Mobility Committee Meeting Transcript – 04/15/2021 Title: City of Austin Channel: 6 - COAUS Recorded On: 4/15/2021 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 4/15/2021 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [1:02:43 PM] >> Are we good to go on atx then? >> Yes, we're good to go. >> Chair: Okay. Fantastic. Welcome to the mobility committee. I will call this meeting to order now. It is Thursday, April 15th. It is 1:02 P.M. I am chair Ellis. We have vice chair Kelly, and members alter, kitchen, in and harper-madison. We do not have speakers signed up for citizens communication today. I just wanted to daylight for my colleagues, item number 2, the update from the assistant city manager, Gina fiandaca, we'll take that item up at the end. So we are going to go ahead and get started with approving item number 1. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? All in favor? [1:03:45 PM] That passes unanimously. And we now move on to item number 3, which is going to be our two-year update on the Austin strategic mobility plan. >> Okay, thank you, madam chair. Robert stiller, I'll be kicking off this presentation, if we could -- there it goes. Great. Again, thank you for this opportunity. I'm joined today by several folks. (Indiscernible) Conte is on here, as well as Gina fiandaca. And we want to present an update on our Austin strategic mobility plan. It was just a year ago, on April 11th, 2019, actually two years ago, that council approved our asmp. So we're very thankful for that. We see a lot happening, including the pandemic, and pretty momentumous investment [1:04:46 PM] decision by council in terms of transit as well as other mobility improvements in town. So we just want to take a second to celebrate, if we could go to the next slide, to celebrate that two-year anniversary, if you will. To really start that message off, we have a video that includes a statement from our city manager, Spencer cronk, as well as our ass Tant city manager Gina fiandaca. And I would like to come back on and present some information following that. >> Approved on second and third reading. >> April 11th, 2019, Austin city council unanimously adopted the Austin strategic mobility plan, a road map to guide our city's transportation decision-making for the next 20 years. The asmp established an ambitious goal to manage congestion as we continue to [1:05:47 PM] grow. This means in 2039, half of austinites will make a choice to telework, walk, bike, car pool or take transit instead. >> It's a better mix of community choices to support Austin's growth. We want to make sure our city provides our residents and everyone coming here to work or play from neighboring communities as many options as possible to reduce their impact of congestion to support our environment, and to enjoy everything that Austin has to offer. >> In the two years since its adoption, city of Austin mobility outcome departments have wasted no time setting the asmp into motion. >> We're implementing a new program to help fund roadway capacity projects, and we're nearing completion on a comprehensive update to Austin's transportation criteria manual, which will modernize our street design standards. We're also implementing critical [1:06:47 PM] safety measures quickly using the tools we already have. Austin's vision zero program is installing effective, low-cost safety improvements on 13 high-injury roadway sections, and implementing speed limit changes and treatments through a reimagined data driven speed management program. >> As a city, we've completed dozens of spot improvements to enhance the speed and reliability of our existing bus service while partnering with capital metro so we can plan for and implement project connect. Not only are efforts to build out the robust roadway networks well under way, but Austin voters asked us to continue to expand our urban trails, bikeways and sidewalk networks by approving proposition B in 2020. >> The city of Austin is committed to transparently tracking the progress of our comprehensive mobility plan. Visit austintexas.gov/asmp to see our progress and view our [1:07:48 PM] dashboard. Our city for transportation future is ambitious. But with your help, Austin, we're getting there, together. >> Thank you. If we can get back to the slide show. All right. So what we'd like to do is talk about our progress on the mode shared goals, some of the strategic mobility plan overview, and updates on top 10 strategies that we're actively deploying right now. Next slide, please. One of the key pieces of our strategy is to move from what we call right now a 26% city to a 50% city. Really moving to a much more multi-modal diverse use of our tools for traveling within our community by 2039. One of the things we stressed when we developed this concept [1:08:48 PM] is that, you know, the size of the pie piece is in the future in 2039, really don't matter as long as we're keeping our eyes on getting 50% people out of their private vehicle. Why is this important. It became pretty evident pretty quickly during the development of the Austin strategic mobility plan that no matter what investments we make in transit, or new roads, or completing roads, we really cannot keep up with the growth demand that our city and our region is seeing. And that the only way for success, to keep some level of mobility and really sanity for our community here is to really get people to use a much wider variety of modes to get around. So really, this is a really unique way to grow into the future, but maintain mobility. One of the things we found out, you know, we had a pandemic over the last two years, I know I'm [1:09:49 PM] not telling anyone anything, but what we found out is people were really excited about teleworking and we got a real big adoption of teleworking. As you know, many city departments went from fully in the office, and not really have a telework program, to completely remote working. We've heard that same thing from other companies in fact that don't ever see them coming back -- themselves coming back 100% to in-office work opportunities. Now, that presents some opportunities going forward, in terms of meeting this, and presents challenges going forward with some of the other data we look at here. If you would go to the next slide, please. So one of the major, or primary sd 23 strategic direction 23 measures is that mode split. I just want to point out, and I'm sure you're all aware of this, we base our mode split based on the American community survey from the U.S. Census. [1:10:50 PM] So that data point will be lagging. As you can see here, it still shows 2019 data. That's the most recent data that we have. And it shows that 26%, that starting line position. But there's other ways we can measure it. This is just a clip out of our online website that we will keep accurate. But this doesn't really tell the whole picture. If you go to the next slide, please. We use other data points to infer how we're doing in a sense. So one of the points that we look at is travel time. How are we doing in terms of travel time. I think what's most important here is to take a look at the green line. The green line is a pre- pandemic. And as we see the other lines, we are doing much better than pre-pandemic in terms of travel times. That can only be achieved if there's fewer vehicles on the roads. And so, you know, maybe you have even experienced during the [1:11:50 PM] pandemic, it's much easier to get to some of those locations that we're used to getting to during the summer, in short order, and not be caught in traffic. That's what we're experiencing now. Traffic, I will tell you, volumes are coming back. I'll show you a slide here in a minute -- the next slide here. They're almost back to normal. Thank you. They're at about 80% of normal volumes, but they're still down. And I think that holds some promise, that we'll be able to hold some of these trends as we go forward. So clearly people are traveling less. I think what we need to figure out is, can we convince people to continue in these travel patterns, reducing the overall travel on a daily basis, or a weekly basis, to continue to achieve some of these outcomes. Now, we don't fully yet know what travel is being reduced. And so we clearly see some changes in patterns. Maybe even you, councilmembers, have experienced some of these [1:12:51 PM] changes in patterns. You know, the directional peaks seem different on some roads than they used to be. Certainly there is a higher level of activity throughout the day that we didn't see previously. We saw much more peaking, if you will, in the morning and evening peaks. But now we're seeing more travel throughout the day, which may mean that it's the new economy that people are taking advantage of, deliveries, et cetera, that are sort of keeping that volume up, but yet our system is still able to better handle that than it was pre-pandemic. If you can go to the next slide, please. There you go. One of the areas, however, that we see that we're still down from the pandemic is in transit. Clearly people chose not to use transit, because of fear of the pandemic and coronavirus. I'm convinced when I talk to my peers in other cities that this [1:13:52 PM] will return, that ridership will continue to return. A lot of the slack here was taken up by -- travel slack is what I meant -- is taken up by teleworking, and walking and biking. And we want to continue to encourage those modes of travel. Clearly there's a lot more people using our streets as pedestrians and cyclists. We see those anecdotally. But I think the transit will return as the economy continues to open up. And so I'm not yet concerned about this. I think that we will be communicating out to the public as, again, more and more people become vaccinated and that we start to open up the economy, to encourage people to use transit and carpooling and vanpooling more than the private automobile. Another side effect in a sense of the pandemic is many of us, everyone I talked to suddenly has more money in their bank accounts because they're not [1:14:53 PM] spending it. One of the major expenses we know that people use their disposable income on is that private vehicle. So if that private vehicle is staying parked longer, they're using less fuel, they're driving less. I know I've gotten rebates on can we carry that experience and benefit over into encouraging people to use transit to keep saving those fund by not using their private car would be one thing we'll be striving to do over the next months. Next slide. There's been huge gains in teleworking. As you know, we partner with moveability, the regional transportation management association. We're one of the founding board members. We work closely to establish trends and they've been able to survey their employer participants as well as [1:15:55 PM] employees in the downtown Austin area. We found 86% of the employees they ask have really would like to continue working remotely. By and far, the companies that I interact with through the moveability report that not only did they not lose productivity, that in many cases they gained productivity. And so I think a lot of folks are rethinking about how they might just teleworking into the future. As you can see here, most of that pie there, which is a pie chart showing teleworking, I think that's going to play on out in Austin because we're growing quickly and there's companies that still want to come to Austin. So even as companies start to shrink footprint, we may get more companies moving to Austin and hopefully they will be teleworking as well. That exactly is the [1:16:56 PM] phenomenon that we were alerting folks to the need to move to a more multi multi-modal approach because we won't be able to keep up with it. Next slide. I'm going to turn this over to Lee Ann. She's really been the steward of asmp Hamid over the last two years and she's going to talk about our seven major strategies and walk you through what the major items in each of each of these areas that we're committed to doing and give you the picture where we're headed. >> Thank you, rob. Yes. Thank you so much, council, for letting us provide this update to you on our two-year anniversary of the strategic mobility plan adoption. I'm going to make a couple of slides here as reminders what the plan included. I think rob did a great job talking about our major [1:17:59 PM] motivation for -- for the planning process and our goals of being a multi-modal 50/50 mode share city. So we did that in a comprehensive view of our transportation network covering topics from transportation safety to supplying and operating our systems to the effect that the ways that we get around have on our health and our environment. And the plan contained a number of different elements to help us get to that goal, so we have 155 indicators, which are specific measures of our goals which will help us know how well we are achieving them. Many of those are overlapping with our strategic direction 2023 measures, so we've already started doing that measurement and putting that information out there, and we will continue to expand that reporting as we move into implementation past [1:18:59 PM] this year. There's also 127 policies which are statements that will help us guide and determine our present and future decisions. There are 279 action items, which we'll talk about a little more as we have a dashboard to show you of the status of all of those items, but those are the next steps in supporting our policies, programs and projects. There are three priority networks which we designate for roadways, public transportation and our bicycle system to show where those modes should be prioritized to improve operations. There are transportation network maps that identify possible projects the city may pursue in the next 20 years. And then we have a street network table and map which is or inventory of all of our streets and future conditions and that also helps us in our right-of-way dedication through the development process. So lots of different elements of this plan. [1:20:00 PM] If we could go to the next slide, please. We also had included ten top strategies to help us reach that 50/50 mode share goal. And as part of this two-year progress report, we worked with staff in our mobility outcome departments and our partnered departments across the the city as well as our partner transportation agencies to gather updates on our progress over the last two years. So I'm going to go through and give you some highlights on each of the strategies. So going to slides 13, the first top strategy is about reducing traffic fatalities, serious injuries by focusing on our safety culture and behaviors. We're talking about behaviors, those are -- we're alluding to those fatal four contributing behaviors that we see leading to the most serious injury and fatal crashes in Austin. Failure to yield, distractions, speeding and intoxication. So in doing that focus, we [1:21:01 PM] have identified 13 high injury roadways throughout the city. Our vision zero team have identified those for improvements to enhanced safety for all of our road users. You may have seen some of the signage that's going much indicating a certain roadway is a high -- a new strategy for setting speed limits and selected 14 traffic calming projects to complete by 2021. And in terms of our regional roadways, one example is the city collaborated with txdot on pedestrian barriers on I-35 and we're actively participating in redesign of I-35 to have a more holistic view of safety for that regional roadway that goes right through our city. And then we have also regularly run bilingual ad campaigns focusing on raising awareness of those fatal four behaviors that lead to serious injury and [1:22:03 PM] fatal crashes in Austin. >> I would like to add to that that those pedestrian barricades on I-35, they are actually an extension of the center barrier. Not to go too far into it, but that was an innovative use of a device that was designed for something else. It has been so successful that I understand from the district engineer that that's now being used by txdot in other urban areas and is quickly becoming sort of a quick and easy design standard for use elsewhere. So our actions here on vision zero have had a real positive even put other places as well. >> If we go to slide 14. Thank you. Since the plan's adoption, so this top strategy is moving more people by investing in public transportation. Since the plan's adoption, the city and capital metro have collaborated on more than 20 projects to enhance the speed and reliability of our existing services. [1:23:03 PM] And in 2020, as you all know, the city of Austin voters approved 19 million in general obligation bonds to continue to fund the transit enhancement program which works to make operational improvements. And also in 2020 voters approved the initial investment of project connect including rail service, expanded bus service, park-and-rides and more. Next slide. This next top strategy is managing congestion by managing demand. We've seen a lot of that during the pandemic. I think as rob talked about, this is really shown the community what happens when many people don't get on the road and drive to work and to what effect that has on our congestion. But in 2019 the city launched get there atx, a one-stop information about [1:24:03 PM] sustainable prosecution options in our city, and in 2020 the smart trips Austin that we collaborate with capital metro on and which provides resources and trip planning support, expanded reach citywide. And as an employer, talking about flexibility for staff teleworking, as an employer, the city is investing in software to allow our employees more flexibility to telework and then hotel and office spaces rather than having a designated space in the office. That will be initially rolling out with the opportunity to expand to the rest of the city. And prior to the pandemic, transportation invested in a use of electric bikes to make mid-day trips to meetings and once the pandemic hit, created a [1:25:04 PM] program to loan out those e-bikes to other staffers that may be traveling into the office during that time. And as rob mentioned, we're continuing to work with moveability to help local employers continue to incentivize remote work even after the need for social distancing. And going to the next slide, the strategy is building our active transportation access for all ages and abilities on our bicycle, sidewalk and urban trail systems. These programs have been doing a lot to implement their plans through their programs that have been funded by the 2016 and 2018 bonds which allowed them to continue delivering miles of new projects and making improvements to existing infrastructure. And we are on target to reach our all ages mobility bicycle network goal to [1:26:04 PM] complete 50% of the network by this fall. And 2020 Austin voters approved proposition B which includes $220 million in general obligation bonds to fund more sidewalk, bike way and urban trails project. So that will continue to deliver more and more of those systems. Slide 17, please. This strategy is strategically adding roadway capacity to improve travel efficiency. In 2019, the city completed preliminary engineering reports for nine substandard streets as part of the 2016 bond program, and then in the 2020 proposition B voters approved 53 million to fund those capital improvements to those streets. So that will be a way to deliver those improvements that were identified in a previous program. And also this year the city [1:27:05 PM] began construction on the -- last year, excuse me, in 2020, the city began construction on the Anderson mill road project and continues to work with txdot on other regional mobility projects to address congestion and safety. And in December this past December, city council adopted our street impact fees programs ordinances to help fund future roadway capacity projects necessitied by growth and new development. Next slide, please. This is a strategy much connecting people to services and opportunities for better health. Over the last year, much of this work has centered on our response to the pandemic and working with our public health partners. The city collaborated with forward mobility and good apple on a nine-month stay home, stay healthy grocery delivery pilot program to deliver produce and pantry [1:28:05 PM] items to those most vulnerable to food insecurity during the pandemic. And mobility departments joined the city's covid-19 response through the emergency operations center, sustaining traffic control at testing and vaccine locations and continuing to provide support at ppe distribution events. As you all know, the healthy streets initiative designated several streets in Austin for activities, active transportation, walking, rolling, bicycling during the pandemic and data from this pilot program will be integrated into a slow or shared streets program that will be part of the sidewalk, urban trails and bike way plan updates which are currently underway as a project between atd and public works. And staff also supported the shot the block program that council initiated to provide more opportunities for [1:29:05 PM] businesses to have more outdoor space for dining during the pandemic. Next slide, please. This is about addressing affordability by linking housing and transportation investments. We have a significant milestone on this strategy last year when the proposition a included 300 million for transit supported anti-displacement housing strategies. An equity tool is currently being co-created with community members to help guide decisions about how those funds are spent in areas that are going to displayment from capital investments. Atd also took on a larger role in development review processes and formalized an agreement with capital metro where they are more involved in development review which [1:30:06 PM] development application comes in on or near capital metro service to making sure that improvements are considered as potential mitigation for that development's impact when they come in rather than retroactively. And also in 2019, council adopted the affordability loft development bonus program where developers can receive waivers to development regulations for provide low and moderate income housing and additional incentives are provided for those that are within a quarter mile of a corridor served by transit. Next slide. This strategy is right sizing and managing parking supplies to manage demands. A lot of activity in this strategy as well. Atd converted all of our parking pay stations to a pay by plate system where users entered their license plate number at a kiosk rather than receiving a [1:31:07 PM] sticker and putting it on their vehicle. If you don't want to -- the kiosk, a park atx app in 2019 launched which allows people to pay for parking and manage their session remotely. And we became the first city in 2020 to actually give people the option of paying for parking directly through Google maps. We've also expanded the affordable parking programs. Since the adoption of the asmp, more than 20 garages have joined the program which provides monthly parking passes that are more affordable for service and entertainment industry employees who work nights downtown. And we've revised our parking time limits to a uniform maximum and linked the time spent to a new variable parking fee structure. And two more. The next slide is developing shared mobility options with data and emerging technology. Our partnership with capital [1:32:11 PM] metro was for natural iced in a I wanter local agreement, a Austin b-cycle rebranded to Austin metro bike and plans are in motion to expand the fleet and the number of stations and to fully electrify the fleet you've seen roll out of some of the electric bikes. And we're continuing to work with capital metro in connecting transit to my row mobility devices through a single fare or pay card so that that first last mile transfer is as seamless as possible. And the city has also published an interactive shared mobility operations map displaying where parking is available for shared mobility devices, personal bikes and scooters where we have electric scooter charging stations and more that is available resource. And the city of Austin and U.T. Austin received a grant [1:33:13 PM] from the national science foundation this year to create a micro mobility hub in the Jordan acres neighborhood as a pilot and will hopefully provide recommendations for future micro mobility hubs in Austin. Lastly, on sli 22, building and expanding community relationships with plan implementation. Before the pandemic, city staff were frequently at community events and led open houses, things like smart trips transit adventures and project activation events like the upper boggy creek bash and the Zach Scott celebration. However, during the pandemic departments have had to go to more remote methods and have done so with examples such as the south pleasant valley road, virtual open house and the corridor program offices coffee on the couch interactive webinars regarding the corridor program. [1:34:15 PM] And in 2020 smart trips used some grant funding awarded by Bloomberg's American cities climate challenge to hold transportation and equity workshops with community organizations which resulted in the formation of a bike equity alliance providing free bikes, safety gear and training to residents earning below 50% of Austin's mfi. Those are just some examples of accomplishments over the last two years. If we go to the last slide that I have for you, I wanted to point out a two-year report that we have published online. And if we could navigate actually to the website there so that we could just kind of scroll through and show people wants available on the asmp website. We have the highlights that I presented and if you click on -- scroll down a little bit, you see the two-year [1:35:16 PM] highlights, but if we click on the action items dashboard, that will jump you to the bottom where you will see an interactive table with status of all 279 action items in the plan. As of the reporting of this, 49% of those items are either complete or ongoing, and 21% are in progress to completion. And if you scroll down a little more to see that table there, and if you want to expand that further and really big in, there's a button below the table that says view larger version and you can see that will take you to a new window where the action items are organized by chapter and you can dive into what you are looking for. So we hope that this is a great resource to the community and we will be continuing to update this, and that is all I have. I will hand it back over to [1:36:16 PM] to rob and we're happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you. >> Again, councilmembers, just want to thank you for your support on this. We're excited at the progress we've made and I know that we have still some big steps to take and so don't be surprised if we continue to have conversations with not just this community but the entire council about needing to take some of those steps into the future in terms of funding or organizationally as we really strive to make that 50/50 goal. So thank you. >> Ellis: Thanks a lot for that update. There's a lot of real exciting progress you are making and it's going to see you leading by example trying to encourage teleworking. I have a couple questions, but I want to open it up to the floor in case my colleagues cover it, and then I'll wrap up at the end. Do we have any questions from my colleagues? Councilmember alter? >> Alter: Thank you. [1:37:17 PM] I very appreciate the clarity in the presentation and then the effort to, you know, watch our goals be met and really kind of track things. So thank you on that. I am a paying customer of good apple so it's a buy one, give one program. Even as a paying customer, I'm enjoying the benefits of that program and I would just encourage folks who are looking for a way to eat more vegetables in their diet or force themselves to try things they didn't know, it's a great program and high quality produce. I wanted to ask about -- this is about the asmp because it has the air quality goals I think as part of that. Do we have a sense with the change in the patterns during the pandemic how that [1:38:18 PM] impacted our air quality? I recall that we signed a contract to do some analysis. I'm wondering what we know at this point in time about how that impacted our air quality and whether we escaped the bullet of non-attainment because of last year. >> I would be willing to wager that we are still in attainment based on the last year. I believe it's three-year moving average, but Lee Ann, do you have more information on that? >> I don't, unfortunately, but we can -- happy to follow up on our status. I know our partners at capcog are the ones that probably inform us the most of the -- our status and our work with campo. Happy to follow up with you. >> We'll follow up with you, yes. >> Alter: Do you have any info otherwise on the environmental impact of the [1:39:20 PM] shift mode from pandemic? >> In terms of the natural environment, no. I think that what we are seeing right now, though, with the better travel times and the lower volumes is -- the drivers that are driving are tending to drive faster, which is going to have a negative impact on our safety criteria. And so I think you will -- that we are actively concerned about that and working to try to get people to take their time and slow down right now. It's not exactly the natural environment to the community environment. Councilmember, we would have to get back with you on that. >> Alter: Because I think that's one of the measures that interests me a lot within the asmp and we have this sort of natural experiment going on. And I believe there were measures and I believe there were some actions, so I would like an update. >> Sure. >> Alter: On that. And the reason I'm asking [1:40:21 PM] about attainment versus non-attainment, if we don't meet those requirements, it because a lot more expensive to do the projects we have in mind for mobility to achieve the asmp goals. I wanted to get that. And then I'm glad to see that the transportation department is doing things for thinking about how to extend teleworking into the future. I was a co-sponsor of this item being on in part because we were going to talk about the telecommuting stuff, but I had an item, it was the resolution where we established the conservation corps where we also called on the city manager to update our telework policies in light of lessons learned from the pandemic. At the time we did that, we did not anticipate we would still be under these conditions a year later from then. But I would like to better understand how that's working because one thing we [1:41:21 PM] do control is the policies that we have for our city. We have been a leader on that and a number of things like energy efficiency and other kinds of things, and folks do look to us for our example moving forward and would benefit from those. Can you speak to the city specific aspect of that telework local sickle cell and how that's playing out? >> I can speak to how my department is responding. Teleworking has been very popular and we are trying to encourage teleworking. Obviously not all employees can telework. Our field crews cannot telework, so we're talking about only a portion of our employees. But we've invested in a program that will allow us to reserve work space at our work places on a part-time basis, meaning that if I can have multiple employees sharing the same cube or [1:42:23 PM] office, you obviously need some kind of scheduling. We're piloting that program. We bought an initial license that would allow us to expand that out to other departments. We're getting ready to move into a -- our second facility to start that up. As folks start to come back in the workplace, in the next space we'll be moving a test to a pilot at a multi-use building, a city building that houses multiple departments. The software is not difficult. It's all the administrative rules and processes that you have to wrap around that to make it work. Something as simple as if id separate from the city's id, how do you get those to users. So we're really pushing that. I know a number of other departments are asking for our teleworking program. Specifically with the city as a whole, I can't answer that, but I will get back with out that as well, councilmember. [1:43:23 PM] I will fiend out and make sure that's communicated back. >> Alter: Thank you. Because we are getting to a tipping point that we need to have these policies in place. Even if it's individual by department, I think that the transportation department has a lot to offer in terms of support and other things and would expect that would be part of our asmp process and how we achieve those goals. >> Yes. And you know, I can attest for my department, Austin communication department, we are getting as much if not more work done actually and having to counsel some employees to quit working after hours because it's just easy to keep going. And so it's an interesting new set of challenges from an employment perspective to deal with. It's not the ones that I expected to be worried about.. >> Thanks for that. Are there any other questions [1:44:24 PM] before I ask a few of mine? Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: I just wanted to highlight the information about transit. I appreciate you bringing that forward, Mr. Spillar, and to just share as you did that we fully expect transit use to pick back up. As you all may recall before the pandemic, there were 18 strike months of increase in ridership. And the data that we received the other day as you had put forward, Mr. Spillar, shows that it's down. But the thing to remember is that if you dig into the details about the types of services that are below, they are commuting in some way. Commuter usage is down as one might expect. But some continue to be -- to be in full use and maybe down a [1:45:25 PM] little bit, but not very much. So the other thing that I think that I'll just mention right now that's important for people to understand, and as you talk to people that you might share this, is that metro has a whole long list of protections that are put in place for bus riders. And the latest one relates to the air filtration system on buses, which they have completed now which is yet another level of protection for those riding buses. So I look forward to that -- that service continuing to pick up as you said, Mr. Spillar. >> Yeah, and, yes, councilmember, and, in fact, one of the areas where we had to increase our coordination with cap metro during the pandemic is they added buses on their routes, the most frequent routes have become more frequent so people can spread out and socially distance inside of the bus, which is great. But that's required us in a [1:46:25 PM] sense to dial up the prioritization on some of our corridors because as there's more buses we obviously have to keep them spaced out as best we can or handle buses -- multiple buses together, you know, where we have that kind of demand. So we're working closely with cap metro to meet those needs. As we go forward. But, yeah, I do expect like you that the demand will come roaring back at some point when our economy is fully reopened. >> To report that the U.T. Professor from the local data and air quality is included at [1:47:26 PM] www.covid19.tx.net. That is a resource and that there's an air quality study to study the impact during covid and the first report is supposed to be due we think in may. So the office sustainability is coordinating with them on that. >> Ellis: That's great. I commission that. Councilmember alter, I wanted to mention as the appointee to the clean air coalition I'd like to get with you offline about the metrics and the containment situation. So I don't have the information that director spillar didn't have either, but I'd love to talk to you about that because I think that there's a conversation that you and I can have about it. And I -- I love the inclusion of the healthy streets in the presentation. I've always been so proud of the way that the community has really championed that. I know that the transportation department has been really been helpful in trying to figure out what the future of the healthy [1:48:26 PM] streets is, how to create safe spaces for families to move about. How do we address speed mitigation. So these are conversations that are certainly coming. And so I really love that being mentioned. My two questions are going to stem around what metrics exactly do we have available to us? I know that you mentioned the American community survey. Do we have a local one too that we might need to adjust to include a little bit more information that families could share with us about their commuting habits? >> Councilmember, we don't have anything that is as robust as the community surveys and that. That I would point to as statistically valid. We have certainly done surveys in the past that are self-identified, meaning that people aren't randomly selected necessarily, that they self-select to respond to. [1:49:28 PM] Certainly, we have done some surveys, but nothing on a comprehensive level as the community database that we use. We knew that was a weakness going into it. You know, every several years we get estimates on it, but that's why we really tried to identify some of these other measures to get a good read of where we're going. You know, we can continue to look into that. And it would be nice if we could have real-time, I'm not sure that we can get real-time data of that sort, but you're right. >> Ellis: Yeah, I think is an interesting conversation and we just want to have all of the information that we can but I know that it can be cumbersome to try to get all of the information and to have it to be useful and helpful. >> Right. >> Ellis: -- In our planning. And my last question would be, what other means of communication with maybe some of our larger employers do we have? I know that you mentioned moveability. I work with the clean air force [1:50:30 PM] which encourages people to not idle in company vehicles and to kind of to be very mindful of how their commutes are affecting air pollution. Do we have any other options where we could be proactive about reaching out to employers to try to help them to figure out how to standardize this, how it could work? To really try to get these improvements and traffic to lapse. >> Two primary ways. You mentioned moveability, which is a collection of the willing, which most companies actually understand that there's a benefit to them. You know, to build parking and to fund that is quite expensive. It usually is not revenue generating for a company and, you know, you need $50,000 to $75,000 of space, so it's expensive. So there's a natural built-in opportunity. And then we really capitalize on [1:51:31 PM] that as well. And we communicate out with that. You know, you have seen the mayor's challenge and other challenges that they do. There's certainly another way that we communicate, especially to new companies and developments coming in and that's through the T.I.A., the transportation impact analysis, and the development review by transportation. That has moved over into the purview of the department. And we have really focused on building transportation demand management plans into the development strategy or this strategy. And those will start to pay dividends, if you will, as those companies and those communities start to populate while we're waiting -- you know, we haven't gotten to sort of the benefits yet simply because we've only been doing that for the last couple years. But that's where we're having the conversation, pretty acute conversations on that, so that [1:52:33 PM] the community hears that as the need. And some of the big need developments are eager participants, Tesla, as I understand, is joining the moveability because they're interested in reducing their commute footprint. In the end, you know, I think that it means better employee-based -- especially car manufacturing and high-tech industry, and certainly for big employers like the city. Those are two primary ways to communicate. Leanne, did you want to add anything? >> I was going to add that you have a presentation later in your meeting today about the transportation criteria manual, and that's one place where the T.D.M., the transportation management plan, are being codified in our role. So that would be another place to talk about that if you have more questions for those guys. >> And that is really green field area for cities to get into. You know, that's really [1:53:33 PM] innovative, I think, on the part of the city of Austin, really building into the development process that tdm thinking. So we're pretty -- you know, I don't want to be overoptimistic, but we're pretty excited about that as it starts to pay dirt, if you will. >> Ellis: It certainly sounds like a great first two years for the strategic mobility plan and definitely look forward to seeing the improvements along the way as it continues. >> Thank you, and thank you to all of you for your support. We really appreciate it and we'll continue to need that support. So, thank you. >> Ellis: Great. Thank you. If there's no other questions, we can move on to the next item. And that is going to be a briefing on the federal -- the equitable transit oriented green lines and the origin blue lines. [1:54:55 PM] Welcome. >> Thank you. I'll go ahead and get us started and it looks like sharmila is on the line as well. Sharmila, they will deliver this presentation today but I wanted to give you some opening remarks. I've with the housing planning department, Stevie grithouse. The city of Austin adopted funding for the project transit investment as y'all are well aware of in November and we're moving forward with partnership with capital metro on multipelt initiatives related to that investment. One of those initiatives is really looking at doing land-use and transit-oriented development adjacent to the couple of the metro protect connect corridors. One aspect of that planning is an exciting announcement and presentation that sharmila has to share today related to money that we have received competitively from the federal transit administration to support transit-oriented development and planning in the [1:55:55 PM] corridors of the protect connect line. So I'll turn it over to sharmila and she'll walk y'all through a presentation about that grant and the exciting partnership that we're embarking on. And then there's several of us on the line from the city that can help to answer questions at the end. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you, steveie. It's my pleasure, I'm sharmila, sharmila Mukherjee and I'm E.V.P. At cap metro. And just I wanted to sort of chime in today on a little bit about kind the post-script and rob's presentation. It was a great presentation and, clearly, it sets the stage for where we are today. It allowed us to be competitive in our federal process. So I want to say that and also to mention that I have a little bit of an update on our ridership as well. The numbers that you saw today are February numbers, and since then we have had them slowly trickling up. [1:56:56 PM] About 47% of our pre-covid ridership which is higher than many of our national -- mostly bus only, but also bus with small rail component peers. And so with that I wanted to just say that we still feel the future for public transit is bright. And in Austin with prop 8 passing we are embarking on a very exciting path. And this equitable tod is one of the tools, one of the ways to get there more equitably and to have a balanced future for Austin. Next slide, please. So transit oriented development, and we wanted to make sure that we truly bring this message early on in the process, that our goal is to deliver transitory updates to our toolkit and plans that are equitable. We competed, as steveie mentioned, it was a very [1:57:58 PM] competitive planning grant. And $900,000 was the highest award and we got that -- with two other public transit agencies across the united States. So we are very proud of that. And our local share of that is $350,000. So our overall balance is $1.25 million. It's a true partnership, that I feel that we are embarking on with the city of Austin and the Austin transportation department and most, importantly, the housing and planning and equity office. We are focusing on -- you can see the corridor on the right, we're focuses on a 12-mile north of Lamar Guadalupe corridor with 13 stations along the blue line. The downtown stations, note that they are not included and they're not included for specific reasons. They are not included so we're [1:58:59 PM] most competitive in the federal grants process and we wanted to make sure that we put concentrated resources on the stationary areas that could use additional analysis and a better fact forward. Downtown stations have their own -- it's downtown market forces that are different and the city of Austin has done significant work on the tod component that we could build off of that. So our idea was not to duplicate, but to build off of that. We're emphasizing on defining etod opportunities through an equity framework, both with meaningful public engagement, and also how we frame the study and the processes, goa and objectives, especially keeping in mind the communities that are higher risk for displacement. And this is absolutely consistent with the $300 million displacement funding that's been set aside as part of prop 8. Next slide, please. So here's a snapshot on the etod process and planning and policy [2:00:00 PM] outcomes. The engagement and the analysis process, I wanted to give the highlights on the left for that and the planning and the policy outcomes on the right. The public engagement strategy, we have already gone through a lot of work, our background work, for the past three months since we were awarded the grant. To work with our city partners, to understand the work that's already been conducted, to understand the community feelings around this station location's work that's already been conducted. And to create a baseline for public engagement, not just on what exists on the stationary locations physically. Our current conditions, that's our existing conditions, that is one of our key components. It's also going to lead to one of the deliverables that is the policy toolkit. The catalyst station selection, this is done entirely in-house to synthesize all of the work [2:01:00 PM] that's already been done, the city of Austin has done very good work towards that. And we wanted to make sure that we fold that in and provide that as we are getting ready to engage our consultant in this process. Planning and policy outcomes, that's listed on the right, I'm not going through each one of them, but if you have any questions on them I'd be more than happy to kind of walk through them. The idea is to provide through the coordination, public outreach, the three key deliverables that this process would lead us to. One would be an update to cap metro's policy toolkit. The second would be lane use and etod land-use strategies along the corridor that we could potentially apply to other parts of our service area as well based on the proatdo types and the station area planes for those stations that are listed. Next slide, please. So strategies to leverage [2:02:03 PM] transit investment. With high leverage transit we want to make sure that people have the ability to access transit equitably. So access to high quality and frequent transit, and choices for safe multimodal mobility, and options for housing incomes and how to make that possible, and opportunities for employment and health care, education and other active centers along the way. And the deliverables, they are station area plans that have value capture and innovate financing tools and the etod zoning recommendations. And at etod we do have land use authority. This is to the city of Austin. Next slide, please. So here's some of the opportunities but they are only highlights of those opportunities. Growth and market forces exist as you know with all of the growing economy and people [2:03:04 PM] moving in different parts of the United States and abroad, and to Austin. This is an opportunity to direct the growth and the market forces in a way that I think that is going to help us to get to a more equitable and sustainable future for Austin. Early planning around equity, with equity focused development. And then the other big component that I didn't mention and I wanted to touch on here, the integrated approach with engineering and Nepa process. Most are familiar with the Nepa process, and it's for large infrastructure, new and expansion of projects. It is the marker that needs to be achieved and with E.I.S. That is a record of decision that allows a project to get into the project development process. And through that process a large project like the Orange and the blue line would be qualified to be in the capital grant opportunity, that is for both the engineer and blue line. This etod study and the [2:04:05 PM] recommendations of that are critical to receiving a higher level of land use, higher ranking of land use, which is essentially medium or high for a project of this magnitude to be competitive in the federal grants process. Next slide, please. Here's a quick timeline and next steps. Again, public involvement begins and it's continuous through the process. Existing conditions is the kind of conditions, that is the timeline there. Data development and coordination. It's essentially kind of coming up with the etod design standards, typologies and strategies and policies and leading to the policy toolkit, land-use strategies and area station plans. This is, again, the planning process that we included in the grants. We are very early in the process. This highlight of this presentation, the same data has already been presented to our [2:05:06 PM] board of directors, capital board of metro, and sorry -- the campo, technical advisory committee. And today it's my pleasure to kind of share this with the mobility committee and open up to any questions that you have. >> Ellis: Thank you very much for that presentation. Congratulations on the grants. I think that is a really exciting opportunity and I hope that that means ensuring future success of our ability to get that federal grants in the future. >> Thank you. >> Ellis: Do any of my colleagues have questions they wanted to ask? Mayor pro tem? >> Harper-madison: Thank you, chair. So my question for sharmila is, what are the distinctions between etod planning considerations for the Orange and blue line -- for the Orange [2:06:06 PM] and blue light lines and the commuter corridor? >> Excellent question, thank you so much. The considerations are different in a sense that the context and the planning context with the conditions of the corridor physically are different. Therefore, market pressures and growth conditions and projections are different, but I would say I joined capital metro about 15 months ago and it was ongoing at the moment and that was with the etod planning grant. I think this is how I would say this -- we learned a lot through the green line process. The process established some very critical milestones in coordination with the city, how the city and cap metro would work together. But I think that it's like the version 2.0, if not 3.0, in our kind of coordination, development and integration between the city planning [2:07:09 PM] process and cap metro etod coordination. I would like to see this process deliver is -- maybe I'm a little idealistic -- but I would like to see the city's goals and objectives and the initiatives that are taking place, they are integrated really well early on as we go out and secure our consultant for that. So green line has -- the conditions on the green line is a little bit different and development pressures are stronger with the blue line, but some of the planning processes are the same where the outcomes could be different based on the existing conditions and the strategies around the station locations. And the phasing in and the implementation of them. Does that answer your question? >> Harper-madison: I muted myself. Not quite, but I'm going to [2:08:09 PM] think of a better way to articulate it and to get with you off-line in the interest of time. I recognize that it's already after 2:00. I'm sorry? >> No, I would love to have a discussion or a follow-up on that. >> Ellis: Councilmember Fuentes. >> Fuentes: Thank you. My question is around the 12-mile focus on north Lamar and up to Riverside corridor. Can you talk us through the rationale between selecting that particular segment of the line? And then also you could layer in -- because I know that on slide 2 the emphasis on -- that emphasis of this grant, from my understanding, but please correct me if I'm wrong, is to define the etod opportunities, especially for communities at higher risk for displacement. So I kind of wanted to get more [2:09:10 PM] context on that. And also if you could touch on the catalyst station selection with the selection for the catalyst stations be on that described 12-mile line that is part of the grant or is that open to the entire project connect? >> So I will answer the last part of the question first. The stations on the corridor that is proposed on this grant. And I -- the grant is, again, a targeted -- as Stevie pointed out, it's one of the ways, one of the tools to approach this very important topic. This is not the only way to address transitory development all across the service area and project connect. It's a strong step in the right direction. The southern portion of the Orange line was not included in the study area because the grant application process and specifically the competitiveness [2:10:10 PM] for planning pilot grants nationwide, um, there's a general -- that really requires -- there's an optimum segment. The most developable section of a corridor it also appears to rank really high in the grants scheme of things, and we -- as we were putting together the application, we understood that if we are able to articulate the market pressures and the need to have this plan in place to prepare us better to get into project development for Orange and blue line, that was one of the critical factors selecting the segments. And focusing on the areas where we need a more detailed plan. >> Fuentes: So that area that was selected for the grant is because it was considered the most developable parts of the line? >> That is correct. Again, I wanted us to be mindful [2:11:11 PM] of the fact that this is at the time of preparing the application, when we put together the grant application. And keeping in mind our competitiveness in the national scene to be able to get the grant. And we still believe that's where the market pressures are great, but as we go through the planning process getting ready to be able to kind of embark on this study, as we add our local funding match, we're very much in the scoping process. So it would allow us to fine tune within reason and within -- within certain parameters. The corridor would be reviewed as a whole also for demographic and market factors. >> Fuentes: Okay, thank you. >> I hope that answers your question. >> Ellis: Councilmember kitchen. >> Kitchen: Just as a follow-up, thank you so much for explaining [2:12:12 PM] that aspect of this scoping. I do think that it would be important though for us to have a more specific understanding of what is possible for the south part of the Orange line, because -- the focus of this is -- even if the south area was not the best area for a federal grant, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an area that needs this same kind of review. So what I would specifically want to understand is what is the difference between -- or is there a difference between the type -- it's kind of the question that the mayor pro tem asked -- what is the difference of the type of analysis and planning that would occur for the south part of the Orange line as well as for the north part? So, for example, you mentioned the three deliverables. The deliverables being the station planning, the land-use recommendations, and there was a [2:13:13 PM] third that I'm forgetting, but you mentioned those three as deliverables for this particular project. Would you not also have the same kind of deliverables for the green line and for the south portion of the Orange line? So can you speak to that? >> Yeah, to best of my ability at the moment. And I'll have Stevie, and they're on line and I will have them chime in. No, I appreciate the discussion. The green line was our first study that we have done, that cap metro has done. So I would say that we -- that was our first -- the green line planning grant was our first success in this realm. And kind of building off of that now we are focusing on Orange and blue line. We do have very specific green line study recommendations. And to mayor pro tem's earlier point, I was focusing more on [2:14:15 PM] the deliverables for -- for this segment as opposed to green line. And that is the nature of the sort of market forces that the consultant thought that would be in play. So we can have a more detailed discussion on that, but moving on to the southern segment of the Orange line, we actually had a lot of discussions around it as how are we going to take up the program level, corridor level approach, for both of the lines. So one way, again, I wanted to highlight that the tod,den cap metro etod toolkit that I will request that she come off of mute and chime in on, the merits of the etod toolkit that will apply to the overall corridor. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> Do you want to chime in and I will talk about the other deliverables and how that could be applied to the overall corridor as well. >> Sure, good afternoon, chair, [2:15:20 PM] councilmembers. Annick Beaudet. We have been collaborating with cap metro for quite some time with, for project connect as you know, as we started the asmp and project connect we started at the same time. And we have always relied on the toolkit that was developed by previous etod programs at capital metro that did a really good job on what we call a planning inventory of where potential stations could be along proposed city transit corridors. Whether it be br terror or whether it be rail. In the beginning, as you all know, most of you know, when we started the preliminary planning of the asmp project connect we were just looking at building that with the community on what our high capacity transit system [2:16:22 PM] should look like. So we have always relied on that tool as sort of -- to use a phrase that councilmember Ellis just used, setting the stage. The tod toolkit sets the stage in a more specific way for planning around a proposed station, but should work complementary to any existing -- this is where Stevie could jump in probably after me -- any existing small area plans, right? We don't -- we want to preserve and acknowledge and respect the existing plans that are in place. I know that councilmember kitchen in your district you have one of the newer plans with the characteristics that were done very well. And I know that there's one further north that probably is adjacent. I don't know exactly, but I think that it is adjacent in the scope of this grant. And so I hope that answers your question, or please repeat if I [2:17:23 PM] can have a little more clarity to the relationship between what we're doing with updating the toolkit and the planning that exists and planning that might be coming forward. >> Kitchen: So I think that I understood what Annika and sharmila are saying, that the tod toolkit applies to all of the Orange line. In other words, just because -- but, okay, so I understand that. But it informs -- if I'm understanding you correctly, Annika, it informs but it doesn't determine specifically how something might be developed? >> I believe that's correct. And, you know, I think that as sharmila said, the scoping is still underway and there is wiggle room and that's the beauty of us being in front of you all today is to hear that feedback. I see it as mostly an inventory, the language that has been used [2:18:23 PM] that I saw before is readiness. Like, how ready is the area to support high-capacity transit? That includes multiple factors. Of course, the amount of people and employment is going to be key. But there are other factors as well. But, no, it shouldn't be determining how, it should just be doing the inventory and then through small area planning you take that inventory and you use that as data input with the community as to how do you react to that. If our goal is to increase ridership, our goal is to protect neighborhoods, how do we -- how do we sync those two things together? Stevie -- >> If I could add just a little bit of context and I don't want to go too far because I'm conscious of time and I'm conscious of the fact this is the mobility committee and not the housing and building committee. But small planning and how this [2:19:24 PM] grant fits in. We recognize that there's a significant need city-wide and all of the project connect corridors, some more than others, but definitely at least a bit of a need in all of the corridors to do good land-use planning, you know, in the context of the transit development that can bring the communities together, support all of our anti-displacement goals and support developing land uses that can support the transit investment and vice versa. So we recognize that need. There are conversations definitely continuing at the executive level about how to develop a work program for smaller planning that will meet that need. And this grant is just one really fantastic opportunity with the federal government, providing $900,000 to help to support a project, to move towards meeting that need. But it is not going to be the be-all-end-all of how we do the project connect system. So I wanted to provide that assurance. And we obviously had previous conversations about sort of the [2:20:24 PM] very specific needs and the south congress corridor that I think that we would be interested in exploring as we continue to kind of talk about the overall program in concert with project connect and the conversations around our land development toolbox. So I hope that helps a little bit. >> Kitchen: Chair, I know that you're probably wanting to move on, so I just want to put a pin in this then and just say that I -- I would like some more specific information about the plan for south congress. And I'm sure that councilmember Fuentes would too. And what is the plan for community engagement? What is the timeline? That kind of thing. I'm not sure who the right staff person is to talk to about that, but, um, I think that we're -- I see councilmember Fuentes nodding. I know that is one thing. I really want to see a timeline and then -- so I can understand [2:21:25 PM] what the path is there. And then so my final comment would just be that -- thank you very much, I was pleased to see in your language about the community engagement. And the mention of the C.A.C. The community advisory council is -- will hold its first meeting, I believe, in the last week in April. Since -- I'm sure that the idea is to share this etod planning with the cac at that first meeting which would make sense because if I understood your timing for public engagement for this particular project, that would be a good time to make sure that that's on their radar screen. So just making that connection for you, sharmila. >> Thank you. >> Kitchen: That you probably already know that. >> But, no, thank you. We appreciate -- >> Kitchen: Just for everyone else -- for everyone else, the cac is getting up and running the community advisory committee, and their first meeting is the end of April. [2:22:27 PM] So this is a good project to put on the radar screen. >> Thank you for your time and interest and all much the Q >> Ellis: Very good questions being asked here. And I will jump in and then the mayor pro tem may have another question. What is the consideration for other multimodal options, just to ensure that we're not leaving a gap somewhere, where maybe a trail or a connection of a sidewalk or a bike lane might be able to enhance some of the connectivity through these transit lines. What considerations are being done for that? >> So that is entirely -- this is a very valid point, and we have -- every station area plan, that is part of the reason that we're not -- we wanted to make sure that our -- the focus is reasonable to focus on within the budget. [2:23:27 PM] And the grant -- and the constraints of the grant. I wanted to point that out, the tod planning grants for the entire year was $6.9 million and we got $900,000 of that. So it was very important to sort of keep that in mind. I understand the overall grant, and to compete for our share which was one of the largest shares within that, and we wanted to make sure that -- if we were to provide a 20-mile corridor for this grant just from technical aspects it would not have been seen reasonable. Because the level of analysis that is needed -- and you brought up a very good point that allowed me to give this larger context -- that the station area plan would have public space recommendation, any multimodal trail will have path recommendations along with it. And we're looking for more than physical design, but more wellness and livability level [2:24:28 PM] recommendations. But to get to that level of granularity, we have to keep in mind what is the size of the corridor and how many stations and how many prototypes at that level of detail that we can do. And as Stevie pointed out and I wanted to remind, this is only one way to have a transitory plan for this. And the almost important aspect of the etod toolkit would really form that greater applicability in that and would actually form the basis for the other corridors initially. And then we hope to be competitive in future for other grants so we can do more focused study on those. >> Ellis: That's great, thank you. Mayor pro tem, did you want to finish out this item for us? >> Harper-madison: I do, because this is one of the ones, you know, how some of these policy areas just stick with you? And this is one that is just [2:25:30 PM] gnawing at me. And one of our important jobs as policymakers is to make sure that any transit-oriented development is shaped within that framework of equitable intentions. You can imagine, you know, I get a lot of questions from our constituents having watched development around the country. So they're concerned, and, you know, and we need to make sure that people who currently depend on transit aren't going to be cut off from the transit once it becomes this first-class asset. There's a major -- one major tool in our toolbox that can help to fight displacement and rein in the unaffordability and set our transit system up for success. And nobody will be surprised when I say that is housing. We need housing, housing, housing and more housing for all income levels, mixed use, complete communities, but housing -- we need it so bad. None of this works without it, you know. So I really look forward to seeing this pilot move forward. Much like my colleagues pointed [2:26:30 PM] out and to really explore the opportunities to bring forward an etod and more of our transit corridors. And I really -- I appreciated the presentation, but the last commentary for miss Greathouse, I really appreciate that those considerations are at the forefront for y'all. >> We believe that our metro rapid is also strong bones that feed into our larger line system. So the idea for the toolkit is to extend out and to be able to sort of take that prototype as well. And so I appreciate your comments. Thank you. >> Harper-madison: Thank you. >> Ellis: Thank you for all three being able to join us today. It was a very interesting topic. I will then move us to our next item which is a briefing on the transportation criteria manual update. [2:27:45 PM] >> Thank you, chair, vice-chair and councilmembers, for providing us the opportunity to present the updates on the process. I'm the acting director in the Austin transportation department. As you know, like we have been working on the transit question and the updating process for the past couple years and we have come a long way with your support and leadership in that process. And we have had public events and gotten a lot of feedback from the communities and actively working with the other city departments as well. And now my colleague, Danielle Morin, S she's the project manager and she'll walk us through the detailed steps and all of the next steps in the process for us. >> Thanks for having us. My name is Danielle Warren, [2:28:47 PM] project director with the Austin transportation department. I'm going to give you a brief overview on the TCM project. And [inaudible] Is here for any technical questions at the end of the presentation. Next slide, please. So to start off, I always like to highlight our current TCM was established in 1980s. Obviously a whole lot has changed since then, which has necessitated an update to this document. The TCM is a criteria manual used during the development review process. So the land development code is the code that [inaudible] Transportation mitigation and the TCM holds the actual design elements that are required during that process. Next slide, please. The time line on the project. Overall the TCM has been in [2:29:50 PM] development over two years and actually began with when we first rolled out our Austin street design guide. That guide helped us fine tune some of the technical aspects of this manual. In 2019, the city adopted the asmp. We spent a lot of time drafting, going back and forth with different city departments during this two-year period to come to the draft document that we have today. In November, staff published a speak up Austin website which allowed for an informal public review period. That was really in an effort to ensure that the public was able to review this document and we heard what was important from the public as well as the development community. So currently we are -- we posted on February 2nd for the formal rule posting process, so that kicked off our interdepartmental review. What that is is we reviewed this document alongside all city departments in order to [2:30:54 PM] get their signoff. We're still in that process. We've a couple issues to work through with some city departments. Once we complete that, we'll then be able to post for the formal public review period. So that's a 31-day public review period, during which time the public will be able to submit comments to staff which will then bring us forward through the rules adoption process. Next slide, please. But to recap, we posted our draft document for that informal public review opportunity this past November. We ended up receiving over 1200 comments from the public, which was great. We used that -- we used those comments in the month of January to then refine our draft document before we provided another draft for the interdepartmental review period. During the public review period, we found five major themes, which I can go over quickly in the next slide. So section 2 of the TCM, we [2:31:55 PM] had a lot of comments related to sidewalk and bike zone placements. So we have added an alternative configuration which will allow for the flexibility to flip those Zones in extreme conditions. I will point out the current TCM it's really difficult to provide any flexibility during the development review process without going through lots of waivers, so that's a big improvement in this document. We received comments related to soil requirements for fruit trees. We've added additional details to reflect appropriate soil volumes related to fruit tree health. Sections 3 and 5 concerned movement and design of bike facilities. We provided updated criteria in that section. Section 6 we had a lot of comments related to future rail infrastructure. We've added placeholder language to ensure any engineering design criteria [2:32:55 PM] that comes from prop a will supersede the TCM design requirements. Section 9, we got a lot of comments related to structured parking especially in the downtown area so we've responded by including separate design criteria. And then lastly, we got a lot of feedback related to the street impact fees. When we posted our informal review were not yet adopted so we have gone back and added [inaudible] Which outlined all impact fees fit into the development review process. Next slide, please. Like I mentioned, we're still in our interdepartmental review phase; however, most of the comment we worked through so I wanted to highlight some of the major comments during that phase. [2:33:55 PM] Let's see. Section 1, we actually worked with dsd to provide a waiver section which will provide users better instructions on how and when to apply for waivers and the criteria that staff will use when reviewing those waiver requests. Section 2, language has been added to clarify that any design criteria related to the corridor program will supersede design criteria in the TCM. We also worked closely and collaboratively with Austin energy to craft updated criteria related to fruit trees. So now we'll have an alternative back of curb options to allow for more opportunities to plant fruit trees when utilities may be in conflict. We've also worked up to eight street levels one and two cross sections with assistance from public works. And we've added raised bicycle lanes through street levels three through four. [2:34:56 PM] Section 3 updated to include new bike [inaudible]. Section 3 will include language which clarifies any design criteria related to project connect will supersede design criteria in the TCM. Section 7 has been added, edited to reflect better safety and includes smaller corner [inaudible] And exists in the current TCM today. And that we also included left turn restrictions from lots which access multi-lane streets with a speed of 35-mile-an-hour our greater. Lastly, we got lots of comments on the street impact fee so we clarified that language to clarify how that better fits in the review process. Next slide, please. Our next steps. Like I mentioned, we are continuing our interdepartmental review discussions with a couple of [2:35:57 PM] city departments. Once we complete that phase, we'll be able to submit or go back and make final edits and submit for the formal 31-day public review period. After that review period, staff will be able to review the public comments that we've received. We'll be able to make any final edits before we submit our final draft TCM document to the city manager for review and adoption. Hopefully early this summer. And the next slide just shows -- has our speak up Austin web page. We plan on providing updates as they are available through the atd newsletter as well as stakeholder email list and any questions can be sent to our transportation CM at austintexas.gov/ address. Thank you. >> Ellis: Can you give us the dates that will be opened? Is it open right now? [2:36:57 PM] >> For the website or the public comment? >> Ellis: The public comments. >> We can't post for public review until we receive signoff from all the city departments. So we're waiting on a couple last-minute negotiations with some city departments before we can finalize the document and then post publicly. So I'm hoping in a couple weeks we will be posting out of cycle, so it's really dependent on when we can get those last-minute notions completed. -- Negotiations completed. >> Ellis: If you could make sure everybody on the committee knows when that date is open, whether 30 day, 60 day, 90-day comment period. So people are aware it's time for input again. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Ellis: Are there any questions from the committee members? Looks like you covered it. That's a good presentation. Thank you so much for joining us. [2:37:58 PM] I really appreciate you taking time to run us through that and I know there's a lot of work that's gone into this criteria manual. I know there's a lot going on behind the scenes. >> Yeah, thank you for having us. >> Ellis: With that, it's time for our update from the urban transportation chair. >> Hi. >> Ellis: Welcome, Mr. Champion. >> Thank you for having me. My name is Mario, chair of the urban transportation commission. I'm here to tell you about our last meeting. We had another recommendation around the capital express scoping. This is round 2. This document is available on the website. I just want to hit a couple of key points. Urban transportation [2:38:59 PM] commission, we seemed pretty disappointed in the amount of collaboration, some might say [inaudible] That has hapened between txdot and the city of Austin. We know the city has proposed a -- quite a set of meaningful comments as far as to see how those comments have been reflected in txdot's response. In particular in our proposal, our recommendation, we asked that txdot adopt the revised statement of purpose and need as proposed by city of Austin transportation department and submitted by the assistant city manager at the end of last year. We asked that they look at the passage of project connect and the tax district and active transportation bond and see if those can be included in a more meaningful way. We also -- this is one I think is important. There are lots of thinkers in the city who have as much skill, as much knowledge at [2:39:59 PM] the people at txdot and they put in the effort to come up with legitimate proposals, and it seems there's never any mention of those when txdot responds. Things like the rethink 35 and the urban plant institute. Proposals which are part of the process and have been commented on quite extensively just appear to disappear when it comes back from txdot. So our recommendation was that txdot and the city of Austin work to assure that collaboration is genuinely collaborative. And there is some recognition of everything that goes in from campo and city of Austin and Austin transportation department as well as citizens in this process overall. Last thing I'll say, we acknowledge how commissioners court has decided to pursue other avenues to try to stop a similar expansion of I-45 in Harris county. We're not that far yet, but [2:41:02 PM] did give good feelings there is possible routes to ensure collaboration means collaboration. With that, that's a very quick summary. Questions or discussions about how we talked about it. >> Ellis: Thank you for those comments. I'll open it up to my committee members if there's any questions. I think councilmember kitchen, in the last meeting or two, I think you had tried to do something with this. Didn't you have an item where we were talking about the collaboration between txdot and the city? >> Kitchen: We did. We passed our -- we passed our resolution, I don't know if you saw that, Mario, but we passed a resolution which really took the various comments that different councilmembers had signed on to to txdot and which captured the -- you know, the comments that community members including the utc had been making about I-35. But I share your concerns [2:42:04 PM] about the -- what appears to be lack of -- well certainly lack of level responsiveness that we would prefer. So -- so I hear that. I'm not sure what our next steps are. We need to circle back around, I think, to our staff as well as to txdot to see what our options are. But this is, as you pointed out, this is early on in the project, which means this is the time that we need to be very loud and clear with txdot that we want to see some recognition of the concerns that we're seeing. So ... >> Ellis: And I certainly appreciate the work of staff and I know some of my council colleagues, we worked on letters to txdot as well to be included in that public comment document. Absolutely appreciate your continued [inaudible] About this particular issue because it's at the forefront of many people's minds and we need to be [2:43:05 PM] doing everything we can to assure as the project proceeds it's done so in a way that's a benefit to our community and not degradation of our community. >> Thank you. If I can add, there is a maneuver by the Harris county, maybe a little too early, there's a maneuver which seems to hold weight which is that the represent education on the campo body does not reflect the impact of the people. So you can sort of imagine in a sent kind of -- senate kind of way. The number of people represented in a campo equivalent around Harris county. And it seems to have gain some traction. We're probably speaking too early to that, but we would just like to make sure people are aware there are are-options. It's a long road, so ... [2:44:09 PM] >> Ellis: I completely agree. I want txdot to acknowledge the community option that's been put forward. On campo there was discussion whether I-35 is benefiting the residents of Austin or people traveling through Austin and not necessarily stopping. I've also seen some comments made in jest if you live in Austin, you do everything you can to avoid getting on I-35 because you are just going to be sitting in traffic anyway, you might as well find a different route. That conversation has been happening for a long time. Thanks for joining us with today. Really appreciate your comments. >> Thank you for having me. >> Ellis: Absolutely. Our last and final item will be an update from assistant city manager Gina fiandaca. [2:45:10 PM] >> Thank you. It has been a busy month for the mobility outcome. We have sort of highlighted in the report the -- sort of the expansion of the south terminal at the airport, which is certainly a highlight for us. And this $75 million investment is the largest investment in our south terminal to date and that sort of speaks to the resiliency of the aviation district here in Austin and how strong our airport is emerging from the pandemic. Last week we did highlight in our letter to txdot, and as you just heard, the importance of community voices as we approach [indiscernible]. I couldn't agree with Mr. Champion more it's critically important all of our community come together. We've met with all council offices and our team is available to answer any questions much it is early in the process and we wanted [2:46:12 PM] to ensure the city of Austin's perspective is heard and appreciated by txdot as they move forward. We want to thank councilmember kitchen for highlighting the need for the city of Austin to partner with txdot as they approach community engagement. We also have a team that's been working with the downtown Austin alliance on the cap and stitch. And so there are effort, but clearly as we approach project connect in terms of the transformative nature of that investment, this is -- this is the potential to be just as transformative for our community. And with that, I'll open it up to any questions that you may have based on the report or what you've heard here from the team. We're proud of the work that we've done and I appreciate your leadership and guiding the mobility policy and principles. >> Ellis: Thank you very much, assistant city manager. Your backup report is [2:47:12 PM] helpful and full of information. I love the acknowledgment of some of the work the transportation department is doing on the longhorn dam on south pleasant valley and seeing -- that was something they had identified early in the pandemic before the healthy streets resolution was approved showing the transportation department was already thinking this way in a couple locations about how to increase mobility and safety as people are getting around town. So that's really exciting to see there's interim measures that are going to take place. >> Starting on Monday. >> Ellis: Great. Let's do it. [Laughter] Are there any questions for her? All right. And with that, the last thing is identifying future items. I think we touched on a number of really important and interesting topics. Since may is bike month, I'm hoping to gear our agenda as the mobility committee around bicycles, bicycle infrastructure and other [2:48:13 PM] mobility options. So hopefully that will -- we're still kind of putting some ideas on paper, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what that agenda might look like and some of the cool topics we might get to cover next month. Any other topics? You can always get with me off line too. And with that, I will adjourn the mobility committee meeting. It is now 2:48 P.M. And we finished ahead of time. Good job, everyone. Thanks y'all.