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
Okay, I see It’s six o’clock and I’m going to be calling the transportation Advisory Board meeting for March 14 2022. To order.
Unknown Speaker 0:12
May we have the roll call. Sandra Stewart. Present. Liz Osborne. Courtney Michelle. Here. David McInerney,
Unknown Speaker 0:27
present.
Unknown Speaker 0:29
Stay planar Diane crest? Member Yarbro?
Unknown Speaker 0:58
May I have a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting for February 14 2022. For the transportation Advisory Board
Unknown Speaker 1:08
meeting? minutes, zero.
Unknown Speaker 1:13
Is there a second? A second. Let’s listen. Okay. Okay. So it’s been moved and seconded to approve the minutes from the February 14th 2022. Meeting. Are there? Is there any discussion? Yes, David.
Unknown Speaker 1:35
Just a couple of comments on page five of the minutes. Second sentence of the first paragraph, there’s a phrase wouldn’t hurt long months chances that should be would hurt long months chances. We were talking about some funding proposals. And also it’d be good to correct the date in the minutes heading on pages. Two through nine.
Unknown Speaker 2:08
Thank you. Are there any other comments? Any other discussion? Okay, it’s been moved. And we are those that approved? The minutes with the stated corrections signify by saying yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:33
Yes, yes.
Unknown Speaker 2:35
Are there any opposed? Okay, so it’s been moved. It’s been approved. All right. Thank you. Communication from staff. Hell.
Unknown Speaker 2:50
Thank you, Chair Stewart. Um, well, we’re working on our first meeting here without Tyler staying at the helm. So hopefully, I can kind of make sure we still move forward and have have a productive TV. But I suspect Tara will have a lot more to do with that than me. But I really appreciate all the folks that were able to show up. We do have a lot of folks from RTD on on as well. I did want to let you know that we do have an upcoming meeting. It’s a Colorado 119 or state highway 119 membership meeting on April 6. And you do have to kind of pre register for it. But it’s open to everyone. And it’s here’s the tagline. I hope you know who joining competing solutions are that they’re the group that kind of works along US 36 and 119. In the whole northwest area here is including 27 says join community solutions for an exclusive opportunity to influence regional transportation planning and funding and network with members from different sectors. So that’s the tagline for this event, it really does key in on the diagonal highway. So we’re hoping you all can attend or even if a few of you can attend that would be wonderful, just to kind of get a flavor of what’s going on. We’ll have some folks there from RTD as well and Colorado Department of Transportation as well as Boulder County city of Boulder, all the folks that are kind of co working along the diagonal there. And then you’ll see that I sent information. I hope you all were able to get a copy of the link to the meeting that was held last Monday before last Monday. And so just wanted to make sure you had that information moving forward. So I think that’s it from staff will invite other staff members. You know, Jim, Caroline, and Ben are all staff as well. Well, I just asked them if they had anything to do add, but we did not hear anything more. So I’m going to say unless you have something we can move on. Jim, did you have anything specifically
Unknown Speaker 5:03
Not specifically regards to the meeting. But just as a an informational item. City staff. I think everybody’s heard a lot about the infrastructure bill that’s that’s has moved through Congress is money starting to kind of float out to the states. Staff will be meeting in, I think tomorrow to start going through and reviewing some of the grants to see where our best opportunities will be. We’re gonna have staff from LPC Public Works, Phil, I think is is involved in that in planning, broadband or broadband. Next slight community services. So a broad broad group of city city staff can triaging a lot of the grants to find out where we’re gonna chase money, what are our best opportunities, some of the continuing programs, we have will, we’ll be focusing on trying to leverage some of the city dollars with additional grant dollars. So that’s the the latest kind of it’s still in process as to what we’re going to be looking at. But we have a group of city staff who are going to begin that process.
Unknown Speaker 6:09
Great. One last thing, just we’re having issues with VR, I just wanted to reach out to Stacy, Stacy and Jane are both on as well from staff. So sorry about that. But Stacy, if you can give us the permissions to share her screen. She’s got the presentation from RGD later, so I just want to make sure she has permissions to be able to share her screen so she can do the presentation. If not let me know and we can do it to mine. Great. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 6:44
Any other staff? Okay. All right. Public invited to be heard. Do we have any public and voiding? I’m not seeing anybody on there. Okay. No action items. Okay, so we’re ready for the information items. And I’ll turn that over to Phil, for our TD
Unknown Speaker 7:19
Great, thank you so much. I’m going to start by introducing director geislinger geislinger. From she represents our boulder kind of more of a boulder, the western side of warm launch. I’m actually in her district just west of hoever. So many of us are and we don’t even realize it. So we’ll start with Director geislinger. And then Director Davis is going to come in at the the end he represents more of the center of Longmont down to Broomfield and kind of that east of hoever section so he’ll be coming out at the end. He’s been traveling, so he’s just getting back from his travels. And he’s been kind enough to join us. But with that, I’ll turn it over to Director Basinger, for a couple of comments. Thank you very much.
Unknown Speaker 8:03
Thank you very much, Phil. I’m Lynn geislinger is as Phil said, and I serve Western Boulder County boulder Lewisville Longmont up in the mountain Lewisville superior up in the mountains. And right now I represent the southwest corner of long line as Phil was saying, we just approved a redistricting map that does give me a little more of, of Western Longmont. But I’d say Eric Davidson, who represents the rest of Boulder County and also represents Bloomfield County and I work very closely together, we consider ourselves both representing the Northwest corridor. And so I think, I think we consider long miles and all of the different areas. We have a bit bit of different focus, but mostly we feel like we’re working together on them. We did just passed a redistricting map where we each represent about 205,000 people. And it’s great to be here tonight. Thank you so much for having me. I think we have a real a team with Natalie handless. And Chris, also coming. I’m going to talk a little bit about, you know, some of what’s been in the press lately. And some of much of that does come back to Northwest Rail and Chris Klein will be talking about that, but I will just talk a little bit about the board’s view and some where we are on that. And then I represent i i chair that I have chaired the Government Relations Committee. It’s part of the executive committee now. I served as first vice chair. So there are a couple of really interesting things happening in the legislature that I want to tell you about as well. So you may have seen or heard that the three part series in the Denver Post and the podcast goes train and then just a week or so ago, the Denver Post editorial, all of which go back sort of and look at the history of RTD. And kind of what needs to what needs to change what’s happening now. I think they all give some interesting background. And while I don’t share agree with all particulars, I think one thing that’s happening now that’s exciting is reflected in all of those, which is that in as they ended up, they’re all talking about the need for additional funding for transit. If we’re going to meet our goals, in this region, around equity, and around greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, then we do need to to build up the cert transit service. And that’s going to require more money. I’ll talk about that a little bit more in just a minute. Northwest Rail is one of the topics that Chris will be talking about tonight. And I guess I don’t have a lot of update from what I think you must probably already know. But the big news right now is that RTD, the board has funded an $8 million study on Northwest Rail. So we know that we have the numbers we need, what the cost will be what the engineering issues will be, at least in part, what ridership we can expect to have. And that’ll help us all make better decisions. The board is well they’re not all, you know, fans of this the Northwest Rail Project, we ended up 10 to two voting to move this project forward. And Chris will be telling you I think now that we’ve hired a consultant and are ready to jump in on that. Last thing I wanted to mention was that there are two bills in legislature, there’s actually one bill and one that we’re expecting very soon, that I think are pretty exciting. One of them is that the governor in his budget, included $28 million for fair free transit, during part of the ozone season this this summer. And we’ve worked through that there are two big issues, really that RTD is working hard to solve. And one of them is the financial piece, which we’ve mentioned. And we did get a lot of money out of the federal, ARP and cares and Chris acts during the pandemic, but looking to stretch that. And the other is workforce issues we’ve been if you ride the bus, you’ll know that we have had to cancel routes, because we’re just so low on workforce. But there’s a collective bargaining agreement in the process. And our new CEO is working hard to try to try to bring in new workers and solve that problem. So assuming we can work on those things, I mean, assuming that we can help to solve those things.
Unknown Speaker 13:05
Well, either way, we’re moving forward with doing fare free transit for the month of August. And I think it’s a really exciting step that we’re taking. And again, the exciting part of the excitement that I feel around that is that we’re getting a lot of community support. Metro mayor’s sent a letter this week, with 26 mayors representing 70% of the region that signed it saying we want to support this. And we want to help the security issues. The security issues really are around people riding that are not a destination list that don’t get off the bus if the bus is free. So Mayor Peck sign that letter, as many of them up here, the Colorado forum, a number of members of the environmental community, a lot of people are coming together to say, this is a great project. Let’s try to do this free fair transit during August. And we want to help. Finally, the other thing that I think is really interesting in the legislature, there’s a bill HB 22 Dash 1026. And that bill takes what had been a 4% tax deduction for people buying eco passes, bus passes for businesses that bought bus passes, or bike share passes, and certain other types of alternate modes, passes for their employees and turns it into a 50% tax credit so that if a business buys those sorts of alternate transportation passes, or support for their employees, they can deduct 50% of that is still working its way through the legislature. It seems to have pretty good support. And again, I think that’s another another exciting piece. So I’m going to quit let us move on to to the staff reports and then Eric will be back to finish up and I believe that Phil wants to do questions. I’m happy to answer any questions, but I believe he wants to do those at the end. Thanks. Thank you, Director ghising.
Unknown Speaker 15:13
With that, I think I’ll turn it over to Natali hellos to introduce the team and get going on the presentation. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 15:19
Great. Thanks, Bill. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having us back. Because there’s an annual thing now where we’re happy to be here, we have had a few staff changes. So just quick introduction. And if the team if you can turn your video on real quick to say hello, that’d be wonderful. So I’m not only helpless, I’m the lead or senior service planner scheduler for North team, which is pretty much anything north of I 70. Within the RTD district. We have minus two parama. With us. She’s our service planning schedule one. So for right now between north and west team, she’s transitioning out of out of North team into West team. We have also a new staff member a new service planners schedule one, his name is Greg Ficklin. He started with us just a month ago. We have Chris Quinn with us who is our project manager too from a planning systems planning. And then we have Aaron now a senior manager and contractor service for contractor services in anything and everything special services related. So thanks to you, I’m going to hand it over to Manas to start out and then we’re going to tag team the slideshow. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 16:34
Thank you, Natalie. Can everyone hear me okay?
Unknown Speaker 16:38
Okay, cool.
Unknown Speaker 16:41
So just an overview of what we’re going to cover in this presentation. We’re providing updates on our fixed route services, special services, future plans, service adjustments, as well as updates on Northwest Rail first and main station and does the heavy 119 plan.
Unknown Speaker 16:55
Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 16:59
Yeah, so starting off with the fixed route service update, next slide. Alright, so to start off, I’d like to note that we’re still under the COVID-19 service plan which has been in effect since April of 2020. Under the plan initially, when we initially went into this, we suspended several routes throughout our service area and
Unknown Speaker 17:23
and have
Unknown Speaker 17:24
operated so several of our routes under the under Saturday service for our week, on weekdays. And since then we have been slowly bringing back service either through increase the increase the service span of the routes or added in trips, etc, etc. And we think at the beginning of the when he went into the COVID service fund initially, we were providing 60% of prepaid pre pandemic service while carrying 40% of the pre panic ridership. And currently we’re providing 70% of the pre pandemic service levels while having 50% of the ridership. Within Longmont, we have since currently suspended the routes J and L x. They are suspended and we are looking to bring them back once we have once it’s warranted and once we have enough operators and resources and stuff. And overall Yeah, we have increased the the service hours for most of our Longmont routes. The LD as of the second September on board. We did bring back a few LD three trips in the mid day.
Unknown Speaker 18:43
Yeah. Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 18:48
All right, and this is our average boardings for our weekdays in these August records for each of these years, except with the exception of 2020 and 2021. We are using August record data for 2020 and 2021. We’re using September onboard data since we did not have an August remember we had a September record. And I want to wrote note that the route l was split into the routes LD and LS in August 2017 Which is why we don’t see you don’t see any data for the route l past 2017. Overall before the pandemic we have been, we were seeing kind of an increase and then it pretty stable ridership levels. And then once the pandemic get of course, we had a drastic reduction in our ridership. But since then we are seeing a slow but steady increase in our ridership for all our routes, which is great and we’re really happy to see that and we’re hoping that this trend continues as we as you progress.
Unknown Speaker 19:52
Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 19:57
And this is our These, this is specifically our local recording. So all the 200 rods 323 24 to 26 and 227 with an Longmont. As you can see, look at the graph there. So in the chart there, we did see sort of a, we were seeing pretty much an increase through through the pre pandemic. And then once 2020 hit, we had a 60% decrease, which is on par with what we were seeing throughout the system, we be carrying about 40% of our pre pandemic ridership. But in 2021, we did see a 50% increase from 2020 levels, which is great to see. And, again, we’re hoping that it’s a trend that continues
Unknown Speaker 20:49
as we move forward. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 20:55
And these are the regional route boardings, so that includes the routes bolt, LD, J, L and L x. As I stated before the routes J and Alex have been suspended under the COVID-19 plan. So they’ve been suspended since April of 2020. And the route l was split into the routes LB and Alex in August 2017.
Unknown Speaker 21:17
and B
Unknown Speaker 21:19
with the pandemic the original routes did take a lot, a big hit to ridership because most of our ridership is commuter or they are riders to see you. But as the classes have opened up, many schools have opened up and some businesses are bringing their employees back to the office, we are seeing an increase in that ridership as well. Yeah, and I do want to know that are the fair buy it was initiated in July of 2015. And so we did see some ridership increase with that when that happened.
Unknown Speaker 21:51
Um, yeah. Next slide, please. All right, and I’ll
Unknown Speaker 21:59
hand it over to Aaron really hosts to provide a the update for a special special services.
Unknown Speaker 22:04
Thank you. Thank you. Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 22:10
So similar to what we’re experiencing on the fixed route side, I will say that flex right is experiencing challenges in hiring operators as well. So I do just want to note that at the beginning of our presentation, and kind of as you can see, since entering into the pandemic, in 2020, and 2021, there really have not been a lot of changes to service. But I do want to note that at the beginning of this year, without needing additional operator resources, we were able to extend service hours from 5:30am to 7pm, in the hopes that as we saw more people start to go back to the office that might better accommodate some of our commuter writers a little bit better. So we are operating 27 weekday hours under the current service plan as opposed to 24. So not completely back to the 35.5 at the peak pre pandemic, but we have made some strides in again, improving our service hours without needing additional operator resources, which is a really great thing to be able to do. Next slide, please. And then as you can see, similar to our fixed route service, we did see a pretty substantial decrease in ridership. You know, we were kind of holding our own and then in 2020, it definitely dropped we have seen an increase in 2021. January wasn’t quite as high as I was hoping but February we were actually up to a little bit over 70 weekday boardings per day. So I’m hoping that trend continues. We’ll obviously monitor that closely. Right now, we don’t have any plans to change service in the may run board. But we will be looking at September as schools continue to be back in session and see kind of what service warrants at that time. And that is really all for my update. Next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 24:17
Thank you, Erin.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
I’ll take the next couple slides. Next slide please. Phil. Alright, so just a quick I guess revisit reminder, we presented this last time and the year before because it has been in place since the end of 2018 beginning of 2019 as we completed the SA state highway 119. Pl with the PL we included an adjustment to the Longmont local network. We conducted that through an external consultant team, as well as in really close coordination with city longwan staff. That document is is included In the final state highway 119 BRT project document and it would be implemented in phases. And as our situation as others have mentioned, with the lack of resources and operators as we move forward into state highway 119 BRT, which is slated for late 20 24 billion in 2025, we will look to start phasing part of the state highway 119 BRT, that being the bolt in the J. And there are two patterns that are similar to what the bolt new J do currently that will move forward into the state highway 119, BRT plan and operations. So looking hopefully, for January 2023, to start phasing the BRT, better regional transit at this point rather than bus rapid transit, because none of the components have been built yet on State Highway 119. But with that, we will also look to see if there are potential adjustments to the local plan that would make sense all of this is included in what is our system optimization plan under the reimagined study. And it does include the routings of the port local routes, the service levels, the service spans as well as SNAP locations.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
Next slide, please. So just for visual real quick,
Unknown Speaker 26:23
on the left side is the current network and see the 326-320-7323 is to green 324 is the sort of brown or purple ish. And on the right hand side is what is proposed to be the feeder network for the state highway 119 BRT, which we would look to see what would make sense to start phasing. So we start phasing the golden J as kind of mimicking what is in the state highway 119 VRTX plan, then we would also look to perhaps, I’m going to say the 323 and the 324, as first routes to have adjustments to help provide local service to those regional routes, yet, we haven’t decided on their net, we will have conversations and communications and planning with city along one staff to see what they think would be best than then obviously, as with any of this, we would have to take it through a regular public process. We won’t do any of this until the system optimization plan is approved in one way or another by the RTD board. So again, looking for January 2023, to start making some of these changes yet can’t promise anything, especially since we don’t know what the resources are, what our situation is going to be with the operators at hand.
Unknown Speaker 27:49
Next slide. So just real quick
Unknown Speaker 27:53
as to what the changes in the platform hours and service levels would be. So you can see that current which is actually current is, is at 114, roughly weekday hours, and it would be increased to a total of 135, which is an increase of 21 plus hours per day, weekday average weekday for the weekend. We currently operate about 60 to 62 and a half hours for Saturday that’s proposed to be increased by about 1314 hours to 76. And on Sundays, where we’re currently operate 21 hours, we’re proposing to increase that quite a bit. But increase of 32 hours overall, which would take it to 53. So that is a significant increase on Sunday service. And all depends on when we can implement this as to resources available and how we’re moving forward with the state highway 119 BRT, next slide. And I’ll hand it over to Chris Quinn to give an update on Northwest Rail and some more information on State Highway 119 BRT
Unknown Speaker 29:08
thanks Hi, can you hear me? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 29:19
Okay. I had to switch rooms. Just a little bit of background on the Northwest Rail. I know there’s a few new members on the THC so I know those of you who have been current hellephant previously been on for probably already seen this and all this but one of the things that I just want to emphasize that makes this corridor unique and a little bit more challenging than any of the other fast facts corridors. Is the fact that this is the only corridor where RTD has not been able to completely obtained the right of way BNSF Oh currently owns and will continue to own the corridor even if in when passengers rail service as established there. Additionally, BNSF will continue to operate their freight service through the corridor, which creates quite a bit of challenge of dissociated with the corridor. The full build out of the corridor does require a double track configuration. Currently, there’s only a single track configuration. But we hope is part of the starter service that we’ll talk about in just a moment that we can function with minimal capital investments, improvements to the corridor. So when we’re talking about Oh, could that next slide, please. I’m trying to do it on my end, forgetting that I don’t have an SI. I’m getting a bad sim, I’m going to turn off my camera for just a moment. So, as Director geislinger have mentioned a little bit earlier, we are now starting to look at a Northwest peak service. And by this we mean, we’d be running service during the am and the pm rush hour. The intent of it is how can we minimize the required investment for the corridor. As I noted in the previous slide, the expectation is to run the full service, we would have to have a full double track system from Longmont to Boulder to Denver. But what if we were to be able to just rely on the single track that’s already out there, maybe some passing tracks at the stations, the hope is that that could significantly reduce the cost. So the plan that we’re looking at would have three trains in the morning that would originate in Longmont had to Boulder and then to Denver, and then the reverse in the afternoon. So three, three trains starting at Union Station that would make their way up the corridor to Boulder and then back to Longmont. The reason we have engaged a consultant and that consultant is HDR engineering is to help us better define exactly what that project would be a couple of years ago, we did staff did an internal estimate based on very, very high level planning assumptions. Really basically just kind of looking at maps, we didn’t really have any meaningful input from the BNSF, which has emphasized does still own and will continue to own the corridor. So by having a consultant on board, we really want to take a deep dive start looking at what are the real costs? What would the real cost of this be? What would some of the environmental impacts be also want to get a better sense of how the operations would work? Keeping in mind that we would have to integrate the services with the existing BNSF freight services? How do we get all of those to fit together?
Unknown Speaker 32:59
What as I said, of the environmental impacts, and then also by doing this, one of the things about this corridor with the starter services, we never really have done any serious evaluation of it. We don’t even know whether or not we could be eligible for any kind of state local federal grants. But until we have enough information, we you know, we’re ineligible to apply for those. Now, the study is expected to take about 2.5 years now and is one of the other components that I didn’t mention in the slide. So we will also be looking at what kind of maintenance would be required. And in this particular case, that would mean a new maintenance facility for the specific commuter rail vehicles. Our expectation is that that maintenance facility would be somewhere up in Longmont. And we have already started discussions with the city on whether or not there could be any possibilities of finding a site east of Main Street, you know, somewhere between Main Street and the sugar mill facility. So we’re continuing to work there. And then one other thing I also want to mention, we did have a meeting with local stakeholders and the BNSF back in February, basically it was a it was very high level technical or, okay, I guess that’s kind of a contradiction, that kind of a technical meeting, just to go over some of what the assumptions could be as we move into this study, just things on, you know, basic things on track geometry, track, geometry, curvature, that sort of stuff. So nothing really to report on that. But as I mentioned, we do hope to work through this and that to two to two and a half year timeframe. And, again, really what we want to get out of this is just a common understanding common set of facts of what the court what it would take to establish the corridor and how we might move it forward.
Unknown Speaker 34:54
Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 34:57
And then one other element that’s sort of in the background To all of this is CDOT has established the had established a Front Range passenger rail Association and one of the things that they were looking at is the possibility of running rail from Fort Collins down to Colorado Springs and even further south potentially. One of the key corridors that came out of their final recommendations was in the north part anyway between Denver and Fort Collins would be using the existing BNSF corridor, which does go from Fort Collins, Loveland bursted Longmont and then following the Northwest Rail Corridor down to Boulder and into Denver, of the three final three final corridors that are recommended to move forward for further consideration. The BNSF corridor is the one that was recommended for further evaluation for more environmental review. And as you see the second bullet there kind of quotes verbatim from the report on why they felt it to be a corridor that should be out for further consideration. So see that has released a request for proposals from consultants to conduct further reviews. So they’re kind of doing the exact same thing for that full quarter that we are doing for the peak service. We’ve been in very close discussions with them to make sure that our efforts overlap, or that we can share information and keep each other apprised of our progress so that you know, anything that one side does doesn’t preclude the other from being able to move forward with their plans. So quite a bit of activity in the corridor right now. Next slide, please. Then a real quick first in Main Street upstate of Maine, Maine, first and Main Station Update. Just a little bit of background here. Back in 2011. The RTD board committed $17 million dollars to establishing a multimodal center. At first in Main Street, the intent of it was that recognizing that this would be the terminus of the rail. What can we do to establish that as an intermodal center until the train comes. This is a station that would be used as part of the state highway 119 BRT network, which I’ll talk more about in just a moment. But we’ve been working pretty closely with the city and sit in the city and RTD jointly conducted what is known as an imp or an infrastructure master plan. The intent of that was to come up with the engine, just enough engineering to determine how to move forward with future agreements. And some of the items that the the plan addressed. Were making sure we have the boundary survey, also recognizing the complexity of the drainage situation in that area. What are the existing utilities? How could they be utilized? And then also determining what the multimodal transportation services would look like? How would the bus network integrate with the future train, and just general transportation or in and out of the site for any future users? The next steps in that process are we are working with the city on an intergovernmental agreement to determine how the flow of funds would work as we come up with final design and build the facility.
Unknown Speaker 38:34
Next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 38:38
And then Natalie will talk a little bit about how the future how the bus operations would integrate with the site when it opens.
Unknown Speaker 38:49
Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 38:50
Chris. So yes, proposed future operations. So definitely, obviously, we will look to serve the station with all of the local three hundreds, and that would include the new 300 routes that are within the local, long local network that is attached to the state highway 119 BRT, we would love to have flex ride and accessorized here, of course, also the regional routes as they would operate, depending on phasing. And then with the future BRT patterns, we would also look to potentially have flex from transport serve the station and potentially also see that bus Tang routes as they had looked at some operations east west potentially to help with building out the network overall, the access and use will depend on a few things. So one, of course, the completion of the station structure, the completion of competent busway because we will need to be able to access the station through competent bus way. Also, especially not and I believe I’m breaking it out because busway, my understanding is from third to ninth 10th 11th. Ninth 10th 11th. Yeah, versus the completion of first and second, that those are going to be different timing. So we’d have to have both of those sections completed before we would really be able to access the station, as we are planning to do. Once it’s completely open, we would also look to access wire Boston from the west side. But again, you would need that road connection completed, can’t repeat it enough operations are going to be faced and they’re going to depend on resources available as well as warranted per demand. So as we move forward, we’ll be taking a very, very close look at what the ridership is, what the demand is, travel patterns, etc. Again, that’s one of the other reasons why we’re looking to start phasing the state highway 119 BRT in January of 2023. So that we can gather some data ahead of actually operate, opening it in 2425. And make sure that we have the patterns the way they need to be that they match where the demand is, as well as obviously service level and service span. So next slide, please.
Unknown Speaker 41:13
Back to Chris. Next slide, please. So back in
Unknown Speaker 41:24
seems so long ago now back in 2019 RTD, working with the local stakeholders and seek out the completed what is known as a planning and environmental linkages study for the state highway 119 corridor. And the intent of that was to evaluate how BRT could work Bus Rapid Transit could work from Longmont to Boulder utilizing the diagonal coming out of the PL division plan was for BRT manage lane, so it’d be something similar to us 36, where buses, high occupancy vehicles and anyone willing to pay a toll could use the the new lanes for free and those would run along the highway portion of the diagonal. It also called for the plan also called for a bus way on Kaufman Street, and a bikeway along the corridor, as well as improvements to the bus stops within both Boulder and Longmont. Now see that started, probably probably about a year ago, a what they’re calling the 119 safety and mobility project. And that is determined that at least in the near term, the managed lanes. So again, those would be the toll bus itovi lanes, probably wouldn’t be feasible due to the ad grade signalized intersections. But they do want to keep that in the long term plan. So instead, what CDOT is working on now would be for the corridor transit services to rely on queue jumps.
Unknown Speaker 43:01
And next slide please.
Unknown Speaker 43:04
So with the cue jumps would do with it be they would allow buses to bypass the congestion at signalized intersections. Specifically, they would be at all of the signalized intersections along the corridor starting on the south end, Jay, Jay road 63rd Street, state highway 52 nyuad. Again, allow them what they would do, and you can see it in the graphic here. The worst congestion that happens in the corridor is of course at the signalized intersections. So by providing the cue jumps, that allows a bypass lane for the buses to jump around the congestion, and then be right up front at the traffic signal and then be first out when when the light turns green. CDOT is also looking at Adaptive signaling as well as transit signal priority. And transit signal priority or TSP is something that gives the bus an advantage. So as an example, if the lights about to turn red, and the system detects a Bus Comp and a bus coming, it will hold the green light a little bit longer, or change the phasing so that the bus again has a little bit of a travel time advantage. The project would also include at least along the trunk line, new Park and Ride facility, or I’m sorry, now along the trunk line within the whole corridor. I do Park and Ride facility at Park Ridge Avenue. And that’s roughly at us 287 and state highway 66 in the in the vicinity of the Walmart. And then also as I mentioned earlier, enhanced bus stops within Longmont and Boulder. So CDOT is leading an engineering study right now for the final design of that project. And we now have enough information through the design process that it’s put us it’s made us collectively eligible to start applying for various grant funds that are out there. Boulder County is leading an effort to apply for $5 million for some of the cue jumps as well as a bikeway that would run through the corridor. That as a grant through the Denver Regional Council of Governments, we’re fairly confident that that’s something that could be awarded. And then RTD CDOT Boulder and Longmont are also working on a potential federal grant that would also provide some additional elements of funding for the corridor.
Unknown Speaker 45:29
Next slide.
Unknown Speaker 45:33
I think that’s all we have. So happy to try to respond any questions that anyone might have?
Unknown Speaker 45:48
We have any questions from the board? Yes, Lis muted. Yeah, but it’s real soft.
Unknown Speaker 46:07
Very strange.
Unknown Speaker 46:08
Okay, I can hear you. We can hear you.
Unknown Speaker 46:12
Yeah, what I really appreciated seeing that map of the proposed and I realized we’re all proposed here, I just want to comment, it seemed to me, it would be nice if to think about, it’d be nice if a bus got to the st. Rain Innovation Center. I think that there’s a lot of things happening that young people in the St. Vrain Valley School District would be benefited if they had access to and it didn’t look like any of those routes went there. That was just my comment. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 46:43
Thank you. No did. Anyone else? David,
Unknown Speaker 46:58
yes, I just wanted to thank all of the RTD representatives for the information. My question is whether RTD planning envisions cooperating with Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to provide first and last mile services for the transit system. Yeah, hi,
Unknown Speaker 47:28
this is Chris. One of the things we’re also doing a kind of a parallel effort. Everything else going on, is what we’re calling reimagine RTD. And part of that effort includes
Unknown Speaker 47:42
what we’re calling a
Unknown Speaker 47:45
mobility plan for the future where we are looking at, you know, recognizing that the future trends, it’s not going to be just buses, and trains, what are the things that we can do to start partnering with other rideshare providers so that we can do what is known as a mobility on mobility as a service mobility and demand. Now, as Aaron vadose earlier mentioned, you know, we do have, we already do have the existing system of calling rides, we have those throughout the district, but we have been looking at our where are our opportunities to integrate our services with theirs. And we have done a couple of pilot projects, also, at this point with cannot really can’t remember whether it’s Uber or Lyft. If you do try, if you do call for a ride, It’ll also tell you what your transit options are, as well as allow you the ability to buy your RTD tickets through the through the rideshare app. So we’re really in the initial stages of exploring what those opportunities could look like. But recognize, again, that that’s probably going to be the future of, you know, of how we move forward, how we move forward. So
Unknown Speaker 48:57
when you design a transit stop or a park and ride now, does it include accommodating, safe and efficient pickup and drop off from those kinds of providers?
Unknown Speaker 49:10
A good question yet since you know, we haven’t opened any parking rides very recently. But that is one of the things that we’re definitely looking at on the state highway 119 corridor is Yeah, recognizing that from the, as you pointed out the first and final mile perspective, how are people going to get the recognizing that people aren’t going to access these services just by cars? So what do we need to do to accommodate Bike Share? You know, in the case of Denver scooters any other means of getting to the station besides just car So short answer to your question, yes.
Unknown Speaker 49:44
Thank you
Unknown Speaker 49:47
to add to that many of our parking rights have what we call the kissin ride areas, and Uber lifts a taxi service and they are allowed to go into those areas to help basically ride those additional connects since
Unknown Speaker 50:02
it wasn’t very clear from the sketch that we’ve provided in the in the presentation tonight, but there is an area for Uber lifts, kissin ride taxis, all those different things that RTD now incorporates or has been incorporating into their design, but this one was pretty much pointed toward Uber and Lyft as being to potential final mile pieces. So thank you. Excellent.
Unknown Speaker 50:33
Any other questions? There are no more questions.
Unknown Speaker 50:45
Director Davidson is on now for from Archie used to be able to chat with you as well a little bit and he has the director who represents the majority of Longmont Central. Thanks, Director Davidson.
Unknown Speaker 51:01
Yeah. Thank you, Phil, can you hear me? Okay. All right. Thanks for bearing with me. I’ve been on the go. So I’ve been audio only for most of this. But I’m glad that cameras seems to be working for the moment. It’s good to see all appreciate it. I won’t take up too much time other than answer any other additional questions, since I think a lot was covered. I know earlier, Director geislinger did address several items, I think just maybe two, I’ll add one, just an emphasis on the SOP or the system optimization plan, which was part of the reimagine RTD, we were able to extend out that time for feedback. And I just want to reach out and say thank you for the feedback, we did receive quite a bit at least, you know, I saw a fair amount coming in at the last minute there. So I’m glad that we extended out the time, and really appreciate the the thoughtful organization that came from this entire region on that. So I know that we’ve already touched on that this evening. And certainly our staff is working to look for the intersection of all of that feedback. But the other thing I just wanted to put out there as you know, the SOP really came from this viewpoint of how do we optimize and work within a constrained environment, both workforce and, and financial resources. So as Dr. geislinger mentioned, certainly one place that is good to see some of the press heading. Again, we may not agree with all of the particulars, but I think we all sort of recognize that we do need to band together to re envision what the future the longer term looks like here, and also look towards ways to identify additional resources for transit funding. So anyway, all that to say thank you for the patients, thank you for the feedback. All the more important that we all band together on these kinds of things and work through them. There is one issue related to Northwest Rail that I did want to bring to everybody’s attention that may be a little bit nuanced. So forgive me for this. But I did want to open the door to any feedback, because it is largely a board and a policy issue. One of the challenges that we’re facing as a result of Fast Tracks taking as long as it has is that we’re approaching the 20 year mark, the 20 year anniversary of the vote of the 2004 vote. And the reason that that’s important is that we have a bonding authority of around approximately half a billion dollars. And that bonding authority, it turns out that there’s a fair amount of precedent in case law, that bonding authority may not extend beyond 20 years. We don’t know the answer to that we’re looking into it. But simultaneously within our financial team, which I think is doing a stellar job these days of trying to really get our house in order, we’ve been taking advantage of lower interest rates to historic lows or at to refinance a lot of our debt. And we’ve recently found an opportunity to refinance some of the debt that went towards the end line and have found about $103 million worth of savings, we could make that $103 million of savings 120, so an additional 17. But it calls for really using up substantial portion of our bonding authority. So we’re really left in this place of now trying to understand case law and understand whether or not this bonding authority will go beyond the 20 year mark, or whether we should take advantage of additional savings right now. I think what you know all of this arrives that there are multiple things we can do to finance future Fast Tracks projects. Without getting into details. I’m happy to answer questions. One of the mechanisms is called a certificate of participation. RTD was actually an innovator on this front when it came to the end line and and leveraged some of our assets as part of these cops. That’s something that we can do again in the future. And we’re trying to decide how to balance out that those future savings so I just kind of wanted to let everybody know about this because if there’s any New financial minds out there that are very interested to get in the weeds and provide feedback. This will be a policy decision that the board will be baking over the next two months as to whether we refinance 403 million, or refinance for 120. And underlying in that, I did want to just let everybody know that we are working very hard to find those savings right now, because our debt service at RTD is very, very high, from the way Fast Tracks was planned. And certainly one of the things that’s blocking our future developments on Fast Tracks is that high debt service that threatens to choke out the agency in future years. So we’re looking for those savings, the team’s doing a great job finding those savings, and we’re starting to have some difficult decisions. The other reason I want to mention this, as did pop up in the news. But it is not quite as simple as we’re choosing to use up the bonds and they go away and closing the door on it, it is going to be some some nuance and some risk taking here. So thank you for having us all. Really appreciate it. Thank you staff for the presentation. I’m certainly excited that we’re going to move forward on getting those costs and a common set of facts on that. That peak service plan. Thank you very much. Happy to take any questions.
Unknown Speaker 56:13
Does anyone have any questions for Eric? Or any buddy else on RTD? board? Okay,
Unknown Speaker 56:25
thank you. Thank you, RTD, for coming to us tonight and giving us an update. We appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 56:33
Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 56:35
Good night.
Unknown Speaker 56:36
Thank you everyone. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 57:01
I think our next item of information is our bylaws update failed. You want to take us through that?
Unknown Speaker 57:09
Yeah, sure. Thank you for your patience on this. This is kind of a short one, actually. The idea is that this hasn’t been updated in about nine years. So try 13 is the last time you’ve for the bylaws have been looked at and revised. We’ve had a lot of changes since 2013. So we have a lot of look at us right now we’re in electronic meeting, right? That’s not even included in the bylaws statement. So there’s just certain things that need to be updated to make sure that we have the flexibility to do different things, we also changed our format of our of the way that we do meetings, we got rid of old business and new business and put it into informational items, and action items, which I think is more clear of what is being asked from the board. So we kind of did that, thinking that we’re just changing the agenda format, but it’s actually in the bylaws that we’re supposed to still have more business, a new business as part of the discussion. So just a few things to change. And I apologize for not having the city attorney here, but the city of one of our city attorneys, Deputy City Attorney, he’s worked on this and put a lot of effort into just trying to clean things up. And so what this really is tonight is an introduction of the bylaw changes. And so you may have some you may have read them already and have some thoughts on what should change and what should not. But I think at the next meeting, we’re asking that the city attorney office sent somebody to kind of guide us through making the changes, and then we’ll make that we have to make the official changes give one week notice official notice to the board of proposed changes, and then you vote on them, vote on them at your next at your next meeting. So I guess the proposal is is that if you have any changes that you wanted to see in the bylaws, we could chat about them tonight. And then get them to the city attorney’s office and see what they think. relay that information back to you as a board probably via email. So that we can look at these one last time at the next meeting and either thumbs up or thumbs down, vote them in or vote them back to, you know, the drawing board of sorts, but just wanted to get your opinion and get these in front of you and make sure that you had a chance to read them. I didn’t want to kind of spring them on you the week before a meeting to then vote on them in one way or another. So we’re trying to give you as much time as we can. But we’re also trying to make it it’s it wasn’t anything that was really on your work plan this year. So apologies for that, but we didn’t need to make some changes. So with that, I turn it over to the board for any discussion.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:00
Yes, Liz.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:01
In Section Five voting Can we have the city attorney commented about taking out raised hand? Partly because we’re currently meeting virtually. It seemed to me though that very hearing the virtual meetings, which who knows what will happen in the future, it is nice to have the option to raise hand in case we’re having this funny audio thing that we had tonight. At least we can hold our hand up until you see it. And and I think leaving that in would be a good thing to leave in. Just
Unknown Speaker 1:00:33
thank you, Clint. well taken. Thank you. Courtney,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:40
I agree with Liz, I thought that the hand raised like we’ve never had a problem that seeing them and we hold them up until you’re like, Okay, I got everybody. And I think we should leave that in there. And otherwise, they seemed like reasonable changes, just in you know, a little bit of wording here or there.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Steve?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
Yeah. It was kind of raised in the document executive secretary is Stacy that by default right now, or do we have one thing that should be named? Or should that be changed to be interchangeable? I shouldn’t say interchangeable, but one or the other executive secretary, or, I guess, what city staff member?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:26
Do you know? Which section are you looking at? Sorry,
Unknown Speaker 1:01:30
I’m sorry. That would be Oh, I see. Yeah, the last I think it’s the last page at the very top executive.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:40
Currently, Stacy. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:43
And then the above, you know, the city attorney or assistant actually asked Who is the current executive secretary?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
I’m sorry, I think those executive secretary, executive secretary was actually Tyler statement before, sorry. I think of him as the staff liaison, but I think the executive summary Secretary refers to, to that position that Tyler held before. And I’m currently Interim Executive Secretary, I believe so.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:18
Thank you. Great.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:20
So do you feel right now, okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:23
Perfectly it says in the event, or it says the public works director or directors designee shall serve as the executive secretary. And I think that’s the person who works with the chair to establish the agenda. And, and help run these meetings through and and
Unknown Speaker 1:02:42
I think that I think that’s it. Yes.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:46
I don’t know, Jim, if you think otherwise or have another opinion. But I believe that’s the way it’s, it works. I think that’s I think it’s stipulated in the code, isn’t it? Phil? Yeah. Then that’s also defined under Section 10. Where it’s duties of officers executive secretary, is usually ex officio secretary of the board, the members of the board giving me time, because to gratuitously and the deputy, and the duty of the executive secretary, exec, executive secretary to prepare for the board all business that is assigned to it.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:19
So yeah, that was, that would be the
Unknown Speaker 1:03:22
city traffic engineers is how we have run it in the past. And that would be a title with the executive secretary for TV.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:30
Thanks to you for helping us
Unknown Speaker 1:03:31
clear that up.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:33
That’s great. Good, good information. Thank you for the background.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:39
Any other thoughts about the bylaws? Yes, David?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
Just one editorial comment. For section 14, the first sentence, you might want to check with the city grow Marion, as to whether that phrase says whom shall be citizens at large, should actually read who shall be citizens at large? Who?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:10
Thank you. Anyone else?
Unknown Speaker 1:04:19
Okay, so we’ll bring this back. Next month, Phil, are understanding if you think about it, and we’ll vote on it next meeting then.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:31
Right, I think that we need to make sure we need to make sure that these are publicly provided to you at least five days before the meeting to be legal. So we will do that. And then we’ll ask for your votes at the next meeting on whether you approve of the bylaws as amended. Tonight from what we’ve talked about tonight. If you do have any other thoughts about the issue, please let us know in the next one days, right so We can kind of get that out before before the agenda goes out. If you have any thoughts, let us know. And then we’ll let the board know what changes came up in these in these three weeks to make sure you’re aware of what changes were requested by other board members. But again, we can’t have that discussion in an email chain, so you have to just email either me or Stacey directly and then with your comments, and then we’ll get it out to the board and just let people know, kind of where we’re at Hope. Hopefully, we’ve taken care of everything at this meeting. But I know how it goes. It’s something we always catch later on. So we’ll we’ll make sure that the board is aware of any other additional changes from this point forward. And make sure you know about it before we ask you to vote on that.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:46
Thank you. Any other thoughts or questions for Phil? Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:56
All right. Comments from the board. David, do you have any comments for us this evening? No further comments.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:04
Okay, thank you. I am Do you have any comments this evening?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:10
You are muted? Okay, we’ll go that Steve.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:25
Thank you, Sandra. No, good presentation by RTD. And I appreciate Phil giving me the background on the executive secretary. Oh, good. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:36
Thank you, Courtney.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:39
It’s always great to see the RTD. I remember when we first joined Sandra, we actually met them in person and they came to talk to us. And I’m also wondering if we need to have any discussion about the Third Avenue and Francis issue that Phil had emailed us about the concerned citizen? No, there have been several meetings. It has not been brought up at the tab meetings and wondering if we need to discuss that at all.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:10
Fell Did you hear anything? Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
think I think I understand the basis of the of the question, and I’ll probably turn it over to Jim Angstadt to help answer the question. Thanks, Jim.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:29
So a little bit of background.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:35
Back in August of 2021. At a coffee with counsel several several residents vocalized some concerns regarding issues in and around the third and Schuurman intersections. And so we were given direction by city manager to take a look at it and they revolved around clear lines of sight. At both of those intersections, one going south one going north because it’s an offset intersection where Sherman intersects with Third Avenue. So Tyler steamie did a several field checks over the course of several months, in part because when we first went out, we didn’t identify any issues. And then we revisited the the meeting minutes when they identified them as being in the evening hours. So each of those intersections in accordance with our standards we did did well. While while the West End tavern was in full swing, we saw an identified a number of areas where it was legally allowed to park but it was blocking sight distance for vehicles trying to access Third Avenue. So as we normally would, is an operational issue. We addressed it the installing several no parking signs, clearing those those lines of sight so that people could then access safely access Third Avenue, unfortunately, where we kind of ran afoul of the whole process was our operations group. We had put an order in for the signs and asked them to hold until we undertook some public engagement. They went ahead and installed the signs. That’s where we dropped the ball. So we would have been either our plan was to send out notifications and deal with concerns from the residents or have a public meeting. No there neither of those things happened. We are aware of that was was an issue with communications and city manager and both engineering have owned that. But we would have ended up here anyway because it was a safety issue. It’s not an issue and it’s an operational issue. We deal with this all the time. Certainly not to this degree though. Tyler has been doing it for you know, we’ve had records from he used to do it see about 10 to 12 of these issues a year. They’re pretty simplistic and resolving them. Unfortunate unfortunately, this was one a little bit more detailed and a little bit larger than we normally deal with. So we backtracked, one of the other items we looked at was turning radii. For emergency vehicles, larger vehicles from third, accessing on the Sherman in accordance with how we normally would look at these we put a turning template onto a plan, it looked like it wouldn’t wasn’t going to work. So we added additional signs. City Manager, so let’s take another look at it. With public safety we did, we took a couple field tests last week, and came to the conclusion that our turning templates were a little on the conservative side. So we are going to be adjusting some signs out there on Sherman to put a couple more parking spaces back in the in the neighborhood. We are working on several asset management projects in the area, there’s gonna be a water line, it’s actually now starting this month on Third Avenue coming from Main Street going to the west. So we will be working in the Third Avenue corridor. There are there’s going to be a storm drainage project between Sherman and Francis coming later this year. We’ve been asked to accelerate that. And then we’ll follow up next year with a an asphalt rehab project and Third Avenue. So knowing that we’re going to be out there, basically rebuilding the road. Anyway, we Harold Harold Dominguez city manager has asked us to look at if there’s opportunities to provide some curb extensions, change lanes to provide return those parking spaces back in that area. And so we are in the process of working on hiring a designer to go out there and take a look at it. Come up with a plan which we would then vet through a public process, make sure everybody’s aware of what we’re doing. And what are the expectations are we hope to have that done by later this year.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:30
And that is really what the kind of the backstory and the plan moving forward. So I’m happy to answer any questions if you have any.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:39
Steve has a question. Yeah, real quick, Jim. So
Unknown Speaker 1:12:42
I understand the line of sight in the issue that the cars maybe cause some obstruction? What about the vulnerable users that might be using Third Avenue? How is that going to be taken into account because you can’t physically widen that space? And so with those parking spots there, if you were going to do any sort of, you know, bike lane or anything else, that’s obviously going to be a whole nother issue in and of itself. So has there been a discussion about what that looks like?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:12
And I think, you know, what, what I would hope is, is what I would get a designer outside of outside of the city staff is to come in and look at a hostel holistically. We want to be able to move cars, pads, bikes, graded, the bikes would be sheroes. We’re not looking to install bike lanes, it’s just not enough room in the corridor. But I don’t know that in this particular area, we can we can still provide bike or provide cars or allow for parking on both sides of the street. So the goal would be to find as many parking spaces we can and still make it safe. Safety is the key key issue here. Okay, so there’s opportunities here for you know, to improve pedestrian facilities. Traffic mitigation, we’re probably going to be looking at at speed tables along third is slow traffic down. That has been a historic problem. Since the speed limit was lowered several years ago. Safe crossings is another thing we heard. So we’re gonna look at all of that, and trying to find the best places and make it the safest. Little more lighting in some areas as well. Was was discussed as well. So we’ll look at it and what we’re gonna come out of it, but we’ll probably be back in front of you talking about this in the fall with a plan.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:32
Thank you, Jim. Phil did send us a link to the the march 7 meeting. It was an hour and 47 minutes and some seconds. And so if you have some time, you can listen. It is an operational issue that the city looks at it’s not enough to the transportation advisory board to make that decision because it’s an operational issue. So there were a lot of people at the meeting and they had a lot of things to say, staff had a lot of they they answered the questions. And anyway, I thought it was good. I appreciated hearing the whole story. So from from that hour and 47 minutes. Okay, um, Joe, do you have any questions? Or comments for,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:22
for the staff for today? You do not if you Okay. And
Unknown Speaker 1:15:30
let’s see, I guess, Liz, you you already talked to us? No. Oh, okay, Liz.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:37
So thank you, Sandra. I wanted to just mention, board member, Michelle had been said that we hadn’t talked about Third Avenue we did a little bit in January, when some callers called in. And they were both saying that the city agendas, right, so it’s good to have both sides, and opportunities for both sides to be heard. What this is pointing out to me is the thing we talked about last month, and the month before about outreach, what we do, and what we don’t do is something that might be communicated better. And here, there’s all this kerfluffle and nobody called in tonight either. And, and so I’m thinking we’re not getting the information out to people, how they can participate at a ground level and understand it took us a long time to get another board member as well. So we probably have some communication things we might need to be continuing to think about. And again, thanks to RTD. And everybody, this was a really informative evening. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:40
Thank you. And I remember the public engagement that took place on Ninth Street, not far from my house, and Tyler and staff came out and they were they were taking from west of hoever to airport route and how they were going to add bike lanes, and they were going to narrow lanes. And it was really important that that did happen. There were a lot of people there a listening listened to what we the concerns that residents around the area had. And then they took that back. And they made some changes on their plans. And it’s it’s smooth sailing down that part of Ninth Street. And there’s bike lanes, and it’s just good. And there’s speed, telling you how fast you’re going. And so I appreciated that city that took the time transportation took the time to invite us to engage the community and ask questions and hear about the project. So to piggyback on what you said, Liz, it’s important that we do communicate, and we give the residents an opportunity to be engaged. And I just want to say that I have heard RTD speak three times. And it’s every time I hear them speak I understand more about their whole process and it doesn’t move fast making changes with RTD and getting people on board. But I appreciated the effort of all RTD staff being here. And our commissioners are directors of RTD coming and joining us and speaking to us tonight. So thank you, Phil and Jim for providing that opportunity. All right, do we have I don’t think a council member Yarborough came to Sydney did she? Okay, so we don’t have any comments from her information on updating upcoming transportation related meeting. Feel put in here the virtual or in person survey that was sent everyone to make sure that you take time to fill that out. Or did you want to say more about that, Phil? No.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:51
Yep. This is a kind of a pivotal time, right? I mean, it’s the city council’s decided that March 29 will be their first in person meeting again. And we don’t know what’s going to happen, obviously, and these things might change. But I would I would hope that everyone on this board was able to at least take part in that survey and give us your opinions on how you think we should move forward with this with this format or with in person format. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:20
Thank you. Diane, you made a note in the chat. Can you unmute yourself and do you have any comments this evening? You want
Unknown Speaker 1:19:30
us to hear? She’s been having some problems with the web.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:40
I’ve been having several issues as well both sound and video periodically throughout the session.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:47
Unless you have two okay, Diane, I heard my name but your question Sandra, do you have any comments? Being a board member that you want to say this evening about our meeting? Okay, I’m not hearing anything or seeing anything written items for upcoming agenda, April 11 2022.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:23
And you hear me? Yes. A little bit late. I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:27
I can hear you.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:28
I do have an I do have an interesting link I’d like to share. It’s a little bit of a long read, but it kind of gives a good history of, of transport mass transportation through the ages, if you will, and, and things that drive transportation. And I think it presentation we have tonight, and you would all find it interesting. Do you mind if I forwarded that link after the meeting? No, I
Unknown Speaker 1:20:58
know, isn’t that great? You
Unknown Speaker 1:20:59
can, you can send that to me, Diane. And I will, we’ll get that out. I have some other things. I wanted to send the link for that upcoming 119 meeting as well. And then we’ll send the presentation to everyone from our TD, so you have that in case you want to see it.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:16
So that was great. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:20
Yeah, thank you for sending that my way. You’re welcome.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:26
Phil, did you want to tell us about the any agenda items for April 11.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:33
I really just wanted to say that the bylaws are the big thing for that meeting that we know about right now. You know, the next three or four weeks here, we’ll probably have something else get on there. And I I just don’t have access to the calendar, I apologize, I made the mistake of coming home to do this meeting. And partially because I could have seen the J drive, which is our drive that shows me kind of what’s next on the calendar. So don’t have access to that right now. But we will all send that out as well, when we send out the other things, and Jim has something. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:08
Yes, Jim. Um, so under under future items, we are at the city, you’re currently starting the budget process, you dissipate that the capital improvement program process will open up where we review all past projects kind of that haven’t gotten undertaken yet. And what we’re going to be putting into the five year look ahead in future budgets. It’s going to be a little bit of an odd year, I think, this year, from a staff perspective, two major items we’re facing is one is actually staff shortages. I think in engineering, I’m down about nine positions. Overall, that includes utilities, our signals, and of course our tracker, traffic engineer. And then also, one of the challenges that I think will significantly impact budget across the city will be the the inflation in prices and commodities we’ve seen in the last year. In some cases, it’s it’s 30% to 40% of 50% of our project budget. So it’s going to significantly impact what what we may be able to do in the future. And basically, what ends up doing is just spreading those projects out over a longer period of time. So those are things to kind of ponder and consider and and if there’s anything we think you need, you want to make any recommendations that we may want to focus on, or you want more information, we can certainly start talking about it. One other item, though, not necessarily about budget, but upcoming traffic meeting or traffic related meeting. At the center of mentioned that public meeting for Ninth Avenue residents, one of the columns were talked about concerns with speeding on Gay Street, the residents of Gay Street have put in an application for our traffic mitigation. One a part of that process is to hold a neighborhood meeting we are currently scheduling that I would anticipate probably going to push it out, it’ll probably be second or third week in April is what I would be looking for it would be an in person meeting, probably either at the local school are at the senior center. So we’ll push it out beyond this next meeting, but we’ll make sure you’re notified. So it’s usually a public meeting where we get together and talk with the residents. Talk about possibilities. What we’re going to do. One of the directions Harold gave me recently is put in some temporary speed tables on Third Avenue. So there’s an opportunity, I think to do some of that work on Gay Street as well. So we’ll let you know when that meeting is
Unknown Speaker 1:24:58
Sungeum would you like for us to attend those kinds of meetings, if we’re available, even though we may not live on gay or close to gay, sure, why
Unknown Speaker 1:25:09
not? Okay. Okay. They’re just an opportunity, opportunity to learn, see, see kind of some of that public engagement. And then if he, you know, always ask for any constructive criticism of how we’re holding them, it’s got to be on the first meetings we’re doing in person. Again, we’ve done it in the past where we held a public meeting, based on an application and no one from the public showed up. So we really didn’t do anything in that neighborhood. Haven’t heard anything since so. But these people here we’re there’s going to be a lot going on Gay Street, Gay Street is being ripped up now. For a waterline paving on that road will not occur, or a complete resurfacing, the contractor will repave it now the trench. But complete resurfacing won’t happen for 2024. It’s also aware one of our iimak Corridors enhanced multi use corridors was for future that is something we’re going to look at, because the residents have already indicated they don’t want us to take away their parking. For bigger bike lanes, the road already has bike lanes on it. So that’s going to be an effort we’re going to look at and engage with the public. But this is about traffic calming, and traffic mitigation, neighborhood mitigation. So it’s an opportunity, I think, for everybody to sit down with them hear what they have to say, talk about what we can do what we can’t do. And then we’ll we’ll see where it goes.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:33
Great. Thank you. Anyone else?
Unknown Speaker 1:26:39
I just had one last item. Sorry, it does kind of go back to what Jim was talking about as far as budget. And we will be bringing up to the gap, the future Transportation Improvement Program request that we do through Dr. cog. I think we talked about that. A couple meetings or last meeting in February, we will be bringing the specific projects back to you maybe not in April, but in the near near future, you’ll get to see how we’re pursuing federal dollars and those grant dollars and state dollars to kind of supplement some of the budget issues that we’re having with cost escalations and different things like that. So those will come before this board in the near future. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:26
Anything else? Okay,
Unknown Speaker 1:27:29
well, I’m going to adjourn our meeting at 727. And we’ll see you all back on April the 11th. Okay, thank you. Thank you all for coming.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:39
Thank you. Thank you, staff. Thank you. Good night.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai