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Home My WebLink AboutFW: ADA Special Requests (3) Mike Plane From:Travis Rothweiler Sent:Monday, May 20, 2024 09:24 To:Mike Plane; Mandi Thompson; Kathy Markus; Kennedy Esume Cc:Josh Baird Subject:FW: ADA Special Requests FYI - Please see below. Travis Rothweiler, ICMA- CM City Manager City of Twin Falls, Idaho -----Original Message----- From: Trevor <trevorroot@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, May 20, 2024 9:06 AM To: Josh Baird <JBaird@?id.org>; Travis Rothweiler <trothweiler@?id.org> Subject: Re: ADA Special Requests \[EXTERNAL SENDER\] Josh, Please ensure that all of my requests submi?ed on the Civic Reporter are saved and preserved in a format that preserves their original ?mestamps and full context. I will be performing a records request shortly to retrieve those records formally to document that the City is aware of the issues. Please let me know as soon as prac?cal on what the City decides on the Safety-related and MUTCD issues. As a Professional Engineer, it is my obliga?on to ensure that the City is ac?ng to protect Public Safety now that I've iden?ﬁed issues, and I believe it is now my duty to see that these issues are formally addressed. Thank you, Trevor Root On Mon, May 20, 2024 at 8:04 AM Josh Baird <JBaird@?id.org> wrote: > > Trevor, > > Thank you for your response and your recommenda?ons on these issues. The City will be proceeding as I indicated in my prior email to you, but we will review your recommenda?ons and let you know if we determine to implement any of them. > > > Joshua R. Baird > public works director | city of twin falls > phone: (208) 736-2274 > jbaird@?id.org > > -----Original Message----- > From: Trevor <trevorroot@gmail.com> 1 > Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2024 8:35 PM > To: Josh Baird <JBaird@?id.org> > Subject: Re: ADA Special Requests > > \[EXTERNAL SENDER\] > > Josh, > Rather than remove the requests, I would recommend that the City create a new category in the Civic Reporter Tool for Safety Requests and Other Categories so that other people can see them for public transparency. Although I'm sure the City management would prefer to hide them to help shield the City from li?ga?on in the case of an unfortunate accident at any of the iden?ﬁed loca?ons, that's also a good reason why I believe that they should remain documented and public. This is a good example of other category types in a community communica?on tool: h?ps://geo.azmag.gov/Ac?veMap/ - Some of those comments are s?ll there from 2017 when that tool was created. > > The majority of the items I submi?ed are safety related and MUTCD related, which should already be in compliance per IDAPA 39.03.41 and general engineering prac?ce. Obviously, school safety zones should be a high priority, and the school-zone items I've iden?ﬁed at just a glance should already have been iden?ﬁed long ago through detailed engineering analysis, and already be in a priority matrix. I'm hoping that engineering analysis has already been performed for all school zones, or that the City will be performing those studies in 2024. I'm hoping the City's Safe Routes to School document has been updated and reviewed for MUTCD compliance recently, or will be reviewed by a Traﬃc Engineer in 2024. > > All of the ADA-speciﬁc issues I iden?ﬁed should already be in a priority list in accordance with the ADA Transi?on Plan requirements (Title II § 35.150 Exis?ng facili?es). It should be easy to tell which of the issues that I've iden?ﬁed are already in the schedule, what they scored on the matrix you a?ached, and be able to tell me in which year each of the ones I've iden?ﬁed will be funded. Although I agree that residents with documented barriers should be a high priority, ADA issues in public right-of-way and public spaces don't aﬀect a single person; they aﬀect everyone that encounters them, whether that's a visitor or a resident. Hopefully the City has already iden?ﬁed where people with ADA Placards live in the community, and hopefully the City's ADA Coordinator regularly reaches out to work with local disability groups on a regular basis. > > I've recommended to Council that they hire a full ?me Traﬃc Engineer to iden?fy the types of issues I see at a glance while driving around town, both to improve public safety and to mi?gate legal risk to the City. Consultants are great, but it takes a full ?me employee to iden?fy and coordinate traﬃc safety issues on a daily basis. If you need engineering support for the studies, I've been impressed with some of Ki?leson's work out of their Boise oﬃce, HDR has a very strong resume in Traﬃc Safety, and Kimley-Horn has a very strong traﬃc safety team and cer?ﬁed Road Safety Professionals. I'm sure there are other cer?ﬁed PTOEs and RSPs in Idaho that could be iden?ﬁed if the City published an RFQ speciﬁc to pedestrian and traﬃc safety. NACTO has great guidance, ITE is a great resource, and the APBP has a great message board if you want to get answers from how other City planners are dealing with these types of issues. > > I plan to con?nue ensuring that Council sees ADA and Safety as a funding priority. I'm sure you're aware, but the ADA Transi?on Plan iden?ﬁed spending $4.6M per year for 10 years star?ng in 2014. I no?ced that immediately a?er the plan was adopted, in 2015, the Council approved a budget of a mere $25,000 for sidewalks. As far as I can tell, the plan was never updated in the ways that the 2014 document recommends. > > I would also recommend that the City appoint an ADA Coordinator that is focused on ADA Compliance as a passion, and should be the City's ﬁrst point of contact for all ADA issues. Although we're both engineers and the majority of my items are infrastructure related, it seems to me that the ADA Coordinator should be the one responding to the ADA concerns and passionate about ensuring compliance with the ADA and the City's ADA Transi?on Plan. > > I have no complaints against City Staﬀ, and I don't want to place you > or other City staﬀ in the posi?on of arguing for your own pay raise 2 > or department funding increase, since I believe funding and > priori?za?on of management is the primary concern. I hope that the > council is planning to fund the relevant departments adequately in > 2024 so that the great engineers at the City are able to protect public safety in the way we're ethically obligated to do, and at least to the degree that the ADA Transi?on Plan requires. > > Thank you, > Trevor Root > > On Wed, May 15, 2024 at 4:53 PM Josh Baird <JBaird@?id.org> wrote: > > > > Trevor, > > > > > > > > Thanks for your recent ADA Special Requests to the new City of Twin Falls Civic Reporter site. We have received and brieﬂy reviewed them. As you can imagine, many of those requests will require analysis, design, and funding to complete. The new Civic Reporter program works seamlessly with our Cityworks work order program and allows us to quickly assign and dispatch crews to remedy typical and easy to ﬁx issues, such as pothole repair or clearing debris from the road. For those requests that require addi?onal analysis and design, we will not be able to complete them in such a ?mely manner. As such, a?er our ini?al review, you may no?ce them removed from the site. That doesn’t mean we have necessarily completed them. Instead, we have chosen to log them elsewhere while we analyze and priori?ze them. Doing this will allow the City to give these requests the addi?onal research and evalua?on they need while the City can use the Civic Reporter system for the other more rou?ne tasks for which the system was created. > > > > > > > > If you would like to provide us your priority with the requests you have submi?ed so far and why you believe they should be a higher priority than others, we would take that into considera?on. Otherwise, we will use engineering judgement and the matrix outlined in our 2014 ADA Transi?on Plan (see a?ached) to priori?ze them. Also, if they impact you or someone you are aware of directly and regularly, we would appreciate to know that as well. > > > > > > > > For now, you are welcome to submit any future requests for these types of projects directly to me. I can then respond to your communica?ons directly and ensure that these requests are then processed along with the others you have made. > > > > > > > > Again, thanks for your help in making this community the best it can be! > > > > > > > > Joshua R. Baird > > > > public works director | city of twin falls > > > > phone: (208) 736-2274 > > > > jbaird@?id.org > > 3 > > 4