Mobility Committee (MOBC) meeting Transcript – 1/25/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 1/25/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 1/25/2024 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [1:02:58 PM] I will go ahead and call the mobility committee meeting to order. Thank you everyone. It is January 25th, 2024. The time is 1:03 P.M. And we are meeting here at Austin city hall. I am the chair Paige Ellis. I'm joined by my vice chair, zo qadri. We also have council member chito vela joining us. Welcome to the mobility committee. We're happy to have you. And we also have council member Mckenzie Kelly joining us remotely today. Council member harper-madison will not be joining us today. We don't have any public communication that I know of. Is that still the case? >> That's correct. Okay >> Fantastic. Then we will move right along to item one. Approve the minutes of the mobility committee meeting from November 16th, 2023. Do I have a motion made by vice chair qadri? Seconded by council member vela? All in favor, say aye. It is approved by all four of us in attendance. I saw you, Mckenzie. Item number two is going to be [1:03:59 PM] Item number two is going to be our update from the urban transportation commission regarding actions from their December 5th, 2023 meeting. And joining us today for the presentation is vice chair Ruben brooks. >> Know, how do I owe the sound is on. Yes. Okay let's see. We had a pretty full meeting on December 5th. Asian. Services promises. Promise other presentation on autonomous vehicles. Valiant efforts of [1:05:02 PM] vehicles. Valiant efforts of city staff to try and manage at least what's going on with autonomous vehicles. Even though the state laws are restrict what they can do. And then a presentation on the status of project connect from Peter mullen. Next slide. We also had two right of way recommendations , both of which passed west 35th street at Kirby lane and clay avenue from burnet to Houston on . Then we also considered a resolution on campo voting procedures. Okay. With the goal of somehow getting them to be fairer to the areas with largest population. And we, came up with some things that we thought might be useful moving in that direction. Unfortunately, the [1:06:02 PM] direction. Unfortunately, the resolution was tabled due to quorum issues as we had several members who, had to recuse themselves and that made us very vulnerable to the fact that we have two unfilled positions, or more than a year after after the elected officials took office, who were responsible for those positions. One is the mayor, the other is, councilperson harper-madison listening. Please try and move on to that unfilled position. And then we also have a, a appointee who doesn't show up or I think he's only shown up for one meeting. That's, councilwoman Kelly's appointee. So if you could say something to impress upon that person that they've agreed to take on a duty and they should fulfill their, [1:07:03 PM] and they should fulfill their, their promise for that, I guess, takes care of it for the, urban transportation commission. Any questions on what we saw or heard or did? We're hoping to take up the resolution on the campo voting procedures at our next meeting. And hopefully we will have a quorum to vote either way on it. >> Thank you for the presentation. Do we have any questions for the vice chair of utc? Council member Kelly? Speak up. If you do, you're small on the screen. So I just wanted to make sure I don't skip you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that and thank you so much, vice chair, for bringing it to my attention. As as I tell all of our commissioners and even those that are not appointed by me, if there's ever any issue with one of our commissioners, please reach out to our office. We try to be responsive on those issues, and we'll check in with our appointee to see what what, what's preventing them from attending those meetings. Thank you for bringing that. >> If there's anything that we can do on the other side, on the [1:08:04 PM] can do on the other side, on the committee side to help, we'd be glad to thank you. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. We know we have a number of amazing boards and commissions that people volunteer their services on, and so we certainly want to make sure that that, you know, people are available to attend those meetings, but also respect that it is a time commitment. It's unpaid work. It is volunteer work has a huge lasting impact on our community. And so, we'll keep working toward that and making sure that we have folks who, can make that commitment. Or if something comes up in their personal lives sometimes will appoint someone else for the time being. So certainly appreciate everybody who's volunteering in that capacity. All right. Let's move on to the next item. Number three, update on the roles and responsibilities of each city department and office involved in the implementation of mobility related projects and programs. We're going to be joined by director of transportation, public works Richard Mendoza and director of capital delivery services James snow. We thought that this would [1:09:06 PM] snow. We thought that this would be a great moment to have a briefing on this structure, transportation and public works somewhere along the way were separated into different departments. Now they are back together, and we also have the addition of a new department, capital delivery services. And so we're very interested in seeing how how different projects work through these different departments. That's what staffing looks like and how to make sure that we're getting, a good public awareness of what is in the wheelhouse of each of these department. S >> Thank you, council members. Richard Mendoza, director for transportation and public works, and I will be co-presenting with, mister James snow, director of the capital delivery services. We're going to cover, each of our individual department's role in delivering mobility projects for the city. I'm also going to take the opportunity to describe, some of the programs and services as, that the new, newly formed transportation and public works department, provides for our community on a daily basis as. So I'll begin Ann, our [1:10:09 PM] So I'll begin Ann, our transportation and public works department was created last summer of 2023 by combining the former Austin transportation department with the community services and street and bridge operations divisions of the former public works department. And in that short time, we have created our new mission and vision statements for our new department, and they are on this slide. We are a highly reliable organization that builds and maintains mobility infrastructure for our community. With the vision that Austin is a model for safe, reliable and sustainable transportation in terms of the investments for mobility infrastructure, we are the sponsor department for a variety of projects across the all of the city, primarily funded from the city, approved referendums of 2016, 18 and 2020. The next slide is an overview of the new transportation and public works [1:11:09 PM] transportation and public works department. As you can see, it's, it's a big department. It's the third largest by full time equivalent personnel across the city, only behind Austin energy in Austin water. At the top. Myself has been appointed as the director directly under me is the deputy director for, for the transportation public works department. And they oversee primarily the engineer and operations of the department for both streets and transportation on the right of the org chart is the, transportation planning and development services, divisions of the of tpw, led by assistant director. Right now, interim. Director Deborah. And then on the far left, assistant director Anthony segura leads, support services and then our public information administration, Ann and legislative affairs. Divisions are led by our chief [1:12:10 PM] Divisions are led by our chief of staff. And so I will get into a little more detail on the specific services and project delivery response abilities by these different divisions in the following slides. So, as previously mentioned, that merger was part, involved part of the old public works department with the old Austin transportation department that occurred last year. And we've already been been able to realize some improvements in effectiveness and efficiencies by the two former groups working together, primarily in the area of street infrastructure, street repaving, and then restriping and coordinating, the bicycle program aims, the arterial management, the restriping together coordinated with, repaving operations of the old street and bridge operations. So starting to realize some closer collaboration, closer coordination and improve efficiencies in these very critical services for our [1:13:12 PM] critical services for our community. If I can move to the field operations divisions, first, the, engineering and project delivery is primarily our traffic, transportation engineers. And these are the area engineers that respond to our service requests from the communities, for issues, anything related to traffic congestion, speeding, cut through traffic or parking issues. Below that is the strategic mobility services division. These are our crews. And personnel that operate our trail management. Signal, as well as signs and markings right of way management and lead the division zero. Programs on the top right are the office of civil engineer. And they, they program the annual street service plan, the repaving and street preservation, program, as well as the sidewalk, urban [1:14:13 PM] well as the sidewalk, urban trails and safe routes to school . And then on the bottom, right, is street and bridge operations. This is the largest organization of the, street and bridge. And these are the folks that go out there on a daily basis responding to 311 recalls, calls for utility cuts, pothole response, as well as pavement operations. The annual paving plan, the forestry division is within this division as well, maintaining the medians as well as vegetation control and the right of way and the newly formed bridge maintenance crew is Ann street and bridge operations, as well. So moving to engineering and project delivery, the transportation engineering, this includes our area engineers that respond to citizen 311 calls about traffic issues throughout the city and also in this division is the active transportation and street [1:15:15 PM] active transportation and street design. These are our in-house design engineers. They, look at traffic studies. They also set speed limits throughout the city, as well as in proper intersection, lane configurations and improvements. And then on the bottom right, capital services, project delivery. This is our in-house traffic design group. And they also designed the active mobility network in support of the active mobility local bonds. Moving to the strategic mobility services division. Their primary responsibility here is designing and placement of all the pavement markings, centerline, striping, as well as operating the traffic management center and operating all of our traffic signals. We have over 1100 traffic signals and pedestrian hybrid beacons throughout the city, as well as designing and, [1:16:16 PM] city, as well as designing and, tracking our vision zero. Progress and goals to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on our road network. Throughout the city. Strategic mobility services also includes the office of special events. They work closely, of course, with right of way management. They permit all activity within the right of way. You may be familiar with the, the living streets initiative. So they they will work closely with the smart mobility office and ensuring that those, those, programs are properly managed and effectively , provided for our community. Movie on to civil engineering services. The office of city engineer. They they set the design standards for all of our horizontal mobility assets, including streets, sidewalks and [1:17:16 PM] including streets, sidewalks and curbs. And bridges and any structural components of the roadway network. It also contains. Owns the sidewalks and special projects division, which now now it's not on this slide, but the urban trails program is also within sidewalks. The two programs are very similar in their goals. So we've combined those community services as our safe routes to school neighborhood partnering, program , as well as all of the crossing guards at the elementary schools throughout the city. We have a logistics division to ensure that all of our crews are adequately supplied and have the appropriate equipment, to do their jobs. Then the newly formed office of emergency management to ensure that. We're postured going forward, to respond effectively to some of these, more common Ann, weather related emergency events throughout the city, of which we [1:18:16 PM] throughout the city, of which we had most recently. We, had to mobilize for over the martin Luther king holiday. Street and bridge operations. This is the basic, work group that takes care of our pavements and sidewalks and bridges throughout the city. We've got almost 8000 lane miles of streets throughout the city. Includes district maintenance. This is the primary group that responds to 31 one calls, for service requests for, any needed emergency repair and maintenance of our right of ways. Pavement operations. These are an in-house street repaving and street preservation crews applying seal coats and thin overlays throughout the city to extend the life cycle and maintain, the level of service of all of our streets. Urban forestry group, oversees the contract. Otters that maintain and cut the vegetation in the [1:19:18 PM] and cut the vegetation in the right of way. Medians as well as public street trees. And then finally utilities and structures. We provide final utility cut repairs on behalf of Austin water on an annual basis. As well as, support some of our local mobility bond projects in terms of sidewalk installations, both new and in filling gaps. Next slide is also parking. So parking management services is within transportation. Public works, and it includes also management of the parking districts. You may be familiar with the newest parking district. We, we developed in south congress. And so that's going along really well. We're always looking for new technology on how to, you know, ease the use and make available, parking services both on street and we also manage a number of, [1:20:20 PM] and we also manage a number of, public parking garages throughout the city. Final division is, transportation Ann services. So these are are organized around both transport and development services and then planning. So transportation development services, we have engineers that evaluate traffic impact analysis, studies for new development with the minister. The new street impact fee, which which requires developers to contribute to a fund to account for capacity impacts that are caused by their their development on the network as well as they participate in the site plan review process to ensure that new development that is occurring, in a manner that doesn't cause undue impacts to the street infrastructure. They look at driveway access, ensure the safety of the mobility network. Land management [1:21:20 PM] network. Land management engineering is a new division that recently, transferred over from development services division over to transportation and public works. So they will administer all the required, right of way easements, encroachments or right of way to, abandoned units that are requested of the department from the community and then systems development this is our long range planning division. They update the Austin strategic mobility plan. They're also rapidly, wrapping up the Austin core transportation plan. So the next slide is a transition slide of all the different, bond improvement programs, that we work very closely with the capital delivery services, department, some of these are, are local, small and numerous in nature. That we self-manage within our capital delivery group in, transport and public [1:22:22 PM] group in, transport and public works. But for the large part, the large investments, the large, capital projects, it's, we enlisted the services of the new central, capital delivery services department. And Mr. Snow and his team, manage those on behalf of the transportation, public works. Next slide. And with that, I'll turn it over to director snow. >> Good afternoon. Thank you, Richard, for handing that over. I'm James snow. I'm the director of capital delivery services. And what I'm going to do today in three quick slides is, first of all, talk a little bit about our department. Talk about, some of the things that we manage and talk about how we work with our asset owner, transportation, public works, capital delivery services was formed in March of 2023, and our main focus is to deliver a build public projects to support the community. We do that by working with our [1:23:22 PM] that by working with our traditionally 12 infrastructure asset owners that falls from traditional assets that, you know, as far as Austin water, the airport, watershed transportation, public works to those dealing with parks, libraries and building services, and also working with the convention center, APD, fire and ems currently, we manage over 500 active projects and that investment is about $7 billion in our community. Not counting in that $7 billion. We also work in support delivery that out of project connect initiative. We are doing an integrated delivery approach at the airport expansion. And we're also using the same integer integrated delivery approach at the convention center expansion. So let me explain a little bit. And I think this what you're asking is how do we work with one of our infrastructure, infrastructure owners while we, we see projects in, in a three gate system? First of all, you have project development. Second part of the system or gate is project design. And the last one is project construction. So when [1:24:24 PM] is project construction. So when we when our capital project development team starts working with an infrastructure partner like transportation or public works, we work with them based on what they've identified and prioritized as community needs. Then we work together in that development phase to develop the preliminary scope, schedule and budget and jointly ensure secured funding. But the other thing we do at this time, too, is one of our key assets or key things we try to do is a dig once approach. So during this same time, we talk to Austin water, Austin energy, watershed to talk about, well, if we're going to do a work in the right of way for transportation, public works are there other assets that we could address at the same time? We use to dig once approach, because right now, the citizens, all they see is the city of Austin truck. They don't know if it's an aoe. They don't know if it's a water. They don't know transportation. So what we're trying to do, instead of continuously keep a community, neighborhood completely under construction, what we're trying to do is go in there once we're going to open up the street, we should address the water issues, the drain issues, and possibly bury the lines if possible. So during that phase, which is very [1:25:25 PM] that phase, which is very important, and that's a shift that we've done in the past, is usually what's happening right now. Is that usually at 80, 90% of a project development, that's when they do the coordination. We're now moving back into the gate of project development. So before we even start the design and construction, we've had that coordination. So that we can be more efficient, effective on how we deliver a project. Then once we reach the gate and we're done with the gate of project development, it's handed over to my department, where we're focused on delivering the project. So for design and construction, we focus on delivering that. During that time, we consult and we have actually monthly meetings with transportation, public works to talk about the status of the portfolio. What's going on, if there's issues that we need to address, we address them then. And also consult if there's issues that we need to address. Once we're done with that, what we do is when the project's done and some of you have attended those nice, ribbon cuttings, what we do is we turn around, we hand it back to the asset owner. But one of the key things we're doing in that last phase in the development phase two, that I didn't mention before, we want to work with the asset owners to make sure that we think about [1:26:26 PM] make sure that we think about the maintenance component of it. A lot of people say that we spend so much money on capital program, but actually we spend more money on maintaining those assets once they've been, once they've been delivered. So what we're trying to incorporate in our project development is to make sure that there's the required funding or needs or resources to maintain that asset over the years. In a typical streets between 50 to 70 years. So they can program that in. So it's not disruptive or that we use funds appropriate or if when we design, we design it in a way with maintenance and in, in thought, because a lot of projects don't do that. What we do is we do a cheaper project up front and then the maintenance cost triples because we didn't think about that at the beginning. And like I said at the end, we turn it back over transportation, public works and then they maintain the mobility infrastructure. I think I think that goes back to, Richard. >> Is at the end slide. I believe that's the last slide. >> So any any questions you might have for either myself, James or our teams? [1:27:27 PM] James or our teams? >> I really appreciate this presentation, especially the call out to some of the other capital delivery projects is not all about mobility, even though a lot of the bonds we've passed and the ones that are higher profile right now are going to be the mobility bonds. But I know we've had conversations over the years about roads and parks and trying to make sure that we're helping our park system be accessible to people because, you know, ignoring the maintenance cost up front might save you money that year. But in five or 10 or 20 years, you're going to have a much bigger problem on your hands. And so in the long run, are you really saving money if you're not looking at these investments? Through throughout every annual budget that we adopt, do we have questions from committee members , council member vela. >> Thank you, chair. This is a strange question, but it's been a discussion on my in my neighborhood, which was recently a repaved, and I believe some streets got,. And please correct [1:28:29 PM] streets got,. And please correct me if I'm wrong, the chip and seal or you know, a rockier, rougher. Surface. And then 1 or 2 streets got a, I think, seal coat. Which, you know, like skateboarders and rollerbladers love. I was just wondering when, you know, one coating is called for and when the other or what? What are the, I know that's a very in the weeds question, but it's come up. Ann. And it piqued my interest. >> Thank you. Council member. No, that's a that's a very, very succinct question, actually. And a good one. You know, our our our, office of city engineer and pavement operations divisions have a very mature the pavement management system. It's one of the most mature ones in the country that that I've had experience with. And the goal of that pavement management program , haam, is to preserve our streets. And extend the life cycle as long as possible before it requires total reconstruction [1:29:32 PM] it requires total reconstruction or rehabilitation. So so much like your car, which you don't drive it until the engine fails, you do periodic maintenance along the way to extend that life. And so there's a variety of treatments. And, we have a pavement management system that, shows the life cycle of streets and the deterioration curves that in the beginning of a newly paved street, it deteriorates at a lot slower rate than it does at the end of the life. And so the, the, the science is to apply the right treatment to the right street at the right time to push that deterioration curve, even further out in this life cycle. So classically, a newly paved street in the first 3 to 5 years, you'll get a crack seal because moisture is the primary worst enemy to the condition of streets. That's what when it infiltrates the pavement on top, it'll. That's what causes potholes and then it [1:30:32 PM] what causes potholes and then it just goes really bad from there. So you'll see a crack seal. Then maybe at 5 to 7 years, you'll see a thin surface treatment like a seal coat, a slurry seal. And then maybe at the 8 to 9 years, you'll see a chip seal. And that's the more coarse. Treatme. Together with an emulsion. And what that does is it seals the street, prevents more moisture from prematurely, deteriorating the street and pushes that life cycle out further. So we have 8000 lane miles of streets in our catalog, right now. As a system, about 74% of those are at satisfactory or above, every three years we drive the streets with this apparatus that measures how bumpy it is, takes video, observes, different types of fatigue, like cracking, potholes, heaving. So that to [1:31:34 PM] potholes, heaving. So that to determine on an annual program based on the budget that we have, what those treatments are for. But I do hear you and understand that that coarse treatment, it's found to be the most durable, low cost treatment, although it's not the best conducive for skin in your knees off skateboards. And we do hear that from communities. And we do respond to those on a, on a regular basis. >> Well, thank you so much. That's a great answer. >> So that chip and seal, that indicates an older street then that that is later in its life cycle. >> It's like midlife. Okay. >> Got it. And I'll pass that along. That information for, for those that were there were just questions as to, you know, why did one street get one treatment and why did this other street get a different treatment. And like you said, everybody loves that smooth, silky street. And not so much the chip and seal, but I completely understand. We've got to be, you know, a pinch and pennies at the city [1:32:34 PM] pinch and pennies at the city and trying to use the our our citizens tax dollars as efficiently as possible. Another quick question. And this has come up in, various parts of the district, but there will be one street that folks are concerned about in terms of safety, in terms of crossing, in terms of traffic and, and I'm hoping to do this on a district wide basis very soon. But I'd like to get kind of a more universal, list and feedback from my constituents on exactly which, streets are of the highest concern and then communicate with you all and then go back and relay that to, to the constituents. But if there was, and let me just use the example, one that that we were recently discussing. Berkman. Between, 51st street and 290, a lot of new housing is going in in that part of Austin and Windsor park, basically. And there is a lot of, you know, cut through [1:33:38 PM] of, you know, cut through traffic also between, 290, if you take Berkman, you can really weave your way all through downtown. So I think there's a lot of folks that are coming from a Mainer and from Elgin and whatnot that that work downtown that are, cutting through there. And there have been, concerns about that. How could we or who would be the best contact? What would be the best way to kind of communicate between the department at the council office , and the, the, the citizens, the residents about, you know, what we can do? You know, they want to know kind of what the plans are. They want to know, you know, what are the options? If there's anything we can do, suggestions, director? Well, certainly we and we do get calls of that that manner. >> Throughout the city. I would encourage folks that are experiencing issues with traffic or speeding or anything safety related in the public roadway to utilize the 311 system. There's going to be a follow up presentation on that. But but our one of the divisions that I [1:34:40 PM] our one of the divisions that I showed prior, our transportation engineering division, we have three what we call area engineers and they're each assigned a section of the city to respond to for community issues, just like as you just described. And if they use the 311 system, then we can make record of that. We can track it, and then we can ensure we follow up with that contact information with that community member. On the alternatives and treatments, that are available for us to alleviate that, that concern, we do work really closely with our vision zero program. And we track and work with our APD. We've identified what we call the high crash network. And so we many times will prioritize, improvements in safety, treatments to those areas in response to those calls and that feedback. But certainly invite that feedback. >> And that's the transport engineering division within engineering and project delivery [1:35:41 PM] engineering and project delivery . Yes. That's correct. Got it. And I just wanted to say that y'all have done a lot on Berkman. There's a pedestrian, beacon that was not there before . There are numerous there's bike lanes now there, but, this is a story of the city of Austin. The growth and the traffic kind of continues despite the improvements that we make. You know, there's Justa lot going on in a very dynamic city. And, and you know, we're all struggling to, to keep up and maintain that, that quality of life. But I appreciate it. Yes, sir. I appreciate that. >> I think there was a collective groan when you said the word chip seal, because I think all of our offices hear about those and, you know, try to manage as, as best we can to make sure that our constituents are getting the best services. But there are different costs and different timelines to these different treatments. As as appropriate. But I think we've probably all gotten calls about the chip seal, more questions. I want to make sure I'm not missing any hands. I appreciate the presentation. I also thought [1:36:43 PM] the presentation. I also thought of, one other topic that is not under the city's purview, and that is that there are some roads that people drive on that are private access. And sometimes we'll get calls about potholes in those situations. But it's not a city owned right of way. And so there just may be issues that people are calling in to 311 or calling our offices that are actually in the hands of whoever that property owner is, and trying to make sure that they're maintaining those easements and accesses as appropriate. So I know there's a few other situations that we've gotten calls about that ultimately, they're they're not city right of way, and we can't spend city resources on fixing them. So that's just another layer of some of these conversations about road maintenance. Yes. And if there's no further questions, I think we'll move on to the next topic. Thank you. Thank you. Item number four is going to be resident mobility concerns and how to report issues and what to expect presented by our very own Jeff Stensland. [1:37:44 PM] Jeff Stensland. >> Hello everyone. Good afternoon chair vice chair and committee members I'm Jeff Stinson. I'm the public information and marketing program manager for Austin transportation and public works. I'm going to take just a couple minutes to talk through, kind of how we handle those customer service requests that primarily come to us through 311, first is really how to report those issues to 311 or to the, to the department to get those taken care of. It's really on a responsive basis for many of our, our issues. You can do that by calling 311 that call center. There you can also do that by going, oh, I'm so sorry. I need to hit the button myself. It's self-empowered. Ed. You can also, when you call through one or use the, the 311 mobile app or the website, you can then select that service request on there. We are working with 301 to simplify or kind of refresh the title. For some of those they make more sense for folks in the general public. But on there it'll ask you the location and also to explain the concern that you may have, you'll obtain [1:38:44 PM] that you may have, you'll obtain a tracking number and then that tracking number is carried through the system to make sure that it is, closed or complete. Ed. In other words, in a timely manner, we track those for all types of service requests that we receive. We are one of the bigger departments as far as, csrs or, customer service requests, public service requests that come in as far as the, the, the most frequent ones that we do receive. Several of the top ten in the city that you've seen in other presentation recently, are actually related to, Austin transportation and public works. What what the public can usually expect is a callback, within 48 hours, especially if we need additional information in order to address that concern. Even if it's something like a sign that is knocked down or a road sign that maybe or maybe a traffic signal that is aimed improperly, those can typically be closed or completed without, that, that first one on one contact, but primarily for many of these, we do try to touch back with that [1:39:45 PM] do try to touch back with that constituent within a 48 hour period. We may also request additional information from them to be able to, to complete that that request and understand their concern fully. That's in addition to revisiting the location itself and also provide them an estimated time to actually have this issue resolved. One item that also is that we can provide a written response to that constituents home or email on specific issues, especially when it comes related to some of the engineering, matters, where there may need to be a little more analysis put into it. This is an overall look, a nice little pie of the 82,500 and even number, customer service requests that we saw last year. This is calendar year 2023. So from January 1st to December 20th, December 31st, this is what all the customer service requests that came into Austin transportation and public works. You can see the bulk of them, were for parking violation enforcement followed by traffic signal maintenance. That's for traffic signals or pedestrian [1:40:47 PM] traffic signals or pedestrian hybrid beacons. Additionally, you'll see the shared micromobility. So that's e-scooters or dockless bicycles. Oftentimes times the most common request on there is them blocking the roadway or improperly stored or another type of management issue where we relay those off to those individual providers or address those, in a very close and quick manner, that has a much faster turnaround time than a 48 hour period. You can see overall, though, and then the pie chart gets smaller as those lists go. Beyond that, you can see that pie chart continues there about 91, almost 92% of all requests that have come in last year were completed on time. And that's something that we want to strive for is at least 90% complete. One of those I wanted to just just dive into our top three here. I'll actually have our top six really quick. You can see, with parking violations, we had almost 15,000, almost more than 15,500. They had a 99.8, on time completion rate. It does help that we have crews that are out [1:41:49 PM] that we have crews that are out on our in the field, throughout the day, especially during those , those parking hours, the parking enforcement hours to address those needs, signal maintenance, also, about 96, 95% for those shared micromobility requests. You can see, though, that we have about 10 to 15,000 for those top three. And then it drops significantly down for, traffic sign maintenance, about 4500 issues there last year. That's oftentimes a sign knocked down or or misplaced or mis aimed due to wind or other, environmental factors. And of course, pothole repair, had about just under 4000. That's also I wanted to highlight that number 4000 is a fraction of what we saw for parking violations. The system is very responsive as you just heard my director speak about. We have crews that are dedicated to keeping our right of way well maintained across the area, including, a team that is dedicated to servicing those 3000 plus or 4000 pothole repairs every year. Those come [1:42:50 PM] repairs every year. Those come to us largely through the 311 system and can be, through the public's help to be able to help improve those roadways. And the street system within our, city, one thing I do want to highlight, we had a few that fell below that 50% on time threshold. And, they included some issues with perhaps tree issues in the right of way, bicycle and pedestrian issues involving our our urban trails or bicycle network. Perhaps a booting complaint and also, using our pay by phone app. That's the park atx app that you use for paid parking. We are, we have, flagged a lot of those and are looking through a lot of the process issues. Some of it may be a staffing issue or otherwise. But but we are making sure that most of these, these will all be, in a much higher completion rate. And that we've kind of found those issues to make sure that we move those beyond. So they're not, continually deficient. Some of these also just require additional, focus for our department leads to, to be able [1:43:50 PM] department leads to, to be able to do that. One thing we want to do is help the public understand that relationship they have with the city. And the city staff and the departments that serve them on a day to day basis. We have several, campaigns that are either through paid or non-paid. We call it organic, social media posts. One of them, you'll see up there on the left side is the shared micromobility, safety campaign. We launched the ride park yield campaign last summer. And we ran that through the fall, and we, we cycled it down after kind of that that, that fall, peak season for, for scooter riding when it got a little colder. And when we see those scooter trips drop, those are targeted in a lot of areas where we see high ridership, especially here in downtown west campus, south congress, those areas to encourage people, this is also targeting a specific age group and other factors there to make sure that we, dial in on the people who are most often [1:44:51 PM] the people who are most often using scooters, to make sure that they kind of understand the rules of the road and have a best practice on there. We also are, incorporating several service request campaigns into our, cycle as we operate on our social media platforms to make sure that the public is aware of the different ways that they can make us aware, like I had mentioned a little bit ago. Finally, we have all of our information up there. You can always go to Austin, texas.gov and click the 311 button at the top right hand side there up by the translate button. That will take you right to that customer service form, so folks can report those at any time. I also respond to a lot of our social media posts with that specific link. So that way if folks are mentioning an issue, the public is mentioning an issue we can address it there. Of course, we're all found at Austin, texas.gov/tpw and I'm open for any questions. >> Thank you. I see vice chair qadri has his hand raised. Yeah. Which I guess for the sake of this meeting it's a city manager who has his hand raised. [1:45:52 PM] who has his hand raised. >> Yeah it does. >> That's what it says on this device. >> Oh yeah. I'm not the city manager, though. Okay. Thank you for the presentation. I just had a few questions under comments. You know, micromobility is a is a big thing in d9. And we get a lot of 311, calls, complaints, concerns around that. But I was wondering, when it comes to parking issues, does that capture when folks park in bike lanes. It does. It does. Okay yes. Yeah. So I mean something that we really want to look into and we especially get a lot of, 311 calls and calls into our offices and emails into our office when it comes, you know, around south by which starts in about, you know, two months, is bike lane blockages, on congress. And I think what we want to look at is if we could look into regulatory regulations that we could put into place on enforcement and commuting, this to the public and, and vendors and whatnot. So, so, that's it. That's all I had to say. It was [1:46:52 PM] That's all I had to say. It was more of a question slash comment. So thank you. >> Thank you so much, council member. And I will add that it's been, it has been requested by the urban transportation commission that we take a look at the regulations around parking in the bike lane being allowed, unless it is signed and noticed that you can't versus flipping that and saying the expectation and the standard should be that you're not allowed unless there's a specific situation like musician loading and unloading, where maybe that's just the only place to do that. >> So we're starting that conversation. If you'd like to join in, I think we'd be great partners. And looking into those details and what is possible, I'd love to join in. Yeah, great signing people up for sub quorums on the spot. I love that, I have a question. So first of all, I love the pie chart and all the data and details about these calls that you presented. Is that information on a public facing website where we can click around, or is that something that's more internal? >> I it's an internal document. I have an internal spreadsheet, but, I can post that somewhere. I can actually publish this [1:47:52 PM] I can actually publish this report if you so choose. On our at the footer is a kind of a media release. If that would be helpful. Also for this, that information has currently it solely has the and we can add more information to it if necessary. It has the total calls and total on time completed. Items on there. And then of course, that percentage that we're able to derive, if you're seeking additional information perhaps what what an on time completion duration is for each of those. I can pull that for each of the of the customer service request categories and incorporate that into a into that posting. >> That would be fascinating. I mostly wanted to drill down into a similar question to what vice chair qadri asked, which was, you know, where is something like a parking infraction in a bike lane? And what makes that separate from bicycle pedestrian issues? You know, just kind of drilling down into what people are actually sending in and how you're organizing the data and perhaps to speak to that. >> And also in response to what, an issue you brought up here recently at a previous council [1:48:52 PM] recently at a previous council meeting or a previous committee meeting, we created that dashboard on, autonomous vehicles and showing incident tracking, as we have it in our system. We created that. We have that data in an excel spreadsheet, but it has a lot more information now that that that platform is now embedded as a power bi dashboard on the autonomous vehicles website. We could I will see if there's a way for us to, find a way to actually have that live feed or have some sort of live illustration or visual that would be able to help that and put that on the transportation public works department website. >> Oh, that would be fantastic. I know that the transportation department has always kept public data logs and open portals for people to be able to use, but they are definitely not numbers and columns, and you've kind of got to figure out how you want that information to be displayed, to be able to make it functional. >> There's a lot of data in there, and sometimes it needs a little shushing. Yes, I'm aware we can work with you on that. I appreciate that. [1:49:52 PM] appreciate that. >> And you had spoken very briefly to another question. I was going to ask. And that is, is in what's the language you use resolved on time? You know, are there separate expectations for each complaint that might come in like a parking violation? Seems like it needs to be addressed fairly quickly. Whereas another type of call or issue might take a week. Can you talk a little bit about those timelines? >> Some of the other issues may involve reaching out with a property owner. For instance, there was one of one of the deficient categories was a tree issue in the right of way that oftentimes involves a conversation to be had with that person of to, on which the property owner, with the property owner involved in that. I mean, I'm not, the program manager for that. So I don't want to speak too much about what exactly is entailed on there. But there are sometimes there may be engineering needs or engineering, expertise that's brought into some of the to completing some of those customer service requests. Perhaps it's a it's a modification of the current system to address a, a safety need that was identified through [1:50:54 PM] need that was identified through the public reporting process. >> Okay. I know those can get tricky. I had an instance in my district, I went out and personally met with a homeowner, and our city arborist and right of way with public works. At the time, and all those departments had to be in the loop because it was involved the arborist, but also right of way and trying to find out the correct solution for those. So I know those can take a little bit more time because of everybody that's involved. I think that's all I have. I just I'll, I'll say for, for my last comment, I really appreciate the new app. I use the 311 app to I know people think sometimes we have magical ways of getting things done, but I have honestly found when I see someone has run over a street sign or something like that, I'll just plug it in on the app and I did that the other day and noticed the whole app was new. And that it not only had information for me to be able to plug in the correct category, which has been expanded over the [1:51:54 PM] which has been expanded over the years, but also had other news that might be pertinent that the city is working on. So it had kind of some articles about other projects and maintenance happening in the area, which I thought was fascinating. Lang you have any questions? Council member Vila. >> Yes. Although first of all, I just want to say great to see you, Jeff. And so happy that you're, you're with the city. And, it's nice to not be here every day. >> To be honest, I do apologize. I haven't been in the atrium in quite some years. But yes. >> Yeah, well, we're trying to do our part with the, the issues with commuting and things like that. Yes. >> All right. And one of the questions that I got to confess, I got, I downloaded the 311 app. I started using it. I have not I have fallen off on my, using of it again, trying to learn it just to, you know, so I can be up to speed with with where my constituents are. But one of the issues that I've heard reported not so much recently, and I was just wondering if there was a change. Was that, someone will report something on the 311 app, [1:52:54 PM] report something on the 311 app, and they will get a, like, a closed notification. Exactly. And that's very. Then it's not closed. And that's frustrating to them. And I've explained to them that that's an internal more like it's been properly referred sent. >> Yes. >> Is that still are they still getting the closed notification or. Because I'm also one of those people that uses the app all the time. >> Because I'm one of those guys that reports a lot. It will still send you the closed notification in my example is there was a knocked over, stop sign, near the ACC highland campus the other day. About a week ago, and I caught it on the way to the pdc. It said it was closed within within 20 minutes, but I knew that the crew couldn't possibly. I mean, it was still the sign was still down. It means it was assigned and then it will be. It'll be triaged and sent off. And then that crew will be able to close out. Yeah. Based on based on the expectations, the only thing I would ask is that could that [1:53:55 PM] would ask is that could that close notification be changed to like referred to department or, you know, something because, I mean, I, we it's astonishing the number of calls and complaints we get about just that, you know, they're like, this is not done. >> And they close it out. You know what I mean? And I try I know it, I explain it, but just, just, you know, a point of information. >> I am hoping that our friends at Austin 311 are watching today. But I will touch base with, my colleague over there to just to express that, that she referenced this reference, this conversation. But yes, we are, but that's also part of our collaboration with them. We do a lot of, social media, collaboration posts to kind of help people understand the different service requests that they have. But perhaps also understanding the app and what those words mean, is also very helpful. That's how a lot of these, that's that scooter safety campaign actually came from conversations with city council members and city management, about highlighting those needs, too. >> That's great. Well, again, thank you very much. [1:54:55 PM] thank you very much. >> Thank you. I will second the information about the confusion of tickets being closed. >> I did notice the last time that well, the first time I used this new app, which has been the only time, if you plug in your email address, it will give you all the information and you can look at the notes of the person who responded to the issue, and they'll say, I saw it. We replaced this. And you know, the sign and the post and whatever else notes are in there. And so you can actually see essentially the written log of the folks who came to fix it. And, and how they did it. So that's pretty fascinating. And I, I, I think mine didn't just say closed. And so I don't know if it's been fixed, but if it hasn't been, maybe there's some help with that language. Just letting folks know it's been referred. Because we've also gotten folks that say they close the ticket and they didn't even come by, and I didn't see anyone come out. And so we just want to make sure everyone's understanding the same information about about the process. Any further questions? All right. Thank you. Mr. Thank you so much. Item number five will be our living [1:55:57 PM] number five will be our living streets program update. A very exciting moment. >> Oh good afternoon, chair. Vice chair, members of the mobility committee. >> My name is Kirk Scanlon and I'm division manager of the smart mobility office. And I'm joined today by Matt Magill, who is our program manager for the living streets program. And let's. So I'm just going to set the table for this presentation. And just to kick it off, I'd like to say I'm really excited about this. We are about to truly launch a program that we had stood up during the pandemic, which was the healthy streets, which is creating soft closures throughout residential streets to essentially facilitate slower traffic and better safety outcomes. As well as provide within the right of way, an opportunity for people to use it for other modes than single occupancy vehicles, as [1:56:59 PM] single occupancy vehicles, as well as for socialization. And we're really excited for this next iteration, which is going to be slightly different from the first. In that first, it's going to be part of a bigger program called the living streets program. And the living streets program is going to include healthy streets, which is the soft closure of residential streets, as well as neighborhood block parties and play streets. And Matt's going to have a ton of detail on all of that. Over the last 6 to 8 months, we've been done a lot of planning and development of the application process and how to, essentially vet, the different types of streets and areas that people want to use. This kind of activation. And, and one of the big storylines is that we didn't quite know exactly what, what kind of response we were going to get. With the initial activation of healthy streets, it was more the city identified areas to put it, but this time [1:57:59 PM] areas to put it, but this time it's a citizen, resident led process. They're the ones who need to submit the application and essentially do some work to make sure that that application gets pushed through. We've had the application portal open for about two months, and we've received about 60, 60 applications. So to me, one of the big takeaways is that we've seen quite a quite a good response on this program. Matt's also going to go through some of our first initial soft launch phase for this program, as well as a schedule for the upcoming year. And at the end, we'll obviously have some time to take some, some questions. So with that, I'll just hand it over to Matt. >> Thank you, Kirk, and thank you, committee, for having us out here today. It's my pleasure to actually present this program to you. I'm going to take you through the brief history of how we got to now. So I'm actually going to start in the middle of that history and then work [1:59:00 PM] that history and then work backwards and then move forwards ahead to where we are. Maybe. Okay so healthy streets began as an initiative during the pandemic, and it's important for us to take our focus back to this point because prior to that, we did have another program called neighborhood block parties. That is part of this overall program. But it was really the healthy streets initiative and the idea that during the pandemic, our city, as well as other cities across the nation, reexamined the way we use the street. We had the opportunity to do this because for most of us weren't actively pursuing our transport and our transit to and from work. And that put us in an at home work condition. We additionally needed to find a way that members of our community could get out, exercise and commune in a safe way and safe environment. The street became a viable [2:00:01 PM] The street became a viable option for that. So our department at the time, transportation department and public works separately work together to do this program called the healthy streets program. In the pandemic that launched in may and by September, we had enough streets launched and out that we were able to do a survey and to our amazement, 72% of the residents surveyed were in favor of it. That's actually when the idea that this actually might have legs and merit and should continue on beyond the pandemic. So if there is a silver lining from the pandemic, it's that programs like this and others that came out of that movement are able to exist at its core. Next slide. At its core, the streets program haam the healthy streets component and the play streets component start to group together with the neighborhood block parties. That creates the [2:01:03 PM] block parties. That creates the living streets program. It is a resident led process, and as Kirk said at the beginning of this, we started the program out as the city, putting these places out and trying to create connectivity and that's an image that you see all the way back from the pandemic eras. They use soft closures and that's actually become part and parcel with the program as we intend to actually extend it through the resolution. They require 60% resident approval on a street and that's a critical piece. That's more than a majority. And we've found that that's been a very successful, way to go about it. Other programs that we've done, like neighborhood partnering programs through our department as well, most of these, with exception of neighborhood block parties, will last 3 to 6 months with an option for renewal at. And the last part of the resolution was to address some equity issues. One thing that the nation has [2:02:04 PM] One thing that the nation has seen with all of these programs was that the streets that needed this most, those without sidewalks or connectivities safe routes to school, may not have have the accessible information at their hands. So we want to address that by making sure that we get the word out and ask that you support us in that. As our advocates. Next slide, please. So the program is broken up into three distinct parts neighborhood block parties. And I'll get into each of these in a second. Healthy streets and play streets each one has a separate goal a separate focus and a different intention behind it. Next slide a neighborhood block party and all the other programs are intended to be resident driven. They are all what we're calling soft closures, meaning they're using traffic control devices to shut down the street to local traffic only. And in that, if you're a resident on [2:03:07 PM] that, if you're a resident on the street or doing business, business on the street, such as Amazon or another delivery service, an emergency or city service that needs to get through or even just visiting a relative on the street with certain controls, you can come through the closure and visit that piece. So a neighborhood block party allows a resident to request their single block to be set up and installed as a neighborhood block party for 24 hours. This allows the community to join together in celebration and community and throw a party, get to know each other. It's a safe way to commune in the street, and it turns the street into essentially a recreation center. Next slide please. So a healthy street is a group of several blocks. We're looking for 3 to 4 to make the installation worthwhile. It's intended to use a soft closure as well, applied for by a resident. It's uses these soft [2:04:08 PM] resident. It's uses these soft closures to reduce traffic to local traffic only, but also uses certain strategies from the Austin strategic mobility plan, like pitches, chicanes, midstream pedestrian crosswalks and other techniques to slow down traffic on residential streets. Therefore if you're coming down a living street, we really only want you to go down that living street. If you actually have business on that block face right? These aren't going to be through traffic streets in that vision. They are for 3 to 6 months and there is an option for renewal. Next slide please. A play street is different. It's somewhere in between a neighborhood block party and a healthy street. It is one block. It is resident driven. It uses soft closures as well. So it is though for three days a week up to a max of three [2:05:09 PM] days a week up to a max of three days a week and up to 12 hours a week. You, as the resident, get to choose which day of the week you want to do this and what time of day you want to do it, and therefore it's really, truly ready driven. It's up to a 3 to 6 month duration, so there are longer extensions of essentially what a neighborhood block party is. They are soft closures where we have monitors on either end to only allow in that local traffic to that single block, but children, parents and other young adults can get out on the street and play games. You know, I'm from Philadelphia. This is a very common thing where I grew up. I'm pretty sure that playing stickball is a child. There were a couple windows broken. Maybe not by me, but maybe by my sisters. But the idea comes from this play in the street where your neighbors get together, and that really ties together community. But we want to do it in a safe and fundamentally [2:06:10 PM] in a safe and fundamentally secure way that provides that opportunity. Next slide. So the first thing we did when we started the program was we did our viability and street analysis. We worked very closely with our transportation engineering division to come up with a criteria. These are only residential streets, and I'll get to that in a second, because there is, some level of commercial allowed at corners and intersections because that is actually a critical point to get to and critical destination. So they are what we refer to in the Austin strategic mobility plan as a class one road or lower Shaw, there are roughly 25 to 40ft wide. And this is this is standard two lane with parking on either side, potentially sidewalks. If they were installed or no sidewalks. Our requirement is that it is 90% or more residential properties. We're not looking to [2:07:11 PM] properties. We're not looking to elevate this at this time in any way, shape or form for a commercial viable use. This is about our neighbors actually being able to communicate with each other and those that live on their street. We are set up to allow multifamily buildings and units and parcels to participate. We've found ways to actually include those, and I'm going to segway here for a second and talk about the strategies around that in a little bit deeper depth within a multifamily unit, you have everything from a single resident with an auxiliary unit in the backyard, all the way up to a 200 person apartment complexes, and even larger working with transportation engineering. It's the latter that has us greatly concerned about safety on the street. If you have a single 200 unit park all exiting onto a single street at one location, Ann, that is a lot of traffic to do. A plan that starts with safety and [2:08:12 PM] that starts with safety and traffic mitigation to allow residents to commune with each other. Additionally, because it's resident led and driven a resident going into that apartment complex or community as a multifamily community would have to do outreach to hundreds of individuals that may or may not be there at the lifespan of the installation of the living street. So so we do, on a case by case basis, and we actually evaluate these criterias. What it is not allowed to do is affect our connectivity in our grid. We do not want it affecting a major arterial. And we've actually found ways to even isolate it down to only being adjacent to collector roads. As it goes into a residential level. It cannot affect a traffic control signal, and it will not affect transit routes. We do however. Next slide. We do look at this and we focus in at the next step on the [2:09:18 PM] focus in at the next step on the prioritization of these streets. So we have all the streets that are viable. And then we've done deeper richer analysis. So in these categories we have equity public amenities civic destinations food and entertainment. This is our cultural aspect. Mueller modal transportation and options. And whether sidewalks are on the street or not. And that's specific to healthy streets. And I'll explain why in a second. Within the equity zone, we know that the people in our community in the most needs of a program like this, may be within what we call our equity analysis Zones. And that's a deep, rich study that's been presented to this committee and others in the past that tpw did a couple of years ago. We use that data that really identifies the eastern crest of our city as a primary goal to target and elevate those streets, because we know that [2:10:18 PM] streets, because we know that those areas are in the most needs. Additional because this is about activating Ann and activity. We do want to focus on the people who need it the most. Well, we all can benefit from a healthy walk. Seniors and children need that active involvement to stay fit mentally , socially and physically. We look at parks both as parks, as a deficient area and the street as a potential replacement for this, a respite where someone could go into the street as a space and commune and recreate, but also as a location and connectivity. Additionally, libraries, schools, rec centers and other civic destination has become focuses as we look at how a living street can connect one point to another, point, banks, post offices, hospitals, theaters, show venues, museums, [2:11:19 PM] theaters, show venues, museums, food establishments, grocery stores, all these pieces in that center section are critical destinations for us. Our neighbors, and our residents as well. Being able to use a street to walk to one of those locations enhances the opportunity for a healthier, more communal community and provides a safe method for us to do that next, we want you to be able to get to other places beyond this. So connecting to our urban trails, providing for a safe route. Maybe not to directly to the school, but to your bus stop. Finding a way to get to the next transit stop and high comfort bicycle lanes. And last on a healthy street because all of our streets don't have access to a sidewalk, this is an opportunity for people to use the street as their sidewalk. And we're seeing this with a successful rate and this is why [2:12:20 PM] successful rate and this is why our peer cities actually adopted these programs and continued them on as well. So we take all this data from the viability chart and the prioritization. We combine it together and that gives our prioritization value to the next step is the residents actually have to submit their application. They come to us and I'll get to that process. But they actually have to get that 60% signatures at a minimum. We take the percentage of signatures within their living street and we multiply it by the prioritized option value. And this gives us our methodology for approval for each application. This allows for that equity. So if your street is super excited about having a living street, but you're not high on the priority because there's no connectivity or other pieces that might really make this a more communal beyond just your street. We encourage you to get more participant S and elevate your score. Next slide. So the way [2:13:21 PM] score. Next slide. So the way this works is the resident fills out an expression of interest that comes to our team. We evaluate it with our transportation engineering team. We come up with the closest viable street. We send that back to them and ask them to then go and get 60% of the residents in that area to sign up for it. Once they have 60, it becomes a true application. That application, like neighborhood partnering programs, is reviewed at a deadline window. We just finished our first one in January, and out of that we had 719 viable living streets that I'm happy to report to you and will show more stats on in a second that all of those are able to be elevated, to be installed. Staff reviews, all the applications at one time. We use that prioritization value to take them one at a time and cross-reference it with our funding resources and project our installations. And that's [2:14:21 PM] our installations. And that's how we actually established what the project is. So right now we do have 64 expressions of interest, including all the completed applications. Burns, which is an astronomically high number. We anticipate it in the 20s. We got three times that in in a quarter of the time that we thought we would have knell last slide. I hit one more for me, please. So this is the way this looks of the. 45 that we receive prior to the January deadline. And we've received close to 20 posts then, we receive 17 that were viable. We're able to lift all 17. That's ten healthy streets going in Ann and seven play streets. Neighborhood block parties continues to do their program successfully, and over Halloween, they did close. To 15 to 20 installations. So the [2:15:25 PM] to 20 installations. So the collective program is seeing a lot of feedback and a lot of, acceptance. And we haven't even gotten out there yet. This is our first year, this is our launch. The average approval rate of a street that is 73. That means they're getting 13% more than the minimum needed to elevate this street. It was within the first six weeks of our launch on November 1st with our website, Wright, that we began receiving applications prior to December 1st. We had over 40 applications in our purview, too, and that was at that time, the time my colleague and I looked at each other and said, we have a good problem to have, right? This is going to work and this is going to drive us to the next level. Right now, we are capped at where our budget is at. We can extend all [2:16:28 PM] budget is at. We can extend all 17 of these through the fiscal year, which is critical. We do not want to end this program, leave a hiccup and continue on. So we have the funding set aside for that right now. And that's where we get to the next steps. Next slide please. It starts with our lessons learned. We did three soft closures. These are our pilots. We began working with these three groups early early on in the development of the program and implementation. Ann. We needed resident feedback on what they were going to want, what they already knew and where they wanted to see change, and avenue G, because it was the last remaining healthy street from the pandemic, was an obvious choice to elevate that team is so galvanized that we no longer call it avenue G. It's [2:17:29 PM] longer call it avenue G. It's Hyde park, healthy street. They have adopted it as a community. We have residents from avenue F and H who act as ambassadors for the avenue G and Hyde park healthy street. It's amazing they're big complaint, though, is the look and the feel right? When do we get more permanent infrastructure and those conversations continue? How if we're a community, can we brand this more about our neighborhood and us as residents? We're taking all that into consideration and that goes into the next iteration. We're also in the process of currently working with them on hearing more of their feedback on how we can do a better job right now with what we have, 37th street. You guys may have seen it in the news. This was a huge, successful launch and I'm going to digress just for a second. The three areas that we chose, [2:18:31 PM] The three areas that we chose, we chose with a critical lens. We knew we had active residents in these areas. We knew we had active issues to address. So on 37th street, we had of the Christmas tree lighting, candy cane lane, whatever, on 37th street, lights, and that in the past has been subject to question of is it an event? How do we manage traffic? For the first time, we had a program that we could apply to them. So when we approached them, they were like, what can we do? How fast can we get you the signatures? They got all their signatures in two weeks. It was amazing. They saw over 3000 people through the street on average a night. Weekdays Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 1500 weekend, 8000. And these are their accounts, not ours. We didn't do hard counts. But it [2:19:31 PM] didn't do hard counts. But it was a complete road closure. And that's where we were adaptive as a team within transportation and public works, we worked with our engineering team to look at the situation Ann and adapt, and that was one of the reasons we chose this. So it was so successful that the two problems that came out of it was, was other communities are staying too long in our community. We really didn't have the capacity for them, but it was amazing. So everyone was milling about in the street. Thank you so much for allowing us to that opportunity. That was actually feedback, which is positive feedback in my opinion, that shows us that people actually came from other communities and wanted to talk to their neighbors about this street. That's great placemaking. The last piece was how can we safeguard when you have a destination that is this strong? And placemaking, this strong and cultural and this much identified as an iconography [2:20:32 PM] identified as an iconography iconic, sorry as a place to go in Austin, iconic, iconic. >> Thank you as a place to go in Austin that people want to go and visit with their children's families and other people. >> How do we get them there safely? So you know the successes out of this are that it may present other problems that we want to look at and address right. And that's their feedback from us. And that's what we observed out there. There are actually continuing as a healthy street. This is one of those streets that was under 25ft. It's only 24ft. And home lane the other end of the street, Nash goes down to 21ft. These are very, very narrow streets with a lot long length of stretch of road without intermittent breaks. So to get across the street just to talk to your neighbor, you are literally running across the street mid-block between cars. We know from our vision zero [2:21:32 PM] We know from our vision zero studies that that's not safe. All right. So the last one is fisher garden. And there's a lot of little red dots in and around the fisher garden neighborhood. It's the highlighted streets on the map that I'm showing this this neighborhood. You may know it as lemon family's neighborhood. Kyle lemon. I've known it as one of the other places to go during the holidays, but I've also known it as an east austinite as a place of hope and inspiration in the community. These are leaders in our community, and they're faced with a problem of the little red dots. Those are high incident crashes. This is one of the areas in our city where vision zero and other programs within tpw focuses their energy to slow and mitigate traffic. Because we want to decrease the number of [2:22:33 PM] want to decrease the number of crashes and reach that true vision. Zero moment in doing this, what we've found is that this neighborhood is concerned about two things they're losing their community identity as things change and develop, and Austin grows bigger and stronger. But that the community itself is still really strong. And they want to continue that to the next generation. Ann so we have a strong community and a place and members and neighbors that want to actually represent this neighborhood. But they also now have this problem of all this traffic congestion in and around their neighborhood that is now starting to cut through the neighborhood. They don't have sidewalks. So what they used to do is walk to and from each other's house. It becomes more and more difficult as people start to cut through this neighborhood to bypass traffic, intersections. To do that. And this is a way to gain this back for neighbors to use a traffic mitigation technique, a safe [2:23:35 PM] mitigation technique, a safe place to walk and commune, to build community again and create what was one of the best neighborhoods and still is arguably one of the best neighborhoods in east Austin. Next slide. All of that leads to the last piece we are at a point of iteration, and I'm going to take you all the way through this. In 1914, New York City created something called play streets. City of Austin has never had a play street. Well, city of Austin has never officially had a play. Street people play in the street all the time, but we would prefer a safe environment for them to play in the street. A neighborhood, block, parties started to do that in in may of 2017. A year later, may of 2018, it was codified as a program. It continues on to today. The pandemic happened, and out of the pandemic comes healthy streets. Collectively, these three programs, through that [2:24:36 PM] three programs, through that survey start to develop the resolution our staff reviewed city council directions to create this. We responded to the resolution in January of. 2022 and took on the lift to make the program living streets, and that's where we're at now. All throughout that process, we've done our due diligence, working with the community, doing community events, going to our local rec centers and talking with our neighbors and constituents as we launched our first application window for play streets and healthy streets in November, ended it in January, and our first lift is coming up now with a first six months that is the start of the program, not the end. We know that with 45 other applications sitting roughly in our portfolio , so we have more work to do and we have more people who are [2:25:37 PM] we have more people who are interested and we barely scrape the barrel without reach. We needed to ensure that we had the facility, those capabilities. Stache staff, techniques, equipment and program in place before we launch it. At that next iteration. So over the next year, what we'll be doing is looking at the successes of this current year's lift with 17 streets. We are doing everything from data collection all the way to interviews and surveys to get feedback from our residents. The data collection includes looking at our crash data, look at our connectivity through the traffic studies, looking at our pedestrian and multimodal activity within the streets. It's all of this data, as well as expressions of interest. The applications resolved and the number of residents who have signed up for the program that will provide us better feedback on how to lift this next slide. [2:26:39 PM] on how to lift this next slide. And with that, I'll open it up to questions for you. >> It's a great presentation. Ann. Thank you. As this program expands, do you see the next steps that would be most helpful to be additional staff? Is it more materials or is there some other resource that you're seeing is kind of, not not making it able for your team to be able to process everything that's coming in this fast? >> I'm going to defer to my director for that question and let him answer that, because we're in the development of budget. Thank you. >> Thank you, council members. Yeah we're very excited about the program. You know, it's very early and it's inception Ann. We'll be continuing to collect data and get input from the community. We are entering the very first, parts of our budget planning for fy 25. And we'll be working with FSD to weigh this against all the other services and priorities for the department going forward. >> Okay. Well, we'll stay tuned and make sure that you have what [2:27:40 PM] and make sure that you have what you need for this. I know when we wrote this resolution, part of the consideration was that, we wanted neighbors to be able to come and pick up the road barricade roads and be able to self-monitor, how people are coming and going from those, you know, from those barricades. And so that's one of the conversations we've had. And I know we may hit a moment where it ends up being a material cost, which is a lot easier for us to, to get going than ongoing personnel costs. But happy to talk about that more as we talk about it. Mid-year or regular cycle budget amendments, questions from colleagues. Let's go with vice chair qadri first and then council member Vila. >> More of comments than than questions. But, I was happy to see 37 street and avenue G, both d9, places. So really, really excited about that. I've, I have some friends in the Hyde park, neighborhood. And when I was a candidate, I often, I was knocked on a lot of doors. And I love seeing it. And it's great hearing that the community is kind of taken. Taken ownership [2:28:40 PM] kind of taken. Taken ownership of that. So I just wanted to highlight two of the three places shown were d9. And then I'm really excited for the work that the living streets program is doing. And, you know, I just want to say that if there's anything that we can do as an office or as a diocese, to support this further, you know, very much, you know, we're all on board. And I'd also like to look into how we can combine, living street projects with parking conversion efforts. For more, for even more public space now that we don't have parking minimums, I think would be good to spread the word about our existing ways. To multiple multifamily property owners and other folks. And then I think the one thing I wanted to highlight, and we'd love to, you know, get get your, I know your thoughts on is their program in San Francisco called the ground play program. It's a city county partnership for grassroots placemaking efforts. And like, living streets. And I was thinking maybe we could look into a city county partnership, to grow in phase into, you know, a permanent, into permanent [2:29:41 PM] a permanent, into permanent improvements. >> It's a great suggestion. San Francisco was one of our Paris city reviews, and their program is phenomenal. >> Yeah. They have their own brand and development, and that brand and development of the concept is really where our residents want the program to go . So we are very excited about looking at those cities as they launch their program. But they're now reaching back out to us and asking us how we're doing with ours, which is also exciting to hear. >> Yeah, I mean, we're better than San Francisco, so it makes sense. >> I mean, clearly, clearly. >> Yeah, yeah, that's what that's why we're all here. That's it. >> All right. Council member Vella, we're not trying to start fights over here. >> I don't know anyone in San Francisco. >> Thank you for the presentation. >> Really exciting. And 37th street. I've been there many times, and this year, it was just a huge success. And I wanted to. I'm so glad. Councilmember qadri is here [2:30:42 PM] Councilmember qadri is here because something that that that he and I have talked about, in the past has been, a ciclovia on, congress, which I know there has been I know that this is a preexisting, idea, that has been looked into and, I think, based off of a recent visit to Mexico City, and, reform avenue, which is their congress avenue, more like a Broadway in New York. You know, the major avenue in the middle of, you know, one of the biggest cities in the world closes on Sunday. And it's a Sunday fun day in Mexico City. And the vendors come out and the bicyclists come out. And it is one of the most amazing things. And, I just I mean, to me, congress just lends itself so well, I mean, from the capitol kind of to down to the river, maybe a little bit farther. Again, I'm not going to, you know, design this from the dais, but I, I would love to, to, to do something like that. And I [2:31:43 PM] do something like that. And I just wanted to kind of throw that out there and see what, any thoughts or comments? >> Well, thank you for the question, councilmember. With respect to congress and downtown core for right now, that is excluded from the living space program. It's not residential driven. Hope and aspiration, though, is that the program develops an and where it goes from there, we don't know. So we are open to ideas of reinterpreting things. But keep in mind that at I-35, at project, those are all going to be fundamental disruptors to average daily connectivity. And we're very cognizant about how we might want to incorporate different modalities and traffic's. So we're looking forward to studying that further . And in the process of doing that with our department as well as others within transportation, public works, I appreciate that. >> And love to hear it. I think it would be great to do a pilot, [2:32:44 PM] it would be great to do a pilot, you know, do it a couple of weekends or, you know, and see how it goes, see what we learn. I completely hear you that once the project connect, construction, I mean, obviously that's going to be right. Along a portion of, of congress avenue and then I-35 reconstruction is going to divert a lot of traffic onto our, onto our city streets. But, that said, neither of those projects are going to break ground. I mean, this is this would be a good time. I mean, the short time before those get going, I would love to see that. And again, it doesn't have to be like I said, it doesn't have to be all the way down to slaughter or anything like that. But a small portion on a temporary basis, to, you know, allow for, the, the residents of Austin to just enjoy their, their city. It would be a great to see and I'll you know, council member qadri and I will continue to talk about it. Obviously it's a d9, a street, but I just think it's a, it's a it's a wonderful idea. >> Great. Thank you. [2:33:44 PM] >> Great. Thank you. >> I'm also interested in that conversation about congress. You know, that's one of the locations that tends to be more predictable when we do have road closures. There's lots of races like the statesman 10-k goes through there. The Texas book festival takes it over for a number of blocks, when they have their programing and so I'm interested in the conversation. It may not fit under the category of one of these topics, but maybe there's another way to do something fun like that. I mean, the pecan street festival is hugely successful, and it is essentially the same thing. It just goes east west instead of north south. But I mean, I saw I think there was like a slip and slide and a bouncy house. I mean, there was all sorts of stuff. The last time they did a pecan street festival. So we know people want to be able to use the streets that way. I'll just flag I have a couple of ideas about the barricades for those folks that are asking for more long tum applications, and they want more visibility and identification of that. Being a healthy street, I won't go into detail here just because some traffic engineer may say, let's not go down that pathway here. Let's make sure it's well vetted [2:34:47 PM] Let's make sure it's well vetted and understand exactly what it is. But I have some pictures I'd love to show you. I've seen these devices deployed in town. Not in the public right of way, but they're big enough that a forklift would put them in place. And therefore, I think people may feel more comfortable with their kids biking in the street. If they had something that was a more formalized barricade. But we can have that conversation offline. As far as the scoring for sidewalks, can you talk a little more about the consideration? Are you looking for streets that don't have sidewalks? Maybe they're substandard streets and therefore the streets are good activations for that walkable city and for folks in wheelchairs to be able to get around. Can you talk me through that? >> Sure. >> Thank you for the question, councilmember Ellis, for sidewalks, a living street is an option in lieu of the physical construction of a sidewalk, which can be very disruptive to the right of way. Everyone thinks it's four foot of concrete, but it's much more than that. When we do this, it's curb gutter utilities, median, the concrete, all the trees and [2:35:47 PM] the concrete, all the trees and everything that passes through that. So the costs are often prohibitive in terms of its development and installation. A living street affords an option for people to commune and use the edge of those streets. It's the same way they would use a sidewalk, and that's one of the successes of that we saw out of the healthy streets program in the pandemic version, so it's using that to target those areas . And that's why you see that as a prioritized option for the healthy streets on a play street, though, to recreate in the street, to play as a space place as an area, and a different use of a right of way, it's not necessary whether you have a sidewalk or not. If I'm playing foursquare or kickball, it's not going to fit on the sidewalk. So we're looking to open that up further. And that's why that doesn't fall as a prioritization within play streets. And that's really the [2:36:47 PM] streets. And that's really the fundamental difference. So yes, we are looking to elevate those streets that don't have sidewalks as we start to install sidewalks throughout the city. And we're doing a phenomenal job of that. >> Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Are there any other questions from folks before I close this conversation out? I just want to say I really appreciate your ability to really bring this program to life. No matter how excited our community gets, if we don't have, you know, a staff and a department that's willing to take this on and to really make sure it's functioning correctly for everyone, then we wouldn't be in this position. And I really appreciate that. It was interesting being on the dais when covid hit and realizing how many people were wanting to go outside and use this public space, you know, the streets are public space. They are funded by the government. And it's with the community's support that, you know, we can have some flexibility in how these streets are utilized. You know, what what needs to be a thoroughfare and what needs to be activated [2:37:49 PM] and what needs to be activated for the neighbors so they can bring out their picnic table and their camping chairs and they can, you know, have a birthday party or do other fun things in the space that, you know, can can be better utilized for the public. So I really appreciate your work on this and look forward to the next chapter. >> Thank you very much. And I'll extend the gratitude to the rest of the team. There's several of us involved in the project. >> Fantastic, I bet, I bet it's a fun job too. It is. >> It's enjoyment. Every day I get to come to work. Thank you very much. >> Good. Thank you. >> All right. The last item we have on our agenda is identify buying future items. So far for February we've talked about some conversations around I-35 cap and stitch priorities. Ann I know this is a conversation that vice chair qadri and I have have been thinking about as we work through, the captain stitch program, project connect updates as they're working through light rail planning and multimodal connectivity as they develop their documentation for the Nepa process. And then tentative Leslie talking about bike lanes [2:38:50 PM] Leslie talking about bike lanes and parking regulations and enforcement. So those are a couple of the ideas that we've had in the hopper. We know the airport is still slated to be working through their expansion over many, many years. Fleet electrification for the city itod planning, air quality issues and other parking code amendments that may be coming down. So we've got a running list. If anyone wants to add or daylight anything here, or let us know offline. Let's go ahead. Vice chair qadri. Yeah for future items to discuss in future meetings. >> Parking in regard to the uli tap recommendations was one thing that our office kind of, wants to look at. And then also additional updates regarding, the work needed to complete the elimination of parking mandates citywide. >> Fantastic. All right. Anything else to add? Council member Vila? All right. Before I close this out, I will just mention that our assistant city manager, Robert good, has issued a mobility report. And so that is usually posted for backup. We don't usually have to take it up [2:39:51 PM] don't usually have to take it up because there's not many questions, but it does cover topics such as, the mobility department's and how they have persevered through the winter storm, how they made sure that our roads were accessible for folks who absolutely had to be out in conditions that are, less safe than they typically are. Mobility bonds, sidewalk program from 2016 completed one year ahead of schedule. Our airport continues to set records for busiest days as, the airport has launched new online parking reservations system. City council has approved next steps moving forward for the Barton springs road bridge project act and Austin to Maynard trail project update. So there's a number of other great topics that our departments have been working through together, and we really appreciate that. If you want any more details about what city staff has been working on, other than the topics that we covered here today and on that note, it is 2:40 P.M. And I will adjourn the mobility committee meeting. Thanks, everyone.