Video Description:
Transportation Advisory Board Meeting – March 8, 2021
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
All right to my name is jack Livingston and I will call to order the march transportation advisory board meeting. And first up on our agenda is a roll call.
Unknown Speaker 0:14
David dress.
Unknown Speaker 0:21
JACK Livingston.
Unknown Speaker 0:22
Your
Unknown Speaker 0:24
partner Michelle. Here.
Unknown Speaker 0:27
Sandra Stewart.
Unknown Speaker 0:29
Present.
Unknown Speaker 0:31
Liz Osborne care. Joe long here.
Unknown Speaker 0:37
Council Member pack here. All right.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
Welcome all through looks like looks like I got off kind of easy tonight stepping in for Neil, who is unavailable tonight. So I am chairing. It looks like we have one thing that we have to vote on. And it looks like the approval of last month’s minutes. So take a look. And then if I can get a motion, we can proceed.
Unknown Speaker 1:08
I make a motion that we approve last month’s minutes.
Unknown Speaker 1:12
Thank you, David. Okay, Joe,
Unknown Speaker 1:15
please the second.
Unknown Speaker 1:18
Any discussion? Thank you guys did good. I’m not hearing any notes or discussions. So. All right. All in favor to approve the minutes say Aye. or raise your hand. All right, that’s unanimous and approved. All right, next up is communications from staff.
Unknown Speaker 1:57
Thank you, Tyler. Stay me
Unknown Speaker 1:58
on my transportation engineering
Unknown Speaker 2:00
administrator. A couple of things for you tonight. One last
Unknown Speaker 2:03
week, or last month we heard from concerned citizens on 17th Avenue and just want to follow up on that a little bit of
Unknown Speaker 2:11
additional discussion ideas. One of the things we’re looking at doing
Unknown Speaker 2:15
westbound
Unknown Speaker 2:16
17th approaching
Unknown Speaker 2:18
at would the curb, there’s definitely a change in
Unknown Speaker 2:21
the curb alignment. And so we’ll be adding some striping changes westbound to our striping work this year will be one small relatively quick thing that we can do at that location. So wanted to provide that update. You mentioned it
Unknown Speaker 2:36
a little bit earlier on but we have some some key members whose terms are are coming
Unknown Speaker 2:41
up here in a couple of months. So the the applications for those positions we really enjoyed working with all you and we’d be happy to if you’re all interested in continuing to apply or reapplying the applications will open up April 1. So keep an eye out for those.
Unknown Speaker 2:59
And then I think Phil as a quick update on 287. vrt.
Unknown Speaker 3:05
Yeah, good evening, everyone. Just really quickly, Phil Greenwald, transportation planning manager with the city. The project is moving forward for us 27 Bus Rapid Transit feasibility study. And so it looks like they’re going to be heading into some public meetings coming up pretty soon. So we’ll just keep you apprised of when those meetings are, as they come forward. We don’t have exact dates or times yet, but once they come up, we will make sure that you get them. So you can be involved in that discussion. We’ve done some work kind of at a more technical level so far. And so that’s been going well, I think we’ve just had some technical comments for the group. And so they’re getting those things positioned and, and ready for more of the outreach efforts to come. So stay tuned, and we’ll have more information to as it comes available. Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 4:03
All right. Thank you, Phil, and Tyler. Appreciate that. And Tyler, thanks for following up on that part of 17th. It’s actually in my neighborhood and every time I drive past it now. It reminds me, so thanks for staying on top of that. Next up is any public and invited to be heard. So I haven’t seen any names yet. So did we have anybody sign up for public comment?
Unknown Speaker 4:37
I didn’t have any
Unknown Speaker 4:40
Outreach at a time. I think we
Unknown Speaker 4:41
have some call on users that
Unknown Speaker 4:42
maybe that I don’t recognize. I if you want to speak up
Unknown Speaker 4:50
are able to
Unknown Speaker 4:52
please do so.
Unknown Speaker 4:59
The quiet Group tonight, I’m really not that imposing in my ear.
Unknown Speaker 5:04
Maybe Maybe we can ask the coin users to identify themselves for the sake of the meeting?
Unknown Speaker 5:11
That would be great. A good idea, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 5:17
Do we need to unmute them in some way?
Unknown Speaker 5:24
Great question.
Unknown Speaker 5:27
They will have to unmute themselves, I’m unable to do so as hosts. But
Unknown Speaker 5:31
there’s that star six.
Unknown Speaker 5:34
I believe. So.
Unknown Speaker 5:40
If the colon users are able to if they that would be wonderful if they could identify themselves and just let us know who’s out there.
Unknown Speaker 5:51
Hi, this is Anne loads, and I’m director of energy strategies and solutions I’m
Unknown Speaker 5:57
here with with Tim,
Unknown Speaker 6:00
who apparently is a host for the discussion on our Eevee charging station.
Unknown Speaker 6:10
Thanks. Thank you. And thank you for coming and listening in.
Unknown Speaker 6:14
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 6:19
Anyone else? Okay. All right. So next up, no action items. So we’ll move on to the informational items, which is our presentations. So I will hand that over. I don’t know if someone’s introduced them. Pilar would that be you or Phil?
Unknown Speaker 6:44
Oh, good evening, again. Members of the tip, wonderful to have you guys all here. And we’re very excited to have folks from RTD here as well to basically give us their annual kind of annual presentation of the update to RTD and all the different things that are happening currently. Obviously, a lot of impacts from COVID-19 that you’ll hear about tonight, but we’ll just want to go through and we have two members from the Board of Commissioners all at the staff introduce themselves as they as they get going with their different pieces of the presentation. But I would like to introduce Lynn geislinger to kind of start off with the the kind of the state of the of the district I guess as it we’re currently in 2021 and then Eric Davidson is our new board member for the for the bulk of the city of Longmont and then all the way down into Broomfield so then is more of Boulder County and just touches kind of the edge of to hover on on the west side of Longmont. So let her go first and give her about five minutes just to tell us kind of what’s going on and all the new things that are happening exciting things that are happening in an RTD Thank you
Unknown Speaker 7:59
mute.
Unknown Speaker 8:00
Thank you, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 8:00
I was gonna let that Eric go first since he since he represents Longmont but i guess i guess i’ll go ahead I actually do represent a very small corner of Southwest Longmont and is as Phil said, I represent Western Boulder County boulder Lewisville superior Lyons and in the unincorporated areas up to Neverland and, and all the way to the Continental Divide, although there’s not a lot of bus service up there. But thanks for having us. We’ve kind of been on the circuit we’ve we’ve been with the Longmont city council and Boulder, Lewisville superior a number of different places. And it’s really great. Eric and I both learned a lot talking and listening to all of you. And we hope to learn more tonight. And I see a great group of our staff with Natalie and sage and Chris and others to so I’ll be listening once we’re done. But again, thanks for having us. If things are busy at RTD, we have I guess the over the last two years, I went on the board two years again two months ago. And over the last two years, we’ve had a lot of a lot of change, a lot of change that needed to happen. As as many people know, as most of you know, and a lot of what I’ve worked on has been around some of that good governance. I represent a chair, the communications and Government Relations Committee. And in that role, you know, I’ve been working with our chair and others and the board to really try to bring back our TVs brand we kind of became known as the agency of No, and I really believe we’re on a good path at this point. We are being led now by two women. Angie Rivera, Mount piatti as our chair and then brought in the first external GM CEO in many years, and general manager and CEO Deborah Johnson. And she’s really doing a very good job of creating change. I’ve heard from heard from several people up in Boulder in this area, Boulder County around that they’re seeing a change in rtds willingness to work together with them and flexibility in some of those things. So, just just mention a couple of specific matters that I’m sure will be touched on. Otherwise, tonight. A huge issue is ridership. We lost 75% of our riders when the pandemic started. And we’re back up to I think we’re still down about 60%. I haven’t heard the most recent but I we’re starting to focus a lot on how we rebuild that ridership now that people are getting vaccinated, things are hopefully going to be opening up and people will start to go back to work and hopefully trust public transit. Again, I think some of us on the board have been pushing for pilot to try lower fares to help bring riders back, start to look at how we changed the Eco pass and some of the other passes the student passes to try to bring riders back and the significant change is that we’re hearing those things from the CEO as well that she also agrees we need to look at our fares and our our passes, she worked out a after a number of months of not being able to work anything out with a rare is she came in and worked something out to start a pilot with much lower fares there to keep them on board. And so we’re hoping that we can start to use that as as a way of looking at other options and other programs. A big piece of that is is returning service, we’re down 40% on our service, and they get into the issue of Do you wait for ridership to come back for bringing back service? Or do you bring back service to try to entice ridership, and you may learn more about that from some of the staff. But I think it’s probably a combination of both that we’ll need to be doing in the next few months.
Unknown Speaker 12:17
Northwest rail is front and center right now. The Eric may talk a little bit more about this, and others may as well, but the board had a study session just a few weeks ago. And we’re looking at updating the design study that BNSF completed several years ago, with the three articles in the boulder in Longmont papers this weekend, you may be fairly up to date on what that is. But the CEO Miss Johnson is bringing the board back a proposal, it was supposed to be in 60 days. So it’ll be sometime in April. And the proposal will be to update and the design study that BNSF completed several years ago and look at peak period rail, we really really need to get cost numbers, ridership numbers, that we need to get them in a very transparent way. And we need to get them it’s numbers that everybody agrees on. And we need to look also at the the impacts to the city’s good and bad and how we deal with those. Will it be electric trains will it be diesel, those will have different impacts as well. So we need to get the information we owe it to the voters up here. And then and then we have a new place to start the discussion to move forward with that 119 is a big issue. Thank you for hearing that from from staff as well. It is the only capital project that’s currently in the funding plans for RTD with about 33 million in 2023. And recently, just one other thing I would mention the board passed two new equitable to D policy transit oriented development, with the goal of working with developers to build at least 35%, affordable housing, try to take away some of the requirements to replace all of the parking that was there before and some of those things. So I’ll stop there. And I look forward to hearing the conversation later. If you have questions, concerns, we appreciate your feedback. And thanks so much for having us.
Unknown Speaker 14:26
Thanks, Lynn. And good to see you again.
Unknown Speaker 14:27
Yeah, it’s nice to see you.
Unknown Speaker 14:29
Thanks, Eric.
Unknown Speaker 14:32
Five more.
Unknown Speaker 14:34
In good to meet y’all. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Phil. Thank you, Lynn, for teeing it up. And I know I know many of you but but not all of you. So thank you for having me here. I think I’ll just provide a little bit more context on a few things going on in RGB. Obviously, I’m the newbie here, sworn in on January 5, although it seems like it was quite some time ago at this point. There. As I mentioned, we have a lot going on, recovering from a pandemic, not the not the least of those. I would just echo you know, something that Lynne highlighted, I give a lot of credit to our board, before me in making a difficult change, but an important one and our CEO and general manager, I have had a wonderful experience getting to know Deborah Johnson as our CEO and GM. She’s a tough leader. She’s a demanding one, but she is detail oriented. She’s an operator, she’s experienced, she knows her way around, and she’s a collaborator. And from being outside, you know, that was one thing I felt needed to change an RTD. And now being inside, I’m delighted to be a part of that change. Miss Johnson has actually spent some time getting into the weeds on issues, I have received calls from constituents that she’s personally gotten involved in. We’ve received information from cities that and problems with IGA that she’s gotten involved in. So I think we’re in a new time of collaboration. There’s a lot to do, but I feel good about some of the the adjustments that we’ve made. Obviously, as Lynn mentioned, Northwest rails and Biggie, for those of us that are up here in district I particularly in Longmont. And we did have a good study session. Last month on the ninth, it was thorough, we got caught up on some of the numbers and some of the history. And as Lynn mentioned, what comes next now is a proposal for how we proceed in 2019, because it was looking like we couldn’t do our full service for Northwest rail, we finally came up with this idea. And my predecessor was a major part of that Director lubao looking at a peak service plan. And, you know, presumably, we’ll come back from COVID. And we’ll be looking at commuter pilot patterns returning the number that was thrown out with a conservative estimate between 710 and $800 million. And it’s conservative, because there’s a lot of things we don’t know, half of that cost is BNSF costs, which is we have to go through some of the design study work to have a really better understanding of that. There’s also things like, you know, do we do electric do we do diesel, as Lynn mentioned, and we don’t have the same economies of scale, buying rail cars, if we are doing a peak service. So there’s a lot of big questions of big things we don’t know the answers to. So I’m hopeful that we can at least tackle those big ones to get a better understanding of what the cost would look like. And I think there’s a lot to talk about. And as Lynn mentioned, I think we need to do everything in a transparent way. ridership numbers have been a question that come up to me all the time. So we need to tackle those and get those get those updated. I would just say, you know, I think as Lynn said, we had some good things going on ETL D was a really exciting one. Also just highlight we have an active peer review happening right now. That is the folks that are looking at our TV and giving us a good review. It’s a good cast of characters, we have a lot of experience. So I’m looking forward to seeing the results of that. And a lot of good things going on. The other thing I would just say, you know, since Northwest Israel, we had three articles, I think over the weekend, one thing I would ask for and encourage everybody, we need to channel a lot of our energy into any partnership opportunities. Right now we’ve got a new White House, we have Amtrak looking at the corridor Talk is cheap. There’s a lot of long shots in this. But I know there are a lot of us and there’s a lot of energy, I can tell you that from the emails and the phone calls just over the last couple of weeks. So I’d love to see us all work together and go go after our federal delegates and see if we can work together and pull something off. Like bring Amtrak into the corridor. And so anyway, great to be here. I look forward to listening in on the rest of the conversation. I’ll hand off to our our staff members and have some some good updates as I understand for this evening. Thanks very Yeah, well,
Unknown Speaker 19:06
we’ll try to do is we’ll try to hold questions to the end, but I’ve got the RTD presentation. So I can certainly share that if if RTD would like that. Does that work for you? Not telling us
Unknown Speaker 19:20
how that works. Thank you. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 19:28
Great. Can you see that?
Unknown Speaker 19:29
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 19:31
Wonderful. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 19:33
Go ahead and on Lee.
Unknown Speaker 19:36
Good evening.
Unknown Speaker 19:38
Thank you. Do you want staff to introduce themselves quickly?
Unknown Speaker 19:41
Yes, please. If you could just introduce yourself as you have your, your different topic. That would be wonderful.
Unknown Speaker 19:47
Okay. Then we will do that as we go through the presentation, and Manas can go ahead and go through the slide. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 19:56
Okay, good evening, everybody. My name is monosyllable Rahman. I’m the service planners scheduler one at RTD service development North team and today I’m here with my colleagues, Natalie Sage Chris and Aaron to present an update on the local regional flex right and long range planning services in the city of Longmont. Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 20:20
I’m sorry to interrupt and feel somehow I do not see your screen all I see is viewing. Greenwald’s screen but nothing else. I have a blank set a setting on my end.
Unknown Speaker 20:33
Is everybody else able to see the screen?
Unknown Speaker 20:37
I’m able to see your screen Phil.
Unknown Speaker 20:40
Oh, Natalie. Sorry.
Unknown Speaker 20:42
Okay, yeah, I’ll go on to my Citrix and we’ll move on.
Unknown Speaker 20:49
Sorry about that. This is the rtds slide. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 20:58
So here’s the table here presents the data on fixed route, fixed local and regional route services in Longmont in both the pre COVID scenario and the current COVID scenario. In the current scenario, the routes j and ALEKS were suspended. And the frequency and service hours were reduced. Most of these outs were operating at a one hour frequency with the exception of the LD, which is operating at a two hour frequency. And we also calculated the operating costs for these routes. These costs are calculated using the in service hours for these routes as well as a cost per hour that was determined by RTD. The latest on that is $100 per hour for local routes operating in Longmont, and $120 per hour for regional routes operating in Longmont. If you look down below, you’ll see that you’ll see the total operating costs for in both the current scenario and the pre COVID scenario. You’ll notice that we are currently operating at 30% of pre pandemic service costs. So essentially, we’re operating at 30% of the cost. We’re providing 60% of pre pandemic service levels. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 22:27
Here we have the ridership data for all these routes between the years 2014 and 2020. We use the August for onboard data for all these years except for 2020, where we use the September onboard data. The reason we picked the AUG run board is because this is a run board that typically sees steady ridership as well as less holidays compared to the other run boards. So we thought it’d be a pretty accurate representation of the ridership that these routes are getting. And it’s an in 2020. The August one board was moved to September, which is why we’re using that data for 2020. And I also want to note that the route l was split into the routes LD and ellex in August 2017 which is why you’re not seeing any ridership Lido for the El Paso 2017 there. Could you go back to the previous slide, please? Thank you. The quick summary on the ridership, essentially all these routes, we’re seeing steadily growing ridership ridership from 2014 to 2019. And then in 2020, when the pandemic hit, we had a drastic decrease in ridership. And I will explain the trends in ridership in the next couple slides. Next slide, please. So here we have the ridership data for the local routes or the three hundreds. So I just want to note that in 2015, the Longmont implemented the free fair program or the free the fair buyer program, which essentially provided for you a free fare on all the local routes. So we saw a increase in ridership around 2015 and 2016, which was steadily rising. And then we did notice a decrease in ridership in 2018, which was recouped in 2019. But we weren’t we haven’t identified our costs for the for this dip in ridership yet. And then in 2020 because of the pandemic we had a drastic decrease to be specific around 60%. And this number matches what we were seeing across the entire system, the RTD system. Most of the routes experienced a 60% decrease in ridership. Next strike the next slide please. Thank you. And here we have the ridership data for all the regional routes. We noticed a different slight dip in ridership in 2018, which was recouped in 2019. This has been attributed to the route l being split into the routes LD and LX And after about a year of adjustment period, we recoup that ridership and it was steadily growing. And then in 2020, because of the pandemic, we again saw the 60% decrease in ridership, which once again matches what we were seeing across the entire system. Next slide, please. So here we have the data on the flex ride services in Longmont. The table here presents the operating hours as well as the number of operating vehicles for flex ride services. Unlike the fixed route services, flex ride is currently operating at 25% of its pre pandemic service levels. And so you can see this kind of reflected in the decrease in service levels during the pandemic as well as the decrease in operating vehicles.
Unknown Speaker 25:47
Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 25:52
And here we have the average weekday boardings data for flex ride. In 2015, we saw a decrease in boardings and this is attributed to the implementation of the fare buyer program, obviously saw a lot of the ridership moved to the three hundreds, specifically route 324, that’s all a lot of boardings, and which is why we were seeing a decrease in ridership in flex ride in 2015, and 2016. And then in 2020, because of the pandemic, we saw that Stark decrease in ridership again, if you see, look at the pan 2021 board, we saw that 60% decrease, which matches what we were seeing across the entire system. But I do want to note that in the subsequent run boards, we’re seeing a slow but steady increase in ridership. And we’re hoping that this trend continues on into the future run boards. And from here I will hand over the presentation to my colleague Natalie.
Unknown Speaker 26:55
Yes, good evening, everyone. And again, thanks for having us. Since I can’t see Phil’s screen, I will have to kind of go back and forth onto my laptop to go through this. I think I have three slides. So please bear with me for a minute. I guess if you have the first slide up Phil, then.
Unknown Speaker 27:16
Yeah, just making adjustments to the local network.
Unknown Speaker 27:19
Okay. Alrighty, that’s it. So, um, and yeah, just real quick. My name is Ashley handleless. I’m the lead or senior service planner for North team. My colleagues are Madison subrahmanya. She just joined us in September and we’re very happy to have her we have Sage tomberg on with us as well. He’s been service planning with us for a little over two years now has ever second oversee was March 4. We also have Chris Quinn from planning. And then we have Aaron by hosts who took over basically and for Brian Matthews, which he I think you all will probably remember for our special services. And she pretty much took over indictment by fire. And she’s been doing a fantastic job you get to check in with her a little later in regards to flex right as well if you’d like. So for update on the global network, the those who were here. Last year you saw this presentation. Well, we went ahead and completed the same highway 119 BRT study in 2019. And again, Chris will also give a little bit more information as to where we’re at with 119 at this point. The study included a local bus network plan for long long specifically has a wonderful long name. As you can see on the slide, we made sure that we did a very extensive approach. So we hired an external consultant TMD we coordinated pretty heavily with city along on staff as Phil can probably attest to. We included it in the final state highway 119 BRT project document so that it becomes part of the overall 119 BRT plan. And we set it up so that it will be phased as route changes become boring. And those potential adjustments we could which could become warranted depending on how things change due to development, etc, etc. Couldn’t be routing service level service bands or applications. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 29:28
And I hope Just tell me when it’s there. So you’ve got this there. Okay, got demands on the left and
Unknown Speaker 29:39
on the left, you have the current network. On the right you have the proposed feeder network plan that is in conjunction with state highway 119 BRT, so you can see there are a few changes mainly to the east and to the south west. And the east, a route fixed route out to the Walmart and The hospital which I know is something that people have been looking for, as well as the adjustments on the south west part with the redevelopment of the mall. And then also still considering that service out to the high school, specifically for school trippers. And this study was done and that the the adjustment was done with a lot of input from staff and from stakeholders. And it also took into consideration obviously, where the stations for the 119 BRT network are to be. So we really did an extensive plan and took our time to get this right. Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 30:48
making adjustments local network.
Unknown Speaker 30:51
That’s right. Always flexible. That’s that’s what it is. So you can just see, real quick the the change in weekday platform hours, from what it is current and what is proposed, and what the difference in service hours is. So for weekday, it is basically an increase of about 20%. And the same for Saturday, it’s an increase of about 20%. And for Sunday, it’s even as much as an increase of 40% of in service hours. So almost a doubling of service of Sunday, and a significant increase, or notable increase for the weekday and Saturday. And that is by taking some of the hours from current routings and shifting them around that you can see there are more routes in the proposed and in the current, that means that we’re looking to basically split routes, because some routes, like the 323 are almost two separate routes as they are they have that Southern western portion. And then the North north eastern portion, and the ridership is, is quite different. And a lot of these folks, a lot of these customers transfer at currently eighth and Kauffman, and so by by splitting the route and allowing the tail so to say to be more flexible, it allows us to adjust the network have more frequency or different frequency on one section than on the other. And so again, coming back to phasing the flexibility to move along as things become warranted because we all know things can change. And as we’ve noted, the last year can change in a heartbeat. So that’s all I have for now we can most certainly go into more detail if you have questions afterwards. And I’m going to hand it off to Chris.
Unknown Speaker 32:49
Hi, everyone, this is Chris Quinn with our whip RTD with RTD planning. A couple things that I’m going to be talking about are the Northwest rail and status of state highway 119. Can you go to the next slide, Phil? So as director guys sooner, and Dr. Davidson did note, on February 9, we staff went to the board to provide an update on where we stand with Northwest we are given the history, the status of where we are now. All of just kind of how we got to where we are. And one of the things and that is I was going through the report trying to come up with what to present tonight it was it was came on was a little bit overwhelming. But a few things that I do want to emphasize in the next couple of slides to show where we are, are as follows just I think most of you have been plugged in to the process long enough to know that one of the biggest challenges that we have related to this corridor is the fact that actually can you go to the next slide fill the Northwest rail is the only one of the fast tracks corridors where RTD was not able to either all out purchase or come up with a full full on lease agreement for the right of way. So of all the rail corridors, this one, we will have to have a unique arrangement with the BNSF. Currently, it’s a single track corridor, meaning there’s just one set of tracks out there. And if we were to establish the full service in the corridor, we would have to construct a full set of tracks parallel to the existing tracks. If we were to go with the starter service, which Director geislinger referenced earlier on. The intent of that is that we might be able to use use the existing infrastructure with fewer improvements and I’ll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. But in order to have passenger service on the corridor, we would be sharing the corridor with freight Service BNSF intends to keep their freight operations going right now they have about eight to 10 trains a day. And they expect that number to either continue to be constant or go up in the future. Given the fact that we would be sharing operations with the free services, we would have to have what is known as a federal railway administration crashworthy vehicle, meaning that it has to have extra protections more than the light rail that you see in parts of Denver. So that if a freight train were to derail and collide with one of our train the passenger trains, that there would be adequate protection for the passengers. Another unique thing about the corridor is, even though the BNSF is currently running freight through there, there is no signalization in railroad parlance, that is its dark territory, meaning that the trains are dispatched in and out. If we were to add passenger service in, we would have to install signalization. And we would also have to install what is known as positive train control. That’s a new federal requirement. That actually, for lack of a better way to describe it, it’s almost if, as an example, if a if an operator were to go through a signal that they shouldn’t be going through, the positive train control would actually stop the train from going any further to provoke to prevent a collision. And then we would add, obviously, and I think this was addressed in the northwest environmental evaluation that was completed in 2001 2010, we would in fact, have to establish quiet zones throughout the corridor. And that’s I think, Boulder County has already started implementing some of those on the road, but it would pretty much have to implement those on all of the crossings throughout the corridor. And I think there’s approximately 40 between Westminster and Longmont. Next slide, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 37:10
And Chris, we we have a Christie grant for that. So $4 million from federal government $4 million from the city. So we’re working on that. So we’ll just ask for our money back, I guess at some
Unknown Speaker 37:22
point your year ahead of us.
Unknown Speaker 37:24
I forgot I’d forgotten that though. So yeah, thanks for reminding me on that. Sure. Just a few things on the full Northwest service. Initially, the intent to the northwest rail as part of the fast tracks plan was that it would run from Union Station to Longmont. And currently the only piece of that hit that has been constructed is the segment to Westminster station. So there still is about 38 miles to construct. To complete the corridor all the way to Longmont, the initial service envision 55 trains per day. And with bi directional service running at 30 minute peak, or 30 minute rush hour frequencies and one hour non rush hour. As I said earlier, that would assume a double track. So a new set of tracks being laid out throughout the corridor as well as fra compliant vehicles, and a new maintenance facility for those vehicles. Next slide film. Whereas the peak period service or the starter service, which was considered just started, a few years ago, we started the analysis of that. So in working with the stakeholders, we came up with a possible plan there and the intent was to significantly reduce the capital costs by using the the existing infrastructure that’s out there right now. So in this case, could we get by with a just the single track configuration that’s out there right now. And if that’s the case, we would we realize all we would need would be passing tracks or the railroads referred to as sightings. So that if there were a freight train in the corridor, the freight train could park on the siding or the passing track while the passenger service went through the cost for that we had estimated to be about 708 million. But as director Davidson emphasized, we wanted to keep the cost as conservative as possible, especially as it related to the acquisition of right away. So it’s certainly a number that needs more refinement. And next slide, Phil. Then also, as Director geislinger mentioned at the beginning, there are some parallel efforts that are going on at the same time that this is going on. Specifically, the state formed in 2017 this Southwest chief passenger rail commission. And with that was the establishment of the Front Range passenger rail study which identified potential corridors along the Front Range. One of those corridors would run from Fort Collins to Pueblo and one of the alignments in that would would in fact, use the Northwest rail. So that’s one of the considerations, one of the alternatives that’s under consideration. Next slide fill. And then along with that, also, Amtrak has as part of their modernization effort, they’re looking at corridors of approximately 400 miles or less in between major population centers, that they’re really trying to focus on his areas that were flights, Air Service doesn’t really work but would be right for passenger rail. And one of the corridors under consideration would be the Fort Collins to Pueblo, Fort Collins, Colorado spring, the way the federal reauthorization of transportation funds works, the corridors that are chosen, they could have up to 100% of the capital costs covered. And then the initial first five years of operating costs could be covered as well. So it’s certainly something you know, we’re trying to position our working in a way so that we can position ourselves so that if something comes up with either the state or with Amtrak, we are ready to go. And as both directors Geisinger and Davidson did say, after the February 9 meeting, we did commit to coming back to the board with a with a path forward are actually couple alternatives to present to the board on paths forward for the consideration on how we might have reconsider the service on the northwest. So I will leave it at that. And then I think the next slides are related to a state highway one Oh, excuse me before that the first and Main Station update, next slide film. So not sure how much the Advisory Board has been apprised of this.
Unknown Speaker 42:23
It previously as part of fast tracks $17 million was set aside for the Longmont downtown Longmont station. So we have been working closely with the city on coming up with what is called an infrastructure master plan or an imp trying to determine given some of the unique challenges to that particular site. How could we foster a plan that would accommodate both new mixed uses that the city would like to see on the site as well as satisfy the needs of RTD for a future rail station, and a multi motor multi modal facility where we could also focus bus operations for the state highway 119, future bus rapid transit service. So we’ve been working with the city on that analysis that has been mostly completed and included the slideshows, boundary survey drainage analysis and that sort of stuff, as well as a phasing concept. So now that that’s been mostly completed, my understanding is and I haven’t worked on this, my understanding is that it’s substantially complete. And at this point, just addressing comments in the from the final plan.
Unknown Speaker 43:43
Right, Chris? I can chime in real quick, but your staff met today. So we, the city staff did review the document and did give comments and feedback. And now RTD staff engineering is in service buying and systems planning is reviewing it. And we will once we have all our comments combined send it back to the city there will be a few items we will have to talk over and clarify. But the imp is moving forward steadily.
Unknown Speaker 44:17
And I don’t know Phil, if there’s anything else you would like to add on to that as well. Since I know you’ve been fairly, you and Tony have been pretty deep involved with that.
Unknown Speaker 44:27
Yeah, I mean, I can add a couple of things. It’s just that the city did go through and review that piece. And now we do need to get to the kind of the nitty gritty and what’s you know, who does what, when those kinds of things and that’s going to get into an intergovernmental agreement between RTD in the city of Longmont. So that’ll be kind of that next step. And then at that point, we’re hoping, hoping that we can go forward with property acquisitions and start drawing against the $17 million set aside Well, $17 million that was set aside by RTD for this project. And that’s kind of that next step.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
Okay, thanks. Okay, then the next slide is related to state highway 119. So I know we were we addressed the advisory board about a year ago and at that time, we had completed the state highway 119 p e L, or the planning and environmental linkage study. And at that time, the recommendation coming out of the P e l was for a bus rapid transit, similar to what’s going what was would similar to what’s out there on us 36, so that there would be a managed lane in the center, that lane would be for buses, tolls, and high occupancy vehicle users. So and with that, the next steps that have happened since the completion of that study is see dad is now moving forward with a an operational study to an operational analysis, I should say, to determine exactly how the managed lanes would function on state highway 119. Unlike us, 36 119, at least along my diagonal piece of it has signalized intersections, and there isn’t anywhere in the US or North America that we know of where there have been managed managed toll lanes, with grade separate or with a signalized intersections. So they’re currently conducting an operational analysis to determine how it would work. They have a consultant Apex on board. And I think that efforts supposed to be completed in the next couple of months. When they finish that they are going to begin what is known as a traffic and revenue study, then to determine what kind of tolling rates they could establish on the corridor or with Natl determine then how much money the corridor can raise from tolls, which can determine then how much money they can leverage on future tolls. As far as determining financing method financing mechanisms for construction of the corridor. The other thing that and this is really the big piece is they have also engaged Moeller engineering to come up to begin the engineering design the corridor. So when the design begins, then we’ll start to know exactly what the configuration of the lines will be, they will also be working on the design of the BRT stations as well. So that will really get a better sense of how the corridor is going to function. Right now, RTD, as part of our mid term financial plan, we have $30 million designated for 2023. That will go to the corridor. And we’ve also put in a request, as part of the consideration for this next year’s midterm financial plan to accelerate 5 million of those dollars so that we can kind of move forward a little bit faster on some of the design issues. So that if with the new administration, there are if there is some federal funding that becomes available, we’re more ready to go and can jump into this a little bit faster. So I think what do I can’t remember, I’ve any more slides on that show. Oh, and just as a, I threw this in there, just to show if any of you were around when you were 36 was being put together, the the total cost for the quarter was way more than any one any cause more than any one of the agencies or entities had. And in this case, the total cost we’re thinking for the corridor is I want to say 200. And forgetting the number now 200 and maybe 70 million. And when so far, we’ve really only been able to identify 93 million, but using the model of us 36. At the beginning, we didn’t have enough money. But RTD was able to come to the table with 300 million from fast tracks, then we were able to get a we were able to get a loan, I think we even got an earmark. See that was then able to come to the table with more money. And the point being money kind of brings in money. So the more money you have, the more money you can leverage in future grants. So our hope is at least having money that has been identified. We can use that too as part of our local match for future grants as we move forward, and I think that’s it for a 119 so
Unknown Speaker 49:45
great, thank you. I think that’s the presentation from RTD really appreciate your time Good job Chris and handling kind of a interesting situation there look like so inflexible Are there any questions from our team members to any of the different slides on this or to any of the directors to direct the Davidson or director, guy singer. And I’ll let jack kind of take care of that.
Unknown Speaker 50:17
Alright, thanks. Yeah, I, unfortunately, I can’t see folks. So if you’re raising your hand, I can’t see you. So just jump right in there.
Unknown Speaker 50:28
Thank you, Phil.
Unknown Speaker 50:31
Any questions for our guests? David.
Unknown Speaker 50:38
For one thing I hadn’t realized I guess during the previous presentations about the the diagnol Bus Rapid Transit that we were looking at making that a Tollway so that I guess maybe I just missed that before.
Unknown Speaker 50:53
So
Unknown Speaker 50:55
is that a new development? That’s one question. And the other one is, is that you’d mentioned that you kind of anticipated possible passenger rail at 55 trains a day and freight and eight trains a day, which might go up. And then you mentioned that the freight is likely to move over when the train when the passenger trains go by and I thought I couldn’t see that happening with 55 trains, they never make it never make it. And yeah, I’m curious as to what, what you really think is going to happen? Yeah, let
Unknown Speaker 51:31
me answer the second question first. So related to the training. So in the scenario with the 55 trains per day, that would in fact, require a full double tracking of the system. So we would have to add a complete new set of tracks parallel to the existing tracks throughout the entire corridor. Or, as you point out, there’s just no way that that can possibly work unless all of the freight trains were to go through the corridor between like two and 4am, which, you know, BNSF is not going to let happen with the starter service with the proposal of the three trains in in the morning that would originate in Longmont, and then head down the corridor south to Denver. So just one way in the morning into Denver, and then the reverse in the afternoon, that’s where we would employ the passing tracks to allow for the mixing of the operations on the single track operation. But even that, I’m trying to remember BNSF did come up with some plans for us on what that could look like in terms of where the passing tracks would have to be. And I’m trying to remember the number whether it was there was at least three or five. And each one of those passing tracks has to be more than a mile long, given the length of the of the freight trains that go through there. So while it’s significantly less investment than double tracking the entire corridor, there is still some work that will go into it. So we’re not just you know, plopping down trains into what’s out there right now with no upgrades. So and your first question, I believe, was on the the tolling for State Highway 119. Yeah, so the final recommendation that came out of the study was for a manage lane. And that’s what that is, in fact, what we had taken out to the public. It with the intent of it functioning similar to the way us 36 operates, so free to buses, free to car pools, but any anyone else in a single occupant car or two occupant car would have to pay the toll to use the facility. Okay, thank you.
Unknown Speaker 53:44
Any other questions? from the board? Um, I was gonna ask a quick question, Chris. Since we’re on the topic of rail, I was reading an article in The New York Times this weekend. And it said something interesting. And I was just curious if you knew this, this has to do with M track. So you may or may not know the answer. But they cited that Amtrak actually had priority on a rail line. Is that true? The highways after
Unknown Speaker 54:15
I read that article and and I’m not going to try to venture into the legal aspects of that, my understanding is and so we’ll get back to to make sure that whatever I say tonight is actually correct. But my understanding of that is, theoretically they have priority, but they have to be able to keep the freight operations whole. And so what often happens is the freight still in reality, the freight still has priority often over the passenger services. So now in the case of say, the Northeast Corridor, all of that, if between Boston and Washington, DC all of that operates on its own track. And there’s segments and other segments of the Northeast where that’s also the case. Were in some of the busier corridors on other corridors. And I remember experiencing this in western Massachusetts several years ago. Yeah, all of a sudden the Amtrak train comes to a halt, the conductor gets on, announces they’re waiting for a freight train to get through. So my understanding is that Yeah, they have priority, but it doesn’t work that way. But we can come up I’ll we’ll get back to you with a more refined answer the my anecdotal Western Massachusetts experience.
Unknown Speaker 55:34
And yeah, just so you know, that’s my anecdotal is wells, Western and Boston. Yes, forth all the time. So I remember giving way to the freight trains as we are venturing into the city. Okay, Thanks, Chris. The other questions I had, well, first one’s a comment. I just wanted to give some kudos to the flex ride. I know it’s kind of a relatively new service. I’ve you know, personally experienced the flex ride, I think it’s a great service for Longmont. It’s good to see the data that was presented tonight. So thank you for that. And then on the local rides, I was curious, I I just keep coming back to the same question every time I see the local data, which is do we know who’s writing? Do we have demographic data? Have we done a survey? I just I feel like I need to know who’s using the service so that I can better understand how it’s being used in the expansion and all this.
Unknown Speaker 56:36
Sure, thanks for asking the question. The last survey we did, specifically for the North area, free COVID. We were on a three year cycle between the various teams. The last one we did was in 2017. So we were due last year. I know that RTD internally is working on a customer service survey on board survey. So we will gather more recent data. In that regard. We do have data, I know from a another customer service that was done regionwide in 2015. So is 2015. Still the same as today? Maybe not. But we were more than happy to share that data with you when the this next survey is done. I’ll make sure that Jeff 10 grish is aware of that. And as soon as we have that available, we’ll be happy to share it.
Unknown Speaker 57:37
That would be great. I look forward to it once we can get back to
Unknown Speaker 57:42
the concern I understand ridership. The demographics in Longmont are different specifically than many other areas within the metro region, concentration wise. So we’re well aware of that. And we’re keeping a close eye on that as well. And that’s part of the reason why we did with the local network plan, what we did to allow for as much flexibility as possible to address changes in demographics and socio economic changes, etc. as best as possible.
Unknown Speaker 58:22
Thank you. Thank you, Natalie, I appreciate that. And yeah, given the growth up here, I would be highly surprised if we’re not a lot different from 2019. Just it seems like every three months, things are changing up here in Longmont. We’re growing by leaps and bounds. Alright, any other questions from the group? JOHN Pat, Councilmember john Peck.
Unknown Speaker 58:48
Thank you. Um, I want to thank all the directors as well as the RTD staff. This was a great presentation. And all your hard work, it’s really showing. Chris, I was wondering if this presentation, are we going to give incremental updates to the public? I know we had the transportation conversation, but keeping the public informed as to our progress, what we’re doing and where we’re going. Do you have any of those plans for the general public?
Unknown Speaker 59:20
I don’t have a good answer for you right now. But as as we did note earlier, we will be going to the board sometime probably in April to determine what Caf we want to take forward. So with that, and I’m kind of speaking a little bit prematurely, but I think what we’re going to go is presenting probably like three options to the board based on your effort, cost, etc. So within those varying tiers, there’s probably going to be different levels of public engagement that would be associated with it. So can’t answer that level will probably have a better sense of
Unknown Speaker 59:58
what that will be
Unknown Speaker 59:59
in Little more than a month or so.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:02
Okay, great. Thanks. I look forward to it.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:09
All right. Yeah, I want to echo that thank you so much for for coming and presenting. This is one of my annual days that I always look forward to. I love seeing the new data and seeing where we are and where we’re going. So Oh, look at that john pack has even got the applause going
Unknown Speaker 1:00:29
there.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:31
We appreciate it as well, we appreciate that we can come and share this information with you. That said, Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:38
Thank you for having us.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:41
Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:43
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:47
All right. So moving on to the next item here. I see Eb station 2020 summary and rate analysis.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
And jack, thank you, Tim Ellis is going to join us It looks like he’s a joining us again as hosts. So we’re
Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
gonna we’re gonna go with it. And him has some good information to share with this group.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:08
So he’s our renewable energy strategy manager.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:12
So thanks for joining us tonight, Tim. And
Unknown Speaker 1:01:15
Where’s yours?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:17
Thanks, everyone. Thank you board members for allowing me to present tonight. I am the renewable energy strategy manager at Loma Patrick communications. And tonight I’m going to be presenting I guess I’ll share my screen. I’ll be doing the presenting. So I will do that right now. Sorry for the delay. Can everyone see that screen the presentation?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:49
I can see it. I think you’re good.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:52
Thanks. So yeah, my name is Tim Ellis. Tonight I’m going to be presenting on the 2020 summary of our publicly owned or city owned TV charging stations, and also talking about our upcoming rate determinations. So you as you know, electric vehicles and these electric vehicles station plans are an important piece of the city’s overall transportation plan. The sustainability plan includes it to reduce harmful out air emissions. The Climate Action Plan has Evie discussions and strategies to reduce greenhouse gases, and our republican fleet of electric vehicle education and support as well as increasing electric charging infrastructure also embedded in our new plans, the carbon free, equitable transportation roadmap. All of these include discussions and strategies around EBS. And as you can see from this map, we do now have five electric vehicle stations available to the public. They’re located north to south in the city at the memorial at the FCC, between men and kimbark. In the garage at the library, that one was installed just last year. And we also have one down at the museum and one at the service center. So a summary of some of the data that we collect who all of our stations are now charge point, we switch them over in 2019. The for an original ones and the last one we installed at the library last year is also a charge point. Charge point allows us to get a lot of different kinds of data. So we monitor and track different pieces of data that we would use to to see how the stations are being used and and what rates and things like that, as I present tonight, the first piece of data for 2020 we had over 40,000 kilowatt hours of use at our all five stations. And this, this is associated with some greenhouse gas savings. When we when chargepoint actually put these numbers together to compare if someone had driven a certain amount of miles with a car and chart and ran on gas versus running on electricity. The calculated savings was over 17 metric tons of carbon dioxide for 2020. And this graphic kind of shows just a basic comparison between a standard vehicle in this case it’s a Subaru Outback, and a standard electric vehicle like the Nissan LEAF. And the two important circled points here are buying buying and driving on one gallon of gas. If you do the equivalent amount in a for the equivalent cost in electric you get over 90 miles of extra driving mileage. You also save a significant amount of money over the year. This is if you drive over 12,000 miles per year, typical electric driver will see over $1,000 in savings versus the same amount of driving in an A in a gas car. Or in this graphic just lays out month to month, the number of sessions in a session is each time a vehicle plugs into the station. So we had almost 4000 sessions in 2020. And here are the number of unique drivers, and is a breakdown by each station of how many unique individual people actually access to the driver. So the same driver can go to the station multiple times that this is not that number. This is actually each unique person that has plugged into our stations throughout the city. And the total comes to about 342 that have used it in 2020. You can see here that the library only had 13. But that was because we just got the library station online in September of 2020. So I’ve only had a few months to get up and running and get people accessing it.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:11
And this table shows kind of a breakdown of different types of data that we’re tracking for each station. The first column is the available hours. That is that each station has two ports. And obviously there are at 1760 hours per year. So with this number, we’re just we’re just adding up all the available hours that each port or station are available. So for instance, service center was available all year round last year, and both parts ports were available. So the total was 17,520 hours, whereas the museum was down for repairs at the end of the year last year. So I had a little less. And as I said in the previous slide, the library just got online in September, so it only had a little over 4000 available hours. This number is important when we look at the next two, which are charging time and the time at station. The charging time is how how many hours during the year that a car was actually charging off the station. And the time at the station was how long they’re plugged in. So we expect there to be more time plugged in than actual charging. But as we can see the last column which is charged in while plugged in, I know it gets a little we’re all over the place. But the last column really shows that you know, customers who came in to charge generally charged, they may, they might have been there a little longer than they were charging. But they generally got off soon after they finished charging their car. So let’s see the numbers in the high 70s and an 80 percents, where that’s how long the car was actually charging while it was plugged into the station. That’s an important number for us to keep an eye on because we don’t want people plugging in and leaving for the day and then taking up that spot and not allowing other electric vehicles to potentially come in and charge at that same port. At a time charging versus available hours is an important one too. So we can see how long, how much each day that our car that cars were actually plugged in and charging at our stations to see how they were utilized. And it’s those numbers vary quite a bit. But you can see at the memorial and DSC stations that 16 and 20 percents a pretty high number because we considering the available hours is 24 hours a day. So if someone have vehicles, they’re 20% of the time, that’s actually a very high for an electric vehicle charging amount versus billable hours. Next, so the stations were changed out to charge point in 2019. And like I said last year, we put the library station in. So customers and our you know people will come into the city and live in the city have had free charging for those stations for the past almost two years. Now. Prior to that we had another vendor had the stations at those four initial locations and we charged $1 an hour during that time period. But after we changed them out, we wanted folks to get you know re associated with with the new stations and find where they are. We put some information up on the web where our stations were so we wanted to get people reengaged with the stations. And we feel that it’s been enough time so folks know where they are and and how to use the new chargepoint stations. So at this time, we felt it was appropriate to start charging. Folks who were coming to use those stations because you know they do cost money they do use electricity. So some of the things we use to calculate the rate that we anticipate having or the cost of electricity, ever average hours of charging so that we can recoup the costs of depending on how long the vehicle is charging, purchase and installation of the stations. Station maintenance and repair. We have five years Maintenance repair contracts for all the stations. And there are certain wiring metering costs as well as administration. But we also deducted from that total amount of funds that we use to operate and purchase the stations, we had a rebate from state of Colorado, which was very substantial. So we actually took that rebate out of the total cost. And we ended up coming up with about $1 an hour as an appropriate charge, which is what we charged previously. And what are nearby cities, Boulder, Loveland and Fort Collins are charging $1 an hour, it’s a pretty standard rate for Evie, charging stations, and are all the costs added up and, and, you know, appropriated. We came out just about that. So so we would be able to recoup our costs for that rate.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
And just a bigger picture a slide here. You know, the graph on the right is from the Colorado Evie plan for 2020. And they hit the charts three different scenarios for Evie purchases over the next 10 years or so. The first one, the orange one, the lowest one is business as usual. The second the middle one is the actual plan that Colorado has come up with. And then there’s a high scenario to that plan. But neither case really looking at a tremendous expectation for for vehicles in Colorado electric vehicles up to upwards of three quarters of a million to over a million potentially. And it does interesting quote from a study that Rocky Mountain Institute did that if we electrify all of our light duty vehicles in the US, that would increase electricity demand by about 25%. So so it’s no, it’s quite a substantial, you know, impact on our roads on our, you know, on our electric grid on our air emissions. So there’s there’s significant impacts with all the expectations that were that that have been thought to that are going to occur over the next 10 years. So it’s something substantial that we really need to consider. And the next steps for for just this presentation, are we’re going to present to the sustainability board, the 17th. Next Wednesday, we are presenting to City Council on the 30th following council approval of that new rate. We’re going to be educating the community about implementing the right move over the next few months. And then the summer we intend to actually start charging customers that ballot Grauer at the stations. That’s pretty much all I have. Any questions?
Unknown Speaker 1:12:46
David, I see your hand raised there. Um,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:50
I think I might have saw something in the presentation in our packet talking about
Unknown Speaker 1:12:55
expanding
Unknown Speaker 1:12:57
the locations of the station’s or maybe I’m Miss read that but are there right?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:03
Did you discuss that? Or do you have anything planned that you can talk about?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:10
Well, no, at this time, that’s true, we that we are what we’re doing is we’re monitoring the usage. And we’re kind of looking at how the markets going to unfold. So we want to encourage Evie use and we want to make the infrastructure available. But the market is changing. So dynamically right now, whether it’s the public entities, cities that are going to install stations or private businesses, it’s still kind of up in the air where who’s going to drive that market in the future. And Colorado State of Colorado is doing a lot of effort and putting a lot of money into building you know, highways of, of electric charging stations across the major routes in Colorado. So so we’re kind of keeping our eye on it. But we’re we’re looking to where it would make the most sense for for Longmont, and we want to do it in a smart way. So we’re kind of waiting to see where a good place would be and then we’ll study it. And we’ll we’ll put ones out there that we think are the best solution for for our residents. But we don’t have any plans for the next one direct link specifically, but we are it isn’t the plants we want to put more in. We just want to do it in the most intelligent strategic way possible. Thank you
Unknown Speaker 1:14:26
see Sandra’s hands raised and if you’re raising your hand and I can’t see you just tell me.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:32
Thank you. So So tell me how would you pay if you were charging your electric vehicle? Did you pay by credit card? Is that like you would at a gas station or how did you get the money?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:46
Yeah, and that’s one of the great things about charge point. They have a whole mechanism to charge they what you do when you you have an iPhone and you sign up on charge point you have to put a credit card in no matter what even if, if it’s phrased they’ll put a credit They coordinate the charge point, but they send you a barcode, you scan it right on on the station, and it charges the card, then charge points will collect that money for us and send us a check every month.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:12
Okay, thank you. JACK, this
Unknown Speaker 1:15:18
is Joe lung. Thanks, Joe.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:20
A question that keeps bouncing around in my mind as we’re driving are our goals are to pretty significantly increase Evie utilization. And I started looking then at concurrent use. And although we’ve got these linear measurements of available hours, we are still faced with a pretty big challenge of concurrent use. So seven people show up to charge the vehicle. Is the fee that we’re proposing to charge include an allowance for expansion. In other words, is there some kind of
Unknown Speaker 1:15:54
profitability? Or is that just a cost covering fee?
Unknown Speaker 1:15:58
For now is that’s a it’s a great question because we want to be able to recoup our costs, the cost that we’ve already put in and the ongoing costs. But as there is more usage, the cost is based on the value on on actual charging times, because it’s $1 an hour. So the more customers that actually utilize those stations, the more revenue is going to be brought in. So that kind of as the market goes up. And as more people purchase in state, ease and use the stations, the collected revenue from the stations will go up allowing us to expand so there is kind of a built in allowance to expand out as more vehicles are using our stations, if that makes sense. It is just great. Thank
Unknown Speaker 1:16:41
you.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:43
Liz, did you have a question?
Unknown Speaker 1:16:46
I do.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:48
The question I have is how do we begin charging for electricity? Is there any conversation about moving what had been paid for by the gas tax
Unknown Speaker 1:16:57
to these electric vehicles?
Unknown Speaker 1:17:01
made for road up keeping that same type of thing? Exactly. I haven’t really explored that yet. That’s a federal and state issue, mostly. But I obviously we have to deal with it on a local basis. But we have not included that in our our cost analysis at this time. You know, we only have the five stations up. And again, I think it greatly depends on how that market ends up being driven. If it becomes a commercial marketplace, or is it more of a public marketplace? So it’s a lot to be determined on that front. But that’s a that’s an excellent question. That’s something that we’re going to have to figure out as, as more gas cars are replaced, and that tax decreases. We’re going to be short of funding for for needed transportation upgrades and maintenance and repair. Yeah, for sure. But no, that’s not in this current number.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:51
Great question.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:53
Yeah, it’s actually in the state of Oregon, when they were going through that about four or five years ago, they had such a high percentage of electric vehicles, they started looking at a tax based on number of miles per year, rather than the gas tax. So that’s how that’s how they solved it. Any other questions? I just had one, Tim, thanks for a great presentation there. I noticed some new e V’s going in at the Walmart up on Main Street. And I was just wondering, is that city or is that private?
Unknown Speaker 1:18:29
That’s private, then that’s, you know, that’s part of the issue. Let me see if I can stop. Sure. That’s part of the issue is figuring out where these stations and who is going to be put them in. But those are private stations. And there’s more and more going in all all the time. And they have really interesting, I was looking at some of the ways that they pay for their own stations, a lot of these big box retailers or other grocery stores, use reward points. You know, if you have reward points, you can plug in at the store and get your car charged for free. So there’s all sorts of interesting incentives and, and cost recovery out there. That’s still in the very nascent stages of this market. So So yeah, so those are those are private, but
Unknown Speaker 1:19:09
and that’s why we got to be careful where we put them because we don’t want to put up all the money and put them down and and not have folks use them. Yeah. And the other question I was going to think of is, since we’re using public funds, then we have to be careful not to undercut private because you you, you can’t, you can’t basically use public funds to undercut competition in from the private sector.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:34
Exactly. We don’t want to compete if that’s going to be happening in the market. Regardless of what we do. We want to encourage that. So, so that’s why we also have to be careful. Yeah, very good. All right.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:50
Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you hanging in there.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:52
All right, great. Yeah. Thanks for letting me host the meeting. Thanks, everybody. Take off I won’t host anymore.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:01
Thanks. Alright, let’s see. Next item up is comments from board members. And so I’ll just go in the order on my screen here. So Liz, you’re at the top of my screen here.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:15
Just thanks to everyone I really enjoyed the information, especially to the cooperation between the city and RTD. is they thought carefully about where routes need to go in the future. I
Unknown Speaker 1:20:27
thought it was clear. Good that I got into that.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:29
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:33
Thank you, Joe. How about you go next year?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:37
Sure. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 1:20:38
honestly, I was left with a lot
Unknown Speaker 1:20:40
of questions after seeing the RTT RTD data.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:45
And
Unknown Speaker 1:20:46
honestly, you probably want to spend some more time with others to see ultimately how some of these
Unknown Speaker 1:20:53
routing recommendations are made. When you see some of the trending of utilization pre COVID relative to Longmont population growth, the numbers don’t seem to be correlating.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:05
So that’s that’s
Unknown Speaker 1:21:06
part of where my questions are?
Unknown Speaker 1:21:08
semi. That makes sense.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:12
Yes, it sure does. Yes. And hopefully, we will get some demographic data later this year, at least on the local routes. Sandra, I have you Next up here.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:27
I do have questions about RTD and the routing. And so I’m interested in having more information on that I want to make sure that the people that rely on RTD are getting the best service possible and getting where they need to get. But I question when the bus starts at eight o’clock in the morning and ends at six. If you’ve got a job that’s late at night, or, you know, you can get to work but you can’t get home. So I have questions about that. And I really appreciate the information about the Eevee stations, because really I know nothing about electric cars. But I do know that we need to be working towards that. So I thought I heard in this state that they were over the next five years we were supposed to have, it seems like hundreds of stations added along different routes. So I know that’s coming, and I need to know more about it. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:27
Thank you. Yeah, it sounds like we need to get some more wind farms going here. Right. 25% more electricity. Courtney, I have the next up here.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
All right. Um, as you said, as well, I
Unknown Speaker 1:22:41
think I look forward to the RTG presentation. Since we had last year, that was the last meeting
Unknown Speaker 1:22:47
I think we had in person. So before COVID hit so I appreciate our to be coming up, you know, they came up in person last year and presenting everything and looking at the routes and adjusting them as needed.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:01
But Sandra, you have a very good point as to those hours that are available. You know, a lot of people don’t work
Unknown Speaker 1:23:08
a regular eight to five type of job, especially ones who need the bus. So that’d be interesting to see the demographics and we could tie that to workplaces and job status and that kind of thing. That would be very interesting to see if they can provide that to us.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:27
Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 1:23:29
David.
Unknown Speaker 1:23:35
Oh, yes, I I’m also I was also happy with the RGB presentation in that I noticed that it felt there was some flexibility in the routing that
Unknown Speaker 1:23:50
I hadn’t seen in the past. And you know, I haven’t been on the board that long, but it just
Unknown Speaker 1:23:59
looked it was a it was refreshing to see that changes were being considered.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:07
And that the Longmont board that was helping to determine what those routes were sound like, at least based on what they had said that they were being listened to. So I found that very encouraging. I’m also very much in favor of the Eevee we we’ve had an electric car now for just over a year and we got to fight each other in the family to see who gets to drive it.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:29
It’s just it’s marvelous. So
Unknown Speaker 1:24:32
recommend it to anybody.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:35
That’s all I have.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:37
All right, thanks, David.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:39
Um,
Unknown Speaker 1:24:41
I you know, I look around long but and I just see an incredible city being grown here. From the new hospital to the parking garage to the rapid transit to Boulder to the E V’s. This place is happening and you know Just very grateful for our city staff who worked so hard to try to watch all this stuff. And yeah, I just I’m very, just very happy to live here. And yeah, I guess I’ll just leave it at that. So. Alright, I didn’t miss anyone except for Councilmember Pac. Correct. Okay, people moved around on my screen. So now they’re out of order. And I’m like, Wait a second. Thanks,
Unknown Speaker 1:25:33
Chuck. Um, I want to echo what you said that our staff and especially give kudos to Phil greenwall. For our local routes, he works very hard on them. And he works very, very well with RTD. And has a great network connection there. I would like I remember when RTD first came to the council meeting, and that the new director mentioned that in these local routes that we should may have smaller buses, rather than the big ones. So I, I am curious as to where that conversation is going to go in the future. Right now. I’m sure they have no capital money for that. But I think that would help us a lot on our local routes. So that’s it. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:19
Okay, sure.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:22
Oh, let’s
Unknown Speaker 1:26:22
see,
Unknown Speaker 1:26:23
I guess next up here, info on upcoming transportation related meetings. Do we have anything?
Unknown Speaker 1:26:36
We do we have a meeting that’s coming up, sponsored, excuse me, sponsored by the Northwest chamber, Alliance for the 11th. And I believe four o’clock. So we’ll send you out the information. It’s it’s kind of late coming to us, quite frankly. But we’re excited to get the information out to you. It’s a it’s basically representative Jonah, Jonah goose with a listening session, as well as a number of state senators and state representatives talking about the different levels of transportation need, and transportation funding that’s coming forward, both through the US Congress in the state, the state representative and state legislature. So there’ll be an interesting session, and I’ll send that to you. As soon as we’re out of this meeting. I’ll send you the pamphlet from the northwest chamber. And I think you can just log on it’s, it should be fairly straightforward.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:29
Excellent. Yeah. Especially given all the irons we have in the fire right now. It’ll be good to hear what’s what’s coming out there. Okay, it’s the next step here. I guess items for upcoming agenda. It looks like we have the tip, the project status updates on the Transportation Improvement Program. Anything else? Tyler and Phil one?
Unknown Speaker 1:27:55
Yeah, the other one looks like we have on there for
Unknown Speaker 1:27:58
next time be some information transportation Community Investment II. So
Unknown Speaker 1:28:03
I have some information to share
Unknown Speaker 1:28:04
about that in our next video. Thank you, it helps if I turn the page over.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:14
All right. So 730 I think I will give you 30 minutes back here. So unless there’s anything else, I think we can adjourn. All right. Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:49
Stacey.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:50
Thanks for sorry about
Unknown Speaker 1:28:52
the issues up front, but we got to get through.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:55
That’s okay. If I need your help, you know, I put it in the notes.
Unknown Speaker 1:28:59
Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:01
Have a good night.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:02
Thanks. Bye bye.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:10
Three minutes.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai