Mobility Committee (MOBC) Transcript – 01/19/2023 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 1/19/2023 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/19/2023 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. [1:04:41 PM] All right. Welcome to city hall . This is the mobility committee . I am mayor pro tem Paige. Ellis and I am calling this meeting to order it is 104 P. M and we are here at city hall. I am joined by vice chair Kelly. Council member harper-madison who are on the committee. We are also joined by council members. Vela and zo Kadri so welcome to the mobility committee meeting. We do not have anyone participating remotely. Council member alter is not able to join us today and I just wanted to note that we are in a transition period. Right now. We have not yet appointed incoming council members to the committees that we have here on the city council. Council member kitchen has completed her term on the council and our new assignments have not been approved yet, so we look forward to officially welcoming the new and returning colleagues to the mobility committee at our next meeting on February 2nd. So far, we do not have any public communication [1:05:42 PM] speakers signed up so we will move to item number one approval of the minutes of the mobility committee's meeting on November 10th 2022. Do I have a motion vice chair? Kelly seconded by council member harper-madison, three of us on the committee in favor. I we've got three votes. Yes with council member Alison alter not in attendance today, so that will, actually, item number two is our update from the chair of the urban transportation commission. Chair champion is not able to join us today. I had a last minute conflict, but there were no new actions taken since our last mobility committee meeting so there would not have been very much of an update to present to us anyway. But we are very excited to continue our partnership with the urban transportation commission for the new folks, you'll be able to appoint some of your commission members, but that is the citizen led board and commission that advises us most closely as the mobility committee. So item [1:06:44 PM] number three is going to be an update on the proposed south congress parking and transportation project. Board members. Good afternoon. Anthony cigar assistant director with the transportation department, and we are here today to discuss the update on the south congress parking and transportation management district proposal. I'm joined today here with Mr Jason Redford, who's our enterprise manager, and Mr Joseph Al djuhari, who's one of our program managers for the department. Thank you. Council members for having us today. I just reserved as a reminder. We are going to be talking about the south congress avenue parking and transportation management district. It just as a reminder it is a, you take revenue earned [1:07:45 PM] at the meter and we set that aside into a capital asset fund, and then those funds can be then used to create district improvements that are related to transportation. So I'm gonna turn it over to Joseph Al hydrate here he is going to give our presentation on the soco district proposal and they will answer questions as they come up. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Council members again. My name is Joseph qadri. I'm a program manager here at Austin transportation parking enterprise division. And we're gonna be talking about the parking translation management district proposal for south congress. He was just quick couple items that were there. No specific order. I might jump around a little bit. More of just this will be more of a conversation where we're at and where we're going with the crowd proposal. We kind of learned about the project team, but also like to mention of my start, Ryan royal, who is also leading the engineering aspect of this process. And so why are we here? [1:08:47 PM] This is actually my son, my son . At that time, 2017 was going to say ignatius catholic school, which is just around the corner. Actually, I am born and raised here in Austin, Texas, grew up on south congress. And so he was given a report about the urban development in south congress. As you can see, it's gross, from where it was and where it is today. So what is the history? I wanted to give some context of where we've been just 20 plus years of history. That in there is an amount to everything. But it is a pretty, I would say involved 28 20 years so, and back in 1998. We had a project put in place called the south congress improvement project. That was, that bond project that allowed would allow funds to be put on certain infrastructure projects, transportation infrastructure projects in that area. Unfortunately, over time you know, due to, on agreements on certain projects with the neighborhood, it kind of slowly [1:09:48 PM] fizzled out. Some of the money was used. Some of it went back, and some of it was used on a from a different budget in 2009 when we completed that, that's when, back in angle parking with that into south congress. And some of some other infrastructure projects were improved in that area, like stop signs. Four way stops and other things. Right after that there were still issues with parking, and parking management. So in 2011 a resolution was put out to look into the benefit of doing a parking benefit district. We had one parking benefit district at the time, which was west campus. And so we looked into staff looked into, what that would look like and south congress we put together a proposal worked with the community. Unfortunately we couldn't get across the finish line that at that time and again in 2015 another attempt at that as well , trying to find ways to, put parking mitigation in place and other things like rpp at that time, which was very prevalent. [1:10:50 PM] Residential permit parking for the acronym, and then at it fizzled out again. And 2016. We did a couple of pieces of mitigation again, four way stops or other transportation related fixes. And that's when we say, you know, we really need to get more physical data on what's going on in the area. So that's when we partnered with the downtown. Also alliance who had a contract with Nelson nagar, which is a national parking consultant. And so we finished out. That contract added some funds to that to do south congress. And that was the south congress parking and, parking study our strategy that was done in 2019. And it was completed right before the pandemic, and unfortunately at that time when everything shut down, we put things on hold. Undoubtedly, of course, you know, the parking problem has continued, as things started to come back. And that's why we're here today to go through this process and completed. So what are the [1:11:51 PM] parking mobility challenges that we're seeing from? Not only back 20 years ago, but today as well , you know, there's still a high demand for window space turnover . There's some current to our time limited Zones in the area that were put in, you know, just by request here and there, but it's not comprehensive. There needs to be more enforcement. Right and ways to pay for it. Residential permit. Parking is very inconsistent, and there's a lot of different time Zones over there, so it's hard for the public to understand when they can and cannot park business and merchant employees have a hard time finding parking. I'm sure we hear that a lot. And that's continued, and I've talked to plenty of the, employees down in south congress about this issue . Many businesses along south corners don't have off street parking, so they're sharing parking. They're finding ways to make it may do. So what is what is the goal right of the south Korea's parking strategy? The goal was to really find what was the main issues work with the community to understand how we can put together something [1:12:51 PM] that's comprehensive. And so, we the first goal out of that was to adopt a parking and transportation management district. That's really the umbrella for all the other parking mitigation that can be done in there through a way of working with the community, get it done so implement paid parking on south congress was a part of that implement consistent parking enforcement, streamlined and modernized rpp program, at the affordable parking program to this area. These are friendly, equitable curb management options. Access to affordable multi multimodal options and adapted it was focused on community inputs. So during that time south congress parking study. This is some of the engagement we went through many different stakeholder meetings as well as community workshops, workshops, video presentations and surveys after the study, and the findings came out. Some of the top five takeaways their parking management south congress needs more systematic and holistic approach employees, visitors and residents are competing for some of the same convenient core area [1:13:52 PM] parking spaces. Almost half the people traveling to south congress arrived by some other mode than driving alone. Over half of people traveling south congress or making short trips and residents had the lowest opinion about the parking experience there. So what is our policy support? Of course. Snps are guiding document. We have the 50 50 miles split by 2039. There's other specific parking related, policy support was in the S and P that includes us using, you know, demand based pricing and also increasing our current capacities. We also have project connect the south congress avenue quarter plan and a couple and then, of course, the South Korea's parking strategy. So what is the process ? And what did I thought process on parking and transportation management. Just it's one requested by Austin transportation and authorized by council. It's a policy framework , so it's really the umbrella for a lot of the other addressing a lot of other mobility challenges, but first [1:14:52 PM] parking sets aside funding and that's the first and most important part of this policy is that allows us to do they set aside funds so that we can use for projects within that area, so it's a 51% set aside to fund that rolls over every year, and we work with a committee to be able to do that on projects specifically transportation infrastructure. And really creates a communication stream between the community and the city. So one of the biggest things that I hear all the time is, you know, I've called this person, you know, and then I got transferred. I got transferred to transfer the final letter to you, Joseph. Thank you, but you know, it's being able to have that they're in centralized and it talked as a community there and come up together. We're able to get things done faster, even if it's a tactical way before we come up with the actual program for it. Monitor enforcing parking regulation is extremely important, and we have to have more consistency with that, in order for those parking mitigation, things we put in place to actually work. So we currently have before other districts, west campus being the [1:15:55 PM] very first district actually start off as a pilot program. And then became ordinance. We didn't enhance that ordinance to create the parking and transportation management district, which just lays out a little bit more about what we can use those funds for so we have east Austin between the Mueller PTSD and the most recent one, which is the Colorado river area PTSD and those are the funds that are currently available. For those projects to be done little caviar on the west campus one. There is a project that is slated for all of that those funds to be used, which is the west 25th street project from Guadalupe to Lamar . Or yeah, brought up Tamar, and that's expected to start to break ground on June this year. So what is the planning to adopt a P T M. D you can kind of see that the six steps there were at number three, which is really focusing on stakeholder meetings to understand what the issues are in court issues are in these different locations and to also educate about parking. It's important to educate on parking [1:16:55 PM] because everybody has their own ideals about what parking looks like. And it's important to understand what parking management at a concentrated level as well as a consistent level looks like and so that's what we've been doing. We've we've profit them at different levels. And then at the next step with us to bring it is a formal application that lists out all the different aspects of the parking tools that we're going to use in the next steps. And then we'll go to present at utc. And then there's the application that comes to council for adoption. So the south congress area PTSD proposal. Really focusing on parking management parking regulations that includes balance options. You know the proposed strategy from Nelson Aldridge was just to create this. P T. M. D and we've cried pre application meeting was that we first started. This project was on July 13 2022. That was the first kick off meeting to talk about what are the next steps with those certain applications stakeholders, and that included the south congress [1:17:56 PM] appeared to public improvement district, the merchants association correspondentsassociation Bouldin creek neighborhood association, south river city citizens neighborhood association has representation on this proposal advisory team. These are the current meetings that have taken place since that time. As you can see, we've been really hitting the ground and talking with the neighborhood and trying to figure out what the next steps. It's also includes not just a stakeholder meetings, but also includes meetings with the actual boards. So meeting with the board and then the general meetings as well. This is currently the boundaries of what the PTSD would look like. And just as a reminder the boundary has nothing to do with where paid parking goes. This boundary is simply for the fund split, so the ordinance requires us to create a boundary to say that the funds that are being used generated in these boundaries can only be used in those boundaries. This is, this is the [1:18:56 PM] first look at actually this is the wrong slide like about it. I'll go with it here. So actually the purple there it will be mixed with a green. It's really so what art methodology is what you take is paid parking as a base and you really layer on the restrictions based off of the quality of life for other things that are needed in that area. All those specifics. Right now. Currently there's a inconsistent rpp, so the goal would be to make that are consistent, so that there's no time differences. It all starts into the same time. The restrictions may be a little bit different, based on who can park there, but all of the else would be consistent. Hybrid approach. This hybrid approach really allows us to stretch the curb and be used dynamically in a way that is efficient. We've had other pilots and test this out. Ah one of those was the words of west lake where we had our pp. Parliament's layered on with pay parking. We definitely learned a lot from that situation have taken from that. And now we're able to Stewart a new process for that here in south congress, [1:19:56 PM] where we can actually layer into potential of adding employee parking for the affordable parking program on street rather than just off St I mean, look at different cases, but we still have to look into those specific and just as a clarification on this slide the on the green area, it'll actually be a digital. Paste pay environment, not a pay station environment, so we're looking at digital. Software to take parking transactions on south congress. So that's a mistake on this on this map, and we'll correct that. As well as commercial deliveries. We know we definitely heard a lot. There's definitely issues with different sized trucks gone down different, you know, areas and alleys that aren't improved, you know, so we're really looking at , you know, making areas that they can, part of getting out to certain areas because really, a lot of especially on the east side there. But, you know, they use anti street to get to 35. So they go through some of the streets there, so we've been [1:20:57 PM] working with the residents to understand where those commercial landing spots is and then went to. We understand how movement changes once you know the new systems in place. We can work with the commercial companies to really dial that in and then, of course, you know, pick up and drop off Zones working with, you know the different companies to understand how we really enhanced that in south congress and ensure that you know where tnc pick up and drop offs are occurring or coordinated and efficient for public safety. All right. What are the potential projects funded by the PTSD, and I really like this. I started actually helped out get the other PTSD started and this is actually something that started later on as we started using money and your parking dollars in action, because that's really what it is. You're taking those parking dollars that people are using and putting it back into the neighborhood to enhance it for other uses, maybe even get them out of their own vehicle to use a bike lane. So you can use it for bike lanes back lane infrastructure, you know, sidewalks, parking structures in themselves, and financing knows signal public art. Anything that helps the conveyance of people transporting anyway, even including cultural aspects within the district. So here's [1:22:01 PM] our tentative timeline. You know , we're seeing here today. We're gonna be focused on really, you know, getting the application ready so that we can get back to our director and really dial in that final piece before we actually go out to the urban transportation commission, and then finally bring it to council for approval. And then paid parking infrastructure. Actually, that's a type of their you know, that's really you know, something that we're looking at right now, it could be sooner or later. He's just trying to understand where we are in the process so that we can meet the community's needs. And that's it. Thank you for that presentation. Do we have questions? Let's start with council member qadri. Well I appreciate y'all's presentation just had a quick question. If y'all have any had any feedback. From the folks in the neighborhood about retooling rpp. Yes yes, and they're really in support of that. I think [1:23:02 PM] overall, there's frustration not only just from the public, but the people that actually have to deal with rvp everyday. And so, you know, I think the neighborhoods and the residents they're looking for something that is consistent as well as the still maintain their quality of life there. So yes, we're going to retool it. We started that process already that one of the strategies and the study suggested that we go to tiered pricing for permits and these other things, which we've already done, so now the next step is just refining it even more. I appreciate that. Thank you for calling me Mary. Pretend more questions. Go for it. Thank you very much. Just a quick one. I'm the west 25th street project . I'm not familiar with that. What's that? What will that involve? Yeah so it's they're redoing sidewalks. They had already a master plan for, it's the overlay over there. The university overlay has a master plan for 25th streets. Been there for a while, so once the funds were generated we finally were able to complete it or [1:24:03 PM] start that project. But it's a writing of the sidewalks. Great great streetside sidewalks. And we're 12 ft sidewalks. Yes planters the whole nine yards. They're so light. Better lighting. We have a website for that we can make sure to pass it along. So you are aware of the project. Thanks for the time. It sounds like a great project, and I know west. 25th street goes pretty deep into west campus there, huh? Oh, yes, that's great, great project. Thank you. More questions. Vice chair Kelly you so much for the presentation today. It's very informative. It sounds like there was a lot of community engagement that occurred throughout this project . Could you maybe talk us through what that looked like, on your end so that we can understand? Yes, sure. I mean, so I'll start off with the strategy itself for the strategy. We held multiple workshops. Both, you know, just walking shops to look at different alleys to look at different signage and all those things. We held different community surveys at that time as well, to understand their impacts. Both, you know, people that are coming to visit the avenue as well as people that [1:25:05 PM] live there, not only just live their own there or rent there, so that was the first part of it, and that was kind of held off. After, during the pandemic. We did. One last push for a survey to understand the results of the actual findings, which was a video presentation. And we got that survey results back right before. Everything kind of really shut down. And then we put everything on hold. So, captain communication with stakeholders there to understand what their needs were, because I think you know, as business started to come back, we want to ensure that we are careful with that. And plus, you know, they're getting asked to a lot of dough with different things. So once we know, they felt pretty comfortable we started and that's what July this past year, we started to work with them again that started off one stakeholder meeting with each neighborhood group and the paired and then from there, we created a presentations together to go to each one of the groups [1:26:06 PM] and talk to each one of the boards about what that would look like each element of the P T. M D. We even brought in some of our artist board members from the other PTSD to talk to them about how that looked like and then from that point, we developed the first map based off of the first strategy map that was presented in the study. And that's the map that you saw there today. And so the meetings after that have just been looking at very specific, fine tuning of areas that have been problems like to circle music lane academy, some of the stuff on the other side and how we can kind of used as spaces for different things. And so that's where we are. Currently we're finding we're fine tuning that we'll complete that here soon, and that's when the application will be complete. Thank you so much for explaining that and council member also, we have a committee of the different neighborhood associations as well. So we have people who are participating and helping us fill the application out that will be bringing bringing back to you. So that we've had interaction with the neighborhoods and them helping us. Prepare that application also, thank you very much for [1:27:07 PM] going over that. I think it's often hard for some people who might be at home, watching to really understand when they see a briefing like this. All the work that goes on behind the scenes to make a project come to fruition. And so I appreciate you explaining that and for letting us know for future projects. Thank you very much. Castillo. Member of Ella. Just another quick question on the rpp program. How we go down south congress, you know, decently frequently. Unfortunately most of time, you know, we drive down there. How the rpp the reserved for rpp section. How often how occupied are those? How often are they used? If that playing into the idea to make it kind of hybrid to free up some paid parking and like alternative rpp there, correct? Yeah I mean, I think historically the program itself not only here but you know, around the nation. Has that same problem where it doesn't get used efficiently and people, especially urban planners. Can you point that out and say, hey, you know it's an efficient user [1:28:09 PM] curb space, but there's other factors that go into south congress is a little bit unique compared to other places, right. A lot of the homes but were that were built there were built before 1959. That's when we didn't have really parking requirements in place. Right. So do you have tandem parking or you don't have any parking so that's good place into the quality of life and being able to put an rpp but that being said being so close to downtown a lot of times. There's those areas don't get used. People don't have a vehicle. Maybe we thought a lot less usage of them. That also has led to us to look into the hybrid option to do that, but they're still protections within our pp. For residents that allows them to use that space. Great I appreciate that. I think that's a good idea because my sense of it was again just from anecdotally my visits down there that most of the rpp areas were empty. You know the page or the public parking would fill up and then the rpp would be really like one car, you know, on the box or something like that, so and I guess that's been y'all's sense of it, too. Yeah yes, and it really you know, and I ran [1:29:10 PM] the rpp program when I first and I built it and helped guide it to where it is today, but I think that one of the biggest things that most people that apply for the program at some point it's the last draw for them. So it's something that they have to do to really support their quality of life in that area. So you know, I do support it in those sense, but it also has to be balanced for the rest of the neighborhood in a way and the rest of the area so that they can be used in a way that is supportive of safety. Thank you very much. I appreciate that discussion around the residential parking permit that we refer to as rpp, and I know the call out to the woods of west like I know, we all have been very, very helpful in helping us navigate a situation where the general public is coming to enjoy. What is a public park access point, but at the same time, it created situations where neighbors couldn't get their mail because the mail truck couldn't stop and sometimes people would hit the mailboxes and just all sorts of crazy things that can happen. When there's a lot of folks trying to park and so I appreciate that you all have had [1:30:10 PM] ways of creating really customized versions of the rpp so that we're mixing that benefit of how to make it livable for the people that are there, but also enjoyable for the rest of the public trying to enjoy public accessible spaces. I had a couple of questions. There was a breakdown earlier about a 51% set aside. Can you go over that in just a little more detail about? We're talking about 100% of the revenue being collected, but only about half of it is being used for the capital improvements or enforcement or a blend of the two under section 12-7. We split the. The PTSD revenue 51 49% and that split happens after we've paid expenses for enforcement. If we have a stations than we pay for the pay stations, and we create a schema or a excel listing of all of the potential cost for for those, pay stations and all of our enforcement needs [1:31:11 PM] , and then we'll based on that that schema will create a monthly, formula for how whenever we collect revenue will deduct whatever we think that whatever the actual expenditures are, and then after that, after we have net revenue leftover, then the 51 49 split happens. Okay and where does the unallocated portion go? Does that go back into other, general parking areas. So the yeah. The 49% will come back to parking enterprise as revenue and then that's used to help fund all of our operations are enforcement are typical. The other areas that we have work in the 51% goes into a capital asset fund. It doesn't actually materialize into an account that is administrated by citizens. It goes. It is a city account, but we used interaction with those citizens with those residents to understand what their needs are [1:32:12 PM] and spin from that account for those improved that's okay. That's really helpful. And that leads well into my last question is just about the footprint of the parking district. It's quite a bit larger than the map of where the revenue was collected . Can you break that down a little bit further for me for sure. What we do is we plan for a little bit larger and the reason why is because we don't know exactly the science behind movements. People in space, right once you put something in something where we don't know where they're gonna go, but you can create other issues. Also the neighborhood associations may have projects around those areas that may be right outside that they can use it that would help the district and so the boundary. We go out a little bit further so that projects will be done within the whole area, so we may not ever put meters in some of these corners or paid parking. I'm sorry. So many corners, but, it could be the money could be used over there to help improve things and the whole district. So and, give you an example of like in east Austin, it goes from I 35 to Chacon and from ladybird lake [1:33:13 PM] all the way up to 11th street and so we only have meters in that certain section, but there's already been discussion about, you know Cesar Chavez and some of the movements going down there, so having a district in place really allows us to work as a community, as in the board gets together to really decide how we move forward and some of these other areas that are becoming issues after we've done the first place. Okay so it's mostly the revenue is being collected right on south congress and south first and some of the connector streets that connect the two, but you can use that for parking improvements further east and west of those barriers, okay? Okay that's helpful. Do we have any further questions on this item? I think that covers it. Awesome. Thanks for the presentation. Thank you appreciate it. Our next item is going to be our biannual update on the I 35 expansion cap and stitch project. This is one that I thought some of the folks who may not be assigned to the committee may just take particular interest in. I know our committee is usually only [1:34:13 PM] have a head count of five people. With the exception of the Austin energy oversight committee, but we also know that this impacts a lot of folks that are either working in the transportation space or that touch their districts. Even if they aren't always on the mobility committee are still very much interested in the conversation around this particular project. Welcome. Thank you. Mayor, pro tem council members might tremble. I'm the director of the city's quarter program office, and I'm going to give it a review of the our future. 35 captain stitch program, which is obviously related to the I 35 catholics, press project as well, just to kind of start out. I know a lot of people very well aware of the history and legacy of I 35 I 35 basically doubled down on some of the segregationist history of Austin, as black communities were relocated to east Austin through the 1928 com plan, and then hispanic communities followed in mid 20th century. And so, east avenue was was that kind of dividing line? I 35 when it was constructed in the 19 [1:35:13 PM] sixties really doubled down and really became that physical barrier. Between east Austin and the rest of Austin. And here you can see, 35 again. I know you're very familiar with the configuration today configuration includes upper and lower decks through the northern part of downtown and then raise elevated sections as you get further into downtown to lady bird lake. So again, those elevated areas again, creating that kind of physical barrier. Between one part of our community and the other I included both alternatives in this presentation just because I know that these are still part of being what's considered through the text. The text dot D I S process modified alternative three is their preferred alternative as part of the process. That's the one in the lower part of the screen. And so we are. We have been analyzing both of these to see where cap opportunities exist as well as wide and crossings. And so now we'll begin to focus more on the modified alternative. Three as that works its way through is the preferred alternative. But looking at that alternative we've identified preliminarily [1:36:15 PM] where we think cap opportunities exist where you see the purple on that schematic is where what we're calling kind of mini caps or kind of widen stitches widened crossings that release supplement. What's already being rebuilt? I texted his already including an additional 20 ft. On each side of the bridge is where there's 10 ft, typically on each side of the current bridges across 35, so they're already reconstructing bridges as widened crossings, so there's some opportunities to supplement that with some widen stitches through local funding, and then the green areas are where we see opportunities for caps, and you can see that begins. There's a contiguous set. From Cesar Chavez up to eighth street. Well you see that purple between 11th and 12th street. We actually think that there's a possibility for that to be a full cap between 11th and 12th. And then you can see there's capping opportunities that are possible near the U. T campus. We have been in coordination with U T and they are evaluating the feasibility of those capping opportunities right now and will [1:37:16 PM] continue to coordinate with them and then you can see some of the additional purple spaces as the top. Part of that schematic is as you get further north, you can see 32nd street 38 a half as you get up to the red line crossing back across. I 35 up to airport. There are different opportunities for some smaller caps or widen crossings. Through those different communities there as well. So again, we're we are evaluating all of these right now. We're trying to work very closely with textile. We are working very closely with text dot there on a pretty aggressive timeline. We actually since they are taking a new approach to the delivery of their program they were looking at doing design build. Now they're looking at doing design bid build that actually provides us some better opportunity to coordinate with them with them because they'll be carrying design in house all the way through 100. Versus handing it over to a design builder. And so that will provide us a little more opportunity and time to work with text dot on coordinating these projects, as well as continuing to work with [1:38:16 PM] them on the refinement of the actual highway design itself, as that moves forward, and so again, they're looking at the beginning construction in 25 26. Now and so we'll continue to work aggressively along with that parallel timeline to make sure that all of this can kind of converge and get constructed at the same time as we get funding opportunities for the captain stitches. So what is a cap and what is a stitch and for particularly for the public benefit a cap is really just that, as the highway lanes are depressed below ground level, and that's gonna be happening through downtown. That provides us an opportunity to create a series of caps over them, and they are structures that supported by columns, peers. And we can also then reclaim that space and put those two public civic purposes and so that could be green spaces, activity spaces , other other public benefits, and that really is kind of our goal with this is to maximize the local community benefits through improvements such as [1:39:16 PM] these highway caps, and then the stitches, which are again widened bridges or widen crossings. That provides us an opportunity with that additional space on each side to create some additional buffers. Additional separation between bicyclists and pedestrians from from the vehicle lanes provide additional buffers like landscaping, public art, other aesthetics, other amenities that can be incorporated again to make a more comfortable crossing from east Austin to downtown and vice versa. Where we're at right now. In the process, I mentioned that we've done some initial feasibility analysis of where caps could potentially go. We have finished that work and we are now entering what we're calling. This was pre designed phase. And so we're working with the consulting firm right now, to kind of really take that to the next level, which is to develop some concepts with the community will be getting more into that work. As we move into 2023. Then you'll start to see us having more robust community engagement process to get feedback. On some of those concepts that some of those alternatives as we're looking at [1:40:17 PM] what can be put on the caps that works very important to do right now, because whatever goes on top of the cap informs how much what the tolerances and loading the structures need to bear. And so that factors factors into the design of the foundations and the structure of the columns as well, so all of it needs to work together, so we need to have an idea of what we're actually be putting on top of the caps as we as we actually actually doing the design of the support structures as well. Through this process we anticipate going to 30% engineering and basically at that point as we bring the structures and, the surface amenities to about 30% engineering, and then what kind of diverge and then we'll get the structures more coordinated , with text dot to incorporate into their project, and then we'll finish out the full design. Of the surface improvements again working with the community along the way to get that done beyond that time. And speaking of community engagement. We're really trying [1:41:17 PM] to walk the talk of bringing the community to the table as a partner, not just a stakeholder. So there's a couple of different ways that we're seeking to do that one as we formed a community steering committee made up of multiple, community leaders to be a part of our discussion and really help us to formulate what an effective community engagement strategy is. And so we we've already gotten them together will be meeting with them multiple times throughout the year, but seeking their feedback on you know what with the surface amenities are looking like with those concepts are looking like, but also are we doing an effective job and reaching out to the community and so that's going to be a big focus for us as we get into this next year of work. We also are working with the technical advisory committee. A lot of our city departments as well as other agencies coordinating with capital metro, obviously coordinating with text dot and other agencies. As we're moving forward, there's a lot of dots. We need to connect to make sure that we're doing this right. We're also coordinating with the water. Greenway according with the convention center again, we know there's a lot of different [1:42:18 PM] different things happening out there in the community, a lot of different efforts a lot of different initiatives and so we're going to try to do our best to make sure we're considering all of them and coordinating with all of them. As well and again, it will be developing our community engagement strategy for the next phase of work in conjunction with our community steering committee over the coming weeks and in coming months. So I mentioned the community steering committee again. We've been working with them now on trying to develop some project vision and goals. And this is based on us all reviewing along with the committee feedback we've already received in the community discussions that happened early on in the project as part of our future 35 discussions, and so were there. This committee is reviewing all of that information, so his staff and together developing some project vision goals and objectives and again, these closely aligned to a lot of the desired outcomes. We have in our S D 23 then subsequently sd 28, so we'll make sure that we're staying aligned with what we're trying to achieve locally as a community again to make sure that we're trying to achieve [1:43:18 PM] those community benefits as best we can. We? As I mentioned, we have received some community feedback already. A lot of great engagement both through open houses. We've done it online survey. We've had a lot of good response and a lot of great feedback. Some of the initial indications were a big desire to have some additional green space have some better multimodal connectivity, bikes and pedestrians being transit supportive. And again all these things I think aligned well with what are our local mobility goals are but also what our community goals are as well again. This isn't the last part of the conversation. We're going to continue those conversations as we move forward as we're developing the project as a developing the concepts and will be again just continue to get that feedback and incorporating that into the concepts and ultimately what we actually build at the end of the day. On the caps. And I mentioned some of the feedback here. You can see kind of how it lays out and again having more trees, bike lanes, jogging and walking trails. Some of these types of [1:44:18 PM] amenity shade structures all factored largely in our community feedback so far. Along with this improvement, you know, it's not just putting the infrastructure in place, not just putting the thing in place. It's all that it can also unlock an impact. And we know that there you know, there could be some negative impacts. We think there's gonna be a lot of positive impacts. But we want to do all of that analysis to make sure that if there are benefits and value being unlocked by these improvements and the redesign of the highway that that some of those benefits are being returned to the community, and so we're actually working in partnership with the Austin economic development corporation to do an equitable development studies. To do just that to look at what potential value could be unlocked by the highway design by the cap and stitch improvements and then also what types of benefits could be returned to the community there will their work will will result in policy recommendations and other recommendations that you know, I hope to bring back to mobility committee and council discussed more in the future. [1:45:19 PM] And again moving the project the program forward. The big question is funding. How how are we going to fund this? Where is it coming from? And so we're doing all of that analysis now, and everything is on the table to look at. Obviously we want to try to minimize the impact on the taxpayers. So we're exploring all options, including looking at federal funding available through the bipartisan infrastructure law and other programs. We have developed a great working partnership with the U. S D O T build America bureau. They have offered to provide us technical assistance and counsel actually approved us getting an emerging projects agreement in place with the build America bureau. Thank you . And so we are hoping to kick off that technical assistance to explore some of the funding opportunities. Not just for the captain stitch, but for several of our capital programs that we're doing in Austin kind of Austin's program of projects and again will be will be hoping to kick that off with the build America bureau in February and again we're looking at, you know, traditional and nontraditional funding options. We've already you know, had some [1:46:20 PM] folks enquiring about what we're looking at. We also hope to release a request for information and R F I to get some of those ideas of from, you know from the P three community, the public private partnership community other, you know, private sector companies for what ideas might be possible and again. We want to make sure we're bringing all the best ideas to the table and taking all that into account as reformulating the funding strategy going forward. We're not just focused on the capital investment. Obviously, that is a big immediate component to our funding strategy, but another component is the operation of the long term operations and maintenance and so as we look at our funding strategy and our funding options that's going to be really important to work through as well because that will be a recurring cost that we need to take into account. One of the things that was recommended, through initial ul I study in partnership with downtown. Also alliance, was looking at a conservancy model. And so again, we are having some of those conversations with Waterloo greenway to see how that has worked from their end and see what what coordination opportunities and synergies exist there. As well. We have [1:47:21 PM] received a $1.5 million a community project of funding allotment through the omnibus spending bill. And that was sponsored by representative Lloyd Doggett. And so, council just approved us receiving those funds again before the holidays, and so we're going to draw that down and again supplement our preliminary engineering and development project development work over the coming months. For a project like this. It takes it does take a village. It takes a lot of partnerships. And so I do want to recognize we have been working very closely with Texas department of transportation on this project. We have a very close working partnership with downtown Austin alliance. And then, of course, the community and again we're doing our best to bring the community to the table as a partner and being a part of this partnership, obviously, with working working very closely to with all of our other key organizations, businesses and stakeholders in the community and again, we'll continue to try to do our best to connect those dots and again with our focus on maximizing the local community benefit. It's for this project and as it [1:48:21 PM] relates to the highway project thank you and happy to take any questions you may have I think there will probably be a couple of questions. Who wants to kick us off? Let's go with council member harper- madison and then vice chair Kelly. Thank you. Chair. I appreciate it, Mr Trimble. Okay so as it pertains to the partnership with the Austin economic development corporation, the equitable development study something I'm not seeing here that I've been thinking a lot about is relief for small businesses construction relief. When they're you know, inaccessible by their customers. Are we offering them some subsidies to be able to get by especially small businesses? 50 employees or less type businesses. That's that's a really good question. I'm not sure exactly the full scope of what they're looking at. But I will take that back to the team and see what see what we're looking at, because I think it's a really good point. Huge impact on small businesses. Huge impact. Yeah and I'm I was just thinking as you were going through the funding sources [1:49:22 PM] would like to know when you take that back like to know if those construction relief dollars are also eligible for this federal funding. If you don't know off hand and then the other question is with the private partnerships like you said it takes a village. But those private partnerships. How would a private developer go about partnering with the city of Boston? What are the steps? Yeah so I think one of the first steps I mentioned is doing a request for information and seeing what types of ideas exist again. We're not gonna I'm not gonna pretend to know what all the great opportunities are from a public private partnership perspective, and usually a lot of those ideas exist out there in the developer community as well. But also as we're looking at what potential opportunities exist as far as redevelopment goes, what will be unlocked? I think that will also provide an opportunity to have conversations with the development community, to see how that works. We have learned in other jurisdictions. You know when, when I for example, when I toured rose Kennedy greenway in [1:50:23 PM] Boston, you know, there was a lot of conversations with developers, and there was a lot of discussions about how that can support community benefits. Kind of what things could could be contributed back. Also from development so again, doing it in kind of a kind of a smart way having those conversations and then and then really looking at, is there an opportunity to do some type of planning around that zone? Really around? I 35 not just for that 35 itself, but the area around it and what's going to be happening there. We know there's a lot of planning efforts underway, but we're going to be having those conversations with housing and planning on how best to move forward with that as well. I appreciate it, and this might be a question for Teresa Alvarez, but I'm curious. What tools they used to conduct the equitable development study. Yeah, that's probably a question for the next on ABC, but again would be happy to come back and present in conjunction with them on this. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Chair. Vice chair, Kelly. Thank you, chair, mayor pretend it's kind of cool . You have two titles like mayor [1:51:24 PM] senator Mayer and thank you for this presentation. Every time you come before us, I learned something new. I know that my constituents in the community, will be pleased to know that you're looking at creative funding solutions for this project to lessen the burden on taxpayers. That's great, and I absolutely adore it. I'm curious . So when will the funding analysis complete? So we're in the process of doing that right now. Anticipate? Excuse me. Hopefully in the summertime by summer, at least have some preliminary information that we can share. But again, we are just starting, the technical assistance coordination with the build America bureau. I think we're also really interested to see. What types of ideas they can bring. Obviously there's some like loan programs. They have that the tippy a program and others, but we also really want to explore that as well as some of the other grant program opportunities that U S. D. O. T has, for example. They have the infra grant program that funds larger projects like this as a matter of fact, a highway kind [1:52:25 PM] of capping project got funding through the infra grant programs that we want to explore all those opportunities and then see what might be possible and they start to put together. What what realistic funding strategies or funding sources exist. Thank you . And then another thing that I really like to hear, and I'm sure that my colleagues do as well as it. The community benefit is top of mind for this project, and to that end, I know that whatever we produce will be of great benefit to the community. But I'm hearing a lot in the community about some sort of buildings, possibly being put on questions about if buildings could be put on top of that type of structure. So I was wondering what if you knew what the load bearing capacity would be for a cap? So that analysis is still in front of us. Text dot is going to be leading that geotechnical analysis. And so we're gonna be working with them on that. But right now, I think some of the base assumptions were what what was possible with Clyde Warren parkway in Dallas again? That's the closest example we have to work from, and text that has to work from and so with that structure, it [1:53:26 PM] was determined that one or two story structures would be possible. And we kind of carried that assumption forward and that factored into our feasibility assessment. But again, that analysis is in front of us and we are looking at are there possibilities to have you know some some additional intensity to those structures, and so what we're doing. The analysis now will either verify that? Yes, it's one or two story or, you know, based on soils. It might be possible to do a little more. That's very helpful. And then I guess the last question that I have for today and thank you so much for answering these is, if the project would limit any future expansion or if he even knew about any future expansion. Outside of what we've been talking about with 35. Expansion of 35, right, so I know that we're currently in the process of expanding it. But is there any future projected expansions that you're aware of? Outside of what's being projected now, like maybe 10 years from now, or 15 years from now. Not that I'm aware of. I think right now everything in front of us is what they're looking at with the catholics. Fresh perfect. Thank [1:54:27 PM] you. Vice chair that rounds me of the comment that people oftentimes make that just says I 35 will always be under construction somewhere. They finished one segment, and then it's time for a different segment get reassessed. Probably been under construction the whole time I've been alive, so tovo all right. Who's got more questions? Alright council member harper-madison thank you so much. I appreciate it. The other question I had. So we've been working on, capacity building out of my office. And so it's really top of mind for me capacity building in the workforce sense and really building out that pipeline of eligible candidates. It is hard to staff, a council office. There are very few people that have those that set of skills. That have that service heart that are willing to work for peanuts. And so, I'm thinking about how we train people to be able to do those jobs. You know if we're not finding them out there that we need to build the pipeline, some thinking a lot about that, as it pertains to. I 35 some workforce opportunities . Do we have a real concerted [1:55:27 PM] workforce effort to if we're putting shovels in the ground in 25, you know, we have two years to for people to be getting their certificates and licenses and, you know, taking construction classes or whatever the thing is, are we building up the workforce that's gonna build this highway. The answer is yes . And I'd say a lot of that has been our coordination with text dot they've been really looking at been doing outreach with the contracting community looking at what capacity exists out there. I know. We look at that capacity as well from a city project side , but we have been courting with them. I think there's opportunities for us to look at some additional aspects of that from the city side and again, just kind of coordinate with text dot and see as these larger packages are going out to construction. You know what is our capacity? Obviously there'll be a lot of other work happening in Austin. It's a big conversation that we always have amongst the different agencies and departments is all the work that's going to be happening over the next 5 to 10 years and so I do think it was more opportunity to look at it and so definitely will take that back. [1:56:28 PM] I appreciate that's something I'm very interested in it, especially not exclusively relying on text dot you know, we have a partnership with Austin community college. And you know some of the other education partners. I think we could be, sort of rolling out of very robust training program. That really is going to offer people some opportunities, so I'm very interested in following up on that part. Absolutely. We have more questions. Let's kick it over to council member of L. A. And then council member, Alison alter has joined us and so, you can go right after chito vela. I you know the Clyde Warren parking in up in Dallas, and my understanding is that they're also adding an additional cap there at the Dallas zoo right in front of the Dallas zoo. Yes southern gateway. Did Dallas pay for those caps or did text not pay for those caps? Dallas paid for those caps. Okay then looking at that. Ah! How would we. City of Boston fund. The [1:57:29 PM] caps. What? What are the possibilities are, you know what is the strategy? So as you look at some of these projects that have happened around the nation, including Clyde Warren. Typically there's a there's a funding stack of different funding sources. So, for example , the Clyde Warren, you know there was local, city funding of the government funding. But there was also, for example, private foundation funding. That factor into that project as well . Other other, a foundational sources and so again with any of these projects they tend to be a stack is because these projects are of a certain scale, and so we'll probably be looking at the same thing again. I'm hoping that we will have some success in leveraging federal funding as part of this and possibly some other ah, you know, P three types of options. At least we can explore those and see what might be possible. Some of that's going to depend on some of the intensity that we could actually do on the caps and also depend on what value could be unlocked with what happens around the cap, and so all of that is part of what we're looking at right now. But I [1:58:29 PM] suspect it's going to be kind of a stack of funding makes it funny, and I'm assuming that a tax increment financing zone er, turds or something that would possibly be in the mix as well. That's actually a part of our analysis is to see is doing that in economic economic analysis now to see what even that possibility is, but again, a lot more conversations need to happen with our finance department and a lot more analysis needs to happen with that. But we are doing some of that kind of, I guess. Groundwork economic analysis right now as part of our project , and, dovetailing of, bye chair . Kelly's question about the load bearing capacity of the caps. I think that's a really important issue because you know that's something that you know once appears, or, you know, once the support structures are in there, I mean, that's that's it. I mean, there's no kind of going back and really changing that. And even though we may in the short term, just use the caps for, you know, parks and, you know, just kind of, you know, very basic public uses. I think [1:59:30 PM] the city council 50 years from now, you know, I may want to have the ability to build. You know your four story six story structure on that, captain. I just you know if we're going to do it now, I just really urge us to do it in such a way as to expand the potential use of the cats again. Not while I'm here. You know, by any means, but you know for again, you know, generations down the road. Things may change and we may really, you know, need that or use it so I would just from my perspective, absolutely encouraged to us to work with text to get the maximum kind of load bearing caps that we can as kind of a future proofing the project. And then. Could we go to the that the screen where you have the alternate to an alternate three? Right quick. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. And I [2:00:35 PM] have to say that the caps on the university of Texas portion. There are just a huge, addition to the project and will be I think a huge benefit to the university and to the area around the university. And you know, that said. Why not extend them as north as we possibly can ? Because right now, I believe that we're not seeing any caps north of 32nd street. Where would be the current planning what would be the maximum kind of northern northernmost camp? Well, the northernmost cap configuration is near the red line. You can see that kind of long line that kind of runs parallel or right alongside the red line near the airport intersection just south of the airport intersection, and then you can see that that connection just south of that. That would be the northernmost and again [2:01:35 PM] these these locations are based on us looking at where these opportunities are possible, and you can see kind of in between some of these different kind of especially the purple. Areas you can see where there's a there's a lot of ramping. That's happening access to and from the main lanes, which is going to be important as as part of the usability accessibility for the highway design, and so that that's some of the challenges we're dealing with. Right now. That's also why, for example, the capping opportunities even downtown kind of stop abruptly at eighth street. It's not that we wouldn't want to go tonight that it's not that we don't want to go to 10th. But it's because of the ramping. You can see that ramping happening right there. So that's that's where we're at. But again, you know, there's additional design refinements to occur if there is if there is an opportunity, that that opens up based on our coordination with text that will will definitely take a look at that. And I understand that obviously you have to have ingress and egress to the freeway and they're gonna they're gonna have to be room for that, you know, within the caps. Ah but my understanding and I'm not an engineer and not familiar with how would you [2:02:37 PM] think construction by any means, but I believe they commit tee exits or or T, where, in other words, instead of exiting onto the access road, you would exit and then kind of do a right turn and appear directly onto the street that you were exiting. Out of in other words, so you wouldn't have to have that break in the cap. Would it be possible to use those so that we would have less breaks in the caps and could do more of a continuous cap? Potentially from like, you know, Cesar Chavez all the way up to? I mean, ideally, I'd like to get to go into district for, you know, 51st reader, so if it all possible well, yeah, that's I mean, that's an interesting question. I can take that back to our technical team again. We've been working very closely with not just text that but also also transportation department. They've been working their technical team to technical team on some of the highway design and the different elements and so definitely we could take that back to our our technical team to look at. And I know, council member qadri, you know, represents many more people than I do along this stretch, but in [2:03:40 PM] the feedback and talking, especially to my constituents in that that you know, surrounded 35 you know any kind of camping that would reduce the emissions , the noise pollution, the light pollution. It would just be greatly appreciated. I know just I've talked to many of the neighbors in the cherrywood area in those other areas, and they have those same concerns, you know, and I just it's a great idea in the downtown area. It's a great idea. You know at the university of Texas, I just think it's a great idea throughout the entire stretch of , the north central portion of the of the freeway. Ah and again . It's just one of those like we only have one chance to do this and I just really want to get it. Get it right. And you know, create the maximum public benefit for the citizens of Austin. Quick questions. I think next up was council member Alison alter. We're still figuring out how we refer to the two council members alter. Thank [2:04:42 PM] you. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Okay great. So, I was at another event speaking, yeah, and I wasn't able to be here for the full presentation. So forgive me if you covered this already, but it builds off of. I think some of the questions of my colleagues and I just want to, first chime in that I agree with counsel member of Allah that we should be looking for as much capping as we can. And even if we may, not capitan, the first phase of capping, but to have that ability, you know, north of, important that area I think is important. So my first question is, what are the challenges we've seen in the northern portion is melody to cross. The highway. How does this process address? Dot challenge. For like, like potentially crossings there, but it's the does the design have [2:05:44 PM] mechanisms or, you know, spaces and bridges or or ways for people to cross the highway. As you go more and art. Yes so north of airport boulevard. There's a couple of improvements . We've been talking to text dot about, and they're looking to, move forward with one is, a widened, stitch and crossing at 53rd street. And so we're exploring that possibility with them as well as a pedestrian crossing, near capitol plaza. That right across 35 there. Unfortunately right now there's some challenges associated with being able to depress the lanes right. There will continue to look at that. But when you look at the overpasses and the tie in to the highway design, as well as some of the drainage issues that exist there, it's somewhat challenging, but we think there's some possibility to do some production crossings at that location and again. We're continuing to work with them on that. And then I wanted to ask [2:06:46 PM] for the captain stages. You know, I understand their limits , structurally, from an engineering perspective as to which areas you can cap. Or do the stitches of the crossings. Is that simply a function of the fact that we're gonna have fronted roads and we have the exits or is there a you know? Is there a scenario where you could just depress the whole thing and have a boulevard on top? But still have I 35 going through downtown that's been raised to me, and I just didn't think that was engineering wise visible, and that was trying to understand how to think about that. Yes so most of the and again we are. Our technical teams have been working closely with tech side and so a lot of the questions you have quite answered. We've asked those questions too about you know the crossings and where they're located and the impacts on our local network. You know, opportunities for further, capping opportunities for, you know, depressing lanes and then also the egress ingress as [2:07:46 PM] councilor prevailing mentioned. And what that and how that impacts the local network and so again, our technical teams, transportation department or other partners are working on trying to answer some of those questions and again, we'll continue to work with text dot on trying to address some of those questions and again, there's more just technical work in and getting some of those questions answered and seeing how best we can address, for example, you know traffic volumes as they as they come off the highway. At 15th street and some other crossings were doing all of that analysis. That's kind of the next micro level that we really need to get into. With our coordination. You get to that just because I'm getting asked these questions. Is there a scenario that under any circumstance would be feasible where you're getting rid of the fronted rooms and you're chopping it all the way through with the boulevard. So you have you know it's all underground is that even in the realm of possible I think it would be very, very challenging. Again [2:08:46 PM] you know, we could do a follow up presentation from our technical team on on some of this, but, I think it'd be very , very challenging some of the different scenarios that that we've already looked at again. All of it is the you know, how does traffic kind of flow through and to the city and then what is the impact on the local network network as it as it comes off of the highway goes to the highway and tries to get through town. And all of that, you know, we need to do traffic modeling and analysis to kind of see what that looks like, and it's kind of like a like like the gopher game. You push something down to something else pops up because again, you're dealing with the same volume. And if we push all that volume to the local network again getting rid of French roads, and we're not able to get efficient flow that would have a huge impact on our local network. And so again, all those all those things we've been looking at, and our technical team continues to look at and work with text dot on so I don't have a definitive yes or no answer. Sir for you. Other than that, there's an impact and again if you remove something, it impacts something else, and that's been the whole challenge. Quite honestly, we're doing the [2:09:46 PM] analysis and how it ties into our local network and how local network ties back to the highway. Thank you. That's what for appreciate that. Further questions one more from council member of Ella just to follow up on a council member, Allyson altered excellent questions. That's what Boston did on that. The rose Kennedy greenway, I've been there. I've seen it. You know, there are definitely breaks in the cap, where again your vehicles come up from underneath there and enter the surface grid. But my sense of it is that that's essentially what Boston was able to do. I mean, is that is that in my in my correct on that well, I'll just say that I was up and I saw the rose Kennedy greenway as part of the national conference last year. And I was actually looking at and I was talking to my team about. You know, this configuration actually looks very similar to what we're looking at with modified alternative three because on the [2:10:47 PM] frontage roads they basically had, you know, you know, 34 lanes. The crossing was relatively comfortable, though it felt it didn't feel like it was, you know, horrible to cross. And then there was the cap there and there was a park and there was a you know some some water features and public art. And we were actually commenting on how this actually looks somewhat similar to, some of the highway designs that we were looking at with text dot so I think that I don't think it's that different from from actually what we're looking at here. I do think, though, to your point about, you know, how do you? How do you get kind of access front road access to and from are there ways to minimize maybe that impact and have more comfortable crossings to minimize some of those some of those conflicts with a local network. I think that's something we can continue to take a look at it, and I did just want to note that from a property tax and kind of Reno real estate values. Point of view. Ah I believe that those are the rose Kennedy greenway. They're really just the portion of Boston surrounding that just blew up in value. I know that [2:11:49 PM] that northern that you know, just north of downtown. I can't remember the name of that, build section of a Boston butt. And then that the waterfront right there to where they were able to depress the big green monster that they used to call you. The highway that ran through there. I mean, you've seen it go from, you know warehouses to residential and commercial district as one of the most vibrant in the city, and I think that's that's a possibility, especially when you look at the frontage road. That are along, you know, 51st and you know, there's definitely some under used areas there that if properly done, I think would bring great value to you know, to the city and to the residents absolutely, council member, and that's exactly what we're doing some of the different studies and the partnership with bdc and we'll be doing some additional analysis in that regard is because we know that there's a possibility to unlock a lot of value with this, and I want to make sure that that's that's happening to the to the best benefit to the community. So absolutely thank you, Mr Trimble really appreciate everything. [2:12:49 PM] Any other questions before I go. Thanks a lot for the presentation, and I just want to make sure we were remind folks that may have not been following the conversation from the very beginning. You work for the city , and I know that you're very much involved in conversations with textile, and I know somewhere down the road. We're going to bring text dot in to kind of talk about their aspect of the engineering and commitments they have made. So have they committed to building the support structures. At this point, I remember that they were apprehensive to commit any funding to the caps themselves. But if they formally committed to helping build the actual structure part so that if the captain stitches get built we're not having to realize we missed the boat, and it's not possible in in the in the vision that maybe the community comes to later on down the road. Are they going to build at least the structural portion of accommodating the caps distinguish that a little bit is committed to build it? They haven't committed to fund it. And so that's that's the [2:13:50 PM] distinction. So the city it would be a local enhancement to build the structures as well as the actual foundations for the caps themselves. And so you know, they're they're building out a lot of the kind of kind of support aspects and design aspects of the highway that would need to support the cap, but not the actual columns and the and the foundations themselves. That would be a local enhancement. I appreciate that. That's very helpful, and you may have already mentioned this, so correct me if you already covered this or just repeat yourself, is you T involved in any of the conversations where I 35 is directly adjacent. Sent to U. T. Absolutely we have we have standing coordination with UT just from the city and UT side and then you T a. My understanding has been coordinating with the text dot team again. My understanding is they're evaluating those opportunities right now, and it will be going through that process as well and we're going to continue to see if they're interested in moving forward and also, interested in seeing if there's you know, as we're looking at these larger funding opportunities, federal funding [2:14:50 PM] others there might be, you know, economies of scale. For some of these funding opportunities, and we're definitely including them in the conversations by the way for the build America bureau and looking at at some of that funding and financing opportunities as well. Okay, that's great to know and then have the utility has been involved in some of these conversations. I'm thinking there will likely be lighting that needs to be implemented if the caps turned into public spaces. And then with the utilities. I know if there's going to be, you know, green spaces and planters, there's likely going to be a need for you know, water connections are the utilities kind of at the table as these conversations progress there at the table. We haven't gotten to the level of detail, though, to start working through those various aspects, but we will. So we I mentioned our technical advisory team. That is a team of introduced of our departmental team. So all of our departments Austin energy part all of our all of our departments, economic development, all the departments who would have an interest or stake in the improvements were doing with the captain stitch as well as the capital express the highway project itself. We're kind of both. Both teams are [2:15:52 PM] leveraging that coordination, interdepartmental coordination. We will be getting those conversations, though. And then we'll be working through with them. Help might this work if we're looking at, for example, potential water feature as you mentioned. Elimination has already come up in the conversation. We know it's an item. We need to hit two. So all these things were really right now, I'd say the biggest way to say the phases. Make sure everything's on the table right now, so we can start pulling it off and working on it. That's really the phase. We're in right now, with text dot because we never about to hit that next level of coordination design that's really good to hear. And then I always think about depending on where we land with what gets built and how it gets built is obviously the operations and maintenance portion of it. And even if it's you know, we say it's green space, and there's trees and benches and things like that. It's still will have to have some level of maintenance and is that maintenance that ends up going on to the parks and recreation staff, which we know is constantly looking for more and better ways to fund the maintenance and operations portions or would that end up being like a private partnership [2:16:53 PM] that goes beyond just the funding of building it, but goes further into like an improvement district or having some sort of ongoing funding to make sure that, you know you can't just build it and walk away and expect everything to stay nice. That's a really good point. Mayor pro Tim and that's exactly why we formed this interdepartmental coordination team and we started to get that on the radar. As a matter of fact, for example, text that is looking at as aesthetics program so things that it can actually include on the crossings and things like that, and we've already started those conversations like that's great, but you know, what would this mean? From a local maintenance standpoint? How would this work? And so we are. We definitely want to make sure we tee that up early because, right? We don't want to get excited about. You know that the capital improvement and then and then missed the mark on on what those maintenance impacts are going to be, because those are going to be the recurring costs that we're all going to have to think about. And so I want to make sure that that's why I mentioned that even as part of our initial funding analysis, we want to make sure we're being very cognizant of that. I appreciate [2:17:54 PM] that. Thank you. And then I'll just I'll close by saying I appreciate your involvement in this. I know you. You also run the mobility corridor program as well. And so I'm just glad that we've kind of I don't know who had the foresight to say like we really need someone who's going to be a captain of this particular conversation that is knowledgeable about, you know, blending in place making and the road improvements and really trying to make sure that this project is successful. On that note, I will say that being excited about opportunities for captain stitch doesn't mean that people are excited about text dot expanding a highway and some of the eminent domain issues that are going to come from that. So I want to be very mindful that trying to be creative about how to make things workable and enjoyable for the city overall, doesn't come without the caveat that we know the relationship with text data is that they build highways and I hope they continue to be mindful of the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. And you know the people that really we're building any other projects for are able to coexist in a community and not feel like the east side is further [2:18:54 PM] divided. It seems very obvious that folks that you know, maybe live downtown have no problem going east but when people live east and they look at downtown, and they think they've been excluded from that conversation we have to create a better environment of being open, inviting, tolerant, not just tolerating people you can get across the highway on foot. But it's ugly and it's wide and it's dangerous versus inviting people into that space and trying to bridge that gap that has been in our community for about 100 years now, and so I know there's folks working really hard. To try to make this the best that it can be, but the conversation is still going to continue about where does that project land and how much community support or opposition is still going to be involved in the project simply because it's a big wide highway, and we're going to keep having that conversation. But thank you. I'm glad you're working on it. And thanks to you and your team for everything that you're doing to make this work. Thank you, Robert. Thank you. I think if there's no further questions, it's going to take us to our next item. Which is going to be [2:19:54 PM] the update from public works department on your annual service plan. Welcome. More exciting presentation you had today after the captain stitching everything. My name is James snow. I'm the interim director of public works. I'm joined here with Steve grace, who's our asset manager last year. What we did was we came to the council offices and talked about our annual service plan to let you know what's going on in community and one of the things that we learned there is to come here first talk about maybe overarching plan and then we'll continue with by going to the individual, council members. So what we're gonna do today is first of all, I'm going to take the first part and talk about two important parts as far as talk about the department and then the hot wide we have the service plan, and then Steve will come up and talk about the service plan development and specifically some of the overview of what we're going to do this year. The public works department. Our main mission is to build maintain better community by delivering services to every corner of Austin. Specifically what we're gonna talk about. Today is our street [2:20:56 PM] bridge operations main role, which is maintaining managing the public right away infrastructure. Ah! And specifically, the streets I consider the streets is the backbone of our multi multi multi modal ability quarters that we have for everything from bikes to sidewalks to mass transit into cars all use that so that's important to have to maintain it so that it will be able for us to transbourse and also enjoy the community that we have. Why do we do preventive maintenance? Well I like to put it as far as like when you buy anything. It's an asset. Just like when you buy your car. If you maintain your car lasts a long time. What we do with our streets is when we put a street and we expect the useful life of the streets between chito 80 to 100 years. But to be able to change that we have to do the proper maintenance every 10 years to make sure that that asset lasts as long if we put in the few dollars every year to make that happen, then we were able not to spend a lot of dollars to rebuild it. Also operating maintenance gives us an opportunity to put safety updates in ad by claims and also [2:21:57 PM] like I said, save the taxpayer money. There's five factors that really affect the pavement life as we know it to make it to that 80 years. First of all, it's the traffic. The type of traffic that's on there puts a certain weight on the structure. Second the weather that we have the actual aging of like anything of an asset, the pavement structure that we put in the sub grade. Now there's four ways that we actually maintain it. But first of all, the first two are in the operating budget, which are maintenance plans, and that is the friend maintenance. I will talk about today and melon overlay, which allows us to do a little bit more than maintenance and actually, to some, restoring of the asset. The other things that we do is rehabilitation reconstruction. Those are the more expensive ones. There are capital budget. So if we do our job as far as maintaining the assets, we prevent having to spend the bigger dollars in the capital. Giving example is for if I maintain a lane mile on an annual basis would be anywhere between $7200. That same lane mile. If I have to do rehabilitation becomes a million dollars. And if I have to do a reconstruction of comedian [2:22:57 PM] anywhere from 5 to 10, so obviously if we maintain it on a annual basis, we avoid having to spend so much dollars to reconstruct it. As the point I talked about before is preventive maintenance costs. This this gives you a graphic, just depiction of the different levels right now, our goal as a public as pope, first department is maintained our assets or the street street network, 80% or greater, satisfaction, so that's from the sixth to the 10 on the scale and then as it over time, as I said, there's five factors. But there's gonna be a time that we would have to rehab and then reconstruct. As you can see where the dollars spent in preventive maintenance. We save 5 to $6 comparatively for a rehab and then reconstruction is even more expensive. So how do we maintain it while we take a cyclical approach? Currently right now we have just short of 8000 lane miles in the city that we maintain on and on the basis of the city, and what we do is we try to touch each one of those east lane mile every 10 years. So, with this chart shows [2:23:57 PM] you is the cyclical approach that we do as I said it tries to have an 80 year life and shows that as we go through, we have different touchpoints. Our annual service plan. Covers the first, four touchpoints. And then after rehabilitation. We have a few more touch points as you can see that as we maintain it. Hopefully we can get to a point where we can get to an 80 year life cycle, save the taxpayers money and also be able to maintain it. A good community and a rideable surface. Like I said, I get to do the easy part and talk about what the maintenance plan is. Now I get to bring the as any good leader. We bring the smarter people with you. I have Steve here to talk about how we actually developed a service plan and also some of the aspects of it. So, Steve, thanks. Hi. Good afternoon. There we go. So like the director said, getting into the actual how we formulate the [2:24:58 PM] service plan every year for our streets, maintenance. The three principles we use our number one to be data informed. We use the best technology available to actually go out and capture the condition of the streets, so we're never using any information. That's more than three years old. We have vehicles to go out. Scan the streets. We have our own inspectors, and we make sure that we capture that information. And then we also have the right equipment and systems to store that information and help us develop plans. So that's that's important. We definitely prioritize equity and as we go through the steps that we used to develop the plan, you'll see how we, we look at the older streets and the particularly the areas that are historically underserved and those. Considerations go into how we organize the plan, and finally, we're always trying to improve every year at the at the tail end of each maintenance season. We take a look at what we did, and we look at opportunities to [2:25:58 PM] work a little bit better next season. So has is director said that the two main principles we keep in mind as we developed the service plan itself are number one. We're on a 10 year overall cycle so with about 8000 lane miles total of streets in our network, our goal is to actually touch and maintain, at least close to 10% a year or so around. Between seven and 800 miles lane miles. And our second goal is to make sure or two our objective is to maintain 80% of that holding network in either fair, good or excellent condition. So the steps that we follow in the creation of the plan is one again being data informed. We collect current information, so we know the condition of all the streets over a three year cycle. We use that then to develop our expectations. We prioritize the areas that need the correct treatments in step three, and [2:27:00 PM] the big step for us is certainly to coordinate with others. We don't work in a vacuum. We have partners that are also out there working in the right of way. So we want to make sure that we, we don't go in and resurface street and then six months later, Austin water would come out to do a plan utility. Project and, you know, tear up that that good work we just did. So we push out our plan early. We make the adjustments we need to and then we finalized the plan for execution. Now getting into the specifics of what we have out there. This is sort of a heat map and the conditions that we used again are from excellent down to failed. And just taking out a real high level. Look you can see the newer roads that tend to be on the outside of the expanding metropolitan area. Are are the ones that are rated in higher condition, and that's certainly correlates with age of those roads in the network. So [2:28:01 PM] here's our snapshot of where we are right now again. Excellent down to failed. The photo show you an example of an excellent street, one that basically only needs that preventative maintenance and it performs as as designed and down to failed where even even at driving at lower speeds, wouldn't make it an acceptable acceptable ride for the citizens. So. You can see the breakout of are just about 8000 lane miles streets. Our goal is to make to keep 80% in that fair to excellent condition. Right now we're at 75% so again, the preventative maintenance or that the maintenance that we do this year in our service plan is targeted to improve every year. So we do get up to 80. Here's another way of looking at things. This is a breakout by district that compares the age of streets in [2:29:01 PM] that district or the, average age to the condition or to the ratings that are in that satisfactory level. And as you can see there, there's certainly a correlation between the oldest streets generally have a lower number streets in that acceptable range and the newer streets or certainly have a higher percentage that are in that range. And as I go through the service plan coming up here in the next few slides, I just wanted to without getting into a lot of technical detail. Just explain what some of these treatments are for you, like the director said. There's several elements out in nature and time that kind of impact the quality birth streets and water is a big one. The heat the air and, of course, the traffic. Are some of them. So crack seal. It's just basically putting an elastic asphalt over the cracks, and the goal is to keep water out. Water is one of the big enemies of [2:30:02 PM] good payment system. Fog seal is for a surface that's otherwise in good shape. It doesn't have a lot of cracks, but it's oxidized . It's become brittle in its at greater risk of crumbling, so we just put a light coat of emulsion and asphalt on it to make it to rejuvenate it to bring it back up to a younger condition. A seal coat is a little bit more intense. That actually puts down a layer of asphalt and coats it with a layer of aggregate crushed stone. And that that would, like the crack seal. It would prevent water infiltration, but will also even up the surface and provide a better ride, and it's a slight structural upgrade to that surface layer and it gives you another. Decade is our target. This is the thing we tried to do, every 10 years. And a slurry seals a variant of that in cul de sacs or places where you have a lot of turning motion [2:31:02 PM] where you have either, you know, trash trucks, for instance, or busses. Things that turn laterally helps it resist tearing up with that sideways motion. And finally, the most intense thing that we do as part of our plan maintenance every year is overlay, and generally it's a mill land overlay or will actually go scrape off the top few inches of existing payment that's worn out and replace it with new payment in the appropriate thickness that it needs to be in that. That's the thing that we approached the 30 year about the half the halfway point before doing a major rehab or replacement project on a road that would really extend the service life. So as we talked through the different treatments coming up in this year's plan, hopefully that gives you a little bit of a references to what we're doing. So with that. This is the plan that we're executing this year and a little bit of a graphic representation of the fact that it's pretty well spread out throughout the city where we're needed. Of [2:32:03 PM] that. Are targeted again just under 800 lane miles that will be touched or maintain this year , and that's the breakout of the types of treatment that will be doing. And here is a little bit more granular. Breakout by lane miles or by council district for the lane miles that are receiving maintenance. You'll see that it's not we don't break things up on a kind of, pro rata basis. The treatments and the amount of maintenance planned or actually based on the conditions and the age of the road, so you'll see that some of the newer where the average age of Rhodes was younger or more recent and district six, for example, doesn't have a lot of crack sealer. Fog seal. And that generally had a lower lower age. But district nine, which has considerably older, average age [2:33:03 PM] has considerably more maintenance in the seal code in the overlay that more intensive treatment so this is our plan broken out in in detail and again for the annual maintenance plan. These are the things that we plan to do. Based on based on condition of the road and forecast life, and this doesn't include, accidents damage things that we respond to on a case by case basis. This is just are going in plan. So one tool that we have. That's very helpful, and we hope to share with you. Over the course of the year is, the G I S tool that we use to track this maintenance and it it provides us a dashboard where we can look at the overall picture, but then we can drill down into individual council district to see the, to see the plan for this year where the work is planned. What type of work it will be. And that certainly helps with planning a little bit in the different neighborhoods. When will there be an overlay, which will actually impact [2:34:04 PM] traffic for a significantly longer time than a simple crack seal? So that's available and the other feature of this tool is that it keeps a history so we can go back over 10 years and look at the work that was performed again by by district and have a pretty good record of how how we've achieved our objective every year. And an example of how we could use this would be using district one. We can pull up the plan for this year's service, and we can see where they'll be crack sealing where the overlays will occur, and where the fog seal or the seal coat will happen, and this is, this will be accompanied by as we get closer to those actual maintenance treatments. Notification of notification to the residents and the affected community. But this is the snapshot of what will happen over the course of the year. So as we get into execution for our 2023 plan here, our next steps [2:35:04 PM] we really get into the heart of the maintenance season in a few months from now is the temperatures come up and conditions are better for applying the asphalt and the treatments that we use. So April through September is our is our busy maintenance month and then the months in between or more of the responsive and the planning for next year. As I said, we intend to, and will offer up the opportunity to work with individual districts to sit down with that tool if necessary, and go into what specifically happening in those districts. If that's requested, or, if there is a desire for that level of information. And then, of course , we will plan to return to you all at the fall in October at the end of the major maintenance and let you know how we what we accomplished based on our plan, how much we were able to do, and if there are any significant issues during our during our maintenance season. And that is our service plan for the year for streets. Maintenance. Thank [2:36:04 PM] you for your time. That's gonna make one correction before I answer questions. Is that G? I S tool that we showed we made as an internal tool. We will be ramping. Putting it out to your offices, so you have a capability to look to see what's going on way to better communicate with you because I know sometimes it's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing it? We're trying to use that tool, and also we do put a layer out on the website of where we're going. But the idea of the tools will give you more specifics. As you saw so you can go into granule more detail and we can have better discussions with you, but we're open to questions. Alright we've got vice chair Kelly and then council member harper-madison and then council member Alison alter. Thank you. And thank you for that great presentation. You mentioned early on that for every dollar spent on preventive maintenance on a good street saves 5 to $6 later, and I like that. You pointed that out because I don't think a lot of people really understand that we do have the opportunity to mitigate future problems by regularly taking care of things in a preventative maintenance manner, and I'm a huge fan of [2:37:06 PM] mitigation because I feel that it really prevents taxpayer dollars from being unnecessarily spent. And as we all are aware taxpayer dollars are a precious resource that we have to be good stewards episode. Thank you for that. I could have sworn that my staff gave me a copy of that map like the link because I was driving through the neighborhood the other day, and I asked what was going on, and they sent it to me and it's incredible. It is a great tool. So now I'm just anytime something's going on. I just pull up the map instead of sending an email, so I appreciate that. Glad glad I got out. I know. Last year we introduced it, but this year what we're going to try to do is meet with individual offices, especially since there's been staff turnover. Everything and show them that so that way you can be the first, because obviously, sometimes you hear the first phone call that's made. You can look at it and also allows you to put communications out in your letters and such like that. Absolutely. It's great, so I'm wondering that, depending on the scope of each project that you talked about here, what are some of the determining factors that contribute to the length of time [2:38:06 PM] it takes to complete some of them versus others? It one is the length of the road that we're doing to, the amount of repair that we need to do, certain treatments only take two or three days, but sometimes other treatments. Take a little bit longer. Give you an idea when we got the permits and everything in place we just did. Hmm. Congress avenue. From the bridge up to 88 street. Because we set everything up that took about 3 to 4 days to do it. But that was a mylan overlay. Other treatments we can do within a day. It just just all depends on what we're trying to do in the length of like length of treatment that we're doing. That's great to hear. I know oftentimes when I'm driving throughout the city, I see employees of your department who are out there in all kinds of weather. It's either really, really hot or really, really cold or even on holidays. They're out there doing things I put in a 311 request. Honest my parents street for a whole near their driveway, and they were out that holiday like just out [2:39:06 PM] there, making sure that everything was okay. And I think that's incredible. The dedication of your staff is right, and I really appreciate it anyway. My constituents do as well so I'll share that with them. They appreciate that. What you just described is one of things we do is it's a minor repair, which is pothole repair . When we go out, there are are standard right now is that if it's an emergency is done 24 hours if it's not emergency, we do it in 72, because again we want to make sure that we get out there for safety reasons. Also the right ability thank you so much. Thank you. Chair, mayor protein. Thanks council member harper-madison. Some of them are ridiculous. So you said something about scraping the top to the top layer of the asphalt. Where does the old asphalt girl what we tend to do is we keep it. We re millet and some most of it we re use and what we try to do is what we did over the last, 5 10 years. Look at capability of what we can reuse. So we do keep shavings in the milling. We try to process it [2:40:07 PM] and use it, reuse it. But again, it depends on what we're feeling. And what what? What's the cause at that point time and the rest of it? We stockpile, so we actually have a contract with with some folks in the area in the industry that will use it, would you? I hate to interrupt because you turn the mic on just because the folks watching at home or for some, it's just stockpiled. But or we do have contracts with some local, pavement companies, and they'll reuse some of our recycled material. We don't make a ton of money on the on those sales, but we definitely, it reduces the stockpile. It's put its saving new and additional materials being used. So that's that's something that's available to and we weren't contact with text dot as well. They tend to be big consumers of some of this material. There's a limit to how much they can use in, in new new payment design, but there's a lot of uses for it in some of the base course and some other things, so we were reaching out [2:41:09 PM] for everyone we can to make use of this stuff and not just have to dispose of it in the landfill. That's what I was asking. Is this landfill trash? But it sounds like not no right now. We put very little in it in a landfill. We have quite a bit stockpiled in our yards and our storage areas, but that's what we try to offer out to the community. So at this point, we're we're not land filling. Okay standing on it. I appreciate it. Thank you. My other question. There was a slide where it talked about the various remedies by district and I thought I saw district 10 had a number five in district one had 83. For the crack seal. But right there. Very good. Is that real? Yes that's the plan, and as we said, it's not, we based the. The type of treatment on [2:42:11 PM] the distresses in that area, so I don't have last year's information in front of me. But if over the past two years we've done quite a bit of cracks in that area. This would be the year that we go back and we can do a seal coat. Which would be that and there's almost 40 lane miles of seal coat, so the cracks feels more of a short term fix and if that had been done in the past. That's why there's probably not a lot this year. If we drive those streets in 10, you may see a lot of streets that already have cracks sealed down. So the focus in that area based on the condition and the recommended fixes is really concentrating on putting that seal coat that covers the entire payment service versus just the individual cracks. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is the very obvious disparity. It's so the highest number other than that 83.6 is 32.7 district ones. Caps crack seal is almost three times higher than the second highest number, and I'm trying to figure out why. Again are our plan is [2:43:14 PM] based on what's out there in moments, the last time we touched it, so just because an area is getting a lot of crack seal doesn't necessarily mean it's getting most maintenance. That just means that that payment hasn't been cracks sealed, so the fix for that neighborhood is the payments in generally good condition, the thing that would get the most value out of the next maintenance dollar would be just simple crack seal and in district one that would get us a lot further than doing necessarily some of the more expensive treatments in district 10. We have probably already hit it with treatments over the past . Like I said, we're on a 10 year cycle, so there's not a lot of individual cracks. There's not a lot of new payments that only need that level of effort. So we're doing more. We're doing a higher level of maintenance in the seal coat in that area where we're hitting an entire surface area versus just hitting the cracks. Again it's not the you can't compare. One for one, the [2:44:17 PM] specific type of treatment were basing that on the entire network and where the treatment will get us the furthest so by doing a lot of crack seal in one area. That money is better spent than doing a small piece of overlay in that same area, so we look at the complete network. We decide where. The different types of treatment will get us the furthest, collectively in that particular maintenance year , and that's where we understand that what I'm getting at is that looks like continued disinvestment and very disinvested area of town and I'm trying to determine whether or not there's a continuation. I'm certainly not blaming y'all for disinvestment in east Austin, you didn't start that there was some other white gentleman that did that. And so I'm trying to figure out now. Is this a continuation of disinvestment? Or is this as reconcile Ng for disinvestment in the community? Because that I mean, if the number was even remotely close to some of those others, then I can understand what you're [2:45:17 PM] saying, like the money stretches further in this area. If you do that, I get that if the numbers were even close, though, it would make sense to me. But because they're so far apart. I won't belabor the issue. But I'm saying that looks to me like just parity council member when we come to your office, well, we'll look at that and give you I appreciate that. But usually crack seal is just the first treatment depending on what's on there. It's not. It's based on the age and all different other things. But what? We'll get into that specifically when we talk to you all appreciate that very much. But I understand your point. It's I don't it's more of an engineering concept that it is what you're talking about, but we can get into and explain. So when we have the one on one because again on our 11 when we talk to you all appreciate it. I better part of valor for me. Not yet. Yeah. It's more. I understand your point. Okay so some of my other questions wrote these out. As you know, our office has received several calls from constituents very concerned about the quality of the street repairs in their neighborhoods. I'm having my staff share. One of the photos [2:46:18 PM] we've received from constituents in the colony park neighborhood of a city repair job. This one was after a busted water pipe. Ah! There is I. And I think that's I think that was I've seen that picture before. I think that was about a sidewalk. John John lawyer, reseller hours. This one right here. Mhm yes. So what? What that is it's not part of our annual maintenance. But what it is, is what you said, is an ostrich water repair. So we do is we work with us water? When there's a busted pipe that go out? They do a quick patch. Fix like that than what our standard is within 90 days. We come out and we do a better re overlay and fix of that area are utility cuts, which is our minor construction repair group comes out and does that, but that's the initial because what Austin waters focus on is obviously getting the water back on putting something back in. But then what they do is we actually coordinate with the department. They let us know that we have a specific group underneath us that goes out [2:47:18 PM] there within about 90 days, 220 days and fixes that and put some more permitted, prepared to that. Okay so it's called a quick patch and generally speaking the proper repairs done within 90 to 1 20 days pass along that message, to do looking at repair. Quality repairs already addressed that. Coordinate with other departments already addressed that so I guess the question that they were asking, though, so when the one constituents have reached out, they've been frustrated with the quality of the repair and not knowing when the city may come back for the permanent fix. Notification of communication is provided to the streets, residents before or during repairs. Okay so if it's if it's a street maintenance, we do do notification. Arpa puts a cards out. We also know notified through Facebook and other things, too, but we actually have door hangers that we put out to let people know because also what we let them know that we're doing as doing our maintenance maintenance that [2:48:18 PM] they would please move their cars off the street because a lot of some parks so that we can make sure that we have we don't have any issues with either traffic ability or possibly spillage to the cars. So we communicate through that. We also let it know Facebook and other things like that to make sure that but specifically the door hangers as we're concerned that maybe someone doesn't see it on Facebook. We can go and notify each individual. Citizen that would be affected now. The other one I think that John had talked to me about was sidewalk patch while the sidewalk patch that is standard throughout most parts of the city. As far as that's an initial, because we come back and we will try to repair it with hopefully within a year or two. Just all depends again what we're focused on because limit dollars but we try to do is we try to make sure that, the high and high priority. Sidewalks are first taken care of, but then we but we put that in there so that at least it's safe and walkable for people instead of just not having anything there at all. And then we try to follow back up within a his best time frame as possible to put another solution, but what we try to do [2:49:20 PM] is make sure that at least traffic herbal so people are in the street walking around that they have another place to walk, so the pedestrians feel safer. So that's helpful. So the quick patches for the road, but you also use it for sidewalks, minor repairs and such so that we can have something out there so that people don't have to be in the street they can actually catch on the road. The final repair happens between 90 and 1 20 days . The quick patch for the sidewalk happens. But you said between one and two years put the patch up first, right, that's right, come back and replace it with maybe concrete and such, but it just all depends on you said for the sidewalks. So you said yes. Come back between one and two years. Yes, ma'am. Try to yes, ma'am. There's all parts of the city that we do that in. It just all depends like one time. MM along the U. T campus. It took us four or five years to come back and just all depends on the need. And such. What we try to do is we try to be as equal as possible to get to certain areas and make sure that everybody has the same service level but also the ability of resources to go [2:50:21 PM] out and get that done our focus, usually on repairs or in the high traffic, herbal areas that we have most bang for the buck. But then we also try to come back and address those. But the initial repair that we put in there is for safety reasons, so people are not out on the street and that they have a safe a safe way to traverse. I appreciate that my some of my constituents were feeling like they're getting asphalt patches on their sidewalks. And maybe other parts of the city weren't so making sure that that's you know, it's unilateral was was what? I was trying to get up. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's go to council member alter next I'll do a quick time check. It's 2 50 . I think the item after this will probably be pretty short, but I pride myself on my perfect track record of ending meetings on time, and I hope to keep that going today. So let's go to council member alter and then I've got just a couple of questions on this topic as well. Things that will be quick director snow we had an opportunity to meet with my staff. One of my staff members went out with it with the crew. We are continuing to get questions about the gravel that's left over. And what they [2:51:24 PM] should do, and we had talked about improving that communications so people would know. What to do in that instance? So can you please remind us what we should? What? We should be telling us that you and you are seeing that probable after one of these processes. What they should do and what they should be expecting from the process, please. Or with the process. I can also let Steve talk about the process that it's the seal coat process, which is usually the loose gravel. What we do is we come back. We do. We do initial sweep afterwards. And then we try to use 2 to 3 days later. Come come back and do the sweep and what we are doing in our marketing plan this year, is adding more outreach to explain what's going on with those things. So get the, citizens expectations. So that they understand what the processes and the final thing is. They're still loose gravel because of certain things that we ask them to call 31. When we come back. We do have our supervisors. Superintendents come back within about 1 to 2. Weeks after treatments been put down to see about the gravel to make sure that if there's any loose aggregate that we can bring out a sweeper again and get rid of that, so we listen to appreciate [2:52:24 PM] the input from your staff, and we looked at a process of improvement on that. So we're asking superintendents to go back out and take a look at the work for not just quality but also for loose aggregate. Great so there's that process change and then in the packet that will go out to the neighbors, it will provide more information about like calling everyone line and what the process is so that they can understand what to expect. Yes, ma'am. Great. Thank you appreciate it. I know we've also had the issue of like, where the materials are being stored. I know we had one neighborhood where there was work done pretty close to the neighborhood. So even though it was inconvenient and kind of noisy as the trucks are beeping and things like that , but they were pretty patient until that project finished, and then I think that same storage location was used for a different project, and they were either unaware or didn't see the notice. I'm not sure what happened. But they were a little bit frustrated when trucks came back for a different project. And so how how do you make sure that the materials can be stored [2:53:25 PM] in more locations so that it's closer to each project side and each. You know each neighborhood street that might be impacted with some of that material storage isn't shouldering their more burden than than what is needed for their particular location. Thank you for the question. We got that comment earlier this summer, so what we're doing is one also during the market plan, communicate more. Why it's going there. What's what's going on. But second, we're trying to work with other departments and areas to actually storage. As we know we have a lot of development going on right now in Austin, so some of the areas that we used to be able to restore, aggregate and other things have been starting to get limited. But what we try to do and the reason why we actually do that forward so that we let have a less disruption in the neighborhood by forward storing that information that material then we don't have to keep on going back and forth to the yard, which takes a lot of time. What we try to do is that allows us to do as one of the questions there is. Well how long does it take to maintain a street is a 235 days well by putting that [2:54:26 PM] material in that storage area allows us to go from maybe two or three weeks of disruption down to maybe a week because we're not going back and forth from the yard. But we did talk to our marketing team, and we're going to put that out as far as explaining that to the people, and I think in that one occurrence that was brought up we actually looked at it was two different projects. It was actually one was us doing street maintenance. I think the other one was actually capital. Repair and construction as far as a street nearby and again, we know it's disruptive at times for the neighborhood. We're trying, unfortunately, especially during the summer. When we do our treatments we try to for personnel employees. We get out early. So we get past the heat because obviously, the heat of the treatment we put is very high, along with just the heat of Texas at the time, but we'll work. We'll try to work to communicate more with the people on that. And we try to be his, aware of that as possible. I appreciate that. I know for the workers on site, the beeping is helpful for safety issues. But if you're not working on the site the beeping can drive you a little crazy. Yes, ma'am. So I [2:55:26 PM] appreciate that. I do have a question I was asked to, see if there's any efforts to switch to a low carbon concrete rather than standard concrete. Are y'all looking into that? This was said to be by council member pool. So if I'm phrasing it incorrectly let me know and I'll try to the quick answer is yes. We have a pilot study in place right now, and we've been approached by university of Washington state university to, find some locations for another. Biochar concrete, but absolutely we're looking into, a more sustainable concrete where it's appropriate and meets our design standards. Yes ahead of me on that question, so I'm glad I got to learn a little bit. As far as the heat maps. Is there a publicly available version I know there's one that we can access. But is there one that's just so folks can plug in if they think something's wrong or see if you're currently assessing a certain certain road for repairs website there should we put our annual service plan which is a lighter version of [2:56:27 PM] what you saw as far as everything, so it just shows where we're going for the year and gives a different treatments, so if they can go to our site, we have that and there's a G. I S, plan that's you can pull up and you can see where we're going. The tool that we're going to use, give you more of the history and go into more detail if you want to. The other. The other thing is, council member alter. Asked about this. We're looking at next year to actually building a new type of asphalt but also dealing with some of the heat urban heat issues that we're having. As you mentioned earlier, I think you asked another presentation about that. We're looking to put that in next year's budget, and we're testing that out to see how it works so that we can deal with the climate change issue, okay? That's that's great and I know council member harper-madison a couple of years back we were talking about, you know, pervious. Materials and so maybe we need to revisit that, too. And look at you know it may not work for roads, but it might work for sidewalks or walkways or driveways and things like that. So we're certainly curious about that. If people need to report a condition do they go through 311? Or is that the best way to yes, ma'am. Use 311. Like [2:57:30 PM] I said, what usually happens within 24 to 72 hours we actually sent someone out to do an assessment of what it is. And then they come and then they come back and decide what it is. Is it just a pothole is that something has to be more as a utility cut that that was just recently done by osce water that when we come back and feed and make sure that that gets linked in because sometimes there's a delay from when they do the cut when we actually were told what happened so three wanted less is capability to go see what's going on and then make the proper assessment and address the issue. Okay. Okay, that's fantastic. And then I'll just say another thing about the quick patch. I also didn't know about that and thought people were just being sloppy. And it was a former director Mendoza, who is now interim director over at 80, D. And so now that I see that, and I understand, okay. Some of these look really sloppy for a little bit, and then they get fixed. I just wonder if there's an easier practice of, you know, putting like temporary on it or something that a person who's not following the mobility committee knows that they [2:58:30 PM] weren't forgotten. It's just not finalized yet. What we're actually doing is we're actually working with Austin water, which puts in that temporary patch. Ah because just to repair something at the water surface back in is one part to extend the communication to let them know that it is only going to be there for a certain amount of time and public courses come back and address it. And then we can. We can come back in and communicate that has been addressed and done. Once I learned that I was a little more patient and they would get fixed, and they would get fixed really nicely. But I just really thought, you know, maybe as these construction projects happen in town that someone was careless and once I learned that it was just part of there's a temporary patch and then a permanent fix. Just understood it better and even I didn't know until probably last year, so like for people to know they didn't get forgotten. So I think that does it for my questions on this. Do we have any other final questions before we talk about the last item? I think that's good. See pavement is very exciting. The last item is the assistant city managers report [2:59:32 PM] on the strategic mobility outcome. I know we don't have a document posted today, but we are very sad that Gina fiandaca has accepted another great position. And we're going to miss you. Thank thank you, mayor pro tem. And thank you for the opportunity to serve you and your colleagues on the diet. And the community of Austin. I've been so fortunate to lead a team of amazing professionals in delivering your mobility and infrastructure investments. And I am here to pass the baton to assist interim assistant city manager Robert good, who is certainly well positioned to pick up where I am leaving off and continue the great work. And you will be the pleased and honored to work with him as well. Robert he's waving here on the audience. So as I closed out my last meeting with you, thank you again. I don't want to be [3:00:33 PM] the cause of you going over time on the first meeting of the calendar year, but, if there's anything I can help with over the next Sunday's that I'm here , I'm here to serve you cheer. May I real quick. I disagree with the mayor, pro tem chair. I'm not sad girl. You better get it. I'm so proud of you. That's fantastic. It's wonderful. We're very proud of you. We will miss you. But we're very proud of you. Thank you so much, counselor bet and thank you for your service to Austin. You've been here during some really pivotal moments getting some of our mobility, right? Sized for a growing city. So your fingerprints will still be here and we will miss you in Austin will have to come visit you. Thank you working with as interim assistant city manager. Good. Thank you all on that note . Did we do it? I'm adjourning this meeting. It is 301.