number seven. Chairman McDuffie welcomed Port Richey Mayor Mark Abbott, whose alternate was Mr. William Bennett, and New Port Richey Councilwoman Marilyn dechant, whose alternate would be Councilman Matthew McCaffery. 5. ACTION ITEMS a. CONSULTANT SELECTION PROCESS Mr. Uden said the MPO currently had two general planning consultants under contract. They were Tindale-Oliver and Associates, Inc. and URS Corporation Southern. The contracts would expire in December of this year. In order to obtain consultants, the MPO needed to go through a selection process. Because of the number of steps in this process, which usually took six months, they needed to form the selection committee at this time. In order to get started, the MPO needed to: 1) instruct Staff to begin the selection process, 2) form a consultant selection committee that would short list the number of firms applying down to at least three firms and then rank the short listed firms. The ranking would be brought back to the MPO for approval before proceeding with the selection process. He suggested that the makeup of the selection committee be a city manager that was member of the MPO, the County Administrator or his designee, the MPO Director, and two FDOT Staff members. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER MOVED approval of Staff s recommendation; COMMISSIONER SIMON SECONDED. Page 2 of 10
COUNCILWOMEN DECHANT ARRIVED TO THE MEETING AT 10:08 A.M. b. TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (TIP) AMENDMENT Ms. Carin Watkins, with FDOT, said she was requesting an amendment to the 2004-05 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) to include a project of I-75 from I-275 to south of S.R. 56. The project would extend the southbound merge lane to correct a weaving problem in that area and to balance the lanes. She requested the MPO add this project to the current TIP. Commissioner Schrader asked if the lanes would be on the western side or would it be toward the eastern side of the southbound lane. Mr. Bob Clifford, with FDOT, said it would be on the west side. Commissioner Schrader said the reason he brought this item up was because he did not know if there would be any impact to the Cypress Creek Wetlands that were adjacent to the right-of-way of the interstate system. He asked Mr. Clifford if they currently had adequate right-of-way. Mr. Clifford said yes. He said this project was one of several that they had coming up in the I-75 corridor. He said at the next meeting, they would graphically layout all the different projects that they had coming up in that corridor. Commissioner Schrader asked if there was anything that could be done from a traffic standpoint. Mr. Clifford said the graphic layout showed how they would be taking away the weaving movements that occurred on I-75. Some of the traffic merged onto I-75 and then crossed over to another lane. He said there were weaving movements occurring in both the south and north bound direction where I-275 and I-75 came together. There was general discussion regarding the CAC discussion about the northbound lane being the real problem of this project. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER MOVED approval of the recommendation by FDOT; COMMISSIONER SIMON SECONDED. c. FINAL UNIFIED PLANNING WORK PROGRAM (UPWP) Mr. Uden said on March 10, 2005, the MPO endorsed the draft UPWP for the next fiscal year. This draft was distributed to different government agencies for their review and Page 3 of 10
was made available to the public. The comments on the draft UPWP had been subsequently incorporated in the attached final UPWP; unfortunately, they missed several of the comments. He distributed correction pages of the UPWP to the Board and explained; the corrected pages were seven, eight, nine, fifty-two, sixty-three, and sixty-four. He said the final UPWP described the transportation planning tasks that the MPO and Staff would undertake for the time period from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006; it also summarized the amount of funding allocated to each task and the funding source for a total of $712,112.00. He recommended approval of the final 2004-06 UPWP. Commissioner Schrader asked if the UPWP was concurrent with the CAC s recommendation. Mr. Uden said yes. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER MOVED approval of Staff s recommendation; COMMISSIONER MARIANO AND COUNCILMAN DENNIS SECONDED. d. PUBLIC HEARING: ADOPTION OF THE 2006-10 TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM (TIP) Mr. Uden said last September, the MPO approved a prioritized list of transportation projects. During the fall, the MPO Staff and FDOT Staff used this priority list to formulate a tentative five-year work program for the upcoming fiscal years of 2005-06 through 2009-10. The tentative work program was shown at the December 2005 MPO meeting. Using this tentative work program, the new 2006-10 TIP had been assembled. There were new projects that were listed in the agenda item. Mr. Manny Lajmir would summarize the new projects. Mr. Manny Lajmir, Transportation Planner, listed and explained the State projects and the State improvements that were programmed within Pasco County for this and/or next year s projects; he showed a map that summarized the projects that were identified in the TIP. There was general discussion between the Board members and Staff regarding some of the projects that were added to the proposed TIP. Some of the new projects were S.R. 52 having four lanes from Curley Road to Morris Bridge Road; U.S. 301 from S.R. 39 to south of C.R. 54, obtaining right-of-ways for three lanes in 2009-10; U.S. 19 from Pinellas County to Hillsborough County, continuous right-turn lanes; the total budgets for the new five years projects in the TIP being over $2.5 million; some of the project on Table 4 being funded through the Penny for Pasco; a thank-you letter to be sent to Representative Ginny Brown-Waite thanking her for her effort in obtaining $1.5 million for improvements at the intersection of C.R. 54 and I-75; the project for U.S. 19 from Page 4 of 10
Grand Boulevard to Beacon Woods; and U.S.19 and S.R. 52 being moved to the top levels of the priority list. COMMISSIONER MULIERI ARRIVED TO THE MEETING AT 10:27 A.M. Mr. John Gallagher, County Administrator, was before the Board to give an update on the meeting he had with the State of Florida, Secretary of Transportation; he listed the individuals that attended that meeting. The Secretary of Transportation was very upbeat about Pasco County s advanced right-of-way acquisition program that they were trying to move forward on. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss advanced right-way along S.R. 52 and to get an update on U.S. 19. During the past few months, the Legislative Delegation, the Board of County Commissioners, the MPO, and the Law Firm of Tew and Cardenas had made great progress in explaining the County on the advanced right-of-way acquisition to the Governor s office and to the Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Since the beginning of this initiative, the Board had embraced multiple strategies in order to accomplish this goal; some of the strategies were obtaining Legislative assistance, Board of County of County Commissioners involvement, FDOT cooperation and hiring the Law Firm of Tew and Cardenas to assist Mr. Joe Mannion, the County s Legislative Consultant. As a result the Legislator had proposed in the fiscal year 2005-06 s budget $10,635,000 million for S.R. 52 advanced right-of-way. The Department of Transportation Secretary Abreu and District Seven Secretary Hartmann assisted Pasco County in implementing improvements on S.R. 52 along U.S. 19. FDOT had expedited the design of that portion of S.R. 52 from the Suncoast Parkway to U.S. 41 by two years. He said since the PD&E Study on S.R. 52 to I-75 was approximately ten years old, the Department had initiated an update, which would be completed within six to nine months. In addition, Secretary Abreu directed his Staff to start a Preliminary G-1 for the S.R. 52 corridor. He indicated that this process would begin next year. The Department was investigating the feasibility of starting the design of this segment in the 2006-07 Five Year Work Plan. He spoke further regarding the proposed Growth Management Bill allocating $780 million a year for intermodal transportation improvements in the State of Florida; and District Seven being at the June MPO meeting to explain in detail what their plans were in the future; and a seminar he attended regarding the mistakes that the State had made. Commissioner Schrader asked if the right-of-way funding that was in the budget was for C.R. 41 to the Parkway. Mr. Gallagher said yes. Commissioner Mariano said it was for C.R. 41 to I-75. Mr. Gallagher said it was his understanding that the $10 million did not have a limit for C.R. 41. Mr. Uden said he did not know what the limits were. Mr. Gallagher said he and Mr. Parikh gave the Department an approximately amount what they thought an acreage price would be from the Parkway to C.R. 41 and what an Page 5 of 10
acreage price would be from C.R. 41 to the Interstate. Commissioner Mariano said it encompassed the entire stretch to I-75. Mr. Gallagher said the Department of Transportation had identified Pasco County as a place that needed improvements. There was general discussion between the Board Members and Mr. Gallagher regarding Pasco County receiving leverage for their money from the State and why the list of priorities should be structured at this time. Mr. Uden said on page 13 of the TIP, the first priority list was the Corridor Highway Priorities, they could List S.R. 19 as number one, and S.R. 52 as number two, and then the other priorities could be moved down. They could talk with FDOT to see if they could change the third set Priority list of Highway Projects on page 14; they could do that in June or they could wait until the September meeting. Mr. Gallagher said he would like to work with the Department and try to come back with something at the next MPO meeting. Mr. Uden said not all segments for S.R. 52 was at the highest priority. He said there was an opportunity to acquire the right-of-way at a very low price; he was afraid if they, or the State, waited too long, they might not be able to afford multi-laning it. Mr. Gallagher suggested the projects that required State money be rearranged. Mr. Uden said most of the high priorities on page 14 were already programmed in. Over half of those projects had phases in the TIP. Mr. Gallagher asked if they could break it down into a State priority list and a local priority list. Mr. Uden said no. Mr. Gallagher suggested that the MPO vote U.S. 19 and S.R. 52 as their top priority. At the next meeting, Mr. Uden could bring back all the different mixes and analyses to get the Board to approve them. Commissioner Mariano said the State wanted the PD&E done first, then the design, and then the right-of-way. There was general discussion between the Board members and Mr. Gallagher regarding the State having $50 million set aside for advanced right-of-way. Mr. Kenneth Hartmann, with FDOT, said they had a completed PD&E document on S.R. 52. It needed to be updated and it would take approximately six-months to get it up to where it needed to be. He spoke further regarding crafting the Department advanced right-of-way acquisition. Page 6 of 10
Chairman McDuffie requested a motion to move U.S. 19 and S.R. 52 to the top of the Corridor Highway List and then develop what they needed to develop at the next MPO meeting. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER MOVED approval of the adoption of the 2006/2010 Transportation Improvement Program and move U.S. 19 and S.R. 52 to the top of the Corridor Highway List; COMMISSIONER MULIERI SECONDED. Commissioner Mariano said the State spent $50 million last year on right-of-way acquisition and they were going to spend $30 million this year for right-of-way acquisitions. Chairman McDuffie asked if there was anyone present to speak to this item. Ms. Christie Zimmer said the I-75 project was on the Hillsborough TIP plans and it was part of Pasco County for adoption. She asked if it would be possible to move the I-75 project up on the priority list. Mr. Uden said the design for the I-75 project was underway now; it took two years to do the design, and it took two years for the right-of-way and the construction program. He did not think by moving the I-75 project up on the list would complete the project any faster. Mr. Clifford said on that specific plan there was an issue of production. Ms. Dorothy Wood said she was concerned about evacuation routes. She said there were no main roads from U.S. 19 to I-75 for evacuation. She thought S.R. 52 was one of the things that they needed to think about for evacuation. Mr. Gallagher suggested that Staff prepare a Resolution to be sent to the Governor. COMMISSIONER SIMON MOVED approval to direct Staff to prepare a Resolution reestablishing the list of corridor highway priorities; COUNCILWOMAN DECHANT SECONDED. 6. OTHER BUSINESS a. PUBLIC HEARING: TRANSIT DEVELOPMENT PLAN STATUS REPORT Page 7 of 10
Mr. Uden said the 2025 Long-Range Transportation Plan was approved at the December MPO meeting. The Plan included a 20-year cost-affordable transit plan. The next step to begin implementing this was to develop a five-year Transit Development Plan (TDP), which would propose the transit activities and funding for each of the next five years. He said Mr. Bill Oliver with Tindale-Oliver and Associates, Inc. had been developing the TDP. He indicated that Mr. Oliver would explain the proposed TDP, and receive comments from the Board and the public so that the TDP could be finalized and approved during the June MPO meeting. Mr. Bill Oliver, Tindale-Oliver and Associates, Inc., gave an overview of where they were with the Transit Development Plan process. He stated the plan would be finalized in June. His presentation overview consisted of the existing bus service; the planning process; the different public involvement techniques that were used; transit needs; and a financial plan. There was general discussion between the Board members and Mr. Oliver regarding the need for more benches and shelters throughout the County; and benches and shelters being provided by the Jaycees and the Penny for Pasco. No action taken. b. 2025 FLORIDA TRANSPORTATION PLAN UPDATE Mr. Hartmann said the Florida Transportation Plan served as the frame work or policy guidance related to how transportation decisions were made in Florida. He said they were in the process of updating that plan. He thanked the MPO Board for the years that he had served with them and the successes that they had accomplished. He stated that it had been a pleasure working with Pasco County, especially dealing with transportation issues. He stated that after 30 years of Public Service with the Florida Department of Transportation, it was time for him as District Secretary to move to the private sector. RESOLUTION NO. 05-213 RESOLUTION BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION COMMENDING KENNETH A. HARTMANN FOR MANY YEARS OF DEDICATED SERVICES AND ASSISTANCE TO THE CITIZENS OF PASCO COUNTY Commissioner Mulieri read the Resolution into the record. COMMISSIONER MULIERI MOVED approval of the Resolution; COMMISSIONER Page 8 of 10
SIMON SECONDED. Mr. Hartmann expressed his appreciation. Ms. Watkins showed a film of how the Florida Transportation Plan would be developed, the schedule, how MPO and the public could participate in this development, and how more and current information about the Florida Transportation Plan could be found at the FDOT s website: www.ftp2025.com. Mr. Clifford said the film explained a lot of the topics that had been discussed relating to leveraging, partnerships, and advanced right-of-way acquisition. No action taken. 7. OTHER CAC COMMENTS Chairman McDuffie requested a motion to appoint Ms. Kelly Maki to the Citizens Advisory Committee and Ms. Andrea Balistrieri as an Alternate. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER MOVED approval to appoint Ms. Kelly Maki to the Citizens Advisory Committee and Ms. Andrea Balistrieri as an alternate; COMMISSIONER MULIERI SECONDED. Ms. Carol Crews spoke regarding how an individual from the Zephyrhills and Dade City area could use Public Transportation to get to the Tampa Airport. She said they could catch a bus that was going to south Pinellas at a Mall in West Pasco. Also from what she understood, a person could catch the Hart line bus from Wesley Chapel and go directly to the Port Authority in Tampa, which had an around-about way of getting to the airport. Commissioner Schrader said at the last Board of County Commissioners Meeting, he explained to them that he had a package delivered to him from a developer who was requesting that Pasco County designate S.R. 52 from C.R. 41 east, and the new Clinton Avenue Extension, as a scenic corridor. He stated S.R. 52 was scheduled to be resurfaced from Smith Road west to the Interstate, or near the Belle Verde Development, this summer. They continue to receive requests regarding the intersection at Curley Road and S.R. 52. He explained that the warrants did not support a traffic light at that intersection and FDOT had a concern with stacking and the hazard a traffic light might cause there. He asked if a traffic light was not feasible, would it be possible for flashing lights on either end of the intersections be put up a distance away Page 9 of 10
so that drivers would know that an intersection was coming up that could be problematic. He requested FDOT s Engineers take a look at the location of the two poles that were put up. It appeared that FDOT had located those poles on both corners of the intersection. He felt the poles needed to be relocated. Mr. Clifford said he would look into Commissioner Schrader concerns. Commissioner Mariano said he understood S.R. 52 was not part of the SIS (Strategic Intermodal System). Mr. Clifford said that was correct, because the Strategic Intermodal System was their volume, high speed facilities of statewide significance. S.R. 52 was only a facility that went from U.S. 19 to U.S. 301 within one County, and from a statewide significance of a facility it did not meet that test. The Board adjourned at 12:01 p.m. (SEAL) METROPOLITAN PLANNING ORGANIZATION REGULAR MEETING MAY 12, 2005 ATTEST: W. CLIFF MCDUFFIE, CHAIRMAN JED PITTMAN, CLERK TO THE BOARD Prepared By: Elaine H. Hicks Deputy Clerk Page 10 of 10