2015-0115 Regular City Commission Meeting

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Summary Minutes:Regular City Commission Meeting January 15,2015 City of Sunny Isles Beach,Florida Commissioner Goldman said as a former member of the City Advisory Committee we know that we hear from the City often that they don't have jurisdiction over public roads, Collins Avenue and Sunny Isles Boulevard are under FDOT or these are State controlled roads,what can we do. The fact of the matter is that there are certain areas where we can get some sort of a study,or a better analysis of that,whether it is synchronizing the traffic lights,or traffic signalization issues, or working in conjunction with our Police staff, Traffic Control, etc., and so she would argue that we need a much more comprehensive approach and analysis,and that is taking in consideration of our existing studies over the years that have been produced in connection with various developments, working with Police, with Traffic Control, working with FDOT which is very important because FDOT has jurisdiction over our major roads, and working with our City Manager and working internally to get some better data, better analysis,and better understanding,and maybe there are recommendations,maybe we can make some incremental improvements to our traffic situation. Public Speakers: None Commissioner Levin said that last month she had brought up the issue of the bicycles and doing a feasibility study and she thinks that would go well hand-in-hand with what she is suggesting with regard to a traffic study and perhaps alternate modes of transportation. Perhaps re-educating people to travel throughout the City differently even if they are on foot, maybe if everybody didn't walk on Collins Avenue and walked on Atlantic Boulevard, or some people did then it would alleviate the congestion on the sidewalk, on Collins Avenue. It is just transportation in general as well as the traffic which is an issue. Commissioner Aelion said he would ask the City Manager and staff to come back,based on what was presented by Commissioner Goldman, and tell us based on the track record that they have,these are the prior studies and so forth,if it is warranted to spend taxpayers money at this point of time to go forward with such a study,if it is warranted yes,and if it is not why not. The reason being that it is a work in progress,he understands the approach and it is well thought,and he thinks that it is very appropriate that we see the high season as it is basically grid locked all over and it has been so for many years, and it will only increase according to how our Representative from the Tourism and Marketing Council Ibis Romero reports the number of tourists and how they will increase. It is not only what is going on locally,to that end, he thinks a technical approach based on what has already been done. When Gerry Goodman used to sit here,he would never leave a Commission meeting without addressing a traffic problem, and so this has been on-going for fifteen (15) years. He thinks it would behoove us to listen to our City Manager and staff in conjunction with the recommendation of our Police Chief with the staff to see if such a study is warranted at this point. Mayor Scholl said to Commissioner Aelion's point,there are a lot of published studies that we have, and FDOT has done a lot of studies. He thinks what Commissioner Aelion is pointing out is before we spend a lot of money on another study,we should assemble what is there and see if we can glean some intelligence from that. It is a very difficult problem because frankly one of the studies he saw, roughly 75% of traffic on Collins Avenue is not generated from our City. People are backed up on I-95 and so they move to Biscayne Boulevard,no one wants to go through Aventura at this time of year so they move to Collins Avenue. 18