We are here for our City of Denton Mobility Committee, Wednesday, September 25th, 10 a.m.
Council Work Session Room.
We do have a quorum here this morning.
Citizen comments on agenda items.
Do we have any citizen's comments on the agenda items?
No comments on the agenda item.
We're going to move on to number two.
Items for individual consideration.
Consider approval of the minutes.
Has everyone gone through the minutes?
Can we get a motion for approval for the minutes?
I so move.
Of August 28th.
Second.
I'll approve.
Say aye.
Aye.
All right.
Unanimous consent on that.
Thank you.
I move on to BMC 24-030, receive a report and all the discussion regarding the downtown
parking study summary findings.
May I please remind us that this is contained to a 25 minute conversation.
Thank you.
We all know why.
I was looking at the cheese.
Good morning.
Can y'all hear me?
I think I have to talk into this thing.
So if you'll recall while we're getting it pulled up, it's been a minute since we talked
about parking.
We were here last month.
My colleague Natalie had talked about the scope of the project.
Some of our study methodology and some findings.
She was otherwise committed today so you get me, sorry.
So what I want to do is not rehash what she talked about.
At the last committee meeting, there was some talk of if there were questions to send them
to the chair.
I didn't get any myself, but if you have any on what was presented last time, I will do
my best.
What I thought we would do then is continue where we left off.
I've got one slide that kind of rehashes what we talked about and then we'll talk about
some strategies which we didn't really have time to talk about last time.
We'll discuss those.
I'm Josh.
Nice to meet you.
So the study area that we looked at, we drew a line around downtown is about 2762 public
available city controlled spaces.
So we did a utilization and turnover study in October of last year and found that Denton,
if you look, downtown Denton, if you look at it on the whole, has enough supply to meet
the demand.
Now, of course, there are parts of downtown that are more in demand than others.
So the peak parking utilization occurred on the weekend, which probably doesn't come as
a surprise to a lot of folks.
The other thing that's probably not surprising is the street parking and parking lots closest
to the square had the highest parking utilization.
It was highest on street compared to off street and we showed you all those numbers last time.
I think those slides are probably in your packet.
If you want to go back and look at them, we also have the slides, I think, available electronically.
And then the last thing we looked at, the existing, not only can it accommodate current
demand, but the existing study area could accommodate, I think there were four developments
that were definitely in the hopper that we looked at and made sure we could accommodate
those.
So that was a quick rehash of what we talked about last time.
So what we also did in the study is lay out some near term, long, near term, mid term
and long term strategies.
I'm just going to, I think, focus on near term today.
That was, that was my charge.
If we want to take extra time, we can talk about some of the mid term and long term as
well.
But I, this group was talkative last time, so maybe we'll just talk about the near term
strategies.
So yeah.
There are some, and I'll talk about why we call them near term, but increasing and enhancing
static signage.
And I, and I realize, I think about this every time I come into Denton, cause I'm coming
in from Plano and coming off Dallas and Bell.
And the first sign I see, I think is at Hickory and it says parking left, right or straight.
And so that, that's just one example and the, and the sign is relatively small.
So it's, I don't want to pick on that one sign, but in a sort of sign rehab program,
you would look at the size of the signs, the color of the signs.
There are standard METCD signs for this.
And then also strategizing where you want to direct people.
The general, it's kind of like a parking garage, you want to try to, or a Ikea, you want to
direct people to where you, where the underutilized parts of the, of Denton, because they obviously
know where parking is at the square.
So show them where parking isn't first, that kind of strategy.
And then just more of that signage and enhanced.
If you go to other cities that have very formalized parking programs, you know, the signs might,
you might have parking programs that signs that show fluorescent yellow signs.
So wherever you are in Denton, just kind of look around and it won't be hard to identify
where the parking supply is.
Implement time limits and restrictions.
There is some of that already, but obviously the general idea is that you want parking
to turn over most often in the places where all of your businesses are and where the highest
parking demand is.
So on the square, for example, you allow that parking to turn over every, you decide, it
could be every 15 minutes, every hour.
But generally what that allows is parking supply for other people to use it.
And it will also increase the business receipts of the people there, because you're just allowing
more people access to those businesses.
What we've found, what many people have found, historically across the country is you increase
parking turnover, it helps businesses out.
Now one thing, one side effect that that can have is the businesses have employees, those
employees need to park somewhere.
And sometimes if you implement these parking restrictions, parking time restrictions and
have pretty strict enforcement, it's a hardship for them.
So what we can also consider is assigning parking locations.
The same goes for residents, if you have residents downtown, but for the employees.
Assign a place for them to park regardless of where they are downtown.
You could even have them park in time-limited lots, for example, and give them placards.
So maybe it's a 30-minute lot, but they have a mirror hanger that says they can park all
day.
The time limits are not as, I'll talk about this in a second, but the time limits have
minimal effectiveness.
If you don't have enforcement, that goes without saying, so you can put up all kinds of signage,
but unless you have people actually enforcing that, they'll be of limited use.
For the parking locations, we have some examples of it.
City of Plano has sort of an informal employee parking program.
They have some lots identified around downtown where employees are supposed to park.
So enforcing parking is an obvious near-term strategy.
Whether to enforce is one decision, and then how you enforce is another, and by how I mean
whether you do it yourselves or with a third-party parking enforcement company.
But they are there to try to enforce the time limits that you have.
If you wanted to consider paid parking, they would also enforce that.
Got one more slide, I think, on the near-term strategies.
Maybe moving the needle less, but accommodating TNCs, and I realized when I went through the
dry run that I need to define what TNCs are.
It's a transportation network company.
It's a silly term that traffic engineers use for Uber and Lyft, so it's ride-hailing.
But essentially what you're trying to do is reduce demand.
If you make it very visible to everybody that there's a nice, safe, curbside place where
Ubers and Lyfts can drop off their passengers, maybe they'll take it rather than take in
their own car.
Adopting a regular schedule for data collection and performance tracking, I forget exactly
what the saying is, but if you don't track it, you won't know what your performance is.
Somebody help me with that saying.
If you don't define it, you can't track it.
Anyway, the point is, you invested in the study that the city and us did.
It helps if you do that regularly, so you can track travel behavior, how people are
traveling in Denton, how you can react, but most importantly, you can measure the effectiveness
of the strategies that you do implement.
And then finally, updating parking standards, and I think this is going to be more of a
focus of the city-wide study, that's a separate effort going on right now, but that goes back
to the reduction of demand.
If you can change the amount of parking that you require developments to provide, and couple
that with improving mobility through other modes, just like the TNCs, you're getting
people to arrive downtown without having a car with them, so reduces your need for parking.
The reason we picked all of these as near-term strategies is, generally, they don't cost
a heck of a lot, and they can be implemented relatively quickly.
Those are sort of relative terms.
The exceptions to that, of course, are parking enforcement.
If you don't have a program already, that can be an investment, whether you're investing
in your own staff and vehicles, or you're investing in a company to do it.
And then doing that regular performance tracking.
You have to hire a company, we had to hire a company to go collect that data, unless
you want to invest a lot of money, and there are cities that do have systems where you're
actually 24/7 sort of tracking the occupancy of a parking space.
That's a huge investment, that's more of a mid-long-term strategy, but in the near-term,
you can do these studies regularly.
And generally, none of them take a lot of time to implement, you just have to decide
to do it and how you're going to do it.
The enforcement is probably a longer conversation, the standards are a longer conversation, because
you have to decide which standards you're going to change, meet with the development
community and planning, and then there, of course, is a formal city process, you have
to adopt those things.
So we put three clocks on that one, because that could take a while.
So I'm going to pause there.
That was, I don't know, eight minutes or something like that.
I do have other strategies that we can talk about, but I wanted to pause and see if there
are any questions.
Well, thank you very much for pausing there, I was going to ask you to pause there.
And I think what I want us to do is just to step, step, step, step, step with our questions
and try to get them all in, get them answered here as quickly as possible way, and Susie.
Thank you, Chair.
So thank you for the presentation, thanks for coming back again, I'm glad that you got
to see that lovely courtyard out there with all the decorations that match with your purple
tie.
Take one of them.
So I mean, what I'm definitely hearing about the near term strategies is they do cost some
money, right?
They cost staff resources, which I know can be really expensive, do we have, you know,
I don't know who currently enforces our parking downtown, is it police, somebody else.
And that costs money.
And tracking data, that's time, that's money as well.
I have heard of other cities, and maybe you've heard of this too, that do charge a certain
amount for parking such that there's always one or two spots available per block, and
then that revenue gets reinvested in the area where it came from.
So in theory, that could fund this enforcement, it could fund possibly beautification of the
streets in the area, but also it makes it easier to find the parking, right?
And you said that parking turnover is what helps the businesses, right, more customers
flowing through.
And so I've heard of cities that have implemented paid parking, you know, that's not too high
or too low, what we want is one to two spaces per block so that somebody can always find
a space if they want to, could be a way that we could pay for that.
And I know I saw that that's one of the longer term strategies, but that could be a really
exciting opportunity that we could look into to fund some of this to make sure we're getting
that turnover for businesses, to make sure that, you know, that people can find spaces
when they're looking for it.
Paid parking, it's a very common thing, there's a lot of common in a lot of spaces, thank you.
Thank you.
I just made some random notes here as you were speaking, I was surprised that weekend
parking was at a greater premium than weekday parking, and I guess my rationale was that
more businesses are open on the weekdays, but maybe that's not so around the square.
My recollection is that it's Saturday evening, so you're getting a lot of people there, and
I haven't memorized the businesses on the square, but there's a lot of restaurants,
bars, so people are there, I don't know, watching football games or something, but that's when
we saw the highest, I think was in the 70%, there's a slide in here somewhere that shows
you the actual numbers, but.
70% of the, what, was it 2,300, 2,700 parking spaces, that surprises me, I didn't know that.
I personally have been frustrated with the back end parking that we have done on East
Hickory Street.
I have called it a failure, but we've got a lot invested in it, so I guess we're going
to continue it.
One of the things that frustrates me about that is if it's back end parking, I can deal
with that.
Just tell me the rules, and I'll try to play within the rules, but people that either don't
care or don't know will drive across the centerline and park front facing in a rear facing, if
that's right.
Yep.
Back end.
Yes, now, when we started this, there was enforcement, and there are signs that indicate
that there is a, maybe a $50 fine for maybe $25 fine for parking the wrong direction that
way, but that is absolutely, positively not enforced at this time.
In fact, there's no enforcement whatsoever, at least in the downtown area.
As far as paid parking, I've been here all my life, and I've seen lots of changes on
this.
We have gone from paid parking to free parking, back to paid parking, and back to free parking.
It's always the trade off of we're going to try to get control of our parking by making
it paid parking, and then we're going to try to encourage mercantile by removing the parking
meters and have free parking.
We have done everything on the square in my lifetime, and I've been in a long, long time.
I like your idea about having an employee parking area.
I don't know what number that would be, but it seems to me that the greatest number of
parking spaces are taken up by employees in that 2,700.
I would think the greatest number is taken up by employees who come and stay.
They don't come shop and leave.
They come for their shift or today's business day and stay as long as it takes.
Anyway, I appreciate that.
I'd like to see improved signage.
I don't know if my other council members got the note that I got from the guy from
Prunary Houston scalding letter in the paid parking in Jack Bell's parking area that
got his car towed.
The first thing everybody always thinks about that is the instant that they see their car
is gone, the first thing they think is, "My car has been stolen."
They go from, "Whoopee, this was great fun.
We had a great time."
"Oh, my car has been stolen."
They're in panic and they could go from panic to anger because now they realize that their
car has been towed and we have to deal with that.
Where in the world is the tow facility and stuff like this?
A big challenge.
Thank you for being here.
Sure.
Yeah, we did one public ... I think we attended the farmer's market and got a lot of public
feedback and we got plenty of feedback about that specific issue.
Thanks.
Thank you.
For me, I put down here ... You said something about us having to make a decision how often
we want that turnover to be, to look forward to the turnover and you had mentioned something
about maybe every 30 minutes or so and now just hearing that a number of the spaces are
taken up by employees which defeats the purpose of welcoming people into downtown to enjoy
downtown as close as possible.
We'll have to certainly need some additional guidance as to just even talking about the
turnover because I also want to recognize that I think our square is designed more for
entertainment purposes.
I know that we're supposed to have a fine arts movie theater coming through.
We have these restaurants where people go in and sit down for an hour or so if there's
not a quick turnover for restaurants.
We have coffee bars in there that we're encouraging people to sit around and do their homework
and lounge around in there.
It's a relaxed, stay-around place so I'm not real sure of ... I could say I'm not real
sure because that's true about how our turnover is going to look like.
Should we be expecting cars to just be around because of what we have down there?
That is what I am highly interested in and of course the signage, the continuity of the
types of signage.
We're going to have to be looking at the color of what we want our bike lanes to be.
We certainly want to look for color in lit up stuff for our downtown area for it to be
its own color to let people know that now you're in downtown.
Is that going to be purple, yellow, green, whatever?
I want to have a concise knowledge that I'm in downtown and with me the transportation
part too, those away lots and also us having some type of on-demand type transportation.
Maybe we can do DCTA because they do the GoZone cars to become part of a downtown structure,
tooling people around downtown from those extended lots.
What do you call those lots that are ...
Park and ride.
Remote.
Remote lots.
Those remote type lots.
That's what I have.
Thank you.
What I want to start with, I really love having the base data.
That's really good.
We had a lot of that last time and I really appreciate that.
I think just from a 100,000 foot view, one of the things that maybe Susie and Christine
have a lot of mobility experience, but the rest of us, it's not our area of expertise.
I would appreciate whether it's from our own internal staff or from consults, more dense
specific recommendations and it goes to I think a lot of the questions that you've heard.
We've heard a lot of questions about turnover frequency, so I'd be interested in recommendations
for what those rates are, yeah, we can have them 15, 30, an hour, two hours, but what
those recommendations should be and more specifically where they should be.
For example, we want one hour on the square and three hours off the square and no time
limit at remote.
That kind of thing and I'd be really interested in that because then maybe we can start to
strategize about where employees go.
Maybe that's a self-enforcing thing.
If employees want to park in the two hour or 15 minute spot, they can.
They're going to eat up their paycheck real quick.
Then you can turn into maybe there's a TERS incentive or something that says, "Okay, I'm
going to give employees a hang tag for free, but only a hang tag for the secondary and
tertiary lots."
If you want to park out front and take up a customer spot, you can.
I'd love some guidance on best practices there because we can't do that modeling and numbering
that the transportation can and y'all can, but we can't do that modeling.
That gets us to my second question, which is enforcement.
I'd love to see some information on best practices of enforcement.
It seems like the old standard is to get meter staff or law enforcement to do it, but I'm
not sure that's the best use of law enforcement's time on that particular issue.
I would love knowledge about whether it is or not.
Maybe Chief Robledo really thinks that is good use of her officer's time.
I'm really interested in these automatic methods because nothing guides behavior.
Signs don't guide behavior, but something that forces you to do a thing, whether we're
talking about road construction tip-outs to slow you down, because you slow yourself down.
In the case of parking, everyone complains about it, but ParkMobile and similar digital
strategies automatically charge you.
I don't have to put a quarter in, it's just boom.
If you don't want to keep getting billed, you will move your car.
Our friend, some of our frequent flyers on the square, I'll pull back and not name names,
but we know who they are that park the whole weekend.
We know this person that park the whole weekend very visibly.
I guess that person can park the whole weekend very visibly, and ParkMobile will happily
eat hundreds of dollars into that person's credit cards.
I would love a specific recommendation.
If we're going to have, if the highest parking is evenings and weekend, if this burst parking
from our sort of basal levels up to our burst demand only ever peaks at 68% to 70%, but
the perception is when I go to use that burst demand that I'm bursting out to 90 something
percent, I can't remember what the data table said, 96, I think it was?
On the square.
On the square, and that's on the square or just off where the eateries and bars are.
Right.
If you have that burst parking, you want to have TNCs, then where do you place them?
Because now we're competing stakeholders between the two hour or 15 minute parking, whichever
we decide, and how do we enforce not the TNCs, but that parking?
And so then I think, you know, I would love to see some recommendations based on the distribution
of our downtown businesses, what the recommendation is for, like we have our Austin street eating
section, you know, East side and that area, but where should we put the TNC drop off?
You know, is it on the secondary streets?
Is it on the square?
Where do we put it?
Is there something that they're going to give us some guidance on?
And so that's the end of my questions anyway.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I'm glad you allowed me to interject.
So we are managing and monitoring our time.
We want to be good stewards of our time, so you just take your time.
Okay.
All right.
I'm just going to give a couple of comments from my experience working on the square,
just for getting, I guess, my thoughts out there.
So I think Vicki, you made an excellent point about there are like different types of reasons
that people come to the square.
And I think that we should be conscious of the ways that our parking strategies may prevent
some of those usages, right?
So if you're somebody who might want to make like a quick trip to a downtown business,
but we're using a parking strategy where all of the parking spots like immediately in front
of that business are going to be filled because we just let anybody park there for however
long they want, you're probably not going to make that quick trip to a downtown business
because you can't make a quick trip to a downtown business.
And so I think that when we think about parking, you know, if I'm coming to the square and
I know that I'm going to get lunch and then I'm going to go out shopping and then I'm
going to maybe go out for a coffee with a friend, I might be willing to walk significantly
more blocks than if I want to do a quick in and out trip to pick up my weekly comics for
more fun and games.
I want that to be like a five, 10 minute trip.
Whereas if I'm going to be there for a few hours, I might walk longer anyways.
With regard to transportation network companies, one thing I would also add in there is drop
off and pick up.
So things like Uber Eats, sometimes our roads will get blocked by Uber Eats or DoorDash
or what have you pick up because they're like, well, there's no parking here and I have to
pick up this order and I'm just going to make my own spot.
Or again, when I worked at a business on the downtown square, it would be fairly regular
that the way that we received product drop off on, if we had something that we like needed
more of immediately, an employee of the business, I'm not going to name names, an employee of
the business would just park a van in front of the shop on the square, on the street,
not in a parking spot, on the roadway.
And then open up the back door of the van, rush us in the product as fast as we could
take it in, blocking traffic and people would have to swerve around or pedestrians might
be in a little bit more danger than they usually would because they'd be walking out in front
of that blind spot where drivers might be flying by.
And so I think I would want to see more loading and unloading space if possible.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, thank you all for your input.
I believe that we'll just end this segment here.
I think that we've given you quite a bit of information to kind of go back and work on
for us and we'll just continue on with the conversation.
Okay.
Anything else you need for us?
Are you going to be around after the meeting?
I have a -- yes, I have a phone call at noon.
I don't believe you.
I have a call at noon, but I'm here until then.
Okay.
Thank you.
Okay.
Well, then we are going to move on to CMC 24-031, Receiver Report and Holder Discussion
Regarding Five-Year Capital Improvement Program, Budgets and Fiscal Year 2024, Year-to-Date
Projects.
Thank you.
Good morning, Chair and committee members.
Farhan Butt, Deputy Director of Transportation Services Division.
This presentation will give a brief overview of transportation services-related projects
out to CIP or in one way, you know, implementation, design, and planning stages.
To begin with, we have traffic signal -- traffic operational improvements.
First item in there is traffic signal cabinet improvements where we replace aging and outdated
cabinets and electronics.
We just -- starting with fiscal year 2022-23, the allocation was $208,000, and this stays
steady all the way from 2023-24 as well as in 2024-25.
And these columns list the items that we implemented in previous years and ongoing as well in 2024-25.
I have a question.
What do these cabinets look like?
Are they just kind of blended into the forestry of it all?
Are they green, yellow?
They are being painted now in some cases, and then these are on the side of the streets
on the corner that you would see in sometimes typically in silver-colored cabinet or colored
cabinet in some cases, but some of them are being painted.
And these are the ones that are wrapped?
Is that the ones?
Okay.
That was the question.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then we have signal for traffic improvements.
Next item is signal designs and rebuilds and replacements.
This is where we replace the aging and traffic infrastructure.
This includes in many cases signal improvements or installation of new signals at the intersections.
Fiscal year, '22, '23, we had $1.6 million.
And then in '23, '24, we had $3.9 million.
And then for '24, '25, this for $2.84 million.
And these columns again list the projects that are implemented.
And if you have any questions, I can...
I just have a question in regards to 288 in Dutchess.
You're speaking, but I don't see anything there.
Yeah.
So it is being...
It's being designed right now?
Yes.
Because of the new apartment complexes?
It is being implemented soon.
I think it's in the program and traffic operations staff, he has already...
I mean, they're already working on it.
So it will be soon.
Soon you will start seeing this.
Okay.
And then I also just want to recognize that I'm kind of veering off from what we did the
last time, and I'm gonna hold my questions to the end.
Okay.
I'm sorry.
So maybe the question's in the end, right?
Yeah, we'll do the question.
Okay.
And then we have emergency disaster and traffic improvements, and that's where for '22, '23,
we had $720,000.
And then for '23, '24, and '25, DFT is funding their portion of the remaining project.
Some other improvements include updates, end-of-life vehicle, bicycle detection equipment, and that's
for fiscal year '22, '23, we had $240,000, and '23, '24, we had allocation of $240,000.
And then for '24 and '25, it was removed from CIP program and, you know, operations and
maintenance.
It looks like, you know, that will go through there.
This is...
HSIP is another major initiative that Transportation Services is looking at, and we are proactively
applying for HSIP projects.
These are basically Highway Safety Improvement Program-based funding where Federal Highway
Program is funneled through state to local jurisdictions and any other safety improvements
related needs.
For 2022, funds awarded by Tech Start were $2.4 or roughly $2.5 million, and then the
other two columns show the design cost and percent of total award that we had to use
for the design cost.
So for instance, $2.4 million, we had a design cost that the city paid in amount of $298,000,
and this equates to 12% of the total funding that we got.
In 2023, we received $2.85 million, and again, roughly 14%, which is $400,000, was paid by
city for that towards the design cost.
And in 2024, again, we got $3.5 million, and for design costs, we paid $271,000.
Sometimes off-system, even off-system projects, if the project is really good and Tech Start
identifies it as a real good safety need, they would pay for the full, fully funded,
they will just award it fully.
And that's happened in 2024, some of the projects got fully awarded when they were off-system.
And for that, we are applying for, so this is total of $8.8 million in three years that
we got awarded by Tech Start for safety-related improvements at intersections, and this year
Transportation Services is preparing for at least $10 million worth of awards for safety
projects in various parts of the city.
So we have already identified and we are working towards applying for those.
And this list, by year, these projects and their details that we got for HSIP.
There's a trip initiative where DCTA provides or awards funding from the revenue source
to city, you know, 15% of budget is typically there, and 95% of the budget allocated to
the member cities is proportional to the sales and used tax receipts that is received by
DCTA.
Well, in this case, we applied for about five projects that are listed here, and the total
amount we requested was $4.96 million, and these projects were very carefully selected
after doing a lot of analysis by staff, and all of these five projects are directly linked
to certain projects in the city, and then fifth one is going to look at sidewalk and
other connectivity improvements for multimodal context.
All of these five projects have been approved by DCTA board recently, and so we have already
started looking into these projects and started working on the analysis.
When it comes to ADA transition plan, we are working on strategizing the entire framework
for the ADA.
A major effort has been put into this process.
We have established, we have recently completed sub-recipients compliance surveys, compliance
surveys that were provided by USDOT through TxDOT to the local jurisdictions, and we provided
the feedback and current status of the city's ADA process.
There were a lot of questions asked by USDOT and TxDOT.
We provided those answers, and the first survey, we got compliance, full compliance for 18
months, compliance status on ADA, the city got that, and then second survey responses,
for second survey responses, we recently got another 18 months grace period where we have
green status, so total of 36 months of green compliance status from TxDOT based on the
responses provided by transportation services staff and other departments.
TxDOT has identified a few issues where they want us to address those, and city has established,
transportation services has established a committee where we are working with that group
representing each department, and we are closely working with these members to address those
issues.
We are also working on bike lanes.
Right now we have fully drafted the criteria, and we are testing it offline right now.
That criteria has been updated for fatal crashes and serious incapacitating injuries.
It has been calibrated for urban core and speed relationships and many other elements,
many other factors.
We are testing the criteria offline right now, and once it is stable, then we are planning
to prioritize the projects into tiers, tier one, tier two, tier three, tier one projects
will be provided to CIP for implementation, and this criteria once stable, we will share
with all the stakeholders, including the mobility committee as well.
That's all, and if any questions I can.
Okay, all right, let's start with Ms. Suzie.
Thanks Farhan.
I think slide three was where I had my first question, actually it's not even a question.
So I think I see in the third column, Hickory at Welch.
So that is a replacement of the current lights, right?
Yes, that's what my understanding is, yes.
I just wanted to say I'm very excited about that, because right now there's no ped button,
so people, including myself, just go whenever, because you have no way to trigger green.
So I'm very excited about that.
And then slide four, I think, I just wanted to say kudos on that bottom row of moving
things from CIP to operations and maintenance, so I'm excited about that.
And then I don't know what slide this was, but you said something about, wait, no, that's
just my notes, sorry.
Okay, slide six maybe, some of my notes are based on old, oh yes.
So the left top table, bottom row, it says canceled by Bonnie Bray, do we know what that
means or what that's referencing?
I think that was some implementation that was going on by TextDOT where they thought
that this will be, probably it will be put on hold or canceled, so that's why this project
got canceled.
Okay, thank you.
And then for TRIP funds, so that was slide eight, do we have some sort of target timeline
when we hope to implement our TRIP projects, because I know each year we apply for some
amount of funding.
Do we have like a target date we hope to complete these types of projects by in general?
Like I know it varies, but.
There are three stages for these projects, planning, design, and implementation.
Transportation services will be coordinating all these three stages, including with DCTA
coordination as well.
And then, of course, for the implementation, we'll be relying on CIP.
So I'm assuming that once the project scope is done, we'll have a clearer picture on each
of these projects, for instance, how long the planning stage will take, which will be
fairly quick.
Relatively, I think the quickest part would be planning stage, some time on designing,
and then implementation, I would let Trevor speak to that.
I'm assuming that it will take, I mean they'll have to schedule it in and all that process
would go into that.
And I know right-of-way acquisition is a pretty big factor in how long that takes.
And it all depends if we need right-of-way acquisition or not, you know, we will consider
that as well.
And that's why CIP would be playing key role in defining the scope.
We've already set up a meeting, and we'll be meeting with CIP as well, and making sure
that we deliver these projects, and if there's a right-of-way acquisition issue, then we
fairly look at that and say, is it constructible, is it working?
Right, does it fit?
And then slide nine, I saw 1.5 million ADA funding each year, where is that coming from?
Is that from the city, some external funding?
This is from city.
City, okay, like from our general fund?
I have to talk to finance on that, I'll circle back on that, but I know that it is allocated
by finance.
I don't know which one.
But we will also be applying for, once we have a clear picture, we'll be applying for
a lot of grants as well.
We are planning on that.
All right.
I think that's all I had.
Thank you.
Very quickly, tell me about the bicycle detection equipment at intersections.
So the equipment that was installed, maybe James can address to that.
I know that there are counters, but I would let James.
So this is the equipment that is at the location.
It is combination vehicle detection and we can add bicycle detection.
So where we have a bicycle lane at an intersection, we have detection for bicycles.
So it's all together.
I'm reminded of that joke about a thermos bottle, how do it know?
It is a zone that we set up and we tell it that this is a bicycle zone that has a classification.
So it's got a length of zero to 11 feet.
So whenever it detects an object from zero to 11 feet, it knows that it's a bicycle.
A ferris object?
Okay.
Interesting.
I've waited at a lot of cycles.
Cycles of lights, that is.
Sure.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Oh, I'm James Andrews, Traffic Operations.
Oh, thank you.
And I really, really like the wrap around the equipment boxes, but I've noticed that
those are almost exclusive in the downtown area.
Are those available for other locations?
I am, well, I'll have to circle back on that.
I think for now, I understand it is for downtown, but I'm not sure.
I'll have to check if this has been expanded to city at large.
Thank you.
I will circle back on that.
Thank you.
Well, I want to initially say that a lot of the things that I've been seeing is representative
of the area that I am here to represent, District 1.
And I am just proud that the City of Denton is taking seriously our opportunities to make
sure our core of our city is strengthened as much as possible because it's easy to kind
of overlook the center.
So I'm glad that we have made that considerable, you know, part of who we are is making sure
our center services are ready for us to use.
So thank you, City of Denton, for doing that for us.
Also the other thing is, you said, oh, and the other thing I'm so excited for is Moore
Street and Woodrow.
I did tell my Southeast Denton Neighborhood Association people that they're in the pipeline
and they did ask about it this past Monday, so it's weighing very heavily on those folks
over in that area.
Thank you very much for me being able to, you know, see what I said, and I believe.
The other thing is Tripp's Project, can you go back to that?
Yes.
That one right there.
Yeah, that that Riney Road side path and safety improvements, I see that the city funding
is going to be pretty heavy on that, working with Denton ISD.
Is there some kind of funding coming from Denton ISD?
I know they have a little elementary school coming up over there.
I think CIP is coordinating on that, but I'll let Trevor adjust this.
Sure.
So Trevor Crane, Director of Capital Projects.
So we do have a couple of projects over there, Bonnie Bray Phase 6, which the ISD did provide
some funding for that.
That will help pay for the side path that goes in front of the school.
The Riney Road section that we're talking about here, Riney Road East, is going to continue
that side path that's in front of the school and then connect it all the way over to 77.
Sure.
So it's a couple of different projects and that part that Riney Road East was also included
in our CIP as well.
Okay.
So that for layman's terms, what you're talking about with the ISD is that that's in that
number there, that 5.75?
No, that's not separate.
No, it's separate.
Yes, ma'am.
That's what I wanted to know.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, the TRIPS project, Moore Street, Woodrow Lane, signal transit improvements.
Thank you so much for that.
And my last thing that I'm going to have to confess, and I really, really hate to say
this, but is being weighing heavily on my mind as a district one representative, and
I truly mean this, I do not like bollards.
I just don't appreciate the bollards.
I've been trying to get used to them.
I do drive by them because they're where I am, but I'm not appreciating them.
So I don't know where that conversation is going to go and how it's going to turn out
in the end, but I'm sure that there's some other people out there that feel the same
way that I do.
So I'm going to end it there and I'm going to pass it on.
Thank you.
I'll pick up...
Yeah, no, there's...
Susie and I were at a bike conference recently and we saw some options on alternatives to
bollards that I encourage transportation staff to look at.
So that's all I'll say on that.
I always rank public safety over aesthetics, but we get a million calls on aesthetics.
So that said.
I had a similar question to Councilor Holland on the bicycle detection, the magnetometers.
I guess they're embedded wires in the asphalt or whatever or cameras.
I'm not sure exactly.
It implied those magnetometers.
Like Councilor Holland, I get a lot of complaints when I personally bike.
It doesn't seem terribly sensitive to bikes, especially on lanes that are denoted to be
shared and there's only limited crossings at some places.
So I would love to know what our regimen is for sensitivity tuning.
So it doesn't have to be today, but if you want to comment today, but I would love to
learn more about how we're sensitivity tuning that because I myself have sat through several
cycles and just prayed for a car to come up behind me to hit the magnetometer and then
I could go.
I think we can circle back on that and we can in the interest of time, we'll just provide
a blurb on that in the next meeting.
Yeah, no, that's perfect.
And then that allows me to segue.
I really want to praise you all for taking the funding off of bonds and other one-off
funding mechanisms, internal funding mechanisms and putting them onto external funding mechanisms
or if it's going to be internal M&O.
So that's a much more sustainable approach.
I really appreciate that.
And it takes me to the idea of the trip funds, which is my other point, which is at some
point I don't have any problems with these projects, but at some point for the same reason
that you moved some of your funding and projects onto M&O and rather than put it on intermittent
bond programs, I think we need to have a conversation.
I don't know if it starts in mobility or it starts in council about how do we use trip
funds, especially because you seem to be very successful since you came on board getting
external grants.
I notice in the next section, we're going to talk about CPRG funding.
So way to go on that one.
But if we're being more successful under your directorship on getting alternative kinds
of funding, I do think we need to have a conversation about should trip funding be used for transit
or should it be used for street engineering.
And we're kind of piggy banking it as street engineering.
And I think that's just a conversation that we need a policy conversation we need to have.
And I think that's all my comments on this one.
I'll link to Trevor.
I think I have one for Trevor.
Okay.
All right.
Real quick, can you give an example of like what an HISP project would be?
I noticed that it had kind of an intersection listed.
So would that be like sidewalks or crosswalks or is that like intersection specific improvements?
So it could be segment as well, but typically all the action is happening on intersections
and so what we do when we look at the selection process, we look at pedestrian fatalities,
bike, bed related fatalities and crashes, serious incapacitating injuries.
That is a major significant factor in selection process of the projects.
Then we also look at the improvements, possibilities if the existing infrastructure there is outdated.
So if you want to improve that with pedestrian buttons or other technology there.
So all of those factors go in there and then of course the area type, if it is close to
school or college, that plays a major role.
So all of those factors and a lot more going to play and then before we finalize a selected
project.
And then of course it is vetted by text art as well.
I mean if they are not satisfied, they will not accept it.
So we have to do a lot of work to ensure that this becomes selected.
Gotcha.
I want to echo Brian on the public transportation versus roadway infrastructure question for
TRIP.
I would like to see that discussed.
I have previously pitched that we should spend it on purchasing bus routes.
I would love to see that come up in a later conversation and then finally I saw 1.5 million
annual dollars in ADA funding.
Is that spent entirely on roadway infrastructure or does that cover those trainings?
Does it cover other things like accessibility around public buildings?
What is that ADA?
Advertising is included in there.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
It's the same.
Is it still on 03?
Yes, ma'am.
So Trevor Crane, Director of Capital Projects, I'm going to walk you through our Capital
Improvement Projects update.
So these are just project financials on projects that have been included in our CIP plan.
So Bonnebrae Phase 4B, the project estimate of completion right now is about $12.5 million.
We have current funding at $8.5 and then we are receiving another $4 million in the approved
budget for 2024-25, which should fully fund that project.
Bonnebrae Phase 5, project estimate of completion is at $12 million.
Currently have $2 million and as you can see there, we have a plan in this budget as well
as next year's budget to add funding that will bring us to a point where we can complete
that project.
Ronnie Road East, that's the one we just talked about a little bit.
We currently estimate that project to be $6 million and we have the $6 million that we
need to build that so as soon as we get the design done, it will move into construction.
McKinney Sidewalks, same deal as Ronnie Road East, $5.5 and that current funding was included
as in last year's CIP, so it's currently in design.
Hickory Creek 3, we estimate that project to be about $63 million once we're complete.
We currently have all the funding we need and we did approve another $8 million in this
year's budget and that is an estimate that we believe is going to, that we will need
to get our contractor back to work to accommodate for that delay that we've had almost a year
now waiting on the railroad.
And then 2019 Street Reconstruction Bond Completion, we estimate that to be about $130 million
to complete the entire project.
Currently we're at $106 million.
We did have $10 million approved in this year's budget and we will be including another $10
million in our fiscal year 25-26 that will get us to where we need to be.
That $130 million, we're actually starting to see prices come down in our estimates and
so we believe that the funding that we currently have as well as what we've included in this
slide will get us to where we need to be to completely finish that 2019.
So this is going to kind of dig into the sidewalk portions of these projects.
So Bonnebrae Phase 4B, currently at 90%, so this is one of the projects that we're going
to bring up to 100% and then we're going to hold and wait until we finish Bonnebrae Phase
3 and 6 before we put it on the construction.
This does include roadway, utilities, street lighting, and a 10-foot shared use path on
one side with a 5-foot sidewalk on the other.
Bonnebrae Phase 5, currently at 30%, again this is a project we'll bring up to 100% design
and then we'll hold waiting on Bonnebrae 3 and 6 to complete so I don't have the whole
corridor on the construction at one time.
This does include roadway, utilities, street lighting, that 10-foot shared use path, as
well as 5-foot sidewalks on the other side.
So Hickory Creek Phase 3, this includes a bridge structure, drainers, and sidewalks.
It's currently on hold pending the railroad agreement.
We're anticipating that to happen any day now.
We actually have a meeting with the railroad this afternoon to walk through where they're
at with that.
We've also started conversations with our contractor about getting them back to work
and what that change order is going to look like so we're anticipating them ready to rock
and roll as soon as we get that railroad agreement.
And then we actually have an update on this from the slide, the estimate to complete,
the contractor's estimating 16 months, not a year, so once we get them back to work,
we're estimating about 16 months to complete.
This is the Rounding Road East project that we spoke about a little bit earlier.
So roadway widening as well as sidewalks, it does also include a path, a park path.
We are working through right-of-way acquisition.
I actually spoke with the PM about this yesterday.
Those are going great so we don't anticipate any issues with acquiring the right-of-way
we need.
We get 90% design and I estimate this going to construction in Q1 and then the goal would
be to have that roadway widened prior to the new school opening next August.
All right, moving on to the McKinney sidewalks.
So this is, the scope of this is a 10-foot shared use path along with illumination along
that path.
We anticipate the design being completed in Q2 of 2025, working through the right-of-way
acquisition right now and then moving to construction in quarter four of 2025.
So that one's moving along as well.
So this is a lot of information on this slide.
I think you all have seen it before, but this is our 2019 Street Rehab Program.
I'm not going to walk through everything, but as you can see there, got a lot of projects
closed out already.
Another large amount of construction that's happening currently and then we do have a
couple of projects there at the bottom that are in design or already designed and once
we receive that funding in the bond, once October rolls around and we're able to access
that funding, we'll start rolling those projects out as well.
So I'm going to walk through this street maintenance slide and then if we have any
questions on this one, I'll lean on my partners in streets.
But as you can see in this slide, we've got a couple of performance measures that they
measure on a yearly basis.
So reconstruction, their annual goal is two lane miles.
In fiscal year 22-23, they did 2.7 lane miles and then their goal for 23-24, or what they
accomplished in 23-24 was 4.5.
Land overlay, annual goal, 5 miles.
They did 2.2 in 22-23 and then 5.7 in 23-24.
Crack seal, annual goal is 45 lane miles.
They did 37.6 in FY 22-23 and then 111 in 23-24.
Surface treatments, 31.5 lane miles is the annual goal.
In FY 22-23, we did 51.5 and then another 51.5 and then another 55.5 in FY 23-24.
Panel repairs, so for the next four, the panel repairs, sidewalk repair, pothole repair and
base failure repair, not really an annual goal.
These are maintenance and rehabilitation activities.
So for concrete panel repair, they did 1.6 lane miles in 22-23, another 1.4 in 23-24.
Sidewalk repair, almost 5,000 square feet in 22-23 and then 38,000 square feet in fiscal
year 23-24.
Pothole repairs, they did almost 3,500 in fiscal year 22-23 and then almost 623-24 and
then base failure repairs, almost 3,000 tons the first 22-23 year and then a little over
6,000 tons in fiscal year 23-24.
And with that, I'll stand for any questions.
Okay.
Suzie?
Oh, you want to start on that?
Okay, we'll start on this then.
Are you ready?
So with regards to the 2019 bond funding, the bond amount passed was 150 more, 154 million.
The number up there was 130,000.
How do those two numbers intersect?
Is that we actually over budgeted and we think we're only going to need $130 million to fulfill
the bond projects or is that now we're looking for 130 million after we've already spent
other funds on the projects we've already completed?
Sure.
That's not, the 130 is not an additional funding that we're looking for.
I'll need to go back and look at those numbers just to make sure that I answer your question
correctly and not say it off the fly.
I will say the bond funding was only used for the street rehabilitation portion of that.
So we did add a lot of funding from wastewater utilities to be able to build those projects
holistically.
So let me check those numbers and I'll get them back to you.
That's twice in one week I've used it.
Is the reconstruction of 2.7 miles, for example, 2.7 lane miles.
That's exclusive of bond projects, right?
So bond projects are not included in that 2.7.
Correct.
These numbers are strictly operations and maintenance.
So that's separate.
This is just what the streets department is doing on a maintenance schedule or with their
own construction projects.
That's separate from anything that the capital projects department is doing.
And then finally, when the community had brought forward the idea of the McKinney sidewalks
being necessary, it had originally got pitched as temporary improvements such as cones or
barrels to segment off the side of the road where folks walk on from the drive lanes that
folks drive on because those often get used as drive lanes.
People will go around traffic and whatnot on the basis that it was necessary to do it
quickly and then we could find the funding for sidewalks later because that's very dangerous
and that should be addressed as soon as possible.
Within the last few weeks, a man was hit and killed in that portion of roadway.
Mr. Santiago, he was a wheelchair user.
I would just ask for the city again, consider something temporary and quick as we move towards
that more final sidewalk product.
Sounds good.
Thank you.
I'll pick up from McKinney real quick.
Is the concept plan north side of the street or south side of the street or both?
I'm not sure on that.
Sure.
So I think it's just going to be on one side.
I think we were originally looking at the south side to do that.
I believe we may be pivoting to the north side just because it may be less right of
way but it's still kind of in flux right now.
It's probably less right of way that we have to acquire.
So we haven't 100% determined what that looks like but we're in the design phase
right now.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
Yes, sir.
And then on slide 18 where we talked about the different street things, I sort of have
two related.
On the first 454, we have goals.
Are those goals under the need or they match the need?
And then the surface treatments we're doing, you know, most things under, surface treatments
is one of the ones that's over.
What is contributing to, you know?
Is there something that this committee or council can do to help you better achieve
the goals?
And so those are the two questions there.
Are they based on real-world condition?
Are they less than real-world conditions in terms of the goals?
And then what do you need to better match the goals?
Okay.
Dana Kramer, Deputy Director of Operations.
So our annual goals are based off the roadway funding strategy that came through council,
I think, either this past year or the year before, prior.
So on our maintenance goals, we'll take the surface treatment, as you're saying.
You know, they average out 31 and a half years, 31 and a half lane miles per year.
If you look at the roadway funding, some years there was 50, some years there was 10, it
would go, it would fluctuate.
You can't build a budget very well on that as you do that.
So we took an average across the board of what it would be over the lifespan of the
study of all of our roadways so that we could make sure that we could plan for it best we
could budgetary and go forward.
Mike, surface treatments are a, I wouldn't say cheap, but an efficient way to spend the
funds and to be able to extend the life of the roadway.
So when we find roadways that we can, that are in the right bandwidth on the OCI so that
we can put it on, if we have the funding, we try to go that way.
So we usually, for the surface treatments for micro seal, it's usually about 600,000
a year we budget for that.
So we usually base off our budget number as much as we can, some of the longer roadways,
the rider roadways, you won't get as much mileage because of the complexity of the traffic
control and everything that has to come out when they run that.
So we look mostly on the budget number and base those as we go forward to try to get
as much as we can in each year.
Based on some of the recent issues that we've had, we kind of do as much as we can on the
residential and the thoroughfares and the collectors and everything, we try to stay
out of the smaller ones that don't get as much traffic because we end up getting, we're
looking at different options because we get a lot of complaints on the surface, the treatment
after how it looks, bicycles on the roads, roller skates and everything else after that.
It's not a cosmetic thing, but it's for longevity of the roadway, so we work on that.
Crack seal also is probably our cheapest and our best tool in our toolbox, anything over
a quarter of an inch we try to hit those up because as we get our freezes, our heat, our
summer, it contracts and expands, so we want to make sure that we seal the road so we don't
get the water in there, that's how we work on that.
As we're setting right now for our budget, we are set pretty well for our maintenance
side.
The roadway funding strategy did go forward with an additional five million a year and
we are still working with finance to make sure we, I think it was earlier this year
the, I can't remember the name of the group, but with the cryptocurrency, that was where
part of the funding was coming from.
That's not a standard revenue fund, so it was supposed to be a little over two million
this year, we just got a little over one million this year that came in for that, so consistency
would help on that so that we can go forward with that on the reconstructs.
And a real brief follow-up, how, I noticed in some of the 2019 bond program, I forget
the neighborhood for the Northeast in the Idiots Hill area, but I've noticed some of
the construction there that is newly finished, already has crack seals and already has paint
down, or already has cracks, already has paint down, how much of that QAQC do we come in
after the, after the vendor lays down what is supposedly a finished road, or maybe you
could correct me, maybe that neighborhood isn't finished and y'all are going to still
do some finishing, but those brand new roads are already cracked and I wonder what it does
to these roads.
Sure, so that's something we try to check, we try to catch on the front end, so some
of those roads are not completed, we've caught some issues with our contractors and some
of the quality of the product they put down, and so some of those roads are not finished,
they're going to have to come back in and either do repairs or tear it out and do it
all again, so there are a couple of streets that are like that, and then also we have
a warranty period that we will monitor, so there are, there is some cracking, some types
of things that are within tolerance, and so typically what we'll do is we'll mark those
during our walk-throughs, and then when we come back to do our warranty walk at usually
about a year and a half, so we try to give ourselves a little time before the two year,
we'll revisit those areas and make sure that they're still within tolerance.
If they're not, then the contractor's on the hook to come back in and do repairs.
No, I appreciate that, that I'm going to encourage us in the engineering to get that answer to
my question out into the public, because the public sees it as you fixed it, you fixed
it, you fixed it, you fixed it, you fixed it, it's never-ending fixing.
Correct.
And your answer to that question is half of their questions, like why are you constantly
fixing it, we're making them fix it.
So that's, it's annoying, but it's responsible, so thank you for that.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
I would also add on the walk-throughs, capital projects works really well with our team,
and we do have people from each division.
When we walk the streets, I have street staff that's out there walking with them, showing
issues that we see in everything else, same thing with utilities, they walk it when they
do those sections too.
I appreciate that, thank you gentlemen.
I have a generalized question.
Oh, what are you doing?
I just have a generalized question.
When people see those little flags out there, those little pink flags, yellow flags, that
kind of thing, I think I know the answer already, but the sake of education.
What does that mean?
Does that mean something's getting ready to happen, or is that the design phase?
What does that mean to us?
Sure, so you'll see a couple of different things.
Some people use flags, some people use paint, so you may see blue paint, you may see yellow
paint, you may see all different kinds of paint, so each different color typically means
something else, but any time that anyone wants to do any kind of digging, so whether it's
an outside utility, whether it's us, whether it's one of our contractors, they're required
to call in a utility locate, and so that's what those markings are.
It's a company that comes out and marks all those undergrounded utilities, and so what
they're doing is marking everything so that when somebody comes in and digs, the hope
is that they don't dig one of those things up.
So during a construction project, you may see multiple times where a flag comes and
puts out, it could be Atmos is going to come in before us and they're going to relocate
their lines, and so they have to call in a locate, and so you'll see flags come out or
paint go down, then they'll come out and do their work, and then whenever our contractor
comes on, they have to call in the same locate, so you might see those people come out again
and mark everything again, so you may see them come out every, it doesn't necessarily
mean that they're going to be digging in your yard, they have to mark within a certain radius
of where the work is supposed to happen, and so, but it's a good indicator that if you
see some markings fly, or some paint or some flags get put in your yard, that something's
about to happen.
Okay.
Thank you.
The other thing that I have is how do you all work with the universities, not talking
about Oakland Street, I already got it, Oakland Street, but I was over by University of North
Texas today, and I rode on Welch, which of course there's significant work being done
on Welch, but then I turned into where the university student life building, student
center, and it's just tragic.
So it came to mind, knowing that I would be coming to the mobility committee to ask, how
do you all get in there and work that, or is that the university's responsibility, or
what?
No ma'am, so the answer is extensively, and so the major project we have going on, we'll
take UNT for example, is the neighborhood two and six project.
So during design, we had multiple meetings with UNT, we communicated with them who was
the best person to work with, lots of communication with them, we moved construction around to
try to coordinate construction during the summer months where there's less people on
campus.
So you'll see some roads out there, I think maybe, I don't remember the name, maybe Chestnut
right now, we had the utilities come through during the summer when there wasn't a lot
of people out there, and then now it's just patched temporarily, and then next summer
when we come back, we'll do the roadway.
So we work with them on a daily basis, my project managers are in constant contact with
their field guys, and typically on a day-to-day basis, they're calling each other saying,
hey, this is an issue, or this is an issue, can we change this, can we move this, and
so constant communication with our partners.
Thank you.
Yes ma'am.
Ryany Road, slide 15, tell me specifically what that's gonna look like, and are we talking
between Bonnie Bray and Elm Street?
Yes.
So it's two separate projects, this specific one, Ryany Road East, is going to be from
Elm all the way to just to the east of where the school is going to be.
So if you've driven Ryany Road, at one point, once you get over towards Elm, it widens out
considerably right in front of the park.
So we're going to extend that, and it's going to be a uniform cross section all the way
from 77 to Bonnie Bray.
So Bonnie Bray Phase 6 is going to do a portion of Ryany Road, and then Ryany Road East is
going to continue that all the way to 77.
And is that four lanes, or is it two lanes in a turn lane?
Don't make me lie to you.
I'm not going to go look at it, but yeah.
Will it match what's already there on the Elm Street side?
Yes, you're talking about the Elm Street side, yes, correct, yes, sir.
And are we being penalized one way or another on the delay on Hickory Creek?
We had guys out there working, now they're not, because of the railroad.
Are we being penalized on that?
Sure, so there will be a cost that we will have to pay the contractor.
They've been delayed.
So we hold the contract with the contractor.
So as far as they're concerned, we're the ones who are delaying them.
So there's going to be price escalations from when they bid it originally, I guess three
years ago, two, three years ago, to now, everything has gone up.
So those are those conversations that I have with the contractor to try to mitigate those
costs.
But of course, you know, we want to be good partners with our contractors.
We understand that there is a higher cost of doing business now than it was two years
ago.
And so those are conversations I'm working through with them to see what that cost looks
like and how much more it's going to cost us.
I'm thinking there's no relief available from the railroad.
Not likely.
Okay.
Thank you.
Yes, sir.
Thanks first of all for answering.
I don't know if anyone else helped answer my million questions I sent in.
Y'all can all read it in the back up if you didn't see it.
But thank you for answering all of my questions in writing.
I have a question.
Hopefully this one doesn't put you on the spot.
What is the average cost to reconstruct one lane mile of asphalt roadway fish?
I'll take a ballpark, a range, one lane mile of asphalt roadway reconstruction.
It's about one million dollars.
Okay.
That's normally what I budget.
What was the answer?
One million.
Per lane mile.
Asphalt.
So I'm not going to ask about concrete.
So our back up said that roads last anywhere from 28 to 59 years before we need to replace
them.
And that depends on whether we maintain them, traffic, weather, that kind of thing.
So we have 1,530 lane miles of roads according to the written answer.
So I know things become due at different times based on high growth times.
We built a whole bunch of roads at the same time, things like that.
But if we averaged it out, so those 1,530 lane miles of roads, we should be reconstructing
an average of 25 to 55 lane miles per year-ish if we average it out.
And I know that's not how the real world works.
Do you know how many lane miles of roadway we're reconstructing each year-ish ballpark?
No.
We can look at that.
I mean, the majority of them that we send over to capital projects and they run the larger
scale projects, we have the ability in-house as a maintenance crew to be able to do that.
We are probably one of the few, if one of the only, in most of the U.S. or Texas that
actually has the ability to do reconstructions in-house.
Most people don't do that.
We use that ability on our metrics.
We just try to set it up to one lane mile a year is kind of where we set that with the
ability of something turned south to be able to do more.
For instance, a mill and overlay, we've had many instances, we go through our clearing
process as we normally do.
We'll run it through utilities and franchise utilities and internal to make sure there's
no other issues that need to be replaced or that they need to get in there first before
we reconstruct the road so we don't tear it up again.
We do that whether we do a mill and overlay or a reconstruct.
If it's in the proper OCI range for a mill and overlay, we still clear it for a reconstruct
because we have a lot of roads in the city that aren't up to the same standards when
they were built.
They have very thin asphalt and it's really amazing that they're still holding together.
The moment you take the top off, the road turns into a waterbed and you drive trucks
over and it does this.
We are stuck at that point to have to go into a reconstruct to stabilize the subgrade.
We ran into that in the Oaks and Montecito that we're currently working in right now.
We were supposed to do probably 90% of those roads in there were supposed to be mill and
overlays.
It's pretty much flipped the whole other direction and most of them have been reconstructs.
When it gets to that point, we'll do soil samples and figure out what we need to mix
and how we need to go the next steps forward.
The roadway funding strategy as it went through, and I think the slides were included also,
it was an extra $5 million a year that they talked about just for street reconstructs
with bond programs coming up consistently to be able to get our backlog down.
That is the plan that we're going with and trying to make sure that because the issue
that we have as Trevor knows, we're going to influx all this funding right now.
We're going to bring all the failing, the bad streets all the way up to good and then
you do your maintenance so that as they slowly slide in, you hit them towards the very end
and bring them up to the next level so that we don't ... Your best bet is to have a bell
curve so you have most of your streets in the middle on the maintenance side and as
two or three fall off, you rebuild them and they move back up to good.
History-wise here, in the city that was decades ago, way before probably anybody was here,
we didn't focus a lot on maintenance so we're sitting at almost an inverse bell so we got
a lot that are very good, that are coming up with new development and that Capital Projects
is running and we also got a lot better on the other end.
We're trying to build up that maintenance program, make sure we stay on top of it so
we don't have to keep doing this big influx of all these streets all the time when we
come in so we can keep them going.
I think I just have one more.
I appreciate that we are now looking at maintenance.
We're trying to keep that funded, try to keep that ahead of ... Stay ahead of the game on
that because I know that it's more expensive to not maintain it and have to replace it
every 28 years or whatever so I know it's cheaper to make sure that we're staying on
top of the maintenance.
We fund that, we know that we're going to have to maintain the roads.
We are funding that through our general fund, through revenue.
That's not really debt like crack seal, mill and overlay.
The street budget is mainly franchise fees.
Not debt is really where I'm going there but then we know we're going to eventually have
to replace all the streets at some point but we're paying for that with debt which is much
more expensive and I don't know who I'm asking the question to but what's kind of preventing
us from planning or maybe shifting our funding strategy to the less expensive option of revenue
instead of debt?
I know we're shifting there a little with the five million that council passed which
thank you by the way.
We've been looking at it a lot of different ways.
We're working with finance, CMO's office.
There's a lot of different funding mechanisms out there in different ways to go.
The roadway funding strategy put a few up there.
Some of them were, some cities have done, I forget what it's called, a roadway user
fee that they put in to the businesses and everybody lives here.
There's different options and we're looking through those and looking at different options
that we can bring forward.
It'll be to this committee and probably to council too before anything can move forward.
Okay, well I'll be really curious to see where that goes.
If we assumed that things were built evenly over the years and not in big bulk, you know,
high growth times, it looks like we should be spending or budgeting for roughly 25 to
55 million dollars per year for reconstruction of roads and I don't think we're that close
to that at this time.
Which I know we're trying to like influx it with a bunch of bond funding but in terms
of like long term, we should be spending like 25 to 55 million per year and today's dollars
reconstructing streets or at least budgeting for that and I think our, the 2019 bond was
like 70 million I think and that's like 12, 15 million dollars a year to reconstruct roads
so we're, yeah, we're working on it.
So thank you for the progress you're making, I know it's not an easy thing to do.
Well and the one thing I do want to throw in on that is, you know, the 70 million of
that was focusing on roadways.
So then we also look at water, wastewater, franchise fees, so everybody else underneath
the road drainage.
So that's where we get running into, you know, the road costs just go up exponentially when
you have to replace all the utilities under and so that's where the budgetary constraints
come in a lot of times when we start having to do everything.
And also thank you for whoever's idea it was to combine those two things together, I've
been explaining it to people and they're like why did they rip it up and then yeah, fix
it and then rip it up, yeah.
So thanks for saving us money on that.
You had anything else, Mr. King?
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for that presentation.
And I just want to make sure that we've clarified that Susie Roomer has directed us to spend
25 million per year on roads.
Thank you.
That's what the people want.
Okay.
Give the people what they want.
Okay.
So our next amount of time that we have left.
I know that we are doing an excellent job in, you know, finishing up time management.
We have other meetings to attend.
So we're going to go on to MC 24-032.
I can see right here of this road crossing light on Moore Street in Woodrow.
Yeah, yeah, oh, come on Joe.
Road crossing for light on Moore Street in Woodrow for safety.
I'm excited about that.
So we'll start up here with bicycle friendly community designation.
Does anyone have any questions, comments or concerns beyond what we've received?
Bike path and pedestrian coordination for new razor bike bus.
Yes.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, no, I just I wonder how I haven't been able to get over with Stephanie and see how
that's going.
And we're quite a ways into the school year now where we've probably kind of worked out
any kinks for her and I wonder if we could just do a one or two sentence on how it's
going with her and the bike bus and what we were able to accomplish for her on that.
And as that's fine as a pilot and, you know, with an eye towards piloting other schools
by right.
Exactly.
And we're going the same direction.
So we we took the bike ride with them and it was it was great enlightening.
She has given us some requests for things that we can do to improve the safety and comfort
of those routes.
And when Jandra comes back, we will be looking at those.
I just got them yesterday and we have talked to the principal of Alexander Elementary
School about doing something similar.
She's very interested.
We're connecting her up with Stephanie and we'll see if we can spread the good news.
I know Mr. Preston, the principal at Nettie Schultz is very interested in he and his staff
can't do it, obviously, but, you know, coordinating with the office to get it going.
Yeah.
So thank you for that.
I appreciate it.
You know, I just want to add that Greg Scott, Greg Scott, Greg, but you've been in front
of us before, though.
Yes, I have spoken with us before.
Maybe for people.
Yeah.
For the people.
Yeah.
I'm trying to say that Alex Alexander, as well as Tomas Rivera is sitting in that very,
you know, busy spot on that McKinney and that Woodrow Road.
So thank you all for being cognizant of that and, you know, helping us to work through
that.
Yeah.
There's a lot of kids live on those on those roadways and those apartment complexes.
Right.
All right.
Anyone else?
What about the already talked about more street and Woodrow for safety.
I'm so excited to let them know that as a matter of fact, the superintendent of schools
saw her the other evening, I was trying to feel her in a little bit on that Woodrow situation
we got there.
Tomas Rivera and those new apartments over there on Woodrow.
So she's going to be I'm going to let her know.
Anybody construction report anybody have any questions, comments, concerns regarding the
quarterly construction report?
Yes, sir.
I want to say that the hundred and forty five pages, I appreciate the master's dissertation
that we had to read and I will be honest that I'm I'm only probably a hundred pages in through
in terms of a skimming through it, but and that all sounds like snark and it's not meant
to be.
I want to praise all the staff that contributed to all those.
It's an amazingly complete set of reports for all these this and the and the other items
that are in this section with it is just chock-a-block full of data and I really want to praise you
all.
It is really demonstrative of the amount of work that engineering transportation streets
everybody capital projects is all doing.
It's an amazing amount of work and you know, I'm really glad to see that.
I hope you all get a chance to talk about it at the October 1st State of the State at
your booths, but I just want to praise you all for for that that one piece.
I do have one comment.
I think you mixed up East Windsor and Old North when you went in in the description the data
don't match the title or I mean they just got they just got mixed.
So you might just check that for a final report to put put the right elements with the right
elements.
It looked like all the data and everything was correct, but just for whatever final version
is available to the public.
You might just swap that and maybe it was just this for us that got jumbled.
But yeah, no, I appreciate everybody's efforts on all these things, you know, both you and
Dr. Butts.
Thank you.
We appreciate that.
Oh, I did have one question.
I'm not sure if it's the for this quarterly report.
Well, you know what?
I'll just save it for the matrix at the end.
All right, a quarterly transportation report.
Anybody have any transportation questions?
Okay, we're good with that.
And then the last is a five year CIP presentation email questions and answers that we move through
that.
Anybody have any additional questions, comments or concerns about that?
Whether there's no any any additional comments, questions or concerns about anything, we will
declare this meeting.
Oh, oh, I'm sorry.
Oh, I forgot to turn over the page over.
We're not in see concluding items.
Are there any concluding items?
We'll start here.
The DCTA board meeting is tomorrow for the month, if anyone is interested in watching
that.
And what time would that be?
So it's a 10 10 10 a.m. tomorrow, the CTA board meeting.
Yes, sir.
Yeah, I did have one after the after the downtown master plan came out at council, I had a couple
of questions I thought I would to the consultant, I thought I'd bring it up here to sort of
prime the pump, not really expecting any answers, but I know some of the elements of the downtown
master plan.
There were they were talking about, you know, certain new types of crosswalks, certain race
crosswalks, certain lighting and signalization.
We don't have it in the DDC right now.
We're in the transportation criteria and manual.
So I know that's a multi year plan as we go through that.
But those sorts of preamble code amendments are going to have to be in place before we
do any projects or we won't be able to do the projects because we don't have the matching
elements.
So I'm just going to encourage the team here to get that early and often so that there's
no roadblocks when we get to the policy parts and the funding parts and whatnot that we
already have those code elements ready to go so that we don't have to have a hurry up
and wait meeting for either PNC or DCRC to like fix it all of a sudden.
So I'm just going to encourage and for this group, the mobility, but I'll be bringing
it up with all the different part.
So thank you.
Council member Holly.
I am anxious to experiment with a speed table.
Is that one of the items that you're speaking of?
There were speed tables and they talked about speed cushions.
It may be the same thing.
Greg Scott, city of Denton, bike pad ADA coordinator.
So they're not exactly the same thing.
We had a presentation before I think you came on the mobility.
The basic difference is that a speed cushion has channels for emergency vehicle tires to
go through without going up and over the raised portion.
That is the difference.
And a speed table is a raised area that takes up the entire intersection?
Well, there's raised intersections.
I think the speed table is more how I know of it as similar that extends just across
the street.
Okay.
Thank you.
You okay?
Okay.
Yes.
Thank you.
I'm going to have a shout out and then a request.
So shout out to Catherine Barnett from sustainability and Brian Beck.
We were at the Texas trails and transportation conference earlier this month and Brian moderated
a panel about Denton's e-bike rebate and how successful that's been.
And we compared it with Austin energy's 10 year old e-bike rebate program.
And it was really fun to see the comparison between our, our like baby little program
versus a 10 year old and council member Beck did a great job moderating as well.
Also shout out to Gary Pack and at that same conference was on a panel about local bonds
for active transportation.
And so he was up there with somebody from Austin, Houston, and like a national guy and
Gary did a really great job too.
So that was really exciting to have Denton representatives there.
And then my request is I think it was two meetings ago and it was Scott McDonald was
in the hot seat that month, but I tried to, I tried to request that we as a committee
discuss sort of the structure of the committee and what we're focusing on to make sure we're
looking at high level policy type of stuff and try to not get too distracted by a lower
level one-off stuff.
And maybe the way I could rephrase this is, so we have a mobility plan, we have a written
mobility plan that has goals and it has strategies in it, but I don't really hear those mentioned
in presentation.
So it's hard to tell if we're implementing the plan or you know, which items attached
to which strategies or which goals in our mobility plan.
So I don't know if that needs to be a future discussion to talk about how we want to do
that or if I should just request when we have a topic come up, how does it tie into a goal
or strategy from the mobility plan?
I think you just made the request and we are listening and we'll make sure staff includes
that.
Okay.
Thank you.
And would that be something that we would discuss monthly or is this going to be a quarterly
request or?
So we're getting, I mean, sufficient information, just a better idea of when we get a presentation,
how does that tie into the stated goals or strategies within our 2022 mobility plan,
the written portion.
Similar to when we present the council as a body, we'll make sure that we include which
one is tied to which strategic priority and how that links.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for that.
No, no, I was, Frank said what I was going to say, so I'm going to shut up.
The experts speak.
No, I'm just kidding.
When is our next meeting?
It's usually the last Wednesday of the month, October the 30th.
Thank you.
Oh, that's the great Halloween day.
One thing, sort of.
Halloweeny.
So, I guess we'll thank you all for your input, concluding items, all right, no concluding
items and I guess we can, or we will conclude this meeting at 1139 a.m.
Thank you all very much.