So we'll convene our regular session starting at 1102 and
first entertain a
motion to approve the minutes of the meeting of July 18th.
So moved.
All in favor please raise your right hand.
Okay the minutes are approved. I'm going to go out of order
in deference to our
guests scheduling requirements. We have item E staff report
number two DCTA
leadership change and someone who's intimately involved
with that leadership
change is here to join us. Do you want to make an
introduction Mark?
Yes thank you Mr. Chair. It's my pleasure to introduce
Raymond Suarez. Raymond
Suarez has been with DCTA for a number of years and and I
understand or we
understand later later this week he'll be officially
appointed as the as the new
president of DCTA replacing Jim Klein. So without any
further ado Raymond Suarez
DCTA. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much and I'm
actually very very pleased
to be here and excited to be representing DCTA. I became
aware of this
this meeting just yesterday so I've tried to work some
things around and
make sure that I could be here because it's very important.
Not only to me I've
been a long citizen of this region. I grew up in Fort Worth
. I've spent most of
my my career in Fort Worth and Dallas. Not to get too long
in the tooth about my
career but since this is my first opportunity to speak to
you I wanted to
give you a little bit of my background so that you
understand that I'm while
I've been with DCTA for four years I've actually been in
the region for over 30
years. I've worked for Dallas area rapid transit helped
build out the light rail
system. Worked at General Dynamics and aerospace. I've been
involved in physics
research. Spent about a decade in Silicon Valley working
with some of the largest
companies in the world and because of that I traveled all
over the world and
experienced a lot of different transportation systems. So I
'm not a
novice when it comes to transit and I'd like to consider
myself fairly innovative
and have a lot of expertise when it comes to transit
options. I'm proud to
lead DCTA. We're quickly gaining a reputation for being one
of the most
innovative transit authorities in the region. We're being
recognized in
Washington DC and a lot of that has to do with it with the
team that we have
and and frankly we're embracing innovation and embracing
technology. One
of the good things about serving this area both Denton and
Collin County is
that we don't have a lot of legacy infrastructure that we
have to deal with
and so as we start looking at new technology next
generations of transit
users that are demanding real-time on-demand solutions and
so we're
embracing that. We're looking at innovation from everything
from different
types of transit options to how we do procurements and I'm
really excited to
work very closely with our member cities and other
stakeholders around the region
as we build a network of transportation. I don't typically
make promises but what
I will promise you is that I'm gonna be much more engaged
and working with city
staff, the mayor, this organization and the other member
cities to look at better
ways to serve you. I'm very clear not only in my direction
but the direction of our
staff which is we're here to be a mobility partner and when
it comes to
bringing in sales tax and delivering services we're here to
serve the cities
and that's my plan it's very simple and my plan is to
engage with you and to
do the very best job that we can moving forward so expect
to see a lot more of
me in the future. I don't have a big report today but I'm
more than willing to
take questions at this time. Thank you so much for joining
us. Any questions for
Mr. Suarez? I look forward to seeing how you're gonna bring
that aerospace part
of your background to Denton County Transportation. That
should be very exciting. All right
thank you so much appreciate this opportunity. Terrific so
let's move on to
item B identify discuss meeting times dates and provide
direction for future
mobility committee meeting dates and times. Perfect
committee business talk
about some other time we're gonna meet. Do we like this
time of the month?
This time?
Yeah Tuesday before council meetings work very well for me
as long as we're not
conflicting with another committee and I think we kind of
have a layout of when
the other committees do meets. The only the only issue with
that is you know if
from time to time you have a fairly populated council
agenda and how things
may get shifted around that was one of the reasons why we
moved off of the
Tuesday day but you know this works well for staff as well
and we can we can move
forward with this particular date excuse me this particular
day and just keep an
eye on the ball in terms of what those start times are with
council so again I
think councilmember Briggs was right to question staff
today about the time what
time we needed to move out of here so we need to be out of
here at 1230 so they
can set up for committee of the whole. I just wanted to add
that on that on the
times if council does start earlier I'm flexible in my
ability to be here but
way before 11 if we need to start 9 10 just depending on
council schedule and
mobility agenda. How about you mayor Portem? Are you
flexible to come earlier?
And I am as well. And typically with the agenda committee
meeting on Wednesday
the prior to we should have a good feel as to what what
that start time is for
council and we can kind of back that up a little bit if
that meets everyone's
schedule at that point in time. Okay so I'm gonna close
item B then so we'll go
for a month basically a month from now Tuesday. Second
Tuesday's. Second
Tuesday January 11 o'clock is the direction I'm receiving.
Yeah and earlier
if need be to accommodate a fuller council session with an
earlier meeting
time. So let's move on to item C and use our our full hour
and a half well. Receive
a report hold a discussion and provide direction regarding
Texas Department of
Transportation on system projects in the Denton area to
include the 35 Express
project. Mr. Chair we've got John Pulser here with a walk
us through the backup
material I think may spend a little bit more time on the OH
L 35E project as
well as the 377 but try to move through those as quickly as
possible.
Welcome.
Everybody Mark says it's right here. Okay so we'll start
with 2181 North
project this is a project that MCM is constructing from
basically just east of
2499 up through to Lillian Miller. The next page is the
text that report
essentially they're doing a right I apologize I'm a little
under the weather
so my voice. Thanks for soldiering through anyway. They're
doing a lot of the
great work as you see out there they're doing a lot of the
intersection detours
for the for the ultimate roadway improvements we're doing
several
signals which includes the signal at Geyer that we have
opened about two
weeks ago. We're working on the next phasing of the project
because right now
in the original plans that signal would go down to one lane
in each direction as
opposed to having turning movements to accommodate school
traffic so we're
working through that the project's currently still on track
for February
2020 plus or minus about 32 days they were arguing about on
the time and so
far so well on what what's going on with that project. I
don't know if you have any
specific questions but we meet every as a matter of fact we
're meeting tomorrow
with your staff, TechStat, Dallas district staff and the
area office to go over
several projects to make sure we're staying on track and
this is one of
those projects. In Fort Worth Drive you all just passed
your local advanced
funding agreement with TechStat that project has been
awarded to I think it
was a seam of construction and we were able to the your
cost for your
engineering were about three million dollars more than what
you had
anticipated them to be and we were able to get the Council
of Governments to
agree to cover that additional three million dollars in
costs so that the
city would not be out of the out-of-pocket that money. Your
agreement
has a two-step process where when you all executed the
agreement you sent or
will be sending the amount that you thought the utilities
should cost and
then when COG gets you the remaining dollar amounts to you
they'll wire it to
you then you'll turn around and transfer it to to TechStat
to cover all of the
cost of their utility improvements. Excuse me just I just
noticed now that
it's not sort of a set part of your very good format to
have estimated
completion date. Well so we do put those in. I see you have
the time. Yeah what we do is
we add that once we have the contractor on board we have a
pre-construction
meeting and they give us what their schedule is and what
their contractual
completion date is and then we add that to it so it's once
it's awarded then
there's a couple of months after that before we actually
know what they're
proposing to do from a schedule and TechStat's got to
accept that schedule and
so we'll actually show you two dates sometimes one is a
contractual
completion date which on these reports on the previous page
that date right
there February 17 or 2020 that's the contractual date until
it's not and
then we change it to whatever it's going to be but that's
towards the end of the
project so yeah it just it morphs through the schedule
morphs through as
they mature in their development. So forward drive the
process we were doing
is we've already started working with your public
information office and
TechStat to have a public outreach meeting on this project
because if you'll
note if you can see up close you'll notice this is three
phases of a project
in order is a bridge over the railroad a driveway project
with a little bit of
roadway included in the middle so we have a lot of bridge a
roadway
improvements that we're doing that are impacting existing
drives that are not
driveways they're just open space right so we're narrowing
them down to their
design standards and so we want to go out to the public and
let them know hey
what we're doing we're fixing to start once we have that
schedule then we'll go
meet with the residents around this area to let them know
you know the phasing
the timing the construction delays and where they can get
information on this
project because there's not really there's not very many
alternate routes for
this section of what we're driving and that's just showing
you the the utilities
that we all had to deal with and we're essentially done
with all the utilities
you can see where it says clear clear clear if it's active
the schedule that
they have proposed to us is consistent with the schedule
that SEMA bid the
project on so I 35 email project improvements this is the
ultimate
improvements to Mayhill where it'll have 12 lanes going
under it'll have three
lanes in each direction two laughs in each direction north
and south and then
two Texas U-turns and this project will pick up where the
OHL project leaves off
so OHL is building the southbound frontage road in its
permanent location
from 288 all the way down to basically where flooring
America is up there and
then this may hill project will pick up that southbound
frontage road and the
northbound frontage road and build it in its permanent
location plus the main
lanes for the distance of whatever the project limits are
to the south I think
goes about 2,000 feet to the south of Mayhill so this will
be an ultimate
improvement it will tie in it will be once we're done with
the Mayhill segment
that area will be fully constructed as its ultimate
configuration it won't be
striped that way because it has managed lanes in the middle
so if you go over a
407 when you're driving south you notice that 407 bridge is
huge well that's
because just the ultimate configuration for eight lanes of
traffic and four tow
lanes and right now we're just using eight lanes of traffic
and two reversible
so the bridge structure itself will be built permanently
the main lanes will be
permanent but they'll be striped off or cordoned off for
existing traffic flow
and this project is fully funded and we are looking at a
December 2019
construction or let date which means it probably March of
2020 they'll go under
construction the your Luke 288 35e mayhill project this is
the project Mark
was referencing the OHL contract the this contractor
started off under
performing and has not disappointed in their ability to un
perform the whole time
they've been there and so the contract had a completion
date of August of 2018
you'll note that that says July 2019 that's the degree of
under performance
this contractor has underperformed we've had a series of
meetings with OHL
they're out of Madrid Spain so there's not a lot we can do
to them and we have
another meeting coming up on this Friday this is a
construction report and
essentially the critical path was supposed to be the Br
inker bridge right
but if you look at what's going on out there they're
further along on the 288
bridge which is probably not a bad thing but the reality is
both bridges for this
area to work have to be constructed and operational what we
're looking at on
Friday is restructuring the sequencing of the project such
that we talked to
Beaver and he said that they would take possession sometime
in September of the
store by November 1st they'd have it fully staffed and they
want it
operational through the Christmas season so we're shooting
for a December
timeframe to accommodate that movement the movement that we
need is northbound
frontage road crossing 35 into the Buckees development
because the
southbound movement into Buckees is always there because 28
8 off ramp is
always there so what we're looking at hopefully on Friday
is a manner that we
suggested that OHL could look at phasing the Brinker bridge
essentially
allowing traffic starting in December to be a part of the
construction zone so
we put a temporary pavement and not the permanent location
and allow the traffic
to turn in and then go back north if they so chose under
construction so the
only time that they would block the traffic east and west
underneath 35 was
when they actually stop close that area to hang beams
across the bridge structure
so we were talking about a phasing sequence that puts Br
inker open to
traffic prior to the actual bridge above it being
constructed so that's an active
construction zone we've done this before usually on interst
ates it's kind of the
kind of things you have to do but we have that's our goal
we'll know whether
OHL will be a team player or not essentially what they want
is time and
money don't we all so we just got to see what the proposal
is and see where
they're going on the phasing. Councilmember Briggs. So on
the the Brinker is that
coming up in a separate slide or is this we want to talk
about these two? So this
the the Brinker project the Luke 288 is here the Brinker is
here and then we're
doing a Texas U-turn at Mayhill for this project so
essentially the movement
we're trying to add is coming northbound getting off the
frontage road onto the
frontage road being able to turn into the development and
then coming back out
and going back north because the southbound movement you've
always got
the exit just past Luke 288 for State School Road which
gets you to Brinker
and then they can get back out on the road and continue on
so that's the it's
the north end movement and out north movement that doesn't
exist right now in
the current phasing. Right and so OHL the issues are they
doing all of those three?
Yes ma'am. OHL's contract is the Luke 288 bridge structure
the Brinker bridge
structure and the U-turn that's already open at Mayhill.
Okay. So OHL has all of
these as one as one project. Because there's been a lot of
concern in the
community that Buc-E's was going to open before Brinker
bridge and they were
supposed to kind of go hand-in-hand. Correct. So the the
residents in the community behind
Buc-E's are you know very nervous about what's going to
happen. Do you feel
confident that the traffic can be managed with this phasing
sequence?
Absolutely not. No? Okay. This is like my third Buc-E's and
we did the last one in
Fort Worth and we had that open before we had the frontage
road completed and
the signals up and just to put it to not to find a point on
it the schedule that
Buc-E's is on is the schedule that they've always been on.
Our goal was to
hit that August 2018 timeframe. We don't have any control
over the bidders that we
get. If we'd have gotten a decent bidder similar to SEMA
and the other thing on
the Fort Worth Drive we learned from this job this job has
about five thousand
dollars a day in liquidated damages. That's nothing. The
Fort Worth Drive one we
put fifteen thousand dollars a day in liquidated damages.
So we're learning on
these contractors. So OHL was the one that pushed our
project out a year past
what it is and so what we're trying to do is this phasing
will make the traffic
in that area better than not accommodating them once they
open because
otherwise what they would have to do is if we don't give
them the out and north
movement then all the traffic will come down come to the
mayhill make the u-turn
and come back and go north so a little impact mayhill more
than it should.
Mayhill is already a crummy interchange right now that's
already updating it. So
accommodating them across in the construction zone should
minimize the
traffic problems that are there because essentially all the
turning movements
are available it's just going to be you know higher volumes
than what we have
currently because there's that's a destination location.
I'm not confident in anything. So the southbound frontage
road the way that it
is now is it going to be that way for a long period of time
that goes by Buckees?
Is that? That is the permanent location. So what we're
doing on with
the mayhill job ultimately is flooring America's like
somewhere in here is
where that frontage road ends and I may be off a couple
hundred feet but the
mayhill project picks up that permanent pavement here and
continues all the way
through so that the southbound structure that's why we're
already acquiring the
right-of-way off of James Wood, Shogun, Exxon Mobil we're
already buying that
right-of-way even as we speak the state is. So we're gonna
put both the
southbound and the northbound frontage road in its
permanent location so we'll
be taking we'll be buying the right-of-way that's already
been set back
by the hospital because they knew that was coming to put
the frontage road on
the northbound side in its permanent location so ultimately
once we're done
in this project 35e ultimately is built out in that area.
The only thing that has
to be done after that is putting the managed lanes in the
proper location. Is
there anything we've learned about you know what OHL has
done that would make
us put things into contracts in the future that would
prevent the same thing
happening again? Liquidated damages are something that Tech
Stat is slowly trying to
increase but the problem is is that the staff level TechSt
at has to follow the
laws that the legislature establishes and the legislature
hasn't given TechStat
a whole lot of teeth to deal with contractors because the
what is it AGC
Association of General Contractors they've got a bigger
lobby than the
state staff does because they can't lobby and so AGC argues
against any
improvements in the way we handle contractors because they
go talk to
legislators and the problem is is we OHL just literally we
had a meeting right
before they got awarded on this one where we were trying to
kick them off of
the project just north of the airport where they were doing
121 and all those
braided ramps it was so bad that the conversations were so
heated that during
one of those meetings OHL said they were never going to
work in the Dallas
district again they were just leaving the Dallas district
and we were saying
good good riddance and then they bid on this job. Got it.
Imagine our consternation.
So we can't even get rid of a bad contractor even if if
they're the
lowest bid they're the lowest bid it's not lowest and best
the state does not
do lowest and best it's lowest. Okay I know this is going
to come up later today too. So we had a meeting on Friday
we'll know more about the
schedule and what we're planning on doing Friday after
about 330. What's the
extent on this project on Mayhill is it just the u-turn or?
Yeah that was it.
The intent was to well that was we were pushing to get
Texas U-turn in lieu of
doing Brinker because they could just come out maybe U-turn
and go north but
it was part of the project we went ahead and added it but
we ended up adding
Brinker in total to that to the project as well. In the May
hill project the
previous one on the schedule that has not been bid or
anything to that extent. No, no. We should be bid in
December of next year.
Okay. Director Nelson.
Got there. How do you?
Clarified the Mayhill project.
The upcoming Mayhill project versus the small component of
the existing O.H.L. project.
So Mayhill just to put in perspective Mayhill will be a
bigger bridge structure
than Loop 288 is because Loop 288 at that area is only four
lanes. 2499 and
Mayhill are ultimately six so the Mayhill interchange will
actually be a
larger bridge structure than 288 just in your own mind. And
that that should say
we're having trouble with O.H.L. we're gonna be meeting
with them on Friday.
Alright so you 35 North project we've got some additional
information here to
talk to you about. Just south of this project 380 down to 6
35 is the what we
call the I-35E project that had the managed lanes in it.
And it was
environmentally cleared to this point right here. This
project is going to be
environmentally cleared in March plus or minus a month. So
that's tomorrow in
textile world. We are pitching a proposal about a 420
million dollar proposal to
Austin. It was actually this is a project that we pushed
both with Textot and the
region in the past. For the 35E 35W merge if you go out
there to raise a
ranch you know this part of 35 does not function. But you
don't do anything but
push the problem north if you don't get past 77. So we've
got a proposal with
Textot and Austin on the clear lanes project for basically
this area of 35
part 35W. You know how you if you come up 35W it drops down
to one lane to get on to 35?
That ultimately will be to continue the two lanes. So we're
talking about 35W
35E from about North Texas Boulevard around all the way up
to 77 building it
in its ultimate configuration which includes braided ramps
on both sides of
the interstate and it's about 420 million bucks. So this
will morph on your on
your chart to be a combination of three different interst
ates WE and 35 itself
and then then from 77 to North we're looking at Textot
using their their cat
$12 in the future to widen that part of the road. But if we
can get past 77 which
also includes a realignment of 1173 up to Bartol Road which
is on your
thoroughfare plan then we've essentially solved all the
Denton's traffic problems
on 35 in theory for now. I'm sorry I just don't know what
cat $12 means. I just
don't know what cat $12. I'm sorry yes sir there are 12
categories of funding
that the state has and each one of them have a different
use. Category 12 is
called Commission discretionary funds and a subset of
category 12 is also
called Clear Lanes. So we're gonna use part of the Clear L
anes money in
category 12 for the wish wishbone I'm gonna call it I don't
want us to call it and
then we're pushing Textot Austin to use their discretionary
portion of category
12 for that remaining segment up to the county line. And
then we'll send you I
think there's a glossary of terms that I use that y'all can
refer to
occasionally. There you go. So basically what we had to do
the reason this is
March of 2019 is somewhere near Sanger we ran into a
historically significant
ranch and the house which is in disrepair is within the
footprint of the
southbound frontage road. So instead of knocking down a dil
apidated barn we got
to move an interstate over. So we're redoing the schematic
and that'll push
the push the time schedule for the environmental clearance
but it's still
in time. So this kind of gives you a better picture what I
was talking about
here's 35 Eden like North Texas Boulevard here's 35 W and
then here's 380. This is
the project up to 77 that we're planning on chasing for
about 420 million
we feel very confident we'll get it. So this is the W
segment the Wishbone down
to the county line we're currently building the frontage
roads from 114 to
Eagle Parkway both north and southbound. HNTB is
responsible for environmentally
clearing the entire corridor on this project sorry but we
also have Jacobs on
contract and what they are doing says HNTB will utilize
Jacobs files and
they're gonna be working on the frontage road so from 1171
wherever that is I
think it's right here up to the railroad track right we are
doing a frontage road
job we'll put the frontage roads on 35 W in its permanent
location that'll open
up all of that area for development permanent development
because the frontage
roads will be in their permanent location and we feel
fairly confident
that while we do not have a schedule yet they are already
doing the PS&E which is
the design document for the frontage road and assuming we
get a environmental
clearance which worse we got rid of this it used to have a
date of 2020 but I was
telling you this is one of those jobs that once the
mobility 2045 was approved
the environmental clearance would move up on this one well
we're recalculating
the sandbox schedule and we'll have a schedule for the
environmental clearance
on this project because we need this cleared too for our
Wishbone project for
the 420 million dollar job so it's got a priority and once
it's cleared you can
build pieces however you want they're already doing the
design work for the
frontage roads so we're fairly confident that in the next
five years this will be
under construction the frontage road project will be under
construction as
well
380 Luke 288 intersection now this is temporary you know we
extended that
right turn lane but that contract only allowed us to do so
far south I'm
talking to you primarily we're gonna get that further south
on the next contract
and it'll extend but it's still it's working better now but
we left this in
so we can say completed on it now we'll take it off us 380
East this is basically
Luke 288 the green section the region is green is going
over the green belt area
with the lake this is being done in house by text that this
project from
here over to the county line is being done by two
engineering firms it's
trans systems and white oak engineering then we are
acquiring right away in this
corridor even as we speak so we're anticipating a June of
19 which is next
summer sorry about that next summer environmental clearance
the project is
fully funded a little over 130 million dollars so by May of
2021 because once
we acquire the right away we have to relocate the utilities
mostly at
intersections and then then we can go to construction so
again just about every
way in and out of Denton in about three years we'll all be
torn up and under
construction so be encouraged Luke 288 West so this is
north and that's south
again we're looking at we moved this up a little bit from
December to September
I think we're still going to beat that date that'll allow
us to begin right away
acquisition sooner which means we can probably get this
date beat which means
that we can probably get one of these dates ready to let
sooner and remember
we just passed a resolution saying that and I the way up
the way I worded it
when I sent the resolution to text that was if enough funds
aren't found to
construct the entire facility we prefer the northbound
frontage road to be built
first so we're not giving up on you know the half a billion
dollars it takes to
build this road in the interim and ultimate but the intent
is by 2022 some
portion of the loop is put out to construction for for a
bid to construct
that's member breaks so on this going back to the the
little map that you had
earlier for 35 if I look at it the the loop extension
crosses that yes so right
up here this is this is 288 so 380 somewhere down here
somewhere in here
right here I think I'm just making sure those improvements
will be done ahead of
ahead of the loop coming in so yes and no okay so the 35
job will build and do
the direct connects for on the east side the 288 job will
build and design the
direct connects on the west side and then on 35 W the 288
job will build the
direct connects on the west side and then the 35 W will go
in and and tear up
vintage and remove this neighborhood and put in direct
connects there just
kidding that was a joke there won't be any direct connects
on this side of the
road so it'll just be a normal box normal diamond
interchange and can you
just give me a better idea of what's coming first and since
we're not fully
funded for the loop if we're only part partly funded how
all that works okay so
I apologize I should probably have you give you a schematic
but you know how on
your interstate highways you have a frontage road that goes
one way they
have the main lanes and you have another friends going the
other way what we
would build if we only have enough money is the northbound
the inside frontage
road because that would set your line for development but
it would operate as
a two-lane two-way road in the interim but we'd go ahead
and buy all the
right-of-way needed because you only want to bother these
property owners
once so you'd buy that 450 feet but you'd only build the
northbound frontage
river if we don't if we don't have enough money to do it
all of it it would
be the northbound frontage road and all of the subst
ructures for the bridge
structures that it would have to go over because you only
want to build those
bridges once as well so that's the that's the minimum we
want to do phase
one on 288 whether or not 288 beats the frontage roads that
we're doing from the
railroad track south to 1171 or whether the wishbone which
is already
environmentally cleared beats 288 or this port of 35 we don
't know yet because
they're all horse race they're all out of the gate they're
all running we don't
know who's gonna cross okay we're gonna try to manage it
though okay thank you
you know I realize you're half kidding when you're talking
about before how you
know in a certain period of time every rate way in and out
it's gonna be torn
up and under construction but is there a part of the
process where kind of you
know lay these things on top of each other is a process we
tried to that but
what happens is when the money comes you got to go
understood I'm not trying to
try to talk about in you know doing or not doing or
changing sequence or anything
but just do we lay them on top of each other and then say
all right what's our
what's our survival plan during this actually yes you're a
city manager asked
us to put together kind of an overlay of all these and we
were in the process of
doing that because you're right I mean you got 2181 you got
Mayhill you got
35 you got 35 a you got 35 w you know you got Bonnie Bray I
mean you got a lot
of projects that are overlapping and what we try to do we
're gonna try to do
is put the timelines down in the construction period that
color will be
in red and you'll be able to see where these roads overlap
in months on what
those projects are overlapping each other on so that's what
we're we're
working on right now I just know from knock on doors that
the thing that
people find most frustrating is when we go well that's
textile you know and
that's local sorry that you have absolutely no way out of
your
neighborhood you know like except to and I'll tell you we
were meeting with oh
right we were meeting with OHL last I mean that's what one
of the things we
beat them over the head with is that this isn't just an
interstate project
you've got five different inner changes in the city or
county seat that are are
detrimentally impacted by your apathy is the word I used
they asked me not to
attend the next meeting
next time one of the things that we are working diligently
with text on ITS has
been involved with pre Tams engaged and marks engaged is
that there are different
levels of communication plans that the state engages in
depending on what
project they're actually working on so like an I-35e that
got a whole different
level of communication now when you get into a project like
these more local
projects and to text out this would be a local project even
though to us it's a
very big project it really falls more on staff city staff
to make sure that
communication goes out so it's a partnership between both
entities and
this project is still so early in the planning and design
phase that we still
only have a good feel on when they're really gonna go
because we hear we're
gonna go and which that's better than what we've heard them
pass which is it's
gonna go now it's we're gonna go but it's defining when
does that gonna start
so we can start prepping the public for what's going on and
merge that with our
capital projects
glad it's on everyone's radar
and he was not kidding about every road being torn up it's
just not all exactly
at the same time but every road will be torn up going in
and out of yes and I
live right here in this area so I'm a I call I let text
that know that I'm one
of the daily inspectors on a project so I just got to where
I was driving to the
OHL project not text all of them because there's a group
message about said
there's nobody out here
alright 1515 is the project going into the airport LTRA has
this project we're
looking at a December 2020 environmental clearance and
essentially the city is
the client for lack of a better word on this because in
theory what we want to do
is once we widen it get steak to widen it they'll ask us to
take it off system
you know be a six lane divided Boulevard with you know text
that design criteria
that's still up for you guys to answer whether you want to
or not but in case
that's a situation your staff wants to be intimately
involved in making sure
that what you get is what you want so I don't overstep my
boundaries
so this is one of those items that we're getting a lot more
engaged in knowing
that the state's preference would be to turn this over from
my perspective I
would argue that since it's really the entrance to both our
industrial park or
region for lack of a better term and the airport that we
would eventually want to
take this over so as a precursor to that we've got a
project manager on staff
who's engaged in that project now a lot more vested than we
had been in the past
so they they are more engaged through the design process
and what we're looking
at along with having pre-tambent on those discussions that
's what breaks so
regarding that I see the the dollar amount up there so who
would the state
go ahead and pay for that and then we would then take over
that and then have
the maintenance of those lanes not to speak for John
because he does a better
job of explaining all that than I do but it's very similar
to what we're doing on
both the Locust and Elm turn backs and what happened with
McKinney except the
McKinney we got it turned opposite the state's gonna do
this construction
they'll pay for that and then ultimately we will have to
commit to a maintenance
agreement or turn over the right away long term okay but to
put a fine point
on it the city I think this engineering group has noticed
some shortfalls and
some of your pavement design criteria in the past and they
they are making that
more robust but a textile design criteria is significantly
more robust
than typical normal City Street because it has to carry at
least 56,000 pounds
of weight or better and so they have they build a far more
robust facility
than normally what some cities do y'all are increasing y'
all's criteria even as
we speak. Member Tim? On this project my biggest concern is
its interaction with
so many other projects going on you've got the 35 W service
road project you've
got the Bonnie Bray project you've got the horseshoe
project and so the quicker
we can get designs on the ground for this that may need to
be adjusted for
those but so that we know because you know I travel Bonnie
Bray to this
connection quite frequently and there's a whole lot more
traffic on Airport Road
that now it's all gonna be Bonnie Bray and they're gonna
get backed up on
Airport that we've got to figure that out as quick as
possible.
Right and the phase three construction that will be going
on Bonnie Bray which
is our segment right in front of Apigee Stadium that should
be ahead of this
that project I believe is slated to bid late next year when
this project will
really be kicking into the next phase of design I believe
so we should be ahead
of their construction schedule and then we'll obviously be
working with TechStot
like we do on a monthly basis or even sometimes every
couple of weeks meet
with them about these projects to make sure we're all on
the same page about
what's going on when. So ultimately once we get some heads
up on that $420
million dollar project that will be a regularly ongoing
staff to staff meeting
that we have every two weeks with TechStot Dallas and Dent
on office with
city staff and appropriate staff to make sure that Bonnie
Bray 1515 35 W 35 E
North Texas Boulevard 35 380 288 1173 all of these things
are not forgetting
the other. So you mentioned that the design was still you
were still thinking
about going six lanes and that was something that you
needed to work on
would that decision come to this committee? Six lanes on 15
15? Yeah.
1515 is proposed as a six lane divided. Okay so that that's
it six
lane divided. Well I mean it's not environmentally cleared
yet but that's our intent.
Unless that's not our intent. The intent right now based on
especially the use in
the area when you're going into the airport and you have
the industrial
complex Peterbilt everything that's going in that area for
the beef for that to be
six lanes now as it goes over I-35 that may change because
we're going into
Bonnie Bray which would be a four lane facility long term.
So you'll see some of
those roadways peel off to go to different directions as
you get closer
to the interstate. Yeah I have an issue with a large road
coming into a small
road it seems. Well that's a sooner there but I'm glad that
TechStot is doing it
because there will be a lot of heavy trucks and so that
would be very important.
Part of our coordination with city staff is to go do a lot
of outreach with these
industrial because they have definite phasing of their
ships so LTRA's job
once we get some general idea on the basics of what we want
to build part of
their job will be to work with city staff and those
individual users out
there to determine what their schedules are for shift
changes and make sure that
our phasing of that project is consistent with that
movement. There's an
added component with 1515 that's part of the master
thoroughfare plan update both
loop 288 West and where it ties back into 35W and FM 1515
are two kind of
east-west connections. What we're looking to provide with
the master
thoroughfare plan is how do you achieve what you're most
concerned about which
is taking a four lane facility that's really designed to
move heavy trucks
heavy equipment back and forth to the interstate isolating
them to the
interstate and not on to Bonnie Bray. So we do that through
a lot of geometric
changes in the way the roadways configured to make sure
that we give
them the best possible alternatives in their worst-case
scenario we'll have to
do some signage and things but that's where we're working
with LTRA to make
sure that we get the same process and mindset across as we
don't want those
trucks going over to Bonnie Bray but you have to provide
the facilities for
them to get to the major interstate so that they'll stay
away from it.
1830 it's a shoulder job that's done and 1173 is the
project we were talking
about earlier we have Garver on this and they're now part
of our on system task
force this is a showing you where FM 1173 currently exists
but it will ride
about where this 1173 sign is it'll turn north and go along
Bartol Road and tie
in with this alignment here so the actual drawing that
schematic that
Garver's doing doesn't stay on existing it moves up and
gets to Bartol Road so
we'll make a change on this map to show that but we think
the schematic will be
approved next month and then they'll start the
environmental document on it
and that is all I have unless there's something else that I
don't know.
Okay thank you so much. Feel better. All right good we
still have time for a good
discussion on item D. Receive a report hold a discussion
and provide direction
of the North Central Texas Council of Government
Metropolitan Transportation
Plan policy bundles and transportation development credits.
So as part of North
Central Texas Council of Governments effort to really the
MPO metropolitan
planning organizations effort to address certain air
quality and
environmental issues region wide they have over the course
of the years put
forward different policies resolutions ordinances that
cities agencies whether
it's a local local government in terms of a municipality or
a county or school
district where they can adopt certain policies one of those
might be the clean
fleet ordinance which the city of Denton has has adopted.
So what what the what the
MPO is trying to do is address air quality in one sense as
well as address
certain other development issues region wide and so to
serve as a as a carrot if
you will they've come up with the program called a policy
bundle.
There's a number of different policies you've got that in
your backup there's
about 20 different policies that the city of Denton might
wish to or have or
have in some cases already adopted or falling if not
technically the letter of
the law but within the spirit of the law and so or of the
policy and so what
what the MPO has done is develop this policy bundle that if
an entity such as
the city of Denton adopts 10 of the 20 policies or has some
variation
implemented almost different policies then they're eligible
for transportation
development credits. These transportation development
credits are really some
folks call them monopoly money but really what they hire is
just it's a
it's a trading of a financial credit from one region to the
other and so these
development credits are then available to be applied
towards the local match so
if the city say had a $100,000 sidewalk project out there
and it was going to
meet you know the federal standards then we could if if we
had this policy bundle
in place we could apply for that particular project and
then apply if
we're eligible apply for the transfer you know to use those
transportation
development credits. Where we are right now is we have
approximately six of
these policies in place and we have about three or four
other right on the
cusp. I'm working through with the different subject matter
experts at the
Council of Governments to see do certain activities
actually
meet the the spirit or the letter of their particular
policy or resolution.
Case in point DME has some copper theft activities that
they put in place around
their substations and then around some areas that they have
experienced copper
theft they put up actual game cameras and so trying to see
if that one will
check the box. Another one you might see in this in this
list of policies is a
is the stormwater management. I've been in touch with with
the Council of
Government with our environmental experts here on staff and
we're an integrated
storm management city we're silver rated and so what that
what that means is we
do certain things to address channel maintenance, flip-
plane development as
well as verify and you know the end goal is enhance or
improve quality of runoff
stormwater runoff and so because we are silver rated on
that one of the
questions is does that does that meet does that meet the
litmus test for this
particular policy. So we've got a couple others that are
along the same lines
what I can tell you right now for clean fleet we do have a
clean fleet.
So we okay so we do have clean fleet ordinance in place we
have an idling
restriction we've we've got that in place railroad safety
we're moving
forward with the quiet zone so that so that meets on copper
theft that's a
that's an asterisk stormwater management that's an asterisk
complete streets
because of our our comprehensive development plan does
include complete
streets we're trying to verify if if that section of that
of that document
will meet the intent of this policy bundle. That would also
fall in and play
with land use strategies on the parking management if you
'll notice the bottom
line and I apologize the the the tables a little bit small
but it talks about
shared parking on-street parking provisions by bicycle
parking parking
management technologies parking districts again working
with the
University of North Texas that you know we've we interface
with them in terms of
managing some of the on-street parking around around and
within the campus so
trying to determine whether that would be eligible. Safe
access to school as you
know we've got a couple of projects moving forward on safe
access to school
that one that one I understand meets and then on the school
siting coordination
that's one of the things that we've been working with DISD
as you may know on
the on the new high school proposal and Bonnie Bray we've
also worked with him a
little bit before they or right after they established the
site for Braswell
High School out on 380 and brought a number of issues to a
head at that point
in time we've we've met two or three times with the school
district with the
Council of Government with TexDOT to see how we can work on
doing a little bit
better with the school site and again what what the Council
of Government is
concerned with is that they go out and they put a bunch of
money as Mr.
Pulsar was mentioning and some of those projects put a
bunch of money into a
particular project and then a school comes in you just open
the capacity and
the school comes in during peak hour peak a.m. and peak p.m
. periods and
constricts the with a school zone so those are some of the
things they're
trying to work around and then the final one that we do
have in place is the
transit funding level 2 we do have a you know dedicated
sales tax and a member of
a transit authority so that one does meet so I'm
anticipating over the next
two months we'll be able to verify and and maybe be back in
front of this
committee with a with a more finalized application to
submit for for these
transportation development credits I think I was keeping an
accurate count
that you hit about ten as you're going through right that's
and how many do we
need to we have we have we have the six and we've got about
four or five that
are that are tentative yeah but between what we have and
what we might have I
think that we actually get to the number they that's
correct
I was just gonna say browsing through these and just
looking at them I could
relate to certain things that we had or we discussed in
just a couple of things
we do have a joint didn't ISD meeting with council and if
this is something
that we need to put on that agenda to discuss to meet this
criteria right
because it said you know discussion should be had then
maybe we could go
ahead and look into that and check that one off I do know
that the land use
there's some of these things here under the policy that we
've talked about in
our code rewrite as we're going through those discussions
so maybe getting with
Scott and planning and seeing what's upcoming and question
the employer trip
reduction because I have seen that DCTA has certain certain
passes and they have
a new program now with individual businesses like an
employee pass and so
it's trying to reduce the traffic on the streets I don't
know if that would
qualify or we actually have and I can run that one to
ground we've done some
stuff with DCTA with a number of well it's back to the
volume discount
whereby certain employees were able to receive the volume
discount if there was
X number of total employees buying monthly passes and we
had that in place
a couple of years ago I don't know that those employees are
continuing to use
the DCTA transit service primarily the rails what they were
looking for that
they were employees over at the at City Hall E so I'll look
into that and see if
there's still some opportunities for that as well
John you had a comment so in my other life I used to do
employer trip reduction
programs for a lot of entities around California because
they couldn't open up
their stores without having met San Diego's San Francisco's
employer trip
reduction program and some of the things they would
incentivize so you'd have to
get 10% of your employees there some of the means besides a
gas-powered vehicle
but they let you do offsets if you put four or five parking
stalls in your
parking lot for electric vehicles if you'd agree to pay for
some bus stops
somewhere near in the low round here so there's a lot of
ways that you can do an
employer trip reduction incentive program to meet the
criteria without
making it draconian on them they can have a slew of
alternatives bike racks
showers for bicyclists like that there's a lot of ways to
do it
well I view this as sort of like a bribe to do something
that you mostly want to
do anyway so it starts out as a carrot and I'll just say I
talked to mark
about bringing this forward about a month or two ago
because the funds were
awarded and I'm like we don't have these policies in place
what else do we need
and so that was part of it and not only are these policies
good for that but
there are other funds out there that having these policies
in place will help
us get so there's there's a lot of money sitting on the
table that we can be
bringing up here to the city of Denton if we get enough of
these policies put
in place I think a lot of them are just you know sort of
good ideas we're
thinking about anyway so I appreciate that the prod any
other questions or
should we move ahead to staff reports okay then so e1 Ir
ving transportation
summit really mr. chair we just wanted to provide an
opportunity to to let
councilmember Ryan mention any any of the breakout sessions
but it really it
was just just to note that both Mary Portin Ryan and myself
attended that
particular summit it was the end of August there were some
good breakout
sessions and some were not so good but what I was more
impressed with is that
in the past this is this particular conference has gotten a
little bit
but it seemed like the the elected officials state of
statewide and federal
elected officials were we're really trying to work together
to identify
solutions they may not necessarily been on point with each
other but both on
point in terms of identifying solutions yeah yeah I would
say I would agree
completely that about half the sessions were very good and
half of them were why
did I come to this and I would even say on the political
level that if there was
someone from the state that was involved in in the
discussion it probably was one
to avoid but if it was local officials they were more keyed
into you know ways
to help and ways to move forward so you know county and
city officials it was a
good experience I mean how did we all are interested in it
next year I
recommend attending it's a day and a half seminar a lot of
good information
on stuff stuff not so much that would some of it wasn't
even just for denting
more of the state the what is the train the tube train
hyperloop in that cog is
actually looking instead of doing they're potentially
looking instead of
doing a high-speed train between Dallas and Fort Worth that
is about 30 minutes
doing the hyperlink train that is six minutes from Dallas
to Fort Worth then
you take a bike from there thanks for covering that for us
we've addressed
DCTA leadership change unless there's anything else you
want to add no we're
good I have none at this point okay the matrix anything
Mayor Bertem or
that's what we're breaking like to visit or add to the
matrix well under
concluding items so I guess if it's already on the matrix
and you talk about
it if you want to add to it it's concluding items well
depending on how
you look at that if it's on there but it's not totally on
there in Hickory
Street is one of them because it's only listed on here once
for from North Texas
Boulevard to Avenue C so the upcoming phases of that to get
it from Avenue C
all the way out to Carroll if we can get that added in on
future so we have some
idea of dates as to what's going on on that so when
constituents come up to us
we can explain to him that it's not permanently going to be
like that
did we adequately did staff adequately answer the question
on the turn back
what what does term of the definition on turn back there
was a there was a
question that was raised about turn back and then what what
particular roadways
might be candidates for turn back if you look at the Mob
ility Committee a new
business matrix addendum there the last item there item 11
we identified just
kind of a definition of what the turn back is we talked a
little bit about
that earlier with FM 1515 I can go into detail if if there
's a desire on that
otherwise I'll just list these call out these particular
roadway sections US 77
from I 35 e to I 35 North so that would essentially be from
the Callaway's here
the south northbound exit ramp all the way north to out by
the truck stop
north 35 and then FM 1515 Airport Road we talked about that
a little bit earlier
today there's been some discussion on US 380 or University
Drive from roughly 288
in the east to 35 in the west and then FM 428 Sherman Drive
we are we actually
already do the maintenance we've got a maintenance
agreement in play and so
there's some discussion of taking that one off off system
which would basically
be from Carroll Boulevard there by the rodeo grounds all
the way up to 288 out
by the water part I didn't list the I did not list the Al
mond Locust because
it's already listed on here we've had substantial
discussion on the
locust term that program are these items optional for us I
mean when we have
discussions can we say yes or no and under what conditions
might we do that
yeah turn the turn backs we absolutely have the option to
say yes or no but if
you do say no then you are limiting anything that we may
want to manipulate
or change on those roadways to the purview of text dot so
if you want to add
a signal or change lane configurations at a right turn
right turn lane left turn
lane you would all have to be permitted through text dot if
we own the roadways
especially if text out has come in and reconstruct the road
ways if we own the
roadways then we have more say once it's conveyed to us on
what we can and cannot
do with those roads I'm not I didn't mean to imply that I
personally had
inclination to say no it just occurred to me it's like a
significant decision
financially right I mean I understand the benefits you
described that I'm you
know kind of inclined to like controlling the road these
are all just
candidates I mean there's questions as to what what has
been discussed and so
these are only candidates as what Todd indicated is I think
at this point any
things up for discussion it's all negotiable and there's
different quid pro
quos of things that Todd was kind of referencing as to and
that you may want
and how one of those things and obviously we would not go
back to text
out and say yeah we absolutely want that road without
having gone back to it at a
minimum this body here to make sure that we're all on the
same page about where
we're going yeah get it getting all the reconstruction done
possible I totally
hear that I guess it's just it just strikes me as you know
probably a not
inconsequential amount of maintenance dollars that were
committed to it would
have probably a good thing to do but there is a maintenance
hit absolutely
several of the roadways that Sherman for instance we
already do the maintenance
on that at through a maintenance cream with text on it so
really the only piece
we're missing is control of the actual configuration of the
roadway right there
are pluses and minuses both when the state does come and
reconstruct the
roadways when they do one of these turn back projects they
do as John alluded to
earlier their pavement requirements and the requirements to
build the base for
the roadway are typically much thicker and much more
substantial than what we
would normally do that's one of the reasons why you've seen
element locust
as part of 77 hold up as well as it has for so long with
just us coming back and
over topping you know with state over topping just a few
times there's never
been a real true reconstruct of that segment of roadway and
it's because
they've done a good job of really making sure they're
substantially built
there I guess I guess you know just to state the obvious at
minimum you you'd
want to quantify the maintenance obligation and build it
into future
forecasts right absolutely absolutely any other comments I
would say most of it
has to do with timing as well because obviously we're able
to sometimes use
that to get additional funds connecting state highway to
state highway and you
want to make sure that you don't take over that and it's no
longer state
highway now you don't get those funds and you know some of
the designs I've
seen like when it comes to University Drive eventually 380
the current plan is
to bring it up to tie it into the loop and once that's done
then we would
consider it as opposed to right now you know once that that
through traffic is no
longer an issue to it it's probably the best way to look at
whether or not we
want to consider that yes one point of clarification on on
item 8 it was
requested to have the the city street report included in as
part of this is
there a particular project or is there a particular thing
that you'd like staff
to comment on as part of this matrix well and I apologize
that's what I was
making comment on was that that matrix was about the Hick
ory Street project that
only lists completing it through Avenue C it doesn't
complete from C on over to
Carroll and in what how those would be phased out is that
going to be a seat
welch and then you know or part of that has to do with the
lighting project that
came to this body about three or four months ago and then
prior to that three
four months before that so that part that piece of the
project has been
broken out as a separate project entirely now so that we
can design that
in totality with the sidewalk the grading requirements the
reduction of
the street width and make sure that we have a complete
project we only do it
once and not do a roadway piece and then come back later
and do the sidewalk and
come back and do something else it's all one project that's
my breaks in regards
to that I know that we had a the bicycle lanes there was a
pilot going on and so
just an update on that next time with the UNT the free
parking and the pilot
and the bicycles all of that had been put on hold
temporarily what will the
bike lane that was going down on Hickory okay so we have
hired a consultant and
then we can talk more about their findings but they're in
the middle of
the collecting data yes so they have cameras set up and all
they're
collecting okay thank you anything else on the matrix yes
it was there something
that you wanted to say about street construction report or
is it just here
to note that we have it it was it was added to the matrix
as a request from
mayor Pro Tem Ryan I just wanted to make sure we hit the
mark on that it sounds
like we've got we've got direction on that we'll move
forward okay so I I sense
without having that seeing any gestures the council member
breaks would like to
say something but we have concluding remarks yeah so back
to the matrix I did
ask a while ago for a discussion on protected bike lanes
and that's fallen
off or it didn't come to us so I'd like to ask for that
discussion again I do
know there were certain areas in the city where they would
make sense and
that would be where the bike lanes are near the curb and
the cars park on the
opposite side one of the areas I'm thinking about is
especially around
Strickland because the bike lanes here and so the cars just
pull into the the
bicycle lane or they pull out into the bicycle lane which
makes it really
dangerous and if the bicycle lane were closer to the curb
that that wouldn't
happen so that's just one area where in my mind that would
make sense and and
also since the lights have been installed downtown I've had
several
people complain that they are more dangerous now than they
were before
something with the crossing signals and so if we could
evaluate those
intersections or just take a group and walk down there one
day and use the the
the crosswalks to see they I've heard from many different
people that there's
a few been near misses something with the crosswalks and
maybe the traffic
lights along with the crosswalks like the the walk signals
maybe I know that
there are some cities who do they let the the walk signal
go on for a few
seconds before the light changes just to give people ahead
of time to get out in
the intersection because when they change at the same time
there's that so
just if we can look into that and the last thing a long
long long time ago
there was a person living in the senior community at Sycam
ore and Locust
and there was not a crosswalk there and we talked about it
and then I think at
the time Julie said well there's gonna be an intersection
upgrade and then it
got pushed to the conversation well there's going to be
something at Mulberry
and Carroll a new light or a crosswalk there or bike
crossing this was a really
long time ago so I'm just asking for somebody to remind me
of that
conversation because it's just kind of fallen off and it's
not along the matrix
anymore okay
okay pre-tem pro-tem well since we're on crosswalks oak and
Jago slash C
you're a one-way on oak so the people walking east have no
idea what whether
the light is red or not because there is no crosswalk
signal either so if we can
look at that over by getting over by campus you get a lot
of walkers in that
area that that's something we need to take a gander at okay
mine for the list
is to look at would be opportunity for crosswalk between
Cinemark and the I'm
gonna forget the name of the senior housing that's just
across the street
from it question the residents there and then I'm looking
for you know a little
indication of whether you agree with me or not that it
might be helpful to have
staff tip the rest of the list of the you know the policy
bundles over time you
know just background us just because it seems like a good
good kind of working
list of good ideas for us to do that you know not in any
particular schedule but
we don't need to stop at 10 because that's what gets us
there that we look
through the ideas yeah okay I see nods I think that's it
this is anything anyone
thinks I've missed I'm going to close the meeting of the
mobility committee at
1217 thank you