Mobility Committee (MOBC) meeting Transcript – 8/22/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 8/22/2024 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 8/22/2024 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. [1:01:18 PM] wait just another couple of minutes for council. All right. Good afternoon [1:05:30 PM] All right. Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the mobility committee. I am council member Paige Ellis, chair of the committee, and I am joined by council member chito vela and council member Natasha harper-madison here. So thanks for being with us today. The time is now 1:05 P.M. And we are meeting here in chambers at Austin city hall. It is August 22nd, 2024. I believe we have some public communication. Would you like to call the speaker if they're available? >> Yes. The speaker is Hayden black walker, if you would like to unmute. >> Sorry. My first attempt at unmute didn't work. Can you guys hear me now? >> Yes, we can go ahead. Okay. >> Thank you, this is Hayden black walker. I just wanted to [1:06:30 PM] black walker. I just wanted to highlight that, the local chapter of the congress for new urbanism is hosting week without driving, week without driving is now a national event, coordinated through America walk and, it's, the first week of October, so we've got some time, and we'll start publicizing it soon, but I just, I. You guys are great, you know, champions of, multiple ways of getting around the city. And so I wanted to invite each of you to sign up if you would like to, the website is week without driving.org. You can sign up as an individual. As an elected official, as an organization and seniors kind of leading the charge. But we have ten other sponsor organizations and we'll be publicizing it and getting more and more people to sign up. [1:07:30 PM] more and more people to sign up. So the concept is, is that in a typical city, about 30% of the population doesn't drive. Maybe they can't afford a car or they have a medical condition, or they have aged out of driving, or they're a child and they can't drive yet. And the idea is just to highlight how those people get around the city. So, anyway, we'll send out more information. Just wanted to give everybody a heads up and invite you to participate. We'd love to have some key council members, signed up before we do our big rollout at the beginning of September. So thanks very much for your time. >> Thank you so much for that comment. And if you would make sure that you have sent it to all of us or that you will send it, we would love to take a look at it and see how many council members can sign up for a week without driving that. Thank you, council member. Thank you. That moves us to our approval of minutes. Do I have a motion to [1:08:30 PM] minutes. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from may 20th may 23rd, 2024? >> So moved. >> Moved by council member vela. Seconded by council member Natasha harper-madison. All in favor say I. I. I that is unanimous. With the three of us present. That moves us into our briefings. The first one we will hear in just a moment from the chair of our urban transportation commission, and then we will move into street impact fee program update after that will be electrification of fleet update from city of Austin fleet mobility services as well as cap metro. So we're excited. We have some cap metro folks joining us today. And then at the end it will be the city of Austin mobility report, which I don't believe there will be a presentation on. But just so folks can reference that in the backup, it's a great summary of the work that our mobility departments are doing over the past month or so. I know we're coming in off of summer break, and so there's going to be a lot of good information to reference there about the good work of our departments, so that brings us to briefing item number two, [1:09:31 PM] to briefing item number two, update from urban transportation commission. And we have chair Summers with us. Welcome. >> Hi, I'm Susan Summers. I'm the chair of the urban transportation commission. Thank you so much. As always council members, committee members, for giving me the opportunity to share with you about our meetings. So I think I was last here in may. So we've had three meetings, it was a fairly light summer. We didn't take, we didn't have. We met three times, but we had a fairly light meeting, slate in June, we heard a presentation update about urban trails and sidewalk program, which was a really, really interesting. If you want to learn more about some of the unique obstacles, particularly with urban trails. In July, that led us, that was where we had some action items. So, we did hear, about the mobility, annual plan, which was just a briefing and discussion, but we had three action items. These are available to you in your backup, in July. Actually, for, excuse me, four action items. One is not in your backup. It was a [1:10:32 PM] not in your backup. It was a simple up down vote. And the hays commons municipal utility district, as you may know, the urban transportation commission is one of those commissions that is asked to provide a recommendation on a proposed mud, specifically discussing the transportation related aspects of those proposed muds. So we did recommend approval of that mud, then we have, three substantive recommendations. So one is our annual report. I won't get into that extensively. It's obviously a summary of our actions and briefings that we did receive over the course of the last fiscal year. So you can review that at your leisure, and that was approved by the commission, we also recommended, a bridge investment and sidewalks and bikeways. I know that you're all very, very well familiar with the various proposals for transportation or climate infrastructure bond in the city. And, those have gone various places and had various [1:11:33 PM] various places and had various discussions. We put forward a proposal for a more limited bond that would provide green infrastructure, transit, transit, supportive infrastructure and transportation infrastructure, particularly with the light to not slowing down our mobility annual plans and being able to continue our construction of sidewalks. As you may know, we are doing a really, really great job with our commitments to the community in building sidewalks in our city, they really have an amazing operation in terms of what they're able to roll out and the systems that they've put in place to, to build sidewalks in our city. And we really don't want that to slow down. And our concern is that if we don't have some bond funding soon, that actually our sidewalk program is so efficient and amazing that they may actually spend down all of their money. So we don't want any progress to be lost there. So that was the thrust of that recommendation is making sure our trails, bikeways, and particularly our bikeways and sidewalk plans are not left in [1:12:33 PM] sidewalk plans are not left in the cold there as they begin to really spend down some of the prior bond money that our city has graciously voted for. So you can review that there, we also, had a recommendation, leading out of the presentation that we had in June regarding urban trails. And this is actually a great segue because, we are doing a really, really great job at building particularly sidewalks. But also bikeways and bike infrastructure in the city. However, our urban trails program has some unique obstacles. First of all, the urban trails program has a if you're familiar with the 2023 urban trails program, it is. It's much more extended timeline than our other plans. It's a very long delivery timeline for our current urban trails plan. And also, we are not making the same level of progress toward that plan, and spending down some of the money allocated to it as we are with sidewalks. And that's in large part due to many [1:13:33 PM] that's in large part due to many of the very unique, aspects with urban trails in terms of the right of way, in terms of it being a new type of program that people are not as familiar with in some cases, even though we've been doing this a while. So we made some recommendations to accelerate the delivery of the urban trails program to, of course, make sure that we meet the timeline that's contemplated in the urban trails plan, but also to potentially accelerate the plan. And we also know that accelerating with inflation, we get more for our money if we're able to build things quicker. So, our be it resolves if you look through those, we suggested a cross-departmental task force to examine staff capacity and make sure we are do have the right levels of capacity to sustain our plan. That we strengthen staff's ability to secure easements along the trail, easements during the site plan review process, review current building codes to verify if trail friendly retrofits are allowed on existing buildings, and evaluate ways to minimize barriers to trail facing [1:14:33 PM] barriers to trail facing development. This is something that's very important to the commission, and I'd like to highlight it in particular, we have moments where buildings, basically the back of a building or the loading dock of a building faces the urban trail, urban trail that's proposed. And we would love to see opportunities to turn the back of the building into another front of the building with a cafe or a sidewalks or access points. This is they're doing a great job of this in Atlanta. If you're familiar with, I think it's called the beltline there. So this is something that we can really learn from best practices in our city to make sure that we're not, that we're capitalizing on those opportunities, and that our building code isn't working against us there, that we can provide incentives for land use that enhance trail access and adjacent amenities, including reduced setbacks, maintenance agreements, securing trail access for emergency vehicles, preventing residents displacement, and creating affordable housing opportunities near urban trails, to access these great recreational health [1:15:33 PM] these great recreational health parks. Urban trails are really interesting right. And that they're something that they're they have a recreation and health aspect and then they also have people use them to commute. People use them as transportation as well. So they're sort of a really unique space in our city, I think. And then, conduct robust engagement about amenities that, residents would like near urban trails or segments of trails. And also being thoughtful about the park context. But as well as a safety measures that go along the trails, so some things like lighting, signage, emergency call stations and a community outreach plan about urban trails. So we recommended a goal to complete the tier one urban trails, so right now, the original goal in the plan is to complete the tier one urban trails by 2043, which obviously is quite an extended timeline. And we suggested a 65% build out by 2032 and 100% build out by 2038. So trying to accelerate [1:16:35 PM] 2038. So trying to accelerate the delivery of those tier one trails is really what we're driving at. And that would include to get there, we're going to need to our third, be it resolved is identify funding sources. Federal state or private grants, public, private partnerships, as well as a dedicating more budget to of the transportation and public works operating budget. We said 2% to urban trails and then ensure that there are multiple full time employees within the sidewalks program who are focused solely on urban trails. And that is in light of what we've been learning from staff, of the particular need, to build our capacity to deliver these trails quickly, and we also asked for transportation and public works staff to report back to utc semiannually on the progress of the urban trails initiative. So that's definitely our biggest thing that I had to present on today was that recommendation, I already mentioned our annual report and then, our August meeting, we had some discussion of a recommendation. We did not end [1:17:36 PM] recommendation. We did not end up passing a recommendation there, so I won't get into that. We did hear the street impact fee update presentation, which I think you're also getting today. So that is our summer, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> Well, thank you so much for your service on the commission. I know there's a lot of folks that are in these conversations every day, and we really appreciate you all going through all this, especially as a lot of people I know were traveling with their kids out of school and things like that. So we know it's a big commitment. Do you have any questions or comments for the chair? >> I do, thank you Susan, really appreciate your time and all of the urban utc's commissioners time with regard to the urban trails, my understanding, and I've had some conversations with staff about it. And honestly, it would be great to even hear the staff's perspective as well. But when we're doing a bike lane on a street that just doesn't have the watershed and the kind of it's easier essentially it's not the cross-departmental kind of, [1:18:37 PM] the cross-departmental kind of, complex nature that some of the urban trails. And so my understanding is that since we're going to be adding, for example, concrete to a watershed area, we have to mitigate for that, we can have a very delicate areas. Sometimes we have to remediate, in other words, something relatively. And again, I am not an engineer or a builder or anything like that, but something relatively simple becomes very complicated because of the kind of cross-departmental nature of the construction. Do you have any sense of that? Where are we with that? What's going on? Is that is that where a lot of the delays are? >> Yeah. I mean, that is part of it. So the staff presentation in June definitely addressed that quite a bit. Certainly. That's part of it. And keep in mind that many of our urban trails certainly not all, but many actually are adjacent to creeks. So that, of course, is a very insensitive environment. When you're building a trail, you know, right next to a creek, and [1:19:38 PM] know, right next to a creek, and something we want to be thoughtful about. So, yes. And I mean, I certainly don't want to say that watershed never comes into play with bike lanes or sidewalks. We certainly have seen that within the corridor plan, that watershed mitigation issues have greatly affected the delivery of some of the corridor plan elements, so that can have an effect and raise costs. Regardless. I think it's a mix in the urban trails, both of things like the easements, the legal rights, land acquisition in some cases, that is more legally complicated than on a sidewalk or bike lane, where usually the city already has the row. In some cases we may not. And for some of these urban trails. So that can be a complicated, you're also coming through, land. That's sort of a lot of people sort of considered they're not. Maybe it wasn't really, but sort of their private land. You're you're literally going through their backyard or something. So there's some engagement issues that may be a little bit more complex than in a sidewalk situation. That's part of it. And then certainly those watershed issues, and mitigation [1:20:39 PM] watershed issues, and mitigation of some of that with the slopes, with being near to creeks and things like that, and then even something just like getting a gate to an apartment complex like where utc is very focused on that, if you're going behind a complex apartment complex, well, by golly, you know, those residents should have a way to safely access that trail through a gate so that they can get out and experience that amenity that the city is providing. But even something like that can become sort of a negotiation with a landlord or apartment management community, something like that. So you know, there's a lot of things I think staff, what we heard from them is that they are very thoughtful about taking some of the lessons they've learned about efficiency. I mean, they're so efficient with sidewalks. They have these teams and the way that they do do their procurements and their planning, they just like pick up the teams and they move them over to the next place, you know, like they're really have become a very efficient machine. And I think that's why you're [1:21:40 PM] And I think that's why you're seeing such a great spend through on the sidewalk money, we may not be able to translate all of that simplistically to urban trails, but I think they're very hopeful with being with the sidewalk program that the lessons they've learned from that as much as possible. They can try to translate that to urban trails. But we're I think we're beginning to recognize as our urban trail plan matures, some of the unique challenges that urban trails have that may, you know, may argue towards us dedicating more resources to them so that we can work through some of those issues and learn faster and deliver this plan a little bit faster for our community. >> Great. Well, I appreciate that. And I am really I think transportation has done a great job, especially on the on the sidewalk aspects of things. And, and happy to see that. I know I believe John Eastman is over that and I think they're really knocking it out. It's great to see sidewalks going up all over district four, for example, and look forward to seeing the urban trail aspect of the transportation network. Also, hopefully pick up speed in the in the coming years. >> I would hope so. Yeah, I know [1:22:43 PM] >> I would hope so. Yeah, I know it's nice to have some bond funding to do it, but we know that it's going to take future bonds to be able to get us across that finish line, I'm reminded of a time a couple of years back where we actually had transportation secretary buttigieg here at city hall. It was great to get to talk with him. I know there were a number of other city officials that were able to speak with him, and I had brought up one of the concepts that we don't just have our bikeways and trails on the side of the road. And I think that's what makes Austin very special. It's what makes makes commutes safer in the long run that we have this way of planning our parks and our trails and our commutes differently than I think a lot of people do, which is generally build the car lanes first and then just carve out a little space on the side and hope that people might choose to try to ride a bike to work for a commute, or to run an errand. But where you see people in park spaces on those urban trails is where we actually see people trying mode shift goals, trying to try a new way to get around town. And so we know that's [1:23:44 PM] town. And so we know that's something that our community has done really well. And we thank staff for working so diligently on that, Natasha, did you have any questions? I thought I saw your hand up, but just wanted to make sure I didn't miss you. >> Unfortunately, you just busted me eating a piece of pepper. >> Okay, well, we'll we'll we'll move off of you then for a second, but definitely call out if you need my attention for anything. >> I'm trying to keep my eyes up, I'm wondering about the timeline for the trails implementation plan. Is there any update or anything staff wants to speak about at this point on? You know what? What is causing that longer timeline? I know that there's been some conversation around how atlas 14 has changed the way that we deal with drainage, so I'm not sure if that's playing in or if there's something else we need to be thinking of as a council, right now. >> Thank you, madam chair. Richard Mendoza, director of transportation and public works. And I really appreciate the work and the support of the urban transportation commission. Many [1:24:44 PM] transportation commission. Many of the challenges that they're spot on just by the nature of an urban trail building a 12 foot wide trail through an already built urban environment is challenging on a number of fronts. I do want to remind the committee that I think in 21, by resolution, we did stand up an urban trail stakeholder group, and this is a group that consists of my peer department heads from watershed, Austin energy, Austin water, as well as some stakeholder leaders like shoal creek conservancy and the trail conservancy, we met we meet quarterly to discuss just these types of challenges and ways that we can mitigate and facilitate the building of trails, some of the winds that we've been able to accomplish with our partners in watershed, who've been very supportive, is some allowances on cut and fill requirements. Some allowances on what they would consider [1:25:44 PM] what they would consider impervious cover. And, and those have been very, very helpful, but in terms of the timeline, you know, we're, we're aiming for substantial completion by 26. There may be some trails that go beyond that due to right of way issues. We're dealing with the rail line like on Burcham spur, trying to get those easements, available for us. And we've made other improvements, such as during development review. I've got my reviewers now at the pdc looking at plans when they come in for planning to make sure that we are they're reserving those easements for urban trails in accordance with our osm. P there's been a couple of instances where we've missed that, and we've had to engage with developers and negotiate some alternative designs, but we're aggressively, you know, moving forward on the implementation of the 2018, no. 2020 and 2016 urban trail program. And to the extent that I can, that the sidewalks and [1:26:45 PM] I can, that the sidewalks and they have been a great success story, I've been pushing them hard since I first came here, to Austin, to the extent that they free up some capacity, they'll be available to support not just the urban trails program, but also the safe routes to school mobility program. >> That's great to hear. And I know when we built the 2020 bond, we built in a buffer at the beginning, knowing that it was going to take staff some time to kind of create that project management plan and understand how all of these were going to dovetail together. But, you know, we have obviously seen how our floodplain is changing, have impacted projects. Yes. So I'm curious to see where we can take it from here and how how we can better collaborate, whether that's inter-departmental or just understanding kind of what regulations are are playing in here. I know when we built the urban trails stakeholder group, one of the issues was kind of wayfinding signage and Ada ramps. There was a little conversation around, you know, how do you put these permanent structures in floodplains in ways that hadn't really been thought of before. And so I'm [1:27:46 PM] thought of before. And so I'm glad that that stakeholder group is still actively working together and looking through some of those code variances, but appreciate the work that's going on on those. >> Thank you. >> Any further questions on these? All right. I think that will move us to the next item, which is going to be an update on the street impact fee program from assistant director barua. Welcome. >> Good afternoon, chair. Vice chair, all the committee members and council members. My name is upol barua, assistant director, Austin transportation and public works department. This afternoon I'm going to talk about our street impact fee program. So this is the, layout of my presentation. I'm going to talk about the street impact fee. Like what it is, why we apply the impact fee, the implementation timeline, the [1:28:46 PM] implementation timeline, the applicability of the impact fee, and also how much we invoice. So far under the program and how much we collected thus far. And also some of the mobility improvements we constructed out of the impact fee fund. And any questions you all have for me. So again, the broader question, what is the street impact fee? Street impact fee is a program that allows developments to pay for themselves as new developments come in, they trigger the need for additional mobility infrastructure and impact fee program is a way to construct new infrastructure just so that we can accommodate new density and new developments. Under this particular program, each and every development has to pay for their fair and equitable share towards mobility, infrastructure. Under this program. Applicants has to pay for the impact fee based on their location, intensity, and [1:29:50 PM] their location, intensity, and the type of developments and one of the primary benefits of the impact fee program is that it provides the predictability, certainty, and transparency to the applicants, and the applicants can calculate their obligation towards mobility at the inception of the project. So when do applicants have to pay for the impact fee as applicants go through the zoning process, subdivision process, site plan and building permit, they don't really have to pay the impact fee until they get to the building permit process. And as we collect the funding, we save the funding in the impact fee fund and we spend them towards the mobility projects, towards our capacity improvements, roadway projects, just so that we can manage congestion and enhance our efficiency on the [1:30:50 PM] enhance our efficiency on the transportation system. This is a tentative timeline of our impact fee program. The impact fee ordinance was adopted by city council back in December of 2020, and then there was a grace period for 18 months. And in that 18 months, applicants were able to process their applications that they submitted before the impact fee ordinance. Just so that they are not caught in between the adoption and after the 18 months of the grace period. We also established a public facing dashboard just so that we can see how much impact fee we have collected in each of the 17 service areas, how much we have spent, what are the mobility projects we constructed out of the impact fee fund and moving forward beyond December of 2023? All the projects are going to be, subject to the impact fee. If the impact fee is [1:31:52 PM] impact fee. If the impact fee is triggered. So when is impact fee triggered for the development process? Not all the developments triggered the impact fee. It depends on the size and intensity of the development and technically speaking, impact fee is triggered when a particular development generates about ten afternoon peak hour trips. But what does that mean? So it means that ten afternoon peak hour trips it equates to about 10 to 11 single family units. If you think about a multifamily development, it's going to be about 23 multifamily units. If it's a mid-rise apartment complex, if it's high rise, that number is 28 dwelling units for offices. It's about 9000ft S. So when a particular development meets these thresholds, the [1:32:53 PM] meets these thresholds, the impact fee is triggered. So under the impact fee program the entire city is divided into 17 service areas. And these 17 service areas were created based on the land use all over the city. Plus the trip length for each of the service areas. We had established the model back in 2020 during the adoption process, and each of the service areas, they have a different collection rate and one of the limitations of the impact fee program is that when we collect the impact fee in each of the service areas, the impact fee has to be spent within that particular service area. It cannot cross the boundary and go into another service area. There are certain reductions in offsets. We offer to the applicants when they work on the development process, and if the [1:33:54 PM] development process, and if the applicants and developers they construct mobility improvements within the right of way, they get an offset towards the impact fee and we really highly encourage the applicants to take that opportunity and construct mobility improvements within the right of way. So as we collect the impact fee and put them in the fund, what do we do with this fund? What is the intent of the fund? What type of projects can we build out of the impact fee. So during the impact fee adoption process back in December of 2020, we established a ten year roadway capacity plan that included over 1100 mobility projects. There are different variety of projects in that particular, roadway capacity plan. It ranges from constructing a new street, providing a new connection in [1:34:54 PM] providing a new connection in our street network, upgrading to full connection to provide all the elements of the cross section or converting one way to two way, or vice versa, providing access management to our current system. Improving an intersection, adding additional lane to the intersection or constructing a new signal or a roundabout. All of these are included in that ten year roadway capacity plan. So when we have a project and if the project is falling within that, parameter, then we can apply the impact fee fund. For administering the impact fee program with our applicants and developers, we established the worksheet house just so that applicants can very easily calculate their obligation towards mobility. And we also published a guideline for the impact fee program. Just so that applicants can easily follow [1:35:57 PM] applicants can easily follow through the steps during the development review process, there are certain reductions we offer to the applicants based on the ordinance and some of the reductions are based on affordable housing provided when an applicant is providing affordable housing. If it's a 60% mfi for rental units or 80% mfi or higher for, ownership units, they get a particular reduction in their impact fee. If an applicant is developing a mixed use development, you know, maybe residential, commercial, retail, plus office altogether, they are able to capture the trips within the site. There is less impact on the overall street network. So that gives the applicants a particular reduction towards impact fee. If an applicant is proposing a development closer to transit line, that really incentivizes [1:36:58 PM] line, that really incentivizes transit ridership and also lessens the impact on the street network. So for that, the applicants get a reduction towards impact fee. If the applicants are proposing a parking supply, less than a particular threshold, again, they are discouraging single occupant vehicles on the street. So they get, a reduction for that as well. So these are some of the reductions available to the applicants. Just so that they can take the opportunity during the development process. So this slide provides an overview of how much we collected so far and how much we have gotten constructed for mobility improvements within the right of way, and how much reductions we have provided thus far. So between June of 2022 till June of this year, we have collected about $10 million in [1:38:00 PM] collected about $10 million in our impact fee fund across the 17 service areas. And on top of this $10 million, we have also gotten about $6 million worth of mobility improvements within our right of way. And in this time, we also had given about $2.3 million affordable reductions to the applicants. This is a representation of how much we invoiced so far and how much we collected across the 17 service areas. And as you can see to date, we have collected about 20 or we have invoiced about $20 million, but we collected $10 million. So there is a gap between how much we invoiced and how much we collected. And there are a couple of reasons for that. As we go to the development review process. Generally speaking, applicants like to wait until the very end before they make the payment for [1:39:02 PM] before they make the payment for the impact fee. At the time of building permit. And also in the past, say, 12 to 18 months. In the current environment of high interest rate, many applicants are waiting to see if it makes sense for them to pull the building permit or wait for a drop in the interest rate just so that their project becomes more feasible for them. So because of that reason, there is a lag between when we invoice and when we are able to collect the impact fee. This is again a distribution of the mobility improvements we have gotten constructed within the right of way across the 17 service areas, and it's really an option to the applicants. We always encourage the applicants to build the mobility, infrastructure and mobility improvements within the right of way as they develop their site. Some developers, they decide to go for it. Some developers decide to write us a [1:40:03 PM] developers decide to write us a check just so that they can move on with their development. So it's really an option for developers either to construct the improvements and get an offset towards the impact fee, or write us a full check. So this is an example of how the impact fee allows the development to pay for themselves. And it's really difficult for us in the public agency to keep on constructing improvements for each and every development. So that's why we always encourage the developers to build the infrastructure for themselves. So this is an area in the southwest corner of Lamar and palmer intersection in district seven. And there are multiple developments that came in to develop the site. And as you can see, there are disconnections in our street network. It's not connected, it's not compact, and it's not really providing a good connectivity to the community. [1:41:03 PM] connectivity to the community. So as the new developments came in, we worked with them. And as you can see, one applicant came in and they started building the infrastructure on the northern side. And they are providing connections and completing the street network. And other applicant came in. They're constructing the southern side of the network and constructing street infrastructure and really providing the connectivity that we need for the new proposed development. As well as the existing developments we have in the community. So that's how the impact fee works. It really allows the applicants to construct some of the connectivities in our street network, and that's how we can incentivize density and connectivity, as well as new developments in our community, that's all I have for you all today. Of course, if you have any questions, I'm here to answer, that's great. >> Do we have questions from the committee members? [1:42:04 PM] committee members? >> Council member Vella, thank you very much for the presentation. It's a great way to fund the very needed transportation services, and I really just want to highlight that development fees, the street impact fees for the development, stay within the location of the development. And so when folks are seeing new apartments or new construction going on in their neighborhood, there are monies highly likely that there are money there. There are monies flowing toward transportation projects within their neighborhoods as well. Due to that construction. I think that's a really important link that we need to continue to convey to our community, are there ways that we can leverage the street impact fees? In other words, is that money just in its own bucket, or can we combine that with bond money, capital improvement money, whatever the case may be, may be so that, you know, we don't have to just have it sitting in the bank, but we [1:43:05 PM] it sitting in the bank, but we can actually put it to, to use on the streets, >> Great questions. Council member yes, we have the opportunities to leverage the impact we fund with any other funding sources like bond or any cip fund that we have, and we are currently working on that. How we can just leverage that funding and not wait for the bucket to build up just so that we can build bigger projects. So that is something that we're actively working on. >> And that would be very helpful because if there is and I think again, I think people really appreciate, the, the concept of the street impact fees that my only, what I hear from constituents, the concern is that this building went up and nothing has happened, you know, like, where is that money? Why haven't we seen those improvements? So any opportunities that we have to leverage other monies and advance those transportation- projects definitely want to take advantage of them. So thank you very much. I have some questions and I'm sorry if I am setting us back to square one. >> As far as you know, where where we've come from and where we're heading on this. I know [1:44:05 PM] we're heading on this. I know when council member Kitchin was chairing this committee many years ago, this is when we took up street impact fee and really meeting over meeting over meeting went through some of the details of how it was supposed to be structured. Staff did an amazing job assessing how exactly these were going to be applied and used, so my question is a bit about other other improvements and if street impact fee is applicable for those I know there's a lot of roadway capacity discussion, but I'm curious because I have a couple of locations in my district that are capmetro routes, and I'm curious if there's ways the city can help assist with the other modes. I know it's not going to be building bus slips and anything like that, but could it help people with crosswalks or beacons to get to and from these? As we try to look at our public transit, bike and pedestrian usage, are there ways to kind of enhance sidewalks or shared use paths in this conversation, or is it more focused on just car roadway capacity? >> Thank you, chair. I think it's yes and no. So yes, because if there are improvements that [1:45:10 PM] if there are improvements that are part of the bigger roadway project for example, when we construct a new project or upgrade a project or, say, a substandard street, we are not only adding roadway capacity, we are adding sidewalk bicycle lanes, shared use, shared use paths, and also carbon gutter. So that is allowed under the impact fee program where the limitation comes in is when we are constructing offset improvements away from the site and solely targeted towards, say, bike lane or or sidewalk for that matter. There are additional requirements for new developments. If there are missing links in the periphery of the development by code, they need to. They have to construct sidewalk, bike lanes, whatever is in there, but yeah, so the limitation is posed by the state law. It has to be part of the roadway capacity plan. But again, if there are phases that we can [1:46:11 PM] if there are phases that we can construct it could be, say, adding a sidewalk part of the bigger roadway project or adding bike lane as part of the bigger roadway project, then that is allowed under the impact fee program. But it has to be a phase of the bigger construction project. >> Okay. And so let me make sure that I'm understanding correctly. Let's say there is a new facility that goes in on a road and there's street impact fee used to expand and enhance that road. The money may or may not be able to be used for an adjoining property that's already constructed, that maybe just didn't have an Ada ramp for a bus stop, or getting to a bus stop on the same road. If that property just never built it because it, you know, predated ordinances that make you build Ada accessibility. Would those fees be able to be used to help people that are on that street that want to use these other modes? >> I think if that is targeted improvements for other modes away from the site, I think that is the limitation that the state [1:47:12 PM] is the limitation that the state law puts in on the impact fee under the local government code. >> 395 okay, but if it's maybe on the same side of the street and could be useful, your assessment is that maybe it would qualify, correct? >> Yeah. >> If it's on the same side of the street, closer to or adjacent to the site per code, they need to improve that. >> And older one might benefit from an improvement that is specifically for the newer development, but still serves the older one. If people are getting there on the same pathway. >> Correct? >> Yeah, I think there are, you know, certain, requirements under the state law. And we are trying to be as flexible as we can, but also need to make sure that we are complying with the state law under the impact fee. Okay. >> No, I appreciate that because I remember going through this in great detail many years ago, and I used to joke that we had to put on our street impact fee hat and say, clear the table. We've got to really dig into what this is, what it does, how it functions, and what our limitations are. And so it's just been a couple of years since we went through that. But [1:48:13 PM] since we went through that. But appreciate that. And I will say, I know there's a lot of other different ways that we can improve sidewalk bikes and public transit connectivity. I just want to make sure we know the limitations of street impact fee in particular. >> Thank you. Jeff >> That's great. Thank you. I think that covers it for this item. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Our next item we're going to bring up is going to be the electrification of fleet update from city of Austin fleet mobility services as well as capmetro. So we appreciate having both here today, council member vela and I both are fortunate to serve on the board of capmetro. And so we know we've seen some of the information that may be presented here in a minute. In that capacity, but always love to cross-pollinate the information that's coming. So everybody can be on the same page about where these updates are. So we will now welcome Rick Harland, assistant director of fleet mobility. >> Good afternoon, chair Ellis. Good afternoon, council members, both present and online, so what I thought I'd do today is just [1:49:13 PM] I thought I'd do today is just kind of level set with you initially with where we are as a total fleet, we're a fleet of 7500 fleet assets. We do a little of everything with fleet from cradle to grave. We also manage 42 fuel sites across the board. We do comprehensive repair program. We manage our inventory and supply planning and forecasting for all of our fuel. And what I wanted to share with you, just to kind of orient you a little bit to it, is the diversification of our fleet on the chart on the left, you can see kind of in simple terms, the breakdown of the diverse array of fleet that we've got within the city of Austin. And the chart on the right is our vehicles or excuse me, our fuel types that we have out there. And it's a you can see we've got quite a few different kinds of fuels. We've embraced all kinds of alternative fuels in the past, from biodiesel to cng to propane, of course, to electrification. So with that [1:50:15 PM] electrification. So with that said, what I thought I would do is walk you through a little bit of our mobility strategy, the procurement process, electrification and alternative fuels, and then we'll wrap it up from there. First thing in a the world we're in today is an extremely complicated and changing world of the automotive industry. At this point, it is a the epitome of a global supply chain. There are a lot of changes that are taking place in this area. We have a mobility strategy that focuses on this. We focus on, innovation and sustainability and efficiency generally across the board and at its core is really our kind of advanced automotive technology, where we're looking at electrification and telematics and safety technology for our drivers. And of course, aligning with our environmental goals for the city itself. All of this leading towards being as efficient as possible and as predictive as possible to make sure our vehicles are as operational operationally sound. So when we buy vehicles at the [1:51:16 PM] So when we buy vehicles at the city of Austin, they go through a process with us and we buy about 600 vehicles a year, both for the general fund and enterprise fund. And the first thing we're looking at is are we're downsizing, we're rightsizing, we're looking at utilization, we're looking at telematics. We're trying to see can we buy an electric vehicle. And that's the, the gateway at this point to electrifying the fleet. We are a center led, top down organization at the city of Austin that will implement the strategies that city council is asking for when it comes to electrification. We operate off of a master agreement that is a five year master agreement and forecast, and we'll be putting that in front of you in the next couple of months. The new master agreement will be coming up for council approval and then we hand vehicles over whatever the departments want to and what we've determined needs to be replaced to our strategic sourcing team that will go out and find an electric vehicle option or a hybrid vehicle option. And it's what's best for [1:52:18 PM] option. And it's what's best for the city, including warranty and support and best price from an electric vehicle standpoint. And where we stand, we have 360 battery electric vehicles today operating. We've saved 6400 metric tons. We're saving basically about $1,200 for each one of these light duty vehicles. Today, we had a ten year plan that started in 2017, and that we and our estimation was that we would if we bought 330 battery electric vehicles, we would save $3.5 million over ten years. We're going to exceed that savings goal 12 to 18 months ahead of plan. So the cost savings are real. We've exceeded the actual targeted purchase quantity, and our savings really are closer to about 2.3 million cumulatively to date. We build our own charging infrastructure here at the city of Austin for the fleet, but we also make it available to employees. And its, who want to charge their vehicles there. It's part of a [1:53:19 PM] vehicles there. It's part of a larger chargepoint infrastructure build out. We have 174 charging ports. It's kind of a 2 to 1 ratio of vehicle to charging station. These are all level two, right now, there was a program that was plugged in everywhere. Program that Austin energy had that's changed recently, and now it's $0.09 a kilowatt hour to charge those vehicles. So we're well on our path to kind of building out more infrastructure. And I think that that is what we all refer to as the long pole in the tent. And we're I think we're evolving is to more a level three or DC fast charge charging infrastructure of the future, with regard to, the fleet and its alignment with the climate equity plan, we our goal and our current glide path is to by 2171 vehicles over the next 17 years. The goal is to get to 18 million miles, or 40% of total miles traveled. The fleet travels about 45 million [1:54:20 PM] fleet travels about 45 million miles a year. 18 million miles is kind of that general threshold will probably exceed that, the incremental cost to buy battery electric vehicles over ice vehicles or internal combustion engine vehicles over that same time period is about 12.7 million battery electric vehicles are a little bit more expensive, but we believe we'll reach price parity and actually costing less per vehicle and probably 2031 or so, 2032, right. In that time frame, we would have to increase our fleet. Battery electric vehicle fleet by about 14% per year. Again, this is our current glide path. We'd also be building out the charging infrastructure infrastructure to support that which we estimate to cost about $11.3 million. So that's how we align with our climate equity plan. Now we have goals to exceed this timeline and do it sooner. But one of the things that we always like to talk about is kind of winning the culture change. When you go into a room of a thousand people, you [1:55:22 PM] a room of a thousand people, you walk out with a thousand different opinions on whether a battery electric vehicle is a good thing or a bad thing. Anybody that's ever driven one has really enjoyed it. They do. They do drive differently, and they are there. A lot of fun to drive. We've got a 80% participation rate across the city. That's the number of departments that are participating in the battery electric vehicle program. Surprisingly enough, almost 20% of the participants, inventory of battery electric vehicles is our public safety departments. We're well funded in our current budget and future budgets to continue to build on our battery electric vehicle program, with that said, I'll kind of move to where we can make a difference in accelerating our goals of 40% of vehicle miles traveled. And this is our Chevy blazer ev police pursuit pilot program. And a police pursuit vehicle is a vehicle that's been certified on a Michigan test track that to meet the needs of our public safety, our law enforcement [1:56:24 PM] safety, our law enforcement officers. So it tests the stress of the vehicle. It sends it around a track. You've got a harsh turning, harsh acceleration and braking. Then they look at the vehicle and see what kind of wear and tear did it do it in a certain time frame. It's got to meet these qualifications to be certified. So general motors has certified a Chevy blazer to meet this goal. And, so this is a pilot program between APD and us. It does 130 miles an hour, 498 horsepower, 250 mile range on it. It's got an eight year warranty on the battery. Kind of meets all the criteria, it's a fairly lengthy pilot program because introducing battery electric vehicles into law enforcement is a complex process and needs very, needs quite a bit of scrutiny, we are currently in phase three and phase five simultaneously right now with this project timeline, it should be noted that in phase three that we've already got [1:57:24 PM] three that we've already got $3.2 million. That was added to the fy 25 budget to build DC fast charge for this particular project and others. So we're building the charging infrastructure in phase three and phase five. These vehicles have already been built, and we're actually looking at the design of the electronics and how they're fitting in. And how they're going to mount inside the vehicles. It's just a different footprint. The electrical system of these vehicles is different, and it's new for everybody. So we're currently in phase five. We'll have these vehicles on the ground by the end of the calendar year. And in 2025, we expect to have APD running these vehicles downtown. And we'll both between Austin police department and the fleet mobility services service center operations will evaluate the durability and reliability and charge times and how they hold up in the environment that we operate them in, in a true law enforcement scenario. So 2025 is kind of that test ground, time frame. And then by the fourth quarter of 2025, going into the [1:58:27 PM] quarter of 2025, going into the first quarter of 2026, we'll do a postmortem on that. We'll evaluate those vehicles, determine what's good, what's bad, any kind of gap analysis on these. And then just in time for our 2026 budget so we can see if we want to increase our rate of adoption there. At this point, it should be noted that the police department all by itself is 40% of the total miles traveled in the city, in the prior slide, when we aligned with the climate equity plan, we did not include these vehicles in that timeline. So we have a potential to cut the kind of timeline for increasing battery electric vehicle miles traveled substantially with this program. If it's truly successful, next slide, I would be remiss to not mention some of the real issues and concerns that face the automotive industry. We kind of talked about it previously. There are macroeconomic issues that are out there. Cost of capital. We do deal with private sector companies who are looking to make a profit and stay in business. There's some need to [1:59:29 PM] business. There's some need to really get DC fast charge out there and get get more charging stations available to the public where it's more like normally like you fill up the gas tank on your vehicle, as opposed to going and parking your vehicle and having it sit there for 24 hours to get a full charge, so fortunately, like I said, we're funded to put in a battery electric vehicle DC fast charge overlay over the city today for the city fleet. So thank you to the finance department and budget office for allowing us to run with that, there's also some changes in battery technology moving from lithium ion to solid state batteries, which could cut down the time it takes to charge and the weight of the batteries themselves. And of course, we're dealing with an array of vehicle manufacturers and the diversification of their fleet. And what are they going to build and what are they going to support? Ultimately, they have to be there for the long haul for us, when we buy vehicles and put them into the fleet, they've got to last the entire life cycle of the of the vehicle. And [2:00:30 PM] cycle of the of the vehicle. And if it breaks down, then you have to have the parts and the expertise to repair that, additionally, you know, with battery technology and batteries, generally, the mining operations, supply chains, the battery assembly facilities, just all staff have to be stood up. And that supply chain is being worked through nationally and internationally today. So good news story to kind of finish up is that, the city of Austin's fleet is, kind of an amazing story when it comes to alternative fuels. It's, it's grown 54% over the last 12 years. It's we use a million more gallons of fuel a year, and carbon emissions are 10% lower than they were in 2007. So we hit peak carbon output in 2007 and have grown the fleet 54%. And that's been done largely because of improvements in engine technology. And, you know, obviously you got to buy new vehicles and replace the old inefficient vehicles. We've used a lot of grant opportunities for [2:01:30 PM] a lot of grant opportunities for almost $10 million in grant money to replace those inefficient vehicles. And of course, the use of alternative fuels that's been embraced by the city of Austin. And you can't do this unless you own your own fuel infrastructure. Again, we issue out about 5.6 million gallons a year, and we do about 1000 transactions a day in fuel, I just want to say thank you for having us here today, you know, obviously our mobility strategy is driving innovation, sustainability and efficiency, which you see on the screen there is our actually our solar level two charging station, charging one of our Ford lightning pickup trucks. And that is over at the, outside of Austin public health and municipal court. If you ever want to drive by and take a look at it, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. >> Very nice. Do we have any questions? I don't believe so. I have a question in our planning. Is there a breakdown of, you [2:02:33 PM] Is there a breakdown of, you know, which vehicles are most likely to be transferred over? I know that there's just some, like for instance, a Austin resource brush pickup vehicle that doesn't strike me as something that can be converted because I don't know that that products on the market, do we have anywhere with that assessment's been done regarding public safety vehicles versus, you know, our transportation, mobility officers, that issue parking tickets? I know those are electric. Is there a breakdown of kind of which ones we have in our our repertoire, our portfolio that just aren't options yet until some new item is developed? >> That's a that's a great question. And very insightful as well. So we do we absolutely looked across the entire inventory of the fleet and looked at every single department. What you're really looking at is your light and medium duty vehicles. That's going to be your most obvious, transition opportunity. So we've that's how we came up with the 2171 vehicles that we're going to replace, and we know what [2:03:33 PM] to replace, and we know what year they're going to replace. We know when they're organically to be replaced. Of course, we have an opportunity to go ahead and do early replacement on them as well. If we want to move forward with that plan. But yes, that analysis has been done. I did present that at the audit finance committee meeting back in the spring, and I could share that with you again. I'd be happy to send it over to you. >> Oh, that would be great if you could just point me to exactly which meeting date to look up. I can go find it myself, but I know we can't attend. Everyone do you have a question you thought of just real quick? >> I saw miss Schabowski. I think he must have snuck away on me. But he's. He's just right. Oh, there he is. All right. I was just wondering, is there are we going to have a capital metro, aspect to this presentation or have a full. >> That's that's the next phase. So I'm gonna I'm gonna zip it for now.p>> Hold them and see if qu Schabowski presents that. I think that does it for our questions today, we appreciate the information. And thanks for the work you're doing. Thank you. >> Take care. Thank you. >> All right. The next phase as promised, is from capmetro. [2:04:34 PM] promised, is from capmetro. Thank you for joining us today at mobility committee. We have CEO Andy Schabowski with us. Well hello, committee members, >> My name is Andy Schabowski. I'm the chief operating officer over at capmetro, first there there's been a lot of talk about cap metro's electric fleet of late, and I just wanted to start by reassuring the committee that cap metro's commitments have not changed. What we want to do for the community and this committee and what we presented to this committee is our commitments have not changed. Today. I want to touch on those commitments, touch on our technology of choice strategy that we're moving to and what that means for us moving forward. Capmetro sustainability commitment, the most environmentally friendly thing our community can do is get out of a car and get into a bus, the second thing we can do as cap metro is make that transit ride as clean as we possibly can make it. The combination of two things effectuate and allow us to improve and clean air. Our sustainability vision plan is, includes a goal of reaching net [2:05:39 PM] includes a goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2040. And we also have a number of different things that we're doing outside of the fleet to reach that sustainability goal from energy conservation to water and natural world stuff, green building and infrastructure changes, active transportation. There's a lot going on there outside of the fleet. Obviously, the fleet is probably the biggest element, a number of months ago, we engaged with Texas transportation institute of Texas A&M to help us go and get a good idea of the state of the electric bus, battery electric bus industry and how that impacts capmetro on our plans. A little history on a Bev bus market since 2021. Back in 2021, a transit agency had six choices for oems to build or or purchase a battery electric vehicle with proterra on pretty much owning most of the market at 55%. Proterra only builds [2:06:39 PM] at 55%. Proterra only builds battery electric vehicles. They don't build any diesel or any other type of vehicles, but battery electric. Byd at 24%. New flier industries, which is probably the largest manufacturer in the states at 20%. As we move to 2022, batteries, how much battery was building that reduced a little bit? Some other players, Gillig increased its, its impact on the industry. But the big changes started happening as we approached 2024. We started with six manufacturers in 2024. We're now down to three. Byd has left the us market, and a number of the others. There was two more in with. The others have actually left the us market and or closed and are not producing battery electric vehicles anymore. And so that's really reduced the amount of manufacturers we can lean into a to get the vehicles, but also to support the vehicles and everything else. Let's go through the two main players and [2:07:40 PM] through the two main players and give you a feel for what's going on. Cat metro, our electric fleet bus fleet includes two different vehicle types or two different oems. We have 46 proterra busses. These numbers are when I say 46. By the end of this year, because we have busses coming in and out, we'll have 46 proterra and Edward Phoenix. I'll get to in a second. And then we have 58 new flier busses, coming in in the fall of 2023, one of the big impacts to the, battery electric vehicle oem market is that proterra the biggest player, declared chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company was was then split into three different entities, one Phoenix motor cars, which is actually the one that builds the busses. And then a company called camber, which does the charging side of the business, and then volvo, which does the battery side of the business. All three of these have not been fully stood up yet. There's still a little bit uncertainty. We have concerns and uncertainty with Phoenix motor cars as it relates to our warranty, our service, our parts and our [2:08:40 PM] service, our parts and our software and that's on 46 of our busses. The rest of the industry. New flier. They are the largest bus manufacturer in North America. They, as with every bus oem, the reason why we dropped from 6 to 3, it's been a tough market. The pandemic really impacted the bus market, busses are specialty vehicles. They're very complicated to build. There's a real small portion of oems out there to do it. The bus industry has been very slow to recover from the supply chain issues. And then as we move to and purchase battery electric busses, brought them into service and get them here in Austin, we realize also how big infrastructure is a component of this, our the infrastructure required for a large vehicle, a heavy duty vehicle is a little different than that of a car or a small truck. The reliability of that charging equipment has not been where we like it. And there are really long lead times for some [2:09:41 PM] really long lead times for some critical elements like, just the chargers themselves along the items. That's a good example. Now let's look ahead. Similar. We even chose the same color, the blue similar issues or things that we need to take into account as we look at battery electric performance and air availability. One the workforce, it's a different animal to a mechanic. A diesel mechanic can close their eyes and they can see how an engine works. They have to get that knowledge, get that experience and get that training to do that with electric vehicles. So it takes them a finding the technicians is one issue. B training our existing technicians is, is, is, is where we're at now and what we're doing, busses also spend up to 16 hours on a route, a range of his typical battery electric busses, about eight hours. And so it really doesn't at this point fit in to how we operate on a daily basis. It's not the same as electric car. We can't charge to be the same way. [2:10:43 PM] can't charge to be the same way. They take specialized cutting and cutting edge equipment. The technology is maturing now and it might not be as reliable now, but the technology and battery technology is maturing as they mature. One of the things that is maturing is also the fact that we're they're harder to fix at this point. But as we get experience with them as we work with them, as we work with the oems, that's part of the maturing of the technology. Getting to the point where you can fix an electric bus as quick as you can, fix a diesel bus, if you look at their reliability on the street, they actually probably have issues about the same rate as an existing bus. What we're finding is there we have vehicle availability issues with them because when you get them in a shop and you try to fix them, a it takes a little bit more time to figure it out. B sometimes you don't get it right. The first time. Even the oem and parts have been an issue. You put that all together and I just can't get the bus back up and we can't get the bus [2:11:44 PM] back up and we can't get the bus back to where we can use it in a in a reasonable fashion. So the vehicle availability has been a concern, give you a rough idea of our fleet, cat metro has a fleet of 460 full size busses, average age right now is about eight. A useful life on a bus is 12 to 14. That means we replaced anywhere in the 12 to 14 range. Like I said presently we have a large order of 92 electric busses. They're doing at year's end. And our goal we're going to slightly change our purchase plans a little bit moving forward. We like to buy 1/12 of a fleet. Any given year. It gives you a couple of different things outside of reliability of how you set up your fleet. Long term fleet maintenance plan, but also as you introduce the technology I'm introducing 35 instead of 92. And I think moving to that gives us some flexibility as part of the technology of choice approach. It gives you the ability to absorb technology. In a fashion in which you're not biting off too much. And our goal, obviously, would be a fleet age [2:12:45 PM] obviously, would be a fleet age of anywhere of 6 to 7 years, with the purchase of these 90, 92 and getting us up to 104, we're kind of in the lead as far as having a green fleet. 25% of our fleet is going to be battery electric vehicles or zero emission vehicles. As responsible stewards of public funds, we we're going to keep our we keep our busses 10 to 12 years. And one of the things we're looking at is if we have a sustainability goal that gets us to zero zero at 2040 busses, we buy today, well, they won't be here at 2040, they'll be retired. So we have some room to let technology mature. We have some room to learn from it, but we also have some room to keep pursuing our commitments, our technology choice strategy allows us the flexibility to look at different solutions, not just say we're going to all buy battery electric vehicles, we're [2:13:45 PM] battery electric vehicles, we're going to look at what's out there in the market, buy the best technology that meets our service needs and goals, includes things like buying hybrid electric in in this period of time, looking at hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells better match the duty cycles of a bus. How we use a bus, how the industry typically uses a bus. It pretty much carries with it a generator, be it the fuel cell and you can keep it out there for 14 to 15 to 16 hours that we typically keep a bus out there, right now we're looking at our next vehicle procurement because we have such a large procurement now to arrive in the 2026 time frame. And we're making decisions over the next coming months of exactly what technology that will be. But it would most likely be hybrid electric at this time. Want to assure our customers that you will see coming this January? Battery electric vehicles in service. You will see them out in the street, and we're going to run them and we're going to run them for 12 years, we will [2:14:48 PM] run them for 12 years, we will continue to support the bevs we have. We will continue to build out the infrastructure we need, one in a major infrastructure components you'll see over the next year is end of line charging on our pv and exposed service that we're starting in January that will allow us to utilize the electric vehicles on that service. And the line charging allows you to top the vehicle off while it's out there and extends its range over the deck. I do want to end by going back to the beginning. If you allow me. There's two elements to. Public transit having a positive impact on clean air. One is obviously to get the bus out there. The other is to make it as clean as possible. If we can't reliably get the electric vehicles out there the way we need them, all those people standing next to that bus will still be in their cars. The two have to fit together. We have to be able to reliably put service [2:15:49 PM] be able to reliably put service on the street in order for us to effectuate a change. The clean air, open for any questions. >> Thank you for the presentation. Questions council member Vella. >> Thank you. Very informative. Again, I know we've talked about this at a couple times. Capital metro. And I just want to reemphasize that the biggest environmental impact that transit, public transit can have is to get people out of their single occupancy vehicles, that is, from my perspective, the absolute number one goal. To me, the type of fuel that the bus uses is, is an important consideration, but is a secondary consideration. We have to maintain the reliability of the of the system. You know, people have to really expect and rely on the bus to be there when it's there. And right now, just again, from the conversations [2:16:49 PM] again, from the conversations we've had from from the presentation that you just gave, given the state of the market, I'm glad that we have invested in this contingent of, electric busses. Let's use them. Let's learn from them. But I do completely support capital metro's decision to kind of hit pause on the continued investment until we can digest and understand the, the, the situation with the fleet a little bit better until we get the mechanics trained and until we know really what the state of the market is, where the, you know, parts and whatnot, as you mentioned, now we might be pausing some investment or dollars, but we are looking and we will focus on what is available on the market, what technologies we can bring in and try. >> There are a number of transit agencies that started a battery electric and now are doing hydrogen as well, and so everything that we do moving forward will have the eye of we need to still make that 2040 goal because it's our it's our [2:17:51 PM] goal because it's our it's our goal. It's our commitment. And so, decisions that we make through the next couple of years are all focused on making sure we make that 2040 goal. >> And with the pleasant valley and the colony park, routes, the charging infrastructure will be there to support the battery electric busses. Is that correct, >> In the start of January, we're going to start. We will use electric busses, but not on those routes, because the end of line charging is not in place yet, I could not effectively utilize busses that have to go back to the garage at eight hours to charge. We would need double the amount of busses and we really do it. We would be setting ourselves up to fail. So the plan is, is to actually start that service with diesel equipment, but put those electric busses out on any routes that we can possibly put them out on eight hour, and we have a portion of routes that we can put them out. But the pv and expo is a long route and it does it for it to effectively work. It needs end of the line charging. It needs to be able to [2:18:53 PM] charging. It needs to be able to top that bus off on the end in order to keep it going. >> And I know on those two routes and I'm sorry, I called the colony park, but it's an expo, route. There are, park and rides at the end that are going to have the charging stations built in. What? And I'm sorry to hit you with this. You may not have the number off the top of your head, but how what are the capital costs involved of installing the end of line charging routes? Because that would not be present in, for example, for a diesel or a hydrogen powered. >> And I have to apologize. I do not have the number off the top of my head, and I we can obviously get that to you very quickly. >> And then that's just another concern in the sense of if we are going to need these end of the route, charging stops to top them off and keep them going all day. What are going to be the capital costs involved? Again, you know, we are all trying to you know, maximize the efficiency of the public dollars that, that that we spend. And that is a concern where, you know, if we're going to have to spend, you know, 4 million, $6 [2:19:53 PM] spend, you know, 4 million, $6 million on, charging stations, electrification, a lot of these places, they don't have electricity. We're going to have to, you know, really kind of expand the, the, the build it out, that is a very, a very serious concern outside of the busses that we purchase over 100 busses. >> I mean, we're going to have over 104 busses, obviously pv and expo is those two routes don't use all those busses. We're going to be putting them out in the street on, on, on all throughout Austin and all different routes. What we're going to discover real quick is exactly what you said, where we're going to need that other investment. You know, we'll do our best to try to tie back some of those routes to where we are putting into line charging, but there's going to be a need somewhere as we come up to say, you know what, we can more effectively use this. Bev if we had underlying charging at this location and so that's kind of kind of what you're going to continually see from us as we work through this journey, is that understanding that and saying, okay, if we put a charger at tech ridge, we can we can utilize, you know, ten more electric busses a day kind of thing. >> So and so then that would be the plan to kind of pick a [2:20:54 PM] the plan to kind of pick a handful of routes, install the charging equipment. >> Yes. It would be something that most definitely would be in our as we move through and want to effectively make sure we utilize this equipment, we need to figure out as we use it. You know what that would be that would help us or that would help us. So that's something that you'll see over the coming years. >> And last, just a comment really, I have, been a passenger on a couple of capital metro electric busses and one of the really, nice features on them is they have a window in the back instead of. That's usually, I guess, where the motor goes. Right. But without the internal combustion engine motor, there's a window on the back which honestly makes the entire experience a different experience, less light in. >> And it's a little bit quieter I would assume too. >> Yeah. They're nice. They're nice busses, performances is, other issue in ongoing operation. Another issue. Thank you very much, Andy. Thank you. >> I can just see councilmember Velo waving at people out of the back window trying to get them [2:21:54 PM] back window trying to get them to honk, just like I did when I was a school kid, appreciate that. I know, the conversation around extreme heat and cold affecting battery life is something that I'm hearing with folks that I know that drive personal vehicles that are electric. It's the unpredictability of how far, how many hours can that bus be on the route? How many miles can it go? And so when you think about Texas weather, I mean, obviously yesterday was a record high. We're looking at how many days in Texas are not extreme in one way or another. There's very few days where we actually get, you know, normal weather where someone's not having to think about whether they're going to be too cold or too hot and how they're going to go about their day, and so I think that's a really important conversation in this and understanding just the difficulty of having having those batteries out in very, very hot temperatures all day long, but I was also reminded when you brought up the conversation around having an all day route and having busses that are out there for 12 or 16 hours, and I know folks at the [2:22:54 PM] hours, and I know folks at the school district, you know, they're also trying to plan through their bus electrification, but they have a very different, duty cycle assignment. You know, it is go pick everybody up and go drop everybody off. And so you have that big gap in the day where if busses needed to be charged, that they could. And I think capmetro has been at least communicating with them on how to how to help make sure that y'all are both able to accomplish those goals and make sure that, your vehicle maintenance teams are trained to do that. And so I know the conversation at least a year, year and a half ago when we kicked this off was, you know, are we outsourcing repairs or are we training the mechanics that have been working in our facilities all day, every day for many years? So are there still is that still the intent that the training program is, is to be able to, you know, diversify the skill set of the staff that's in existence now? A couple different points to that. >> I think as we start up through it, we are leaning into the oem. We're all leaning into them to bring staff in to help [2:23:56 PM] them to bring staff in to help us, get us past that learning curve. As hard as it is for metro to get techs, what we're also finding out is the oems have as much issue getting techs. And so I mean, it's like we're fishing from the same pond and there's not a lot of fish lately, so that's one. But we are working with them. I got a proposal coming in for new Florida to help us with some of that. Phoenix needs a little bit more time to get stabilized before I get them, but we'll have assistance for them on training. We'll have assistance for them on parts. We're also looking at hiring one for the north ops and one for the south ops, a vehicle electric vehicle specialist. I mean, it's that's all this person's going to do. It's going to help us transfer knowledge from the oem to our workforce, understand the parts issues and what what are some of the levers we can pull on and say, okay, we had this more or less on the shelf. We would be better off, and so, I mean, this is all part of that maturity and getting through that. But, if, [2:24:56 PM] getting through that. But, if, if I can call an oem tomorrow and get five people in here and use them to train my staff, I would, but that's just hasn't been. There's not a lot of people on the other side of the of the phone when I do that, so it's been it's a little tough all over as far as texaco that that makes sense. >> And I really appreciate it. I know there's been so much excitement lately about this prospect of being able to electrify our fleets, but, you know, seeing how the markets develop, seeing how training develops and actually just being able to build them on the line and get them shipped to the purchaser is something that we've we've just kind of seen every entity trying to look at, you know, how do we work in real time to get these things done. >> And was that kind of out there first? I mean, we we've got a big fleet compared to a lot of what you see out there is five to 10 or 15 busses, and we're going to have 104. >> Yeah. And again I just want to emphasize capital metro is leading in this area. That's great, but we've got to be flexible and we've got to be able to adjust to operational realities. You know we can't be dogmatic about it. We got to the priorities of the people, you [2:25:57 PM] priorities of the people, you know, is to getting the people from point a to point B on time in an efficient and way, last question. Do diesel busses ever need to refill during the day? Or the idea is that their tank is full enough to operate the range for 450 and you're looking at a range of electric vehicle about 160 to 180. >> It's never what the oem says it is, three major impacts to range are topography. We're a little bit hillier in Austin. Some other cities heat or cold. And the other one is the driver, how the driver manages the accelerator pedal. It's a little different on an electric vehicle than a diesel. So and we see variability between drivers and that's all of this learning about putting it out and getting it on different routes and utilizing them and really getting you can have a small fleet and think you get a good understanding of what happens. But it's really when you get a larger fleet and you touch more operators and you touch more routes and you touch more heat, high heat days or low cold days [2:26:58 PM] high heat days or low cold days that you really get the knowledge you need to understand how to manage it and operate it. >> Thank you very much. >> Yeah. And I would say, you know, in conversation around our strategic mobility plan that we have for the city, part of our plan is to get people out of cars when it makes sense for them and to encourage them to do public transit or other methods that may work for them. And so we appreciate you leading the curve on getting this done. And moving forward as fast as we can in a safe way, but also the intent to do it right and to make sure that we're taking calibrated steps and we're seeing every twist and turn that may approach along the way, and making sure that we can adapt. And we're not just, you know, flooding a market with something that is very hard to maintain or people aren't. We don't have enough people to actually repair them. If something goes wrong and so I appreciate how much cab metro is really focusing on that and trying to make sure we're we're taking care of all all of the materials and equipment and the personnel that help make them run smoothly every day. >> I appreciate that. I'll take that back. >> Thank you. I think that's it. [2:27:58 PM] >> Thank you. I think that's it. On that item. And if I'm not mistaken, that leads us to the second to last listed item, which is simply the city of Austin mobility report, there's not a formal presentation on this, but it's always a really great way of seeing what our staff is up to and what accomplishments have been made recently. So there's discussions of multimodal improvements along Trinity and San Jacinto downtown, discussions of vision zero, traffic signal engineers and pedestrian head starts. We're very excited that council approved the initiative that I brought to make sure that we had ample signaling and striping professionals to be able to work on all of these. Signal timing is something that I care a lot about because as a as a representative of a district, that can be pretty spread out over time, it's really important that things are timed correctly so we don't create extra traffic congestion over the years or over the, the hours and the day. And so we're really excited [2:28:58 PM] And so we're really excited about those initiatives. The zilker shuttle gets a call out. It has seen continued increase in ridership, which is great. We want to make sure people are getting in and out of zilker park. Can do so safely. And that everyone who wants to enjoy zilker has an opportunity to do that, especially if dealing with the summer heat means going for a swim. The airport, a us abia airport, has put up its first steel column in the journey with us expansion program. So this was, a moment that a few of my colleagues got to join in on and have a celebratory moment to celebrate the expansion of the airport, aws has also been named top ten domestic airport by airhelp. So there's some really good information in here, others, including William cannon, spicewood springs road mobility, I could keep going on and on. I think there might be another page or two in here, but there's just some really good improvements that our transportation, public public works staff has been doing over the past couple of months and weeks as we've been moving [2:29:59 PM] weeks as we've been moving through summer. So we thank our staff. We thank all of our presenters for joining us today, the last item is going to be identifying items to discuss for future meetings. We keep a fairly long list of information that people want to know about, some of which is communicating with our staff on deadlines. We need to be aware of as a council. Things our committee wants to talk about that are timely, so we may see some information about vision zero updates, community urban trail, visions, the big loop, and great springs trail, the Austin core transportation plan, congress avenue, urban design, obviously some ongoing discussions around I-35 and project connect as there are timely updates to take up corridors, air quality, you know, a whole a whole list of things that we've got working on. So if there are no other items to add into the already amazing list for today, I would say we stand adjourned at 2:30 P.M.