Columbus County CTP Meeting Minutes 11-16-16

The meeting began at 1:01 pm in the District 3 Conference Room located at 1194 Prison Camp Road in Whiteville, NC.

In attendance:

· Sam Alsup, Columbus County Planning

· Gary Lanier, Columbus County Planning& EDC

· Claudia Bray, Town of Sandyfield

· Nastasha Earle-Young, NCDOT Transportation Planning Branch

· Brian Gackstetter, NCDOT Rail

· Drew Cox, NCDOT Division 6- District Engineer

· Hiram Marziano, City of Whiteville

· Jennifer Holcomb, Columbus County Chamber of Commerce

· Phil Edwards, Columbus County Airport

· Suzann Rhodes

· Daniel Hilburn, NCSHP/Whiteville

· Suzette Morales, NCDOT Transportation Planning Branch

· Allen Serkin, Cape Fear RPO

· Joy Jacobs, Columbus County Transportation

· Charles Patton, Former Columbus County Transportation-Citizen

· Johnathan Williams, Columbus County Schools

· Steve Smith, Resident, Columbus Trails Alliance

· Liamcy Hogan, NCDOT Training Associate

Welcome and Introductions

The meeting began with introductions and Nastasha thanked everyone for their attendance. The committee was provided the agenda and other documents for the meeting to be placed in their binders.

Meeting Minutes

Nastasha reviewed the meeting minutes with the committee.

Public Survey

Nastasha announced that we have received over 3,000 surveys. We have received most of our surveys fromthe schools. Steve Smith suggested that we use a business card next time with a QR code on it when going to events to try to get people to fill them out. Nastasha announced to the committee that the survey analysis will be discuss at the next meeting.

Rail Division

Brian Gackstetter reviewed the rail accident report with the committee. The accident report stated that there was 4 severe accidents, 24 moderate accidents, and 14 lite accidents. The last accident that happened in Columbus County was many years ago. We also talked about the Tiger Grant that was awarded to Horry County in South Carolina and a portion of it included North Carolina. Which meant they would be replacing railroad crossing ties and some other things as well. The committee was notified that there would be a crossing safety blitz so citizens are aware of future train traffic. A question was proposed about where the current active train was, we were notified that the current active train goes from Conway to Tabor. A question was asked on whether there would be signalized crossings. Brian made the committee aware that The Division performs safety analysis on signalized crossings, DOT does not cover maintenance on municipality areas which are probably unsignalized. The committee requested a list of municipality areas that are unsignalized.

Highway Safety Frequency

The Regional Safety Engineer was unable to attend. The committee reviewed safety maps and reports, which include; 2014 Columbus County Crash Profile, 2015 city Rankings Population less than 10,000 , 2015 County Rankings, 2016 HSIP Overview. The maps included were; Columbus County Bike and Pedestrian Crashes, Fatal Crashes, Crash Frequency, Crash Density, Crash Rate, Crash Severity, Safety Score, and Transit. After reviewing reports the committee felt like there were some important roads that should have been included in the TEAAS report such as NC 87/11, but they weren’t.

Maps

Suzette gave out Pedestrian Map Insets for all the towns. She explained that all the maps showed the existing sidewalks in towns. In Whiteville, the maps showed the same as their existing Pedestrian Plan. Everyone was given homework to review the maps and think about what types of recommendations they would like to make and report them at the next meeting.

Suzette announced that she would send out maps with parks, major locations, to assist with the recommendations. She also notified the committee that we will work on Bike and pedestrian plan recommendations at the January meeting.