 The Comet is excited to have this new partnership with the City of Columbia, Blue Bike, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, and BWegan to help show multimodal connections between our transit passengers and the city's bike share system. This new partnership that has been entered into allows for the Comet to construct ten new bike share stations over the course of the next several months throughout downtown Columbia, and in addition Comet riders will now be able to utilize the Blue Bike System free of charge by simply getting a code from the bus operator and inputting the code into the bicycles. The nice thing about our buses is that we do have bike racks on the front of all of our buses. They can hold three bicycles, and the Blue Bikes also fit on our bike racks. And we're hoping that this partnership will provide that first mile, last mile extension for those that are coming off the transit system and want to continue to their ultimate destination in downtown Columbia. And we're one of the few transit agencies in the country to actually have such a partnership of this nature. I'd like to introduce Chairman Ron Anderson, who is on the Comet Board of Directors to say a few words. Good morning. I'm Ron Anderson, the Chair of the Comet or the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority. Thrilled to be here today to inaugurate this joint effort to expand transportation options in the Columbia region. Transportation is not only buses, it's also walking, riding, ride sharing, and private transit. The more mobility options we can provide to the public, the more likely they are to avoid driving, making our air cleaner and our community healthier. Thank you to the political leadership, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and the staff of the city and the bike coalition for allowing the Comet to be part of this great enhancement to our community. Thank you. I'd like to invite Council Member Sam Davis from the City of Columbia to say a few words. Thank you, John. Well, this is one of those days where the progress is continuing. The city is, as you know, very pleased to be in partnership with the Comet and its Board and whose partnership, you know, will not only provide additional stations to the system, but will expand the ridership in the system through offering Comet riders access to the Blue Bike system. Bike share is relatively inexpensive and it's a quick infrastructure extension to the city's public transportation system, allowing it to serve as a convenient last mile connector and function as transit by bike, which is why the partnership with the Comet is so valuable to us. The bike share system is an important component of the bike system. The plan to have bike share stations in many locations in the city is an option to set up temporary stations to support special events taking place throughout the city. And we'd like to really thank and recognize our partners who have helped us get to this point. First and foremost, our title sponsor, Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, City Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, BPAC, currently chaired by Scott Thorpe and Christina Gallardi, the Palmetto Conservation Coalition and specifically Natalie Britt, who initially and was the first chair of the BPAC as well as Ms. Mary Rowe, Central Midlands Council of Government, the University of South Carolina and Benedict College. So we appreciate the partnership. I'd like to invite Elizabeth Niuoco from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Did I say your last name properly? Unquo? I apologize. How are you? Good morning, everybody. I'm Elizabeth Unquo-Johnson, Director of Community Relations with Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina. I'm pleased to be here today representing Blue Cross for the partnership of Blue Bike SC with the Comet. Blue Cross has a long history of investing in the communities in which it serves, where South Carolina based dedicated to helping our members make good decisions about their health care coverage, their health and their well-being. Blue Bike SC in Columbia is a great example of our corporate citizenship and our desire to contribute to improving the health of our members and our communities. We'd like to support the mayor and his vision for a more walkable and bikeable city because we believed in this effort. The increasing use of Blue Bike SC demonstrates that there are unmet needs. Today, we're pleased to see bike share becoming more accessible to a large number of residents in our community, many who are using the system to get to work, for others who are simply using the bikes for recreation. Riding a bike is a healthy activity that we support and we're excited to play a role in bringing the mayor's vision of a walkable and bikeable city to life. Again, we're so glad to be part of this movement and moving Columbia forward and we're looking forward to seeing more Blue Bikes around our community. Thank you. And lastly, I would like to invite a Shauna Young Pierre from Blue Bike to say a few words. Good morning, everyone. We're just really excited to be working with the comment and excited about expanding our system so soon. And we just invite everyone in Columbia to come out this spring and summer and try us out, especially our e-bikes. They're a lot of fun. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Blue Bike SC. Thank you very much. Again, I want to thank you for joining us. I'm John Ando, the new executive director of the Comet. We're very ecstatic to be doing these innovative mobility ideas to help move the central midlands in the most efficient manner and we'll be happy to answer any questions. I'd also encourage folks that are interested in the Comet Blue Bike Partnership to visit us on our website at thecometsc.gov or contact us at 803-255-7100. Thank you very much for joining us. As part of the city's bike master plan, what we're doing is we're converting five of what are called virtual stations to actual docking stations that look like what's behind us. So one of them is in the Bull Street district by Segra Park. Another one will be at Sumter and Divine by USC. I believe there's one closer to the riverfront. And then we're also going to be adding three expansion stations, which one of them will be at the transit center at Laurel and Sumter and then two other locations that I don't have with me at this time. It's still going to remain at 135 bicycles for the time being. And the city does have in their master plan a phase two potential expansion and that's going to require additional funding to expand, to add the additional bicycles in those stations. Which the common will be monitoring and if we see an increase in ridership, we can use some of our federal funds to help continue to build those stations. So what happens is a comment rider would, in essence, start at their home and they would, let's say, walk to a bus stop, ride a comment bus to downtown. And then let's say if their job is at the statehouse, instead of waiting for another comment bus route, they can, in essence, get a bicycle, ride the bicycle to the statehouse, drop it off at one of the docking stations nearby and then they'll be able to have basically that last mile extension to get them to where they need to go. So our goal was to find ways to increase mobility in the central midlands and we were trying to look at ways that we could think beyond the bus and move people that, and also move people and attract people that have never considered public transit before. And we know that we want to have a livable, healthy community and a lot of millennials, for instance, are interested in these innovative ways of getting around. So that's where this bicycle partnership came into play. And public transit is starting to become more multimodal and beyond the bus. So by having partnerships with Bluebike, Uber and Lyft and our van pool program is helping us expand beyond the realm of just moving people with buses and vans. Every year we're supposed to spend 1% of our federal fund for what is called associate transit enhancements and bicycle amenities is treated as an associate transit enhancement. So this allows us to meet FTA's requirements by spending on a bicycle projects. We're spending 250,000 to construct the 10 stations and 70,000 to allow comment users to access the system and helping with those operational costs to support this program.