Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 10/5/2016 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 10/5/2016 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 10/5/2016 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [3:04:45 PM] >> Kitchen: Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to call to order the meeting of the mobility committee at 3:05. So our first order of business is approval of the minutes. From our June meeting. Do I have a motion? A motion from councilmember Garza and second from Zimmerman. All in favor? Thank you. It passes. The second item is citizen communication. Just as a reminder, citizen communication is for speakers who can speak up to three minutes on items that are not on our agenda. If they are on our agenda, then we'll hear you under that item. So our citizens communication is first Jay crossly. [Lapse in audio]. >> Hello. My name is Jay crossly. I live in district 7 with my five and 2-year-old kid. And I just wanted to really come here to talk about traffic impact studies. A brief note that I think some other people are going on the talk about safe neighborhood streets and I just want to encourage you to do whatever you can there and we would need to change state law to allow cities to set speed limits at safe levels on neighborhood streets. I hope you support that. And I sort of worked on that issue a long time, so if you have any questions I'll be happy to answer them. [Lapse in audio] Of course with the growth there's much discussion of it and I believe the system is broken. It dropped off a couple [3:06:46 PM] studies in your offices about a week ago. And the main point being is as a sort of outside expert, the impact analysis system is causing traffic. And by blocking urban projects and [inaudible] The real estate market you are causing more traffic. And something like the grove, a mixed use mixed income urban project will reduce traffic in our city. Compared to the alternative which is not no growth or no build, the alternative is to spread those things out across the region. I think part of the problem the math you are using is wrong and there's the ite method, impact analysis has been shown to be wrong and it's shown to overestimate the traffic between 50 and 100%. And so use those numbers, the expected traffic from the -- if you use those figures to -- the growth will have outdated and [lapse in audio]. [3:10:28 PM] >> This is a picture of -- I live on Ruiz street. The plan is at -- it's a narrower street and I have a photograph from the design book of Mueller. This is called a neighborhood local street. It's only about 28 feet wide and it's designed so that when cars are parked on either side it's challenging to pass on either side traffic kind of slow. We also have traffic caulking in the neighborhood. We have some [lapse in audio] Good because it slows the traffic. These are really common throughout the neighborhood. Adding more stop signs around there, pedestrian traffic. Not just for people who live there but for people who are visiting. This is going to be the personal part of my presentation. The little boy on the left is my nephew, Ben, and that's his brother on the right. They are big star wars fans and they are the best of friends, inseparable. Ben is 9, Michael 11. Ben really loves corn dogs and I really likes to go to the games so he gets corn dogs. He doesn't really care about the sports, he just really wants the corn dogs. So -- oops, sorry. I have a video. >> So this is a little cupcake here. Sesame seeds made out of sprinkles. [3:12:41 PM] >> That's my nephew. He has -- is one of the smartest kids. [3:19:31 PM] So if I can answer any questions, I would be happy to. >> Kitchen: Go ahead. >> Garza: Are you saying this is on the agenda for Houston or this is already approved by the legislature? >> There's an old bill approved by the legislature, but it has very onerous requirements for cities to post streets at 25 miles an hour. My understanding this is on Houston's latest slate of agenda but they are asking the other large cities to join with them. And I honestly don't know how that works, but it would be useful to find out, I guess. >> Garza: It's usually just a request from a councilmember and maybe formal action, but -- >> Kitchen: Yes, I think that this resolution, for example, we're not posted to act today; however, it is relevant to our discussion of the land development code. So I think we can discuss it and we could certainly -- one of more of us could bring it to council without it having come through this committee. So we can -- I would like to have some discussion about this when we get to talking about the safety aspect of the land development code changes. And then with regard to the letting you have agenda, that is something that should be coming back to council. We have a subcommittee that is looking at the legislative agenda and I expect that will come back to council. And so I will ask our -- our legislative staff to look into this. And pursue that as well as talking about potential resolution a little bit later in the meeting. >> Thank you very much. >> Kitchen: Does that work? Our last speaker is Sinclair black. >> Good afternoon. I'm not sure about the protocol of this, but I'm [3:21:33 PM] asking for action. Maybe at the council meeting. Certainly the one on the 13th. And that would be to adopt a resolution from council basically to support the idea of lowering ih-35 as opposed to the -- building it higher and wider and creating more of a barrier [lapse in audio] As an option. The resolution is pretty simple. In 2012 this community has been discussing opportunities about lowering the highway, particularly future opportunities that follow. If it is lowered, as opposed to [inaudible] If it's raised [inaudible] A large number of individuals writing letters and this includes -- you know, in the past we've had letters of support for reconnecting [3:23:34 PM] Austin from such diverse groups as the real estate council and the Sierra club. I know you've been around a long time and you know that's never happened before, but it did happen on this issue. So that's a request, a specific ask to take it to the council and write a letter, make sure they get it before the 19th. Thank you very much. >> Kitchen: Okay, thank you. >> Any questions? >> Kitchen: Does anybody have any questions? You had a question about protocol. As for the other requests for resolution, we're not post to do take action today, but that doesn't mean any one of us or any councilmember can't bring it on the 13th so we'll follow up with you. >> Okay, well, I hope one of you will or all of you will together. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: We're going to to -- >> I did sign up a moment late to speak, but it's about the next agenda item so if you are going to take citizen communication at the beginning as opposed to the end, then I can wait for that. >> Kitchen: If you need to -- we're going on the take things out of order. I don't know if you need to leave. >> I do. I'm as opposed to to be back there for another meeting. >> Kitchen: We'll go ahead and take your testimony right now. >> Thank you very much. I'm here today to talk about the electric vehicles resolution that you have before you. Or I don't know if it's posted as a resolution, but the item you have before you. First of all, I think that rmi and staff have done a good job of doing some initial research to look at where the opportunities are to transform the fleet from gas and other fuels to electric and that should definitely be commended. We took this up at the joint sustainability committee, I believe that was last week, and we were really pleased with the numbers we were seeing. With the 330 vehicles, it looks like the city can be [3:25:35 PM] expected to save $3.5 million, which is great news, and I believe those were annual savings. So we're wondering, you know, if there's any reason why the city should not move faster. In fact, we took that to the next step and passed a resolution recommending that be accelerated and the goal be set for 25% of the total fleet, and that does include a number of vehicles which currently have no options for electrification, but there is a large portion that does have that option, that 25% by 2020 be the goal. And so right up front, the vehicles that have the option for electrification, and those are going to be the sedans and SUVs, let's get that going now. Trucks are also going to be coming on the market soon and that's pickup trucks. So we should be able to get to 25% by that 2025 -- or 2020. And then move beyond that. And that would be in line with our community climate plan, which does indicate that we should be on a glide path as we head towards 2050. So that 25% would kind of keep the city fleet in line with those goals and that was a large part of what drove our discussion along with [inaudible] That are already taking place. For example [lapse in audio]. But that -- there are other cities that are also interested in that. [Inaudible] Is developing quite rapidly. We should be setting a higher target than has been suggested. And if you have any questions about our [inaudible] At the committee, I would be happy to answer them. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> Thanks. [3:27:37 PM] >> Kitchen: Now we're going to take things out of order because we're waiting for to take up [inaudible] After councilmember Gallo gets here so we'll go ahead with number 5 which is a briefing on a traffic analysis of 4th and 5th street related to the capital metro downtown multi multimodal station. >> [Inaudible] Lee Austin, our city traffic engineer for this portion of town. We were approached by cap metro. You may know that they have a grant to rebuild the downtown rail station. That station was built as a temporary station when it was originally installed. They've now got a better idea what their mid and long-term plans are, as I know two of you are on that board and are aware of that. And the objective is to build a permanent station and a much bigger station including an expanded pedestrian plaza where the city could take advantage of it for other activities and so forth. It is in the fourth street corridor and it is the tail end of the fourth street corridor from San Jacinto to the freeway, if you will, the area that's affected. One of the major questions that we were asked about by the chamber of commerce is what would this do to the grid. I get third and fourth mixed up. It's fourth street. Sorry. We were asked what does this do to the mobility of downtown and the grid and so we looked at a range of impacts. We modeled the station in a standard traffic simulation model. We did somewhat if scenarios [3:29:39 PM] and that's what Lee is going to report on. I will do a spoiler alert. There is a surprise in this analysis that is as we were looking, one, we realized that our traffic during special events, which is when sixth street is closed, which is every Thursday, Friday or Saturday night on any given week, that we have severe congestion in this part of the corridor. The solution that she will show you today we actually found has a profound benefit to reducing that congestion when sixth street is closed. And so at the end of the slide, you'll see that we would like to plan to move forward with that concept that she will present to you and that is creating an additional that does not exist today. Spoiler alert, I already told you, but here's Lee. I'm going to let her go through the traffic analysis and show you the potential benefits that we think are there. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Good afternoon. Thank you for having me and I'll go through this quick because at least two of you have seen it and rob has spoiled everything. We did the traffic study at the behest of capital metro. What is proposed is shutting down fourth street between red river innutrient. -- And Trinity. The pedestrian plaza would be used for queuing. This slide kind of shows you existing traffic patterns and and this is -- we were really concerned about this closure in particular in this area due to specialtys of the grid between Cesar Chavez and fourth. During special events and every single weekend when they shut down sixth street, it's sort of a super block between Cesar Chavez and eighth with [3:31:39 PM] fourth being the only westbound access. We've had like 2500 condos and [lapse in audio] A lot more activity. Currently on fifth street the lanes coming across congress [lapse in audio] Four lanes on fifth street and two red river that are two rains turning right there at 35. That's your big constraint in the system right there. We have one lane westbound on fourth from 35 to Trinity and then it opens up into two lanes. Our proposal we looked at is what would happen the if we did one westbound lane on fifth street and kept the two lanes eastbound. We were pretty sure it would work but we wanted to make sure we caught any fatal flaws. As far as data goes, cap metro -- >> Kitchen: Back up. Go back to the map for a minute. So the backup in the traffic right now, say that again. That's at -- all the way back to eighth from -- >> Well, the opponent I was making there is that we only -- the only westbound access when sixth street is closed is fourth between Cesar Chavez and eighth. There is nothing else westbound because sixth street is our major westbound arterial. The congestion is already kind of a super block so we were left with one lane westbound to get anywhere south of sixth street other than using Cesar Chavez which is already a pretty busy street. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> As far as data that we got, we have a ton of data that's much more robust than a lot of traffic studies. We've got [inaudible] Between 35 and brazos on red river, capital metro paid for those, the Hilton center garage exit which is right on red river south of fifth. That was particular concern to stakeholder as well as a convention center garage exiting on to fifth street. The P.M. Peak, heavier traffic [3:33:41 PM] on fifth street and entertainment hour peak which is when sixth street shut down. Looked at bicycles and pedestrians. 100% of the traffic using the new westbound on fifth street. We have blue tooth data which is exciting for us that runs from congress to red river so we can get real-life travel times for 18 months which did include the time -- [lapse in audio]. Specifically the [inaudible] Have at the intersections put those in and then we have cars that run a little travel through the system. >> Kitchen: This is the one you can see where the cars are moving. >> It's fun to watch that. It runs through there and -- I'm sorry. It gets basically your delay at the intersections as well as travel times through this and it's pretty much the industry standard for how we do traffic modeling. And because we had the blue tooth travel time data, councilmember Zimmerman, I was talking about how we did the modeling and we took our volumes and put them in the intersections and ran little cars through to see how the travel times worked and we were able to calibrate the model with the blue tooth data to make sure it matched up real life versus the model. That's pretty much how the model works. Runs through cars through and gets your delays and queue backups. This is the screen shot of the existing during the P.M. Afternoon rush hour peak. It backs up on fifth street. [3:35:41 PM] It's very light in the P.M. Peak. At this point sixth street is open so probably most of your westbound traffic is using sixth street. The backup on fifth is totally dependent on what's happening on 35. When 35 is bad, the access road backs up and fifth street backs up. When 35 is flowing, we don't have any issues. It's really sort of a thing we can't really predict to control the backup there. And for future conditions, this is pretty much what we expected. The queue stays pretty much the same. From red river to 35 as far as moving eastbound traffic and [lapse in audio]. Slightly longer from brazos about I think a minute or so between [inaudible] Sixth street is faster than fourth would be and fifth street. So entertainment. We had a huge surprise because we don't normally look at the late-night traffic very closely. It's usually assumed to be lighter than commuter traffic and you hear from commuters and you don't hear from the clubgoers. They don't call and complain very often. We had no idea how bad this was. We didn't realize this was occurring every weekend on a regular basis and not just impacting clubgoers but condo residents and hotels. Fourth street is backing up, it's one lane westbound between 35 and Trinity. Your constraint is all way stop at Trinity and fourth street. Because that moves slowly, traffic backs all the way up, all the way down to 35 and wraps down the access road. The southbound has queue that is -- then fifth street is starting to back up. You have this big gridlock. We weren't totally aware of the magnitude of this before we started researching. >> Kitchen: So that's what [3:37:42 PM] we're looking at here. >> You can see how that queue backs all the way up on fifth street and you can -- does this thing have a pointer? No, okay. You can see it backs all the way up on fourth street and wraps around right there. I can't remember when you asked about the color of the cars, that's basically the directs they are going. Yellow right turns, right through and blue is for left turns. And that's pretty much why the 35 and Sabine on fifth are all yellow because they are all turning right. >> Kitchen: You said this is between 8:00 and midnight? >> It's when sixth street is actually shut. I can't remember exactly when they got this -- it was when sixth street was shut. And so here is the results afterwards. We see no queues at all. Traffic engineering, we get excited when we can save 15 seconds. We're over 10 minutes here. Even more impressive [lapse in audio] Southbound road right there. It's amazing the different [inaudible]. That provides better access for the condo dwellers and the people staying in the hotels as well as the clubs downtown. It was so successful that regardless of what happens, we think we should implement this as it will make a dramatic change downtown. And then the last thing we looked at was because we had concerns at the Hilton and the chamber, Hilton, condo residents, we looked at the Hilton garage exit so see how it would be impacted. We think it will be -- excuse me. I cannot talk. Sufficient timing to turn left. Currently they come out of the [3:39:43 PM] garage, they turn right, south on red river, westbound fourth street, right on neches and straight out to mopac. The Hilton, the front side is on neches. With this scenario, traffic patterns will have to turn left to go on north on red river and either up to sixth street or the valet can turn left on fifth and left on a to get back. There are many hotels in downtown that have similar downtown patterns. It will be slightly longer but not out of the norm for all of the downtown hotels. I think it will be slightly longer for people exiting the Hilton garage to get westbound on mopac, but I don't think it's going to be extremely egregiously bad. We think we can adjust signal timing and create bigger gaps. There's always the alternative to hire an officer to assist with vacating the garage which the is very common in the downtown area. Our take-aways is fifth street eastbound, the two-way scenario with the one westbound line is superior to what we have out there. [Lapse in audio] Eastbound impacted delay. Unless we are told otherwise implementing after [inaudible] Next year. >> This is transforms the parking lane. To accommodate or make that neutral. We think we can reconfigure the parking around the blocks and make this a neutral [3:41:44 PM] impact. We're not taking a lane, just converting parking and replacing it on the side blocks. >> Kitchen: Is there a cost involved? >> Yes. >> Kitchen: What is the cost involved? >> We have to fix the signals on fifth because currently there are only traffic headed eastbound, the east side. Gosh, I think we had -- I don't remember the impact figures. [Inaudible]. >> This is not a capital project. It's a fairly low cost, paint and signals. So we think we can accommodate this within our operating budget. We will be -- we are working with cap metro to bring an Ila forward to council with regards to the station. Assuming that goes forward, direction to the city manager would be incorporated in that Ila so you all would be able to give your blessing. If that does not go forward, we actually can do this within the authority of the city traffic manager or city traffic engineer, but we would certainly take direction from you all if you chose to give policy direction. But certainly this is something we do on a Normal basis. We turned brazos two- way. There is a public process [inaudible] >> Kitchen: Okay. Any questions? Thank you very much. I do have one question. [Lapse in audio] [3:44:15 PM] >> Kitchen: Okay. Go ahead. >> Zimmerman: Come forward with hearings or -- [inaudible]. >> At the benefit of circle of congestion. It seems that we try to reduce that congestion. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Our next item is item 6, which is staff briefing on the transportation congestion action plan goals and progress. >> Good afternoon. [Inaudible] Director transportation department. [Inaudible] So spring of [inaudible] A press conference was held by councilmember kitchen and also city manager call to action. And relative improvements via -- [inaudible]. 21 action items. Part of our Normal ongoing business. [3:46:27 PM] Started back spring was [inaudible]. Increase enforcement. And the results, the outcome of that is what we found is when the police are there, especially in downtown areas where we have closer signal spacing and more traffic, that we reduced the number of blockages of intersection from about 32% of the time to about 16% during peak period. The work on this -- we'll continue to put up signs. To indicate open and close a lane. So -- email goes out to our transportation and capital metro to take action to reroute around the closures. [3:48:56 PM] Since the beginning of April of 2015. So we expect that that results in 5 to 10% reduction in delay. I think it's priceless the amount of frustration having to stop when there's no cars on the side street. >> Kitchen: Let me just ask a question. On those traffic detection, is that all over the city? >> Yes. It's commonly all over the city. Downtown we don't have as much detection. We run those fixed time. But we do have detection probably 75 to 80% of our signals and we have about 1,000 signals. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> To alleviate congestion, planning is a big part of that -- >> Kitchen: Let me ask a question. The 25% we don't have it at is that a resource issue or not appropriate? >> It's not appropriate. Anyplace we have detection we'll put it in because it improves efficiency. So the [inaudible] Actually the last update was done in 1995 by the predecessor plan. Austin metropolitan area what's being formed here and bring together multimodal planning. Asap. And I did -- addressed demand and add capacity as well. So we're going to be starting -- the planning process, engagement process [inaudible]. Where we've been getting the [3:50:58 PM] word out -- public information if a great job getting the word out there so folks we're hearing a lot of feedback. One of the other things we're doing is trying to keep traffic moving. When I talk about that, a number of places around town, the left turns stop in a through lane. They cause the through traffic to back up behind them and cause congestion. And so this is an example of a project we recently implemented in September of this year. If you are coming in in the mornings on Cesar Chavez eastbound, mopac is off to the left. We used to have left turns off the through lane through Sandra murida. What we've done is eliminated that left turn and actually relocated them so the new signal that's at Seaholm, there's a left turn bay there so we pull those left turns out of the through lane so now the through traffic is not impacted. And we can also bring up a protected left turn signal for those left turners. We estimate, and then doing modeling like Leah mentioned earlier, we estimated a 20% reduction in days in the morning due to this change. We'll continue to look for opportunities to eliminate movements like this and get the left turns out of the through lanes around town. Also ones that you are very well aware of, we're looking at a number of activities to improve safety. We have the top five crash locations. This is one of them at mlk. And I-35. When crashes occur they also impact mobility. Our traffic engineering group, they are taking the lead along [3:52:59 PM] with active transportation management to look at improvements at these five intersections. Some of these improvements were made as soon as we receive funning in fy 16 at manchaca and slaughter. We continue to work with most of these improvements, the high crash locations on txdot facilities we're working with them to make changes there. The changes should be -- excuse me. The changes should be done in the spring of 2017 at all five locations is what we're shooting for now. We've also this past year have added some new staff to focus on traffic safety. We are now very proud to say Frances Riley is part of our department and helping us with program side of active transportation. We also have a couple engineers that are superb that are helping with analysis and solutions. Reducing construction impacts on mobility. It was probably about a year ago I was driving from U.T. Through downtown and I noticed there were -- I counted 36 cranes in downtown. A lot of that development right-of-way where we have to have lane closures. That leads to increased delays, also frustration for some travelers. So [inaudible] Management division implemented policy, they would not -- only one project in a [inaudible] Segment. And again, they are still working [3:55:04 PM] the we have over 150 events downtown each year. Combine that with cip projects like the Colorado street project. Construction projects that are on the side there as well as other projects and that leads to a lot of congestion, a lot of frustration for folks coming down for those events and trying to figure out how to get through Austin. We continue to work with those. People who do -- event promoters to come to us and want to have an event are Austin center for events, they work very closely with them to find another spot. In Austin. Activate our transportation management center. Previously our transportation management center was primarily focused on maintenance activities. We receive about 1,000 311 requests every month. They were working on getting information out to the techs in the field to address problems that come in. It was just an untapped asset that we could use to actively manage the arterial streets. So in may of 2016 we hired a consultant to manage and staff the TMC. Had not -- not only did it - - it's unlocking the value of the TMC, as interim St. Louis cardinals we -- we put our signal engineers to help with active management. Now that we have a consultant on board, we have some additional skills and really focused on actively managing the roas, but they are also now doing signal timing work on the weekends as well. Just ramping that up. We'll see how well that goes. But we're able to time more signals and we see this past year we're at about 10 to 15% reduction in travel times by signal and timing efforts. We'll have results within the next couple weeks so we're unlocking value there too. [3:57:09 PM] We have a video. If you could play that a couple times while I'm speaking, I would appreciate it. On southbound Lamar, Friday, worst time, P.M. Peak. A water main broke. You can see the water bubbling up in front of the officer's car. Our TMC was notified. They put out information on our dynamic message signs, put out information through social media. And if there was an opportunity to adjust the signal timing to reduce the backup, they did make changes as well. So just a good example. Thank you. Let's see. So one of the other things we do to help address congestion is we're continually working with supporting our partners. Basically Austin is all in in trying to address congestion. Txdot, ctrma, capital metro. We work with a number of them on a regular basis to provide technical reviews of their plans like for I-35, south mopac, north mopac managed lanes, loop 360, 620, U.S. 183, connections 2025 with capital metro. So we continue to coordinate with them. We also have developed -- I want to say it was maybe a little before the traffic congestion action plan, but the transit working group under the leadership of Eric to identify bottlenecks because they are really a customer of us. To provide their service they have to drive on the city streets. What can we do to improve that service for them and for their citizens, our citizens? And so one of the things we've done, probably the most notable is the queue jump on northbound lavaca on mlk. >> So one of the things downtown we have mentioned with a number of these initiatives, we have a lot of congestion downtown and we see that every morning and afternoon. We enjoy it. It's nice to be downtown once you can get here. [3:59:12 PM] The city manager back in April of 2015 as part of the traffic congestion action plan, he directed all city departments to make sure that people that were driving alone were driving outside the peak period. We went through the survey process and found we achieved 33% so we exceeded that goal. The transportation department is looking at things we can do, go to basically 2.0 and go with a new plan in 2017. >> Kitchen: Are we tracking that or is that a one time, we checked it once and it was 25 percent or 20 percent? >> We're tracking it. I can get you the information on the snapshots if you need that. >> Kitchen: Yeah. >> So some of the things that are in progress, recently with the budget passing we do have funds now for safety and mobility enforcement program. It's really a mobility unit. There is a need for some -- there's some safety issues out there. There's still some folks blocking the transactions and impeding mobility. I need to change that behavior to improve safety and congestion and enforcement is a good mechanism or tool to do that and change those behaviors. However, A.P.D. Is stretched pretty thin and when they're working traffic enforcement, if there's a 911 call they will leave traffic enforcement and go and address that call and that's rightfully so. But now we have funds in our budget, we're developing the details of the program right now. That will probably evolve over time, but it will have an enforcement component as well as an education component. >> Kitchen: This is the safety and enforcement mobility you're talking about? >> Yes. Some of the things we plan them to do is don't block [4:01:13 PM] the box enforcement initiatives. Also a need to do some enforcement at pedestrian hybrid beacons with cars running those lights. Speeding could be part of that. There's a number of different things. We're putting together the details of that and we'll coordinate diplomacily with A.P.D. To bring on off-duty officers that won't be pulled away on 911 calls. Adaptive signal control. I think a number of you are well aware of the projects we have going on there. We have four pilots. We're really focused right now on south Lamar. We expect to see from adaptive signal control about five to 10 percent reduction in delays. That is likely not going to be during the peak periods, though, becauseburg the peak the pipes are full, there's really not much more -- if we move the time around from two approaches for green time that means we're giving red time more time to another approach. So with adaptive signal control we're looking at really the shoulders of the peaks. Can we transition better? With adaptive signal it looks at traffic conditions. That's the shoulders of the peak where change is going on. Weekends with all these events that I happened earlier happening. There's changes there. And incident that occurs on mopac where rob, our director has presentationed this a number of times. We see traffic go from mopac to south Lamar. So to have the signal timing strategy and to reduce travel times for our motoring public. We hope to have relative humidities from the south Lamar -- results from the south Lamar study. The center for transportation research at university of Texas is involved in helping with evaluation. Our contractor is involved with helping fine tuning and working with our staff, fine tuning it. We're actually going through an iterative process to get to an optimal implementation. [4:03:13 PM] Another is north burnet from 183 to mopac. Loop 360 down to Westlake and also I-35 from mlk to oltorf. As part of the quarter cent, both councilmember troxclair and Gallo had asked for adaptive deployments in their distribution as well that we'll be working on this as well next year. Emergency vehicle prescription, we're excited about all these projects and this is one that we can take to a new level and be a leader. Like let me say it that way. We're already a leader in a lot of ways. What we can do is improve response times, but also improve the safety of those vehicles as they go through an intersection on red. The equipment works as there's an emitter on the emergency vehicle. The receiver that's at the intersection has to see that to there's line of sight that we need to maintain, which means they may not have a lot of time, like if they turn a corner 300 feet there's a signal. The signal may not know that they're approaching so there may be delays to getting the emergency vehicle through there. We're looking at approaching this and what's unique in a lot of ways, right now we've been coordinating with the Austin fire department and what -- when they are dispatched from their station to an incident, they are actually given a route that they must take. And so what we're going to be doing is we know the Austin fire department can give us the location of the vehicle, they can give us that route. We want to bring that in to our advance the transportation management system, our signal system. And now use that to know the route, know where the vehicle is. We can turn those signals green well -- much earlier before the vehicle gets there, get the traffic cleared out and with the intention of reducing response times and also increasing safety. We did after the smart cities [4:05:13 PM] announcement we did submit another grant to the U.S. D.O.T. And it's about a three and a half-million- dollar project and half the funding would are come locally and half from federal funds. We hope to hear about that later this month. >> Kitchen: Is that automated in a way or is it a person who has to make the -- >> There's a couple of -- yes, it's automated. It's automated. The other really -- the thing that we like especially is not having to put out additional equipment in the field to do this. This is all basically wireless. And so we don't have to maintain equipment. We don't have to deploy equipment. And so we like that just from the cost savings and making sure the system will be more reliable. >> Kitchen: So basically you're feeding the route data to your signal management. >> Exactly. That's exactly right. Then the last one is what's happening here in downtown is this wayfinding project. We're going to be deploying signs, and this is through our parking enterprise and working with some other departments, but we're going to be deploying signs on the city hall garage and also on the Seaholm garage that will indicate how many spaces are available in the garage. We'll also put those signs out on the streets to guide motorists to those garages. What we find nationally is about 30% of the traffic in downtown is circulating and adding to the congestion, just to find a parking space. So this pilot will help to start alleviate that congestion and then we'll build on it from here. That's it. Thank you for your time. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. Any more questions? Any other questions? Thank you. Okay. Next we'll take item number 7, which is a briefing on the 2016 mobility project, updating on those initiatives. And a review of the 2017 projects. >> Hi, good afternoon. My name is Annie van zandt, the public works capital program manager. And also presenting [4:07:14 PM] today is anik Boday, the project manager. We're here to give you an update on city of Austin related projects and initiatives for the projects we're going to discuss those that have been recently completed, those that are currently under construction and projects that are about to be in construction. So first we will start off with quarter-cent project accomplishments. As you all know, you selected and identified quarter-cent projects for your districts, $1.9 million for each district, and that list was approved in January of this year. We have completed several projects and also related to this yesterday afternoon we dropped off with all of your offices 11 by 17 maps and then project lists and they include all of the quarter-cent projects for your districts. And it has the construction dates and the current statuses of those projects. >> Kitchen: I want to thank you for the map. It's a wonderful map. It's got a very easy way to show folks in the district what's happening. So thank you very much. I know it was a lot of work to put those together. >> Thank you. The updates to those maps we are going to be moving these maps online to a public internet or to the public website, rather, so that anybody can access that information. So for quarter cent -- also related to those maps we will be setting up meetings with all of you this month, atd and public works staff, to review those projects and discuss any details about specific projects. So the projects that are missing, accomplishments, we have several with sidewalks, active transportation, there's a cycle track installed in district 5, [4:09:16 PM] intersection improvement in district 6. We also had certainly signage improvements in district 10 that are complete. We have non-quarter-cent project accomplishments, including local area traffic management, neighborhood partnering program projects, some bridge repairs. We have a go smart Austin, which is a safety and educational campaign for middle school students on how to safely walk and bike to school. We have the Todd lane reconstruction and utility adjustment that was completed earlier this year and we had a ribbon cutting last month, and this was Austin's first green roads project. And it was a silver certified project. We have completed over 360 lane miles of street resurfacing and 120 lane miles of street overlays so these are some of the major overlays that we have completed this year. There have also been several new traffic signals around town, pedestrian hybrid beacon at Connally high school. There was a street refacing and safety improvement on lake Austin boulevard outside of the Austin transportation department office or the main office, and you can see the photo of the crosswalk right there to help increase safety. There's also the smart trips program, which was piloted in the rundberg area, and that has been completed. We have a lot of sidewalk projects around town that have been completed. We have two main contracts right now, group 17 is wrapping up. Group 18 started earlier this year, so we have many projects still related to group 18. And you can see a before and after photo of Dean Keeton. This is just east of red [4:11:18 PM] river, to show you an example of one of the sidewalk projects. And I'll kick it over to anik. >> Thank you. I'll go over projects that are in construction. Annie just went over completed projects since we were just here in March of 2016 on mobility projects and initiatives. I'll go through projects to start construction in the fall and an update on the Austin strategic mobility plan that Jim mentioned in his presentation. Projects in construction include the Sabine promenade downtown. The Rio grande reconstruction. Phase four of the third street reconstruction downtown. Neighborhood partnering project specific to Hancock lane here the mopac bridge. Multiple A.D.A. And sidewalk projects starting, group 17 and group 18. Country club creek trail phase 1 and bridge repairs on Fairfield drive. We have multiple signals, ped hybrid beacon that I believe is going to go on October 17th. Is that right? >> Early only. >> That's almost done, but we're putting it under construction. Rutland west of Lamar. We're proud to say that our intersection safety improvements are underway at the locations listed there as well as three citywide onstreet bicycle facilities implementing our bicycle master plan. We also have a major intersection improvement project under construction in the east Riverside corridor. It's looking at multimodal improvements as well as water quality features. We also have txdot who started construction on southbound I-35 at east 51st street. [4:13:19 PM] A roundabout that's realigning the southbound frontage road as well as improvements to bicycle and pedestrian facilities. And according to txdot and their information, that's looking at completion in 2019. Projects to start in the fall are numerous, stuff is getting done, stuff in progress and things done in the fall. A neighborhooding program related to the quail creek painted bridges and sidewalk improvements. The Lamar and burnet road corridor improvements are going to get underway as well as an intersection safety improvement at west slaughter and manchaca road. Several bridge repairs, capital renewal projects, and then several local area traffic management projects, viewpoint drive, a roundabout at several streets. >> Professor: Now to update on mobility related initiatives. Of course we have been doing mobility bond development over the last several months and that's ongoing. We have two major projects related to improvements to implementation strategies through our land development code and other avenues such as using street impact fees. So we do have to mention this as well. We have our contract in place for looking at a street impact fee ordinance and we're well underway in doing the required local government code studies required to bring an ordinance for consideration to council. We're looking at about 15 months to 18 months process for that and we'll expedite it to the extent that we can. The sidewalk master plan was completed and brought to council since we were last year in March, and as Jim mentioned the strategy mobility plan contract was just signed last week and again that's a [4:15:19 PM] 15-month process for the scope. We'll take the time we need and we'll allow time and flexibility as needed to pivot and make sure that process is done correctly and thoroughly. We will be coming to the mobility committee with quarterly updates on that project so we will come in January. We'll have more to report. We're working on the public engagement plan is the first order of business as well as just work plan protocols as far as communication of what's happening in the next month. We will also be putting together the project advisory committee and working with the city manager's office to get input from council on members of that committee. Lastly. The codenext mobility prescription paper was completed and we have a briefing for you later on the agenda on that. And we've been working hard on draft code language not only to working with the planning department on the zoning chapter 2 of the code, but also working on the transportation section very hard and looking at tdm requirements and other requirements. So that's the end of the mobility-related initiatives and we're happy to take any questions that you all might have. >> Kitchen: Any other questions? Thank you all very much. So I'm going to go back on the agenda now to item number 3. Councilmember Gallo let me -- asked me to let you all know she's not going to be here. Her mother had an emergency and ended up in the hospital. She's okay, but it's something that she needs to take care of obviously. So we're going to go back to the beginning of the agenda and go back to item number 3. That relates to fleet electrification. This one is posted for briefing and possible action. So these are recommendations to us in response to aeration that the council passed -- a resolution that the council passed asking for a plan related to fleet electrification. [4:17:22 PM] So I believe that the presentation is to provide those recommendations and if the committee chooses we can take action to move them forward. So let's go to that item. Do we have a person here to present? We'll go ahead and take the presentation. I think we have maybe one person to testify, but let's listen to the presentation first. Okay. >> Good afternoon. I'm Jennifer walls and I'm the deputy fleet officer and I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves. >> Good afternoon, Carl Popham, manager of electric vehicles and emerging technologies with Austin energy. >> And I'm Zach bower with the office of stem building. >> Okay. So I guess we're here in response to the council resolution asking us to satisfies the feasibility of adding additional electric vehicles to the city fleet. I got it. I apologize for that. So some of the factors we looked at in doing this analysis were in compliance with what the resolution called for was to evaluate the short and long-term cost savings, analyze the return on investment options, determine the impacts and benefits to Austin energy and identifying electrification targets to achieve carbon neutral fleet. Before we begin going in-depth on the study that we did, I'd like to kind of give you an overview of the composition of our fleet so that you can better understand why we targeted certain areas and the strategy that we kind of took on in coming up with our recommendations. So if you can see the slide here before you, we have a very diverse [4:19:23 PM] and complex fleet. We have about 62, 6300 vehicles. In the past based on our 2007 resolution, most of our focus was on alternative fuels. So to date 78% of our fleet is alternative fuel hybrid capable. What that means is we issue a little over five million gallons of fuel each year and about 59% of that is alternative fuels, meaning b-20, propane, cng and ethanol. But for purposes of this study -- and we haven't had a lot of opportunity in the electric field because of the available technology on the market that met the service duty needs of a public service application. So now that a lot more electric vehicles are on the market, we're starting to encompass those kinds of vehicles more into the fleet. What this slide is designed to tell you is in the larger light blue section that's the area we targeted for this new technology that's coming on the market so most of the information that you're going to hear later on is targeted in the light duty vehicle section. >> Kitchen: Can I ask a question about that? So in that section the light duty cars, this is divided by the type of car, right, not the department? >> Yes. >> Kitchen: So over in fire and E.M.S. -- >> That would be apparatus, ambulances and fire trucks. So these are the four recommendations that we had. To add 330 plug-in electric vehicles by 2030, to expand city fleet charging stations from 33 to 330 by 2020. To fund electric vehicle acquisitions by the execution of municipal leases, ie lease to own. And to fund charging infrastructure through an interdepartmental fuel surcharge. [4:21:24 PM] I believe Zach will take over from here. >> Yes. We're going to get over to why we're recommending these things. A little bit of electric vehicles, the technology, the benefits, Carl and I will talk about that. First thing, economic benefits of plug-in electric vehicles, the first thing is lower lifestyle cost and vehicles. When you factor in the upfront cost of the vehicle, maintenance, fuel, tires, everything that goes into maintaining a vehicle, if you have a sedan, like a Ford focus sedan, it is cheaper to own and operate an electric vehicle over the life cycle than a gas vehicle. And that's not just through our recommendations, but through other organizations. The other is it really supports local economy by purchasing kilowatt hours from Austin energy. Every gallon of diesel and gasoline that we buy is going to a fuel company that is not based in Austin. All that money is directed back to Austin energy which is a positive for the community. And finally what the chart is showing here is reducing fuel price while it's utility risk. As we all know, gasoline prices are all over the place. They're two dollars, four dollars, five dollars. They're affected by international issues and lots of things. But the price of utility is a relatively stable thing. And over the last decade electricity prices are basically flat. There are slight increases, but most of it is flat over the years. When you have vehicles that are fueled by electricity you don't have to worry about the price of fuel fluctuating and going all over the plates, which is a benefit to -- all over the place, which is a benefit to the city. >>> And additional benefits beyond economics. This is a win economically for the city, but it also supports numerous other things that the city is trying to do. So we have a goal of net zero community-wide gas emissions by 2050. One of the major ways that we will get there is through renewable energy to provide energy through the power grid, [4:23:24 PM] but also renewable energy to power electric vehicles, using fossil fuels for gasoline and diesel is -- creates greenhouse gas emissions and if we're getting the emissions down over time we went have a million vehicles running in the community. It although demonstrates leadership to our keys and the community. Electric vehicles are growing fast. It supports reducing -- it supports reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing air quality pollutants and being a leader in demonstrating that and showing community that the city is supporting this, helping our employees learn about electric vehicles goes a long way to technology adoption and getting us to ramp up large amounts of vehicles in the community. And the next one is fleet diversification. As you saw from the chart of vehicles, having a diverse set of vehicles in the fleet is important because when disasters happen, when technology changes, it's important to be reliant on lots of different types of vehicles and technologies. And then finally, fuel Independence. That connects back to that economics, but fuel Independence and getting off of foreign oil and it's just a benefit overall to our community, the state and the world. >> Really what I'm going to cover is some of the specific technologies that are being evaluated and they've come a long way even in the last few years. So the vehicles themselves, so really the assessment is dealing with plug-in electric vehicles, technology, but there's two types. There's the all battery, so the most common vehicle is the leaf and you plug it in and all its miles is from an electric charge. And then you have the plug-in hybrid, which has the predominant mileage is upfront electric charge, but it has a gas engine that [4:25:27 PM] will run as well as the electricity. As far as a charging structure, we're comfortable with all three of these levels of charging structure. Austin energy over the last few years as deployed over 250 charging stations. The focus for the complete is that level tier. The level two is the most popular application for fleet and we are taking advantage of a new type of hardware and software that specifically targets fleet 96 so it's lower cost on the hardware, but more additional metrics and reporting on the software to kind of target fleet operators. With that said, we're also proposing that each of these city owned plug-in electric vehicles have access to the charging network and that includes more DC fast charging which charges in minutes, not hours. And we're also looking at opportunities to go the complete opposite end of where it makes sense to what is basically a typical wall outlet where that makes sense. Where the overall goal of reducing cost and being as efficient as possible. >> So we did our assessment, we submitted a great deal of data to vulcan and they did a rapid fleet assessment and it came up with the opportunity to -- they identified areas and vehicles in the fleet that gave us the best opportunity to transition to electrification. We have over 4200 onroad vehicles, but that does include vehicles, large trucks and stuff like that. The light duty section was the 2000. Out of that 2000 they identified a thousand vehicles potentially that could go to electric. And then after doing additional analysis and I guess in terms that I could say, like if you needed a pickup truck, you need the the pickup truck, so sometimes the light duty vehicles are eliminated due to their service duty application. [4:27:28 PM] So out of that 2,000 we went to a thousand and from that thousand went down to 326 vehicles that would fit the vehicles that are out there available that are electric that can fit that service duty, ie does it need a pickup bed to carry things? Do you understand what I'm saying? Okay. So based on that, the things they looked at was the older vehicles in the fleet, low daily mileage, high lifetime mileage vehicles and the expensive to operate SUVs and minivans. They identified 326 traffic management in a and fleet took another look at their data and added another four. So altogether we identified 72 plug-in hybrids and 258 pure battery electric vehicles that would fit what the city needs. >> Kitchen: Okay. If you're going to get to this, I'd like to understand -- that's 330 out of a thousand. That's actually 330 out of the -- the total is much larger than that when you count the other kinds, but it's 330 out of a thousand that were in the -- that light blue area on the pie chart that you showed. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. So I'd like to understand better the ones that fell out of that. So I'm seeing the criteria for the 330, I guess, right, the older vehicles, the low daily mileage vehicles and that sort of thing. So why were the rest of them left out? >> So it's -- I guess what I'm saying is you can have a light duty vehicle that is -- a pickup truck is considered a light duty vehicle. Well, there's some service applications in the city that require a pickup truck. >> Kitchen: Right. >> And we're not going to be able to change that. There's not an electric pickup truck. So we had to start eliminating from that [4:29:29 PM] blue section based upon operational need of the departments to carry out their mission so that's how the numbers started dwindling down. And from there not every vehicle was at a certain stage in its life that it made economic sense to replace it. It would call for early replacement. So the ones that you see here, the 326, are actual ones that are in their life cycle ready to be replaced that fit the application, the service application, that the city needs. So that's how that number starts to dwindle down. >> Kitchen: Okay. It would be helpful to have more information maybe as backup that you could provide us because I would like to understand -- I understand what you're saying about the trucks, for example, because those are vehicles that wouldn't -- you wouldn't have an opportunity for an electric vehicle at this point in time. But the life cycle of the vehicles, I'd like to understand the numbers that you use for analysis. So you don't have to tell me all that now, but if you could provide that, that would help me understand what -- >> We can provide the details, but I think it's kind of based upon -- I think it was 55 cents a mile or 55 cents a mile for life cycle cost was kind of the threshold. And the vehicles that exceeded that were ones that were -- it didn't -- it made economic sense to go to the electrification whereas other ones if they hadn't met that, then it didn't make sense. It's kind of complicated. >> Kitchen: Okay, I'm not following. Does somebody else have a question? >> Garza: I mean, do you mean if we parked just a brand new vehicle that has low gas mileage so it's not replacing it because -- we've spent a bunch of money and it gets good gas mileage so there's no point in replacing it with an electric. >> Yes. To stop in the middle of its life and purchase a new one, that additional capital cost would negate any savings that the electric side would save us because you just [4:31:29 PM] expended 30,000 for the new vehicle before it reached its section of its life cycle. >> Garza: Does the city have an option when we purchase these, we can't sell those back or once we've purchased them their hours and -- >> Their ours. We do -- we list our older vehicles that have met their life on done deals. We get the funds on that. >> Garza: It would not make economic sense to sell a lower, more -- not energy efficient. Gas mileage efficient car, sell it back and replace it with an electric vehicle? It would just be like a neutral cost savings? >> We'd have to look into the numbers on that. When we're talking about life cycle costs, we aren't just talking about the purchase price. We're talking about the maintenance and the fuel and the depreciation and that's all computed into what it costs us. >> Kitchen: Councilmember? >> Zimmerman: So you have about six or seven pages left. Maybe' I'll just let you get done and then circle back. >> Kitchen: Okay. So just to finish my thought, I would like to see the backup so that I can understand the numbers that we didn't include. And I can see better the reasoning behind that. Okay. And related to that, just one last question and then we'll let you finish. The plug-in versus the battery electric vehicles, what was the criteria for deciding between those? >> On the plug-in, it was I believe anything that is -- was in -- that went in excess of 8,000 miles per year and anything below that was battery. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So this next slide kind of goes over the life cycle cost information that we were talking about. What we did, this is based over 10 years, the savings would be [4:33:29 PM] 3.5 million, not each year. I didn't know -- I wanted to clarify that. So we started out, we were pretty conservative on the vehicle purchase costs where we made them even because there's a lot of assumptions that vehicle is the incremental cost is higher on the purchase of electric vehicle. But the methodology that we're using to do the muni lease allows us to take advantage of federal tax credit that was significantly lower, up to $7,500. But for purposes of this display we left them equal. So we took into consideration the lifetime maintenance cost. What we found is that the maintenance cost on these types of vehicles is anywhere between 40 and 60% lower than a regular vehicle. So there's savings there. The fuel cost, of course, if you're pure battery there's no fuel cost except associated with the electric. And then on the plug-in hybrid they use gas when in the gas mode so we have significant savings there. Infrastructure development, we would of course have to expend money to build these new charging stations so that was a cost of increase on the electric side. And then auction proceeds, we did an estimate on the vehicles that we identified, the 330, what the return would be on those after we -- after we sell those off. So we looked at about 1.4 million over the 33 vehicles. And of course then you come up with the difference is about three and a half million dollars over 10 years. Looking at our plan, the goal for the 330 hybrids is 35 in 2017, 99 in 2018, 95 in 2019 and 101 in 2020. Like I said, we did this municipal lease to own that allows us to spread the cost over three years so it's less impact to the budget. Where traditionally we'd be issued debtor we've paid cash for vehicles so this allows us to kind of flat line that. Like I said, in taking advantage of the [4:35:29 PM] 7,500-dollar -- up to 7,500-dollar tax credit would mitigate that incremental cost and possibly the finance cost on the lease because we're finding just in our initial research that the cost is much lower than a traditional vehicle. >> And the last bullet there they avoid many, many tons of greenhouse gas emissions, voc's that contribute to poor air quality. That's because electric vehicles don't have a tail pipe and they're charging them using our Austin energy electricity, which is getting cleaner and cleaner and they're being charged on green choice, which is 100 percent renewable energy. >> Zimmerman: Before we go on can we come back. Did anybody bother to see on your last bullet point with the metric tons of co 2, nitrous oxides and vocs, how much was that was produced in the power? You have pretty serious losses of electricity as you pump them through power lines and you have more losses when you convert them into the power that eventually goes in the battery. The battery has additional losses. Did anybody do some calculations on that? Because, you know, I've seen some stuff and this can get complicated. But you could actually be producing more co 2, nitrous oxides and vocs with the production of the electricity and the production of batteries, you might actually have a net increase in what you're trying to decrease. That's why I'm making this point. Did anybody look at this. I see there's no data here. >> Councilmember, I can answer that a bit. One is we looked at external reports, but specifically our partner rocky mountain institute has published on that and the union of concerned scientists and trying to compare apples [4:37:29 PM] to apples and we do have a significant net gain. How Austin has really shown the leadership position is being you're already a green choice member you're already backing up 100% of your electricity now to include your fueling of these vehicles with the green choice program, which is a Texas wind renewable credits program. So we think that we're able to demonstrate a really leadership role in that. And then when you also look at the conversions that are made for miles per gallon equivalent it takes those different factors into effect. And there's a supply chain with electricity to your point, but there's also a supply chain with the fueling truck and depots and barges and those kinds of things. So comparing apples so apples once again, most of the reports we looked at are favorable for electricity, but Austin is doubling down with the green choice program and some of the specifics of our recommendations. >> Zimmerman: Okay. That's a lot of interesting information, but really doesn't answer the question. Because we have anker rot question and everybody pumps power into ercot. We pull it off of ercot. So if you want to talk about apples to apples, -- there's no way to do it really. But it looked like what you put down here is just the savings of the vehicles, direct savings of vehicles themselves with no account for the losses that we have producing the electricity. So that data is available, just not here. >> Kitchen: Okay. Did you have a question? >> Okay. Keep going. >> So this is just another chart kind of outlining how the cash flow of that 3.5 million flows. So what you can gather from this is the blue line being the electric vehicle and the Orange -- the traditional vehicle you see your savings in your first few years and then you start to see the electric cost more than the goods, but that's due to the municipal leasing over the year. That's purely the purchase price. And then you kind of [4:39:30 PM] level out over the next years where electric option is much cheaper than the gasoline. >> So our kind of plan is we have currently 33 charging stations on city property. We want to add another 100 stations by 2018. This would be across 10 departments and 15 building locations and they would all be level two charging. So the rollout process would be to install the charging stations, train city staff, place vehicles into service and evaluate the performance. So here's some of the resolution from the committees that we met with and the feedback we got from them. Urban transportation we had positive feedback. Utility commissions, just questions related to green choice and the impact to ae. Environmental commission, they he wanted the -- the benefits to air quality. And then the joint sustainability committee that would be the person that was here earlier expressed concern about the increase, actually doing more. >> Kitchen: Can you speak -- we have some questions, I know, but we have a couple of speakers. Are you okay if we take the speakers first. We'll come back to you with questions. We'll take our speakers first. Which will be first Dale ballia and then Irma voleton. >> Good afternoon, my name is Dale bullia and I'd like to talk about one of my interests in life, which is cleaning our wear and water. -- Our air and water. To meet the air quality [4:41:31 PM] standards we need to power cars, trucks and buses with clean electricity and all these types of vehicles will be available in the very near future. And the report released this summer called driving out pollution, how utilities can accelerate the market for electric vehicles, and I'll be glad to send you a a PDF of the report if you like. It explains how electric industry can accelerate the national ev market by helping to deploy charging stations where drivers live, work and delay, and increase public awareness of evs, their economic and environmental benefits and incentivize drivers to drive their cars at time that will bring more solar and wind into the grid. The report details how the electric industry can use spare capacity in the grid to charge our nation's vehicle fleets and how to partner with independent ev companies to access electricity as a transportation fuel and maximize cost savings for fuel. According to a recent paper published by the national academy of sciences, the share of new vehicles sold that are electric vehicles needs to grow from about one percent today to 40 percent by 2030 in order to avoid the worst impacts of global warming and climate change. This is not really an impossible task as you may have read recently, almost 400,000 people put down a thousand dollar deposit for the next generation low priced Tesla in a two-week period and drivers are expected to pack dealerships later in December when the mass market Chevy volt goes on sale. Charging of these electric vehicles predominantly during off-peak electricity hours when the electric grid is underutilized and there is plenty of spare capacity in the generation, transmission and distribution system, this allows utilities to avoid any new capital investments while capturing a lot of additional revenue and lowering the average electricity cost for all utility customers. This effect is the opposite of the often quoted death spiral for utilities whereby increasing costs borne by decreasing pool of [4:43:33 PM] customers due to distributive energy and energy efficiency programs that often cause rate increases that drive away customers, conservation actually reduces energy usage and utilities are looking for a way to pick up that slack, you may have remembered years ago when these electric co-ops got started they would finance electric clothes dryers and electric water heaters to try to increase the sale of their product. Researchers found recently that there's sufficient capacity in our nation's electric grid to power an entire light duty passenger vehicle fleet if the vehicle charging is integrated during off-peak hours. With lower power levels. [Buzzer sounds] >> Kitchen: Did you want to finish your thought? >> I think we need to move faster than the proposal. Nissan, we learned at an ev meeting last night, has a marketing plan to clear out some of their old you are vehicle models with the new 200-mile leaf coming on next year and this might be a great opportunity to get some great bargain prices and really expand our fleet quicker than we had planned. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Next we have Velma Overton. >> Thank you for your time. I think I actually signed up for the wrong topic to speak. [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: Okay. Which topic were you wanting to speak to because we could call you back for that. >> I was going to talk about driverless vehicles, of course. Driverless vehicles, that is. But you and I have some sort of a dialogue going on already, so I do appreciate you responding to the emails, but to keep on topic here with electric vehicles, I'll yield my time. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: So let's move back to questions now. If y'all want to come [4:45:33 PM] back up. >> Zimmerman: I'd like to go back to page 11 again. And so I think I am correct in that these estimates of savings of co 2 and necrose oxides and vocs are a net. They don't include the increases in manufacturing the electricity. So I think we established that. Let me go back to the lease a little bit here. So the point of the tax credits is when you're a tax exempt city government organization, right, tax credits don't work for you. So if I understand this right the vehicles would be purchased from a private corporation and the private corporation gets the tax benefits. So say if the manufacturer priced the best negotiated price was 30,000 they would pay 22,500 and then they would lease the vehicle to us based on that number. >> [Indiscernible]. >> Zimmerman: They would have a lower lease. Is the lease three years? >> Three years. We buy them for a dollar at the end of the. >> Zimmerman: At the end of the three years we have a residual value that also reflects the 7,500-dollar credit. Okay. And then we keep it for how long? >> Our light duty life cycle is at 10 years or 100,000 miles. >> A total of 10 years. So. >> I'm sorry, that's when it becomes available for an inspection. If we look at it and it's fine we will continue it three or four more years. >> Zimmerman: In the case of electric cars the thing that kill you are the batteries. So is the plan for us to -- are the cost assumptions based on we don't buy new batteries, right? >> Yes, that's currently what this is based on. >> And we don't have an obligation of disposing for the batteries because there are environmental concerns to dispose of batteries if they can't be rebuilt or repaired or regenerated. So how is that kind of factored into the environmental aspects. What happens with the [4:47:34 PM] batteries? Because somebody's got to do something. If we sell it somebody else has to do something about the batteries. >> Any battery that will be taken out of an electric car will be taken back by the manufacturer and probably prepurpose. Lithium batteries are not going into landfills. >> Zimmerman: As far as you're confident that you're not going to have additional cost from cars running out of charge because one of the issue, another issue with the battery based cars is sometimes you can't get to a charging station. The charging station is busy, the charging station is broken down and you will have accidents when you just run out of power and your vehicle is stranded because you ran out of battery for whatever reason. Are there any charges baked into this, any costs baked into this because of that? >> Well, we tried to design the vehicles that -- in our strategy we tried to select vehicles that were based on their use and where they're stored at night, overnight. Those are not vehicles that go home or anything like that. So basically we took all the vehicles and spread them out on a map and we found their homing locations and that's where we're putting the charging stations. Ideally they would fuel overnight. And these are vehicles that pure battery electric don't travel more than 8,000 miles. So -- >> Zimmerman: 8,000 miles a year? >> Yes. So ideal lie we'll explain employees to understand and recognize that and we'll also have the commercial infrastructure out there to support that as well. And we can give them access to where those are located. And the vehicles do indicate when they're running low. >> Zimmerman: So I concur with councilmember kitchen, a little bit more detail would be interesting. It's an interesting idea. I do want to see more of that data and more of the numbers. >> Sure. >> Zimmerman: Thank you for presenting this. Really interesting. >> Kitchen: I have a question related just to make sure I understand [4:49:37 PM] the question that councilmember Zimmerman was saying. So these are three year leases. So just clarify what happens at the end of the third year of the lease? >> We buy them for a dollar and they're city owned at that point and we have title and everything. >> Kitchen:. Our deal, so to speak, allows us to buy them for only a dollar. Would we also have the option to then trade them back to extend the lease or -- did you look into that? >> We could, but from a financial standpoint we would be done paying for it. It would just be maintenance and fuel and no -- >> Kitchen: I guess the question really is with the technology improving like it is, a lot of people are leasing -- at the end of that time you don't really want or need a car that's not -- doesn't have the range or isn't the latest. But I suppose that that's something that you could deal with at that time. >> Yes. Our current replacement model is getting all the economic life out of the vehicle and minimizing cost to the citizens and to the budget. Social replacement of vehicles, -- early replacement of vehicles, putting that lease cost in. Where the electric cars cost more than the gas vehicle is in the years where the lease is in effect and we start seeing most of our savings when the lease is over. >> Kitchen: I guess my question really is I guess that you will take into account improvements and technology. >> Yes, we will. >> Kitchen: And that the idea is not to be locked into older technology if that doesn't make sense? >> Absolutely. And Zach can talk more to this. The tax credits are limited. I think once the dealer sells 200,000 vehicles then that tax credit may go away. But like I said, I think our current replacement model is built to take [4:51:38 PM] on new technologies because every year vehicles hit the target for replacement and what we do is look at what's on the market. You will have a diverse group of vehicles at this technology and maybe in three years or next year a new technology comes out and the light duty vehicles are replaced with that new technology. So it's a constantly moving type target. >> Okay. So then my other question relates to -- let's see. You had -- we had recommendations from the sustainability committee, I think. Could you guys speak to what they're recommending and how that relates to your recommendation? >> E yeah. They basically recommended that instead of 330 they recommended 25% of the total fleet, which 25% of 6,000 is 1500 instead of 330. So it's a lot more electric vehicles. I mean, I think the -- in our discussions about it, like prior to this meeting, were some of the challenges are related to the technology that's available because we have a lot of pickup trucks, we have -- in our fleet a lot of vehicle options simply don't exist right now. So ramping that up quickly with technology that we don't really know is available yet is going to be a challenge. As the technology is also changing really fast. The other thing is in rolling out these vehicles and getting employees accustomed to charging the vehicles, getting the charging stations rolled out, it would be a big effort to get people engaged in this and doing it correctly and making sure that it's successful. >> It's not that hard. I drive an electric vehicle. Trust me, it's not that hard. But anyway, go ahead. >> So do I. But when we're talking about this many city facilities, this many charging stations, it's a lot. So what we're I think -- our thoughts on the recommendation were that in these first couple of years it's important to do it right and do it slowly. And as the technology [4:53:39 PM] changes, as people get used to it, as we get further adoption in the community, ramping up to the thousands is going to be very doable and cost effective. But it might -- >> To what he said, what we've proposed here is the minimum. As vehicles are driving on the street, putting miles on, they're hitting the replacement targets. So in any one year it could be more. Depending upon -- if we talked to that department and say this is eligible, can you downgrade? These are all conversations that happen during the replacement process. So the 330 we could identify right now but as we move forward we may be able to grow and expand that number. >> I think, councilmember, it's important to note that the methodology is a very respected third-party. I know both of y'all worked with electrification coalition in the smart cities grant, so they're already Progressive and pushing the limit probably anyway, but they have barriers of technology today, what makes sense today and the methodology also includes the natural fleet life cycle. Those are probably the two key barriers to consider, but with that said staff is proposing even slightly above the electrification coalition. I think it's a fairly aggressive goal, but it also takes into account a pretty respective methodology that was followed. >> Kitchen: Do we have over questions? >> Zimmerman: One more. Since we were talking about some specifics to understand what we're talking about, the Nissan leaf, I think they're latest warranty is 8 years and 100,000 miles, whichever comes first. Do they have some other caveats? I know there are sensors all over these modern vehicles. And if you leave your vehicle where it's 120 degrees fahrenheit or more for a certain number of days the manufacturer can come back and say you kept it in a place that's too hot and now the battery has failed and we're not going to respect that? [4:55:39 PM] Is there any of that built into your model? >> I'm not aware of any of the specifics, councilmember Zimmerman, but the one I do know that could be a concern that most manufacturers have signed off to is that you cannot artificially charge and discharge your vehicle while it's stationary because that increases the cycles of the battery life. Most vehicles are generally around a 3200 -- Nissan has announced with their newest generation that they will allow that without voiding the warranty. That's one caveat that I know Nissan has taken a leadership role with discharging the batteries. >> Zimmerman: There's some other stuff too. With the technology they don't want you recharging your vehicles if they're 80% charged, right? They tell you not to plug them in and top them off? There's some other complexities. It's not as simple as it seems. I guess that's my point. >> Okay. Any other further questions? Okay. This is coming to us as a recommendation. We can take action on it if we choose. Do anyone want to make a motion? >> Garza: I move that we forward the recommendation to the full council. >> Okay. I'll second that. I'll just make the caveat that I -- I want to continue to explore-- I understand what you're saying and you you believe you're moving as expeditiously as possible so when we get to council maybe we could have some conversation about building into the process the ability to move more quickly if it's appropriate. So any discussion of the motion? So the motion is to move forward the recommendations to the full council. Right, with the recommendation that they pass? All those in favor? All opposed? Okay. It passes two to one. Thank you very much. Okay. Now we're going to move [4:57:39 PM] on to item number 4, which is the staff briefing on the transportation policy issues and the mobility code prescription paper. And to set the stage for this, I just want to say that we've -- as a council we've started to have some conversations about the land development code and we're not at the point that we're going to be voting on it. But that point will be to us before we know it. We're talking about the -- as I think was mentioned earlier, there's already discussions about language changes to the land development code happening. So the reason that we brought this forward today is so that we could start to identify very clearly what are the code changes related to mobility that are being proposed for the land development code? Because these are the code changes that impact changes in policy. And these are the items that the council will have to make decisions on when we ultimately end up voting on the code, with of course much public input from the public. And so from my perspective, I wanted to start that discussion so that we're real clear on what these recommendations are and which ones are in the code and what our range, what our range of possibilities are in terms of making these kinds of changes or not. We need to understand there are policy changes. We need to understand the impacts of them and then it will be council's responsibility to weigh in on them and ultimately vote on it. So from my perspective, I so from my perspective so from my perspective, I want to know what the lift of these changes are. It's all interconnected, it's [4:59:40 PM] complicated, but ultimately it comes down to the changes we are making. And I think of it in terms of the land development code is about what we can build, where, and that impacts our traffic and our road infrastructure and all of that. And what we can build, where in the context of the character of our neighborhoods and other parts of our city. So with that said, the way we thought we'd do this is, this presentation focuses on -- let's see, one, two, three -- about five specific areas, and so I thought what we'd do, if this works for you all, is have you make the introductory presentation, and then you all will present on each issue, and then we'll stop and have some conversation about each issue. And, again, what we're talking about is sidewalks, tias, you know, transportation analysis, safety and street design, parking, and then affordability. And where you can, you can refer us back to the prescription paper. If you don't have that I've got the cross-reference between the subject matters and the pages in the prescription paper. Is there anything that anybody else wants to say before we get started? >> I just have a timekeeping question because I have a hard stop at 5:30. Do we have another presentation after this? I was just curious how long this presentation was going to -- >> Kitchen: This presentation -- depends how long we want to talk. And the last item is not time-sensitive, so if we don't get to it, we don't get to it. >> Garza: Okay. >> Kitchen: Or is it? Whoops. It's time sensitive? It doesn't have to be heard in front of the mobility committee first. >> No, it's time sensitive only that it's another opportunity to announce a citywide public meeting for the plan on October 18th. >> Kitchen: Obtain. We'll make sure we do that. Okay. Go ahead. >> Thank you, madam chair and councilmembers, I'm with the planning and zoning department. I am also the project manager [5:01:41 PM] on codenext. >> Kitchen: All right of the keep going. >> My apologies. Sorry. Joining me this afternoon is Ms. Bodet from the transportation department and Mr. Dave Sullivan, co-chair on the code advisory group to make the presentation this afternoon. What we are doing is basing our initial presentation on the themes around the policy issues that you will find in the code prescription. The code prescription, in and of itself, is not code language, it's a way to frame discussions along tradeoffs and difficult questions that we will have to ask as a community and at the council level dealing with specific issues related to mobility, sidewalks, tias, street design and safety, parking, and affordability. It's not a solution, but it poses certain recommendations that we will move forward as the land development code is being put together. This is all framed around the idea of imagine Austin, of moving towards becoming more multimodal, and adding additional choices for mobility as we grow within the next 20 or 30 years. Based on the imagine Austin map that's trying to to grow the city, focusing new development in targeted areas starting with the corridors and centers, as identified by the growth concept map, and allowing for accessible choices of walking, bicycling, transit, and cars. So we will start to address some specific issues, and I want to turn it over to my colleague, Ms. Bodet. >> Thank you, Jorge. I'm with the Austin transportation department. So one prescription is to have the new code -- sorry. I'll stop -- help us with the design of our transportation network. We need to complete our network. It's not complete, when it comes to creating as much connect -- as many connected streets as we can. When you think of a grid [5:03:43 PM] pattern downtown in our older inner city, preworld war II neighborhoods, a connected grid provides for efficient distribution of traffic, which helps traffic congestion. And so with connectivity, we're looking at opportunities to increase how we -- how we get mitigation with regards to right-of-way and other aspects to help us build that network. We can't do it all with our cip funds. We can't build all the roads possibly, so we have to work through the development applications to get those connectivity requirements. Another way that we'll be working -- oh, not this slide yet. Did I do that? I did? Okay. So another way that we'll be looking at connectivity is looking at block lengths as well. So through implementation of all of our completed transportation reports and master plans, we'll guide how we implement through the regulations and codenext, more connectivity for all the systems that make up the network. I think it's advancing by itself, so that's how the code is going to help us with network design through connectivity. And then sidewalks are of utmost importance and we'll be looking to improve and enhance the regulations to building of sidewalks throughout the city. Specifically, we'll be looking to close loopholes, things like -- simple things like requiring sidewalks on both sides of a corner lot, not just one. This is advancing by itself. I apologize, so I'm going to click back and forth. Minimizing driveway cuts and on major arterials and also looking at shared parking, and Dave Sullivan is going to talk a little bit about that, minimizing driveway cuts along corridors helps with minimizing conflicts between pedestrians and bicyclists in order to promote a more multimodal network. So the perception of safety and the reality of safety is better. We'll be looking at -- this is a big one, triggering [5:05:44 PM] recommendations for sidewalks with remodels and not just through redevelopment. And then looking to enhance our fee in lieu processes, and requirements, versus construction requirements. Questions? >> Kitchen: Yes. I have a question. Do you have any questions? Okay. So this is on page 19 of the prescription paper. The discussion about sidewalks. And so I had a few questions. So there's four items that are listed, in particular. One of them relates to removing waivers or making them more restrictive to obtain. So right now, is that referring to waivers for the developers paying for the sidewalks? Is that what -- >> Correct. Waivers to not building or waivers to fee in lieu. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Looking at simplifying when a waiver or -- when a waiver can be asked for, and making it not as easy to get, for lack of another word, for lack of another way of saying it, yeah. >> Kitchen: Okay. And so that goes back to just -- that goes back to the whole construct of allowing fee in lieu; right? Or -- so you mentioned fee in lieu versus the construction requirement. So what is -- does the staff have a recommendation at this point, or is there language -- >> It's evolving. The sidewalk master plan had a whole appendix F, if you recall, that were specific amendments to the environmental code, the land development code, and even the TCM to strengthen the quality and quantity of sidewalks that we receive through the development process. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> And that is actually going to start moving through independently of the code. We're going to start moving through improvements to that, because you're exactly right. When do we ask for construction, what do we ask [5:07:44 PM] for fees, when we ask for fees, can we improve the way that we use those fees to be able to build a network in a more efficient manner. So there's a lot of moving parts, and it's still unclear what's going to move forward outside of codenext and what's going to move forward with codenext. So the good news is, there's things moving forward that might come before council sooner, with regards to sidewalks. Sorry. >> Kitchen: That's okay. >> I'm just going to let it go till the end. >> Kitchen: All right. There's another reference to the physical security exemption, is that one of those waivers or what is the fiscal security exemption? Are you familiar with that? >> Yeah. Fiscal is posted, you know, through the development process, whether it's a subdivision, or through a site plan. If there's a reason not to build at that time. And so we're looking, big picture, at how that works. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> Then we have the street impact fee process also working concurrently. So there needs to be a lot of discussion between development services and atd on how those two programs are going to work together. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> The goal is to -- what needs to go in the code will go in the code, and what needs to be in the impact fee ordinance will be in the impact fee ordinance, but it's too early to determine right now specifics. >> Kitchen: Okay. So this may -- this may not be something that you can answer, and that's okay. That's what I'm trying to figure out, is, these kinds of -- these changes, you know, that are in the prescription paper about changes to -- for sidewalks, for example, when is that -- you know, there's inherent policy -- policy decisions here to be made, particularly with regard to whether we're going to fee in lieu or not. So when does that kind of question come before council? Or is the thinking -- if you can't answer that, that's fine. This is a question I may have for development, but -- for the development process, [5:09:45 PM] or for planning, I'm sorry, but I'm trying to understand when these kind of questions come before council, or if it's a matter of what's going to be presented to council is a complete land development code, and then we're going to be going through them one by one in terms of these kinds of policy issues. >> Yeah. I guess I would answer that with, Jorge could help me with what you all might see with regards to the code, at what point, but what I can say is that there is discussion about particular aspects of these prescriptions coming forward in a quicker way, through -- I would assume they would go through boards and commissions and up to council through their Normal code amendment process. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> For strengthening sidewalk regulations, and I mean, we had a discussion among staff just yesterday, that if it looks like -- you know, that process is also lengthy. It's not a short process because it needs proper public input; right? >> Kitchen: Right. >> So at a certain point, it might to a certain upon point, then it just goes into whatever process codenext is at that point, but I'll let Jorge speak to that first part of the question. >> Sure. Councilmembers, what you're going to see starting in January is a draft land development code. All of title 25. If you recall, 25 has several chapters, not only related to zoning, but there's also a site plan, there's transportation, there's also water chapter, there's process and procedures. All that as a package is what we call the land development code. What these prescriptions talk about, they talk about things that are also outside the code, that are parallel to things that we have in the code today, that will need to be updated, as Ms. Bodet mentioned earlier, and the process, whether that be a technical manual, whether that be a criteria manual, or something beyond what we have on the books today. So the way we outline the [5:11:47 PM] prescriptions is wait for us to have these kind of conversations at the level of the code advisory group and the council to bring these issues forward, that even things that are beyond the code is something we will have to revisit under council direction for all these pieces to start tying in together. What you will see starting in January is a toolbox, a kit of parts that will start to shape how we start to apply those tools on the ground through a mapping phase that comes later, with -- through the codenext process. And so those two put together is what completes the entire land development code. The text itself that's being worked on right now and will be delivered in terms of a draft in January, and also the mapping, which is the final phase of codenext. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Those two things will be presented to council. >> Kitchen: Okay. We can have further discussion about that. So the sidewalk changes that we're talking about right now, are these changes to the land development code, or do you know? >> Mostly. Yes. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Yeah. There are recommendations for improvements to how we do sidewalks, in the sidewalk master plan. A lot of them are in the code. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And will be -- you'll be able to see that in the January administrative draft. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And then some of them are in criteria manuals that will take a -- some of it can be addressed through impact fees and some of it also in the environmental code, and those will be taking concurrent paths. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. >> Uh-huh. >> Kitchen: Do you have any more questions? Okay. >> Okay. So the next one is traffic impact analysis. So that is something that is going to be improved upon. Right now, the trigger and requirements for traffic impact analysis are in the land development code. We have a study going on right now with Nelson neigart, a nationally recognized transportation consulting firm, looking at tia reform, that's a joint progress between joint development service and [5:13:48 PM] Austin transportation, so we'll be looking at that a lot to look at how we improve upon our tia recommendations. We are looking -- we know we need to look at changing the one size fits all approach that we have right now in looking at different requirements and triggers for different texts -- contexts, and that we need -- the scoping of what we look at and what we're analyzing needs to be multimodal. Right now it's very motor vehicular focused. That's the big picture of the improvements you'll see, and that is a land development code requirement. The scoping requirements are in the criteria manual right now and there's discussion and we're looking to see what our consultant tells us about whether we should move all the tia regulations into one place because the big mantra for the code has been make it simpler to find things and not go to multiple places so that's the overview of what we're looking at with tias. >> Kitchen: Okay. The tias, I think you just said there's a study going on right now, so that may be an item that comes to us before the land development code? >> Yeah. If this committee would like an update, or would like to hear those recommendations, probably the January time frame would probably be a good time for that because we haven't even seen a draft yet, so we're looking to close that up probably in December. It's important to say, too, I keep mentioning street impact fees, that's a separate process that's going on, that's different from a traffic impact analysis. They both have the word impact, so it can get confusing, but that's a separate -- that will be a separate ordinance and not part of the land development code. So -- >> Kitchen: Let me ask, I'm sorry. On the tias, then, is adding the multimodal analysis, is that part new, or is that something that is included right now? >> That's new. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> It's not as -- it's not as clear as it could be. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And so we want to clarify the multimodal aspects of analyzing traffic, traffic impacts. >> Kitchen: So that would mean that if -- when you're [5:15:48 PM] analyzing the impact of a development, for example, you'd be looking at it from the perspective of sidewalks and bicycles, as well as the -- >> Right, looking at transportation demand management aspects, to look at trip reductions, as far as the impact. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So just strengthening how we do that with best practice. There's a lot more we know about how to do that than when the code was done in the '80s. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. Do you have any questions? >> So this picture is meant to show how the current requirements for right-of-way dedication, so I was talking about completing the network. That's going to stay in the code. Looking at strengthening transportation demand management regulations in chapter 26, that will be new. Traffic impact analysis, of course, in the upper corner is going to be improved upon. Our sidewalk ordinance is going to be improved upon, some with the land development code, some with concurrent processes. But I'll bring your attention to the dash cycle around all of those. However the code is improved, we're subject to the proportional share of that development, and we have a formula that allows us to calculate that in compliance with state law. This is looking at it in another view. In the corner you see the colored boxes, which are current regulations that will be strengthened and improved upon in the code, and then the box there at the top will be another tool to allow us to set a fee and charge a fee based on a capital plan related to adding capacity to our roadway, and that will be yet another tool still subject to rough proportionality, which is the cap. It's important to know the goal is not to get to that roughly proportional amount, it's to look at reality, what's going what needs to be mitigated, only looking at that. Lastly, safety, we're looking at a lot of visuals in the code. That's one of the overarching aspects is to show pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words. As far as safety, we have a [5:17:49 PM] lot more tool -- tools in our toolbox with regards to improvements and mitigation that we can get through tias or other measures. Bold outs, for example, all these other tools. But most important when we look at form based code and looking at the transex, densities that support transit and reduce vehicular miles traveled, that's going to do a lot for safety. That'ses the the over arching way the tool to for imagine Austin is going to help with safety. I can take questions and hand it over to Dave. >> Kitchen: Just a question about safety. So we had a discussion earlier today, I think you were here, about speed limits. Is -- is that an item that is impacted through our land development code, or is that outside of that? >> That's outside the land development code. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I mean, that's the criteria manual and law and ordinance related. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Yeah. The only safety aspects in the land development code is mitigation and what we can do for mitigation, and when we look at our tias, we're looking at mobility and safety. >> Kitchen: Okay. Okay. >> I'm going to hand it over to Dave unless there's any questions about anything I went through. >> Hi. Dave Sullivan. I'm the vice chair of the cag. Some people, even the chairman refers to me as the chair, but actually I'm the vice chair. I'm here to talk to you about the parking and affordable care act issues. And one thing I'll mention, following up on what annique told you is that there is evidence that when you allow parking on the streets, that slows down the design speed for that street. And one of our members, Dr. Rich hymond has commented on the fact studies show when you have parking on the streets, that [5:19:49 PM] makes it safer for pedestrians, mainly when there's a sidewalk. Might not be the case when there's not a sidewalk. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> Anyway, with regard to the parking, this is one of the more controversial issues. The mayor told us when he came to our meeting to point out what would be controversial, and I believe that parking is one of those things. There might be rumors that we're going to do away with parking requirements, but the term that we're using is we're going to make them more context sensitive. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So, for example, around the edges of town, where it's very suburban and almost everybody has to drive to their destinations, there will be more parking required than downtown, where we count on people using car sharing, walking, bike, bus, et cetera. So we're going to pay attention to the -- we're using the Tran sex basically, different densities and mixes of uses as you move away from the activity centers of the city. Where it's more intense, you would allow less parking because there are morality I was the. There's also the idea about smart parking and shared parking. Right now, in many parking lots, we collect data about when parking spaces are in use. I've seen them here within Austin, I've seen them in other cities, and so the point is that you can collect data on the use, and one of the things that we want to do is try to encourage businesses that are near each other to take -- keep track of that, and, therefore, share parking, and that way, they can both reduce parking. If you put a church next to a bar, they're not open at the same time. I use that as an example, while -- you know, it's an exaggeration, but obviously you can find uses that are anticorrelated, and they can share parking, and that will be another way to cut down on parking. We're cutting down on parking, main reason for it is, we're using up a lot of space that can be used for other things. I should have opened up with that. We can reduce the amount of pervious -- impervious cover and also we can put land to [5:21:50 PM] better uses in terms of housing. So third point up there, transportation demand management, also referred to as travel demand management, if a company is employing different tools to encourage their employees to take the bus or walk, then they can cut down on their parking. And if you did have a parking lot and a new business came in, and they could show that they're not using that parking because of their traffic demand management tools, then you would be able to put, say, a mobile food truck there, or put in a park there, tear up some of the asphalt and put in some green space. So that's another tool. And then another one is paid parking. Parking costs money. When I go to the grocery store at the end of my street, I pay more for the vegetables that I buy when I walk because I'm having to pay for the taxes and the maintenance of the parking lot that's out front. So I'm not suggesting that the restaurant in my neighborhood put in paid parking, but we will consider more opportunities to use paid parking to try to capture the externalities of that use. It's unfair for a pedestrian who's walked from home to the store to pay more when somebody else has driven and is causing more costs. With regard to the density bonus issue, and this gets into the overlap between parking and affordability, we've been using the density bonuses with vertical mixed use where we relaxed some of the parking in exchange for a developer including 10% of the units at 80% or 60% median family income. We have lots of evidence that people with lower incomes tend to drive less and own fewer cars per household. And so that helps justify [5:23:52 PM] the fact that you can reduce parking when you add more units in a vmu project that has submarket priced units in it. The other point about that, though, is that because you have more people living in a density bonus building where there are more units, there are along some activity corridors where the buses run now, you are more likely to have riders on the bus, especially because as I just mentioned, there are people that don't have cars, are more likely to use the bus, and so the fact that when you have more users of the bus, the bus will -- will be a better system because it will -- capital metro is likely to increase the frequency, which leads to more people riding the bus, so you have a feedback system there, where the more people that live along an activity corridor that use mass transit, lead to better mass transit service. The other point, too, is that when you reduce the parking, as I mentioned before, that lowers the cost for the development. They can put in more units or put in more green space, and that can make the development more affordable because less money had to be spent on the parking. With -- whoops. Another point is that with some of the approaches that we're taking, for example, one of the travel demand management methods is to unbundle the costs for parking from the rent. We've had success with this in the west campus area with the university neighborhood overlay. The director of the planning department here told me that his daughter paid $70 more on her rent to park a car. It was separate from her rent. So she had one rent for her apartment, another went for the parking space. Somebody like me would save $70 because I wouldn't need that space. My niece works for a company that's downtown. She gets paid a dollar a day not to drive to work, that [5:25:53 PM] she can use, to subsidize her bus use or the fact that she's not causing her employer a higher cost by driving and using the parking. So these are other tools that we're talking about with regard to relating parking to affordability. >> Kitchen: Okay. So right now then, of course, the way the land development code works with parking is just the same everywhere. >> Right. So many parking spaces per hundred- square-foot in gr or go, so many parking places per bedroom, mf 3, mf 4, et cetera. >> Kitchen: So talk to us a little bit about, you know, this is going to be one of the more talked about areas, I assume. Where's the push back going to come from? We can guess, but you're on the cag and you've been experienced at this for a while now. Can you tell us where you think the pushback is going to come? >> Well, you've got a lot of opportunities for redevelopment along our inner city corridors, so, for example, burnet road would be a real good example. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> You had -- did you guys hear the case for woodrows? I forget. Or that was the last council? So anyway, there was a major issue with regard to a knew restaurant bar going in on burnet road, and part of the concern was, it was going in to an old building. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> And they didn't have enough parking there. So if we talk about reducing the parking in an area like that, the parking requirements in an area like that, we are going to have to show that the travel demand management tools or the fact that a bus stop is nearby, is going to be effective in allowing that. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> Part of what we are likely to do, or what I hope the city will do is collect more data. That's what I've asked for on the cag is some data that shows how the tdms work, [5:27:54 PM] how effective they are, what are the best practices, what some they done in peer cities. We already have evidence from the west campus area where we've done both unbundling of the parking cost from the rent, and also a parking demand management district where we take the money from street parking, where we charge for the street parking, and then funnel that back into amenities within the area. So if we can show that on burnet road, on south congress, on south Lamar, on east 7th, et cetera, that there can be a positive benefit supporting charging for parking there, or having tdms that are shown to work, and then taking some of the parking space that would have been there and turning it into green space that might be for public use or at least an amenity that you can walk by or drive by, then that could help to satisfy some of those concerns. >> Kitchen: Yeah. So basically you're talking about data to respond to some of the fears that people may have. >> Exactly. >> Kitchen: And I guess those fears will come with people being concerned about parking spilling over into neighborhoods. >> Executive. Another thing, too, a lot of these changes are going to take years to take effect. >> Kitchen: Right. >> So it's not like overnight new developments are going to go in. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> So we'll be able to -- just like imagine Austin, we'll be able to look at how effective these tools are over time, and then change them. >> Kitchen: So I'm hearing you say that really parking changes are a big factor in affordability, if I'm hearing you -- >> That's what the evidence that we've been presented shows us. >> Kitchen: Okay. Uh-huh. Okay. Did you have any questions? Did you want to say something? >> Yes, thank you, councilmember. Just to clarify one thing, this is a great example of how the mapping exercises are coming. Further on in the project it [5:29:54 PM] will be extremely important, in terms of posing the issues of where you do these parking reductions. Codenext is not suggesting that all corridors or all centers have parking reductions. Those are specific by context. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And mostly based on the physical infrastructure you have of connectivity, pedestrian amenities, mass transit options, and areas where we can target effectively increased densities. That's not all instances in all properties. Through the mapping phase as we dive into that, we'll be able to identify for you recommendations as to where that would be the most conducive to support the kind of parking reductions that we're looking for. >> There's also the question of technology, so, for example, I mention that some places downtown now, there will be -- pull into a parking garage and you'll see a bunch of red up above you that indicates the parking places that are taken, and green down there where there's an empty space, that you wouldn't just be able to see from your car. Well, if those data are collected, and that technology becomes easier to use, you could have that in a parking lot, in a strip center, in north Austin or south Austin, and then you would know, too businesses would know, you know, what kind of parking use happens at what times. Part of the issue would be the city helping to broker their sharing the parking and sharing that data so that we could have no change in the service that the users would experience, but they could have fewer parking places. >> Kitchen: So with regard to the rent, you know, the recommendation -- the example you gave earlier about the $70 less in rent, so, is that -- how do you make sure that reducing the parking requirement translates into reduced rents? >> Well, in that case it's not necessarily reducing the parking requirement. It's -- the idea about -- that's more along the lines of the affordability. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> But again, if you tried that out, and you saw that your demand for parking was decreased because you were [5:31:54 PM] employing a travel demand method management tool like that, now you've got this parking lot. Park a mobile food truck there. Put in temporary playscape. Put in, you know, planters with trees. There are other uses, and you wouldn't have to tear up the asphalt for all that. But the point is, you could convert something that right now you can't do because you're required to have so many parking places per hundred square feet into some public amenity. And if it was a mobile food trailer, you would collect rent from that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So some of these things could go into effect in an already existing strip mall if we could collect the data on it and show that it works. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> If I may, part of the relationship of affordability is trying these different tools bundled together, whether you're able to offer community benefits in exchange for certain entitlements. So it's not just an issue of parking, but it's also an issue of density, an issue of access, an issue of circulation that coupled with these other community benefits that could be offered, like open space or green space, that really starts to make an impact on affordability, true affordability by which we can start to see a difference in possibly even rental rates or buy rates. >> And another thing that you asked earlier, a lot of this is section 25, the ldc, but it's also in section 12, the transportation section of the code, then some of it's in the transportation criteria manual which contains for details. >> Kitchen: Uh-huh. >> So what we're working on is going to have -- go into more places within the code, although the major application is in section 25. >> Kitchen: So I have a little different question for you now. You know, you've been -- you've been involved with the cag for a while now, and you headed up the mobility subcommittee of the cag, I guess. >> No, we were a team. We had a small work group. >> Kitchen: Okay. So you were a work group, so [5:33:55 PM] you were part of the work group. My question -- you don't have to answer this now, but my question as a mobility committee, my question to you would be, what can we do to help the cag, and to help those of you who are working, as a working group on the mobility aspects of the cag, as you move forward through this process? And you don't have to answer it now. You may have some ideas now, but you can also bring that to us. So if there's some things that we can -- what we can do to help through this process. >> Right. I'll answer right now and -- >> Kitchen: Okay. >> -- Tell you I believe we have an excellent consultant team. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> The professional consultants that we have with opticos and norwest -- norwest, et cetera, also the local consultants we have were great, so the fact you've continued funding them through phase III and phase IV in the future, I think, is a major step. >> Kitchen: Okay. And as part of the mobility prescription paper, do you feel like it's the parking area that's going to be the most contentious, or I don't know if you can pinpoint any areas. >> Well, the safety, of course, will -- will be important. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Part of the issue will have to do with cost, you know, if we increase some of -- if we make some design changes, we really haven't looked at what those are going to cost, and I expect that the envision tomorrow tool will help show us that. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> But it's important, so ... >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I have a question. >> Kitchen: Yeah, go ahead. >> Garza: So I know that -- I believe the code is supposed to, you know, help us streamline development, streamline the process, and -- and, you know, now we take zoning cases on a case-by-case basis, and maybe -- maybe these rules will help us with -- new rules will help us with these zoning cases that we do one at a time. My question would be, so there's -- there seems to be, I guess, broad general [5:35:56 PM] things, and then very specific things, like parking, like parking, how much parking should we require. So I'm wondering if the cag has delved into or if the next prescription paper or there's going to be a suggestion on crash Gates, because I think -- I'm not a fan of them. >> Right. >> Garza: I think they segregate new neighborhoods when they put them near old neighborhoods. >> Uh-huh. >> Garza: So I'm wondering if there's going to be any discussion on policy moving forward because it seems like every time staff says we don't advise these, and yet it becomes a compromise at the planning commission or at zap, I would like to see some -- some, you know, policy on that, if we could include that in -- in the code. >> Well, councilmember, I will definitely bring that back to my colleagues and we'll talk to the atd staff about it with regard to this. >> Garza: Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: All right. Thank you all for putting this together for us. I know -- I know you -- by the time you finish with this, you're going to get tired of talking about all these changes over and over again. So -- but it helps -- it really helps us, you know, kind of get the -- get the picture and helps us distill down what the issues are. It also helps us prepare because as there's more and more discussions, we'll be more prepared when we start -- when there's more public engagement, when we start getting push back, for example, the parking is a good example of that. So -- okay. Are you here on the last item? Okay. >> Yeah. I have the presentation but I wanted to take the opportunity to announce a public meeting for input on the city study to designate non-radioactive hazards material routes throughout the city, which is a state requirement. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And the meeting is going to be Tuesday, October 18th, at the Ruiz branch library, [5:37:56 PM] 1600 grove avenue, from 6:00 P.M. To 8:00 P.M., and the entire city is welcome to come see what the project is about and why we're doing it and learn about more opportunities for input once they learn what -- why we're doing the study and what it's about. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Could you also just speak to the process for a minute? Is this -- the ruts of this study will eventually come back to the council, or -- for action, or is it a different process? >> We will be working with txdot to designate the routes, and then we will be coming back to city council to adopt the ordinance for the routes. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And also the fees for the fines for the routes will also come back to council. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> For -- should be able to enforce the routes once they're in, so two junctures, at least, come back to council. >> Kitchen: Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Any other -- okay. Thank you all. With that, I think we're going to adjourn. Thank you.