so I'll move at a brisk pace if I'm overwhelming you. Just raise a hand, I'll slow it down a little bit. So, how y'all doing? I'm Jay McAvren, I wrote this thing. And this is Messenger, the complete story of Method Lookup in Ruby. This talk's gonna take place in two major parts. The first is all about methods defined on classes, including some places you might not expect them to be. Second part's all about modules. So, classes part, we're gonna start in a slightly unusual place. Singleton methods. Those are methods that are defined on only a single object. If you've ever stubbed methods out for a test, you've used singleton methods. So, for example, we got a WebSpider class here. It sends out an actual HTTP get request across the network and returns whatever HTML it gets back from the remote server. You probably don't want that in your test, though. So, this test right here, you can see it creates a new WebSpider object, it calls get, and that sends an actual network request. You don't want your test to have to wait for that and you don't want whatever random response you get back from the remote server. You want it quick and you want it predictable. That's a good alternative for writing a singleton method to overwrite it. So, here's a quick singleton method. We create a WebSpider object and we define a new get method that just always returns a static HTML string. It's fast, it's predictable. Now, let's take a look at how Method Lookup works with those. So, to create a singleton method, we need an object for starters and before we can create an object, we're gonna need a class. So, here is my class. I wanna create an instance of my class behind the scenes, Ruby will create a singleton class specific to that object and you can access any object singleton class via the singleton class method. So, there's the output you'll see if you call singleton class on our new object. Now, why does Ruby do this? Cheap reason is consistency. The same logic that lets you call methods on an object's class also lets you call methods on its singleton class. When we define singleton methods on an object, they're added to its singleton class and that class makes the methods available exclusively to that object. So, we define a singleton method here and it'll live on our singleton class. When you call a method on an object, Ruby dispatches a message to that object looking for that particular method. Ruby's first stop in its search for a method is always gonna be the object singleton class because that's what the object refers to first. And as soon as Ruby finds a method with a matching name, it'll invoke it. Now, what would happen if we got rid of that singleton method and define a method by the same name on the class instead? If we call my method on the object, Ruby will look on the singleton class first but there's no method by that name there. Well, where can the method be found? Each class maintains a pointer to the next class that Ruby should look on for methods. So, the ancestors method, that's your cheat sheet for understanding the places that Ruby's going to look for a given method. And you can access that list of classes that Ruby's going to look on via that ancestors method. So, here we create an instance of my class, call singleton class on that to get the singleton class and call the ancestors method on that. And we get this array in response, our singleton class is up first and it's followed by my class. That's the place that Ruby's going to look next when it doesn't find that method on the singleton class. So, when Ruby fails to find my method on the singleton class it gets directed to the next class on the chain, my class goes there, invokes the method and we're good to go. Now, suppose we were to move my method again to a superclass of my class. So, we define my method up there on my superclass and say that my class is a subclass of that. We can create an instance of my class which will get us a singleton class. If we call ancestors on that singleton class again we can see all the places that Ruby will look for my method. It starts of course with the singleton class, proceeds to my class as before and the new addition here is my superclass. So, we've got our output from the ancestors method up there and you can see it exactly mirrors the places that Ruby looks for the method. It starts with the singleton class, moves on to my class, moves on to my superclass where it finds my method and invokes it. Now, what happens if a method appears in more than one place in the lookup chain? For example, if we define it on my superclass and then define it on my class as well. If a method or if a subclass method has the same name as a superclass method it'll override that superclass method. Ruby will simply invoke the first method with a name match in the one it's looking for and stop. The my method on my superclass never gets invoked.  Well, you can just use the super keyword within the overriding method. That'll cause Ruby to resume its search on the next class in the chain. So it proceeds to my superclass, finds my method there and invokes that as well. Okay, slides are all well and good of course but I find that actually doing stuff in a terminal makes things a little bit clearer. Let's play around with some classes from the terminal. So here we've got a superclass and a subclass that derives from it. Whoops, I skipped right past it, I'm sorry. This is a prerecorded video. Y'all don't wanna watch me type in real-time, trust me. Okay, so we've got a superclass with my method on it that simply prints the class name and then we've got a subclass where we'll override my method and call super as well. We create an instance of my class and then we're gonna override my method on the singleton class as well and call super there. We'll access the singleton class and print the ancestors list for it and then invoke the method. So if we drop back to a shell and invoke it, you see our ancestors list starts with the singleton class proceeds to the subclass and the superclass follows that and it exactly reflects the order that the print statements follow when you call my method singleton class first, super invokes my method on my class, super there invokes my method on my superclass. Now what would happen if you were to call a method that doesn't exist? Well first Ruby will search the entire ancestors chain looking for the method you call. So if we call a method named non-existent pass at the arguments one and two, Ruby will proceed through the entire method lookup chain looking for that non-existent method but when it doesn't find it, it'll call another method named method missing and the search will start over on the singleton class. It'll proceed through the entire lookup chain and there's a default version of method missing on the basic object class which all Ruby classes inherit from. That raises the exception that you're probably used to seeing no method error but you can also override method missing in your own classes. So up here on my superclass we override method missing. We take three parameters, the name of the method that was invoked and two arguments. So first Ruby will look for the method name that you actually call that non-existent method. It'll go right past that method missing definition looking for it and if it doesn't discover it, it'll start back over at the singleton class looking for a method named method missing. It'll find it there on my superclass and invoke it and like I said, Ruby passes the name of the method that you attempted to call to it as the first argument plus any arguments you called it with after that. Okay, let's take a look at class methods. You know class methods, they're methods you can call in the class itself without needing to create an instance of it first. So up here we define a class method on my class. We say def self and the name of the method we wanna define instead of just def and the method name. And then we can invoke that without creating an instance of my class first. We just say my class dot class method. There's alternate ways to define class methods. You can use the class constant instead of self within the class body or you can define a class method outside of the class altogether, again, using the class constant. Now let's take a moment and compare that class method declaration where we use the class constant to a singleton method declaration. They look pretty similar, right? The truth is in Ruby, a class method is just a singleton method on the class. A class is just another object to the instance of the class class. And since the class is an object, it has a singleton class of its own. That singleton class lets us define singleton methods on it, of course. Once you call a class method, Ruby will find it on the singleton class and invoke it. You can confirm for yourself that my class is an instance of class by calling class on it. And there you see the class class in response. You can also call singleton class on the class object if you want to take a look at that singleton class. So as is this notation work where you say def self and the class method name within the class body. Within the body of a class, Ruby sets self to point to that class. So def self.class method is exactly equivalent to def my class.class method. And the result is the same, a singleton method on the class that you can call. What about methods defined at the top level? Within a Ruby source file, you can just declare methods and call them without surrounding them in a class or a module. And you can call them immediately after defining them without needing to create instances of any class first. The way it works behind the scenes is pretty simple. Top level methods just get defined as private methods on the objects class. And since all other classes inherit from object, you can call methods defined at the top level from any instance method of any class. So here we create my class to find call my method within it. And we could call that method defined at the top level from within that instance method. Ruby will start at search at the singleton class, proceed to, sorry, proceed all the way up to the object class where it finds my method and invokes it. But then how can you call the method at the top level? After all, what we're invoking here is a private method and we're not within a class. Well, the secret is Ruby just sets self to an instance of the object class when you're at the top level, meaning you don't have to define a recipient when you call the method. You can see here that we print out self and we get mean in response, which if we check the class of that object, the class is object. At the top level, self gets set to an instance of object and since self is the implicit receiver of that method call and it's an instance of an object, the whole thing just works. All right, so that's everything for classes. Now let's move on to modules, which work behind the scenes a lot like classes. You can define methods on them after all. And you can also use a module kind of like a superclass by mixing the module into a class. Doing so will add the module to the ancestors list of the class. So if we take a look at the ancestors of my class, you see my class comes up first followed by my module kind of as if it was a superclass. In fact, internally, Ruby will treat the module as if it was a class. That means the method lookup works the same with a mix in as with a superclass. So we create an instance of my class down there, invoke my method on it. When we create that instance, it creates a new singleton class. Ruby starts its search there, the singleton class moves on to my class, because that was what was next in the ancestors list, and then moves on to my module where it finds my method and invokes it. Since mix-ins use the same lookup mechanism as classes, all the same rules apply. For example, method overriding. We can override my method within my class. Ruby will encounter that first when you invoke the method and the my method on my module never gets invoked. Super works as well. You can use super within the overriding class or within the overriding method on my class, and that'll invoke my method up on my module. Again, just as if it was a superclass. So you can override a method from a module with a method from a class, but not vice versa. Not if you use include. So let's suppose that we had a method on my class that throws an exception, and you want to override it using my module. Unfortunately, if you use include in my class, it's not gonna work. The reason is that the include method adds the module after the class in the ancestors list, meaning that my method on my class overrides the method on the module. And that's what Ruby encounters first. It invokes it, and it throws an exception. And we can confirm all this if we call the ancestors method on my class. You'll see that my class is first in the list followed by my module. However, if you were to use the prepend method instead of include to mix the module in, that'll add it to the lookup chain before the class. So let's use prepend and let's call ancestors again, and you can see the difference. My module appears first followed by my class. Prepend allows the module method to override the class method. So we use prepend here, which makes the module appear first in the lookup chain, causing my method on my module to override my method from my class. It finds that first, invokes it, and no exception gets thrown. All right, back to the console to play around with modules a little bit. So we've got two modules here, one of which we include into my class and the other of which we prepend. We're gonna define a method named my method that simply prints the module name. We're gonna define that same method within prepended module, but we'll use super there, and we'll define it on the class as well, and I use super there as well. We'll create a new instance of my class, call ancestors on it, and then invoke my method. And if we drop back to the shell and run that, you'll see that once again, our ancestors list matches the order of output when we call the method. The prepended module comes first, then the class, then the included module. Okay, let's wrap up our tour of modules with refinements. The refinements feature was added in Ruby 2.0 and improved in Ruby 2.1. Basically the goal of it, as hopefully you all saw in James Adams talk earlier, was to make monkey patching safe again. Let's go with an example, just to make things a little bit clearer. Let's suppose you wanna change the way that the capitalize method on string instances works. So let's say you've got a bunch of movie titles and you want them in title case where each word is capitalized. Unfortunately, the default version of capitalize, capitalize is only the first word. So you can reopen the string class if you want. This sounds like a good idea, right? And redefine the capitalize method, that is you monkey patch it. And this works fantastically well in your movie title class. You can see that it takes the string, the matrix there, all in lower case and capitalizes each word of it. Unfortunately, you may have other portions of your apps such as this sentence class down here. That's assuming you still have the original implementation of capitalize, which capitalizes only the first letter. Doesn't work so good for sentences. It's situations like this that refinements were created for. So you can take your monkey patch from the string class and convert it to a refinement. I won't go into details on all the syntax of refinements. Just Google Ruby refinements and you'll find several excellent tutorials. But basically, this is a refinement of the string class here. A refinement is basically a module that pre-pins an existing class, but only within lexical scopes that's files, classes, or modules that explicitly activate it. It's a bit of a mouthful, so let's just see what it does in action. Now that your refinement is defined, you can activate it within the movie title class. That'll override the capitalize method but only within movie title. Outside of the movie title in lexical scopes where we haven't explicitly activated the refinement, we still get the original version of capitalize and only the first letter of our string gets capitalized. So now the version of capitalize you get depends on your starting point where the method is called. In a scope where refinements haven't been activated, the sentence class, for example, it proceeds to the capitalize method on the string class, the original version, and invokes that. But in a lexical scope where the refinement has been activated, movie title, prepends the refinement module to the string class and that's the version of capitalize that Ruby encounters first, that's the version it'll invoke and we get each word capitalized. All right, one more time back to the terminal to play around with refinements. So here we've got a class and a refinement of that class and on my class we'll define my method which will simply print the name of that class, we'll then override that method within the refinement. So we print my refinement and then call super because since refinements are just a module, super works just like you're used to. We'll create a new instance of my class and call my method and then we'll activate the refinements and call my method again. All works fantastically well. We'll also put in a couple of markers so that we can tell whether the refinements are active or not. Okay, so now we'll drop back to the shell and invoke it and you can see that without refinements active, we get just my class all by itself. But after we activate the refinements with using my refinement, we get my refinement first and then super invokes my method on my class. All right, just about done. I wanna recap everything we've covered real quick. We'll have a few minutes for questions. I wanna thank a few folks who have helped out with this talk and then I've got a few resources you can go to to learn more. So to recap, you can call the ancestors method on any Ruby class to get a list of its ancestors. Every Ruby object has a singleton class that Ruby will look on for methods first. If a class inherits from a super class that gets added to the ancestors chain right after the class, if you include a module in the class that will add the module to the ancestors chain between the class and its ancestors. And if you prepend a module, that will add that module to the lookup chain prior to the class allowing you to override methods. If you have a refinement that in lexical scopes where it's added that gets prepended to the ancestors chain before the class it refines. You can define methods anywhere along this chain that you want. Ruby always starts its search for those methods at the singleton class and then proceeds along the chain looking for those methods as soon as it finds a method, it'll invoke it. If a method's defined at more than one point along the chain, Ruby will stop when it finds the first occurrence of that method and invoke that. And that's how method overriding is implemented. All right, that's all I have. So what questions do you have? Yes? Yes, cool. Okay, so the question is if you include two modules in a class, the one that you include second comes before the one that you included first. I believe I'm quoting you correctly there. Do I know the reason for that? I'm afraid that I don't. And that's why I advocate using ancestors to confirm what order methods will get called in. What happens if you define a singleton class, if you have a singleton class, you get a singleton class of that and define a method on that. Does it still proceed up the chain? I'm not even sure what the code would look like for that exactly. I'm not sure that singleton class is a method you can invoke on a singleton class. That, okay, I'm hearing back there that the singleton method lookup chain can recurse and it gets really messy, which I totally believe. So, okay, folks, we've got people watching the video at home that can't ask questions. Please ask on their behalf. Yes, that is a weird syntax thing. Okay, so the question is, if you go class less than, less than self, right? Do I have that syntax right? Then, yes, you can define methods within that scope. They do wind up on the singleton class for that object. And I can't remember what the official name for that syntax is. I believe, yes, okay, the question is, is there a difference between class and, so the question is, is there a difference between class shuffle, which is those two less than symbols, right? Oh, shovel operator, yes, sorry. Is there a difference between the class shovel self syntax and def self dot method? The end result is exactly the same. I can tell you that. Whether Ruby treats them differently, I'm not sure. I have, in the references section, I mentioned Ruby under a microscope. The answers you need would be there. I almost guarantee. All right, go in once, go in twice. All right, thanks to a few folks who helped out with this presentation. Avdi Grimm, right up here, did a technical review on it. Thanks very much. Thanks also to Pat Shaughnessy, author of Ruby under a microscope, and to James Adam, who did a talk earlier today on refinements for lots and lots of info regarding refinements. Thanks also to these Wikimedia users and OpenClipArt users for our work that got used in the course of the presentation. And now here are those helpful resources I promised you. Great place to start is the well-grounded Rubyist by David Allen Black. It starts out with singleton classes, moves on to modules. Basically, everything you wanna know regarding method lookup is covered in there. It's a fantastic resource. If you wanna go even deeper, look up Ruby under a microscope by Pat Shaughnessy. Basically, that's a tour of the Ruby language from the perspective of its C source code. Once you understand that, you will fully understand Ruby, believe me. And finally, I wanna mention the Ruby Tapas episode on refinements, also by Avdi. He made it freely available. It's a fantastic guide to refinements in general. Also, once James Adams, he just recorded it earlier today, so I didn't get a chance to include it in the slides. But James Adams' talk on refinements once that hits confreaks, another fantastic resource regarding refinements. Quick plug, if you wanna get your friends hooked on Ruby, find me, our head first Ruby is a great resource for you. Find me during Ruby comp. I have little cards with discount codes on the book. I also have a few up here at the podium. That's all I got. Thank you very much, folks.


So next we have, if I am not mistaken, Matthew. Would you come share your work? Matthew Fielding of Siani. And SEI. And SEI. It's a great, thank you. I think it's a real testament to SEI when the moderator of this session actually informs you about something that I wasn't even planning to mention in the project. It just shows the depths of knowledge we have within the institute. So thank you for helping me to scramble around to add a bit to my presentation just now. This project is non-scientifically called Life on a Low Carbon Pathway and features a number of our colleagues from SEI who are listed on here. And then a few also that haven't been listed on here who've helped out in much smaller ways with the project. This project is a very, very exciting one, as Eric said, it takes place in Sierra Leone and really it takes place right at the intersection of environment and development. And what we try and do is to look at the impacts of agro-industrial bio-energy investment in Sierra Leone. We then try and link that up on to show how that, what role that plays within a low carbon pathway. The potential in Sierra Leone for a low carbon pathway is very high due to the relatively undeveloped level of the country. So I think it's an exciting project to be involved with. What we look at is on two levels. One is we have a part of the project that looks at the small scale or the potential for small scale bio-energy production of sugarcane. And then the other side of the project looks at the transformation of local communities under the impact of the bio-energy investment. So I thought to maybe give some statistics and figures of the project might help you to quickly get an understanding of what it is we're talking about here. So there's, as I said, 16 people involved in the project, five SEI researchers from different centres, one local research coordinator in Sierra Leone, six local researchers, one communicator, two interns, and one project manager. That's me. That's also my get out of jail free card if there's any technical questions later. We also have four SEI centres involved, staff from four different SEI centres, Bangkok, Africa, Stockholm and the US centre in Davis. We're talking about 10,000 hectares of sugarcane plantation under irrigation. The speed of the internet, 56 kilobytes per second. That is almost too little to do anything on the internet. And that's when electricity allows. Big constraint of the project, that is. We've completed 323 household surveys to date and 36 PRA studies to date, so far. Participatory Rural Appraisal, that stands for. Five incidences of stuck in the mud to date has also a big impact on the efficiency of the research. That's through, we're working in nine villages, spent 29 nights, 26 nights under the stars, not me personally, but the researchers who get their hands dirty have. And we're gonna repeat the existing survey, well the survey we've carried out two more times over the next 12 months. So here's Sierra Leone, it's a country in West Africa. You might have heard of it through the war, looks there, about 10 years ago, that's over now. The red dot is the McKinney site of the ADACS Bioenergy Project that we're looking at. And here you can see the passage of time. Google Maps have updated one of the parts of the research area and not the other. So these actual center pivots are, in fact, quite massive, 80 hectares across in some of them and some are bigger. I think that's even the smallest one. So they're massive irrigated areas of sugar cane there. So here, just to go into the depth of the project a little bit more, we're working across, broadly speaking, five working areas. Three of those areas inform the sustainability of small-scale bioenergy production. And then also four of those areas are look at the sustainability implications on local communities. Now, it's a real interesting part of this project is that it involves partially a desk study and partially field primary data collection. That's something I think that really is something unique about SEI, the way within one project we're able to take both levels to look at one solid piece of research that comes out at the end. I'll tell you more about that in a second. So in the sustainability level, when we're looking at things like water access and availability, energy access, livelihoods, we're getting all that information through the household surveys and also through our participatory techniques as well where we do things like resource mapping, a transact walk, impact mapping and a seasonal calendar as well. And we do that for every community. And then for the sustainability, sorry, the bioenergy production, that's a partial life cycle analysis that also looks at some of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the potential of smaller, small holders growing of sugarcane that could feed into the project. And both of these, let's see the arrows moved. Both of these feed into our sustainability analysis and this is where the complicated title of the project comes in. The sustainability analysis of an agro-industrial sugarcane production from the perspective of both rural transformation and low carbon pathways. And then the bit I always forget is how do, how do you really see how this presence of a agro-industrial investment in sugarcane, how does that really, how do we understand how that's gonna impact the development of COO Leone? Well, we have key stakeholder interviews which are people from the Ministry of Energy and Water in Freetown, the Government Environmental Protection Agency. So we try to understand this investment has taken place in your country, but how do you see it? What role do you see it playing in the further development of the country? So it's quite an interesting position we're in. So whilst some of our senior researchers work from the desk on the partial life cycle analysis, other people go out into the fields and engage in some real work. So recently in September, 2013, we've completed the training of seven field staff out in McKinney Region from the local university. It's important to say that it's not me and my other colleagues, the European colleagues that are out there, but it's actually local people from the region who speak the same language and obviously are much more familiar with the local cultures and customs. So when they're asking the questions, it's a lot less weighty than it is if I wish to ask the same questions. We completed the first of three surveys, as I said, and we've engaged with our stakeholders on national and regional levels across Africa as well. And then just quickly in the last couple of minutes, some lessons we have learned from the field work and that is that it's good to invest in high quality training. This is Jacqueline Senagwa here from Africa Center teaching our students there about participatory role appraisal techniques. Here are some impact mapping from one of the communities. More resource mapping there, encouraging the participants in the process to draw the resources on a map of their villages. We know it's important to frame your questions appropriately, such as on this dislike form. That's very important field research. You should always remember to use reliable equipment and to travel in daylight and to bring suitable tools. We remember that now. Stay clean and tidy, as in don't get stuck in the mud. And be adaptable. If you don't have paper, there's always a wall or a step or something to use. We're currently engaging with a colleague in Bangkok who is doing some statistical analysis for us on the study, which is very good. It's good to bring people into the project and we're excited to get the second survey started in April this year. And I'm very happy that this session even exists at the research forum. I think it's valuable. And it's good to just show how field work is an important part of the SCI package as well. So thank you very much.


Don't have I guess we can just start and I was just looking.  Which I guess has a Mr. Person. Because I'm always right. It's Mr. Right. Oh, yeah. I need to change that. That was a work thing. Oh, here I have it. I have it too. Far more appropriate. I love those little books, those little UK books, right? OK, Kim, I can just read it. So it says pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this media will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so in the following manner via zoom, no in-person attendant or members of the public will be permitted and public participation. In any, we don't even have that. So we don't have a public hearing. OK, and so why don't we start the meeting and we'll see. I did was in touch with Holden today. He asked what was up and so I invited him to the meeting and I know my son, he's an attendee. I tried to promote him and. It's not letting me. So. I don't know if one of the co-hosts wants to try. I don't know why the zoom is not letting me do that function or maybe it just. Sometimes you have to like you can invite people to become a panelist and then it's up to them to actually like agree or three is up. OK. Hi, Holden, I'm glad you could join us on such short notice. How's it going? Hello, Holden, Chris. So I can't I don't actually I can't find the agenda for this meeting. OK, send that to me. Sure, I'll send you the link right now. Does everybody else have the agenda? I'll just send it. Yeah, if you could, I think I got it early already. My work doesn't allow me to open my personal email on my work computer anymore. Oh, well, that's cool. You mean you need that for your work, is how I say it? You're in place at work. Now, I just need my work computer not to allow me to open any email. That would not be good for us. So that used to make me crazy. People are doing their all their personal stuff on their work machines.    Well, that's what I was going to say. That's what happened with somebody that I had who replaced me in one of my jobs, too. They said, wow, his computer was full. So, yeah, OK, all right. So I just reset that. Thank you. All right. There we go. OK, so are there any announcements? I had a couple. Wait, am I I'm sorry, I'm just trying to play with my volume. That's weird. I can't see the volume button. But OK, can everybody hear me? Yes. Yeah. OK, so one of my announcements was that the council's town services and outreach committee, the TSO committee that they are now reconstituted and they had their first meeting earlier this week. I believe it was on Tuesday. I'll just run down who's a member of that. So Dorothy Pam is the chair of the TSO and the committee members are Shawnee, Molly, Milne, Anika Lopes, Anna Devlin, Katya and Andy Steinberg. So Andy Steinberg was the only member of the past TSO who was reelected in this election. A number of them didn't run and so he wanted to stay on the TSO and provide the continuity. So one of the things they did at their meeting is they went over some of the carryover items from the last TSO that the TSO didn't get to, including North Pleasant Street, the sections through campus that we walked. And then people brought up a number of other items too. And a number of the TSO members said that they did want to work more closely with the tech. I did speak at the end of the meeting at the public hearing, the public comment period at the end and just mentioned that, you know, we'd be available to attend and speak to the TSO as their time permits. One of the things they're looking right now is that they inherited a number of items from TSO, the old TSO, and then also there are some additional items that they want to look at or revisit. So they're working right now to kind of set their priorities. And also one thing that had come up with the North Pleasant Street projects, the one on campus, the Eastman to Pine Street one, is that the town manager just said that DPW is super busy right now with a lot of projects. So he didn't think that that need to push forward right at the particular moment. The other thing that was mentioned at that meeting, and I've also heard it brought up at the council meetings is that there are going to be, I guess the town is going to be doing a presentation soon about the downtown parking permit regulations and recommendations. And they're supposed to be, I don't know, maybe Guilford or Chris know more about this. They're supposed to be presenting that to the council, I think in one of the next few meetings. And then I guess it will be pretty comprehensive in. I think that's scheduled for Monday. Oh, so I guess it's on the agenda, all right. But it will likely get referred to TSO and perhaps it will come to us too. So that's all my updates. Announcements. Any others? Thanks Tracy, that's really useful. And I did have a quick, well it's more of a question and maybe so, because I don't know the answer, but maybe Chris or somebody could speak to it. But just, I've gotten a number of emails from people about how MassDOT just did their next round of the shared street and spaces grants. And some people, some advocates have said, oh, when the town should apply for this or town should apply for that. And of course we're an advisory committee and I'm sure that town planning staff and other staff are already looking to tap into those great sorts of funds since the town's already gotten three grants through the shared streets and spaces program. So I would love it if Chris could speak to that maybe at a future meeting or something. I don't know what the deadlines are. Thank you. Yeah, it would be nice to know what planning is playing and doing the public play again, yes. Or DFW, I don't know. Maybe I could come from New York for it. Well, actually the ones that we just did for planning, they actually, it's all torn up now because the choice of materials was poor. We've sworn to each other that we will always consult you early on, now on. I wanted to make an announcement which is a kind of good thing, I think. Amherst College proposed a new building along South Pleasant Street. It's called the Lyceum and Guilford probably knows all about it. But it's a new building that's very modern in style and it's being attached to an old brick building at, let's see, 197 South Pleasant Street. And it's designed by a really good architect and it has a great landscape architect and doesn't necessarily have much to do with transportation other than walking, walking transportation. But it's going to be a new landmark along South Pleasant Street. And if anybody's interested in seeing drawings about it or anything, it's in the planning board packet for last night's planning board meeting. So it was approved and it will probably be breaking ground sometime in mid-March. So that's kind of a big new thing and we're pleased that Amherst College is building that building. Oh, that's cool. Thank you. I'm sorry. Can I ask a question of Chris about that? Sure. Chris? Yeah. Was there any discussion from Amherst College about a sidewalk on that side of South Pleasant Street because that's come up. Somebody once wrote into the tack and said, could there be a connector to the bike path by making it easier to get from the bike path to downtown around Amherst College? And because that side of the street is very hilly, was there any discussion about from Amherst College about any changes in the sidewalk on that side of the street? So what they're planning to do is rebuild the sidewalk in front of the buildings that they're going to be working on, which is 197 205 and 211 South Pleasant Street. So they'll be tearing up that sidewalk and rebuilding it. That will then connect with this crosswalk that's at Walnut Street, the existing crosswalk. And they may have had conversations with Guilford about rebuilding that crosswalk. They've also talked about the possibility of building a crosswalk farther to the north that they think would work better in terms of grades, but they're not sure that they want to go ahead with that. And that would need approval by the town council. And I'm sure they've talked to Guilford about that too. And the DPW has reservations about that because it's a mid block crosswalk. So that may or may not come about. In addition to that Amherst College, I understand is doing a kind of a review of their handicapped accessibility and pathways throughout their campus. And so I'm sure we'll be hearing more about that. So they are making an effort to make it easier to get around, particularly for pedestrians. But the issue that Bruce just mentioned of connecting to the bike path, we didn't hear anything about that. I'm wondering, I could ask my fellow committee members, I would be interested in seeing their sidewalk plans in general along there, since we've talked a lot about Route 116. Yeah, I think that would be great. Definitely, yeah. Who is leading the project up over at the college? So they really don't have any plans? Tom Davies and Mark Andrews, the extent of their sidewalk work that they're proposing right now is very minimal.  Three properties that I mentioned. So I don't know if that would be of interest to you to see that. I'm curious though, in that part of that plan, they were asking the town for an expansion of their parking lot at Newport House, did that go through too? That's correct, and that did go through, yes. Okay. So is this property the one where they moved the house recently? Yeah, it was next to it. It's between where they moved it and Biddy's house, yeah. Yes, it's right down the hill from the brick house. The president's house is up north or up the hill from that. And where the building was moved is essentially where the new building is going to go. Or could we at least see plans as they emerge for the crosswalks? Well, as I said, we're not sure if Amherst College wants to build the crosswalks or not, but if you wanted to see the whole thing, you could go to the planning board website and look for the packet for January 19th. And the whole thing is in there, the design of the building, what they're thinking about for a crosswalk if they can get it approved, all their landscaping, their plans for the Newport House parking lot, the whole package is right there in the January 19th package. Thank you. You know, Bruce, thinking more clearly about that area and what you're, you know, now that I know where it is, right? That is a very treacherous part, biking part, it somehow really narrows right there. And with the steep hill, it feels kind of cavernous and cycling on the other side, on the Amherst College side of that street is very, I mean, I'm fine on it, but I can see how that's not very welcoming and it's just that narrow start, right? Because on the other side of the hill, you start with a sidewalk on both sides and it feels more expansive. So, yeah. Well, and I remember, I don't know how it's lined right now, but I remember years ago, Arthur Swift, like had taken pictures of how the bike on the going northbound, like how the bike lane section, the shoulder was like a lot of different widths, like it was wider and then more narrow and like it was just really difficult to navigate as a cyclist. Yeah. So. But especially that one strip is very narrow. I mean, the rest of the road seems very good. I mean, for, you know, me as a cyclist, but anyway, were you gonna say something? Oh, no. Guilford, were you gonna say something? Look like you were. Just this is a really small project. This is not. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah. And then the sidewalk work they're doing is in a very small area and the crosswalk work they're doing is really, is really not appropriate for what they're doing. So the crosswalk is probably not gonna get a recommendation from us to go in. So there's gonna be the existing crosswalk that's there now. That won't sound pleasant. Right. Yeah. That's the one you're talking about. Yeah. The one at South Pleasant and Walnut. Yeah. Our recommendation to them was to put a bridge over, a pedestrian bridge and link the two sides that way because from the day they open that building until the day they close that building, they're gonna be complaining about pedestrians being threatened by bicyclists and cars and buses and everything else. It's got sufficient grade on the other side. Make it fairly easy for a bridge, right? May I correct something that I said? I think I got a little confused. Amherst College is not looking at paths and handicapped access throughout their campus. What they're looking at is the pedestrian and safety issues along South Pleasant Street. And I think they're looking at it along their whole, the frontage of their campus. So they're looking at car traffic and bicycle traffic and pedestrian traffic and how to make it more safe. I'm sure they'll be talking to Guilford about that, but they have apparently hired a consultant to do that. Now, Chris, I have a question on that. Are they also looking at the Main Street? No, the Route 9 section, the College Street section? No. No, they're just looking at South Pleasant Street. I mean, that's like where the cyclist was killed, but I don't know if any fatalities along the 116 section. Their big issue is they're now, they're doing something they said they would never do. They're actually going west of South Pleasant Street 116. They said they were gonna keep their campus on the other side. And now they're concerned they haven't done any studies to show how safe it is or how dangerous it is or anything like that. So they're all trying to, they're trying to do a lot of things. Well, they are gonna have problems. I mean, pedestrian access of that, I mean, the road is not, I mean, it's just too narrow right there and there's not access from the main campus to there at the easy access or direct access, I guess. But there are a number of Amherst College uses on the west side already, right? Like, aren't there some dorms and things like that over there? No? No classrooms. No. Oh, no class. There is a stadium, you know? Yeah, I mean, there's a stadium and there's... Yeah, but there's no classrooms. The observatory and things like that. Yeah, yeah. They said there are classrooms in Morgan Hall and in the observatory. That's what I would. Yeah. And then there's College Hall, I guess where there's a career center and some other things. The observatory is like... It's something to really get used. But anyway, yeah, yeah. The number of classes, the number of classes they're adding to the west side of campus is... It's gonna... It's large compared to what they have now. As a biker, I actually use the sidewalk along there and it is narrow and it's steep, but I feel safer than being out on the road because of what you're talking about, Kim, where the road is so narrow there that I just go up on the sidewalk. But I kind of imagine... To me, it would be great if they can make that sidewalk wider if other people are doing what I'm doing and biking up there. But also I see how accessibility is an issue because that is a really steep part of... That sidewalk is very steep there if you're trying to navigate a wheelchair down there. The only way you're gonna get to it from that is either from Route 9 or down from Walnut, right? Because you can't get to it by the president's house because that's all access via stairs. So there's no way you're gonna get there, which would make the idea of that pedestrian bridge off Johnson Hill Road, probably, yeah. Anyway, but I mean, that's for them to decide. Should have deeper pockets. You're all gonna have a path through the woods from Newport House, which is where the expanded parking lot is to this new building. That's the handicapped accessible path. Got it. Until the new president complains of the noise at 11 o'clock at night. I mean, a number of parts of the Amherst College campus, I mean, not just along 116. I mean, there's so many steep sections too. Yeah, I would think that there's some accessibility issues to the other parts as well. Right, even the dining common, like there's the path in the back is super steep. Yep. Any other public... Public comments? Tracy, you said you talked to the TSO. I heard from Councillor Devlin, whatever her name is, Guthrie. Right, yeah. She was asking if TAC was after a liaison. I did say that it would be in the positive, but I'm hoping she talks to you more of it about it. Okay, I actually reached out to her a few days ago because she had emailed me about the projects in South Amherst that people had been interested in, the one from the South Common, where people were asking for better access. Even before she was a counselor and I had gone back in touch with her, she seems like she'll be a great member of the TSO and it'd be great to have a liaison. So definitely one that can actually support us and so on. Yeah. And bring our concerns forward and everything. So definitely, yeah. Great. Are there any other comments before we get on to the business agenda to business? I just have a quick comment. Is that I think I need, I probably need to leave at 6.20 to go get a kid. Okay. In transportation, but other than that, good. So the next agenda item is approval of the minutes from the last meeting. I have a question about the minutes. Under updates, number three, and then three, TSO recommended supported changing the traffic flow one way northbound from Claw and to Triangle. And underneath that are two recommendations. I thought those recommendations were what we'd made, what the tack made after we discussed what was going on there. Because the way it's presented now, it looks like that's all from the TSO. But I think number one and two, if I recollect, I think those are our recommendations. On all of those recommendations?  And he did develop the motion in accordance with the feedback that he had received from tack. So I mean, we could say, we could say that the TSO recommended the changes like supported by tack or something like that. I think we should, I think, let's give ourselves credit, yes, yeah. So, okay, so should we, any other comments about the minutes? So how would you recommend changing that? Could we say in accordance with tax recommendation? No. Yes, that's what we could say, I think. Okay, okay. Do you think that's good? Okay. It's just that we had recommended twice, but I mean, I'm not gonna be, yeah, it's fine. In accordance, yeah. In accordance with tax feedback. I mean, I'll send Amber the revised version. Okay. And so also, so on three, like two, three, eight, two or whatever, right? So, I mean, it said the original attack recommendation was to share a space with pedestrians. I mean, it was mainly about, so that whole line is about the southbound counterflow bike traffic, not anything northbound. And I think our recommendation was really just to have some counterflow space for cyclists going southbound and if they could be accommodated on road, you know, that's one option or if there could be like a separated path on the west side of that section, North Pleasant Street, that's an option too. Is that what people recall from that? I think so, yeah. I mean, I don't think that we were just saying that you had to share the space. I mean, we wanted to have some accommodations for the counterflow traffic and- Yeah, I don't think it was on the road. I think it was on the path, but yeah. Right, I mean, our original recommendation, I mean, the thing that came up though is then at the TSO meeting and then at the council, and I know that like Eve Vogel and Rob Custner and some other people provided feedback that they, and the DAAC was concerned too. They were concerned about the idea that you would have cyclists and pedestrians in the same space. And that so preferably you would wanna make sure that it's divided and perhaps that means if there's- Yeah, divided, absolutely. But if there's a space that you can do it, you would do it on road, not just- But we discussed in the meeting that on road is gonna be problematic given the number of entrances and exits on that portion of the street and then the parking and then the general lack of width on the road to begin with. So that's why I think we pushed for the off grade thing. But I mean, because the same could be said with the SWIFT way or whatever it is, along the university too, right? Yeah, but I think it was, I mean, it was a real concern. I mean, there was like Eve and others could push back with that, so yeah. But yeah, I mean, that was certainly something that we considered prior to that feedback anyway. For sure. It was something we had discussed in depth at the meeting. So are we making a change? Yeah, I suggest we just clarify that slightly. Okay, so you'll provide that update to Amber, yeah. Okay, that's fine. So with, is there any other discussion before we put these minutes with those changes up for about all those in favor, with those changes? And so you'll send those. So that is approved. Yes, I will. Okay, okay, great. And so our next order of business is, I think trying to finalize our crosswalk guidelines which we all received today from Amber. And I have, I don't have my meeting notes from the last time with me because I'm in my office instead of at home. So I had forgotten where we were on these guidelines if someone else would like to take over that. So Cam, so I had actually looked back. So we discussed them last at the May 20th meeting and I went back to Amber's minutes from the meeting. I think Guilford has some notes too because he had expressed some concerns. But what the minutes say is that they said that there were, we had recommended adding some language about crosswalk with maybe, oh, adding some language related to the signalized intersections and also related to ADA compliance. And then also about having tactile markings at the crosswalk entrances. More frequent use of tactile markings and the more frequent use of that, the fake brick. Yeah. But Guilford, I noticed in town the Amity and South, you know, the big intersection there, seems like the tactile surfaces have been pulled up by the plows. Is that something that happens every year and it's just a cost of doing business or it's just this year? Drive two storms and then it came up. Oh. Oh wow. So is there a better solution where we're not continually paying to put them down again? Well, the way to do it is just when we, we actually, we put these in every time we do a crosswalk upgrade. Yeah. Tactile pavers go in, but we don't use the ones that were used this time. The ones that were, the ones that we put in were part of a grant that in there, we don't, we've never used them before we don't really like them. We like to put in the recessed ones that get recessed into the concrete when you install the crosswalk and that's ones we use. But the center section was done this center section was done 20 years ago, 20 years ago, yeah, almost 20 years ago. And when it was done, the requirement was for only a one foot wide tactile strip. And that's why the pavers are only one foot wide through that section. If we redid it, maybe go to two feet because the requirements have changed. So we're just gonna have to deal with those ones in town. Those are your only problematic ones or you're not pulling them up anywhere else? Well, this is the only place we've used those. Okay. So it really is just that problem. Yeah, that product for the tactile pavers is not a very New England friendly product unless you actually install it when you install the ramp. And if you're gonna do that we use a different product anyhow. So Guilford, these are the ones right in downtown North Pleasant Street is that where you're talking? It's at the corner of Maine. Actually, we took off the ones in Maine in the North Pleasant, both corners there by the subway we took out. Yeah, all right. They're like lying against the snowbanks. Okay. It looked like somebody threw carpet out. They do. All right. Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna ask since we've been talking about Amherst College when we, when, I mean, what is the sort of the idea for dealing with the issue at South Pleasant and Hitchcock? You know, the fact that that, is that something Amherst College would be dealing with? Because it seems like the bricks are collapsing in the crosswalk and the holes getting a bit deeper. So would that be something we could, you know, address with the fake brick or? Well, a funny story is that when we came, when you guys came out with your guidelines, no one, no one at Amherst College liked them. They thought they didn't, they wanted to keep their brick crosswalks, but then they've seen the ones we've put downtown and they really love them. So we're hoping to take out, when we redo the roads and things get redone, those will come out and we'll put in the epoxy. So they will actually, yeah. It's actually thermoplastic. Yeah. Yeah. Something I really like about them is they're very, they're very visually distinct. You know, they're really, I feel they're really good. They're excellent. Thermo, will that keep the color for a long, long? It keeps it for a long, it keeps it longer. It does keep it longer. Longer than paint, obviously. Yeah. About every five to 10 years we may have to replace them or touch them up. Right. So if I remember correctly, so at our last, what I was referring to about in my notes, not having my notes was I recall in the last meeting, we did discuss some, I think we made the same, we were saying that we wanted to update that ADA requirements stuff. And then if I recall, Guilford suggested that that's kind of a difficult, you know, putting those guidelines in might be too much for our committee to put it if it's a requirements. Right, am I correct in that, Guilford? Weren't you saying something to that effect? You were kind of wandering, everyone was wandering into being very specific about the requirements. So my general is just reference the people you want to follow their guidelines and, you know, DOT, Mass DOT, Federal Highway Guidelines and go that route about it. And I would also, I know this is gonna go against some of your opinion, but do not use the disability group that was referenced, do not use their guidelines. Right, they're too much. They would effectively prevent a lot of upgrades from happening. Is that what? Yes, I mean, their guidelines are meant for buildings and for where you have a large parcel of land where you can do switchbacks and you can do a lot of things to get the grades where you want it. On the side of the road, we have an exemption from meeting the grade sometimes, but we don't have an exemptions in crosswalks. If you try to go, if you try to put all their standards in, some of our sidewalks wouldn't be able, we wouldn't be able to put some of the sidewalks on the road we have. There's not enough layout room. So could we just pull up the crosswalk guidelines and just revisit them and just check it where they are and then hopefully we'd be able to vote them through. Yeah. My notes from the May 20th meeting were that once TAC is done with them with our recommended crosswalk guidelines, then it would go to the town manager and then the town manager would decide whether to take it to the council. Is that right? And then it could circulate back, I guess, to from the council back to like TSO. Or I guess, I guess not when TAC is done with it with our recommendations, could it go up? I mean, what I was hearing at the TSO meeting the other day is that TSO can also bring things forward to the council too. So like, you know, if it came from TAC, maybe it could go to TSO up to the council. But that's what. If we want, I can share my screen where I have the share and we can go, would you like to just go through this? That'd be helpful, but Gilford or Chris is that, is my understanding of the direction it goes after us correct or not, or to be decided or something. So. I haven't followed this topic in quite a while. So I don't know what the status is or where it goes. No, I mean, I think, so we had talked about it at the May 20th meeting because Gilford brought it to our attention. And then I think we had left it that Gilford was maybe gonna make a few changes and then bring it back to us. And then after the TAC was sort of done with our recommendations, it would move forward to the council in some form. But. So if you guys, if we make the changes and everybody's in agreement with the changes, my understanding is, is that the easiest way to get it in front of the council is for me to send it to the town manager as the recommendations. And then you've already looked at it and given your blessings to it. So those are like two recommendations that would go to the council. And then the council can decide to act on it, or send it to the TSO to think about it and then act on it or something like that. Makes sense. Okay, thanks. So do we want to, I think much of, I mean, much of this, we have gone over quite a bit, but I guess what we should plan on doing is just making sure that it still reflects our current thinking. And then maybe there are minor, maybe there are some minor changes we wanna make and then pass it along. Does that sound like? Sounds good to me. Okay, so I think if everyone's read the intro here seems perfectly fine to me. Time out. I don't, the intro is from back when the select board was in place and the select boards who asked you to do this. So I don't know if you wanna change it somehow to reflect that you're just doing this. This is a recommendation coming from you and the public works department are playing department too instead of saying that you were asked to do it. We haven't been specifically tasked to do it, right? Well, the select board asked you to do it back a while back, but they're gone. We haven't been tasked. We're taking this up on our own volition. But does it, it doesn't, where does it say that? In the purpose. But we could also say, Guilford, how you had brought it to our attention in like last year as well, right? The DPW brought this to the... Yeah, I just think that, I just think the purpose needs a little, a little bit of sizing. You haven't been tasked to evaluate it. It doesn't talk about the select board or... Because they've been previously established, right? We're just updating them. Can we just simply say that we've recognized and I'm going in discussions with the DPW, recognized and I'm going to need to have, to establish crosswalk standards. Yeah, that sounds good. Well, our two complete, I mean, the TAC website has draft standards from like a few years ago. And that's what Guilford brought back to us.  Yeah, but they've not been, they're still draft. No, they're still a draft, right? The DPW, the TAC recognized the importance of finalized, its recommendations on the draft crosswalk guidelines that were developed previously. Or something, could we say something like that? Sure. So who's editing Guilford's editing? No, that was me. Oh, okay. I don't know if that's what I'm trying to glean from the discussion. I'm trying to write as, and glean from the, you know, this is not, this is my document, it doesn't have to be a real one, you know, it's fine. But is that what we just, I was just listening and trying to make up some words that reflect the discussion. In discussion with the DPW, the Amherst TAC, the TAC has... Yeah, we don't need to say Amherst, I don't think, right? But yeah, the TAC has established... Yeah, that's fine. Crosswalk standards that all encouraged, blah, blah, blah. Do we want to change the sentence? Or we could, yeah, I mean, we could just take it. Just get rid of it. We don't need that last year. Right, and, you know... That's fine. Well, I guess we could just say we could say that we, you know, we'd not establish crosswalk standards that we drafted recommended crosswalk standards, right? Because we can't actually establish anything ourselves as an advisory body. Okay, yep. We've prepared recommended crosswalk standards or something. We've drawn up crosswalk standards for your acceptance. That will encourage, right? Yeah. Can I propose some? Of course. So go back to has after TAC. Yep. All right. Has realized the need to establish crosswalk standards that will encourage, and then, yeah, just delete that down to the encourage, yeah, down to safety, accessibility and consistency. How's that? I mean, do we wanna mention that, you know, standards were drafted previously and then just never finalized? No, there's no need. All right, okay, that's fine. All right. That's great, thank you. And I think this is all the same. I mean, obviously the images, some of these images have been updated already, but what it does show is what the condition that has been around town. Absolutely. I mean, we could swap them out if we're desperate, but it's just fine. That one on the right, right? So... It's still there. That one's changed, but I mean, you could swap it with, I was talking about it. This one's still there. That one's still there on the left, yeah. Right, that's true. I think what you wanna show is examples of things that are wrong. And it doesn't matter if it's been fixed or not. It's just an example. Okay. Oh, this is important too. The TAC was educated on regular, are these still the current guidelines? Yes. Okay. Great. And those are all national organizations, they're not local. Yes. All right. And so we're in agreement on this and then the actual recommendations, town-wide standards. Right. I think these are fine. I mean... So now one of those, right? So the ones that have gone in on North Pleasant Street, don't, do they meet these? Because they also have that underlying red surface. Yes. They're basically the standard parallel with the pattern inside. Okay. This, yeah. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I'm moving on to the next.  No. Okay. So the materials are, this is appropriate. The width is appropriate. Light. Oh yeah. And we still agree on these things, the Cobra fixtures. I have a comment about the Cobra. I believe that the library crossing downtown, there is a different type of lamp. Is that right? Go for it. I think that's what you want. Goose there. Is that what it's called? Yeah. I mean, actually you just, you could call it just standard overhead lighting. Yeah. Overhead fixtures. Yeah. I think just saying Cobra, to me that other type of lamp is more effective. Yeah. Cobra. I think we could just get rid of the Cobra. Yeah. So standard fixtures. Fixtures. For standard overhead. It says overhead lighting. Standard overhead fixtures. Standard overhead lighting fixtures. Just put standard. I would just put standard at the front. Yeah. Got it. Standard. This doesn't Cobra mean something else too. Aren't those like weird? They have different parts. Signs in Hadley called Cobra ones or something. And we want them to be like directed downward. Do we need to mention that we, it's like directed downward or something? Well, is it possible to show a photograph of that other fixture? Yeah. We can put the other fixture beside it and have all three of them in there. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. Kim, can you just go into a review and add a comment that says you're gonna add. Yeah. A picture of those. Yeah. I think they actually might be a picture of them elsewhere in this document. What do we call those? Those images. The save, the one by the library. Yeah, it is. It's actually downtown. It's on page four. Yeah. It's already in. Five A. Right. Yeah. So I don't think we need to. It's fine. I think if we put across the three, we're fine. Well, wait, so. And then we just take. Yeah. Yeah. So I say so part of it is town-wide standard. So there's this one section. I mean, maybe we want to just have like different headers or something to make it clear. Like maybe that recommendations, can we maybe have it in caps or something just to make it sure that. I mean these, this, this. The word recommendations on page two, if you go back up, just to make it sure like here under that. Got it. Yeah. And then maybe say A, town-wide standards. And then there were, you know, and then I would just say A, yeah, just to make it clear. Right. And then for the, and then the optional enhancement, that's where the other light came in. Yeah. For the downtown. So maybe we just leave it where it is, I think. It's what I'm hearing is cause you have this. Yeah. That's a good point. Right, Bruce. So you have the town-wide standards, Bruce. And then you also have the ones for downtown. So I don't think we need to change it. Okay. Okay. I just find that one brighter and covers the crosswalk more than the covers do. That's why I brought it up. Ooh. Look at these handsome sidewalks. They look a lot like ours. Yeah. No. Wait, now we could take pictures, right? Right. And so, so at the front of that, that optional one you could say, or maybe optional enhancements to a box we could call that B or something. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing, examples of standard street lights. Most of the town does not have standalone street lights. Street lights are attached to a- Oh yeah, telephone poles. Telephone pole. So do we need to include that as a standard street light? Cause right now, none of those would be considered a standard street light. I think that's why I said cobra head fixtures is the standard lighting fixtures. Cause all the ones, all the other ones down, all the other ones in town are cobras. Okay. Which is the one on the left. That's a cobra type fixture. Right. Is this? Yeah. But I think this brings up the issue of, in the future, if there's a new crosswalk somewhere, say in a village center, would we want to recommend that other type? If that seems more effective, the type that's at the library. Well, maybe, so one thing we could do, Bruce is under B instead of downtown crosswalk options. We could say downtown and village center crosswalk options. I would, I think that would be a good idea. Because I mean, if we're creating these village areas, wherever they are, wherever they are, right? We would like to have like enhanced pedestrian facilities. I would like to be a feature if the intersection of Pomeroy is redone. Exactly. Yeah. To make them better. I guess two comments that were made earlier about the telephone pole lighting, that's not standard. I mean, these, we're making the suggestions for crosswalks, right? Right. That's true. Not even that, I mean. We're too much about whether it's on a separate pole or attached to a light pole, the roadside, because the other lights are literally streetlights are designed to lighten, light the street the public way, not the sidewalk. Yeah, I agree. And if we don't call it a Cobra, then it will last longer. Like, you know, as somebody said, if you develop a different light standard or something. Could we add here all standards listed under time, wide use, maybe use downtown and in village centers? Yeah. I think it's downtown one word. I'd make it one word. Village centers? Yeah. Maybe use downtown and in village centers or... Got it. And in, but it's not on in... Or and or in village centers. Okay. But I think about, may I ask a question? Yeah. There are lights down at the Atkins corner roundabouts that are like shell shaped. What does Guilford think of those? And would he ever use those again elsewhere in town? We actually like them. They're kind of a, they're a modified Cobra head. That's ornamental is what they are. Yeah. I think they're nice. I think they're brighter too. The LED things. Yeah, they are nice. So maybe they could be an option also. Can we get a picture of those? Yep. That would be something, Kim, in that comment box you have up there, add picture of Atkins lights. Yeah, because the one, the lights on the left, those are the, those go back forever. I mean, the standard. And then get the photo, they were at the photo cell on the top and... Mm-hmm. That's very old technology. Yeah. Yeah, no, I do like the, the kind of out of place on Atkins roundabout, really. And so, these are fine, these standards that we've set here. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. With, and I didn't think these are everywhere. Are they're optional? Okay. Cause they're, what, when do you decide to put one of these out? Mostly when the road is wide enough and there's a large enough pedestrian flow at that crosswalk. Okay. Oh, here's more lighting. Adequate lighting. I had a question just about that sign. I mean, there's other types of yield signs too. I don't know, just in terms of making this a document that it doesn't need to come back for like other approval, like if the, if it changes or something, Guilford, what do you think? Like not directly referencing R1-6 or something. Well, that's actually that sign, no matter how it's changed. No, I know. Okay. Yeah, I hear you. So it has to be, it has to be like this. Well, that's what I, I mean, that's what I'm, Yeah, but oh, I was thinking if you didn't reference in the under, like under the text and for reference R1-6 or something that would just make it more flexible, like if the state or whoever came up with a new sign, you know? Well, we have that paragraph that basically refers to the federal, Yeah, of course. Right, right, right. national transportation guidelines. So, you know, if those change, you'd expect that changes would. And so this is the goal is to provide focused downcast lighting for the length and the width of the crosswalk. That's still what we envision. What, oh, so these are the three, the different examples of downtown lights. But I thought this one was a very special, example. Sorry, and I'll get to you. Yeah, it is. But I thought we were trying to push for it still because we liked it a lot. The ballards. So, yeah. Wilfred, I think mentioned that they don't conform to standards, but that we still use them. So. Yeah, and we would like to see them. It's the remnants of a system that is approved and all the other pieces are missing except for the ballards. I'm holding has a question. Hi, yeah, I guess I've been thinking about this a little bit. And especially with the crossing sign. I don't know if this document is the right place, but just in terms of maintenance or repairs to some of these things where those recommendations might appear or maybe this isn't the document that those would appear. But specifically think about painting some of the crosswalks and replacing or fixing those signs as they get hit over time. Delford would be our person on that. Binds get replaced pretty quickly as fast as we pretty much can. The painting though is at least once. We try to do them once a year. That's a. So if you want to put that in there, but the signage gets pretty much replaced whenever, as soon as we know it's broken. I mean, that's why we're kind of pushing more for the epochs. So the thermoplastic based ones, right? Right, use of that because it's more permanent. Did we did we mention that in the introduction, you know, in? Actually, that's no, I don't think we did Kim, right? I think that's an important. Yeah, because it would be great in somewhere like Cushman on that corner. It's important to mention that they're, I don't know. I feel like it's just another piece of kind of due diligence that we also thought about for weeks found the use of the thermoplastic thermoplastic crosswalks here. Oh, in the raised crosswalk. And they're really are very limited. I mean, that's a limited option, right? Ah, well, we can say that, yeah, yeah. And additional pedestrian safety area options. What does that mean? Oh, utilizing these enhancement tools include village center, school zones, significantly used pedestrian crosses in other areas. OK, I'd say something here like other areas, right? And we and we also added village centers specifically into the front section so we could remove village section from this text, village centers from the text. And I would just put in the front, like on the front of the sentence to say other areas, right? Oh, wait, yeah, other other areas. I would just start the paragraph or sentence. Ah, I see. OK. Yeah. And then we can take this out. And other areas, possibly using these enhancement tools, include school zones, other significantly used pedestrian crossings in other areas. Again, I guess here I would say other areas as determined by engineering study or something. Yeah. Yeah, so that's fine. OK, does that seem reasonable? Yep. Same as. Oh, one to three is the same. I see as a town. OK, yeah. Signage and un-signalized, uncontrolled approaches, pedestrian and crosswind downward area area plaque. Oh, that's these examples. OK, state law to yield crossing sign. That seems pretty important. Blashey and do we need to have anything on here about like actual like the signals themselves? Like or I don't know. But not as a standard, but even like mention the idea of like an audible signal or something. Or remember, these are usually in neighborhoods and neighborhoods tend to like being the sound, the noise. That's true. So, I mean, what you guys talked about earlier was having a section on on crosswalks and at a signalized intersections, which is not really covered in here. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, if you wanted to add another section after this or. Yeah, uh-huh. That talks about signalized intersections. Do you want us to do that, Gilbert? You know, it's it's it's.  Right. Well, the ability to add oral alarms, right? Potentially.  So. But we don't we don't have an example here. Walk lights, so do we? Yeah, I mean, no, no. Well, that could be simply added in a photograph added. I mean, I guess that would be the main thing to talk like. And you wouldn't, of course, have walk lights at like every signalized intersection. It would just be you do an Amherst. Well, in the downtown area, but you know, maybe other places there's only one in town that doesn't have the crosswalk, the crosswalk for pedestrian lights. And that's what that's on one 16 and met it, right? It's at one 16 and I'm right, I'm right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But that will have like, for example, like, if if you're yeah, I was going to say one sustained a pulmonary doesn't last for long. I was thinking so. But we need to have. I feel like we talked about the one 16 and meadow allowing for some crossing, pedestrian crossing, right, because of the the businesses on the other side of the street. So do we need to kind of say where we would suggest you would have.  And do we need to talk about how we they need to be long enough to allow for crossing at 45 degrees or whatever we do up here and that sort of thing. Well, in the town, the tennis doesn't have any control over that, right? Guilford one 16 in the state road. No, one 16 and meadow is ours. Oh, it is. Oh, it is. But there are walk lights also at one at North Pleasant Street in Meadow, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. The only intersection that doesn't have a crosswalk light for pedestrians is the Pomeroy one 16. Right. And and also the one 16 meadow, right? One 16 meadow has them. Oh, does. Yeah. Crossing one 16. OK, I didn't realize. Yeah, hold on. I'll show you. I mean, there's no there's not a lot of pedestrian friendliness out there. So at one 16 in Meadow. Yeah, I mean, I thought that was part of the concerns when rise went in, right, that people would try to cross there and stuff. I don't know that one. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. OK, is that a state road or is that not a state road? We don't have anything to do with that one. That one is Chris's right. Isn't that meadow? That is meadow, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, OK. Couldn't couldn't be crossed the walk signals go under optional enhancements toolbox. Actually, if you really want to talk about intersections, you should just put in a section for intersections. Yeah. OK. I think if we maybe we just have a short section, you know, in terms of we're not changing any of the materials, right, the the paving materials or anything. No, you just it would just be to say, you know, yeah. But you want that you want the crosswalk buttons. You want the crosswalk lights. And if you want the crosswalk countdowns, that's really. So we would add a new section here, the last section would be that. Actually, maybe you might want to move it up since. The last section is just like optional things. And there are additional safety options. Right, OK. Maybe you might want to put it. Of the. Yeah, I mean, well, doesn't it doesn't say when it when this says town-wide standards.  So you could say in front of that. So that's on page three.  Yeah, or you could put it in the town-wide standards because we would do the same town-wide. Well, that's what I'm saying is ahead of the optional ahead of B. Yeah. So it would just have maybe it can even be number six or something. It could be, you know, signalized intersection additions or something. Additional components for signalized intersections because we're not saying change the lighting. You know, we're not saying change anything. We're just saying at signalized intersections, we also add. Yeah. I think that's a good place for it. Yeah. Mm hmm. So, you know, I guess we would I mean, do we need more? Do we want to just do this now? Or do we want to discuss this more? I well, what Guilford had mentioned, right? It's just to have walk lights like as a standard, you would have the walk lights and that. And then you would also like walk singles and you would also have. Well, why don't you just say, I'll add something in there. Right. OK. That's fine. But the two main parts would just be the walk signals and also if there's audible signals or something if we wanted to include that. Or if we say that that could be an enhancement in areas that have like even higher. Or how about just putting it into that section and saying and where appropriate. Suggested audible signal. Or that could go under the enhancement part, too. Because I would think that there could be some intersections where like a countdown or something could be suitable or. I think everybody wants a countdown. Oh, really? OK. It seems to be the standard everybody wants is countdowns and they want the audible. They want audible as well. I mean, when we talk about the RFBs, something we should probably add in that section is because is the audible. But doesn't it get complicated to take care of the maintenance of the audible? And also, as Kim said, like some people don't like the audible. Well, I mean, it's just that Guilford said that. It's true. I mean, it does. It can go off a lot. So one one type of signal I really liked. I saw it in. Millbury is at Millbury and Millbury mass, which is an central mass, is that they had this. They had a right turn on red at like a major village center intersection, but it would only activate the no right turn on red. If the pedestrian cross crossing button was pushed. So if there was a pedestrian who pushed the button, what are they supposed to do? Then there would be a big like no right turn on red. And otherwise you would be able to do right turn on red. And I really liked that. I haven't seen them before. I don't know, Guilford, have you ever seen those? Yeah, we actually we have we have one of those signs on Main Street and Triangle. Oh, right. OK. Not set up the way. It's just automatically says no right turn on red during the ped cycle. Oh, no, no. So this was just based on like on demand. And I think about how around like East Hadley Road. I remember when this went well, no, but at East Hadley Road, there's no right turn on red there from East Hadley Road on to one 16 going south. But that I remember I think it was a public works committee meeting or something. And some people said, oh, I really want, you know, I'm tired of waiting for the light and so on. I like you should get rid of the restriction on right turn on red. And and the committee said no, because because there can be times a day when you have a lot of people trying to cross there to go to the park or so on. But like that that to me seemed like that could be a good location for something that's just no right turn on red at certain times a day or like based on demands, because I'm there are a lot of times of the day or the year when nobody is like walking there as much. Well, that one that you're describing, Gilford, I use that many times on my bike and it works really well. The one on Main Street. Yeah. It has only one little it has one little glitch is that that's it's also on during a couple other cycles. Ah, because we don't have a controller to smart enough to do it. But it only come it only comes on the pedestrian cycle when a pedestrian pushes the button and it says no right turn on red during that ped cycle, which is it doesn't a ped cycle. Oh, I found it to be very effective. Holden has a comment. Yes. Yeah, I that intersection, I live really close to it and it does work well. I have noticed that a lot of cars are either stopped kind of unnecessarily at the right turn or a lot of people just jump the red light and go anyways, but I would say that I think one of the reasons that intersection works for having a kind of temporary no right turn on red is because the bike lane is to the left of the turn lane. So there's no danger of hooking a cyclist as as a car is turning. I don't know the intersection that we're talking about if that has a separate if the bike lane is to the left of the turn lane. But that would be something to look for. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. I mean, that's true at any intersections, really. Right, I guess I just thinking about if the no right turn on red is for only pedestrians or if it's also for bikes. You just swipe the bicyclist out earlier on those intersections. Well, so hold on. So the one I was thinking about in South Amherst is that there's a lot of cyclists are actually, I think, on the there's like a path off the road. And so it's a T intersection, actually. So it's not I think it's different when you have it like a four way intersection as you're describing a triangle where, you know, you can have a lot of three traffic because of the T intersection that it would stop. Is it possible to add that somewhere pedestrian activated no turn on red as an enhancement as an enhancement adoption on the right. Yeah. So we'll add seven here. Is that is that where we're thinking of putting it? Eight nine nine nine. Wait, we didn't we didn't review that part yet, right? Yeah, but that's just like, yeah. Well, no, there's there's already an option. Oh, right. It's option. OK. So pedestrian or biker activated. Wasn't it signal activated turn on red signal? Is that how you signal activated? Whatever. Yeah. Because then it doesn't matter with a bike or. Well, bicycles or vehicles and they're not supposed to turn on red when there's pedestrian either. I was going to say like they're also not meant to drive through a ride through a red light to be like a push button activated. No turn on red. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Yeah, push button, push button. For nine there and we'll say Guilford will add a picture or something. So we still want to look at this while I'm doing this. Do we still want to review this bottom part So I did have I remember having a question just about the medians section just above. Sorry. So we had raised crosswalks and then other options, right? Lighting is great and raised crosswalks. That's great bumpouts. Great. Um, I guess the one question I had about the medians, right, is we don't have any text with the medians at all. And I remember from when we reviewed this in May, like the one on the left, I had concerns a little bit about how narrow the median is there. I mean, we can take that one out and we can just say five five foot meet five foot minimum median widths or something like that. I mean, just in terms of like if we're talking about standards, right, that yeah, I wouldn't want the left to be used as an example. It's like ideal media, just if it was in an area that had like a high volume of traffic. Yeah, that one's actually not working. Those aren't working very well. Well, actually, one works very well. The other ones don't work very well at all. There's like four of mine. Wait, are you talking about the median? So what happens with the median? Are you talking about them, the RFB or they're just the median or the medians? Because there's the big one just close to Santel, right? The bigger median, the wider median. Um, no, that one actually gets tagged a lot. So what you're talking about, the driver's drive on them or what? Yeah, they don't they're not very. Yeah, they get driven on a lot. There's actually how many are off to see how many I think it's two. There's two or three. It's just the two, right? This is the one close to Sandhill and that one. Well, and I think and we could just have just text there, you know, record, but also that the medians can be used for when you have like longer crossings, right, including the median when you have, I mean, just a little, but if we want to have any text. So what do we can? You want to write up this up and do you want to take this picture out? Yeah, we'll take that picture out. I do like them. Can I like that you had about five foot minimum recommended? That's that seemed good. But that just like maybe have a sentence or just a phrase about, you know, having is there like medians could be considered in areas that have high levels of pedestrian traffic and where the crossing like the the total crossing distance is long or something. Yeah, I was just going to ask that. Is there is there a standard go for where these are recommended because of the width of the highway? There is. Mass DOT has a actually has a six foot standard. And we've been kind of playing around with it. The ones on Pine are only two feet wide. Oh, my God. Yikes. So actually, I think it's two or three feet wide. Um. Was there a reason why you put them in there? Yeah, people wanted them and we went and we went ahead and tried it out and it's not really working that well. Yeah, I mean, they just standard with roads, right? It's not especially wide. Yeah, it's in the middle of nowhere. And two feet medians are not enough. I don't think I wouldn't. They wouldn't make me feel safer as a pedestrian. I might need to start losing weight. Yes, and also on the speed of the people slowing down.  It is. You know, I think they need to be more imposing. Yeah, I would agree. I would want to see a narrower roadway general than a tiny median in the middle. OK, so what you have there is a narrowed roadway with the tiniest median you can put in to make everything fit. So that was the compromise there. But but can I hang on a second? Let us put our list. I know Paul upstairs has it because he's using the standards right now. I'll get this language from him and I'll put it in there. Yeah, because I mean, some of it is though, like on the pine, they are you just got those yellow ballards in, right? And so they don't really impose much to the driver to make them to slow down. There's not much grade separation kind of like as there is in the picture.  See if I can get this picture. Well, here's yeah, here's this is the same one or right? Is this right? Yeah, exactly. But there you're showing it for the RFB. Yeah. Yeah, no, no, but I'm just referring back to this one. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just thinking of like, you know, bigger square of structures in the we've got some amazing British things to show you. But it's looking rather raggedy. But if I might be able to share for two seconds, I can let me. If you just I think I can just like yeah, you can't double share or something. Yeah, I can. I don't just I just had a quick comment to that. I would recommend taking out high pedestrian zone because a place like Pine Street doesn't have a high pedestrian use, but it's more for the safety of anybody using it. That's a good point. And also you could also target it to certain areas like with vulnerable populations, like if it was near a school or a senior center or something or. Yeah, you could say, especially near near schools and senior centers or or high population areas. Something like that. Yeah. Oh, but it's not what we said at the beginning of that document. Hey, what is that? That's a bully. I mean, that's a beacon that just sits in the middle of a medium. But it's I'm just showing it's more imposing than say it's more. How tall is that thing? That thing looks three or four feet tall. Oh, you know, it's better than just a couple of yellow posts in the middle of the road to kind of like force you to slow down. But I mean, this is kind of the thing that, you know, it's lit. It's actually lit in there, too. But I mean, that's neither here nor there. But I mean, just something as something to think about as, you know, something to put in the middle of the medium to force the effect that you're after. So. But anyway, I'm done now. So it sounds it sounds like Guilford. So Guilford, you're going to make a few changes to this, you know, based like out a few pictures or a little bit of language. But it seems like we're pretty much done. Yeah. So as a committee, I guess, do we want to have Guilford just bring it back to us? And then we do like a final vote on it. But I don't think we would need to spend very long on it. No, I agree. Yeah. No, I think we're good. I think we're pretty close. Yeah. Very close. OK, that sounds good. Does that work for you, Guilford? Could we do that for the next meeting? Yeah. Great. And I'm sorry we didn't get to your really running out of time. We didn't get to your the thing about the roadways. I mean, about the we do have a few minutes in parking on the arterials. Oh, yeah. Next time. OK, you can do it next time. I mean, Guilford, how how high a priority item is for that for you? Like, I mean, I do definitely want to do it. We're already in the middle of winter. I don't know.  So could we put that ahead of the road piece or do you think the road piece would take up most of the meeting or? I think if you put them both on the agenda and do the one you want to do first on the agenda, that's fine. But because I don't feel like we would need to savor. I mean, I I would be comfortable with the road one of just you had brought it to us originally back in whatever. January of 2020, I think. And just said, hey, the DPW has a list of roadways we want to ban on she parking outside of marked parking areas. And I agree with that concept. I don't think I mean, I don't I don't necessarily know if we'd have a long discussion about it, but you guys won't. Everybody else will. Yeah. Well, if we just make this one about the arterial streets and not talk about issues like the cul-de-sacs and stuff, I feel like it should go quicker because the cul-de-sacs are a little trickier. So OK, so I just sent that document to Tracy and Guilford. OK. OK, thank you. Thank you. Sharon or to. Yeah, well, can we just briefly talk about when our next meetings are and Kim had a request on that? Yeah, I am for this semester. I think I'm one of the people who requested having an earlier meeting, but it turns out on Thursdays I teach until most Thursdays I teach until five fifteen and so a five thirty meeting start time would mean that I could make it to the start of the meetings this semester. But couldn't you just have your students join the meeting? I mean, if there are extra credit. Yeah. So I was I was recalling that one reason I think we used to have our meetings at five thirty and we move them to five because we were hoping to not conflict with the TSO meetings. I don't know. I did reach out to the TSO chair. Dorothy Pam about Dorothy Pam is the new chair. And I didn't hear about when they decided to set their meetings. And unfortunately, I missed that part of the meeting. I don't know, Chris or Gifford, were you at the TSO meeting at all? Yeah. So Paul was there. The time manager was there. But then she didn't respond to me about when those meetings are set. But I mean, I think we can bump it back later. I'm just wondering if at least for the next 13 weeks, which is the length of the semester, you might push it up. I apologize. But it considering the issues with quorum. For sure. I don't want to waste people's time. I know, I think they haven't established it yet. They have yet to establish a start time. Oh, how do you know this? I am talking to one of the councillors that's on it. Right now in real time, while you're in real time, it's like modern technology. It's crazy. So all right. So they haven't done it yet. Well, their next one is at six o'clock on the 1st of February. So that's not even that's not that's not on Thursday anyway. Yeah. So yeah, let's just go with that. That's fine. They haven't even decided that. So I think I just say we go ahead, do it and then work to work. OK, I'm sure that's how it works. OK, sure. Well, then let's make. I don't see why we. Yeah, I can't decide. We have our next meeting then for February 4th and we'll just do we want to start it then? Kim, do you want it? Is it I can start at six or five thirty to people? Five thirty is totally fine. OK, because either I will do the meetings in my office or I will take my seven minute bike ride home. That still leaves me eight minutes to get a drink of water and get started. OK, OK. That's the third we're talking about. Third. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. I thought, oh, my gosh. Yes. What would be the second meeting then? In in February? Well, yeah, it would be the meeting. It would be the 17th, which is good, I guess, because then we don't have the February break. Right. Yeah. No, no, I saw that. I will not be able to attend on the 17th, but you'll solve the quorum, correct? Maybe we can have some new members by then. We can ask and see if we can. Oh, Bernie, you don't think you can make that one? I'm not sure I can make that one either. Seven. It's my birthday and I'm even going to make it. Well, do we want to move that one to the twenty four? I can't be. I. We're leaving. We're going away on that day. Yes, that's February break. Yeah, it's February break. Or it's such a short month. I mean, maybe we just meet. We need to meet once. Can we do back to back weeks? I could do it back to back week. I could do that. OK. So then. So we'd meet on the third and the 10th. Yeah, yeah, OK. I'll let Amber know. Yeah, I can do that one. But it was still have to be a five thirty, five thirty start. Yeah, thank you guys. I'm all good with the five thirty start. I mean, it kind of pushes it a bit too late on the back end. I know for sure. And you have little people. Yeah, I mean, I would prefer going back to the five o'clock start time when this is over, but, you know, I can't. Definitely can't all spend to my will. So thank you. Thank you. All right, thank you. OK, OK, Bruce, Bruce, if you want. Move to a turn. Second, second. Thanks everybody. Thank you. All right, thank you. Bye. Bye bye.