like to call this evening's meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. For a notice, we have an open podium invitation. An open podium is an opportunity for Eden Prairie residents to address the city council on issues related to Eden Prairie government before each council meeting, typically the first and third Tuesday of each month um from 6:40 to 6:55 in the council chamber. If you wish to speak at open podium, please contact the city manager's office at 952-9498412 by noon of the meeting date with your name, phone number, and subject matter. Open podium is not recorded or televised. If you have any questions about open podium, please contact the city manager's office. Um, approval of the agenda. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? Sure. I'll move to approve the agenda. >> I second. >> All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> Um, next is the minutes. Motion to approve the following city council minutes. City council workshop held Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, and city council meeting held Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025. >> Second. There's been a motion and seconded for the city council minutes. All in favor say I. >> I so moved. >> Next up is the consent calendar. There's a motion to approve items A to P on the consent calendar. Are there any questions about any of the items or anything you'd like to pull for specific discussion? If not, can I have a motion to approve items A through P on the consent calendar? >> Move to approve the item A to P on the consent calendar. >> Second. >> All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Um, public hearings and meetings. We have one public hearing this evening. an adoption resolution vacating lot one block two Aztec drive addition drainage and utility easements. >> Thank you. Yeah, sorry. Thank you, mayor. Um we we do have the one public hearing and and you're familiar with these with um having to vacate a drainage and utility easement for a recently approved uh development project that the council has seen. You may remember at the last council meeting you approved Aspen Estates the assisting living and memory care facility. So following that development um we are asking that you um vacate a prior or current devel drainage and utility easement that was there and then there will be new uh drainage and utility easements that will be dedicated for the new plat. Um and the release of um the easements will be conditioned on the recording of the plat of the new project. And as you know um you need to hold a public hearing and then adopt a resolution when you do these um you know kind of housekeeping items related to vacating these easements. >> Yeah. Is there any questions or if not is there a motion to approve this public hearing? I'll move to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution. >> You uh you want to actually see if anyone you want to open the public hearing. See if anyone wants to come forward before. >> Sorry. Um I'd like to open the public hearing. Is any in thebody in the audience would you like to come to speak to this? If so, please approach the podium. Seeing no one, um, uh, then we'll take a motion to move close the public hearing. >> So, I'll move to close the public hearing. And should I move to adopt the resolution vacating the drainage and utility easements? >> I'll second that. >> Um, it's been moved and seconded to close the public hearing and adopt the resolution vacating the drainage and utility easements. All in favor, please say I. >> I. I. >> Opposed? It's passed. Um payment of claims. Um we always have a motion to approve the payment of claims as submitted. These are hundreds of bills that come in through our accounting and office and through standard procedure. However, we do have to as a council approve them. Um is there's a roll call vote. Is there someone to move the payment of claims as submitted? >> Move to approve the payment of claim as submitted. Second. Is there roll call? >> Council member Nion >> I. >> Council member Tumi >> I. >> Acting Mayor Nelson >> I. >> Um, it does pass. Um, we don't have any ordinance and resolutions this evening. However, we do have a report. Is there any report from the city manager or do we just want to move to the report from the public works? >> Uh, yes, mayor. We do have one report from public works. So if that's okay, we could turn things over to public works director Ellis if that's okay. >> Acting Mayor Nelson, city council, I'm just following up on our September 2nd city council meeting. I have a brief presentation that I'll be discussing uh concerning our pedestrian crossing treatment guidelines which we use across the city to help us determine how we treat crosswalks at intersections across our community. So, um, by way of maybe just providing some context, as you heard me say at our last city council meeting, we have approximately 5,200 intersections, um, crossings citywide. And we do use our pedestrian crossing treatment guidelines to help us determine when and where to mark them, how to sign them, or what other types of treatments to use. And as a result of that, we have 388 marked crosswalks. We also have eight rectangular rapid flashing beacons, the RRFBs that I've spoke about in the past um that are again a result of our um um guidelines dictating that these are appropriate for those locations. But we also have other treatments. We have raised medians. We have refuge pedestrian refuge islands. We have railroad crossings with designated flashers. We have a number of underpasses. Even traffic signals as a result. Um the guidelines uh use a number of things for evaluating and determining what type of treatments to use. I'll kind of go through those. Um pedestrian count. We like to see a minimum of 20 pedestrians in over the course of one hour using the crosswalk um before we start talking about striping it or doing any additional treatments. So we do pedestrian counts for the day to see if we can hit that. We also look at the type of pedestrians um that are crossing. if they are young, if they're elderly, if they appear to have some type of a disability, we count those pedestrians twice. We provide a higher criteria for those types of crossings. We also look at the location. If this is a crossing that is serving a park, a school, a transit station, maybe access to the regional trail, we group that into a higher category and provide additional treatments. And then on the vehicle side, we start looking at what's the posted speed limit. How many lanes must the pedestrian cross to get across that traffic? And then also average daily traffic. And then there's a few other things like making sure that we have adequate stopping site distance, intersection site distance. Is there a crosswalk that is maybe only 200 feet away that maybe we would want to direct people to that versus creating a new one. So there are some other miscellaneous factors that we look at as well. um having this conversation over the last uh few weeks um in light of the accident at Chestnut and Mitchell, there's been a lot of people asking, well, maybe should our evaluation be refined so that they're more RFBS because quite frankly, as we look across the city of the eight installations of RFBs that we have right now, that might be all that actually meet our crossing stand or guidelines right now. So, we might have exhausted the number of intersections that would meet that criteria. And staff feels that there probably are other locations that would be good candidates for RFP, but to do that, we would need to re-evaluate and amend what our guidelines um dictate as a good crossing for an RFP. So to do that, and we've looked at pretty much all 388 marked crossings that we have right now, and if we were to amend our guidelines and introduce a roadway classification evaluation, that would be helpful in seeing more of these installations. And what I mean by that is roadways that are minor collectors, major collectors, an expander roadway, a reliever roadway, an arterial roadway, those might receive additional criteria or scoring points that would qualify for an RFB. Another thing would be reducing the vehicle volume threshold. Right now, you'd need to see about 9,000 vehicles per day to start falling into that category of an RRFP. If we were to reduce that to around 5,000 vehicles per day, it opens up the opportunity for more of these installations because quite frankly, we don't have too many roadways that carry 9,000 vehicles a day. And the ones that we do, we already have our RFBs on them. So, that's another way to open this up to um a number of other roadways across the community. Another thing we're looking at is a provision to count shoulders as a lane because right now, if it's a two-lane roadway, it doesn't score as high as maybe a three-lane, four lane, or five lane roadway. That's just more difficult for a pedestrian to make a decision on measuring a safe gap and then timing their crossing. But if we open up the provision for shoulders, because we have a number of roadways that have shoulders, and that adds width to the crossing, but right now our criteria doesn't take that into account. So, we'd be proposing to add shoulders as an additional lane if you have shoulders that are 6 foot wide or wider. And then finally, something that council member Tumi brought up at our last city council meeting is a provision for a review of the accident history. if you have known pedestrian vehicle accidents, um using that information to help guide for additional treatment. And so we've included that as well. So that was a a very good um consideration that was pointed out two weeks ago. So we're proposing to make changes to those four categories. And it might beg the question, well, why are RFBS? Why are these, you know, the types of devices that city staff or the city council community want might want to see more of? And what has been proven time and time again in studies across the country that have been replicated by numerous jurisdictions is that they do improve driver compliance for yielding to pedestrians and crosswalks. In fact, most studies show that you can go from a 20 to 30% um compliance rating on some roads to an 80 to 90% with an RRFB. So there's no doubt it's statistically significant data that shows that these devices do work. So the results when again I mentioned we evaluated all 388 intersections that we have right now. If these new criteria as proposed were applied, I would expect 21 new intersections potentially meeting those guidelines for RFB and that would include the intersection of Mitchell and Chestnut. Um, there might be a little bit more data that needs to be collected because we haven't collected pedestrian data at all 388, but I do suspect that we're in the neighborhood of around 20 new intersections would now qualify for an RRFB. And again, what that might that cost? We're finding that the average installation is around $40,000 because a lot of times you have crosswalks that maybe are not ADA compliant that you would want to make ADA compliant. And when you start doing that concrete work, often times that leads to now you've got some drainage changes you need to make and you're you're um moving around catch basins and inlets. So it can start creeping in cost and that's why we do see $40,000 on occasion for some of these installations. So kind of a worst case scenario. If we did have 21 new intersections and they're $40,000 a piece, the the price tag could be close to $840,000. So this isn't something that we could do overnight. It might take several years, but I think it would be a reasonable approach to addressing safety at these intersections like Mitchell and Chestnut and some other ones that start to fall into this RRFB category. I know Council Member Tumi, you've brought up Valley View and Edenville Boulevard. That would be another one that would be a great candidate. I know Council Member Fryberg has talked about Anderson Lakes Parkway and Franlow. That is another one that I would expect to see. And um like I said, I think the intersections that we are seeing that might now qualify for RFB are the types of intersections that I think staff would support putting these at. So I think this would be a positive change. And so if the council is aligning with those recommendations that we're making, what we would like to do as staff is bring forward at the next city council meeting the updated guidelines that would allow those RFPs to be installed based on the amendments that I've talked to tonight. and that could be adopted and we can start working towards the installation of these beginning in 2026 with our budget year 2026. And again, because we do have so many and the price tag is a little bit substantial, it might take a few years to get them all installed. But uh that concludes my presentation. Of course, if there are any questions, I'll I'll answer those as well. >> I have Sorry, I have a couple um questions. Does this take into account I'm sure it probably does, but I'm just asking anyways. Uh any of the light rail, any crosswalks we might have because of light rail. >> It it does. So, um transit stations are one of those categories that because it serves the transit station, it elevates that and it gives it additional consideration. So, but right now we really don't have any data on the >> we don't and we'll have to wait till opening day to see what kind of pedestrian and traffic because all of those all of that data will change once we are revenue service with LRT >> and then also is it possible I think maybe Pete um council member Nion asked last time I'm not sure is it possible to get grant money for these >> it certainly is in fact we are installing two RFBs this year that we were able to work with the police department and we secured grants for those um safe roads grants or safe zones grants I can't remember but they were police department was also able to purchase some speed trailers that they've actually deployed so yes we are continually going after grant >> okay >> Robert I'm all for you know reducing accidents we all right when when I hear like a 40,000 is there an alternative way we could accomplish this. I mean, that's a lot of money per RRFP. Is there an RRFP junior that could cost only $10,000? Well, one thing that we are trying with the two RFBs that I just spoke about um that are being installed and I'll mention where they are. They're going on Del Road at Gesler. There's a park right there on Dell Road just north of Highway 212. And then there's another one that's going on Anderson Lakes Parkway at Amston Boulevard. So again, that's a four-lane roadway on Anderson Lakes Parkway. We are installing those with our streets division personnel and that could probably cut the cost in half. So this will be our first attempt at doing our own installation, but I think we have very qualified personnel. I'm confident they can do that. So I think that we can reduce cost by doing this type of work. I was just thinking technology perspective. It's something clever that nobody come up with to reduce this cost. I mean I would recommend we I'm not saying we should not do it but I think we should do some investigation to see you know is there a vendor that does some magic technology that could reduce to uh dramatically reduce the cost. The other the other point I would just want to make is uh in your description I'm not sure I saw anything next to park or school is there another criteria if it's not in there if I missed it that's okay uh but otherwise I would recommend you know having another crit even next to the park and somebody crossing you know the more children and so on potentially there >> and and council member nine we do so any crosswalk that is serving a park a school a transit station or access to the regional trail. We group them in a higher category. >> Okay, sounds good. Can can we look at those higher category items for doing them the soon and slowly do the rest over the next two, three, four, whatever years it takes to fit them into the budget long term, but to make sure that we do get them where they're the most likely to encounter children perhaps or other people who do need the extras. Yeah, we we certainly can do that. >> I assume that would cut the budget a little bit for each year and yet get things done, but it would be nice to see what it would look like done a couple of different ways instead of trying to put it all into one budget, which I assume would let us get it done faster. Is there any other questions? Do appreciate your >> Thanks, Robert. >> Yeah, thank you. you know, looking at all this and getting this started so quickly after this accident, too, it's it's nice to be able to do something about that the community immediately saw reason to look at a second time and do it now. >> Is there a portable RR rb? Well, >> that means for this accident spot, right? you know, you can just wheel it in and just like we do the speed thing, right? Uh something so that immediately you can do it and there is spare one sitting around on the garage somewhere. >> Council member, I know I'm not aware of any technology that's out there being produced that's portable about as portable as these are as they now make them solar activated so you don't have to hardwire them in. They still have large concrete footings um in the ground to hold them up and you know especially during winter activities when you have snow plows driving down the roadways um they do need to have some type of a footing. They are pedestrian actuated so the pedestrian actually pushes the button to activate the lighting system. So I'm not aware of anything that's being manufactured or sold as a portable unit at least. >> For example, I mean technology I'm a technologist. So you know pedestrian come close to it you sense it that somebody want to close it you don't have to press it and turn the lights on right at some that I think there must be a technology that could we could possibly reduce the cost I think I don't know it would be interesting to look at >> I know there's some temporary as um I drive Mitchell from my home getting to city hall and there are a couple of temporary things in a couple of places along Mitchell right now since that accident happened. Not immediately right there, but within a mile and so we must have some things that we put out temporarily to remind people in certain areas. So that does help a little bit what you were talking about. >> Thank you, Robert. Um, are there any other questions from any of the uh council members or city manager? >> Uh, maybe just a quick second. Mayor and council, not related to this topic. Obviously, as you know, you don't need any action on this item. We meet uh twice in October and um obviously with uh the mayor and a council member uh not at this meeting due to um being at a conference or other events. One of our signature citywide events is coming up on Saturday, October 4th. That is a citywide open house. So, it's really important to mention that it's a very important showcase here at city center for um not only our police and fire. People um talk about it being um police and fire, but it's really we call it our citywide open house because all of our city departments are represented here, our city commissions. Um it's just a really great um showcase of what we do in our city. I know our council members are a part of it as well. And that is from um 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 4th. So that event will occur before our next city council meeting. So I thought I would mention that as an important city event coming up. That's all I have. >> Glad you reminded everybody as I don't think any of us would really want to miss that. that if we could help it. So, I know I always enjoy sitting at the council table, listening to what people have to say as they come by during the day. Um, is there anything else that any council members or staff has? >> If none, move to adjourn the city council meeting tonight. >> Second. >> Uh, it's been moved and second that we adjourn the city council meeting um for September 16, 2025. All in favor, please say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Meeting is adjourned.