Urban Trails Committee votes to pursue full reevaluation of infrastructure priorities pending GIS input

The Urban Trails Committee agreed to pursue a full reevaluation of its infrastructure priorities list pending technical input from the city’s GIS team.

Eric explained the list contains roughly 53 projects and described two possible approaches: a complete annual reevaluation of every project or an every-other-year cadence in which only new projects are ranked and existing scores are largely maintained. He noted the list helps match projects to available funding and that the current GIS-based scoring system reduced the manual time required for ranking.

Members debated the merits of an annual full vote versus a lighter cadence, raising concerns about turnover on the committee, the amount of time required of members to input scores, and the workload imposed on GIS/IT staff. "I think every other year cadence makes a lot of sense," one member said, while others argued that all full-term members should have the opportunity to vote on the full list during their term.

A motion was made to perform a full vote this year and to ask GIS about the staff effort required to reset or modify the system; the committee voted in favor and agreed to table the cadence decision until GIS provides guidance. Eric said he would ask GIS and report back with specifics on how much work would be required to prepare the list for a full reevaluation.

Committee members asked for clarity on whether completed projects would remain on the list for a year before being removed and discussed options for maintaining equity scoring using external datasets.