Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 12/6/2018 Title: City of Austin Description: 24/7 Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 12/6/2018 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 12/6/2018 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [3:02:29 PM] >> Kitchen: Okay. We're going to go ahead -- good afternoon, everyone, we're going to call to order the meeting of the mobility committee. And our first item is approval of the minutes. So councilmember Garza moves approval, councilmember Flannigan seconds. All those in favor aye? Minutes are approved. Okay. We do not have anybody signed up for citizen communication to we'll go next to em number 3, which is approval of the mobility committee meeting schedule for 2019. And just a note for everyone everyone, we are -- we're moving the meetings up earlier from 1:00 P.M. To 3:00 P.M., which gives us a little bit more flexibility in terms of how we -- in case we have to go longer for a meeting or two. But the idea is to keep it to two hours, from 1:00 P.M. To 3:00 P.M. So do I have any comments? No comments? A motion? Councilmember Flannigan moves adoption of the schedule. Councilmember Garza seconds. All those in favor? Okay. It's approved. All right. So our first item here is the dockless mobility update: So I want to also as we get started with this I want to also recognize the commission on seniors who made some recommendations with regard to -- with regard to dockless mobility. Now, I know this is something -- is councilmember alter on her way? This is something I know that's of interest to her. And we do need to get started. Let's start talking about the senior commission and then she may be here shortly thereafter. So what we've started -- wanted to start doing as a mobility committee is really [3:04:29 PM] to highlight the recommendations that we receive with regard to mobility from the various commissions that are involved in this. So we as a council always receive these recommendations and take note of them, but we're feeling it was important to bring these more to light. So we have a recommendation from the commission on seniors and I want to recognize Jenni brizemeister, who is here. Why don't you come up. I'm just going to briefly cover what those recommendations are and then Janie, if there's anything you want to add, and you may also want to sit there as the staff gives us an update. >> [Inaudible - no mic]. >> Kitchen: Yes, you can summarize. If you would just take a few minutes to do that, that would be great. >> Sure, just a minute. >> Kitchen: If you would take a minute to do that, that would be great. >> Thank you. As councilmember kitchen said, I'm Janie brizemeister, I'm chair of the commission on seniors. And on October 10th, after meeting with atd staff, the commission on seniors adopted and submitted to staff comments on the dockless mobility regulations. And while we agree that dockless mobility can add new options for people in Austin, we are also concerned that it may create barriers for seniors, people with disabilities, anybody with a mobility impairment. So to summarize broadly our comments call for two things, prioritizing state for pedestrians on sidewalks and the need for responsibility and accountability for riders. So on safety, we recommended that the city create a new traffic and safety regulations that are applicable to dockless mobility, including appropriate speed on sidewalks and appropriate passing distances. We also requested more urgency in removing units that are blocking access to [3:06:31 PM] sidewalks and transit and other Ada violations. On responsibility and accountability for riders, we noted that rider education is important, but it's not sufficient. And we called for enforcement and penalties for inappropriate and reckless riding and for parking violations. And we suggested that council consider civil penalties that could be enforced by staff rather than using police time on this. And of course, something like driving -- riding while intoxicated would of course still be enforced by police. So that very broadly summarizes our comments and I'll be happy to answer any additional questions. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much: I think our staff is going to let us know the time frame for ordinance changes. I know myself, I would ask the staff to consider each and every one of these for the ordinance they bring back to us. Does anyone have any questions for Janie right now? >> Flannigan: This is really good stuff. Thank you for being here today. I'm curious about the item here about including technology that serve seniors and other mobility impaired persons and equity outreach. I mean, I struggle with -- I'm curious how the conversation went with the seniors commission because I don't know that the commission has ever recommended that b-cycle do that or -- it's not a public tool. If we can get more people out of their cars or using these devices then it would make space for the mobility impaired folks for the devices that are available to them. >> Yeah. We specifically were looking at the section of the temporary rules at the time that talked about equity outreach, like getting units out to people who maybe don't have smartphones and other ways to get more people involved. And so when thinking about seniors, we thought about is there a possibility for, [3:08:32 PM] say, three-wheel scooters that are more stable that a senior might be more comfortable riding. That's what we were thinking about in that comment. So all we were saying is as you think about other ways to expand the market to people in need, think about ways to serve seniors as well. >> Kitchen: So you were not saying instead of or not saying against the scooters we have, it was more of encouraging innovation and thinking of other innovation too? >> That's correct. When we met with the atd staff they mentioned some other companies were thinking of three-wheel type scooters. >> Kitchen: All right. Thank you. Okay. Do you guys want to go ahead? >> >> Good afternoon, council, madam chair, I'm Robert spillar, director of transportation for the city of Austin. I'm making the presentation today as an update on the dockless scooters. Madam chair, as you said, one of the things we want to do today is sort of lay out the process as we move forward and give you certainly a picture of where we're at today. I'm joined by some technical staff here. Jacob Culverson is my direct person that manages the enforcement on those devices. And of course Angela Rodriguez, our attorney, is here should you have specific questions of her. I know this slide show looks a lot like the previous ones we presented to you. It's just the format. We're trying to stay consistent, but the numbers and everything have been updated. I'd like to walk through that quickly. I know that the purpose today is to really get to a point where perhaps you all can ask questions of I and my staff and provide feedback and so I want to move through this fairly quickly, but please if you have questions just stop me and ask questions as we go through it. Brief topics we're going to talk about an overview, we're going to talk about an exciting new start. We've partnered with the health department to do. [3:10:32 PM] Talk about enforcement actions and again that timeline for the next wave of ordinances as we and the industry learn how to better manage these scooters as we go forward or this process as we go forward. So a little bit after highlight we currently have seven licensed operators. Not all have devices operating, but we have seven operators in town. We have 11,000, almost 12,000 units authorized, and that's across both bicycles, dockless bicycles, as well as scooters, but clearly the scooters make the lgest piece of that market. We currently have 10,001 scooters on the roads, on the street. We have 1,000 scooters that have been suspended and we'll talk about that here in a little bit. And we have 850 dockless bikes. Over the time period of our operation, or coordination with the industry since April there have been companies that have come and companies that have gone. I know in the news just recently another company has mentioned that they're showing up, Lyft, and they're now on the streets in terms of scooters. In terms of dockless license, the following companies have this many scooters and devices. Bird has 4,000 scooters. Their 500 initial plus 3500 supplemental scooters that are outside the immediate area. Lime has 4,000 scooters, 500 internal or initial to the dapcy area, 500 additional. They are the company with 1,000 suspended now. Lyft has 500 scooters. They are in the process of launching right now. Another company razor has 5,000 scooter permits. They have not launched yet. Spin continues to hold on to their one scooter. And then we have two companies, vio ride has 350 [3:12:32 PM] bicycles and jump has 500 bicycles and 1,000 scooters currently in the marketplace right now. We are starting to see that alignment that we talked about when we started this process between probability companies, in fact, jump is operated by Uber so you can access those devices through the Uber system just as the new Lyft scooters can be accessed through the Lyft system. So there's this vertical alignment starting to appear as we predicted. About 85 square miles of Austin is currently served by both the scooters and the dockless bicycles and this is in addition to our b-cycle system. We are working with b- cycle to make sure that they remain sustainable, but they are not included in the statistics that I'm talking about here as we go forward. One of the things that I think has been on the mind of councilmembers is what is the crash and injury profile of these new dockless devices. And you know, we've been collecting data, as I said, since mid summer. We that I that the data shows that the severe injuries and clearly fatalities are not occurring, but we want to make sure that we truly take a deep dive into the health data to make sure of the information we're getting. I'm really excited to announce that Austin public health has partnered with us and we have invited the centers for disease control to come in and actually do an epidemiological study of the incidents and crashes and injuries that are occurring here in Austin. It is our understanding that it was the first time they have been approached and so we think this will be a very thoughtful analysis of the actual crashes that are happening, not only how many and quantifying what's happening, but also to try to find out if what the similarities are between the [3:14:34 PM] different crashes so that we can better understand how to address those. So that will be starting very quickly. You know, we know that we will be focusing on 37 ems calls and 68 scooter injuries reported through the systems to specifically take a look at what were the causes and the severity and is there a way to limit or reduce those injuries as we go forward. Councilmember alter, I believe that was one of the things you had asked for is better information on the type injuries that are actually occurring out there and what we could glean from those. What we do know is when we look at just the pure numbers, and this I not the scientific analysis of what's causing those incidents, we know that scooters continue to be low in terms of the numbers of injuries that are being occur out there. We do know that with scooters as with any type of crash profile, that they're very likely under reported. So what I mean by that being under reported is that we know that there are more motor vehicle crashes that occur than actually get reported so we should expect that with the scooters. Anecdotally I will tell you that we know that a number of people complain that with scooter crashes that they often result in a hit and run or the inability to trace the crash after it. I would tell you anecdotal also is that there seems to be a rise in hit and run across modes. So it's not just happening in the scooters, it's happening across modes. I don't think that there's a relational cause and effect there with the scooters, but we know the scooters like on bicycles are hard to trace once that incident occurs, so that will be one of the focus points as we go forward in terms of identifying user oriented ordinance over the next several months to try to make sure that that's more [3:16:35 PM] transparent and more traceable so that people are adhering to their responsibility, their social responsibility to stick around after a crash occurs. Clearly when we look at the crashes, the largest culprit are the motor vehicles. I think somebody at one of our last briefings pointed out that we need to make sure that if it is a motor vehicle and a scooter that crashes is that we're capturing that that that was also a scooter involvement so that will be one of the things that we'll be asking our epidemiologists to look into to make sure that we're capturing all the accurate injuries that are occurring out there for scooters. We've received a question, how do you know how many scooters are active in a specific area? This is actually a screenshot of the dapcz area, it's a compliant dashboard. All of the companies use what's called sms. What does sms stand for? >> I don't know off the top of my head. [Laughter]. >> Sorry. It's a really technical thing that allows us to trace the devices. >> Apis. >> I said sms, I meant ap Is. What that allows us to do is using a third-party, scoop the location of all those guises, the numbers and - - those devices, the numbers and where they're first deployed in the morning. We use that third-party tool to verify that the scooter companies are deploying the number of vehicles or the number of devices that they've been allowed to do in a specific area and I think councilmember Houston actually asked about this. So we're using a third-party tool to actually go on and count and look at where they're being placed within our community. I know all of you know from the news that we've had some enforcement activity over the last several weeks. One company was found to [3:18:35 PM] have excess devices within that center area, the dapcz area, which represents essentially downtown, that inner congested area where our permit system allows 500 devices, depending on if they're scooters or bikes, to be initially deployed. What we found is over the period of about a week, three or four, five days, there was consistent violation of those numbers. Now, I think that some of those violations were because they were having a technical ability or a technical malfunction of his system, and I'm not sure that that matters in terms of our rules because the end issue is that we have too many scooters or we had too many scooters from that one company this that area. Whether it was the I believe ability of their technical program to meet our rules or an unintentional, willful, if you will, violation, from orepearch, it doesn't matter because we're trying to manage ha for safety and congestion in our downtown. So we took action. We asked them to reduce our directed them to reduce their fleet by 20%. That's 1,000 device reduction, for a month. We're hoping that this month that we can continue to work successfully with lime to verify that they're able to meet our rules. And then we will again work with them to reintroduce that thousand. We thought that was an appropriate response given that this was our first very transparent enforcement of our adopted rules and so that's the action we took. But there's also several other enforcement actions you should know about. Pace, who had the white bikes here in town, has pulled their inventory or removed themselves from the market. They've been asking difficulty getting all their devices off the road and so we continue to take enforcement whether that be [3:20:36 PM] impoundment or notification, but we're continuing to work with them to enforce that removal from the market since they no longer have permits. Their devices, from our understanding, cannot be checked out so they're sort of strained. So that's why we're -- stranded. So that's why we're continuing to enforce on that. We continue to coordinate with all vendors regarding parking at capital metro facilities. One of the questions I think was earlier is are people using these devices to avoid using transit. We actually think they're using them to get to transit. One of the problems is when they get to transit they leave them at the bus stick or the sign for the bus. So we're continuing to coordinate with capital metro or the users or the companies, we love it that people are using these to get to transit, but we need to help them park it in the right place. So many of the companies just recently are requiring you to take pictures of where you park it and then I've also heard of at least one company assigning a fine or assessing a fine to their user for they park it in the wrong place. So we know that that is having an effect. We've also been learning a lot about speal events. Acl was a major learning. We thought that went better than the previous events. UT is also experimenting with football games how to best use and collect scooters. So we've already started coordinating with south by southwest. Given the size of that activity and the amount of streets that are fenced off, we're already coordinating with them on how to best manage scooters or help their guests use the scooters and so forth correctly because we know they will be popular during south by southwest. A little bit about dockless ridership. We continue to see vary high ridership on a monthly basis. I think last time we were here we said between April and October that we had seen well over a million rides total. We continue on a monthly [3:22:38 PM] ridership level that will - we will easy, I believe, get to 2 million rides or in excess of 2 million rides this year. You know, from a business perspective I see that as economic activity and pent-up travel demand that's being met. I know again anecdotally from many stories of people we hear they're using these devices instead of their cars to extend their lunch trip. So they're going to businesses further away and Reno that they're generating a lot more economic activity throughout the community. And so we continue to monitor this. I just want to provide this information. One of the things we do know is that we continue to monitor this daily and continue to make sure that it is accurate. We were notified by one of the companies that they think our mileage calculation may be low and so we're going to go back and look at that over the next month to make sure we're collecting the right mileage calculations as we go forward. So timeline. You know, we just finished the rules process and we are now enforcing those rules as you see. We had a meeting with members of Austin police department today to talk about stepped up enforcement there as well as the ordinance itself. One of the things we want to do is to look for -- towards a user ordinance, if you will. You know, the user has a responsibility here to ride scooters and bikes safely. One of the things that the new scooters have highlighted is that many of the users are visitors to our community and so some of our bicycle rules about where you can ride on the sidewalk and where you can't are antiquated if you can't communicate to most of the users or many of the users that are visitors where you're supposed to ride or not. You know, in Austin the ordinance allows you to ride on bicycles and similar devices on sidewalks, except seven specific arterial [3:24:40 PM] sidewalks that are hard coded into our ordinance. So many other cities have dismount rules and you've heard me talk about this before, where you would be able to ride on a sidewalk unless there is a specifically gender on the sidewalk that says dismount. And the best place to put that is at the curb ramp where you're coming on or off the sidewalk. And we would be looking to move towards more of the notification or a signage environment so that whether you're on a skateboard, a bicycle, your personal bicycle or a shared bicycle or a scooter, in the future it will be very clear where it's legal to ride and where it's not legal to ride. We continue -- we plan that the health and liability studies will continue in January. In February we would anticipate coming back to the mobility committee to respond to any feedback we get today or direction we get from council in the interim. With a dockless mobility ordinance refresh and a safe riding ordinance. I don't expect to get through on a single reading. I would want you all to have plenty of time to digest that and provide additional input. But we would anticipate a council meeting in March or April depending upon the timeline with south-by and the schedule for meetings going forw I think that was one of the concerns last time when we announced that we were moving towards the next sort of user focused ordinance that you all had plenty of time to communicate to us. So that's what we wanted to give you a highlight on. The dockless ordinance refresh, we want to make sure that we're aligning our business model and fee structure to offset infrastructure and other needs. As these devices continue we believe to become more popular, again, other cities are starting to talk about not just bike lanes and special use lanes, but maybe low speed, reservation of [3:26:41 PM] low speed space within the right-of-way so that a more varied portfolio of devices that are here now are coming in the market have a place to operate. And so we're interested in looking at that through this process. Operating authorities, right now we have been allowing new companies to come to town as other ones leave as well so I would expect us to entertain of, well, what is the maximum fleet size that is doable for Austin? You know, we have -- previously I showed we had about 11,000 devices in town, but there are still parts of town that are not being served and so I think that the maximum fleet size is probably larger than 11,000, especially as we start to serve the outer neighborhoods within Austin or around to meet specific needs around transit stations. So we'll be looking at that. That also gives us an opportunity to have a conversation with council, do we want to go to a franchise model or to a limited number of companies in Austin. That's certainly something that you all asked us before to have a conversation with you. I'm not sending signals we believe one way or the other, I believe it's just something that we should have a conversation about. And also liability and discovery. With the current tracking systems on the devices we believe that the technology is there to be able to identify users within three to nine feet of an incident. And although that might not pinpoint the specific user, in some cases it would pinpoint the specific user that may have been involved in a crash and taken off, but it will certainly narrow down the list of users and that should be able to help [3:28:42 PM] Austin police department. You know, right now we believe that data is available through subpoena, but we would like to hard code it into an ordinance so that going through proper channels that that information can be shared with the person who has been hit so that they can pursue the proper channels going forward. So that's the other area where we want to focus on. We're analyzing the data to get that specific data out there, so I just talked about that. The dismount Zones, I mentioned that. In the outcome of these will be used to develop that new safe riding capability. We've KWN for some time that our bicycle ordinance probably is outdated and this is -- this has really given us the impetus to move forward and fix that. Please be aware that we'll be coming with this. Many of the arterials right now where you're not supposed to right on the sidewalk will probably be in the first list of sidewalks that get noted as dismount. Sixth street, south congress where there are stairs obviously would likely be dismount Zones from the beginning. They're dismount Zones now in the ordinance, it's just people don't know it, so this way we would be able to fix that. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you very much. We're going to -- we have two speakers that wanted to comment, two citizens. And then we'll go back to questions from everyone. So let's see. Ted use ewbanks and Sam Sadie. Stay up here because we may have questions for y'all. You have three minutes. >> Hi. My name is Ted ewbanks. [3:30:43 PM] I'm here today as a beginning discussion about the impact these dockless vehicles are having on historic sites, parks, civic spaces, particularly downtown there's a growing concern about this and I agreed to come today and to address this. I've been working in these spaces for the last few years and these need to be spaces that are there for refuge, for respite, contemplation. And when we're driving our scooters down through will drink square, across Wooldridge square or through republic are parking scootrsers on the steps of St. Mary cathedral it's inappropriate. So I would hope in this upcoming ordinance that rather than just have seven sidewalks that are dismounted, we be very careful about our historic sites downtown and continue to have them be areas where people can not just walk, but where people can stop and contemplate. Every one of these sites is accessible from a sidewalk. Every one of these sites is accessible from a road. I'm not here to talk about whether or not sidewalks and roads are appropriate. That's not my situation. I'm talking specifically about those. And I think what I would like to be able to do to volunteer is perhaps we could come bring a list much what those sites are that we are specifically working downtown and spending a great deal of time and hopefully in future years money in upgrading, and these are the sites that we need to be protecting. [3:32:43 PM] >> Kitchen: Sam. >> Councilmembers. It's great to see you all again. >> Kitchen: We couldn't quite here. >> My name is Sam. I'm the director of government relations for lime. I want to thank you all for your time today. We really genuinely appreciate opportunity to serve the city of Austin and really value the strong working relationship that we have with the director and his staff and you all and others. It's been a great first few months here in Austin. Since we've launched we've had more than a million and a half rides on lime scooters just in the last few months, a million and a half. And we really believe that this is part of how we achieve the goal of that first and last mile of austinites that director spillar spoke about earlier. We also -- we understand that we are in fact -- we are a team and a company dedicated and operating in the public right-of-way. So we're dedicating to protecting the right waive and ensuring that we are in fact a valuable actor, but also a responsibleabilitier in the public right-of-way here in Austin. I wanted to briefly talk about some things the director mentioned. On November 15th we received an email from city staff indicating their data showed that our team had deployed in excess of 500 scooters as allowed in the dapcz. We immediately corrected that. Apologize, it was an accident. It was honestly not something we had intended to do. That same weekend we rolled out a new program in our hot spots which is where we have our lime juicers and others who help us deploy scooters on the ground. We rolled out a new program to help us identify hot spots. The challenge that we faced is frankly the program was not ready for prime time. It was, as the director mentioned, a genuine technical error. And the city reached out to us and we learned about it and we were drugging to get it fixed, -- we were struggling to get it fixed. [3:34:44 PM] We weren't able to get it figured out. On Tuesday of that week we scrapped the new program and went back to a custom, hand, everyday, our team going out and deploying the correct amount of scooters on the streets. We were in constant contact with the city throughout this period and we are now undergoing an internal investigation to figure out where our technology went wrong, why it went wrong and what we have to do to fix it. We are genuinely sorry this happened. This was not something we intended to do. It is not something we ever want to see repeated and our goal is as we move forward that we continue to coordinate with the staff of atd as well as you all to make sure that we are being that responsible custodian of the Austin public right-of-way. One thing I did want to note is as we move forward our hope is that we can continue to serve the city of Austin in a responsible manner. Key to this for us, however, is expanding our presence beyond the dapcz. The dapcz is great and we find that we get the most ridership without a doubt in the dapcz. That's where people want to come from, it's where they want to go to. [Buzzer sounds] >> Kitchen: If you would wrap up. >> Yes, ma'am. My apologize. We're very proud of the fact that we deploy scooters south of Ben white, in Braker and rundberg areas. We see ourselves as a solution, as part of the solution for mobility across the city of Austin, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, mayor pro tem. I wanted to acknowledge that she has joined us. We have about 10 to 12 minutes, something like that, for question and discussion. I know, councilmember alter, you had some questions. Maybe you -- yeah. [3:36:44 PM] >> Alter: Thank you. I appreciate the presentation and the update. I wanted to touch on some questions I had at the last meeting that I'm still looking for some answers on. A lot are legal questions, but I want to first start with -- I think we were supposed to get a memo on what was going on in other cities. I don't know that I received that so I wanted to see if the survey of the other jurisdictions is complete and to learn a little bit about what we found or -- >> This is Angela Rodriguez with the law department. It didn't go much beyond what I already -- what I already said to you at the last mobility committee hearing. As far as the memo was concerned, the memo that I was referring to was going to encapsulate not only that information, but also anything -- any legal options for council to consider when the ordinance came in. I wasn't going to send a memo until council had an ordinance to consider. So it would be all at once. And I believe it was a request from the mayor at that meeting that there would be a simultaneous memo from the transportation department indicating their rationale for what they were recommending in the ordinance and then mine would be a companion to that and then it would include that information. >> Unless you want it earlier. >> I think it would be useful to have it earlier. I think we need to better understand what our legal options are. So my next question is from a legal perspective what do we know now is and is not permissible for dockless -- >> In relation to? -- >> In relation to what we can regulate, in relation to what is considered a motor vehicle? Whether it's if somebody hits somebody that's not in a motor vehicle is that an assault? There are a lot of legal questions, we've had conversations about this. What is it we know from a legal perspective? At this point in time? >> I'm just thinking how to answer that. [3:38:48 PM] >> Kitchen: Are you feeling it's a broad question? >> I will say this, I have looked at the liability issues and I feel comfortable with my recommendations on the liability issues. I've looked at the rider behavior and how far we can go as a city in regulating that and where we can regulate that. I'm comfortable in my analysis of that. Where I am -- have a conflict and I'm not sure what to say, is atd has not decided what they're going to recommend to council yet. Because of that I haven't been able to sit down and do analysis with -- for instance, I was telling director spillar earlier, let's say we have a and B and I don't believe B is legally viable. I don't want to say that to you today. Do you see what I'm saying? And then have that be the recommendation that council considers. So I don't know how far to go with that. >> If I may speak on this, is our intent at Austin transportation department, the user needs to be responsible for their behavior so if a user uses one of these devices and hits somebody we want to be able to hold that user accountable. And that is our objective. That's the compliment we have to you all as we work on this ordinance. I think one of the challenges is we're at the beginning of that process and so in terms of the survey of other cities, yes, that will be the first thing we do is reach out and we just don't have that yet. >> Alter: Okay. On the liability question, what are our liability choices then? You just talked about making it be the user, but I live near the school for the blind and there are now scooters all over my neighborhood and they are right where people from the school for the blind are going and trying to learn how to -- how to navigate the city without the benefit of sight. And there are going tore hazards, the school for the blind has complained, but [3:40:49 PM] it's not an individual person, it's the companies. So there's a lot of -- there's a range of liability issues that we need to address moving forward. And as a councilmember I would like to understand what those liability choices are and how we're thinking about them because it is -- otherwise it's going to be the city that gets sued here. >> I understand. >> Alter: The other question I had was on enforcement. So I have some concerns about the introduction of dockless to our trails. And that has -- I've been told they'll enforce it. I'm not seeing a lot of enforcement and part of that is because the rules are unclear. But if we're going to put this forward, we need to have enforcement that is real and we may need to put resources into enforcement. We may need to raise fees so that we can charge for this enforcement. I'm really uncomfortable with moving forward with that pilot when we don't have enforcement mechanisms, we don't have the legal mammonisms to -- mechanisms to enforce -- you can say you're on the trailer not on the trail, but there are a lot of things that make necessity very uncomfortable about the trail thing. That's one issue. But I'd like you to speak now to the enforcement process and what we're going to do about resources for that because a lot of these things sound great if you can enforce it. But I'm not seeing a lot of evidence either that we have the legal tools to do that if we allow them on the streets or that we have the resources with APD, if APD is the only ones who can provide these citations. So help me understand how you're thinking about enforcement moving forward. [3:42:50 PM] >> So, councilmember, one things we're looking at is can we create a parallel level as well as a criminal track, if you will. So that a police officer could enforce either one but then he could add enforcement paid through the fees and paid through the transportation fund to enforce the civil penalties. We have several examples of that I think now and this is still hypothetical, we still have to create this, but it is to allow whether it be a citation or a criminal offense, much like running a red light. The red light cameras are a citation versus when you get a ticket from an officer it's a criminal offense. So that is the thinking and then we could force using parking enforcement officers or mobility enforcement officers to assist and expand that force to meet the needs. That's at least the thinking. >> I would also add there's a technological piece that is very important to this, creating the companies or mandating the companies, create certain geo fences that are no ride Zones or no go Zones. That could also be recommended as well. And I think that's a big piece of the enforcement and regulation is allowing for that technological piece to catch up to the demand that exists in the city. >> Can I go back to my earlier question? Is the survey for the other cities complete or not? >> Yes, it's complete. Ky prepare a memo for that if you want that now. I'll do that rather than wait until the ordinance comes forward. >> Alter: That would be great. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Mr. Flannigan? >> Flannigan: Thanks, I'm really excited about the way this has moved forward. I think it's important for Austin to be proud of. We didn't come in with a big [3:44:51 PM] hammer and knock the whole thing down. We moved through this in an iterative process and much of the presentation you did were the questions I have and you were already on top of it because you are doing a great job. I'm especially interested in some of what councilmember alter said about -- what you included about what to track on crashes on what is involved. I think that's a common sense thing the community would expect to happen that is interesting to see how you would evolve to that point. I'm really glad to see the enforcement action online. Not because I have an issue with lime, but because it shows that when there are rules and we have a method of enforcement we will enforce it and we can move that forward as we add additional rules. I share concerns about the trails, it's not entirely clear to me what problem we're solving with that change. I hear a lot more concern than support for that. My question, though, is a little different. I'm a pretty avid user of the scooters myself. It really helps me get around downtown and leaving my car in this building instead of taking up space all over downtown. But I have noticed a pretty big difference in the technology they use that there's different -- even within a fleet certain devices from one company are different from other devices from that same company. The braking mechanisms are better or worse depending on the acceleration is faster or slower. The size of the wheels is bigger or smaller. I'm interested if there are national standards that are being god, both in terms of safety with these devices. What is the scenario there? >> Councilmember, two items. On the parks I'm going to invite Amanda Ross from the parks department up to answer specific questions if that you have about the parks pilot program. About the technology, I will tell you that this technology is evolving quickly. I know at least one company since April when they [3:46:51 PM] deployed is on their probably fourth generation of technology. As they learn stuff from deployment their directly investing in their technology, but that also means that you might have multiple technologies out at the same time. Many of these technologies were first deployed in a flat environment so you've heard Jason John might sell, my assistant director talk about, the hills of Austin were a surprise. So that's now being factored into the design of the newer scooters that are coming out. So specifically to answer your we about national standards, no, I'm not aware of national standards at this point. I think the -- I'm not sure the federal government is recognizing these yet. They may be trying to avoid recognizing them. But there are no national standards yet for equipment and the equipment is evolving very quickly. So I would anticipate continued evolving that equipment over the next year. >> Flannigan: I think -- >> It changes very quickly. I would encourage users to find the technology they're most comfortable with and feel safest on and patron that technology. >> Flannigan: I was on a scooter several times a week actually and the brakes weren't so great and so as I parked and I took the photo of it, I was typing it in thinking I'll have these people on my mobility committee later this week so I'll ask them then. It's a weird thing to think that's how I'll get it done is by putting it in the app. So the companies are listening. The primary thing I hear from my constituents with the technology is the braking. And some of the brakes are great and some of the brakes are not great and that is a huge safety issue and I was riding them coming up to a stop sign and oh, the brake isn't getting me stopped fast enough before I get up to the stop sign. That's my primary concern when it comes to the technology. >> And councilmember, that's one of the places we've seen injuries too is people over -- their expectations [3:48:52 PM] are beyond what the equipment can do, whether it's the throttle or the brake themselves. And so they tried to put their foot down like you used to on a bike and stop and unfortunately when you're going 10, 15 miles per hour, that doesn't work. So I think there's a way in all these companies' apps to provide feedback and I would encourage every user if they encounter a problem or encounter less than quality equipment to make sure that feedback goes back into the app. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Flannigan: But in that -- >> Kitchen: We need to move a little faster. Go ahead. >> Flannigan: If what I'm experiencing is a certain type of technology that I'm starting to believe should not be on the street. It's not that one device is broken, it's that one device with a certain style of brake is insufficient, I want those off the street. That's where I'm headed, but not ready to head that way right now. >> >> Kitchen: Mayor pro tem, is this something -- >> What councilmember alter wants me to include in the memo is the cities and did you want me to include the liability choices we have the city? >> Alter: Yes, please. That was it, sorry. >> Kitchen: Mayor pro tem, did you have a few questions? >> Tovo: I do. I have a battery of questions, but I'll limit it to the couple I hear most frequently. I'm looking through the rules and I'm trying to mesh the rules process with the upcoming ordinance and the safe ordinance and the two questions that I'm being asked a lot are what kind of limits have we placed on the numbers? I know each license can have 500, but can you please provide for the public an explanation of what that overall number looks like? Is there an overall cap or are we just going to continue to permit any company that comes for up to 500? And then are you looking -- I think you referenced this in your presentation that as you -- as we move forward into the spring and look forwards the ordinance there will be some thought given [3:50:52 PM] to the overall max in different geographic areas. >> So the last question you asked is the easiest to answer. It's yes, we are going to be looking at an overall number number. Right now the limit is 500 inside the dapcz area. That's that inner core of Austin. But then companies can receive additional allotments of 500 when they can show an area that they're currently not serving can be served better if they had those additional permits. The other thing is they have to show that their devices are a the least receiving three uses per day on average. So of course some devices have many more than that. Maybe a few less than that. But that is sort of our measure of are there devices being used? Is there still demand out there? I will tell you that I've heard estimates from several companies of what they think sort of the market need is here and it is larger than what we have right now. Again, I think what's key there is that that really requires these companies to serve the areas further out from central Austin. >> And we can have more conversation about this outside of this meeting. I mean, for example, earlier this week I got some emails from neighbors in a particularly area of my district who said they counted 100 in a block and a half area. This is not downtown. So every resident of that block and a half would have to be utilizing the scooters for it to make sense to have that many in that area. So as we get that information we will forward it on so you can take that into your calculations. The other comment I hear a lot is the concern about scooters on sidewalks. And I see that the website information, the rules, both address talk about it in terms of yielding to pedestrians. And I think frankly our language needs to be clearer about that. It's not just in my observations and in the minds of those who are writing and expressing their feedback about it, it's not just about yielding to [3:52:53 PM] pedestrians. It's in many cases we should be requesting, as you said, in those particularly areas, dismounting, but we should be setting an expectation that if they are on a balk and there are many pedestrians around they should get off, whether it's an official dismount area. Not just yield to that person who is walking and zip among them, but get off the scooter so we don't have pedestrian-scooter conflict. So I would suggest that we change our language on the website and provide a little bit more guidance about how to use these safely in areas with high pedestrian traffic? And especially when it gets to arc, that's when I've seen the conflicts most apparent. What are the current rules about riding on scooters on the sidewalk, when pedestrians are present versus -- do we have the ability to enforce anything at this point or does that depend on having an ordinance that provides some more regulations with regard to that interaction? >> Kitchen: I believe that's coming back on the ordinance, isn't it? >> I think -- yeah. I think we could speculate what ability we have now versus where we're headed. I don't know if that would be helpful because it comes back to the enforcement. >> The conversation we had last time. >> People are still responsible for their behavior and reckless behavior I believe is -- can be enforced against, but again what I believe is reckless versus you or the person who is being passed is going to be very different. So we hope to clarify that in the upcoming ordinance. Using things like setting maximum speed limits, setting speed limits in the vicinity of pedestrians, and speed limit on a bike or a scooter probably takes the same path for autos, safe and reasonable speed so that a reasonable person could say yeah, that's dangerous behavior. You're going to get a speeding ticket. >> Tovo: So I think -- it was my understanding that [3:54:53 PM] some of that could be clarified in the rules and it sounds as if most of that is going to be clarified in the ordinance. And so I appreciate that we're taking care to do this and getting lots of stakeholder input, but I sure wouldn't want to see it go well beyond the timeline that you have there. And in fact, that timeline seems a little far out given the conversation that I'm hearing. I think people want to embrace this new technology. They want to see it on the streets, but they also want to see it being operated more safely. So it makes -- it gives me some pause to have to continue to tell people that for the next three or four months we're going to be somewhat limited in our clarification on those issues of regulation. >> I understand. >> Kitchen: Okay, thank you. We're really out of time. I would like to make one last comment and I think you wanted to make one last comment. So let me just say thank you all. I share all the concerns that have been raised. I think enforcement is a critical issue, including having the resources, whether that's technological resources or additional kinds of staff. That's going to be important. I would urge us to continue to work collaboratively with cap metro because it's important for people to be able to park and pick up these type of devices at bus stops, but in a way that is not causing problems in terms of how they're laid out at the bus stops. So I know y'all are working with cap metro, but that would be a collaborative activity, I would think, because there are places where we're really talking about the city property because the bus stop property is so small. >> Right. >> Kitchen: And finally, I would just say that as I said before, the recommendations of the senior commission are recommendations that I hope you will take into account when you're putting together the ordinance. And also -- and I know you will do this, but if you [3:56:54 PM] haven't already, to provide feedback to the commission on seniors in terms of those that will be included in the recommended ordinance. And if there aren't -- if there are some that are not, please have that conversation with the commission and with us. And then finally, I have -- I share the concerns that have been raised already with regard to the trails pilot. So councilmember alter, if you would just be very brief with your last -- councilmember >> Alter: Yes, I will. I had an opportunity to talk with Ms. Mcneely about the trails pilot and I just wanted to let folks know that I'm going to be putting in a resolution on Friday that excludes shoal creek trail from that pilot. I'm open to excluding other trails, but the reasons that I'm focusing in on shoal creek are technical in nature. There's a sidewalk up nearly most of the trail that is an alternative that I see folks using the dockless, and they're not getting in people's way on that sidewalk because most people otherwise use the trail. And it's also not as wide as some of the other trails. There may be some interest from other colleagues to exclude other trails as well and the posting language will allow that. I also want to express that if we're going to move forward with the pilot for the trails and either -- regardless either way for the hike and bike trail whether there are electric bikes allowed or not, we need to have enforcement that the dockless scooters at this point in time are not to be on the trail. There might be a future time in which that is appropriate when we have things ironed out and that is used as a transportation corridor, but in the meantime we really do need to M that he trails that we are having enforcement, we are hearing lots of complaints and concerns about the scooters being on [3:58:56 PM] the trails and affecting people's ability to enjoy those amenities which they use everyday and have used for many, many years. So I would just like to see that part of any steps moving forward as well. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you very. Thank you all for being here. We're going to go on to our next item, which is the update on the Volkswagen settlement. We're going to catch up on our time because I know Carl is going to be quick on updating us, less than five minutes and that will give time to ask any questions. >> Yes, ma'am. Happy to just briefly go through this. I'm manager of electric vehicles and emerging technologies in Austin energy. Today is your briefing on the opportunity to Austin and our community to obtain Volkswagen settlement funds. So back in October 2016 there was a multi billion dollars settlement from Volkswagen for cheating on emissions on the federal clean air act, and now we're getting to the point where it's real. Very early on councilmember kitchen did convene a working group so we've been tracking this, it's been a slow process. Where are we today and what's the strategy to get the funds and next steps. What's coming to Texas is a total of $209 million broken into three categories. You can see in this slide right here. 169 million is going to regional went it's, that includes -- entities, 16.3 million to the stain area. A side note, the original plan called for zero to Austin and then after some feedback back and forth, the most current plan from tceq is 16.3 million. There will also be likely competitive grants or potentially rebates for [4:00:57 PM] statewide 31.4 million in alternative fueling infrastructure. And then the note on the bottom is electrifying America is working in Texas an additional 2 billion fund for infrastructure. >> Zach bomber with Austin sustainability. We've been coordinating within the city of Austin and with capcog, our regional air quality coordinator, so for the $16 million that are set aside for the Austin regional area, this is not just for the city of Austin, this is for government and nongovernment within our entire region. So in terms of the strategy that we talked about internally so far, we've talked about when the grant funds become available in early 2019. Right now just the draft plan is out so we're operating off what the draft currently says. We've talked about aligning our proposals with existing city council resolutions and city of Austin plans, prioritizing wind projects for air quality and climate change. The plan really just focuses on nox emissions and air quality, but we know we can achieve double benefit when we electrify vehicle choices. Moving quickly as fast as we can to get vehicles replaced quickly because every ton of emissions we avoid now is a benefit. Really following the tceq guidance on their cost per ton prioritization because in the grant programs they are very clear about trying to achieve the maximum benefit in terms of benefit per cost. Collaborating with Austin energy, and making sure we coordinate with cap metro and aid. We haven't heard much from aid. Cap metro is here if you have specific questions for them. So just the very early conversations that we've had with the airport, this is just a summary of our sort [4:02:57 PM] of initial cut on if we were applying today what are the kind of things we would apply for as the city. First of all, we would coordinate with Austin energy to apply for fast chargers at fleet locations and also level 2 charging stations at fire stations and other city of Austin buildings. These would be assets the county could use but also available to the public. The next group is the guidance is really clear about being able to apply to replace diesel equipment that's older than 2009. There are 25 heavy-duty, large diesel trucks that could be replaced right now with either clean diesel or cng. We don't think they are electric options specifically available for these 25, but these could be replaced with new clean diesel or cng. There's a high interin replace -- in replacing class a trucks are the biggest trucks, semi-sized trucks. There's a heavy interest in replacing those, but the challenge at this time is that the models available don't meet a lot of the fleet's needs. Many of the -- we've seen electric cars come along very quickly, but electric, very large heavy-duty vehicles are only having a range of what I had heard between 50 and 60 miles, which is not really long enough to -- the needs of our fleet at this time. So we'll see. That's going to be evolving quickly as the technology advances. Then finally in terms of the airport, the airport is interested in replacing four shuttle buses that they are that are moving between the main terminal and the south -- the new -- the operating south terminal. They would be applying for two DC fast charging stations to pair with shuttle buses. Finally they've started talking to airlines. One of the lowest costs per ton of sort of the biggest [4:04:58 PM] opportunities that they laid out in the guidance was for ground service equipment and tugs, the stuff that moves outside airplanes. So the terminal is set up for charging stations. It would just be a matter of coordinating with the airlines and making sure that we apply for those. And so second to last slide is on the infrastructure portion. That statewide 31.4 million. So the strategy is one is aligned with city council resolutions and plans, that's already been in plays with us. Meet with various community, fleet industry and policy stakeholders. That includes recent convening from councilmember alter and her work with the clean air force to just how can we collaborate with other private-public partnerships. We will collaborate with other fleet submissions so it's just not -- the other bucket pays not for the vehicles but the infrastructure so we're working with cap metro and other fleet providers of helping size that and be part of that grant process. Collaborate as appropriate with third-party infrastructure providers, which is now allowed by city code thanks to a recent city council resolution to that, so thank you for that. And then we will be submitting our own applications so this could potentially be phase 3 of our D.C. Fast rollout. Phase 2, we submitted for six DC fast grant applications to the alternative fuel program. All six got accepted so that's our phase 2 rollout. This would be a potential phase 3. So we would leverage the existing templates and lessons learned and just as importantly we're already talking to hosts and other partners for this fiscal year 2 that we can roll over to be quick and agile in submitting once it becomes available for phase 3. It's just about next steps. These are estimated with the exception of December 21 is [4:07:00 PM] when tceq did have a deadline for plan input for hopefully the last round of input and then potentially as early as January we could get a 30-day notification of the process and we could start applying for grants as early as February. >> Kitchen: I have one or two very quick questions and then we'll turn to my colleagues. So let me ask about the process, and you may know more about this. So is capcog -- are we - - I'm more focused on the 16 million pot. So if I'm understanding correctly the 16 million point 1 or whatever pot is for the central Texas geographic area or is it primarily the Austin msa or what is the geographic area? >> The greater Austin area is what cap to go -- >> Is that the msa? >> That is my understanding. >> Kitchen: Hi, Andrew. Yes. The applications that come in, my question for us as the city of Austin is are we collaborating with others in the community for those applications so that we are thinking as a community when we make our applications to capcog as opposed to all of us applying for everything we want? And that's a question for the city. I mean, as a city, have we talked about how we're going to make these applications or maybe we haven't yet. >> No, we've just initially just been thinking about what's the potential for us to apply for. >> Kitchen: Okay. I would -- my recommendation would be, and then I'll turn to others, is that as a city we sit down with our partners and think about how we apply so that we think more in terms of a joint application with synergies between the city and I'm thinking particularly of cap metro. There may be other partners I need to think about, but so that we -- so that we are [4:09:00 PM] perhaps going hand in hand when we go to capcog. That's just my recommendation. Councilmember Blanche Lincoln, Flannigan? >> You mentioned the city and aid collaborating and I'm curious what your conversations are like with the other school districts in the city. >> We haven't reached out to them yet. >> Flannigan: Will you? >> Yeah, we can. >> Flannigan: Most of my district is Round Rock ids, Leander. >> The initial response we got from aisd was they were just tracking this like Terp and other emission reduction grants and just going to plan to apply. We'll make sure to coordinate with others. >> Kitchen: The last thing I'll tell you, with regard to the items on the city slide, just because we have limited dollars from my perspective, the abia -- abia items would be less of a priority for me for coming out of the 16 million. For various reasons, which I would be happy to talk about at some point, but that would be less of a priority. Did you want to say something? >> Alter: Yeah, I just wanted to, first of all, thank the folks at capcog and Mr. Spiller and senator Watson for their advocacy so we have the opportunity to think about how to spend the $16 million. So up to two weeks ago we were shut out of this funding, and I think it's really important to understand that we had to make a case and communicate how important it is for the Austin area to stay out of the nonattainment situation. Were we to get to a situation where our air quality deteriorates and get into non nonafeignment, [4:11:05 PM] there would be serious environmental consequences as this funding provides us an opportunity to take additional steps to keep our air clean and avoid that designation. So I just want to thank those who helped us advocate for this and I'm pleased that we are beginning to have some conversations, coordinated conversations across the region to think about this. One thing that I didn't see on here that was part of our clean air force discussion was -- and it might be implied in here, I just didn't see it, was more for the second pot of funds because at the time that was all we knew we had access to was for the infrastructure funds for thinking about that in a regional way perhaps from Round Rock to San Antonio with the chargers and stuff so that folks could run the larger vehicles and have places to stop along the way so that we could really make a bigger difference regionally by doing that because it doesn't help if we just have the infrastructure in Austin alone if the truck can't get to where it needs to go. So I just wanted to highlight that as well and put the encouragement. I too would be less thousand stick about the airport -- enthusiastic about the airport investments since they can make investments at the airport with airport funds, which we can't do the other way around. I would much rather see us helping to electrify our transit, electrify our fleet and creating situations where we have heavy-duty trucks that are gas emitting taken off of our roads across the region. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you all very much for coming, and again, I'll share -- I will also add my support for electrifying transit. I think this is a huge opportunity for us to do that. Our next item -- I'm going to take these out of order. [4:13:06 PM] The next two are related to each other in a number of ways. There's asmp update and the project connect. We're going to take a brief update from project connect. We can take a few questions there and go to the asmp because some of our conversation might be an overlap between the two. So I would -- in fact, what we can do is take a brief update on project connect. If it works for my colleagues, we could just take a few of those questions and then do the asmp because I think our questions may be related back and forth. So if you want to go ahead, Dave. Did you have handouts for us? >> I've got the larger -- >> Kitchen: If we could have those handouts, that would be helpful. The other thing I want to do is I want to recognize Mario champion who is here from utc. Utc had recommendations for us related to project connect and so Mario, we'll ask you to speak to those after we have our update. >> Okay. Good afternoon. I'd like to go ahead and provide you with the latest update on project connect. This is current as of our board workshop yesterday afternoon. So it provides the results of a lot of the community outreach that have de over the past several months since the initial vision was presented on October 1 of 2018. The first slide shows you the regional system. Shows you that outreach that goes up as far to the north as Georgetown, and provides [4:15:07 PM] a way to go ahead and get that connectivity back into the center of the system. Some of the areas that are there we currently have got service that are outside of the service area, but they are reimbursed by those jurisdictions. Other areas that the locations could be for park and rides are within the system and could be done for the future. The next slide, and this is really one I think you can see better when you go ahead and look at the handout, the 11 by 17. It basically shows what is there in terms of the initial concept, the vision map that was there. And what is overlaid on the map that you have in front of you is what the results are that public outreach and I'll address those a little later. There were a series of different quarters that were identified as part ofhat public engagement. There are a total of eight of them that basically were corridors that were there that would be able to provide a level of transit that currently does not exist in terms of maybe brt light in the majority of them. Everything from palmer at the north, it would provide an east-west connection where there are not a lot of east-west connections that currently exist. And then down to Delco, which is an extension of what is currently exposed as the purple line. And express route from the suburbs up to the north starting at 220 and down through 2222 with park and rides at those locations to be able to provide that service to bring individuals in from suburbs, bikes, bus route, to be able to get into the core of the city. Each one of those, a good example pleasant valley. In that location there is a very short gap of about 1,000 feet in the street network. By going ahead and making that connection in conjunction with the city [4:17:08 PM] work, it would allow a continuous route to be able to be there to provide better service in what would be the Navy line. There are three different versions that have been developed for the downtown area. The first provides a connection between the blue and the Orange line where each one of those would cross the lake at a different location and would be connected basically between the new downtown station that we're about to start construction on and the republic square station that would be on the Orange line. So it would basically provide that blue-orange connection. Version 2 for downtown would take what the existing red line commuter rail service is across from the downtown station to republic square and also the potential if we go ahead and construct the green line which would be commuter rail to the northeast. To take that across downtown to merge in with T Orange line. The last one is version 3. That adds on top of the other two a location where we could go ahead and do the gold line. The gold line would basically be something that would run from ACC highland around through the core of the system between downtown station, republicquare and up to crestview on the Orange line. So it would give you that multiple options of taking dedicated lanes pathways to be able to get the high capacity. In the case of the gold line, it's something similar to what's done in a lot of other systems where you've got that capability of going from one line to another through the center of the system. This gives you the view of the map. It's much better to look at the sheet that you have in front of you, unless you go ahead and blow it up on your laptop. This gives you each one of the lines that I provided a brief description of as I started this. It shows in the white [4:19:09 PM] highlight, if you will, each one of those different corridors that have been added. The eight corridors plus the alternatives that are there that could be potential in the core of the system in the downtown area. In terms of next steps, there has been community engagement. We have been through and been with each one of the city council districts with the exception of one that remains for next Monday night. The incorporation into the vision plan of the results and comments that were there from the community and also the workshop that we had yesterday, with the idea of making a presentation of the proposed vision plan to the cap metro board on the 17th of December. As we've gone forward with the process, it involves coordination very closely between the city and the city programs and cap metro. We started the process in going through the vision plan and the vision map. Coordination with asmp and each one of the corridor portions so we wind up with a good coordination between those two as we go forward in the spring of 2019. Then as we get to the point continuing in the spring of 2019, the cap metro peacefully aligned with asmp and the continuation of getting comments which will continue all the way through the process, not only into next spring, but as we go forward into the preliminary engineering and also the pieces there for the alternatives analysis and establishment under the Nepa process, continuation as we go into 2019 and 2020 that includes all of that public outreach, it includes the public input as we do the environmental studies and do advance through the preliminary engineering. Time line that we have, 2018 [4:21:11 PM] was the community engagement that basically was over a two-year period. In 2019 looking forward to the asmp decision. Additional comments on the proposed vision. Always taking those into account, continued involvement with the community, continued involvement with groups within the community. Working towards going ahead and getting the start on the preliminary engineering. Looking at what would be there under the federal Nepa process, and then looking at the analysis of the dedicated pathways and continuation of looking at what the bus service is. 2020, again, focus totally on community engagement, vehicle selection in the spring of 2020, and then as we move towards the fall of 2020, the potential for a vote in 2020 at the time of the presidential election. That concludes the condensed version of the presentation from yesterday. >> Kitchen: Before we take questions, I want to ask Mario -- I'm passing out the recommendation from the urban transportation commission that related to project connect, and again as I said, talked about earlier with regard to the senior commission, we are very grateful and pleased that we have the participation of the folks that are working on our commissions and want to particularly hear from them. With the urban transportation commission, we've passed out the recommendation. Is there anything that you would like to highlight, Mario, on behalf of utc? >> Chair, Mario champion, member of the urban transportation commission. I think we had a very vigorous and product of discussion that came to this resolution. It was presented in the form of -- it had a couple of questions in it and that led to us discussing and advocating for various [4:23:11 PM] elements of the plan. I think broadly it's true to say there's support for the vision plan, there's support for high capacity planning for sure. I think that most important take-away is there is a lot of public support for dedicated right-of-way. I personally as well as members of the commission heard from lots of transit advocates which I include myself, many of whom had maybe alarm at what they saw as changes in the plan and issues about mode choice, et cetera, et cetera. I think we were able to bring those concerns forward and get people focused on the first real fight which is dedicated right-of-way. After whatever goes into it, buses, trance, scooters, it matters less if there is no place for it. At other events there are many people who want dedicated right-of-way and understand that's the first real fight to have. I just want to take a second to say I've also seen this presentation involved since October 1st at least and cap metro should be lauded for taking that into account because one of the big concerns and the reason for this recommendation is that people feel they are not herbed. Feel the even -- heard. It shows it is working. So I think urban transportation commission just wanted to emphasize that to the mobility commission -- committee. >> Kitchen: Thank you. All right. So do you all want to ask any questions right now or should we have asmp come up and then ask questions of both? What would you like to do? Go ahead. >> [Inaudible] >> Garza: So yesterday at our cap metro meeting, I feel like most everybody is on -- wants the same thing and is on the same page, but it's like technical words [4:25:12 PM] that are, like, you know, we're not speaking the same language, so to speak, and I'm curious if your take would -- we talked yesterday about tabling parts of the map preserving the right-of-way. >> Uh-huh. >> Garza: Obviously you can't build out the entire system on day one. It's going to take time to do each different corridor. So I guess what are your thoughts -- I know you can't speak for the entire committee, but I would love to hear your thoughts on is that a place where you think people -- as long as we're preserving the right-of-way for dedicated at some point, do you think that's something that -- >> I think - - I won't speak for the whole commission, I've speak for people who have spoken to me and for myself. Dedicated right-of-way allows a lot of options and sometimes it might go down a major quarter like Guadalupe and Lamar, dodge a block. I think many people are okay with that discussion because it means that there is a real plan for high capacity throughout the entire system. Notice in that recommendation that is the number one urgent message we want to communicate is that we should as a vision envision dedicated right-of-way wherever it goes. One of the things that has come up is like dedicated right-of-way could be curb running surface track and we could move people and bikes into the area. Maybe the dedicated right-of-way takes a bus or train in the area. We could move people and buses more easily. We could use contraflow. There are lots of opportunities for getting right-of-way. And I think that people see that high capacity will not happen without dedicated right-of-way. I'm not the first person to say that. Cap metro staff has been saying that for years as well. Does that answer your question? >> Garza: Kind of, I might have said prioritize. I meant to say preserve the [4:27:12 PM] right-of-way. When people are looking at this map, you know, I've heard from folks who say why aren't all the other lines dedicated right now. But I feel like there's -- like I said, even if those are going to be dedicated, we can't do it right now. But as long as we're preserving that right-of-way gives us the ability to do dedicated at some point. If it were labeled, I feel like it's a labeling -- if it were labeled, you know, we're preserving the right-of-way. Do you think that is a language that we're all -- we can all come together and say -- >> Yeah, I think that's a very good point. One of my bones of contention is that as a vision it's not super visionary because it doesn't say we're trying to preserve that right-of-way. It sounds a little already negotiated and this is what we think we might be able to get so one of the messages I think there is support for those who need to express the political will in a leadership way that we could preserve that. Preserving whether we do it in day one or ten years from now. I think the other thing that comes up, these are billion dollar problems that are going to take decades and I appreciate cap metro has started talking in those ways. If we spend time to get a bond for -- we need to talk about billions of dollars across decades. This plan in the way you framed it is preserving it even if it's ten years from now. I think a lot of people would be on board for that. >> Garza: Thank you. >> Kitchen: Go ahead. >> Flannigan: I appreciate the way you laid that out, Delia. I have been struggling with why this didn't feel right as I looked at it and I think what I was feeling was it's not ambitious enough. Part of it is just the graphic design, right? And seeing these kind of [4:29:14 PM] traditional thick line transit, but there's only kind of two and a half -- well, two and a half will still be something people laugh at Austin about 40 years from now. We're not going to need two and a half lines. The burnet road, south Lamar, the one that goes out to the expo center, those should be treated with the same level of future capacity. Even though at the same time we can acknowledge it's probably 50 years away or maybe it's not. Maybe we get these in and people go when is the next bond, we're ready for the next go. Maybe it's just a labeling and description thing, but if I want to take this to my community and say we're going to do something big and we're ready to do something big, this isn't big enough. >> Agreed. >> Flannigan: Even though I think the lines are probably the right lines, making the lines bigger and sending that signal to the community that we're not messing around, we're going to get this figured out is where I would like to see. >> And the parts which are dotted now, we may know they are dotted because they are ten years from now, but the vision of them being dotted sort of self- negotiates, maybe we'll get there, maybe we won't. >> Flannigan: The community is going to know it's one leg at a time and tweaking it a little bit. I think people are start enough to know that. >> Kitchen: Okay. I also want to emphasize something that you laid out because we've had some conversations in our joint meeting and that's the time line. And so Dave, you did point out that we -- this is a vision map. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: And that we will continue to take comments on it from the public after December 17. >> Yes, we will. >> Kitchen: And on into the spring. So I know that some of our areas around town had -- although we had community conversations, we wanted to do additional conversations in some of our districts. So I just wanted to point out to my colleagues and the public that this time line [4:31:15 PM] allows for that. And we wanted to specifically note that. So why don't we take up the -- do you want to go ahead? >> Yes. >> Alter: Thank you. I just was wondering, I had discussed with Mr. Clark something on 360 and you guys were going to be exploring that and I don't see anything added here for 360. >> Kitchen: Tell us more about 360. >> Alter: So we were talking about whether there was a park and ride or metro express option off 360, whether that -- >> I think if you look at the left side of the map and the area that is -- I guess it's the closest to the left margin is the -- it's the "P" for the park and ride and the white strip. That welcome back on a stress route that would go from 620 down to 2222 and 3 60. That is the initial part. >> Alter: In the same conversation we discussed exploring whether there would be value in doing something up 360 and we weren't far enough along at the time necessarily to have all of the details worked out and to know whether that was a smart idea moving forward, but I don't see that and I don't think there was any more information for the 2222 than there was for the 360 for that discussion. >> That's exactly what we're looking for, councilmember, and we'll make sure we add something so when we get through the process of evaluation that we're looking also at 360. >> Alter: Once 360 has the overpasses, it's going to be much faster hopefully and there may be some opportunities there for transit to move smoother. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Let's bring up [4:33:18 PM] the asmp folks. Dave, you will stick around because we may have more conversation as this goes forward. >> Good afternoon, councilmembers. [No mic on] I'll be quick because I know we went over on some of the other -- on the other presentations and I'll say a few words. We've been out in the community talking a lot about this plan, also talking with you all and I know that I've heard our team has heard from your offices and know that you all have been looking at the maps and looking at the policies and we greatly appreciate it. I did have a full presentation, but instead I'm just going to say thank you for the opportunity to be here talking with you all and for the public who may be much with aing now or later. Our recommended maps have been out since November 20. We have over 600 comments on them thus far and they will be still live through the end of the month. We are in phase 3 of public engagement so we have both the policies and the maps out that we are still taking comments on the policy as well, but maps always get folks' attention so now folks are completely focused on the maps which is great because the policies have been out longer. We've been active in the community going to many boards and commissions, hispanic quality of life, African-American quality of life, the mac advisory board last night, we've been going -- piggybacking with cap metro's meetings as well so our team has been doing a lot of continued community outreach to get people looking at the maps, asking questions about the maps, how they work, how should they best comment, et cetera. So I'm going to close by just giving the floor to you at this presentation and having you all -- giving you the opportunity to ask questions and I'll end by saying our time line is to start to draft objectives and action items that are [4:35:20 PM] borne from the comments that we get on the policies as well as refining the maps. A lot of what we just heard right here about the preservation of right-of-way and the -- councilmember Garza, your thoughts about making sure we're speaking the same language and we sync up that language. When we start to develop the final plan, all of this we're listening and we hear you and we'll be looking at the comments that we get and the final plan draft will be out in February. So just to give you a time line of when we close for comments at the end of this month, we need a month or so to start writing those objectives, start looking at the action items, actually putting together the plan, revising the maps, going through cmo and then we'll be out with the plan in February. So with that, I'm going to give you all this time to be able to ask us questions. >> Kitchen: So just a few items to clarify. So my understanding is that we're scheduled for February 28 to bring the plan back to the mobility committee, to bring back to us. >> Correct. >> Kitchen: So it will come back -- your final relee lease will -- release will come back to us and then it will go to council. >> Correct. It will start -- it will start its way through -- well, prior to coming here, we're going to be starting planning commission, land use commission, environmental board, urban transportation, so that will be happening throughout. Correct? Did you want to add to that? >> That will occur in March. >> Kitchen: Okay. So but -- but once you release the final plan, you'll be back here February 28 before the vote. >> Before council, correct. >> Kitchen: I want to drill down and then I'll turn to my colleagues on your slide 13 and 14, which relates to the roadway system map and the public transportation system map. Because I'm wanting to make sure I'm understanding the relationship between the [4:37:21 PM] roadway system map and the right-of-way conversation that we just had a little bit earlier. So I'm going to repeat back my understanding and ask you if I understood it right. So my understanding is that the roadway system map is the map that would show for any particular corridor if there was transit on that corridor, and then would include in the roadway tables the amount of right-of-way that is needed for that transit. Is that correct? In other words, the relationship is asmp has these maps, the roadway system map. That goes into a roadway table that lists the right-of-way that's needed, and that right-of- way is then something that our dsd action our department uses as a guide when they are considering development. So -- and that that's the process by which we appreciate right-of-way, as councilmember Garza was talking about earlier. >> Yes, I'll answer that. That's accurate. However, just to further clarify, the roadway system map will only speak towards typically vehicle capacity projects. So each of these maps that you see in this series are divided by modes. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Whereas the last map that you see, which is the public feedback map, includes every street in the network. And that's where we would be reflecting all of the right-of-way needs for all of the modal improvements. >> Kitchen: So if we are wanting to look at a particular -- you know, if we are taking the vision map [4:39:23 PM] for project connect and we are thinking in terms of the -- wanting to preserve right-of-way along the lines of what councilmember Garza and councilmember councilmember Flannigan were talking about -- >> You can look at the roadway map. By and large those are the same corridors also receiving vehicle capacity improvements. So in that roadway system map, you can click on the line and you can read the description of those improvements and how they impact each mode. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And in the public feedback map, you will see that same information. >> Kitchen: Okay. And the amount of right-of- way that we might be targeting the preserve would be where? >> So that's something that we haven't included in this series of maps. Initially what we've tried to focus on are the improvements and getting feedback from the community on whether or not these improvements are something they would like to see occur, and then in the release of the final map and associated roadway table is where we would include the existing right-of-way and compared to the right-of-way that would be required for those improvements. >> Kitchen: Okay, so by the time council is at a point where we are voting to adopt, we would be able to look on the map and the table to see the amount of roadway -- right-of-way that we're want to go preserve, right? >> Right. So you would have the table, which will look like an Excell sheet of some sort that would have all of the roads that are in the map, existing right-of-way and proposed right- of-way. Along with the improvements [4:41:23 PM] recommended on the vehicular network. You know, all of it will be there for every road it will indicate if it's in the bike priority network, if it's in the pedestrian priority network, sidewalk, et cetera, and what the future right-of-way is needed. >> Kitchen: Okay, so we had this conversation a few minutes ago about the aspirational nature of what we're trying to capture for the project connect vision map. And talked about terms like preserving right-of-way or whatever the appropriate terms are. Do you see that as the kind of language or -- I guess language is the right word. Do you see that as being something we can capture in the asmp? >> Yes, definitely. Definitely. There's some nuances because how it uses the roadway table, but we haven't heard anything that's not -- this is what the planning process should be discussion and these are the types of things that should be talked about. If we need to define a new term or doing something we can in the planning document to make sure we as a city upon completion of the asmp are clear on what our aspirations are for the road. If we have to figure out a unique way to talk about that, we can do that. >> Kitchen: I'll ask one last question and then turn it over to my colleagues. You just mentioned something with regard to how development services used the roadway table. So I assume we'll have to have that conversation with them because, you know, I would be thinking in terms of preserving right-of-way meaning preserving -- to my mind, preserving right-of-way means that our development processes look at that and actually do keep that right-of-way available [4:43:26 PM] for us. So that sounds to me like a conversation we would need to have with dsd about exactly what they do with that table? Is that right? >> I would. >> I would recommend that we all -- I can get together with dsd and we can talk about what was discussed here and get back with you all through some sort of communication, maybe a memo about what that would look like. >> Kitchen: And we would also want to discuss that at our February mobility committee most likely and would want to be something that we make clear when we vote on the amsp. Others -- would you like her to provide more information on the amsp or do you want to go straight to other questions you have? Anybody? >> Garza: I just -- yeah, I was trying to understand where the dedicated pathways or lanes were. And I don't know if it's like -- it's -- in the legend it's gray and like under some corridors it's gray, but there's -- I don't know. I think from whatever happens whatever cap metro votes on the 17th and I assume that's going to change some of those, I think it would be good to be able to sit down with your staff and understand those maps because it's definitely confusing. >> Yeah, we did -- >> I can speak towards that a little bit. One thing to point out is the approach we took is to use the project connect vision plan map to indicate where dedicated pathways should go. And we used our map and our platform to show where other transit priority treatments should go. So stopping short of fully dedicating on these roadways we believe it should receive some sort of transit priority treatment whether it's bus stop placement, transit signal priority, [4:45:26 PM] transit cue jumps, transit only lanes. So our map only shows where transit should be a priority and treatments should be applied and we use the project connect vision plan to illustrate where dedicated transit pathways should go. >> Garza: That's my confusion. Where is that map that shows where you guys think transit priority? >> I'll pull up the presentation. It's the presentation map in the platform, right? >> Kitchen: The other thing I would like to point out is I understand it how you put it together at this point but our conversations at cap metro are leading in a bit of a different direction. We're talking in terms of potentially designating brt light. What you're seeing is brt light now as working towards full brt in all of the -- in potentially all of the areas. So that would look different than what you started with from the cap metro vision map. We'll need to talk through that how that gets reflected. >> Yeah. I think it's pretty critical for us to start all getting on the same page about the terminology that's building used, the dedicated transit pathways in particular is something that we're looking at that could potentially have center-running transit so you have a dedicated space of 28 to 44 feet: And when we've talked about transit priority treatments or brt light, that's where we talk about at some point in time in the future when the demand is there we can repurpose the general travel lane to a transit only lane. Just like downtown. >> Kitchen: Okay. We do need to get on the same page because that kind of definition is different than what we've been talking about at cap metro. And the other point that I just want to make is as we [4:47:27 PM] said before, we're talking about preserving right-of-way means saying right now that those areas could be brt potentially in the future. Not that they're not. >> S the main issue is that right-of-way implication of requiring an additional 44 feet for that type of service. And as opposed to just prioritizing general purpose lanes as transit only lanes. It's a very big difference. >> Kitchen: Yeah. We're not talking about the latter. Okay. Did you get your question answered? Did I interrupt your question? You were going to show her something? >> Garza: Yeah. Can you show me on the -- >> On the presentation? I don't know. It's just a screenshot on the presentation. >> I'll describe what's on this simple screenshot. But when you're in the online platform you can zoom in and see more clearly. The gray lines in the map that lie underneath the light blue ones are called transit -- the transit priority network. That's made up of the current and proposed high frequency service that capital metro provides. So the idea there was, as I was describing, where can we do transit priority treatments that stop short of reconstructing the roadway to include a fully dedicated transit pathway. So these would include transit only lanes. So if -- the most important thing to understand in this map series, the panel that includes the narrative on the right really describes everything that is in the map. It is a concise, written [4:49:30 PM] description of what's in the map. And then as far as being able to read the map, there are buttons that you can turn on and off as you scroll through the panel so you can see one layer at a time. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> I think what is a little bit confusing in the way it's laid out is there is both dedicated transit pathways and transit priority network in the asmp site. And when you click a dedicated transit pathways you get an old version of the project connect map, obviously because this is brand new. But there's no other part of the asmp that does that from what I've been able to find. >> So where we acknowledge the dedicated transit pathways would be in the roadway system map. When you click on, say, north Lamar you'll have a field that says transit description and it says dedicated transit pathway. It also has a roadway description that talks about the number of lanes and the preferential treatment of center running transit. So you'll see that language again in the public feedback map depending on which roadway you select. You will see all of those details for each individual mode. >> I think what I'm hearing is that we're looking for something that really pops out a little bolder about where we expect and are planning long-term for these dedicated rights of way. And there is a difference between dedicated right- of-way and transit priority because treatments is obviously not always going to be about dedicated blah, blah, blah. But that I think is something that would be great to popout a little stronger is to -- is so as we get a better understanding of how dsd is ING this information or other parts of the city is [4:51:30 PM] using this information that we are not accidentally making things harder in the future because we didn't mange it extra clear about the hardest part of what we think that future will be. >> Garza: Real quick. This dedicated transit pathways and transit priority network, that's very confusing. Yeah. So just to underscore, we need to figure out what we're calling each. >> So if I could try to clarify a little bit, transit priority network is all inclusive of all public transit and -- no? >> Of the high frequency service. >> Right. But the dedicated pathways is a part of the transit priority network. >> A subset. >> It's a subset. That's what I was about to say. >> So if I may, council, we've heard there's confusion. Why don't we go work on it and come back to you all with improvements. [Laughter]. We heard that one. >> Kitchen: And you got it. You heard what we said about the aspirational nature and preserving right-of-way and stuff like that. Okay. Go ahead. >> Alter: I had a suggestion that would be another map that just specifically pointed that out and would make it crystal clear and clarity for dsd for how to use that map going forward. >> Kitchen: I like that. >> Alter: Since we have so many other maps we can add one more and maybe that would be clear. My question was on a different vein, which was I wanted to try to understand the type of feedback that you want for the sidewalks and the bicycles because we have the sidewalk master plans and the bicycle master plans. I just want to understand better the kind of feedback that you want people to be providing in those instances? >> Sure. So if there is a constituent need or resident need that they've identified on a particular absent sidewalk [4:53:31 PM] section or existing sidewalk section that could be a condition issue, we definitely want to gather that information. So if folks are familiar to zooming into their neighborhood and know there's a particular stretch of road that needs a sidewalk, we're very interested in gathering that information as we look at prioritizing funding and working with public works. So just simple information is I like this project or I'd like to have a sidewalk here. It seems very basic, but it is very useful to us as we go into prioritizing funding year by year. >> Alter: But are those master plans already like loaded in? How did you load those master plans into the -- >> Yes, the master plan -- >> Alter: If somebody knows their thing is in the master plan do they need to go and -- I mean, like they would just find it there because it would already be loaded? This would be things that are not in those master plans? >> Yes. For the sidewalk network and for the bicycle network, all of the absent sidewalks are loaded up. So we know the first screen that you see on the sidewalk screen is where there's existing and where there's absent sidewalk in the sidewalk example. The feedback we'd be looking for is specifically where -- which absent sidewalks folks are interested in. There's a lot of absent sidewalks still in the city. And that helps our public works department along with atd to prioritize in the future as funding becomes available. >> So even if it's in the master plan -- >> The projects, exactly. >> Alter: That it's absent -- the master plan notes it's absent and we want it, it's still useful for you to have the feedback that somebody still wants it or wants it badly. >> Does that make sense? >> Alter: Yes. Thank you. >> And the same with the bike network. Sorry, Robert. >> Councilmmber, if I could just reiterate, we know when people are not happy with something in the plan they will be motivated to [4:55:31 PM] comment, but I do want to see if they see something they like please comment because that also goes into the prioritization. It's not just us looking for accolades, but for help in prioritizing. >> Kitchen: Good. Councilmember Flannigan, did you want to ask any questions about this? >> Flannigan: Because I think the cap metro folks kind of laid out the very complicated work related to the downtown overlay of all the high capacity lines and I'm very interested in seeing that evolve, the kind of H formation it makes right now feels intuitively wrong. So getting a better understanding of how those things are going to connect. I'm glad to see this ABC. I think it communicates to me and to the community that you all recognize there's a lot of really complicated puzzle work to do around that. I think my primary concern there is obviously because that's where you build it first and all of the future things tend to rely on that, core segment. So I'm -- I have a lot of interest in how that gets laid out. >> That core segment is the piece that everything will -- all the lines will tie into that. And by having something that has got the connection between the downtown station and republic square, it gives you that direct piece. It allows you to bring commuter rail in. It's next to the convention center. There are a lot of reasons for that way there, basically two hubs that are connected. And it's about .04 of a mile in between. There are a lot of things to look at. I'm glad to have whatever conversations you would like. >> Kitchen: So basically just to reiterate that or to understand it better, you're basically studying three options at this point. And I'm sure there may be variations on those about the extent to which you're going to connect that Orange line with the blue line, right? >> Each one builds on the other. The first option basically [4:57:34 PM] just connects the blue line to the Orange line. The second one does the same thing and adds the two commuter lines. The third one has that plus it adds the gold line. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> So it's a building exercise so that when you disaster it first you have the two lines connected. By the time you get with everything you've got the two commuter lines, the blue line, the gold line and the Orange line connected. Everything connects in that corridor. >> Flannigan: I remember my other concern was the two river crossings, both sounds awesome but frightening. And they're so close to each other that I'm curious of all the overlaying interests in this city if the right is worth the fight given how close they are together. Be aspirational, but do everything on the map. Ive told you all the things. [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: Okay. So other questions? Go ahead, councilmember alter. >> Alter: In the scenario with the gold line, I'm not understanding that permutation. You would have the lines going down Lamar, Guadalupe? >> What it basically gives you is if you look at the gold line where it starts at ACC highland, which is the northern tip of where the blue line would be, it would give you the capability to go southward on the blue line that would then go across downtown, from the downtown station to republic square and north to crestview. It's basically another way to run a set of whatever the on mode is that's chosen that gives you an origin point and a destination. So it would give you in essence a single seat ride from anyplace on that ride to any other place on that line. >> But then the blue line is underneath that gold line? >> The potential if you do that is to -- >> Kitchen: This blue line underneath here? >> You could run -- if you [4:59:35 PM] look at other systems around the world, you sometimes have both lines running on basically the same set of tracks, the same guide way. So what that would represent is it would not represent two different lines at that point for the blue and the gold, it would represent one set of dedicated pathways that both the gold and the blue lines the vehicles would run on. >> Alter: Okay. And you mentioned something about commuter something or other that I haven't ud yet. What does that refer to? >> What that is is that existing red line that comes in from the northwest and currently goes to downtown station that we're going to start the construction project on in April. The other line is the green line that would come in from the northeast up towards the Elgin area. And all of that is on right-of-way that is owned by cap metro. The area that is there that goes from downtown station out to Elgin, that currently rains freight traffic -- runs freight traffic so that would require a rebuild of what that right-of-way is and construction of stations. And it also would require a vote to be able to run commuter lines on the freight line. Right now there's a restriction that you can only run freight on those tracks. So it would not take legislation, it would take a vote. And then obviously the construction. But what you would be doing is tying in the northwest portion and the northeast portion with two commuter lines that come down to the core. >> Alter: Okay. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Okay. Other questions? All right. Amazingly enough, we're finishing on time. So we will adjourn our mobi committee meeting at 5:00. Thank you all. It was really very helpful. Appreciate you being here.