Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 08/21/2019 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 8/21/2019 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/21/2019 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:03:06 PM] >> Kitchen:I'm going to call to order the meeting of the mobility committee. Thank you all for being here. We will start. I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the June 13 meeting. So councilmember Flannigan so moves, councilmember Ellis seconds. All those in favor. Okay. They're approved. Citizen communication. No citizen communication, so we'll go straight into the briefing on the 2016 mobility bond update, including the update on the corridor construction program. >> Good afternoon, Mike trim balance, head of the -- as part of the strategy for the 2016 bond and -- so here to do just that. [1:04:07 PM] So what I'll do today is give a quick overview and status of where we're at for the 2016 bond program overall and also get more into specifics on where we're at with the corridor program. Little refresher about the different buckets of funding we have, different program areas in our program. And wanted to show you where we're at based on plan spending and actual spending. We had as part of our spending plan for the program had planned to spend about $89 million so far and we are at about $82 million. Tracking very closely to what we had planned to spend for the program. A lot of that spending has really occurred with our local mobility programs. We have almost 200 projectors that have been completed to date, and several of those are sidewalk projects. We have about 141 sidewalk projects that have been completed. We also have five vision zero intersections completed by the transportation department, 23 safe routes [1:05:08 PM] to school projects and seven urban trail projects. Now we can add to that one corridor project, and I will talk about that in just a second. So just a little bit of where we're at on the schedule for the corridor construction program. As you know we came to council and got the blessing to move forward into final design and construction for the corridor construction program in the spring. Now we are into full design phase. Getting our consultants under contract to really finish out the design based on what we learned in preliminary engineering, and so a lot of those activities are underway. Couple things that are key to us staying on our eight year time line for completion is really staying on top of achieving celebrated processes and we've really had our foot on the pedal thus far working with our agencies to accelerate our processes and we'll continue to work through that, particularly in this phase as we get more into the utility coordination, more into looking at right-of-way issues, drainage issues, we definitely need to make sure [1:06:09 PM] that we're developing efficient processes, looking at permitting, other types of things, really gonna keep our foot on the gas working with our partner departments and, again, great support both from management and from staff so far across the organization so we really appreciate that. Some of the early out projects, these are projects underway or that we expect to break ground on very soon in the near future, next six months or so. One we have completed the contraflow lane on Guadalupe and lavaca crossing mlk. Had the ribbon cutting last week. Very excited about that project being on the ground, our first corridor construction funded project. We also are finishing up this week west campus sidewalk improvements at 24th, 25th, 26th streets, we'll try to get that completed before school ramps up for fall semester. We also have safety improvements we're doing on slaughter lane, signal upgrades we're looking at getting out as well and [1:07:10 PM] looking at critical safety mobility improvements at key intersections along north Lamar as well. Some of the next early-outs and these next round are really what we're calling our greenway projects, projects that coming out of preliminary engineering initially we looked at did not have substantial amount of utility and right-of-way issues so we felt like we could move those forward in the schedule and some of those include -- that we're evaluating right now, evaluating if -- we can't say definitively but getting consultants on board to start working on final design is intersection improvements at burnet road and at breaker. Also looking at segment on south Lamar, between Riverside and Barton springs. We're looking at the enhanced mobile improvements in our early wave early. East Riverside trying to look at critical safety and mobility improvements done, again, as our first phase of improvements while we wait to sync up next phase [1:08:17 PM] withicality capital met pro [indiscernible] And William cannon, there's another segment east of 35 between running water and Mckinney fall. Campo funded projects but based on initial analysis we feel like we might be able to move those forward earlier in the schedule. Some activities as I mentioned we're really getting into the meat of our coordination with our utility departments, looking at our right- of-way issues and that's what we're getting our consultants focused on now. It's gonna be validating some of the analysis that came out of preliminary engineering and trying to move things forward into full design, trying to do full design on those greenway projects if we can move those forward and I anticipate we will be able to hopefully get out to bid and hopefully start turning dirt on some of those projects either spring, early summer of 2020 for the early out projects. So a lot of work is continuing to happen, getting all of our consultant teams engaged and, again, a lot of robust [1:09:17 PM] coordination with agency partners as well, txdot, cap metro and working on development of our business success strategy, looking at strategies we can use to mitigate impacts of construction on our businesses along the corridors. So we've been working with different groups of businesses to get some feedback so we're putting together that strategy right now as well. So lot of activities happening. We're also looking at opportunities for place making along the corridors as well. So, you know, we had several outcomes that we were trying to achieve based on the contract with the voters, not just mobility but looking at things like creating complete communities, echo communities, so we're looking at where those opportunities exist along the different corridors to get place making opportunities and we really want to approach this in an organic way with the community. We don't want this to be city-driven, we want to work in coordination with the community for what makes sense to have out there and hopefully establish or maintain key characteristics of the corridors, key assets along the corridor that [1:10:17 PM] really add to the vibrancy and character helping to complete that complete community aspect of the different neighborhoods. That's really -- it's kind of short and sweet but that's my quick update. Again, we're in full design and full speed ahead. With that I'll answer any questions. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. Questions from anyone? >> Ellis: Good to see you. >> You too. >> Ellis: I know my office and you have discussed things around slaughter lane safety improvements, especially entrance to circle C park. Has anything changed with that time line. I know you were trying to get street improvements handled before addressing whether a beacon could be needed at that intersection. >> We are evaluating based on those conversations on the phb, we're evaluating whether it's feasible to move forward but we are looking at that as a potential early out project as well on slaughter. >> Ellis: Fantastic. The campo funded project [1:11:19 PM] between mopac and Brodie, can you tell me what the expected date was and how much earlier that date has -- might potentially bump up? >> He give was kind of in a little bit fuzzier state before preliminary engineering so we were saying, again, generally and I think you've heard us say a couple times the bulk of the construction would happen in 2021 and 2024. We always look for opportunities to move projects forward in the schedule. Again, what's bringing that project as an opportunity to move forward in the schedule is we're not seeing substantial right-of-way impacts or utility conflicts as we initially thought we might see with that project so that's allowed us to look at, yeah, maybe this is a project we can move forward because we'll save some time we need for utility coordination and doing some of the real estate acquisitions we might need to do to get that project in place so that's what's helping to get that forward in the schedule. [1:12:22 PM] >> Ellis: That's great. Thank you. >> Alter: Thank you. I want to talk about two things we have talked about before. One is the coordination among all of the projects so that not all of Austin is under construction all of our main corridors under construction at the same time. So how have you figured out that puzzle? >> That's part of the work we'll be doing as part of our design phase. Once we start learning more when our projects will actually start to phase in as, again, we're looking at some of those earlier projects and starting to phase out, okay, these will take a little more time. That allows us to come back and do more coordination with agencies to see what else is happening around the city. We've already started those conversations. We're gonna delve into it in a more robust way on coordination with other projects, where we can sync up timing but make sure we're minimizing the impact on neighborhoods and businesses particularly if there's several projects happening in a certain window of time. So we'll be having those conversations with our mobility department partners like atd and public works [1:13:23 PM] but also utility departments as well. >> Alter: Thank you. I think that's a really important part of this process and also with the residential mobility projects. The other question I had related to opportunities created by digging up these streets. You and I and your team have had conversations about opportunities for laying cable for broadband and other needs we might have for our telecommunications infrastructure. >> And wondering what progress you've made in looking at those things? >> That's on the table to look at. We're starting to ramp up that next phase of utility coordination, looking at what conflicts exist and all of that so I think as part of that as we move forward, it's something we continue to keep on the table to see where those opportunities might exist. >> Alter: Are you proactively seeking those out or reactive? >> Proactive. We know that's something already commuted to us. If we can find those [1:14:25 PM] opportunities, sees on those that would be great. We're looking for partnership opportunities as part of this program so I'm incorporating that as part of a partnership opportunity we should be proactively seeking just like partnership activities to get enhanced improvements with other partners as well, whether it's other infrastructure, other utility improvements. >> Alter: If you haven't already I encourage you to meet with our [indiscernible] Staff, we've been meeting with a lot of telecomm providers to better understand opportunities and I think they have some information that's more up to date about some of the needs and some contacts with some of the key players and in our conversations it wasn't really clear whether all of the companies were aware that these projects were going on. There might be opportunities they could think about. I just want to make sure we take this opportunity so we don't have to lay these streets twice in order to provide the infrastructure broadly interpreted that we need for our city. >> Sure, I'll touch base with Ms. Hawkins. >> Alter: Thank you. [1:15:25 PM] >> Flannigan: I know it's a very difficult job. You're doing a great job so far but it's very DIX to meet the aggressive time line that council has set for you but also not do stuff so quickly that it's disruptive. It's a real delicate balance you have to strike, so good luck, sir. Good luck to that. [ Laughter ] One quick question, the contraflow lanes seem to have discolored very quickly. I was on the bus this morning actually coming down Guadalupe and it did not look red to me, even color-blind me could tell it was not red anymore. Could you give insight on what's up with that? >> I might have to ask for assistance from atd folks but we've had conversation about that, there's been some discoloration pretty quickly. I don't know if we have any of the -- yeah. >> Eric Balak, atd, acting assistant director. We have noticed that too and [1:16:26 PM] were exchanging communication about what to do to look into it, see if we can get information from other cities that put down the same type of paint. Perhaps it's the extreme heat and weather, timing of it. We'll take a look at it. >> Flannigan: Similar paint in other communities where the discoloration didn't occur? >> We're trying to take a look, whether they experienced the same thing or didn't, why that might be, is it asphalt underneath the paint to begin with, maybe there's something we can take a look at. >> Flannigan: All right, thanks. >> Sure. >> Kitchen: Thank you all very much. It's really helpful to us and to the community to continue to get these updates because this helps people understand what's next. So thank you. Next we will have the street impact fee study update, including the land use assumptions, street impact [1:17:26 PM] service fees. Let me say thank you to y'all being comfortable with us taking a bit more time. I know my staff has been working with y'all and had a lot of our questions answered. I have a few more for today but I think the additional time since we postponed until tomorrow's meeting was very helpful to people. So. . . >> Okay. Yes, thank you, councilmember. Leanne Miller, Austin transportation. We appreciate the time as well to be able to answer all the questions and make sure everyone is comfortable moving forward at this point with the street impact fee study. I have a few quick slides . What we are doing is a public hearing and considering adoption of the land use assumptions and the roadway capacity plan. You open that public hearing at your meeting August 8, public hearing is still open and you have it on your agenda for tomorrow. The assumptions in the report are available on our website online. That's where people can find more information about those. There's been prior action by [1:18:26 PM] council and also the impact fee advisory committee, who is the body that is advising the city on developing this study. They have approved these assumptions, and so they're for your consideration this month. What's in that study, again, are the service areas that an impact fee would be collected within and have to be spent on capacity projects within. So there's 17 service areas defined. The land use assumptions, which are the growth projections for ten years, both in residential and non-residential growth. And then the roadway capacity plan, which are those roadway capacity plan projects, there's a couple different categories of projects, but to add roadway capacity that were defined through the strategic mobility plan which you adopted in April this year. We are happy to answer any questions that you have about any of these assumptions or the process after this point. And I'll introduce Jeff Whitaker is here as our [1:19:26 PM] representative of the consultant team working on the study. >> Kitchen: Welcome. >> And obviously Cole. >> Kitchen: Hi, Cole. Questions? >> Flannigan: The land use assumptions over a ten-year period, does that mean that this is reassessed once a decade or is there -- what is the period upon which it's revisited and new assumptions calculated? >> We revisit the assumptions every five years. So you're kind of recapturing that five years twice, I guess, in your assumptions. Jeff, I don't know if you want to add to that. >> The other thing is the capital improvements advisory committee, they also look at every six months to see if something has changed that we need to do it quicker than five years but five years is the minimum length required by state law. >> Flannigan: But there's not a state prohibition on the frequency or requirement on the frequency? >> No. >> Flannigan: It's more of a question of our staff time and how much we want to put that through? >> Right. >> Flannigan: And if I'm hearing you correctly, in [1:20:28 PM] addition to the regular five-year review there's also an opportunity if there's a significant disruption, if there's a brand-new highway, let's say, 183, that opens up and changes the assumptions that that would be another trigger to revisit all or part of the assumptions. >> Correct, yeah. >> Correct. >> Flannigan: Cool. >> Kitchen: Other questions? >> Alter: I appreciate the extra time. I had most questions answered in work session on the sixth. Thank you for your work on this. I really look forward to us adopting these fees and this process so that we can find additional funds for building out our transportation network all across the city in an appropriate way. >> Kitchen: Councilmember, do you have any -- >> Maybe just broadly, if we start making judgments -- adjustments to our land development code. I don't know a specific answer but just generally what might trigger, like, [1:21:29 PM] Jimmy was saying, where you might come back to us and say, hey, maybe it's time, we've got a lot of different building processes, we are looking at how subdivision planning needs to change and this next meeting as well. Do you have a recommendation for when we mated want to revisit that if things change enough? >> Jeff, maybe you could speak to examples in other communities where they've gone out of the five-year cycle and maybe have updated on a more frequent basis. The example I mentioned at work session if we were to an exa large piece of land and that were to change the competition of the city that would be a reason, but there may be others that other communities would use to update more frequently. >> Mostly it's about either new land being annexed or new capital projects we didn't know about coming on board because we're looking at growth projections so that's where we -- what we look back at every six months. Is the amount of people coming to these areas close and we can look at that each month to see how close our assumptions are. Some communities we worked [1:22:29 PM] in 2016 -- 2006 and '07 -- some major economic events are more impactful maybe than the actual code as far as projections go. >> Ellis: That's good to know. I don't expect we'd need to revisit every six months. I hope not. Thanks. >> Kitchen: Go ahead. >> Flannigan: Are there other communities in central Texas that do the interim fee in this way? >> There are several. Round Rock recently adopted. They're in a grace period right now, a year grace period required by state law. New braunfels has them, Hutto adopted them recently. There's a few other Texas cities. >> Flannigan: Does the state law limit to your jurisdiction borders? For example, if I've got cedar park and Round Rock right on the edge. Cedar park drops in a brand-new apartment complex, they're not driving on any [1:23:30 PM] cedar park roads, they're coming into lakeline mall city of Austin, you can't cross the streams with this. Is that right? >> No. >> Flannigan: That's a real shame. >> Yeah. >> Kitchen: Councilmember alter. >> Alter: Yeah, at work session on the sixth I asked for information about how the waterways water fees had helped us to improve the finances of our water utility and I was wondering what the plan was. >> Yes, I have an update, councilmember, on that. I've been working with Austin wear. They have written a month, getting it through the review process. It's gonna be available very soon. That speaks to how impact fees has affected the financial stability and their ability to, as you mentioned, defease debt for capital projects. They take a slightly different approach than we do with roadway impact fees. They're generally building infrastructure up front and using impact fees after the fact to pay themselves back or defease the debt on those [1:24:31 PM] projects, where we would be potentially doing that in some instances where we've include bond projects but in other cases this would be a revenue source for additional projects. So I know our impact fee advisory committee also has comments about how they feel impact fees has been beneficial to Austin water's finances and I'm sure they'd be happy to come and brief you all on their experience. Several of the members have been on that committee for many years and remember the trucks Austin water was having especially during the drought and recession and how this has affected them. That information is coming. You also requested some information on different cities and their use of roadway impact fees. Jeff can speak so that if you'd like. We can also provide that in a more formal memo in the future. >> Alter: Do we have time? >> Kitchen: Yes. >> I kind of grouped -- every city has a little [1:25:32 PM] different policy, what their needs are. I think one group is a partnership policy, where if there's a development coming in they have to build a road, the city uses impact fees to build a bigger project so they partner with the developer and work through, okay, you have to do this, we're gonna give you money and have the developer build a road and we're gonna do a bigger project. Other cities use it to get projects shovel ready because impact fees are gonna collect money but they're not gonna -- if you have a large transportation need it's not gonna do everything so they want all the design up front and everything ready so when the bond gets through so they use the impact fees to fund design and right- of-way acquisitions to get the projects ready. Other cities use it on the back end. We all know when construction happens things happen and that's their way of making sure they stay on budget for every project so they make sure they have that kind of funds if something happens on a project. Then the common one is paying debt service off. Those are kind of the four buckets I see cities using it in? [1:26:34 PM] >> Alter: Thank you. What about the other -- sorry. >> Kitchen: Okay. I have a few questions that are more global questions, I think, so I can understand the relationship between the levers here and the assumptions. So first let me just talk about transit. I'm understanding that road capacity is a primary variable that we're looking at, and so it's a driver for the impact fee. So how -- how if at all would transit investments impact the capacity variable? So, you know, we have plans with project connect, assuming that ends up being approved in whatever form by the community, that could have major impacts on some of our roads. So I'm just trying to understand if those could impact road capacity and so, [1:27:35 PM] anyway, like I'm saying -- like I'm asking how do transit investments impact the capacity variable. >> It won't affect the vehicle capacity of the road. It will affect the people capacity. So the calculation will be based on vehicle capacity. It's one of the requirements of state law. The other element that you may be asking is on all the roads that are identified as transit priority corridors we are including the cost to get those transit ready. So we will be including the infrastructure cost, not necessarily the cost of the car, the transit buses, et cetera, but the pavement design is a little different on a transit road so we are including the capital cost to get that ready for transit. >> Kitchen: I hear you saying that these transit investments won't impact vehicle capacity. I'm not sure that that's the case in all circumstances. And what do you mean by that? Do you mean if a road currently handles X number of vehicles that if we put a rail line on it or we do [1:28:36 PM] something else on it with a dedicated pathway we don't anticipate changing the vehicle capacity? Is that what we're saying? >> I was going to just say I think if you're doing something to the roadway to add a dedicated space for transit and that is removing vehicle capacity that project would not be impact fee eligible so we would not include the cost of that project in the conference call. >> Kitchen: I know to drill down. First officer I'm not talking about taking lanes away for transit. But there could be places where we're actually really dealing in some way or the other with what we might assume right now for vehicle capacity that actually improves the capacity of the road. So have we taken anything like that into account or is that the kind of thing that falls under their review assumptions or revisiting? So how have we factored in [1:29:36 PM] the kinds of planning that is happening at capital metro? >> The priority corridors have been identified through the asmp. So the capacity calculated with those cross-sections, they're one in the same so we are already assuming that transit on those transit priority corridors are there and we're using capacity from the asmp if that makes sense. >> Kitchen: Okay. So if that were to change in any way based on the final plans for a particular road, that would be something we could revisit, I guess? >> So, for example, if a road that the current plan has transit down the middle and it ends up being in one of the lanes. >> Kitchen: Right. >> That would affect the capacity. That would be one of the things the committee would have to look at and say is that a big enough impact to the study to change but we have the ability to change that but we took the snapshot outlined in the asmp currently what's in project connect right now [1:30:37 PM] that we know of. >> Kitchen: Again, it's not intent to reduce capacity in any way but there could be some changes so I wanted to make sure that we're preserving the ability to go back and look at those assumptions if we need to in any particular area. >> Absolutely. >> Kitchen: Let me go back to something you said just to be clear, and I'm not sure if I heard it right. But that has to do with what we can use the dollars for. Could you just explain that again? Because I think I heard you say we couldn't use it for parts of a road that were used for transit or did I misunderstand that? >> I just meant that the totaled cost of the project, if the project wasn't going to add vehicle capacity, wouldn't be included in. It wouldn't be that we would take possessions of the project. That project just wouldn't be included. For example if we were adding a urban trail, that wouldn't wouldn't be included. So the transit example is not adding vehicle capacity then that project wouldn't [1:31:38 PM] be included. So, you know, unfortunately, right, this tool is restricted to pay for roadway capacity improvements where those can also benefit multimodal transportation like laying the foundation for transit, like, Jeff was talking in terms of the street design or adding sidewalks or signals or other things that can benefit other modes. That's a cumulative benefit for all modes. >> Kitchen: Yeah. I'd like to dig down into more detail. I think that's probably a question for later, when we actually end up adopting them. This is assumptions along the way. But I would like to understand the definition of vehicle and just have -- we may need to have at some point an executive session to get into the legal definition of vehicle because there's a lot of -- I mean, I could argue that a bus is a vehicle, for example. So but we need to just have that conversation in a [1:32:38 PM] setting where we really understand -- huh? It is a vehicle. So I'd like to have a conversation at some point before we do a final adoption. Not at this stage of the game but at the end of the game before we adopt our impact fees so let's just put a pin in that in terms of having a discussion about the legal -- what the legal interpretation. >> Alter: May I clarify something off your question? >> Kitchen: Sure. >> Alter: So you can do -- you can fund multimodal improvements that are -- under what circumstances can you do multimodal improvements with this fund? >> When those improvements are part of the street design of that roadway. So they're part of -- in the language in the statute is there, the necessary appurtenances of the road. So where in the standard cross-section there's a curb and gutter, sidewalk, street tree zone, all those things [1:33:39 PM] would be considered as part of the appurtenances of that roadway. >> Alter: So a bike lane. >> Exactly. >> Alter: Basically all the improvements on shoal creek boulevard if we had impact fees in place would be eligible. >> If you're adding vehicle capacity, right. >> Alter: If you're adding vehicle capacity. >> Improving. >> Alter: Improving vehicle capacity. Okay. >> Kitchen: Yeah, that's the line I want to understand. So -- because I want to understand -- that was a good example of what you can. I'd like an example of what you can't. So I'm happy to have that conversation in more detail later. >> And maybe, Jeff, you could explain, like, how for instance an access management project, what we would be considering kind of the additional capacity that that would be creating and what would be accounting for in the fee calculation versus a brand-new roadway that's clearly all brand-new capacity. >> So if you build a new roadway obviously that's all capacities available for new people. If you have an existing [1:34:39 PM] roadway that's pretty busy that you're doing access management and you're doing some -- while you're doing access management you're improving bike lanes, access management increases safety and doesn't increase capacity. We can't recover the whole portion -- we can recover a portion of that. So we've been looking at what the ultimate standard cross-section would be for a road. Another example is if you have a 20-foot county road and widening to 30 feet it may stay two lanes but the wider section is a safer section but can also carry more vehicles so we're looking at those projects as well, if they're what we're calling level 2s and above, not local streets. >> Kitchen: Insider there are parameters and I understand we have to operate within the parameters. I would argue that we're increasing vehicle capacity when we increase the ability to handle transit but we can have that conversation later. So okay. I have one other question. [1:35:40 PM] So I'm wanting to just understand some more at a macro level in terms of how the service areas were set. So we noticed that the growth projections in the different service areas vary widely in both jobs and housing. In other words when we set these geographic areas they're not comparable or the same in terms of jobs and housing projections. So I'm just curious about the -- you know, why were they set the way they were because just from -- just without having an understanding of the -- how you set these, I would just normally think, why would you not normalize those by adjusting boundary lines so that we have similarities in the job and housing projections? So just help me understand the dynamics and why it's set the way it -- why those geographic areas are set the way they are and why an [1:36:41 PM] effort to normalize them doesn't -- is either not appropriate in this area or doesn't work in this area. All the experience that I might have or the public might have is, you know, generally we try to -- when we talk about geographic areas we're talking about them having similar parameters and those kinds of things. So does that make sense, my question? >> Yeah. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> There's probably a three step process we went through to set these. First step is state law, has specific requirements on certain size. The second one was more of a technical exercise of looking at the travel to man model that the council governments maintains, the mpo in the area and trying to look at where there's travel characteristics that are different. So what we saw kind of loosely is that there's, if you will, a loop around Austin. It's not called a loop but if you look at the highway system it looks like a loop and there's different travel [1:37:42 PM] characteristics. One of the ways we set that. And then the third one we worked with our advisory committee through four or five options and kind of that was what I called the art. The first part was the science -- what does the travel demand model say where the travel trips are different. Second part was more of working with the advisory committee and seeing -- working through options, should we move this over one road, should this be another road. In some cases we tried to strategically put a border of a service area on a road that's impact fee eligible. So there's some art to the methodology that we worked with the advisory committee on. Those are really the three steps, what state law said, kind of the technical side and a little bit of the advisory committee and art side. >> Kitchen: Are we trying to match - - are we trying to match areas of growth with spending the money in that area? Is that what we're trying to do? >> We're trying to match where the -- where we see the development is going, that it's benefiting projects that are close to them. [1:38:42 PM] That's to an extent -- that's the state law's intent of dividing the service areas. >> Kitchen: We can have - - we're starting with these lines. As we get into actually adopting a fee I think we talked about this last time, that we have some opportunity to adjust lines if we want to have that conversation later, right? >> I think if we have that conversation later that would mean a recalculation of the fees, right? Because you'd be then reaccounting for what growth is in what area now versus what projects are in that area so you'd be going through a process of recalculating fees with a new set of areas. So we would prefer that service areas are -- that are defined and that will make it more clear when we come and present fees for each service area, you know, what is where and then we're not changing and having multiple different options across the entire city. So I think where you're asking about similarities [1:39:43 PM] within a service area, in this case those similarities were trip characteristics, is what we were trying to get at, where we think the types of trips people are making and lengths of those trips are similar and that 6-mile requirement of state law is to meet the nexus test, that there's a nexus between the development and the impact it's having in the project that would be benefiting that development. So that's the reason for that kind of restriction. So if you see that there are issues with barriers, for example, you know, I know one of the last changes maybe that we made was to have the river be a barrier between north and south because that does actually impact trip characteristics and travel patterns, having that kind of physical barrier there. So -- >> And most cities use physical barriers, like the river. Because there is a difference between the north and south of the Colorado river. Just from trip patterns. [1:40:43 PM] That's where we're trying to delve down. We didn't get into the level of population because we were really looking at trip characteristics. >> Kitchen: Okay. But patterns you mean where people go. >> To an extent. >> Kitchen: Where they travel? >> To an extent, the modes and how much travel. If you're coming from a further service area and there's an assumption that you're having a further travel distance to get to different locations. >> Kitchen: Okay. Well, I understand what you're saying. I will -- and it's not my -- I'm not suggesting that we need -- that we will need to throw things out and you'll have to redo everything. I don't mean that. But I can see that this becomes real -- not real. But we can see the impact more at the point which we have the conversation about the dollar amounts. >> Yep. >> Kitchen: Because what we're saying -- I'm not saying it's wrong or anything, but what we're saying is that this area, you build in that area, you use the money in that area. >> Right. >> Kitchen: Even though people are coming from here [1:41:44 PM] or here. If you're not building as much in other areas it may not be that significant in terms of a source of helping with those travel issues. >> Right, right. >> Kitchen: Even though I live here and I'm going to -- anyway, those are conversations. I just want to preserve the ability to tweak if necessary when we -- and it may not be at all, but when we have those conversations about the dollar amount. >> Okay. >> I'll add as far as the 6-mile indictment goes that's per the local government code, but the benefit of having those larger service areas is opportunities for pooling that fee revenue and contributing it to single or multiple projects. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Just to make -- one thing. You know, the mitigation ordinance, tro ordinance will still be applicable, even in some of those areas that may not have the same fees. So you still go through a different process with the fee. So there are other [1:42:44 PM] parameters that could support some different areas. >> Kitchen: Okay. Do we have any other questions from anybody? Thank you all very much. Again, I appreciate the additional time we all had to -- and I appreciate you coming today so that we could ask more questions. Thank you. Okay. Next we have consideration of a resolution regarding railroad crossings. Let's see. Do we have someone presenting on this? >> Not necessarily, hi, Emily Smith, Austin transportation, staff liaison to the mobility committee. Staff and public works and Austin transportation are here to answer your questions on this topic, but I did want to note I believe the chair was interested in hearing from leadership from the bicycle advisory council and pedestrian advisory council who approved recommendations regarding those topics and those folks are here and have a hard stop at 2:30. >> Kitchen: In y'all want to come up. Let me lay this out. What this is, folks, there was a recommendation. [1:43:45 PM] We had some conversation about -- thinking about whether we wanted to have conversations about recommendation that's came from different committees and commissions. So this was a recommendation of our pedestrian advisory council, and it's something that I wanted to bring forward. So I'm -- it's on this agenda today for y'all's consideration and basically it is -- it's a resolution to ask our staff to review railroad crossings to consider for improvements for safety reasons, to consider things like prioritizing and determining what mitigation is needed, including cost estimates and then coming back in December with recommendations about how those safety improvements might be addressed. So the resolution doesn't ear mark any dollars at this point. It just focuses on safety issues. If you [1:44:46 PM] so if you guys want to speak to that for a second, or a couple of minutes. >> I'm charity of the bicycle advisory council. I've been on the bodied for about five years so we have a long history with this concern. Tommy Eden who is also here today, long time advocate in the bicycle community, had a concern about several times about several railroad crossings, Vincent street, Mary are a couple of examples and these are crossings that be substandard in a lot of ways for pedestrians and cyclists. As the city has grown there is more and more people trying to use them and they are trying to create a dangerous situation T came before the bicycle advisory council in I believe October of 2018. And we discussed it as an item, heard a lot bit about the concerns of the community. We had a lot of people come out especially on the Vincent street crossing as a specific concern, but it is really railroad crossings across the city. Essentially what you are seeing is because the crossing has been in place for quite awhile the railroad has not replaced [1:45:49 PM] is. There's no pedestrian facilities, bicycle facilities. Just you encounter the crossing and you have to go across it as it is. Obviously for people in wheelchairs this is a concern. It means sometimes you have to enter right-of-way so you're coming out of whatever safe area you are in if there was one into direct car traffic. The crossings are at an angle sometimes which can be problematic if you're crossing on wheels, bike wheels can be caught in things. There's a lot of issues related to the cogs that can cause safety concerns. We would like something from the area because it can be arrests that is consistent access and that railroad is that one big barrier and some are in really poor condition to the point if it rains and it's mud or gravel you can't get across in a safe fashion. Especially if you are in a wheelchair or a mobility device. >> I'm vice-chair of the bike advisory council. [1:46:50 PM] We also support this support this, what the BAC is saying, and especially that people using wheelchairs and having the safe ability to access the other side of the tracks is I think very important. A key there is it's a safety issue. Sometimes these treatments cause someone in the wheelchair to go out in the car lane to get across the tracks and go back. A couple of key things is I think we should systematically improve these places and have sidewalks for everyone to safely cross cross. And there are several programs that could help, the quiet Zones concept. In Houston that was used a lot. And that people really like those things because the quiet zone concept is you improve all the railroad crossings along a stretch to [1:47:51 PM] be so safe that they don't have to blow the horn. And then everyone who sleeps there enjoys that part of it. But also more importantly you can use that federal money to improve all the safety of the crossings. So that part of our discussion is this is a regional question and this is something that maybe campo could lead on. This would be a regional railroad crossing, how do we fix this, get the freight operators to deal with all the jurisdictions. And we encourage you to work with the partners including all the railway, right-of-way owners to try to solve these issues. So I think that was all our ideas. >> Kitchen: All right. Do any of you all have questions for the commissions? We can talk about this, but do you have questions for them. >> Flannigan: I don't know where this list of crossings came from? >> Kitchen: Can you help us with that? >> Sure. So the list of crossings came from -- initially Tommy [1:48:53 PM] Eden who is here brought up a few specific crossings that were emblematic of the problem. Not exhaustive in any way, just a few crossings that had been brought up to him or that he experienced. We then in the course of taking up the item had other people come up and say I have a real problem with this specific crossing, here are images of it. Here's what I'm encountering. It's a crowdsource list basically of things coming up again and again, but it's not exhaustive. They're not the only railroad crossings that are problematic. >> Which I'll say part of our discussion at the pac was about that. In an ideal scenario every plan should be like the master plan that uses priority and equity to prioritize things. In an ideal world we would have some problem to process the greatest need and prioritize the greatest need, but we support --S these are the sports that everybody kind of knows are bad. >> Flannigan: I mean, I don't know that. Because neither of these [1:49:54 PM] committees are appointed by count so they're not geographically representative. I don't have a D 6 person on these councils. I don't know that. And crowdsourcing is not how we do business so I need a process that takes equity into account. I need a process that does those things. I'm not hearing -- I could ask staff if they think this is the appropriate list and I understand that at the top it says including, but not limited to, but I also know how staff treats a resolution when there's a bulleted list, those are the ones they get to list. And when they get to the third one out of six we've sent them three more resolutions and they're off working on that. So this isn't about the challenge, right, this is a problem and we need to solve it. How are we to know that these are the six that should be listed as opposed to asking the staff for a list? >> Kitchen: First, it doesn't do that. The first be it resolved is a resolution that identifies some areas that need to be looked at. The second be it resolved talks about the kind of analysis that needs to occur [1:50:55 PM] occur, which includes determining what mitigation is needed, prioritizing the challenges. So absolutely we need to be doing what we've always said, which is looking at the area of greatest need. I hear your concern about perhaps there's other areas that should be on this list. This resolution is intended to be open and to allow for that. So as part of this conversation we can certainly identify other areas. We can also certainly make sure that the language says -- it does say review the above identified and other railroad crossings in the city. So we can certainly get more specific about that because the intent is not to-- we've had conversations with other resolutions. The intent is not to put a particular place over and above other places that are higher priorities. So the intent is simply to say we know these are problems. There's probably other areas [1:51:55 PM] that are problems. Let's pay some attention to them and see what needs to be done. Let's prioritize and then let's come back and see do they fit within existing projects? If not, how can we put them on the list to be considered for funding? So I agree with you and I would not support something that was trying to jump areas out of line in terms of what the priorities are. >> Would it be satisfactory to just remove the list? >> No. And the reason it would not be for me is because these are areas that we know are difficults. For example, the stassney lane near Akins high school, we've had an accident there with someone in a wheelchair. So we know that these are issues. Now, we can certainly work on language that makes it doubly, typically clear that these are not to go above any other areas that the staff may identify or may know about. But I think it's useful. [1:52:58 PM] To reflect what we understand, you know, and maybe we put them in the whereas or whatever. We can talk about that. >> Flannigan: Yeah, I don't have that same understanding. I don't understand how a frontage road of mopac is on this list. This certainly -- and when you look at where that is on the map that's not a very frequented pedestrian crossing and if this is, god help us all because it's not great. I can't support this if there's a list because I understand what you're saying, but I also know how staff takes these. And if I vote yes they're going to think that I'm saying these are the six that have to go first and I'm not prepared to do that. I'm not even sure that it's our job to do that. >> Kitchen: Okay. Other questions? >> I had a similar concern. I don't know that I need to go quite as far on that. I just wanted to bring up -- I wanted to -- I was going to ask the same question about where the list came from. The -- I had one in my head [1:53:59 PM] that given what you said seems to me like -- I haven't ridden my bike over it, but at airport and north Lamar, which is not in my district, but it's just kind of this weird crossing with a transit station there that that would be another one that maybe we very much need to look at. And it probably has a lot of slightly different issues than some of the other ones, but it's one I would like to see looked at if we will have a list. If you know that's not a problem. >> Kitchen: I would like to take a minute and call up the staff. I think Nathan Wilkes is here. >> Can I quickly say cap metro did actually put some money into that one and fixed the sidewalk a little bit. But anyway, so it's important to note that cap metro has done some improvements to some of these. >> Kitchen: Do we have staff here? >> And I will note there is one speaker signed up for this topic, Tommy Eden. >> Kitchen: Okay. [1:55:00 PM] So whoever wants to answer a question. So my question is simply that goes to the concerns that is raised about places, and the importance of -- this is designed and written to ensure there's an analysis and process and prioritization process and not designed to short-circuit that process. So can someone just speak to how you might proceed in terms of analyzing the needs at the railroad crossings and speak to this -- what's in this resolution? >> I mean, it might be worth mentioning from the start that I think there's both bicycle and pedestrian issues that are a bit different. >> Okay. >> Both from a prioritization perspective and what safety means like from an infrastructure perfect. They may share a solution like the mopac frontage road [1:56:00 PM] maybe has a shared use path right next to it. That's -- mopac built a shared use path, but it ends on the southbound frontage road right before there. So maybe a shared use path across that crossing is the best solution. So that could be a case where bicycle and pedestrian solutions look the same. On the rosewood one there's a bicycle lane there and a sidewalk. Neither have a proper angle for the crossing. So just as a preface. And then I'm not aware that there's been a comprehensive -- I'll say I can speak for the bicycle side most fluently and then public works probably can best speak to the sidewalk side. I'm not aware of a comprehensive analysis that's been done across all railroad crossings. You know, and I think we could speculate what that might look like. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Richard Mendoza, New York City director. I'm joined by my assistant [indiscernible] And with the sidewalk program. You know, I'm pleased to [1:57:02 PM] report that we are currently implementing a robust 2016 sidewalk improvement bond funded program. And in the course of implementing that program we have the project police list in accordance with the sidewalk master plan, with the view of equity throughout the city to meet the most high, very high and high priority locations, which we have set the criteria together being around parks and entertainment centers, schools and whatnot. And we actually, where those high and very high priority program sidewalk improvements intersect with rail crossings, we do an evaluation at those locations. And anticipate affecting the safe crossing for pedestrians with that sidewalk project. In fact, we currently have seven such locations in the plans now. And some of these list of locations have actually been [1:58:03 PM] brought to our attention. We've done some preliminary evaluation of those. The ones that are listed here, the six, they range in priority from medium to very high. They also have a variety of different design challenges in terms of required right-of-way and utility obstacles to affect that. But essentially going forward we are going to continue on our program and we really -- we do invite working with the pac and BAC on whatever specific concerns they might have on certain locations as we proceed with the implementation of the bond sidewalk program. >> Kitchen: Okay. Do we have any more questions? Go ahead. >> Ellis: I did. Is there a best practices for railroad crossings or are we dealing with something that was already built that didn't necessarily need bicycle or [1:59:03 PM] pedestrian evaluations done that now we're trying to retrofit? Do we not have this is a good angle for bicycles to be crossing standard? >> From a bicycle perspective as perpendicular as possible with 45 as an important -- in the ashto kind of guidance, 45 degrees is a kind of minimum bar. Then I think from there you get oh how substandard and how big is the problem to fix it. And all those are very unique. Like the Vincent location we flat just don't have right-of-way. Probably the best solution is the abandonment of the Bergstrom spur and realigning that roadway to be straight given how constrained that right-of-way is. >> And not every street was built with the intention of having those extra lanes for bicycle or shared use. >> Or an appropriate crossing angle for a sidewalk or a bicycle lane or a shared use path. >> Ellis: Okay. That makes sense. And then is this part of the [2:00:03 PM] transportation criteria manual, which my understanding is it's still being updated and we haven't seen the new recommendations. >> I'm not aware that the specific issue is spoken to directly. I think often times if there's clear national guidance we would just defer to that. >> Ellis: Okay. Thanks. >> Likewise on the sidewalk design standards, we follow the ashto, which are the national design standards for safe crossings of railroad at grade crossings. When we speak with union pacific many times it's been my experience that they really prefer grade separations at all possible for all crossings to include vehicles, pedestrians and bicycles, which is very expensive. >> Ellis: We don't have any municipal standards that are more stringent than what the national standards would allow for? >> Not that I'm aware. >> Ellis: Thanks. >> Kitchen: Okay. Any other questions? [2:01:06 PM] Okay. Thank y'all very much. This is a resolution I personally am interesting in bringing forward and will continue to work on the questions that people have raised. And thank you, councilmember alter, for bringing that to attention and thank you, councilmember alter. You've raised good questions. And so I wanted to let -- I'm sorry, we did have one person sign up. I did want to let everybody know that it is my intention to bring a resolution forward. But go ahead, Mr. Eden, if you want to speak. >> Thank you, madam chairman. My name is Tommy Eden. I did bring this to the bicycle advisory council and presented it to the pedestrian advisory council. It also has supports from bike Austin as well as walk Austin and adapt. I wanted to give you a little bit of history on this. I'm looking at some -- the list of bicycle facility priorities from 1998, the [2:02:07 PM] bicycle advisory council. The six priority is railroad crossings signs for bicycles requiring unusual man sewers. And there's a list of them. And on this list is Vincent and Mary street. So this is not something that is just recent. When rosewood was resurfaced a few years later I asked the city staff if they could bicycle significant improvements to allow bicyclists to cross the tracks at a perpendicular angle. And that was not done at that time. As it turns out, there are -- the city is required to get federal approval to make changes to the crossings. And that's why it's such a [2:03:09 PM] difficult problem besides the fact that, for instance, at Vinson there's not enough right-of-way. This would be a -- a very -- relatively expensive project because if a whole separate path needs to be built that can incur is significant costs. So several other crossings have been added since I presented this and I'm glad to see as many important safety improvements as can be done to make the subsidy safe for bicyclists crossing. Not just bicyclists, but especially wheelchairs. [2:04:10 PM] I mean, we share a lot of the same problems with bicyclists crossing the tracks and wheelchairs on the sidewalk not being able to cross in a safe angle, and anything that has narrow tires is going to have some challenges crossing these tracks. >> Kitchen: Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: All right. I want to thank everyone that's been involved with this for bringing this to our attention. We'll continue to have conversations and we'll proceed with it. So -- yes? >> Just as -- we've been through this type of situation so many times. My instinct, myself included, we want to make these changes, these fixes, especially for folks in webinars and A.D.A. -- wheelchairs and A.D.A. Compliance issues. But there is the equity and the change in process questions and that's the part we have to work [2:05:10 PM] through. >> Kitchen: I think we can work through that and make it clear when we end up bringing some language that we've addressed those concerns. All right. Thank you all. So next we have land development code revision process update. Including discussion of the traffic impact analysis. >> Good afternoon, hello again, chair, councilmembers, anik Beaudet, land development code revision team. So pleased to be here with colely Brent Lloyd and [2:06:11 PM] Danielle Marin who is on the development team specific to transportation. We're going to brief you specific to the transportation chapter. And some things we've been working on within the guideposts of council direction that apply to the transportation chapter. So we always like to start our presentations with the timeline that was released by the city manager in late July. Here we are at mobility committee. Thank you for inviting us for a briefing. And we just firmed yesterday special called, which hopefully all of you have in your box by now. It was kind of fresh yesterday. Next week I believe that's Wednesday the 28th for a special called work session on the code where we will be going through some specifics related to three things, but transition Zones being one of them. So any questions about the process afterwards we're happy to entertain those as well. So for this afternoon we're going to focus in on transportation demand [2:07:11 PM] management, transportation impact analysis and something we're introducing in service to council direction regarding looking at the type of transportation analysis we do at the zoning stage under and also under this umbrella of how we're organizing the transportation chapter under a section called comprehensive transportation review. Which is hopefully the idea is to how you make transportation review more streamlined. Sing I think it's important for the public and for those who will review this presentation, you all know, excuse me, what transportation demand management is and what traffic impact analysis is, but I would like to go through a definition real quick. Transportation demand management is transportation conservation. It is not a resource, we want to use it more efficiently and it is the [2:08:12 PM] idea that we should be focused on moving people and not cars. Traffic impact analysis is required in the code and the purpose of a tia is to assess the impact of a specific development and the trips generated by that new development and identify potential context sensitive options to that location of that property to mitigate those impacts. So in theory this is demand and supply and they should work together. And so what you're going to find is that as we go through the presentation in current corridor the current code is very much focused on the supply side and not so much the demand side and that's the big change that we're -- we're able to do with the land development code revision opportunity. So council's direction asked us to continue including and to enhance a site plan process that assesses the infrastructure needs of developments, including the cumulative impact of development and facilitate the installation of new infrastructure funded in whole or in part by new development. And we feel this definitely [2:09:13 PM] speaks to transportation and we'll make that nexus in a second. And secondly, the direction asks that developments should be able to use a predetermined set of transportation demand management tools such as building additional bike lanes or sidewalks, providing bike storage, public transit pops stops and other mechanisms. >> So with that as I said, you'll see a section in the transportation chapter titled comprehensive transportation review. It is intended to be an umbrella category where we house the triggers for tdm, tia, and where both tdm and tia would be triggered. In reviewing the direction we realized that we need to do a better job in the code to address the cumulative impacts of the development. We all know that when previously -- we'll talk about this and when developments come in just [2:10:14 PM] under the 2,000 trip limit there was no tia mitigation required in the past. There had been a long history of that happening and so it's no surprise that we have the transportation issues that we have today. So we have an opportunity it with the code to look at that. So this umbrella term captures three regulations and procedures that are happening today but organizes them in a way where someone using the code is more leakily to understand -- likely to understand tmd and use it as what we call a tdm approach to traffic mitigation. As you know as you're working on the 2016 bond and other transportation issues, project connect or projects and initiatives that transportation demand management is the most cost effective and efficient way to manage congestion quickly. There's longer term projects that we do with the state, et cetera, but demand management is something that we can do locally focused to get more -- a quicker response. The other things that we're looking at differently [2:11:18 PM] through the development process is you just got the impact fee presentation, which is coming later that is related. We're also looking at making rough proportionality and how that works more predictable. We've had a year of practicing since the code was put on hold in using our rough proportionality processes. So in working with the community there are things we feel comfortable putting in and codifying to make that process a little more predictable. So we can talk about that a little bit -- at a future work session as well. So the other thing we're working on is -- in this code is to writing the regulations so that we have more flexibility in having developer developers build the mitigation rather than posting for it so there's a tighter temporal nexus between when the development goes in and when the improvement is made. [2:12:19 PM] For many, many years that has not been the case. There's physical on posted, -- fiscal posted, money posted and the improvement goes in years later and that's not how it's supposed to work. We need to get the mitigation closetory when the development goes in so we're really trying to do that with what you're going to see in the proposed revisions that are coming. So I'm going to talk a little bit about demand management and how you're going to see it in the work coming out on October 4th. Right now traffic demand management, it does not exist in current code. In draft 3 we introduced this comprehensive transportation review umbrella category and we introduced tdm, but -- we also lowered the trigger for impact analysis to a thousand. We received a lot of feedback on both of these that it was confusing, a lot of people didn't like the potential effective of having more tias and not understanding because it [2:13:20 PM] hasn't been super effective in the past. So with the new council direction, we were really able -- we were afforded the time and also this direction to look at the cumulative impacts and also incorporate tdm. So what we've come up with like the high level is we've reorganized the flow of the chapter so when you see that chapter, which is one of I think the -- the the shortest chapters maybe. It's a short chapter. It will make more sense on how you should be thinking about transportation mitigation. With the first thing to think about is tdm. And then Danielle Marin is here and she is working on the transportation criteria manual, which is why in the council direction that list of choices and how those relate to lowering trips will be housed. So those two will work together. So tdm first and then in response to the comments we received about the trigger of a thousand. So what we were trying to do is say that we need mitigation for all development and it needs to be right sized. [2:14:20 PM] But that thousand was like okay, it's too broad. So we have now four tiers. So what we've done is said if you're under a thousand trips you don't have to do a tia and you may be required to do some tdm or some sort of mitigation dependent on where you're located, context sensitive, and that should be an easy exchange between the staff and applicant. If you're between that 1,000 and 2,000 trips, stem can be used and will be a -- tdm can be used and will be a strong component for lower those trips under a thousand to alleviate you from the tia process, which can be costly. We hear that a lot. And cumbersome. And Brent will talk about the tia process and how we're trying to approve that. Next slide. So you can use tdm to do more meaningful things to -- not yet. So you can use the tdm to reduce you're trips so you're under that for the [2:15:21 PM] reduction of trips. So as of today if you're 2,000 or over you can still use tdm and in fact it will be required as a first step, but you will still have to do a tia. But it will be more multimodal in focus and Brent is going to talk about how we're changing how we do the tia. Tias in the fast have been extremely auto-centric and we're changing that in line with our 5050 mode chair that was passed in April. So all tias, I'll end with, will include a tdm element moving forward should the code be adopted. The effect of the change is codifying a tdm first approach to transportation review. Making transportation review more predictable. I like to use the word realistic of what we can really do in a lot of places to help mitigate. It's not just -- we can't just add turn lanes and capacity everywhere. It's not realistic and cost effective. But there are things we can do more realistically and multimodal focused to mitigate transportation. It improves the context [2:16:22 PM] sensitive approach to what will mitigation is and a lot of times it will vary. It could be a transit stop, a bike lane, could be a turn lane. We will hopefully if impact fees go through, we'll have more funding sources from the developers, contribution both for capacity for motor vehicles, but also for multimodal through other mitigation. And then lastly I'll end with, tdm is a new thing for cities and San Francisco is really a good model. In their planning department they have a program called shift which is their development tdm program. And we are working with the law department to make sure that these things can be insurance. That's always been a -- can be enforced, that's always a we can tdm is how do you enforce that. It's easy to see did you put in your return taken or signal, but how do you know the soft programmatic stick. We're looking at enhances [2:17:23 PM] prom Matt ability. I'm going to hand it over to Brent on how we're proposing to look at impact analysis at the zoning change of development. >> Brent Lloyd development officer dsd. I'll talk as anik said will transportation impact analysis and also about kind of how it relates to different stages of the development process, our ability as a city to address transportation impacts varies at different stages of the development process so I want to try to provide context for how these different stages relate and differ. By way of broad overview, current code provides that a tia is triggered when development is expected to generate 2,000 or more trips N our prior work the trigger for a tia was reduced to a thousand trips or 100 peak hour trips. There was an active mode [2:18:24 PM] analysis codified and active modes analysis is basically an analysis that's intended to expand the scope to not just looking at cars and roads, but looking at multimodal transportation infrastructure as well and opportunities for meaningful improvements in that realm: It chaired initial for updated traffic impact analysis. It imposed time limits on the validity of a tia and clarified the geographic scope of intersections required to be included. Potential revisions that will be appearing before you in October carry forward much of the work that I just outlined from draft 3. Additional revisions would specify that tdm, but not tias would be required below 2,000 trips and a tdm approach. And tdm, just to expand [2:19:25 PM] briefly on some points that anik made, if you're a project that triggers a tia, which is the realm where you're potentially required to make the biggest contributions towards the impacts of your development on the transportation system, doing tdm measures that are really shown to reduce the demand generated by your development and reduce trip counts, that can be a way for applicants to buy-down the amount of mitigation that they have to provide. And so tdm for projects that are over that 2,000 trip limit, that can be a way for developers to sort of reduce the amount of off site infrastructure they have to provide or contributions towards it. If you're in that thousand to 2,000 trips range you have to do it and it may reduce your overall contributions that you're required to make, which are going to be less anyway because you're not a tia project. But you're not getting out of a tia. Like you potentially would [2:20:27 PM] be-- if you're in the over two thousand trips there may be projects that tdm is robust enough and where they're not far enough over the two thousand trips where they could actually reduce to below two thousand. So some other context that I want to provide before I move I I think to the final slide is just that tias are very important and they come up a lot, but there's often times not a lot of context provided as to what their role is. And there was a time up until a few years ago where the city's code was structured in a manner where we couldn't even require developers to contribute to the impacts of their development on the system other than just in basic internal improvements unless they cleared that two thousand trip trigger that required a tia. Over the years and with an update to the ordinances that occurred I think about three years ago, we have the authority now to require [2:21:28 PM] improvements whether or not a tia is triggered. Our code is structured so that the universe of improvements we can look at is let's if it doesn't trigger a tia, but we definitely have more robust conditioning authority to get developers to contribute towards the impacts of their projects. In many cases the information provided by a tia is not really necessary. There's a lot of cases where we know the impacts a project is going to have. We have supporting analysis of similar projects in the area that really ender the information this a tia redundant. And because they triggered a certain trip threshold we have the analytic tools that anik mentioned the rough proportionatety model. We have the tools necessary to just contributions. So one of the things that you will see in the work that comes forward in October is a more specific [2:22:29 PM] discussion of the role of tias, more clear requirements. And provisions for waiving them because there are definitely instances where we don't need the tia. We know what improvements are needed. We have the justification based on trips. And so there's-- it makes good sense to just dispens with having to - - dispense with having to provide a tia. The other point that anik mentioned that I want to emphasize is that in talking with peer cities and talking with consultants that are trying to help us improve with how we deal with transportation, a lot of these tools are about not just having the tools, but you you leverage them, how you use them. It's about using street impact fees are an example of that. But also the tia tools, it's about using the tools to leverage actual construction of improvements. We've had a history going back a long time of having applicants cost fiscal, [2:23:30 PM] collecting contributions and they set in accounts and it's hard to track and very hard to see when other contributions in the same area come in to where you have enough to pool it and actually get something built. And as that money sits there it loses value over time and so it's really important to not only have the tools in the coated but have a clear vision as to how to use them to leverage the actual construction of improvements that are going to make a difference. Another issue I want to just touch on before we move on to the final slide is conditioning authority. We have in the work that you'll see in October, there's also more of a clear Kerr framework for not just tias tias, but also how we go about documenting conditions that are required. When we require a developer to provide off site improvements we have the code that you will see in [2:24:31 PM] October, the draft code that you will see in October has clearer rules for phasing it, for requiring if an improvement is required at the outset of a development for specifying at what phases it has to be constructed. There's clearer sort of -- right now I think what happens a lot staff has some really good practices for dealing with these issues, but it's fairly ad hoc and I think some of you in the zoning realm which we'll talk about in a minute, have seen that there's a lot of trying to figure out how do we pay for this, how do we pay for that? There's a real effort in the code to provide a firmer foundation for how we go about documenting the improvements that are required, what kind of potentially recorded agreements, if it's a site that includes multiple lots and what we can do to maximize enforceability. And with respect to enforceability as well, anik mentioned tdm and there certainly are tdm and other transportation conditions. [2:25:31 PM] We want them to be as enforceable as possible. And there may be conditions that are difficult to enforce and the code can't solve all those problems. But we want our conditions to be maximally enforceable. And I think one of the professions that you will see in the work that comes forward in October is clearer requirements for how conditions are documented, requiring that they be documented on the face of a site plan. We are other parts of the code that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet, general provisions of the code that say when a condition is imposed on a site plan, that condition -- violating that condition is a violation of the code. So there's a lot more belt and suspenders in the code about really trying to give the full force of the code to different conditions that are required on a more project specific basis as development goes through the process. So the final slide is [2:26:32 PM] transportation at zoning. So current practice, and I'll just set the stage by going through the slide itself, is that current code does not explicitly require tia be done at soaping. Draft 3 codified tias as an option at zoning. In the potential revisions, the analysis will be a component of zoning, transportation analysis will, but there will not be a traditional tia required as part of the zoning process with the exception of puds. Right-of-way and other access dedications may be required in certain cases and I'll elaborate on that in a second. And the effect of the change overall is right sizing analysis to the phase of the development process that we're talking about. Zoning is a legislative phase, it doesn't authorize construction. And in looking at other cities and best practices [2:27:32 PM] we're going to be recommending that transportation be looked at and considered differently at zoning. The analysis that's provided at zoning should be informative of council so that you can make an appropriate decision about whether -- from a land use perspective, from a planning perspective it makes sense to entitle property in the manner that is requested or proposed by the rezone. So with that I want to just make a few broad points. Whenever -- my experience having worked on a few code rewrites sorts of things. Whenever you're rewriting a code or a portion of a code that's been around a long time, you can find that perhaps the code doesn't actually reflect practices, what's really happening. And in these situations you have to ask do we want to just write into the code what we're doing so that our practices are properly memorialized in the code or do we want to revisit [2:28:33 PM] things? And with transportation and tias, our code does not reflect what we're doing in a lot of ways. And we want to not simply -- the staff proposal is not simply to kind of document what it is we're doing in the code, but really use this as an opportunity to revisit things. And so with respect to zoning, in looking at peer cities, and there's going to be in the draft that comes to you in October, there definitely are some -- it envisions going forward a different process with respect to zoning, with respect to rezones. And in looking at peer cities, there's not the analysis that's provided at zoning is truly analysis. There are not -- in looking at other cities in Texas and around the country, there's not an attempt to pin down precise improvements and require mitigation with the same degree that we sometimes do through our zoning process. As I mentioned earlier, zoning is a legislative [2:29:33 PM] process that sets the rules for property, but it doesn't authorize construction. And so some exceptions to that are puds. Puds are an accepted cool in Texas and around the country for creating a standalone district that is specific to a project. It gives a lot more detail about what is going to be built than a standard zoning case should. And so the work that you sigh in October will provide sort of more authority for conditioning projects at a pud stage than will exist for just normal rezones. And additionally, there are some dedications like in a normal zoning case. There are dedications that we know are going to be required no matter what a developer builds. If you rezone a property, council is authorizing that range of uses in that district to be built in the future. And there are case where's we know that no matter what [2:30:33 PM] the developer chooses to build from the list of uses allowed within a district that there will be certain access required, certain right away dedications. So in those instances it may be appropriate to consider some dedications at zoning. But in general the path forward that we will recommend in the draft, and we work with our consultant on these issues as well, will be that the zoning process with respect to transportation focused more on information, focused more on letting council know what are the impacts of the uses that you're allowing in the district. And also related to that, what are the tools that staff will use at the site plan stage. So if a rezone request is granted, very much part of the analysis and the discussion will be if the developer comes in with a site plan for particular types of improvements, here are the tools that staff will have, here are the tools that can be used. [2:31:35 PM] But it will be a little bit of a different process suggested in the draft than what I think is kind of happened and evolved over time today. So those are my comments, and we're definitely available for questions. >> Kitchen: Let me say thank you very much. Presenting the information this way is -- I'm finding it very helpful. And I particularly like the way you're organizing it with the current code draft 3, potential revisions and effective change. It's really helpful to me to really understand what you're talking about, so thank you. So do we have questions? Do you want to go first? >> Flannigan: Clarify for me the thing you said last about what types of analysis would be provided at the zoning stage, rezoning stage is what we're talking about in a rezoning case. The practice we've been doing is we often ask for or receive a full tia based on [2:32:38 PM] a proposed project, but the decision before us in a zoning case is not to approve a construction project or a site plan, but the zoning. So is the analysis being contemplated here applicable to the zoning category for this site conditions regardless of a proposed project? Is that how that would work? >> There will be a broader level of analysis that's focused on sort of the entire range of development that could occur within that district as opposed to sort of conditioning using the tia as a way to kind of condition the zoning case to a particular type of development. And the exception I think would be puds. As I mentioned, puds are inhasn'tly a different zoning tool than a standard rezone from one zoning district to another. But very much the focus in the draft that will be provided in October will be in making sure that council has sufficient information to make an informed decision [2:33:41 PM] and that will include discussion about what tools are available at the staff level. At the administrative level when a development comes in an application comes in, what kind of mitigation can be required, things like that. >> And I'll add that we're still developing what that story, so to speak, would look like in the zoning report for you all to be informed about the impact of in a land use change, but on a broader - - talking about a land use change, not a specific project, right? So we're still working -- we're still working on that. And it's still quite possible, you know, that we would ask the developer to do that analysis. It's just we're trying to differentiate a tia from what we do at the zoning change, which would be a different type of zoning analysis. And we've been talking to staff is that an analysis staff can do? We have affordability on our mind. How can we make the process more streamlined, less expensive overall. We're still looking at that, [2:34:41 PM] but we do feel like there usually is a space for the applicant to still provide some of that analysis for us, but it would just be different. >> Flannigan: On the part about collecting the fee and then it sits in a bucket and we can't do it later, I'm completely with you on that. Is that not what the street impact fee stuff that we heard earlier helps us address? >> It does, yeah, it does. >> Flannigan: In the new system we'll be heading to would it be possible for one development to come in, their fee is calculated based on that system. It's not the full cost of a particular improvement because it's rough proportionality. We go ahead and build it. We use city funds. Can we reimburse the city from the second developer that is now benefiting from that project because of the street impact fee scheme? >> I don't believe we can get into that level of detail, but I want to just kind of more broadly maybe reiterate and rephrase a point I made earlier and [2:35:42 PM] that is that the city has had problems over time in terms of getting a developer to contribute towards an off site improvement, maybe a turn lane or expansion of a road across the street. And then we don't -- the amount the developer is required to contribute towards that improvement is not enough to perhaps get it actually built so we have to track money that comes in from other projects. And that is proven difficult for the city to do effectively. And I think that even without what's going to be presented to you in October over the last several years, there have been major improvements made in that regard. But the focus is going to be on really giving staff the tools necessary to leverage the actual construction of improvements. So to the greatest extent possible we would like in more projects to come out of it not just with sort of money earmarked in accounts, but actually having some projects built, some actual [2:36:42 PM] improvements built. And a more flexible approach to tias will be one element of that. But that is really the objective and I think that you're correct, councilmember Flannigan, that street impact fees will very much help us in that regard. >> Flannigan: Thank you. And obviously the longer you take -- longer you take to build it the longer it takes to build so I think that would be a top priority. I think we're all in agreement with that. My last question is in how we measure trips. Something I've been frustrated with, the trip counts and others is at best an imperfect science. I see on slide 8 that draft 3 was using a 1,000 daily or 100 peak hour. How are we thinking about trip counts in a more pragmatic approach especially when we think about some uses have different peaks? And are we thinking about fully leveraging so we're not building the road to a [2:37:43 PM] single peak as opposed to leveraging it at all times, if that makes sense? >> Yeah, it does make sense. We typically use the ite, which is international transportation -- what does it stand for? Somebody help me. Institute of transportation engineers. Thank you. [Laughter]. Ite. I'm a planner, I'm a planner. [Laughter]. We just came out with their 10th edition for trip generation from uses, which is modernized and is a lot more granular with regards to uses and taking into account a lot of things and what you just talked about as well and looking at mixed use. In the last edition and editions before that you didn't see a lot of innovation with regards to how do we think about trip generation and mixed use type scenarios. [2:38:46 PM] So that is the standard that most cities use with trip generation, but I will say that the 10th edition does a much better job and we've already been using it and it's a little more complicated. There's a lot more nuances to it, but that's a good thing. So there's not really a change. That's a criteria manual or an administrative decision on how we do that, but we're definitely always thinking about off hours, off peak and there's guidance in that ite manual on how to do that. So whenever we would ask a developer to do a tia or the analysis at zoning or whatever, they will take those nuances into account. And we're always -- like you said, it's a forecast. It's a guess. We do the best we can with it and we're more and more trying to be more multimodal and pragmatic about how we look at the trip generation. And in fact, with the Austin core transportation plan in the downtown that's looking at operations downtown, that Austin transportation [2:39:47 PM] department has just started, we're look at calibrating, we're looking at past tias trip generation and actually going to lay out some tubes at the entry and exit points of buildings downtown to see how close did they get and what's the variable to really understand? How close do we get in these things? So that wl be something to look for when that comes forward. >> Flannigan: Is it the type of thing that depending on your use that you're planning for in site planning that you might find yourself in a different fee structure or a different type of requirements? If the other uses on that street, if there's a gap? The travel pattern from a restaurant is going to be different from a day care, for example. If the road is really loaded up with certain travel partners will there be incentive to mix the uses in such a way that we're leveraging the built out infrastructure? >> I would hope that that would be part of the analysis. I don't know that that would be a code requirement, but that would be -- >> Flannigan: I would hope. I'm asking you to do it! [Laughter]. >> Yes. [2:40:48 PM] We're trying to be more comprehensive and per the direction that goes back to the cumulative. That goes back to the direction and the cumulative. So yes, we are being more holistic and I think what you're going to see with the changes in the code coming forward on October 4th is a framework that allows us to and almosters us to be more holistic and multimodal. And innovative when we think about trip generation because it's just -- there's a lot to mitigate out there and we have to be more modern and innovative when we look at traffic. >> Flannigan: That's really exciting. My last plug, and it's not a question. The tubes when you lay them out, I've had folks from my district talk about when they see the tubes they drive over them a lot to make the counts go up. [Laughter]. So if we have the kind that you can't tell they're happening, that would be better. I don't trust anything that was in tubes. >> So noted. [Laughter]. >> Kitchen: Okay. Councilmember alter? >> Alter: I've had folks cut the tubes. So thank you few this [2:41:50 PM] analysis. Again, like councilmember kitchen said, I appreciate the format. I did want to mention for councilmember Flannigan, I think if I'm understanding correctly what you're proposing in terms of getting things out quicker, that was something that we did with puds I believe with Austin oaks we allowed them to kind of pay for a particular project in specific so that it could get done. And east Austin though they're not building anything, they now have to do that project and we have the money to do is, so that project is getting done while we're waiting for them to figure out what they're going to do. So I think that's an interesting approach. I think it would be really helpful to illustrate some of this with some cases that we may be familiar with and how it might look differently so that we can really understand. There are parts of what you're saying that I really like and there are parts of what you're saying that I don't know that I'm understanding appropriately to know whether I as a policy maker would have the [2:42:52 PM] information that I need to make decisions or whether the community would have the information it feels or whether we're just setting up a situation which I don't think is your intention, but is to assess whether we're setting up a situation where the developers can just game the system so that they don't have to do the analysis because we know it is problematic to enforce tdm. So having some illustrations I think would be helpful. I'm glad that you're emphasizing the importance of enforcement. I think that is going to be really crucial to be able to prove to the public that you have ways to enforce the tdm. We already have problems with enforcing things within our tia, even with our puds where we have more control we've had to very, very closely watch the grove, for instance, to make sure that they were following what they had promised with respect to delivering on things. So I think that enforcement [2:43:52 PM] piece and making that very clear is important. I wanted to clarify, though, I'm all for doing the multimodal and having that part of the analysis for them to keep that in mind, but there are situations where some changes can increase vehicle access in significant ways. And I don't want us to be missing those opportunities because we have too much invested in the tdm, which I know we have this investment in the mode shift, but otherwise we won't get those vehicle changes, which given the volume that these folks may be putting in may be necessary. So can you speak to how that type of situation? It's one thing when the vehicle part is not going to yield much change, but tdm will yield a whole lot more, but there have to be situations where you can get a whole lot of tdm and you can get vehicle improvements. That >> Yeah, you're exactly right. There's always gonna be a mix. [2:44:52 PM] There's always gonna be a mix and a type of mode share. I know in other cities that we looked at, certain districts have a mode share goal that kind of helps back into the type of improvements based on where in the city they're located, which is really interesting. We haven't explored that idea in our current work. But to that end, we are always very cognizant of the trip generation and then being realistic in our administrative work of what is the transit network look like adjacent to this property, what does the bicycle network look like, what types of uses could be there if it's at the zoning stage or at the site plan, what is being proposed. And the engineers and planners are pretty diligent in not allowing some sort of [2:45:53 PM] not realistic proposal from a developer to say we're gonna provide bus passes and be done with it. Hmm, no, this is a drive-through Starbucks, we probably are gonna expect some vehicular improvements so that happens administratively, and we're pretty diligent in how we look at the mode share at the time much when we're developing the mitigation. So that's where that would be caught. But I think Brett wants to add. >> Yeah just briefly, you can imagine like a hypothetical where some of these issues play out. A development, we use our rough proportionality system to determine the development is gonna generate based on the uses proposed and the trip counts in the document. I can't remember the acronym either, the ite that annick referenced, which is a critical input. We determine that $250,000 worth of off-site transportation improvements are required and perhaps [2:46:53 PM] that level of contribution coupled with some other tools we have in the code could get two improvements built, and the question then becomes the developer wants to use tdm to reduce that amount to perhaps a lower amount, to where we couldn't get improvements built. And I think the code cannot dictate how that analysis occurs, but I think fundamentally to councilmember alter's point, what council should want to see and what staff wants to see as well is that we look at tdm in a context sensitive way. Are these tdm measures at this particular location, in this particular context really gonna reduce trips sufficiently to where we want to forgo potentially requiring actual improvements, and that's gonna vary from context to context, and so but I think there definitely has to be that level of rigor brought to bear on when we allow tdm especially if the reduction is gonna have the effect of [2:47:55 PM] preventing us from getting on the ground improvements. And that's not always the case. There's times where potentially the amount of impact that's at stake allowing tdm is actually not gonna have the effect of really preventing us from getting any improvements built. But I think those -- there are a lot of issues, location, degree of impact, feasibility of the tdm measures given the context that all have to be considered, and I think the code can generally signal an intent and point direction with respect to these issues but they're inherently technical enough that it's not gonna be able to be fully worked out at the code level. >> I have one more thing to add -- oh, go ahead. >> Alter: Go ahead. >> Kitchen: I want to do a time check. I don't want to count off councilmember alter at all or councilmember Ellis if you have questions, but we have ten more minutes and then we have one very short update. So that's just -- I can stay. I'm just reminding people of [2:48:55 PM] the time. >> My quick comment is that over the last few years as we've been doing more multimodal and tdm, the typical reduction of trips have been in the 10-30% range to give you an idea of how tdm has been used. It's not an -- the location, as Brent pointed out, and the facilities are really important as you get closer to that 30% reduction. >> Alter: So I support, again, the concept of tdm. I think there are going to be concerns in the community on the enforcement side, which I know you identified something that you were looking to make very robust so as you're going through it, I think being very clear about how we will enforce it would be helpful. I think illustrating sort of how these differentiations play -- differences play out and how they maybe in some cases also with illustrations, not just comparing that but showing us the tdm actually worked and over time we got some of those things because there are people who are skeptical about it in community, and if you're confident in your numbers you should be able [2:49:58 PM] to present those. Because I think the test for this is gonna be, are we creating a system that is going to let the developers game it so that they don't have to make their contributions to addressing our mobility challenges or not? And that can play out in a lot of different ways, and they will find a way to do it but let's minimize the ability to do the gamesmanship with that and let's not leave open to the community a need to be second guessing that when this comes out. Thank you. >> Kitchen: Councilmember Ellis. >> Ellis: I can be fast. How broadly do you expect mitigation funds could be applied? I know you said it was previously just kind of going into a pool of money and wasn't tracked very closely. Are you thinking of keeping it more in, like, geographically this is the project being built and all the funds need to go toward this or could make adjacent improvements be included as well? I'm not really familiar with how that works. [2:51:02 PM] >> So we have to -- when contributions, when a developer contributes to transportation impacts for their development and we condition a project on that, those contributions have to be spent within a geographic area of the development. They have to be spent on improvements that are related and proportionate to the impacts of the development. But there definitely are options where there's potentially a range of improvements that a developer's contribution could be spent on, and we don't have to pin that down exactly at the time that the contribution is made, and we can be more flexible about looking for opportunities to pool developer contributions with bond money, with different contributions from other projects, and I think really trying to build flexibility in our systems to do that is a long-term goal that I think we've made some strides in but we want to do more, and I think the number 1 objective and the [2:52:03 PM] most sure fire and safe bet is if -- when we can get something built right away rather than having money that we have to track. Even if we're more flexible, even if we're more diligent, even in we have more tracking mechanisms. What we've heard from other cities and from our consultants is that a bird in hand is -- I forget the -- [ laughter ] I forget the phrase. [ Laughter ] But we'd rather get the improvements built. So the tools that you will see in the code in October are geared towards maximizing that potential. >> Ellis: Okay. That's really exciting news. Is there a minimum threshold for like the size of a development to not need a transportation impact analysis except for daily trips or peek hour trips? You were mentioning Starbucks, if it's pretty small and doesn't have a whole lot of parking needs or -- >> Well, the tia trigger is 2,000 trips. [2:53:04 PM] >> Ellis: Okay. >> That is the trigger. But we have -- so the way our code is set up is we have -- when a project triggers a tia, there's a broader range of improvements that the city can consider having the developer contribute to or potentially build. If it doesn't trigger it, if it's below 2,000 trips either initially or by use of tdm to reduce the trips to below 2,000, then there's a smaller universe of improvements. But regardless of the trips a project generates, we have the authority in code and we have the analytical models necessary to require projects to contribute fairly and proportionality to their impacts. >> Ellis: Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. >> To give you an idea, on the residential side, it's approximately 300 unit apartment complex is about 2,000 trips, to give you an idea of size of development. I don't know what the equivalent is on the commercial side but to give [2:54:04 PM] you an idea of the magnitude, I think that's what you're asking, is there a size to kind of visualize what is that 2,000 trips. It varies but generally on the residential side a large apartment complex would be that trigger. >> That's helpful. I wasn't generally trying to wrap my head around what 1,000 or 2,000 trips look likes we don't have the same schedules or traffic patterns for every business, so that's really helpful. >> Kitchen: Okay. Thank you. We're gonna move on to the next presentation. Let me say this for my colleagues, and we can have conversation in between, this is so helpful and I know we have a lot of conversations and questions and things. So we'll give some thought to allowing more time in the future, and I'll just talk with my colleagues to see if they want to -- how they might want to set up that. So I really appreciate this. This is very helpful. I have a few questions but I'll send them to you. So thank you all very much. So our last item is an update on project connect. [2:55:24 PM] >> Good afternoon. I'd like to take the opportunity to go ahead and go through the update for project connect. I'd like to do it in two pieces. I'll go through where we are in terms of the process on the environmental that we've been going through for the blue and the organic line and how we've started exponentials Jackie will go ahead and pick up on the community engagement piece. It is that long-term vision that we've gone through multiple times that was approved and we've moved forward to go ahead and get through to an lpa come February of this year. As we've gone through that on the Orange line we have had a series of different workshops up and down the corridors we've also had a virtual open house that we received a tremendous amount of comments on. All that was completed at the end of last month. As we go into the blue line we've gone through that same process. There have been three different workshops, open houses, if you will. And the virtual open house is the one that will abcompleted on the 13th. [2:56:26 PM] So that is the piece that is there and that's how we go ahead and move forward. As a matter of fact was completed on the 13th. Time is flying. [ Laughter ] Green line. We have the kickoff meeting at the beginning of June. And we're going through that one to go ahead and look at what the transit oriented development pockets are -- possibilities are. We've started an outreach process, we have had monthly coordination meetings. In the month of September and then into October we'll be having charettes and inviting the development community to come in and give us comments on what the potentials are for each one of the stations. So that's a work in progress as we go forward. On the metrorapid corridors, this is what we've now renamed from what we were calling brt light. It's now metrorapid, basically the same service answer what we have had on the 801 and 803. [2:57:26 PM] Kickoff meeting for that was on the seventh. We're scheduling an open house toward the end of September. Same format, same approach that we used for both the blue and also for the Orange line. As we keep on going and this really is a repeat and I'll push through it so that we're at the sake of time, we're going through in essence Orange line replaces the existing 801, and the blue line takes care of the seven, the ten, and the 20, or portions thereof that basically come across Riverside, and then would make the turn and go up across the lake and up Trinity. Proposed schedule. We're in the process right now of going through the lpa with the intention of having a meeting that is a joint meeting between city council and the capital metro boards at the end of October with a action to go ahead and come back with a recommendation at the beginning of January [2:58:26 PM] and then on to an action during the month of March. So that's the process, and that's the time line. And we continue to have extensive community engagement as we go through that process. With that I'll turn it over to Jackie. >> Hello, Jackie, community engagement manager capital metro. We've had a busy summer doing community engagement and we're engaging on two different levels. On the one hand as you heard we've done six workshops on the Orange and blue line to get community input specifically on those corridors but we're also doing a lot of engagement just to get the word out about project connect and create awareness about what it is because we have a lot of ground to cover in the community to get folks aware of what we're doing. So we've used a number of strategies to try to maximize how we engage. One thing is we know we have to go to where the people are. That's important. We can't expect them to come to us all the time. Even in our workshops for [2:59:28 PM] the Orange and blue line corridors, we made sure to have those workshops at three different points along the corridor so that folks from different parts of the city could participate. In our overall community engagement efforts we've been out to a number of events and activities over the summer, including world refugee day, free family day, give and swims. We've coordinated with our partners at the city at atd to piggyback on events they're doing, including the boggy creek trailhead grand opening celebration. We've had community office events we're continuing to do at the office on congress avenue. We've got a talk tow Thursday next Thursday morning at 8:30 if you happen to be walking by we're trying to catch people as they're going about their daily business and getting them to come and see what we're up to at project connect. We're continuing to do presentations to groups and have been all summer as well as stakeholder meetings. [3:00:28 PM] Another thing that we've done is we've tried to scale our engagement by bringing on a street team that's out at gathering places all over the city. They've been out there about six weeks now. This is a short list of some of the places they've been. Clearly we have a lot more to go. This just scratches the surface. We're always open to suggestions and your offices and staff have always been very helpful in making those suggestions. We continue to encourage you guys to do that, to let us know where we need to be, if you know of a place in your district, an event in your distct, a gathering place that we could hit a lot of people, we want to know about it. Looking ahead this evening we have a project connect ambassador network meeting and this is a group of folks that are sort of the champions for the project, are gonna help us scale our engagement, give us feedback on everything from our communications to our technical analysis. These are representatives from organizations and interest groups all over the city. We're meeting tonight and we [3:01:30 PM] have three subcommittees that are going to be meeting as well, including the technical committee, place making committee, which includes everything from accessibility to public art, and a communications and engagement committee. Again, if you all have suggestions of somebody you'd like to participate on our pecan as we like to call it we welcome their involvement. We're continuing to do outreach. We've done a number of back to school events all over the city. There's still more to come. That's a great way for us to touch base with folks that normally don't engage with us. We're continuing our street team outreach, neighborhood presentations, et cetera, and having our next big round of public input on the Orange and blue lines coming up in October. Dave mentioned that the metrorapid corridors are getting started. We now have a date for that open house and September is going to be the 24th. We didn't have the date when we put this together. Just to make note of that. And then one final thing I wanted to bring to your attention is that we've developed a community [3:02:31 PM] engagement dashboard on the project website and this allows people to take a look and see where we've been, even the raw comments of what people are saying can be accessed through that dashboard. And the purpose of this is, number 1, transparency, but also so if you see there's not a whole lot going on yet in your area and we're just getting started on this so we have lots of opportunities to hit those areas, you'll see lots of open space there we need to fill. We've got a long way to go. So this is a way for the community to help us in engaging other members of the community, spreading the word, helping us target some communities we've missed. We need this to be a collective community effort, so we're hoping that the engagement dashboard will be a way for folks to follow along and see how we're doing. And we've had since January 101 engagement events, over 2500 comments received, Dave mentioned we had virtual open houses for both of our corridor [3:03:32 PM] workshop series. Those have been very helpful. So many people cannot make it to a public meeting so this is an opportunity for them to give their input. And we've had over 2,000 visits there. And we've engaged over 5,000 people in person. Those numbers have ticked up actually since this presentation was put together, so it's a work in progress. Sounds like a lot of people. It's really not when you think about how many people we have in this area. We have a long way to go. And that's all I've got so we're happy to take your questions. >> Kitchen: Questions, anyone? Yes. >> Ellis: Hopefully a quick one. The community engagement dashboard, is that just available if you go to the project connect website? And that may be something that my staff and your staff have already been communicating on. >> I'm not sure that we have, but it is available on the project connect website. That being said we could offer links -- we could offer a link from wherever, any page you would want to promote it. [3:04:32 PM] So I think we could probably provide that for you. >> Ellis: I wanted to make sure anybody watching at home and had a comment if we spelled out if they go to the project connect website. >> Click on participate and you'll be able to click on the community engagement forward? >> What we're looking at is what are the locations that have the potential for being station locations and what are the potentials for development in and around those stations. It's kind of that preplnning process, to look to see if it does go forward and when it goes forward that we've got at least that advanced look at where the stations can be. >> Flannigan: So it's work that -- not might, that will inform a future decision on whether or not to pursue [3:05:32 PM] that corridor? >> Precisely. >> Flannigan: Okay. I hope that the community conversations are making that distinction clear and we're not getting ourselves into a place where folks think they're being promised something that is not being promised. >> Agree. >> Flannigan: You said we're doing a joint meeting between our council and the capital metro board in October. >> Mm-hmm. >> Flannigan: That's an informational meeting only. >> Mm-hmm, yes. >> Flannigan: But there's a decision to be made in January and in March? Is that what you said? >> The processing we're going to go through is that at the October meeting we're gonna lay out all of the data that we have in terms of ridership, alternatives for alignments, above, below, mode, things of that nature that then will be able to be vetted with the public, get comments and based upon those comments we would come back with locally preferred alternatives probably first week in January for presentation to another joint meeting. We would then go ahead and get comments based upon [3:06:34 PM] those draft proposed locally preferred alternatives and then in the month of March there would be another joint meeting where there would be actions taken on the locally preferred alternatives. >> Flannigan: Just for the public's sake, that's a federal phrase, right, locally preferred alternative. >> Yes, it is. >> Flannigan: Sometimes I think people hear that and think we've already decided. We're working to that end. >> Yes. >> Flannigan: It will be what I imagine is more of a staff recommendation based on the work and then come to our two boards. >> That's what will come back as a staff recommendation in January, yes. >> Flannigan: Great. I would say my last comment, thank you, capital metro, for the new bus on the 982 route. It's being rumored you put it on the 97,821st because that's the one I take -- >> Can't confirm or deny. [ Laughter ] >> Flannigan: If you want better buses, to my colleagues, start tweeting and when you ride them. [3:07:34 PM] >> Ellis: I ride the 30. >> Kitchen: And I ride the 803 but the 30 comes right by me too too. The Charette, do we have a time yet? >> I do not have that but I can get that. >> Kitchen: That's fine. I know there's communities along that line that would be interested in participating in the Charette, so we'll try to remember to ask you for that information so we can send it out to them. So, again, thank you all for the work you're doing. And thanks for being here to keep us up to date. It really helps us to report [3:09:16 PM] >> Kitchen:it helps us indicate the intention and make it clear that we want to leverage what the city has available to bring to the table. So and that includes, you know, funding opportunities and resources and those kinds of things. So thank you. All right. With that, I'm going to adjourn our meeting and thank you all for being here. All right. [ Adjourned ]