Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 10/11/2018 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 10/11/2018 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 10/11/2018 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [3:04:27 PM] >> Kitchen: Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to call the order the meeting of the mobility committee at 3:05, and we'll start with approval of minutes. So councilmember Flannigan moves approval of the minutes. Councilmember alter seconds. All in favor? It's unanimous. Okay. So next we'll go to citizens communication, and just as a reminder, citizen communication is for folks who are signed up to talk about something that's not posted on the agenda. So we'll take the folks that want to speak to the agenda items under each agenda item. So we have one person signed up for citizen communication, and that's Scott Morris. >> Thank you very much. My name is Scott Morris. I'm with the central Austin CDC and the Austin coalition for transit. We've been active in project connect for almost four years from its rebirth from the 2014 referendum, procurement in 2015 and as members of the multimodal advisory committee in 2016. Project connect is funding by an unspent federal grant from 2014 and [inaudible] From the city of Austin. Process has had broad community support. The draft system plans have been Progressive and well received by the public. On October 1, capital metro CEO Clarke proposed a vision for project connect. It recommends autonomous rapid transit or art. We have concerns. Autonomously driven [3:06:27 PM] platooning buses do not current exist. There is no federal guidance on developing systems with this mode and no vehicles have federal safety certification. In the words of one agency official, you can't buy this at the CVS, and he added there isn't even a CVS yet. The vision removes corridor prioritization. Bus rapid transit and light rail have been replaced. The 2014 alignment is re- re-recrated in full. Residents of north Lamar will require two transfers to get to the -- to get to their jobs on north Lamar. Westgate loses 803 metro rapid service. The mlk and Cameron road corridors disappear. 21 new undefined mobility hubs appear without justification. Why is this transit agency redirecting a transparent, years long data driven federal study? The public and policy makers deserve answers. Our best corridors need operational cost efficient large vehicle capacity to meet future ridership growth. The fallback of deploying unscalable brt in our best corridors will fail to deliver peak passenger input. Investors from the private sector will view it as a temporary fix. It may not create the return on investment we could potentially pay for operation of a real system. Betting on undeveloped technology may delay mass transit progress by years or by decades and cost the city billions in lost economic development. Capital metro just received $6 million from council for preliminary engineering and [3:08:28 PM] lepa. You approved that based on early I don't remember mode scenarios, corridor and direction of this study. We need real world technology to be specified in this vision. We need mode scenarios that are doable and proven. Thank you very much. And I'm here for any questions. [Buzzer sounding] >> Kitchen: Questions, anyone? No? Thank you, Mr. Morris. I would like to just a point of clarification for the public, so people understand the process, the cap metro board will be voting in December on the maps so we appreciate Mr. Morris' input and everybody else's that is wanting to give us feedback. We need that now. There's no map that's been approved at this point, there's no mode that's been approved, and just want to make sure that that's clear for everybody. We're in a public engagement process right now so thank you very much for coming and speaking with us. >> Thank you. >> And since the item began, [inaudible] Also signed up. >> Kitchen: Who? >> Gerard Kenny. >> Kitchen: Mr. Kenny. >> Thank you. Committee members. I'm Gerard Kenny, long-time austinite and transportation advocate. I'm president of an organization called Austin area regional transit. We've presented ideas to you over the years. We are very much support mass transit as an essential element in our city and think we're, you know, making slow progress toward that, toward that goal. I did attend the regional mobility conference last week and was happy about some things that I heard. [3:10:31 PM] Particularly the mantra of dedicated pathways, which seemed most of the speakers seemed to emphasize. My -- I'm certainly -- regardless of mode, attend personally lean toward rail but I'm open to new technologies, and the most important thing, to me, is that we are planning our systems in such a way that there's a -- in addition to -- to senator Watson's emphasis on speed and doing things fast, we can do things fast for the short term, but the short term should not preclude the long term. And the long term needs to be a system that is fully developed, that will really work. And my biggest concern right now is that the corridor plan -- I've attended several of the corridor public hearings, was very disappointed, for instance, to see that the airport boulevard corridor does not have dedicated lanes, dedicated pathways for transit, and -- and neither do most of them. Most of them have that -- have those dedicated pathways. They need to be there. Even if we can't afford to do them with the current funding, they need to be planned for so that in the future we can do them without too much removal of existing infrastructure. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Okay. We will now go to our next item, which is on dockless mobility. So we will have the presentation and then we'll hear from folks that have signed up. >> Madame chair, [3:12:33 PM] councilmembers, Robert spiller, Austin transportation department. I'm joined by Jason my assistant director and I believe Angela will be joining us from the law department. I just wanted to say we're here today to present information from our first four months' worth of operation as experience. May, as you know, we initiated this in April and so it's really may, June, July and August. We committed to you that when we would start this process that we would make our recommendations based on data based evidence as we came forward, so just keep in mind you are seeing about four months' of data here. That said, I think you are going to find it pretty impressive both from the safety perspective as well as ridership perspective. We understand there's a lot of concern about safety with regards to these and we'll show you what the data has to say. But it's also clear that it's a popular new mode here in Austin in terms of mobility. And so with that, I would like to turn it over to my assistant director Jason to report out. >> Thank you, rob, thank you, mobility committee and councilmembers. Today on our first slide I'll show you what we're going to talk about today. We're going to go over what we're hearing from community and customer service feedback. What we're seeing from the data, from the use data, the safety data as well as working with our partners at Austin public health as well as ems and police and fire to collect what we can related to -- related to that safety issue. Also we're going to talk a lot about what we're doing from an education enforcement campaign and an update on our administrative rules. Lastly, I want to talk a little about what the overall landscape is as mobility as a service, what we're doing with that in Austin, how is that [3:14:34 PM] impacting Austin's goals, mayor and council's goals related to certain challenges that we have as a southern city. Then lastly we'll talk a little about the landscape and making sure that there's a place for everyone out there. And then lastly we'll open it up for policy recommendations. My slide is kind of a parlay into what Angela is going to present so we'll finish mine and go right into what Angela wants to do. So overall program status, as rob said, we've been -- we have collected four months of data. We're in our fifth month of operation. We have seven licensed operators operating a little over 5,000 units, and that operates in a 65 square mile area around Austin. And there down below you can see how many of each type of mode we have. Obviously scooters are the most popular mode around. This is a representation of where they are at, so of the two scooter companies, bird, as you can see, is operating both in the dapsy as well as areas around the northern core and up the corridor, essentially wherever there's a large area of employment, that's what we're noticing, that those are some of the areas where these companies are very interested in deploying their devices. As well as in some of those areas how that day to day movement happens with people from their homes to their businesses, from their places of work to lunch or whatever in the middle of the day, to get their kids, et cetera, and then back. Line next door is where they are operating and then lastly we kind of lumped all the other folks into the dapsy because they are just operating in the dapsy. Only the two scooter [3:16:35 PM] companies are operating outside of that. We did a community feedback survey and what we learned from that and tried to go -- this isn't a statistically relevant survey, just a community feedback survey, and what I'm representing is a type of four square of different things that we saw on everything from liking them to disliking them and wanting fewer to none of those. And then you can see some people that are liking them that also are concerned about certain aspects of the scooter use. Related to 311, we just collected all of September's 311 requests. Much as expected we're seeing a natural progression to a bell curve begin as we look at how the calls have been coming in. So you can see as we launch understand may through July, August being the largest scale month, that's when the most scooters were on the street. And now you're beginning to see that number of 311 calls begin to decline a little bit. We think that's because the companies have begun to pivot with Austin transportation and 311 on service requests related to improper parking jobs or things like that. And so I think a lot of this might be becoming the decrease is coming from property owners. Before you is the July and August, with August numbers being the most recent up top. You've already seen the July numbers before so I wanted to show a stark increase in what has happened. So we've increased the number of units, not doubled as far as everything goes, as scooters go, but scooters alone in the month of August [3:18:38 PM] generated 350,000 miles worth of trips that weren't used by gas. So these are all trips that happened predominantly in the downtown core with zero to three mile short trip range for cars which we already know is the most fuel in efficient and most nox gas oriented part of true car trip. The numbers we reported in July as far as average trip time and average trip length are about the same. So we're not really seeing the distance or the length of time really increase a lot. It's just there is that much latent demand for short trips in Austin. Since we have now a dashboard where we can collect all of the data going back as long as the companies have been in operation in Austin, these are the rolled up numbers of all dockless scooter and bike rides since April. So this is significant amount of trips that are being done. The more important thing is to figure out how to make sure this stays safe. I want to call your attention to the crash data. So this data, as you know, comes from txdot's data base as well as all of our partners sitting behind us with Austin public health and everyone else. It's been quite an amount of work because most of these reports where we need to find the information related to the scooter is buried into the narrative of the incident report. Which makes it very difficult to collect that data. And so kudos to all of our [3:20:38 PM] ems, public safety and public health partners for all of the hard work they did and really coming through months -- combing through months of accident reports and E.R. Reports just to find the ones related to scooters. What you see here there's 37 incidents total. The next slide, we broke out those 37 incidents. Roughly 80% of those involved a trip to the emergency room. Of 37 incidents over the course of time that we've had, that's about three crashes every two weeks, based off of a may 1 to October 1 time frame. But when you look at the number of miles driven, so in other words calculate a crash rate, like what txdot would do for vehicles, that crash rate is .00006 percent. So the breakout of those crashes, we had one priority one crash, which was a life-threatening crash. We had 16 priority two crashes which are significant signs and symptoms, so if the complainant said there was a head injury, typically that falls into priority 2. 3 through 5 railroad -- are typically no one -- so what are we doing to make sure that everyone out there is scooting as safely as possible. We've launched an education and enforcement campaign. We've put these little flyers on every scooter around town. We've also worked with the private sector companies to also have -- give supplies of printing their owns of [3:22:40 PM] these so they can continue to put them out there. We are working with our street team enforcement, APD as well as our own parking enforcement officers to do levels of intercepts out on the street. We've noticed that that is really making a difference. We've noticed that the feedback that we're getting from people is a lot of it is just pure education. They don't understand that where we end their ride and where they park is critically important. Others are quick to realize that, you know, they need to obey those moving violations -- or traffic laws related to stopping at signalized or stopped -- stop for a stop and stuff like that. As I mentioned earlier, we were already using ride report, which was an application we're using to get information from our cycling community to better understand where -- what accommodations we have made are working well and other areas of town that need additional bicycle accommodations. That particular company has also found a way to integrate to the private sector companies' apis, so you now we're able to see and monitor throughout the day where these particular devices are, where they drop, in other words, make sure that they fall into the -- the letter of the regulation as far as how many start their day and what area of town. And then also where are they related to town. So the end trip part of that api is very interesting because it kind of shows if you just toggle through the data, you can see how the scooter fleet as a whole, regardless of operator, is moving around throughout the city. And bike fleet. It's not just scooters. Thank you, rob, it is bikes as well. So what you can see here is [3:24:41 PM] how based off of the dapsy area we can get a quick count of how many units happen to be in operation. This is -- I can't remember what time of the day this was taken, it was in the middle of the day, so you get a quick understanding even though some scooters started their day maybe in the dapsy, they may not still be in the dapsy, they may be outside and vice versa. As rob mentioned, bicycles are an important part of an overall active mobility as a service solution, and we shouldn't forget that we started off this grand journey five years ago with Austin be cycle, which is our dock solution. So we have noticed there is a bit of a downtick in utilization and we're conducting some additional financial analysis to better understand what the impact of the dockless mobility landscape has brought to Austin be cycle and we're looking at new operating models for Austin be cycle. I really believe Austin be cycle is the foundation of any activity of a service landscape in any smart city. So it needs to maintain itself in our landscape because it can deliver the level of social equity and access that we need for our citizens. Specific to the rules update, I'll make this as brief as possible since we've been talking about rules for a while, but based off of the feedback, we've put out our proposed rules for final rules, and those are currently receiving comments. So we are beginning to receive a fair amount of comments from business owners, the private sector, even other agencies. In fact, even other cities outside of Austin are deciding to comment as well. Improved -- some of the things that we're looking at [3:26:43 PM] are improved visibility at night or restriction of certain types of night riding. Restrictions on where the units can park, fast response times for when they -- for when devices are left in a occluded ways. As well as unannounced audits. Requirement to install parking boxes is part of the overall management plan. There's also we think there has been some bunching that's taken place around the B cycle stations so we want to make sure the be cycle exclusion has ability for people to access it without necessarily being unduly disadvantaged by the occlusion so the possibility of keeping a cordon around the be cycle station I think would be important. Reports on those complaints and collisions, a privacy policy to make sure that we're safeguarding the user's information, and lastly, some way to incentivize the use of technology. And maybe -- although we're starting to hear from cities that went straight lock to, Chicago is having incredible problems related to that because it makes sense when you first think about it that a lock two would say it's not going to occlud Ada. But it -- the ability to get on the bus and now it's locked so can't move it. There is -- there are both challenges and pluses to each part of that and it's very important to understand what works for bikes and what will work for scooters. What we're talking about is a wholly large paradigm [3:28:45 PM] shift that's taking place in all of transportation. It's called mobility as a service. This is where the private sector has found ways to deliver supply to that untapped demand that I mentioned earlier, and if we as a city, we need to find ways that we can enable that, but also through that enablement regulate and make sure that the things that are important to us are held within that. If we don't, then there's the possibility that the private sector would do it without us. And so I want to make sure that we find some ways to continue to keep the private sector sort of in our tent, right? So that they understand how important it is to continue to partner and pivot with us as we move through what is the ultimate end goal of this solution, which I think we're still not seeing the end of that yet, there's still more to come. And that may be some of these new mobility modes we've been talking about. Where are the trips being had? As you've seen this before, we're -- we're really focused in on the short car trips. That's really what this particular solution solves is getting people out of their cars and using some other mode other than hailing a tnc, for instance. So this estimation is based off the day, so we estimate somewhere around 400,000 short car trips between zero and three miles within this particular circle. As I mentioned before, August we saw 297,000 scooter rides, so pretty sure we're digging into that. More to come as once we begin collecting more short car trip information, being able to compare that directly against the scooter information. None of this would be possible if we didn't already have the level of leadership from mayor and council related to creation of an all ages, all [3:30:47 PM] abilities bike network. This is one of the reasons why it's being as successful as it is in Austin and not as successful in some of our southern sister cities like Atlanta and others, and that's because we have actually more accommodations than most southern cities related to an active transportation network. What's important for us going forward is for us to figure out how we continue to find a place for everyone in the street. I think that it's important for us to consider some of the existing exhibits that we have that Angela is going to go over soon and think about how we're going to manage certain areas of town and whether or not we're going to allow sidewalk riding on there or not. So this is my transition slide to Angela. As I mentioned earlier, we really want to focus on speed and location management today and get all of that in place so it is working properly by December. Move forward with a safe scooting practices and ability to enforce that in the spring, which would mean the ability to look at people who don't dismount in the dismount zone and be able to go after those folks for whatever fines or things may be necessary from an enforcement campaign to get those last bit of people to move over to the good side of the line. And then lastly long term is the cost and service and safety analysis, so in working with Austin public health and others, there is a lot of the cities are beginning to do what we're doing. They are beginning to collect the data, they are beginning to understand that they are going to have to collect the data in a different way. And as we continue to experience the dockless mobility solution set I think we'll continue to gather enough data as well as share that information with our other cities so that we can collectively help create some national standards related to the [3:32:47 PM] epidemiology of this particular new mode. With that I would like to turn it over to Angela. >> Good afternoon. It's Angela Rodriguez with the law department. I was asked to present three separate things today. One was just a brief survey of what other governmental entities are doing, other jurisdictions are doing related to scoot scooters, e-scooters, the other describe the current state of law in Austin, and the third direction I had was to discuss possible policy considerations that would be or rather moving forward what would be legal that would be legally authorized that council could consider when they are deciding policy. So first I'd like to briefly discuss other government regulations regarding e-scooters. These are different than what Jason just described to you, or rather other cities than what he described. In the state of Wisconsin, there's a total ban on e-scooters per state law. And I believe that is being challenged by the companies at this point. In New York City, New York, there's a total ban on electric scooters per city ordinance. I believe that ordinance was passed about 2004 or 5 and was directed at that time towards mopeds and that sort of vehicle, but it does include now e-scooters as well. Beverly hills, California has a total ban on them for six months, but that is more in relation to unauthorized entry into the market as more of a disincentive to continue to do that. That is six months, which I think should be over in two. West Hollywood also has a total ban on scooters and Houston. Three cities have the ban only while their city is drafting regulations. There is a way for them in, but they've agreed to not have scooters in their -- in their cities until the regulations are drafted, and that is Seattle, Boston, and [3:34:48 PM] Miami. Five other cities very recently lifted its ban on scooters. I think when I discussed it with some councilmembers in the past, I indicated that other cities had an absolute ban on scooters. Just in September that has actually changed for some of the more stalwart, in fact. San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Denver have liftedity ban on scooters and pilots are authorized by the city and their pilots look a lot like hours. They simply speak to company behavior rather than rider behavior specifically. Permanent fee requirements much as we require now. Another eight companies have authorized pilots by the cities with similar regulations, but did not have a ban, which is the difference. That would be Dallas, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Charleston, Nashville, salt Lake City, St. Paul and Santa Monica. Those were the jurisdictions I was able to discover this week. So as for the current status of city law related to electric scooters, city code section 14-9-23-14-9-26, sorry, I'm sorry, 14-9-14 ---chapter 14. In there, governs dockless transportation companies. And that is something that you were quite familiar with since we just passed that ordinance recently. It's dockless transportation companies certainly to include e-scooter companies. It authorizes licenses for companies to operate in city right-of- way and the director's rules govern company operations and the number of dockless permits that are allowed per company. Which Jason already described. E-scooter rider behavior is [3:36:50 PM] not currently governed by code but the state legal code related to illegal activities such as hit and runs or other menacing behavior. The rules of the road applicable to motor assisted scooters are only really found in state law in the Texas transportation code. A motor assisted scooter may be treated like a bicycle to the extent that it's possible to treat it like a bicycle. It may or may not be -- depending what the municipality decides, be operated in a bike lane, sidewalk or on a street with a miles per hour limit of 35 or under. Again, it is up to the municipality to died how to treat e-scooters on its property, on -- on a municipal land. The municipality can prohibit use on any of those areas if we find a safety rule to do so. I'm now going to except to the handouts I gave you -- speak to the handouts I gave you. I know there's been a lot of confusion about bikes on sidewalks and e-scooters on sidewalks and a lot of conflicting information even for me, I'm sure. But if you look at the first handout, it's the city of Austin sidewalks prohibited for bicycling, that's actually found on the city website, and if you look at the red areas as indicated, those are areas where under current city law sidewalks are not authorized to operate on sidewalks. Everywhere else in the city they are authorized to operate on sidewalks. And if you look on the your secondhandout, this one is mored Ruiz mentally and not on the website, but I highlighted where city law currently prohibits e-scooters. Rudimentary. How I arrived at that is [3:38:51 PM] with the help of our prosecutor's office who identified that chapter of the 12-1-32 of the city code describes prohibitions on sidewalks related to skateboards and toy vehicles and other similar devices. And in the prosecutor's opinion, other similar devices is inclusive of e-scooters. They are not allowed on the blue parts that I highlighted, which really is the -- the drag by U.T., congress, substantial part of congress, and sixth street from 35 up until blanco street, which is passed Lamar. So currently that is the state of the law in Austin. I will say as far as our legal options moving forward, council, as I said, may regulate scooter rider behavior and locations. We are authorized to do so under state law if we find a safety reason to do so. So policy issues related to the e-scooters to be considered, which I believe are legally sound, you can do, would be regulation of the E scooters on the sidewalks, so obviously whether or not we want to allow them on the sidewalk as a city or if council would like to have it more similar to the bikes or however it is council decides they want related to sidewalks, it is completely authorized to do under state law. We could -- council could decide to establish certain dismount Zones, which is an extension of allowing them on sidewalks or not where they would be -- a rider would be obligated to dismount and walk it through whatever area or heavy pedestrians or what have you. Council could do that as well. Council could also establish a helmet requirement. [3:40:54 PM] Currently city code for bikes has a helmet requirement simply for children under the age of 18. But council could extend that to adults if it found a safety reason or compelling reason to as well. Council could also institute an age requirement for e-scooter riders. I understand that the companies themselves have one in their policy; however, were council to decide on a firm age requirement, then riders below that age could, in fact, be cited for a violation of code rather than simply violating their terms of use for the scooters. Another thing we could do that I know came up in work session was the concern about too many people on scooters. More than one person is unsafe or I in fact saw people carrying suitcases and standing on top of them and things of that nature. The misuse of the scooters. And for what they are intended to do. So what the city could do is limit the number of riders per scooter, which is something the city already does for our other ground transportation services such as taxis are only authorized to have as many passengers as there are seats. So that way the city council could also decide to limit ridership that way, for instance one person per scooter and that's it. So we could -- the city could also require data reports from scooter companies on ridership and incidents, which I believe Jason described as something to be considered for the rules next time or coming up. Other cities are requiring data from the scooter companies in order to improve the service and better analysis so that is something city council could do as well. The city could also require participation in data from the scooter companies related to accidents. We have that requirement in the franchises, that the taxis help us if there's an incident, the taxis are [3:42:55 PM] obligated under that agreement to assist us in our investigation so we could explore doing something of that. Of course, privacy issues would come into -- would come into play in that case, but we would have to be careful in crafting it to make sure everybody is respected, but that would be a tool council could use. Council could also require a speed governor on each scooter. Council can establish a speed limit, require a locking device. Again, and these are just things that I'm saying are policy considerations that council would be able to do. I certainly am in no way advocating one way or another or speaking for anybody other than what the law says currently. An easy way perhaps to do this if council wanted to consider extending the current bicycle regulations, which is city code chapter 12-2, bicycles, that's pretty extensive related to bicycle behavior. Where they can park, helmets, standards, riding restrictions, parking restrictions, so that's pretty comprehensive. Unfortunately when it was drafted it is very specific, limited to bicycles. Even though legally we could have done it by -- applicable to bicycles and scooters or other modes. Because it's so -- it was crafted very limited to bicycles, we can't make that leap to automatically include scooters in there even though we're authorized. So council could simply amend code to have chapter 12-2 apply to scooters as well. And that is the end of my presentation. >> Kitchen: Okay, thank you very much. I know we have lots of questions and want to discuss. We have a couple of people that have signed up. I'd like to go ahead and hear from them first, if that works. Okay. We'll start with Jim Williams. And after Jim will be ash Kim and then Dan. [3:44:57 PM] So Jim? Jim is not here. Okay. Ash Ken and then Dan after ash Ken. You can go ahead and come up and sit next to him so that you are ready when -- so Dan, if you want to go ahead and come up. Go ahead. >> [Inaudible]. >> Hello, mobility committee and mayor Adler. The news on scooter ridership, 300,000 trips in one month is a great step forward on our sustainable city goals. The report on climate change made it clear if we are in fact committed to a sustainable city, the Paris climate accords, et cetera, we have ten years to abandon our car dependent status quo and electric cars cannot come close to saving the day. It would be appropriate to spend all this time on climate change, but I'll note that and move on. I have two policy recommendations for scooters that will specifically encourage use of transit, but will also encourage scooter tips overall. Both are low cost methods that the city alone can undertake to increase bus ridership with no changes to the bus system. First the city of Austin should look into administering a possible dockless electrical bike and scootership program modeled on be cycle but dockless, in partnership with capital metro and integrated into daily, weekly and monthly bus passes. Each trip is a net good towards our sustainable, safety and affordability goals. Having the city come in and provide scooters where private companies may not otherwise go would solve an equity issue and furthermore integrating it directly into transit passes would simply make it much more accessible and increase access to public transportation for [3:46:57 PM] people who may not ride the bus otherwise. The other major policy recommendation I have is to simply massively invest in relatively low cost and high roi active transportation infrastructure. I'm just going to say we should finish implementing the bicycle master plan and fully implement the sidewalk master plan. We've made fantastic strides towards both plans, but there remain hundreds of miles of missing and broken sidewalks throughout the city and dangerous bicycling routes that I take every single day. Thank you all very much. >> Kitchen: Thank you. So after Dan will be Ni Na re naldi. Go ahead. >> Hi, councilmembers, chairwoman mayor. I passed out a letter earlier that I believe all of you should have, and this letter was from seven organizations, bike Austin, cnu, central Texas, environment Texas, vision zero atx, walk Austin, and tex per. And this letter is mostly talking about how we're really -- we're really pleased and excited about how the dockless scooter and bike pilot has been going, that we feel like it's -- this is a necessary step, as ashcon said, there's a recent report about the major need for dramatic reductions in carbon and electric vehicles. You know, we always -- we always thought this was part of the solution. Until a few months ago we didn't realize they were going to look like what they do. But here we have a 350,000 miles of electric vehicles, 297,000 trips. None of us could have [3:48:57 PM] possibly hoped for this kind of success. And we need to -- we need to take this and we can build on it. And so we can build on it through continuing to build out better street infrastructure because we know that there have been -- we know there have been conflicts between people on dockless vehicles and people in other kinds of vehicles as well as people walking on the sidewalks. So continue to build out our street infrastructure. We have long-term plans. Something has changed. In the last four months, starting in August with that 297,000 rides, if our plans made sense before, now they make way more sense. And we need to prioritize these and get these done as fast as possible to accommodate what has just been a giant shock in the transportation system of people choosing to move out of their cars and move on to scoot, and bikes. And we need to accommodate them. And the other thing is that we feel, you know, the transportation department has been extraordinarily nimble in this, and I came and testified at utc a couple months ago about the difficulty that the companies were having with swapping out their models, their actual scooters for new scooters because of the -- the paper permit requirement. And the transportation department has heard that and acted on it and now Austin has some of the newest, safest scooters that exist in the world. Additionally, you know, taking that same sort of nimble approach towards street design and street infrastructure, trying things out could be a real big win, and I know that you have an item coming up later on that. [Buzzer sounding] So thank you very much. >> Kitchen: Thank you. After Nina will be John [3:50:58 PM] laycocks. John, you can sit up here also. Go ahead. >> Thank you so much for having me today. I want to talk a little about my personal experience using dockless mobility because I think it could should some light on why we're only now tapping into this demand for another transportation option. Why so many people are using bikes and scooters all of a sudden. I personally really enjoy riding a bike and scooterring, but I never really felt like I was able to do it here because I live in a pretty small apartment, my apartment complex doesn't really have good bike parking. And very little of it. And we're not allowed to keep our bikes outside. And so if you live on the second floor, you know, like I do, you kind of are stuck with carrying a big heavy bike up the stairs and that's not really, like, easy for me to do. So having access to just bikes and scooters out, you know, wherever I need them has opened up a whole other world for me. I -- I just really appreciate that they are there and now I have that option by not having to own one and store one in my house. I can definitely also speak a little bit to, you know, some of the behavior issues and conflicts that we see between different modes of transportation like scooters or bikes and pedestrians where folks are riding scooters and bikes on the sidewalk. I know that, like, from my personal experience I can say that, like, it feels like I'm taking my life into my hands way too often when I want to bike or scooter somewhere. The cars are just really close to me. There's so few protected bike lines going where I need to go. When you see someone riding on the sidewalk, that really tells you that they are riding their because it's not safe to ride anywhere else. And I would love to see, you know, some, like, low-cost, [3:53:01 PM] like, these low-cost low-hanging fruit additions of bicycle infrastructure here in Austin. There are some great models in other parts of the world where this has worked out really well and really increased bicycle ridership. In Seville, Spain, the local government created 75 miles of a protected bike lane network in 18 months. And to do so they removed 5,000 parking spots and increased the -- that are the effect of increasing the number of bikes in daily use from 6,000 to 70,000 bikes in use every day. And that basically involved removing parking spots action creating a barrier between bicycles and the car traffic on the road, and then making that permanent. And that's a really exciting example of something that we could pilot here as well. And you know, when I think about how easy it is to ride on, like, Rio grande -- [buzzer sounding] -- In that protected bike lane, I wish I could have that experience everywhere in the city and not just be limited to a few routes where I feel safe. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. After John will be Jay crossly. John, do you want to go ahead? >> Thank you for listennings to me. I have five hopefully quick points. First I want to give credit where credit is due. I was at [inaudible] Last week, which is a national conference. Cities all over the country are very confused, very worried about dockless, but all seem to agree that Austin is really doing it well. Jason John Michael's name came up a lot as the guy who is leading the successful pilot. So hats off to Jason John Michael. >> [Inaudible] [Laughter] >> Yeah, promote him. In my own experience, I want [3:55:02 PM] to talk about how jump bikes have changed my life. I don't have a car. I can't drive a car. I have epilepsy. But jump bikes -- so I rely on the bus and train and sometimes there are gaps. It is the literal last mile problem several times a week and jump bikes have allowed me to fix that. It's a lot cheaper than Uber, it's a lot faster than walking and like be cycle I can go anywhere I need to and it's electric and the electric is really great. I encourage you all to try that. Third, real quickly, we mention add helmet law. I don't think you should look at that. Seattle is another big city that had a helmet law and their equivalent of be cycle tanked because no one wanted to deal with the helmets. Fourth, kids. There should be no age limit. We should be encouraging kids to use these as much as possible. I talked to some kids in Santa Monica who complain they couldn't use the scooters or the jump bikes. They are allowed to drive a car, but they are not allowed to ride a jump bike. Think about that. We are putting them in a 3,000-pound vehicle that can go 70 miles per hour. We are not allowing them to drive a 10-pound vehicle that goes 6 miles per hour. Cap metro just introduced free fares for kids which has been successful. I think 300,000 kids took free bus rides this summer. If we can extend the last mile solution to them, we can create a life-long noncar driver. Cars are the most common cause of death for teenagers. As a future parent of a teenager, I'm excited about a world where my kid doesn't have to drive. So I think maybe a pilot or anything to promote that. And finally, I want to follow up on what Nina said that we need to expand protective lanes and right-of-way for noncar vehicles on our roads all [3:57:03 PM] over the city. Austin is adding -- I think added 7.8 miles in the last two years. Katy would know. She's over there. Which is the most, the best or second best in the country, but we have a bike plan that shows them all over the city. We can create routes that will create access for everyone all over the city safely and -- [buzzer sounding] -- Permanently. Thank you. That was good timing. >> Kitchen: Thank you. So after Jay will be Chris Riley. Chris, -- is Chris here? >> Hello, Jay crossly, I live in d7 and I -- I serve on your multimodal community advisory committee and chair of pedestrian advisory council, but I'm speaking for myself. And thank you for your service to the people of Austin and for this opportunity. I do -- I work for a 5013c nonprofit called farm and city that works on transportation and urban planning issues across the state. One of our biggest projects is vision zero Texas, working with cities across the state to adopt vision zero action plans like Austin's and San Antonio's as well as at the state level. To end the traffic death epidemic across Texas. While we have a vision zero action plan here and Austin has done perhaps more than any other city in Texas to begin towards ending traffic deaths, we have a very long way to go. I have just shared with you a document prepared by several members of the pedestrian advisory council with the names of the 56 people who have died on the Austin transportation system this year. And this is -- at the same time last year we had 52 deaths. If we stay on track this year for the first time since passage. Vision zero action plan deaths will rise in the city of Austin. So we have a horrific traffic safety problem and [3:59:03 PM] it's squarely predominantly related to the failures of our car priority lane system. And the amount that the people are forced to drive given our outdated land development code and misplaced transportation priorities. Along with this traffic safety crisis we have a climate crisis. And both of these problems will be improved by working to rapidly increase access to shared small vehicle mobility systems. And so just some examples, you know, looking at your sidewalk master plan, 20% of the sidewalks in the city of Austin are not accessible to people of all abilities because of overgrown vegetation and the complete lack of enforcement of your rules about not blocking sidewalks with your agave plants. If we fix that problem, we would double the amount of sidewalks accessible to all people in Austin. How many cars do you think right know are blocking sidewalks in Austin in my guess is 10,000 at this moment. Across the city.and the main problem in traffic safety we have is speed and it's the speed of people driving very large vehicles. And the traffic deaths are a force equals mass and acceleration problem. And as people driving large things and smashing them into things. And that is the problem we need to solve and we need to have all kids in every neighborhood deserve access to a safe, three-miles per hour transportation system, meaning a sidewalk, all kids in neighborhoods need to have access to say a 15 miles per hour transportation system and they need to have access to a safe 25 to 35 miles per hour transportation system. And they pretty much we all do not have access to any of that. [Buzzer sounds] So I hope you will focus on that for everybody. Thank you. >> Good afternoon, mayor, council. My name is Chris Riley. I'm currently president of the downtown Austin neighborhood association. I'll also on the boards of a few other organizations that also have an interest in [4:01:06 PM] scooters, including bike Austin. I'm not here today to speak on behalf of any of those organizations, but I want to offer a few thoughts of where we are. A lot of us are very excited to see so many people out on the streets getting around the central city using vehicles other than cars, but the introduction of scooters and dockless bikes has obviously raised a few issues of real concern and really need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Because so many people don't feel safe using the streets in their current condition we do wind up with many people on the sidewalks and that does raise the possibility of conflicts with pedestrians and others and sidewalks are really not the best place for vehicles like that because there are a lot of obstacles there. We also have problems with scoot scooters being parked in such a way that they present impediments for other users of the sidewalk, especially people with disabilities. The good news is we do have ways of dealing with all those and I think the rules process we're going through now will have an opportunity for those. One is the potential for creating a revenue stream that could support some of the improvements that we know are needed. The bicycle master plans, all ages, abilities, network, has come up once or twice today and in particular it's in the bicycle master plan chapter 2, it's referred to as the short-term all ages and abilities network. It's on page 71 of the bicycle master plan and it lays out the vision that we have to address exactly the problem that we're talking about. The fact that so many people want to take these short trips in the central city and we want to provide a way to do that safely using our streets but not in cars. The problem is we don't have enough money to get that done very quickly, but perhaps a permitting fee that could help us address this. I'm not suggesting a new tax, but I would suggest that the council consider a cost associated with a fee [4:03:06 PM] that can help us cover the costs of administering the program. That could also include things like designating certain parking ears on the sidewalks. Other cities are doing that. Don't leave it to each individual scooter company to come up with its own parking area, but have a reasonable fee to have docking areas that the city would identify and the fee would be enough to cover the cost of doing that. And that is the sort of fee that is permissible under state law. Similarly we are allowed to do things like charge a franchise fee for use of our right-of-way. The introduction of scooters at a mass scale has raised these procedures and these -- these pressures and real safety concerns that need to be addressed. And I think it's very reasonable to consider whether we could have a fee associated with permits that could help us do that. If you had a fee of say a dollar per scooter per day that would be enough to move us very significantly down the road of getting towards that all ages and abilities network that's identified in the bicycle master plan. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Okay. Thank you for joining us, mayor. Did you have any questions? >> Mayor Adler: I appreciate the rules that the staff put up. There were a lot of options given and things that we could consider. I would really like to know their advice on those options that were given as a laundry list at the end, what made sense, what didn't make sense to do. That would help me better understand those options. >> Kitchen: Okay. Do you guys want to speak to that? >> Rather than trying to make recommendations here, I think we are headed in that direction too. There's a number of modifications to the ordinances that we in fact believe. You know, one of the challenges with our current no riding on the sidewalk, and Angela can confirm this, if we know that a lot of visitors are using those devices when they come to town it's hard for them to know which streets to be on and which not to be on. And so I think moving to [4:05:06 PM] more of a dismount notification where the sidewalks would be stenciled stenciled dismount would bring clarity to that. And we're also very focused over the next several months bringing a new ordinance to govern that to you. Simply setting a speed limit I think would be a step in the right direction. I think we need to be careful that we don't get in conflict with personal mobility devices, whether they be segways or electric wheelchairs. But certainly applying the tools that we have to the issues we would be bringing to you and the recommendation. >> Mayor Adler: And it could be at the end of the presentation it seemed like there were almost a dozen issues that were identified and we were told if council wanted to, it could do this. If council wanted to, it could do this. I don't feel like I have the basis to be able to critically evaluate that. And I don't know that you have the information now yet either, but it would be helpful to say here's the 12 things, we think these might be good or we don't have enough information and we're still collecting data. I wasn't asking for the review now necessarily, but I just wouldn't know what to do with that list without having some advice. >> And Mr. Mayor, it's our intent that we bring a request for council action to the council in terms of tightening the ordinances to better explain what our recommendation is. >> And the law department is -- we're actually preparing written memo with all this information for mayor and council, and in doing that I'll work with them to identify maybe in the early stages what things they're considering so that you can have a good picture before they bring forth their rca, okay? >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you very much. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Alison? >> Alter: Yeah, I have several questions and comments and some things that I want to think about. First of all, I want to say [4:07:07 PM] that I like a lot of things that I'm hearing. I appreciate that we're doing the education and that the education is working with some folks. I appreciate that we have better data than we had a month or so ago. I appreciate that. We are building relationships with the businesses to work together to solve the problems. I understand the promise of the last mile and I very much appreciate the active transportation network needs and the needs that that fills out. I do have some concerns that I want to raise in a second, but I want to thank you for the presentations, particularly Angela for following up very quickly on the requests for data in the other cities and some of those policy questions and I appreciate that it will be in a memo format so that we can deliberate a little bit more carefully on that. I am concerned about access to data as I evidenced in the budget when I requested -- provided direction that we need to do a cost of service study with respect to the costs of the dockless vehicles and that we needed to also be looking at the fines that we could be assessing and what those levels are. So I'm looking forward to having those studies. You did not mention those and I want to make sure that they are in there. I am very concerned about us waiting until next summer to be assessing the costs to our public safety units, et cetera, for these vehicles. And we need to be looking at that. In order to do that, though, we need better data. And we need to very quickly resolve some issues. I think it's with txdot who covers our data collection and so if you talk to our police officers, our ems or our fire, you'll find that they have no way to code an incident as dockless. And if a vehicle is involved and a dockless is involved it gets coded as vehicle. [4:09:07 PM] And so we really need to get this data better, and I have asked for this for several weeks and I would like to hear back that we have been in touch with txdot. And if we're having trouble with txdot then we need to put this in our legislative agenda, which we're looking at next week. Also with data I'm glad that a lot of people are using these vehicles that are all over the place, but I don't know from your data that it's not just replacing people walking. We have an obesity problem as well and if everyone is getting on the dockless scooters and walking where they were walking before, I don't know that I've actually get envehicles off the code. I know that people can now go further for lunch than they were going before, but I don't know that I've actually taken anybody out of a car. So I would like to know that. And that's just kind of getting the data better so we can understand the last mile. I think councilmember kitchen raised a few issues that were of concerns to me during the council session, but there are a lot of safety issues with the interaction with the dockless with pedestrians that we need to address. The liability issues were not really touched on. We need to know who's responsible if a dockless person -- person on a dockless scooter hits somebody, the liability and what we can do for a civil case and a criminal case are not at all clear, and we need to get that resolved. We need to know what it is that we need to change legally to address that. My son was hit by a scooter, he's one of these 37 things. Fortunately he did not have to go to the emergency room. I'm dealing with the detectives. It's been five weeks. They still have done nothing in terms of that. And we don't know how you can charge the person, even though it was a minor that was in the accident. So the liability issues are there for when they hit [4:11:08 PM] people and when there are the vehicles that are hit. Going back to the data, I have heard people, you know, who have walked into these scooters and are suing and other kinds of things. Those are not captured in any of our public health data and they need to be there. And so I'd like to see a plan on improving the data and where we don't see that. The other part is enforcement. And again, I'm seeing with the situation, I have everything on camera, I know exactly when he was hit, but we can't enforce anything about the person who left a minor at the scene. And you have to have the ability to enforce it on that level, and I'm concerned because I'm hearing a lot of things that do require ultimately APD involvement. And I don't think we have the capacity and the resources for APD to address these things. And so if we're going to rely on those mechanisms, we need a plan to provide our police with the resources to do that. I don't see us having those resources right now. And if we don't have the resources, we need to charge these companies who are using our right-of-way for the use of our public safety officials to help make this work. The last thing that I want to bring up right now was raised by Mr. Riley and I appreciate the direction that you're going in and I would love to talk with you more. But our state constitution does not allow us to give away our right-of-way for free, and that is what we are doing. And we haven't brought that legal issue into this. We have companies that are profiting off of our right-of-way and there are some legal issues there with respect to the constitution that we need to address. They're the same issues that we were dealing with with [4:13:09 PM] the small cell. So I think Mr. Riley offered a direction that might help in that, but we need to be thinking about that on top of the fact that this is costing other things to our systems and we don't have plans in place for understanding that. But none of that matters if we don't know what it's costing us. And I'd like to see movement well beyond -- well before next summer on those things. >> Garza: I just wanted to I guess similar to what the mayor was asking for is that whatever recommendations come back tied to obviously the experience we're having. So like the nature of the injuries, I guess my assumption would be they're maybe speed related so that's why I would see a case for speed regulation. So to know -- I don't know if you went into the exact type of injuries, but to know the nature of them and what regulations. Because at the end of the day it's about safety, right? We want a multimodal system and we want everyone to be safe. And so any regulations should focus on how we make everyone safer. >> Flannigan: A couple of questions that were from the presentation. Are we still limiting the total number of devices? >> Yes, sir. >> Flannigan: So do we know -- is that something we're still intending to grow and is there a market delineation that the companies are saying, you know, we could do -- we could put out 5,000 more scooters or really we're kind of hitting the saturation limit. Is there any feedback on that? >> So the companies would prefer that we not have lead caps. The companies would prefer that we go to a smart scaling solution which basically we come up with [4:15:10 PM] how many rides per day we say is a base minimum average across the entire fleet and they continue to scale up until they meet -- until they can't meet that ride -- >> Flannigan: Rides per device. I see. >> Correct. I am an Austin resident and I know Austin and I knew that that's not something that our community could really get behind. I knew that we needed to kind of eat this elephant one bite at a time and really figure out what Austin's carrying capacity is for scooters in a different way than the way the private sector wanted to do. Luckily I was able to convince the private sector to go with me on this. So they are following our rules and limiting the number of fleets they have. So that impacts -- that impacts certain things. Thewe're getting safer scooters, the brakes are better, the motor braking is better, the platform that you put your feet on is wider. It has bigger lights, more lights and stuff like that. So I think going forward it's going to be on important for us to continue probably to increase the caps as well as look at other areas of town. If you'll notice on the map there's not a lot of scooter deployment south of Ben white. I've asked the scooter companies what some of the constraints are related to that. And it has to do with the transportation network. And so there's an opportunity I think there for us to continue to find [4:17:10 PM] ways to right-size the fleet to meet our safety goals. So we use safety as the measure by which we increase fleet size might be one way to look at how we do it. >> Flannigan: That's interesting. I want to reiterate what councilmember alter said about data. I'm really curious to know about what the trips are. Are we seeing -- I mean, I can think about my own personal anecdotal experience that I'll jump on a scooter and go farther for lunch than I might otherwise. Are we seeing that -- are we seeing any ridership in transit on this? Are we seeing a reduction of Uber and Lyft trips? Maybe it's not people who -- maybe it's some people who were walking, but they were talking an Uber and now they're not taking an Uber. It didn't eliminate a personally owned vehicle trip, but it eliminated a shared vehicle trip. So I don't know how we get there. It seems like a very hard question to answer. But that would I think maybe the next level of data to really understand. >> It is. And unfortunately it's other people's data. Not ours. So we have to look at how we go about collecting that data. But anecdotally I've had conversations with the tncs and they've noticed an overall reduction in the amount of fares that they're grabbing as well as the taxis and short trip scenarios in downtown. Do we have an empirical number to go by? No, because we don't have any way of knowing what tncs -- what trips tncs do or don't do. Speaking to the business side and your lunch example, when we first created the ordinance and got started, a lot of businesses were very much get them out of my front area. That's kind of changed now where we have businesses that are requesting nests, that are requesting the companies to create geo [4:19:12 PM] fence destination Zones for their customers. So the businesses around town are beginning to figure out, I guess, how this particular new mode of transportation can drive customers directly to their storefronts. >> Flannigan: Yeah. Another question, I'm curious to what extent the companies are looking at enforcing upon their own riders through the apps either through positive or negative reinforcement, what are they looking at doing that is an enforcement mechanism, to councilmember alter's point, that we're not going to hire a a thousand cops to monitor just scooters, there are other things like making sure people aren't speeding, which is where I would put the next officer not on a scooter. Is that stuff that's no N the works too? >> Absolutely. As I've said many times, the companies only have a couple of months on us. To one other person's point of me and my nacto stuff, it just happens that the -- I was the one who came to the companies and was like hey, if you do this, then that would help everybody out and wouldn't need to necessarily require us to deploy a lot of make-ready infrastructure. Like one of the companies is looking at developing an algorithm. There's an accelerometer on the device. They're looking at developing an algorithm that will sense walk riding, the da, da, da of the seams of the sidewalk. It seems very simple algorithm. Takes some building and obviously some training. In talking with that company's gov tech lead, they are currently doing that in California. They're testing that solution out and continuing to refine it. I think additional solutions like that are coming to bear from all the of the companies. One of the companies has found a way to use social media to sort of socially shame the rest of their riders. So that's another way to do it is through social shaming. As we move forward -- [4:21:13 PM] >> Flannigan: Do you think there's shame on social media? I don't think that's a thing anymore. [Laughter]. >> In 15 seconds it's gone. >> I would also offer another thing we saw at nato was what were being called slow jams. We've used that out on our new bike intersection at south congress and oltorf where we actually had somebody sitting with a large sign, if you could imagine, and as bicyclers would come by, they would say hey, slow down or hold up a sign to the drivers and say no right turn to try to accelerate that learning curve to get the right behavior. So I think we're exploring those as well as we think about how to get this message out to ride smarter. >> Flannigan: I know we're running out of time. We have like three more agenda times. >> Kitchen: We're about 20 minutes past time. >> Flannigan: Just quickly, the bicycle regulations already on the books, is there any data around the enforcement of those? Are we seeing bicycle riders being cited? >> This is Angela again. The information -- I inquired of the prosecutors as well. The only information we have is if it goes to court. Like if a bicyclist is cited and he pays at the window we have no -- we don't know. So our information is a little unclear as well. >> All right. The last thing really from me is just to both thank staff, as was cited by our speakers, the nimbleness and the evolution of this process, which I think has been a model for the country as it seems, is something I'm pretty proud of. That we took the right move as a council to embolden you guys to really do that in the right way. I want to thank all the young people that spoke today. Not everybody has the time or ability and certainly getting time off from work in the middle of the day to come to city hall is not easy to thank y'all for coming to speak. >> Kitchen: I have just a few things and then we'll wrap up and move to the next item. First off, let me just echo [4:23:15 PM] echo -- well, a couple of things. Let me start first with I'm really intrigued with the potential for first and last mile solutions. And so I think it's important for us to actually do some thinking and planning around that. And again, I echo my colleagues' comments about data. But I think that I would be interested in understanding how we can overlay usage, you know, scooter and bike usage, with our bus system and with where we're putting our resources. We have some resources now for sidewalk repair, for example. We have some resources for our bicycle master plan. We know we need more resources. But I would like to understand how we're getting our -- how we're prioritizing and make sure that we're prioritizing our investments in a way that helps all these things align. And of course, I think we need to be sure that we're aligning with the bus system in doing that. So I know we've done a lot of analysis and we do a lot of analysis when we do prioritize where we invest our bond funds, for example. But I think that the -- the kind of data that you have right now in terms of where scooters are being used and where dockless bikes are being used and we've got b-cycle information too, I hope that we are looking at that information in line with where we're investing in sidewalks and bikes and also where the buses go. I'll give you -- I want to give you one example from a question that you asked. I had the same question. In other words, are people just not walking? And using scooters and dockless bikes. To what extent are we getting first and last nile? Let me give you an example of 803 down south Lamar. Some of us live in [4:25:17 PM] neighborhoods that are further back and so I've talked to at least one neighbor who was interested in if he can ride the 803 down and then not have to walk the two miles or the mile and a half or even for him a mile and a quarter, which can be a long ways sometimes. If he can jump on a bike or a scooter that's right there at the boss stop then that's a big win for him. It's enough of a win that means he will ride the bus as opposed to taking his car car. So those are the kinds of places where we can get the synergies, but it takes that working together for him in order for it to work. So I'm just wanting to make sure that we -- as we analyze usage that we -- as we analyze where we're making our investments and as we analyze working with cap metro that we think about all this stuff together. So -- go ahead. >> I was going to say I echo that. Two days ago I had a meeting with Shane Davis at cap metro who is the vp of property. And the impetus of the meeting was you have to help me with all the scooter parking around all my bus stops. So we know they're being used to get to and from bus stops it for that first and last mile. There are some areas where they can do stuff because they have enough property N other areas they don't and we're going to work with them to make sure we can get some additional park. Again, to what I said earlier, it's usually a bike that gets locked to the bus stop post. And then other people approximate ride up and say oh, that's where I put it. So what we need to do is create an opportunity for them to mark things away from the bus stop and do the 15-foot, 30-foot walk to get on the bus. Simple things that we can do [4:27:18 PM] now that we're noticing, now that we're seeing it, and then all of the agencies together are beginning to work together on it. >> Kitchen: Yes. And the other aspect of that is anyone that's riding the bus would like to know that there's an option when they get off the bus. That's always the pluses and minuses of dockless versus b-cycle versus whatever. Okay. I'm going to move us along now because really are way past time. Is that all right or did you have one other thing you wanted to say? >> Alter: I wanted to ask and it would be helpful -- and maybe this is part of your memo, Angela, like the liability issues,, is that in your plan to address in the short run or do we need to be doing an ifc for that? I don't want to unnecessarily do that and I can't -- I'm going to need legal to do the change anyway. So I just want to get a sense of the plan on that and then on the data, the plan on improving the data, there's another piece of the data that's not been discussed, which I heard from a lot of people who were unhappy with the survey because they couldn't just say they didn't like them because there are people who are not walking downtown because they don't like walking downtown on the sidewalks when there's dockless scooters everywhere when might knock them over. I want to acknowledge that experience that people are having and expressing as well, which is not good if we're getting people who are not walking because they're afraid of the scooters. And that's creating that shared space. So if you could very briefly talk about those two things. >> I will defer the data to Jason. As far as the liability question is concerned, I certainly will include that in our memo to mayor and council. Is preparing the memo, it's not only me, the transportation perspective, but also the prosecutors are giving input, the litigation department, and also the police attorneys. So that we sort of have a comprehensive look for you to examine. [4:29:18 PM] And then I would say once you've been able to review and digest the portion on liability, then it's certainly up to you whether or not to initiate an ifc or how you want to go from there. >> Alter: I guess just a general issue. We've given direction to do certain things and then we create an extra step. This is probably more of our government that works conversation that we create an extra step where we have to do the ifc, but it probably should just -- we need to address the liability issue and you guys are in a better position to do that. >> We can't launch it, but then again, I would refer to -- [indiscernible]. >> If I could speak to that. Obviously one of the next steps that we have is as we continue this pilot process is to look at our ordinances. And obviously one of the goals we have is to try to make sure that if the agreements, the rental agreements are placing all the liability on the user that we have an easy way to get to that data so that we can hold that user responsible. I think we were already intending to noodle on that as we gain better information. And so if Angela will work with us on that, we can provide you information as well on that to the whole council. >> Specific to the epidemiology study and cost of services study, I have had meetings with Austin public health and others right now to better understand exactly how their systems document data so that we can begin to understand how each one of those may need to pivot into something else. Specific to txdot's database, that is as a subpolitical division to federal -- for the feds and federal highway that there's some things that we may not be able to change there, but there may be a different way of looking at how we collect data before we give it to txdot and roll it up into a statewide and then a national database. >> Alter: Okay, thank you. >> Kitchen: I'd like to [4:31:19 PM] just -- the comments I made before, I'd like to ask specifically that when you all come back to us that you give us some information about where people are riding scooters and what that looks like with our infrastructure. I think one of our speakers spoke about people tend to ride on sidewalks when they're not safe in the streets. I think that's really true. So we need to understand where that is happening so that we can really look at what infrastructure we have available and target infrastructure where we need it. So I'd like that to be part of y'all's analysis when you come back to us with recommendations. So if you say a lot of our riders are on xyz street and there is nothing else to do on that street except a sidewalk, what are our recommendations to make that safer? That's the kind of information I would like to see. >> Okay. >> Kitchen: All right, thank you all. We're going to move on now to our next item, which is the road capacity plan. We are behind, so we need the update, but I would like y'all to speak to us as expeditiously as you can so that we have some time for questions. >> Like an auctioneer, that fast? [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: Well, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. >> >> Garza: As a time -- so item -- because I really want to hear this one, and I actually have to leave at 5:15. So for item 6, I'm fine with -- I don't know how much past y'all were planning to stay, but I'm fine -- the original intent was to bring that to a work session or the full council so I'm fine if we want to move that. We have to do that. I'm glad there's been movement on that process since we asked for it on this agenda. >> Kitchen: Okay. So this is a time check. [4:33:20 PM] Delia has to leave at 5:15. What is y'all's time? Is that about right for both of y'all? >> [Inaudible]. >> Kitchen: All right. Then we may have to move 6. We'll see. Go ahead. >> I think I can do both in like 10 minutes each and then give y'all time to ask questions. I can give it a try anyway. Let me go through the first one and then we'll see if you guys want to do questions or go on to the next one. >> Kitchen: We have some speakers too. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers, anik Boday, assistant director Austin transportation department. This item is related to the Austin strategic mobility plan progress to date. We've been working on it for two years through significant planning process and we're headed towards completion. So this -- can I pull up the presentation for a second? The purpose today is to publicly announce that we do have the policies complete, so I'm going to talk to y'all about exactly how we developed the policies and then ask for assistance in getting the word out on getting feedback on those policies. There's 127, 28 policies, so no small task. Again, it's the miss middle with regards to mobility with the imagine Austin comp plan, transportation element, which is 100,000-foot view of transportation. Then we have our specific mode plans. We've talked a lot this afternoon about the b- cycle, the urban trails master plan, so this is the updated missing middle. It talks a lot about curb management and other things, smart mobility. We needed to bring our transportation plan into the 21st century so that's what we're doing. So we are now going into phase 3 engagement. These are the goals Teed up in the last two or three years starting with mobility talks that started with the survey in 2016 that led up to the 2016 bond election and we took that further to the community through a [4:35:20 PM] focused public engagement process that focused on historically underrepresented folks within our community and planning processes, youth, people of color, people with mobility impairment, seniors, and then on the technical end we continued the scenario planning. We picked scenario planning as a technical approach that included spatial analysis and modeling as well. Updating the campo model to test how strategies worked against those goals. So the check marks represent what staff has gone through with regards to creating the policies that are out there live right now and that we're asking for feedback over. Essentially the next six to eight weeks is the time frame where we'd like folks to give us feedback. Did we miss something? Is there a gap, should we use certain words, et cetera? Steps are there, we reviewed existing plans. We made an inventory of all plan objectives and recommendations from a plethora of plans that have had council approval on mobility-related policies throughout the years. We grouped them under the goals. Looked at where there was gaps where we needed information. We organized them. We had little workshops with different departments within the city so that we can start looking at the city's strategic direction 2023 and make sure we were maximizing opportunities to work together with regards to how the policies were written. So the next two steps, getting feedback and then making adjustments. This is how the plan is shaping up. We have seven chapters and 27 I believe subchapters. So beginning with safety, going to demand, because we all know that land use, parking, curb management, programming, education, smart mobility are always -- we can very responsibly and quickly manage the demand on [4:37:21 PM] our roadway system and a lot of the times more cost effectively as well. Then of course our traditional supply chapters where we're looking at what we were just talking about, how do we strategically start planning for those investments that are complimentary to each other and also thinking about the disruption. So we'll be looking at putting together maps there. Then operations, of course health and our environment, how is the plan shaping up towards those goals. Looking at equity, looking at how we do collaboration in the future with regard to prioritization of projects is something we want to memorialize in the plan and of course an implementation chapter. So this is essentially what the presentation looks like if you go to the website and you wanted to do the survey, you can review the chapters by scrolling one by one, one through seven. You can jump around by going to the top and let's say you want to go to health and environment first, you can do that. We do have it also in Spanish. I'll get to that in a second. Spanish version went live today. So at the end after you've scrolled through there's a five-minute survey that basically asks how satisfied you are with the -- with the policies and then a write-in to say you missed this, you missed that and we will be ready to have the appropriate time to look at R. At the written comments, remove this or change that. Getting to the roadway capacity plan, so what's coming next we really want folks to focus on those policies. They are 21st century. They are very different than what's in your 95 plan right now. In the meantime we're developing these maps that coincide with the policies. We'll have a safety analysis, injury, high energy map that our vision zero staff are working on right now. For roadway projects we have [4:39:23 PM] completed the roadway capacity plan that has been done with the street impact fee development that is a concurrent project that the transportation department is working on. It is on hold right now until we get some feedback on the policies. And pretty soon we'll be able to complete that analysis and we will be having one on ones with councilmembers. We're starting to schedule those this week for later in November so we can show you those maps. So it was specifically done, let's focus on the policies, continue to develop the maps. Let's have one on one with council and then we'll release the maps and it will all be together in December. We will be designating our state required non-radioactive hazardous material route. When cities in Texas reach 850,000 in population the state requires you to designate a non-radioactive hazardous material route. It's a state and federal planning process. We had a concurrent specific consultant who has done these plans across the state help with that. So that recommendation -- that will be a map that goes with our goods and freight movement subchapter of the supply section. So maps will be out late in November. Full plan will be together in December and we plan to go to land use commissions to kick off the adoption process as well as utc and environmental board in January. So for phase 3 again called action, we will be going out and doing the unique -- reinventing the wheel for public engagement, focusing on our focused target group populations and try to do things different for different results. We'll be going back to quality of life commissions as well. We'll be going to neighborhood associations if they request one. We've had some requests today actually. [4:41:24 PM] So also focusing again on tallying our geographic and demographic representation through phase 3- yards to input on the policies. And that's it on that one. Was that fast? I tried. I can take questions there. I can go on to number six... >> Kitchen: We do have three speakers. Let's take the speakers and then we'll go on to number six if that's okay. >> Alter: I want to make the suggestion. You may already have this in the works, but if you can give us the blurb and the link and everything all ready to go, we all have newsletters and other social media things. If you have it in the way that you've tested that's going to be easiest for people to digest this massive amount of information, I think that would be helpful. >> Will do, thank you. >> Kitchen: Our first speaker is Josiah. Hopefully I said that right. And then Kaz after that and then Jay. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Kitchen: Okay. Did I say that right? Is it Kaz? You will be up next after Josiah. >> I'm Josiah Stephenson. I'm going to be a little bit briefer than I thought, but I wanted to -- because of the time, but we need streets that work for all their users, whether they're on foot, on a bike or on a scooter or on a bus. So we need a strategic mobility plan that prioritizes safety, comfort, quality of service for everyone. And not over things like how many cars can speed through our city, how fast. So we're still evaluating the extent to which the proposed map meets these, but so far we're really excited about it. And, yeah, as -- just one [4:43:25 PM] point about the discussion from earlier, as Jay Crossley alluded to, we talk a big game in this city about vision zero and then more and more people rather than fewer and fewer people are dying on our streets. And so we need many of the things that we've seen in this plan are things that we desperately need to begin addressing that. So thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. >> And I have a presentation. Thank you for giving me opportunity to speak, councilmembers. I'm Kaz [indiscernible], Austin resident and graduate of UT school of public affairs. I'm also a bike commuter as often as I can. Today I'll be arguing for principalled approach to transportation in this city. This is the status quo. Bikes, pedestrians and transit users fighting for table scraps. Our transportation system is broken. I applaud staff replacing safety first for this conversation. The streets we have today all over the city are mostly from a time when engineers prioritized the automobile and their speed at the expense of every other user in this city. Much of the public right-of-way in our city, especially in residential heavy areas are roads, dangerous for everyone even in cars, and it's dangerous for them as well. This is the street in front of Anderson high next to two churches and an elementary two blocks away. This sees quite a few pedestrians and bikes of all ages, but is still designed for cars to go quickly. There are no pedestrian islands or protected bike lanes right here. And here's the heat maps. Our public right-of-way has limited space. Once it reaches capacity we should be focused on making [4:45:27 PM] it more productive. Increased productivity means more people traveling through the same space. This is just another graph showing pretty much the same thing. And here's another way to look at it. Our public right-of-way is limited. And whenever we can expand the public right-of-way, we have to make it more productive. It's entirely possible to have a safer city, but we need you on the dais and city staff to fiercely push back against those people wanting to speed through our city. When people come and complain about other people driving through their areas, they're mostly complaining about outside people, but a lot of times it's people that live right next door to those other people that are speeding because the streets are designed unsafely. In conclusion, please consider your values and vote accordingly. Do you prioritize cars driving quickly or for a city safer for everyone? Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. So anik, do you want to come back and join us? Do we have any more questions on the asmp or should we ask her to present on six? Go ahead. >> Garza: The presentation -- I don't know, it was a couple of months ago and it had the ABC option. And so on the next step -- when do we know -- these are just like broad policy statements. When will we know what the recommendation is with regards to ab and C? >> We had scenarios out in phase 2 ABC that looked at basically the ingredients all the infrastructure ingredient, whether it was bicycle infrastructure, roadway infrastructure, and going from a to C it flipped with regards to an emphasis on active modes and transit versus roadway ingredients and B was the middle ground. Soc was the overwhelming feedback we got from all [4:47:27 PM] participants, the targeted group, and the community at large. And son building the maps and the network priority we'll be taking that into account. So those maps and associated projects will be out in late November and will be meeting with y'all's offices -- we'll be starting to schedule those next week to get feedback from you all on our preliminary ideas before we make those public. >> Garza: Okay. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. Do you want to go to item 6? >> Sure. I'm going to invite Todd hemmingson from cap metro up for this one as well if you could tee up the presentation. So essentially in June of 2017 there was a resolution from council to consider and institutionalize business processes related to, including transit improvements and transit information through the development and review process. So I'm going to report on our progress on a memorandum of understanding between the city of Austin and capital metro with that regard. This is a timeline of what we've been up to since the passing of the resolution we've been doing a lot of talking with not only capital metro, but with the planning department who processes zoning cases as well as with development services on their site plan and subdivision process, all of which have an element of transportation review as you all know. At present time we're finalizing the memorandum of understanding with capital metro, and when I'm presenting the process I'll present to you tonight an overview of -- or this afternoon, it's not night yet, has been okayed by our development services and planning department. And we plan to start implementing the new process in January. So the outcomes we hope to achieve, which are taken from the resolution, but also in our discussions with capital metro, are to support transit improvements formally in the development [4:49:29 PM] review process, formalize coordination between the three departments and capital metro that all have a hand in the development process to make sure we are talking about transit and our business process reflect the requirement to talk about transit and forward that information to council so that you can consider it before you make your decisions. Improve transit coordination between development interests and the city, meaning that we're catching development cases early on and being able to introduce transit concepts earlier on in the process, which makes it more likely to come to fruition in an agreement towards the end. We want to build on existing development review process. I'll talk about that in a second. We have been doing a significant amount of transit review in the development process recently, but it isn't memorialized or institutionalized, which was the point of the resolution. We're hoping to not create inefficiencies. We are looking at doing this in a way that stream lines with our existing processes and our existing staff. And most importantly it's going to allow transit, it's going to facilitate transit improvements and discussions to happen in a larger spectrum of development applications. So 425 Riverside and the broadmore are two cases that had significant transit improvements recently that came through council, but those were done because of a transportation impact analysis that was required. And so like I said, we are doing a lot of transit review when a tia is required. So with this resolution and this new process, what it's going to do is going to allow us to look at transit and require transit on a larger spectrum of cases. So how the process will work is if a tia is triggered, it will go through its normal process and we've been successful in using our tia guidelines that are multimodal to have the transit discussion. And when the trips are over2,000. What we're proposing to do is create a buffer, a [4:51:31 PM] trigger with cap metro. We're still working on that in the next several months of when a zoning case comes in, when a subdivision comes in, when a site plan comes in if it's within this buffer that would likely be within a half mile, we're not sure yet, of capital metro service, that it would be flagged somehow in our system and our new transit enhancement manager who is Jordan swain, if he can raise his hand here, who was funded in last year's budget, and atd will flag those courses and start the process with capital metro staff and then coordinate comments to be placed in our Amanda system, which will then end up in your zoning report and/or in the site plan comments. So that's a big overview of how we're going to institutionalize that. There are still some details as far as the trigger and what that, like, say in a zoning report, what that might look like. Would that be an impact statement or would it just be within the transportation section? We're still working with planning and Jerry rusthoven on what that might look like. So that's all we had. I wanted to ask Todd if he wanted to asked anything to that before you had any questions. >> Todd hemmingson with capital metro. One of the things we collectively agreed on as well as the other departments is that we want to basically be flexible and try this, make sure it works. The idea of this boundary as well as some scaling for the size of the development. So every single development if it's a tiny little project that really would have no substantial impact on public transportation services or facilities, we don't want to overcomplicate it. We want to kind of right-size it. So we want to have some flexibility as we deploy this, but we think the approach with a buffer makes a lot of sense as a way to focus our review and get [4:53:33 PM] good outcomes. And speaking of outcomes, I think the slide deck spoke to outcomes in terms of improving process, but we also want to keep in mind the outcomes in terms of making a better transit supportive community. And that's really what we want to accomplish out of this is really both the opportunity to comment on things within the code that could be enforceable as development review does today, but also perhaps some advisory comments that may not be within the code, but we might say have you considered doing xy or Z that would make exit work better with your -- transit work better with your development? And the third piece would be are there things in the public realm adjacent to the development where we could work with the city to make transit again work better? That could be things like the way we design the stop in the right-of-way or a cue jump, other transit treatments related to the development and the traffic impacts that it might cause. So I think we're pretty comfortable with the approach. I think again we want to get it implemented in January and then basically work through it, see how it goes, work with all the affected parties and continue to refine and improve it as we go forward. >> Kitchen: Thank you. Do you have any questions? >> Garza: No, I don't have any questions. Thank you for the information. And I think this is a great step in the right direction, coordinating. I know that on our zoning cases many times there's trade-offs we have to make and I feel like cap metro's voice, so to speak, was not part of that trade-off because, you know, is it open space, is it affordable housing, is it transit? And I was glad that during the last discussions about our soccer stadium that we were able to get some transit benefits in that. And I think that every -- it sounds like it's being scaled as it is because you [4:55:34 PM] said this wouldn't be a process unless it's -- it calls for a tia. So unless it requires a tia, is that what you said? >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> >> Right now, the majority of time -- we're going to do it all the time for all cases, even those not requiring a tia, as long as it's in the trigger buffer which would be some sort of distance from capmetro service. That is the big difference, that right now, it's a very small amount of cases that trigger the tia that is getting the intense transit review and transit information to you all. So this resolution has afforded for us to broaden that. >> Garza: All right. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Questions? >> Flannigan: Yeah, kind of to that point, is this intended for developments that are going to come before council for approval? Or more than that? >> For zoning, all the zoning cases will come to you. For site plan, not necessarily, site plan are mostly administrative. >> Flannigan: So this would apply to site plan process as well? >> And subdivision. Yeah. Could apply to subdivision as well. >> Flannigan: You know, I would be really concerned about something that further slows down an already very slow process. >> Sure. >> Flannigan: And puts additional barriers to development that, when we need housing in the city and it's such a big need. I'm also concerned about accepting small projects because if the project going in is being underbuilt to the site conditions and, say, we're doing a small convenience store, but really it should be maybe 25 apartment units, I don't want to not have that comment come from capmetro. I want capmetro to say, you know, this auto mechanics shop or this convenience storage creates no additional riders and is not a destination for riders on the system so this is not going to be helpful to us. Not just developments that can create or support ridership and how it might help, if that makes sense. And there's probably a lot to dig [4:57:34 PM] into here. There's an opportunity cost question that I don't want to lose, and maybe this flow chart isn't the moment for that, but I'm maybe even more interested in hearing capmetro's perspective on that side of the equation. I have a lot of faith in our transportation staff to consider other needs, to the extent that we're coordinating our planning efforts, and I think we're doing even more and bigger coordination than maybe the city and agency have done in the past. But really, I'd like to just think about the opportunity cost role for capmetro as we think about development along our transit corridors. >> Kitchen: Alison, did you have any questions? No? So I have a question. So this was -- is the process within current code, but there are some changes that are being proposed for the land development code change that relate to tias; right? And relate to the trigger for tias. Is that right? Okay. So that would still allow us to, when we move forward with land development code changes, that will allow us to look even further at what kind of triggers we need to be looking at. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Yeah. Okay. And so the main -- the main value to this is that, if I heard right, we'll have the input from capmetro in a more formal way to look at it through the lens of transit that will be included in the information that comes to us, when it comes to us, and when it doesn't come to us, it'll be information that may -- are you thinking that the value of it or maybe the opportunity is to talk with the developers? Is that the thinking there? >> Sure. >> Kitchen: Okay. Okay. >> As well as mitigation. We can also do better on understanding capmetro's needs for shelters and other things like that and make sure that we start getting into a rhythm in [4:59:36 PM] asking for the things that are in their needs with regard to small improvements. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I'd be interested also at some point -- and this would come later when we're looking at land development code changes -- on whether there are any additional changes we may want to put in place that actually provide a little bit more in terms of requirements around what the development might need to do with regard to transit. Now, I share Jimmy's concern about we don't want to slow down processes and make it more expensive to develop because that makes it difficult to get to our end goal, but at the same time, I think that, you know, we do have certain requirements around development, and those should include requirements related to transit. So that's something that I would like to look at when we get to that point of examining more. Does that make sense what I'm asking? >> Yeah, it makes sense. And you also did summarize what this was doing, well. . >> Garza: I just wanted to add to Jimmy's point, part of the motivation -- and I also want to be clear. My hope is that this will not create any barriers or slow down the process, but the problem or the motivation was, when I would talk to developers about a project and ask, did you talk to capmetro, and it was always "No." So this was a way to bring capmetro into the conversation, and since doing that, every time I talked to a developer, I believe we've already gotten two future park & rides donated, acres of future, even though they're in the etj now, at some point etj, and hopefully we'll have capmetro service out to these areas. So I think there were a lot of lost opportunities in the past because there was no check the box, go talk -- and that's the thing, like I want there to be -- I don't want it to be just a check the box thing, I want it to be a meaningful conversation that [5:01:36 PM] doesn't -- some kind of middle ground where it's not just check the box but it's a meaningful conversation to talk about trade-offs, talk about opportunities for transit. And it was cave based off the aid impact statement that the city currently has, but that being said, you know, even though that gets discussed sometimes, I don't know if anybody changes their mind over anything about a development, but I think as we try to encourage transit use, it's important that transit be at the table when we're doing our land -- when we're having our land use conversations. >> Alter: I had a quick question that was prompted by my colleagues' comments. For the -- I think it's the impact fee capacity plan. >> Impact fee capacity plan. >> Alter: Does that include transit improvements in that plan? >> Yeah. So by state law, the impact fee can only be used for a roadway capacity, but to the extent that our cross-sections in our transportation criteria manual recognize space and/or design related to transit, the funding can be used to improve the streets that run transit on them. So the trigger has to be roadway capacity, but when we use the funds to improve the street, if there are transit improvements, sidewalk improvements, bicycle improvements that are within the cross-section, approved in our transportation criteria manual, we can improve the full street with those funds. >> Alter: So is there a step that is needed that's maybe not for the impact fees but that would facilitate this process of making it easier for folks to do the transit- friendly improvements that would be mapping those out? [5:03:38 PM] Or is that too much -- I don't want to create a whole lot of other work. It just seems like there might be a missing piece to the discussion. >> Are you asking that we would know what the transit-related improvements would be on each street so that when we collect the fee, we understand -- >> Alter: Assuming that's the level of detail you are getting in for the capacity, or at least there were, you know, high priority areas that are flagged. I don't know that every street is going to have transit improvements, but there may be -- you know, if you have -- let's say you're looking at one of our corridors and we have the transit -- we have a sense of those transit needs, you know, for those streets -- >> Uh-huh. >> Alter: - - Is there a way that that is part of that road capacity plan, or is that -- you know, is that captured somewhere where you would more easily be able to view that -- >> Yeah, in the strategic mobility plan, in the transit priority network that we're teeing up, which is a spectrum of priority treatments, which we presented a lot on the different ways, from least intense to most intense ways to give transit or make transit more frequent and reliable, through priority. So in the asmp, there will be those roadways that are transit priority that we can reference when we do collect funds from the street impact fee, once we get to that point, and the policy is in place which will be coming after the strategic mobility plan is adopted. That was the order of operation because it is an implementation tool. So at that point, we can have a more robust conversation about the streets that it could apply to and how it would apply, consistent with state law. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Kitchen: And at the point where we have that conversation, I'd also like to talk some more about the state law because I'd like to make sure that we are [5:05:39 PM] taking the broadest interpretation possible of what roadway capacity means with regard to our ability to look at our bike, sidewalk, transit infrastructure, because, I mean, if you just said the words "Roadway capacity" to me, that would mean all of those other things. Because a road is not just for cars. So, anyway, so I don't want to get into all that right now, but I do want to have that conversation about how we, as a city, are interpreting the law, and -- when we get to that point. Okay. So shall we move on to the last item? Jimmy, do you want to tee us up on that one? >> Flannigan: Sure. I asked for just a conversation, really, about temporary transportation infrastructure, and I think we've all probably seen different news stories about other cities rolling out Orange cones and doing this, that, or the other. And I know staff is not coming with a presentation, I'm not expecting one or have not asked for one, but I really just wanted to get a sense on how we might move this idea forward in a substantive way or ways staff has been considering moving these types of ideas forward. And I want to be clear, I'm not just talking about, you know, a coned bus lane on a downtown street. I'm really thinking about ways that this could open up opportunities for neighborhood partnering program or other types of ideas, traffic- calming ideas. I can think of streets in my district that are kind of old school, super wide, suburban neighborhood streets so people are driving 40 and 50 miles an hour on them because they're very comfortable to drive 40 and 50 miles an hour, but how might we get different types of pilot ideas in there so we're not just doing rubber speed humps, which we've stopped doing, now there's kind of conflict. I just really wanted to have this conversation. I know we've got some speakers and I want to make sure we have a chance to hear from them. Rod, if you -- >> Thank you, councilmember. This is really just a discussion back and forth. You know, when I look out across [5:07:39 PM] the country at all those unique, let's just try it opportunities, they really are specific to the opportunity that presented themselves. We actually have done some pretty innovative, I think, just try it, opportunities. Could you cue it up? I'll just show you a few pictures of ones I can tell you were successful here. You'll notice these aren't linear projects, but this is to show what does it look like, this is on south congress, and it's built itself into a discussion happening on south congress, how can we make different use of those parking stalls. That's actually two parking stalls that were just converted for a day in the park, if you will. Another example, and this has still been protected off, and I think we're moving towards a final resolution, a park plaza. This is down off of south congress there at the bat statue. We had it next-door, property owners said, hey, you closed it or for construction, can we just leave it and make use of it as a plaza. I think that's played very well. Again, that was a unique opportunity and it played well. In some other locations, you know, our bike program, we used the plastic ones, like you said, or in a sense, more permanent cones. A lot of people think these are temporary until they figure out how to get them removed. [Laughter] But we don't think of them as temporary. This is actually one of our designs to build that separation. This is a design for a bike and scooter nest that we just tried, and people loved it, and so we're actually working with a company right now to contract out within the city manager's authority, to go ahead and roll out a bunch of these. We also have been talking to some of the scooter companies that would be willing to do this themselves. We would rather control the quality a little bit and do it ourselves with a contract. But you're going to see a bunch more of these coming out. This was pretty popular at [5:09:41 PM] [indiscernible], nobody had seen one developed. Other cities are putting these out a little quicker than we are, but we're going to be rolling these out. Sorry, perhaps my favorite, as you guys know in east Austin, we did these painted bulbouts. Got a lot of flack, as well as a lot of praise, for these polka dots we just painted on this created a pedestrian walk out into the street. People either love this or hate this, but I'll tell you this has been the darling of national association of transportation officials because it's a really bright picture. The paint color, actually was done by the paint crews. They said, hey, let's make this fun and do different colored spots. The point is that when you go out and just try something, it really needs to be, you know, tailored to the opportunity that's there. When we start to talk about looking at transit lines -- and I know, councilmember, you've shown me the picture from Boston where we converted -- or they converted back in angle parking in transit lanes. That was an opportunity there. I think we're willing to step into that. What we found, when we do temporary stuff, it takes as much public engagement, and I think Todd would agree, as doing the final, or the final deployment of something. So I would urge caution because every time you do something with a temporary deployment, there are certain risks that we need to balance. And, you know, in terms of public feedback. Some of the corridors that I know capmetro has been looking at, as well as we've been looking at to see how we could do temporary what we find is that we actually need to do structural changes to the infrastructure to make those temporaries work, and in many cases, it's easier just to go ahead and take a risk and do the final deployment after you do that infrastructure change, to achieve what you're after. Do you want to add anything to that? You're welcome. [5:11:42 PM] >> Again, Todd hemingson from capital metro. I think from our vantage point, there's a number of things we've looked at. There are some short-term experiments we might be able to do. Rob is right. In Austin, with our engaged community, we want to make sure we don't spring it on anybody, but there are some things we may be able to to do in the short-term, as well as continue to work as we have been through our transit priority working group on some longer term, more permanent priority treatments. One example we've been looking at from our cities is -- one of the challenges with our bus stops is, if there's someone in a wheelchair or a senior or anyone with a mobility challenge, we have to kneel the bus or deploy the lift to get people onto and off of the vehicle. We've seen some other cities have done these, you know, temporary -- temporary/long-term solutions where there's rubberized mounts that basically can be put out in the street or on top of the curb to raise -- to almost more of a level platform situation, sort of like a rail vehicle might be. That way, you can reduce the boarding time, make it -- easier and more convenient for people to get on and off the bus, so we are looking at that sort of short-term test, if you will. And we have a whole list of other places where we think, either short-term or long-term, we may be able to do some things that help get the buses unstuck from traffic, which has been one of our ongoing challenges. >> You know, councilmember, getting back to this risk issue, I always kind of chuckle when I get with my peers and they say, how do you take these risks? Somebody recently asked me that, you guys seem willing to take risks on new infrastructure, or to do [5:13:42 PM] things. I don't mind taking risks. I typically like to know that I have a pretty good odds of succeeding because then you don't have to withdraw and worry about the impacts of having failed. And so, you know, I am open and hed is open to work with capmetro and anyone that wants to try things. We like to make sure that the public -- we've reached out to the public from an equity perspective and make sure people understand what we're doing, why we're doing it. But anywhere we can prioritize the safety of pedestrians, prioritize transit, that fits with certainly the direction council has given us thus far. >> Flannigan: And I would love to talk more about public engagement, but I think we need to do some right now because we have folks that have stuck around to speak. >> If you guys have ideas about things to try, we're willing -- >> Kitchen: Yeah, we'll have more conversation with you in just a minute. We have ash cann first and John -- is John still here? >> He left. >> Kitchen: He left? Then Kaz is next? Go ahead. >> I'm not going to have time to get through my presentation so let's just let it sit on this slide. All about right-of-way -- my name is ash khan. Thank you for hearing me out. Councilmember alter, I want to speak to some things you said. Very sorry to hear about your son. I suppose we have an obesity problem, but we have a bunch of problems. Even if scooters are, at very worst, taking trips away from walking, I put it to you that that sweat is worth a lot. I'll be brief. I bought a Vespa when I lived in Austin, road it all summer one mile back and forth to campus. I got hit in September and walked away because I didn't have health insurance, and it was still worth it. So saving -- even if we are switching walking trips to scooters, I still think that's a gain. I don't know that that's the most important question we [5:15:42 PM] should be asking. I don't hear anyone asking, are car trips maying walking trips, which I absolutely know they are. So I had to throw that in. Councilmember kitchen, you said people tend to ride on sidewalks when they're not safe on the streets. That could be the name of my presentation. So I live at Lamar and Koenig and I got here by biking and busing. I just wanted to show three pictures from today of my way here, of the bike or bus lane being blocked. I mean, this is my everyday experience. It's incredibly dangerous. Those are two pictures right there. I routinely have to pivot from street to sidewalk to bus lane to whatever. I have to turn my head both ways at every single curb cut. I invite you to come to my house, I do it every time I miss the 801, which is pretty often. I'm treated as a second class citizen because I don't have a car and I'm reminded of that every single day. I'm glad I can speak for all the people that can't speak for that. So let's talk about solutions. Thanks very much, councilmember Flannigan, for bringing this item up. One solution that we could implement is, in fact, bus lane pilots with Orange cones. I want to note that people put Orange cones on Guadalupe every day, sort of willy- nilly. That looks like public land to me that someone's taken Orange cones on and gotten in the way of, I can't tell you how many buses an hour. A lot. This is a -- from a memo from the center for transportation research at UT, prepared in 2015 for the city of Austin and for campo. It shows two different scenarios for how we could put in transit lanes. As you can see, these are curb side transit lanes. Maybe they're not perfect but I can tell you that today, they are an improvement for all of our goals. Fundamentally, there is a 6% increase in vehicle through-put at peak times. If there's any concern of putting in these lanes, it would be at 5 P.M. When we're really going to get in the way of people on their [5:17:42 PM] way going home. That just simply does not happen in this scenario. So I definitely knowledge think that we should pilot it today. We would increase vehicle and people travel time throughout the Guadalupe corridor with a bus lane pilot. I'm not advocating for this specifically, I just think that here's one place where there is some data, the available data does suggest that we would be much better off real indicating our right-of-way. [Buzzer sounding] So I'd like to encourage you to explore that wherever possible. I'm going to forward this report to all of you. Thanks very much. >> Kitchen: Thank you. After Kaz, Jay crawsly. He's gone? Is.com here? Go ahead. Is -- is Adam here?>> And I have presentation. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today, councilmembers. I'll be arguing for allowing temporary transportation measures, giving staff more authority, as well as prioritizing it with staff. Again, as I said with my other presentation, the status quo is broken. While the city is working to fund transportation improvements, many of these projects take years to construct. In the meantime, we have this broken status quo. The picture on the left ace crash from Tuesday. On Wednesday, I witnessed another crash at the very same interaction, 15th street. Ladies and gentlemen, on the right, people are being killed walking to the bus, or waiting on the bus, in this case. Over the years, accident statistics have repeatedly shown that twice as many children are killed and four times as many injured in pedestrian/vehicle incidents on Halloween compared to other days throughout the year. KXAN did an excellent news article on this last year. Hopefully they'll do this again. Nacto, which atd staff went to the conference this year, knows lane widths are determining factors for street speed and consequently safety. A year ago, Mesa was under [5:19:44 PM] construction for waterlines. There was no traffic apocalypse. The traffic still flowed. It was fine and it was much safer than today. Compare those two. Does that look safe to you, for pedestrians and cyclists? That's a bus stop also right there. Is that safe? Is that safe at Steck and Mesa where people have to cross? That's right next to Anderson high, I talked about earlier. That is not a safe intersection by any definition of the word. Here's an example of some temporary improvements that should be allowed. Hopefully -- there we go. This is, I'm not sure, but that's a link for the YouTube. The lights were out and they implemented a roundabout, instead of having a cop go out and direct traffic. As you can see, there's lines, but you see how slowly those cars are driving. That could be done in many intersections all over the city. It's completely possible we can make our streets safer tomorrow. Yes, people are going to complain. People are not going to be used to waiting in line and having to drive slower throughout our city. That's hard. People are going to complain. But that's what it's going to take. Here's another example, some temporary improvements we can make. That helps engage the entire neighborhood. That gets everybody out there working and building their neighborhood. Here's -- many of our streets have a 40-foot curb-to-curb. Allow some of these temporary measures to be placed in the middle so people don't have to worry about driveways, especially on high-traveled roads. We're looking a lot more over the years at bike lanes, and that's great, but in a lot of cases, center running would be a lot better. Center running transit or center running bike lanes or shared mixed use lanes. Staff should consider those more and should consider those in the appropriate context. [Buzzer sounding] I'll send you the rest of my presentation, but -- but thank you. >> Hi. [5:21:45 PM] My name is Adam Greenfield. I am a board member of [indiscernible], I'm also vice chair of the pedestrian advisory council. I want to thank councilmembers kitchen and Flannigan for putting this item on the agenda for today. This is really an exciting opportunity. I'm not going to talk about the urgent climate change and fatalities and serious injuries situation we have, but the opportunity to deploy quickly interim improvements in Austin is extremely exciting. As you know, the pac passed a recommendation about this last month, and I forwarded to your aides the materials that we put together. I think Austin can create what other cities haven't yet, which is an actual program that we can deploy citywide. The intersectionality with other things going on right now in Austin I think is very compelling. Not only can we empower atd to make rapid changes where there are fatalities, but we can also create pilot programs, for example, new Orleans over the summer deployed an interim protected bike lane. We could be doing that here in Austin. I saw the photo from parking day. What if next year we had a temporary bike -- protected bike lane going down congress as we all also take over the parking spaces for that event. I'm working with the city of Austin to deploy a block party program that's going to be coming out soon. What if every block party were given a kit of materials where, for the day, they can reimagine their street using these temporary materials. That could happen. It's a very exciting opportunity. I encourage you to keep working with atd to move [5:23:47 PM] this conversation forward, to engage with other cities that are also at the same point we are, which is, they're thinking about it and starting to deploy this kind of stuff. Get the best practices and let's move forward with this because I think this is a fantastic opportunity for Austin. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Thank you. So, rob, do you want to come back up? Rob or -- and Todd? >> Yes. You know, I really think that comments from the speakers, and I think the last speaker kind of narrowed down to more of a thought process around, is there -- are there guardrails, maybe, a way to put it, guardrails around what temporary infrastructure could look like. Here are 25 things it can't do or five things it must do or whatever that is. And then separately, to think through what public engagement process looks like, and I think it -- again, to your point, I think you're exactly right, this is context-sensitive, dependent entirely on the circumstances of intersection or road or area in question. And I think about it not so much in sending atd staff a list of a hundred places to go figure out what to do, more so because it's temporary, me and my staff and my community leaders hanging out and brainstorming and thinking about the cool stuff about the streets in their own neighborhood and figuring out, so I don't lead them down a path that's impossible, what are the must-haves and can't-do's that exist in this type of area. And of course I'm not asking to you answer this question now, but that's kind of where my head is at, then we can empower the community to do brainstorming in a substantive way. Then the kit idea is a hell of an idea to get through. If that leads the something substantive -- I think traffic in a box as opposed to budget in a box would be a much more interesting process for the city to run, community service. >> Maybe it's traffic management in a box, not traffic. >> Kitchen: Yeah, traffic. Yeah, maybe along the lines [5:25:47 PM] of another way or an additional way for the neighborhood -- neighboring partnering program, because it would be interesting to have -- to have opportunities for neighborhoods to say, hey, you know, we've got this issue with the street; what if we tried xyz with it, is there a way to do that? Again, within guardrails and parameters, because I think your point is well taken, it needs to -- the temporary measure you want to try is something that you are trying so that it might become permanent, generally speaking. So -- and it's certainly something that needs to work in an area, so -- but I think that there might be some opportunities. I would also be curious about what's happening around the country. >> Uh-huh. >> Kitchen: And I know you guys are up to speed on that, but maybe letting us know what other places are trying things. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: And whether or not something would be appropriate here. >> You know, there were about five of us out in los Angeles at this nato conference. One of my conversations, everybody is supposed to bring back five of the coolest ideas they saw, G part of that conference is going to other cities and stealing great ideas. That goes with my motto, we don't have to be first, we just have to be best. So we take what we learn from other cities and bring it back here and we'll be glad to share with you. Getting back to what you said, councilmember Flannigan, is that we're really open to a lot of new ideas, and then, you know, we try not to say no straight up. We try to say, well, how can we get to something -- how can we take that idea from a neighborhood and make it work, or bring it to something that works for all of us. And so I guess what I'm saying is, you know, we need good ideas from as many places as possible. Certainly I'd like to help facilitate that through a place-making, sort of, mission or initiative from our department, and we'll be doing that over the next [5:27:51 PM] year. >> Kitchen: Okay. Good. Thank you all. I think we're done. We are now adjourned. [5:58:52 PM]