 Chair Hogan, commissioners, director Spencer, we are live from 645 Pine Street for the first time in 15 months. We are looking like we're in good shape on my side. Great. Thank you, Mr. Golden, appreciate it. All right, with that, I will call to order the June meeting of the Public Works Commission at 6.32. Good evening all and welcome. I'm excited to be entering a hybrid phrase of these meetings and certainly bear with us as this will be a work in progress with participants from the conference room as well as remotely. All right, with that, we'll move forward to the item two on the agenda, the agenda itself. Any comments or discussion about the proposed agenda? I make a motion to accept the agenda. All right, we have a motion, Commissioner Barr, thank you. Second. Seconded from Commissioner Bose, thank you. Any discussion around the motion? Right, we'll go to a votes. Commissioner Archibald. Aye. Thank you, Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill-Valgo, welcome. We're affirmative on the agenda. Yes. Thank you, aye for myself. The agenda has passed. That will go to public forum. I expect there may be a number of people interested in participating. Please keep your comments. Someone get me some water, please. Thank you. All right, Mr. Golding, I see we have one virtual hand raised as well as potentially as people in the conference room. That's right, Chair Hogan. I'll make a general announcement for folks who have joined us that the chair is calling out public comment right now and there are other public comment periods. But this will apply for all of them. If you're interested in speaking during any public comment or during the public comment at the time, please use the raise your hand feature on the bottom of your Zoom screen. If you have called in, please dial Star 9. I know at least one caller that may or may not work but is interested in speaking. And we also have at least two members of the public here at 645 Pine Street. So again, if you have joined us via Zoom, please use raise your hand. If you have called in, try Star 9. That will alert us that you wish to speak. And if you have joined us on Channel 17's YouTube live stream and thanks to Channel 17 for their coverage as always, we do not monitor those comments. So please join us via Zoom or calling in if you can. That information is on the agenda. So Chair, if it's favorable to you, I'll call in, I'll call to public comment the members of the public here in the room. Please. We'll try a novel approach which is having them come up. So the front of the room will turn my computer to have them on the screen. If there are any audio issues, please let us know. And then we do have a queue forming online and we will get to those folks next. So Zoe Kennedy, please join us at your convenience up here. My name is Zoe. I use she, her pronouns. I'm going to begin working as a commissioner at the July meeting. So I'm excited to work with you all soon. Today I'm here as a member of the public in support of installing raised and protected bike lanes on Colchester Avenue. This project as proposed by the CCRPC will increase safety along Colchester Avenue for all users of the corridor, safe pedestrian and cycling infrastructures and essential part of making sustainable transportation accessible to all members of our community. Additionally, as we're in the middle of a global climate crisis, we must do all that we can to reduce our contribution as a city to the global carbon emissions. And this project has the potential to do just that. Over the last few months, I've done significant public outreach to better understand the reasons for which members of our community have support this project. A petition that I've circulated in support of this redesign currently has 296 signatures from people all over Burlington. And the petition provided the option for science to leave comments about why they support this redesign. So I'm just going to read a few of those now. Tabitha said that she was hit by a car on her bike earlier last year and that this redesign is necessary to increase the safety of cyclists on the corridor. Sequoia said more bike infrastructure creates a more vibrant city. Zoe says, I support this petition because in addition to increasing safety for cyclists, it would also protect members of our community who use motorized wheelchairs. Too often they are unable to use a sidewalk due to frost heaves, cracks and poor maintenance and end up being forced to merge with heavy traffic. Constructing barriers for new bike lanes will increase safety and mobility for everyone. Jean says, I live on Villado Parkway and the Colchester is my main cycling route to go downtown to the waterfront, north end, intervail, et cetera. It's a critical route for all of us in the East Ave area and I've had to use sidewalks to feel safe. I hardly support these design changes, thank you. Gail says, I'm an employee of UVM and work in the Medical Center. This addition of bike lanes will make biking from UVM and UVM Medical Center so much safer. It will make employees and visitors much more likely to use bicycle transportation and will reduce the use of pollution from automobiles. Overall, this project will increase the safety and accessibility of our city while decreasing our impact on the planet. Therefore, it is essential that this project is moved forward as soon as possible. Thank you. Hi, my name is Isabella DeClypher. I use she, her pronouns. And I'm also here in support of the race and separated bike lane on Colchester Ave. I'm currently an intern with Sustainable Transportation Vermont and have been doing a bunch of canvassing to try to get people to sign the petition for this bike lane. And I've ridden on Colchester Ave many times and the bike lane currently in place is pretty narrow and cars can easily veer into it. So it hasn't been very safe in my opinion. And also, I think a race and separated bike lane is much needed in Burlington seeing that many of the roads are not safe for cyclists. And it will encourage more people to bike in the future greatly reducing the carbon emissions from a lot of cars and creating more sustainable infrastructure for the future. That's all I wanted to say. Thank you. Thank you. Chair Hogan will recognize Tony Reddington on Zoom and we will promote you over Tony and you should be able to speak. Okay, I still had to hit unmute to speak. Thank you, Chair Hogan and commissioners. I agree with the last statements that we need to improve the bicycle and pedestrian facilities and that is provided by the project. However, the intersection itself is a step backward both in terms of air quality, sustainability and safety. But I'll talk about that when we get to that section of the agenda. This morning I sent out a tweet because I happened to run into it at the Australia roads group, which is this governmental, federal highway in Australia. They have a website where you can check every month as to the number of people who are killed, injured and hospitalized in Australia. It's like a dashboard, COVID dashboard for people who are interested in highway safety. And since the United States has gone from number one to number 18 and we have now 21,000 excess fatalities, it seems to me we need that kind of a thing. It could be a report in Burlington once a year, maybe by the state monthly, so that people can become aware because we do have each month two people who die on our roads. It's gonna be more than one person. One person a week dies on our roads and it's the quiet silence both in the state and also the city. We know we have one bike or pedestrian hit each week and two car occupants on average are injured each week here in Burlington. And to give you some idea of how the pandemic, the 21,000 excess deaths which have developed since 1990 applied to Burlington, we have about a fatality every three years here. And if you look, we learned this summer, for example, for the first time, and we'll talk about roundabouts here, that the fatality that occurred at the Home Avenue Shelburne Road intersection in 1998 and the pedestrian who also died at the Colchester Barrett intersection where the pedestrian was in each case was on a crosswalk. We now know that there hasn't been a single person ever killed in the United States and Canada with 8,000 roundabouts who was on a marked crossing. The advantage to safety in terms of pedestrians is well known and as the Vermont Agency of Transportation folder as you well know recites the correct data that you have a 90% reduction in serious and fatal injuries with a roundabout and you have a 35, excuse me, 76% reduction in injuries and a 35% reduction overall crashes. The point here is that in all these cases, these are signalized intersections that killed six of the seven people most recently about every three years. And we're gonna have another death at a signalized intersection between now and the end of next year if this pattern continues. And I think the commissioners need to be aware that when they make a decision on an intersection and Vermont and Burlington, not having a roundabout yet is way behind in terms of traffic safety. We have about 35 excess deaths that each intersection not converted to a roundabout as AARP and AAA Advocate is a mistake. Thank you. Thank you. We have a few more folks in queue and we'll call on Monica. Right now we'll be promoting you over to speak during public comment. Hi there. Thank you for having me. My name is Monica Ivancic and I live in Ward 7 and I work at UVM and often bike up and down Colchester Avenue to the Chase Mill Building or to a new ski. And I'm here today to advocate for the raised bike lanes on Colchester Avenue. We need to make it easier for bicyclists to get around especially when the road is steep such as Colchester Avenue when if you're going downhill you might not be going as fast as cars so they're still kind of bunching up behind you or wanting to get around you. And then when you're going uphill you're going so slow that you're essentially going just as slow as a pedestrian. So cars don't want a bunch up behind you and I am happy that now there are bike lanes there. However, cars can still sometimes park sometimes they'd park in those lanes. And so if we had raised bike lanes that would be harder. I'm not saying that they still wouldn't do it but it would be harder. So it's about do time to start changing our culture and get away from individual cars and folks driving their own cars everywhere. What we need in these days is a switch to alternative transportation and biking. We need to do this change our culture to make biking a lot more accessible and likable to be able to curb the climate crisis. We can't go on ignoring the fact that earth is hotter every single year. We need to make biking more accessible and safer to encourage more people to do it especially here in Burlington. We need to become a more bike friendly and invest in bicycling infrastructure like many other cities across the US and especially Europe have done. So I would like to urge you to please invest in raised bike lanes on Colchester Avenue. Thank you. Thank you. Here we'll be promoting over Martin. Martin, you should be able to speak. Thank you. My name is Martin Wolf. I live on Tebow Parkway immediately off Colchester Avenue and I bike on Colchester Avenue almost every day including during the winter. And I want to support the separate bike lane but express concern about the raised bike lane for the following reason. Frequently obstructions are placed in the bike lane. These can be recycled containers on recycle days or trash containers, just accumulation of junk. And when you're on a raised bike lane you then have to get off the raised bike lane and frequently trying to get back on over an edge will cause the bicycle to tip over. I've had that experience on certain other areas where there has been a raised transition and that creates a hazard. So I would promote a level bike lane demarked by pylons perhaps as is done on Union Avenue in downtown Burlington but I'm concerned about having a raised section where I would have to potentially get off and get back on at risk of tipping over. So thank you for listening to my comments. Thank you. Jason Stuffle, you'll be promoted over. Hi, I'm Jason Stuffle and I'm a 16 year resident of Colchester Ave on Avid Biker. And for the past year, I've commuted my daughter to school on Colchester Ave every day throughout the whole season in the winter, every type of condition. And I'd really like to just advocate for transportation equity. We talk about that a lot, but if you look at the facility that is on Colchester Ave it is the gutter, there's sewer grates there. As people mentioned, people use it as parking spots, there's trash cans in the way, any number of things like that. So providing a dedicated bike lane that is fully separated from the road and provides that buffer will allow users of all abilities to feel confident to use it. And I think that's a really important point. I was also on the committee for this project as well as being a member of the Walk Bike Council in Burlington. And so I think if we want to be serious in the city this can be a real showcase for what can be done for safety and mobility. I have a view out my window of the road every day and there are already lots of people using bikes, e-bikes, e-skateboards, e-scooters, one-wheels, all those micro mobility things. And so I think we really have to take this very seriously. I'm also a favor of a roundabout there and I'll speak more maybe when we get to that actual item. And then I also would say that actually on a separate note saw that the commission was looking to have a younger member perhaps someone under 18 be a part of the commission. And I think that's a much needed viewpoint for people that maybe can't drive how do they get around and having that viewpoint is really key. So also on that issue, I hope that you promote having one or more actually members or advisors that are from the school age that can advise the committee on what they experience day to day. Thank you. Thank you. David Seidel, you're next. All right, great. Thanks so much. So my name is David Seidel. I'm an incoming senior at UVM and I live on North Prospect Street right by our Colchester Ave turns into Pearl Street. And I'm calling in to express my full support for the Colchester Ave infrastructure project which we create very much needed, raised and separated bike lanes among other improvements on that street. So I just wanted to start by saying, that I came to Burlington in large part because of my many important ways accurate perception that this is a city really taking the lead and addressing the climate crisis, which I don't need to stress is one of the most devastating threats of our time and which we're all gravely behind on. But also our transportation sector, or not also, but our transportation sector contributes the most to our annual greenhouse gas emissions. And one of the biggest obstacles is that we continue to be trapped in a very single occupancy car-centered infrastructure system and mentality which is only exacerbated by spending large amounts of money on something like a roundabout. So I deeply hope that we can continue to have longer conversations about transitioning towards a state and culture where people move to the places that they need to in much more safe and efficient and collaborative ways. But for now, having these raised and separated bike lanes are, it's an important step in making biking a more genuinely accessible option for Burlingtonians. That's all. Thanks so much for the chance to speak. Thank you. Logan, I'm not sure if one member of the public's hand went up a second time if you'd like me to double check on that one. I see two hands in there. David said, I already spoke and Tony Reddinton who already spoke. Yeah, and I wasn't sure if Tony's hand went up for a second time, but I do see a new member of the public. Gail has also gone up. Sure, yeah, let's check with Gail Rose. Gail, you should have the ability to speak. All right, hi. Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to say, as a resident of Burlington, first of all, I'm so pleased with all the bike lanes that have gone up in recent years, especially like South Winooski have. I, you know, I go to city market. Now I feel safe biking there. I would not have felt safe without the bike lane there. So I just use my bike a lot more. I live in the south end of Burlington. I work up at UVM on UVM Medical Center Campus. So I do use that block of Colchester Ave and I ride on the sidewalk. It's, you know, thankfully a little wide there because there's no way I'd ride in the street. And obviously I'm putting pedestrians at risk if I'm riding my bike and, you know, so it's just, it's not a safe situation for bikes and I know from my experience that people will use the bike lanes, even people who don't bike now, once there's a bike lane there, they'll feel safe and they'll commute more to Burlington and to do errands and go to work and things like that. So anyway, thanks for the bike lanes that exist and keep putting them in. All right, thank you. This is all for public comment. Great. All right, thank you, Mr. Goliath. With that, we'll close out the item three public forum and move forward to item four on the agenda, to the consent agenda. There's two items proposed in the consent agenda, remove ADA space at 54 Pitkin Street and a proposed additional ADA parking at 181 South Union Street. Can I make a motion to accept the consent agenda? You may. Thank you for that motion. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Bose. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, see none. We will go to a vote. Commissioner Archibald. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Vice-Chair O'Neill-Vivaco. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Aye for myself. Thank you. The consent agenda has passed unanimously. All right, moving forward. Item five, Colchester Ave, East Avenue scoping. For context, as I understand it, is it true staff who remind us we are not required to vote on this? This is not opposed, changed the street regulations at this time, but we would be welcome to make a statement in support of this study, which will turn it over for a staff presentation this time. Thank you. I'm going to share my screen. All right, hopefully you can still see my presentation there. Thank you for having this on the agenda tonight. I wanna thank all of our committee members and members of the community as well who have turned out tonight to continue to weigh in on this. And also wanna thank the RPC, including Jason Shrest, who is our project manager and will be joining us shortly in this presentation. But we have a very short presentation tonight. We really wanted to leave the bulk of the time for any comments and questions from the commission or the public, but we'll just jump into it. This study was led by a project team that included city staff, RPC staff, and our consulting teams. And it also had a strong involvement from our advisory committee that included a representative from CEDO, from the medical center, commissioner Barr, representative UVM. We had Green Mountain Transit, the Walk Byte Council, the agency of transportation, neighborhood representative appointed by the NPA, and a council representative. So they met throughout this study and the project really kicked off in December of 2019 with our first public meeting, our last advisory committee meeting then just happened this past February. We did have a bit of a hiatus in the middle of last year during the pandemic while we just tried to figure out how to keep this project moving forward. But yeah, go back on track and are here tonight to present the actual scoping report. We will present this tonight at the Transportation, Energy, and Utilities Committee meeting next week and at an upcoming council meeting as well. So there are additional opportunities for people to weigh in. The first big step that we took with this project was identifying the purpose and need for this project and for these improvements. And this was developed by the advisory committee with input from the community. And this is really important because it does guide the development and the evaluation of our concepts and alternatives as we go through the rest of this planning study. So the purposes that were defined by the committee include enhancing mobility and safety for all modes and improved parking management while supporting local businesses and to improve the safety for all modes at the intersection of East Ave. And the needs for this study are to improve intersection safety, improve corridor safety for all users, enhance mobility for bicyclists, and manage parking while supporting local businesses, employers, and residents. So again, these are the criteria that we came back to as we started to develop all of the alternatives and concepts. And we won't go into detail on all of the concepts that were presented, but this is just an overview of what we did present to the community and to the advisory committee. All of these concepts in that detail are available in the report itself, which is included in this packet and is also available online. We'll have a link to that at the end of the presentation as well. But I'll give you a quick summary of the key takeaways from our last public meeting where they did weigh the concepts and alternatives that helped us narrow down. Basically, the takeaways were that the community preferred raised and separated bike lanes through the entirety of the corridor. There were some concerns over one of the concepts that included a mixing zone near campus kitchen. Basically, we dropped the separated bike lane and merged it with a shared use path in order to try to accommodate some parking. We heard both very vocal support and opposition to the roundabout concepts at East Avenue. And we heard a very clear need to address transit considerations in the report and in the alternatives. We did take a poll and a vote along the way to really clarify where people's preferences were and that helped inform the committee's decision for the preferred alternatives. We will walk through the preferred alternatives in detail and to do that, I will turn it over to Jason. Thanks, Nicole. Okay, we'll start on the west side of things over on the Prospect Street side of the corridor and you're looking at our recommended preferred alternative which is the raised and separated bike lanes throughout the corridor and moving from west to east. We've kept this within the existing bounds of the sidewalk on the north side of the street and the shared use path on the south side of the street. So those two pieces of infrastructure aren't moving. Everything in this section of the corridor is happening in between those. So nothing is being pushed outward, if you will. You can see the tan is either the shared use path on the south side or the sidewalk on the north side and the gray is the raised separated bike lanes. And I wanna touch upon a comment that was mentioned earlier and that's how the separated bike lane interacts when it's adjacent to a sidewalk. And I think there's room for discussion there and how that treatment is applied. There's different ways of having a transition type of piece like a beveled curb. If we were to have the two at just a slightly different level, you could have something beveled there and we did receive a comment from somebody who uses a wheelchair along the corridor and they would appreciate something like that if they had to actually go around something that's some sort of obstacle that was either in the sidewalk or in the bike lane so they could navigate up onto the sidewalk and back down to the bike lane, if you will. And if that, there are also another request they had was to have that piece of curbing be a very distinguished color so that they could see it. So just food for thought as hopefully this moves forward into a design type analysis and detail. Details like that should be further explored. But just a couple of high points. You can see at the intersection of Mansfield, Nicole, I don't know if you can, there you go. Yeah. There's a little slot there to accommodate left turn movements for bicyclists so we've tried to enhance their ability to make turns at intersections so it's not just separating them from the roadway but also enabling them to have an easier time turning on and off of streets that come into the corridor. I think that's it for this section unless there's questions. And this is just the continuation of what you previously saw. The only detail I wanna point out here is that there's likely not enough room to include street trees in this section due to the Greenbelt being only probably around three feet except perhaps in the section where you can see it pushes out where the right turn lane begins on Colchester Avenue where it goes to East Ave. I could perceive perhaps that area being able to accommodate a few trees if that was desired. And continuing down the hill, we've skipped over the intersection for now and get to that in a moment. And this is where Nicole mentioned we had a mixing zone in here but we've removed that after feedback received from the public. So that was in front of Campus Kitchen where you see the on-street kind of striped parallel parking and then so we've been in this alternative and the prefer recommended prefer alternative just kept it as a raised bike lane and sidewalk continuous through there. So there is no mixing zone as part of this alternative. And you'll see a couple of bulb outs there and those are for short-term loading or unloading type of parking and or perhaps a transit pull-off. Kind of one of those design details that needs to be flushed out as this would move forward. And that concept just continues down the hill and tries to incorporate as wide of a green belt as possible. You can see how that gets wider between Calarco and Chase and then just it has to narrow in order to kind of meet the grades and not impact too much of people's properties along the corridor. And this is the preferred recommended preferred alternative for the intersection. So it's realigns the intersection. You can see it bends East Avenue to a more traditional 90 degree intersection and incorporates a bike signal. So heading across East Avenue and see that call out there with a bike signal and it also adds a missing crosswalk across Colchester Avenue. That would be on the eastbound or westerly side of the intersection. And I think this is the last slide before we can maybe dive into, I'm sure some of the questions that you might have. We wanted to just kind of recap how we came to this decision. And I will say it was not easy. There was the initial vote for the corridor was split between one of the concepts that did not have any parking on street in the, let's see, the eastern end of the corridor. So campus kitchen, that area where I showed you there was the on street parallel parking and the bulb outs. And so after much discussion, it seemed that the sticking point amongst committee members was what that parking is used for. And the way we got to more or less consensus, as you can see there, one vote short of unanimous was the stipulation that the parking is not for residential uses. So long as the parking was for businesses, loading, unloading, transit, that was appetizing to the majority of the committee members. And in terms of the intersection itself, it was kind of between the roundabout that you saw in the poll earlier. It's pretty close between the roundabout and the signalized option that we just showed you. And the feedback we received, the high points, some people felt that the roundabout alternative was more of a benefit to vehicles and less so for pedestrians and bicyclists. And argument there was more towards desire lines, given that being that if you were to be walking or biking at the signalized intersection, your desire line just kind of goes straight across the crosswalk. Whereas with the roundabout, you kind of have to go out and around the perimeter of the circle to navigate. So that was one of the points that was made. The UVM Medical Center Rep reported back that ambulance drivers did not prefer the roundabout over the signalized option. It was obviously highlighted and I had mentioned earlier in the public comment period that there is a significant improved safety with regard to roundabouts. And much more aesthetically pleasing than a signal and traffic lights and emissions benefits or as we have listed climate benefits. But throughout all that discussion, it came down and the vote was six to two in favor of the signalized alternative that we showed you. So that does conclude our presentation. There is the link here for the project website that includes the actual scoping study also available in the commission packet online. Jason's contact information is here in case anybody would like to follow up with additional feedback before we take this to the TUC and Council as well. And again, tonight as Chair Hogan said, we're not required to take an action from the commission but would happily entertain any action that you'd like to take in support of the preferred alternatives or any other direction you'd like to give to TUC and Council as we do take this forward. So I will stop sharing my screen now but I'm happy to pull this back up again if there are any areas we'd like to go back to. Okay, thank you for that presentation. With that, I'll bring it back to commissioners for discussion. Start with Commissioner Archibald. Is it because my last name starts with egg at first? Yeah. Or is it Steve? I don't remember. All of us who we picked. So all right, I'll roll with it. Thank you. Questions on my part. I don't have a time but could you summarize for me to call or Jason what the general community sentiment would be on this section of road? So that would include, especially neighbors, users of this corridor and things like that. How would you summarize that? I mean, speaking just, could you elaborate just a little bit more on what you're looking for? Are people in support of this or not? Support of the project or this alternative? Yes. Yeah, I would agree. So they are, you're finding generally support for the design, if I'm hearing you. For the corridor itself, the raised bike lanes, I think the roundabout in the signal I think is a little, you know, there's differing opinions. Okay. So those pieces, the roundabout versus the signal, right? If I heard you right, that's the piece that sounds like it's kind of a point of conflict within here. How do you view that, right? Is our goal to find the path of least resistance or is it to find the best design? And if so, what's the best design for this location? I think there's a lot of factors at play there and we didn't go over it in the presentation, but part of what we did was to look at a benefit cost analysis and it's, it was preliminary, it wasn't, you know, all encompassing, but it is something that we can use and they take a look at the anticipated safety benefits, if you were to install a roundabout. And, you know, oftentimes at an intersection that has a significant crash experience can tip the scales in favor of the roundabout. The, you know, typical hurdle with roundabouts is that they tend to cost a significant amount more than a signalized intersection. I think we were estimating around three and a half million for this intersection versus a $1 million signalized improvement. So pretty, you know, substantial difference. And I think that is a big hurdle for a lot of people. But if, you know, on the other side of the coin, there's, you know, the kind of the things that you can't really monetize. And, you know, that is, you know, the aesthetics. There's typically less maintenance concerned with a roundabout. And you have a, you know, 24-7 traffic calming element in your street. You cannot speed the roundabout. You cannot blow a roundabout like you can a red light, if you will. So that, you know, if you value those elements quite a bit, and I think the climate change and emissions reductions and keeping people moving and not stop at a traffic light can necessarily monetize all of those. But if those are very important to you, I think that's where you'll lead to support the roundabout over the signal. So that's fair, right? Oh, I'm sorry, Nicole, please. Well, I was just gonna add, you know, part of your question I think was, you know, which is the better design and which do we prefer here? And I think at least on the city side, we tried to not come into these studies with a preconceived idea of what the outcome should be. I mean, this is a community process and we really do value the community's input. And so along the way, we hear from everyone what is most important to them and take that into consideration. And as long as each design is sound and will function and both of these intersection concepts do provide that. So we could support either one, but, you know, as Jason said, there are pros and cons to each cost is definitely a factor for the city as we're trying to, we have a long list of capital projects for these similar kinds of improvements that we need to install. And so the higher cost each one is, the more challenging it is to build more improvements. And so cost is a factor, but that is only one. The safety consideration is another one that we definitely weigh. And although they were pretty close in this case between safety improvements for the signalized upgrade or the roundabout does still have a higher safety benefit. So again, both designs and both concepts that we feel are sound and both are viable at this location. Yeah, and I think that's my takeaway, I think from hearing you both, I think you're, I appreciate your diplomacy on this and how difficult it is to thread the needle. But it highlights that really the decision is on us as a community, right? It's not your decision that it's on us that if we prioritize cost and accommodation for emergency vehicles, we're gonna say put in a light, it makes the most sense. And if we say that historical traffic safety data is the priority then put in a roundabout, right? So that there's not a right or wrong answer here, it's just really about our priorities as a community. And it's not your priorities as designers, you've just kind of laid out options and you've solicited the community at that. So to me, it sounds like you've done as thorough work as possible on the design, especially the one point that we could argue would be controversial. So I do appreciate that. One other area that I just wanna explore a little bit would be data around crashes or safety, ironically, just kind of leaning into that. And when I say that, I don't mean just that one point, I mean the whole corridor here. Do we have indications of what the data has been in terms of crashes or injuries versus what we anticipate they would be under this design? Do you have that data? I don't have it right in front of me at the moment. What do you mean in the packet? There is a summary. This was primarily done by V-Trans since this is a high crash location and they have a highway safety improvement program. So they have a model they apply to these various types of improvements so that they can measure the anticipated safety improvements that they could see with each of these. And so yes, we, as Jason said, we did that analysis. I don't think we have those numbers here. We could pull them up if you do want to see those, but it is something that we checked. Sure. But so in partnership with that organization, you've accounted for arguably what's most important, right? Like people's lives, safety, that which matters most. So that that is in our packet. I believe it's up on the website for everyone to view and I don't think it's worth getting into the parsing of the numbers, but it was accommodated for. So that I appreciate too. So I'm gonna stop there. Thank you very much for my difficult questions. Thank you. And for all your work. All right, thank you. Commissioner Barr. Thanks. So I, as it was noted on one of the first slides, I was part of the committee that read through these at length and made some decisions and some recommendations. One of the things, and I know that some of the guests that are here waiting to speak know my position on roundabouts, but I'll just to be clear, roundabouts are safe. My experience living in Europe was they're safer for vehicles. There's much less crashes, but unless it's a very distinguished roundabout that includes bike lanes, such as the Dutch roundabout, which is much bigger, much wider, especially for a footprint like this. It's a desire line that has a cyclist and I use this corridor every day. I bike to work and bike home. I would likely be, it'd be longer because I'd have to go out of the desire line to go around. And I just wanna say that a lot of the things there's a man named Jeff Speck who came to speak in Burlington. He is a well-known city planner, urban planner. He's a writer, a lecturer, he's a Harvard grad. And one of the things that he had said is building modern roundabouts, according to current best practice to solve problems of safety and congestion, yes, but do not locate them in shopping districts or other places where pedestrian and bicycle vitality is desired. So I kind of take the lead from that and the experience. So for me, I guess I would like to really dig into that safety data and exactly who is safer with this. Because as a cyclist, I don't feel safe going into a roundabout where somebody is more inclined to look for another car to zip around and not have to stop than to go to a signalized light where I at least have a fighting chance to cross. That's it for me. Thank you. Mr. Bose. Yeah, so thanks very much for the presentation and for the work on this. I was thinking a lot about the sort of embodied experience of cyclists in the city this afternoon as I biked to the Old North End and then back home to the South End. And I was thinking that I've gotten so accustomed over the last year and a bit to having less cars on the street. And I've been noticing this over the last month or so, like all of a sudden, oh yeah, people really veer into the bike lanes a lot, especially when you're going through the middle of Burlington. So I'm very much in favor of all the work that you've put into this, all of the different options you've laid out. My questions actually follow along with the questions that Commissioner Archambault raised. And I was very grateful for him pointing out that this, again, comes down to community decisions over community priorities. And one of the things I wanted to kind of ask about is something that's a little bit unfair to put to you because I don't think it's about this study or this committee. I think it's a much broader problem in this city and probably most cities when it comes to planning, which is in thinking about whose voices count when we make these sorts of decisions and who sort of counts for the quote community. I was looking back over the report that you posted versus the presentation that you just made because I thought I saw in your presentation you listed not just the members of the stakeholder community or sorry, the community advisory board, but I think from the public planning, the public meeting that you had, I think you had numbers of who preferred what. Is that right? And so one of my questions was how did you, I mean, that's giving us a sense of like who prefers what, not just in terms of the roundabout, but in terms of these different kinds of options. And one of the things I really struggle with is, you know, it's sort of exemplified here. We have a quote public comment period. And as with everything when we have public comments and not just for DPW, but for every city board or commission I've sat on, it's completely vested interests that come up and speak. Half of the people who speak have already been involved in this process. They're on the committees, they have very deeply held views about this, which doesn't disqualify those views, but it's not those people who are necessarily gonna derail a project like this when it comes down to it. I have seen that in multiple communities that who gets really mad about, you know, like this fantastic bike walk plan that I saw in Vancouver getting completely derailed by the people upset about the war against the car, whatever, nonsense. And so like for me, it would be really helpful in looking at options to have a much broader sense of what local residents think, not just the ones who show up at a meeting like that. And I don't know if we have the capacity to do that, but it feels to me like when you're going to the next step of taking this to city council, of taking this much more broadly to the public to have more. And I don't know what that entails. Maybe more surveys of local residents. I mean, I feel like DPW does a good job of like notifying people of, you know, things that we're going to be, you know, we're talking about the consolidated pickup today. I saw lots of notices going out about that, but how do we get more data about what people actually believe about the roundabout? I know what some people, I really know what some people think about roundabouts, but I don't have a really good sense of what people who live on that street sort of think about that. And so I'd just like to encourage, if at some point in this process, we can get more of that input. And I realize that that's time intensive and it's cost intensive, but I think for the long-term, it would really be helpful. So I know that's not something that you guys can address right here or now, but I really think it's important to get more and not just the vested interests. Thanks. All right, thank you. Vice-chair O'Neill-Valco. Thanks. Thank you, Nicole and Jason for this really, I've seen this process and these iterations over time. I really appreciate the effort and to underscore what Professor Bose said, Commissioner Bose said, maybe from his professorial pulpit, that the piece on engagement, just I think all of us are touching on this in our work lives, is how to get more than the choir coming to the service here. And I don't have an answer to because I do know just in my work, it is a longer process in getting diverse voices and the quiet voices to speak out. But that said, I do support this corridor project. I do feel that given the kind of the structures that you have had with the increased outreach that DPW has done and really listening to businesses and dealing with the parking issues and the, you know, nixing, the mixing lane, I definitely appreciate the efforts in that. Questions? I, you know, safety, yes. And we need to kind of protect our vulnerable users and make sure there is ease of navigation throughout our city. The roundabout, do you have information on why the ambulance was not in favor of the roundabout? Is there some sort of structural issue about a roundabout or no way to close off, like, you know, how they have the intelligent transportation systems, whatever, to kind of close off traffic lights so that ambulance can go through, like, what was the feedback from the hospital on that? From what I recall, the explanation that was given was that there was the concern about if they were carrying a patient in the ambulance, they would, you know, have to, the jostling that may occur to them in the ambulance as they, you know, turned into the roundabout and then went around and then turned out of the roundabout. I don't think it was so much the, they would have to slow down so that that didn't occur, so that I think that was part of the equation. I think they had trouble kind of looking past that, you know, the existing situation and, you know, the signalized alternatives that we explored, you know, where the ambulance would just stay straight and just go right through the intersection in an emergency situation and not really have to slow down to navigate the circle. You know, I will say from a professional standpoint, I was a little surprised to hear that feedback. It's not, not typical that we would hear that. I've always been, you know, I've learned through webinars and other experience feedback from other people who have had roundabouts in their communities that emergency personnel generally favor them. So that was a little bit of a surprise to me and they favor them because they tend to reduce congestion in an area so that when they approach in their section, they don't have to deal with a line of cars that has to get out of the way and during peak time periods. But everyone's opinion in driving their emergency vehicle and I'm sure is different and that was the sentiment that we received. Okay, yeah, I'm sure there's some data or even some anecdotal information from other emergency service drivers in other areas where they're around about. So that kind of surprised me. But thank you for that. And then another question about the roundabouts is, you know, back to what Commissioner Archibald was talking about, you know, kind of where our values, our community values fall and safety and cost and it's, you know, we need to be fiscally responsible, of course, and we need to be responsible to our residents. How, you mentioned that the initial cost of a roundabout is much higher than a signalized intersection. How does that kind of initial investment versus the savings and maintenance over time, how does that square over whatever metric that you usually evaluate these expenses on, you know, five, 10 years. I don't know what the metric would be. But, and I know they come from different columns but would the maintenance savings on a roundabout somehow level off the initial cost and over what period of time? Well, that kind of comes into the preliminary benefit cost analysis that we worked on with B-trans. It did not include maintenance but it's, I don't have, you know, I think we might have the numbers in the slideshow. We might actually, Nicole, be worth bringing those up at some point. And I swear, I was not going to ask like the hard-hitting questions after Chair Archibald and Chair Post. But just really interesting where, you know, where there could be any potential savings. Right. So I think Nicole, Nicole, you have the slide up right now. Oh yeah, see it. You can kind of see where the benefit cost ratios turned out and, you know, things didn't work out well for the roundabout because mainly because the crash history at this intersection isn't that severe. You don't have a lot of injuries at this location. You don't have any fatalities, at least in the last, you know, five years of data that we looked at. This analysis looked at 20 years. You asked about a timeframe. That's how far out this one looked. You know, it didn't include maintenance but looking at those ratios, the, you know, anything over one and one and over is, you know, considered a safety improvement worth, you know, bang for the buck there. You know, roundabout came in at point four. It's unlikely that, you know, if you factored in the maintenance or each of those that the scales, you know, would tip in favor of the roundabout. Okay, thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah, and again, thank you for your work on this and I'm very supportive of this concept. Thanks. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. All right, turn on the microphone. First thing, I also support the raised bike lane separated out and I think that's going to make it more comfortable for people. So I'll, I support that portion of the proposal. As most of you know, I'm a proponent of roundabouts and I think the discussion that was had earlier, I have some questions, the discussion about what does the public want is really what's relevant here is over time and education of the public, the public will learn to want different things and Burlington is somewhat not, does not have a well-educated public about roundabouts and the safety. And so those of us that are proposing roundabouts and questioning some of the decisions made that stop lights are going to be the better solution have experience that is information that is not getting through very well yet. And once Burlington has more roundabouts and pedestrians use them and bicyclists use them, I think we're going to find that's going to improve. But the real question that Commissioner Bose asked about what do the local residents really want? The question was asked of the advisory committee and based on the information that they were presented, they told us what they wanted. And I don't feel that the information that was presented completely accurately represents the full information that they should have had. So I'm not blaming them for the situation. I'm very much concerned that we, and I've spent quite a bit of time asking questions ahead of time of this meeting, trying to get at to some of the numbers because some of the finances, and I think in the communication that I had, the estimates about costs of things or benefits are somewhat seat of the pants. I mean, it's not exactly that bad, but when I, for example, we just saw a slide and Nicole showed a slide that had an annual cost column for a roundabout and a signalized thing. And it had something like $235,000 annual cost for a roundabout. Now, we don't really know what that is, but it's a bigger number than the $68,000 or whatever that was on the other number. And I guess actually I had actually received that slide. So it was annual cost for the method that is being proposed was $65,871, and the annual cost for the roundabout is listed as $235,255. Now, what is that? So that's just one example because when I ask, well, what's the maintenance cost of a signalized intersection versus a maintenance cost of a roundabout, I was given $6,000 a year for maintenance on a roundabout, I mean on a signals, but we don't really know exactly what the maintenance costs are for roundabouts, which is I guess what we just heard. So what I'm getting at, and I'm not gonna take up a lot of time because I really think the other questions that have been asked, and the ones that I asked myself directly before this meeting, really the point is we don't have enough information ordinarily to make the roundabout option actually clear enough to people that it is a better option and that the finances make it look like slam dunk, we can't do it. That's a problem and it will always be a problem. And so I query the questions on the finances because we don't really have that broken down clearly and I don't think the advisory committee got that information in the specifics of which I've actually tried to present from other roundabouts in other communities from other public works departments, sizing and all that kind of stuff. So it was mentioned by Jason that a roundabout is 24 seven traffic calming. It slows everything down and again, I'm trying to educate people about this. The pedestrians and the bicyclists are the vehicles have the opportunity to address whether there's pedestrians or bicyclists in a separate transaction from when they are trying to interact and assess whether they can get in or out of the roundabout with vehicles. That is part of the magic. It slows people down. There's eye contact with people and the fact that the placement of the sidewalks is before the vehicle is entering the roundabout which makes it safer for a pedestrian because the car is not looking for other cars. The car is looking for people or bicyclists. So I can't educate anybody about this now and I've tried and I think we'll continue to do that. There's a lot of materials that I presented to this commission over the time of we've been talking about roundabouts in different places in the city. So I just feel like we need to continue to make sure that the information is provided to people making decisions like this is complete and accurate and not sort of generalizations from something that's not actually based in specifics of a roundabout that was actually constructed and we know what the costs are, we know what the issues are, we know what the maintenance is. We haven't got one to give us that kind of information so we're all dealing with generalities. Three and a half million to do this roundabout, well, slams down showstopper. That's just not acceptable in my opinion because even the roundabout down to the Colchester Barrett Riverside connection, they did a study that looked at all the accidents, the costs and projected out into the future if we don't have that many accidents and people being injured and cars being damaged and the magnitude of the accidents, we will have the whole cost to the public is gonna be far less than we're gonna inflict on them with stoplights. Now one, I did have a couple of questions but one thing too that I was gonna point out with stoplights, when you have a stoplight, the people, you know the psychology, people that want and particularly when there's a lot of cycles and this the way that the proposed alternative is is to have a lot of cycles. We've got the bicycle cycle, the pedestrian cycle, the vehicle cycles and the slower the turnaround is from one and legs of that for a vehicle, the more likely when that light is yellow, they're gonna go step on the gas which is where you're gonna hit a person who's trying to cross the sidewalk. So the psychology of an intersection with stoplights induces people to feel like they've gotta rush through it because they could be sitting there and they don't wanna sit there. I did have questions that I may be able to, I think I got the question about the cost. I had asked a question about the level of service. I think we got that. The level of service right now, the way it is is apparently between C and D and any of these stoplight alternatives, you're gonna get C. So we're not getting a huge improvement of traffic flow. We will not get any, that we will not save on people sitting there idling for no reason. So there's just so many reasons that the roundabout should be considered in this intersection. And I'm hoping that we can continue to have that discussion as we, if we're not gonna, if we're gonna make a recommendation tonight, I would not recommend the signalized intersection alternative that was selected but I'm more than willing to endorse the separated bike lane because that I think is a great idea. Thank you. All right, thank you. Chair Hogan, before we go on, could we have an answer from the presenters to the question about the cost and benefit? I find it hard to imagine that these numbers were simply invented. So I would like to have some sense of where these figures came from. Thank you. Jason may have some details, but we may not have as many, but they're definitely not just pulled from the air that these were developed by VTRANS. It's using their methodology and their construction experiences. And we know that, you know, that the state has more roundabouts than the city does directly. And so they do have projects that they can look to for some of their numbers. And so Commissioner, I mean, you compared this a little bit to the cultures Riverside intersection where VTRANS didn't participate in that project in the same way and provide the same sort of cost benefit analysis. So they are a little bit different, compared to those two evaluations using slightly different criteria. But yeah, the slide that I did pull up that showed those annual costs and the projected benefits was developed by VTRANS that did inform the overall construction cost estimate as well, VHB worked directly with VTRANS to try to develop a cost estimate that was realistic for this location. But you just tell us like what is it that you, in terms of annual maintenance, are there very specific kinds of costs around, I don't know, repaving or signage? I'm not sure what is it that we would be spending that different cost on? Thanks. Jason, I'm not sure if you know any details on what goes into the annual roundabout costs that were provided by VTRANS for our signalized intersections. Commissioner Obie did mention that we provided an estimate just based on our own staff and equipment that it was estimated that a signalized intersection has about $6,000 worth of basically capital costs to maintain those every year. And that includes replacing the equipment many decades down the road. And that is substantially different than what VTRANS provided, but I am definitely not nuanced in all of the items that go into VTRANS calculations. And so there are likely a lot of other factors that I'm not familiar with. And Jason, I don't know if you have those details either. Yeah, I mentioned it earlier. The benefit cost analysis that VTRANS helped us out with to try to, you know, weigh the safety improvement of the roundabout versus the signal is preliminary. It is the cost that you're looking at, Commissioner Obie, that annual cost, that is the cost of the roundabout over 20 years, the construction cost, the capital cost, the $3.5 million broken down over 20 years. That is that annual cost number that you're looking at. And I'm sure there was some sort of inflation or return rate, a 3% rate of return, you know, was used in that calculation. So that's what those numbers are. It's just the annualized cost of the capital improvement. So that's the $235,000 annual cost for the roundabout versus the $63,000 or $65,000 for the signal. That's all the cost is. It's just the construction cost of it. And that's what I meant by preliminary. It doesn't take into account other things like maintenance or any sort of, you know, climate change emissions benefits trying to put a cost figure to those. And then in the benefits column is the benefits of the crash reduction. So we have, you know, there are ways that, you know, safety engineers follow to monetize the impacts of a crash, whether it be a property damage, injury, or fatality to those are the three different types that would have a different value put to them. And so based on the crash history and the known average percentage reduction in crashes for a roundabout versus, you know, the signalized improvement that we were looking at, that is what you're seeing in the annual benefit column. So those are the costs, those are the benefits and that's what it was used. It's the numbers for, you know, Nicole touched on this, the estimated project costs, you know, they're not pulled out of thin air. You know, it's bid histories. It's projects that went to construction, typical unit prices were used. This is, it's not, it's not a detailed design. So it's not, you know, extremely tabulated, but it is in the ballpark. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, that helps with Commissioner Bose's question. Commissioner Overby, a quick follow up to that. I just wanted to say that's, it's very helpful because it's not labeled as that on the chart and it appears that that is the annual cost of maintaining that and that kind of a roundabout. And so I think you have very helpfully clarified something that was ambiguous and could have been ambiguous to the advisory committee as well. If the label at the top of that column didn't say annual cost, it said amortized cost over 20 years, annual cost amortized over 20 years of that investment, that would have been clear. So I think this has been great. That was very helpful, but I feel like a lot of the information that we've gotten, I've looked at, has been sort of similarly confusing to make it possible to understand what's the decision. So thank you very much. That was very helpful. Yeah, and I apologize. I think we're running into an issue where, we have a presentation that we put on the internet that you don't have the added benefit of hearing somebody convey the information on the slides to you. And so that's an area we could definitely improve upon. Sure. Construction costs annualized. A couple of questions on my part. Could you explain a little bit more about like a left turn procedure for person on bike? You mentioned that there was, and you showed in the diagram a little bit of a cut out there, but if that is still a lane, two lanes really, if there's a vehicle left turn lane as well, could you talk me through what happens there? How does a person on a bike, let's go, so you make a left turn from going eastbound on Colchester have to say, man, Mansfield. Thank you, thank you for bringing that up, Nicole. Hope of visual, I thought that might be helpful. So yeah, I see a little like bump out space there, but what do I do? Do I just pull over and push the pedestrian call button? Yeah, I'd say that level of detail probably is not included yet. So at this location, if we were to install this, our design process would be either trying to see if, depending on how the pedestrian signals are actuated here, whether or not someone on a bike would need to even push the button or if there's another way for them just to be able to cross if they're in that area. But basically I think the lowest cost option would be having them cross with the pedestrian signal. So that could be an option rather than having to install a separate bike signal here. And then again, when we get into that design work, we could just see how we need, what infrastructure we need to help them trigger that signal. Thank you, I understood the concept sketch at this level. Related a little bit to the right there, if it's on that map or not, but at East Ave. I wonder, was there, and maybe again, this is a conversation. So I guess it's the next page. You can scroll down like the East Ave intersection for a second. I wonder if there's consideration given to any further protection at that intersection. And I was picturing for instance, a person traveling eastbound on Colchester in the bike lane and a driver. So you're turning right from Colchester onto East Ave. It looks like the, perhaps the stop bar on the bike lane is further in front and more visible. Was there consideration to adding any other type of protection through the intersection? I don't think the intersection itself had the space for like a true protected intersection in terms of basically that additional little island or design added here, but this little call out does note that there would be a dedicated bike signal on this approach, which if a bike does stop and follow the signal adds that extra bit of protection. There should not be any other conflicting movements when a bike would be crossing on their own signal. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and that would be a new concept for the city, right? Nicole, as far as I know. Yes, that would be a first. Yeah, but if you look at that, it looks like a traffic signal with a light symbol on it. Darius, what are we looking at for implementation timeframe here? I don't think we know yet. Basically our annual process of prioritizing projects, whenever we do these studies, we add the recommendations into our capital plan and each year we try to prioritize those projects either based on other construction coordination that's maybe beneficial and a reason to kind of bump a project up in a list. Just kind of as we talked about throughout the study, general community priorities. This is an area that seems to be rising to the level of needing more attention than some other corridors and we could bump that up on the list. And so I don't think we know yet where it would fall in that prioritization, but outside of the prioritization list, funding is still a significant challenge as you made me well aware from the recent budget conversations at council level. So yeah, we're still trying to identify sustainable funding source for these kinds of infrastructure projects. Yeah, thank you. I didn't, there were a lot of call outs of like, well, you could have this sweet thing, but it'll take 20 years or you could have this incrementally better thing in three years. But again, all those conversations will come later. This is an exciting and potentially transformative proposal. Thank you for that. I just sort of had one general comment about the sort of the priorities and the feedback from residents in all. It's just a general comment that I would emphasize sort of solutions over the, sort of the way that we get to those solutions, particularly, give an example of say, operators of emergency vehicles in Northwest Vermont, may their perspective and experience driving those vehicles is a function of what we have in the built environment today. But if we're in, likewise, in front of anybody, me or anybody, if you're like, here's a shopping list, do you like this treatment better than this one? I don't know, but maybe I might be more, I may be able to give you more helpful and accurate input if the questions you're asking me are, well, do I prefer this type of behavior experience or like these are my complaints trying to get through this intersection or this stretch of street today and let you all distill that rather than just necessarily a hypothetical shopping list of like, do I like this treatment better than this one? I don't know necessarily, but in general, yeah, I would emphasize the stated preferences for outcomes of safety or efficiency or environmental improvements and interpret that as in this conversation of how we get there and let you all as the experts determine the best way to get there and meet the stated outcome goals. So I've got it the moment, thank you both for the presentation. At this point, I will open up for public comments. Look to Mr. Golding for assistance and guiding us through this. Thank you, Chair Hogan. A few members of the public have raised their hand and I'll just remind anybody who is interested in speaking during public comment to hit the raise your hand icon on your Zoom toolbar. If you have called in dial star nine, that will alert us that you wanna be in queue and we'll read off the last four digits of your phone number when it's your turn to speak. And so with that, we'll start in order of Tony Reddington. You should be able to speak now. Thanks, Rob. More, there's a lot of comments here. First, I wanna suggest that Jason Serres promised at some point to give us the seconds of delay for a bicyclist, for a pedestrian and a car at peak hours. That data was not in the report that was posted online for the commissioners. And also the importance of that which is ABC's really, as Commissioner Vivanko, Lewis Vivanko pointed out at Cambrian Rise. She was very curious as to what the queue was at a signal versus a roundabout. And the point is that the queues that are at a roundabout are far less. For example, on Barrett Street as Jim Barr knows, Commissioner Barr knows, the backup is five cars at peak hour, which is for a roundabout on Barrett Street, whereas the current today and forever queues in morning and afternoon at bus times and busy times. They were talking about two football fields going from Barrett back to Chase and actually on the lower Grove Street. So that's an important consideration. In that same vein, I think both, Commissioner Overby questioned the issue of cost benefit regarding fuel consumption and the climate. And that's been a, certainly everybody seems to have a consensus that we address that. And part of the issue of delay, as Jason Charest knows, is that once we know what those figures are, we can figure out what the hours of delay are, stop delay, and my guess, best guess is somewhere between 10 and 15,000 hours a year. And it's not the stop that causes the use of a fuel. It's the acceleration after the stop. That's where the big consumption occurs after you've stopped and then you want to go back up the cruise speed. I know Jack Hansen, Councillor Hansen says, well, we don't use any fuel when we're sitting there with an electric car and he's correct. But when you stop and then you have to accelerate to 10 to 15 or 20 miles an hour, that's where the huge uptake occurs. So you use stop delay as sort of an algorithm, a reference point before fuel consumption and energy consumption. It's good point about public attitudes. I happen to be the first person in the United States and Canada to do a public opinion survey before and after the installation of the first roundabout in the Northeast. And that survey has actually been confirmed since I was careful to survey only people who lived near the intersection in Montpellier before when it wasn't a roundabout and those after. And I double checked to make sure that it wasn't my interviews and my SKU and my bias involved, because we had a lot of blind drops at the high school for teachers and at rest homes and other places. And the data that I got going door to door and talking to people was the same ratios that were found otherwise. What we found is after installation of the people who knew what was there before versus after, 85% favorable or neutral. And that's actually been pretty close to what the reactions are to the public. Once the roundabouts installed, there will not be that high of favorability before. And Mr. Redington, you're at three minutes. Can you complete your marks please? Okay, the only other thing I'll mention is other than 15,000 hours. We know that Federal Highway says that the only PED safety, the only PED safety proven countermeasure is a roundabout. A signal is not a proven PED safety measure. So let's be careful and with our six Vermont roundabouts, five Vermont roundabouts of 50 years of experience, we've had one pedestrian injury and that wasn't serious. So the concern about pedestrian safety is exact opposite. If we want pedestrian safety, we must do the roundabout, thanks. Thank you. I'll be promoting over Sharon Busher. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, I can, thank you. Okay, great, thank you. Thanks for taking my comments. My name is Sharon Busher and I live on East Avenue. So I'm in close proximity to the intersection, but I'm also close to Colchester Avenue. And I wanted to say that, although I don't save a roundabout, I'm hearing a conversation that people want to continue exploring this. And so what I would like to ask if that does occur, that one of the things that was raised was, why do ambulance drivers, what is their real concern? And there was one reference about slowing down and the turning and the impact on the patient. I worked at the hospital for 50 years in transfusion medicine. So I care about roundabouts and close proximity with hospitals and wanna know a little bit more about it and not just surmise. So that would be one thing that I'd like to have information about. The other thing is that On East Avenue off of University Road is a BED substation. And there are massive trucks that come, not frequently, but they come up Colchester Avenue and turn onto East Avenue. And I just don't know how roundabouts handle really oversized vehicles. And so I just wanted to put that out. I don't know if anyone really talked to BED about this when you were contemplating a roundabout, but I think if you're going to look at this more critically, I feel like not everybody was at the table. And I think it really needs, we need to address this and make sure that we can accommodate all of the things that have to happen in this vicinity of the city. The second point I wanna make is that although there were public meetings, I really feel that the bike community is very well organized and comes out in force. And a lot of them are part of the DPW commission. I feel that the public that maybe doesn't bike, but maybe owns a vehicle who is now going to lose all of their parking on Colchester Avenue and from East Avenue down to the cemetery, I don't believe their voice has really been heard. There was a situation where we had parking on both sides of the street. That there was a very involved public meeting where we, the public and the community and the businesses and the residents made a decision as to which side to eliminate parking. And it became, it's very, very congested because there isn't enough off street parking. And this is an old part of the city. Not everyone has adequate driveways to absorb all those cars. There are a lot of rental properties. And when you can't accommodate them on the street, people then who are strapped will park in their backyard and take up more of the grass area and create more of a stormwater runoff problem. So I think that also, I think that we're supposed to be an inclusive city, but I don't think we are. If you're an older person and you need a car and you rent and then you wanna have a visitor, the visitor has nowhere to go. If the visitor is older to park, come and visit you. I feel like slowly you're forcing people out so that you have just a community that is physically fit. Well, great, wonderful. But other people who just don't fit that mold are no longer welcome and you do it street by street. And no, I don't think this has been a process that's inclusive or listens to voices that don't agree with a biking community. And I'm disgusted. Thank you. All right, thank you. You're promoting over Councillor Jack Hanson. Hey everyone, I missed the beginning. So I'm sorry if I'm, can folks hear me okay? Yes, thank you. Yeah, sorry if I'm addressing things that were already addressed, but I was on the advisory committee for this and I've been listening in for, I don't know, maybe an hour so since I jumped off a different meeting and I haven't heard brought up kind of, I think the reason that I, so first of all, I'm really glad that there's not much controversy overall or disagreement in general with the corridor itself in terms of adding this bicycle infrastructure. I think it's a massive step forward. I think if you look at other cities in the world that have implemented this type of bike infrastructure, it's a game changer because it allows many more people who don't bike today and who won't ever bike or feel that that's an option that's safe and available to them. Now all of a sudden you're kind of opening the door for those folks to be able to choose a different transportation option and one that we really need more folks to choose for a number of reasons, especially the climate crisis. So first of all, I'm glad about that. In terms of the piece that is being discussed the most, the intersection and the roundabout, and we discussed that at length as well in the advisory committee. My biggest reasoning for voting for the signalized intersection was kind of going along with that is that we're creating bicycle infrastructure that really is on a different level from anything else that we have in the city and that is going to be a model and hopefully spread from there and bring a lot more people into the mix and to be able to ride. And I think the roundabout really disrupts that. I think it's a feature that doesn't provide that same level of comfort and security that this corridor would otherwise provide. And so I think if that's a key goal of this project and this corridor, I think the roundabout disrupts that because it forces someone on a bike to choose between fighting their way in the lane, which that's not gonna bring anybody new in or they have to kind of mix in with pedestrians and or get off their bike and walk. So it's just, I find it really disruptive from that comfort perspective and then also a convenience perspective. Cause again, if we wanna get more people biking we have to make it somewhat convenient as well. And this disruption makes it also a lot less convenient. So I think that was the primary reason. I mean, roundabouts, I think there's a lot of great aspects to them and I support them in general but for this intersection, this project, I don't think the roundabouts the right fit. Thanks. All right, thank you. Well, I'll be, Zoe Kennedy will be speaking in person here. So I'll be turning over the computer to her. All right. Hello again. I just wanted to address a couple of things I've been brought up in the last, over in the discussion. So firstly, there is a question of public support and whether or not people on the corridor knew about this project or wanted to happen and stuff like that. And I mentioned earlier that I have been circulating a petition along with others as well about like in support of this project and of the bike lanes that are being proposed tonight as well as the intersection with a signal. And to do, to promote this petition, we have gone door to door on Colchester Ave as well as on the side streets all the way up to the cemetery on Colchester Ave. So every single side street knocks on every single door. And while not everyone answered the door, all but a handful of people were in support of this project and did sign on to our petition or at least had like a productive discussion with us about what they want to see out of this project. And people just in general did want bike lanes. They did want improvements to this intersection that would make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists as well as easier to just travel without having to stop. So frequently. And while I would agree with what commissioner over be brought up earlier that the general public isn't as educated on topics like roundabouts compared to signaled intersections, I think that whatever you all decide is the safest option is something that they would very much support. Additionally, I still personally do not agree with having an inner roundabout in that intersection. I think that it's far too populated by pedestrians and cyclists to be safe and that in less locked areas, roundabouts are the ideal option, but here there's just far too many students living right there having to cross the street like multiple times a day all the time. And being a student that did live there for a year, it was already scary enough. But putting in the bike lanes and the signal for bikes I think will help to slow down traffic enough to make it safe for pedestrians and that the roundabout would just make it far more complicated and more dangerous for those students that needs to cross. Thank you. All right, thank you. Chair Hogan, I'll be calling over David Cawley. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me okay? Yes I can, welcome. Good. Thanks for taking my comment. I sent a memo out to the commission members yesterday and it's just really to address a little bit about the parking management. I did a preliminary survey that took place end of March and early April, surveying this section of Colchester Avenue between the cemetery and East Ave, Nash Place, Tebow Parkway and Laugh and Court. And I think the evidence is showing that, if you look at the surrounding streets, there is room for parking. The occupancy average occupancies were under 60% occupied by parking. And even in the stretch of Colchester Avenue, that was below 60% as well. There was only about on average 14 to 16 cars parking on Colchester Avenue. It can actually hold 26 cars. So I think when we start thinking about a project like this, there are solutions in the neighborhood. We have to start opening up our ideas about how a broader perspective about not just street by street zone parking, but opening it up to the neighborhood concept. I think this project could inspire that. And with a parking management plan in place, it may be able to help to address some of the concerns because neighbors will be concerned, our neighbors are always concerned about parking. So neighbors will be concerned, but there might be some information we can give them here that will help to get them thinking about a broader perspective. That's my comment. Thank you. Thank you. Jason Stuffle, you'll be promoted over. Okay, so I appreciate everyone's comments on this and I took probably a page of notes and I'll try and keep it very short, but I would say I think a lot of this comes down to money. How do we pay for this versus actual people's safety? And as a person who's been injured on this corridor, you can't really put a price on what it is for someone to have been hit to lose work, to not be able to take care of their children, to have longer term effects of that. And so I think safety really has to be the main focus there. And I also think there's a lot of misperceptions about roundabouts and their safety. If you look at the studies, they are safer. They slow vehicles down. And as going through here for the past 16 years, people will race the lights, people will walk, bike and cross across the intersection when they're not supposed to because there's no one there. And just seeing the backup or the cues there, if you have a first in, first out, that's kind of like what everyone wants. I got here first, I got to go next, as opposed to sometimes you come up and sit there and wait for over a minute. And that's the same for me on my bike. I have to go to the Trinity campus entrance to get across to the Colchester app side path. And I'll wait for a minute until I can do it. If you have a roundabout, people can go in a couple seconds. Maybe zero wait time is five seconds. Maybe have to stare down one car, but it's about changing people's perception of the road. And people think that, all right, I just have right to this road. I just fly through as fast as I can, race the light, everything else. And so people race the light because they don't want to wait for two more minutes to go again. And so if you give everyone kind of a nice priority, I think it makes a real difference. So 100% in favor of all the rays, bike lanes along there and separate, I think that's completely needed. I think maybe there's another study or something that has to happen around the intersection to really realize what is happening there. Because I come up there and most times, it's safe for me to cross when you're not supposed to because there's no one there. I mean, round rush hour, maybe it's a little heavier or something like that. But I think that's a proven technology with the roundabouts. And I think we have to set examples just like the rays and separated bike lanes for the city as what is actually possible. So I would definitely just say all the rest of the plan I agree with, I don't really agree with maybe the intersection being signalized because that induces wait time. And when people have to wait, they get anxious and they just want to go. And then they gun it away from the intersection as opposed to coming in slowly and then slowly going out and having more of a gentle movement. As far as the costs, I don't believe that a signalized intersection is cheaper than a roundabout for long-term maintenance. And maybe it's a one-time cost. But again, I just doubled down on the what is the cost to an injured person in your community and to their family and everyone else. And that's the real concern. I know Burlington has a vision zero where they envision zero deaths in their city and that no one gets hurt. But what are we actually doing to make that go forward? Commissioner Overby, I liked a lot of her comments about the roundabouts. I thought she was very good with that. I also like Commissioner Archibald with his comments about the costs. And I just really want everyone to think about what is the best long-term solution for the city? And I'll just leave it at that. But thank you, everyone, for a very spirited discussion tonight. All right, thank you. I hope that is all for public comment. All right, great. Thank you, Mr. Goulding. With that, we'll bring it back to the commission. And reminder, we are not required to take action here, but welcome to make a statement in support of a Tuesday. Chair Hogan, may I ask just, could I see on the packet that a vote is indicated of just wondering what the intention was perhaps between you and the director so that we can have a little guidance? Sure, I would say that allows the option to vote. Is that correct? Director Spencer, we're not obligated to take any action, but there's warns that there's possibility that we can. That is correct. So kind of like, oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Barr, I just speak out of turn here. I was just gonna confirm, so this would be more like an endorsement kind of vote if I understand, right? Like we've done it the other way. Okay, sorry, Commissioner Barr. No, it's all right. It's all right. If the commission is in favor of this, I would like to make a motion to accept staff's recommendation with the caveat that there be more discussion about the East Avenue and Colchester Avenue intersection. And I say that such that I'm personally, I'm not in favor of the roundabout, but I also don't wanna just blindly bulldoze this through when there's still so much sentiment in favor of a roundabout. So I saying nothing and not recommending anything, I think would just punt this down the road a little bit. So I think that our recommendation for the separated bike lanes and personally, I'd say our recommendation for the signalized intersection. I've experienced bike signalization before in Eugene, Oregon. And I'm total fan of those, love it. So I mean, I'm also a little bit concerned that like the broader scope of this plan is getting caught up, Justin. I mean, we've spent the vast bulk of this time talking about the roundabout. And I don't, like I get it. I understand that part of it, but I do think we're, I mean, like I think it was Councillor Hanson who made the point about this as a model for something that we'd like to see across the city more generally. And I don't wanna lose sight of that either. And this is a really important way for us to demonstrate a commitment to a different kind of infrastructure, transportation infrastructure in the city. And I really, I think it would be valuable. I would be definitely in favor of showing our support. I mean, if there is that support as a committee for this kind of broader vision and not get it caught up in this ongoing debate, not just in this particular case about, you know, intersection safety. So is my motion is on the floor? I don't hear a second. So I'm wondering. I'll second it. Okay. A second from Commissioner Boz. You mind repeating it just so I can wrap my head around it? Sure. My motion was to make a favorable recommendation for this concept with the caveat that there's, there needs to continue to be room for discussion about the intersection. But I think Commissioner Boz put it perfectly that we can't, we need to see the forest through the trees here. We need to make sure that this improvement is gonna be a vast improvement and probably the first of its kind in this area. And the intersection will continue to be debated all the way up until final vote. So. Question, comment? I don't want to cut anyone off. Is that okay, Chair Hogan? If I... Yeah, please. I'm concerned about the language, Commissioner Barr. You know, I'm fully on board with the concept, right? Especially as Commissioner Boz, you can't lose the forest for the trees here. I'm concerned that the language of the motion might leave an impression that maybe we should pause everything in light of the intersection if we want that discussion to continue. And I'm not sure that's my read of where we're at right now, right? Like I think we believe this thing should be moved forward. And I think Director Spencer has shown enough flexibility over the years to say nothing's permanent in this town, right? Like this kid, it's always a conversation that can be carried forward to another day. So that's my fear with the language of the motion. So I'm admittedly a little conflicted. I just wanted to put it out there to express some of my thoughts. Thank you. And that's good advice. So let me rephrase, my motion is that we make favorable recommendation to move this project forward. Let's just keep it simple, because your right debate will continue to happen at the council. I second the amended motion. Thank you for that. Rise language is second to the, we're friendly to the seconder, Mr. Bose as well. Is there any discussion around the motion? Commissioner Overby. I think that we should have a separate motion, a separate motion on the concept of the raised bike lanes and separate out the artists, our opinion on recommendations or not on the intersection. And just recommending that the project move forward to me is not adequate. I would like to have us just, I would love to vote for support of the project, the protected bike lanes and I will support that, but I would not support this motion as it's worded because it doesn't address the, I want to have us as a commission, if we're going to make a recommendation, I'd like us to either say we support the recommendation for a signalized intersection or we recommend a roundabout and whichever of those, I would like to have it clear what our decision is and not in a sort of general like, we'll just do what you want. There's going to be more discussion. I will vote against the motion the way it's worded. I'm unfortunately would vote against it, even though I want to vote for the protected bike lanes. So there's a motion on the floor that's been seconded, pending any clarification around the motion that's on the floor that we will vote on this motion and then see what that leads. Are we still having discussion on the motion though, Chair Hogan? Yeah. I mean, are there other sort of comments, questions? I thought that's what Commissioner Overview was contributing just to discussion around that motion. Yeah. May I continue just the discussion piece? Sorry, I know we've been on this for a long time already, but you know, we had a recent vote around the high school, right? In terms of getting some bike access around there and you know, a loading zone and things like that. And we were starting to get into the details there almost to the extent of what was frustrating to me during that vote is like, we don't have a high school in Burlington right now. We have to make this work somehow. And I think this is a real good example of this conflict of separating out like, well, I don't like this piece, so let's not go forward in the design. That's what I think people in Burlington are so frustrated with. Like they don't see progress with the DPW because we're nitpicking and we're taking pieces out. So we might not like everything. I mean, I'm sure the kitchen, the business might not be psyched about this either, but you know, we're rolling with it and there's got to be some progress here while still being open-minded. You know, I appreciate former councilor or Sharon Busher's comments too that, you know, this does create new challenges, especially for some of our senior citizens or those who do not bike, right? We as a community have to solve those. We can't just call it good when these bike lanes are built, right? We have to help solve that new problem that is created by this. So I guess in short, I'm just saying that force for the trees thing is so important. We've got to see progress. And I think we're seeing right now, we're the ones getting in our own way, right? This is why projects don't get happening. So I'm all in favor of motion here and moving forward. Thank you. All right, thank you. Any other discussion around the motion? All right, let's go to a vote. In that case then, commissioner Archambault. Hi. Commissioner Barr. Hi. Commissioner Beaus. Hi. Vice chair, O'Neill-Vanco. Hi. Commissioner Overby. No, for the reasons that I specified. Noted, thank you. Hi for myself. The motion passes five to one. All right, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for the presentation and all the work on this one. Thanks, Nicole and Jason, appreciate it. Yeah, moving on. All right, moving forward to item six on the agenda, consolidated collection study updates. Welcome a communication from staff on this one. All right. Let me share my screen. Good evening, we are excited to be here and thank you for taking time on this late evening here. So I am pulling up this presentation and get started. All right, can folks see that? Okay. Yeah, thank you. Yes. Great, thank you. All right, well, this is, I think two years in the making really here, the city council back in 2018 gave us direction to study consolidated collection. Division director Lee Perry and I are here. We've appreciated our past presentations with you all, but tonight we're bringing forward a staff recommendation for your consideration. I wanna assure the public who's here tonight that no final decisions are getting made tonight, that we are requesting a recommended motion of support generally for this direction, but we are going after this to the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee going to the full city council in a couple of months. We really wanna hear from the public tonight their thoughts about this recommendation and also from you, the commission. I just wanna thank GBB, our consultant CSWD that should in solid waste district, the haulers who have been participating in sharing their thoughts, the commission and the counselors, and also the residents. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Lee Perry who's gonna run through a few slides and then I'll bring it home before we open up for conversation. Thank you, Director Spencer and thank you commissioners for having us tonight. So we'll go over the background in many ways in the communities coordinated collection of recyclables and foods graphs. Here in Burlington, it's a subscription basis where residents subscribe with a local hauler to have their trash picked up and disposed of or subscribe to city recycling or they self haul to the drop off centers. And according to a survey of 461 communities nationwide, this subscription arrangement occurs approximately 11% of communities. That's according to our consultant GBB. On the flip side of that consolidated collection occurs 83% of the times in the communities where either the municipality itself will collect all three waste streams or the municipality will contract with a private hauler to have the waste streams collected. And background is as Chapin stated, consolidated collection has been around this region for quite a few years now. In 2000, October of 2000, there was a city council resolution directing DPW to explore either a franchise or a municipal consolidated collection. And again, in 2009, 2015, Chittinian Solid Waste District at a county wide evaluation partnered with local haulers and commissioners from their board. And then in 2018, as director Spencer mentioned, the city council resolution directing DPW again to evaluate a franchise model. And we collaborated with Chittinian Solid Waste District and the city of South Brompton on that. And as a result of that study when we were presented at the August 2020 Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee, they requested that we do a municipal option evaluation and all of this information can be found at the city website linked to the slide. Problem statement, what are residents experiencing with the current subscription system we have? So more costly collection scenarios due to multiple haulers servicing the same streets. Currently, there's four main haulers in the area plus the additional compost haulers with enactment of Act 148 and food scrap ban last July. This means there's more truck traffic, which means more emissions, more impact city infrastructure with multiple haulers servicing the same neighborhoods. Confusing pickup schedules, meaning, if you're in the south end on Monday, city's gonna come by and pick up your recycling. Maybe a day or two later, your trash hauler's gonna come pick up your trash. If you don't have a hauler that subscribed, that picks up both your trash and compost and you have to, if you don't self haul, you're picking, you know, you're gonna have a compost hauler picking up. So you're gonna have all these trucks in the same neighborhood during that week rather than on one day. And then also experience occasional late and miss recycling pickups as the current city recycling program is under resource. And it has been like that for quite a few years. We have three trucks that do the recycling every day in Burlington with one driver per truck. So when one driver takes a vacation or is injured sick, we have to substitute that driver with a street maintenance worker. And on multiple occasions, we've had to just about support the whole recycling program with street maintenance workers. So this consolidated collection will provide that redundancy needed and not put the burden on the street department. And for these reasons, staff is recommending a fully consolidated collection system and collection benefits. No, I'm sorry, you switched it on me. Sorry, Chief. The various consolidated collection studies have indicated a wide range of benefits that we kind of touched on, reduced cost to residents, reduced environmental impacts due to consolidated collection in a reduction in two thirds, greenhouse gases by consolidating, increased in safety in neighborhoods. And we have some tight residential neighborhoods around here with a lot of on street parking with these big trucks going down through multiple times a day, reduced noise in neighborhoods from the excess truck traffic, increased diversion by adding food scraps to consolidated collection. And if desired, the program could allow opt-outs and residents will be able to self-hop to drop off center and the opt-out allowance could be capped. And for these reasons, staff is recommending a fully consolidated collection system. Public outreach and feedback, we've engaged the public through the surveys, meetings and various outreach. Our consultant conducted a phone study in 2019 to Burlington residents. You can see the percentages there that express support, 39%, opposition 23, didn't have enough information, 20% and the 18% didn't know. May have been renters who weren't really sure exactly even how their trash is picked up or by who of those who responded in writing and spoke at meetings, more residents expressed support for consolidated collection, either a franchise or a municipal model over their current subscription model. And proponent site, what we have touched on is environmental benefits, safety, cost, noise, impacts and interest in the municipal option. Residents who oppose site needing flexibility in their trash pickup schedule, meaning every other week, some residents aren't here during the winter and like to stop their subscriptions as well as being able to choose who picks up their trash for them. Written comments are attached to the DPW memo and are posted on our website as well. Now, the four operating models that we explored are one the franchise model, which is the model our consultant studied. Franchise is where the municipality contracts with one more haulers to have the waste streams picked up within the city. The franchise model was city bid. So this is similar to franchise, but the city retains the right to bid on districts or routes against private haulers to the collection of trash recycling and compost. The municipal option model, this is where the municipality would provide all aspects of collection. We would collect the trash recycling and food scraps as well as direct oversight of the program and include customer service, scheduling and billing. And then a hybrid municipal franchise model. Under this scenario, the city would keep collecting recycling as it is. We would bolster our staff and then franchise the collection of trash and food scraps, private haulers. And the prevalence of each model. So going back to earlier slide with that 83% of communities that have consolidated collection, this breaks it down onto which model. So 58% of communities have the municipality that contracts with a private hauler for collection. 40% where the municipality collects themselves and that carries all aspects of the program. And then that 2% is kind of like a hybrid model where the municipality would bid against districts, as we mentioned earlier. Next slide. And projected costs. So we have three scenarios here or three options, two scenarios. So the municipal model and a franchise model. This is based off of a weekly service. And we have a 0, 15 and 25% opt out for each. You'll see in the 0% opt out that the municipal model and the franchise model are close in cost. And as you increase the opt out percentage and have decreased participation, obviously the price is gonna go up. You'll notice our price is a little higher in the 15 and 25% opt out than the franchise model. And that is due to the capital investments that we would have to make for the municipal option, build a building by three new trucks, additional pickup truck, staff, buying carts, property for the new, to house a new division. Great, thank you, Lee, for running through that. What we've tried to do here is compare the four options with a number of criterion. And we've really tried to look at what are the pros and cons of each alternative through these different lenses. We have color coded things dark green where there's a significant benefit for going for that model or a lower risk than other alternatives. Light green, if it has a moderate benefit or a moderate risk and then yellow, if it doesn't really have much of a benefit or presents a high negative risk. So you'll see in the first sheet here, there's three pages of criterion. You'll see that all options generally provide similar benefit. In customer choice, all these options have fewer choices than there would be under the private subscription model where people can go with any hauler they want through a consolidated system. Their choice would either be go through the consolidated hauler or to self-haul to a drop off center. Cost, all of these. And just to be clear, we've not weighted any of these but we have assigned values. And so for the dark green areas where there's significant benefit, we find three points. Light green, moderate benefit, two points and yellow one point just to provide some helpful ranking at the bottom. For customer cost, you're seeing here that all of these should drive down the cost of what people are paying because of the consolidated efficient collection system. Customer convenience, we'd be able to guarantee that people would have all their trash recycling organics picked up the same day. Environmental benefits, we've discussed how it would cut emissions and vehicle miles traveled by two thirds for the residential collection. And we'd also see that benefit in reduced impact through our roads and public infrastructure. Moving on to these additional criterion, you're starting to see some differentiation between the model, the ability for the city to control the quality of service. The municipal option would give the city the most control. We would be able to change the services offered merely by making a decision at the city that we wanted to change the services. Under a franchise model, any midterm contract changes would need to be negotiated. And ultimately, the performance of the system would be something we would need to hold the private haulers accountable to through our oversight responsibility. Union labor and benefits, under the municipal operation model, there would be an additional nine to 12 unionized positions that would be added to payroll to operate the trash collection, the organics collection. In the hybrid option four, we would, as Lee mentioned, still be running recycling. And so we would supplement our recycling team by three. So there are two members on each truck. And we would need to hold accountable the franchisees through contract provisions, livable wage requirements and any other additional requirements we put in the contract. Under a fully franchised model, we would not have any direct control of operating any of the system. We would be relying on the performance of the franchisee for the quality of service. Overall effort to launch. This is an important one. This effort is not gonna be easy under any scenario, but specifically under the municipal operation, there are additional burdens that the city would need to undertake. One, we've been discussing setting up a new enterprise fund. This would be a $5 million a year operation. It would have a large staff, heavy capital equipment. And as a enterprise fund for the city, a similar to water or BED, we would need to get voter approval of a charter change in city charter. And we'd need to get a revenue bond to be able to buy the millions of dollars of infrastructure to set up the program. We'd need to build a new building, hire 14 staffers. This would use a significant amount of our innovation to be over the coming year. The other franchisee options are a little less burdensome. We already have a recycling program in place for option four, the hybrid option. So really what we're doing is putting out bids and selecting haulers to provide the contract. Upfront capital costs, I think it's pretty straightforward. If we were to run the program ourselves, we're gonna have to pay the upfront capital cost and borrow accordingly. If we franchise, it's up to the haulers to come to the table with the last page. Require a legislative approval. Under municipal operation, we believe yes, the charter change would be required to set up an enterprise fund at the city. The other options would not. It's important to note here on option two, you're seeing that we're not scoring option two. This is very similar to option two, option one, which is just franchise whether or not the city bids. It's hard to wait these individual criteria because we don't know under option two whether the city would win the bids or not. So it creates a bit of a challenge to order. Risk to city government. This is similar to the previous effort to stand this up under the municipal operation. There are many hurdles to get municipal operation underway. We believe it's doable if that's the direction of the commission and the council to direct us, but there will be significant hurdles outlined here. The other options, the franchise options or the hybrid options have their own risks of the non-performance from the haulers or legal challenges, but are less than the municipal timeline to launch under either any scenario, we're two to three years out because there are significant steps to get done. However, under the municipal option of number three, we ranked it as light green because of the number of steps that would need to be taken. We don't believe we could deliver this as quickly as we could of either the franchise. And finally with future flexibility, we believe that once under a municipal operation, once we start municipal operation that yes, we can tweak the system but there will be a very high hurdle to make any substantive changes once we have hired the unionized staff, once we have acquired the infrastructure built to building that we will basically be in this for decades to come. With the other options, these could be a stepping stone to future municipal operation or any future alternative because there is less capital investment up front. Look at the bottom, we've just scored and added these up. We haven't just gone with the highest number here blindly, but the city is recommending carbon and public works this option for the hybrid option for these following reasons. One, it achieves a goal of a fully consolidated collection system with much less upfront capital and human resource effort. It already builds off the structure and capacity of our existing recycling program. It can be accommodated at 645 Pine Street, doesn't require us to build a new building or increase our fleet. It creates the three additional union positions. We have a great partnership with our union and value our relationship and are pleased to be able to offer these additional positions should we go this direction. It also provides us operational benefit for enhanced winter maintenance operations for snow plowing and other work. It can also fund the recycling program positions through a straightforward adjustment to the existing solid waste generation tax. We just need to adjust the tax, be able to afford those additional three to four positions. We believe that would add about $2 a month to each residential dwelling unit that is currently assessed. Bringing home the final reasons we are recommending this is that it can be launched more quickly and with less risk without a charter change, voter approvals or setting up a new enterprise fund. Doesn't require our customer service teams to set up a new billing system or to manage that system ongoing. Provides future flexibility to consider other models in the future, such as municipal operations should that be a springboard in the future that the council wants to develop. It also maintains a role for our private haulers. We have locally owned and operated hauling companies in our region and it also improves the efficiency and cost effectiveness of that service for residents. Lastly, an important but little discussed point is that if we can get clarity now on what we're doing with consolidated collection, we believe that we can help resolve a longstanding issue with Chittin and Solid Waste District on where the long-term drop-off center is gonna be. Currently CSWD at three through nine Pine Street is only open for organics because of its small constrained location. There's an option to set it up at Flynn Avenue. So getting clear on what collection system we wanna put in place will lead to a better resolution on the drop-off. Just a few slides left, requirements for success. We need a number of things to make whatever recommendation but predominantly our recommendation of a hybrid system effective. One is that we need to do additional engagement with the community once we have a direction on a model because we need to understand what service levels they want and what options they want. Do they want opt out? Do they want back to our service? Do they want more than one to four unit residential properties to be included or do they want bi-weekly versus people? We need the council to support us in a number of areas. One, to have a project manager to launch this so that us who are operating our infrastructure every day aren't trying to also launch. We also need the council and commission understand this is a two to three year development period. We go to the hybrid model and the council understanding that we need to set the solid waste generation tax at a level that can help us sustainably operate our program. So conceptual timeline for the hybrid option. This is a two and a half year timeline just showing you the various steps. The first four bullets are meetings with you, the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee and the full city council, getting a direction from the council in August and then doing the additional public engagement work I discussed through March of 22 to determine the exact levels of service that we wanna provide. Negotiation with regarding tip fees to Concella and CSWD, put it out to bid, execute contracts and C-Service start in January one. We offer a suggested motion tonight should you be friendly to it, it's in your packet and you can read it here. In interest of time, I'll just focus on the key one for number two which is to really propose an implementation of a hybrid collection model where the city continues to collect recycling and franchises private haulers to collect trash and organics. So with that, here's how people can reach us. We are very eager to get public input. We have not made any final decisions. This we wanted to lay out our recommendation so the public could see where we are interested in heading but we wanna get response on that direction. Here are ways for you to get more information or to give us your feedback. Thanks, Chair Hogan. We're happy to answer any question. Okay, thank you for that presentation. Bringing it back to the commission here. Let's start with Commissioner Barr. Thanks. I support the recommendation. I think that you've done a lot of work coming together with all the information. I think it was well laid out and with all the increasing in costs and burden in the city, I think going with municipal collection and having to do all that extra infrastructure and staff would be a burden that we're probably not ready to take on it, at least at this point. So I'm very much in favor of the staff's recommendation. Thanks. All right, thank you, Commissioner Bose. Yeah, I also echo the comments of Commissioner Barr. I really appreciated the thoroughness of the report. I have always wondered, as I've seen hollers rumble up and down my street multiple times a week, why we don't have a more integrated system. So I really appreciated the multiple options laid out with all of the different costs and benefits indicated. I also support the staff recommendation. Thank you. All right, thank you, Commissioner Bose. Vice Chair, O'Neill-Vanke. Thanks, Lee, that was great. I think I would, as a Burlington resident, a taxpayer whose house was just assessed more than I want, and just paying a lot of taxes I would love for the city to be able to haul my trash. We don't even have a contract. We haul it ourselves because we don't produce that much. But I think you laid out a pretty good argument for the hybrid model that plays to the strengths and the capacity of your staff. So I support the hybrid option. Couple of questions, though. First, I want to read from someone who wrote to me a resident of Burlington. This kind of ties into maybe how the RFP moves forward or what input the commission can have in this process because there are some folks who are deeply committed to their trash haulers, some even making cookies and giving holiday cards and I think figuring out how to balance that. So I'm just gonna read without naming names, the service of this trash hauler that this trash hauler provides week after week, year after year, is beyond expectation and likely unmatched by other haulers. Most homeowners are probably not as passionate about the services I am. This hauler retrieves their trash from their garage without scratching their cars. I think this may be an elderly couple drives slow on a very narrow, not total through street. And this particular resident doesn't want to lose her trash hauler and is just concerned about that loss. So I just want to communicate that. And I think what I pull from that is the sentiment that people want choice, but maybe more importantly is how we communicate to the trash haulers in the RFP that we're doing this consolidated program, but these are our standards. So we want safety and we want consideration for our residents and the trash bins. I mean, thinking about the bike lanes. I don't want to see a trash bin like dumped over in the road as I do every, almost every day on my street. And I know some of this is slightly out of control if it's a windy day, but wondering what kind of language we can put in on that. And also, how can we evaluate the effectiveness of this hybrid model that we choose? You talked about kind of cost savings, emission reductions, what are the metrics we're going to use and at what time period, can we do it on a yearly basis? Certainly VMT and emission reductions, I think might be easier to control if we have certain trash haulers in certain neighborhoods. And then, and this gets a little tricky because I, and I certainly see a big name on the list here, but looking at alternative fuel vehicles, idle reduction, any of these technologies that will kind of further enhance our emission reductions. So those are just kind of ideas going forward, but I do support this hybrid model. So thank you, Lee, for that work on that. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. I have been communicating extensively with Lee about some questions I have, but I have quite a few other questions that might be, might take some time. So I don't know if you want to leave me to the end or you want me to launch into the questions that I have. We can come back to you if you prefer. I can start now. I just feel other people might have fewer questions and if they ask the same questions that I might ask, then I wouldn't need to ask those questions. Sure. I'll just go back to you. Commissioner Hartrimbaugh. Yeah, hard to say if I have fewer questions, but maybe. So, well, I'll take a crack at it. Yeah, thank you, Director Spencer and Lee, for this report, really thorough. I can use honesty here and say, I've admittedly been a big fan of the municipal option, but seeing you explore the alternatives using as fair as possible a scoring method, you know, you pretty well sold me on this hybrid option that you've come about. So I think it's really smart that you clearly put a lot of thought into this. I really appreciate that. And I've been a fan of consolidated collection from way back when it last came to the commission, but it almost 10 years ago. So, so there's that. Just a few questions if I could under a franchise model, if it were to go that way, would haulers be obligated to the city's livable wage ordinance under that arrangement? Yes, absolutely. We would put the terms of the engagement in the invitation to bid. And clearly the city has strong requirements for a little wage. We would require it. And there would likely be additional requirements currently with bed docks, whether it's union deterrence, which is not having them fight against any unionization activities or outsourcing requirements that also the city usually requires with contractors. So there could be a host of protections embedded. And I guarantee you the livable wage would be one of them because this community would not support it without it. Okay, that's great. I'm glad to hear that. And certainly there are other protection as well. So that took away my next question. So my only other question was this. Part of what swayed me was the risk factor with the municipal option. Frankly, it's a lot of business risk, not to spend the capital, but in the path to pursue success, it has to get the legislative approval and so on. So the hybrid model is a less risky option and more doable than a tighter timeframe. What I'm setting up here is let's say we go with it. We have a hauler that we use. Let's say it's a major hauler that we select. And let's also face it, some of the smaller ones make it boxed out, right? Based on tough business. What if that larger hauler then failed to meet performance standards? Do we have a contingency then? What are the other options, right? Aren't we stuck with that person if we go with that large hauler? Question, Commissioner Arshambo, the plan would be if this moves forward to look at dividing the city into separate districts and then to bid out each district, we would look at setting up the bids in such a way that no one hauler would receive all the districts so that we ensure that there are multiple haulers picking up in Burlington. Should a hauler not meet the performance standards that are set in the contract, and we could look at terminating that contract early and rebidding for another hauler. We hope that would not get to that, but our goal is to ensure competition and not just have every district in Burlington picked up by the same hauler and then not have a competitive environment on the subsequent round. That's great. And that could not be better, right? Deversification, okay. So thank you for that. I don't know, I've asked all my questions over the years, so I don't think I have much more. So maybe I did have fewer than you should ever be. I'll end it there. Just thanking you again for your efforts and your persistence on this. I think it's an important item. And it, through this, you cited all the other municipalities implementation that have this. It's not that per-brain of a scheme, right? Like we're just kind of doing what others do. It's sound, so I'm right behind you. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Overby, back to you. Okay, I have been really trying to get a lot of the information ahead of time, but sometimes that drew other questions out. So to start with, I wanna say I fully support the item number one on the proposal of the staff's recommendation about the consolidated collection. That's definitely the way to go. Fewer trucks, reducing gas, reduce pollution. So it's a good thing to do. I don't support the hybrid franchise model and I will ask some questions that might sort of help explain why that is. But I would support that we actually do item number three of the proposal first to actually assess, do the resident engagement process to determine the specific levels of service and the options that will be initially offered. The proposals that were in the February 2020 GBB report sort of tried to come up with that, but some of the numbers that were in there, the savings sort of presumed what was called EOW trash service, which I didn't understand and I figured out it means every other week service. So the rates that are in the chart that we had were a little bit somewhat misleading that that means every other week pickup, not what a lot of people have right now. So my feeling is we really should do support number one, absolutely consolidate the collection and number two, do item number three and assess what the population really wants. And part of the reason I'm asking, there's some questions that relate to that, that I wanna have cleared up. I realize that one of the concerns is the startup costs and confusion and complexity to get going. And that makes a lot of sense that a municipal system, it's a big deal. I'm not underplaying what is the issue. However, I feel like some of the work that was done to assess the municipal option, wasn't as comprehensive as what was focused on with the franchise model, which makes it sort of being the stepchild of the options in a lot of ways. So this is a plan proposed for one to four unit residences, not larger commercial or larger residential things. So one of the things that we talk about, continuing to involve other haulers, well, all of the other haulers will be still doing service to large apartment complexes and commercial. So the business is not gonna go away from other private haulers. The small haulers as well can continue to try to serve those other customers. But so my questions, the questions and some of them I started to try to get answered, but one of the things that was in our memo, it said that the GVD report said that Burlington residents could save somewhere between 1.6 million and 3.6 million by implementing a weekly consolidated collection model compared to its residents having a weekly subscription model. Can you explain how those savings are gonna be realized by the Burlington residents at 1.6 million to 3.6 million? Where is the savings to the Burlington residents? Thank you, Commissioner Overby. I'll take a stab at that. I think ultimately getting our consultant to confirm this would be helpful as they are the experts in this field. But we understand that the way they got to this was that by aligning routes and having haulers allocated to particular districts, you only have one hauler picking up and say the New North End instead of three different or four different haulers driving around the New North End and that the efficiencies gained in terms of speed, in terms of picking up more units in less time, unless we're on tarot on a vehicle having to pick up all their 500 customers in the same neighborhood is a benefit. And that some of that savings would be passed on to residents. And you'd see that not just as a benefit and trash but also in organics. We have operated our recycling program for many decades and our solid waste generation tax per unit is $4.84. We picked up each week in front of each residents for about a dollar 30 cents each week. That's the power of consolidated collection. But the rates that are on the chart, I know somewhere in our documents it said that the current rates for weekly pickup in Burlington with private contracts are between $29 or $28 and $49 a month. And $15 a month for those people that now has decided to pay for organics pickup. The chart doesn't look like it's, the charts between $31 and $41 a month. So I don't see the savings to the public. That's a good point. Yeah, so I just didn't see where that million, the savings isn't really to the residents, it's more to the haulers that don't have to, go all over the place to pick people's stuff up. Right, that is a little confusing. And let me just explain the distinction. I think my PowerPoint used to call that out better in the future. As you point out, the costs that were estimated, that were GBB called the haulers and sought to get prices, those were just for trash and recycling. It was trash plus the city's recycling fee that gets tacked on to the trash bill. The cost estimates that the city had that you saw that we presented in the presentation tonight were for all three streams, trash, recycling, and organics. So because of the higher efficiency of the collection system, we are able to collect three streams generally for the price of two today. But there's another factor that you have in the footnote about the solid waste generation tax, which is that other $4.89 is gonna go up to another $2 or 66 cents. Is there another question that I have? Well, I'll get to that, because it's in another question that I have. Because it seems like we're not counting the recycling costs in those monthly fees, because it's gonna be added on as that solid waste generation tax, as in addition to the rates that are there to each residents. So let me ask the next question. Are those rates actually, when it's EOW pickup, are those rates on the chart that you provided every other week pickup for trash, recycling, and organics? The charts that we provided in our presentation were for weekly service. In talking to communities around the country, starting weekly was the best practice. And then some communities, such as Brattleboro that Lee has talked to, have moved on trash to every other week, given that they have done a successful job of reducing the trash, increasing recycling and organics diversion, and could move in that direction. But we figured, let's not over-promise. Let's under-promise and over-deliver, so we show the weekly cost. Well, the reason I, yeah, the reason I asked that question is, last year in the June 28th, 2020 memo that DPW gave to the TUC, there was expressed concern that the savings that were listed in that chart were based on the every other week trash hauling, and that you had requested that that was made more clear. So I was really, it seems to me it's not clear that you were concerned that they were using every other week in their estimates and their calculation of the savings, and you wanted that to be made more clear. But you're saying that that's wasn't the case, that it is, I'm just trying to get it clear. Is this every other week, which is what you were concerned that it was last year, or is it not? We asked GBB to make edits to their report to provide both the savings for an every other week and a weekly option, which they did include in their report, if I'm correctly, is that the case? Yeah, they had every other week recycling and weekly trash. Yeah, so what we did, as you pointed out, Commissioner Overby, is we felt that they needed to do additional due diligence so we could have an apples to apples comparison, because we felt that a weekly service for all three way streams would be where the community would likely start, so they added their information in. So the savings that we're listing here is based on GBB's update to their report as we requested. And so it's just a matter of a few cents, because it's really the same as the numbers that were last year's numbers. So it really didn't seem to change much when you went to the weekly instead of, I mean, I have some concerns about the numbers. I need to double check. We should check. I just, you know. We're happy to check. Yeah, because I think that's an important factor here that is information that this commission is, and the TOOC and the city council is going to be trying to understand. And there's nowhere that it's clear that it's every other week or weekly and whether it's trash or recycling. And there was other concern expressed in that June 28th, 2020 memo to the TOOC about these very questions and about issues about people having their recycling sitting around for two weeks or their organics. So I think there's some questions that I have on the numbers that you have. And I'm not sure that I fully understand what you're saying. So one of the other questions I had was why was the municipal option not part of the study that was asked of GBB in 2019? Why was that only the franchise model? A study in the amount of detail that it was. And then the municipal thing only came about when it was requested by the TOOC last year. Good question. So originally the CSWD study that was really a six year study, very comprehensive, was looking at a franchise model and coming out of that. One of the reasons, there were a couple of reasons that it didn't continue. One is very strong opposition from haulers, two the diverse opinions for communities across the county and the effort just did not progress past the study. So when Burlington and South Burlington and CSWD talked about picking up the study for a more targeted urban focused consolidated collection system, the thought was really taking CSWD's work and adding a stronger urban focus to it. The resolution that the council passed in 2018 was not explicit to study a municipal model the way the 2000 resolution was that the council passed. So given the CSWD work that had been done to date it was just focused on franchise and the fact that the council resolution wasn't explicit. And frankly, South Burlington, our partner who wanted to do this was interested solely in franchising. That's the direction we went. But when the TOOC asked us in August of 2020 to research this, we stood up and said, we will do it. And I am actually extremely proud of the work we did on that study, the hours that Lee and I have put in working with the Clark Treasurer's office, the city attorney's office, meeting with the haulers. I feel like we have a pretty good handle on the risks and the opportunities. Well, a follow on to what happened when there was no distinction made actually in the GBB 2020 study between the municipal and the franchise models it wasn't the survey sort of commingled the questions about consolidated collections with questions about franchising in a way that would make residents think that consolidated collection is franchise trash collection. So my concern was by not having that done but all the survey information which is excellent in that report, the GBB study has a lot of great information in it. However, the fact that there was no distinction made implied that the consolidated collection and franchise consolidated collection are one in the same. And in fact, it was in the document, it even used the term citywide collection system which is ambiguous and it can be misunderstood as a municipal system. So I just, anyway, that's a concern that I have that it is undermining some of the information that we may have otherwise been able to get a value out of the GBB study toward the understanding of the public's interest in what they want for their trash options. One of the, you know, so I think I asked some of the questions about the monthly costs but relating to that solid waste generation tax, the chart that we have in our materials which says that the municipal model would be between, you know, $34 a month. And let's see what the other one was, $34 a month and $41 a month to be a municipal cost. And that includes all the, you know, building the building and all that. Those are the charges for a municipal model. It said below that it says, additionally GBB's franchise model estimate does not include additional city costs for overseeing the performance of the private haulers or replacing the overhead currently contributed by the recycling program solid waste generation tax for the pro-rata share of the general funds administrative expenses. The city estimates that these costs if recouped from the franchised haulers through the solid waste generation tax, the one you mentioned about the $4.84 cents. If recouped from that, you know, through the franchise haulers that added line on the hauling bill or some other financial mechanism would add an estimated 66 cents to $4 and 24 cents a month to the franchise model per residential dwelling unit, depending on the assumed cost to be recouped, factoring in these costs, the financial differential between the two models and eros. So is it, I know you mentioned it's another $2 on that current $4.85 thing for the recycling. Is it, is this the same number? Is it $2 more or is it 60 cents, I mean, I'm not sure what that meant, what that's talking about. Can you explain that? It's on page four. That's, I'm sorry. Yes, it's a good question. So the reason there's such a large range there is we ran the full spectrum of what did you want the solid waste tax to cover? If you wanted to cover and Lee, check me if I'm wrong, but my recollection, I think it's pretty clear on this that the low end of the spectrum was just paying for the new enforcement officer who would ensure compliance with our performance standards. So you want just that, it's 66 cents. If you want the solid waste generation tax to pay its pro rat a share of the overhead to the city of Burlington, then I believe it's another slug that probably gets you closer to two. If you want then the solid waste generation tax to subsidize the three recycling drivers to support them to stay on in the city and the street maintenance workers, then you're gonna have to spend another $2 or so of the solid waste generation tax to subsidize those workers to stay on the city payroll, not doing recycling because it's been franchised. So it all depends how much you want this solid waste generation tax to kind of subsidize the activities of the city. And so does that get added onto the monthly fee that is listed on the chart that you have above? So it would be adding that, whatever, it's now 480. So it'd be adding another $8, a worst case scenario onto the $38, so it would be adding another $8. $48 of the franchise model per month? It not eight, I think it was 66 cents to four dollars. But is that in addition to the $4 and I assume that was in addition to the $4 to $8, $4 and 88 cents that you're currently collecting? That's a good question. If we're talking about franchising, we get out of the recycling business. If we get out of the recycling business, we don't need a solid waste generation tax to fund the recycling program. So under the municipal model franchise, excuse me, under the franchise model, we completely get out of the recycling program. Then we wouldn't have the tax would go to zero and then anything we'd need for the oversight of franchise and that's what you're looking at. It would be 66 cents to $4. So that would be the total tax needed because we wouldn't need to pay the municipal forces to go collect recycling. So the proposal is for the hybrid. So you're going to continue with the recycling as I understand it. So what is, is this added is the, so we're just saying nothing gets changed with that $4 and 84 cents or are we adding 66 cents to $4 and 24 cents to that to continue providing the recycling service? I'm just trying to get the numbers. I'm really just trying to make apples and apples comparisons because the municipal option does not require us to be collecting a solid waste generation tax on the bill of a private hauler. Whereas we are going to be adding that on if we continue to do recycling as part of this hybrid model that you're proposing. Well, the question being is that chart isn't really helpful unless we know what gets added on which is in this footnote underneath it about the 66 cents to $4 and 24 cents. Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm just trying to get numbers that we can actually compare. Great. And I don't, you know, it sounds like we aren't clear yet. It sounds like this still isn't obvious. We are clear. Yeah, we're not clear, right? We are clear. Okay. Yes, we are clear. And I'm happy to work with you on enhancing the chart. Originally GBB did their study about what the cost was to provide the service. Jean Bergman, other residents have asked us through the process. Let's understand what the city costs are and how they add on to what GBB's report did. We thought that was a great comment. We added that into the report. If we want to change how the report shows these costs more than happy to do that. On the hybrid model that you talk about and what the solid waste generation tax would be it would likely increase the current tax round 484 which is going up to 536 and FY 22. So it would add about $2 on that to have the additional three workers for the two people on each recycling truck. Happy to detail more of that. But fundamentally that tax get passed on to the hauler. The GBB assessment of what the haulers would charge generally holds true. We believe under the hybrid model or the strictly franchise model. Yeah. So happy to work with you in detail. No, I think it's just, yeah. Again, it's sort of, I think I made my point. It's, the chart doesn't actually completely tell you what people would pay per month under the franchise hybrid franchise model. That's, I don't want to beat the dead horse here. So one of the other things that I had spoken with I think I've communicated about the opt out and I communicated with you about this that the 0% opt out on the chart that you have means that it's mandatory for all Burlington residents of residences with like one to four units. So the cost is sort of more spread out among 13,000 people instead of 9,000 residences. But we know, I think you just, you mentioned that the opt out is right now closer to 15 to 25%. So 15 to 25% have been either going to Pine Street, which is closed now or they've been going to now to a patch and road. Can you explain how this, you mentioned about we can have an opt out and you started explaining this to me before, but if there were an opt out contract limit like 25%, how does that work for the public? Because we know that those people are dropping their trash off. You know, how would that work if I was the 26% person showing up and wanting to drop my trash off? I think you mentioned a way of some allottery or something. Well, I think you're right. This question is an operational question and a question that once we decide on a model, we can figure out how to implement the model to best meet the service levels that we hear from the public. And so that's the key reason why we wanted to go out to the public to understand how strong the desire is for opting out, which we have gotten a fair bit of comments from folks wanting that flexibility. So when we put together the bid documents and what the haulers would bid on, we'd have to provide some sort of acknowledgement of if 10% of the people opted out, here's what your bid would be. If 20% opt out, here's what your bid would be. We haven't worked through those levels of details yet. If fundamentally the commission and the public say there should be opt out options, we will work with you to figure out how best to meet your goal. But I mean, I'm just concerned that people might want it up, might want to haul their own trash and there would be some problem with it if there's already been a limit and they happen to be the last one in the door to want to do it. They don't want to participate in the consolidated private contract. Okay, well sounds like it's an open question of how you're going to do it. Okay. We haven't gotten to that level of detail yet. So one of the things I asked, I'm not sure if it was Lee or you about is wouldn't it make sense for Burlington to include in this plan a way to maximize capturing the opt out pay as you drop revenue for Burlington? And we've talked about the drop off centers closed at Pine Street, but there is the option to purchase property on Flynn Avenue, which could potentially have the municipal trash hauling department and also a drop off. And that, you know, if there's all, if there's 25% of the population are not going to be attributing their trash investment in through the consolidated collection, wouldn't it make sense for us to have a way to capture that revenue somehow? I mean, I'm sure. Okay. And so, and why is that not part of maybe a proposal of what would be a good idea of a managed drop off at that Flynn Avenue property with Burlington actually collecting the fees, you know, so that we can actually factor that in as extra revenue toward this whole project? Currently CSWD does run the drop off centers and collects that solid waste generation tax when self haulers bring their garbage to the drop off center. Drop off centers are incredibly costly to run and operate. And my understanding is CSWD does not, you know, make money out of the drop off center. So the fact that they pass on solid waste generation tax to us without any kind of administrative costs on our end is a good deal. And so if CSWD, you know, and us side 339 Pine is the location long-term for the drop off center or 195 Flynn Avenue, either way, I think I hear your point that we want to give Burlington residents the option to self haul and to have a convenient option to self haul within Burlington. And one of the statistics that was in the GBB 2020 study was that 55.7% of the people that were asked said they would still want to use the drop off center even if a quote city wide collection system were available. So it was a concern to me that there was nothing no discussion of that a drop off option may be at the Flynn Avenue location. And one thing that was asked to me is the why was in your chart the 339 Pine Street municipal option the only one listed for the 15% and the 25% opt-outs and not the Flynn Avenue drop off centers? Is that just because it doesn't exist yet or? I mean, we probably made it a little more confusing instead of just showing the one scenario of one potential city property we decided to show two. The projections are that the Flynn Avenue site would be more expensive because we have to spend a half a million dollars or more to acquire that facility, that parcel before we start even building the property, the facility. The 339 Pine Street is already under city control. So we're just trying to show you alternatives of various municipal structural options and the costs associated with that. Okay. Is there any contractual obligation with CSDW preventing Burlington from operating its own drop-off center? You're just, is there a contractual reason why they couldn't, you couldn't buy the Flynn Avenue property and actually have a drop-off center that Burlington collects all the revenue from and pays the drop. Yeah, obviously they pay the tipping fees when they take the trash, but it's a contractual reason why we couldn't run our own drop-off center and make the money from it ourselves. The arrangement, the option that we have to purchase the Flynn Avenue site is financially beneficial to us if CSWD develops a site there. Their estimating is going to cost them 500 to 700,000 rough ballpark to develop a facility there. I mean, we can continue to throw more money at this grand consolidated collection idea, but we don't, it's enough of a struggle to get to 6.7 million to launch consolidated collection as a municipal option. If we wanna add on top of that, building a drop-off center and running it ourselves, both the capital as well as the operating, we're gonna be even more stretched. We could go into a new business that CSWD well provides already, but I would need to understand what CSWD is not doing currently that the city could do better. And related to that, the question about expanding and improving the one at Pine Street, is the railroad enterprise project connection that's gonna be made at some point between Pine Street and Battery Street going to impact on the options for even doing something to restart and reopen and improve the traffic flow of the Pine Street drop-off center? Right, that's probably a very long, it's a very complex answer that dates back to decades of past decisions on the Champlain Parkway. The Parkway alignment was historically gonna run through the old DPW Streets Department Building. The Parkway now is now on Pine Street and not slated to run through the Street Department Building at 339 Pine, but the preferred alternative for the Relyard Enterprise Project has not been developed yet. So the actual impact on 339 Pine Street for the Relyard Enterprise Project is not yet fully understood. Right, and- Chair Hogan, I would like to ask Commissioner Overby has been speaking for over half an hour. If there is this level of detail that she has about these particular questions, I completely respect her attention to this detail, but I see that there's a member of the public with their hand up and I would like us to move on because the level of detail that is being examined here is unfortunately drowning out other kinds of discussion. So I would like to move on. That's right, I'd like to second that. I can provide these questions that I've had in writing to be posted to the website for this meeting and related to that, I did have other questions and I'll just make sure that they'll all be provided to be posted separately. One thing that I did want to ask is, I know that Rob was provided with a comment from the public from Jean Bergman who was unable to participate tonight and I wanted to ask whether he will be reading Jean Bergman's input himself or if he, Jean asked me to read it if in fact, it was not going to be read by Rob. So I will provide the rest of my questions. Can you include that with, it sounds like you have other material to post for the- Well, Rob, he can explain what he got and I got a message from Jean who said he had a family situation, he could not be here and he asked me to make sure that the information was provided during this meeting. Sure. So, I'll stop. Hi everyone, I just to clarify, I do have that from Jean Bergman. I did post it on the DPW commission website today. I just got it today. I did want to make it transparent so I posted it on the website and it's up to the chair and the commission how that's handled. Sure. Well, I think it's available for our review. This isn't the end of the discussion. We can include that with the rest of the information. I would like to actually read it, our portions of it, when the other public has been able to speak. Maybe we can circle back to that at the end of the public on it. With that, Mr. Golding, you check and see if we have a public participant still with us. So maybe one hand in the air. Sure thing, Chair Hogan. Just a quick reminder for the folks that are still with us, if you do wish to speak during public comment, which the chair just called for right now, please use the raise your hand feature. For those who are still joining us by phone, please use star nine, which will alert me that you wish to speak. Michael Cassella, I will promote you over to speak. Your hand just went down, Michael, but I'll promote you over just in case. Can you hear me? Yes, again, we can. Perfect, perfect. No, I just want to thank all the discussion and obviously it's a hot topic. I'm obviously with Cassella Ways, so we employ a lot of drivers and staff that work in Chittenden County. And I mean, I understand where the commission's trying to move and I know we've had some discussions with multiple people in the industry and about and just, I think one of the big things for me is looking at it, there will be an increase in taxes, right? Whatever model you go, depending on the service level, there's never going to be a one size fits all. So if you're a small family or a large family that does a good job using depots and other areas where they take their trash and they use some of those drop offs, right? And they're paying a less fee, there could be an added cost to those families, right? That's one of the things. I think the other big thing from the admissions standpoint is really having a good study put around that to understand what those admissions are really gonna look like when we are still gonna have trucks down in those areas picking up the multifamily houses. So we're still gonna be on a lot of the same similar roads that are all kind of commingled in with all the residential stuff. And then looking at the emissions from adding new buildings and adding new infrastructures, right? Really kind of looking at a holistic thing. And the other big piece for me is the capital cost, right? So it is a capital intensive business. And with everything that's changing, and I know in our business, we're looking at a lot of EVs right now and we're actually testing them in a couple locations where we're testing trash trucks. So I would hesitate in some sense to having even private sector go out and invest large sums of capital into different types of infrastructure that two years or three years from now we're about to roll this out. And EV technology might actually be there. So it's really trying to understand what the ultimate goal is for this commission. And really kind of keeping that in the back of your mind when you're making any of these decisions because it's gonna have a lot of undetended consequences down the road, right? And how do we get is the biggest bang for our buck, the most efficient system that's the most fuel efficient that actually reduces carbon, but also providing a service to all residents. And I just think there's a lot at play here. And I appreciate the time. All right, thank you. There's no one else signed up at this time, Chair. Mr. Golding, would you be able to read Mr. Bergman's comments? Sure, actually, I thought someone just signed up but it looks like not. Mr. Golding, would you have Mr. Bergman's comments available to read for our benefit here? Yeah, I'm pulling those up right now. Thank you. They are pretty lengthy. I'm happy to read the whole thing. If there were excerpts that Commissioner Overby preferred, I'm happy to do that, but I can read this. It is also available online for folks who wanna review it. Sure. Chair Hogan, can I have a key for an abbreviated version of Mr. Bergman's feedback? Yeah, well, I guess if Commissioner Overby's familiar with those, and Overby would you provide a concise summary of Mr. Bergman's comments? It's hard to provide a concise summary of his comments. And I just would say... You can provide us reading them. I think that to be quite honest, I think that they should be read. And I would like to have us give him the courtesy of reading them instead of assuming they're gonna just be opposed to document that people don't read. They're very important. And he's very, he has some, he's reversed. He explains some of the statements about whether charter change is needed or legislation. There's some legal issues that Gene Bergman was the former city attorney. He has information that is relevant to this discussion that has to do with municipal option that is not dealt with in the materials we have. And I think it's important that we read, we hear what he had to say from the perspective of an attorney who has dealt with the city attorney work for years. I can read these. I was looking at his comments mixed with an email I had sent him. So it's less lengthy than I started, started to have made it out to be. Sure. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you, Mr. Bergman. Chair, I was just gonna chime in for a moment here. So we're in the public comment section here, which has a limit of three minutes per participant for a former city attorney to not know our email addresses on the commission and share those beforehand would be kind of a surprise to me. So we are available to read those comments at any time and I know we're being requested for a vote. So if we go ahead to hear these comments, I ask that they be limited to what the rest of the public is limited to, which is three minutes. That's fair. Yes. I also wanna point out that there is another member of the public that raised his hand. He was having a hard time for some reason using the raise your hand feature. And he even messaged me saying that. So he is, I see his hand there now. Gotcha. Oh, Mr. Golding, I'll run the topic. Yeah, could you give us your best three minutes of Mr. Golding's input or of Mr. Bergman's input, please? Will do. Thank you. Starting now, I thank the department for its additional analysis in the memo. I am pleased it looked at a point I have made in support of the municipal option that the franchise model underestimates the cost of the public by 66 cents to $4.24 a month. This makes a municipal model the most cost effective for the public as well, the most democratic and most environmentally and socially responsible option. I'm sorry, however, that the memo does not address the problem of monopolization, which I've raised and which is inherent in a franchise model. Indeed, monopolization is likely in the medium run to decrease consumer cost, choice, and convenience, thereby making the rating of the franchise model inaccurate due to the ratings short-term framework. I believe the ratings for the franchise model should be reduced from high to medium-e in each of these three areas to account for the monopolization that will occur should we adopt franchise model. Second point, I believe the matrix undervalues the public model in the four areas rated as high risk, low benefit, the ratings should be upgraded to at least medium. The risk to launch the municipal option is at best medium because if the voter is rejected, there is no harm and another option can be explored and the timeframe for staff utilization is short. All this contrasted with the benefit to having a municipal program will be very high after the initial two to three year period. It makes little sense to me that the upfront capital costs are rated a high risk and are looked at separately and are looked at separately from the startup. It seems like a way to give an extra set of low points to the public option. The need for a charter change is also wrong since it is framed as a vote to increase an enterprise fund. Enterprise fund department is not needed to create a municipal option and the charter in section 48, section six already gives us the authority to collect this solid waste and charge for it. This too is a way to underrate the municipal option. The risk to the city is also overblown. Again, it raises the specter of a vote on a charter change, which is unneeded. It makes little sense to rate the development and management of the facility and the program as a low benefit high risk. Running an efficient and ecologically responsible solid waste program under democratic control is of high value and we have proven through the water department and BED that it can be done right. A legal challenge threat is a red herring as the numbers on municipal programs demonstrate. Risk of voter rejection is no risk at all. A third point, the hybrid model overstates the environmental benefit equating it with a single collector because it requires two haulers to do the same pickup. Final point four, I asked that the commission support municipal model and that is the closing of his remarks. Thank you. All right, can you go to Mr. Stelfel? Jason, you should be free to speak now. Thank you, I'll make myself very brief, but I think that the city has the motivation to reduce the waste stream, the fact that trash is a given and we just have to haul it away and throw it away somewhere is kind of a misnomer. So I would like for the city to take over control because they have more motivation to reduce it versus a private hauler. Volume is where they make their money. So as many city things, I think you need to take control of that and manage it as you see appropriate. And if you think that everything that is manufactured has to be thrown in the trash, that's a city consideration. So I would like you to take that comment and consider it with your vote. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. That is everyone, Chair Hogan. I think with that, I'll bring it back to the commission. I'd like to make a motion to accept staff's recommendation. Please. Thank you for that motion. I'll second that. Seconded by Commissioner Barr, right? Is there any discussion around the motion? So Mr. Overby. I would suggest that I would make a motion, I would like to have that separated out into the three portions that are, we are being asked to vote on and support one, two, or three. That's my discussion. That's a proposal. Yeah, and Chair Hogan, I'll defer to that. I hear that. And I think it's similar to the Colchester have, I like the bundle versus the individual. So I do respect the idea. For my purposes, I'm kind of a more of a fan of the bundle idea. So I would first stick to the motion at hand. Thank you. Any other discussion around the motion that's on the table? Yes, Commissioner Overby. My last comment is that I think that item three should be done first, the assessment of what the public really wants so that we don't leave that until after we've made a decision about a franchise model and not a municipal model. That's, I think would be an improvement. Obviously, yes, it does break things apart, but as far as I'm concerned, the first thing should be done is an actual assessment of what the public wants, including the drop off percentages and do the survey correctly. So the motion on the tables, any other discussion around the motion? All right, let's go to a vote on the motion to accept staff's recommendation. Commissioner Archambault. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Beaus. Aye. Vice-Chair on the other locker. Aye. Commissioner Overby. No. Aye for myself. The motion passes five to one. Thank you very much. Assistant Director Perry and Director Spencer on this. Appreciate all the energy going into this one as well. Thank you. Thank you for spending so much time on this important topic. Appreciate it. Indeed. All right. Chanda, where are we? Youth on boards. All right. Director Spencer, we welcome an update on Youth on Boards item seven on the agenda. Great, given the hour, I've put a written communication together. No action is needed. Why don't we discuss at our next meeting? That works for me. No action was worn. I think we're clear to close out there. Let's proceed to item eight, minutes from the May meeting. I understand there was some suggested edits to the minutes. Mr. Goulding, would you happen to have those handy for a quick scan here? I do. I'll pull those up and share my screen. We were six at that meeting as well. So everyone, commissioners present are eligible to vote on this. Chair Hogan, commissioners, can you see this? Yes. Thank you. All right. These are, I believe, the only two changes that were proposed. And you can see on the screen the changes that commissioner over be small changes, but important changes on the direction in the minutes. Straight forward. Thank you for bringing those up. I'm happy to entertain a motion on them. I'll move to approve the minutes with these changes as we see them. I second that. Motion from commissioner Archambault, seconded by commissioner Barr. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. We'll go to a vote then. At the top, alphabetically, commissioner Archambault. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Thank you. Vice-chair O'Neill-Vacco. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Aye for myself. The main minutes have passed unanimously. Thank you. To the director's report, director Spencer. All right. Cut into the chase. A lot of the director's report focuses on COVID-19 recovery and our transition out of the state of emergency. I just want to thank staff for all their great efforts, keeping everything going 24 seven. We did look through all the actions that have previously been taken during the state of emergency and don't see any imminent actions needed by the commission to transition out of the state of emergency. If any of that changes, I'll let you know. They think we're in good shape. And the most important item in the director's report was written in white ink, which is that this is the last meeting for commissioner Archambault and commissioner Gilman and commissioner Gilman six years and commissioner Archambault nine years are most appreciated. And commissioner Archambault also served as chair, navigated us through many complex waters and had really a focus on process. And I think made us a better team between staff and the commission and ensured the public had the ability to really weigh in in the two step process that he brought to many of our more difficult decisions. I think serves us well and will continue to serve us well. So very grateful to have their service. We have two new commissioners coming on next month. And thank you for all your service. You do have a DPW commissioner hat on its way and given we're not all in person, we'll have to deliver it to you. So thanks, Tiki. Thank you very much, very appreciate it. All right, thank you. Thanks, Tiki. That will bring it to commissioner communications. Start with commissioner Bose. Nothing for me. Thanks. All right. Vice chair on the Ivanka. Just a quick thanks to DPW staff for the prep on the topics for this meeting. I really appreciate your level of attention to detail. Thanks. All right. Thank you. Michelle. I don't have any more comments. Thank you. Other than to congratulate Tiki on escaping from the commission. And I'm that unfortunately is me. I think is the oldest remaining longest lived remaining commissioner on this commission, which is not a good sign. So thank you, Tiki. And enjoy your not having to show up for these Wednesday meetings. Thank you very much. All right. Bye-bye. Mr. Barr. Yeah, I echo both commission, vice chair Ivanka and commissioner Overby's comments. It always looks like you're trying to get away as you move on your treadmill there. And it seems that you're finally doing it. But thank you. And I know that commissioner Gilman is probably gonna watch this on channel 17. So I'm gonna thank him publicly for his service as well. And I'm the second oldest on this team. So don't leave anytime soon commissioner Overby. All right, very good. I'll break a couple of quick comments myself and conclude with our departing former chair, Archambault. Real quick, I should mention I received a resident comment about a water pooling issue on Park Street, I believe. I will get you all to grab in the customer service team, get you all the details on that. I believe it's an issue where there was have some recent paving work done and there's still some ponding of water that results in people on the sidewalk getting splashed, I'm not sure what you can do about that. I know that's frustrating after the fact we've seen similar stuff after paving on Pine Street and so forth. But in any case, I'm sure this resident appreciates a look at the issue and see if there's some cutting or trimming, whatever could be done there. Curious where they stand with the Battery Street detour that was expressed before last meeting. I don't think there was a really awaiting period necessary for that. Was there, can you give us a quick sense of when we might expect that? Yes, happy to. Parks is leading that effort. DPW is supporting. They have been trying to work to get a line striper in. It is one of those jobs in the middle of summer. It's like trying to get a farmer to pay attention in the spring. So I know that they are working diligently. I have told my team that we need to support Team Parks to get it done. I'll get you an update on when install projection is supposed to be. I know we'd all like to see this have been done already and we are trying to get it done. Appreciate that, thank you. Somebody painted stripes in a parking lot up at UVM last weekend, I don't know, maybe a Commissioner Barr who knows the past longing name. That's all for me, Commissioner Archambault. Thank you and thank you all for the kind words. It's kind of weird right now to be departing and it's not an escape at all. It's my firm belief that other voices need to be at the table and I recall former Commissioner Albury having been on this commission for 30 years, I don't know, so that you might know better than me. I lost count after 30, right? Many ways I respected him and many ways I thought, boy, this town has a lot of people who care enough to be at the table and I really want to give them a chance. So that's what's in my heart and I must admit it's mixed because I love working with all of you. I've loved being on this commission for nine years, started with Director Goodkind and now have Director Spencer two great directors in their own right. So just such history. And I've learned a lot about city governance on this commission alone and I just, I'm forever grateful. I want to remark too about every last commissioner that I've served with has been a reasonable person and you would, you know, you read national news and you think, where do these cooks come from, right? But I can honestly say this commission has had none of those over nine years. It's all been reasonable people, whether you agree with them or disagree with them. And so that's super cool, right? It gives me a lot of hope in this community and for our own future as well. So thank you so much for me, you know, I'm signing off but I'm not, I'm still going to be around and you're probably going to hear from me again. Probably I'll be stuck on habits and I'll be at your July meeting. So thank you sincerely for all the kind thoughts and sincerely appreciate it and I'll miss you all. Thank you. I will say too, in my last remarks here that commissioner Barr was kind enough to give, to afford me the opportunity to make the last motion for the meeting here. If I dare do that. So if I may make a motion to adjourn and have that. You got it. I'm going to second it. Commissioner Barr, all right. Any discussion around that motion? All right. Thank you, Tiki. Say hi. Hi. Hi. Any opposed? We are adjourned. All right. Thanks. Good night all. Good night all. Thank you. Bye everyone. Get some sleep. Yeah.