[ Silence ]
>> Good morning.
Welcome to the July 18th Denton City Council Mobility
Committee.
My name is Mark Nelson, Director of Transportation.
I'll convene this meeting at 1133 as we do not have a chair
due to some recent council members moving off of council.
So at this point in time I'll take item 1A, which is
received nominations
and election of a chair and vice chair for the Denton City
Council Mobility Committee.
Yes.
>> I would like to nominate Councilmember Meltzer for chair
and Mayor Pro Tem Ryan for vice chair.
>> So we have a nomination for both, for a chair as well as
a vice chair.
Are there, is there a second?
>> I will second.
>> So I have a nomination and a second.
All in favor say aye.
>> Aye.
>> All opposed?
Motion passes unanimously.
I will turn the committee chair, the chair over to
committee chair Meltzer.
>> Okay.
And I will welcome Mark and our new bike and pedestrian
coordinator.
And pleased for us to share our first mobility committee
meeting at the same time.
So let's move on to item B, MC 18-026, consider approval of
the Mobility Committee
of the Denton City Council meeting minutes of April 18,
2018.
I'll entertain a motion.
>> I'm going to let Councilmember Briggs motion on this
since she was the only one
that was here to know if they're correct or not.
>> Yes, I would like to move approval of the committee
minutes for April 18.
>> Is there a second?
>> Second.
>> All in favor?
>> Aye.
Okay, the minutes are approved.
Moving on to item C then, receive a report from Denton
County Transportation Authority,
DCTA staff to include state of the agency, pass -- I'll
recognize --
>> Chair, I need to recuse myself from this item.
>> Okay.
>> Please come get me later.
>> Where will we find you?
>> I'll be in the council.
>> Okay.
All right.
So again, it's a report from DCTA staff to include state of
the agency, passenger enhancements,
bus operations and DCTA capital projects and provide
direction regarding strategic initiatives
in the Denton County Transportation Authority service plan.
>> Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee,
Mark Nelson, Director of Transportation.
At this point in time, I'd like to introduce Jim Klein.
Jim Klein is the President of DCTA.
He has a presentation for you as stated in the backup
material to walk through recent
activities there at the agency to include strategic
initiatives as well as certain service
level enhancements that they are moving forward with.
So with that, Jim?
>> Okay.
Thanks, Mark.
We've got this before the research, planning got us before
the topic.
We've distributed that before, but I wanted to make sure
you had that.
Thank you for taking the time to have us here today.
And, oh, Rats, I need to go to the top of the -- yeah.
So here to make a presentation, you all cover the items
that you talked about and then take
questions that you might have regarding DCTA in general or
anything specific that you have.
So I want to start with an overview, just a couple of
slides real quick to cover down
on this.
Our mission, we're a regional partner with DART and the
Forward Transportation Authority.
We provide focused and efficient mobility solutions.
It's a less than subtle difference from when we used to say
public transportation solutions
because we want to start bringing forward how can we -- is
there something different about
how we look at things?
And you'll see some of the innovations later how that
becomes pretty apparent.
Again, looking for mobility options and our values which
have not changed.
We're formed under the transportation code, Chapter 460 in
2002, based on the absent sales
tax in Denton, Lewisville, Highland Village.
We began bus service in October 2005 where we took over the
LINC service and then began
DCTA operations.
And the A-train began revenue service in June of 2011.
And we have an appointed Board of Directors, Richard Huckab
ee is your representative on
the board.
He's also the Vice Chair of the Board and the Chair of the
Finance Committee as well.
And we had a Finance Committee meeting Monday.
And then in services, we cover the full gamut, buses, rail,
demand response, which includes
both some demand response for the general public and then
demand response for a pair
of transit, commuter vanpools, and also some of the new
things, transportation network
companies, which is the generic term for the Ubers and L
ifts of the world.
You know, I don't want to just glaze over things that I don
't fully get.
I don't know what demand response services means.
When example is in that you call in or you get on an app
and you say, "Could you please
come pick me up?"
So it sounded like a taxi.
It's like taxi.
Most of what we do in the demand response world is elderly
and disabled, access, a pair
of transit kind of service.
We're looking at changing that around a little bit.
And I'll talk to you about the airport area and some ideas
we have for that and how to
make it more responsive and more TNC-like, but using our
vehicles.
So we're trying to combine both private sector, our
vehicles, try to get the best fit and
layer in the best set of solutions.
So we'll talk about that.
I think that's a great -- that's really part of the path
forward that we see for not only
DCTA, but the transit world in general.
We've had some ridership challenges.
We did cap 2.9 million boardings last year.
We talked about innovation, which I'll cover more.
And then we're -- we every year receive the Government
Finance Office Association awards.
We've been recognized for the platinum levels of
transparency, although they changed that
program now.
And again, I'll go into some details on that.
Mr. Ryan, you know Charles from the RTC, and we have staff
that sits on the STAC, the Surface
Transportation Technical Committee at COG, with Mark.
So just a few factoids on us.
One of the things that I focus on every time is, you know,
the biggest -- I think one of
the biggest things that we do is we serve as good stewards
of the money that we're entrusted
with by the citizens of the county.
And so when you look at our sources and uses of funds,
clearly the sales tax is our biggest
bundle that we have.
We do get contract revenue from the University of North
Texas, North Central Texas College,
and there's some cities, the McKinney Urban Transit
District as well as Frisco, Fairs,
and then federal operating grants and state operating
grants.
I just want to make sure I'm tracking.
So the growth is in the growth in sales tax revenue.
That's what's driving -- It is primarily in that.
The federal operating grants have grown some.
The contract revenue has been fairly constant, along with
other revenues in the fare box.
Okay?
I've got a chart in a minute that is going to be a real eye
chart.
Mark's got the actual spreadsheet that he can share with
you that shows from 11 to 17
what our history is, and it goes into a lot of statistics
about DCTA service in general
and how that fits.
And so we break it up between bus, rail, and rail out --
and bus, rail, and general administrative
over that same time period.
And again, we're very proud of transparency.
If you go onto our website, you can see our budget, fine-us
ual data, our check register,
our CAFR, all the things that go with that.
We get a lot of debt information, words and certifications,
and then certainly links to
the tax rates and other pieces that happen there and our
complete board of directors.
So if you have any questions about DCTA, we're always happy
to answer them, but they're probably
sitting on the website for you to look at any time you wish
, and if you need some help
with that, let us know because we don't keep any good
secrets.
Financial responsibility is -- you know, accountability is
key.
We've been successful in our annual audits.
We continue to have a strong operating reserve, which is 90
days, in the bank every year that
we hold to make sure that we can weather storms.
Sales tax -- we keep 3% of our sales tax in the reserve
fund to weather any short storms
and the sales tax dip, that's our -- since that's our
biggest part of our revenue stream.
It can be volatile at times. 2008 was a rough year for
everybody.
And without -- with that being our primary source of
revenues, we've got to be able to
either weather through the storm or be able to very
deliberately and carefully ramp down
our services if we need to.
We actually have just a little bit over 50 cents a gallon.
We used over 800 gallons -- I can't speak.
We used over 800,000 gallons of fuel a year.
And so this is a particularly volatile area for us if the
fuel prices have been down of
recent, but if regular goes up to $4 a gallon and then
diesel tracks behind that, we use
both on-road and off-road diesel.
We're assuming right now $3.275 a gallon.
So we can cover quite a bit of cost increase with that.
And just to make sure we can preserve service and we don't
take a huge hit, then we can
very deliberately do that in the next budget process and
manage that well instead of having
to do something drastic.
Do you mind if I -- Yeah, no, no, interrupt me any time.
-- poke around a little bit?
Yeah.
Because we saw the rising revenues and then the costs were
rising to match, you know,
but is what's occurred that you've had the ability to fund
reserves or like what's the
real sort of operating portion?
In other words, are you now being funded well above the
actual, you know, operating cost
or have you been expanding service or actually operations
have expanded?
We've expanded -- Why have the expenses matched the
revenues?
Well, we've been expanding some services, but our costs go
up, too.
I mean, fuel has been one that has not, right?
That's been actually down a little bit.
But the biggest part of what we pay for is salaries and
benefits.
Those things go up.
They track.
You know, we're looking, you know, between 3 and 4 percent
in healthcare and all that
that go up every year.
Healthcare can be 10 percent.
It kind of depends on the year and your history and you
guys get briefings on that for the
city, so there's no mystery on that.
So typically it's a combination of increased services where
appropriate and just the fact
that things are more expensive.
That's how we track with that.
So again, I'll show you a chart in a minute that kind of
gives you a good read on that
and what we do.
We have a very conservative debt policy, our internal
coverage ratio, and good budget discipline
in terms of this year's dollars are what we spend this year
for current operations, current
year operations, current year revenues.
So that's a big deal to us to make sure that we're clearly
want to be -- good stewardship
is a key thing that we do.
And so performance-wise.
When talking about ridership, and this is a history from '
04, we've flattened out about
2.9 million.
That number may drop this year.
We've seen some numbers go down.
The rail's taking a big hit and we're doing some things
about that that I'll talk about.
But in total we're staying maybe just a little bit below
that level but about that.
We have a lot of ridership at the University of North Texas
and that's been a -- that's
been a big deal with the students, location and the
contracted service.
That works really well in terms of ridership numbers.
So -- oops.
>> Are you going to break that out between bus and train?
>> Yes.
No, I've got that on the chart.
Unfortunately that's the I chart because it's just a whole
lot of numbers.
But we can go through that.
One thing that we wanted to look at was, you know, look at
our cost because -- I think
I've got a slide out of order here.
Let me -- I'm sorry.
I put that out of order.
Let me go here first.
So one of the things we want to do is do a peer comparison
and see where we are and look
at our peers in the agents in the transit world.
Not necessarily our regional partners because they're very
different in size.
We'll want to talk about that in a minute.
In terms of our similar size agencies, cost efficiency, we
're doing real well.
And reasonable and certainly better than a lot of our --
and better than peers in some
cases.
Where we run into -- where some of our numbers get upside
down is on effectiveness, meaning
that with our ridership down, that impacts all those ratios
.
So -- except for bus.
And then -- so when we look at it, building ridership is
key.
And that's the step as we go forward.
Now I'm going to go back up one because I want to make sure
that we're -- in terms of
comparison to other agencies within the state and in the
region, when you look at our bus
cost, in terms of dollars per revenue hour, dollars per
mile, dollars per passenger, dollars
per vehicle, we are less expensive than our -- the Dart,
the T, and Cap Metro.
Our demand response is less than Cap Metro and Dart in
terms of -- and this is operating
costs.
So this is the management of our costs before we put riders
in the equation.
And the -- and actually the rail, while rail is really
expensive to operate, our cost per
revenue hour and revenue mile is less than the Trinity
Metro -- Trinity Express, Cap
Metro, and Tri-rail -- Tri-Met, which is in Portland, which
is not regional, but they're
a comparative agency to us.
So to state the obvious, that per passenger is where it
gets more challenging.
Right.
It's -- you can see that in bus, our passenger or per
passenger numbers are very comparable,
in fact, better in many cases.
And it's when we get to -- so there's two areas we're
working on.
We are working on bus ridership also.
That's another piece.
We're not going to ignore that.
Demand response, so our access trips, trying to schedule
better.
When you have the paratransit trips, getting more than one
person in the vehicle at a time
is hard to schedule.
You know, we have a lot of special needs folks that we're
-- but we're trying to schedule
that better to get more people per hour in the vehicles.
And then that would improve our ratios there.
And on the rail, it's just really getting more ridership.
So we're delivering the service at a reasonable rate.
We are -- and then now we've got to get more people on it.
And we'll continue to look for more ways to save money.
That doesn't mean we won't keep looking.
But that's where we are.
So, you know, when -- you know, I always -- one of the
things I tell the staff is the first
place to look is in the mirror and make sure that we
understand where we are.
And so these are the ways we can -- these are the same
things we talk to the board about.
And so when you go to look at building ridership, one of
the things that we're working on now,
a couple of things that we've done this fall through
January, right now our agreement with
the University of North Texas and NCTC provides them access
to the Connect service.
And that's one of the reasons we think some of the Connect
service is down because it
shifted over to UNT.
Connect went down.
UNT service went up.
It seems kind of logical there.
And we want to make -- remove any barriers we can to those
students riding, which we
see as an untapped market, any barriers to us to riding the
train.
So basically what we're going to do is let them ride the A
train, not Dart, but just
ride the A train just with their ID, just like they ride
the Connect bus service.
So faculty, staff, students, our three universities, three
colleges, universities, and we're going
to see how that works.
So we're going to give that a shot.
Local fare promotion, our friends at Dart and the T, our
Trinity Metro now felt they needed
to increase the regional fares.
So right now if you buy a regional pass from us or from
Dart or from Trinity Metro, it's
valid on any of them.
We recognize each other.
So we have to sell it at the same rate.
Two of the three agencies engaged in this agreement thought
they needed to raise the
rates.
Now from our perspective, we felt that was -- it was one
important to stay part of the
regional effort and not -- and not create something
difficult for our customers.
So we want a good customer experience.
But we don't want to turn people off to the service because
it got more expensive.
So what we've done is, again, and the reason we say
promotion, it has to do with the legal
piece of our fares and how we set them.
So six months is a reasonable thing for us to do a
promotion on that.
So we're doing two things with local fares.
One is local fares on our system, which means ride the
train.
When you combine that with the local fare at Dart, so if
you go to the trouble buying
two tickets, it's actually going to be cheaper than it is
today.
So we're trying to keep the barriers to our riding down as
much as we can.
And the other thing, for the other end of our population
that buy daily tickets or buy
one ride tickets, which cost $1.50 right now, those will be
$1 for the fall.
And so we're doing a lot with that to make, again, see if
we can get more people on the
bus and the train and move forward with that.
So all of the -- these costs have been incorporated into
our budget that we talked about on
Monday, and it keeps -- and we're still in good shape with
that.
So -- and then there's one other -- I would say another --
this is really not linked as
much to ridership and as much to community service, is that
-- and I'll talk about it
a little bit, but June 1st, we lowered our fares, our
discount for nonprofits.
We were discounting our tickets 25%, and that's now 50%.
And so I'll show you the numbers on that.
It's actually been quite effective in terms of getting more
people out there, more tickets.
So we're working a lot with station development all along
our line, and we've seen a lot of
good things happening.
The Hebron station has just exploded around there with the
development, the Huffines development.
And we've seen a lot at the East End lofts.
Hope to work -- that would be great if that could expand
more.
I believe what we see needs to happen -- I talked to the
city's planning folks, and that
is the same thing the city wants to see in many ways, and
that's going to be a decision
in zoning and all that that goes forward.
But those things that are making it that we can deliver not
only more ridership, better
parking, but better value for our communities.
And that's a theme I also want to have, is that we want to
deliver better -- we want to
deliver value to the community beyond our transit and our
mobility solutions.
Things like trails, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
And can we get development to happen, increase the tax base
?
That's a positive, and so we want to make those things
happen.
We do want to look at our train trips.
Do we have some low-production rides we need to do, maybe
shift more to midday?
The Mobility 2045 plan has an extension down the Beltline.
We're investigating that, not sure if that's worth -- we've
got to make sure the juice
is worth the squeeze on that, and so see if that works for
us.
We already talked about dispatch improvements, and then I
want to talk -- I'm going to show
you a picture here, but one of the things that we've heard
a lot about, you may have
heard a lot about, is some service in Arlington, which is a
demand response type service we
talked about earlier, which picks up multiple people.
Say you have a person going from A to C. On the way to C,
you pick somebody up at B, and
you go past C, drop them off, or go to C, and then drop off
the person going to D.
So it mixes trips together.
It's an interesting -- the dynamics and the trip planning
is all very complicated, but
the software is now available for that.
It makes the most sense when we start looking at this area,
the airport zone, we're calling
it, that this fall we're going to pilot that in the Denton
Airport area.
So very similar to the VIA service, DCTA vehicles disp
atched, more like Uber and Lyft, and in
an area that probably doesn't make sense to try to run a
whole bunch of fixed drop buses.
And so instead of saying, gee, it doesn't make sense to
serve it, how can we take it
another way and look at it and say, how can we provide a
mobility solution, not a public
transportation solution, and it turned out to be one and
the same, a little bit nontraditional.
So that's this fall.
Very interesting.
I wonder if I can just go back to the A train for a moment.
What is your source of intelligence that tells you what the
obstacles to ridership are and
sort of what the desired attributes are to reach more
people and to build ridership?
Well, a couple things we do is we looked at there's a
nationwide trend in drops in ridership.
We've looked at that after the American Public
Transportation Association, and we've seen
that around the country.
There's a few spots where it isn't, but almost across the
board we're seeing drops.
The best information we have has to do with if you kind of
look at a combination of things
or we look at less expensive gas, it's going up a little
bit, but it's still not four bucks
a gallon.
Unemployment is down.
That's a good thing, but that means people have more money
and car production is up,
so there's a lot of used cars.
And so not only can you afford to buy a car, you can afford
to drive a car.
35E in our particular area just got finished.
I mean, we're competing with convenience.
And so what we're looking at doing is how can we, and that
's the feedback we get from
our surveys, that's the intelligence piece.
So we look at the industry, we look at surveys that we take
from our customers, not only
those that ride, but those that a community survey for
those that ride and those that
don't ride and try to get answers.
And we also take public feedback in our meetings.
We do public meetings sets twice a year.
And so those are the things that we look at.
Now, there's one, we're doing a lot of things here this
year with ridership.
And I think from the, I'm a civil engineer in my background
, I used to be a public works
director.
And so when I look at things, we're putting a whole lot of
things out there to see how
we can make an impact.
And from a scientist's perspective, we're doing a multivari
able equation.
We're not going to be sure which one worked as much.
But I think we need to keep, we're so focused on this, this
is where we need our emphasis
right now at DCTA.
>> I'll tell you, the reason I ask that is, just as a lay
person, I have sort of no standing
on which to opine, okay?
But I would imagine that there's cost versus your
alternatives, but then convenience versus
your alternatives, how long it takes you to get to your
destination, and also planning
of your day, like how late you run, how early you run, and
kind of predictability of the
service, you know, reliability.
And I would, you know, imagine that highly successful, well
utilized commuter rails,
you know, beat traffic, because they don't compete with
traffic, and run late.
And, you know, and I, so I was curious in your answer, if
you're going to sort of tell
me where we, that's just my sort of guess, but where we
stand on those kind of metrics,
if those really are the things that are important to riders
, or potential riders, and, you know,
or if there are gaps, and if we plan to optimize our
product.
>> Well, the optimization occurs a couple of ways, but
primarily it's how do we address
the first and last mile connection.
One of the other things we've heard is that when you get,
we have a pretty, it's a seamless
connection, pretty seamless tying into Dart.
We're on different schedules, so you've got to be careful
with that, but you walk across
a platform and get on the Dart train.
It's not a huge hurdle.
There's a lot of stops between Trinity Mills and downtown.
And so we've been looking at, I mean, we've been looking at
a full variety of things,
one of which is would it make more sense to take a bus from
Hebron or Trinity Mills to
a specific target, so that we could eliminate a transfer at
the other end that's outside
our service area, but you've got to be, I mean, how
creative --
>> You want to solve the problem.
>> How do we want to solve the problem?
And could we, you know, an example is getting down to Park
land Hospital, which for our commuters,
Southwest Airlines, Parkland, Children's, all that, is kind
of in the realm, downtown
is kind of the limit of how far people will commute, our
typical user would commute.
But you think about it another way, what if you could be
dropped off, you had one transfer
and could be dropped off at the time shoot, where you
actually go into the, go to work
instead of having to transfer on one train, go through a
bunch of stops, go to another
stop, and then maybe have to walk a ways to your time shoot
, right, where you actually
check in and report to work.
That's the kind of thing that we're hearing that we're
trying to say, how can we eliminate
those barriers?
Because people don't want to take a bunch of transfers,
kill ridership, and, you know,
I don't want to go through that, personally.
And I want to be able to get from one point to the other,
and the more transfers you have,
the more daunting it is, and the more opportunities for
error to occur.
So, we can address the first and last mile.
We think that the transportation network companies, this
demand responsive service, may make a
lot of sense, particularly in an area that's not real dense
.
You know, my friends that run the Metro North in New York
City, I mean, commuting is horrific.
I mean, it is, you know, it's hours to try to drive.
It takes so much longer than taking the train.
They have a somewhat of a captive market.
And they go straight into downtown.
So, as you go through that, and there's a different
tolerance for commuting and things
like that in that area, right, I mean, it's just the nature
of the Northeast.
So, we look at things we can learn from them.
We look at things we learned from our area and from the
entire nation, and then try to apply those.
And so, that's where when you look at some of the things
that we're looking at here,
and trying to be as innovative as we can be, and again, I'm
going to get to a little bit more of that in a bit,
but that's where we really think we are putting our focus,
we're putting our focus on that in the budget,
and our focus on that in operations.
Yeah, thanks for letting me quiz you as you present.
No worries. Hey, look, this is a, no, you just tell me, you
have to ask questions, I'm all about it.
So, Airport Zone, that's this fall, we're going to
implement some service changes in, with the start of school
.
And then right after that, we start implementing this.
You'll hear the word Transloc, which is the software we use
to make that happen.
Accomplishments, we talked a little bit about economic
development.
We had a good study done by the Ontario group that I've
given to the council before,
and Mark, you have copies of that report that we have, that
details a lot of this,
that we're starting to see, you know, development in the
corridor that's growing quite a bit.
Again, I talked about East End Lofts and Huffines.
There's a Tower Bay development that's going in at the High
land Village, Louisville Lake Station.
I've got a lot of interest at the Med Park Station area for
development.
People come to me wanting that to happen.
And so, we'll work hand in glove with the city to make
those things happen.
And how can we leverage the regional investment in a
railroad to better deliver value to the communities in
terms of ad form taxes and ridership?
So, our recognition, we talked about financial and
transparency.
And we're again, we're engaged in the RTC and all these
different things.
I said, actually, it's been, I've been asked to, it expired
,
and I've been asked to participate again at the federal
level with the Rail Safety Advisory Committee.
We lead a user group for our PTC, or Positive Train Control
System,
and we make regular conference presentations, our whole
staff, around the country.
So, we've been fighting above our weight class.
We talk about cost savings and cost efficiencies.
That doesn't mean we don't keep looking at how to save
money.
Okay?
One of the things we're looking at right now is we just put
in an order for 12 smaller buses to use in lieu of some of
our bigger buses.
Some of the routes in Houston, in Denton, might make sense
to run with smaller buses.
That could be a good thing.
Less wear and tear on streets, more efficient in terms of
fuel and costs, easier to maneuver through traffic, and
they can go to different places.
Changing our schedules, incorporating TNCs.
We'll be doing that, and we're doing that now in Highland
Village, a very less dense area.
By discounting that service, providing discounts based on
it, it's really interesting.
It's geocoded, and we've tested this, this technology works
, that it's geocoded and time-coded,
to where if you're in that area and your trip begins and
ends in the zone, as if you were taking a bus, that it
funds a discount.
The discount, you say, why are we funding discounts on Uber
and Lyft?
Well, because you get like a 10 to 1 payback versus sending
one of our vehicles out there.
So, and it's, the math works.
It's really amazing how that happens.
And we still have the accessible service that we go with it
.
Demands and demand response dispatch.
We've been in single-car train operations for over a year
now.
I hope to go back to two-car, but that's saving us about a
half a million dollars a year there.
Positive train control.
We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute.
We were involved in a regional project and went on our own
and saved between 15 and 20 million dollars on the capital
side.
And then, again, by going on our own with operations with
rail, while rail is really expensive, we saved about a
million four by going on our own with First Transit.
We do actively pursue federal funding.
I am unabashedly seeking federal money wherever I can.
Our 20 million dollars that we did have to pay for positive
train control.
13.6 was from federal funds, 5.5 in trails.
We did get a lot of transportation development credits, so
that helps us with our cash in terms of our match.
And bus maintenance facility here in Denton was 8.9 million
.
Since then, we've gotten another 2.6 for a light duty
facility in Louisville, so we cannot run all of our buses
back and forth to Denton every day.
The service is in Louisville. We'll domicile them and do
light repairs.
We'll steal all of our heavy repairs here in Denton at the
bus operations facility.
We also received some funding for development around the
Old Town station, kind of like the DDTC South, at 10 and a
half million dollars, 10.4 million from the COG.
So we are looking for ways to save our money as much as we
can, save your money as much as we can.
I don't know how familiar you all are with positive train
control. It's based on an accident that occurred in 2008.
It is, and I left off the unfunded part of this mandate, it
prevents train overspeed, train to train collision, misal
igned switches, and work zone incidents.
So those things you read about, say up in Seattle where a
train ran off onto the highway because it was doing 180 and
a 30.
And, you know, there's been a few unfortunate incidents
that it puts a positive brake on the train that overrides
the engineer's controls.
It will bring the train to a complete stop, then they have
to get reinitialized with dispatch.
And so it stops those things from happening. Now, keep in
mind, it will not help the things, trespasser incidents,
grade crossings, and things like that.
Those are separate and apart from this, but this is train
operations. Are they going too fast? Are the two trains
going to have an incident?
So that's what happens with that. We are real proud of what
we're doing with this because we're required to be in what
's called revenue service demonstration by December of this
year.
If you look at all the railroads in the country, we're in
the top third on the FRA's chart. So we're in the right
place with that.
So I don't want to be that guy. That's a quote from one
movie I've seen somewhere where you don't want to be the
guy they choose to point out is the one not to make it.
So some of my friends are getting those letters. It's a bad
deal. We're not. So we're real pleased with that.
We've already completed static testing. We've got all of
our installations. We're 100 percent installed, 100 percent
funded.
And we're beginning dynamic testing this weekend. So they
'll see trains out there.
One thing of note, because of all this extra protection, it
puts a lot of buffer in the system. It's going to make it a
little less efficient.
And so we're pursuing some federal funds to try to make it
more efficient. So just heads up on that.
We have got to get into revenue service demonstration. And
so once we get there, then we'll go back and start fixing
the efficiencies as best we can.
So we have a real trail going from DTC to Hebron. We have
finally finished our last hurdle with text.
They released it for letting should go out to bid in August
or sooner.
We hope hopefully this month, if not in August, and we'll
be complete in 2019, which will mean that there is a
complete trail from the DTC all the way to the station,
even across the lake down through the lake cities.
So it's a real positive deal. Again, what value we bring
into our communities beyond just the transportation
services and mobility services we provide.
Kind of a cool statistic here. Well, we didn't know it was
an organic program we came up with that we've done a lot of
talk discussion with our nonprofits and worked with United
Way.
We were offering a 25 percent discount on our group tickets
, our single ride tickets.
My senior king uses this United Way uses this or other
nonprofits. They buy the tickets at a deep discount. Now it
's deeper.
We were able to sell four and a half times the number of
tickets between May and June.
It's been anecdotal because there's different times people
buy the tickets, but we did see a big uptick and we saw new
people buying them.
So from something that really doesn't cost us anything at
the end of the day, we're running the buses anyway. I think
this helps the people, you know, at the other end of the
spectrum that maybe need a little bit more help.
And some of the folks that are dependent on the train maybe
need the leg up, you know, hand up, not hand out. And we
help them. And that's something that we can do.
We're not real good at figuring out who those the right
person is, but we are good at knowing who nonprofits are.
So we then sell it to them and then they work their program
, work their magic on how that goes. So very positive.
Amazing result. He just parenthetically, since you brought
up my senior king, I understand there's a stop about half a
mile south of them and a half a mile north.
Yes.
Don't stop right there.
There's there's a we've been kind of going. I talked to Roy
last night. OK, just for the as for this because we've got
some particular issues this week with the high heat.
And we're answering the mail on that. We're doing some
humanitarian runs from the soup kitchen.
Our daily bread. Thank you. Back down to Monsignor King so
that we're not, you know, it's a pretty vulnerable
population.
So we agreed to help with that. We're looking at a long
term solution.
One of it is some of that is reduce fare passes. The other
is how do we deal with moving some folks?
There's other communities that take some of their buses
coming out of service, the smaller ones that don't require
a CDL transferring them some are nonprofits.
You know, when they reach out when we're done with them and
then have a that's another option.
There's a bunch of options we're working with them on. My
folks, my operations people are engaged with Roy and the
other folks at the Monsignor King.
I went there one morning to go visit with them.
There's a the site is located between two routes. And our
problem is how do we get down there to turn around?
And if we had the route design just it.
I bet Roy had some ideas on how they could turn around.
Well, when you take our big buses and you take you start
trying to turn around in the parking lot.
We do our very best not to pull into parking lots and we
destroy parking lots if we're not careful with the weight
of the buses.
And so we've got to be cautious with that. We're going to
keep working on it. I'm not giving up on that.
Obviously not because we're helping them this week. There
will be people today being transported by DCTA buses to get
them to where they need to be.
And again, we don't want to put our most vulnerable
population at risk if we can help it. So that's what's up
with that.
So kind of a good news story. We just got to work out
something that's sustainable long term.
That's probably not the best way to do business long term,
but it's not to be ignored either. So stay tuned. More to
follow.
All right. Specific information requests. Mark asked me to
put together some things to talk about.
Innovation. We talked about Highland Village on
transportation network companies.
My good friends are here from University of North Texas in
our new contract, which will start this actually in August.
We have a brand new contract that's been approved by both
boards, both the DCTA board and the Board of Regents.
That lift will actually be taking care of the 2 a.m. to 7 a
.m. rides. Same geocoding that we've already tested.
Time coding, geocoding to control cost. Basically just ride
around the campus and make sure that our students get home,
you know, back to their dorms, back to their car at the
right time.
So very positive. We've been doing taxi cabs, both voucher
and dispatch. I told you we've we had a we're we're a
regional partner.
We have the McKinney Urban Transit District actually asked
us to help contract some service for them and we provide a
voucher cab service.
So a rider in it's funded by the McKinney Urban Transit
District and they pay us overhead in addition to direct
cost.
But they a rider will send one hundred dollars to the cab
company and they send them a four hundred dollar voucher
back.
And then that person there's no dispatch by us. They just
get in, call the cab, swipe their card.
And from a personal personal pride, I guess is the right
word or dignity standpoint, driver doesn't matter.
They don't care who you are. All they know is you got a
card that's got cash on it and you get to ride.
Now, the thing that we do is since we're doing service also
in the Frisco area, if we have once or twice, we've had to
send one of our bigger vehicles because someone has a
really large mobility device.
You know, some of these motorized wheelchairs and things
are just too big for the cab, even the accessible cabs to
handle.
And so they reimburse us for that plus plus our overhead.
Now we do dispatch service.
Frisco is getting contracted with us to do that. They pay
us direct plus overhead.
And we actually dispatch cabs because they wanted us to run
two of our vehicles full time.
Those got full. This demand response service really works,
particularly in that community.
And it works in our community, too. But it's it's we can
make it more efficient.
But as we keep making it more efficient and get more demand
on it, it's tough to put a half of us out there.
So if we fill up our bus, we'll dispatch a cab and then
they want to also go with lift, too.
And so really a positive thing. We're seeing a lot of neat,
really cool stuff with that.
I already talked about Denton Airport contract reports with
approach with the University of North Texas.
University of North Texas really wanted to get out of the
bus ownership business.
And we so we worked it out to optimize routes, be able to
fund part of the bus fleet.
Very, very, you know, again, a good thing for all of us all
around.
And and that's a ten year thing. So we're really proud of
that.
Really pleased to be a partner with University of North
Texas cost sharing trinity metro.
And we provide a bus that travels from Denton to downtown
Fort Worth.
Well, Fort Worth provides a bus that goes from downtown
Fort Worth all the way to Denton.
We didn't want to try to meet in the middle and have to do
that transfer that kills ridership.
So they pay for one bus, we pay for the other and we both
stop in Alliance and move on down the road.
So that's how we split it instead of making it inconvenient
for customers.
Again, really, really positive. We're trying to help on the
technology side with Alliance, not funding,
but trying to help with how to make it better because we
want our people in Denton to be able to get to Alliance and
get the jobs.
And if you get off the bus, it's a long walk to everywhere,
but a few places in Alliance, a whole bunch of jobs,
a whole bunch of people, but they are spread out. So how do
we get there?
Doesn't make a lot of sense to do fixed drop bus.
We're looking at some different technologies to try to make
that better.
And then this is something we've been experimenting with.
And I think it's something that might have might be, you
know, what some of these others,
some of the contract cities we work with also serve as labs
for us to test technology and to test approaches.
We'll talk about autonomous vehicles here in just a second.
But the idea of a transportation management association,
if there's some things that don't make sense for it to be
totally funded by say DCT, there's a specific business need
.
This is something we've partnered with some businesses in
the city of Frisco.
Again, we're we're not contributing costs into these things
other than some a little bit of our time.
But again, to test the model of how can we do a TMA and how
do we bring in people, bring in more cities, lower costs
for our members.
A lot of positive stuff there. So public private
collaboration. It's a real good good thing.
This is something again, we're doing a test lab. This is
part of our you know, we see autonomous vehicles and that
technology entering our space.
And again, much like the transportation network companies,
I think you can tell we're embracing it. We're not fighting
it.
I don't know if I'm ready to embrace this yet, but we're
part of it. We're going to test it.
So drive AI came to us and some business partners in the
city, again, the city of at that point Frisco and said,
we want to fund a pilot program for six months. Would you
help us?
Not with money, but with average, you know, with the
technical not the technical piece from the city
institutional piece for us.
We're trying to figure out what is the institutional
infrastructure to make things like this happen.
So we've the agency's got a lot of good PR says I want
channel five last night doing an interview on this.
They're going to start service. Soft launches to twenty
third.
The full launches on the 30th and Hall Business Park to
limited white list service in terms of it's a test.
And we're going to try to find out does this make sense?
Is it can it do safe operations? Is it do people accept it?
And then does it make financial sense?
And so clearly not sustainable for their venture capital
ists to fund it forever.
How could this ever come to play? Don't know. So we're we
're testing that right now.
And it's pretty interesting this deal down here at the
bottom.
The screen shows all of the sensor data coming in. It's
fascinating, which, by the way, if Mark, we could schedule.
I know they they they hook us up. We want to bring some of
the council up there or something.
We could get a time to ride to see that. And that's again,
that's part of the value.
We were asked a lot of questions. Why are you doing this in
Frisco? Why aren't you doing it here?
Which is a good question to ask. Well, I haven't got people
that want to fund it here yet.
So but we can learn a lot and bring that knowledge to our
communities and serve more as we go forward.
So pretty cool stuff. Very, very exciting.
Just a superficial reaction was it seems like a possible
possible application would be in the Alliance Airport.
You know, solving that last bit. You know, you've got
people going to many different stops.
We are I'm not going to profess to be an expert on Uber and
Lyft. But my understanding is that their business model
long haul requires this.
So and I tell Pete, you know, I say, well, you think the
technology at work?
OK, I was in that National Guard for 28 years, spent a
little bit of time in a South Asian country and Central
Asian country.
We can put the right Hellfire missile in the right Toyota
Corolla to take out the right bad guy from a parking lot in
Arizona.
I think we can figure this out. So it's public acceptance.
It's insurance. It's how to get it to learn. So it doesn't
make a lot of mistakes.
This is operating. These are these are the same vehicles
and New York cab system is using.
They're doing they really am I just real quick. I'll tell
you what's really interesting.
One of the hardest parts. I like to ride a bike, maybe jock
in city streets. Well, how do I communicate with drivers?
So if you pull up, I'm going to look at you in the eye and
say, you know, hit me when I pull out or are you good to go
?
But this is that says what the car is about to do. It's
actually a sign.
You have to be by that tells me you weren't by the mic. Oh,
oh, sorry.
I'll be better. OK, anyway, it's really interesting stuff.
So we're trying to learn about it. And I think, again, it
brings value to our communities because when this
technology continues to hit
and we get more and more options, if we figure out it's a
good idea, then we'll be bringing it to saying, I don't
want to say just alliance.
Why not dentin if it's in the right place at the right time
? Why not? If it makes sense.
So let's learn, figure it out, and then we'll get smart on
this stuff and be really ready to bring it forward.
So and I think it's going to hit that. You know, there's a
lot of debate over whether the Uber and Lyft system is
sustainable.
They've not been through a recession yet. So time will tell
what is sustainable.
We know is that the demand from the public for that kind of
service is not going to go away.
And so somehow that level of service is going to be done.
OK, Mark wants me to continue. Sorry. OK, I got it.
All right. This is what Mark's got. This is all our data on
the right side.
Don't if you can read that, I'll give you a dollar because
it's too small for me.
But sales tax, demand response, UNT, Connect Service, A-T
rain, all of us there.
Mark's got the Excel spreadsheet. So I think this answers
the questions we've gotten.
And if you got more, fine. No worries. One note, the demand
response is for the whole service area.
That's all three cities. The rest of it is Denton only. A-T
rain is the whole service.
It's all A-Train boardings and what we have there.
So, Mark, I'll leave it to you if you want to pass that on.
A lot of discussion about passenger amenities and this is a
map of all the things that exist and all the ones that are
being built and where they're going.
Just again, this is much as much a report as a presentation
. So I'm going to click through these pretty quick.
These are all the ones that were done in March, April. OK,
yeah, I'm really interested in this subject.
Got it. I know we have a lot to cover, but just is the
objective to ultimately have everything have shelters or?
So we don't think that we try to get it to where we look at
the highest.
There's two criteria. I want to say there's a hard criteria
. One, it has to be space.
Right. It's got to be room for it. The second one is we try
to place these at the highest ridership locations or and we
know.
So we don't have it's generally at the twenty five fifty.
We try to get a good number of people stop in there.
And so if we have there's a third piece, which is there an
accessible route to get there.
So that's coordinate with the city on sidewalks. I'm going
to show you some pictures of some of the work we did, which
will explain a lot of what our effort has been.
But Mark will have a copy of this. This is the status of
all the stops that we're working on right now.
And so let me click through this and I'll go back if you
need to. So we've got March, April.
This is what has already been done in May and June. All
these different locations, more that are already complete.
And then these are the ones these two pages are what we're
what are underway for July.
And then we've got some permits in review now and bring
those up. So so the whole thing when we say these are the
things we're doing, this is what it looks like.
So we want to have an accessible boarding area already got
a sidewalk, one place to stand so they can the bus can drop
the ramp down and they could step directly on the bus
without having to walk through the mud.
So that's actually really close to her student housing area
, accessible ramp.
How can we get there again? Getting a boarding area
sidewalk for a path.
Don't do a whole lot of those, but there's some steps we're
trying to figure out.
That's what our bus shelters look like with a ramp, get
people in there and more another accessible boarding area.
So with that, I went a long ways. Sorry. What are your
questions?
I don't mean to hug Johnny, just haven't made a signal or
anything.
I'm good. Yeah.
I had several conversations.
Over the years.
Yes.
We'll be back. You know that.
Anytime you want me to come, I'll come.
Any updates for us on the labor situation with the bus
drivers?
We're, you know, we're.
Let me set the stage for that too.
Our contractor first transit is they are responsible for
providing general management of a sub corporation which is
transportation management in Denton County.
They actually hold the CBA, which is a collective
bargaining agreement.
Look, we've got great drivers. They do a great job. They're
safe. They could provide great customer service.
We're going to work a long term game that's going to be in
everybody's best benefit.
And I believe we'll end up with the right answer.
We've the contract expired.
So there's been a longer time than we'd hoped.
But we've been working through that and I feel pretty
comfortable that we're going to be in good shape.
So that's our that's what we're working towards.
And those are always sensitive things.
So a little bit of grace will work through this.
Thank you very much. It's really interesting.
Go ahead, Mr. Chair, just for those who are viewing at home
and those who may want to to take a look at this
presentation that Mr. Klein has, we will get that.
It was not ready for when we posted the agenda.
So we'll have that posted on our website so they can go
back and take a look at that.
And obviously, I think you had some questions about some of
the different stops that they're enhancing and that'll
allow you an opportunity to go through those one by one if
you wish.
Right. So that'll be public information.
It is. No, no, no worries.
And again, if you have questions about the data, it's all
in an Excel spreadsheet.
So do the math to your and if we need if we can help, we
need something else. You need something else.
Tell us and we'll work on it. We'll get that together.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time and
always a privilege to come and visit with you.
Thank you.
All right. Okay. Okay.
So it's a what do we what do we take five minutes since you
didn't go in for.
Well, no, no, no. Okay. We'll take one minute for Council
member breaks to rejoin us.
We'll take a minute for Councilmember Texas that allow them
to go ahead and present and move on with their day.
Okay.
Welcome back. We're going to skip ahead and do item E
because we have some folks have some time constraints.
Item E MC 18 dash 0 31 receiver report hold a discussion
and provide direction regarding the University of North
Texas is bike share pilot proposal.
Consider the recommendation of an ordinance amending
ordinance to 2018 dash nine oh three related to the inter
local agreement between the city of Denton and the
University of North Texas.
Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Mr. Chair committee Mark
Nelson director of transportation. So I've got a very short
part of this conversation and then I'll turn it over to Dr.
Clark with the University of North Texas.
Longer the short is, as you may recall, the city of Denton
and the University of North Texas worked out an interlocal
agreement between the two agencies to to assist with the
provision of bike share essentially University of North
Texas had identified a private sector vendor to manage or
at least do the logistical side of a bike share program on
campus.
They were recently advised by that operator spin that they
'd no longer be providing that type of platform as part of
their shared alternative transportation services.
And so therefore, what we're looking at doing is moving
forward with amending our existing or amending the existing
ordinance to remove the reference to spin and essentially
work directly with the University of North Texas and North
Texas would at that point in time, provide us a point of
contact with their logistical partner.
But again, because the program is owned, funded and
operated by the University of North Texas, we would
continue to work through the University of North Texas but
then have that point of contact.
So with that, I'd like to invite Dr. Clark with the
university to come up and walk through his presentation and
give a little bit more information as it relates to that
particular program. And, and then I can come back up and
answer any questions that you may have in terms of how we
might advance or otherwise move forward with a with a
revision to the existing interlocal agreement.
Dr. Clark.
Good afternoon. My name is Alan Clark, I am an alumni from
the University of North Texas and Texas Women's University
began work on my doctoral program in 1997 and just never
left.
And, and have been having the opportunity to understand and
look at transportation and things are a little different
than than what we've known in the past.
I've never had the instance where a company has come back
and said you know what we're just not going to do that
business anymore. That was new to me and so we felt like we
were we really needed to come to you and tell you where we
were we, we felt like we're still on track to have a
bicycle share program.
In the four when classes begin but it kind of sets us back
as to phasing and us, maintaining the operations and
changing the bike color so that they represent the
university in our Texas and have that green appeal to them.
But with that, what what have we learned well we've learned
that that the transportation world, everybody's getting
into that business.
And there are a lot of venture capital companies that are
jumping in, and they see where there's an opportunity and
then when the opportunity may be different, they're just
transitioning away from that and going into other types of
venues and so the company we had talked to just basically
let us know it we're going into the scooter business.
We as as the University of North Texas, we're not going
into the scooter business we've got basically 40,000 people
on 200 acres that are there, and we feel like we need more
control that comes with bikes we've had bikes on campus.
The last time I addressed this committee we were talking
about we had 1700 bikes on campus.
Why are we doing this well, because at the end of this year
we collected 300 bikes that were just left and we feel like
with that transition into the bike program.
Hopefully we can convince people to leave their bikes at
home and come share our bikes. And so, when we had talked a
bit about this and brought it to the council itself.
So originally we're going to and what we're intent is to
start out with 100 bikes, move on to probably 250 by
somewhere in the October, November timeframe, but we've got
to learn some stuff first and we'll come back and let you
know what we've learned.
There are some things we do want to look at and that's a DA
assist in the bike world.
And so we're going to start out with just plain bikes that
everybody's accustomed to riding, but this company does
have an electric assist program.
And in that program you're able to go and set it up for
somebody with heart conditions or somebody with health
issues, so that you get into situations where there's an
incline or there's a long track, you can engage electricity
to help you with that.
They also have actual ADA bikes where that are hand rotated
, then by feet.
And so we're going to take a heavy look at that over the
fall semester, but we'll come to you and let you know what
our plans are and what we think is going to be best to
support our customers.
Who did we choose we we felt like we needed to go with a
company that had been in this for a long term and had kind
of did it with their own money.
So we went with VO ride and they're going to be our
sponsors and in this case that we've already spoke with
them on several occasions and they will be maintaining the
logistics to make sure the bikes get out, but the bikes get
back at seven o'clock every morning because we have to
facilitate the transition from the parking
to the bus mainly and and with new construction, where we
lost 1200 spaces last year in the development of buildings
which is great, it means we've got more opportunity for
more students more growth, but that means we're parking
further away.
And with that we need this, this, this transportation
opportunity to allow people to commute back in, we will be
using the bus services that are there we will be using lift
at night but we also want to have this as an option of how
to address the fact that we really have to get out
of the transfer, the parking business and get into the
transportation business.
We've talked about some of the things that have taken place
and that we know about this company. One of the things that
is a benefit to us. They build their own bikes and I'll
show you an example of what their bike is and some of the
things that made us decide on this bike.
One of the things that comes with this is they can easily
switch colors. And so that's a savings of about $50,000 for
the university because they're just going to make the color
switch in the production run. And so that won't be an
additional expense for that.
Another option was, we know for a university where we're at
and what we're looking at the commuters are going to be
about 30 minutes average commute and so that's 50 cents to
us we the university will be paying this for the student
writers, and then we'll look at this.
This is a one year pilot.
We will go out for RFP when we get close end into the next
summer, and give everybody the opportunity to look at this
and and Vio right understands that as well. The bike itself
is that we're going to have to start out with and that's
not a bad thing but we are going to brand
this UNT as well. But we found out in the construction of
this bike and what they have done.
There's just some things that that we like in the
adjustable seats the difference in the speed of the gears.
Anti theft devices that are socially self parking
capability, not self parking but we don't have to have the
bike racks that we have today to be able to pike to to
house these bikes in certain areas.
And that will be good to us. This is how we will brand this
bike at first, it'll be 100 by sat on campus when we start
school, and the basket itself is going to have a UNT brand
on it.
Where do we go. We're hoping by the end of September 1 of
October, we actually get the UNT branded bikes green, black
hardware, white embossing of our UNT logo, and we're hoping
that somewhere right around the first of October.
We'll gather data throughout that time period come back to
you and have a discussion with what we've learned, who's
commuting where they're commuting where the bikes are
ending up at night where we need to bring them back.
And then the question is how many more bikes do we need to
serve a capacity of that group, and does it need to be a
different type of bike do we need E assist I, we will
probably go ahead and move within the first month with the
ADA bikes.
We've got to get understand what that is and what that
needs to take place.
Anyway, we felt like it was the right thing for us to do
and and and Mr Nelson and Mr pre temp they have done great
things is as far as helping us understand and to have the
integration of this into the city and working to benefit
the university itself.
But again, we're just we as a, even in our rules and
regulations today, a scooter to us as a motorized vehicle.
It has to be parked as a motorized vehicle, if it is just
parked by a tree or beside a building, it becomes an
abandoned motorized vehicle.
So, you know, it's some things that we're going to have to
have that discussion but our intent right now is to stick
with the bicycles because of safety concerns will look at E
assist to help others people commute, but using those same
type of bikes.
But I welcome any questions that you may have about what's
taking place.
The main thing we wanted you to know is where we need to go
back to that interagency agreement and take out any vendor
specific names and just and we the university have
completed our application for the permit to be able to
operate this as we had said before that has been completed
I believe
two weeks ago we finished that up and got that turned in,
or it is in the process of being turned in right now
through our purchasing group. But anyway, I open open to
any questions.
Councilmember breaks.
The presentation.
That was quick that the bikes moved moved out and on to
scooters. And so we have a whole nother thing to talk about
. You said something in your presentation just then that
kind of caught my attention that you are less 1200 parking
spaces now.
That is great from from when I walked in. And they said
okay transportation is yours and said well I welcome that
opportunity. But the first thing that was said was, oh, by
the way, you're losing 1200 space.
Because of buildings that are being constructed. And so you
have two parking garages on campus that is correct is that
after those, you still are lacking the 1200 spaces that you
used to have.
That is correct. So two years ago we took enough parking
spaces 1200 parking spaces and began construction. The new
College of Visual Arts building was part of that. And then
we have a new resident hall and a new greeting center that
took out another 450 spaces that we had there.
And so, in your comment you said parking is getting further
and further away which means on to city streets and
probably in more to residential areas. We, we are currently
building a new lot, it will be ready when the semester
begins and went and took a look at it before I came here.
It will be 550 spaces.
With that, we believe and we did well at the end of last
year we were never caught at a time where we did not have
spaces, but getting people to the right spaces meant that
we turned to our freshman and said you're new.
So you get to go across the university and park over by Apo
gee Stadium, because we had a lot of spaces there but nobody
wanted to use them. Once we did that.
We were able to have enough and Fouts Field to accommodate
and so we never saw a time last year where we did not have
spaces and that was kind of new to us.
We have another 1200 spaces. And so, we, we feel fine about
what's taking place right now, but yes to answer your
question, but we are we are hoping not to be pushing thing
to more city streets we want to engage make sure we've got
enough spaces for those who want to
park on campus have that opportunity.
I assume then since you mentioned that freshman parking at
Apogee that would be a great place for the bikes to be that
it's pretty far.
And I just want to confirm that we have a safe path for
those bikes to get from Apogee across to the I know there's
a new the new bridge and that's designed.
So, and then there's the walking bridge but as well so just
to confirm that it is safe for the students to get across
from over there on a bike to the campus, and we, we, in
that we greatly picked up the bus routes going to DC ta.
That was parking over there, but students just made the
decision, I want to get to campus and they were walking at
the time, and they were using the actual pedestrian bridge
going across and that's what we're hoping will also be the
use of the bikes as well.
They have clear path to the pedestrian bridge from that
parking area.
We will quarantine is not the right word but I might have
lost of it we will bring bikes together each night to be
corralled is a better word, so that students can start out
from that point and make their way over.
And then, by this method what was happening before is they
were bringing their bike over and it's like, oh you know I
got to go to another building and it got left.
Because the tire was flat, and it never moved. And so what
we're hoping is with this, they're able to come over and
they stop at the library mall and you know what they make
their way to Wooten and then back out to the CVAD building
and it's like oh here's another bike.
I can make my way back. If not, then we're going to have a
with this company and they know it and we will also have
people on nighttime crew to go pick up bikes, but they have
got to get back to greet those morning commutes each
morning.
Okay, Mr. Chair, if I may thank you answer one of the
questions that Councilmember Briggs raised.
You may recall, actually another interlocal agreement
partnership with the University of North Texas with the
aesthetics on North Texas Boulevard, that particular
project widen one of the one of the sidewalks there to 15
feet and then was able to get the other one to seven feet
wide so they're, they're
there at North Texas Boulevard it's a it's a wider, wider
pedestrian and bike use path at that location and part of
partnership with the University of North Texas and text up.
It's also well patrolled 20 mile an hour zone.
And we just we just completed a new sidewalk that runs down
there to the parking area by apogee victory area to make
its way up to North Texas Boulevard so that we don't have
the people in the middle of the street any longer, that has
been taken care of as well.
So we feel comfortable about what we're doing, but we know
we need to be in the transportation business not the
parking business. And we're learning. This was once one
instance we took one step forward and two back, but we feel
like we recover quickly.
You know we'll meet the needs of our students, but it also
means our students are going to have to be more informed.
Why is there about what's taking place. This company will
have an app it'll be able to go in and say okay where's the
closest bike to me.
And we'll have information regarding myself as a writer, my
usage, where I get on where I get off. And, and overall as
a part of that, but we as university, at least for this
first year will be picking up the cost of this using
transportation fee dollars to try to help with this, this
growing transportation
need at the university.
I just have, you know, a couple of questions just out of
curiosity, in your opinion, is it possible that spin knows
something that VO just hasn't figured out yet.
I believe that VO.
These, these groups right now there's there's, there's a,
as they put it to me there's a loophole in the legalities
of what a scooter is and where it can go. I don't know if y
'all saw on the news five just recently, they were talking
about it and this young man they
interviewed him he said well I don't know where I'm
supposed to ride this I can't ride it on the sidewalks and
I'm not supposed to ride it in the streets and so. But
there's a loophole of what is motorized vehicle, and there
were running into the same behavior that we saw with
motorized bikes oh just let's just go dry, drop these scoot
ers out there and let people start getting on those. And now
you see different organizations different cities coming
back said oh by the way, you're not going to ride these
through the trails of Dallas you're
not going to be riding these through the different places
that we have parks and recreation. Ourself you're not going
to ride these on the sidewalks that are associated with the
university. I didn't actually mean to take off into the
scooter part I just thought like
they seem to figure it out that the, that the bike part isn
't, you know, may not be a workable model as I recall they
were operating on 14 campuses around the country and they
're backing out of all that.
They're backing out of the other organizations they just
were not going to start with us they said they're, they're
focused was going to be in that area. I mean the way you
know it sort of doesn't matter in terms of our deal with
that's your business.
The only other piece that sort of relevant to us that have
been addressed this I recall last time.
Part of the model included the ability for non students to
use the bikes. Is that still part of it, you know, is there
a mechanism for that with with video, we have we have asked
that this this group also apply for the permitting with the
city as well
so that if there is a person who wishes to commute off
campus, or if somebody individually wants to use this bike
they would be able to use this bike as well.
We're ready to provide direction.
I'm listening. Just, just to recap, Mr. Chair. Again we
have ordinance 18 ordinance 18 dash 903 which is an inter
local agreement between the University of North Texas and
the city of Denton.
What we're looking to do, or what we're requesting as a
staff for the committee to do is make a recommendation to
counsel to remove any reference to spin, and then allow the
University of North Texas to work directly with the city of
Denton staff on management of the
University of North Texas bike share program and so we work
through our both legal councils to move that forward.
Thank you. Councilmember Briggs, make a motion to amend
this interlocal agreement between the city of Denton and
University North Texas removing spin and sending it to
counsel for approval.
If we need a motion to provide direction but I'll second it
if we do.
Discussion.
All in favor.
There's your direction. Seems like a consent agenda item to
me.
Very well. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Right, should we go back then to to item D.
No objection.
MC 18 dash 30 receiver report and hold the discussion on
the status of the loop 288 project and make a
recommendation to Denton City Council recommending project
sequencing of loop 288 project components.
So, good afternoon mark Nelson, director of transportation
here with the city of Denton going to hit this very fairly
quickly and then with with our transportation consultant,
john pollster can can also add to it but long and short we
are at a point now with the schematic design on
with loop 288 that we're at a point where we need to
communicate with text dot as to whether or how we sequence
the project.
In other words, this particular project. It's a $40 million
project, and it's securing the right of way. In other words
, the corridor as to where loop 288 West loop 288 will go,
and then it will construct the, it will construct a phased
approach, it will be a frontage roads for one, either north
bound or southbound.
And then once additional funding comes at a later date, the
full width so the main lanes would be constructed, and then
the other frontage road would be constructed at that point
in time.
And so what we're looking to do at this point in time is
advance a recommendation to text on for for that particular
frontage road and what staff is recommending is advancing
the northbound frontage road, as it's on the inside, and
provide development opportunity associated with the
airport. We've got a, we've got the route up here this is a
little bit older because this actually came out of our
airport master plan, which was approved in 2015. It shows
where the corridor actually goes along, or the alignment
goes along here on the south end along 2449
and we've actually had to push that out a little bit here
to avoid some conflicts with a power line, and one of these
couple of these gas wells here and here. So that actually
goes out a little bit further you got another document in
your backup that kind of that has
a revised alignment, I wanted to provide this simply
because this is actually a document that's been approved by
Council showing that it is in our airport master plan it is
demonstrating the benefit to the airport, as well as some
of the other economic
development opportunities on the west side of our, our
community to include the, the industrial area so Mr. Poul
ster if you've got anything else to add to that in terms of
timing sequencing or benefits, be happy to take those
comments at this point.
So the project is anticipated to be environmentally cleared
.
The northbound frontage road cost is roughly about 40
million. And what that would do is the state would acquire
all the right away for the entire 350 400 feet width of the
controlled freeway, and then simply build the one frontage
road and operate as a one way to lane road for a period of
time, which would allow the city then to develop their
infrastructure inside the loop to tie into the frontage
road at its permanent location we build a northbound front
age road and it's permanent location.
And then, more importantly, we have great separations in
areas so that we have a continuous flow for the main lanes
at the railroad track not only will the, the main lanes go
over the railroad track, so will the frontage roads, so the
frontage and the main lanes
will come up on a bridge structure that will over overpass
the railroad so at no time we have a loss of continuous
frontage road connectivity.
One of the things we have to tweak going forward is the
direct connect up at Luke 288 and 35.
The main lanes of Luke 288 and the 35 project designed
across but the frontage roads, stop and make a U turn it's
like they come up to a river, and they just turn back
around so we're, we're arguing with the state that those
frontage roads need to continue across to the
existing loop.
And we'll make that change in this schematic versus the 35
project which will go over in a minute on the other project
.
And then the other thing changes like Mark was saying with
major tweaks on the south end.
The access point to the loop and 35 W is not a jug handle
anymore it'll be a direct connect similar to what you see
on the northern segment but it'll only be the direct
connects on the loop side.
It'll be a standard diamond box with the frontage roads and
vintage comes up to a stop sign signal at the frontage
roads, because in order to do the direct connects on that
side we'd have to get into that neighborhood and vintage
really wasn't designed to be the loop.
Right, so we're kind of precluding that movement.
So those only major issues is we're great separating
completely the railroad, plus some other cross streets, we
're doing a direct connect on the loop side at the south and
a full direct connect at 288 to the north.
Plus we're going to push for frontage roads crossing the
interstate.
The vintage road that you just mentioned in this committee,
look at that and make a future decision and that what you
're talking about here we are applying that decision to that
schematic so we're not doing anything on the vintage side
for the direct connects all we're doing is on the 288
loop side so that it doesn't impact the neighborhood. Okay,
thank you.
I know that the service roads on this were in the call 2020
or 2045 plan is, is their plan for both to try and fund
both sides.
So that mobility 2045 is financially constrained 25 year
program, the remaining 210 or 212 million is outside the 10
year plan that is financially constrained that they dealt
with last Thursday RTC.
So we got the frontage roads funded.
But the reality is once you acquire the right away.
Once we get environmentally cleared next year.
You have said this a lot at this committee.
Funding is never the problem, regulatory processes the
problem so once we get past the environmental clearance. We
were pushed to reignite this project a couple years ago by
text that so they want this, this facility.
And I'll tell you that all to your motive is at some point
they want university to be y'all's, and they take the truck
routes around the loop.
Future plans, you can say no but that's their ulterior
motive for building the loop.
Mr. Pulsar real quick, you spoke to regular regulatory, and
can you give a 90 second on financially constrained for
those that are unaware of that or maybe watching from home.
So, the federal government requires you to develop a plan
for your region over 2022 year 25 year period.
And you have to constrain it to what the projected revenue
streams are.
And you know what the first 10 years are because there's a
10 year highway plan that the state puts together that's
actual got funding in it.
And then you make certain assumptions about the last 15
years, and the feds have to look at your assumptions and
say yeah, those assumptions don't seem crazy.
They seem reasonable and that dollar amount equals up to $
15 billion.
And so then the region puts together through the RTC
mobility plan for that 25 years called the 2045 mobility
plan they just adopted in June has a list of projects
transit freeway toll roads.
And they fund it, they put out your cost to it and that
total plan has to meet that financial assumption that the
feds approved.
Now, we have about another $50 billion worth of need during
that 25 year period that's not financially constrained.
So in the 10 year plan, the loops got funding for the front
age road, but not the main lanes.
But every year they add on a new year, right, and have a
carryover.
And so by the time we need it, we'll get it.
I'm not sure if that answered your question. I think that
helps.
You're asking us to recommend project sequencing. So are
there alternatives.
To put a fine point on it, the state and the county who's
actually paying for the engineering, they're ambivalent as
to what part we do first right.
The state wants to do what's best for the city of Denton,
because the city has most of the dogs in the hunt here with
their development.
So the state's going, we're only going to build one front
age road city. What do you want to do? And my recommendation
, I think the staff's recommendation would be the northbound
furniture because it's in the interior.
Right, which means that all connections you make for the
airport, the new power plant facility, etc.
Would tie into the frontage road in its future state. So
there's no throw away for any of the cross streets that you
bring to that road.
And that way you can go ahead and set your your thorough
fare plan improvements consistent with a road that will be
there when the projects completed.
Ultimately, so to answer your question. Yes, there are
options. The option one as outlined in the backup material
is the northbound frontage, which is a staff recommendation
.
Southbound frontage is option two, which is obviously an
option.
Again, with the northbound frontage, it's a little bit
closer in ties us to the airport.
We feel that that's a little bit more beneficial to our
needs.
And then certainly is take no action at this point in time
and as Mr. Bolster indicated the county and the state can
move, move forward and advance how they wish because is
their project at this point in time.
They're not a major stakeholder. They're they're seeking
our input at this point in time, but it's good to work with
our with our partners if we have the opportunity to provide
a recommendation and desire on our end.
That's member breaks.
I'd like to hear from our engineer, Mr. S. If that's
possible.
And what you would recommend.
I know our streets will tie in.
Excuse me, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I prefer from the engineering standpoint, our
preference would be the northbound frontage roads, it
physically locks in that interior boundary so when
development comes in, which is where we're seeing the lion
's share of the development west of I 35 filling in between
this area right now.
And as you start moving past that that is a longer term,
but it also starts to lock into the discussion on the main
lanes, where those exit ramps go for the main lanes down
the road.
When we start nailing down all of those components, the
frontage road on the northbound side which would be the
intern interior side would be the best for us.
It also goes into the master thoroughfare plan as we start
to nail down all those connections.
Okay, so, so getting this taken care of now is probably the
best option. We feel that it would be yes ma'am. Okay,
thank you.
Because the reason is is that once we get past
environmental clearance, you know, early next year, the
state and the county is moving right into the design of
that frontage road so we need to know.
They need to know what it is to design and that's why now
is is a good time to tell them.
Yeah, okay. Sorry if I'm a little slow absorbing all this
so it's, you know, only the frontage road going to be built
at some point you know or say, first, and then the main
roads come back very similar.
Have you seen spur 170 coming up by 35 w.
So they built the frontage roads first, so that at some
point in the future they could put the main lanes in in
between. When construction goes on you've got the frontage
roads are established on like 35 right now we're moving
everybody all over the place.
They built main lanes first and the front of the road later
and then you got to expand all that to make it work. You
put the frontage roads in, but used to driving the frontage
roads and then when they do construction on the main lanes,
1015 years out from now.
Then they're ready to go in with minimum of impact to the
actual traffic.
I want to make sure I heard that right construction of the
main lanes 10 to 15 years out. If it's that far I mean Mr
pollsters that is very true.
All right, it's as you pass environmental.
Then as the plan moves out of the funding that's in, I am
listening to this.
I'm not fearful about this and don't see the urgency for it
and so I kind of want to set proper expectation for them.
So, so, for now they're just going to see, assuming we go
forward with this recommendation.
Yeah, that they're just they're going to see a frontage
road be built, they're going to drive on it for a while and
it'll be some time before the rest. Right. And I think part
of what's going to happen with the neighborhood, the
vintage neighborhood in particular, Mr poster I alluded to
this earlier.
What you see on the connection, all the way over on this
other side down here. That's not what they're actually
going to build it's going to look very similar to what you
see on the north side here. And the reason for that is if
you're coming off that highway.
And the only direction you get to go is back to the west.
And I think that for the short term, for the net over the
next five to 10 years all we're going to have is a frontage
road that really.
Farm to market road 2449, and then start to curve and come
back up with just the frontage road. So, that's all you're
going to have. So, there's no real appreciable difference
here.
But what will happen is, as development starts to really
accelerate in this area to the, and I know it's on the
south side of the plan view, but to the west of I 35 is
traffic now has multiple alternatives that gets them off of
35 and looking for other routes that's already clogging
this area down in, in the body break connection. Some of
the areas that you will see backups on the highway that are
occurring here as razor ranch continues to develop. They'll
have alternative routes as people leave Peter built during
shift changes, some of the other industrial
complexes that are over in this area, they'll have
alternative routes. It will also relieve some of the truck
traffic that you see that is currently going in and out now
it's just going to accelerate as this development continues
to occur.
And that's the message to the neighborhood.
The growth is coming. It's coming to vintage road.
We're, well we're doing our best to try to do to not
encourage their travel to vintage by getting them
alternative routes that are much more open and available to
that type of traffic, get them to the interstate where they
really need to be.
So, for direction.
I have a question regarding the, because you look in the,
that's going to go through many many properties and
property owners and sellers and are they aware of this
future plan currently that this is coming.
We've had multiple public meetings on this alignment this
has been tweaked and retreat for the last 10 or 12 years.
We've had lots of public meetings, but as part of the
public hearing process, which you have to have an order
environmental clear all of what's called your effective
property owners will be notified and brought to the public
hearing and then provided with property owners,
Bill of Rights, entire process they have to follow so they
have been brought along, but there will be far more formal
and more thorough as we get through the environmental
clearance process it because it requires it.
Okay, thank you.
Is it is it hearing in the sense that the outcome isn't
determined or it's really telling.
So this is recorded right.
Yeah.
Yes, sir.
The public meeting is when they're there to hear what you
have to say.
A public hearing is for when they're here to tell you what
they're going to do.
It's a telling not a hearing.
Right.
Yeah.
All right.
So, direction is northbound.
I can have your direction.
It's north.
Right.
Let's move on to item F then MC 1827 receiver report, hold
the discussion and provide direction regarding Texas
Department of Transportation on system projects in the
detonator to include the 35 Express project.
Mr. Chair, john Pulsar ITS will present this item.
So Mark said I got to move quickly on this depending on how
much time I have we're going to go through about $180
million of project review in about a minute.
So you got questions.
I talked fast.
Was $10 million a slide.
Or no.
It's just shy $2 billion was on this list.
And I'm not very technically savvy. So you got to stop and
talk, ask me questions. So what you have on these reports
some of these is the first time you're seeing these, the
top part of the report shows the schedule and the
milestones the primary milestones Fonzie means finding a no
significant impact or environmental clearance.
So you have your date, then you have the next milestones in
order is your right away acquisition complete date your
utility relocation complete date, then your let date and
your construction complete date, if you think you know it.
So for example this project 2181 was cleared in 2008.
I'm sorry I'll just remember better if you tell me what Fon
zie stands for what finding of no significant impact.
Forward on we change that to environmental clearance, so
you can make that more clear. So we had this thing cleared
in 2008. It wasn't until 2017 that we were able to let the
project in the whole time this project was being cleared in
the right away acquired this project was
fully 100% funded. So even though you've got the money.
We're still in the regulatory process, not knowing where
the funding is coming from. Because if we wait till we have
the money. We still got years of regulatory legwork to get
through in order to get a project completed.
So extension of the 2181 project to the south. It comes up
around guard, and it goes up and ties into Lillian Miller,
and then 2181 itself veers off and becomes easily, but it
ties directly into Lillian Miller, which ties into a
project we're working on 35 right now at
28. So where's project was let by was awarded by MCM
contractors, and we are in the process of doing a lot of
the grading, a lot of the city's utilities, there was some
utilities that need to be relocated for the city, this
contractor put it in their
contract, and is part of the tech stock project. When the
project goes under construction we provide you with a
project report. It gives you the project limits, who's the
person that's in charge of that for the tech stock, and we
give you his phone numbers
and this is a public document so any Joe can call poor
angel and yell at him whenever y'all, he messes up a
sidewalk in front of your library. And then the contractors
phone number. When it started when it's supposed to be
completed, and then we give you current activity
which is what's going on. And then we come down and we talk
about items that are currently controlling the project and
other items of significance and typically that's the two
places. You will look at traffic issues items controlling
project completion and other significant items
because the narrative tells you that they're grading,
putting in culverts or whatever but the trauma or lack
thereof is demonstrated on those three, those three bullets
so right now 2181 is moving reasonably.
According to plan, question from Councilmember breaks.
I'm sorry, remind me if this is the one where DSP was
working with you guys on light location, or is that
something different. Okay, has that all been settled and
far as I know we had a meeting in the trailer.
MCM trailer didn't mean the way that sounded.
I don't know y'all.
And so they agreed on how to do with both permanent and the
temporary signals. Okay, to my view to elaborate.
Yeah, I think the way we worked out is, I think, is he will
be taking temporary signals on as part of their project,
and then the permanent will be put in under text out
project.
They're all worked out. Okay location and everything.
Everything. Thank you.
So that's 2181.
You're Fort Worth driver this is 377 basically from 35, all
the way down to FM 1830, this project, the county started
in 1999 trying to get this project environmentally cleared
and we've worked nine years on one spot, and that was the
great separation
of Union Pacific Railroad.
Long story short, this project, let July 10, it was
$43 million and some change, which was a little bit over
our estimate and contractor name is SEMA construction got
it. And this is what's called an A plus B bid because we
felt like it was important for the contractor to be quality
contractor number one, and two, to have be mindful of the
time so when we did the bid package.
We assume that would take 632 working days, and we assume
the value of $15,000 a day to each day.
And so what you were able to do is take the bid price of
the what the bid contractor bid plus the number of days
that they were proposing which was in this case it was 575.
575 days is what they bid so you take the 575 days times 15
is a value, and then the bid price and you pick it based on
the time that they say plus the bid. And if you had
somebody that was close on the bid price, but 10 days
longer on the timeline, well then you could pick the one
that has the less time, because it's better value.
And so what we're trying to do is get a contractor that
that would get in, get it done and get out. And with a
significant penalty so if they missed that 575 by 10 days
that's $150,000 that they are penalized for the project.
So it's real money.
So we plan on this is a project where it was basically a
railroad improvement in a driveway fixing project with a
little bit of roadway mixed in so because this was all just
one continuously open drive area it's like no man's land
out there for access.
And so the city worked really closely with the property
owners out there.
So what our contractor is, we're going to have a pre
construction meeting established and once we get that pre
construction meeting set in a schedule, then the city the
county and text that's going to have a public meeting with
the residents the property owners effective property owners
and go out and say hey, here's what's about to happen and
kind of inform them and get ahead of the holy crap factor.
I'm sorry I apologize again it's a telling not a hearing.
So, and then this is the utilities report on forward drive
as well.
Where would we be able to see the drawings for that I'm
kind of interested in how Rosaline railroad track is all I
get that question all the time.
The next project we're going to talk about is a future
project it's a mayhill interchange at 35. Now this is
currently when when a GL, which was the contractor that did
35 came in, they took mayhill and they added capacity to
the top bridge of mayhill over 35 to the inside and the
outside
of the bridge is scabbing on where they just add columns
and bridge deck and they just widen existing bridges out
there so they will widen the old bridge for the additional
lanes of traffic to travel over 35.
And then when we had the 35 the brinker 288 project, it
added the, the, the north southbound northbound U turn.
We're going to tear all that out, and we're going to build
the ultimate construction where you'll have basically 12
lanes of traffic, you'll have to do laughs to go north or
south on the frontage roads.
You'll have three through in the Texas you turn in each
direction so we'll have 12 lanes of traffic.
We decided that should. That should only be about 20
million bucks but what Texas decided to do is to stop doing
interim improvements and so they want to go ahead and do an
ultimate building of what's permanent for the future, so it
'll have enough bridge
capacity for the future.
The other thing that is supposed to come north, and which
means we'll buy all the right all we needed which is show
guns the ex on part of the James would parking lot, some of
the stuff on the northbound side where the restaurants are
and do a do the permanent
roads and the bridge so it's a significant cost, it's, it's
fully funded. It's already environmentally clear because it
was cleared when the original 35 the project was cleared.
We have LTR on contract, and they are, they provided a
couple of schematics.
And we're talking about having it literally ready to let
December next year.
So it's it's fun it's from the restaurant property so those
restaurants are going. Oh no, they're just going to get
closer to him. I see.
Yeah, we have a policy never to get rid restaurants or
liquor stores so
customer breaks. I have a question because I know that we
are redoing mayhill and so you guys are coordinating with
the city to make sure that all of our plans, all line up.
They are okay. Thank you. And so what we're trying to do on
this job is get text that to extend their limits on mayhill
tie into 35 to pick up that that part that's the already
four lanes there that's kind of bad by the hospital.
Yeah, so they can tie into what the city and the MPOs doing
north of there, all the way to 380. So we're trying to work
, make sure everybody knows what the right hand is doing to
the left.
So I pretty much just went over everything that's there now
.
So you 35 he looked to a brinker project. This is 288 where
you're seeing the redoing the bridge. You got the brinker
where they're going to be putting in a new bridge. And then
down here mayhill is where they did the u turn which is now
open to traffic.
The milestones on this project are that we are about to
have a no it doesn't look like it but by mid September, we
'll have the northbound bridge structures for brinker and 28
8 completed will take the traffic and move them up onto
those new bridge lanes and then
reconstruct the southbound lanes.
The intent is to have the project substantially complete by
December 2018.
What is the difference between complete substantial
complete substantial complete means that you can generally
get around and move around the bridges will be open the
underpasses will be open, but the contractor will still be
working on embankments striping signage signals
stuff like that stuff they got to do to meet the
obligations of the contract but we're shooting for these
projects to be completed substantially in December of this
year.
Dr. Nelson, just, just for the, for the committee just as
an update there. We've been working with text on the
contractor to realign the northbound frontage by the Hoot
ers restaurant and the brookshire grocery store there next
to Teasley I was advised this morning
that that has been completed. And so that should provide a
little bit of additional capacity, because the way it had
been configured was the two lane frontage road south of the
bank and the Hooters restaurant was to lane, and then it
neck down to a single lane going into that
intersection at Teasley so now it's to lane all the way
through there.
Thank you.
So this is the segment of 35 North from 380 up to the didn
't gone county line. It's just shy $900 million. It's a six
lane divided urban. The project was, we thought we were
going to get the schematic approved last month.
We had a little bit of a hiccup on on the schematic when we
met with the feds last week. And there is near singer about
a 93 acre, historically significant farm.
And the house is adjacent to where the future furniture
over be. And we know that we got very little chance of
beating that back so we're going to have to redo the
schematic to push the interstate further to the east to
totally avoid that area so we're, we got about
six month hiccup in our schedule. That's not reflected on
the schedule right now.
So, 35 W main lines okay so there's several things going on
with 35 W main lines with the 2045 mobility plan adopted 35
W was put back in the plan.
You know it's only about a half a billion dollars but I
think it'll be a billion by the time we get done. It's
going to be a rural freeway. So what is a rural freeway, it
's going to have friends drugs to lane two to three lane
friends drugs depending on whether
you're on ramps or not, and six lanes of main lanes three
in each direction, but instead of having curb and gutter,
you'll have open ditch between the frontage in the main
lanes in between the main lanes in the main lanes between
the main lanes in the front and so it'll be similar
to what 114 used to look like when you're going out west,
you know, or some parts of 35. As you go south to Austin
whatever where they have wide medians and there's a big
footprint.
And the reason we did that was not because it's going to be
urban a rural area it's because we believe that the
paradigm for managed lanes will shift at some point in the
future, because they're going to see that they work,
because they're working everywhere
else in the region of the legislature pretty much killed
them on that so what we're doing is a rural cross section
so in the future, when we want to add the toll managed
lanes we have the right away footprint to do it.
That's.
It's a goose not again.
So that's the project, and that's that's the ultimate
interim. They are doing frontage roads from 114 down the
Eagle Parkway now.
The next phase is we're starting to PSA in about two months
plan specifications and estimate is there's like a design
document that the state requires from 24 from 1171 north to
2449 which is where Luke 288 comes and ties in.
We'll be doing the frontage roads in that corridor as well.
So, we're just kind of doing the fringe roads as
development occurs.
And when the development requires it in the county and the
state comes in is the design.
And we're environmentally clearing the whole thing and so
we can build whatever parts that we deem necessary so we're
kind of just taking one bite at a time.
Okay.
This is the Briggs improvement.
This project began
this month, and it says that there should be done in August
they're doing the base work right now and essentially what
was happening is a lot of people were coming off of 288 to
go east on 380.
And the right turn lane was only about 120 feet long, and a
lot of cars we get stuck all the way back with that blue
line is waiting to turn right.
And so what we're doing is we're making improvements that
that part of the frontage road.
So that essentially that whole area is the right turn lane.
In order to go straight or left you have to move into
additional lanes that we're going to be building to the
inside, so that the right lane traffic can get to 380
easier, then it should be done by.
In the summer.
Councilmember breaks. Thank you for this is going to be a
lot less road rage here at this intersection.
Other people are just you. Well, we don't need to go there.
But from from the emails I get for old north, I get just as
many for this and it goes back further I mean, really
really far and it's not just that it backs up it's that
people try to scoot over, and I see people scrape people's
cars all the time so this is
backup all the way on to 288.
Sometimes. Yeah, so this is really great. Thank you.
Okay, us 380 East. This is the project from where we were
just talking about 288 all the way up to the column didn't
candy line, it's got two colors because it's got two CSJs,
which is a basically a social security number for a project
control section job number.
So, the section in green is basically
has no a lot of don't have a lot of connections, you know
tie ins to the roadway because it goes over the over the
lake area. And so text that is designing this in house and
there's about 26 parcels of property to acquire there.
The section in blue has about 86 parcels to acquire and
text that's hired to engineering firms which are listed
here.
And then, white oaks engineers, and we've got their contact
right there. And this project is supposed to be
environmentally cleared to end of this month, which means I
'll be able to begin right away acquisition and the retweet
utility relocation, and we're
looking at a May 2021.
Let date. It's a little over $130 million now and it's
fully funded.
We're going to go and we'll have great separations which
are bridges at 720 423. Navel, which is where the Brazzable
high school is legacy and teal Parkway so like in this blue
section I'll act like kind of us what we call a super
street.
There will be some signals that will be what signals just
near here near 377, but they'll be limited. And the intent
is to work with the communities to give dominance to the 33
80 corridor on those signals, where they do exist so that it
will encourage
people to move and try to get to three at those great separ
ations as opposed to at a stopped condition.
We're looking at May 2021, let date, and it's fully funded
at $130 million.
Luke 28 West we just went over that.
We can go over here if you want that much.
Not at 180 million a minute right.
1550 and all that improvement.
I don't know why I knew but anyway, we, the LTA has been
picked up for construction. It's about 18 million bucks, we
just got them on contract.
A couple months ago, and they are in the process of putting
together some, some alternatives and using crash data for
the intersection improvements and the main thing that we're
going to do is we got to get back with the city and the
city's the main stakeholder
here.
And I think text that's intent is once they build it they
want you to take it over. So we met with your engineering
staff, and we're bringing your engineering staff more
deeply into the process, so that they know what they're
getting.
When they get it, and they get what they want when they get
it, because you've got an airport improvements here and you
ties into your body break project here, both of which are
large capital investments for the city.
So what's the big structure right at the. This is 35.
Right in the middle. Right here.
Right in the middle of that picture.
That's beautiful. Yeah, that's where all your industrial
development is and so part of the key to this isn't just
building six lanes right that's anybody can do that.
You got to do it when each one of these guys has a separate
shift change. Right.
And those shift changes will dramatically impact how the
contractor deals with it, and how we survive the project so
we want to have phasing down to an art on this one.
So, in 1930. This was a shoulder improvement project that
early on we got some questions from people want to know why
they were putting shoulders on this road.
But text that decided they were going to do it they did it
and it should be completed sometime next month so it will
be able to take this project off it's kind of a minor
issue now.
And that's just telling you they're almost done.
1173.
This comes 35 out to crumb.
Your thoroughfare plan requires, ultimately this to be kind
of realigned in this area.
And so we're working with the city on that to, as we make
improvements to 1173 we need to do this project consistent
state does we're keeping on them, consistent with what the
city wants from their master thoroughfare plan
and what the city staff is working on tweaking that right
now.
And that should be that.
I don't want to ask that.
So what sort of direction are you looking for from nothing
I just give you an update every so often. Okay.
Well thank you very much. I'm sure this will help me
respond to citizen inquiries about what's going on. Mr.
Chair.
Mr. Chair, yes, one other item.
After this is presented to the mobility committee, we
typically then posted on our city council or our city didn
't website. And so then that's.
There's a link to that for for the citizens or anybody else
who wants to tie into that terrific.
That brings us to item G identify and discuss meeting times
and dates for future mobility committee meetings.
Dr. Nelson, did you have a proposal for how often and when
I do not have a proposal other than the fact that I propose
there's an opportunity to change the date or whatever,
whatever day you wish to, to, to meet on.
I can tell you we've in the past over the past number of
years we've met on a Friday.
We've met on a Tuesday.
And we've met on Wednesdays.
The Tuesdays, because of the way council has backed up and
the time spent here at City Hall.
There was a desire to move away from. So we don't want to
start at 630.
I'm happy to start at 630.
Just a little bit of background on that in terms of, you
know, some of the different days when when the committee
has met so really it's it's open for your discussion with
your colleagues as to what dates, or what day of the week
may work better for you.
So Ryan may may wish to have the, the date after, or the
meeting, the meeting after the RTC if there's opportunities
to provide an update on RTC activity that may be a
consideration that you get.
Other than that, I'll, I'll stand down and take any
direction that you have.
And just one question first, just how often do you meet.
I mean, it's not a lot of time for you to meet.
Right, we can push those items towards the tail end of the
agenda whenever those conflicts arise.
What do you think?
Nine o'clock on a Tuesday?
Let's see, we are in July right now.
I will be fine for doing the third Wednesday next month,
but in September is when I'll start running into issues.
So depending on what Councilmember Briggs,
if we want to wait and just repost for next month to have
another discussion
once she gets an opportunity to look at what her fall
calendar is going to be like.
Are you okay for third Wednesday next month?
Yes.
Do you mind starting a little earlier?
Because frankly, I'm blowing off something that I usually
do that starts at one.
You know, could we start earlier than 1130?
Certainly.
1030?
Is that all right on Wednesday?
And then we'll give it another look.
So for August we want the third Wednesday at 1030.
And then we'll repost the agenda caption as we see it today
.
Very well.
Great.
All right.
Moving on to item H, staff reports.
One scooter share.
So this was a rising issue as the agenda was put together.
It's continuing to -- the issue is continuing to matric
ulate.
So what we did is put some information in the form of a
staff report.
We do have Mark Oliphant here and Preetem who can kind of
walk through some issues associated with scooter share.
I think we're prepared to talk about it at this point in
time.
And, you know, certainly because it is on the agenda, you
could give us direction.
But to take a look at how we might move forward with
scooter share as a shared transportation alternative,
whether it's either added to a revised ordinance addressing
bike share,
or whether you may choose to push it -- obviously be pushed
to council for action in terms of not permitting scooter
share at all.
I will tell you that the existing bike share ordinance will
need to be amended.
We'll bring that back regardless one way or the other
because it terminates in September.
And we want to sync that up with the University of North
Texas bike share program that terminates on May 31, 2019.
And we did that so that University of North Texas could
pull the data from the fall and spring semesters and bring
forward a new policy.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Mark Oliphant for any
discussion and questions you may have on that particular --
>> So considering what we heard earlier in the definition
of motorized vehicle loophole and all of that coming sooner
,
I feel and would like to recommend that we get this item to
council for discussion,
for an open discussion on if what we want to do about the
scooters, whether amend or --
>> And I can tell you that we do -- we understood that
might be an option.
I failed to mention that earlier.
We have a tentative agenda item set for the August 7th
council agenda, if that's soon enough.
I don't know that we potentially could put something on the
24th, but I think the 7th is more likely the better date.
Preetam, do you and Mark have any issues with that?
>> No. I think we're set to August 7th, and it would be a
work session item where we discuss alternatives
and what other cities are doing and present recommendations
.
We're going to move forward.
>> Is that okay with you guys?
>> It's fine with me.
It helped me to understand just because I'm new, kind of
your thought process.
Why is it better to start a council than to start a
committee?
>> Well, generally it's good to be in committee, but from
what we heard earlier, and with our ordinance not
specifically referencing scooters,
we could see scooters on our streets in the next couple of
days.
And so I'm trying to get ahead of the issue this time
instead of behind as we were last time with bikes.
And it's just timing.
That's --
>> Any objection?
>> No, I think timing-wise, because since we're only
meeting once a month, unless we had a special call of the
subcommittee going to council,
it's probably going to be the faster route.
>> Mr. Chair, while we have the mobility committee
assembled, is there any initial concerns, issues, items
that you would like staff to take a look at
as part of the recommendation or part of the work session
item that we'll bring forward, if there's specific items?
Certainly if you don't have them today, if you could email
them to Mark and pre-TEM, that way we can present a more
comprehensive approach.
>> It's difficult for me to deal with the fact that I've
got pre-TEM and pro-TEM.
>> You have to change one vial.
>> You just had to do that, didn't you?
>> Yeah, I did.
>> I guess my biggest question is if something has an
electric motor to it, does it fall under a vehicle
regulation of the state that's already existing?
>> Yeah, I think Trey's already looking at it.
>> Trey's got that queued up.
>> Unfortunately for you, Trey Lansford, Deputy City
Attorney.
There is some state preemption here that we'll have to
consider, specifically in the transportation code.
And again, we're talking in generality, so I can't give you
a specific as to whether it would apply to what may or may
not be dropped.
But the transportation code in section 551, 351 gives a
definition of what a motor assisted scooter is.
And it talks about it being either gas or electric, but
having an engine size of being only up to so big.
And so if the scooters that are being dropped meets that
definition, we have certain things that we can do under the
state statutes and several things that we can't do.
So it would really just depend on getting details as to
what may or may not be dropped.
And if it does fall within the definition of a motor
assisted scooter, which again could either be gas or
electric,
we as a municipality have a right to restrict their usage
on streets if we decide it's in the public interest.
>> Okay.
>> And I would just say, based on some observation on what
some of the municipalities are facing,
and you may have already seen it on TV with newscasts or
what have you,
is that the scooter share operators require you to wear a
helmet.
Most of those folks do not have helmets on.
In fact, you'll see an interview in the background.
You'll see folks riding by on the scooters.
Quite frankly, the helmets aren't there for rent, so that
would force you to carry around your own helmet.
And I don't know that that many folks do that.
And so, and then back to what Trey had indicated, we've
seen, and I'm going to state the name of the city of Dallas
,
and I think it's a very interesting issue on the KD Trail
where they have prohibited the use of scooters on that
particular pathway.
But how, you know, how and what is the mechanism for
enforcement?
So those are some issues that we're just seeing at first
blush.
I think Mark's starting to kind of pull that issue apart a
little bit and look at different options.
>> I think generally the dimensions of safety, right, or
what we're going to end up talking about,
the, you know, not just enforcement.
>> And not only that, but the deployment, the number of
vehicles that get deployed and how they're deployed,
and then how they're rebalanced and where they're placed at
the end of the use.
>> Is there history, you know, of any kind of lengthy
deployments that we can learn from?
>> No, this is all just hitting within the last six to
eight weeks.
Mark, do you have some input on that?
>> Locally, the last six to eight weeks, it's been about a
year.
I think Santa Monica was the first city where they were
deployed.
A number of different things have been done, some parking
requirements that they either be in a corral almost painted
on the ground.
This is where you can leave the scooter or not, or some
cities just say keep it out of the main travel lane of a
sidewalk
and you put it in the furniture zone of a sidewalk, which
is where you'd have your benches and trash cans, things
like that.
There's a variety of different ways that cities have dealt
with this, but it is very new.
>> Councilmember Briggs.
>> I was just going to say, you know, I think part of the
other issue too is, you know, certainly the legality of
them being on our streets,
but more importantly is do you want them on our right of
way, in our right of way?
I mean, we dealt with it with v-bikes, they just showed up,
they established a number of bikes, 50 some odd bikes, 30
some odd bikes in our community without permission.
And again, it's going back to what Dr. Clark mentioned,
that the mentality, the paradigm now is just ask for
forgiveness.
They just show up, ask for forgiveness.
And so it's part of the framework of the original ordinance
that we drafted for bike share was the good neighbor
program, that hey, be here, go through a process, seek a
permit,
or have it reviewed by engineering, make sure you're not
creating any obstructions because of issues that we have in
the sidewalk.
So it's not so much, certainly it is whether they're legal
on our streets, but more importantly, do we really want
them on city right of way?
It creates an issue, especially as Mark mentioned, the fact
that people don't wear, don't carry helmets around at their
disposal.
And so do we really want them on our city?
If they want to work with area businesses, I don't know if
we have any purview over that, but we know in North Texas
doesn't want them.
Do we want to do that or do we not?
Councilmember Braeks?
I don't have anything specific. I just wanted to share a
couple of situations that I witnessed when I was in D.C.
with these, which one, made me aware that it was coming and
two, caused really great concern if it came here that didn
't.
So D.C. is rather, you know, there was a hill and I saw a
younger child, I say younger, but like 15, and he had a
skateboard, and I think I may have shared this before, and
put the skateboard on top of the scooter and stood on it,
no helmet, and just went straight down the hill.
And as a mother, how is that possible? I mean, if I knew,
but they had a phone and an app, and I'm sure that, you
know, I don't know if there's restrictions on age or what.
But so that was one scenario that I saw. I nearly had a
heart attack and almost ran up to him.
The second one was that the scooters have tiny little kick
stands, and somebody had left one on a sidewalk and they
have street parking, and so there was a nice car there.
And so this couple just kind of walked by and the scooter
just kind of got knocked over and fell and scraped pretty
bad, and dent a door on this car.
And so I'm thinking, okay, so there's three different
things there, the people walking by, whoever left the
scooter, who knows, and then the car who's damaged, and I
thought, wait a minute, this is, and they're a little bit
more, they're smaller, but they're heavier.
So, you know, anyway, so that's a situation that I
witnessed as well. And I don't really want either of those
to happen here in our city because they're both pretty
dangerous.
I'll just chip in an initial reaction that, you know, you
've got, from a safety point of view, you've got the issues
of, you know, the risks to the riders, but they're taking
that risk.
But from a point of view of our responsibility, I'm more
concerned about that, you have motorized vehicles sharing
space with pedestrians.
I think that's kind of scary. And you had a comment?
Yeah, I think my knee-jerk reaction is to, for the time
being, put a ban on them.
One of the things on, at least in DC, it's a very bike
oriented, they have a lot of bike share going on. So, a lot
of people carry a helmet with them, even if they don't have
their own bike they're riding.
We don't have that kind of mentality in Denton, either you
own your own bike and have your helmet that you keep with
the bike or since we don't have the bike share program yet,
we haven't been able to get people into a learning curve.
And when it comes to the safety aspect of it with that
helmet, I think most everybody, I won't say everybody, most
everybody learned how to ride a bike as a kid.
But not a scooter. There was an article in the Dallas paper
about a lady who went down on the railroad track, ended up
in the emergency room, but she didn't wear her helmet.
So she knew she couldn't, the whole article talks about who
was liable and she knew she couldn't see the bike company.
And knew that she probably should have had a helmet. Well,
made me think of one, and I don't get off into tangents
very often but here I go.
When I got a chance, this is my one chance. When I got my
first 10 speed, you know, because prior to that when you're
, you're in your preteen she's got the bike that you backped
al for the break.
Well, I didn't know front brake from back brake and I hit
the front brake and flew over into the post office.
And I'm afraid of that learning curve with these scooters
until we until people get an opportunity to try them and
other neighboring communities let the other neighboring
communities be the test pilot first, or would you have to
have some kind of conscious public education
introduction of them. The app, the app actually requires
that they go through training on the app before they write
it but nobody's reading. Nobody's paying attention to what
it says because that's where it says you have to wear a
helmet you have to agree to all this stuff so they take
away all their liability.
So, is there enough in this to give you a sense of how to
prepare for counselor.
I'm screwed away right.
Staff report number two Irving transportation summit. So
this is a summit that is hosted by the city of Irving.
We've partnered with various folks over the years and it's
typically a pretty good, pretty good summit in terms of
bringing forward stated the industry.
The engine is not posted at this point in time.
So unfortunately I can't, I can't provide that to you.
There is a link to it if you're interested in it.
The the rate at this point in time for government per
person is about $195 so if there's an interest in doing
that, typically we send a staff member or two to that
particular summit.
I understand that Mary Pro Tem Ryan will be attending
obviously with RTC. There's a tie in there as well. So,
yeah, I just wanted to bring that to your attention as an
option if there's an interest in the committee and
participate in that particular event.
Are you recommending it.
I'm recommending it but again I haven't seen I haven't seen
the agenda so there's a caveat with that.
Okay, thank you.
Staff report h3 matrix, when I saw pre term to walk through
that I've got to head to an appointment here at two o'clock
, but I think he'll be able to push through this fairly
shortly.
Yeah, so, just to give you a little bit of history on this
one, since this is one of the first ones.
Questions that Council may have about different items. So
what we do is we typically put them down on a matrix and go
through to the next meeting and give an update of where we
're at, what we're, what steps were taken how we're
addressing this.
So there are some lingering items that are in here. If you
want to discuss some of that, we can go ahead and talk
about them.
If you have any new items that we can definitely add them
in here and work on getting some answers or work on getting
some timelines on those for you.
But, yeah, there have been older products in there.
I've got a couple of new, newer items.
One I think I've already brought up to you pre term is
about the, the no turn on read at 2499 and Robinson because
of that retaining wall.
Just seeing about getting that through traffic safety.
I've had some, some people concerned and I've looked at the
area on Bernard between Acme and willow wood, maybe even
between Acme and the service road to investigate prohib
iting parking on the south side of Bernard.
Because once you when you get a car parked on both sides,
traffic doesn't pass well and that Acme to willow wood is a
pretty heavy heavily traveled area.
And then another item is to the Friday city streets report
that's in our Friday report. If we can add that into the
agenda in case we want to discuss anything somebody's you
know can be very simple that it's one of these that we just
look at but if we wanted to bring up something on one of
those roads, an actual posted item if we can just take that
report that's in the Friday report and put it into this
agenda.
Okay.
That's one of the breaks.
I do want to follow up on the last on the last one about
the downtown street rain what Wayne right, because I have
been on that street, a lot and when to cart when parks cars
are parked on both sides.
It's almost impossible to get down there. I'm just
wondering if there's an update on that because
I just want to make sure we're looking at the same there
are a couple of segments of Wayne right one is already
posted as no parking.
So I just want to make sure it's the one that's right.
There's houses on one side, and then the apartment. Yeah,
is that been no parking posted.
So, the one on the north side of Prairie has been already
posted for no parking.
And then the one on south of Prairie, which hopefully I can
get there.
Okay.
So, a couple of things I think we have looked at this
particular segment of Wayne right.
Is that the one correct. Yes. Yeah, it's just that. Yeah,
right there. This one, the first block.
So, yes, we had looked at that, and we had some discussions
with some of the property owners here.
These, these folks that live here as well as we'd sent out
notices, or had a discussion with this apartment, and their
first reaction is they don't want any parking restricted on
either side.
So there's a little bit of pushback from the community
itself.
And while we're talking to solid waste as well as fire.
Their main concern was at these intersections turning
vehicles that are getting for solid waste, getting in and
out of these areas and then turning vehicles is the main
concern.
So they do have some space that they can use in between.
Moving forward with no restriction typically requires an
agreement of most of the property owners, and there is some
resistance from the people that actually live on the street
.
The other concern also is if we restrict parking here it's
just going to continue moving down here. So we're kind of
in a tight spot at this point.
So they're talking to fire and they don't necessarily
required this segment because they have access off of this
tree they have access here for this apartment so they're
kind of okay that this particular segment is not
necessarily has a 20 foot area for them
equipment because they have the furniture in front of this
building they have this area, as well as one court when I
talked to fire department, but we can revisit this item I,
I mean, we did receive some kind of resistance from the
residents there.
Right, well I was thinking that the site the house, the
side with the homes would still get parking from street
parking but on one side would would not be but so I guess
that house in the middle there if it caught fire it was
just out of luck.
I mean, it's basically what we're saying, I think typically
we were okay for 150 feet.
This is right about there.
But we can.
We can see if only this segment can be restricted if that's
your main concern getting to the middle. Well it's good to
know the apartments are, you know, pushing back I did I had
no idea what was going on with it but I did try to get
through there the other day
and it was pretty difficult. But I do have some new, new
ones.
On Fry Street, frying Hickory there is a bike rack, and
there are several broken bikes on that rack.
Is that the city's responsibility what do we do, what's the
process about cleaning that up so that new bikes can be
parked there, and it's not just taking up space I think
there was a bike without a wheel and some other broken they
've been there for a little,
a little while.
And I know I have to listen to UNT I mean they have the
same kind of issue so.
Where along here.
It is.
I'm guessing it Avenue A and Hickory right in that little
triangle right there there's a bike rack.
I'm guessing it.
I think it's a city right away and we can definitely look
at picking them up and that you know auction them off or
getting rid of them. So I'm just curious about the product
do you like put a tag on them like a car and say,
Yeah, so, so those look good. There's probably are some of
them that are still there that don't have tires.
I think what happens is the police tag them with a notice
that says please remove and given X amount of time two
weeks I think is typical. If they haven't been moved and
they come in cut the locks and pound them.
And the process from there there's more to it even I think
we have to put out a notice that this bike was seized if it
's yours come get it in 30 days and then finally they can
auction it but yeah clearing it out would be great because
it can't be used.
Yeah, and there's not very, you know, many spots down there
. Anyway, and so if we have some that are opened up if we
could get the process started and just to see on that.
And next, Mr. Polster mentioned that text dot wanted us to
maintain our to get back a road. And what I would like to
know is there a list that text dot can provide us of roads
that they have that they wish the city to have.
There are a lot. And what, what that means. I mean because
I probably some of them would be really good for us to have
. And, you know, some not and getting the light here I think
you're being too feeble in your projection.
Well, I don't know maybe maybe that's not it. I am getting
the light. My mic is on. Okay. Okay, so the list of roads
that text dot has.
That they want us to have would be great for us to review
here or the process of, you know, I mean the only one I've
been through is McKinney and that seemed pretty detail.
So I know that we can't really do a presentation or
anything on it right now but that I think it would be good
information for us to know going forward.
We can definitely bring you a list of all the roadways that
we're starting out the conference because they just keep
kind of coming. So we're in the same boat we're trying to
figure out exactly what it is we're dealing with and we can
bring that at another at a future meeting.
Good for us to have. Thank you.
I've got just a couple.
One.
I think you may have addressed me by email but I'll just
follow up the other there's concern on the part of
constituents in the willfully underrepresented district for
concern about the off ramp from that goes into DNA near
near near effigy stadium, the concern that it's too fast
and they're too short a distance for the speed of you know
what I'm talking about the speed of cars that are coming
off and, you know, is there some kind of a timeline that's
now been established for more final resolution than what
they have now.
Okay. I think it's a tech stop issue there are a couple
major hurdles there.
We're going to have a union grade as the ramp comes up from
the freeway or the main lanes up into the roadway and we'll
visit it with text out. It was not designed for people to
cut across four lanes, let's take a look at that a little
bit more in depth because there are multiple facets that
are being explored by text on and city staff and you and te
al at the same time, including the off
ramp 35 going north. And there are several folks trying to
immediately take a right on that. See so there's a lot of
moving parts as text that works through this, we can bring
that back with an update and give you a better idea where
that sets that'd be great I appreciate that.
And secondly just you know, having this be the first time I
see this new business matrix seems you know I'm oddly named
matrix when you have items going back to 2016.
The, you know, the item that says part of the small area
plan considered as part of this small area plan is that
does that mean it's been addressed and it can come off the
list and, you know, can we, any of these resolvable or
resolved.
I think at some point, council members wanted continuous
feedback as to where we're at, for example that locus to
know turn back is a good example, we were in the process
and we're still in the process of working with text out to
get that back.
And every now and then, counseling does want to get up.
So this list was quite a bit longer, just three or four
months ago.
So, and credit, given.
Well some of what you see here is those are ongoing
requests that we're still getting to the goal line.
Either it's because the project was initiated and we're
working through those phases over wrapping up and closing
out those when they do get close that completely yes they
come off the list.
Okay, that's great.
Anything else.
That's it right pretend items so I'm going to adjourn this
meeting at 102 and a half.