Mobility Committee (MOBC) Meeting Transcript – 12/4/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 12/4/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 12/4/2025 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. [1:02:26 PM] >> All right. Welcome, everybody. I will call to order this meeting of Austin's mobility committee. It is 1:02 P.M. And we are here in chambers. I am chair Ellis. I'm joined by vice chair qadri and council members. Laine and vela here on the dais. And this is our last committee meeting of the year. I know there's a lot of them happening during this week, so it's been a very busy week for us here at city hall. We ended up having eight people sign up for public communications. So we've asked that everyone keep their remarks to two minutes so that we can hear from the additional folks that that signed up here in this moment. And I will before we call any of the speakers, I just want to make a note that the urban transportation commission item, item six ended up lower on the agenda. We're going to go ahead and take that in order. So we'll hear from speakers. We will adopt the minutes. And then we're going to be able to turn it over to Susan Summers, the chair of the urban [1:03:27 PM] transportation commission, so that she can get on with the rest of her day. And then we will move into the briefing items. So I will turn it over to our coordinator to start calling our speakers. >> If I can have Scott Johnson, followed by Blake Thomas and Chris flores. >> Good afternoon, chair Ellis and council members. My name is Scott Johnson. As you know, councilmember Ellis and council member vela knows I led the effort on getting the city to adopt a distracted driving ordinance in 2014. Here's some information. And the purpose of my testimony today is to make you aware that I'm very interested in convening a working group that the public safety committee or this and or this committee can support, that would raise awareness for the current ordinance, because there are many people that have moved here since the enforcement has been reduced. And there's some creative ways that we can perhaps work [1:04:28 PM] towards better implementation or getting the ordinance followed. So recommendations. The seeds of this started in 2005 with a bicycle safety task force that I was on, and in 2009 we had a texting while driving ordinance put into place. Those are not effective though. In 2012, with no one working in this space, I began advocating for this and went out to utc, urban transportation commission, public safety commission, community technology commission and talked it up with them. I recruited Bianca Benson, who is still the chief prosecutor for the city, to speak to them. That was a very good decision. Next page please, and scroll down. And then we brought it forward. 2014. It was adopted in August. It was effective date 2015. And we had a lot of citations written in 20 teens after 2015. And Ford and an attempt was made to lessen it by the state, and we fought it. And we still have the ordinance. [1:05:30 PM] And along with APD and SAPD, we went down there. The citations are $200 or more. There is a diversion program that was put together by the law department, with Bianca Benson taking the lead, and other cities in Travis county, fortunately, and other cities statewide have followed our ordinance, which was one of the first ones in the region or in the state. Scroll down please. In recent years, the enforcement hasn't begun. Certainly not here to criticize the police department. I've been the coordinator for neighborhood watch for 17 years, and my neighbor had worked closely with them. And here are the citation numbers from 2015, 16, 17, 18 and 19. Fatality numbers are below, and at the bottom, the ten most used apps while driving. Surprisingly, the phone is number ten. Questions and a video from tpw on vision zero distracted driving awareness. >> Thank you. Did you email that to all of us so we can [1:06:31 PM] review that video? >> I can, I already spoke to miss love and she's planning to do that. And I've sent it to the psc members. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. We appreciate it. >> Hi. Good afternoon. Hi. Good afternoon. There you go. My name is Blake Thompson. I'm a district ten resident, a district nine property owner and business owner, and an avid cyclist and a board member of the sixth street Kahn street owners association. And I'm here to speak just in on an open item that is going to come you guys way probably in the early 2026, which is going to be a recommendation from transportation and public works, sixth street mobility and revitalization plan. And as a representative of the Kahn street owners association, we represent 113 property owners and over 60 businesses with 80 storefronts on historic sixth street. And we've been very [1:07:33 PM] involved with Anna martin and Richard Mendoza's group to go through all of the charrettes and the workshops and the designs that they've put forth. There's three alternatives. Our pecan street owner association has unanimously, with 113 property owners and 60 plus businesses, unanimously voted in favor of option number three, and that it makes this conversation not an anti bike conversation. As I said, I'm an avid cyclist. I bike six days a week. I love bike infrastructure in Austin. It makes us a healthy and a fit city. But we do have to recognize that on sixth street we just simply have a math problem. We have 80ft from building to building, and we have 30 million tourists that come downtown to that area. And I would encourage you guys, we'd love to invite you to our board meeting or do a walk down sixth street. It's incredibly busy in the evenings, and we would love to accommodate the programing that's already going [1:08:34 PM] on down there and having two lanes of traffic and one Laine. That's a loading unloading zone, and we feel like this programs the street to putting sixth street back in its right, standing as America's one of America's greatest streets. Thank you for your comments, and I'd love to invite you guys to our board meetings on the first Wednesday of the month, and we'd love to help you guys understand more about how that street is programed. If you have any questions. >> That's great. Thank you for being here. We appreciate your comments. >> Hi everybody. My name is Chris flores and I am a resident of district ten. I came to speak to you today about the $25 million from txdot that is supposed to go to build a boardwalk around the Hyatt hotel. It is my understanding this is park mitigation money, and I would like to ask that this money be. [1:09:37 PM] Instead of put made to be paying for a boardwalk, that it be given to the parks department so that the parks department can buy park land in the quadrant of the city that's losing parkland. And that would be an east Austin. The Hyatt does not need a boardwalk in these times of financial budget budgets being tight, a boardwalk is frivolous. I think the choke point where the trail is runs in front of the Hyatt can be resolved without a $25 million boardwalk. Thank you. >> Thank you for being here today. >> If we can have Paul boatman followed by Kevin ream, Sean and Sean krinkle. >> Hi. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Paul Beaudet of stream realty partners. I'm leading our sixth street [1:10:39 PM] historic preservation and repurposing effort for sixth street. I'm here also to talk about the three different transportation options on sixth street. It is stream's desire and hope that this committee and the city of Austin selects option number three. Similar to Blake, this is not an anti bike conversation in my mind. This is a what is the future of sixth street look like. And as a property owner who represents over 30 properties that are currently under construction and an active lease up, our main goal is to transition sixth street away from a purely nightlife destination into an 18 hour neighborhood street for all of downtown, and that includes recruiting a significant amount of restaurants. And if you go look at the success of second street, which has a ton of restaurants, I think you'll look at, there's the north side of the street and the south side of the street. What is the most successful side of the street? On second street, it's the wider sidewalks with outdoor dining under the proposed bike [1:11:39 PM] Laine solution. That solution only leaves 9.5ft of sidewalk to accommodate outdoor dining. And if you go look at the outdoor dining in Austin, the only ones that I've been able to find that have been successful are 11ft or larger. So bare minimum. We're running into Blake's point a math problem. This isn't an anti bike problem. This is what is the best and most positive solution to allow sixth street to transition away from what it is now into a productive neighborhood street for everybody in downtown to enjoy from the morning all the way to night. So I encourage you all to please come down, walk sixth street, be happy to host you. We have a leasing office down there, sort of walk you through what our plan is, and explain more in detail of why we're pushing for option three. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. Appreciate your comments. >> Good afternoon. My name is Kevin Rainey. I'm on the board of the Texas bar and nightclub alliance. I have owned and operated businesses on historic sixth street for over 18 years, [1:12:41 PM] currently own and operate 11 locations on the three and 400 blocks of east sixth street. In addition to those 11 establishments today, I'm representing an additional 17 businesses on the three and 400 blocks who unanimously agree that historic sixth street should not have bike lanes. This entertainment district is a destination. It's densely populated with pedestrians, the tens of thousands of people who come to the district on any given night need as much sidewalk space as possible to be able to freely move throughout the district. I've attended the transportation planning meetings regarding the three alternative design proposals for sixth street. I highly encourage both the members of the transportation and the members of this mobility committee to come to the district at nighttime. We would host you any time, but you have to be there at nighttime to understand the district and the challenges we are facing in regards to pedestrians not being able to move freely throughout the district. Sixth street is a unique, historic, famous entertainment district and it [1:13:42 PM] should be treated as such by the city. Major entertainment districts are pedestrian friendly and do not have bike riders riding through them. The businesses on sixth street, the property owners on sixth street and the customers of these establishments all agree that sixth street does not need bike lanes. The city should listen to the stakeholders and not include bike lanes in any future plans for historic sixth street. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Hello. >> My name is Sean kill. I want to speak on the sixth street transportation plan. Sixth street is a historic and entertainment district that is very unique in a special place, and should be treated as such. It consists of 80 storefronts and less than half a mile of length with a current mixture, as is of hotels, retail, restaurants, gyms, bars, music venues and comedy clubs. That mix is continuing to develop with more restaurants, retail [1:14:42 PM] and apartments. As a celebration of its historic pedestrian and entertainment district for visitors and locals, there are roughly 30 million people who visit Austin downtown each year. The distance that we're talking about is less than 0.0003% of the proposed bike lanes over the next six years in the city of Austin, which I am a supporter of, there are no dedicated bike lanes east of 35 on sixth street. There are no dedicated bike lanes west of congress on sixth street, so any proposed lanes in the redesign would be lanes to nowhere. Their design only removes the opportunity for cafe for safe pedestrian space for APD fire department and vendor usage. The district has the highest density of pedestrians in all of the city, if not the state, consistently on a weekly monthly basis. It is rare in the city of Austin or any community for there to [1:15:43 PM] be so much consensus and agreement, but nightlife of venues and bars, comedy clubs, tbna, restaurants, building owners and property owners, the Austin restaurant association, the pecan street festival, the pecan street owners association, the dejoria and APD all agree that option three of the plan removing bike lanes for a development of a safer sixth, as proposed by the city council in 2022, is the best plan for the district. This unique street, started in 1839, has the opportunity for its evolution to continue for all the visitors and locals alike. Thank you. >> Thank you. We appreciate you being here. >> If we can have Hayden black walker, followed by Jenna Mccann. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. I'm Hayden black [1:16:45 PM] walker with reconnect Austin. For over 13 years I've been trying to make the I-35 corridor a little bit better. So I'm here again. I've been working on a technical stakeholder group with city staff and with txdot on the northern stitches from 41st street up to the red line where it crosses the airport. And what I'm really asking for today is maybe some help getting a couple of extra months in the decision. Right now, there's a decision due at the end of this month, in a couple of weeks, to txdot about what those northern stitches will look like. And I know the city is worked really hard to gather feedback. They did a really good public engagement session on the 22nd of November. Lots and lots of people there. I was really surprised when I showed up how many people were there, but the timing between that and making this decision is is really tight. They there's sort of general consensus that any future [1:17:46 PM] stitch will need a private partner, and there's not been any time built into the system to really vet what that would look like with a private partner. So I think there's a real opportunity to look at that before we give a final decision to txdot. There are also some really complicated geometries in this area, but they're so complicated. I don't understand most of them after multiple meetings, but there are places where frontage roads and collector distributors are 20ft below ground with big, huge retaining walls. They're kind of canyons in here that make it a really hard problem to solve, but I think that there are opportunities to solve those problems. And then I'll just point out the Charette that was done that looked at the Hancock center area and the fiesta dellwood shopping center really focused on what we could do quickly, which is some improvements along 41st street. Thank you. >> Go ahead. [1:18:46 PM] >> Hi, my name is Jana Mccann and I'm an architect and urban designer with a local company in town. And I've been working with haydn and others in this small group of technical stakeholders. I think we're called technical because we are coming from planning and architecture backgrounds. But first, I wanted to thank the council for having afforded the opportunity to have this extra level of public engagement around the northern stitches that you all passed the resolution about in may of this year. So thank you for that and thanks for the staff. I think they've conducted a great process, although it's extremely curtailed, and we're supposed to come up with a decision about where we want the stitches to be and what they kind of look like in the next week or two. And so I echo the the concerns that haydn expressed about wanting more time. But basically, you know, we've created some overall guiding principles. And I'll just read the first bullet is integrate best practices of urban design and environmental [1:19:48 PM] responsibility to deliver a beautiful and sustainable urban landscape that creates high quality, TRE shaded pathways and beloved community spaces. And so that's kind of an overarching idea. And then we have a lot of other sort of subgoals and principles to that. And we'd just like to be reassured that those ideas are part of the sort of evaluation process. And we had written them with that in mind, we don't really are not super clear about what that evaluation process is. That will lead the city to come to a recommendation to give to txdot. So we do need more time. We're asked to make decisions, or our best guess, given the fact, though, that we are only playing with a few cards out of the deck, we don't know who a future development partner might be, who might have very different ideas than what we do. We understand that it's going to require a development partner to actually construct the final lids for stitches. So [1:20:49 PM] that's a major concern. But thank you very much for your consideration. >> Thank you. We appreciate your comments. Danielle. Are there any other speakers that have signed up? >> That's everyone okay. >> Sounds good. I think there may be one other speaker out there that didn't get a chance. If we could move through the presentations and if we have extra time at the end, I'm happy to see if there's anyone else that needs a moment to be able to share their thoughts with the committee. All right. That will move us on to approval of the minutes for November 13th, 2025. And by the way, we've been joined by council member alter. He's on the committee so he can't vote. But I'm sure he's very enthusiastic about the minutes from the last meeting that we had. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes made by council member Laine, seconded by vice chair qadri? All in favor of approving the minutes? That is unanimous by those in attendance today. Council [1:21:50 PM] member harper-madison might be joining us remotely, but she hasn't logged in yet. So please let the record reflect that any of the votes that we take today reflect that. The next item we're going to move on to is actually going to be number six. We've got the update from the urban transportation commission about their meeting on December 2nd. And we have Susan Summers, the chair of the commission joining us today. Welcome. We can see you here in chambers. >> Hi. I seem to be having an issue with my camera, but hopefully it's it's good enough that y'all can hear me today. >> We can see all of you. We can't see the left side of the screen, but we can see you. >> It's just emerged. It's kind of setting me off, but I'm sure it's fine for today's purposes. Okay. So hi, I, we urban transportation commission had our December meeting just two days ago, and we only had one action item. And we did pass a recommendation that's rather dense. I really want to try to keep this to about five, no more than five minutes. But I really want to walk you through our recommendation. So this is [1:22:52 PM] I hope it made it into your backup, but I'm not entirely sure it is. Recommendation 2025 1 to 0 2005. And it is a recommendation about a potential 2026 bond. We had been advised by the bond election advisory task force and capital delivery services that we would be best positioned to make a recommendation to the beat if ETF and city council, if we could accomplish that by the end of 2025. So that was our goal, and I have a lot of thanks for the working group that did publish this recommendation. So that drafted the recommendation for the commission to approve. So we know that the transportation and public works did propose, had a list of ten projects that was up to $925 million that were proposed. And so we know that it's, you know, that based on the past, what the diff and project review board have told [1:23:53 PM] us about the size of the bond and the fact that about 48% of the bond could go to transportation issues that you to that we are looking at around $331 million. That could be for transportation issues. So that's what we were trying to create, a package that went to about that 331 million amount. So we know and I'm just running through a couple of our warehouses, but I won't spend a lot of time on them. We know that the percent of Laine miles in the city street inventory has in excellent condition, has dropped from 75% in fiscal year 21 to now 68.5%. We were also very focused on the 5050 mode split goal, which is a key part of the Austin strategic mobility plan, as well as the Austin climate equity plan. We're also urban transportation is really concerned with the eight goals of the atx walk bike role plan, which include [1:24:54 PM] expanding to 660 miles of all ages and ability bikeways by 2033, all 94 miles of tier one urban trails by 2043, and all high and very high priority sidewalks and shared streets by 2033. So we. Also noticed that in our whereas here that a lot of in previous bonds. Named projects. So projects like the corridor program or you know, doing a specific bridge or a specific project or more areas in prior bonds that were more likely to be underspent and have not resulted in comparable results to programmatically divine bonfante. And what I mean by programmatically divine bond funding, of course, is when we have funding that's going to fund a plan like atx walk, bike roll or, you know, different, you know, the transit enhancement infrastructure plan, things of that nature. Those programs [1:25:55 PM] have tended to spend more of their money in the allocated time. And we do think that that is very important when we go to voters, especially in today's environment, that we are putting forward projects that we know can be spent. And in the time that is indicated in the bond, and that people can see those improvements on the ground when our citizens, you know, take the effort to approve something, we want to make sure that we show them those results, and that's going to build the public trust. So that was a big aspect of our thinking in the working group for writing this is that we were really thinking about, you know, let's look at program programmatic spending versus named projects, because we just feel like always. But maybe especially in this environment, we really need to focus on things that we know that we can spend and get those improvements out on the ground to folks and have them, you know, enjoy them and experience the safety and mobility and all of the things that come with them. So again, we were looking [1:26:55 PM] for that $331 million amount for the transportation projects. And we came up with three goals that the main three goals in our, be it resolved that we were looking for were for the working group and utc, we're reducing the number of people hurt or killed by traffic crashes to zero. Of course, from our comprehensive plan and the strategic mobility plan, as well as the 5050 mode split goal of 50 people walking, bicycling, taking transit or using other non drive modes. And then also the 80% of the total Laine miles in fair to excellent condition, which is a transportation and public works long term key performance indicator. So you'll see then the bullet points from our recommendation of what we want it to invest. And I will say we looked at all of the projects in the, you know, 900, 925 million package from Austin transportation and public works. And we had to make, obviously, when we're going to from 925 to 331, we have to make some [1:27:57 PM] pretty significant cuts to what could be done. And that was very challenging for the working group. But I think we came up with something that we're really proud of. So we said the investment in safety, our first category, our first goal is 78.2 million. And that does include 58.7 million for vision zero, which is nearly all of their requests. It includes 20 million for safe routes to school, which is their full request, includes the investment and atx walk bike roll, which is 186 million. That does break down into the subprograms, 81 million to sidewalks, 40 million to bikeways, 53.2 million to urban trails, and 11.8 million to transit enhancement. That is the full recommended or requested amount for bikeways and sidewalks. And in particular, they have been the flagship to get the spending out there and get the stuff on the streets. They've really innovated in their project delivery modes, and I think it served as a model for all of us [1:28:58 PM] where how to go forward. We did reduce the amount for urban trails, mainly in light of the that they have not spent through all their bond funding. And so it's a little bit less than what is requested. And then the transit enhancement, we did reduce that a little bit. In fact, we actually in our first draft we had cut that. But we heard a lot. We talked to staff and we talked to a bunch of community members, and we heard how important the transit enhancement money has been when they are going in and doing bike lanes, for example. And that may interfere with the cat metro stop and that money then from the transit enhancement, then again be used to put in, you know, like a bulb out bus stop or something that aligns with the bike Laine. And so we really heard from staff and community that this is a crucial part of integrating transit into the other, other three programs here. So definitely I think a lot more to come on transit enhancement projects. But we were really we actually added that back and we cut some money elsewhere to get it back in there. In our recommendation. [1:30:00 PM] And then if you look at our investment in the roadway conditions, you will see that we did recommend 66.5 million to this. This is for reconstruction and rehabilitation of city streets that are in poor condition. So obviously that's a key performance indicator. And we would want to make progress on that. I think utc does feel that long term, we should not necessarily be funding street maintenance with bond funding. It should be something where we can look to get that in more annual budget or find other funding flow through's that help help us with that, whether the transportation user fee or whatever it may be. But given the scale of the problem, we did recommend that amount. And we also think the street reconstruction and rehabilitation can align with other some of the other programing in that, you know, when you're reconstructing a street that hasn't been reconstructed in a long time, then that gives you opportunity to spend sidewalk money, to spend bike money, to rebuild it as a more multimodal street. So [1:31:02 PM] we also think that that can be good in that way. We do think that in line with our hesitancy to fund named projects, we recommend that Austin transportation and public works develop a street and bridge rehabilitation plan as amendment to the Austin strategic mobility plan. And my understanding is that is actually in the works. I think we're going to hear more about that at utc, maybe even next month, but we really recommend that. One of the things with some of these projects, I think that with the programmatic funding, one of the things that I haven't said yet is when you do that, you have a needs based and equity based prioritization matrix that really helps you ensure that you're meeting the areas of greatest need. I think sometimes when you have a named project and you realize you can't spend that money and you don't have a prioritization matrix, it just becomes who's yelling at us the loudest about something? Where can we get this money out the door? And it may not necessarily align with [1:32:02 PM] the highest need or even our greatest area of equity that we have. So that's one reason that we really think that getting a plan for that, that really prioritizes the needs and projects will really help Austin transportation public works in the future with that kind of spending. So and that we ask that that plan would include current road conditions, future projections, equity and need based prioritization. It would include the total funding needing to get needed to get to 80% of Laine miles and bridges in good to fair condition by 2039 or 2045. It will include a funding stack that includes the use of transportation, user fees, street impact fee funds and grants to achieve those goals by those deadlines, and also consideration for how mobility goals other mobility goals can align with other street reconstruction. So we also did not. Notably, we didn't include the sixth street mobility and revitalization project in our recommendation, nor the Austin core transportation plan, and that [1:33:03 PM] was a really tough cut for me personally, I will say, but it goes in line with we had some questions about the cost estimates for that. Where those were coming from is going back to the named projects issue that we have, I think, and also in large part, but we do believe that some of the the programmatic funding, including site wide sidewalks, bikeways, street reconstruction, vision zero could be used to work on sixth street related projects. So we wanted to put that in there. That's one of our be it resolved. And we also did deprioritize the bridge rehabilitation and construction, really, in light of how they haven't had a good spend through on their prior bonds. And we also recommended not funding the complete streets program because we have a lack of clarity. There's no plan for complete streets, and we don't even understand how those programs will differ from other Austin transportation public works program. So that's our and then the last bullet point [1:34:03 PM] was just we look for defined programs and plans going forward for our recommendations for funding. So that's all I've got okay. >> Sounds good. Thanks for the update. >> Really dense there. So take a look at it. >> Yeah we appreciate it. We've got it posted in the backup as well for review for anyone who wants to take a deeper look I will move on to the next briefing, which is an update on I-35 capital express central project. >> Good afternoon. >> Good afternoon, chair and [1:35:05 PM] committee members. Richard Mendoza, director for transportation and public works. Thank you for the opportunity to come visit with you today and give you a brief update on where we are with all things cap and stitch and I-35 capital express project downtown. And so the purpose of the meeting today is going to be to provide those updates on some recent developments regarding that project. I'm joined here by both my tpw staff as well as finance and txdot regrettably could not make it there in an all day training today, but we did invite them here for this presentation. I'm just going to give a quick overview and then hand it off to our transportation officer, who you're familiar with, miss Michelle marks and her team. And I'm trying to work this thing over here. Okay. Oh. [1:36:08 PM] >> Okay. >> All right. Thank you. So again, an update on the timelines. We have some new information from txdot. They have adjusted some of their design and construction scheduling based on what they heard back from their designer and constructor. They had to split the project basically in two different phases, which has has a like a domino effect on some of the milestone dates for the city as we look to pursue the cap and stitches, we're also going to give an update on the work that we've done as directed by council in may, to engage the community on determining where we would like to pursue northern stitch alternatives. As you recall, we were given the direction to pursue two locations for potential northern stitch and then again the milestones. And then also we're joined by pard. There have been some impacts from the capex central project [1:37:10 PM] to parkland. We're working very closely with txdot, the part and the trail conservancy on those impacts. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to miss marks. >> Thank you, director Mendoza. So I'm just going to kick us off by really briefly taking us back to where we left off in our conversations with council. At our last discussions with you back on may 22nd of this year. At that point, council did pass a resolution for staff to negotiate and execute an afa with txdot for an amount up to $104 million to fund the roadway support elements that would effectively future proof opportunities for caps along the I-5 I-35 corridor. Those are the the components that you see in the diagram here in blue, [1:38:11 PM] effectively holding space for future horizontal dex as funding becomes available. And that's in five locations along the corridor between Cesar Chavez and the airport boulevard red line crossing. And that $104 million funding commitment did fund this phase one you see highlighted here in red of the project. Again, those roadway support elements. We do have some more information on potential phase two timeline options for you in a few slides here. And that would be the horizontal deck component on top of those roadway elements. Before we dive into that, we do have some general schedule updates that we've received recently from txdot since we last came to council in may 2025. We'll share those with you now. As [1:39:12 PM] director Mendoza alluded to, since may, txdot has made the decision to break their capital express project into two scope components. And again, that is just given some feedback that they've received from the construction industry that the the project was was just enormous, that it made more sense to pursue two separate bid packages as contractors. So they have now two project components that they're terming the advanced construction package and the ultimate construction package. Now the advanced. And we'll talk a little bit about which pieces of the project are in which of those the advanced is slated to go to bid in 2027. The ultimate construction package. This is the component in which the city funded cap and stitch elements and other betterments would be part of that would go to bid [1:40:15 PM] now in 2029. So there are, as director Mendoza mentioned, some kind of waterfall impacts to the city. Components of the project. Because of this delay, the the city funded roadway elements will now go into design in 2027 and into bid and construction in 2029. So the construction has been pushed out three years. When we last came to you in may of this year, we were anticipating those roadway elements to go into construction in 2026. Now, despite this kind of project postponement, we are hearing from txdot that the required funding commitments they are asking for from the city, those have not been postponed. In [1:41:16 PM] fact, we when we came to you in may, we were anticipating a required commitment from council for any phase two deck elements that you wanted to be included into the bid package. We initially communicated to you that that would be required from you in November of 2026. We're now hearing from txdot that they would, in fact, like that commitment in may of 2026. And this change, advancing that commitment is because they are seeking to enter into scope and budget negotiations with their consultant sooner than initially anticipated. This is a graphic timeline of that new txdot schedule that we received from them a couple of months ago. Again, just showing these two packages that they are now pursuing an advanced construction package and ultimate construction. Now the [1:42:16 PM] advanced construction package anticipated to break ground in 2027 with letting in late 26. This includes will include some of the improvements they'll be making to the bridge overpasses such as mlk, for example. Bridge. Also, some changes to the frontage roads, as well as utility relocation work to anticipate the major roadway work forthcoming as part of the ultimate construction package. Again, the ultimate construction is is going to be kind of the principal bulk of of the roadway elements. The roadway construction for txdot freeway widening project that will go to leading in 2029. And this is the the chunk of the project in which the city funded cap and stitch elements and other betterments will be wrapped into, as discussed. So you can see on the timeline graphic here for both the [1:43:17 PM] university segment going to construction in 2029 and the downtown segment just slightly lagging that. Now I'm going to hand it over to my colleagues in financial services to talk a little bit more about the potential impacts to the city betterments with this change in schedule. >> Yes. Thank you so much. I do want to just highlight from a city risk perspective that there has been with this change, a txdot of when the package to let to get any of kind of feedback from the marketplace about what cost estimates would be on, let's just say the roadway elements, let's put the capex aside for a second. But just what council committed to back in may of this year, 104 million to future proof the roadways we had anticipated at [1:44:18 PM] that time when we were before council in April and may, that by the time the city had to execute an alpha and commit to funding that we would have, the city would have at least 60% design that will no longer on the roadway elements in order to calibrate costs. And just a reminder is that even though we have council approval for 41 million in a cib loan, which is all that the city received, and $63 million in certificates of obligation, that that's the city must pay for all cost overruns over a very long period of time. And we had estimated at that time a 25% contingency. Those costs that council approved for roadway elements that we we presented, which amounted to $104 million, was based on 30% design based [1:45:18 PM] on very generic examples from other cities in the state of Texas. Prior to tariffs. Prior to any of the current pricing market. So what we had hoped is by getting 60% design, we would be able to calibrate, based on some relatively true numbers from a competitive marketplace. What that could be. We no longer will have that before we commit in an afar, and when we need to cut a check to txdot just for roadway elements. So I want to. I know I'm a downer. I'm a buzzkill. Nobody invites me to meetings anymore. But that is from financial services point of view. This city's risk profile has increased. We do have a draft afar from txdot, which clearly states the city accepts all cost overruns. The city does not have a role in [1:46:19 PM] design and delivery and permitting et-cetera that is, it's a txdot project. So I say all that to say, the city has already entered into design with txdot for the roadway elements. What will be before city council in a few months is your consideration for whether it will be out in a bid package at some point in the future? In several years in I'm sorry, in 2029, the bid package for ultimate construction. So there is risk and the fact even for the roadway elements, our risk profile has increased somewhat. And depending on how we feel about that 25% contingency. So just put that out there to say that is what moved us. And one of the things that I'd also like to say here a little bit [1:47:20 PM] is that. We we do understand that txdot is kind of moving timelines now, and the fact that it's really not a November of 26 hard decision that they really need more clarity from council in may of 2026 for future commitments for capex. That that is also something to consider. So anyway, I just don't want to belabor that point, but I just wanted to highlight from the city's like the financial risk perspective, what this might mean. Took all the oxygen out of the room. I can proceed to the other slide. >> I know there is one beyond this before we head into the next section, but I just I will also be a Debbie downer today with this information. This is hugely concerning who is doing this. Speculations on what this cost might be for the city. Is [1:48:21 PM] the city crunching these numbers, or is txdot crunching the numbers and giving them to us? >> That's a great question. What we are doing is we are collaborating with txdot to see if and you know, I'm going to turn this over to our tech, to our tp partners. But they they do recognize this pinch point, and they are looking at other kind of pricing in other capex from say, what's happening up in, in, in Dallas. And I'm going to turn it over to people who really. >> Yeah, we we have been looking at the cost estimates. We receive line item cost estimates that are very transparent and open and collaborative between txdot and the city of Austin. We also have had our city engineer review the cost estimates that were presented to you back in may. And so in anticipation of any continued conversation, we have that city engineer, if needed, to continue reviewing and looking at a forecasted cost escalation. But at this time, with the cost [1:49:22 PM] contingencies that we do have within the cost estimates, we are, you know, as much as we can be fairly confident about the 30% cost estimates that we've received to this point. >> Okay, so we're we're at 30% design or 60% design. >> 30 and 60% won't happen until 2027. >> Is it customary for this type of project to start doing bids on something of this size, with only 30% schematic? >> No. And and that has been a concern of our financial services department partners. >> Okay. Well, I won't belabor it because I know there's a couple other sections include, including the new information about the northern caps and stitches options. But this puts the city in a very tough spot when we're in a moment of having to make some very tough decisions about our own city budget and trying to make sure we've got the dollars available to accommodate all of this need is not helpful to have our timelines moved up, and for us to have to be committing to funding when we're only at 30% design. I just think that's a [1:50:23 PM] pretty poor practice. And it's not it's not on you, I know, but we're all in the room together. So I just wanted to share that if no one has any other questions about this particular phase, let's move into the other segments of the the presentation you prepared. >> And I'll just. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> I don't I don't view this as Debbie downer. Any of you I strongly agree with council member Ellis. And this risk profile is really important, particularly when we look at what's been going on with voter approval of of the upcoming bond, all of that. So thank you for being transparent on where we're at and how this impacts that. >> I agree, better for us to have the information than be surprised later, right? >> Yeah. Mr. Chair, I do want to make a statement. You know, this this may decision point that txdot has made available to us is not the final opportunity for us as a city to make a decision or [1:51:25 PM] determination on where we want to pursue and advance design on these decks. That's actually that's open up until like 29. It's only if we want to have this included with the present designer. And in this original bid package, we can always we don't have to be feel pressured into a decision. We can wait until the design advances further. Typically, cost estimates get more refined at a 30% level. They could vary plus and -70% at 60 plus and -30%. As the design advances, we become more certain of those cost estimates. So this is only if we want to go in the original bid package. We have the change order mechanism as an option, with tighter cost estimates available to us in ensuing years. >> And the moratorium after they finish construction, that nothing else. >> 32 or 33. It'll be ten years. Yes, ma'am. >> Thank you. >> One of the other things that [1:52:27 PM] I, I might want to mention is, and I just want to point to txdot timeline, and I turn it over to to you, Brianna. But this is txdot request. So just to highlight that given council might give direction, that executing an apha and a commitment. And I'm just saying for roadway elements, I know this is a commitment also to include cap decks. It might be a negotiation with txdot because I don't believe that we have solidified solidify the execution date of the afa for roadway elements. So that might be something that is a negotiating point. >> Yes. >> So just to be clear then the may. The advanced funding agreement that we're talking about is for the roadway elements. >> I can clarify that council has already made the funding commitment for the roadway elements in may of this year. [1:53:28 PM] In may of 26. The request is for any horizontal cap decks that you would also like included in the bid package. As director Mendoza said, that's not a firm deadline. You or any of our, you know, private partners could add decks to the project as a change order all the way through the end of the project 2030 234 whenever it ends, it's it's to include them in the bid package to get the best possible construction price. >> But the bid package for the decks is not going out until 2029. >> That's correct. And my understanding and discussion with txdot is they are asking that much lead time because they want to know what their designers need to design for inclusion in the bid package. >> Okay. And I mean, again, just thinking out loud a bit, you know, conceivably we could [1:54:31 PM] again, the change order is what staff has communicated is that a change order would increase costs. It's better to put it in the initial bid package. Now let me ask what about a change order down like like for example. In other words, if we say we want all the roadway elements, we want all the caps included in the initial bid package, they go out with the initial bid package, they come back with the bids. And let's say for example, we say, oh, that's too much. Take out this one or you know what I mean. Do something like that. What what's how would that work? Again, I don't want to change order up. I guess I would feel more comfortable change ordering in getting the initial kind of full scope and then adjusting as needed based on, again, you know, funding. Again. There's just a lot of moving parts here. I mean, we we had $105 million grant that that went away. Is that going to come back in the future? I don't know, I mean, if so, there's just a lot of moving parts where. We don't have [1:55:33 PM] clarity. >> Yeah. Councilmember, thank you for that input. And yes, in terms of change ordering down, you know, that would be a negotiation with txdot. What they're telling us right now is that they have a designer on board and they're negotiating the fee, the construction fee for that design construction manager. And so there are ask or request for may is for a decision from the city of what we would like them to include in the negotiations now, so that they can use their existing design capacity, resources for that work otherwise will come in later with the change order. Then they can focus their designers on the applicable work. At the moment that we already designed or decided the scope. >> So are they designing it internally and then putting it out to bid then? Or you know, that's they're designing it and then they're going to bid construction. [1:56:34 PM] >> I believe so. >> Yes, that's correct. They already have a consultant team on board who will do the design. And then it will go out to the construction industry for bid. Correct. >> Okay. Got it. Thank you. >> I do think though, from what council has committed to 104 million for the roadway elements. I think to your point, if, if that is designed and say that there is some funding for cap decks, there would be a fee if there was a change in scope after after it is designed because it would need to be redesigned. Right. So it would not be. It would not be free at all. And it is not sure what that cost would be, because as more time goes, you know, costs for design may even go up. So I just want to also acknowledge that, that it could that not be a situation where the council might choose to change order something out of the design [1:57:36 PM] afterwards that would cause that would be at a fee? >> Yes. Highly likely. >> Yeah. >> Understood? Understood. But again, just my sense again in terms of preserving options would be to get more information and then make decisions when we have more information available. But I appreciate it. Thank you. >> All right. I know there's some more sections to the presentation. Sure. >> Could I ask just one question? Okay. Sorry I know I'm new to this committee, just visiting, but I just wanted to clarify in terms of when payments are actually due or when we would be making payments, not committing, but making under this calendar, the downtown section construction, which includes the roadway elements, wouldn't begin until September of 29. And my [1:58:36 PM] recollection was that these we pay kind of on a reimbursement basis. So we would not be paying any dollars out the door until late 2029 ish. >> So back in may of 2025, when we previously came to council, txdot had drafted a payment schedule and the first payment would have been due in 2026. But now, given this new timeline, I think that that is a conversation we are needing to have with txdot. If the payment schedule changes at all, the payment plan would would have started with a 15% payment in 2026, and then it would incrementally have gone up over the years with the second payment due in 2029. And then after that, it would have been consecutive years at a portion of payment that would have just been for the roadway elements, the 104 that you approved. Now, as soon as we start talking about decks, if that's something that does move forward, those would be postponed until the last two years of construction, which is 2022 and 2023. And that we call [1:59:37 PM] it kind of call them balloon payments. They would be significantly larger and they'd just be the last two years. So yes. And and there are, I think, I think more discussions to be had about that. >> And we haven't drawn on the cib loan yet. Correct? >> Correct. We would need a roadway elements afar before we have the authority to draw down the cib loan. >> And we're recommending that we need to from a financial services perspective, we need a we need a look at the entire deal structure of what council wants to do before we commit to a cib loan, because we need to have the decisions about how you know it. It is it is tied to the city's bond debt capacity and it is interest rate. And we we need to know about the the exit and the full costs in order to determine how to structure that sibling. And the cib loan is by far a lot less than we had originally hoped. >> Thank you. >> All right, let's keep it moving. >> Okay. So I'm here today to [2:00:39 PM] provide an update on the northern stitches. And just to remind you all, as my previous colleagues presented on this is tied to the resolution from may in 2025, where council committed the $104 million for roadway elements. And in that language, it was very specifically laid out that council had a vision of these two northern stitches to connect between 41st street and the red line capmetro crossing. In this the northern part of this corridor, and there were directions to specifically engage the community. So today I'm here to present on that ongoing effort and provide you guys some insight into our next steps as staff. So earlier this fall, between September of November, we were able to form a stakeholder working group with some of the individuals who were presenting here today. And we were able to meet with txdot designers, txdot leadership and city staff to [2:01:40 PM] really create and collaborate behind these four alternatives that were ultimately brought to the public. We really dug in deep to learn about the technical aspects of the corridor and what presented opportunities there were for these two northern stitches. What we ended up doing is we brought those four opportunities to an open house that happened two Saturdays ago, November 22nd. We had over 100 families sign in, but we had many more come in with those respective family members. It was a wildly successful event. We asked for the public's opinions on some of the trade offs that we were presenting to them, and we are currently digesting all of that information, and we'll be summarizing it into a staff recommendation later this month. But to remind you all, what was presented to the public included alternatives that did fit within the 24 million budget that was presented to us by council when council approved the 104 million. And these all of these stitches were also technically feasible [2:02:41 PM] in terms of construction and future proofing of the roadway elements. And just to remind you all, we do have this December deadline from request from txdot, and to shed some light on how our staff recommendation will be framed later this month, we are considering each alternatives from a technical feasibility standpoint, evaluating it against our staff criteria and also incorporating the ongoing community input that we've been collecting the past couple months and identifying a final staff recommendation for which of the four will move forward. So I'm going to just briefly walk you all through. I don't want to take too much of your time, but really we've got two different examples of what could happen with these two stitches. So in the upper left hand corner is option a, and then on the upper right hand corner is option B. These two alternatives create a stitch alternative that really hugs the capmetro commuter rail line, [2:03:42 PM] as identified in the number two stitch on the screen. But what's different between option a and option B are this 41st stitch. We can either stitch on the north side of 41st street or split it halfway. The same type of consideration for that 41st stitch is considered an option C and D, but the only thing that's different between these four are that option C and D remove the enhanced wide and red line stitch, and actually move the massing into the center of the roadway. We're calling this one the Hancock stitch. There is an identified white Marc here. Just to bring your attention to that is a publicly desired pedestrian bridge that would be privately funded or could be privately funded in future phases to connect adjacent properties to this stitch. So these are the four that were presented. We we had a great distribution of feedback verbal and from a voting activity. And [2:04:43 PM] we're going to be summarizing all of that into this memo that we're going to bring to you all later this month. And I believe with that, I'll hand it back off to Michelle. >> Thank you. >> Just oh, yeah. >> Just a quick summary of next steps. I think we've already alluded to these, but we will be coming to you in March. I know the slide says February. I should say March at this point, transportation and financial services staff will share a potential funding and financing plan. This is something you asked for during your. As part of your may resolution, we'll be looking to schedule a work session to bring you that work. We're going to be coming to you with information about potential funding strategies for capex and amenities on top, and then looking at phasing strategies, timelines, and really kind of drilling down into some of these kind of [2:05:44 PM] potential cost and risk impacts that we've started to daylight with you today leading up to this March work session, we will be providing one on ones with council members in the weeks leading up to this work session to really have some kind of one on one conversations with you and answer your questions. And then in may is this txdot requested council action for any commitments that you would like to make to include capex in that original bid package. And then again, a note at the bottom of the screen that this is not the last bite at the apple, that capex can be included via change order for years to come. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to my colleagues at parks and rec. >> Do we have any quick questions? I have one that's hopefully a short answer. I see your decision making process that is listed out on slide 13. Is this next decision coming to council at all? Is that what is [2:06:45 PM] coming in March or you know, we had decided on those retaining wall structures for this and I don't see anything on our next agenda. Can you talk me through how that decision is being made and what the difference is between a December commitment and a March commitment? >> December. The December decision for the location of the northern stitches is to inform txdot so they can progress their design around the capex. 35 council member, in your resolution and direction to staff from last may, you directed us to go out to determine the most appropriate and desired community locations for those northern stitches without the requirement to come back to council for action. >> Okay, so it will work off of a scoring criteria, you know, probably a more detailed version than these few dots. So I appreciate the simplicity here, but y'all will have some internal scoring structure to try to finalize that decision. >> Of course. >> Okay. All right. If no one [2:07:46 PM] else has questions on that. Now we're on to the parkland piece of this. >> Council members, Ricardo Solis with Austin parks and recreation, thank you for allowing us to present the impacts to parkland due to the expansion of I-35, the impacts to parkland have occurred and will occur from September 2025 through 2033. These impacts include detours to the hike and bike trail along east avenue, west of the interstate, and under the overpass. Relocation of existing city of Austin utilities from txdot right of way to adjacent parkland, in particular impacts to palm park and Edward Rendon park. Temporary power outages that [2:08:47 PM] will occur throughout throughout the area due to construction periods. Austin parks meets regularly with txdot and their public involvement officer, as well as the trail conservancy on operational issues. So we can be ahead of the game with, with, with those impacts, vehicular detours occur at times due to deliveries and equipment and supplies to the area. Temporary easements, as shown in red in the graphic. The parkland is used for staging material and equipment and for the expansion of the highway, including building of a separated and lowered pedestrian bicycle bridge adjacent to the travel lanes to connect the boardwalk on the south and shoreline, and the trail to the north. And I'll have an image of that here shortly. The fee simple [2:09:49 PM] acquisition shown in blue. The acquisition was necessary to serve as a launching area for a barge that will be used to transport equipment and supplies materials to the construction of the columns needed for the expansion of the expressway. This is just an image of of that pedestrian bridge that will connect the south bank or to the boardwalk, to the existing boardwalk, to the the northern shore of the hike and bike trail. The mitigation compensation package for both temporary and permanent use of parkland is estimated to be about 19 million. I mentioned a little bit about palm park, which is in particular that may be impacted. There's a lot of coordination happening right now with txdot and the city of Austin. At one point. We're not [2:10:50 PM] sure if we'll be able to avoid this, but at one point, those utilities would have to be removed from txdot right of way and to the park. And the blue area shows the permanent location of those utilities. And with the red temporary location, however, the complication of the design for the redevelopment of the park and the construction, you know, there there's some negotiation and coordination that's happening that perhaps, maybe it won't be necessary and they'll find other alternatives. But but at this point, this is this is what we know right now. The the boardwalk, the proposed boardwalk was included by txdot as a mitigation under section four F of the us department of transportation act of 1966. The idea for boardwalk boardwalk at this location was identified by [2:11:50 PM] the trail conservancy as a pinch point in the trail. The boardwalk would connect to parkland as it reconnects to the land, and this was for mitigation for the impacts of the of and impacts to the hike and bike trail throughout the corridor and particularly closer to the I-35 construction. As I said, right now, we know that it's 25 million that would be towards this contribution, and the trail conservancy would be the one that would be managing this project in the in the near future. One other thing that I want to talk about is that there's two there's two boats that are near this location that provide sightseeing excursions to the public. One of the boats is a city of Austin concessionaire, the lone star riverboat. The other capital cruises is a is a [2:12:50 PM] privately owned business. Both of these businesses will have to be studied further as design, you know, gets started on the boardwalk to see how how those businesses will be impacted with the ultimate construction of the boardwalk. That that is concludes my presentation. >> Great. I have a question about the the $25 million allocation. Has txdot provided those dollars to the city yet for mitigation, or is that to be coming to us at some point in the future? >> As far as I know, we have not received that unless there's another an update to that. But no, we have we have not received that. >> Maybe that's a tbd answer. I know just with all the the different, you know, txdot is going to pay the money to the city and then to look at which department houses it, who constructs it. I know it's a trail conservancy project that they have been thinking about [2:13:51 PM] for a long time, and I was not involved in the conversations about how txdot came up with 25 million. So it's greatly appreciated that those mitigation dollars are coming to us for these impacts. But I am curious, and maybe we can follow up offline about when does that get paid to the city and what does that mean for whoever's going to build it. What is their timeline look like? Because as it seems to be happening more and more these days, the longer it takes us to spend a dollar, the less we get out of that dollar. And I really want to make sure that we're making the best impact for this project. And so I know a bunch of folks have been excited about it for a while. And now that there's allocated dollars to be able to do this, I'm just very curious about when is that coming to the city and when will a project be deployed. How are we going to make that determination? >> Thank you. >> That's great. We can discuss that offline. Other questions I see council member, vice chair qadri has his hand up. >> Yeah. No questions. Just wanted to thank y'all for the presentation. I just wanted to just say that I appreciate your hard work. I appreciate the hard work of the advocates. I [2:14:51 PM] know it's been it's a labor of love and there's a lot of detailed attention to all this. So looking forward to seeing, you know, staff's recommendation on this. And I've been chatting with the two, my two colleagues on each side of me about this. So just want to just send and show my appreciation. >> Go ahead. Councilmember vela. >> Thank you very much on the the fee. Simple. Taking that there. Right there off of Rainey off the Rainey neighborhood. Why is that permanent if they're just going to host the barge there until construction is over? And what's going to happen with that piece of property after txdot is done with it? >> Yes. Good. Good question. Councilmember. Actually, that was the desire of txdot originally was to just rent the space for six years or however they needed it. But it got a little complicated at this portion of the corridor of lady [2:15:52 PM] bird lake corridor. The city of Austin purchased this land through a federal federal dollars which protects the land, and they call this a6f protected, which means that that it only allows for the temporary closure of this land for six months or less, and because they needed it for more than six years or around six years, that was not possible. So they had to purchase it through through condemnation. They did that. The the desire of txdot, really, at the end of the day, is to return it back to its use. So the hike and bike trail will go through there like like it is today. We'll have an interlocal agreement, just like we do underneath I-35 for parking and and the trail itself. So this would, you know, on the surface, the public will see it back to how it is today. They just now that they own the land, they'll have the the right to close it [2:16:53 PM] if they need to or, you know, detour the public if they need to go and and maintain the columns or do anything any work on the on the bridges of the of the interstate. >> All right. Hopefully they can just deed it back to us when they're done with it. But yeah. And just a quick comment on the on the northern stitches. I know in options a, B and D you have the buildings on either side of it. Is that 41st street right there. >> Yes, yes. >> And is that the the what what that calls to mind is the I believe Columbus, Ohio has the stitches kind of on either side of the freeway or the street going over the freeway. I have not visited myself, but I hear that that is, is that the thinking there that that the stitches could hold small, you know, one story buildings and basically you would have a connected streetscape between what's now Hancock center and [2:17:54 PM] and the east side there. >> Yes. Councilmember vela, those two stitches could hold two story buildings and trees, and it will also have vehicle access for deliveries and fire and ems so they can have buildings on them, just like in Columbus, Ohio. >> Great. I mean, again, I'm, you know, going to let y'all and the public work out which option to go with. But that one jumps out to me as an, as an interesting opportunity as opposed to just kind of piling all of the, the, the stitch. That seems less useful, I would say, than than the double kind of stitches on either side. But anyway, I just wanted to mention that and just to note that that that Columbus stitch that again, I've seen multiple presentations about, you know, highway capping and stitching. And folks point to that one as, as one of the, the good ones basically. So thank you. Thank you. >> That's great I appreciate that. And I know y'all will be keeping an eye on what sources of funding are subscribed for [2:18:56 PM] for these uses, because I know that there are some, some delicacies around specific types of funding like voter approved bonds versus economic development. And so I trust that y'all are keeping track of all the ducks and making sure that however we allocate this, that we're able to to do it and move it forward and make sure we've got our our financing straight for those opportunities. Are there any other questions on this presentation? I don't see any. Thank you. We will move on to the next presentation, which my notes say is a briefing on the moratorium on scooter providers and and an update on the curb management study for the sake of time here, since it's about 220, and I know we did have one more speaker that had signed up late and wanted to be able to speak toward the end. I might suggest that we postpone the urban trails. Item number four. You all know I am very excited to get this briefing. I love our urban trails program, but I just want to be mindful of the time that we have here to be [2:19:57 PM] able to get into depth on some of these other issues. >> That qadri right. >> That'll be item four. If we can't get to it, I'll suggest we bring that in January and we'll have a nice, great, happy note to start our January off on. >> Thank you chair. And we will try to do our best to be quick through this, and we're glad to follow up with specific questions after if we don't have time today I'm Lewis Leff. I'm an assistant director with transportation public works. First presentation. We've got Michael Kimbrough, our shared mobility services program manager, is going to give the update where we stand with our micromobility program, particularly the scooters within the city. And then we'll go to the curb management plan update after that. >> All right. Good afternoon, committee members. Thanks, as always, for the opportunity to update you on micromobility. As I said, Mike Kimbrough, program manager for shared mobility services. We'll jump right in. Since we're pressed for time. First, we'll do a little bit of a background and context on the [2:20:58 PM] current state of the system, brief data update, and talk about staff recommendations. As far as the moratorium itself is concerned. Yeah. So some background, as you probably remember, December of 2023, we had two micromobility vendors leave the market, leaving us with two. Shortly after that, we decided to place a moratorium on any new vendors entering the market. We kept the total number of permitted devices and began limiting the number of devices that could be deployed downtown. Throughout the entire history of the program, we've been operating on a license and permit operating model that renews biannually every year at December. In June. We are almost through the December renewals right now, thankfully, but moving on to some data. Update. The table on the left might be familiar to you all. I've updated the third column with some up to date information, but basically what this shows is the time frame. [2:21:58 PM] Since we implemented the moratorium, which officially started April 1st of 2024, we looked at the year prior to that, April 1st, 23 through March 31st 24, then the year since the moratorium. And now we've got incomplete data in the third column. But I think it's a little bit helpful to look at. The aggregate numbers obviously aren't complete yet because we're missing a few months there. But I think helpfully we can look at the trips per vehicle, per device numbers, and see that we have seen positive growth in that direction, meaning that the scooters aren't sitting as long, they're being used more frequently and receiving more trips per device. So on the right side of the slide, we can look at some year to date numbers. This might be a little more helpful than the table. So this is basically January 1st through November 20th. Comparing this year to last year. Overall, we've seen a 6% increase in trips year over last citywide. For festival [2:23:02 PM] seasons, we saw a 14% increase during south by southwest and a 15% increase during Austin city limits. And I think one helpful number is we've seen a marked decrease in the number of three and one and parking enforcement service requests that have been entered, meaning fewer devices are parked incorrectly. Parking enforcement isn't as many service requests, and the public at large isn't entering as many 311 requests. So yeah. So an update on the moratorium itself. Like I said, we've we've capped the number of vendors at two, what our recommendation is. And through looking at peer cities, as you can see on the right, the industry has kind of settled on two as the the optimal number. Most of the cities that we kind of compare ourselves to are operating with, with that kind of marketplace to plus a bike share in Chicago and Portland, much like we have here. So our our recommendation is that we [2:24:04 PM] keep the moratorium in place for now, capping the number of vendors at two. And we would like to begin the process of transitioning to a contract model from a license and permit model. We know that there are additional vendors that would like to enter the marketplace. So we think one of the benefits from this is that it would allow them to come in and compete for a contract so we can, you know, offer two contracts for the city, hear requests or proposals from from different vendors, and make a decision for who we think is going to be best for the city. Yeah. Longer contract terms would would limit staff time in analyzing permits and whatnot, not just for us, but for the vendors themselves. It would also increase the vendors confidence in the city of Austin, allowing them to remain within the city, which could lead to more investments operationally, educationally, and even in parking infrastructure, potentially those sorts of things. It'll be a big lift. It'll require some amendments to ordinances and obviously solicitations for [2:25:06 PM] proposals. So it would be a long term thing, but we would like to begin the process if we can. And, you know, put this in line with the existing June and December renewal dates so we can just kind of seamlessly transition into the contract model. So like I said, that would be a quick one. Happy to answer any questions you may have. >> All right. I see council member qadri, who represents the area with most of the scooters, has a question. >> What's the timeline to bring the ordinance to council to move to the contract model? >> We don't really have a timeline yet. We've we've really only just kind of begun the process. Okay. >> And then what? So yes, I guess my next question has to do with timelines about what timeline would be, what a timeline would look like for an rfp process. But I think we have to get the timeline done. >> Yeah, I think the rfp itself would be 6 to 9 months. Okay. So, you know, I'd say optimistically, we'd be looking at maybe a year for sure. So yeah, great. >> And then when it comes to the contract model, I like a [2:26:07 PM] lot of the bullet points that you have. I wonder if we could also look at came up with three bullet points on my end. Is that if we could have the contract also have a requirement to help us build scooter corrals in the street, and then also when it comes to like labor, could we, you know, to what extent can we require quality labor and good jobs from the vendors that that come into Austin? And then also just something I know that 31i forgot what page it was on. 311 in parking enforcement service request are down 19%, which is great, but I wonder if we could add like more requirements in the app to educate riders on you know, how to ride safely and how to park appropriately and what to do and what not to do. So that way that number can keep going on, you know, down, down, down. >> Yeah, I think that would be one of the big benefits from the contract is we can get a lot more granular, granular than we are with the current director's rules and really require a lot of these things and really, really define a lot of the kpis that we're going to track and whatnot. So, you know, [2:27:08 PM] all those could be considerations for sure. >> Great. Yeah. And the chair was saying, you know, being the downtown council member all this, all this is great. All the numbers are great. All the progress we've made is great. And, you know, just I'm really supportive of all the work that's been done. Great. >> And I'm fully supportive of the idea of us having some sort of doc. You know, it doesn't have to be something super formalized, but at least some striping. What I find when I'm downtown is that people are putting the scooters in where the bike locks are, and so you're getting this conflict where you're trying to lock the bike there, and the scooter person is trying to get it out of the way. They're trying to make sure they're putting it in a space that is safe for people and still available to the public. But then when you try to drag them out of the way as a cyclist, it just creates a lot of a lot of issues. So I just want to say, I think people are trying to do the right thing. They just need a space to say, put it next to the bike rack so you can have the scooters and the the bike lock areas all together. [2:28:08 PM] Councilmember vela, go ahead. >> Thank you. First of all, I do want to say I think the contract model I would agree with with vice chair qadri comments that that that seems to be a a better model with a long term kind of commitment and with, again, kind of a shared responsibility, more kind of defined, shared responsibilities. Again, that that makes a lot of sense. How many vendors did we have? Maximum vendors in the city of Austin. >> Since I've been here we've had four maximum. But I believe Joseph, we may have had more at one time. >> Hello. Joseph zo qadri, park enterprise manager, transportation, public works. We at one point, I think at the very beginning we had up to 15 different vendors. >> So and so there's been a lot of industry consolidation essentially. And when we started to, when we when we first limited the amount of scooters, if memory serves, I think we had five. >> Yes, I believe that's [2:29:09 PM] correct. >> And do you know which ones they, they, they were because I believe that a couple of them went bankrupt right and left. >> Yes, one of them went bankrupt. Link at that time, there's a couple others that decided just to leave the market, depending on just the amount of vendors that we did have. So the market was, you know, a lot harder to get rides. You know, it really becomes to a challenge to get ridership when you have multiple vendors trying to fight for it. So you have a quality of service for each provider. Go down when you have multiple in the market. >> Well, I mean, I guess I would disagree with just in the sense and again, I don't have a problem with a contract with a defined number of vendors. Obviously we don't want a monopoly. You know, we don't want just one. I mean, two vendors is also a duopoly. I mean, this is an economic understanding that that that's also not a good position for consumers to be in, where they only have two vendors to choose from, because that's not good [2:30:09 PM] for price and that's not good for service quality. Why not? Three, you know, or more vendors, especially if we're limiting the overall number of scooters so that so that we have more competition and we have better choice for the consumer. >> So committee member great points. I think that's something that we can take into consideration as we start to explore this further. That's why the the slide did have explore that transition, because there are going to be some legal elements that I think we need to work through as well. And so we'll continue to look at best practices from other cities. As you can see, most of our peer cities limited at two, but there may not be a good reason to do that here necessarily. So we can always go through the procurement process to say up to a certain number of vendors, because we do know that as you add more vendors in, you've got more administrative side of the house that you've got to deal with and all the communication that has to happen. Coordination on the different elements of how we have scooters and where they're placed. And sometimes we've got environmental issues with some of the scooters not being on [2:31:10 PM] the roadways anymore. So we do want to continue to focus on the safety of those, the accessibility of our sidewalks and other areas, while encouraging that kind of safe use of the devices themselves. So we'll continue to take a look at the right number of vendors, and maybe we'll have a procurement process that has some flexibility built into it. >> And let me ask, I mean, do we know what are the number of vendors out there? >> It has dwindled dramatically from the 15 that we had in 2018. I I'd say from my knowledge, maybe 4 or 5 that are still operating at the scale that we would want. So it's it's very it's a very small field these days. >> Got it. And do we, do we regulate pricing as part of the vendor agreement? >> We do not know who. >> Well, I mean, I guess even more so if we don't regulate price. Again, I'm thinking about the kind of the taxicab model where, you know, there was some kind of commission that agreed and set prices and all that kind of stuff. That to me, again, just really pushes on the side of the more vendors [2:32:10 PM] that we have, the more price competition there is between the vendors and and again, I'm just this is anecdotal. I really don't know. You know, who rides scooters? I mean, obviously a lot of UT students do, a lot of folks in downtown do. >> But. >> I ride a scooter sometimes. >> I've ridden them like once. It was an emergency and I had to. >> But honestly, I see especially again, this is my district, district four. But I see a lot of low income folks, you know, that that they're that they take the scooter to the bus stop, or they take the scooter from the bus stop to their house. Like, I just don't want to. I know everybody's like, oh, it's just the, you know, the frat boys downtown, like, but it's really it's more than that. It is a legitimate micro-mobility option for all kinds of people. And I just want to make sure that, especially, again, if we're not going to regulate pricing, then that really the idea that there's just two vendors out there who can kind of, you know, collude basically informally, even just kind of set a higher price concerns me. So, well, [2:33:12 PM] thank you. >> I agree, and I don't have the information in front of me right now, but I had heard anecdotally that the medics have said that having fewer scooters is creating fewer injuries. I don't want to put words in their mouth by any means, but I know that we had had issues when scooters were first deployed and we had, you know, one team that was working collaboratively with the city, another one that just put everything out one morning and said, good luck, everyone. But we have had briefings as a city council about the safety issues, especially in those late night hours where maybe scooters malfunctioning, maybe the visibility with headlights and other traffic situations is is not safe. And, you know, we were basically told, look, this is creating a lot of health and safety issues for the riders late at night. And my main goal is to make sure people are safe and good, good patrons and good stewards. If they're going to be using devices like this. Do we have any other questions on scooters before we move to curbside management? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. So the next [2:34:13 PM] presentation Joseph's going to be leading us through this. I think there was a request a while back from this committee to look at curb management, study it. How do we plan for the demands that are now being faced and continued growth into demands for the use of curbside space? There are a lot of different interested parties in that. When you think about the types of activities that happen that are rideshare drop offs, people wanting to park their own vehicles, the use of that curbside space for mobility options like biking and scooters, how we're seeing a proliferation now of other delivery types of services. Then you've got just regular maintenance activities that happen to happen at these buildings as well. So a lot of demands that are placed and what we're trying to do is find a way to have a plan that would help us internally, primarily to come up with a framework for decision making around that. And so we are underway with a consultant. Joseph is going to lead the presentation here, give you a sense of where we're at and where we're headed, and look forward to the discussion after that. >> Great. Thank you. Louis. [2:35:14 PM] Hello. Committee members Joseph zo qadri, park enterprise manager, transportation, public works. And like Louis said, competition at the curb is becoming increasing and we have a lot of different modes in use. And so this is really gives us a new framework for us to look at. So let's go this pretty quickly. We've got some background here. We had a request preliminary from council just as we started to see some challenges. And even before that as we changed our development code and had no parking requirements, what is that pressure going to look like on our curb space over time and as we continue to see that grow, we executed a contract in may of this year and we had to kick off pretty quickly. We're estimating about a 12 month timeline. So really next June looking for a final deliverable. And really the focus here is to have, you know, a curb management plan that really helps to guide operational decision making. This is a little bit different than a normal study that we do, that we have a number of strategies that we have to implement or look to, to focus on here is to create a framework, a policy guide, a planning guide that is amendable as our city grows and [2:36:15 PM] as our needs for our curb space change. So really, what is the goal of of of the the plan itself? We really looking at a comprehensive curbside management plan that provides clear guidelines and flexible, user centric solutions for curb space. Really focusing on aims to address the diverse and often conflicting demands on curb space. Prioritizing use uses to reduce conflicts, meet primary needs, and plan for future changes. And there were four tasks that we really looked at. One really looking at, you know, what current policies we have here at the city and other policies that govern what we do here in other studies that we've had really get a good amount of stakeholder input, both internal and external and partners, business partners and those around us that are using our curb space. And the real framework is focused around which task two, which is curb typology, really looking at. If you see to your right side an example from Atlanta curbside management study really lays [2:37:16 PM] out what that looks like, creating a priority by needs and representative of these areas that have like entertainment centers and neighborhood mobility corridors and commercial centers, and really creating a curb use priority based off of that. And task three, really looking at our existing conditions, what we're doing, how we're doing that and how we could do better and really, you know, have a good understanding of what we see out there now and how we're doing things. And then task four, really creating that framework. How do we use this moving forward. Now operationalize it so that we have a framework that can go now really when we when we look at this, it's hard to get data from every point of our city. So we really want to look at these specific locations that can be transformed and looked at that are specific to that specific typology. So as we get into what we've achieved so far, so we've already done some literature review city policies [2:38:18 PM] and and, and others, you know, looked at other agency policies. We also looked at other studies, looked at other peer city studies, other curbside management plans from city of Boulder and and others. Atlanta, like I mentioned before, we did a lot of internal stakeholder input from internal tp partners as well as other departments to really get a good understanding of how they use the curb space or what's important to them. And we also really, which was a great point, is we had a curbside management summit, which just happened this last month, that we had a lot of community leaders as well as business owners, del valle operators, others that really can give input on what they see. The curb space is the challenges that they have. It was very interactive. We had interactive polling and we had a partner city from Seattle give their testimony on what they do in their city, and we're really we're excited [2:39:18 PM] about that and got some good feedback. And then we our collected data. We just finished this up at eight study locations based off those typologies that I've talked about. And we're going to start analyzing that to get a better understanding of how we put that into practice. So what is our next steps? Like I just mentioned, we completed the data analysis of the eight study locations we're reviewing that we're still continuing to review the feedback we got from our stakeholder a meetings, as well as from our recent summit. We are about to launch a public input opportunity, which will be online and in person survey planned for next couple of weeks in December. And then our focus is to have initial draft of the plan, likely internally review in April and may, with a final draft delivered for public consumption in June. And I will take questions now. Thank you. >> I'll open it up for questions. >> I think councilmember vela has some, followed by council member qadri. [2:40:20 PM] >> Thank you and good to see the curbside management study moving forward. We're big supporters of it, and honestly glad to see that there's work kind of been going to, you know, foundational work, right. For the study. Semi-related to the the scooter conversation as well. You know, when there was that photo of the scooter corral on south congress, is that rented by the scooter company, like like how does that and thinking about the curb management study, the thinking about I, I would agree that from a big picture perspective, we need to create more areas that are designated, pick up and drop off areas to prevent cars from just kind of pulling up wherever. But can we kind of make them pay for that, though, in the sense that, you know, again, we're welcome. You're welcome to bring your scooters and operate, but you have to rent, you know, one space every whatever, you know. So and that's going to be your scooter pick up and drop off [2:41:21 PM] area. And you're going to have to, you know, pay us to, to hold that space. Can we do something similar with the, with the rideshare stuff where we're going to say, like, you know, we're going to give you all like this block and this other block and you know, that side to do pick up and drop off. But there there's some fee involved. >> Right. It's a great question, councilmember. So, you know, we do not currently regulate, you know, ride hailing or you know, but we do taxis. It gets a little complicated when it comes to state laws and allowing us to regulate that. Now technically the curved space is ours. We regulate that. So it's a conversation we could have and look into further to see, you know, with our legal department to understand how we could do that. But really the focus here is on these typologies, looking at these certain areas and saying, what areas really need to be used for that type of use, right. You know, and that could change over time. But, you know, if it's a commercial center or if it's an entertainment district and, you know, this is a policy framework that allows us to start there, and then we can have those larger conversations [2:42:22 PM] and how we move those stakeholders in the future. >> Yeah. And just to be clear, I don't want to stop. Like I don't want to say that, oh, if we can't make money, we're not going to create, you know, pick up and drop off. That's not the point. No. If we we need them, we need them. Let's do it regardless of whether we can get reimbursed or not. But if we can get reimbursed, like, let's get let's get reimbursed. Do the scooter companies right now, do they currently pay for those little corral spots? >> No, they currently don't. >> So that's the city dedicating its right of way for kind of the scooter. And again, just going back to that item for for a second, would that be part of a potential contract. And to me my sense would be that is one of the advantages of doing a contract is that we could make some demands on them. Right? >> Correct. Yes. And we actually currently we had something in the previous director rules that allowed us to potentially recoup some of those costs. But there were some legal issues with doing that. Going to a contract model that's more concise and in a way that we're able to do things through our normal procurement methods, allows us more availability to do something in that manner. And [2:43:23 PM] the scooter companies we've talked to are more than willing to to do that option, and are really looking forward to having that ability to reinvest into something. >> That would be my sense, too, is because they want to get kind of established as part of the infrastructure. You know, they they don't want to kind of do this, you know, gray area kind of stuff. Again, my, my just kind of general sense of it. But thank you very much. >> And I'll just add to council member, committee member the, the there's a public benefit to having those dedicated spaces as well. Right. And we don't we don't charge bicycle users to park at a bike rack. There's there's a public benefit of having that in an organized space. So I think that's why we've taken the steps. We have to put the ones that are in place now and to be able to have less clutter on those sidewalks, less clutter on those places where people are walking or wheelchairs need access. So there's a public benefit to that element. As far as the the ride sharing drop offs goes, you know, that is something that we've looked at. It's kind of tied into some other conversations we've had about technology and the ability to do that, because there's a very short period of [2:44:23 PM] time where those drop offs and pickups are happening. Same thing with deliveries, same thing with other activities that are very quick. So we don't have the ability to enforce that by person. We'd probably be looking towards technology solutions that are certainly out there to be able to have those designated spots. And we've seen other cities do this where they're charging a small fee, you know, a very reasonable fee for a small amount of time to be able to do that. But that's using some technology based concepts. >> Yeah. And again, just to be clear, I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face. You know, if it's a good policy, let's do it. But if there's money available to get reimbursed for the good policy, then let's do that too. But but again, I'm not going to be like, well, if we don't get the money, then too bad for you. We're you know, that that's definitely that's not the approach that that supporting. So thank. >> You. >> Questions. No. >> Yeah. He said he didn't need to ask his questions. I guess he'll follow up offline with you if he needs to. I just want to say I appreciate this is moving forward with curbside management as as a practice. I know over the past decade, at [2:45:26 PM] this point, trying to figure out kind of what is the most responsible way to be able to share that street space is ever increasingly important, especially when you get to food delivery drivers or rideshares. It's not that we're going to say, hey, you have to be here, you have to be there. But at a certain point, if you provide an ease of, this is a convenient place to be able to pull over, leave your blinkers on, drop someone off, get food, whatever it is that you're trying to do, the safer the streetscape is going to be. I know there's a whole bunch of times I see, especially on second street, right outside of city hall, where people are just blocking the road. They're just stopping, the blinkers are on, they're not going anywhere and it creates a situation where your choices stay behind them for an unknown period of time, or see if there's a way to go around them and you're essentially driving into oncoming traffic, which is not anyone's first choice. And I'm probably against state law. So it puts a lot of people in a tricky position, and I won't name names, but there's like one building down here where [2:46:26 PM] everybody's doing it all day long, and it's creating a real safety hazard for people. So I think the goal, at least from my perspective, for curb management, is to just make sure there's a safe, visible, easy place for people to be able to do whatever it is that they need to do. We know that we're a big, hustling, bustling downtown city and trying to create those safe spaces for all users is something that we're trying to strive for with the mobility committee, for sure. If there's no other questions, I think we will move on to the next item. It is 247. I apologize. We're going to have to bump the urban trails update. As much as I want to hear it, it looks really good and I want to give it the time that it deserves. So that will be coming back to us in January. Or it sounds like maybe potentially in February to be able to do that. And that will take us into let me get my agenda open for us. The ongoing mobility programs and projects in central Texas. Item number five. I don't know if director [2:47:28 PM] Mendoza has a specific report, or if you just wanted to read us some of the highlights in the report. We'd love to share this, because it shows a lot of the good work that may not get half an hour in a committee meeting, but is definitely happening every day behind the scenes. >> Thank you, madam chair. We have a brief but very exciting city of Austin mobility report for December of 2025. First, we're delighted to announce that the longhorn dam wishbone bridge is nearing substantial completion in the month of this current month of December. As many of you know, this has been a long anticipated project to provide safe passage for bikes and pedestrians and scooter riders on along the Roy butler trail in the vicinity of wishbone, not wishbone longhorn dam. And so what you'll see is substantial progress, not only of the wishbone bridge itself, but also an access tunnel, [2:48:29 PM] which will then extend the urban trail network to the east side of our town. And so we're anticipating substantial completion this month, with final completion and a grand opening ceremony in early 2026. Secondly. >> I can't wait. I'm holding. >> Early 2026 open for it. >> Yeah, most definitely we are as well. And then secondly, some substantial news from our high performing Austin airport. We're reporting that we sent a set a record for all time, busiest month for the month of October, with over 2 million travelers going through our airport. And that represents an 8.9% increase over prior year. And we said actually a one day record of over 45,000 departing passengers on the day after F one. So all of this is [2:49:30 PM] occurring while we are moving forward with a multiyear program to deliver more than 20 additional Gates to our airport. And so looking forward to further success from our Austin airport. And in addition, we're doing this in a sustainable manner. For the fourth year in a row, us received a level three plus neutrality in global airport carbon accreditation. This is a global airport certification that shows our airport's commitment to being a carbon neutral facility in this area. And so that's information is also located in your report. And that concludes my my report. >> That's fantastic. Any questions or highlights. >> Y'all wanted to daylight. We appreciate it. We look forward to that ribbon cutting for the wishbone bridge. It's very exciting. That is one that has been a partnership of many stakeholders over the years. [2:50:30 PM] And it's funded through the 2020 mobility bonds. And then our congressman Cassar was able to squeeze a little more money out of federal support to be able to build that project. And so it's really been an all hands on deck kind of endeavor. So we're very excited about that opening. We've got a list of other briefings by memorandum. So if folks want to reference those and make sure you're up to date on all of the information that's been provided in that there is some really good work being done. And then the last item is going to be items to discuss at future meetings. January is already filling up. We've got some other txdot conversations atp mobility annual plan potentially and sixth street pilot. I know we had some speakers come and join us earlier in this meeting to talk about their perspectives on the sixth street pilot, so I know that conversation is happening right now. February. We might do citywide lighting plan, including around project connect station areas and [2:51:31 PM] potentially some parking reform. Next steps. And then we have another laundry list of about 10 or 12 other items, so you can always feel free to reach out to us behind the scenes and let us know if there's a specific topic that you want to cover. We've got a busy spring. We've already got some things populating for February, March, and April, and we always want to make sure we're keeping our eyes open on timely conversations around I-35. Cap and stitch, anything regarding light rail or first mile, last mile initiatives and etod planning updates. So at the appropriate time, we will circle back and add those into the agenda as needed. And our speaker that was not able to get signed up and speak before, he said he didn't need to speak and he is not in the room anymore. And so hopefully if there's anything else that needs to be shared with us, feel free to send us all emails as committee members or to the entire mayor and council list, and we'll be able to move through those things and get the information that we need. And on that note, it is 2:52 P.M. I believe all of our business has been accomplished [2:52:32 PM] for today. So I will adjourn the mobility committee the last one of the year for December, and we'll see you all in January.