 I'll call to order the City Council Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee at 4.01 p.m. And I would have a motion on the agenda. I move the adoption of the agenda as posted. I'll second that. All those in favor. All those in favor. That passes. Next, uh, item number two is adoption of our minutes from our, uh, January 23rd meeting. I'll go ahead. Hannah, go ahead and do that. I would move the. Approval of the last meeting minutes. Right. Okay. And I second that. All those in favor. All right. that passes, so now we're on to public forum. Are there any members of the public online, Julianne? There is one person if you'd like to speak, you can raise your hand. You don't want to speak, no. Yes, oh yeah, Merrick, okay. Go ahead, Merrick. Can y'all hear me? We sure can. Awesome, so I know that the climate policy review and next steps for existing commercial and industrial buildings less than 50,000 square feet was moved from yesterday's city council meeting. I just wanted to say that while I do think that an independent group should be looking over it as opposed to BED, I also would say that if that is not in the cards, that you should consider pushing Hannah King's amendment for the finalized version when it is discussed. Thank you. Thank you, Merrick. Is there anyone else in the queue? No. And seeing nobody here in the room, we'll go ahead and close public forum and move on to our deliberative agenda. And the first item is GMT, their foreign policy review, or so let them compete. See me have Clayton here, GMT, to want us to do that. Welcome afternoon, everybody. Thanks for having me back. Thank you for your continued work and efforts on public transit for your constituents. And so I wanted to have most of the time be a discussion with you all. There was a few items that I want to start off with, but I think that this would be better if we communicate between each other instead of me talking that, Jeff. I did want to start off by saying that I apologize for having some items to you all very just as in like 45 minutes ago. The last time I was here, we talked about previous assessments. And so I emailed a memo to you all on GMT's thinking about the assessments and also a document from our Teamsters Union that I'll mention laterally. The last time I was here, we talked about a fair free routes. And I discussed that GMT would like to not have any fair free routes when we return to fair free service. We talked about the improved equity that was going to be in the new system, where I think that our daily riders will actually probably end up paying the less than they did before because we know that so few of our daily riders would utilize monthly passes before. And so I think that for those folks to do transit the most that they're going to find the new system to be much more equitable. Things that we didn't really talk about. Recording in progress. Things that we didn't talk about the last time is that our drivers themselves have taken a position that they would like for there to be consistency across all the routes. And one of the items that I sent was a memo from the Teamsters supporting not having different rules on the different routes. And so the Union would like us to recognize to recognize that having different rules on routes impacts their working with the public and explaining why some routes require a fair and some routes don't require a fair. And they have made that connection to their safety concerns and safety concerns definitely have been item of interest for them with what we've experienced at the transit center buses in the past few years. Obviously no fair free routes would be a reduction to the assessment. And so the memo that I sent out earlier would lay out what that reduction would be for fiscal year 25, it would be a $57,000 a year reduction. Something that you all should also know is that that amount is based on the ridership. And I suspect that you would see that that assessment increased substantially if it were a fair free route at the beginning of the pandemic the cost for ongoing fares on that route was $121,000, not $57,000. So I think that it would obviously provide some assessment relief to Burlington. One of the things that we also did talk about is that having the college street shuttle and the city loop number eight be fair free would complicate our other user access agreements looking at the colleges. I'm not sure that they would be as interested in having the unlimited user access agreements when the two primary routes that serve the college and the students would be fair free. And that would end up with significant road and locks for TNT and would essentially be a cost shift to the city from those agencies. And I wanna emphasize that the desire for there not to be free routes at this time is not, that'd be set stone. I am sure that we're gonna learn things in the coming year about our system. And I just wanna make sure that people understand that when I say that I'm not looking to have fair free service when we restart April 1st, I probably should have mentioned, it's been delayed to April 1st. If you haven't already heard, it will not be March 6th. It's just our desire to have the system be as simple and as possible we return to fair service and that situations change, economic change that we would certainly be open to discussing. There's two other things that I wanna bring up. One is that we are in the midst of an organizational assessment. And one of the things that we have noted is that there has been a significant decrease in GMT's capacity over the past 15 years. We've lost 38% of our non-operational administrative staff. So basically anyone that's not involved with driving, fixing or scheduling a bus, we've gone from 24 staff members to 15. And what really has been compounding that loss is that we are one of only two transit agencies in the country that operates a rural and urban transit system. And so essentially GMT is operating two separate transit systems. We have to keep the funds separated, that we have different union contracts depending on the locations. It doesn't really provide the economies of scale like you would think a merger would do. And one of the things that the organizational assessment is to let us know that we are essentially staffed to operate a single small urban system. And again, I think that some of the frustrations that our partners, especially on the city of Burlington has probably experienced with GMT has been tied to this lack of capacity. And I can tell you just for myself, it's a six day a week job and everybody there is doing, is working well beyond what I would want anyone to have to do. And so it's something that I think that our limited administrative capacity has probably hampered our abilities to serve our communities. And so just want to let you know about that. And the last thing that I'm really disappointed to bring to you, the last time I was here, we talked about the states asked BPTA, the Public Transportation Association, to put a study together to look at non-federal match. And my perception is that the legislature has no interest in acting on that study. And so we are looking at going over our fiscal cliff at the end of fiscal year 25 or the beginning of fiscal year 26. We're gonna be providing you our fiscal year 26 budget, draft and eight months. And so that means that between now and then we have to figure out how to fill about $3 million gap between the service that we're currently providing and the cost to do that and the rub note that we're gonna have, which unfortunately is that we do not turn the tide at the state house will be significant on the service reductions, which is not something that it's not a situation that we wanna be in. And so that's about done talking at you, happy to talk with you, getting back to the agenda item. I wanna hear from you all what you would like for me for the next steps. I know that it would be great if we could have a resolution from the city council about fair free routes, but I'm gonna defer to you all as judgments on how to handle your own council and what needs to be done. And I would be happy to provide you all with whatever is necessary to for yourselves and for the rest of the city council to consider the matter, putting together other written materials to help with the issue. I'd just like to ask a clarifying question. Thank you for that. And I didn't have a chance to review what you would send Clayton. So basically I'm just asking you to confirm that the letter from the teams you're saying that they don't wanna have fair free, is that what I'm reading? They don't want fair free routes. I would say that the letter was very convoluted. All right, I'm getting in reading it and it took me several times to come to get the conclusion. I know I'm talking to them, but they do not wanna see one or two fair free routes. And I think as we discussed last time, they're also concerned that that wouldn't concentrate on some of the negative behaviors there. Okay, thank you. Okay, and I'll open it up to committee members. Go ahead, Gene. Thank you for that. And kind of distressing on a number of levels. And I'm wondering who in the Burlington delegation, who in the Burlington house delegation you've been in contact with? I note that Carol Odie, who last year had a great interest in transportation is not on the house transportation committee. And so I'm just sort of trying to think through what the process is and what connections you've made. And so earlier today, I talked with the progressive caucus in the house to let them know what the situation was and that included representative Odie, Stanek, and the other Chittenden County progressives. And we are going to be putting on a, well, that's who I talked with today. We've talked, I've talked with the Senate Transportation Committee twice and the House Transportation Committee once. We really got the feedback that they weren't gonna move in the past two weeks. And what we're doing now is putting together like with progressive caucus today, us going and telling our story. We're gonna have a combined legislative municipality meeting in mid-March. We're delaying that long solely because we want to be able to tell people that more specifically, this is what it's gonna look like. If we go over the fiscal cliff, one of the reasons also is that we have negotiated with the Teamsters because there's so much uncertainty about our future financial situation that we're looking at doing just a one-year contract extension with them. And they will vote on that March 3rd. And once that vote is done, then we'll have an idea of exactly how much fiscal year 25 will cost us and that we would be able to have better projections on going over the cliff. So we'll have everybody that's part of our urban service area, both municipality and legislators invited to meetings to hear what that impact will be. They will also have written correspondence for me. And we're gonna be April 3rd, which is the first Wednesday of April. We're gonna be at the State House in the cafeteria, hosting one of the breakfasts there where we have been posted boards up, letting folks see what service reductions would look like. And that should be about the same time that both transportation committees are working on the T-bill. And so we hope that that will have the maximum effect. It seems to me that as you were saying, City Council action, it would be very important. And obviously this month is when it will have the most impact. And that regards both the particulars of the fiscal cliff, but also what the needs are and what you would like from the legislature. I haven't got framed in my brain the action that we could bring to the City Council and the writing of that. And I'm just wondering how we get to collaborate in the next short period of time. To my fellow committee members, I would like for the two to be active like we were last year with that resolution and in every other way possible to do our best to eliminate the fiscal crisis of the county's mass transit service. So whether there is a special meeting that would be happening would be called with the Board of GMT that we could participate in and try to get more detail whether we would have a special meeting. I'm not exactly sure, but those are the first thoughts and it would be great if there were draft sort of an ask that was drafted from the perspective of GMT that we could review. And I like Mark, I haven't seen the materials that were just posted. So maybe they're in there. And I could tell you the materials that I just sent really didn't cover the fiscal cliff at all. It was about the just the past over assessment in the Teamsters letter. Yeah, I was gonna say, I agree with you, Jean, but I'm just reading the materials now. And I will say for me personally, the letter from the Teamsters is very interesting. And I think warrants each of us hopefully engaging with them because it seems like they're the individuals that will be dealing with this each and every day. And they seem to have very, what I feel are very legitimate concerns. And so I know that I'm gonna all reach out to them right after this meeting, but I think it will warrant a larger discussion of what that kind of looks like based on the concerns from the local. I support that and whether that is in the form of individual meetings, which I think is important, but I think that collective action is helpful. And the other thing is that having labor as a whole, not just the local that's involved at the base is the people who are gonna be affected, but perhaps this is an issue that we can bring labor and environmental groups together. So I'm not sure, again, the one thing that comes to mind is maybe a special meeting that would be focused in the month of March, mid-March or so to bring people together so that we could formulate an action and then perhaps we would be meeting earlier than that or somehow get together draft proposals. I think that's a good idea. I would be in favor of that. And I would as well, and you read my mind, I think we definitely need to formalize our ask through resolution and I agree with what Jean said is it'd be helpful to understand the particulars of that ask from GMT. And I was wondering about the timing. When was the timing of your meeting with the legislators? I'm just trying to understand how that syncs up with our council calendar. And so the legislative breakfast is April 3rd. And then we have, let me look at my phone because my brain no longer retains information. And then we have a plan for the March 25th is when we're gonna be sending invitations to municipalities and legislators to kind of walk them through the financial situation. I didn't mention that on March 14th, we are doing a press conference that is focused largely on fair resumption. But I think that we absolutely would want to include this topic as well. And it may be an opportunity to bring people together to speak about this with press coverage. So with that in mind, by April 3rd, we should act and have council action that you can use and your representations to the legislature. So yeah, I don't, if we could do a special meeting or could we allow to direct a resolution without having, we could, the three of us without it being a warrant meeting, I don't know Gene, is that something we can do? Could we, I guess if we meet with GMT, then that would have to be a warrant meeting. I mean, one work around is to not be acting as the toke but acting as individual counselors putting forward a resolution. It gets a little tricky. Maybe somebody like Sarah joining us and other people but that we didn't have a council quorum and maybe a meeting that was held with our city reps to the GMT board along with the GMT administration and having it maybe at the administration building as a working meeting of city counselors who are interested in mass transit. That, I think that would pass a straight face test and we could perhaps use the fact that we did all get together outside of a committee structure to support funding that would eliminate or obviate the service cuts. I was a year and a half ago, a year ago, I can't remember. I don't know that we need to, we can have a special meeting even if it's virtual meeting for the purposes of deliberating and voting on a resolution that we would recommend to the full council. So why don't we take that as an action item to work with, I can work with you Clayton to try to sort out the particulars. That would be great. I had another question about the delay of resumption up there. Yes, why did that happen? Because our apps are not publicly available. And so we, the rivalry app that Gen Fair is making for us has not made it through the Apple and the Google Android system in order to be available for download. We had thought that this would be done by the end of January, they're still not publicly available. And I don't want to throw our contractor under the bus, but we obviously don't create apps. So it's not something that we are able to work on ourselves. And so that has been the reason for the delay. And the reality is that we were told last week that they'd be available this week. We've heard that about seven or eight weeks in a row. So hopefully it'll be available so we can do. But the whole system is predicated on people using, primarily there's smartphones to pay for this. So until those apps are available, it didn't really kind of stuck. Okay, thank you. Other questions, comments? Is there, if I could just take a minute to something that I do want to also bring up as it pertains to the organizational assessment. You know, we're celebrating our 50th year at GMT. And I think that it's great that we've lasted this long, but I think that our charter is starting to show some signs of age. And one of the things that, you know, when we're looking at this organizational assessment, you can't escape the fact that Burlington contributes 1.9 million, which is 51% of our urban local assessments. And you have 14% of the votes on the board. And that's to me, whenever you have something that's out of alignment like this, it's not healthy for long-term work. And I can tell you one of the first things that I asked Chief and Spencer when I got here last spring was why the city of Burlington tolerated this arrangement. And I think that as we look at our future, you know, that we're probably gonna need to have a charter change. And I think that that needs to be looked at because it doesn't make sense to me that between Burlington and South Burlington, that's 2.6 million of the 3.6 million that we collect in urban assessments. And yeah, that's just three votes. If there are not no more questions, we'll close out that item and move on to our next, thank you Clayton, which is a Shelburne Street round about year one evaluation. Yeah, thank you. So about a year ago, we came to the tube to get an evaluation put in for the roundabout approved. This stemmed from the 2009 city council resolution that approved the singling roundabout as the preferred concept, but had the provision that DPW needed to monitor traffic conditions to make sure it was performing well. Because at the time there was also a hybrid roundabout under consideration to lanes for the Shelburne Street approach. So we did all of that data collection last year and are reporting back on what we found. I would say on the whole, the roundabout is performing really well, both traffic data-wise and also have a lot of positive public input. One big difference that we noticed was that the traffic volume on the Shelburne Street leg, the volumes that we measured were about half of what was projected 15 years ago. So that was a big factor in the QA not being as severe as what was predicted when this was approved back in 2009. Another thing that we noticed is that speeds on some of the approaches are a little higher than we expected above the speed limit. This is something we're gonna keep monitoring. We did do our accounts in some cases, like a hundred feet from the intersection, which so the speeds that were measured may not be directly related to the roundabout, but rather just what the approaching street characteristics are like. And that's just because of where we were able to set up the ATR at the time it's based on is there's something to chain and lock the ATR machine to and where we could set up to feel safe to enter the travelings while there's traffic going on. So we will be continuing to monitor those speeds and we hope to see an improvement, but if not, we can put the approaches to the intersection into the traffic calming program and try to address the speeds that way. We also looked at crash data. We're hoping to compare the five years of pre-construction data with five years of post-constructing data. So it is a little bit early to kind of discern any specific patterns. However, there were no injuries more serious than property damage, which is a good sign and only nine crashes total last year. So I included a pretty thorough summary of the public input. Overall, people felt a lot more comfortable driving through the intersection, mostly more comfortable walking and then about the same biking through the intersection with the rest of that, which was interesting to see. Many positive comments about just traffic moving versus the previous condition. And also some comments that people were still learning how to use the roundabout. Some people weren't familiar with how to yield and who yields to who when entering. But we did kind of expect there to be a bit of an adjustment period with the roundabout opening and being the first one in the county. So that's pretty much it for the first year. We are proposing to alter our plan a little bit. We had originally proposed to collect public input three times. So we did the first one six months after the opening. The next one would be a year from that, which is this April. And then the following one would be next April. And what we found when we asked people in April of last year was like, they were kind of saying, you just gave you a bunch of input during the project construction. Why are you asking me again? And so we, acknowledging that it can be frustrating to answer the same questions over again, our proposal is to only go back for additional public input if there's something concerning in the traffic data. Of course, any resident can always email or call DPW. There's an issue, but rather than, you know, taking the staff time to go and deliver flyers like we did to get participation from the neighborhood that we would only go seek additional input if there was something troubling in the traffic data or if some other issue arose. So that's it. That's it. Thank you. I'll turn it up to committee members. Julia, have you shared that with counselor Paul? I know that this is a project that she's had great interest in. So no, I've just brought it to the Duke, but I certainly can share it with her. I think that would be really, really good. And to the extent to which there's a, you know, she expresses, okay, hang on. A desire to, you know, have a different type of input. I'd consider that greatly. Okay. No, I think Jean's comments are good. I don't have any questions, but thank you. I had a technical question about the level of service letters. They say that a delay of E or better, so A is higher, better than E. Yes, but it's not quite, I mean, it's hard when it's like great, A, B, C, D, E, but we don't always shoot for level of service A because that would mean things are like really overbuilt. So I think the state V-trans guidelines for side suits, they try to achieve level of service D, typically. D? D, okay. In more urban environments, he is totally normal as well. And that is what the CCRPC had recommended as our threshold, so that's what we do. Yeah. Thanks, but other than that, I think, I love that we're under that. I think generally people, I think it's a giant improvement for what we were doing before we had it. So do you need council action or to adjust here to do any adjustments to your plan? Any motions? No, because the plan was never like approved by an action. It was just kind of informative, but just want to make sure everyone's on the same page nonetheless. And so will this be shared with, should this be shared with the full council or? Yes, I believe we're going to share it as a communication. Okay. So on the next agenda. Contents. Okay, excellent. Any other questions or comments on this item? Go ahead and then we'll get back to you. Next on our agenda is the TM update. Yes. Please. Presentation. I have a presentation and I apologize that I wasn't able to send you anything last week. I'm going to try and make this as brief as possible so that you all can ask questions. So I'm going to be probably skipping over some slides. If you see something that I skipped over, just ask me. So what is the transportation options study? First of all, we're not calling it a TDM study. I think the state of the art is generally moving away from TDM as a phrase and spirit to Argeny and most people don't understand it. And so transportation options is all about improving the options for residents and folks who live, work, and play in Burlington to get around. And as you know, this study itself is the product of the 2021 City Council Resolution. So the overarching goals of the transportation options study are to evaluate the existing TDM efforts and as well as those in the past to see successes and challenges to develop a set of recommendations that includes an implementation matrix that just to give you a heads up, we should be receiving the draft implementation matrix later this week or early next week. And I'd be happy to either come back to the tube and share that or otherwise distribute it to you when we get it. The third is to extend TDM in Burlington beyond the development code process. I'll talk a little bit more about this in a minute. And the final one is a piece that was not at the initial scope, but it was something that we realized and discovered once we started the work that we needed to really explore models for how TDM can work in Burlington's established neighborhoods. So project schedule, again, we started in earnest in May. Most of the work really began June, July. We did extensive public engagement really from June through October that continues as part of this neighborhood TDM work that I'll speak about in just a moment. We're just zooming in to sort of where we are now. Our consultants were in town last week. Councillor Bergman had the opportunity to participate in a couple of events with them. And we're looking at over the course of the next few weeks, receiving on a rolling basis some of the draft material. There will be periods of review. And again, happy to share that too. Bear in that and come to any meetings during the next three months to talk about this work. And ultimately, the consultants work will wrap up in the end of the May, at which point it will go into the public process. And the folk, you all and the folk council will be seeing this over the course of the summer. With hopeful adoption, including an implementation matrix and steps, actionable items, great summer. So key findings of the public engagement and some of the sort of existing conditions analysis, I'll sort of just summarize this. So obviously, climate resiliency is a primary reason that the city has TDM in the first place and that we want to strengthen our programs and services. Equity is another piece. I think folks acknowledge that there are gaps, not just in Burlington sort of TDM performance, but nationally and I think equity is going to focus in recent years in the TDM world. Of course, we know that most people, computers, people driving around to access sort of shops and services are driving, but we do see some encouraging data that I can share with you just a minute. And the sort of, we just heard from TMT, I think that story about sort of limited resources capacity can be extended to most of the key stakeholders in the TDM world. And so, we are looking at funding sources as part of this work, but also ways that we can increase the sort of levels of coordination between existing organizations to improve efficiency in TDM. So just looking at some of the sort of stakeholder outreach. So we did a series of stakeholder interviews, everything from individuals to going to workplaces to speak to employees and employers about how they get to work, any sort of challenges they have in their daily lives. And we, luckily, I'm working in the planning office, we have three very talented data analysts and they helped us to sort of take all this qualitative data and sort of elucidate well, what are the key topics? So, the ones that are online here in red are just the ones that we heard most commonly, but generally, the sort of level and quality of infrastructure was something we heard a lot about. Safety is something we heard a lot about. And income, sort of equity issues as well. We heard all about those. I would, you know, I'm happy to share more of this detail. I have some great votes that we heard from stakeholders that will all be in the final report, but I'm happy to share any more of this. So, you probably know, this is no surprise, Burlington here is in green, Chippinon County is in the light blue and Vermont is in the dark blue. So, you know, Burlington is performing obviously, given where the sort of urban center in the state, it's a little better in terms of mode share than sort of the folks farther out, you know, 19% of Burlington residents do walk to work and 5% are taking the plus and 6% are taking our biking. So, this data I want to do is from 2021 and it's showing work from home rates that are probably very low compared to what is happening today and in fact, we do know that remote work is actually doing rates at things in terms of TDM, introducing via models travel. So, looking across sort of gender, so with few exceptions, commute mode choices by gender are similar and cross both modes, but we do see that for folks who identify as male, the bike ridership rates are double what they are for those who identify as female and that it sort of flips, those identifying as female are more likely to walk than bike or board than those identifying as male. So, some interesting data there that we'd like to look into. We know that safety of infrastructure, bike infrastructure is a big reason for that. Also, the sort of lighting and other safety measures of a brown have a lot to do with that. So, we've got some data from Katmah and the city. I won't go, I won't sort of focus on this too much. Generally tells the same story. We are seeing that in Burlington, this is pretty consistent with that 20, 21 census data, 10% of people are biking who took this survey. So, the survey was something that we had on our website on the project website for two or three months. We advertised it from Fort Forum, I think on a regular basis. So, we do have a pretty good sort of spectrum of the population who respond to the survey. Interesting data, again, to share that with you. Most folks are generally happy with their commute. Even during rush hour, conditions aren't the worst, although we do know that those who sort of lowering on especially sort of new American populations are those that have the biggest challenges of getting to and from work. And that's been a focus of ours. But when we do ask people, if you didn't drive to work, what would you do? We do see that there's a lot of interest, 30% of people said that they would take, they'd be happy to take the bus or almost 20% of folks, this is Katmah's survey, saying they would buy a walk. And that's pretty consistent also with what we see in the city survey, the bus, biking, especially Eve, we asked specifically about e-bikes and walking, we see that there's a hint of demand for other boats. And I think that there are reasons, there's sort of incentives for people to drive and disincentives for them not to drive. And I think that's gonna be sort of a focus of our work, obviously. So just looking at sort of the TDM ecosystem and how TDM operates today, this is a pretty complex chart. But I think the key takeaway here is that, and this is something that our consultants have sort of repeatedly drilled down with us, is that the most successful TDM programs are those where there's pretty substantial coordination between levels of government and community-based organizations, as well as sort of agencies like GMT or like the Regional Planning Commission. But it also obviously takes developers, major institutions and others and I think this is something we heard and witnessed last week in our roundtable in the neighborhood, the TDM focus that I'll speak about in just a minute is that there are already a lot of organizations providing TDM or TDM adjacent services in Burlington and I think part of our task is how we increase those levels of coordination. So of course, I think we acknowledge that there are gaps in the existing development ordinance approach to TDM. TDM in its sort of most practiced form in Burlington really only applies to market rates, apartment developments of 10 or more units. Office would apply as well or be excused, but there's obviously not much office building, office construction happening and probably won't be for some time. And so this puts a lot of pressure on new development to provide TDM for those residents and for everybody else, unfortunately that's what these folks out of the picture affordable housing developers I think acknowledge that providing some of these sort of TDM services can be costly or can be an administrative hurdle for them. And so they're actually exempted from some of the sort of TDM rules and regulations and obviously small projects have only very limited sort of TDM programs applied to them. And so we're looking at ways that we could both strengthen how TDM is practiced in the ordinance, but also find ways to apply TDM outside of the limits. Funding sources, so there are limited state sources beyond the very limited bank pooling, a lot and there's no other TDM funding directly from the state. CCRBC is doing great work in planning. They're just undertaking their own TDM study right now, but they cannot fund programs. Katma is obviously a major player here and they collect membership dues. And I know they're doing some of their own strategic planning and I think we're eager to see what that planning is saying to them. And I believe that they're looking at restructuring their funding as well. Parking revenue is obviously big picture. We do know that there are sort of transportation options in Burlington, but the gaps especially are present in serving the sort of servicenship workers low income, low income populations in immigrant communities, historic and established residential aid. But it's just a sort of anecdote here. My colleagues and I went out to Rhino Foods at 6 a.m. one morning to catch folks at the end of the third shift and heard some really unfortunate stories. I mean, it was great to hear them talk about, you know, transportation and how it impacts their lives, but there's folks working at Rhino Foods who live in Manuski and have a basically a two hour commute taking one bus to downtown Burlington and some cases walking from the train station all the way down to Rhino Foods on Francisco Park. So we obviously know that that's also the case where a lot of folks working at the script area is being large manufacturing facilities all throughout the region. And so that's gonna be a particular focus of ours is how we look at these large employers and perhaps create new services and programs that might help folks move around something like microtransit or shuttles. So again, looking at those sort of key findings it helped us to sort of elucidate what might be the best practices around the country that we wanna look at and it might have relevance here. I'm gonna sort of skip through a lot of this, but before we sort of looked at four best practice topics, so equity again is a big one. So how is equity being centered in TDM nationally? Residential TDM programs, much of what I just spoke about residential neighborhoods, established neighborhoods, what does TDM in those cases look like? How can it be implemented? How is successful TDM being funded around the country and how are we measuring its performance? I'm gonna skip through a lot of this. I can come back to it if you'd like to, but I'll leave time for your questions. So neighborhood TDM, this is a really interesting piece of work. We are focusing this study on a core area of the Old North End, an area that includes the North Gnusky Avenue corridor, I think it's a topic for discussion for this committee, but also includes some really significant community-based organizations, services, open spaces, and just a really incredible community, a very diverse dynamic population in Burlington. And so the goals, there's sort of two overarching goals here. One is to create a neighborhood TDM framework for the study area that can be implemented and we'll be getting a draft framework for our consultancy in the payroll, happy to come back and share that at that time, or include people in sort of intervening period in any way you'd like, just let me know. But also we're looking that this is a sort of template for additional neighborhood TDM planning that we can do throughout the rest of the city. For example, our office is gonna be doing a new North End plan starting later this year, and we're hoping to use this model that we're practicing here in the Old North End in that plan. And the idea is that in future planning, as we do area corridor studies, and this is also, I think, extended into parts of DBW's work, we'd like the TDM sort of built into those as something that we sort of do automatically within those plans to make sure that accessing sort of services, businesses, work is easiest and best for our environment. So the next steps with, next steps are we're gonna continue our stakeholder outreach in the area. And thank you to Councillor Fervent for already connecting us with so many people and for a commitment to connect us with more folks in the area. We will be having a public meeting today just to be determined. I do know that Parks is gonna be having a public meeting for Roosevelt, the Roosevelt Park Comprehensive Plan. If we're able to, we're gonna sort of co-lead that public meeting, and we'll do two meetings in one. I think that'd be the best for the community and then the draft framework in April. Just wanna tell you about a roundtable that we had last week. So we convened some key areas, stakeholders, ALB meeting to within community health centers of Burlington, residents of Ward 2, yay, also some of the part of Vermont and very, our employer, our sub-DW. To sort of just talk about, existing transportation experiences in the neighborhood, it's brainstorm strategies for more collaboration. And the next, and to sort of establish next steps for this planning process. And I would just say that it's really incredible to get these different kinds of perspectives in the same way that people speak about the challenges that they and their organizations serve face and getting around. And then it's a great sort of venue for brainstorming. So, happy to answer any questions. Again, we'll be bringing you some work on a rolling basis over the next few months. So I know I skipped over a lot and I expect you'll have some questions. Thank you for that. That was also not part of the back-up break. It was not. Right. So would it be possible to have that and the communications from Clayton added to the VHF? Just so we can refer back to it. Yeah. Thank you, Senator. I'll send it to you. Committee members? The only comment that I want to make since I'm highly distracted and being distracted here, as you can see, is that to every extent possible, we can break down the silos and we can bring in players who have a connection when we're having conversations. It seems critically important. It's probably serendipitous that Charles is here when we're gonna talk about birdbikes and what have you, but it really shouldn't be. So as we move forward, that would be really helpful. Well, okay. I got enough noise here. So I'll let you go on. Thank you. Yeah, I can say that I think we are committed. I think breaking down silos, both within the city, but also regionally, I think given the sort of nature of Burlington and how it fits with the Chippin County and the state, and we have many colleagues here in the city who live all over the state really, and they're coming in to tell the world and it's a challenge. I think that you heard from TMT, some of the challenges that they have while creating a transit system that's urban and rural, I think it's sort of the same in respect to TDM. So we are looking at sort of coordinating, I mentioned CCRPC is starting there in TDM study right now. I'm gonna be on this sort of advisory committee for that. And so hoping to, yes, Council member, I meant break down silos here and as TPW, I think 10 years to go, I think increased planning capacity, definitely looking at more coordination. But as I said, I mean, that TDM is something that affects really every, people accessing everything from parks, which is why we've included parks on our round table and why we think it's important. And I know in fact that in their engagement with Roosevelt Park and accessing the park, it's been the most commonly heard sort of challenges that folks have, whether it's infrastructure or other reasons, but I think, yes, comment is well taken. Thank you for terms. That was a lot. Yes. Come back and I am actually curious about some things, but I wanted to spend some more time. Sure. I will send it over to Julie. I can't internalize it all in real time like that, but I didn't have a specific question around the survey. There's no demographic data. The data from CAATMA or not, we don't have the demographic data. It's sort of simply that with our city data, we do have some demographic data. We did ask questions and we can certainly go back in and sort of find out who's answering these questions. Unfortunately, and this is probably not a surprise, but engaging with lower income groups, especially new Americans is a challenge, which I think is why we're doing this. One of the reasons we could explore and study, but yes, I think we did interviews, we went out to the farmers' park, we went out to the tune team and tabled about DNA. So we didn't get a pretty good cross-section, but unfortunately, the people who have the biggest transportation challenges don't have the time to engage because they're spending so much time getting around and working. So yes, I think we're going to try our best to make sure that we are, I think, broad-swallowing. And try to tease out some of that for the final report in terms of recommendations. Exactly. Yeah, I can guarantee that there's going to be a major focus on equity here. And I can sort of speak to just some of the best practices from around the country that we've heard about. You know, this is a specific development in Oakland that did respond to that city's sort of TDM programs. And in doing that, they do these things here. They provide a bicycle library on site. So it's not even bike share. These bike libraries are typically three or even a very low barrier to access, where folks just sort of like check out a bike, like a book, and ride around and bring it back. Family amenities, like the sort of green shopping carts that you've probably seen that go Vermont and walk the shop. We've been distributing around town or in the state. Sort of libraries and things like that. Strollers as well is something that you don't think about. Strollers are expensive and they break. I think that the folks who are already struggling, those can be a big sort of boost to their quality of life. And obviously mobility quality is something they've done. So these are all sort of ideas that we'd like to sort of consider. And, you know, I think education is one. I think we heard just from AALB, their participation. I think a lot of the sort of barriers to non-guard transportation in Burlington region have to do with those just not simply knowing what the options are. And so we want to do our best to make sure that this is equitable, you know, translation services is another thing. There are many ways to increase the sort of activity and pleasure. Yes, this will be. Good, thanks. Any other questions? The committee. So just in a follow up, Charles, is the you're going to be sending this to us all, right? And I'm wondering it embedded in this and also in the study is an analysis of the current compliance rate or lack thereof with our TDM ordinance. Yes, well, we will we have for Burlington's current ordinance, some numbers and some analysis. Yeah, I mean, we've. I think I'm not sure if we have sort of data on on how we've measured the success of our program, but we have measuring TDM performance is one of our sort of best practice topics. And we want to understand how other communities are doing this. I will certainly work with DPI and probably DW to find out how it's been practiced. So we've seen fairly limited development relative to a lot of other communities that have TDM around the country. So we'll see what data we have. But yes, I think that this is a big focus of ours. We don't want to implement a program that we don't understand how to measure. So yes, there's there's some good best practices out there. Boston has a very significant sort of this point based TDM that allows them sort of in real time to measure sort of how each individual development or TDM provider is forming and allows them to sort of adjust their programs to policies. You know, on a on a running basis, Harlington, Virginia is another community that, you know, they have these these metrics sort of built into their TDM plan where they are tracking their own. So yes, we'll we'll make sure I'll make sure to bring forward in the plan an analysis, at least the fullest extent we can of how TDMs will appear. But also this will be a major focus of the implementation. I appreciate that. I mean, I just I want raw data also just, you know, the number of developments that we've had, the number of developments that are subject to TDM or the the exceptions, what people have done that, you know, just the basic information. So, you know, we should have metrics. And if we don't have metrics, that really in part tells us how we track our own requirements or don't. So that would be, I think, very important for for us to have. I will do my best to get it. Thank you. Thank you. And I guess, Mark, the only other thing I would say is this sounds like something that we want to have a follow up. You you mentioned about digesting all the information and we're going to get some other information. So I would definitely like to see a follow up conversation about this and not too long order and to do it when there are other, you know, like so that other other people who are involved, the GMT people, but that we can we can bring them into this again, that silo needs to be be changed. That method of us doing stuff needs to be changed. I mean, we can have you back to two when when you have the report from May. I'm happy to come back as often as your schedule allows. We will be getting, like I said, the draft matrix and this week or next. And that may be another point that can bring that back to you. It'll be undergoing a formal review at that time. So we'll see a sort of full date. But yeah, I'm happy to come back to that. But yeah, I'm happy to come back whenever you do play. But certainly I fully anticipate once we get the final report, I'll be back here at least once. OK, good. Well, thank you for sharing that tonight. Is anything else? Seeing no other counselors wanting to speak, we'll close that item and move on to the bike share. Red and update, is there are used? I certainly can just write a quick update. So as you all probably heard, Bird filed for bankruptcy back in December. We were all left wondering what would happen to our bike share system. Katmai Bird have been meeting regularly to discuss how they are restructuring. They're still operational and let us know they are looking to relaunch this March. They had originally planned for the week of March 4th. However, I think upon further discussion, they're actually looking now the week of March 18th, it's a better line of UBM coming back and also just weather considerations. So you guys heard from Katmai Bird in November at a Duke meeting where we discussed a lot of parking issues that we've seen in Burlington and based on that meeting, we felt pretty confident that Bird was going to look to make some improvements to their system. They talked about hiring an infield bike coordinator in addition to their fleet managers to do more routine sweeps rather than waiting for waiting for reports of partly park bikes. They've also focused on improving their technology to better flag vehicles and alert the fleet managers when parking issues have arisen. So based on kind of their presentation in November and what we've heard about discussions between Katmai Bird Burlington didn't object to Katmai continuing with their contract and having Bird as our bike share vendor for this contracting period. Happy to invite Bird and Katmai to a future meeting to answer any more of your questions, but we just wanted to get this in front of you, given that their launch was imminent. Thank you. Who made numbers? I'm looking at the memo and the very last paragraph relates to the operating agreement with Katmai and it says that it hasn't been changed and still includes a duty remove. And I look at the duty remove and I actually don't see it as having the the effect of covering the the parking problem. I see it as as dealing with bikes that are not working. Yeah, so I mean, it would be good to maybe have them update this this agreement to make the fixes embedded in the contract. So there is another section about parking. And I'm sorry, I think I completed with the operating agreement. There are some other provisions in the operating agreement. This paragraph is actually from our MOU. Um, but there are additional parking requirements in the operating agreement. This Chapman and Rob felt we should include just because of what happened with Bull when they went under and we were left with the bikes. We just wanted to make sure you guys knew we were still kind of covered in that respect. With given birds recent news, I guess that given the the conversation that we've had over the last week since the rollout. My my request would be that staff take a look at the the operating agreement as well as any MOU and make some modifications. If it's not covered, please. You know, we've just learned and maybe it's just silent on things. So that would be that would be really, really helpful. So Gina and Hannah, I asked for the operating agreement and Julia provided me the MOU and the operating agreement earlier, which I I sent to you the email. OK, I've been a little tied up, but so I haven't looked at my. You have in your inbox somewhere. Yeah, no, I'm sure. But I mean, I guess that, you know, even if we were to be looking at it line by line to see if it how it matches with the issues that we raised, it would be good to have staff do the same thing. And if there's a need to update it or a, you know, it seems to be prudent, then I think we should do that because we have learned experience. Yeah, I would echo a lot of Jean's comments, I think. Like it was helpful having the bird folks in a couple of meetings ago just because like I had expressed at prior meetings that specifically in my ward and district, the the birdbikes were they are beneficial, but there were definitely some pretty like critical concerns that I had. And I think that while they add a lot of value to the community, I'll be interested to see in another round of them being if there is improvement. And so yeah, I totally agree with Jean. So I had asked for the agreement because I hear we're getting assurances that that they're going to continue to operate. But I still have concerns. We had the bold experience. We have this bankruptcy. I know we don't have a replacement for this coming year. And we'd have to get a 90 day out at this that way that would take us almost into the summer, because otherwise the comp, the agreement and the MOU are sort of evergreen and that they renew automatically. And since we don't have any other options, I suppose we're moving forward, but it would still be really good to understand and have some more clarity and detail around why they continue during bankruptcy and how they're going to continue to be solvent, operate and provide the level of service that they would expect them to through the summer months. So I would be interested in that. I don't know if others share that interest or not. Yeah, I agree with you, Mark. I think like specifically like I'm someone that uses the car share program a lot. And so like having consistency and under like learning how to use it is definitely really critical. And so I think like in a in a bike share program as well, we need consistency and there can be such a learning curve, especially for like we talked about in our last meetings for folks where like English is not their first language or being able to utilize that program is already more difficult. The idea that that could then get stripped away for a second time and a new program is concerning to me. And so yeah, I think that would be good to learn more about. And then I don't I'm like pretty hectic these days. So maybe I'm just forgetting. But did we ever look at data or get data on like how many folks actually utilize the bike share program and such? Because I would be interested to see how many neighbors it are the taking advantage of the program and such. And we could have totally gotten that. And I just do not remember looking at it. But yes, I believe Kama brought that in November. There's also a link to it in today's memo. Kama has the ridership data on their webpage. So I will request that Kama and Bird come to discuss kind of birds plan and make sure they're operational in season. OK, awesome. Thank you. I yes, thank you, Julia. And I agree with what both Mark and Hannah, you said. But I'm glad that they're they're continuing on because we definitely need them to leave us leave us without that that service this year. So what this is a general question. What happens if they come in or it becomes clear that they can they're not going to be operational for much longer past another season? Like, what is the process of? Like, what is that, like, two next step, the city's next step? Maybe this is just kind of like a general point of information question for me, just because I haven't been privy to a process like that before. And maybe Mark or Jean knows, but. Well, I can share with you what's in Kama and Bird's operating agreement is that Bird is required to provide Kama with five thousand dollars for the labor of removing the inoperational bikes if they don't do it in a timely manner. And then that bike share program would obviously no longer exist. And I think with Kama taking the lead, we would have to have another kind of regional conversation about do we want to move forward with pursuing a new bike share vendor? We got Bird because Kama issued an RFP that the region was looking for a bike sharing service and Bird responded. If there's another failed bike share system in Burlington, I think it will take a lot of steam to to pursue another one. I think if there are options like web libraries or something else that. You know, the region has an interest in looking at. I can't speak for everybody. We might try to consider that because it's a whole lot of work to to partner with a company like Bird and get them off the ground and then to see that type of company vanish twice would be really. Sad. And so I think it would be more of a regional conversation. Kama is the leader. They are the contract holder. They would probably be the decision maker, although it's in partnership with. All of the parties who have agreed to host this bike share system, which is Burlington, South Burlington, Manuski, Evm and Champlain College. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you. Anything else? No. Well, thank you for the update and we'll figure out how to coordinate with Catlin and Bird or with your in a written communication or have them come in up with us more. And so that concludes our. Deliberative agenda. And now I want to direct your report. And I see a note here that there's a battery speech building study. Alternatives meeting on March 13. Yes, it's at Compoids Auditorium. There's an open house from 4 to 6 30 PM. And then a presentation at 6 30. To discuss how to make battery street better for all users. Is that, is that the best, that's the update, right? Yes. Councilor items. Any councilor items to share. I think the only thing I would want is to. Look at maybe this is next. Next meeting, what we've got on our agenda. Well, I'll give you a preview. I've talked to the air guard in the airport. They're coming next month to update us. Good. That'll take, so I'll take it off the accountability list to which. Councilor calls asked. Okay. About that for sure. I don't know what other. Certainly. Discussing. Okay. Well, just if we could have. You know, a relook at the list and maybe you, you can give your best idea for when the schedule. Events will. Roll out. So to speak that might be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to work through it in the way we had the three of us had discussed it. And I know we got behind. Other emergent topics, but. Trying to keep to it as much as we can. Great. But happy to talk more about that with, with both of you. And so with that. We have our next meeting, which I'm looking at the calendar. It looks like March. One, two, three, March 28th. No, no. Sorry. Tuesday, March 26th. Do I have that right? One, two, three, four, four, Tuesday. March 26th. We met at four o'clock this time. I know it throw it throw at least one. But I think it's okay. I think it's okay. I mean, I'm not a member of the public office. They didn't, they expected us at five. And I asked them if they wanted to go by public comment. Sort of out of sequence. I guess we would shoot for. Five o'clock. Unless there's a. So. So work for everybody. That's fine with me. As I believe it works for me, but. We should just get, we should schedule it. And then. Okay. This is. Okay. So we'll do that. We'll be our last two meeting of this council. Session. So. I don't know what cup case or something. We'll do something. Okay. The date again was March, which. 26. Okay. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. And with that, I will. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great evening. Bye. Bye.