Friday, June 20, 2014

Comment Responses

Thank you all for taking time to discuss this project with us and make comments or suggestions!  We've consolidated all of the comments we've received for the TAG Report and are posting the UAF and Design Team responses here, for your review.  We are in the process of finalizing the report to address all of these comments.  The final report will then be brought back to the Master Planning Committee.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

A second round of review

After receiving comments from the Master Planning Committee back in late February and early May, we recently presented the DRAFT Trails and Greenways Plan to the Chancellor's Cabinet on April 28th for its second round of review.

We are now awaiting any final comments on the DRAFT Report.  We plan to make our final revisions in the next few weeks.  At that point it will return to the Master Planning Committee for final approval and adoption as an UAF official guiding document.

Thank you all for your help, and we'll continue to update this site with new information.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Draft Report - in Review


The design team recently presented the draft Trails and Greenways report to the Master Planning Committee on Thursday, February 13.  After a two week review period by the Committee, the design team will revise the document per received comments and work on finalizing the report.

Please take a moment to review the draft, here.  Or you can click on the link to the "DRAFT - TAG Report" to the right of this page, under Related Documents.  It is a large file (40mb and about 60 pages) if you choose to download and review. You can make comments on the draft report by either leaving them at the bottom of this post, or fill out the Comment Collector Link in the upper right of this page.

If you have comments or thoughts, please make them prior to February 27th. Thanks for your interest in UAF Trails!


Monday, December 16, 2013

Meeting with Cold Climate Housing Research Center (CCHRC)

Since staff of CCHRC was not able to meet during Discovery Week, we met with them this week to discuss campus Trails and Greenways.

Attendees:
Jack Hébert, CCHRC President/CEO
Aaron Cooke, CCHRC Project Manager/Architectural Designer
Corey DiRutigliano, CCHRC Project Manager/Architectural Designer
Jonathan Shambare, UAF Architect and Planner, Facilities Services
Laura Minski, Corvus Design

Opportunities:
  • Interpretive walk with signage in wooded area south of CCHRC has been desired for a long time, would be a great benefit to the campus, CCHRC, Sustainable Village, and community.  Suggested theme would cover ‘taiga ecosystem’. 
  • Trail materials in this area should tie into the mission and goals of Sustainable Village (low-impact surfacing with chips/elevated surfacing/preserved landscape)
  • Harper Building could benefit from better vehicle and pedestrian connections to Sustainable Village, Campus, and future trails in the area
  • Ski trails in this area (separate from walking trails) would be well-received
  • Visitors to CCHRC are most often Alaskans and more frequent in summer (tours once/week in summer, once/month in winter).  Visitors typically have different goals and desires from those going to Museum or Botanical Gardens.
  • Bridges over railroad tracks are best connection to campus, safe and direct (for most uses)
  • Stair access on west side of CCHRC from Thompson Drive would be well used (accessible access from Thompson not easily done and probably not a priority)


Trail Conflicts:
  • Bike commuting to/from campus is common.  Sheep Creek Road is popular commuting ride for cyclists (no hill to climb from west-east).  This route is very unsafe for cyclists and vehicles due to poor visibility and lack of adequate space for each user.
  • Bike parking on bridge/trail just west of CCHRC facility, climb down hill on foot
  • Need a better defined route for Sustainable Village residents to main campus (and SRC).  Current stairs are well-used, but there are lots of desire-lines and short-cuts through the woods to get to this access. 
  • Access across tracks is a common short-cut, but bridges are safest and should be encouraged
  • Common short-cut through Energy Tech Test modules facility site
  • Pedestrian (non-motorized) routes at Tanana Loop, Alumni Drive, and South Chandalar Drive are poorly defined


Side notes:
  • CCHRC staff’s most frequent destinations on UAF campus include SRC (daily), lectures at Arctic Health Building on West Ridge, and Wood Center.
  • Vehicle access to CCHRC – cars travel too quickly around corner


Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Discovery Week Meeting Notes


Thanks for meeting with us!  We met with many groups last week and received a lot of valuable information about UAF Trails and Greenways.

We have summarized what we heard here, while more specific information was drawn on the maps we took with us.  In each meeting, the group was asked to discuss any known trail/route conflicts, opportunities they saw for a better trail network on campus, and any relating side issues that may affect this project.

Please take a minute to review the notes from the meetings you were involved with and make sure we accurately captured what was discussed.  Each meeting summary is listed in a separate post.  Any changes that need to be made to the minutes can be emailed to Laura Minski at (spelled out) lminski at corvus hyphen design.com.

Next Steps
We are currently reviewing our notes and moving into the development of a draft report, outlining recommendations for UAF Trails and Greenways.  Please continue to leave comments on the Comment Collector on this site and tell others to do so as well!

Friday, November 22, 2013

Miscellaneous Meeting

We held an additional meeting at this time to try and talk with those who had more to say or who we hadn't had a chance to meet with yet.
Attendees:
Darrin Edson
Paul Dick
Anastasia Brown
Known Trail/Route Conflicts
·        Popular lunch loop on east side of campus includes Tanana Loop Road and bike path to east of road.  This separated bike path on the east of Tanana Loop is currently serving as shuttle route to Taku. If this remains a shuttle route, a separated path should be provided
Opportunities
·        “Roll” walking trails in winter creates hard walking surface and allows maintenance to not plow
·        Metal grating on stairs, so far it is easiest material for stair maintenance
·        When Wood Center becomes dining hall, hopefully less traffic will be going down Suicide Hill from MBS (current route from MBS to Lola Tilly is popular route)
·        Biathlon/archery loop, includes trail from Ballaine Lake Rifle Road
·        Trails south of CCHRC are in generally good shape, drivable in summer months, do have poor soils
Side Notes
·        Roller Ski loop would work well around perimeter of fields, but would not provide desired grade change for training
·        UAF Maintenance sweeps bike path along Parks Highway out to Ester and bike path along Farmers Loop

Parking / Traffic Meeting



Attendees:
Anastasia Brown
Mike Schuetz
Martin Klein (by phone)
Known Trail/Route Conflicts
·        In general, better parking is needed for recreational uses.  Most who access recreational uses park on the fringe of campus which is not defined well. 
·        There is adequate parking on campus for all affiliates and community users, however there is a general misunderstanding about parking rules and regulations for affiliates and visitors.
·        Campus core is lacking connected trails, continuity
·        Road striping of bike lanes does not adequately define pathway in winter season.
·        Yukon Drive is not a very enjoyable experience for non-motorized users – could use better separation. 
·        Popular short cut is between Murie Building and MBS, behind Museum to Reichardt
·        Reichart Parking lot is often full (according to students), no plan to expand
Opportunities
·        UAF wants to encourage recreational use of the trails
·        Education and better signage would likely provide a better understanding of campus parking for visitors and affiliates
·        It was noted that Troth Yeddha' will bring more visitors to campus, this would work well with North Campus desire to have a trail head in Troth Yeddha'
·        Possible short term parking area off of N Tanana would be great for Campus Core users to quickly access North Campus trails for lunch break.
·        Virology Building has new lot that could serve possible short term parking area for this purpose as well.  This lot is currently lighted, but not yet served with plug-ins.
·        No real conflicts between campus utilities and trails at the moment
·        Would be ideal to have designated path (separated if possible) on both sides of Tanana Loop slope road.  One side is currently striped.
·        Potential for Yukon Drive to become pedestrian mall/service and shuttle access only 
Side Notes
·        In general, staff do not want to walk to their office.  Students expect to walk and generally have a less definitive opinion. 
·        Parking is free for visitors after 5pm and on weekends.  Parking is NOT free for all affiliates after 5pm and on weekends, they are expected to have the required decal.  Parking enforcement after 5pm is overseen by the police, who will ticket for public health, safety and welfare type violations.
·        In general, adequate parking is provided on campus. No real plans for lot expansion.  If more was eventually needed, Taku would likely expand first.
·        The shuttle is the provide method for getting people to their destination, not providing a parking space for every user at every location.
·        Thompson Drive parking area – Buses sometime idle in this lot.  Easy lot to service.  Master Plan for this area is unknown. Would make sense to use as parking for upgraded trails south of CCHRC.
·        These trails south of CCHRC would likely be colder than those on the ridge, during winter
·        Roller Ski area – will be hard to manage and keep people from using as a short cut, unless it is totally removed from non-motorized pathways and desired pathways.
·        Grade-separated crossing along Tanana Drive could be considered for separating pathway from roadway