Seward: P&Z Work Session w audio 9 15 2026

Ready when you are. Lights come on.

I'll call this, uh, 15th September 2026 work session to order. Thanks. We'll transition directly to staff comments. Alright, thank you, Chair Sullivan. First, let me just say hope everyone had a good summer season and a good current shoulder season.

Nice to see the full dais again. Tonight's work session is going to be a little bit of information gathering for the city's new wayfinding system. I know we've talked about it in pieces, but for anyone coming in fresh, I'll give a little bit of background. So earlier this year, the city issued an RFP seeking a consultant to help develop a comprehensive wayfinding system for Seward. And wayfinding is a fancy word, but at its most basic level, it's about helping people understand where they are, where they want to go, and how to best get there.

Um, and so Seward has a somewhat unique challenge in that because many visitors arrive at a few concentrated locations. And so you got your cruise terminal, train depot, small boat harbor, and they might be unfamiliar with the community. And we want to make it easier for them to understand how, how Seward fits together and how close many destinations are, in part to help encourage safe pedestrian routes, reduce confusion and congestion, and improve connections between the harbor, waterfront, and downtown areas, and help people discover destinations and businesses that they might otherwise miss. The RFP was included in your packet as well as the proposal from Corvus Design, which was the is a firm that the city selected. They're Anchorage-based, and so they will be helping us develop the system.

And they have considerable Alaska experience, including wayfinding and signage projects in Valdez, Kodiak, Juneau, Skagway, and even Seward. And some of their work you can see as examples in the packet as well. So ultimately, they're going to help determine the types and hierarchy of signs, where they should be located, what destination should be appear on them, like how walking times and maps should be communicated and what materials make sense for Seward since we're going to put them in the, you know, the windy climate that we have and how that overall system should look and function. And their designs will also build from the city's existing identity guide. So if you were unfamiliar, the city has a branding guide that was also included in your packet.

And so that's— and, you know, because we have a lot of signs around town, but sometimes you don't realize they're there, but they don't You know, they're not branded together with other signs, and so the hope is to help make this system recognizable as sewer and consistent with the branding work we've already done. And so that brings us to what we're hoping to accomplish tonight. And so we're still very early in the process. They haven't designed the system yet, so we're currently meeting with stakeholder groups virtually, and tonight is going to be not exactly, you know, we're not looking to 'Hey, this is where all the signs should go,' but kind of more broad information that would be helpful in providing Corvus that information with good local information before they start developing those ideas. And so we've got a couple large maps here tonight.

And so, um, yeah, think about the perspective of someone coming to Seward, uh, visiting Seward for the very first time. You know, think about where do people get confused, where do visitors— where do you see visitors stopping because they're unsure where to go, where are people taking routes or crossing streets that we would rather them not do, and what destinations are difficult to find, you know. And so where, where could a map, walking time, directional signage make a difference in developing this overall system? And so Corvus will take all that information, combine this local information with their own fieldwork, and they're looking at pedestrian flow, congestion, major arrival points, and routes connecting, again, terminal TransEco Harbor, downtown areas, and they'll use that information to develop an existing conditions analysis, which we've helped them with. We've kind of went around and taken signs that we currently have and sent that to them, as well as preliminary recommendations.

And so this is just one part of that process. Corvus will be coming to Seward in late October for a larger public workshop. Date is still to be determined, but they probably gather from these different opportunities ahead will help Cordova incorporate that into their initial work that they can kind of present to us in October. So tonight we're really hoping to provide the local knowledge layer for that work. So identifying destinations, problem areas, routes, decision points, and opportunities that we should investigate.

So as we did with that future land use map work session, we'll just kind of gather around map and we'll mark it up, and the more specific we can be where a problem occurs, that will be useful information. So as we mark certain places, we can chat through our reasonings based on how that future land use map went. We did get Vanessa a bunch of orange markers, so—. Orange markers? Exactly.

You guys aren't paying attention.

So unless anyone has questions first, we can sit around with our microphones and I can answer questions. Otherwise, do you have any questions before we jump into this? I do. Besides, thank you for the orange markers. Uh, who is the Destination Stewardship Committee that it mentions in here?

The Destination Stewardship Committee, uh, it's a committee that Chamber of Commerce started to put together, um, and so I sit on it as a representative for the, for the city, different business owners around town. And the goal— I think there's one council member that sits on that committee— and the goal of that committee is looking at how we can improve the visitor experience in a way that's not just beneficial for visitors but also the community that lives here year-round. And so last year, uh, it was really the first year that was kind of put together, so this is kind of the first major project that we've kind of partnered with them on to, yeah, see where we can go as a group.

I have a question. Is the intent to just send people to, um, like, sites in the areas that is, you know, where people, visitors would want to go to, or are we trying to direct them to specific businesses, business or business areas? The reason why I started I'm saying that is like where we're located with Legion, a lot of people come to Legion and they don't even know there's a downtown. They're like, yeah, go up the hill and hang a left, you know, and it's— they were just a small park where it was at. So that's where I think if there's major, um, I guess areas of commerce or tourism, it would probably be the best place to go.

But I didn't know if there was specific areas that you wanted them to be targeted to. I think it's a flow. There's a flow to it. And there's, you know, a range to it, because we're looking at pedestrian traffic. And so, you know, think about the Sea Life Center as kind of maybe the southern end of our range where we're encouraging people to walk and nearby the Sea Life Center, obviously, are businesses like right there on 4th Avenue.

And, and I think that in just some of our initial conversations that we've had, that is a very common thing that's come up is in Seward, there seems to be two points of reference when you hear the word downtown. Some people are referring to the historic downtown where we are here, and some people use downtown to refer to the small boat harbor. And I think having a branded system where if you have a bunch of signs that look, uh, in uniform calling this place the historic downtown, and we can kind of brand it that way, like when when people say downtown, this is what they're referring to. And so, uh, so yeah, so it's not just about, you know, points that we want to get to, but the flow, how we want to get, you know, because you're coming from the Boat Harbor to Sea Life Center, there's a couple routes. You can go straight down 4th Avenue, but then you have a big hill to kind of go up, which some people might prefer the Waterfront Trail.

And so kind of looking at those different options. But 4th Avenue, again, going to be better for our businesses. And so we want to make sure that we're supporting our local businesses as well through whatever system that we come up with. So does it make any difference? Because a lot of— some of 4th Avenue isn't— doesn't have a sidewalk on some of those areas.

Is that a—. And so that's kind of our goal, is to point out all those things. And then Corvus, that's, that's what we kind of hired them to do, is like, all right, these are all the places, the destinations, the routes. These are the challenges with the those routes, how can they develop a system knowing what challenges that we have and see what they come up with. But that's kind of stuff we're looking forward to.

Again, right, you can't go down 4th Avenue one way, out on the sidewalk, you have to cross at some point. And those are things that I think we should point out in the maps. I will say that because of that aspect, on the maps we did include— Selena or Gis technician put together. So it shows you the shuttle stops, the shuttle route, sidewalk, and bike path. And so that is already on there.

That kind of helps you understand where people are able to travel on the sidewalk. Okay, question about the scope of engagement. Have you had— you've had conversations with Corvus, I'm sure, so far. So what—. They have some great ideas for the scope of engagement, but what is your plan for this on page 28?

And I just wonder if you could talk to them about that, how that would play out maybe in certain events around Seward or whatever. I think that's really important to have a community— yeah, I don't know how many we're going to have or what the timeline is for the first one, and as they expand expectation to have these signs up by next season? Uh, the timeline certainly would support getting them installed at some point in the next summer season. We've got funding for the design system. We still have to go through the funding process for the fabrication and installation of them, and so there's a financial piece to that.

Fortunately for this project, the design— we're able to use the CPV funds, and we would also be able to use those for the design installation. As far as scope of engagement, they are— we're doing virtual meetings with them and some key stakeholders like the Alaska Railroads, the Seward City Tours Chamber of Commerce. We're meeting with the Destination Stewardship Group tomorrow, and that's going to kind of help and with our office and give them some kind of general information. And then, yeah, end of October they're coming we'll do— I will market a public workshop that will invite the broader public to, um, to get kind of further input. And, um, yeah, so that's kind of where we're at in terms— we'll do a site visit, and so we're going to kind of walk the town with them and kind of all the information that we're gathering ahead of their visit, we'll take them in person to make sure that they get eyes on the ground for all those as well.

Um, so yeah, so it's— yeah, we've kind of already We started with those stakeholder meetings and yeah.

I have a—. I kind of made a list and was gathering some information from folks and I don't know if it's good to kind of express this list now so we can apply it there or do it at the time or what. Just some things that I want to think about that people have experienced. Kind of some anecdotes. Okay.

Yeah.

So some people come here and they don't understand that there's no airport, no commercial airline airport. They don't understand that it's, you know, 2.5 hours away. And so I don't know how that can communicate. Maybe they look on Google and say, oh yeah, Seward has an airport, but they don't understand it doesn't have commercial activity. Uh, we have Seward City Tours already.

Expressing to the motorhome community that they— to park on Main Street, I don't even know if that's legal, but it's a problem. Maybe directing them where they can— a better place to park. Signage from the harbor, that seems to be a central, central point, which I think you already have. I didn't get a chance to talk to someone at the terminal down there, but— and I know it's new, but it's a mess, and they have— there have been been having a really hard time with visitor management in that whole realm. And I think it'll improve, but it's a good time to have this conversation.

Maps and location at the— there's just some ideas at Baker, at the harbor, downtown, Kiwami Park, knowing where the grocery store is, library, museum, mirrors on the corner, but that's a safety issue that might might not be for this group. But, and again, oh, some people will ask, where are the charter boats? Where are the tour boats?

I think so. They're just down, they're just sort of random. They're tucked away in the, down the harbor behind the Harbor Master's office. A lot of them are set there. I always see them there.

Yeah. Just a quick list, and I'm sure there'll be more.

Yeah, that's pretty valid because, you know, having run a bed and breakfast the years that we did, in particular when there was— because people really are at times clueless. Because I'd have people from the East Coast come in and they just fly in, come down to Stuart, and they said, well, we'll just grab the ferry to wherever, you know, thinking it's like the Staten Island Ferry and it's going every, you know, 4 or 5 hours. And it doesn't work quite that way. And we've had some discussion, we can hang out here for a week before the next ferry shows up. You know, they just were stunned.

And I don't know if that's a visitor's guide kind of thing when people come, or people just fail to plan. But it's, you know, something that they consider at times. Oh, they also, in addition to these signs, I don't know, I was thinking there could be wayfinder cards. So, rap cards.

Quick question. Oh, sorry. Are we including community sites such as a pool? We have a number of guests that come over to the resort and they're looking for a community pool where they can swim, or a community gym where they might be able to get even, you know, a couple of workouts in while they're on vacation. So are those additional sites that they're looking to include, or are those things that we would need to continue to give on our own end to the guests that are coming in?

I think in terms of designing a system, I think all ideas are on the table. That's kind of what we're looking for here. I think we, we'd be careful not to promote individual businesses, right, versus others. But yeah, I It is a pedestrian system, is the scope of this RFP. So I think about the pool at the high school, that's great information to try and get people to, but you'd have to drive there and people really walk in there.

So like, prop— so like, the map kind of shows you the scope of what we're looking for, all the way down to the Sea Life Center, up to, you know, but definitely want to like include if there's a way to work that underpass in to crossing at Port Avenue and Seward Highway.

But then anything kind of north of that would be a little bit outside the scope of the project range.

Okay. Yeah, just to tack on to that, I mean, one of the things I think like all these other communities have is their Chamber of Commerce is like in this zone that people can walk to. And ours way, unless you want to go shopping at Safeway, which I guess some people want to do, or visit the graveyard, you're not going over there. So I don't know if there's like something we can put on the future plan to remove that or something, because that, that's only going to hit, you know, the people driving in and nothing else. And they're kind of— this is like their bread and butter, right?

So yeah, and that's why I wanted to include the shuttle route, because that's one option within this system that people can get on that would take them out to the chamber. And I want to say that they have a presence in the cruise ship terminal, but I'm not— I'd have to ask them to see what their plan is long term for there, because that is a good secondary location. Years ago they had a Chamber of Commerce annex that was— yeah, well, actually, was that the old train car that was up on 3rd and, uh, Jefferson, I think it was? Yeah. And that, that was right in the center of town there, which is super helpful.

It's very busy, but they either sold the land, they'd get rid of the train. But it might be something to, to address your point, is have something a little bit more centralized if they're able to have a satellite office at some point. I thought they had a kiosk at the harbor. In the harbor, yeah, at times, but I don't think it's so manned all the time. It's Derby, maybe.

Yeah, during the Derby, I know they have that one.

Yes. So the branding package is all from the chamber, I assume, like colors and font and whatnot. Okay. I, I do like the colors, but it, it is very Seward. So I think with signage, just, I don't know how much, but some input like might be more on our logo.

Like I think it was nice in the RFP that they put the blue and yellow kind of along there, just, but like when you have gray and we need— like water ice and forest, you You know, it's very Stewart, but maybe not always the best marketing pop in the environment. But I know not to stray from our secondary accent brand colors. Maybe they're a little brighter, a little better for that. Or, you know, like our logo, I think like that also feels more home for us locals, I think, like very recognizable. Yes, that's us.

So just something for your committee. I think if the font was in yellow, that those would— they could pull it off. And plus that blue and yellow is Rello color.

And I would just think Corvus wouldn't be strictly tied to only using our branding guide, but yeah, hopefully they would use their expertise to incorporate some things that would make the signs pop, but then also still have that element of Brandy, that's soon. For sure, I'm going to get that.

So, and just to clarify, so this branding guide is what the guidance we're giving to CORA is. This isn't us updating it or anything like that. Okay. Um, and so is there a distinction we want to make between between the city of Seward and like this brand, or is that— I'm just trying to understand what the separation is or how that, how that works. There isn't one.

There isn't. So yeah, do we want one, or I don't know, because it's— or is— I'm just, I'm just trying to understand the whole thing. Like, I go to— I come into Seward and I see this nice brand and stuff, and I see a city sewer truck go by that's completely different colors and whatnot. So I think branded in terms of like, there will be, um, that's a good reference page to point out. We also have our flag, you know, that certainly should be consistent.

Like on page 21 of the packet, the fifth page of their proposal. They have a Kodiak example.

And so like on the left, you've got your kind of more informational signage. And so those are— would be better at locations where you're seeing large groups of people dumped off. So train depot, cruise ship terminal, small boat harbor, maybe even all the way down to the Sea Life Center because that's kind of the end of the range. And then along the way, you have these different primary and secondary And this is like a Kodiak example, so they wouldn't look exactly like this, but they're different signs, but they all have a similar look to it. And so that's where the branding comes into play.

It's like, like as you're walking through town, you've recognized this sign at the cruise ship terminal, and now you see this up by the Sea Life Center, you know, you're on that kind of same system. And so that's where the branding— so it doesn't have to align exactly with the city sewer colors and logo. But more—. We want it to feel Seward, the branding system, but more branded is the design itself versus having to complement the Seward logo. So their Kodiak brand is the Kodiak bear paw.

Is that something that you're thinking we should come up with to brand Seward, something along that line? So each one of these little Wayfinder points will have that brand on there. I don't know, I'm not a branding expert. I was just trying to understand the concept more. So we're looking for like a separate directional kind of thing that's not the City of Stuart or the state or all these other Forest Service signs, just unique stuff that's oriented toward that.

And which makes good sense, you know, some places have like a little, you know, critter like you're saying. It could be a, you know, a puffin or something, so you stick it on the sign and have the appropriate colors. But isn't there sort of like the— doesn't there like industrial psychology? I know it's an old term, but industrial psychology, they would do a study of what is the best for business and eye-catching kind of coloring, so it sucks you in as opposed to just what looks cool. I mean, is there, you know, something that's been out there that's factored into this as well, or is it just what whatever he'd come up with.

We have no part in putting the identity guide together, and that's part of why we outsource this to a company like Corvus, because like, we're gonna let them kind of pitch their ideas to us. I know that when they've done other towns, they've come up with several concepts and kind of let the town look at it, um, to see like what feels more like your community. But yeah, I don't that. Yeah, I'm just gonna get a feel for it. I don't know if they could have somehow put Silver Salmon in that sort of arcade, isn't it?

You know, no, we kind of put the identity guide in here because I don't know if people knew that we have it. And it is kind of fun to be like, all right, what color would you like our signs to be? But really, that's not kind of—. That's gonna—. We're gonna let them deal with that.

We want to just look—. Yeah, we're kind of looking— they just want the information of like this more, the system itself. We want to start the plan before we start worrying about sign colors and that kind of—. Sounds good. One step at a time.

So anybody else? Any else? So you want to huddle on the table? Uh, one more thing. Again, back to the timeline.

Can you—. This has been approved, right? So they can go forward. So can we get a potential timeline out of them? Well, their timeline is only the design system, and so their timeline—.

Whoa—. Work plan schedule.

Um, so yeah, like their project schedule deliverables on page 27, it gets into January February. The RFP took a little bit longer, so it might be February, March. We've informed them that that's okay. And so then at that point, they give us the specs that would be fabrication ready, and then we'd have to go through the process.

Um, the CPB funds are on a different schedule than like the city budget, which is kind of like a calendar year CPB funds always reset around July 1st, and so, um, yeah, there's a chance we might need to wait into next year for that piece of it. So yeah, I don't, I don't know if the signs will be up this summer, but that would be the ideal goal, and it's certainly possible. But hopefully at the very least the following summer.

All right, well, why don't you take us through this thing here? We'll wander around and see. Get moving on that.

We have a couple guests. Are they allowed to participate? Yeah, the work session. Anybody can come in. Anybody can come in a work session.

Anybody can come in.

Welcome back.

Thank you. I didn't know if we wanted to have to work on both maps or just work on one.

So whatever you think is best. We figured having at least two out here to look at might be nice. Yeah, so blue is just to get me— orange is shuttle. Shuttle, okay. Shuttle stops at a little fireball.

Hexagons there, the sidewalk is the orange, and the bike path is the yellow. Okay. Maybe we use one to kind of mark up and then we can kind of take turns. That way we can have a conversation about that specific mark and why you feel that's important to convey. Is it for people, is it better to have it oriented the way that the north face is?

Truly? That's how I—. I like to do that too.

So yeah, marker, you know, these— it doesn't matter how we mark it because we're going to work with Selena to put this all online, compile it that way, so don't worry about. So yeah, so you can take those little sticky notes there and mark, you know, like the Sea Life Center would be a place you want to lead people, library, points of interest, kind of mark out where do we want. So right now, you know, just think where are the key destinations that we want to direct people, where people are going, or where they're not going yet but we want them to go. So if we want the chamber to be incorporated into some way, we need to have a kiosk suggestion, I would think, because currently the chamber's not on the map. Yeah.

So, and it is one of the shuttle stops. So do we want—.

They also have to determine what land— where the location be, because they either have to lease land or city land or however they want to do it. So we'd have to figure that out too. I don't know what that And over by the, across catty-corner from the Senior Center, does somebody own that now? Or somebody bought that? Nobody's built on that thing.

I don't know. Because they used to have the train thing there. We can find that pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah.

That's all the parcel we were looking at. Yeah. Partly a parcel we were looking at. Yeah. Because that's an ideal location right there.

That's probably why it was there before.

So I guess we can work— you want to work north to south? So these colors don't mean anything? No.

Nope. I like the idea about the chamber though, so I think, yeah, I will bring that up at our meeting tomorrow because I'm curious. Do you have anybody on that strategic direction board or whatever what you call the thing was that's been here longer than 10 years? The Strategic Direction Board? Yeah, that one.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh, Tom Barnwell. Yeah, Bob's on there.

Stephanie Malane's been here. I think he's leaving tomorrow, so he may not be—. Oh, he might not be at the one tomorrow then. Um, but I don't know if he was in the tourism industry either at that time. True.

The chamber board president has been here for about 20-some years, I want to say. Stephanie Malane, she runs Sunny Cove. Oh yeah.

So I know this right now is a huge problem. That's always a problem. Because, well, the right on opposite sides is the Kenai Fjords tour parking and the major marine parking. Yeah, that's the problem. Problems are where people can go, and we definitely need to figure out how to—.

I need—. At one point they were talking about most everybody's going to come right here. That's going to be—. That's what we're going to utilize. Yeah, that's the point.

Concerned whether or not, you know, I don't know if they're making it— are they making it? No. Well, it's a stop sign off the Phoenix. Yeah, basically just crosswalking however they feel. Less of a disaster, but this is like a sidewalk, you know, and you're not going to give it to you, right?

But if you had a sign that directed them to the— somewhere to that tunnel. Yeah, actually. It's right up here. It has to be tucked up here to go. Oh, this one?

There it is. I don't know what the—. What's happening with the sign and how to get to that. Something to allow them—. I'm going to put those problems right down there.

Really, this whole intersection—. You want to draw for us? Outside, of course. Let's draw. That would be good.

So you want to draw on this? You want to redraw on it again? Okay. Overgrown this one. Overgrown there.

So that's a problem. What about directing people to parks?

Um, with the cars, is that what you're saying? And buses going in there? Uh, we got—. I think he was speaking about the sidewalk right there at the moment. Oh, okay.

This whole thing too, where people try to— for some reason, people always try to cross the widest spot with all the most cars to change.

Crosswalk down. Doesn't mean—. Yeah, I mean, we know that's a disaster area. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think some people basically—. It's closed in the summer.

Well, people just look at that and say that's downtown. You mean like the gym? Yeah, gym. I mean, people have showers downtown, you can go that way, you can Which way? Who's picking the direction?

So people are getting off, people are getting off here and we're directing them towards here, towards somewhere else. Who's picking the actual direction? Are we going to run people down? Are we going to run people down?

They would probably give them alternatives, right? Bike path is this long. You go up 4th, it's this long, but there's a hill. I like that. This is another area people cross.

I mean, this one too. Those are big crossing lines as well. They may steer people away from big crossings. Steer them away from 3rd Avenue.

But yeah, and the APTech gym. I don't know. Is the AbTech Gym authorized for non-members? Yes. So they can probably— that'd be a good example.

So you put that on a sign or direction or health facility, whatever you want to say. How many individual businesses do we actually want to direct people to versus keeping it—. I think services and downtown is one big area because that's all businesses down there, but the gym is one thing, you know, and maybe the hospital. Because that's a consideration. Well, hospital, they got to take out for it.

I just was meaning this other gym.

Yeah, I don't know, is Fifth Avenue a public dump? I don't know.

That's what I was wondering. I mean, the company is going to be making more dumpsters. I've done it before, they're going to know. Whether we want to support— you know, I mean, that's still a business. Okay, and on this is Jefferson.

Just think about when the flood happened, when the—. They told us they were going to—. Oh, okay, I have all information. I reached out to them on behalf of the stay with us. Okay.

And the only person that was willing to work with us was Abt. Okay. So they may be changing their minds. Okay, we'll check, we'll check on them. Yeah, that's fine if they don't.

But they did tell us if they wanted to. Okay. I didn't know what I used to do. Well, I mean, how hard would it be just to put an X on it? Yeah, just to let them know.

People want to see what? I can't tell. Oh, it's the church. Oh, it's the church. So what are you doing?

You're doing the fire station.

You're going to direct people to our fire station. So it's going to move. Got to get to the bar. Legion. People do on vacation.

Yeah, but you can't—. You can't focus on your bar and none of the other ones. Oh, that's on 4th Avenue. Oh, this is a— yeah, but they come to us for directions. That's hard.

The bad thing about this—. Well, every—. They go everywhere.

Um, post office. Yes, that's one of the shuttle stops. Is it? Yeah, well, they, they, they're very close to And the food bank's a shuttle stop too. They do that.

Really? Yeah, they do it 2 times, uh, well, it's on Thursdays. Walking to the post office? Yeah, Europeans that stop from banking, it's the post office. Oh, that's good to know.

Because of the flags. Oh, that makes sense. Oh yeah, I hate this intersection.

Oh, we almost got run over. Be careful, they're going to put in a traffic Is there anything along here in particular that is worthy of stopping to see other than just walking the bike path? I mean, you have monuments here, you know, the Gitterod thing. A lot of our interpretation is there's a big conflict between the workers. So the Foresters pulled out of the timber market.

So they could just probably say bike here, you know, beachfront trail here. And those would be held to be the Foresters' interests. That's really cool. Yeah, there's a crosswalk like right down in front of— it's almost right across from J-Doc, but the bus, the shuttle stop is like right next to the crosswalk. So you never know where the people are standing.

Yeah, the emergency room, because they're trying to get across the street or because they're waiting for the bus. I know it's maybe not fit for this discussion, but I mean, I I've run that area a lot at night. It's like, oh, because it's right on the parking lot. I mean, yeah, exactly. So if they just moved the bus stop like 100 feet so everybody wasn't just standing there, because you don't know whether they're trying to get across the street or whether they're waiting for the bus.

Yeah, I mean, this connects with revitalization, but where is that? I mean, okay, well, it's right—. Draw a line down the whole road. Stop 5. I want to say it's right across from here.

I think it's number 5. The path isn't too bad though. No, no, no, the path is not bad. It's ridiculous to get to. Yeah.

No, this is like, it would be hard to have a dog walk through here. There's plenty of—. That would take a bus down, right? Only backhatch, like, fish totes, like, swinging by for like—. Well, that's an experience.

Yeah.

Yeah, all I can see is like, there's virtually no sidewalks here either. It'd be nice if they—. There's no real sidewalks here. Yeah, it's right up against it. Yeah, and we put those—.

One of those elements on the left. There's one right here.

That was up top. Yeah, it was going to go up there, but they had to do some reinforcing. Those—. What are those things in the ground? Bollards or whatever they were.

Bollards. Yeah, the fire poles were right there. Yeah, they had something there, and they said they were requiring to have something. Well, no, there aren't a lot of people there. They're not just the pedestrians.

There's people standing there. So there's nothing like these wood stops? You don't know yet. It's not for that. It's a little bit similar.

So then there's no restop along there? Sorry. Senior stop. So we have one stop here. Yeah, first one.

Also, it's just something to think about in the future. I mean, everything's a little safer.

And here's where I think— do we have a lot of signage? That's a lot. It's going to be a lot of signage.

Yeah, yeah, there's nothing wrong, right? So I'll interject real quick because you guys kind of put it out here, but we're doing a good job of pointing out like locations. But you can also start thinking about how people get from A to B. So a lot of people do walk from the terminal to the train depot, and what they do is they— there's a sidewalk here, but instead of crossing at the crosswalk and taking the sidewalk, they're often just walking along the industrial side, right? And so So that's where signage here would be important to really follow the proper trail.

And so that's also kind of what we're looking at. It's like, not understand how, just how people are traveling. Like, that's what, that's what all this red is. Yeah, I figured.

Lots of sign opportunities. But if there's a, if there's a trolley or something that's going through, maybe they'll try with buses that they're using, is they just get on those and so they don't have to necessarily, you know, maybe ask the bus driver. But are you saying if they just choose to get off the cruise ship, whatever, and just start walking? A lot of them just stand out, yeah, sitting. Or if you're going walking from the terminal to the boat harbor, then there's—.

They don't see a need to cross the street because they're just going down at one side, right? For sure.

Is that new Harbor parking lot plan, are they gonna— is there a sidewalk or is that still in the works?

This Dublin's development? Yeah, yeah, they're still doing that. Yeah, that's— that is happening.

Will that be ready by next year? No, I don't know. Let's see, it'll take a while. You put Two Lakes on there, right? Down there, Rhonda?

Yeah, it's already— okay, cool.

Just a minor— I don't know how you determine this was a sidewalk and not a multi-use path, but I use it like a multi-use path. And this sidewalk's just weird. I don't know if it's supposed to be a multi-use path or it's supposed to be a sidewalk. What's the difference?

Yeah, this one's always been unclear to me. I don't like it because it looks like a sidewalk, but sometimes it looks like a multi-use path. Again, we have the multi-use path obviously right over here, but yeah, that's always been—. What, down towards—. Weird.

Yeah, but this side's definitely, I would say, multi-use. Yeah. Does it— is it defined by how wide it is? Um, sort of, yeah. I mean, that's, that's why this, this one's like concrete, so that makes me think it's not, but it is really wide.

And this one's asphalt, which says to me it is a multi-use path. That's a weird way to just think of it. No curbs on the bike path. There, there are. Not many.

Hmm. Curbs? Further north. Well, there is further north.

We also need public bathrooms. Quite a few pairs in this area. You're supposed to go that way. This is the harbor, um, in the harbor master plan.

Then the one down on the beachfront, where's that? There's one down here. What's that? Where we mark? Oh, okay.

I think she's—. Rhonda, are you doing bathrooms down there? We got something. I got all kinds of stickers, but you're going to look at these stickers and go, what was she thinking? Or what were you thinking?

Do a little key. Yeah, on Belaine here, Jamie's there. I think there's a bathroom right here. Bathroom just north of the pavilion.

You still can't— orange. There's also orange. That's why I asked. Vanessa likes it. So we're good?

I do. Beyond Port Avenue, technically, or the chamber? Well, that can—. So like potentially there may be signage that says, you know, grocery store this way or Safeway this way, that sort of thing. But the main focus of these signage will be to identify distances that people can walk to, or locations that people can walk to.

And I, I did mention about an app, but I don't know if Corbin's Yeah, I think it's just—. Oh, this is where I'm going for next time. Oh, maybe. But it would be cool at some point. Yeah, I guess so.

There's a bathroom right there. There's two there? Yeah, there's one right behind the park. The park entrance. Really?

Yeah. I didn't know about that one. Oh yeah, actually I did know about that one. That's a good question. That's interesting.

Yeah, when you walk by— I'm never that one. It's hard to see.

I guess all I have to base it off of are like the guests that come to our Airbnb, and we have, you know, a lot of European folks that come through, um, some Hispanic, but I mean, Pittsburgh is a melting pot, so I don't even know. Yeah, a lot of Europeans I've noticed in our area. Indians, Winston-Salem, New York. But yeah, that's a good point for languages potentially.

I would say, uh, just English. Yeah, yeah, you can translate her app on your phone with your picture and just like read over it. I think that's the new norm. How is the signage of the harbor? Um, I worked for one of the companies and we often have people very lost, especially from this side.

It's been a couple years, so I don't get those questions anymore. But do you guys feel like it's very straightforward? Like, hey, this is the direction for, you know, M, NOP, dog, or whatever? I think a lot of that's going to change with the new Harbor Master's Office. Sure, sure.

And I would say the workshop that we're doing in October, the reason we don't have a date set is because we actually are working with the harbormaster because they're having kind of a smaller wayfinding thing they're doing also with Corvus for the harbor. And so we're going to kind of combine that public workshop to focus on both small picture harbor and then big picture this general area. So, so yeah, that is on our radar.

Change the hospital to a different color? Is that all right? Red. Red for the hospital. Hers is red.

Yeah. She's got a red.

Looks like we hid a lot of stuff though. Mm-hmm. We overkill here. The question becomes, is it in the walkways? I think it's right there.

And I think that's one of the key issues is that you have some people—. I think Rhonda got it. —Kids will walk this. Yeah. And then you have other people who are not going to be able to walk it.

So how handicap accessible is it? Is it wheelchair friendly? Is it cane friendly? Is it something that, you know, they can do? Or do they have to take the shuttle and follow and, and allow the shuttle to take them around?

And so those are some of the different things. Are these signs going to be visible from the shuttle, or are they specifically designed just for people who are walking? I guess depends on on how fast the shuttle's moving. I would suspect walking shuttle drops off. There should be a sign, there should be a sign within, you know, pretty close distance to every drop-off where information is accessible.

Yep. Yeah, the idea I thought of having something on the sign that shows whether a route is accessible to person with disabilities, like put little feet, footprints, and then, or little wheels or something like that. Wheelchair, something like that. Thank you. You want to show a nice way to go?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good bridge. Like, get over here.

Yeah, that makes nice.

I just feel sorry for the people who are dragging their luggage up and down 4th Avenue to get off somewhere. Up that road, 4th Avenue, wheeling that stuff. I feel bad. Like to Do you pick them up? I have.

I totally have. I see these people older than God and I'm like, oh my God. Is there a place for them to store them? There used to be and I don't know if that business is still around. Yeah.

Okay. So many people think they're going to find a bag of gold in there. Oh yeah.

Miss it. Yeah, don't go missing. Brought it all the way out there. Holy crap. I was like, oh, some people take— I guess they're going to the cabin where it's starting the trail.

Oh, well, yeah, distance on some of these, maybe like the key larger ones, not all of them, but where maybe you said like Cordell. There is a nice— I don't know, maybe a few of the drop-offs where you would move from there to somewhere else. So you knew how far, yeah, the other end was. It's actually something I feel. Yeah, it might be distance or like time that it would take to walk, or both.

I like both. That might be too busy on a sign. I mean, I mean, it's good, but I'm thinking all the— if all the different symbols on there, you're going to drive really slow by there so people can read the whole sign or something. But yeah, I think something would be on there to identify some sort of gauge for how long. Yeah, if you're walking, it takes you this long so you get to your reservation in time, right?

I don't know who did that, but that was really good stuff in there. So the new parking lot back there? Yeah, it's got like a bridge in it. Right here. Seems well done.

Which to that parking lot right there. Well, they're not really using it. No, nope. They're not. Well, yeah, they will always cross because that's how I get out of my house, and I have sat there waiting for people to finish crossing the street.

It was a crosswalk there.

It's definitely an interesting phenomenon.

And they're not wrong, it's within visibility of Harbor 360, so when they come off a major Marine tour, they're just like, hey, why bother with the shuttle? All I have to do is cross that street. Yeah, taking life in your hands across the highway. I don't know, that's how I've never been here. You get to be sly or not.

Remember that wheelchair?

This highway is probably mild to most of the visitors that come here. Oh yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah.

So what do you think? Before we wrap up, and we can still brainstorm, I know we kind of were working on the same time, but we'll kind of watch this tomorrow and help us take notes. Can each group maybe go and just identify everything you put and just briefly why you put that spot there, and that will help us in our note compilation.

I don't know what all this scrawling is. So yeah, I mean, we started over the cruise Here's a pen. You want to write it? Do we want to write it or draw on it? They can listen to it.

They listen to it tonight. They can play it back. Yeah, I mean, well, you already pointed that one out. You got chatty GPT. I mean, there is a really nice path, but nobody uses it apparently.

So, and I don't know, I mean, I don't mind. I think it's kind of cool that they get thrown into industrial— like, this is fishing. The fishing world. That's what they came here for. Put a sign up about the fishing world.

That'd be cool, yeah. And describe the processor.

Um, and yeah, it dumps into the railroad area, and then, yeah, like this, from the railroad to the highway, that whole area is just a cluster of problems. Yes. I mean, sign challenge. Yeah, I mean, there's just so many things meeting there. You have, like, we talked about the people parking over over here, we have people walking in from over here, and just people crossing the highway with trucks turning.

It's a slip lane, so it's fast. Like, you have a bike path right across there, you have two sidewalks trying to cross there. Yeah, that's probably the biggest problem area. And then continuing on, yeah, this whole 4th Avenue is just kind of also just a lot of foot traffic, people jumping across the road, trying to roll their bags down the sidewalk. And I guess I'm stirring up problems.

That's fine. And then, yeah, basically what do you do when you get to the end of kind of the harbor? It just looks like nothing. Fish house. You're just— I mean, unless there's signs— like, this is like a critical spot for, hey, there's a downtown, just keep going.

And here's how to get there. This is like probably the spot. Routes. For it. Yeah.

And then kind of, yeah, every crossing has its— should have something like this. Like the— if you're on the multi-use path, it just makes an abrupt left and it turns into a sidewalk. So you'll— if you're not— if you're on that, you're just going to be confused what happened to your bike path. Actually goes towards the water. So that's a big one.

And then people cross there. That's— the crossing could be better, of course.

And then same here, this kind of confusion as well, because people— it's, it's another big junction where people are maybe starting to think they'll go uphill, but they might see the path over there and go there. So it's just another spot I see a lot of traffic at.

And then the post office has, you know, if people are going to access it, that's just one that we have to think about. Like, it's very busy, so that's— and it doesn't have sidewalks. Like, the post office doesn't even have a sidewalk to get in there. So that's always an interesting one for pedestrians. And then this Washington Street intersection is horrible.

There's no way make it good. It's just horrible. So that's kind of the problems, I think. Did I miss anything? No, I think you got them.

And then we have points of interest. So I'll start with the pink, which are bathrooms, because those are important. And so we got, I think, 6 identified there. Yeah, we missed the one over at Kuwop, but whatever. Oh yeah, we didn't work on that.

That's actually pretty good. I was impressed with the number. And then other just points of interest. Yes, there should be a point of interest that's like for general points of interest. Hey, yes, the harbor.

Hey, the downtown. And then pointing out specifics in there, say downtown access to the library, the Sea Life Center, the Legion, the post office, hospital, fire station. We did put Avtec on there.

I think that's about it. It's interesting, then we talked about the post office. Sorry, I interrupted. No, that's okay. Because we have a lot of foreigners that come to the American Legion post, because the post for most other countries is— The post office.

Yeah, the post. And so it says post, and so they walk in and Mike's there or somebody's there, we're looking mail stuff or do things. It's like, no, that way. You know, so that's good.

I guess, yeah, this is the last thing too. Just kind of an alternate way that gets you onto the water faster, gets you by a nice beach. Kind of over towards maybe the New Harbor Master area. But this is a popular way to get, when you have the little pedestrian bridge, to get you across Sheffler Creek there and then into the campground. So that could be nice or two to get people away from these intersections.

And then, yeah, I pointed out the other one over here. Yeah, right. Which we've determined is actually a problem. So that's not very well marked either, that one. No, at all.

Nobody will really go there because they'll just continue on the sidewalk and then they're over here, but now Sheffler Creek's in the way. So, um, It's difficult because you walk through a parking lot and you think you're back in somebody's backyard. You got a ton of motorhomes a lot of times. It could be an alternate route or something. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a very, yeah, safe route.

And I like it. It's a little more scenic. That's the way I always go.

You may want to point out, although it's probably obvious, the City Hall complex Because some people may want to know where City Hall, the police department is. A lot of people will—. Lost and found.

Yeah, but look, blue for cops. Is there a Parks and Rec building? Yes. Yeah. And did we mark that one?

Well, they're moving, so—.

What about that? What if these places move and we already have signs? How does that work? Well, white out.

It's a change order. Change order. Is there a metal or something that they screw into the sign frame so we can change the— Placard. Don't put mileage on it then.

Also, you could get away from that by being Not singling out individual businesses and being downtown center, or just kind of— I don't want to say vague, but technically. Yeah, in general. Yeah, in general. Oh yeah, Harbor and downtown, which is easy for people to— they—. Downtown shops and restaurants, or, you know, something like that.

Harbor shops and restaurants, you know, so like, it's like, oh, there's more of this and that. Oh, I like the distinction. Yeah, like giving them the two— these are the two different spaces. Yeah, that you can enjoy shopping and yeah, they have options down there, recreation. Yes.

Are any of these things down the trails that, uh, yeah, we have the waterfront, you know, trails and stuff like this, but you know, some of them going toward like Jeep trail and some, some of that stuff, is there, is that going to be any part of it to direct them to that? Rhonda's got it covered down there. You're up, Rhonda. Yeah, we got all the parks noted here. Okay, as many as I could, plus playground parks.

Okay, uh, probably duplicated the, the same with the bathrooms.

Um, did want to— thought it would be good to have a boat key, like what boats are what, so people understand what a tour boat is. Fishing boat is maybe— there's a lot of traffic that comes in and gets on those tour boats. Are they parked by, by— I don't know, they parked by their— they're on D float, most of them, I think. This would be a good spot too for something like that, because all that you can see, everybody's coming in here and you can see the different kinds of fishing boats. So they actually— they got that big hotel there now, right?

Well, there's— but there's a walking No, there's a—. The parking lot, and this is an open lot. Let's see here. I guess this— no, the hotel's right here now, isn't it? The hotel is just right off the—.

Oh, it's right up here. Okay, so we got— so I don't know, somewhere. I mean, yeah, so some sort of way to—. Yeah, like I said, a boat key of sort, because people— I mean, they come by our boat all the time. What kind of boat is this?

Can we take a tour? We accommodate We oblige sometimes. They find it novel. I thought about doing tours, but then I— insurance. Yeah, that's a little different.

Okay, that's in park. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I think that's it. Post office. Oh, there's a park here.

Playground parks too. I included that. Kwabi Park. What about the—. The Dino Park.

Did you want to— Hogan Park. Did you get that sad park behind Kuwabi? Yes, I did. Dino Park. I don't know how specific you want to get.

Do you want to point out where the churches are?

Some people care. I know. But that's start getting into the city. Yeah, that's like going to every business.

A lot of places have their websites anyway. It's really interesting. Yeah, go on the website and look some of the stuff up that they ask, you know, because a lot of the park— I think a lot of the churches too are off the beaten path, you know. Some of them are running downtown, but the, uh, I think there's a couple of them off Second Avenue and some other places. Then you have stuff across the bay.

The chamber used We used to have a list of them down there next to that. So another question, now they get, you know, the chamber catalog, will that be part and parcel of this? You know, the chamber where they list everything out, that might be part of it. Is that part of this too? I was like, you'll have the directional thing, but will they also have a chamber, or those chamber, you know, booklets, so if they need to look something up in particular, will it be somewhat coordinated with it?

Will they have this in the chamber booklets? Maybe once it's— Oh, good question. Yeah, or a back chamber map of it. Yeah, I guess I'm wondering if, because if the legend, you know, because we have all the stuff here, but there's all like ancillary stuff like the churches and some other things that might not be on the walking thing, but they'll be able to have that, but they'll still have the key here, the map of where everything is, and that might— if you match it up, it might be, uh, yeah, that's a really good idea. So I'll bring that up with them.

Any green spaces that you wouldn't want to send people to? Because remember, this is to help visitors, but also we want to make sure this is good for our year-round community. This is strictly walking because, I mean, there's a, there's a, you know, um, cool little park, the Upper Two Lakes Park. Yeah, the Upper Two Lakes. Yeah, that's where I was trying to capture it, but yeah, it's right there.

Oh, we forgot about that one. To— yeah, both entrances. We're going to have to do the dog park. Which one, the one that on Hemlock or the other one? Have one.

Is it on the map? It's not on this map. Yeah, just off the map. But like, my question, like the Jeep Tribe, for example, yeah, is that worthy of a directional sign or is that something, you know, locals appreciate it. You know what I'm saying?

Like, that's also—. Oh yeah, I hate to channel people too much, you know. I think it would be because there's not much parking. It's good to be a good place to walk to. Yeah, yeah.

Um, it's, it's appropriate to send people to that. Yeah, but do direct them to park— was it right here at that Abtec or something? I don't What are you trying to say, we don't have enough parking?

Well, in the summertime there's not a lot of parking going on there. Yeah, there's plenty of parking there. No, I told Parks and Rec, I said you need to do a deal with APTEC and, you know, share parking resources there in the summer.

Cheryl sees this house. Oh yeah, that's Cheryl's right there. She'll go, that's Belgium. Yeah. So then is there another yellow one on this corner?

What was that? I think, uh, someone suggested that we have a direction out to Low Point Road, but that's not walking, but not walking. Do we— we already have— is there a road? There's a road sign. Is there—.

People like to go down there and take a picture in front. I don't ever look when I'm driving. That might be one where it's really good to put—. We do it— put like distance. People realize, oh, that's 2.5 miles.

They'll say, yeah, forget it. Yeah, like, don't walk. No walking path, anything? Not—. I don't want to promote walking on that road.

That road's sketch already. I think we should promote biking. Instead of— I mean, as another option. Oh, that's it. Maybe that's what you do, the bike rental place.

Are there taxi stops? Like, where people could— nothing like that. You call them. Yeah, I don't think there's—. It's not like the airport and they say no, you're not wrong, but that is probably one of the top things we get asked is taxi.

Who's available as a taxi? Yeah, and unless they bring us the information, we have no idea because you actually can't find it online. Ask a bar.

Yeah, it's a fine little word of mouth situation there. Totally works. Yeah, just silly.

Anything else? Beat this up enough for you.

Yeah, good. It's a great place to start. I'm sure there'll be other questions that'll fall out from this as well. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, this is just early process of it, so there'll be more chances for input.

I don't know within this specific workspace, but I'll definitely keep you all informed of like public workshops and ways to continue on for anticipating. I think harvest will come up with questions, you know, because we assume, you know, we work on a lot of not pre-knowledge. They may or may not have it, and so they may have some good questions that, you know, might mirror somebody who just joined the team and doesn't know anything. Don't worry, I don't really need one.

Just if there was one sitting there. Just did note, again, part of this, part of the Mountain Marathon Trail has people rangering There's actually another Wayfarer sign for the trail itself, which is nice.

All right, all right. Okay, thank you.

You need one of these markers? I got you. Daniel just ate them all.

It's okay, don't worry, I don't need it.

So what do we got here?

So this comes to $79,920.

Somebody else's problem. Yeah, for sure. I didn't think it was that much money. I know it's not much money. I just looked at it.

It's not bad, really. No, I actually didn't think it was so bad. And you really can't plan for the amount of money until you figure out what you want first. And that's another RFP. So do we have anything else that we're going to discuss, or is this about as much as you want to deal with?

Yeah, no, this was it. This was great. Just a reminder, October be a double header. And 5:30. Yeah, 5:30 to start and then 7.

With a meeting on the 6th. Still here. Still here on the 20th. That's why once you get to voting day we can't have our—. Can we change or something like that?

They did, they actually moved the library. We can get to the 20th at the library. Yeah. So they're not using this room. Darn it.

No. We'd already planned it out. So try to keep the schedule. All righty. And get work done.

Okay, anybody have anything else? No? Okay, we'll adjourn the work session at 7:07. All right, good meeting.