City Council Focuses on Public Works Plans, Policies

The annual Public Works Workshop was the focus of a special City Council meeting Tuesday.  

Tom Colbert, director of public works; Russ Matthys, city engineer; Tim Plath, transportation operations engineer, and Wayne Schwanz, superintendent of utilities, were on-hand to make presentations and answer questions.

A large portion of the agenda discussed the issue of snow removal on city trails, especially in response to the exceptional amount of snow that fell this past winter.  

According to Colbert, 'trail' is a generic term that encompasses both concrete sidewalks and blacktop walking biking trails. 

Plath presented a proposal for a formally-adopted priority response plan to provide a strategic method for prioritizing the clearing of trails after a large snow event. The plan would work in a fashion similar to a snow emergency in that it would be put into effect only when conditions warrant it and removed when they do not. 

Trails would be cleared in order of priority and, if a second significant snow event happened before all trails were cleared, the city would begin clearing the highest priority trails again. In order from highest to lowest the proposed trail priorities are:

• Areas around schools that are part of a designated school-walker program and city facilities
• High density residential areas with adjacent transit routes or intermodal connectors
• Commercial areas and close by high density housing
• All other trails not covered by the first three priority designations

The council will vote on the plan at the June 7 regular City Council Meeting.

Other snow-related agenda items included petitions for changes to the winter trail maintenance system, which sometimes provides for plowing on only one side of a city street.

The council voted to approve one requested change, denied another and deferred decision on a third. The deferred petition was a request by the school district to add additional trails to the school-walker routes.

As a result of transportation budget cuts, the district has extended the boundaries where busing would not be provided. The City Council declined approving the petition, believing the school district needs to share the increased cost Eagan will incur for clearing additional miles of trails not currently planned, and instructed city staff to begin a dialog with the district.  

The council also was presented with a list of proposed snow removal equipment purchases. Colbert explained that the unusually large snowfall this past winter exposed a need for equipment that would better serve the city's needs. 

The council will review a cost/benefit analysis of new equipment vs. maintenance costs of the old equipment and vote at the June 7 City Council meeting. 

Additional public works discussions surrounded the 5-year Capital Improvement Program (CIP) for the years 2012-16 and a 20-year Traffic Infrastructure Needs Analysis (TINA). 

The  final CIP will be brought to the council for a vote on June 7 and will be available on the Public Works website shortly after.