AI-generated transcript of City Council Committee of the Whole 03-11-25

[Lazzaro]: A few more of these, I'm converting. I, um, I can't get this to cross over here and there.

[Emily O'Brien]: Hang on.

[Hurtubise]: Mic check, test one, two.

[Bears]: Mic check. Check, check, mic. Test, sounds good. Are you with us till the bitter end tonight? Medford City Council committee the whole March 11 2025 is called to order Mr. Please call the roll.

[Hurtubise]: That's a call him. Thanks President Collins. Also, was our council lemon. Councilor Scarpelli has informed us he's going to be absent counter saying, President Bears present six present one apps in the meeting is called to order.

[Bears]: There'll be a meeting. of the Committee of the Whole. Today at 6 p.m., City Council Chamber, second floor, Medford City Hall, to discuss paper 25037 offered by Council Lazzaro. This is to discuss pedestrian and bicycle safety in the city, be it resolved by the Medford City Council that we invite representatives of the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission, Walk Medford, and the City Administration to discuss pedestrian and bicycle safety on the city's streets and sidewalks and crosswalks. being further resolved. And this was part of the original resolution, which just comes from that the city council will work with DCR and our state delegation to make improvements to the crosswalk where Professor Dan Dill was killed as outlined in the email request by neighbors. And we also have had another fatality due to a collision right near here by the highway at the Salem Street Rotary Route 60. And I do have a communication from Director Blake that I can talk to that as well. But first I will go to Council Lazzaro, and then we'll hear from our invited folks. Council Lazzaro.

[Lazzaro]: Thank you. We have had some updates. Our, um, state delegation has our so our, um, Representative Sean Garber Lee, Senator Pat Jalen and Mayor Lungo-Koehn have met with the commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation have talked about planned improvements to the rotary by the Mystic Lakes, where Dan Dill was originally hit by a car. They are planning to start those soon, which is great. And it is, of course, still, you know, the tragedy is still tragedy, but it is excellent that conversations are ongoing. The spring construction season is about to begin, and hopefully those improvements can take effect soon. I do think that it's an excellent opportunity to talk about all of the places where Um, there are still opportunities for us to continue conversations, especially parts of the city where the roads are not controlled by Medford. Um, when things do happen on city controlled roads, it's very easy for us to make quick improvements. Our director of traffic and transportation Todd Blake is very responsive. We do put up quick mitigation, flashing signs, bump outs, things like that can happen very quickly. I observe them all the time I get an email, and then a couple days later there's a flashing sign, it's, it's excellent if it's a city controlled road we can do that, but on the state controlled roads, it can be more complicated and this is the first meeting of hopefully another future meeting we can talk more about traffic enforcement on some of these roads, hopefully with our Medford Police Department and the state police because, uh, these being state roads again, you know. That complicates things further, even with enforcement, because, um, those technically those roads are enforced by the state police. So more to come, but for now I would love to hear from the Medford Bicycle Commission because that's something that obviously cycling is a wonderful thing to do, excellent for your health, great way to get quickly across the city, but also it can be a really dangerous way to travel and it shouldn't be. So this is something that the Medford Bicycle Advisory Commission talks about a lot. Ways to improve the infrastructure in the city so that it's as safe as possible, and it continues to be that great healthy way to travel around the city. Great for kids, and a great way to get to and from school, work, and all the places that we need to be. So if it through the chair, if we, if you would like to invite the representatives from the bicycle commission to address the council about there were, I believe some, yeah, some priorities you wanted to talk about.

[Bears]: Sure. Yes. I just want to read quickly and you can come up and this'll be very fast. I'm just going to read two emails. One was from Todd Blake from Friday. It was hello, Councilors. Unfortunately, as you're aware, There were two recent and tragic traffic crashes resulting in pedestrian fatalities in Medford. I wanted to inform you that the State Mass Department of Transportation, Salem Street Rotary, and DCR, Mystic Valley Parkway at Lakeview and at High Street Rotary are working on plans to improve safety in these areas. We hope the final improvements will significantly improve upon existing conditions and hopefully be implemented soon. I can't speak for either agency on their specific plans or timeline, et cetera, but I am hopeful. Sincerely, Todd Blake, Director of Traffic and Transportation. And then also some residents have been reaching out to different departments and there was a response that was shared with me from mass dot around Salem Street Rotary, and it was our current concept plan focuses on realigning. the curbing in and around the rotary to significantly reduce the width of the circulating roadway. Modifying the radii for the connections entering and exiting the rotary should reduce travel speeds, increasing safety for vehicles and vulnerable road users. The modifications are being targeted for implementation this construction season as part of an ongoing interstate resurfacing project on this section of I-93. This approach will enable us to expedite the work necessary for improvements to pedestrian and bicycle connectivity between the east and west sides of the rotary. So those are the two communications I've received. And I also just wanted to thank our Bicycle Commission folks. I know this isn't the only thing we're here to talk about these two specific areas in these two specific incidents. I know you've been working on and have a plan, the city's bike plan that you've been working to update. So very encouraged to hear about that and hopes for investing more into the infrastructure. So I'll turn it over to you. And if you could just give us your name and address for the record, and we'll hear from you.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: My name is Daniel Nuzzo-Muller and I'm a resident over on Woburn Street in Medford, Massachusetts. Three Woburn Street. So one thing I would like to note is that it is Perhaps very sad that we have to wait for a fatality to occur in order to see these improvements. I think we would all like it if these incidents did not happen. We realize that that is a large ask, but there are many cities that do commit to Vision Zero. And I think that is something that we as a city should try to commit to. On top of that, I do have a list of priorities from the Bicycle Commission that I'd like to relate. One of these things is to apply for state and federal funding for bicycle and pedestrian improvements where possible. install quality bike racks at regular intervals and require private developers to install racks on their property when they are looking for city approval for projects. Install and or advocate for protected bike lanes on high speed or multi-lane roads. Also systemic traffic calming measures on neighborhood streets when they are repaved. Um, continuing to grow the blue bike network, which Todd has done a wonderful job with, but we would love to see it. You know, in, uh, continue to be brought out across the rest of the city. Prioritizing the repair of roads and potholes that can pose significant. dangerous for cyclists who are attempting to share the roadways with cars. This can be a very, very dangerous situation where someone is forced to swerve or hit a pothole, possibly crash. It is something that is known to be very dangerous for cyclists. marking off-street paths and other roads with signage and wayfinding to help cyclists find the most appropriate route to get from point A to point B. On top of that, in the planning stage, develop neighborhood traffic calming plans where possible. Analyze crashes and near misses where possible and possibly also report on those yearly so that we can see that the city is becoming safer for members of the public. I know that enforcement is not on the list of things to address, but of course, you know, ask that Medford police do prioritize enforcement of data, you know, against dangerous driving behaviors and harassment incidents, which do happen. We have already been talking with them, so there is progress there. But just something to also reiterate here, have Park Medford prioritize the needs of cyclists as well, enforcing bike lane parking, blocking of bike racks, other things that end up making it more difficult for cyclists. let's see, snow removal. That is another thing that we would like to see work from both the state and the local agencies where necessary, and enforcement on private walks where there is no snow clearing. I think that sometimes that can be something that gets slightly overlooked. And also education and engagement. We would love it if the city would be able to post about the four-foot passing law and the speed limit that we have set as a city as 25 miles per hour. We would love to have that be more widely publicized. So those are the items that I think the commission is most, I would say, adamant about.

[Bears]: Thank you. And I did ask the clerk to circulate that document to everybody. To Councilor Lazzaro.

[Lazzaro]: Thank you for sharing this. I think it's really comprehensive. We do have something in our regular meeting agenda to like a timeline for councillors to bring budget items to our budget meetings that are coming up this month. So can you talk a little bit more about the budget section of the priorities and just talk, you know, address maybe if you have an idea of the scope, like how much they would each cost and how we might as a council be able to offer some of those items to the mayor's administration.

[Bears]: Thank you. Just one second Councilor Lazzaro. Thank you. And I just wanted to know, Emily has her hand up, so I'll go to you and then I'll go to Emily if that works. Great.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Oh, I actually cede the floor to Emily. I'm sure she might have some information on that.

[Bears]: Emily was the chair. You are the new chair. Yes. Chair recognizes Emily O'Brien. Name and address for the record, please.

[Emily O'Brien]: Hi, I'm Emily O'Brien, 117 Governors Ave. For some reason, I can't turn the video on, and I'm not sure why. So apologies for that. A couple of things.

[Bears]: You should be able to now. Sorry about that.

[Emily O'Brien]: OK. Oh, there we go. Great. Thank you so much for taking up these matters. This is something that's really important to us. And we think it's going to be also increasingly important going ahead as the council considers zoning changes that make it more practical to build denser housing or to reduce parking requirements. It becomes that much more important that people have an alternative to having one car per adult over the age of 16 in every household. And it doesn't mean that everybody has to bike everywhere all the time for everything. It just means that biking needs to be part of the mix that makes it viable to have maybe only one car per household instead of two or more. As far as some of the budget items go, another thing that Daniel didn't mention is we'd really like to have Amy Ingalls position filled at some point. It was really, really helpful to have her as the point person. for biking and pedestrian issues in Medford. And when that position has gone unfilled for so long, there's really a vacuum there. As far as bike racks go, you would have to check with Todd. What we've been told is that the main sticking point in terms of the budget amount is not necessarily the purchase price of the racks themselves. They're actually not that expensive and MAPC has a purchasing program that I believe that should get half price pricing for those. The sticking point is having the resources to install them, the person power to go out and stick them in the ground. That's maybe not so much a safety issue except for the fact that you know, unsecured bikes get stolen and when they're locked against less standard things, they're in the way or they fall and block the sidewalk and so forth. But it is part of making Medford feel hospitable and make it feel like it's a reasonable thing to do, to ride your bike to the store wherever it is you're going. The other thing is in terms of messaging we we also think it's important to have some education and good messaging about how to share the road when there's not enough room for a bicyclist and a car. To be in the same lane next to each other at the same time. And we have a lot of really crucial thoroughfares in Medford that we can't put bike lanes on because they don't have enough road width and that by definition means that there's not enough room for a motor vehicle to pass a person on a bike by four feet without crossing the center line, which obviously has to happen when there's nobody coming the other way. And conflicts over expectations of what happens in these situations is part of what leads bicyclists to ride in ways that are less safe, what makes the roads scarier to use, what results in some of the harassment incidents that Daniel mentioned a second ago. So we think that that's also an important component of this. We have a lot of roads that, barring some super major changes like making it a one-way street, are not going to have room for bike lanes anytime soon, even if we had the funding to just wave a magic wand and build them all. So that we think is an important component here. And speed enforcement, I also just want to reiterate that this is a really important category for us. If a vehicle is approaching me from behind and they think they should be going 35 and I'm going 15, they feel like it's a much bigger imposition to have to slow down to 15 than if they only think they should be going 25. The incidents where somebody is speeding, even though it's on a state road, that person is probably not speeding for the first time ever in that spot, in that place on that day. If they're speeding on state roads, they're probably speeding on Medford roads, too. And so I think even though the Medford police aren't responsible for the state roads, just enforcing the speeding on the Medford roads is a really great start. The same goes for parking in bike lanes. You get people yelling at you for not using the bike lane, but then the bike lane is half obstructed by parked cars. Or daylighting of crosswalks, these are also kind of people think, oh, it's not a big deal. I'm only there for a few minutes. But it only takes a few minutes for somebody to be invisible at a crosswalk because there's vehicles parked there. So those parking issues are not a small thing. They're not, you know, less important than everything else. Those things really do costs pedestrians to be invisible at crosswalks, and they cause bike lanes to be unsafe to use. So those are our other priorities, both budgetary and otherwise. Thank you so much for taking the time to have us.

[Bears]: Thank you, Emily.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Yeah, let me see. So to go over our budget items, retain. I should note that we do not have any definitive numbers to this at this time. We can follow up with those after our next meeting and bring those to your attention. retain two traffic engineers on staff, including one whose focus is on walking and bicycling infrastructure. I think Emily mentioned that Amy's position I believe still has not been backfilled, and we would request that that that is given priority. Retain sufficient in-house DPW staff to do things like re-striping, possibly also installation of bike racks, adjusting signal timings, and pothole maintenance. Fund the DPW enough for them to be able to shrink the sidewalk and roadway repair backlog, so another DPW request. applying for state and federal funds I had mentioned before, and a budget for the purchase, installation, maintenance of bicycle-related equipment such as bike racks.

[Bears]: Okay, thank you. Do we have comments from other Councilors at this time? Councilor Collins.

[Collins]: Thank you. Just want to thank you so much for being here tonight, to you and the rest of the commission. Really appreciate the work that you do year round and I, you know, I want to echo the point that you made earlier in your presentation that it is unfortunate and outrageous that a lot of the time action on bike safety, road safety issues in general is motivated by preventable tragedies occurring in the community. So I'm sorry that you have to do the work that you do, but thank you for helping us rise to the occasion and make things safer for cyclists and pedestrians and drivers and everybody going forward. I'm so glad that this discussion is happening. I'm a cyclist myself, but I think we're all, whether you own a bike or not, we're all aligned for doing what we can concretely to make the road safer for everybody and as I think people know if you look at the side of the road or right in front of you when you're driving around or on the bus in Medford cyclists in Medford in our in our surrounding communities they look like everybody, their commuters, their kids going to school, their elders. it's incredibly important that we do whatever infrastructural work and whatever funding is necessary to bring about these changes that are documented to keep people safer. So I will support any budgetary proposal that we submit to the mayor this spring for FY26 to move the needle on these things that will make cycling safer in Medford. I want to echo your gratitude to Director Blake for the hard work that him and his team have been doing to expand our network of bike lanes in the city. Bike lanes alone are not enough. It is also incredibly important. I know the commission has been working hard on this. It's incredibly important to know that, to work so that drivers know how to behave around cyclists and around bike lanes. And we have a lot of work to do in the community. so that people know the rules of the road and they respect them for their own safety and for other people's safety. So I look forward to continuing these conversations so that we can put money where it needs to be so that people are safer on the roads. Thank you so much.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you, Councilor.

[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Hsieh.

[Tseng]: Thank you. I echo my colleagues' comments. You know, even if you're not a cyclist, you almost definitely know one in your life. And it's really important that we protect every single life that we can on our roads, that we have that safety. I've been reading through the document that was circulated by the clerk. And this is really, really helpful for us as Councilors to guide, you know, our thoughts going into budget season and to have concrete examples of what we can do. And this will, I'm sure for, us on the city council guide a lot of the questions we ask the directors in the departments as well. I'd be really curious to know like in the future after, you know, the commission and us on the City Council, we all talk through the budget items to see what we can advocate for, what seems like a realistic action plan to get these things done. There are a number of these that I think different committees on the City Council can help with as well. For example, facilitating complaints about snow removal and stuff like that, right? Social media pages, outreach efforts, maybe that's something that the public engagement committee could help with as well. So I think It'll be useful for us as Councilors to go through this later on and think about what committees can help with which efforts. So this is super, super helpful. And thank you so much for it. I think I also want to remind folks at home that safety on the roads is not only an ethical issue, it's also a legal issue as well. I've heard of a lot of cases in Medford where cyclists are harassed and threatened by drivers. That's not OK. And it actually is considered assault under Massachusetts law, both as a crime and a civil offense, and it can be punished. So I just want to put that out there and say, this is something that state law, that our city takes really seriously. And it's not a joking matter. Thank you, Councilor Tseng.

[Bears]: Any further comments by members of the Council? Seeing none, is there anyone from the public who'd like to speak at this time? Seeing none, I'll just note what council has already noted is that we're going to A, have more meetings on this issue. We hope to have a meeting specifically around the enforcement issue and what we can do there. We also are having upcoming budget meetings and it sounds like councilors are gonna take these recommendations into consideration when we make some recommendations to the mayor as she puts together the city budget. And we can keep pushing on the, on the issues that we can push on. You know, we don't have the ability to add things to the budget, and we don't have the ability to hire positions but we can certainly make it a part of our, our recommendations and conversation.

[Lazzaro]: I just want to thank you again for your advocacy, and I want to reiterate that this issue does, um, the issue of the safety of people traveling on Medford streets outside of cars is not contentious in town. It's universally something that people want to prioritize, protect the people who are moving through the city. So I think that we we'll continue to do everything that we can to, as President Bears alluded to, the things that are within our power as a council to take the steps that we can take to mitigate the issues that we see, make things better and easier for people traveling on bikes and on foot and do our best to protect each other. But I really appreciate you coming out and sharing the things that you've, identified as concrete ways that we can help. So I do think that the budget coming up is a great moment for this discussion. Thank you.

[Bears]: Thank you. Any further discussion or public comment at this time?

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: I will just note that I will make it a priority as the chair to outline specific numbers for these items at some point in the very near future?

[Bears]: Sure, yes. And working in collaboration with the department on that, that was great. I think the whole list is good. I think if there's something, either a lower cost thing that we can try to do right now or a top priority where that's the thing we need the most at this moment, that's always a helpful insight to have as well. and you can just feel free to share that by email with one of us and we'll make sure it gets around.

[Daniel Nuzzo-Mueller]: Thank you very much.

[Bears]: You can always CC the clerk as well. If you'd ever like us all to see something, send it to Adam. All right, thank you. Are there a motion on the floor? A motion to keep the paper and committee in a turn? By Councilor Leming, seconded by? Seconded by Councilor Lazzaro, all those in favor? Opposed? Motion passes, meeting is adjourned, thank you.

Lazzaro total time: 5.45 minutes total words: 730	Bears total time: 11.88 minutes total words: 994	Collins total time: 2.03 minutes total words: 402	Tseng total time: 2.31 minutes total words: 351