 The zooms that financing is in the laundry now, what's that? Okay, it's not going to laundry, I dropped you a pizza. Where are you going? One of my favorite things is that you can even getting the end of the paving project right beyond his driveway. Turns out it's the town line. Yeah. Never put something. I hadn't noticed that though. That's where they finish paving this area. The news. It might be beyond his driveway. At first when I saw it on my own deck. Let me get it. I insist. Or else. Yeah. Sorry, Mike, you're just not having these things. You're just not doing it anymore. Doesn't count. Exactly. I'm like city center in Berlin from that sense. Financing. It would be one of these ones. You know nature abhors a vacuum. It says short but not forever. Is everybody who wants to be in here or in here? God, are you ready? Dallas. You should let Matthew go home and chuck. I think you should let Matthew go home and chuck. No, I forgot. I know. True. He's probably liking me. Good evening. We're going to start the third MPO training session of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission. And Eleni will start off. Yeah. So today we're just going to go a little bit more deeper dive into the work that we do here at the CCRPC, our youth club youth program. We're going to talk about the major categories that we have been working in. And also then we're going to shift gears a little bit and actually address the question and comment that we got in the last session. And you know the project becomes a project and how does it go through the planning, design, permitting, all the way to construction. So we're going to just talk a little bit about that process and also provide some examples. So Marshall is going to start us with some information about the UWP and Network. So before actually we go there, maybe we can all introduce the staff to introduce themselves. So you guys know us. So I'm going to start with Eleni Churchill. Marshall, this is a transportation planner here. Besides her for the transportation planning engineer. Christine Ford. Jason Shrest. Brian Davis. Great. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Marshall is going to start us off. All right. Good evening, everyone. So our unified planning work program was briefly addressed in our previous board training sessions. But as sort of a refresher, the UPWP is this federally mandated document that serves as the annual work program for our local and regional staff. It's also used to implement the eco strategies for our region and also to help our municipalities move forward with their local plans. So basically each year we solicit project requests from municipalities, partner organizations in the public on how we should invest public funds towards transportation planning programs in Chittin County. So some examples of project requests would be corridor and scoping studies, transportation related stormwater planning, land use planning assistance, and also a variety of other technical assistance requests. So after we receive all these project requests we have a UPWP committee that meets in January, February and March to kind of best decide how we should allocate our funds towards these projects. So corridor studies. So corridor studies involve this sort of comprehensive assessment of transportation and land use conditions throughout the length of an entire transportation corridor. So these include the development of a vision and goals, conducting public outreach, and really just evaluating multimodal strategies to address issues related to safety, congestion and other transportation issues. So we're also sort of looking to get more involved with corridor management planning in general. So that essentially means we're going to be working more with VTRANS to coordinate and leverage investments by merging new improvement projects with traditional maintenance activities. One other thing to note is it's fairly common that after a corridor study a recommendation would be to follow up with a more focused scoping study, which I'll get into in a few slides. So these are some of the examples of the corridor studies that we've conducted. They can be region wide, like the Burlington to Williston US2 study, or they can be more localized at the Colchester Avenue study in Burlington, or the Route 116 study in Heinsberg. So all these studies took into consideration the need to balance moving people and goods through these regional commuter routes with also the need to support local livability. And one other thing to note is each of these studies sort of just use this comprehensive and multimodal approach to address the... Scoping studies, so scoping studies involve, it's sort of a similar process but more focused and it ends in the selection of a preferred alternative. And also with scoping studies we have this, what's called a purpose and need statement, which essentially sets the stage for the consideration of project alternatives. So the purpose is really used to define the transportation problem to be solved while the need is essentially justifying what's driving the project. So prior to developing this purpose and need statement we evaluate the existing and future conditions and then we use that statement to develop and also evaluate the project alternatives. When you do a scoping study where does the legislative body of the community where it's our municipal partner come in? And what kind of latitude do they have to actually impact something or is this heavily driven by technical issues? And that if a community doesn't like the preferred alternative, does it have any recourse to move that or is it going to be something where if they request a scoping study, they could end up with an alternative that might be wholly unacceptable to the local legislative body and they wouldn't want to be put in a position of having to accept something that would kill them within their own time. Go ahead. I would say that at our alternatives meeting usually is in front of a select board or city council and they're the ones selecting preferred alternative. They decide whether they want to accept the committee's recommendation or not. They ultimately decide if it moves forward. But when a project is on a state highway, on a state system, a local elected body basically decides on what we call a locally preferred alternative. And then VTrans does have the ability to go back and maybe has some different ideas, but they will come back to the community and talk about it and talk about why one alternative is better than the other alternative. And hopefully through that dialogue you're going to get to a common, you know, to an alternative that we all agree on. I admire your optimism. Well, we have to be optimistic, Jeff. So, but that's pretty much, when it's a state system, I think VTrans does have the ability to do that. Oh, absolutely. I understand. So that needs to be clear. Yeah. And I think just to reinforce that, you know, for those of you that haven't maybe gone through that much detail, like it really works when everybody's at the table through the entire process. And when it doesn't work, it's because one or more parties wasn't at the table through the entire process and wasn't on the same page. And then we get into those situations that are, there's a disconnect. It doesn't happen that often that we don't agree. Yeah. In my 12 years doing this, I think it's happened twice in probably dozens of studies. One other thing I didn't mention is, you know, we're always trying to provide as many opportunities as possible for public input in these sort of scoping studies and also corridor studies. So these are a few examples of the scoping studies that we've conducted. They all typically focus on addressing a specific aspect related to the transportation system. So for example, the Winozki River Bridge study took a look at alternatives for the bridge over the Winozki River. The Colchester Riverside Barrett study took a look at new alternatives for intersection in Burlington. And our Shelburne Gateway study really focused on bicyclists and pedestrian improvements at the southern end of U.S. 7 and Shelburne. And after we had these studies completed, we strive to work with VTrans and the municipalities to get the improvements in our TIP and their capital program for eventual implementation. And the next level of CCRPC work is technical assistance. So we provide technical assistance to municipalities. These are more like a localized work for municipalities. As Marshall mentioned, most of these requests come through UPWP, but we also make efforts to accommodate if there are any requests coming through during the fiscal year. So most of the work we assist municipalities with speed studies, like setting speed limits on local highways. Recently we finished speed studies in Underhill, Huntington and Williston. And then we also do traffic calming studies for local neighborhoods. Recently we finished a couple of traffic calming studies in Williston, like Blair Park neighborhood and Chamberlain and Brennan Woods neighborhood. So we develop some recommendations for the town, what kind of traffic calming measures can be implemented in those neighborhoods. And also we also work with VTrans and evaluate crashes on local highways. So we look at safety and also some side distance issues at critical intersections. If a town thinks that some of those intersections have inadequate side distance, then we can go out and measure what are the existing side distances at those intersections and come up with recommendations. And again we also assist towns in developing new signal timing plans for signalized intersections that they own. Because most of the signal equipment are outdated and most of them are not up to the current standards. So we are getting requests from municipalities to look at those signals and then come up with a plan how to update those signals. We also work with VTrans on other programs. So one of them is the road safety audits where VTrans identifies like high-crash locations. It could be a road segment, maybe a mile or two mile, three mile road segment or an intersection where it's identified as a high-crash location. So we look at the crash types and crash data and then VTrans will develop an implementation plan for improvements. And similar program is a systemic local safety program. So we work with municipalities and then they identify some road segments which could be high-risk roads. Not necessarily high-crash locations but there could be high-risk roads for accidents or crashes. So VTrans will develop a similar plan for improvements and then we provide those recommendations to the town. And then it's 100% funded by VTrans for installing the improvements. And the next component of transportation is using technology. As you know technology is growing exponentially now. So how can we use technology in transportation and make things efficiently and moving things and people efficiently in our transportation system? That's the intelligent transportation system. In 2014 we updated our regional ITS plan and developed a strategic plan which identifies short-term, medium-term and long-term projects. One of the projects is the Advanced Traffic Monitoring System using Bluetooth technology. So we got about a million dollars federal highway grants for this project and we are in the final stage of completing this project. We installed 33 sensors along five major corridors in the region. These Bluetooth sensors collect real-time travel data and that travel data is useful for sporting studies and other planning efforts and modeling projects. So there are various applications that the real-time data can be used. And the next thing is we also work with municipalities to look at their signal system again from hardware and equipment point of view. To assess their conditions and then develop a plan to how to upgrade those signals. Signal heads, controller, any detection system, communication system. So recently we finished Exit 14 signal system assessment study in South Burlington which included signals along Rossa Street and Williston Road. And also we done a similar study for Route 15 and we also finished a recent study on Shelbon Street in Burlington where we identified some deficiencies in the signal controllers and we developed a signal timing plan as well as equipment upgrade plan. And the next thing is we also assisting municipalities to manage their local projects. So most of these local projects are funded by V-Trans. We are playing a manager role in managing those local projects. So we manage and assist through the project development stage and design. We also help municipalities in getting their right-of-way or easements and also do some construction inspection. Recently we finished a couple of sidewalk projects, one in Shelbon and another one in South Burlington. And currently we are working with Underhill and also in Heinsberg for their sidewalk projects. So these are all locally managed projects. You can see much of what we do talks about infrastructure. We're trying to address some of the capacity issues, some of the infrastructure issues. Let's not forget about the people. We each make choices that impact how our system is functioning. And there's a technique or program called Transportation Advanced Management which tries to address those choices that we make on a daily basis on how we get around. These can include incentives. They can include disincentives. They can include policies such as flex time. You can show up to work a little earlier or later. You can leave work a little earlier or later. Perhaps you can walk or bike. Maybe there's some sort of incentive program through a TMA such as the Chittin area TMA if you walk or bike a certain number of times. Here's a little award for you. A little incentive for you to go spend somewhere at a local store. And part of what we do to achieve those goals and the vision in the ECOS plan and TDM has called out as a way to accomplish those future goals that we have is to work with our local partners including the Chittin area TMA, Car Shire Vermont, Green Mountain Transit, Locomotion and most recently Green Mine Bikeshare. Those organizations are providing programs and services that as an organization we don't provide but they're eligible to apply for UPWP funding to help come in with what they do to help us address not only the infrastructure stuff, right? We can make new bridges and widen lanes if needed but if we can get people to change their behavior that has a better, more cost-effective impact on our transportation network than just building more things. We have the Go Chittin County logo up there. That was a brand we created a number of years ago using a federal grant which really brought the partners, I don't want to say under an umbrella but brought us all to the same table so that we can work more coordinated together on achieving those goals. So at the time Katma was the campus area TMA. One of the projects through Go Chittin County grant was expanded their services beyond the Hill institutions off the campus area and into the county so we didn't need the Go Chittin County grant anymore because Katma was doing that sort of work. So the partners are rolling on with the great things they do as expanded their services to the employers in the region. Another part that we do is people who choose to walk and bike. We have a pedestrian and bicycle program here. Every five years give or take we revise our regional walk bike plan. Most recently we changed the name to the Regional Active Transportation Plan because that's really what it is. It's an active transportation, it's an active mode. That was adopted by you all, the board in 2017. Through that program we can also help your municipality develop your own local walk bike plan. We've done that with Essex and Essex Junction, we've done that with Jericho, this is Grelington with theirs. And all the while we're trying to align with the local folks who are doing with our regional vision. So again the active transportation plan is the regional vision. We're not looking at where sidewalks might need to go when you're in town but it's looking at the connectivity at that higher level and then at the local level we can help you figure out what the priorities are. We can help with sidewalk and path planning. As I mentioned the grant programs that we can help manage we can help you apply for grants. We just got to work with St. George to get their little sidewalk to get some connections across route 2A there, which is fantastic. So reach out to us, that's where we're here for, to help you find money to do those things, the construction projects. Local Motion has a number of projects to help us achieve the goals that we want to accomplish in our walking and biking program. And again I mentioned Greenright Bike Share which if you stay tuned for the board meeting after this Bob the general manager and I will co-present to describe more about that effort. So data collection is a large part of what we do here at the RPC and really lays the foundation for successful planning at all scales that Marshall has really talked about. A big part of that obviously is transportation planning. So turning movement counts and automated traffic recorders are a large part of our summer internship program. We hire about six college interns every year who work for us and they do a great job, it's a learning experience for them and they provide a lot of valuable data that really drives the decision making for us in various studies. We're also helping out individual towns better understand the location and quality of their municipal assets. This is everything from pavement condition to locations and MUTCD compliance of signs. We work with individual municipalities to kind of get a good understanding of a game plan as to exactly what we want to sort of look at and what the data would be used for and then we'll sort of carry out that inventory process throughout the course of the summer. Additionally a big part of our summer data collection plan is efforts in helping municipalities in Chittenden County achieve the goals of the new municipal roads general permit. Really the first step in this greater process is to complete the inventory of these roadways that do fall under this permit. We as staff here are also contributing to sort of the data management reporting and scoring of these individual roadway segments. But in addition to that, the RPC is conducting scoping studies and concept plans for locations that have sort of risen to the top as sort of highest contributors or potential highest contributors to water quality. We then sort of take those products and assist towns in applying for grants for physical construction implementation of sort of the best practices and then we kind of come full circle to reevaluate things. This process has changed over the last couple of years and will continue to change but it's very much a constant cycle of working through this permit and individual towns, assets within it and we're out of a year, two out of a 20 year permit. So we have a lot more work to do. Can you move forward? I'm good, thank you. So that was a very high level overview of the work that we do here. The UPWPs right here, if you go through it, it has really numerous projects. If you have any question about any of these projects that have reached out to us, we'll be happy to discuss. So now we're shifting gears a little bit to address some common and questions that we got. The last session is how do transportation projects become projects and move through the process. So we're going to try to address this complex issue but we're going to try to just simplify it a little bit. Before we move on, can I ask a question about the last module? Yeah, yeah. I always kind of wonder if there isn't more, we as people who are representatives who are also MPO board members could do in terms of facilitating communication between the community staff and our MPO staff. For example, is it too much to ask of an MPO board rep to be up to speed on all the scoping studies that are going on in the community? Or if there's a corridor study or something like that, the MPO board member on this board should be at least in the email loop. And as an MPO board rep and RPC commissioner, when Charlie goes or if Christine goes or if someone's going to my legislative body, I think, you know, my fellow board members can tell me I'm full of crap, which I am, but maybe not on this. Maybe we should be more actively involved in those communications as facilitators, because most of us have good relationships with our boards and with our public works departments if our community has a public works department. And sometimes I get surprised. I didn't know Christine was going to my board, you know, two weeks ago or something like that, whereas if I'm there, because of our relationship as a conduit to the community, we could maybe help facilitate this process a little. Maybe I think, maybe I'm expecting too much from people who sit at this board, but, you know, maybe we should be more, we should know when a staff member or when Charlie or when you are going to the board and enough time so that it's not like two days before you do it, so we don't have enough time to get prepared to be, and if, you know, at least I would like to be able to call Charlie to say, ask Christine or ask Laney, do they need help? How's it going on this project? Is there something that isn't hitting home or is there some disagreement about what the best alternative is on a scoping study and, you know, is it on a state road or is it on a, you know, a town road and how much flexibility and latitude do we have? Is there something that the board member can do to talk to maybe the chair of the legislative body or a particular member of the legislative body that's got some concerns? And we could try to help explain it or at least to facilitate a communication on that, so it's more efficient, not only for our MPORPC staff, but it's also more efficient on the town staff, which five times out of 10, unless you've got a public works, you know, director or something like that, you know, these folks are trying to be chief cook and bottle washer on a million things. So are we missing an opportunity? Are we doing enough? And if we are doing enough, tell me, and I'll shut up. I'd be interested to hear from other board members about, you know, because I think it's a good question because I think probably staff maybe feels like we're protecting the board members from getting sucked into conversation. You may not want to be involved in, but at the other hand, maybe we're doing you a disservice by not having you in the communication. Or maybe you're doing yourselves a disservice by having us. Or the whole effort, yeah. I mean, everybody here has a relationship with the board because we get appointed by our boards for... We're on the select board. Thoughts, sir? I mean, for myself, when Charlie or someone goes to the city council meetings, I like to know, and I often will go with you. Yeah. On the other ones, for our commissions, you know, for public works or something, it might be nice to know, but I'm probably not going to show up with very many of those. It gives you the option. If you can be helpful, you might go if you would be helpful. But I often see what different projects are going on. So it might be helpful to at least get the notices of them. But again, I'm less likely to go to those. But to the council meetings, I typically go to those. And I think it... And that I do think is really helpful to go to. I agree with that. How many people go with you when you show up or when you show up to talk about something or when you show up or when you guys show up or when you show up? Is it rare that a board member goes with you to those meetings? So, I mean, there's different levels of things that we go to the councils for, or the select board for like... So when I go to the select board for like annual report, I copy you all every time. And some of you are on the board, so you're there already. That's easy. Yeah, that was easy. And other times, the board, CCRPC, board members that are not on the city council or select board will accompany me usually if they're able to. So that works. But at a project level... For projects we don't usually inform and we could. We could add you to the distribution list and you can have that information and you can decide if you want to just come or not. I mean, we would have the option then. We could investigate whether we would be helpful. So if we are with a consultant going to the select board or city council, at least CCing you on that communication. Yeah, let's try to do that. You know, I'm struck that there may be things that are sort of above the water line or below the water line. So the projects and scoping study have a certain profile. But then there's the other question of like the technical assistance activity. Yes, right. So I guess the question is where that belongs and some things when they start you don't know how big it's going to get. And it might be worthwhile being in the loop for those because you might have an opinion as a board member who's not on the select board or city council. Because something started off as a conversation, right? As not an official agenda item at the local governing body. I mean, I don't know about other board members but every once in a while I get surprised because town and village staff all write an email about something that they had an interaction with the staff. And so I think we should at least be kept appraised of that because sometimes we can sometimes help us sage the concerns of a staff member or a town or village administrator or manager or something like that. If no other reason is just that staff member believe that their concerns were heard by the right person who needed to hear them. We will try to do better at that. I think it's a good question. At one level I guess be careful what you ask for. Let us know if there's too much above the water line. Well we can make a decision and if it's gray all we've got to do is bother you, right? Exactly. We've all got yourself a member. Does that mean email? And I think it's important just like if you don't mind me interjecting just like with our town staffs I think it's a good rule that usually when we talk to our town staffs we go to the administrator or the manager or the chair or the board, okay? I think if before you would call Lainey or Christine or anybody else on RPC, MPO staff I think it's important we touch base with Charlie because Charlie may have a perspective of you on the information. If you just want to say something nice to them feel free. Something substantive I think you need to know and it's not fair to the staff member because they may not have all the information that's needed to be conveyed to you. Yeah. That's good. So we'll let Lainey get into the more meaty Pete here. That was my soapbox. No that was good. No that's absolutely good. That's helpful to us. So shifting a little bit. But I reserve the right to call Lainey any time I want. Oh yeah. You never have. I know. Isn't that good? Okay on that note we let's move on. We know the opportunity here. So the question was how does a transportation project becomes a project and you know the answer is kind of various different ways. Like one way is like you know is there a community need and that can be anything starting is there an issue with safety at an intersection or you know at the two lane rural highway or anything is there an issue with the capacity you have plenty of delays or an intersection the signal is not working very well again that can become this is the impetus of just starting a project and then also anything else like access to jobs how do we improve jobs or support housing and that's the community need. A lot of the projects also come and Marshall talked about corridor management studies that we do a lot of those projects come through that process is when we look at the specific corridor or an area we basically evaluate issues with develop alternatives and recommendations and some of these recommendations from corridor studies come forward into implementation without further evaluation and that's the operational recommendations and strategies and some other ones but some of them they need more focused study and that's what we do in scoping or project definition as we call it now so scoping and project definition is the very beginning of the project development process and I put a flow chart here which is very very simple nothing is simple in real life it's usually a very messy process but this is just basically to indicate the major steps in the project development process so first you identify a project you get the authorization to proceed and that happens whether it's a big vitrans project or a smaller municipal project and then you start your project development process if you are using federal funding as most of vitrans projects do then you need to go through you know scoping which is something that we do here for Chinatown County and scoping again Marshall talked about it you look at the issues you develop alternatives you develop a purpose and need and then at the very end you have a locally preferred alternative and that becomes the alternative that you move forward into conceptual plans once you do that then you start going through your environmental permitting environmental permitting is the next step and again nothing is so clear cut but that's pretty much approximately how it is and Amy jumped in anytime you want to and then you moved into the environmental permitting which is basically under you know you go through what we call NEPA which is the National Environmental Policy Act and once you start doing that and then you know as you go through NEPA and you start your preliminary designs then you have this other process on the right that I have called Town and Act of 50 Permits and that's a parallel but very important process that every project depending on the complexity and the size needs to do to get all the permits so they can move forward to final design well the right of way right of way acquisition I'm sorry I gloss over that but any project that uses federal funding has to go a very prescribed process and very involved and lengthy process sometimes again depending on the complexity of the project and then once all the permits are ready you have all of them you have your town your Act of 50 you finish with all the litigation sometimes and then you move towards final design and you go for contract bed plans and if everything goes well you go to construction so this is a very very simplified process I'm going to stop right there and ask if you have any questions this is the V-trans process the municipal process might be a little simpler than this but this is the process that you go if you're using federal funds in any project you might comment on the length of time from the first step to the last I was very reluctant to do that in years this would be fine these look like little buttons click click click click we have some examples that is going to show you the length of process that this process is going to take for some projects we've got a few minutes why don't you show them a couple so Jason is going to go through the most complex of the projects our first example is exit 16 this is a typical one that is a typical one isn't it you might be aware of it's been in the news quite a bit due to its ongoing legal disagreements but we started a circulation study back in 2009 and this was a study that really looked at the area in terms of its land use growth potential and what those impacts would be to the surrounding system and looked at alternatives the study was finalized and then we went right into a scoping study that focused on the interchange and really the surrounding area of the corridor route 2, route 7 and passed through there and once that was finalized in a municipal preferred alternative was selected which was a diverging diamond interchange we have a couple of photos so you can hold questions on how happy that is for right now it then entered into the v-trans project development process and they've achieved a couple of milestones that you see listed there I mentioned they do have their ongoing legal issues there and as of right now they have construction scheduled for 2020 and 2021 and that would just offer a word of caution and maybe a bit of a moving target depending on how things go in the courtroom how have the lawyers done on that Mr. Chair? so from initial start to potential construction over 10 years nice colorful rendering of what it might look like there it is it's completed thanks to v-trans it's right from the v-trans website moving forward to 2025 not familiar with how this would work you would traveling through the interchange you would actually cross over to the other side of the road between the bridges and then you would cross back over and it's a very efficient way to move vehicles through an interchange and I forgot to mention but the bridges that go over routes 2 and 7 there are in very good condition so all the alternatives focused on ways of improving capacity and throughput through this area without having to touch the bridges are those yield signs there where the traffic crosses over where the traffic crosses I can't stop there oh it's a signal oh okay I didn't understand that if you're traveling northbound you would stop here if not you just proceed through oh the bar goes across the shadow that's what it's hard to see then everything else coming off the off-ramps well this one is signalized but the other ones are yield controlled pedestrians have to cross up the pedestrians go linearly along the outsides of the street so if you're a pedestrian you'd follow this you'd cross again and then the pass would go behind the piers on the bridge and then they would continue up that way there's no way to actually cross routes 2 and 7 in that vicinity and I get to finish up with something that is finished yay so this is a Culver project that we did this one was also about scoping to completion 116 Culver it's between Heinzburg Road and Kennedy Drive in South Burlington we did the scoping CCRPC did the scoping in 2007 we went through the full process Marshall and Eleni were talking about purpose and need we did a full assessment of the conditions so this is a map of where it's located there's a little yellow circle I don't know if I have a pointer here that shows where the Culver actually is what was interesting for this is that CCRPC did the scoping of this and we were also involved in a traffic analysis that looked at the impacts of closing the road so it was determined in the scoping that maintaining two lanes was not possible alternatives looked at closing the road completely and maintaining one lane so it was decided to do a full closure the road was closed for two months for those who have been through it had to go around it during the time but it was constructed in 2017 I got a couple of pictures here this top picture is the before condition it was it's an interesting I don't know if other people find this interesting but it was actually two pieces the culvert was in three pieces with a black's culvert on one side a metal culvert on the other side and the water just passed through a rock cavern in the middle and no one quite knew what was going on there they couldn't really get cameras down there to look at it it was partially blocked a lot of water quality issues the bottom one is a beautiful culvert that was completed and interesting too there was a pedestrian bridge that was put in during the construction so that pedestrians could continue to cross even though cars could not and then the last one we're going to talk about is also a completed project it's a sidewalk on 116 it connected Tilly Drive sidewalk this is a study where CCRPC helped the town do an application for a bike pad grant Brian was talking about that before so we were involved in this grant process we were also municipal project manager both Brian and Sy worked on this project beautiful job completing the sidewalk connection it meanders through it's kind of wet in there very nice walk so that was about the timing I think that's it so that's it so if you have any questions please reach out to us so Mr. Executive Director and Chair is this our last MPO training session? yes would you like more? would you like more? I'm just asking if we completed the program that the public element committee suggested that we do and I guess if anybody has suggestions about how helpful this was not helpful it was to the people who came we have a lot of new board members so the board development committee which chaired by Andy Montrell we kind of all thought that we needed to do this because MPO is a lot of alphabet soup particularly to new board members it's very fresher for new board members and as long as we keep having turnover it's almost like we should repeat this every year every year every two or three years if we keep having turnover because every single time we go through it I pick up something new and I've been on this board since 2001 so I'm a new person and unfortunately in the previous two I just had you miss good food too we had steak at one of those lobster at the other I feel like it's a steep learn so whatever else you want to do if I could make it to them I would try is there a better time to have them than before the board meeting? no it's a hard it was just conflicts I had speaking for myself and I should okay I should do that I will do that that's a good point if you have a question reach out to any of us we love to answer questions we love to talk about our work it's all good important work I find the training useful I did find some of these kind of graphic representations particularly interesting because I could wrap my mind around these so my sense is that towns operate a little differently from each other in their relationship to the RPC probably changes a little bit from town to town that's my sense I'm just sort of feeling the elephant type not really positive but that's my sense and so what might require to Jeff's point a select board and you're sitting at this table that's a different thing than perhaps if you're a bigger town or a smaller town and then you have a representative so some of that's really hard to wrap your mind around but I did find it really useful and I liked the fact that the regular rep Catherine pressed me into a commitment for the three meetings because she said this is the way you got to do it Wayne I think that was really useful to know in that I had to do this three times so thank you all right we will call the full commission meeting to order for November 28th 2018 Bernie would like to take minutes the minute taker wants you to mind your detail sorry so you got to start over with that no idea so we'll start with any changes to the agenda are there any changes to the agenda hearing the consent agenda we're not there yet next item is we provide an opportunity for any member of the public to make a comment on any items that do not appear on the agenda is there anybody here who wishes to make such a comment hearing none now I move the consent agenda is there a second second is there anybody who wishes to remove an item from the consent agenda hearing none all in favor of the motion say aye aye all opposed the ayes have it next item is approval of the minutes of our October 17, 2018 meeting is there a motion to approve so moved second are there any comments changes Catherine isn't here I'm going to tell you you said that she knows she knows hearing because usually my motion includes with Catherine's changes hearing nothing all in favor of the motion to approve say aye I'll abstain Bernie we haven't even gotten there yet any opposed everyone wants to move along quickly this evening I'm all for that I forgot to say something to be in the meeting I'm also representing the Junction tonight so I forgot to mention that are there any abstentions thank you Bernie, Dave Tilton and John Zicconi anybody else next item on our agenda is a presentation by Fred DiPlessie of Solvent Powers regarding our fiscal year 2018 audit I'd like to welcome Fred back again to the commission I'll sit here and be chairing you don't have to be chairing I can be here I'll give you a quick overview and then see if there's any questions I see the bound reports and I think you've had PDFs copies for a little bit so this is a multi part audit it's an audit of the financial statements in accordance with the generally accepted auditing standards it's also in accordance with government auditing standards which are a little more stringent requires a letter and review of the compliance with laws and regulations and internal control at the financial statement level and because you expend it over $750,000 of federal funds it's also a single audit in accordance with what's now called the uniform guidance which is a consolidation of all of the various regulations into one document so it really is a multi part document it will get submitted electronically to the federal government it will be available on the clearinghouse website it becomes a public document at that point in time and so from our perspective our role is to provide the reports the first report is on the financial statements and that indicates that your financials are in full conformance with generally accepted accounting principles so that's a clean unmodified opinion there's been no changes in the standards this year that affected the planning commission nothing I see going forward that will affect the planning commission big changes coming up in a number of years they want to revise all of the standards and the methods of looking at things but that's a ways away the the I'm sure you're familiar with most of the numbers so I'm not going to go into that what I read and is management's discussion and analysis and that starts on page 4 and runs for 5 or 6 pages anyone who wants to get a good sense of what happened during the year can get it just in reading that as it's indicated it's written by management we have to ensure that all the information there is consistent with what's in the audit that follows and that includes all of the required information and it does so you get a really good sense of what happened there's some summary financial information there's some narrative that talks about what happened there's a little bit of information about what's going forward so you can get quite a bit of information in just those 6 pages the the key page is the very last page and this is what the state and the federal government will turn to when they get this report and it's the summary and what that indicates as I indicated is that the auditor's report is unmodified we have no findings we had no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal control or no non-compliance findings related to the financial statements in our audit of the highway planning and construction funds which was the major program this year some of that is based on dollars spent some of it's a rotation of large programs this is the program we tested this year we had no again no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies and our report on compliance was unmodified which means that in all of the various testing that we did we had no findings and what that means is that the very last line is that because you've done this now for at least 3 years in a row you qualified to be what's considered a low risk audit T and what that means is that not only do you have the systems in place to manage federal funds but you've proved you can do it over a long period of time and so that's an important distinction it indicates to the feds and to the state that you do have good systems in place and that they're functioning the way they're supposed to be so it's nice to see that that is something they look at and take seriously I don't know if there's any general questions or any specific questions on any of the numbers of the reports that I can answer pension liabilities age 5 we are a taker of the actuarial assumptions from the V-MERS the acronym for municipal employees retirement system correct recently Moody's investor service downgrading the state from triple A to double A plus and that'll affect some of our towns so I was wondering how much that might affect the actuarial assumptions and should we be looking at what that might do to the pension liability note we have to supply to our community it should have no impact on the assumptions themselves the reduction rating was due to the assumptions that were in place partly from V-MERS mostly from state teachers and state pension but all part of it and so what the bond market is starting to look at is understanding that Vermont has severely underfunded their pensions the V-MERS is the highest funded that's the highest ratio it's hovered somewhere between 90% it was it was down to I think 83.5% last year so it was high as 98% in 2015 and so there's going to be fluctuations some of it's due to assumptions some of it's due to changes in mortality rates but over time it has been dipping a little bit so the answer is that this will have an impact on already has on the bond rating because most of you borrow through the bond bank and their credit is based on the state's credit we expect to see some increase in borrowing costs as a result of the state not funding the pension this one is funded because they get the money from you any money that goes into this pension there's no money in the securities in the various districts the teachers obviously and the state is funded by the state and that one has not been funded although the governor has indicated that he's going to use this year's surplus to put more money into it it will be a drop in a bucket and for this year there's also a huge liability that hasn't been discussed for post employment benefits health insurance you don't mind me just following up is that the chances that we as an organization will have what I call a UFO which is an unrecognized financial obligation from that is small is small, correct and based on everything that the actuaries have told us over consistently is that at the current funding levels with minor increases eighth of a point here and there over the next number of years we're going to pay all liabilities for all retirees for as long as we can see and so this is one of the better funded and it has a minor impact on that rating but it's more of the state pension itself and particularly the teachers so but it shouldn't affect the assumptions if you want to see more detail on that page 20 of the audit it has more detail it actually has like the percent one big thing just because there are these three big pension plans for the municipal the state employees and the teachers and made reference to the health insurance the Veeamers does not have health insurance for retirees I just want to make sure people are clear on that I think that's only the teachers pension fund that has health retirement benefits and the state probably as well yeah but no any health insurance before a certain point in time it stopped they just altered it it used to be 5 years you'd get 80% I thought like in 2008 it stopped giving the lifetime benefit it's 5 years you're in but then you only get 20% in another 10 years you get another 20% 5 years you get another I didn't mean to get into that but I just was concerned about an unrecognized financial opportunity that would already have to be recognized if you had it and you don't so it's not in here there are a few municipalities that do but that's rare are there any other issues that could result in UFOs for us things no I don't see anything in fact you know I don't frankly think that the Veeamers should be on your books at all either because it's something you have no control over you're paying what you're supposed to pay but in fact this year are reducing your total equity by about 267,000 and so it's a liability that shows up on your books but you can't change it you're doing what you're supposed to do but they can come back to us if it turns out to be underfunded and assess us proportionally so that's why it has to be on a book it's there to show that that you are ultimately responsible a little more nuanced in our situation because as an employer we're over contributing and so we've kind of made a deal with our staff including myself that any additional contributions will be picked up by the employee so it's a little more nuanced for us in terms of you know even less liability in terms of the organization and ultimately municipalities here are there any other questions or issues I could just comment before but I'd be remiss not to make it again it's always an important accomplishment to come through the audit process as well as we do and that doesn't happen by accident of course it's the hard work of staff particularly Forest and Bernie and all the staff and their work on the financial systems that do this and I think that they are to be commended on another year of a clean audit sexy to be referred to as a low risk audit I guess unless you're an accountant that maybe gives you a thrill but the reality is that it's an important accomplishment which makes all of our work as commissioners a lot easier without having to worry about those things as well Mr. Chair I always say it every year too I want to echo that but I also want to echo our vendor because we put this out a bit and we asked the vendor to rotate accountants and auditors to come through to make sure that everything was above board and Fred's accounting firm they've been extremely responsive to all the concerns that the members of the finance committee are that we're doing everything with the people's money properly above board and transparently and so I want to personally thank our vendor on this we've had a long-term relationship with them and he willingly went through a full RFP process last time that we retained his firm and he's been very responsive to all of our requests great so at this time we need a motion to accept the move that the CCRPC board accept the audit as presented here this evening any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion say aye all opposed the ayes have it thank you very much Fred drive safe next item on the agenda is a discussion regarding the green ride bike share date pause for a second is this going to be a powerpoint are you going to make the the word tonight no vacuums tonight props props maybe I spoke too soon you are going to tell us how many of those things are in the lake right zero zero who's going to ride it everybody do laps all right mute snooze something better get a lane here describe my weekend okay mute snooze something kind of powerpoint I like be all for dooms okay during our board training I mentioned green ride bike share a couple times so now you get to hear a little bit more about it hopefully you've all seen the bikes in Burlington south for the same news you've seen people riding them around I'm sort of standing and talking in the back of the chess head I'm going to move it around a little bit and mix it up so I tell you it's going to be boring so again I'm Brian Davis Brian walking and biking this is Bob Dale he's the general manager for green ride bike share when he's your resident I'm going to put a plug in for that so we got a local guy here so let's just jump right in instead of me talking over myself bike sharing is basically for legal bicycles that's available for the public to use you find a bike you walk up to it do whatever you need to do hop on it ride to where you want to go drop off the bike what makes it work is the number of bikes the number of stations we're leaving it somewhere else we're working on our next phase for that and we're looking at all the benefits that bike share can provide it helps people get around it's an affordable way for people to park right around the business shopping there it addresses some of the congestion issues air quality issues health issues you're getting physical exercise so it's great and when we combine that with transit with walking we're really expanding the ways that people can get around John mentioned how many are in the lake well fortunately that doesn't really happen with our system bike sharing started in the 60s they had the free white bikes around just walk up to it find it junk it, trash it, steal it whatever you want to do with it while many have deemed it as a failure today in the 90s it was sort of a dumb dock situation you could do these coin and drop a coin in a slot that's kind of like this old grocery cart system put a coin in and release the bike as you ride it when you're done docking back up you get your coin back again so a little bit is going to be about a ton but it's something we've got a smart dock in the 2000s I'm sure you've heard of Bigsy and Delib in Paris again it's a dock heavy infrastructure with these racks, with the bikes docked in there, some kiosk you can use your credit card big light up display but the tech is all there once you give your information, pay your fee take the bike out it's a bike it's heavy, it's clunky, it gets you around and then you get where you need to be and you gotta slam it back in the dock works wildly successful set the stage for the next iteration of bike sharing the social bicycles took the technology out of the docking station and put it on the back of the bike which you can see there so now we are able to use regular bicycle racks inexpensive and track all the bikes where they go and that provides us a lot of data we know how far people are riding how long they're on the bike, where they're going how many times they use the system how many calories they're burning how many dollars they're saving the most current iteration of bike sharing is the dockless systems and I'm sure you've heard of companies mostly coming out of China but we also have some in the US now where you don't need any racks or stations there are just bikes every year which is convenient in that you can use your phone and find the bike over there and get it and ride it and you're done and you leave it on the sidewalk if you want lock it over here if you want put it in your front yard if you want toss it in the lake if you want they're also chipped so they can find them but again it's, you know, there's another way to do it which is a little more organized and I'm sure you've also heard about scooters while Peelier had their scooter share pilot which just concluded so things are moving very very very quickly when we started our process with this bike dockless wasn't even a thing that's how fast things are happening scooters weren't a thing until this year so it's really full steam ahead and it's not necessarily something new it's been looked at here it's identified in a bunch of local plans including our own active transportation plan that bike sharing is a way to achieve the goals in our regional plans in our transportation plans that we want to achieve Burlington's plan BTB Walkbite mentions that U of M and their active transportation plans same thing with Champlain College a type of transportation option that would be desired here and you can see there I have a bullet with a feasibility study by local motion I'll get to that in a second in Katmah, Chittin area, TMA bike sharing is a way of helping them achieve the goal of expanding transportation options particularly for employers a little bit of history about our current system that we have here in 2011 there were a group of folks including myself some city staff local motion a reporter some campus representatives we went up to Montreal to meet with the company that runs Bixie to meet with them and figure out how do you get this thing started what does it look like, how does it function what does it cost so when it comes time to do it here we came away thinking wow that is super duper expensive crazy expensive because it's very dock heavy still very new even in 2011, 7 years old but I showed you the timeline it's changed three times since then in the meantime University of Vermont Champlain College and even the city of Burlington had their own bike library style system of bike sharing so you have to have someone that staffs this say I like to borrow the bike they hand you a key you go unlock the lock with the key you have to bring it back there then you have to hand your key in so there's a little bit of human touch necessary there's a little bit of time limit if someone's not staffing the table at that time you don't get to ride the bike but it functions when it's open but there is a desire with them and here at the regional planning commission that especially recognizing what's happening across the world and our country that this could work here so in October 2016 we put out an RFP and selected Gacha bike as a preferred vendor they are out of South Carolina so they build their own bikes and they use social bicycles technology so I'm kind of proud that we put the RFP out in October and not two years later we had bikes on the ground it was a lot of work I will say that the RPC didn't write any checks it's my staff time, it's part of what I do it's my job and so who's involved? that's probably your next question I would guess cab is at the table, UVM, Champlain College and us that's our local bike share team we're close partners with Gacha Bike which is probably Gacha Group Old Spokes Home holds the contract for rebalancing the system when all the bikes end up at the bottom of the hill they're in charge of bringing you back up the hill and maintaining the bikes they make sure that everything's working correctly users can report an issue if something's wrong with the bike the button's on the back, they can say flat tire something's wrong, the headlight doesn't work it pings the back end and we can get that fixed right away and the contract with Gacha Bike is held by CATMA and as you know, CATMA is a non-profit so this isn't a money seeking business venture for us this is a transportation option that we wanted to provide for the public you can have a walk, you can have a private bike you can use our sharing we have a good bus system and this fills that first mile, last mile connection as stated in our mission that I got ahead of myself this is why we started it we want to provide a transportation option for people to get around an affordable, convenient transportation option for people to get around and it would accomplish all of those things and more and Gacha Bike has been responsive to us at CATMA we were like no, there's a big hill in seven speeds there were like no problem let's do it so they put seven speeds on it I mentioned this at the beginning I won't read bullets to you because that's boring and equity not everyone has a smart phone so how do we get around that people can go to the breaking word establishment at this point it's Old Spokes Home we're working on expanding our green ride for all programs and get your user information to enter on the pen the rate is also low so we want this it's a transportation option for people so we're trying to get it accessible sponsorship, we scraped and clawed enough funding to get this on the ground we have our title sponsors have been in Jerry's for seven generations we're very grateful for their support other sponsors include University of Vermont Medical Center UDL is a student fund we applied for and we're awarded a grant through that program to help the bikes on the ground Shampa College and UDL supplied this first ground provided tracks which is fantastic there's a safety sticker in the basket some of you can see that sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont a few trans is participating through the Goverment Program AARP is on board, they see the value and how this can serve their population Healthy Living is one of our private sponsors they're like yep, we want bikes in front of our store people will use it and then partnerships with the current cities our future vision is to expand it right now we are in these three towns and then our partner team over there and now I'll pass it on to Bob I might just sneak up here real quick just to talk over the bike with you guys a little bit so as Brian mentioned these bikes are assembled from the ground up down in Charleston South Carolina by the Dacia team down there a couple great features like Brian mentioned seven speed bikes so these are all you know pedal power seven speed bikes starting from the front here lights on both the front and back the great things about these with the going to these smart bike systems is having everything right here on the bike so with the ability to have all of the brains of the system right here on the bike it makes things very easy for users they can go right up to the system enter in their account and pin number right here on the back of the bike and utilize this lock system so these you locks are very versatile they can be locked to both our green rides system hubs as well as basic bike racks as well around town the basket on the front with some safety information for anyone who can't really see some safety information and some branding from our friends by Blue Cross Blue Shield in the front there Kevlar seats they are rust proof so they can really withstand the elements out there which is a great option especially around here as we've seen over the past few weeks it's nice to not have to worry about having our bikes out there we do have our operators on the ground who are responsible for going out helping clear off some of the snow and ice but these things are very sturdy bikes like I mentioned Kevlar seats and the you lock smart locking system and computer and brains of the bike right in the back here nice and light bikes as well aluminum frame right around 40 pounds very nice versatile sturdy bikes go so that is the bike obviously you guys have probably seen around town we have them currently branded with Ben and Jerry's and the 7th generation our two title sponsors the hubs themselves you guys have probably seen these around town they are regular URAC hub system very flashy with the nice green branding on there each hub is either a freestanding sign or we can actually put signage panels on a local building or structure around any of our hubs as well the signs themselves include a local map some system information as well as some of our sponsor branding on there as well the great thing about utilizing a smart bike is that these hubs can move around and we also have the ability to geo-fence virtual hubs as well so if we have any sort of special events if there is anything going on around town or we want to designate a specific area we can actually go in on the back and virtually geo-fence an existing public bike rack and it then becomes a green ride bike share rack and there are none of the fees associated with locking the bikes or leaving the bikes outside of one of our hubs so a lot of versatility there our current phase this is a little map of our system at the moment in place for phase one we have 105 bikes on the ground at 17 hubs around town this is a little bit seasonal as we come into the winter we are still sort of finalizing our winter plan for our first winter for the system so as we go, as the weather continues we will be pulling some bikes out of the system as well as a couple of the hubs our Ben and Jerry's hub downtown is already out of place so we are currently running with 16 for the winter months so that's sort of an ongoing process figuring out how the bikes and the hubs will play out throughout the year again like Brian mentioned we have these hubs both in Burlington, South Burlington and Muskie our main focus with our system that we have in place we really are trying to push this for residents, commuters and employees we are really looking to make this a local commuter option and a great local sustainable transportation option for residents obviously there is a lot of tourists used during the summer months but our main focus with this program is really trying to push towards a better transportation for locals looking ahead to some further phases we are in the process of working our way through our second phase which will roll out this upcoming spring with phase 2 and then ahead to phase 3 our second phase we are looking at moving up to somewhere around 25 hubs with the implementation of a few more bikes bringing us to around 200 bikes for phase 2 eventually looking ahead to phase 3 around 300 bikes at 45 hubs the big goal of this program is to make it a regional system it's very easy for a lot of people to say the Burlington bike share program we don't like that name because we really are trying to make this a regional program so moving out to some of our towns outside of the Burlington area looking at some more areas in South Burlington, Muskie and then expanding out to Colchester Wilston, Shelburne as well how much does it cost? This is a little breakdown of our costs you can see we have multiple membership options and payment plans as well as our quick trip option so if a user is coming up they don't want to sign up for a month of your annual plan they can walk up to one of the bikes so you can reserve both online or through our app we'll get into a little more detail in just a second it's $2 to unlock the bike and you're paying $5 every 30 minutes after that first 30 minutes with that $2 unlock for a quick trip our monthly and annual memberships the monthly is $15 a month the annual $50 a month that also gets you 60 minutes of free ride time a day so again as we are really trying to push this towards locals as a commuter option looking towards those monthly and annual plans is a great option for people getting to and from work if they're getting off the bus and going to the grocery store you name it with those plans like we said 60 minutes of free ride time per day Brian touched quickly on the green ride for all our equity program that is discounted both monthly and annual memberships for people who qualify through the Vermont EBT card holders as well as discounted campus plans and discounted plans for Catbook members as well how does it work the nitty gritty so like Brian mentioned there are a couple ways that you can get yourself access to these bikes if you do not have a smartphone you don't have access to a computer you can actually sign up for one of the payment plans through our partners at Old Spokes Home you can also sign yourself up for either a quick ride or one of our payment plans via the website or you can utilize the SOBI the social bicycles app on that SOBI app it will give you a map it will show you where all the bikes are in our system you can reserve a bike through there or you can simply walk up to a local hub where you have some bikes available once you have signed up for either a quick trip or one of the payment plans you are given an account number and a four digit pin just goes right into the back into our computer system right on the back of the bike it releases the U-bar you can unlock it from the hub and then you're ready to go once you are out and riding these bikes also have a hold option which is a great option for people who may be biking around want to stop for a cup of coffee all you do is find a place to lock the bike, hit hold and it gives you half an hour of time to go inside grab a cup of coffee whatever it may be that does account towards your total ride time as well when you are finished with your ride we highly encourage people to return the bikes back to one of our actual hubs but you do have the option of also locking the bikes to a bike rack outside of our hubs there is a fee for an out of hub and then also a charge if you end your ride outside of our system map as well so we do highly encourage people to return them to our hubs but like we said with that hold option it gives people a little bit of freedom if they are biking around want to grab a cup of coffee pop into a shop quickly it adds a little bit of versatility we have seen so far so our system launch was in mid-April since then we have had close to right around 587 active members throughout the past six months close to 900,000 calories burned our average ride time is right around 18 minutes the average distance is 1.78 miles so the great thing with these systems utilizing SOBI is through our back end we can pull a lot of data out of each individual bike which helps gives us a really great picture of how the system is doing where certain bikes may be any problems that we may arise in the system can all be accessed right through our back end that image on the right there that is a heat map which we can access through our back end as well which kind of gives us a live play on how the bikes are moving around the system and as you can see the bikes are really being utilized almost everywhere in our system map you can see an almost perfect layout of the city grid even some people going out to the airport as well which is great to see so we have been pretty happy with the system so far there definitely is some room to grow but we have been pretty happy with some of these numbers so far and that member number of 587 those are monthly and annual members 3,000 people that just at pay as you go or at least 3,000 pay as you go trips with this data on the back end as well we can also look at how our hubs are being utilized so we just pulled some of the statistics from this past summer looking through June to August as you can see a lot of usage down at the waterfront and disperse a little bit through the college campus and some downtown as well so this is showing where bikes were leaving from and where they were returning to so as you can see on that right side of the waterfront that was a lot of leaving from the waterfront returning bikes back to the waterfront our other hubs had a lot more traffic going to and from other hubs as the students have come back as you can see that changes a little bit a little bit less usage on the waterfront and a little bit spaced out system wide as well so a lot more usage on the campuses and a little bit more in our yes that is our hotspot right now so a great thing being able to look at all these numbers is we can sort of track as the year goes on where are the bikes ending up it can really help us look into the health of our hub locations which will be a really key player as we're looking towards our second phase evaluating our current hubs that we have and looking ahead to implementing more hubs moving some of our current hubs around a lot of these numbers are very very helpful for some of these studies a lot of questions around bike share are always floating around there the big one is always helmets and safety safety is obviously a really major concern for all of us in the mobility and transportation industry it's sort of been a big head scratching question for all the bike share programs out there we are looking forward to trying to do some partnerships with the possibility of some local shops anytime people sign up if we're ever having a membership drive when people are signing up we are handing out free helmets so we are definitely looking for some ways to improve our safety standards with bike share just a little bit more education and just getting some more helmets out there the hills as Brian mentioned when they were talking about bringing these bikes in we do have a lot of hills around here that is always a little bit of a drawback for some people it can be kind of nerve wracking when people see a huge hill in front of them luckily these seven speed bikes can get up and down these hills pretty well and looking ahead to our next few phases we are looking at the possibility of rolling out some e-assist bikes and the e-scooters as well obviously weather and re-balancing here in Burlington being on a big hill a lot of the bikes really easy to take a bike from the top of the hill cruise down towards the waterfront when you turn back around and look back up the hill some people choose to take another form of transportation so as we are looking ahead to some of these future phases that is where we really see the e-assist bikes coming into play to have a healthy system that can re-balance itself as opposed to having members out there spending time re-balancing the bikes themselves do you want to mention in FY19 annual work program the RBC has put aside some funding to study Phase 1 so far and we've been dragging our feet a little bit because of why we started studying July when we just launched in April so we wanted to have enough time to gather some data not only over the summer months but also when the students are back so tool design group is one of our pre-qualified consultants I'll call with them today to go over the draft scope and talk about some of the things that we really want to make sure we're covering are the stations in the right place, how many more bikes do we need what's the usage look like what are the positive metrics we want to be hitting so on so on so that will be taking place over the next couple months I expect that not to take very long it's not a bridge scoping study so we shouldn't take it here and that's great we did apply for and we're awarded a bike peg grant from the state to help expand the system again I mentioned we're just using URAX so we applied to grant to basically double the number of URAX that are available so we can decide based on the study do we need to cash in that full grant and double or do we only need a little bit of it at this point are we going from 17 to 25 or 30 or are we going from 17 to 34 but that's great that we have that support that people see the value of this to support our expansion at this point yes so looking ahead to these expansions gotcha our partners down in Charleston they are just putting the final touches on their e-scooters so they have built their own personal e-scooter from the ground up which is quite different from a few of the other brands out there that have an e-scooter that is an electric scooter as well so there is the option of rolling some of the scooters out in future phases there's obviously a lot of question marks that come around the talk of scooters so there are still some planning pieces and some question marks around the scooters and how they will be implemented into the system going forward the great thing with the gotcha system is that as they systems come around spring everything will be centralized right through a gotcha app so they will no longer be using the SOE computer systems it will all be utilized right through one gotcha app so if there are multiple transportation options on the ground in Burlington people can go right through one app they can see where the bikes are they can switch over to see where the scooters are so it really makes it very user friendly to just centralize that all through one application we're really looking forward Brian mentioned about the green ride for all program it's a sort of a big passion project for myself I just came on board for the system sort of mid October so doing a little bit more work behind the green ride for all and our equity programs is a little bit of a passion project for myself and we are really looking to sort of expand both education and some of our outreach to really get this system in place for locals as an alternative transportation option and we were also recently awarded another grant do you want to touch on that? I mentioned the health benefits you get on a bike, you're active it feels good, good for your health and so I had read about I think it was in Chicago that they had this similar type of program and we applied for states, council and physical fitness grant and basically we're going to try to find a network of doctors who are willing to write prescriptions if you will if physical activity will help whatever condition you have they can give you an annual membership to green ride bike share not only can we track that person's usage on it but when they go back for their follow-up appointments we're hoping to see blood pressure drops that's what we want to see so we were awarded that grant to pilot that you know there's still so there's two different types of bikes it's a cyst it's not a e-bike there's no throttle on it, you still have to pedal there's still a benefit to being out there pedaling so we're excited about that that will get started on probably at the beginning of the year and get that going on and then overall we just want to get more people on those bikes we want to get ridership up and membership up and that heat map I love looking at that heat map looking at it through my planner's lens people are riding everywhere, it's fantastic so in towns are wondering what roads should we improve all of them the annual membership do you get to have the 356 hours however you use it it's an hour per day yes so you get 60 minutes of free ride time per day that can be utilized can you use it or lose it can you use it or lose it it's per day use it or lose it could you talk a little bit more about the finances because it sounds like private sector sponsors got things going then you talked about a grant I don't think it was at a public sector grant I'm just trying to see where is this five years down the line this is cost neutral to the municipalities but ten years if it's a fully functioning embedded system how is the revenue going to come in to pay for that assuming that the rides themselves are not going to cover the cost for doing that the goal ultimately is to have enough ridership to support the system it may take a little while to get there it was private sponsored dollars that got us off the ground however UVM Medical Center, UVM, Champlain College also contributed we did ask for municipal sponsorship which hasn't quite come to fruition although we do have a signed agreement with Burlington at this point but based on how Gotcha is looking into the future about expansion they don't need the financial support from the municipalities anymore is it comfortable to like the bus system where we should just expect especially if you're a little bit further out of the core that you're going to have towns towns will need to support this I'm not saying it's not worth supporting it's pretty good stuff but where would you suspect that it's ultimately going to continue to be sort of subsidized to keep going it's too early to say that I hope not this analysis study that I mentioned that we're looking at that's one of the tasks what is that future revenue look like what do we need to be doing to be cost neutral a follow up question what are the goals of bike share programs that are self-sustaining in terms of revenue from riders they're within the Gotcha system luckily they've had a lot we've had a lot of great programs at university levels that have been very self-sustaining through ridership through memberships and payment plans especially the universities Gotcha themselves sort of specialize in universities they really got their start in university marketing at the universities obviously universities are a little bit smaller scale they're really only implementing those systems and really putting money into those systems during school months when they have thousands of kids around at a university so scaling that up to municipal systems bike ride at this level especially with the utilization of the smart bikes and on this scale as of right now is that we are rolling out right now what kind of show if just the ridership dollars are really viable to fully fully fund some of these municipal systems and the other major companies that you're probably hearing about are not self-sustaining they are venture capital backed and so they're just throwing bikes out there they've got money behind it but at some point when the money's gone we've already seen that from some of the Chinese companies I'll ask the question that's in the room how much? so it was a three year lease with gotcha that was a little over $200,000 at the time each year I should know this off the top of my head because I looked at it enough but a little over half a million dollars for the three years however when we built that budget it included electric assist bikes which we don't have are we renting the bikes from them? releasing the bikes and everything else it was a per bike cost model and how much of the $200,000 annual cost through the first few months has been generated by user revenue? I don't know what the revenue is 10% 20% 1% off the top of my head I couldn't tell you exactly what the rider revenue we do the best the financing part of it is interesting because gotchas the private company and they get to see all that stuff and we can do back of the envelope calculations based on the ridership numbers and what we're charging so they get the revenue from the riders? we have been trying to claw back as much as we can and they're a willing partner when we started this we said everything that we make on this system we want to go back and expand as quickly as possible and they said we get it how about this? and we said no how about 100% we're trying to work on that revenue share so that we can continue to build the program and they've been a good partner they are totally willing to work with whatever riders the last question is is it reasonable to think that we could get to some kind of stabilized financial model in 5 years 10 years 3 years so 5 years from now if we're sitting here and we're not at a stabilized financial model we're looking at some other way to generate the sources I think if the sponsorship dollars isn't the private dollars aren't there to support it and the ridership isn't there to support it I don't know why public dollars would I don't know it's a great question I'm feeling like Wayne I'm getting CCTV and you know I've mentioned how quickly everything changed you've got to get rid of that hill then everything changed that might be expensive the electric assist bikes if you've ridden electric assist bikes you're like I get it so if we can get 200 of those bikes on the ground we're going to see more ridership and with that second phase rolling out with the assist bikes we are hoping that moving towards that model will really increase that rider revenue with increased rides just a little bit more easier access and increasing that ridership hopefully we'll get more rider revenue I also wanted to ask you had a data point for the pounds of carbon dioxide that had been reduced is that actual measurable people chose to ride the bikes as opposed to take the car I mean how are you measuring that so that is calculated through SOBE and they take those numbers sort of calculating the mileage versus both ridership the metric on both cars and bus transportation and somehow on that back end when they are calculating our trip, smileage, number of rides per day but not walking if somebody rode a bike instead of walking that's pretty carbon neutral so I think all of those numbers that they are spinning out for that pounds of carbon save is versus driving a car if you don't know whether the person is there a way with that smart hub there on the back to say just a little survey is this instead of driving or I don't know some way to measure there is that possibility I mean we are hoping that with all these ridership we are especially looking towards making this a sustainable transportation option is we are hoping that it does locals utilizing these bikes and I believe more bikes on the road will do that because people would prefer to get on their bikes when they see 100 bike riders in front of them so there is something to that mass, the critical mass that's needed to really change people's behavior can I ask you a question about that because the bikes are located closer to where people work how do you use that to commute can you actually take it home at night and bring it back in the morning you can, there is a fee associated but then you are paying for that number of hours yeah well you are not paying for the number of hours you are paying when you lock it either out of a hub or out of a system so it's one set out of hub lock up you technically could bike at home you are and it wouldn't charge you for that whole time that you had it it would charge you for just as long as it is in the system it is only charging an out of hub fee so if you do the 50 bucks for the year for the out of hub it's $5 for an out of hub $50 if you are out of system out of system the range of there is a system boundary so if you bike if you leave it on Webster Road and you are going to pay an annual fee Charlie optimally it sounds like like a bus stop bus stops can only be finite so bicycles also have a hub you can walk a certain distance to it jump on your bike put it in another hub walk a little distance it will take you a place the bus won't and I look at it as kind of adjunct to the whole public transit system and it all has you got to get from where you are at least to wherever the dock is for the most part whether it's a bus stop or a bike rack or whatever when you saw that map with all the pens about the phase one north end, south end, Winooski we know we need more of those but we could only we had to get those bikes on the ground so we already know and the study will help us specifically where where those additional stations can go so having doubling the fleet of bikes and adding stations and people choosing to accept that $5 or we may choose to drop it you know $1 I think the unspoken stuff here I made the bad joke to start the conversation on tonight but it's if you're going to be seen as a a modern city modern community there are people that will choose to live there go to school there work there do whatever based on whatever it is that they feel they need this is this kind of thing is becoming very usual modern places that people actually want to live to me it has an advantage just being one of the options that people look for when they make bigger decisions which actually adds to the economy so this is a I'm really happy to see that we've jumped on this bandwagon I think it's just the way the future is going to be thanks for we probably took it more than the time we were allotted but thank you for listening to that I know we've been working on it a lot behind the scenes thank you very much see a definition of park and right evolve we don't stay the same the next item on our agenda is an introduction to the I-89 2050 study it will begin in fiscal year 19 which as we learned earlier is but a I will be dead moment in time when it comes to transportation so Eleni you're going to guide this discussion excellent well I did if somebody lived to be 103 in my family so maybe there you go you might be still around there I'm just going to give you a very brief update and maybe maybe not that's not showing the same thing you're looking at yeah no it's not actually I'm looking at mine and let me just try to see if I can take this off so a very brief overview won't take a lot of your time because we're still at the very beginning of this study we're actually in the midst of trying to procure a consultant at the moment so we haven't really started but it's going to be a very it's going to be a multi-year study probably two to three years probably three years and to be honest shoot for two but be realistic it may turn into three be realistic and say three from the very beginning so just to remind all of us why we're doing this study you saw this slide like last year when we were developing our metropolitan transportation plan numerous times but this is what we came up as our 2050 MTP investments and one of the recommendations out of the MTP was actually to just conduct a study a corridor study as well as some scoping elements with this that's corridor study for the I-89 corridor and we were thinking back then between X-12 and 16 but through discussions with veterans we actually decided to just look at the entire interstate corridor in Chinatown County as well as the interchanges within the urban core so and we're doing this because when we did the MTP the MTP and the regional plan are a high level planning and you know we run our model and our model said that we needed for example a third lane interstate to clean exits for the MTP and that's again at the high level at the modeling level we really need to just go down and look at the corridor level more evaluation analysis to figure out exactly what we need to do with interstate itself the main line as well as specific interchanges around South Burlington area so you saw these slides too I just left them here because it's kind of an interesting way of looking at it this is modeling outputs that we did last year yes it was last year and so all you see here is basically congestion so this is roadway capacity more like the urban core of the county and yellow indicates very light congestion and goes all the way to purple which is very severe congestion it's the V-OBC ratio it's above one it's overcapacity is where traffic stops so this is 2015 this is our base here that we looked at so this is our 2050 base and what I mean by that is that if we don't do any transportation investments in 2050 but we still have the growth in population employment which brings more traffic then we're going to have this capacity issue on the interstate between 14 and 15 northbound so one of the investments then that that lead us to basically look at different investments you know not only for the interstate for the whole county so one of the investments was to actually have a third lane of the interstate between 14 and 15 and plus a number of other investments we had investments in public transportation in TDM in bike and pad we increased all the other modes to the degree possible but we still needed to do this but when we do that this is our MTP investment so the first slide that I show you with all those investments if we do all those this is what we end up with and as you can see the congestion between 14 and 15 went down but we pushed the congestion up to 16 and 17 so that's why this study this I89 study is basically so important we just need to take a much closer look a much more detailed look about what's going on and what are the ramifications of doing you know the different kind of like improvements so overall our goals for this study is basically first we're going to look at we're going to assess and evaluate the current conditions on the corridor as well as interchanges within the county and we're going to look at a bunch of different things and it's just you can see there that this is just a partial list by the way I couldn't put all of them there so we're going to do that for the current conditions and we are also going to assess future needs which includes future land use employment, households and then we're going to develop alternatives we're going to evaluate these alternatives we're going to develop multiple alternatives especially for the interchange areas we're going to look at we're going to look at increasing transit we're going to look at capital as well as operational improvements and we are going to look at everything else like you know if especially the transportation and land use interplates it's pretty important because if you add capacity to the interstate it affects where people live so it will affect the land use within Chinatown County as well as outside Chinatown County and we're going to have to look at that and we are planning to do that we're also going to look at quality energy consumption as we evaluate these alternatives and at the very end we are hoping to develop an implementation plan that is going to have multi-modal strategies and we're hopefully it's not going to be our long-term and capital investments only we would like to see some short term maybe with ITS with technology to help us in the meantime as well as medium term so that is the actual goal of this you know corridor plan it's going to be a plan and a study that has a lot of public participation participation by stakeholders we're going to manage the study CCRPC is managing the study but we are going to have a technical committee that is going to help us with the technical issues as we move forward which is going to be plenty because we have a lot of modeling macro level and micro level micro simulations as well as running the original model we are going to have an advisory committee to provide overall guidance policy guidance and oversight and as you can see the membership of that committee the advisory committee is very diverse so we're going to have fun so we are I'm looking forward to it we're also going to have focus groups that we go to they're not going to be sitting on the advisory committee but we're going to be going to all these groups at crucial stages in the study to get their input and basically get their comments on alternatives and of course we're going to have our general public meetings and workshops so it is the public participation component of this study is pretty it's robust as I mentioned before we're in the middle of procuring and hiring a consultant we decided to do a two step procurement process the first step is done we advertise for a letter of intent and a statement of qualifications pretty widely in September the selection committee actually selected four firms to basically we asked them to respond to an RFP that we put together so we're waiting for their proposal so those firms are VHB, Stantec, WSP and Clark Harbor and Associates and we are now in step two we developed the RFP in-house but we got a lot of comments from veterans and other partners which we incorporate into the RFP and we are the proposals are due next week, Friday and the selection committee I set the meeting up today so we are meeting in December 20th and we might or might not ask the top two consultants to come for interviews we're going to have to decide so we are really hoping that we're going to have a contract awarded in February, we want to go to the TAC in February with a recommendation so that's a very brief overview of what we're doing and we're going to be coming back to you on a regular basis and giving you updates on all this for our work program this is the biggest project in our work program not just this year but probably for the next two fiscal years and so one thing just to note to have that in the back of your mind it may end up depending on the cost proposals we get from these consultant teams reducing the amount that we have typically had for municipal partners so the UPWP committee will have that information by the spring to factor that in but the other thing I really want to say is a thank you to VTRANS because I think VTRANS is really committed to being a partner on this and it's not just the RPC go study that and we'll see what happens but we're really doing it together and it also I think expanded the scope a little bit because we probably got into some of the asset management things that VTRANS is concerned about one of they are going to have to replace the sub base of 89 which is something I hadn't thought about but that road is probably getting pretty close to 50 years old and they're having to repave it or do some sort of resurfacing that I hear like every six years I think so that was just kind of interesting dynamic and so I think this will be a little broader scope and more holistic and I think we're reflecting some evolving philosophy at VTRANS about if we're going to go in and fix something if it's for maintenance we can improve it at the same time or if we're going to do an improvement project maybe we can incorporate the maintenance at the same time so it's I think this should be fun is that the word you were looking at and already the different partners the cast of characters is very similar to what we did with the CIRC alternatives and so I think we got to some outcome in that process and so kind of looking forward to I don't know if we're really looking forward to all of the process pieces but looking forward to having a positive outcome a couple pieces that another interchange was in our MTP we're not sure if that's really the issues around exit 14 is where the system is breaking down there's no news to anybody and so a question of can we improve exit 14 or is there something that needs to happen and there you see like the exit 12B we put into the plan as a placeholder but 14N which is something the airport recommended which is a new partial interchange I think that would just go over to the airport parkway which is very close there on the south side of the UNISC river also had the same kind of positive regional traffic benefit in terms of relieving traffic at exit 14 so anyway there's a lot to look at there and there's certainly a lot of other issues in towns as we go out to the ends too so stay tuned you'll hear more but the first few months are probably just going to be data gathering and things like that so I expect probably next fall is really where we start to have some conversations about what the future might look like and sorry Megan I'm looking at you a lot because surprise a lot of this happens in south Burlington so for better or worse but hopefully we get to the best possible outcome for all the issues included here so stay tuned oh yeah sure I think one of the most important things we talk about how long does something like this take we envision this is a very long term we have to start this conversation now to have any ideas to what might realistically be feasible at some point in the future but we're not talking about major improvements in the near term this is really a long term project so I just want to stress that with all of you to go in with your eyes wide open as soon as this probably hits the press we're going to start seeing people rising up and voicing opinions about even studying it and looking at it and so as this goes along we'll get a much better sense of what kind of opposition support that kind of thing for even looking at capacity and talking about potential improvements so just so everyone realizes this is really envisioned as a really long term but we have to start the conversation if we don't start now we're just postponing the reality that we're going to have to look at this at some point so that's why we were willing to jump in and we're providing some additional funding to support the effort as well so yeah I think Amy raised a good point like right now you saw the model was saying we're like 80% capacity in that section where everybody very if we put out a poll people would say it's already over capacity widen it tomorrow which is we are sure to get that response and I think this is going to force us to focus on what's actually happening there isn't enough volume for that segment to really be over capacity but what's really happening is they can't get off see interchange right so it's root 2 is where the issue is and so we're going to have to think through those and that's why I guess I may be fast forwarding more than I should be which I definitely am but that's why about the additional interchange is not about providing more capacity it's really providing more alternatives to get around the core of our region so but that's going to be a very tough conversation so stay tuned there will be more fun to have to be had and thank you for your transfer just ask what that new Colchester look at recognizing that we're talking 2050 I'm just curious about the Colchester look there is the one that goes from North Avenue it's a transit transit it's a transit route okay so I can don't remember exactly where it's going but I'm happy to went a little bit too far in their own direction yeah that's up on the MTP recommendations there you go so the transit enhancement actually they're pretty robust I mean it's 20 minute headways on all routes we increase transit quite a bit and I think that loop goes through North Ave what is the interface between this process and other interstate related projects that are already sort of in the pipeline exit 16 exit 12 we're going to take that into account 17 17 is coming yeah we're going to take that into account and we're going to just look at them when they're going to come online right 17 is 2022 exit 16 is hopefully soon you know so we'll definitely when we're modeling we're going to model those we're going to you know basically put the improvements into the model is this going to affect it may or may not have no idea what the answer is is this going to affect the timeline that would otherwise apply to these interstate related projects that were already in the pipeline I think we're starting off with the assumption that we would hope not unless there's like something unusual comes out of this that says oh there's a better answer that wasn't thought of when we just looked at that spot but we're not going in with that or I should say we're starting with the assumption that things are staying on track that are already on that point those projects are going to be no base model that's you know helping you know that's the assumption well and the only reason I asked is as luck would have it the V-trans and consultants presented to the Wilson select board earlier this week and I wasn't there but I watched it online and they were talking about we have a number of CIRC alternative projects related to exit 12 and there was some discussion about pulling back a bit in light of some more system wide analysis about what's going on so which may very well be the responsible thing to do but I was just curious as to how these all sort of fit together that way I mean we need to think a little bit more about that but you know my thought right now and maybe it will change is that you know the ones that they are in the capital program in front of the book or maybe DNA we're going to say like exit 16, exit 17 those are going into the base model and exit 12 and it's in the at the end of the year I'm sorry Chris it's in the year so it's a candidate project so those are not we're not going to include but hopefully we're going to just basically verify that we need those improvements and soon through this there are however for instance there is a bike-ped connection that was planned underneath the interstate bridge and an additional lane short of doing the whole exit 12-bit and that was originally intended to be something that was going to be relatively quick especially with a park and ride planned on the south side of the exit and anybody who's been by there knows that they're I mean people kind of pick their way through the weeds with cars going by both ways it's not an optimal situation at all right now so so it's not all I mean I understand completely you're not going to go ahead with a the double diverging diamond crossover interchange until this whole process is done but I hope that there are other elements that were part of the CIRC alternatives that aren't going to be pushed aside to allow this process to go forward that's that's my predictable moment on that part of this also to look where the bridges are on the interstate because I would think they're going to be the lynchpins obviously if you build a brand new bridge and then five years later you want to expand and a lane FHWA is going to look at you and say we just put all this money into this bridge go away so you really need to actually build bigger infrastructure prior to adding lanes I'm assuming that's all part of all of this any other questions all right thank you lady yeah I don't know if you can open up the other so a few quick updates for me and then we'll see what your stomach is for a longer conversation about the legislative breakfast so just to let you know business office associate I think since our last meeting we can't quite remember we've advertised so we had a fiscal assistant sorry who resigned a month or two ago and with Bernie's pending retirement decided let's look for somebody in between and so there's a job application can't be replaced but we are going to we are going to manage through the change and so we're interviewing right now so just an update that we're in the process of work with four four fours and Bernie in the short term so we're taking advantage of having Bernie here for the first part of 2019 to be able to cross train and do stuff like that so there may be a new person on our staff by your next board meeting so it just heads up on that housing convening Regina you want to give a quick update on that sure about quarterly or meetings of all of the housing committees that we've got sit around the table and talk and share with them themselves the last meeting we had was at the end of October and they talked about housing plus funds and we had about 28 attendees from eight of our municipalities so and the next one will be at the end of January probably with the topic being potentially inclusionary zone so anyway yeah I think thank you to Regina and for doing those we're getting really good participation from municipalities focusing on housing issues if you haven't heard about that we're going to plug in please contact Regina item C the UPWP hopefully you all saw that the UPWP application has gone out to your municipalities we're in the process of setting up different meetings with staff primarily staff maybe one for some of the rural towns like under hill we had meeting with your select board chair this morning but we're setting up meetings to just kind of talk about applications and help towns you know partly it's helpful for us to know what might be coming our way and but secondly and more importantly to help the towns you know kind of sift through what to apply for and if we can help them with the application so if you feel like there is something that you know should be on the radar for your town please let us know if you think one of your staff is talking to us tell them to let us know whichever way you want to go we'll work with you on that so legislative breakfast this this hasn't happened yet but I just thought I I thought maybe we'd have a few extra minutes tonight I'm not sure how if you feel like we do have a few extra minutes or not you will tell me momentarily I thought that I'd get a little bit of input since this timing has worked out pretty well and so this is the general layout that we've gone through for the legislative breakfast how many of you are going to be able to make it I'm not sure you've all registered yet so you probably got an email from Emma this morning coincidentally you got an email from Emma this morning to register if you had it so we usually kind of grounded them a little bit in the ECOS plan and those circle of prosperity and how important it is to continue to invest in Chittenden County go through some data that will these aren't all updated yet but you know smart growth we're doing well there the building homes together we've got second year data that needs to be added in here and then there's a few slides that we've kind of more stolen some things not stolen we're partnering with GBIC the sharing that's the sharing process going on and so we haven't touched base on if they want to if there's any other different points of emphasis than what we emphasized last year but you know there's just kind of the great sense of responsibility in Chittenden County to keep the economic engine going and then we provide even more data the more economic type data income tax retail and use tax contribution of Chittenden County grand list change in Chittenden County versus Vermont employment you know which is really you know without Chittenden County or this I should maybe say this labor market area you know the state of Vermont would be the Burlington South Burlington area line has fallen below the average yeah that was that was a year to go so we'll see if we get updated data on this not any better not any better yeah and these are percent changes so right so it's our growth in employment growth has slowed which is yeah maybe not a good sign but that article was just a couple days ago about that precise thing there's a lot of discussion about why it's happening you know because for example if a nurse at UVM Medical Center quits and they can't find somebody to replace it that's a lost job but it's not because of economic weakness necessarily so this is part of the reason why we also got downgraded as our lousy demographics and we don't have enough people to fill the jobs that are out there yeah which I don't know we haven't really focused enough maybe on the aging cohorts this again needs to be updated but you know 62% of the job growth has been in Chittenden County statewide so and then this is Frank Coffey who's the president of GVIC has been chairing the state board with some recommendations and then we kind of get into more of our specific stuff again this is a little bit old so we can update it with where we ended up with the MTP this was pretty close feels too much feels like too much stuff feels like we're going to be pounding them yeah with too much data yeah so what I did last year what we did since we all own this together now was we did take that data stuff and just have it as a separate handout would that be easier to do and not even spend time to the big factoids that we want them to walk away with don't you guys think that 3 to 5 but not like 20 I love data and I was feeling like good thank you mostly what we want to do is we want to listen to our emphasize our points then listen to them and offer to help them help us yeah is that done now yeah it is done yeah there were some interesting things in there let me think about how that might fit in and whether it serves a purpose in this well if you're going to do surveys you have to interpret the data that it's telling you just the data without an interpretation really doesn't do much so I'm not going to get into the modeling results but we'll probably just let them know that this 89 study is coming then the water quality funding I don't think unless you have different thoughts that this story has changed too much it's still a pending issue for the legislature this just started to add this so the commission on Act 250 is coming out with some recommendations later in well two weeks and so we'll see unfortunately we're having this breakfast before the recommendations come out so I think we'll just say we're very interested in this topic you're presenting we're not going to have like multiple presenters are you and Frank going to present what do you think one person is a lot easier it was last year yeah I don't know it seemed to work okay for me to run through at least more time for discussion just give Frank the opportunity on the slides that you present to say is there anything that you want to amplify Frank he usually said Seth anyway noted so Act 250 change one thing putting on their radar is I think that there will be a request from the RPC statewide so we have our state association called VAPTA association planning development agencies to increase the regional planning dollars that we get hasn't been increased in five years and so kind of I think we'll make more of a value for our position about like we're doing more for the state and have an increase here they had some special money for water quality and energy in particular energy is ended the extra energy dollars I think I want them to be aware that they're going to hear requests from RPCs for some additional funding can you clarify that your base RPC funding because you've gotten more transportation yeah this is the regional planning funding so this is a property property transfer tax funding is what we're talking about the portion goes to the general fund the portion goes to act 200 planning and a portion I just want to make sure that that's clear that you're talking about specifically and remember when we increased the property transfer tax rate that went to water quality that was called the clean water search so we just got to be careful that we make sure that we don't pose something that somebody can dismiss easily because we don't know what we're talking about give them a little update on the dispatch and then we kind of ended with some resources I don't think I spent any time on this other to say like there's some links yeah exactly we're here there's data we have maps you know transportation land use water quality stuff and we'll update this on some of the current things they're working on some of these water quality we'll probably say the same transportation but some of the other things we'll update so the policy issues were really kind of transportation investment water quality investment maybe some increased investment in the RPCs to help with doing those things including energy also and then and then the economic issues which you know are just kind of like just our legislators in when they go to Mount Pelier right there's a funny dynamic we're all aware of right that you know the nice thing about being in Chittany County it's so close to Vermont you know in that sense is very much there in the legislature and it has some funny perceptions about you know how all the money goes to Chittany County you know we don't often talk about how much money comes from Chittany County and so part of this I think is trying to give our legislators enough information to have some healthy discussion in the State House where those pro or anti Chittany County conversations come up one of the helpful things were is we had some raw data earlier about how much personal income tax and all that kind of stuff it's almost more instructive to say this is what we account for as a percentage of the total and this how it compares to some benchmark like we have 99% of the population but we contribute 35% of the personal income tax something that demonstrates that we make an outside contribution without beating it too hard because then people turn around and say well that's because you know you're Chittany County and the only place where wages are decent is up there and just because of where you are right I mean of course we all know this but the response to that is if you want to have the funds to invest the rest of the state to bring it up you can't be cutting your nose off despite your face otherwise we're just all fighting for crumbs from a smaller size fine I understand but they don't understand that 35 miles down in the interstate are there any issues or thoughts I do think to the point of other people there is room I think here for if one of the towns wants to poke in on one of these issues let me know if you'd like to we've invited the select board chair or city council chair and your town manager administrator so if you think one of them wants to poke in on one of these issues just to emphasize something or bring up a local perspective I do think those additional voices are helpful beyond mine for sure what Amy was saying about you know making sure that it's the regional plan I'm wondering something like this right here if we should separate out the transportation projects from the planning you know what I'm saying because we do we have the MPO and the RPC it's together but there's different functions and different funding sources so maybe instead of you got water quality bike and then you get into energy you know you have a mix of transportation non-transportation just wondering if it makes sense to put the transportation items together so it kind of lets the legislators know if they don't know that we do delve into all these different things and we have different funding sources I don't know if the messy one is water quality money from DEC the good one is water quality because there's transportation and DEC money in there but other than that it's probably not too hard to do just like some relative you can do RPC, MPO, combined RPC, MPO yeah yep how many slides do you have then put a number on them that way didn't have to count them I think I was trying to keep this to like 21 slides that's way too many well now if I take the data pieces out even if I take the data pieces out yeah I think I'll get this to like 15 minutes so that there is at least 20 something for conversation hopefully you'll emcee that when I run away from the mic you'll pick it up any other thoughts or issues that you feel like we should bring up with legislators that are maybe issues in your towns that these issues aren't touching on I mean I know there are other issues but maybe not RPC issues well certainly people can follow up with you if you have one let me know I'll only be sitting with our people yeah right yeah please come in I think we have been getting I think pretty positive I think for those that have attended it's been a very positive conversations with legislators and it's a good time to connect we're not conflicting we're not inflicting with the bankers this year we don't have to share a breakfast table or anything so we haven't spent a lot of time making sure we're not conflicting it was great because some of them showed up at our breakfast is that it? yeah yeah thank you alright next item on the agenda we've got various sundry reports included are there any members items or other business hearing none is there a motion to adjourn second one more quick announcement Bob Dale from Green Rides bike chair left his cars out here on the counter and wanted me to let y'all know that they're there excellent all favor the motion to adjourn say aye aye opposed have a good evening folks drive safe I'll tell you what I was going to say write it down and I can forward it