 So welcome. My name is Stephanie Chickarello, and I am the sustainability coordinator for the town of Amherst, and my pronouns are she and her. So when you first speak during this meeting, if you could introduce yourself and also include your pronouns, and then you can proceed to with your comments as you wish. So we want to welcome you to this of the, this is the actually fourth group that's meeting for the first time from the Energy and Climate Action Committee's task groups. And we're really excited to have you the first three sessions have been wonderful and we expect nothing less of this session as well. So a little bit of housekeeping, if you could all mute your microphones if you're not speaking, because picks up a lot of background noise and may not sound loud to you but it may be really loud to everybody else on the call. So that would be great and then if you are choosing to use video, and you have some connection problems you may want to turn the video off. We'd love to have to see you during this meeting but if you choose not to that's totally up to you if you would like to have your video off to continue actually I might have to do something else pretty soon so if you if you want. No, I'd love to continue but I normally I'm going to. Okay, I'm not sure somebody has a microphone on and I can't even see where that is coming from. So, it's Rob. Oh, he's okay Rob you're muted now okay thanks Rob, and welcome. So, we just wanted to point out that if for any reason this meeting is zoom bombed that's where somebody comes on and we'll say really offensive things, or display really graphic and offensive material, please feel free to exit the meeting immediately, and we will follow up and notify you of how we will, how and when we will reconvene. So we just wanted to let you know. So as I said, please meet your microphones, unless you're speaking, and I talked about the video. During this process, we would appreciate people taking the time when you speak just take your time and there's no need to rush. We want to give everyone an opportunity to really take in what's being said. So thank you. And I wanted to say that this process that we're doing is very different from the climate action plan development that we did back in 2005. There were very few people involved in that process and putting that plan together. And this time, this is a much more inclusive process and we're really trying to get a diversity of opinions and perspectives and voices and doing so, which will also reflect in different priorities as well so we want to thank you so much for for being here to be part of that process. And I'd like to begin by reading a land acknowledgement. So if you'll just bear with me one moment here. So this is a statement of the indigenous heritage of the land. We humbly acknowledge that we stand on nanotuck land, acknowledging also our neighboring indigenous nations, the Nipmunk and the Wampanoag to the east, the Mohegan and Pequot to the south, the Mohegan to the west and the Abenaki to the north. And with that, I would like to turn this over to Ghazi Haya. Thanks Stephanie. So I'm Ghazi Haya, my pronouns are they them. And in group activities like these, it can be really helpful to make agreements about ways we would like to be respectful of one another. So I'm going to be introducing some possible agreements that we can start with today. And then as we get to know each other better over the next couple of meetings, we may find ones that we want to add or change. So the first one is to put people and relationships first. And remember that the climate issues that we're talking about affect real people and real aspects of their lives. And we want to think about building an understanding with each other, rather than winning or getting our individual goals or opinions met. And as a part of taking care of each other and ourselves, we want to encourage you to take a break when you need to to turn your video off or mute yourself if you need to to check in with your children, or anyone else who may need your attention to step away to use the restroom or to get a drink or a snack, whatever is best for you, we just trust you to take care of yourself and do that at any point. The second one is that we want to encourage you to really think about your language. We're going to attempt to just speak very slowly and clearly and avoid any jargon or technical terms because we all come to this meeting with different levels of experience around these issues. In the other groups we've had translation and that has allowed us to have a natural pause in between people sharing. And it's been really helpful to make sure that we're all being very reflective and thoughtful about the things that we're saying. So to encourage that we're going to ask you to raise your hand before you speak. That can be just by holding your hand up if you're using video. If you're not, you can use the zoom function to raise your hand. That's the you can find it at the three dots next to your picture. And if you're on the phone you can use it by selecting a star nine, and this will allow us just to keep a slow and thoughtful pace. The third one is that we want to encourage you to step up or step back depending on your personality and how you usually participate in meetings. If you tend to be a quiet person, we want to try and make space for you to share more. And if you tend to talk a lot, we're going to ask you to think about stepping back and sharing a little bit less. We want to also allow for some natural pauses and even uncomfortable silences because it's in those silences that some members may feel more comfortable or able to share. The next one is that we really want to keep everything private and avoid prying. Keep what you learn about others, their families, their feelings and their finances, confidential. When someone shares don't ask for more personal information or details or for proof if they're sharing something that they need or something that's not working. We don't want to ask people to prove it or to explain it more we just want to take what they have to share. And then the last one is that generally speaking values or ideas about right and wrong are really based on our culture or on our personal experiences. So we want to really work to acknowledge that everyone may be coming from different cultural perspectives in this meeting and we want to learn from each other. One way that we're doing that is that when you introduce yourself please say your pronouns. We're going to ask you to really stick to talking about your own experiences and not talk about other groups of people or other groups experiences. We want you to really consider committing to the idea that your version of right and wrong is likely just a cultural value and it may differ from someone else. So please consider being open to learning by asking lots of questions. And that's it for me. Great. Thanks a lot. I'm Jim Newman. My pronouns are he him and his. I am. I work with Lenan solutions where the consultant who is helping to facilitate this process. Lauren Dillipara also works for Lenan. And we've been working with Gazikaya to put this process together and help to facilitate it and our role is to really step out of the way. But to keep things sort of moving along in a in a forward moving forward direction but in a stately pace. I'm reiterate I'll reiterate one of the things that Gazikaya said, which is about taking our time as we talk. If you raise your hand. One of us will sort of suggest that you're ready to talk because there are going to be times when we want to talk. And what we'll probably do is wait a minute. Maybe 15 seconds before we call on you, just so that everybody has time to kind of reflect a little bit on what we're hearing. What do we actually need to say. It doesn't mean you gotta clamp down your ideas or not say things. The idea is to say things that really matter. So now we get to, I'll get to turn this over to Darcy and Laura to talk a little bit about what, what are we up to today. Hello everybody. My name is Darcy Dumont and I'm one of the two town counselors on the energy and climate action committee. Or ECAC as we call it, and the other member of ECAC that is here as our chair, Laura Drucker who's going to speak after I do. And some of you know, Hammer's changed its form of government. Two years ago, we used to have a town meeting and now we have a town council. And the first act of the new town council was to form this energy and climate action committee, which was like a very upbeat action for its very first action. So that was in January of 2019. And the committee had its first meeting by May of 2019. Laura was elected chair. And our, our first goal was to come up with town goals. And so by November of 2019. We came to the town council with proposed goals. And just before I get to that, the committee when it was set up was given a charge. So I was actually going to pull that up. Is there any reason why I should not do that. Good. I'm going to go for it. Everyone will be able to read it. Just because there's some people on phones and so they're, they're view tiny, but that's all right. So, if you want to read the whole charge of the energy and climate action committee, all you have to do is go to the town website. That's what this is. Can you see it? Can you see this on your screen? Okay, good. So it on the town website, it tells about the committee charge. It tells the names of all the people that are on the committee, including Laura and me who are at this meeting. And it shows that there are seven resident members and two counselors. And as far as the purpose of the committee. You can see here that the energy and climate action committee was set up to guide the town and meeting its climate mitigation and resilience goals, which just to, to address what gazette hiya said earlier. A lot of people have some trouble with that language climate mitigation and resilience. And basically, all it means is climate mitigation means doing everything we can do to prevent. A worse case, case climate change scenario and resilience means adapting or, or preparing for the impacts of climate change. So the town is basically, the committee is basically tasked with both of those things, both trying to join and trying to, to prevent climate change and to prepare for it. So I'm not going to read this whole charge, you'll be glad to know. But, but number one basically asks the committee to come up with the long term climate action goals and then it goes on to say that we need to create a plan, which is what with this is part of that process to come up with a climate action plan for the town. And the areas in which the energy and climate committee is looking as far as different sectors of energy use are these that are listed in the charge energy built environment transportation land use water solid waste infrastructure, open space agriculture and forestry. And some of those we will be looking at as this task group will be will be looking at transportation solid waste and infrastructure for public health and communication. So, the other just the other section that we might want to look at in the charge is just six C, which is basically encouraging us as a committee to engage the public and relevant stakeholders in education planning goal setting and climate actions. With attention to inclusion of underrepresented groups and environmental justice communities, including but not limited to holding a hand annual public forum based on climate action and the work of the CAC so we are really charged with reaching out to the public, getting a diversity of opinions on our planning and goal setting, etc. So we, I'm going to take this off now. We actually went to the town with our goals in November of 2019. And our goals were our recommendations were very bold. We recommended a 25% reduction in carbon pollution emissions by 2025 a 50% reduction by 2030 and 100% or carbon neutrality by 2050. So those were very bold goals and they were adopted by the town council unanimously. Of course, we are the town really isn't going to do that much before it now receives a plan from us. So Laura is going to talk a little bit more about the specific areas that this task group is going to look at so I'm going to pass it on to her now. Great. Thanks Darcy. And I'm on on an iPad because my computer overheats when I zoom and I keep like putting my hand in the camera so I apologize to try to touch the screen. My name is Laura Drucker I use she her hers pronouns. Thank you for joining today. As Darcy said I'm the chair of the ecac committee. So our task group today is focused on for our task group, not today, but throughout our work is focused on four key topic areas transportation waste, public health and communications. And what out of this process is a climate action plan that helps us identify how we can transform our infrastructure around these four for four topics, how we get around how we dispose of and treat our waste, how we communicate and receive communication from the town and with each other and how we protect our communities public health. So the information are to help us meet our goals to fight climate change but that's not all we also want to improve our infrastructure in these areas, which we know all of them could benefit from improvements to better support our community. First, and our ability to be resilient to the impacts of climate change. We're at a point in time with climate change or we need to be fighting as hard as we can to reduce the impacts of a rise of rising temperatures extreme heat extreme weather, but also recognizing that these are are happening and will happen and so how do we make sure our community can be resilient to these impacts. Just this week, you know, we had extreme weather events in which we needed to be communicating with our community and, you know, we know we have improvements to make from the MVP process. Planning process to make sure everyone in our community is being communicated with effectively. So what we really want to do in this task group is think boldly about how these issues can be addressed in Amherst. How we might push for state and national action when we need that to support our needs and how these issues interconnect with so many other issues for which we're looking for solutions in our town. And I want to reiterate that no one needs to have expertise and all or any of these topics to participate in this discussion I have expertise in zero of these topics. But we all are impacted by them and that's why we're here. I also want to say that we're not going to focus on all of these topics at once in this meeting. Or potentially in a meeting like we may not touch on all of these topics today for example, but over the three meetings of the task group. Our hope is that we can include all of ideas about all of these topics in our climate action plan. To close I just want to say that we want our plan to be something that our community can get behind and that all members of our community see how they will benefit from its implementation. So we're really happy to have this opportunity to begin that process with you all. Thanks, Laura and Darcy. I think one of the key thoughts here is that we want to think about these topics but we want to think about them in how they affect us and how how they affect people. And that that is really kind of where where this conversation is starting from today. So we're going to start with a question for everyone. And it would be great if you could share your experience in answering this question. So, our question to start with today is really about transportation. The question is, when you need to get somewhere important somewhere that you need to go. What's the easiest way to get there. And what could make that better. So we all go to places we have to go. And there's different, you know, different ways to get there. What is think about a particular place that you have to go. Maybe it's a school, maybe it's your work, maybe it's going to the store. What's the easiest way to get there. And what would make that better. So we'll hold for a minute. Everybody think about that. And if you're interested in sharing your thoughts on this. Give me a little wave or set the thing. Great. So I'm sorry, I was a little bit late. I'm Jennifer moistened and I work for the town manager's office in the human resources department here in town. So I did not have a car for like, I don't know, five, six years, living in Amherst and getting anywhere but downtown was difficult. But you know, in the summer, the bus schedule changes, which is I understand it and make sense, but it doesn't necessarily, it makes sense from the student perspective, but it doesn't necessarily make sense for the residential perspective. You know, pushing strollers and, you know, kids, and I always had somebody else's kids with me too so it, you know, go into the grocery stores a hardship because you can't take more than three bags on the boss. It's just, and I've always thought like what do you do because I completely understand PVTA for reducing it because they don't, the needs just isn't there anymore and also you can't really get. It's better now, trust me, it's much better now that we have the think it's the 36 or the 38 that runs past the boulders east Hadley Road, the Atkins bus. So I know that that is appreciated my kids appreciate it, but it doesn't run very often all that in during the off season and I think it's actually replaced with the Hampshire College Mount Holyoke bus and there's concern like, if the schools aren't, you know, fully open is that Mount Holyoke Hampshire College bus going to even run. So, you know, I spent a lot of time trying to carpool with people like hey you're going to the grocery store this week just let me know and so that is a way that people can connect with and build community but at the same time like the, I don't know how to solve that bus issue, because it's completely understandable it's just depends on what perspective you're looking at it from that makes it a hardship that can possibly make it a hardship. That's, that's a great, great set of thoughts Jennifer thanks a ton. And I would caution us today, not to just what you're saying, not to try and solve the problems. We're going to have plenty of time to solve the problems that we're going to have a whole couple more meetings would get into solving problems. Let's identify the problems and identify what matters about the problems. That's kind of where we're headed right today. Thank you that was a nice job. Anything else you want to say in that. If I have something else later on. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Eve. So my name is Eve vocal and I go by she her. And right now I'm talking to you from Portland, Oregon, where I used to live. And one of the things I love about Portland is it has a fabulous bike infrastructure program. And I witnessed, you know, sort of the whole process of advocacy and construction and gradual development from the time I lived here in 1991 to the time I left in 2008 moved to Amherst. When I got to Amherst in 2008. I was really surprised at, you know, the relative lack of bicycle infrastructure and support. There are some bike lanes, but not that many. And there is not an interconnected network. They're not particularly cloud or maintained in the fall or the winter. I, when I had a preschooler, I used to do the bike and bus thing a lot. And so it was very hard to coordinate, especially, you know, when I was attempting to continue to bike into December and January, that was pretty impossible. And I've spent about the last 11 years on various different transportation committees trying to advocate for improved bicycle network, as well as actually improved transit and transit and walking network. And it's been very slow and at times frustrating and I am convinced from my experience being in Oregon that if we had a really strong network that and it were much easier and much safer, and it felt safer even for people who weren't experienced bicyclists people who were new college students from the suburbs or people over 55 like I now am. You know, to feel safe that we could really, you know, a lot more people would bicycle, and, and it would just be a viable transportation alternative that would feel comfortable and safe and accessible. And we could have much more of a transportation mode shift and, you know, Stephanie, you know, anyway, I won't talk about other people's experience but I've been part of a whole bunch of other efforts in town and, and we have done a fair number of things but I just think that there remains a lot more to be done that would that would help me and a lot of other people. Great. Thank you, that's a great and again that was nicely done tying it to your own experience. And I encourage us to tie these comments to our own experience. Jennifer, do you want to say something. Well, I was going to ask a favor of john, but he just sat down so we're good. I get really nauseous when people are moving on zoom. So I was going to ask if you could turn your video off if you were going to still walk but it looks like you're in one place so I'm good. Thanks. Thanks. Jennifer, you want to say something. Well, I think that Brenda has her. Did you have your hand up and I'm okay with letting her talk because I've heard. Okay, thank you. And Tessa has her hand up as well. Hi folks, I'll share in a moment but I just wanted to ask our notes being taken I know it's being recorded, but I just didn't know if we were capturing this. Yeah, great. Okay, so I am an avid biker and I was out yesterday and had two different experiences throughout the day, one being on the bike path which was glorious and the other needing to be on roads that did not have the bike path and it was, frankly, dangerous and very scary. So I have a lot of different thoughts around that being in a college community here, there's very few, few bike lanes so I'm going to just piggyback everything that I think Eva was saying. And in addition, educating drivers about how to interact with bikers and having places to keep bicycles. So if you're going to work, you know, having a shelter that's locked. Maybe even that provides repairs throughout the day there's some musical events where mass bike is present and offers these kind of services and it's wonderful. I'd say getting, I'd love to see, you know, kids doing the bike buses to getting to school so again that would require having education to kids and adults on on on bike riding. And I live in South Amherst where our roads have been treacherous to travel on with huge potholes. So bikes are weaving like this around cars so improved surface of roads. And I love the idea of maintaining the bike lanes often they're not cloud and bike path that'd be fabulous. And I'll also say bus is a second favorite way to get around but it's so challenging around here. And I'd love to see again being in South Amherst small buses that can get under the underpass often South Amherst is not not service for the difficulty accessing it because we have overpasses so let's look at like small shuttles that can be doing smaller smaller runs connecting. So I love that question it's a great way to to introduce oneself and some ideas. So thank you. Welcome. Tessa, you have something you want to share. Yes, so my name is Tessa. I go by she heard I'm going into 10th grade at the high school so I have some student perspective, I'd say. So usually I take about 10 minutes from the high school. And usually I'd have my parents drive me which is not the most environmentally friendly way to get to school. Yeah, so I need to work on that but I feel like a main factor of one of the reasons why I don't take the bus to schools because I always am unsure about the timing and feeling like I'll be late and miss it. And just all this other reasons so I did have an idea about that I used to live in New Haven Connecticut and I take the university shuttle to school because there was a building right next to my old school. It was part of the university's buildings, and they have a tracker they have an app tracker, where you could check on your phone where the current buses and like how far it is to your stop and where it is so it would help like students plan when they're supposed to be at the bus stop, which might help kids catch the bus and feel more inclined to take the bus. And I also always support like energy buses because those are so much nicer and better for the environment and I feel like that makes students feel like also more inclined to take the bus which is a big thing and then another story to share if I'm not talking too much. I remember a little story where my sister wanted to go to her friend's house, but my mom she my friends lives like, maybe a 10 minute walk to but my mom didn't want her to go. Because the roads were a little like unsafe and there wasn't many sidewalks or anything and probably poor lighting because I think it was later in the evening and so we had to like drive home and then drive my sister to her friend's house when it would have been just so much easier for her to walk. So I think like implementing more, I don't know, streetlights and crosswalks, just so it seems like there's more walking paths to people's houses, especially during Corona when you can't like it's kind of unsafe to cars with other people that might help to get out and probably encourage more people to get out and be active if there's more like crosswalks and walking paths around that might help people. Yeah. That's a great thing to say and it's really, I think, valuable right now to bring up the pandemic and like the effect it's having on how we all do things. Yeah, yeah, being able to walk and get places is huge. All of a sudden, it was important before now. First, I had a clarification question for Tessa. When you were talking about the buses, were you talking about school buses? Yeah. And then just a brief comment that I completely agree about the access to just sidewalks and crosswalks and lighting. We live off East Pleasant and my son could not walk from our neighborhood, you know, to any neighborhood because East Pleasant is just way too dangerous for a child to walk on. That's close to where I live too. Thanks. Yeah, safety is big. That's where it's at. Someone who hasn't spoken have have something to say. Yeah, Andrew. Don't forget to introduce yourself. Hi Andy McCall. He, him, his I work for the primary Valley Planning Commission. So what I'm going to say at the moment, absolutely applies and Amherst, but just an experience that we've had around the region. Here for some public outreach, we actually went out and surveyed just we kind of just, you know, walking down the street and you ran into somebody, we just wanted to ask them some questions about the preferred modes of transportation, and compared to what they use for transportation. And almost everybody drove a car, mostly single occupancy but none of them, it was their preferred method, it's just unfortunate where we are. It was really amazing out of, I think we talked to probably. I can't even say the number but I'd say at least 80% of the people we talked to use a vehicle or car single occupancy vehicle on a daily basis, but it was absolutely not their preferred method of travel was just kind of a thought to throw out there for you. That's great. You want to say anything. Penny you want to jump in. Yes. Hi, I'm Penny I'm she she and she. I've lived in Amherst for we moved here from California in the 70s. So when I moved here I was, I think I was like, and we always took the city bus in LA. And so I have a lot of experience taking the bus and when we I lived in colonial village, and the bus came right to our doorstep back then and it would cart us right up town and we were like, Yay, free. But as a child of the, the PVP bus was like the best thing because we moved to Puffton Village and here again, it was right at our doorstep. And so, as a kid we I took the bus all the time, not the school bus but PVPA. And so I didn't get a car until I was 22. And I then I had my kids and I wasn't I was grateful that I had a car because I wasn't loading on my gang up in on to the bus so that was really nice but we always my community that I had friends we always did carpooling. And in my daughter Imani we carpooled from PVPA when she went to PVPA and then my kids went to the Waldorf school and we always carpooled. So I've always been in the carpool gang and so I really like the bus but right now I have a car and my friends they call up for a ride and I'm always willing to give someone a ride to the to the store or wherever you have to go. So, yeah. That's awesome. Thanks, Penny. Thank you. That sort of thought again, you know it's like, well, our needs change over time right it's like when I'm a kid I need to do this and I'd rather not have my parents drive me around or have to do this and but now kids and I need to do this and But if you're I was in a single family home. So my mom was at work. So it was either you stay home or you take the PV bus and it was always a bummer in the summertime because we did a lot of walking because the buses are like Back in the 70s and 80s the bus did not run in the summer at all. It was like ghost times very, very seldom and you couldn't visit a friend and lever it or monogue or any of the outer things because you would be walking. So that was the only bummer about that part. Totally. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to let Lev talk for a sec, Jennifer. So, yeah, go ahead, love and then we can go to Tracy. Thanks everyone. And don't forget to Great. I'm Lev Benesra. I use she her pronouns. And I'll acknowledge I'm questioning a bit in terms of speaking from my own experience versus sharing others. I don't live in Amherst. I believe that the reason why I was invited to be a part of this group is because of my role at the Amherst Survival Center and so I think I have some insight within that context but I'll try to bridge that and at least identify from where I'm speaking. But I will say first from my own experience in Amherst I originally grew up in a more urban area in New York City and my family moved to Amherst and definitely I relied on my parents a lot to drive me around certainly you know walked and biked and took the bus some as well. But I, as I got older and was trying to move around more on my own, I started going to GCC when I didn't have a car. And I remember very distinctly that it took two hours and 45 minutes to get from Amherst to GCC on the bus either way. And I was still living in Amherst and didn't have a car working in Holyoke. And similarly it took well over I think I don't know an hour and 40 minutes or something to get to downtown Holyoke from Amherst what was about a less than a 20 minute drive. And that actually was a key factor in or it was among the key factors at that time of my decision to move to Northampton was to have a much easier commute to where I was working at that time. And at this point, definitely my main mode of transportation I kind of walk when it's short distance I love walking places. I used to bike a lot I don't do that as much anymore for a variety of reasons. But I drive and that's how I get places and I really would Andy said in terms of that being the easiest or the most convenient and oftentimes feeling like the only feasible option. I'm lucky enough to have a car and can consistently put gas in it and so that is at my fingertips but it's not necessarily how I want to get around but it's like the thing that feels like it is the way. And I want to just acknowledge that I think living. This is something that I definitely also can feel from my own experience and then relate to people who I know here at the center is that I live in Greenfield and I'm able to have this job here and I could not do that if I did not have a car that you know previously honestly I don't you know just and at any different juncture of many like different jobs and living arrangements around the Valley. I would not have been able to have those jobs without access to a car, even if I could occasionally take the bus or occasionally more as a fitness thing chose to road my bike long distance it's like it was not tenable in terms of a daily commute. And that's a huge piece that I hear on a really regular basis when we're talking with folks who want to get back to work are stuck in a job that really doesn't pay a living wage or sufficient is that transportation is oftentimes if not the top it's like the second top barrier to having a wider option in terms of jobs to work and that in Amherst in particular is enormously impacted by the difference in the bus schedule between the school year and the summer or even just week long breaks in the summer. Similarly, the bag limit on the buses is an incredibly challenging issue for folks seeking to utilize the bus for any kind of basic needs. And the fact this is not speaking from my own experience with speaking from things that have been shared with me that the feeling is that that bag limit because it's up to individual drivers to actually uphold it or not. I have a very clear perception that it is not upheld equitably and that that people experienced different amounts of it being upheld or being told that they can't bring their groceries on the bus or they can have their kids and their groceries on the bus or whatever those things are definitely along racial lines also along with someone who's struggling with a mental health challenge and presents in a way that's grumpier or, you know, rudor or whatever and that's a really key reason to have clear and consistent policies is then it's not up to the individual discretion of someone upholding that whether they are drawn to or like that person, whether it's because they look like them or because they seem really nice or whatever that thing is. So, yes and feel free to let me know if I shouldn't be speaking and from other perspectives but I feel like that's kind of why it makes sense for me to be a part of this that this group is from that role. So thank you for sharing both your, your personal experience and the experience that you've gathered with the survival center which is obviously highly relevant to the conversation. Appreciate it. Jennifer you looked like you were about to say something. Do you want to jump into that. Don't forget you gotta unmute yeah. I know. It's much better for me to be on mute than not be on mute though, who knows what might possibly say. I just wanted to piggyback on a few people's comments like Eve. I think I'd gone to a d five meeting because we were speaking and I was like oh I'm having deja vu from this conversation but I think you spoke about Portland at a d five meeting and I'm not a bicyclist at all, but I do appreciate it and I can't remember exactly where I was but there was a lot of parallel parking so something like this might only work in the downtown area, but the cars that were parked was the barrier for the bicyclists and so they just rode in between the sidewalk and that space which is also really good for people who are walking. And for some reason people don't walk on the sidewalks all the time here it drives me crazy but when there are sidewalks so so that might be a good you know, I think the only space that's big enough really is the downtown area but you know it's a start and it's a little bit of something so that's good. I also wanted to piggyback on the buses again and say there's an issue of if you take a B 43 and then need to take the 31 home the B 43 gets there after the 31 leaves and so whatever cycle the buses on is where you're at so you know, again, I understand maybe 10 I'm just not quite sure how that gets fixed but those are like, I just remember that that was a struggle like I've got kids with me or whatever with me and I'm getting off the B 43 to go home and now I have to wait it's summertime another hour for the 31 to come back so yeah. That's it. Um, because you can jump in with a quick comment and then Rob you've had your hand up for a little while thank you for being patient. Well, I was just gonna say I'll go ahead and just share from personal experience some of the things that love was touching on so that we also have the personal experience perspective and I appreciate your sensitivity around that love but I do think it's helpful for you to share when you think something's being missed because it's important for us to get those perspectives to. Yeah, also like Jennifer said, you know, groceries is the biggest problem about the transportation in terms of buses, food and groceries, because actually South Amherst is qualified as like a food desert. Because of the way that our buses take like four hours from where I live at the brook to get to the grocery stores and because of all that stuff that Jennifer was talking about how you just missed the next bus. That also applies to the 31 to the amity street bus, which is what goes to the grocery stores. And then the bag limit makes it so that you definitely can't pick up your monthly box from the survival center, because it's a lot of food and I'm sure that it's a lot of food but there's the it's like virtually impossible to get all that food on the bus unless you just luck out like love said and get a bus driver who just decides to be nice to you that day but that's not like a it's nerve wracking to go to the survival center without knowing if you're going to get that bus driver and if you have three kids with you and a stroller they can be really weird about strollers too. And that's something that was really stressful for me when Galileo was my eight year old now but when Galileo was in a stroller they were like often really harsh about strollers. And then the other thing about like coronavirus now is like Penny said I used to, I now have a car and I used to give people rides to the survival center regularly. Or to the grocery store and now like I've been more cautious about who's in the car with me. And I feel really awkward and like I tried to coordinate for the survival center box to be dropped off at a couple of neighbors and then it got taken like somehow in like 15 seconds that I wasn't there I don't know what happened but it disappeared and that was really discouraging. So there's been a family that I'm just like splitting my box every month with because we just that's the option that we've come up with to make it work. But like, if we just had a bus system that would allow us to bring food home in a reasonable amount of time then we wouldn't have to be doing all of that. Yeah, sounds sounds like a thing. Thanks to both of you for sort of talking through all of that. Rob, you've had your hand up for a while. You want to jump into this. Sure. Don't forget to introduce yourself. I'm Rob, my, my pronoun is Rob or I or he, you could get to choose. It's interesting to hear the comments I've been waiting a long time to say anything because when I first came to Amherst I was already a veteran transit user and Walker bicyclist. And I got drawn into public service in trying to improve the transit system, at least I thought back then it was an improvement because of noticing my own neighborhoods transit was about to disappear. Somehow, I got drawn into the town's committee system back in the late 1980s. And I thought we work pretty hard to make transit and actually cycling work well for a community that had very little of it in the decades before but I hear Eve my neighbor. And I agree with her that we can always do better. Right now, there's this terrible tension between using public transit and obviously public health coronavirus things made public transit really challenging to use. Maybe not so much in Amherst because the buses are relatively empty at least during the summer but imagine we were in a major city like New York or Philadelphia Boston and trying to use subway services. I think this is going to be one of the biggest challenges in the next few years to using public transit walking and cycling are still nice ways to get around. I unfortunately find myself personally between two different locations where not even public transit is available and very distant locations. One of the things that I want to bring to the conversation, which hasn't been mentioned I could reiterate many of the good things I've heard but most of the people who drive in this town and most of the people who would use buses are students at UMass. We're also a math professor and monitoring this phenomenon for more than 30 years now. And I've scratched my head for at least 30 years. Having traveled all over the world and gotten to the places I'm trying to get to by train or train the boss or train the boss in a long walk. Today, not only hasn't the United States but Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to some extent more pressure from us here in Amherst including the university and I used to be on the select board so I worked on it as an elected official. I didn't know why we couldn't do better. I was working on it even this February just before coronavirus hit I was in a meeting in Springfield, trying to get East West rail reestablished but most of the people who actually would ever use a bus regularly or whoever and unfortunately who often drive are the tens of thousands of UMass students and the bus system we have now for better or worse and I heard a lot of the worse. It was designed to accommodate five college students, especially UMass students. So a lot of the things we find that don't work to well for us non student people with all due respect to the student from ARHS who's here. We've got to figure out a way to get longer distance transportation besides Peter Pan. We need to get better train service between Boston New York and places like this this major university and until we do that. I'm afraid we're going to always be struggling with the tens of thousands of cars that appear in town. Maybe not this September, but maybe next September. And then all the concomitant issues with with all those cars. And, you know, let me just say I don't know whether the fellow from PBTA knows but I'm very good friends with Glenn Barrington is the director of UMass transit. We talk on the phone a couple times semester sometimes more frequently. He's told me that that over the last few years the number of students using the buses is declined more and more students tend to drive to campus. And that's a really unfortunate trend. I think it's going to get worse given the one of our situation. And the other thing that I learned from many of you, I have no idea and I'm hoping the fellow from PBTA might give some guidance on this isn't. I'm the guy who actually designed the bus service to the markets the grocery stores, 20 years ago, and 20 more than 20 years ago, and it's evolved quite a bit but I'd never heard of a three bag window. That seems so easy to eliminate. I'm going to get on the phone when this is over and talk to Glenn about it. You know, we can do anything to avoid that I can sort of imagine why there might be such a such a rule, maybe to avoid tons of garbage bags or something or possession bags and look at it. But this makes no sense. And so I'm hoping that could be taken care of so many of you commented on it. That seems very unfortunate. Anyway, I've been I've been writing writing buses and trains since I was small enough to not have to pay a fare in Philadelphia. And I was raised by my grandmother. It was, she'd be about 125 years old this past spring. And I remember her in her 60s and 70s when we go walking together I was too young to carry back she would have a grocery bag in each hand. And I used to say she had the grip like a like a brick message to carry carry a heavy bag in each hand sometimes things too in each hand. If I could help as a five or six year old I would carry one little bag. So, you know, very sympathetic to that the very immediate way so I really enjoyed listening everybody's comments and I'm going to go back to you. Just listen. Thanks. Thank you Rob. It's, it's great. So there's a bunch of people who have their hands up. Well, Brenda. I'd love to be able to carry a bicycle on that train when we get it the east west and not north south because that's, that's not been permittable and and and to make it economically accessible. Because it's so cost prohibitive whenever I'm asking people like why they're not taking our, the train that we have. And just thinking about that the bike share safety of one I'd love to see like helmets provided for our wonderful new bike share. And, and if there's any way to have like tandems, trying to not get into solutions here but thinking of folks like with disabilities. I remember taking, you know, my kids to their friend's house on a tandem bicycle, you know, if they were like, you know, when they were too young to hop on the back of the bike or a bike of their own. That's a fun idea. And then a car share, you know, I'm hearing a lot of that maybe more formalized kind of car share in in town. And I think we think there's one maybe in one of the new buildings, but getting that more accessible to to folks. Thanks. Thanks Brenda. The, the overall, the, I think that one of the things we're hearing is the sort of some of the one of the things that is important in thinking about transportation is thinking about transportation that fits a lot of different needs, as opposed to squeezing the needs down, opening the needs up. Tracy, you've been very patient. Hi. So, I don't know before. I think you need to introduce yourself. Oh, I'm Tracy. I use she hers, her, and I live in Amherst, and I've, I've been thinking about transportation climate change sustainable transportation for a long, long time, both, like in my jobs and with nonprofits and on Amherst committees. So when Rob was talking and fortunately I've met a number of you already through other work, some of it going back to decades now. The amount of time I've been Amherst and others of you I've met recently and I'm glad to meet the rest of you today. When Rob was talking, I mean, one of the things and, and then other people's remarks to I keep thinking about some of the challenges with connectivity, like between, you know, when you want to get from one place to another. If you're looking at alternative modes besides the car, like how can you do that. You know, I always think about with East Hadley Road. For example, like what a challenge it is that if you want to take the bus from East Hadley Road out to those malls. You actually need to take the bus into the center of Amherst and then back out to the mall because there's no direct route even though you're only like a few miles from the malls. And of course with COVID of course people are taking the bus less to but you know a lot of the people who live out there they actually end up walking, which of course limits like how much you can carry. In terms of connectivity to one thing I've been hearing people talk about so I've been reading about just how much more demand there is for biking and bike sharing and so on particularly with COVID is people don't want to get on buses. And that it's really, really a shame that the town of Hadley chose to not allow Valley bike share program to like set up any stations in the town of Hadley. You know, I know people who live in Amherst you travel either to the malls on with their Valley bikes they have memberships or they want to go to North Hampton or North Hampton people who want to, you know, anyway, it's just that if there were stops in Hadley including near the malls that would be huge and that would increase like so much accessibility and you know it was a vote, it was a vote in Hadley where they just said no we don't want to be a part of this program but I really hope that the town of Hadley will revisit that. So when I first moved to the area I used to work I live in Amherst I used to work in Greenfield. I, you know, I typically would drive but then for a while my car was broken, and my boss was like we still need to show up at work so I realized that if I took the bus. It took me twice as long as if I biked. And you know at the time I was in my early 20s so I just like hopped on my bike and I biked and so on but that's not an option for everybody but it's really a shame that even I, who is not a fast cyclist like could get there much faster by bike. Whereas the bus trip would take, you know, well over an hour or an hour and a half. Unfortunately I do use cars a lot. I have two kids who have a number of activities activities are often back to back. And I'm getting like, you know, pulled with sports and other stuff like all over, all over the valley and beyond, unfortunately. So, there's just no way to do those trips, especially, you know, kids will have multiple activities at the same time and everything to there's no way to do those trips with different modes. So a lot of it is done in single occupancy vehicle. I mean my preferred mode when I have time is I really like I do bike some by just like the ease of walking. And I walk a lot because I live near downtown I walk a lot downtown I do a lot of errands on foot intentionally. And it's great you know for exercise and so on my challenges with downtown for walking and also it's so much easier than trying to park downtown and those issues. But the challenges I have with walking sometimes is that like some of the sidewalk infrastructure is not that good and there is really their sections that even where we have sidewalks are not that walkable. And then also there's not a lot of lighting. So like in some parts of the downtown it's very dark at night, which of course particularly if you don't have good sidewalks that makes it worse. But yeah that's my preferred mode and I mean I'm fortunate because I can both walk to downtown and I can walk to my job I work at UMass. So, thanks. Great. Thank you for sharing that. Also that the sort of overall thought about safety, I think is really that's that's huge. It starts to rise up. Oh, and even I we've been trying to do this work about like improving connectivity and stuff but it's stalled with COVID. Because you care, do you want to say something. Yeah, I just wanted to respond real quickly to the idea about car sharing. I think that is an interesting idea but one thing that's real for a lot of families is because of the way that driver's licenses, like access to driver's licenses are limited. There are a lot of people who wouldn't have access to that there's a lot of really good work being done right now at the state level about getting access for driver's licenses for folks. But like if I think about my neighborhood right now there's a lot of families who don't have cars not just for financial reasons but because they're unable to access documentation to be able to legally drive. If they were pulled over then they would risk like being deported so until that gets fixed up people have to rely on public transportation. And so that's that's just an important thing to consider when thinking about the ride sharing. And then in terms of those sharing bikes, just something that has been brought up in other groups is that for the places where the bikes are put at the buses, it's made them not accessible for people in wheelchairs. And so that seems to have been like a huge lack of awareness or example of ableism that that has like created a real problem for people in wheelchairs and who have other access needs and including people with strollers, who are trying to access the bike so because of the position of the bikes, you can't get on the bus. So that's just another thing to bring up. I think that's a thank you for reminding us of the of the country there was a conversation in a previous group that was really talked a lot about that. So it's, it's wheelchairs are very tricky. Walkers are very tricky. Things like that getting the way of walkers is huge. So, I think, Penny, Tessa, you have things you want to add to this. We'd love to hear from you. No, I think we're, I think I've said enough and I love that everyone what they've already said sorry about the background noise. But yeah, thank you. Awesome. Thanks, Penny. Yeah, I don't think I have anything else to say either. Thank you. Of course, I always have something to say. I just wanted to add though I was at another meeting and somebody had brought up and I know we're not talking about solutions but just community like if the community had been more involved with each other like as a community as a whole than some of these other problems wouldn't exist. And so, I mean as someone who didn't have a car I'm always like happily ready to give somebody else a ride it's a little different during covert times but, and I used to work at the Amherst Survival Center and I would bring home people's boxes, all the time it was just because people needed the food and and to access. I also think that as we need to start retraining our community for lots of things like just right because people are like why would you have to police the map, you know, police people for masks well, if we were all working as a community and like we want to protect each other then we wouldn't have to. And so that's, and that person made a great statement which was we're so quick to call to the police for help, which is true, but if we're working as a community then we wouldn't have to as much. I don't know how that fits into it but that's like my new thing like go community. Good new thing. So I'm going to switch the conversation up I've been sort of moving us this direction a little bit. And it's a general that's a great lead in. So we have so as, as Darcy and Laura talked about, you know, we're writing a plan. And the, you know, the, the ECAC plays a role in that the Energy and Climate Action Committee plays a role in that plan, but really, this is we're writing that plan here with us. And as we start to get into what we were talking about solutions like well we could do this and we could do this. What about this. We need some ways to know are we doing the right thing or we not doing the right thing. And, and so sort of trying to develop out of these conversations and we've already brought a lot of things that that really are key are really important factors really important things that are how we should be making decisions. And I want to sort of get to get the conversation focused on what are those important things. And so I'd like to just take a moment to recognize what Jennifer just said, which is that one of the important things that seems to be coming out of this is that we need to do things together because we don't understand what what each of us are going through. Jennifer, you want to talk a little bit more about sort of go community. I'm multitasking. Sorry about that. I'm on point because I'm here. And so I like I don't really know how to begin it and I mean that's part of the community participation officers one of the things that I am and also the human rights coordinator and one of the things that I've always been trying to work on is, or since I've been the shift in the community is how do we connect to those folks who used to be me prior to me working here right and so it's hard. And I tried to do a lot of outreach when leisure services used to go to different places and have kids events and I would go and I just got off the phone with and I was trying to maybe perhaps do something very similar to, you know, like a book mobile books, book mobile, right where they're going in there, they're reading and stuff like that but, you know, it can just begin as simple stuff like that it can also begin if people are maybe judgmental sometimes, you know, like, there's a big difference between sympathy and empathy and I think that we all need to have a little more empathy we have no reason why we have no idea why people don't have cars or don't have this or don't have that and we just have to be open minded and like if you see somebody struggling like just trying to help out right like I don't typically give the people that stand in the middle of the street money but I had popsicles and I gave him a popsicle and he was so happy to have that popsicle like 99 degrees outside and I was eating the popsicle too because I was hot and I just came out of the store so you know he's hot from standing out there for hours and hours so it's just tiny little things that we can do to help build our community and make it better and it goes the nonjudgmental part goes on everybody's part right like it goes on the part person who might receive help it goes to the person who is going to help someone I mean it's just everybody we just all need to kind of who's sign that's my yeah what a beautiful thing to say is January so two big principles right just just have become very important one of those principles is empathy and I would just I'd like to note that you know probably Andy could use a little of our empathy as you know we we're trying to very well all these things don't work for us in the transportation system I bet he's working darn hard to make it happen and conversely, you know we all need empathy for trying to get around on in a different transportation with modes and how the wrestles that go with it and what happens if you're in a wheelchair and how difficult that I mean those are all things that need empathy and then the second is the idea of doing things together. That's I think a really key part of a principle for how we build a climate action plan and a climate adaptation plan for the town. Are there other things that people have heard that start to start to rise to that level. I might add that there's some might be some principle around accessibility with a really wide view of what that means. I see Stephanie has a hand up. Oh, great. Sorry. No, no worries Jim and I know you started to lead us to another direction but I just wanted to actually comment on what Jennifer said and then also actually to the previous conversation. I'm not sure you can see me because I had my hand up then but Sorry. It's okay. You know it's interesting because I was very involved in the the implementation of the Valley Bike Stations and I personally went before the Disabilities and Access Advisory Committee and that is a group of people who are with wheelchairs or have mobility issues and they reviewed the plans and I think it's one of those things where when you have plans and things are conceptual. It's very different than when you actually implement them and I think there are times when things seemingly are like everything is the you know the appropriate width and the appropriate distance but when you actually install them. Either I mean things can get installed incorrectly and that is a reality that happens sometimes, but I also think that the reality of then when people are actually trying to adhere to those, you know, whatever the required widths are. It just doesn't always work. So I just think it's one of those things where, you know, these kinds of conversations are really important because it's good to sort of go back and then sort of relook even if we've implemented things, maybe things need to be changed or revised or looked at more carefully the next time. So I just wanted to sort of throw that out there as part of this idea of communication and really sharing. Because you know, it's a group of people who are in wheelchairs that helped sort of make those decisions actually in terms of the location of these things but at the same time. If other people are having issues with them once they're installed then that's something that we need to know and if people don't communicate then we have no way of knowing. All right, we got some action. Okay. And then I just wanted to respond to that thought about if people don't communicate, then we don't know. I think that, and we've talked about this a lot, but there are very concrete barriers in our current government system within the town that prohibit people from communicating or like erase their communications. I, we've just come through several weeks of experiencing a lot of communication and that communication doesn't always get acknowledged or received or acted upon and so I want to be really careful about sort of putting the responsibility back on individuals to have to be responsible for things becoming more accessible based on how effectively they're able to communicate and yeah, we've just, we've been able to identify that communication is really lacking in our town and I don't think it's lacking because it's not a way to do it. I think it, it has a lot to do with systemic racism and classism in our town. And I think that, you know, transportation does as well as someone else alluded to earlier and one of the things that I don't know how to frame it as a value, but thinking about like the concept that comes to my mind is the thinking about the least of these or like, who is the person that's being most negatively affected by a system and basing like targeting their needs, because most likely when you target the needs of the person who has the most needs, everybody else's needs are going to be met. It may be less convenient for those with privilege but but if we like if there's a value that captures that idea that would be something that's really important to me. And then also the the value of acknowledging sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs in thinking about that, like, yes, some things are less environmentally friendly, but if somebody has does not have access to an environmentally friendly option, are we are we going to like lessen their ability to meet their basic needs by putting in something that's environmentally friendly, and like is that actually getting us towards a better world which I hope is our ultimate goal. Great. Thank you, because he kind of, I would argue just a key that there is a very strong principle in there, and that principle. We've heard a little bit sort of come up before but is that principle is essentially building plans and actions based on the needs of those who will be most negatively affected by the plans and actions. And that means you have, we have to talk to them we have they have to be part of that process. I think there's a very strong principle there. If you want to jump in. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to frame what I want to say, because I don't know well anyway. I think I want to start just by saying I really commend the ECAC for doing this process and some of the other inclusive processes that it has embarked upon. As I said before I've been involved in transportation committees in this town for about 11 years I also was very involved in the controversy over the school consolidation proposal. And in both of those experiences, I have tried, but not at all successfully to push for more open and inclusive conversations. And it's very difficult to move things in that direction I, you know, and I'm a volunteer very part time and as many are and, but yeah, if I put, you know, with this with the more, I put more time than I had into both of those efforts. And there are other people who have been who've done that too and it's still just it's been very hard often to get sort of town. Apparatuses that are sort of used to doing the things that the way they're doing whether the administration's to, to move towards more inclusion I'm sorry those awards are going to come in there maybe one more. So I just really want to commend the ECAC for starting in this way because I've not been as, you know, part of a town process that sort of really made this effort to be this inclusive right from the get go before and you know it's not, you know I'm sure there are people who aren't thinking today who should be but in fact I will actually mention a couple in a minute but, but this is better than I've seen. And that's really, really, really welcome and heartening and I just think it like I've already in this conversation there's so many things that all of you have brought up that just have so needed to be front and center and conversations about transportation in the last 11 years like it's like honestly it's just such a relief to have them brought up in the first hour of a conversation it's fabulous. The people that I just want to mention that it would be good to bring in our actually the people who are officially part of town. The people that deal with transportation. And in particular there's the transportation advisory committee at which I used to be on but I'm no longer on the Tracy is on so we do have a member from that committee now joining this conversation which is great, but the chair is, is Aaron. Why am I spacing Aaron's last name guys. Thank you, Aaron Hayden, but then the DPW, you know the DPW gets a budget each year, they are trying to do way too many things. And they are answering to a bunch of people that we don't hear from honestly, and who are like the emergency responders who have to dry fire trucks to the truckers, you know, who have very different kinds of needs from our transportation and my sense is that, you know, that that that he gets earfuls from a lot of those people that our DPW director gets earfuls from a lot of those people and that those drive a lot of his decision making about sort of where dollars are spent and how wide roads need to be we're always fighting about how wide roads need to be frankly that's like, you know he wants every travel lane to be at least 11 feet and I want every travel lane to be 9.5 feet, you know, you know, because that would make a big difference in safety. And it would give more room for bike lanes and buffers and anyway so that it's like little things like that that you would think would be really trivial like turnout to be big issues if we want to change how transportation works and who and what it prioritizes in this town so anyway at some point we actually need to bring in the people that have to make, you know, those administrative decisions about about budget, etc. Amy is here from DPW that's what people are trying to communicate to you. Amy sorry. So, that's what people are trying to communicate to me. So I, so that's anyway so now I just feel stupid and I should let you talk. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no and I don't have anything to add to the conversation it's a okay Eve I don't think I've had the chance to meet you so I'll just introduce myself. I'm Amy Rizecki I'm the assistant superintendent of Public Works. I go by she her pronouns and so I am here to represent public works and so I you know I do appreciate this conversation and you know certainly listening to a lot of it and it's you know it's the same stuff that we kick around as we're trying to prioritize projects and so certainly a lot of this conversation is is heard and has had both inside our office as well as outside so. Thanks. Thank you Amy. And thank you for joining us. The sort of previous thing you were talking about Eve. Two things about the process one is I just would like to recognize Laura and Darcy and Stephanie for really moving this forward. Just a, you know, really great job. And obviously you can see kaya has played a huge role, but I would also like to say that we're just getting started, and we need to make this process better. And if you have thoughts about how to make it better, or want to help make it better, we would love to hear and to work with you. And you know that this is we have to get better and better, kind of like what Stephanie was talking about in, you know, making the decisions about where infrastructure goes or where the bike share goes, and that you know tried to make the right decisions, but then when it actually happens. It's like it has, it turns out it's not right and there's a principle there. And the principle is in the, in the natural in the sort of ecological world is principle called adaptive management, and it's a kind of a lousy word it's a little technocratic. But what that word says is, you do things. And then you look. Is it working. Then you change it, and that that's how you get better and better. And that a model of as a principle here of can we do things that we know may not be the right thing to do we think they are. But we probably want to look, we probably want to ask, and we probably want to then do it again. But that's not a bad thing. That's not failure. It's moving to success. I see Brenda has a hand. Great Brenda. Yeah, okay, sorry. I just have a procedural question, just in terms of how we'll proceed through our three sessions and what we're hoping for the outcome. I just realized I'm like, Oh, this was just the introductions. Through this session. So I'm wondering, you would said like format, will there be like breakout groups and specific questions. So, yeah, just, I would just appreciate that just to just to hear the quick overview. Thank you. Yeah, that's a great question. We kind of didn't really dive too far into that when we first started. So the concept is we have three meetings with this group. We can do more in between, if there are things you want to dive into we can do some work in between everybody is available. You can also do some stuff afterwards. But the concept is that there are three meetings. The first meeting is really about developing principles. And about how is it, we're going to make decisions. Really about starting to look at solutions, what kinds of strategies might work to do some of the things we're interested in. And we have a couple of other topics other than transportation that are probably worth diving into the third meeting. The concept is that the third meeting is about how do we prioritize or how do we actually achieve those things that we're talking about. We may or may not get there. We may spend the next two meetings really talking about what the next, what the actions are that we think are valuable and do they fit in our set of principles and in our set of values. And we need to be sort of flexible in that because we have a kind of a big topic. But that's, that's really sort of where we're at. Because he kind of you want to add to that. I'm just going to mention that these were not introductions only it was really an activity to gather information on, you know, one of our topics which is transportation, and to really be able to hear about what's coming up for people what are relevant experiences that people are actually happening having in the community and then to be able to use those real life experiences to like Jim said come up with what are our actual values that we're going to be trying to center as we do the work about thinking about what we need to prioritize. So it was definitely part introductions but more seeking to have a conversation about personal experiences that would allow us to really be able to identify values not in a vacuum but in response to the actual lived experiences. It's worked. Yeah, Tracy. So I guess one of my questions is that you mentioned that we cover other topics as well including transportation but also other infrastructure including like water wastewater things. I mean so there is also a land use task group right and it seems like some of those things. And I guess part of me is like wearing like a planner hat because that's like some of my training is just that. I mean a lot of those things really do try into land uses and that. So we didn't talk I mean in our discussion so far right we focus on transportation. So I guess I have questions about how much we need to include some of those other topics now I also noticed that we do have public health and some of the work that I've been doing for my job recently is around how transportation systems would transit and otherwise like do tie into public health and equity and I've been looking at models from around the country including and I guess and I guess we're not supposed to talk about solutions but Seattle has some really great policies for example I know Eve mentioned Portland but Seattle has like a countywide social justice and equity like ordinance and like all of their policies not just in transportation but for all of their policies in the county and all their plans and so on are supposed to go through that lens. So there's some really great work being done. And it does tie into the health piece. Thanks. And that's a great great comment crazy about sort of the interconnection of transportation public health and that was part of why they that was part of this group. And, and I think we can be thinking about public health, while we think about transportation while we think about ways in ways that tie these things together. I think it's a real opportunity. I'm going to go to Rob, who is very patiently had his hand up for a little while. So Rob. Yeah, so I wanted to try to draw together a couple of things that I heard. I forget who said which but you would know if you said that. So one is the idea that for transportation, especially public transportation is to try to be addressing the greatest sort of in need of an individual individual has the most at risk for not having access. And I just want to point out there's an interesting tension there between the other goal of public transportation is trying to provide some basic level of service for the greatest number. There's a tension between those. The PVTA is of course, made it a practice to provide low fare van service to people who wouldn't normally be able to use a bus within a certain distance of the fixed routes and so that that's one way that you balance the use of very large traffic schedule to smaller vehicles that can get to places that buses don't go but there's a tension there that I think points then to a bigger issue which is a major social issue that's come up in other categories, health care and education is whether transit is a fundamental human right that deserves to be provided through the general as matter of the general welfare through general taxation rather than fares. Long been an advocate to increase the use of transit make it accessible to everybody to have no fares at all fair free transit and interesting some of the people who actually run transit systems love that idea. And it's been done in a few parts of the country. The Amherst area is one of the few places that has a essentially fair free transit system. I think Boulder, Colorado and actually not remembering maybe one of the other communities that has it again they tend to be near higher education institutions so what we're really doing is we're taxing students largely pay here through fees that but but the idea just abroad that we have essentially zero fares and raise raise the revenue to operate transit through the general taxation is one that I hope will be thinking about not so much as a solution just it's it's one of the tensions because when we don't have enough money to run a transit system, then we lose the service and it's often been argued that fairs sort of help you fund it. Well, not really. They actually pay a tiny fraction of it. They do give a way of sort of counting, but there are other ways of counting. I speak as a mathematician on that one. So I hope I hope we'll think about that because if this fundamental concept that transit or getting from from one place to another either. We're doing it virtually now but is a fundamental right fundamental human right I hope is something we can explore because I think it's important and I support it as a fundamental right. I hope others will. Thanks, Rob. And it in thinking about that idea of transit is one more right. It then recognizes the needs it forces the recognition of a wide set of needs and and and voices. Because as a right, then it, we have to hit those rights have to go to everybody. It's really, really interesting way of phrasing that other people want to talk a little bit about sort of key principles that you think are important in this conversation around transportation or maybe public health, or maybe waste. One of the principles that I was going to bring up when Tracy was talking was around the intersections between all the different human needs and we thought a lot about how to split up these groups and there were 100 different versions because it's true. They all intersect. And I was thinking about how transportation really connects with housing, which is not something that our group is specifically talking about but I know Penny has a lot of thoughts about housing and housing access in Amherst. And I know that I have always chosen where to live or have moved based on transportation. So I was wondering, Penny, if you had anything you wanted to say about that. Yeah, I just think that with this, like when I, like I said I moved here in the 70s and so I pretty much have lived in. I lived in colonial village. I lived in rolling green. And I lived in Puffton when I was a kid, but I'm just saying as an adult with my own kids living in rolling, rolling green and colonial village. It was very expensive and I wouldn't have been able to do it if I didn't have housing. And it's like, I feel like everyone should be able to live where they want to live. And it shouldn't be this thing where you have to have a subsidy to be able to live in a house that you don't have to have someone next to you. And that you don't have to like live in an apartment complex, because that's the only where you can afford. I just feel like that is crazy. And I know people who are homeless now, who don't have a place, and they're living out of their car. If you have to do first lesson security. And the only reason why you're doing the security is because there's so many students who ruin the property that it just makes it harder for the people who live here in Amherst. And then you have to outsource in Sunderland and or Belcher town, and then it's harder to get transportation to go to the grocery store. It's just a big vicious circle. That's not fair at all. Not fair. So, I'm going to live. Thank you, Penny. I'll stick to it. Thank you so much, Penny. That was well put right on. Lev, you've had your hand up for a little while. Great. Thanks. I just wanted, in terms of values and approaches. I think one of, particularly in the one we're talking about public transit, I think it's very easy to think really purely in terms of economies of scale. And I think that there's also actually a lot of advantages with tackling these various challenges that we're looking at with really just recognizing that there isn't going to be one silver bullet solution for all of the different challenges and that actually, I think the way I think this is maybe a little bit of a blending of or recognition of the tension that Rob has mentioned and that Ghasid Kaya brought up earlier is thinking about that not every single solution has to work for every single person, but we need to make sure that we're really, I guess from my perspective is like that we have to be centering and most focused actually on the needs of where they are the highest or sort of the most vulnerable person. So that it's not that we come up with a good solution that works for a whole bunch of people and then it leaves a bunch of other folks out. But I think just really recognizing that there can be a lot of, there can be good solutions that are a myriad of different approaches in a lot of ways, I think that in response to COVID-19 in part because organizations had to respond so quickly and it was this brand new that we actually we saw a lot of that real kind of innovation happening in lots of different places where it was like throwing out lots of things and kind of seeing what works and that's a common process in design of the ideation and I think it doesn't only have to be about the ideation of then deciding which one thing to go to it can be that you move forward and really solidify or formalize multiple, multiple different tracks. Great, thank you. Jennifer, are you ready to jump. Because I love talking about housing, like it's just a mind baffle like, well it's only just a mind baffle but it also shows you that the whole infrastructure from DTA to to the housing to the section eight program how none of that really is to help the individual it's so I just remember at some point it was like oh you can go to two year college but we won't support you to go to UMass and it's like what I can go to hair and nail school but I can't become a doc like I don't understand, but we have like there's two different kinds of affordable housing that are lacking like there's an affordable housing that's lacking for the people who do have subsidies. That limit is so low compared to what the apartments and houses are rented for that they're literally pushed out. And then you have the people who, like myself are, you know, we work and so we can pay more and we don't need the subsidy but I can't pay 3500 for three bedroom apartment house I like, and part of that house issue was I was in a house last year with the rent was for four but the utilities that electric bill in the winter was from 800 to $1000 a month and we were only heating three to four rooms at a time, because nothing's insulated and they had old windows, right and, you know, they would get stuck you can even open them in the summer they would swell and so there's just all of these kinds of things that needs to work out which I thought was part of like ECAC for, you know, we're doing houses and apartments as part of it. And I also just and I know we're not talking about solutions but I have like this notion in my mind like I just don't understand why we can't find 10 landlords who own multiple properties and ask them to designate one to one affordable and the other one to the other affordable and compensate them somehow. I don't know how we would compensate them like, I don't know if we could do it through taxes through sewer water through whatever but like I just, it just seems again it's community like look out for your brother and your sister and it'll, it'll, it'll adjust itself and work out. So, I'm big on affordable housing issues and and stuff as such. It's a, these issues are super tight together. It's not really quite in the wheelhouse of this committee, but it is definitely part of the part of what's happening. It's great because all the kids go to school together. That's the crazy part about it is all of our kids are in school together, but they all have different that different lives. Everyone's, everyone's on crazy spectrum, but the kids are all friends. And so when my kids would go to this house and they would come home and say, Hey, and I'd be like, Sorry, hopefully get to go back over there house again. So, yeah. I totally get it. Thanks, Fanny. I'm Laura. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Jim. Thanks all I've been really enjoying listening to this conversation. I just want to reiterate what Kazekaya mentioned, which is that we will be taking notes and making sure when we come back together. Each of the task groups has two ecac members on it. When we come back together in our ecac groups, we're going to be in our ecac committee, which anyone's welcome to join as public members of will be talking about things that we've seen crossover between the different groups and how we make sure the groups for which may need to be identifying actions related to those topics are doing. We have talked quite a bit in ecac about the need for affordable. Oh, I have a guest. Sorry. The need for affordable housing to not only be about rent, but about utilities because that's so important. And sometimes over overlooked in those discussions at least that I've seen. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Laura. That actually sort of brings us up. We were kind of getting up to the end of our time. And we really appreciate everybody spending the time and and it's, you know, bringing yourself forward, sharing your experience sharing your, your thoughts about what's important. Would anybody anybody have a sort of want something they want to sort of the final the final word is it were anybody have something you want to say you really need to get out. Yeah, Brenda. I just want to point out the time because I do need to hop off right up for it but up. Do we have any homework anything that we should. Yes, you do. I'm one of those people sorry. You know, there's always. There's always. There's always. There's always. Yeah. Laura Darcy, you want to. Lead us through that. You're. I'm inviting Laura to do that because I don't have my agenda right in front of me. Yeah. Yeah. So, so sort of similar to what. You know, I think it would be great for folks to think about both for themselves and then maybe ask three neighbors or maybe friends that don't live in your direct vicinity would even be more. Helpful. What are the issues. Sorry, I'm going to read these off. I'm going to start with the questions around waste so transitioning a little bit to one of our other topic areas. What are the issues with garbage for you, where does your trash go, do you know where your trash goes, do you have access to recycling or compost, who controls those decisions are the decisions you're making or someone else controlling those decisions for you. What barriers do you personally have or do the friends or neighbors that you're speaking to have to disposing of your waste in a way that feels sort of good for you. If that's a way to frame it. I really reframe those questions and we'll email I believe we're emailing these out so no need to jot all these down. You could also think about those in the terms of other other two topics public health and and communication. So, so yeah, and feel free if you would rather write them down you can respond to the email with your responses, or we can bring them to the next meeting is that correct Jim. Oh, collect the information. Go ahead and ask people send it to gizikaya. And we're going to collect all that stuff up and put it into a form, and then we'll have an opportunity to share it as the beginning of the next meeting to sort of transition to the next set of topics. Perfect and no pressure to talk to friends or neighbors if you just want to share your own experiences that's fine too but you may find it if you feel the energy. Please it would be wonderful. And I was just going to say you will get an email from me with the questions and you can also talk to me on the phone if that works better for you to talk about your answers. So you'll be getting that from me before the end of the week. And people are welcome to reach out to gizikaya myself or Laura or Darcy. If you just want to connect with us about anything before the next meeting. In fact, I think that a little bit stronger and say, if there are topics that you feel strongly about, you really want to make sure you are thinking and deep in. You want to know more about you want to tell more about you want to connect with gizikaya connect with Stephanie connect with Laura connect with Darcy. And you can do that by phone by email. This is a great opportunity to dive in deeper if there are things you really feel strongly about and want to sort of bring to this bring up to the top. Stephanie has all of our information so you can get contact information from Stephanie was there something you wanted to say. No, I'm fine thank you. Thank you. I just like to thank everybody again for coming and participating and you know sharing yourselves and your experiences. You know, we are taking notes. The notes will compile the notes into something readable and share them with everyone. Feel free to correct them to add to them. That's a way to sort of provide more information back. And then we'll probably clean those up and condense them a little bit and then those will get shared back to the ECAC as well, sort of pass on some of the knowledge that we're getting from this process. So it's exactly four o'clock. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everybody being here. Thank you all. Thank you everybody.