Mobility Committee (MOBC) Meeting Transcript - 4/17/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 4/17/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 4/17/2025 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. [1:00:46 PM] I am Paige Ellis. I'm the chair of our mobility committee. And it is 1:00. So for the sake of starting on time, I will call the meeting to order. It is April 17th, 2025. The time is 1:00 pm promptly and we are here in Austin city hall. I am joined on the dais by vice chair zo qadri members Krista Laine and chito vela, and we have council member harper-madison joining us remotely today. So welcome everybody. I believe we have one speaker signed up for public communication. Can you go ahead and call them rey? >> Yes, it's Philip Wylie. >> Welcome, Mr. Wylie. Thank you. >> Is this on or. Hello? Yeah, great. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If you can go to the first chart, [1:01:47 PM] can go to the first chart, please. No. That's Erp. This is a different presentation. It's a different file. Well, I won't make you sit there and wait. We have a different chart set that's coming up, and I'll just start talking about it. There we go. Perfect. The last time I was here, we were talking about walk sheds in the context of uno. And last time we centered on a half mile radius around the new business school that's at the corner of mlk and Guadalupe. And what the radius of potential residences would be that could get from their home to the campus classroom in ten minutes. This time, we're going to take a little different view of walk sheds, which is looking at the [1:02:48 PM] sheds, which is looking at the three quarter mile walk shed from two different residential areas, because 15 to 20 minutes is what the target is for outer west campus. So 7.75 miles is what this would look like. The center here is on Leone, and it's basically where UT is putting two different classrooms. They've already got plans from the 2012 master plan. Two different sites have been identified. They've announced it. So they are executing their plan. And this shows you where somebody can get to, in theory, if they're walking in a straight line. And obviously it's not going to be a straight line because from the university housing east of I-35, you're going to be walking over I-35, which is not going to be possible for a while until we do a cap and stitch next chart, [1:03:50 PM] a cap and stitch next chart, please. And so on the other side, on what you typically think of as uno. This is an area that's on the border or on the outer border of uno that is not yet included in the staff recommendation for uno this round. And that's why I wanted to kind of show you. Well, in contrast, here's here's where we are. So 0.75 miles from uno. Let's see. What do I have is the address from Robbins place, 1906 Robbins place would get you to this part of campus. So it's a much broader coverage of campus in terms of the classroom space, the libraries and the accessibility. You could walk from Robbins place to any of these classroom buildings and only cross Guadalupe and only cross one traffic light. So that's kind of the contrast what UT and the state of Texas already got into their [1:04:56 PM] Texas already got into their plan and what they think are reasonable. Walk is for a student to get to a classroom. Next chart please. So I've the on this chart I'm just showing you again the first two that I've shown you. Now for Robbins place I want to talk about it hasn't been transitioned yet. It is. It isn't a single family street. It hasn't been a single family street since I've lived there. It's being used as a compatibility buffer, and it looks like that the proposal is to continue to use it as a compatibility buffer. Could you just show the last chart? And this is the west side, the other side of the street. Thank you. >> Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Wiley. The next item up will be the approval of minutes. And before we take up that item, I just wanted to announce the order of business today. We had thought it might be prudent to [1:05:56 PM] thought it might be prudent to bring up item five after number two. So we'll take up the minutes. The update from the urban transportation commission and then to item five, which is the briefing on approach to construction coordination on public projects as it relates to outreach, safety and mobility. And then we'll come back to item number three, the residential parking program. And item number four is the shared micro mobility update. And then after those we'll have our normal standing items, which are the director's report and the future items to identify. So with that item number one will be approval of the minutes of the mobility committee meeting from March 20th, 2025. We have a motion by vice chair qadri, seconded by council member harper-madison. All in favor say aye. Aye. It appears unanimous. That takes us to item number two, the update from the urban transportation commission regarding actions from their meeting on April 1st, 2025. Do we have chair Summers joining us? There we go. Hello, [1:06:56 PM] joining us? There we go. Hello, hello. >> I had some tech difficulties. Can you hear me? >> We can. >> Okay, I don't let me see if I can turn on my camera. Okay. That's great. I can turn on my camera now. >> We can see you too. That's great. >> Great. I'll start right off. So urban. As always, thank you for this opportunity to present city council members. It's really an honor. We did have our annual, not annual monthly urban transportation committee meeting on April 1st, 2025. And so quickly, the items that we covered there, we did have a presentation discussion item regarding the 26 bond corridor construction update, so we're getting regular updates on that now, I think every quarter, which are really, really helpful. And so we're really pleased that capital delivery services is coming out to us so [1:07:57 PM] services is coming out to us so we can continue to discuss and monitor. And we're learning a lot from those discussions about future bond planning. So I think that's really helpful for us as well, because I think utc will probably make a future recommendation about future bonding cycles with transportation and mobility bonds. We did have a recommendation on the campo 2050 regional transportation plan. So the comment period for that. So they have the draft plan out. The comment period for that just ended on Tuesday, April 15th. And so I did want to share with you our recommendation, utc. We can sort of direct indirectly influence campo, you know, through either influencing city council members who are members of campo or through, you know, influencing council direction to staff and how staff work with campo. So this is something that we're kind of contemplating of [1:08:59 PM] we're kind of contemplating of how we can continue to improve this. And we've had a variety of different types of recommendations about campo over the last few years, but let me see if I can just read this out to you very quickly. I'll try to be maybe summarize a little bit, but as we know, us code requires that metropolitan planning organizations develop long range transportation plans. And so campo is engaged in the draft 2050 regional transportation plan for the Austin area. And we know our region is growing, and the transportation plan is a key part of that. And campo does wish rather, in statements to reduce the cap per capita vehicle miles traveled vmt and they also support the txdot road to zero goals. And we know at the same time this is all just sort of summarizing our. Whereas the vehicle miles traveled per capita congestion levels, commute times and crashes in the region have been increasing, and we're not meeting the safety targets that were recommended in the Texas transportation [1:09:59 PM] the Texas transportation institute's regional traffic safety plan. And we know that leads to developmental sprawl, traffic increase, air pollution per capita, vmt increase, and it also doesn't relieve congestion. And we the campo 2050 regional transportation plan, actually proposes adding over 303,000 new Laine miles, which is a 26% increase in roadway capacity, and that it also proposes to includes the mopac south project, which adds 4 to 7 lanes to mopac between Enfield and slaughter, and it also includes the txdot 183 expansion described. It would add one main Laine and three frontage road lanes in each direction between state highway and state 71 and state highway 130 on 183. And we also know that city council is paying attention to this. So city council resolution 2020 41212-066 requested that rma, the capital, the regional [1:11:01 PM] the capital, the regional mobility authority, work with the city of Austin to, quote, refine the proposal for mopac south project to align with goals and intent of the Austin strategic mobility plan, including the urban trails plan, Austin climate equity plan, watershed protection strategic plan, and the project connect system plan, and requested that the resulting project for mopac south not increase vehicle miles traveled nor greenhouse gas emissions. And whereas council member Ellis, who was the that resolution sponsor in December and also council district representative of the area, followed up with a letter requesting the mopac south project include no more than one additional Laine in each direction, and whereas also Travis county commissioners court requested rma produce an environmental impact statement with a thorough study of alternatives before moving forward with the project. And whereas as of the date of this resolution, ctr has been unwilling to modify the project or commit to performing a full Eis. And whereas rtp acknowledges that there are [1:12:01 PM] acknowledges that there are limited sidewalks, this is the campo plan draft plan. It now acknowledges that limited sidewalks and bike lanes are a challenge to safe transportation. And also in this plan, campo has the opportunity to allocate certain federal funds, like surface transportation block grants to a wide range of projects, including transit, active transportation and safety, and where it is also in the common interest of the regional transportation plan to be based on accurate forecasting, modeling and whereas previous long range transportation plan campo used this modeling system called urbansim, in combination with the state demographer's data, and that's what they're using to incorporate the understanding of regional trends. But for the campo 2050 regional transportation plan, campo didn't use urban sim, at least not in the same way, and the data used to determine the detailed population and employment distribution for each county has not been shared publicly. Maybe. I don't think it's time of our meeting April 1st. It had not been. And [1:13:01 PM] 1st. It had not been. And whereas in previous rfps, the technical advisory committee, sometimes referred to as the tac, had an opportunity to review and provide feedback on the demographic forecasts and methodologies used. But for this cycle, campo 2050 planning, there was no opportunity for dedicated feedback on the forecasting modeling. So this is our whereases. And so here are our resolutions. So we recommend the future for following for future campo rtp. So we don't advise campo. They can listen to us or not listen to us. But the elected officials who represent us on campo or city staff could listen to us as utc. We recommend the following that for future tps, campo prioritize funding for projects that improve safety for all users. They prioritize funding for projects for public transit and active transportation. They prioritize projects that result in people living closer to employment and other opportunities that they prioritize. Projects that increase vehicle capacity, that they prioritize projects that will result in people needing to [1:14:02 PM] will result in people needing to travel greater distances to reach employment, and opportunities that they prioritize. Projects which have received support from local governments and that they include in the rtp about information about weather goals in the previous rfps have been met, and that they include an a section on the environmental impacts of the rtp and mitigation measures. Be it further resolved, we also recommend that the mopac south expansion be removed from the campo 2050 rtp or amend it from up to two lanes in each direction to up to one Laine in each direction, and we recommend that the 183 project, as described, should be removed from the campo 2050 rtp, be it further resolved. Looking ahead for future regional transportation plans, we recommend that campo should share all data and modeling methods used in the demographic forecasts with the public, the transportation policy board and the technical advisory committee. We also recommend that during each long term regional planning process, the city of Austin tac members, in [1:15:03 PM] city of Austin tac members, in consultation with any other relevant staff, should review the demographic forecast being used in the rtp for accuracy. This is a big concern that the forecasts have consistently overestimated increases in population in the suburban areas outside Austin, and have underestimated increasing population within Austin. And this does come from the state demographers data. We're not really clear on the modeling used this cycle, but we also know that this has been a trend of their forecasts and they don't really take into account also changes that may have happened in our city governance in terms of housing capacity or zoning capacity, things like that. Other other municipalities actually advocate for their demographic forecasts to be altered. And that's something that the city of Austin could consider doing. If we think we're going to grow more, we also recommend they make use of scenario planning for population forecasts so as to better reflect the impact of transportation planning on different growth scenarios. This is not the first time utc has [1:16:04 PM] is not the first time utc has recommended this. Utc recommended this the last for the last regional transportation plan, the 2045. So this is to say that we're doing we're you know, how much are what we're putting into the plan, actually determining what the growth is. So, you know, like if we're building lots of roads in dripping springs, then probably there's going new roads over Greenfield, there's probably going to be new subdivisions and growth in dripping springs. Whereas if we didn't fund and do that, there may not be not to pick on dripping springs just using a municipality there. So they really need to think about scenario planning for how the decisions they're making actually foster the growth. And if they could make different decisions, the growth may look different and then improve their traffic demand model. So they adequately account for the impacts of induced demand and reflect the fact that increases in roadway capacity increase vmt, which is a goal they say they want. They don't want to increase vmt and per capita via vehicle miles traveled. Okay. So that's our recommendation. I [1:17:05 PM] that's our recommendation. I think this is something that is really, you know. It's a process. The city, I think, needs to assert itself more in our ways to do that. In campo, we kind of are outvoted in campo, but I think there are ways that we can do more than what we're doing now to hopefully improve the next regional transportation plan, which I guess would be 2055. So that's one of our recommendations right there. We also had a right of way vacation that we did recommend approval. We also have a budget recommendation. So if you look at our budget recommendation this is a budget recommendation for transportation public works. A lot of it is actually items that we recommended last year that didn't make it in just yet. So I will just read those quickly. It's increased the capacity of living streets program to build out additional 72 activations. This is what living streets has indicated that they could feasibly do with their current staffing capacity. So we all felt we should be at least doing at least that much funding to purchase technology [1:18:06 PM] funding to purchase technology improvements for transportation mobility service officers to more efficiently ticket vehicles and implement the, quote, alternative method of enforcement for illegal parking and Bart parking and bikeways, which is required by city council resolution 2024 0404040. Work with Austin police department to purchase additional meridian archer movable street barricades which enhance pedestrian pedestrian safety. These are used. We did actually purchase some, but these are used during downtown events. They increase safety and they had been renting these and so purchasing them allows them to deploy them, you know, a little bit more at will, which is nice. And then our last one. So those were all things. Those prior things were in our last recommendation. And we're carrying them forward since they weren't met yet. This other one we added by amendment in the meeting, it's actually increased the annual maintenance budget for sidewalks and urban trails from 5.4 million to at least 7.5 million, providing staff discretion in which program to [1:19:06 PM] discretion in which program to allocate the newly available funds. So sidewalks and urban trail maintenance is a huge. We know that we are building a lot of sidewalks through our annual mobility plan, but we are not. We're not really having the maintenance money. Our maintenance bill is probably more I'm trying to remember our discussion. It's probably more like 25 million if we're really keeping up. So basically every year we're not spending that. We're going farther in the hall. Dpw has done a great job of increasing the amount we're spending on maintenance by about a million. Each budget cycle. We're recommending we be a little more aggressive here, which still very much does not get anywhere close to the amount that's needed. So that was just a recommendation that we added as well. Looking at the rest of our agenda, we elected our officers for the year, and we also discussed some appointments to other committees that are like composed by appointees of other committees. So that is basically what we had. And I'm happy to take any questions you may have. >> All right. Thank you very [1:20:07 PM] >> All right. Thank you very much for that presentation. Do we have any questions from committee members, vice chair qadri tirz and then Krista Laine after that, and then Natasha harper-madison I see you. >> Great. Thank you. Chair. I mean, one question, but just one general, I guess observation myself. Councilmember Laine, councilmember Siegel and mayor pro tem Fuentes are all are part of campo. For those of you who haven't had the honor or the joy of seeing a campo meeting, they're they're rough sometimes, especially for those of us from Austin who are pushing for a lot of sensible things that unfortunately, at times are are railroaded. But, you know, I know myself and councilmember Laine and others are looking forward to bring resolutions to the may campo meeting, but also make sure we see the full implementation of it. So that was just my general comment, but I had a question. And it might be it might be better for staff unless the chair can answer it. But I had heard that APD is ordering more meridian barriers, and I just want to know if those could be used for other events as well. [1:21:08 PM] as well. >> Yeah, so maybe staff might have an answer. We were we originally had a specific number because last year we had a number that we wanted to order. And then we understand that some were ordered. So we just said like more like enough to meet what city staff generally needs. And I think like, yes. And we like our recommendation also says like working with APD. So staff may be able to provide an update on where that status is and how many are still needed to really run the event safely downtown. >> Does anyone on staff have an answer to that? >> I see director Mendoza coming up. >> Thank you. Committee members. Madam chair Richard Mendoza, transportation and public works director. I will have to get back to you on that. APD is leading that procurement and I didn't see anyone from APD in the audience, so I'd be happy to get that information and forward it. >> Thank you. I know we have recently approved more of those devices. And so if we need to figure out a way to get even [1:22:09 PM] figure out a way to get even more, I think that's probably appropriate. But I'm not sure if we have an update at this point. >> Okay. And I have a continuation of the question. And if you're not able to answer it, I totally understand. But we've heard from constituents around the living streets program about alternatives of what to use. Would meridian barriers be able to be used for that? >> That is a possibility. We've not looked at that specifically. They're very effective. There is more logistics in terms of cost and manpower and equipment required to mobilize those devices. From what I'm aware, I don't have what that number is right now, but I'd be glad to do that evaluation. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> If I could add one thing too, is some of the feedback we've had from living streets, and we've discussed this at utc actively, is that, you know, the tools the living streets program managers have to implement. The living streets are very much determined by transportation [1:23:10 PM] determined by transportation regulation, and they tend to look very, you know, like highway construction stuff like Orange barrels and things like that. And there's been some communities have been like, wouldn't it be nice if it could be more, you know, less construction feeling and more like community feeling, but that doesn't really meet transportation standards. So that has been a conversation about some of the treatments. What kinds of temporary treatments can kind of do the job they're supposed to do to keep the living streets safe, but also like really create a sense of feeling of community and not like increase a sense of danger. Right? So, like, I don't have the answer to that. I'm not a transportation engineer, but that's definitely something that we've been hearing when we've discussed living streets. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right. I think we had Krista Laine next and then Natasha harper-madison. >> Thank you. I really appreciate your work, your volunteering and support of the goals of our city and being [1:24:11 PM] goals of our city and being fairly new to city council, also fairly new to the campo board. I really appreciate the work and input around campo and how to work effectively. I want to share a few comments. I'm not really sure if this is going to lead to a question or not yet, but I will note that. So I represent the northern suburbs and northwestern suburbs 60% Williamson county, adjacent to both cedar park and Round Rock. And one of the things I'm working hard to do in city council and as it relates to transportation, is build up some of those relationships with wilco and some of the smaller cities, hopefully, hopefully in an upward and positive direction so that, you know, we can find some opportunities for additional collaboration in these areas of the city that are both outlying and underserved in ways that many parts of our city are as it relates to sidewalks and shared use paths and that [1:25:12 PM] and shared use paths and that sort of thing. So I, I just want to let you know that both visibly and not visibly, there is a lot that you included in there that resonates very strongly with the conversations I've been having with some of those people, and in particular, active transportation and shared use paths, and especially along some of the txdot roads has been a big focus of mine as I've been having conversations and some of those ones that are on my radar, radar out in those outlying areas are 183 620, which literally has a dirt path worn beside it where people are jumping over ditches. Palmer. 18i don't know if I said 183, but you get the idea. So I wanted to mention that, and I am also really thinking about some of our transportation conversations, like as it relates to cap and stitch and the need for diversity of revenue sources and ways to use these gaps as opportunities to [1:26:14 PM] these gaps as opportunities to build more diversity of revenue for some of the transportation projects, and in particular, making old spicewood springs road safer for people on foot and bike is an area where I see opportunity and 620 potentially opportunity to bring in some additional donations and interest. And I want to say that out loud so that people know that it's on my radar. And then also, if anyone does have the ability to help elevate any of these types of things for the northern and northwestern areas that I just listed off inside of Austin on the staff side, capmetro Travis county. Interestingly, I have better existing relationships in Williamson county than I do in some ways in Travis county. So help me, please. I think that's my question there. And then let's see if there's anything else I wanted to mention there. I'm really excited about the additional 72 activations of living streets that's being [1:27:14 PM] living streets that's being proposed as well. Thank you so much. Okay. >> Thank you, thank you. Natasha, do you have questions? >> I do, thank you. Thank you Suzanne, I always appreciate your briefings. It's just like it's concise but full of information. And some of us, you know, for whom mobility really is not our first language. You really make it easy to follow along. So I really do appreciate that. So thank you. During your presentation, you said something about TPD being able to save $1 million, but that we need to be considerably more aggressive. I was just curious what that means exactly. >> You mean you mean I think what you're talking about. And it's possible. I always flub what I'm trying to say. So I think you might. I might have been speaking about the maintenance for sidewalks. >> And, and to date, TPD has been able to. I don't know if [1:28:16 PM] been able to. I don't know if you said reserve. >> Yeah. >> Let me let me. >> Clarify that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Let me try to make sure I said it right. And then if you have questions about that. So thank you. Transportation public works and director Mendoza is there. He can also speak to this. But they have been increasing and which is very appreciated. Each budget cycle. They've been increasing the amount for by about a million a year. So like, you know, one year it was for the next year is five next year's six. Kind of like incrementally increasing the budget for sidewalk and urban trail maintenance. But we know that the like it's kind of a challenging situation, right. Because we're we're aggressively since the 2016 bond and even further bond cycles, we're really quite aggressively building more sidewalks and urban trails. Right. We're funding those plans. We're getting those improvements out to the community. But that, you know, our maintenance, our sidewalk maintenance is not meeting the need, the need of maintenance. I don't have the exact number in front of me, but I believe the number was like 25 or 30 million a year. And, you [1:29:17 PM] or 30 million a year. And, you know, the proposal for our budget proposal was to I'm going to pull it up right here was to increase the budget maintenance, the maintenance budget for sidewalks and urban trails from 5.4 million, we're suggesting, to 7.5 million. So that's a little bit more aggressive increase than what tpw has been doing. And I know we talked about in the utc meeting, director Mendoza there. He can tell you that is definitely an aggressive increase for dpw as our understanding. >> I completely understand what it is that you were maybe I think maybe what you said was an increase in dollars towards and what I heard was savings. And so thank you for clarifying there. I really appreciate it. That totally answers my question. And so then my second question is or actually my second thing is a comment, if you don't mind, chair, I'll take a moment of personal privilege. I got to watch council member qadri last night at the heller awards at the long center present an award. It was a really cool show. If you guys have never [1:30:17 PM] show. If you guys have never been to the heller awards, it's like the grammys for performing arts students, high school students from around the region. It was just it was super cool. So congratulations. Councilmember qadri did a great job. >> I will say that councilmember harper-madison had the best outfit. It was. I was sitting so far away and I could see the sparkles. >> So I got a text from Heidi Anderson and she said, I can see you from the mezzanine. So yeah, I was shiny. But back to business. So on my way home from above said event, we were in one of the alien cars, which, by the way, I'd like to talk about that at some point. I was so hesitant. I am of the I'm never riding in a car without a human in it now. It's my preference. I do my makeup in the alien car on the way to city hall. Like the alien car is the only way I'll ever go again. And so maybe not. I actually like talking sometimes anyway. Just saying. If we could talk about autonomous vehicles at some point, that'd be great to hear. But on the way home, my autonomous vehicle kept getting [1:31:18 PM] autonomous vehicle kept getting confused and so I finally looked up. I was looking down, doing something, and I finally looked up to see what was going on. There was a man moving the living streets, barricades, actively doing so to confuse the autonomous vehicles and make it so. There was confusion between autonomous vehicle, autonomous vehicles and driver operated vehicles. It was a safety hazard. Fortunately, it was right on the other side of the cemetery between Bob Harrison, navasota, that general little area. There's not much going. It's slow going. Anyway, we navigated it. I called 311. They told me to call 911911, I presume responded. That said, I'd just like to address that somehow, and I'm not sure exactly who to address it with. And then depending upon what that response sounds like, I wonder, chair, if we might want to have a joint consideration with the public safety commission or committee to discuss how we can address that? [1:32:19 PM] discuss how we can address that? Because in my mind's eye, that's a safety hazard. There should be some punitive action for people who are engaged in that behavior. But I don't want to jump straight to punitive, maybe so much as figure out a path forward to let the general citizenry know. We anticipate you won't touch these once they're planted, because transportation professionals determined where they needed to be located. You can't just at will move them. >> Yeah, I mean, that touches on a bunch of policy areas I'm sure living streets could explain. There are some activations, like a play street where you, the community actually is tasked with like putting out a barrier and removing it. You know, when the play street is active and they have to take training. I think the people that put out the barriers take training to do that. But oblivion street is supposed to be basically a, you know, a semi-permanent installation. It's approved for, you know, a given amount of time, months. Yeah, we. >> Can we can certainly. >> With that. So that is definitely a concern. We also know that autonomous vehicles, you know, they don't respond well to like somebody directing [1:33:20 PM] well to like somebody directing traffic by hand, a law enforcement officer, things like that. They do get confused. And if someone was intentionally confusing those using city property, that does seem like a pretty big concern. I don't have more than that, but it definitely would be a emerging policy area that we should investigate together. >> Yes, I think these are these are guys. Guys, just just a second. >> I think we should. >> Yeah. Just a second. I, I think this conversation is duly noted and want to make sure we can get to the other five items that we have to cover today. But I know that autonomous vehicles is definitely a good public safety issue. And we'll we'll certainly try to make sure we're covering those, those two issues. But were there any other questions and considerations for the utc chair? >> I actually that one question wasn't for the utc chair, so maybe I should have saved it for after. It was just a question that I had, but not necessarily directed at the utc chair. Thank you chair. >> Okay, okay. Let's connect offline because I think that's a [1:34:21 PM] offline because I think that's a great conversation that's evolving. And I think there may be more parties that need to communicate in that space. And so I'm more than happy to take that into either another committee meeting or set up something on the side where we can kind of unpack any of the issues around autonomous vehicles and, and public safety and the right of way, because I know for a few months it's been something that a lot of folks have been working on. All right. Any more questions? All right. Let's move on to item number five, the briefing on approach to construction coordination on public projects as it relates to outreach, safety and mobility. Welcome. >> Good afternoon again, mobility committee. Richard Mendoza I'm not Jim Dale. Jim Dale was originally scheduled to do this, but he's taken some well earned time off. So I'm going to do my best to stand in his stead. Okay, so the topic [1:35:24 PM] his stead. Okay, so the topic for our agenda item and I have a brief presentation on our efforts surrounding the construction partnership program. I'm also going to cover a little bit, and I did make mention of this at last month's director's report of active work that my team has been collaborating with the Austin convention center redevelopment team to manage impending construction traffic around that highly anticipated and large construction project. I'm going to ask my division manager, right of way management, miss amika Bose, to pitch, hit and help me with that presentation. At the conclusion of the cp. So for those not familiar with the construction partnership [1:36:25 PM] construction partnership program, this is a joint agency effort and it's been in the planning stages for probably a little over two years now. And it's an effort to prepare the city of Austin and our city of Austin region for what we know is going to be an unprecedented amount of infrastructure improvements and construction taking place across central Texas over the next decade. And so we have three main objectives identified of the construction partnership program. And they include streamlining communication and enhanced coordination amongst the various agency partners. Help people manage the impacts of that intense construction on their daily lives, as well as on their daily commutes, and then finally build a foundation for sustainable, long term [1:37:26 PM] sustainable, long term interagency collaboration and success for our region. Okay, so when we say inter agency, what does this mean? Well, these this means the primary agency partners, all of which have major projects planned through 2033 here in central Texas. And I'll just go across the top and then the bottom and give a brief outline of the major projects, beginning with the Texas department of transportation. Everyone's familiar with the I-35 capex project. Next is the city of Austin. And of course, that consists of multiple departments. The transportation public works department, our partner capital delivery services department. We can and we are very active right now in completing the bulk of the 2016 mobility bonds, as well as the convention center, which will be expanding their convention [1:38:28 PM] expanding their convention center downtown. Next. We have campo. They're a key partner in construction management. And so what they do, of course, is administer transportation improvement program as well as a step, but they also have planning studies around transportation demand management. So they play a key role in the cp cat. Metro, of course, is in the midst of implementing project connect, primarily the expansion of the bus rapid transit system. You're familiar with the expo line, as well as the pleasant valley lines. Travis county has a full plate of bond funded projects as well planned for this timeline. Austin transit partnership is actively moving forward towards. They've got their draft Eis now for their light rail mass transit improvements, and then finally, central Texas regional mobility authority. Crm is [1:39:29 PM] mobility authority. Crm is actively moving forward with the planning and design of the south mopac HOV lanes. And so I think it's fairly apparent why this is needed. You take all these together and it's over 35 significant construction projects, many in our downtown core, representing about $20 billion in public funding investments and reinvesting reinvestments in mobility infrastructure for our community. So we must collaborate. We must coordinate to avoid stepping on each other. So this is a map depicting the projects I just described. As you can see, there is a concentration in central Austin, but they do expand into just about every corner of our community. And again, these are the many of these projects will be taking place concurrently to [1:40:30 PM] be taking place concurrently to include the I-35, the light rail and expanded bus rapid transit service improvements by the city on and county on busy city and county corridors. Not listed here, of course, is we have two major bridge replacements plan for the city of Austin airport and convention center expansions. Planned extensions of the tolled express lanes on mopac, as well as multiple private development projects. So this is too small to read. But when you expand this out into subprojects for each of the major entities, again, the map on the left. But if you look on the right, the plan, engineering and planning and construction schedules with many to be determined, it's quite apparent that all this construction is going to occur in overlapping sequence, and it's imperative that we coordinate in [1:41:30 PM] that we coordinate in partnership to mitigate the impacts on our community in terms of their daily lives and daily commutes. So how do we do this? So through the construction partnership program, we're going to take a strategy of four major items and objectives to manage that impending construction. First, we're going to coordinate our construction. We're going to maintain and inform public with real time information. We're going to use every tool in our toolbox to manage transportation demand. And then finally make investments in our operations so that we can manage those construction traffic impacts in real time. Starting with the coordinating construction. You know, first, our team has been actively in our multi-agency team, has been actively working [1:42:31 PM] team, has been actively working on creating a platform for sharing project information, including scope, schedules and anticipated Laine closures. We've elected to instead of inventing a whole new platform to use one that's already been tried and tested by txdot in the Houston area, and I'll cover that in a following slide. But we also will use this platform to perform project data analytics, which will aid in our agency decision making to ensure we do not inadvertently gridlock the city. And we make sure we communicate construction and Laine closure info to the public with one voice. The public. When they get out and encounter construction they don't know, nor do they care what agency is managing that construction. They only know the impacts to their daily commute. Next, it's the communications is going to be so [1:43:34 PM] communications is going to be so critical to keeping our public informed of this impending construction and potential impacts. And so working together with our agency partners, we're utilizing the application I mentioned prior as a txdot application called ct go. Ct go is going to be the conduit by which we can promptly and seamlessly share real time Laine closures and construction activity in our community with the public. We're going to do this through three main means, and they are the mobile app, which right now is in a pilot phase. If you go on your smart device and search in your app ct go, it will bring up this application you can go through in a pilot test mode now. And this app will be for the entire region. And we can we'll be able [1:44:37 PM] region. And we can we'll be able to use this to get traffic, Laine closure and congestion updates on the go. We're also establishing a website to provide this real time and future traffic construction information, so our community and travelers can plan their trips ahead of time. And then finally, a hotline where our community can contact us in a one stop shop. For any additional questions or inquiries. So we're really looking forward to this tool affecting our construction partnership program goals right now. Again, this application is in a pilot phase, and we are actively conducting focus group testing, with a expected launch to come at a later time. At the conclusion of those focus group tests. Okay. Another important tool that we have to mitigate [1:45:40 PM] tool that we have to mitigate the impacts of the this impending construction is utilizing managing transportation demand. So tdm transportation demand management provides people alternatives to their commute decisions outside of single occupancy vehicles. As we reported in a prior mobility committee meeting, our team was successful in obtaining a 47 in change million Leslie EPA grant for climate pollution reduction that includes three key measures and strategies. This grant, by the way, has been fully executed with the EPA, and we're our team is actively working with multiple agencies to move forward on implementation on these measures. The first one is to improve existing services. So working with our partners at [1:46:42 PM] working with our partners at capmetro and carts, we'll look to expand frequencies or routes in those areas that we may expect to be mostly impacted by. The construction measure two is to invest in that transportation demand management infrastructure. The amounts are right below each one of these measures. This includes some infrastructure investments to create what we call mobility hubs, so that folks can seamlessly and safely access transit options to conduct their daily commutes, rather than single occupancy vehicles. We're also working with capcoa to enhance our air quality measures so that we can measure the benefits of these climate pollution reduction grant investments. And then finally, measure three is to introduce travel options. This is potentially the greatest source [1:47:43 PM] potentially the greatest source of benefit for the program, and it's really working with our partners at campo, movability and our other departments to inform and promote tdm practices and education so that our community becomes more comfortable with commuting by different means and different alternatives. And then finally. It's important that we manage construction, project and monitor what's occurring out in our on our mobility infrastructure in real time. So right now, transportation public works operates a mobility management center where we can have communications to and on many major corridors, eyes on real time traffic operations. This enables us to make timing adjustments where needed to [1:48:45 PM] adjustments where needed to mitigate congestion due to perhaps incidents or or large special events or construction. And so it's envisioned that the multiple multiple agencies that are responsible for traffic management, all combined in one location, so that we have one regional, one system traffic management center. Some of you are familiar with ktec 1.0. That's the base of our emergency operations center. We envision this as a ctec 2.0 that is primarily focused on mobility and traffic operations. By having all agencies that manage traffic operations in one center, we can leverage resources. We can monitor real time, actual impacts of construction and be proactive in making those operational adjustments needed to maintain or manage the impacts of the [1:49:49 PM] or manage the impacts of the construction. So that concludes the cp portion of my presentation. I can pause there for any questions. And before I move into the convention center construction management slides, I'm going to ask my dm over right of way management, miss meka Bose, to come up and help me with the remaining slides. >> All right. Do we have questions up to this point? Let's start with council member Krista Laine. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I'm so pleased that you are working on this. It's so important with all the construction Zones that are going on. Looking at page six, the maps that are there, I would just if I could just make a request that we begin to include district six in the transportation managements that come forward in presentations. It's kind of been an ongoing challenge in a variety of [1:50:50 PM] challenge in a variety of transportation related discussions to just even find the maps that are accurate for my district. That would be amazing. You have definitely got your next person who's going to start testing the mobile app, because it is not currently possible to come from my district to central Austin without going through often multiple construction construction Zones. So very excited about that. Do you have any indication of timing for the hotline or the website? >> Let's see. I do not have that specifically. I would expect it would be right after post. We go live with the app so that all the information is synchronized. I do have members of our consultant that help us develop the app present. If they have a more information on that, I would invite them with Alice to [1:51:50 PM] would invite them with Alice to come up. >> And I'll go ahead. And that's cool. I'm also going to have a question about the focus group testing. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, council members. My name is George Villarreal with Atkins wireless. I'm the program manager for cp, so the website is currently live now. But it's just minimal in its features. Is reflective on the pilot phase of the app. The hotline is going to go live later this year when we do go live and make the announcement later this year for the rollout of the full program. >> Okay. Thank you. I look forward to looking in the app to see what the coverage is like for many of these already active construction Zones, like 183 one in northwest Austin, the 183 frontage road. 620 will we have construction coming? Mcneil has construction coming up. Spicewood springs road is a huge. There's a lot going on. I am wondering on your focus group testing. Have have you how have you ensured that you have [1:52:51 PM] you ensured that you have included participation across the breadth of Austin? >> Go ahead. >> Yes, that's a great question. So we kicked off the focus group externally about a month ago. That was based off of a previous study that we've done, targeting specific demographics for age user groups, race, gender, as well as whether it's an iPhone or apple or, sorry, apple or android application. So we did an earlier on study, presented it internally to the cp leadership team that's comprised of the agency leadership, and we presented the demographics from there. We rolled it out externally, and we worked with our consultant to targeted following those demographic percentages in there, a small user groups and we can get that feedback. But we all are. So still you know, anybody publicly that wants to use it. There's features built into the app to [1:53:52 PM] features built into the app to provide any kind of comments that you want in there as well. So we got the focus targeted group, but then we also got the ability to capture the feedback in the app. In the event like yourself, that you want to download it and provide feedback, you can do it directly through the app. Of course, you can work through director Mendoza and his staff, who's been phenomenal to work with us. And they're they're responding to feedback as well regularly. >> I would be really interested if it's possible to ask follow ups, see what demographic characteristics you considered and how that that went. >> Yes. Yeah, we have a report on that and I'll provide that to director Mendoza's office. >> Okay. Let's see. I think that that's all. Yeah, I will just I'm going to again, just thank you for doing this work. There is not a time that I speak to the public that I do not get questions and concerns around safety and construction Zones, and in particular along the northwestern 183 corridor. So this is very welcome and I look forward to testing it. Thanks. >> Thank you. Council member. [1:54:53 PM] >> Thank you. Council member. It's truly been a multi-agency and partnership approach I know interagency we were meeting there. It seems like like monthly. And when we're getting into the meat of this. But it's really good to see that it's coming, coming to form. >> And that's good to hear because I know there's been discussion about this over the years that these plans have been in place. And so I'm glad to see things where they're at today. I see council member vela has his finger on the microphone. >> No questions. Just wanted to say thank you. Speaking of people's interest in transportation issues, director Mendoza was at a town hall, mobility and public safety town hall. The other day. We had 40 or 50 people there. Your staff as well, very well received and a lot of people, a lot of positive feedback. So just appreciate y'all engaging with the community and getting information out there. Thank you so much. >> Certainly it's fantastic. I have one quick question on the climate pollution reduction grant. Can you talk a little bit about the key performance indicators? How do we measure success. Like how do we make sure that we're actually [1:55:53 PM] sure that we're actually reducing dangerous emissions in the air? How are we tracking the tdm issues? I know our asmp calls for a massive change in drive alone vehicle behaviors and encouraging people to use other options. How are these being measured over the long haul? >> That's an excellent question, chair. A couple of major points there. Working with our cap cog, we are going to procure or work with them to procure up to 50 additional air monitors, air quality monitors throughout our city so that we can actively report back to EPA. And the grant does have reporting requirements for the execution of the grant. So that's one means we're also going to as you can see on the slide, we're going to purchase additional bike and ped counters, which will provide us the data in terms of the amount of use and transition that people are [1:56:54 PM] transition that people are making from vehicles to active mobility. And there may be a few other that escape me right now, but we definitely are looking forward to presenting those performance measures as we go forward. It's a five year program. Much of this first year is involved in the planning. In fact, you'll see some interlocal agreements coming to council probably in the next couple of months with our implementation partners so that we can start rolling out some of these measures. >> That's really great to hear. I think the eco counters, as you're calling them, are on our next agenda, if I'm remembering correctly. So those are already moving forward, but definitely appreciate hearing there's more air quality monitors happening. That information is invaluable because when they're in the same location over a course of years, you can actually tell what kind of air quality issues are happening. And I know we're a [1:57:54 PM] happening. And I know we're a big city, and all big cities have to deal with the reality of, you know, what happens with our air quality does affect our neighbors. And I know that we as austinites want to make sure that we're doing our best to make sure that folks that live outside the city limits, that expect clean air are not having to deal with with other issues that we're trying to mitigate here. So what we're doing is trying to help our neighbors as well. Are there any other questions on this portion? I know one more from council member Laine. >> I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about any kind of coordination or engagement with local employers, especially as various companies and agencies have been reintroducing in-person work and create an immediate shift. And it also seems like if those relationships are built early, they can also the employers can be another avenue for helping to convert out of vehicle to other transportation options if they're available. >> That's an excellent point. Council member. Yes, as you look [1:58:55 PM] Council member. Yes, as you look at measure three to introduce travel options, we are going to lean pretty heavily on our partner movability. They engage with major employers in the in our city now. And so they'll be doing a lot of the marketing and education. What I'll be expecting is that if we know on any particular day due to construction. Schedules or deadlines, that we just cannot avoid some concurrent Laine closures that might impact our our community. What we would do then is reach out to our major employees and maybe, you know, in anticipation a week out, encourage them to allow employees to maybe remote work on that day or the next day until we get past that, but also providing incentives. Campo. Has [1:59:57 PM] providing incentives. Campo. Has the right amigos, and I'm actively in conversations with their director to see opportunities for leveraging this funding with their Wright amigos program as well. So a lot of those that's major employers. We need to outreach. It's going to take beyond our our inner agencies, our whole community, business community, our residents, everybody working together. But the nice thing about this is that we'll be all working off the same sheet of music, and then we can make those adjustments in concert as needed. >> Thank you. That sounds great. I hope we can also find a way to loop in the already active construction areas, and the engagement in those areas. Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Thank you. And I appreciate the music play on words. That was very entertaining. I know you had another section about convention center. I think we're [2:00:58 PM] convention center. I think we're probably okay. And council member harper-madison speak up. If you had any questions I, I can't see you. So I don't know if you had your hand raised, but we could probably move on to the convention center. If not. >> Yeah. Chair, I can't tell what you guys can see in chambers. I'm trying to decipher it from this thing, but it looks like whenever there's a presentation, all you can see is the presentation. That's why I'm muting myself. But I'm here. >> Okay. Perfect. Thank you. >> Okay, I'm going to ask miss miss Bowes to come up and present on the convention center. >> Good afternoon. >> I'm amika Bowes, and I'm with transportation public works department. I am the transportation officer over right of way management and office of special events. So I'm here to give you a brief update on the convention center construction, traffic management. The convention center is right now closed. It closed earlier this month. And the contractor and their team is now mobilized on site. The contractor mobilization occurred [2:02:01 PM] contractor mobilization occurred April 5th. The convention center is the largest project in the downtown area. As of now, it's a three and a half year construction duration as we know it, with a move in date planned in January of 2029. So I'll just briefly go over. Staff from tpw has been actively engaged with the convention center team, their project management team, their various design teams, including their traffic control design engineering teams to create the traffic control plans for the project. Right now we are in phase one of the traffic control setup that is being set up as we speak. The basics of it is basically the impacts to red river and Trinity. Red river is going to be one one Laine in the northbound direction. Southbound [2:03:01 PM] northbound direction. Southbound is going to be closed because of the Gates and barricades that have actually been already set up for Trinity street. It is going to be closed to vehicular traffic, and only the bidirectional bike lanes are going to be open. And then there's going to be additional barricades on fourth street, which as of today doesn't exist, but will be put in place as this plan is deployed over the next couple of weeks. And then bikes and peds are going to be detoured further north onto fifth street. Cesar Chavez will stay open for all of the lanes. The contractor will provide a covered pedestrian walkway on the north curb of Cesar Chavez that has not been constructed yet, but will be the first mini phase of work is going to be in the south curb of Cesar Chavez, where there are a couple of bulb outs. The contractor is going to demolish those bulb outs to create more space so that they can create the covered walkway [2:04:02 PM] can create the covered walkway on the north side and keep all five lanes of Cesar Chavez open, so that this is going to be the setup over the next couple of weeks. And the main demolition of the building starts may 1st. So the contractor is now bringing in all of the materials, will construct will demo the south curb of Cesar Chavez in the upcoming weeks to get it ready for the demolition of the building on may 1st. Tp again, our right of way management staff, the traffic control reviewers, engineers in transportation engineering division have all worked with the contractor team to understand the haul routes, as there's going to be a lot of truck movement in and out of the site. There are multiple ingress and egress points, but this is the information that has been provided to us to date as the entry points will be on Cesar Chavez and red river, and the [2:05:02 PM] Chavez and red river, and the exit points are going to be mostly off of fifth and seventh streets. The slide shows kind of preliminary projected truck volumes and a stepped schedule of what to expect as this construction moves forward. So in the beginning, we expect it's going to be about 80 to 110 trucks per day all the way through July. And then the heavier hauling will happen for a period of one year starting fall of this year until fall of next year. We have been working administratively with the contractor team there at the table for our biweekly meetings, and we have been talking about the vigilance that we all need around these haul routes to make sure that the mobility impacts can be mitigated and expectations can be set. So we will continue to do that. I think we have been messaging with the contractor and the project team that we cannot have queuing on the main lanes of Cesar Chavez, and that they [2:06:02 PM] Cesar Chavez, and that they would have to ensure that all of the queuing is going to be within the construction fence area. Again, our right of way management division is providing inspection to provide that support services to the contractor and their tcrp teams on the ground. And we'll also, as this moves forward, provide the vigilance to make sure that the subcontractors and the haulers are adhering to the prescribed routes. And if not, we want to work with them to ensure that they are doing so. This is just kind of a snapshot of all of the public engagement that has happened to date and what we what we are going to continue to do moving forward. So there has been a lot of public engagement that the project team has undertaken over a period of months and years with the surrounding businesses, the hotels and the residents. And that continues to be the case. We also have a very active Rainey street area with a lot of stakeholders and construction. [2:07:05 PM] stakeholders and construction. Our tpw has a Friday meeting with the Rainey street stakeholders, and the convention center is a standing item so that we can keep the Rainey street neighbors informed about the activity. As part of the ongoing engagement. Obviously, there's going to be fire access. Austin fire department has been actively engaged in approving all of these plans. The project team is in the process of setting up text alerts and email notifications to inform the public there, the interested parties of the impacts. In terms of major phase changes, we also have a teams channel set up. We have now kind of refined this process where we have large projects going to construction. We have teams channel set up with internal city of Austin people, our right-of-way management team, the project team, the engineers as well as external staff so that we want [2:08:05 PM] external staff so that we want to use the tool to collaborate and troubleshoot any mobility impacts. Our mobility management center, which has access to all the signal cameras, they're actively monitoring the area and they are also a participant on the teams channel so that, you know, they can notify if there are any things that they are going to flag. For a quick correction on site, we have overhead message boards that have been programed. I believe right now it says that the demolition is going to start may 1st. We will continue to refresh those messages as the project moves forward in the next phases. And then the convention center has identified single points of contact to receive public input, complaints or concerns through either the csr system or otherwise. So that's kind of the brief overview of how we are trying to get ahead of it. And we know that there will be pain points to the public, but we want to be able to be transparent and manage the [2:09:05 PM] to be transparent and manage the mobility and hopefully provide the support services on the ground to keep our work Zones safe as well as the public safe. Thank you. >> Thank you. That looks like the last slide. I have one question before we start kicking it off. I think vice chair qadri is going to have some questions because this is in his district, the bike reroute. So there is already a reroute from third street up Trinity and kind of around the pavilion where the train pickup is. Is that going to stay the way that it is, or is it going to move further north up to fifth street and then cyclists have to get back south? >> Yes. So for red river it's going to move up north up to fifth street and be on fifth street, because fourth, the bike Laine on fourth street is not going to be active for this phase. It's currently not deployed, but we are working with the contractor to put that in place. So it will be on fifth and then it will come southbound on neches for the bidirectional bike Laine and then catch back up. >> Okay. So cyclists will have to keep going north and then [2:10:06 PM] to keep going north and then come back down another block. Yes okay. Because I know it's already moved from directly adjacent to the convention center on fourth street to just the other side of the promenade. It's very short, but it just looks like a temporary staging area. So it will go up and around and back down. Okay, okay. Let's start with vice chair qadri. >> You asked the question I was going to ask, so I have no questions. >> Oh, I didn't I didn't mean to steal your thunder. Do we have any other questions from colleagues? Well, that sounds like it was a fantastic presentation. If you don't have any other questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And we'll stay in touch over over the timeline that we know this is going to going to take. All right. Our next presentation is going to be a briefing regarding an overview of the residential permit parking program. Vice chair qadri. We can ride bikes together just so you don't feel left out. Sure. We'll go on a [2:11:06 PM] left out. Sure. We'll go on a tour. >> We'll do it. >> Yeah. >> Good afternoon, mobility committee members. I'm Lewis, left. I'm an assistant director with transportation public works. Joseph al-hajari is going to be leading the presentation. I just wanted to do a quick intro to set the stage. If you could go. Yeah. Next slide. So the residential permit parking program was established in 1997. So it has been a minute since we first established that program. And it's had a number of different changes to it and evolution over time. Last time we actually updated the guidelines for the program was in 2011 with council support of passing the city code changes related to parking 12 three and 12 five. It allowed for the development of directors rules. So we wanted to take the opportunity to more formalize the guidelines into something that can be more consistently applied over time. I wanted to make sure that we've got the framework in place that receives good public input and feedback. We have a survey going now. We'll have more public input during the director's rules [2:12:09 PM] during the director's rules process itself, as well as a utc presentation coming up. And we're really looking forward to your input today on specific elements to the program that you're looking to see adapted or changed in any way, really, the impetus is to update this and modernize it. It's also a little bit in reaction to recent policy changes around parking on site for developments, as it will have some impacts to the on street parking available to people on those streets. So we're looking forward to the conversation. And I'm going to introduce Joseph to come up now. >> Thank you Louis. >> Hello. Good committee members. Thank you for this opportunity to really talk about the arp program, residential permit parking. I've been with the city since 2009, and this is when my first projects. I was actually given the opportunity to help enhance this program. So this is great to be able to get to this point of making some needful changes. So I'm gonna get this today. We're just going to go over just a little bit of [2:13:09 PM] to go over just a little bit of history. We're going to do a little overview of the process and talk about some of the permits, talk about some feedback that we received over time, just either through legacy understanding through different means and from staff and from from the public, we're going to go through what we're going to do for our current feedback, like Louis mentioned, for surveys and, and how we're going to engage the community and other stakeholders through this process to get into a director's rules. And we're just going to talk about some key program elements and some next steps to get to that point. So, like Louis mentioned in 1997, the residential permit parking program was created. This was created around the university of Texas area north campus, specifically due to overflow of vehicles parking from campus on neighborhood streets. And at that point they created and established some guidelines which really just focused on different aspects to ensure that [2:14:11 PM] different aspects to ensure that a protected neighborhood quality of life while balancing the demand of the need of those areas. Since that time frame, we've updated those those rules just one more time, which that was in 2011. And then since then we've that was so in the north campus area. That's zone one, if you will. And we've had 52 Zones implemented since then with approximately about 6000 plus Erp spaces added to the system. That's roughly about 396 blocks that we have. I'm going to kind of touch on a couple of things on this. I know this kind of looks confusing, jumbled up. There's a couple of different processes. Someone that is interested in the program would submit an application to our department. It's a $350 application fee. Our staff reviews those. That application looks at some of the determining factors, and it has an initial discussion with the applicant about what those drivers are. Our staff creates documents [2:15:11 PM] Our staff creates documents needed for applicant to circulate a petition. That petition then goes out. The applicant is required to circulate that through neighborhood, through his neighbors, and reach a 60% support. One caveat to that if it's within a vertical mixed use corridor within 600ft, we require two thirds support once, that is, if that meets that qualification, then we would go to conduct some parking surveys and we'll conduct those. And on at least two days of a two week period, if it meets 75% occupancy, then we would consider it to be approved to go to the next steps, which would be review for our traffic engineer. And once that's approved, we install signs, we send out letters and we start permit distribution. Some of the feedback we've received over the years, I know personally I've received a ton of it. And, you know, we've we've gathered this [2:16:13 PM] know, we've we've gathered this either if you're a permanent permit and license review analyst, you know, issuing out permits or if you're an enforcement officer receiving feedback from the public or from people that live on the streets, you know, customer service requests. We have many ways that we receive feedback now. And over the years. One of the biggest points that we see is that we don't have enforcement on Sundays. This is not not enough of it. We actually don't have an enforcement schedule for Sunday currently, but something that we are currently looking into permit misused or abused, you know, selling of permits or, you know, just passing permits along, using them in the wrong manner. Requirements to purchase permits can sometimes be a little bit too cumbersome. Digital process from a paper form to a digital there's a couple different ways we do it. And then generally just the cost of permits. We've also on the other end, you know, people that don't live in an rpp zone feel like there's not a [2:17:15 PM] zone feel like there's not a reevaluation process, which really just, you know, creates issues that they see empty streets not being used. And it's really a privatization of public space. And then just some other considerations like just, you know, near areas that there is public amenities and not enough public access, like, you know, examples like parks and trails that they have that and they have some the cost there on the side where we have a Progressive rate originally and historically, we've always used to be for permits in total, which you would get two max hang tags for visitors and two we to be physical, digital or physical decal permits for the actual homeowner resident. You can actually get up to four. Digital. Sorry for decal permits, but you can only get a max of two hang tags. Wright director's rules that we're [2:18:18 PM] director's rules that we're looking at. So like Louis mentioned, we put in place a moratorium. I'm actually I'm not sure if you mentioned that, but we did put a moratorium in place on March 21st to kind of put a pause on the program while we conduct this process. Really, the focus here is, you know, we're going to replace the rules or the current guidelines that we have and put them into a legislative format and the director's rules. A lot of that is maintaining its integrity, but we've made it looking at in some enhancements for that. And some of those areas we're looking at is just really for consistency, consistency and accountability, really just, you know, avoiding consistent application process and streamline that and really work out of a framework and, and create a zone reevaluation criteria. Again, really want to focus on strengthening the program. So, you know, identifying fraud and abuse and then potential offset program costs. Right? I'm sure maybe [2:19:18 PM] costs. Right? I'm sure maybe some of you all have heard we have a new hybrid approach in south congress where we have a pay to park and residence permit parking put together this way that we can look into different types of drivers that are within an area and come up with a different approach to determine what is the best application. So some of that criteria is what we're looking at, at trying to determine whether or not what type of zone that we put in an area, and then really focusing on periodic reviews of existing areas, review occupancy. Other contextual issues such as land use changes, as well as number of households purchasing permits over time if that increases or decreases. So what are we doing? What are we doing now to get feedback? We. I skipped one oh sorry about that. So again just [2:20:22 PM] sorry about that. So again just kind of again on some other key elements of the program really looking at eligibility for rpp zone designation at the time we get the application, what we do now is we look at that application, we determine whether or not it meets specific criteria. It could be that it's within the city limits. You know, there's a number of households on the street, but it really doesn't take into effect nearby land uses or other public amenities to make a determination on what the demands are and what what what best application we can put in place. We're looking at, you know, strengthening the level of support in proposed Zones, you know, potentially going from just a 60% currently to a two thirds across the board, not just for vmu minimum occupancy levels. And of course, incorporating the pay to park element when appropriate. Again, we talked about zone [2:21:23 PM] we talked about zone modifications removal. So one of the things that we could do is we you know look at these and we, you know, understand that after doing a survey we can do a modification of time or maybe even change it to a hybrid zone rather than remove the zone completely permits, you know, criteria for eligibility. Really looking at a couple of different options, really looking for a low cost option for those that would need it, looking at different programs within the city, like the Austin energy cap program, to use that as a way to for an eligibility process. And of course, enforcement, strengthening those rules so that we have a way to revoke and suspend permits for misuse and creating an appeal process for that as well. So let's talk about next steps as far as feedback. So of course we have plenty of legacy feedback from in past years and internal stakeholder reviews from that. We, like Louis mentioned, [2:22:24 PM] We, like Louis mentioned, launched a community survey in April, April 7th. We'll be due for that for three weeks. We'll close on the 28th. We've already received a tremendous amount of feedback. Over 700 participants, over 2000 plus comments, and we still have a week left. And so, you know, I think it's going to really give us a good idea and indication of what direction we need to go. And then we're going to look at any other, you know, chances for feedback in between there, as well as during the director's rules, which I'll get into that process here in a second. There will be another public comment period for additional feedback to that process. We are also going to utc on may 6th. So here's a timeline. You know we're here today. We're looking at finalizing the rules draft rules by may 1st with, you know, potentially posting by may 5th with the city clerk's office at [2:23:25 PM] with the city clerk's office at that time. That's when we will look at the public comment period. Once we get those comments back, we have a certain amount of time to respond to those comments before we post those. And then the rules are adopted. So we're looking around July 10th for that to occur. And that concludes. >> All right. Do we have questions. Let's start with vice chair qadri. So I don't steal any of his. >> I don't have any questions. But I do have some comments and I appreciate the presentation, you know, representing folks on south congress. We've heard a lot of really great stuff about the hybrid approach. So I'm really excited about the, you know, the potential, the possibility of kind of bringing that hybrid option everywhere. But just some feedback I think we've gotten as an office around the program a lot. There don't have as much access or rights in regards to the program as much as homeowners. That's something that we've kind of heard across the board, whether in person or [2:24:26 PM] the board, whether in person or folks reaching out to our office. And then, you know, I think I agree with I believe this was said needing to better change or reevaluate. You know, as we look at land use and this changes kind of kind of come forward. So no questions to steal. But those are just some I guess. Thoughts from the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. >> Council member vela. >> As opposed to council member qadri, I don't think that I have a residential parking permit zone in district four. So still appreciate the presentation and watching it closely. But but yeah, I was just looking at the map and noticing that. Thank you. >> Perfect. I see councilmember harper-madison has her hand up. >> Thank you chair I appreciate it. I love this committee. It's always on time. There's questions stealing. It's wild in here. So I had just a comment. I just really wanted to say how impressed I am by the amount of feedback you've received. And I, [2:25:27 PM] feedback you've received. And I, you know, offline, really love to know exactly how you all encourage people to contribute their feedback. That's fantastic. And I also really appreciate, especially in a forward facing capacity, that you acknowledge receiving the feedback and implementing it. I think that's something that really goes a long way with our constituents. So thank you very much. I appreciate that component. >> Thank you, councilmember, and I'll take that point to kind of plug it at that point. We've have it on our website. You can go on there and take the survey. We have social media posts we put out. We are also going to be sending this out to all of the applicants that have applied for permits. We have their email addresses. We're sending that out that way. So we're continuing to push to get as many as much feedback as we can. I appreciate that comment. Thank you. Councilmember. >> Did you have another question? >> Councilmember I did, yeah. Now you made me have another question. That's one of the things that like my neighborhood association, for example, we're meeting soon, they'd love to have that information. I have thought about this before, but I wonder if it might be helpful to [2:26:27 PM] wonder if it might be helpful to go ahead and press a button on trying to compile a master call list for neighborhood associations or master email list, because I think that would be a great place to put that information as well. Thank you. >> Any other questions from committee members? I'll just say I think our district probably was one of the first, you know, kind of hybrid approaches off Scottish wood trail. And we know that city staff worked really hard to try to figure something out that served the needs of the residents who lived there, who were being inundated with folks that were going to a trailhead. But they started blocking mailboxes and driveways, and it just got a bit out of hand. And staff was really diligent in working with us and with those neighbors. On trying to find a hybrid approach that made everybody be good neighbors, and created a situation where we have not heard that many complaints. Even as the Summers have gone on. I think my team is saying it was late 2021 that we were trying to work through this. And so it's been a number of years, and so far it seems like it's been working really [2:27:28 PM] like it's been working really well. And I respect that. There's maybe not a one size fits all process for every single street. Some, some lots are narrow, and you've got more folks trying to share that space. Some are big, wide, lots that don't have as much demand. And so I think this approach is something that's going to serve us well in the future. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Sorry I lied. I did have a question, but I I'm not going to take anyone's question when it comes to boards and commissions. Will there be certain boards and commissions that will be involved in reviewing the draft rules around this? >> We are going to the urban transportation commission on may 6th, but that's the only stop we have currently. >> Great. And I'm sorry, when are y'all going at utc? >> May 6th. >> May 6th. Okay. Great. Thank you. >> All right I think that does it for this item. Thanks for the presentation. Thank you. Our next item is going to be a briefing regarding a one year update on the shared micromobility program, which includes scooters and e-bikes. And for my colleagues that are [2:28:28 PM] And for my colleagues that are on this committee that are also on capmetro. I know we had a couple of questions at that meeting, just trying to understand scope and things like that for the devices that are currently deployed. So this is perfectly timed, and I'm glad we were reading people's minds and putting this on the agenda for this week. >> Yes. Great foresight. Louis Leff assistant director, transportation public works just want to introduce the presentation again. Last spring, our director made the call to change some of the rules or some of the elements around the rules regarding the shared mobility services that operate in this town. And so we committed to coming back here. I think, in a December memo, we laid out the kind of the midyear point, and we wanted to come back about a year later to share some data and information about what those changes have done as far as the metrics that we track, and also what we're looking forward to as we formally go through the director's rules process with this topic as well. So I'm going to do. Michael Kimbrough, the shared mobility services manager. >> All right. Good afternoon, [2:29:32 PM] >> All right. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Mike Kimbrough. I am the program manager for shared mobility services with transportation and public works. Really appreciate the opportunity to present to you and give you an update on shared micromobility. Okay, so a little bit of an overview of what we'll go over. First, we'll talk about the program update, look into some metrics since we made those changes that Louis mentioned last April. Talk about community and stakeholder outreach that we've been doing, some data reporting and an update on the progress of the director's rules. So without further ado, we'll jump back in. So as a refresher, Louis kind of mentioned in April of last year, we made some changes to the program as a whole. You may recall, in 2023, we had four vendors operating within the city limits. Towards the end of the year, we lost two of those vendors. They left the market unexpectedly, and we made the decision to cap the program at two vendors at that time or at [2:30:33 PM] two vendors at that time or at April after that had happened. Additionally, we decided to cap the remaining operators fleet sizes at their existing level. I believe we have 6880 permitted devices available to operate within the city limits. Additionally, and finally, we made the decision to reduce the number of devices that could operate within the downtown core to 1125 per operator. So meaning we'd have 2250 devices that could operate within the downtown area. So with those in mind, got some numbers here. We can kind of look at progress and the impact that those changes have had. We've got two different date ranges that we'll look at April 1st, 2023 through March 31st, 2024, and the same dates for 2024 through 2025. In the first date range in the years 2023 and 2024, we saw just shy of 3 million total trips for all four then two operators. So [2:31:35 PM] all four then two operators. So 2.915 million. After we made the changes within the following year, that number was 2,850,000 and change. So 2.3% fewer trips than we had seen year over last. And that number is reflected by 30% fewer devices overall within the city limits. Looking specifically at the downtown area, in the first tight range, we saw 1.997 million trips after the changes, 1.81 million. So we saw a 9.4% decrease in trips in the downtown area, but 45% fewer devices. So a little bit disproportionate to what we've seen as the city overall. But overall, the decline wasn't that dramatic. Additionally to the changes that we made in the operation of the system, we made some changes, some updates to the way that we do enforcement. Just as kind of a brief [2:32:37 PM] Just as kind of a brief overview, we leveraged the parking enforcement department to, to help us enforce proper parking of these devices around town prior to 2024. We did that utilizing the 311 system. So just like any of us find a device parked incorrectly, we would use the 311 app to report that the parking enforcement msos were doing the same thing. Those customer service requests that they created would get sent directly to the vendors, who would then have two hours to rectify the situation and respond. The system worked pretty well overall, but there were some limitations, not the least of which was being able to track that sla accurately. So in 2024, we migrated that system in-house into our city of Austin nacc system, which gives us better visibility into the data. And like I mentioned before, it really allows us to track that that two hour sla that we have with the vendors. Some of the metrics that we kind of track, the big the big key metric that a lot of people look to is trips [2:33:37 PM] a lot of people look to is trips per device per day. I think one of the goals with this reduction that we did in April was hopefully we would see those numbers increase and we did citywide. We saw the total TPD go from about 1.21 trips per device to 1.36. And downtown we saw that rise from 1.1 to 1.79. Another goal that we wanted, another metric that we were using to kind of track the impact of the changes was the number of csrs that were created. You can see at the chart on the right a dramatic decrease. We can't attribute that completely to the to the program changes. We had some. I guess, more, more robust enforcement in 2023. We sort of had a zero tolerance policy enacted, and we were impounding a lot of devices. So those numbers were inflated over what they were. But we're pretty pleased with the with the lower number. And I think we'll [2:34:38 PM] number. And I think we'll continue to see that. And again, csr is referred to improperly parked devices. All right. Community outreach. Yeah. So shared mobility services along with our public information office hosted an open house on March 24th, fifth at the 24th at the carver branch public library. The goal of the event was to engage the community, hear concerns about the shared micromobility system, and we sought input on potential parking locations. And in addition to city staff, we had representatives from lime and bird on hand. They were there to answer questions, discuss safety and hand out free helmets to riders, which was great. Pio promoted this through the Austin mobility newsletter twice through a media kit distributed to council offices, email invitations sent to community registry groups and key zip codes with reminder email going out on the 21st paid and organic social media posts on tpw [2:35:39 PM] social media posts on tpw accounts and promotion on city social accounts. Some of the other outreach that we're doing, we presented to the vision zero community board, the mayor's committee for people with disabilities, outreach at UT market days. We plan on doing some intercept surveys. In addition, because I think it's really good to get out in the field and talk to people who are using the devices. But we also did an online survey, this one much more robust than the one that we did in 2024. I think that everyone will agree and that will bring us to the next slide discussing the results of the survey. Pretty pleased with the overall input, I think final numbers. We ended up with 679 participants and over 1300 comments. The survey just ended on Sunday, so we've just begun to dip our toes into the data, but are really excited. I think we've got a lot of really, really good, potentially actionable data in there. The [2:36:39 PM] actionable data in there. The survey had 20 questions that were aimed at determining overall impressions of shared micromobility, ridership behaviors, safety concerns and parking considerations. Again, it included three interactive maps where respondents were able to drop pins in areas that they felt were unsafe for riding devices, areas that they would like to see more devices and areas that they would like to see, potential parking infrastructure, just some really high level numbers. 68% of the respondents had have actually used shared micromobility devices. When we initially launched the survey, that was kind of flipped, we were getting more responses from people who didn't utilize it. So want to give a round of applause, a hat tip to bird and lime at the open house. We actually discussed it, and they said that they could boost it through their channels to their ridership. And I think that was able to boost the number of responses and also get us a more representative sample size, because obviously we want to hear from everyone, but we [2:37:39 PM] to hear from everyone, but we have some questions that are definitely directed at users of these devices. So thanks to birdlegg for helping out with that. Of the folks who don't use devices, their primary concerns are safety and traffic infrastructure. 51% use the devices for entertainment and 30% for commuting to work or school. And next slide. All right. So one of the questions that we were very interested in is micromobility parking. This has been an initiative of my department installing parking boxes around the city. So we asked a couple questions about whether people had heard of parking boxes, if they were utilizing them, where they thought we should put more. So almost half of the respondents were aware of parking boxes, but only 28% had actually used them. So I think we could infer from that. Gesundheit. A couple things that maybe we just don't have a good density. We're not promoting them well enough, or maybe, you know, lack of [2:38:39 PM] maybe, you know, lack of visibility, but I think there's work we could do there to get people to utilize them there. Also, the vendors also have technology that we can utilize to help direct people to these, which I think will be leveraging more this year than we have in the past. Our plan is to utilize this data. We've already begun just kind of going through the pins and coming up with a plan on on siting new locations for these and start installing more parking boxes this year. I'm also on the cpr subcommittee for mobility hubs, and there's some some interest in using some of the cpr funds to also do some micro mobility parking. So that'll be exciting to use that. One of the big numbers that I was surprised by that came from this is 54% of users feel it's unclear where to park the devices safely and properly. That was a number that was surprising to me, and something that I think that we could do some work with the vendors to, to up our education as far as [2:39:41 PM] to up our education as far as that's concerned, to make sure people know where to park them and how to park them properly. All right. Next up we'll talk about crash and collision reporting. This is an ongoing project of ours in an effort to standardize crash reporting, shared mobility services is met with vision zero to gain a better understanding of how these incidents are reported. Using available sources from txdot austinget are a little bit different. The verbiage isn't standardized, so we want to make sure that what we're getting from the vendors is consistent. Additionally, we plan to work with law enforcement and medical providers to kind of gain a better understanding of reporting and work on how to improve how these crashes and collisions involving micromobility are reported. Vision zero has been great, a great partner to work with in this, and they're doing some some outstanding work. I think previously a lot of the data that they have has come from law enforcement. So kind of spotty [2:40:43 PM] enforcement. So kind of spotty as far as scooters are concerned, and they're going to be rolling in a lot of ems data going forward. They're also going to be providing us. Are they connected us with Dell Seton to receive a report from them on scooter specific injuries? We always have constant data challenges with this, for obvious reasons. There's no single source of truth out there, really, that tells us exactly how many crashes and collisions are happening. We wish there were because. Because we want those numbers. But we're we're we're really making progress. And I think we're on the right track to at least having better data as far as this is concerned. All right. Directors rules, revisions. So all of the work being done in the previous slides will aid in the revision and adoption of new directors, rules to govern the city's micromobility program. Shared mobility services will continue stakeholder engagement, seeking feedback and guidance on this rewrite, and endeavor to help develop a set of rules that will provide a transportation alternatives that is safe, [2:41:44 PM] alternatives that is safe, effective and equitable for everyone. Yeah, some of the highlights we won't go through step by step, but we'll be introducing several updates to help enhance clarity, safety, equity and operational efficiency. Basically, we're going to be standardizing a lot of terms, adding some language for modifying fleet levels and operating Zones, allowing device increases for special events, and create a framework for us to better evaluate performance by the providers. We're developing a score sheet to do that, and a process to actually do field audits of devices to make sure that they are safe and up to date. Next up, proposed timeline for the director's rules pretty much mirrors the Erp timeline. April 17th. We are here. We're hoping to have the rule set finalized by may 1st, with the initial draft completed, including legal review. Posting [2:42:45 PM] including legal review. Posting on may 5th. Public comment period ending on June 4th with our response on July 3rd and adoption. We're shooting for July 10th as well. All right. Next steps. We're going to continue to evaluate public input from the survey and outreach efforts. We've got a lot of dots on maps and a lot of comments to sort through, but we're excited to do it. Like I said, there's a lot of really, really good feedback in there that I think is going to really help drive the program into the future. I guess I could put that slide up. There we go. Finalize and post the draft director's rules. That'll be coming up very soon. And then we plan on having a memo for council in may as a response to the 2024 audit that was done on the program. So that's all I have. Any questions or discussion? >> All right. As I like to say, my opinion of scooters is different whether I'm on the scooter or not. They're very, very hard to work around [2:43:47 PM] very hard to work around sometimes in a dense downtown environment. Do we have questions from the committee members? Let's start with council member harper-madison. >> Thank you, I appreciate it. I had one quick question. I was having a difficult time trying to toggle between the screens and expanded on. You had the one screen and there was a pie chart. I didn't even I couldn't even really see the slide number. It was a pie chart. And then to the right there were bullets and it looked like there were sort of demographic details. >> Those were. So yeah, I think that was the parking box map. So we had three interactive maps. >> It was, it was, it was two slides before the parking box. >> With a with a pie chart. >> Yeah. >> The community outreach survey I think. Slide five. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Oh yeah. >> And so I can't see the bullets to the right. Could you read those to me real quick [2:44:47 PM] read those to me real quick because I had a question. But I want to make sure I don't. >> Oh sure sure sure. Yeah. >> Expanded it to 200 and I still can't get it to get over enough so I can see it. >> Yeah. So the question that that illustrates is how often do you use shared e-scooters and e-bikes? 33% of respondents said not at all. 29% have used them a few times 16% 1 to 3 times per month, 12% 1 to 5 times, and 9% more than five times per week. >> Thank you. I really appreciate that. And that's to that's to not necessarily a question so much as a comment. And then that may lead to a question. So I made mention a couple years back during the course of a mobility committee meeting. Chair, you might recall how surprised I was. I have in a 1.7 mile radius, I have five income restricted housing developments. And, you know, they all happen to be in my neighborhood. So I see it frequently. I was surprised at the time and continue to be surprised at how frequently those are being used by residents of those complexes. [2:45:48 PM] residents of those complexes. And I just wondered if there was any separate data like that y'all share with hakka, maybe, or any considerations around income restricted housing development adjacent to micro mobility? >> You know, we don't actually request any of that data from the providers that would have to come from them. The people that are using their their equity programs. Okay. But you know, that gets my mind moving. And that's something that I think we should do. I think equity should be a focus. And I'm glad to hear that, that that they get used in that regard. I think that's a great use case for these devices. You know, they can be a relatively inexpensive alternative to car ownership. So no, I think that's a you raise a great point. And I'll reach out to the vendors and see if we can start working that into our normal reporting. So thanks. >> I really appreciate that. And I'll just leave you with this anecdotally. I mean I see I mean it's probably not especially safe, but I see people lugging their groceries back on scooters. You know, there's the H-E- B at seventh and pleasant valley for some folks. That's three busses just to go, not [2:46:48 PM] three busses just to go, not just a little under a mile. So people being able to get to the grocery and back, get their medication from the CVS and back, I mean, it really is an equity equalizer in a lot of ways that I personally had not anticipated. I'm a chicken, I haven't ridden them, but I've seen people that are literally my grandmother's age riding scooters down east 12th street at cedar, which surprised me. So I would just really love to see some of that data. So I'll follow up with you. Thank you very much. >> Yep. Thanks. >> That's great. Other questions from committee members. Vice chair qadri. >> Thank you. Yeah I was some questions, some comments, but I was just really, I guess, glad and relieved to see that the introduction hasn't equated to a reduction. You know, in trips it was was a pleasant, pleasant thing to see. But I guess a question that I did have was, could you provide more details on progress or updates relating to parking corrals for scooters and bikes? >> I kind of could only hear [2:47:49 PM] >> I kind of could only hear you. Sorry. Yeah. >> Did you hear any of the question or should I start from the beginning? >> I heard part of it. I heard it could. >> Could you provide an update on parking corrals for scooters and bikes. >> So like the, the, the built out parking corrals. I think we talked about that a while back. We were going to invest in some parking corrals with vertical elements to them and whatnot. >> Is there is there an update on the progress of that? >> Yeah, we, we tabled that for a while and kind of focused on doing, I guess, the a little more cost effective alternative, which is the parking boxes just using on street parking or on street markings with stencils and delineators. And where possible, we're going to increase that, that program. But I think in fiscal year 26, I think there's going to be an opportunity for us to revisit the corrals, and I think we may be picking that back up. So it's tabled for the moment, but I [2:48:50 PM] tabled for the moment, but I think we'll be picking that back up soon. >> Great. And then to keeping on that theme, our office had submitted a picture. I don't know if you guys could pull it up of a picture of a city hall staffer had shown us from a trip in France. I don't know if you guys could. Are you guys able to put that? Oh, there you go. I've never been to France. It looks looks delightful, but that is a picture. A city hall staffer there in France who shared us with us. It's a dockless bike and scooter corrals that are there. And what I understand that they're geofence and marked, and users get a small fine if they're not parked correctly. And there's also a limit of how much you can be in each corral. So I think it's great. And I was wondering if we if it's possible, if you think it's feasible that we look into doing this, at the very least looking to do it in downtown. >> It is absolutely. There are some challenges, especially downtown with gps drift as far as geofencing those things. So it's kind of hard to get them, you know, at a at a very micro level or macro level parked in [2:49:51 PM] level or macro level parked in the same thing. And also we need to be strategic about it because, you know, if you force everyone to park in these parking boxes, you kind of you kind of get lose some of the benefit of dockless mobility. You know, at some point it almost becomes like a docked scooter share. But I think if we are strategic about it and utilize that kind of technology and things like that in high volume areas, especially, we can we can leverage those things in events, for sure. But there is an opportunity to do that. We actually just yesterday, the peace park conservancy had been working through pard and reached out with us to do some updates to the geofence. There is a row of bike racks there that we're well inside the geofence before, and they wanted scooters to park at that that spot. And, you know, we informed them that because it's within the geofence, folks couldn't end their trip. So it wasn't a really great location. But we reached out to the to the vendors and asked them if they could nudge the geofence in. They did that, and they also [2:50:51 PM] They did that, and they also were able to utilize technology within their apps to guide people to park at those spots. So we're kind of excited to see how that works. I think that'll be a great use case and something that we could do for that. But yeah, and it's there's a lot of good technology out there, and I think there are going to be great opportunities to utilize this. And as we get more density of these parking boxes, I think that's definitely more feasible to utilize that force park technology. Great. >> I have two more questions. One is just related to scooter safety on sixth street, with ramping down the speeds with scooters on sixth street. Do we have any data or do we have any, I guess, findings of what that's looked like? >> No, it's kind of hard to collect data. Again, this goes back to the collision reporting. It's kind of hard to get, you know, good data of any incidents that have happened. So we didn't really have any benchmark data beforehand. So it's kind of difficult to after. But you know, I, I think no news is good news. We haven't heard a lot of [2:51:54 PM] news. We haven't heard a lot of reports of any incidents. >> The evaluation has been pretty good. >> Then what's. >> That as it gets. The evaluation has been pretty good. If there hasn't been any. >> Councilmember. I just mentioned the vision zero connection that's been made. They're actually inputting the ems data for the last like 6 or 8 years into the vision zero database. Right now, there's a lot more work to be done to integrate and connect those with existing crash report data from police or existing hospital data that we know. But I think there is a goal to be able to look back in time, to be able to establish that baseline and then see what the change was made, and then see what happened after that. It's going to take us some time to get to that point, just based on the data analysis and scrubbing that needs to happen. But we're hopeful that with that ems data feed, that we'll be able to see some of those incidents that might not have a crash report associated with it because it was not involving a vehicle. That's the only ones that get kind of captured by the kr three that the police provide. >> Great. >> Thank you. Thanks, Liz. >> And then my last question, similar to what I had asked about the rpp stuff, but is there going are there any boards [2:52:55 PM] there going are there any boards and commissions that will be hearing this. >> Yes, we are actually also going to go to utc in may. >> Is that also the may 6th meeting? >> The may 6th meeting okay. Correct. Okay. >> Thank you. >> All right. >> Perfect. And I'll just end this on an anecdote about parking. I noticed as someone who utilizes a bicycle quite often downtown, a lot of people want to leave their scooters near the bike racks, which is great. They want them to be out of the way. They want them to be in a predictable location, but there might be a way to put them next to each other so that it's a little more obvious. You know, the one that actually has the u-shaped staple that you can lock a bike to is for the bikes. And then right next to it is scooters. Because I appreciate that folks are trying to keep the equipment out of the right of way in a expected location, but half the time I pull up, there's only, you know, two bike racks and there's a scooter right in the middle. And so now I have to get the scooter out of the way so I can lock the bike up. And I think the they're well-meaning by doing this, but I think maybe there's an easier way to get that human behavioral aspect of, hey, we can be next [2:53:56 PM] aspect of, hey, we can be next to each other and to create some sort of expectations there. >> Yeah, yeah, it's something that that maybe we can do through further education. Like the point we touched on earlier about the. People not knowing how to park safely and properly. I think maybe that's something that we can address in there is, you know, we want you parking next to a bike rack is okay. But, you know, be a good neighbor about it and don't take all the room for the bicycles. >> Right. And I respect that some of the folks using scooters downtown may not have them in the places that they live in. So I think people are trying hard to use them respectfully, just trying to figure out how to make it more predictable for everyday users. >> Great. Okay. >> Any last questions? We have six minutes before adjourning. Let's go ahead with council member Laine wondering. >> Well, I talk for the whole six minutes. This is really interesting. Thank you. >> My pleasure. >> And I am not sure if this is, you know, the right moment for this question, so feel free to [2:54:57 PM] this question, so feel free to correct me if it's not. I'm looking at the map of mobility hubs, which seem pretty important to where these types of transit options become available, and I'm just noticing some very large distances between mobility hubs across even lower income areas, areas that have high transit rates. And also, an earlier speaker mentioned how and I really appreciate how quickly sidewalks and things have been coming online in areas where this type of access has already been added. But there's still these wide gaps between mobility hubs. So I'm wondering when was the last time that consideration was given to the location of mobility hubs? >> That's a that's a good question. And maybe historical information I don't have. I don't know, I'm relatively new to the mobility hub subcommittee for crg, so I know that that's something that we are diving [2:55:58 PM] something that we are diving into in earnest to try to evaluate those sort of things. You know, and I think, I think the way the mobility hubs work most effectively is when you have sort of a hub and spoke model. So you have, you know, smaller mobility hubs throughout the area to connect those disparate Zones, you know, to make it make it easier to, you know, take car share or ride your bike or, you know, a shared device to a bigger hub where a bus stop is, or to a transit center or some of those sorts of things. So, no, we're working. We've developed a tool. We I say we I haven't done any of the work, but part of the committee subcommittee members have developed a tool, a map, to start analyzing a lot of these things, using transit data and even shared micro mobility data. The data that we have available to us to help connect a lot of those dots. So yeah, I can't speak to the past, but. >> I appreciate the newness. I feel you. So I think it's an important consideration. There have been a lot of shifts in how [2:56:58 PM] have been a lot of shifts in how and I'm telling the people who know this, but a lot of shifts in how transit is used. Since the pandemic, there have been a lot of demographic and growth shifts, population shifts. And I mean, I'm seeing very large spacing, like nothing in between, anywhere in between lakeline station and pavilion park and ride, nothing along palmer all the way between northeast Austin and the, you know, boundary of Austin. This sort of thing. >> Okay. Yeah. Louis just tapped. So just to clarify, are you looking at the map on the presentation that we have? >> No, I'm not interested. When you mentioned the mobility. Hub sub group that you participate in. And then I found this nice gis layer. And the rest of the website isn't available right now. There's some temporary disruptions. >> Okay. Great. >> Yeah. But I guess I'm happy to continue that conversation offline. But whether or not we actually speak about it, I just want to elevate however long it [2:57:59 PM] want to elevate however long it has been. It sounds like perhaps there might have been some shifts that make it desirable to look at it again. >> Absolutely. And councilmember, one issue has been funding in the past. And so now with these grants coming in and the availability of that money to be able to expand the system, I think that's where a lot of the analysis has been done. In partnership with capmetro, mobility hubs are typically tied with the transit stations so that we can get that full kind of first last mile connection with transit. So there's a lot more to come on that, and we'll be glad to connect with your office after this. >> And totally appreciate that. I know that metro is in the process of, you know, refining re updating its plan. And I know that there is some discussion of increased community engagement in some of the areas that I just noted to be, but not yet completed yet. So appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. >> Awesome. Appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff. >> I think that takes us to item number six, which is listed as a briefing from the director of Austin transportation public works. This is the stand in for our director's report. It just [2:59:00 PM] our director's report. It just has a very long name now, but it covers topics like progress towards southeast Austin urban trails. The city hosted an autonomous vehicle stakeholder meeting. April is distracted driving awareness month. Airport boulevard improvements continue. South Lamar improvements are on the way, and atp is analyzing feedback on the draft environmental impact statement for the light rail plan. So are there any questions for the director or should we move to future items? I don't have questions. I see no hands. Let's move on to future items. May is bike month as always, so save the date. We are typically doing a staff led bicycle ride with the group to help understand bicycle infrastructure, and to see some of the new projects that have been completed in Austin, and helping complete the gaps in our trail network. And then we aim to do a deep dive on the status of mobility bonds. [3:00:02 PM] the status of mobility bonds. Quick update on status of federal mobility grants. So there's a number of discussions happening right now about availability of federal grants. And so the staff has been doing an assessment of those diligently. An update on city leap and potentially a metro bike update. And we are not scheduled to meet in June. So that would take us into July. But I will add a couple things that we have on our list that we don't necessarily have scheduled yet is another topic on autonomous vehicles, including public safety. Street trees, including fruit trees connecting the edges of town and the region to the core of the city. Prioritization process for transit for regional mobility construction partnership program, memorandum of understanding and interlocal agreement I-35 maintenance interlocal agreement. Transportation, air quality around schools. Shoal creek trail and gaps. Public charging stations for personal e-bikes. Streetscape design standards, and carless multifamily [3:01:03 PM] and carless multifamily development examples. So we obviously have a robust running list. Are there any other topics that were not included here that folks want to put on the radar today? Or you can also send me an email and we can add them to the list as well. I see council member harper-madison has her hand up. >> Thank you chair, I appreciate it. I'll elaborate in email because my team and I are having a hard time finding it. I think because it's ancient. Do you remember back, back, back in the day we were having this conversation and somebody made mention of like shoal creek connecting to walnut creek, connecting to walnut, connecting to boggy. It was like this grand vision of an entire city that was connected by trails. I'm looking at our trail connectivity plans and all that, but I'm not seeing. It was an old, ancient conversation, and so I'm going to find the context there and share that with you. I'd like to resurface that. And then the other thing that I had that I'd like to resurface, it's also an oldie but goodie. I think it was utrecht, if I recall correctly, when we went to the Netherlands, you [3:02:03 PM] to the Netherlands, you remember, we went to that, we had a presentation and they talked to us about how, you know, very unfortunately the city was leveled by war and so they had the opportunity to rebuild. And one of the things that was really poignant for me during the course of that presentation was that they had started out in one direction and spent what was at the time $1 million or so, and realized that they were building a city for cars and not a city for people. And so once they made the decision and, you know, and invested the political will to change course, they basically just scrapped that million dollars and did a different project. But by the time we visited, they had had this, you know, decades old opportunity to really enjoy comprehensive people built city. I would love for us to get some sort of, maybe even abbreviated duplication of that presentation for this body, to really get people to see what it looks like when it works. Well. Thank you chair. >> Thanks. I think those are great suggestions. And your first suggestion reminded me of the fact that the violet crown [3:03:05 PM] the fact that the violet crown trail is now completed all the way down to the wildflower center, and there's conversation and partnerships happening across the hays county line to help continue the great springs project. So maybe there's a moment in the future where we can kind of cover all that trail connectivity, because we've got Austin to Maner now. There's been a lot of good updates on trail connectivity. So maybe that's a good highlight we can add in in the future. >> Yeah. Thank you chair. And I won't belabor it but and my staff and I will do it on the back end. But I couldn't help but notice in that map, you know, where the hubs and everything were. I'm looking at, you know, the northeast planning district. And so being able to go ahead and start thinking in that direction as that's being planned is really helpful. So those are things that I'll probably be emailing you about just to get your advice and guidance. >> That sounds great. All right. Well thank you everybody. This has been a fantastic discussion. It is now 3:04 P.M. And I will adjourn this mobility committee meeting. Thanks to everyone.