 please note that while the meeting has not started we are currently streaming and we are currently broadcasting. Thank you. We are gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna call this meeting to order at 1.02 p.m. We have a couple of folks missing today. Our mayor is on a trip to DC as part of a delegation to the White House and our mayor pro tem is on a flight home. We're hoping that he will arrive before the end of the meeting but as the as the third in line to the throne. Who's that? Prince Archie I believe. I'll be your Prince Archie for the day. Madam Clerk will you please call the roll. Mayor O'Neill has requested an excused absence. Mayor Pro Tem Middleton is running like you mentioned. Your mic is echoing it. Are there two mics? How's this? Better? Still weird. Maybe try the other one. We think it might be the zoom Madam Clerk. Okay. We're all good now. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Middleton is running late. Councilman Caballero. Here. Councilmember Freeman. Present. Councilmember Halsey Hyman. Present. Councilmember Johnson. Here. And Councilmember Williams is also running. He's also running late. Yes but we're hoping that Councilmember Williams will be here shortly and Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem Middleton we're hoping will join us by the end. Are there any announcements by members of the council? Councilmember Freeman did you have one? Yes thank you. Just a note for our reentry community that I had a chance to hear Brian Stevenson last night speaking and he'll be speaking again tonight I believe with Duke University and I just wanted to just send just acknowledge that this this time and these conversations that we do have on council we don't want to lose sight of our reentry community and the work that's being done by folks in our community around it and I do want to center I do believe there's a reentry reentry simulation sorry simulation happening tomorrow from 1 to 6 and just want to encourage folks to get engaged to understand how folks in our community are seeing what our services look like when they try to reenter after being justice involved thank you. Thank you Councilmember any other announcements from members of the council? Councilmember Hyman. Thank you good afternoon I just want to acknowledge today is black women's equal payday so September 21st 2022 is black women's equal payday today is used to shed awareness on one of the most struggles that black women face in terms of racial equity in pay so black women have to work from January 1st 2021 through today to equal the amount of pay that a non-Hispanic white man has made in a previous year so I just wanted to talk about that today that it is black women's equals payday thank you. Thank you I have a note from the clerk that we are not 100% sure if we've already given the mayor an excuse absence so we're going to vote on that again just to just to be sure can I have a motion on giving me an excuse absence thank you moved by councilmember Freeman second second by councilmember Caballero all in favor please raise your hand any opposed thank you passes 5 to 0 we're now going to move on to our priority items are there any priority items from the city manager good afternoon councilmembers I have a few priority items for you this afternoon I have agenda item number 7 which is an interlocal cooperation agreement with Durham County for the Durham cultural roadmap development a motion was added to reflect the costs associated with this agreement and city council is being asked to suspend the rules and vote during the work session to expedite this work agenda item number 15 which is a historic preservation fund grant project ordinance city council is being also asked to suspend the rules and vote during this work session to meet the september 30 of 2022 deadline to execute the agreement and to accept the grant agenda item number 5 in a local agreement with Durham County for joint funding of the low-income homeowners relief program which is known as L I H R P a motion has been added to reflect the costs associated with this in a local agreement in your packet agenda item number 6 which is change order number 1 and amendment number 4 to the construction manager as contract construction constructor contract with balfour baby construction LLC for the public works operation center renovation project attachment number 6 P W O C site plan was added for additional information and finally agenda item number 14 which is a citizens matter Tricia smart there is also in your packet a response from the transportation department and it has been added to your agenda package that is all I have for you this afternoon thank you thank you madam manager is there a motion on the manager's priority items move second all in favor please raise your hand all opposed thank you that passes whoops the last one was for sorry 4-0 this one passes 5-0 that council member Williams has joined us city attorney for priority items good afternoon members of council donno tools sitting again for city attorney Kim Ray Burke the city attorney's office does request one priority item this afternoon and that is to hold a closed session pursuant to NC gen stat 143-3 1811 a 3 for attorney client consultation considering the handling or settlement of the following case and that's oak charter Academy incorporated at all versus city of Durham and the case number here in Durham Superior Court is 21 CVS 21 29 thank you as there a motion to accept the city attorney's priority item moved by council member hyman seconded by council member Williams all in favor please raise your hand any opposed you passes unanimously 5-0 and finally it's city clerk for any priority items good afternoon councilmember Johnson and council members I wanted to let you know there's no priority priority item from the city clerk's office today thank you madam clerk we'll move on to our administrative consent items from the city clerk's office item number one approval of city council minutes from the finance department item number two bid report August 2022 under departmental items from our department of transportation item three amendment to professional services contract with rancy camp associates for you 5823 woodcroft parkway extension under department of water management item number four professional engineering services contract with CDM Smith incorporated for the western intake partnership regional water treatment facility preliminary engineering project amendment number one under finance department item number five in our local agreement with Durham County for joint funding of the low-income homeowners relief program under general services department item number six change order one and amendment four to the construction manager as construction as constructor contract with Balfour Bady construction LLC for the public works operations center renovation project item number seven interlocal cooperation agreement with Durham County for Durham cultural roadmap development we've been asked to suspend the rules and vote to approve this item at this work session is there a motion to suspend the rules so move moved by councilmember Freeman seconded by councilmember Williams all in favor please raise your hand any opposed thank you passes unanimously five to zero is there a motion to approve the interlocal cooperation agreement with Durham County for Durham cultural roadmap development second moved by councilmember Williams seconded by councilmember Freeman all in favor please raise your hand any opposed thank you it's approved unanimously five to zero moving on with the consent agenda under human resources department item eight contract with cranium holding ink for the city of Durham's learning management system content under presentations department of transportation item nine greater triangle commuter rail feasibility study results will of course pull that for our presentation under public hearings from the city county planning department item 10 zoning map change 812 North Mangum Street item 11 consolidated annexation item Wendell at Crescent item 12 consolidated annexation item 637 and 641 Conover Road item 13 consolidated annexation item to 16 curlew under citizens matters to be heard at 1 p.m. item 14 Trisha smart under supplemental items item 15 historic preservation fund grant project ordinance we've also been asked to suspend the rules and vote on this item are our rules still suspended mr. Attorney or should we do it again no you should do it again okay is there a motion to suspend the rules so move back up moved by councilmember Caballero seconded by councilmember Hyman all in favor please raise your hand any opposed thank you passes unanimously five to zero is there a motion to approve the historic preservation fund grant project ordinance so moved moved by councilmember Williams seconded by councilmember Hyman all in favor please raise your hand any opposed thank you also passes unanimously five to zero all right that concludes our agenda so we will first go to our public comments we have one person already on the agenda and a few folks who've signed up to speak so first we'll take our our person who is on the agenda Trisha smart you can come right up here to this podium and you'll have three minutes thank you for being here good afternoon council my name is Trisha smart and I'm a resident of South Durham last year I lobbied for City Council to get a developer building a new neighborhood next to mine to add traffic calming measures to their new street the developer agreed and submitted a race crosswalk as part of their site plan but the city's transportation folks rejected it citing a 2015 speedhunt policy and telling the developer that Durham fire department was opposed to speed humps unfortunately fortunately I have a working knowledge of traffic calming through my work and injury prevention so I reached out to city transportation the joint city county planning committee and Durham's bicycle pedestrian advisory commission to seek some sort of road safety compromise to no avail I also reached out to the developer who interestingly enough supports additional traffic calming measures as long as they can be approved before they begin construction next month I also reached out to the Durham fire department while my contact agreed that speed humps can delay response times he was enthusiastic about potential workarounds like speed cushions which are speed tables with cutouts for fire trucks and many roundabouts that fire trucks could drive straight over however it seemed that neither the developer nor the fire department had been contacted about this race crosswalk issue to find a creative workable solution this is why I implore city council to take action prioritize funding traffic calming measures the city has prioritized funding for programs addressing gun violence which is incredibly necessary as Durham saw 795 shooting incidents in 2021 and Durham also saw more than 20,000 people involved in roadway crashes last year with Durham's commitment to vision zero shouldn't roadway safety be a priority to the city transportation staff are using a dated policy that doesn't align with vision zero's pedestrian and bike friendly values we shouldn't require a community to be scared get injured or die before traffic calming infrastructure can be supported especially when it's being paid for by a developer and not the Durham taxpayer policy should focus on prevention of roadway injuries and seek community input asking residents what they want to see I asked that city council requires a city to review and create prevention focus policies for implementing traffic calming the city transportation office recently applied for some of the historic five billion dollars in the infrastructure bill however they've only applied to fund the creation of a vision zero action plan a consultant who will later tell the city to fund a coordinator position we can't wait for some consultant to possibly suggest that Durham hire a vision zero coordinator we need to get someone in that role now to coordinate efforts and start making real change on Durham's roads as someone who has contacted a variety of community partners around this one road safety issue I can tell you it should be a full-time job and it is effective since I now have partners ready to compromise on a traffic calming strategy I asked city council to fund and or advise the transportation department to hire a full-time vision zero coordinator to implement this interdisciplinary work across Durham otherwise road safety and vision zero will fall through the cracks of bureaucracy and someone will end up getting hurt or killed on our streets and I pray that it's not someone that you love thank you thank you miss our next speaker is Donna Frederick welcome miss Frederick you also have three minutes good afternoon everyone can make this quick I'm in support of the zero vision funding that needs to be implemented immediately I'm in Bragg town and absent council I think a list of our priorities in our neighborhood that are definitely faulty at very risky we've met with transportation they've come out they've you know review the area we really need to act upon it and one of my caveats is you need to send someone at dusk it gets dark early now to really review what happens when evening comes a whole lot different in daytime so we need a really good review on the safety and we've outlined some of our major problems that have ever been sent to council so we're just urging that this matter really comes to the priority as previously stated thank you thank you miss Frederick our next speaker is Fred Broadwell Mr. Broadwell welcome and you also have three minutes thank you counsel and yeah Fred Broadwell I'm president of the Old West Durham Neighborhood Association and three years ago our neighborhood did a survey of our neighbors and asked about a number of problems and issues and asked how they would prior prioritize them out of 25 issues the number one issue was bicycle pedestrian safety so out of 25 issues that was number one since that time our neighborhood and our neighborhood association has been looking into this issue and working on making improvements we've had lots of dialogue with the city the city staff have been doing a great job but we really need a lot more and I totally agree with with the previous two previous two speakers that that we need to do more and make this an urgent priority we just finished a study that was funded by Duke University and that was in a partnership with Watts Hillendale neighborhood and bike Durham and you this is the study here that we sent to all the council members and that we've been sharing with city staff what I would say is that this is a problem that is citywide and what we're what we found in our study is really the tip of the iceberg as far as things that need to change and we need more than just vision zero and broad goals and comprehensive plan goals recording in progress we need to really get specific like this plan does which has very specific requests for changes so I would say that we need increased funding we increase staff support and we need to review the rules and regulations on traffic calming thank you thank you mr. Broadwell our next speaker is joining us via zoom can we make Mary Molina audible please council member Johnson miss Molina has left the queue has left the queue okay can you just let us know if she she comes back on our next speaker online is Pamela Anderson is she available she's also left the queue okay are there is there anyone else joining us virtually who would like to participate in public comment you can raise your virtual hand on zoom if you would like if you're here for public comment I'm hearing that Jackie Wagstaff has raised her hand miss Wagstaff would you like to make a comment madam clerk can we make her audible miss Wagstaff miss Wagstaff welcome you have three minutes okay good afternoon council members I would like to comment on Monday night's meeting but I'm not gonna get into the specifics but I would like to say that there are a set of rules that get your this body has put in place called the rules of the calm and I believe that Monday night that there were individuals of this body that actually violated those rules of the calm that they have put in place for citizens so just so that you know that there were a lot of people watching that meeting there were a lot of people that weren't weren't happy with the behavior that was displayed towards the citizens and I understand that you know and elected officials people are always gonna agree with you about sit about your voting record or whatever you do but at the same time the citizens are not the elected official there is a certain degree of respect that needs to be maintained among this body irrespective to what citizens come down and what I saw from that meeting there wasn't a citizen that presented themselves in any sort of matter that was disrespectful at any time contrary to what the council members were doing to the citizen so just so that you will know that there is a abundance of concern out here in the community about the way that the council members there were some council members behave Monday night at the presentation of a certain development and that's all I have to say for now thank you miss Wagstaff I don't see anyone else with their hand raised for public comment and I don't see miss Malina or miss Anderson back in the queue council member Johnson miss Malina has miss Malina is back in the queue thank you can we make her audible please miss Malina welcome you have three minutes sorry I'm sorry can you hear me yes we hear you thank you I apologize I got lost twice because I was trying to find out where the visual was for the the zoom meeting and we're not getting at their troubleshooting but I wanted to second but miss Wagstaff it said I too looked up the rules of decorum after watching the meeting the other night and it's it's really unfortunate when citizens are treated the way that these citizens were treated and I would like to just ask the council to please you know maintain these rules for yourselves the citizens do it you can too thank you thank you miss Malina I believe there are no further public comments and we can move to our pulled item item 9 our presentation on the Greater Triangle Commuter Rail feasibility study results you can go ahead thank you good afternoon City Council Sean Egan director of transportation for the City of Durham I'd like to introduce our guest today Chuck Latuka is the president and CEO of Go Triangle and he'll be presenting on the Greater Triangle Commuter Rail feasibility study results good afternoon council members I also would like to introduce Catherine Eggleston our chief of development she's going to co-present with me today and talk about the more technical issues of the report findings and we hope that we're not repeating ourselves too much through these presentations but we want to go ahead and give you the results of the two-year study that went on that is still in draft to be presented and finalized with our board perhaps at the our board meeting next week for Go Triangle board meeting the study was meant to look at the technical issues the coordinating issues and the engineering issues and the operational issues in the corridor and we have a lot to point out and talk about with folks here today it was a good study was done in collaboration with our partners the county helped pay for the study and the city was also a partner or stakeholder in the process you can see here a list of all the participants the MPOs the counties institutional stakeholders in towns it was a very good process very well attended and very well I would have to say that the city's participation was very good and appreciated throughout the process so you may have seen some of these slides before and I apologize if we're repeating ourselves but the this is a slide that shows our current situation as far as traffic and population we have a triangle it's a population about 2 million people with about 1.3 million vehicles in the region and this is what our snapshot looks like for the traffic congestion today and it is not not horrible it's not optimal but it certainly shows that there's room for improvement but there's still a lot of green and yellow which is still more free flowing in the peak hours and then you of course you see the congested red sections as time moves on if you get down to 2050 our model that we developed for this study shows that regional grow by about a million people by 2050 we'll have 2.3 million vehicles in the region and it's going to have a very severe impact on our regional road network and you can see here the the red kind of cries out that something needs to be done now things probably will be done I'm sure there's plans for DOT to expand the roadway system there's plans to expand our bus services in the current and draft transit plans that they counties have and also you know and also the commuter rail project study that we're talking about here today could also help alleviate some of this I want to talk a little bit about job growth between now and 2020 I say now 2020 2050 this is a cluster map that shows one dot equals 50 jobs and what the region will add by 2050 is more than 800 thousand jobs and it shows the corridor here with the green outline so the green outline represents one mile either side of the North Carolina railroad corridor where we would where we would implement the commuter rail so the the the the 50,000 foot view is on the left and then the more targeted view for the the west Durham to RTP is on the top right and then the RTP out toward Garner and through Raleigh and Garner is on the bottom part on the on the right significant growth if you look at the cluster map on the left the larger view you can see not only is it just growth in this corridor but the other corridors that we're already talking about 15501 54 corridor and that rate in that area you see a lot of growth happening there and up that Route 1 corridor there's a lot of growth happening there and DOT has some plans to develop some inner city rail up in that corridor as well as expand the highway there so this is the challenge right getting people to work for the most part and certainly this these cluster maps show that there's quite a bit of challenges here but also shows that the corridor that we're looking at it will well serve the jobs that are coming a little bit about the about the boardings we have a representation here of how people how many people would board between Auburn on the bottom which is the furthest east point to west Durham furthest west and in between you can see that boardings will occur all throughout the corridor it's an interesting corridor so it's not a typical corridor like you might find outside of Washington DC or outside of New York City either coming from Westchester County or Long Island it's not a peak direction one way the people will be boarding this train and taking it in both directions it's a more complex service area to manage but it definitely shows that that that many of the station areas are going to have some significant boardings here and it's just just a representation to see and of course it kind of follows that job cluster map right so with the large cluster around Raleigh it's a little bit more in the boardings and it's a little bit less than the Durham and West Durham area but still significant because Durham is going to experience some very significant job growth here between now and 2050 so one of the things that everybody wants to know is how much would this cost right so we really worked hard to see what are the impacts of our inflation what are the impacts of the things that we have to do in order to build capacity into this corridor so that Norfolk Southern can operate their trains as they plan to operate them for the next 20 years or so Amtrak's plans the DOT Piedmont service we want to make sure that whatever we build can operate in there so building out the full system we thought at the time we started this study we thought we were being conservative is about 2.1 billion dollars 1.8 to 2.1 billion dollars however a lot has changed the last couple years so a lot has changed having to do with inflation inflation at this a lot of this extra cost a third of this extra cost it could be attributed to the inflation that we're experiencing lately and of course you know we have to take that snapshot that on the inflation that we have today not the inflation we think we're going to have in the europe expenditure so so it has an impact that is driving the cost of the project as we understand it right now and these are your expenditure estimates plus to some of the things that we had to do in order to ensure there was enough capacity that Norfolk Southern asked us to take a take a look at and we're still looking at everything that they want us to do to see if there are alternative ways to reduce the cost but a third of the extra cost is attributed to the things that we need to do in order to ensure there's enough capacity in the corridor so Norfolk Southern can operate their trains and also maintain the track as they plan to do it so that's that that is a significant extra work that we thought that we didn't think we had to do but again we don't disagree with Norfolk Southern's conclusions but certainly we are looking for ways to reduce the cost of what they're asking us to do and then as we went through the corridor and we went through this in a probably a little bit more detailed way than you would have for a normal feasibility study we really looked at the engineering challenges there was a few that we didn't know about that we found and that added about an extra third of the cost and Catherine can probably get into some of those as she goes through her list of challenges in the upcoming slides the great news here though is that the boardings are going to be a lot more than we anticipated so when we started to study we thought that it was going to be anywhere between 7500 and in 10,000 people a day but now it's looking at our model is showing 12,000 to 18,000 boardings a day and it really kind of depends on the fare structure that's implemented so the more positive or lower cost fare obviously it'll drive more boardings but certainly though it's more robust and better than we thought and you know but so were the cost right so but but that was a very positive note as far as constructing this if we build the full project to build the full project to construction depending on when we start we're looking at anywhere between 2033 and 2035 to build out the full project so a lot of information there and a lot of conclusions that the study has reached that I think are pertinent to making decisions on moving forward I'm going to turn over to Catherine Eggleston right now she'll go through some of the challenges that we found in the more detail throughout the corridor thank you Chuck good afternoon so as Chuck said one of the key items in the feasibility study was identifying what obstacles there are or what what items would need to be addressed in order to move the project forward successfully so as we've assessed the corridor it's clear that those challenges are not equally distributed across the corridor you'll see more bubbles here in Durham than in the rest of the corridor we'll get into some detail on why that is kind of the luck of the geography of this rail corridor so there's a lot of words on this page I won't read these all but just running through in central Durham we have a few issues that are really being driven primarily by the existing freight yard that operates in east Durham freight trains very long freight trains being built out of that yard cause conflicts for passenger trains being able to run on time in the model so there's a number of items that were identified in the railroad capacity modeling study that was completed as part of this phase of feasibility so item one there is additional track west of west Durham that would need to be improved basically taking a double track past west Durham out to the next siding to be able to provide necessary capacity for freight trains coming in and out of Durham I'm going to skip to let's see number two here adding a second track through central Durham we do believe that there are some feasible options for doing that so that's a positive outcome of the study however there are there are a number of options and we would have to have consensus on what design is preferred through downtown whether that's what type of boarding at that station at that existing Amtrak station what the footprint of the tracks would be there and how that interacts in that that central area right next to where the Durham Amtrak station is today and with a bus station across the street third on the list here with respect to getting into east Durham at the east Durham station this is a station that would be located east of allston avenue in the rail corridor to put a station there this feasibility study has identified would require closing plumb street to put a station there is a priority or has been communicated to go triangle as a priority of the city of the MPO and so to be able to move forward it would be necessary to determine that the the impacts of that closure the potential mitigation for that closure would be acceptable to the neighborhood and to others who would be concerned and affected by that so that's a key piece that if commuter rail is to move forward in this area that would need to be addressed an acceptable design solution for that would need to be identified moving further just a little bit further to the east at driver's street this is another location right adjacent to plumb street this is the next crossing over in that capacity modeling study the need for a third track through the the vicinity of the freight yard was identified to try to tie that third track in would require would trigger closure of driver's street and there's a special track work that would need to be there that would prevent that from staying open so there's really two options there either to avoid the closure the railroad parties would have to accept an alternate design which we have started talking to them about but have not been able to run that down yet or closure and acceptable separation or alternative would need to be identified there as well and number five on here a location for the rtp station would also need to be identified there's two options under consideration for that that's a lesser issue but still something that would need to be decided in order for there to be certainty about the design to be able to move forward so shifting east to the center of the corridor we have three items identified here here the issues are more related to coordination the carry amtrak station is proposed to be modified the town of carry is advancing a project for a multimodal center that would move their bus station and that amtrak station from one side of Harrison Avenue to the other the timing of that is uncertain at this point timing there would need to be worked out agreements would need to be obtained with all the relevant parties including the railroad parties amtrak and so forth so again coordination issue there that would need to be worked out as the project moves forward or in order for the project to move forward in this area at number seven there there's a number of grade separation projects that ncdot has planned for this area that had been committed in the state tip with the state's funding challenges the timing of those being implemented is a little bit uncertain in order to ensure the cost of those projects does not accrue to the commuter rail project if the commuter rail project were to come first there's some work to do for that to be figured out to avoid that and then lastly in this area the piedmont trains operate between Raleigh union station west through carry-through-derm and on to charlotte there are some capacity challenges and during rally union station some either agreement or design solutions would need to be identified there to ensure all parties are satisfied with operations in this portion of the corridor and then lastly shifting to the east southeast wade county really has not a lot of complexity in terms of the engineering like the other two portions of the corridor that we just looked at second track would need to be added but there's no additional infrastructure beyond that that's been identified the primary challenge in this area is the question of whether the project would terminate in auburn versus clayton johnston county does not have a funding source identified for implementation so that would need to be addressed in order for the johnston county piece to be able to be implemented so in summary here there's a number of challenges or a number of items that would need to be overcome successfully in order to move forward one of the primary goals of the study was to identify these understand the risks before moving forward given the significant costs in the gray box here on the bottom chuck sort of alluded to this the the cost of the project is higher than prior studies have assumed the cost right now is exceeding the available funding that's been or the allocated funding that's been identified for the project in the wake and Durham transit plan additionally availability of federal funding through the federal transit administration's new starts program is uncertain for the project based on where it's currently scoring against the current criteria for that program so to be able to move forward with the full project significant additional funding would need to be identified and that's really led us to look at the potential for phased implementation options whether one of these portions of the corridor that we just went through could be moved forward as an initial phase while work continues on the remainder of the corridor to build out that that vision for the corridor over time we also are looking at opportunities for funding outside of the traditional federal transit administration sources this graphic is of the programs available through the bipartisan infrastructure law on the rail side it is possible that components of the project could be packaged for their benefits their independent benefits for safety of the corridor today for benefits to intercity passenger or freight rail to be able to be competitive for this examples of those kinds of projects would be grade separation projects or safety enhancement projects or could be double tracking projects for portions of the corridor if they would provide reliability benefits for the intercity and then also station improvements for those existing Amtrak stations could also qualify for these types of funding sources we have been asked to look at these opportunities every opportunity really we're looking at so we have begun work to identify components of the project that could be positioned for these as these grant opportunities come open there are a couple that are open right now rail crossing elimination program is open now also consolidated rail infrastructure and safety program is open now and we are working with the county to look at an application to support the county's potential application for a rail crossing elimination program grant for to address or to study some of what we looked at earlier Ellen Beckman is here from Durham County to speak to that briefly and then we will wrap up either now or we will wrap up the presentation after after she speaks on that thanks Catherine Ellen Beckman Durham County Transportation Manager thanks for having me here so the Board of Commissioners you know received the same presentation on September 6 and there are a couple of key themes from that reaction one was a desire for Durham to be a part of the project and to work towards identifying how to overcome some of these significant challenges and then secondly to aggressively go after federal and state funding to eliminate some of the cost and reduce the cost of the project so you know based on that direction the county is willing to pursue and sponsor a federal grant application to study Plum Street Driver Street and Ellis the Ellis West intersection so this would be a cooperative planning study with the county city go triangle ncdot it is planning community engagement looking at the the solutions the mitigation for those options that might be necessary so first and foremost you know the purpose of studying these three crossings is to improve safety there have been over the past 25 years there's been 19 crashes with three fatalities and nine injuries at these crossings also to improve connectivity the these are some of the lowest quality crossings in Durham for bike and ped facilities the city's adopted move Durham plan and now analyze these and these were some of the worst in terms of their current condition and then also reliable access uh there's no grade separated crossings currently today between Alston and T. W. Alexander other than 885 so most of East Durham does not have grade separated crossings so that affects emergency response safe routing for school buses and of course like traffic delay so um it's a planning study the the purpose would be to position a construction project to compete well for state or federal T. I. P. or other grant federal grant funding for implementation and you know there's a few critical elements for success of course I think community engagement the county is committed to doing a robust equitable engagement process you know we've partnered with your staff extensively on that for the transit plan and would follow a similar framework um also just this is complex and involves a lot of governments and we need uh everyone to be on board and coordinated on this and the city is a critical partner you know I've plum and driver street or city streets and it will be ultimately a decision of the city on what to do with those streets so the so Durham county will be asking the city for a letter of support for this grant application and I'd be happy to answer any questions about that thank you um I'm sorry miss Eglson did you want to continue the presentation or yeah we have just one more slide on next steps thank you so um where are we now and what do we need to do so we need to go out I think and take the full study out that we have completed and bring that out for a comment period you know and we'd like to do that here pretty soon now we're getting into the holidays here and we still need to design a public comment process that's acceptable to the county so I think that would probably happen in the beginning in January and put it out there for public comment for about 45 days we need to take a look at our financial plans and our grant strategies you just heard one part of a grant strategy is in order to get the project built the full project uh over uh over time in a phased way and I think eliminating those gray crossings or at gray crossings would be a significant help in order to realize the entire project over time so that's also positioning the Durham to go ahead and take advantage of some of that bipartisan infrastructure law money that's out there right now that that seems to be in abundance and I think the money that we're looking at taking is 80-20 grant money right so it's not a 50-50 like we were talking about for the for the CIG project and for the commuter rail so 80-20 is a pretty good uh it's pretty good money to get if you if you're gonna get it and I think having these studies done in order's position Durham to eliminate these gray crossings will be really good then we need to decide how to go forward over the next couple of months I think there's been a lot of conversation already happening uh I've heard comments from the commissioners uh in uh in in Durham and also in uh in Wake we've heard from Mayor Raleigh uh in her role as a on-campo board uh we presented in front of DCHC and we've heard some comments there uh and uh I I think that uh obviously the council needs to weigh in at some point here decide help us decide uh how do we take this how do we approach this project in a phased approach that everybody can agree on that we can get a regional benefit for passenger rail uh so that's all we have to present today we're happy to take any questions you may have thank you so much um I see our mayor pro tem has arrived um thank you airlines for uh delivering you not super late would you like to take over presiding or would you rather I continue actually um councilmember johnson let me just first say good afternoon to everyone in the chamber and watching at home and and streaming into my honorable colleagues on behalf of the mayor and the council in the city I want to thank our senior member councilmember johnson in our immediate past mayor pro tem was set to barb pretty high uh for this job for for making sure that the store was minded and the ship runs um smoothly it's it's a bit of a comforting nostalgia uh to see you running the meeting again it's a reminder to all of us that we're in good hands and that we've got capable folk here and and I'm gonna ask you to keep it going uh and then uh take us to close and land it so thank you so much no problem thank you uh do we have any questions from members of the council for our presenters mr. mayor pro tem thank you councilmember good afternoon to all of you this this was a much anticipated presentation although highlights and headlines for a minute if I've already been floating around uh in our public square um under next steps um I was struck well not struck but I I took note of decide whether or how uh to go forward um would you give us a sense of of the tick tock just nail that down for us a little bit how long does does this council have or do you think we should take uh to come up with a a firm decision I'm giving you permission to to be presumptuous so please be freely thank you so I appreciate that mayor pro tem so um you know it's it's I think folks should take as much time as they need right this is a big decision it's a big dollar uh we've had some experiences in the past where you know uh maybe we needed to take longer to talk about things and uh you know I I don't think it's a rush but certainly though um you know uh I think in anticipating the growth uh and take and showing you perhaps how long a project would take uh the delivery of a project if it's a shorter project could take eight years the nine years if it's a longer if it's a larger project could take 10 years or maybe a little bit more than 10 years so you know the sooner we make decisions the sooner we can start the work to develop to deliver the benefit of a future project so I think that's pretty much where we're at uh we want to make sure also that we are positioned to uh you know take advantage of some of these federal programs that are out there right now too so I think the sooner that we uh make decisions as a region uh and it's not easy to make decisions as a region right I mean it might be easy for the council by itself make a decision about the city but when you're acting as a region it's everything's a little bit more complex and difficult uh and certainly you know um you know there's not one force guiding that decision right it's a collaborative approach so we need to make sure that uh we can uh get a conversation going coordinate the uh the conversations between the counties uh and and the stakeholders uh and the and the city entities and and and and have a certain level of comfort uh and what we're going to build and also have comfort in the fact that if we do build a phase we're not going to stop at that phase that we're going to build out the entire project that there's going to be many phases so when one phase starts uh planning for the next phase will also start uh so and I I think folks need to have confidence that that's going to happen so we want to make sure that if we do build a phase approach that uh if if the phase happens to be you know Raleigh to Ellis Road that Durham is going to be in the phase two if it's going to be Durham to RTP then there are going to people in Raleigh who want to know that they're in the next phase so this this is the conversation that has to happen as an example uh and uh I think that uh now that we have this information that conversation can start before everything was just theoretical right so how much would it cost we didn't know how many people would it carry we weren't sure you know how you know but we do know now how much it's going to cost how many people we can carry and we also know how the region is growing and that's a big thing here uh we didn't show you the cluster map for the uh where people's homes are going to be but it is significantly and they're much more spread out than the jobs the jobs are very clustered uh so but I think the benefit here uh that you can that we can receive as a region the faster we get going uh the faster we get the benefit so I mean in in principle I I am 100 committed to Durham remaining in the vanguard of driving the economic vitality of our region I think that's one of our claims to fame that we are this area is if not the definitely obviously one of the chief economic drivers of our state um and I and I once I I think that's appropriate I want to remain um but but I I understand that in say in relation to light rail the particular footprint of this community rail is different from light rail in that it will parrot or or mirror a lot of what we already have in place the railroad structure with that said can you since you've talked about other phases and down the road and and kind of visioning next phases how likely do you think some government agency will have to employ imminent domain uh to to get to some particularly in phases beyond this first iteration and that if that's too speculative fine but since you talked about other phases you know so we are I have to say we are so fortunate to have this rail corridor here that this rail corridor this historic rail corridor runs through the region and it happens to connect all the uh the urban areas in the region uh and not only that but it also seems to be in the right place for all of the activity centers the the jobs the jobs that we have now the jobs we're going to have in the future it's going to also be very close to a lot of the housing that's being planned uh so I think that uh uh you know as far as what else do we need it's a 200 foot wide corridor now I know when you get into the city of Durham that 200 feet is really occupied by sidewalks and streets and things like that but we have uh one of the things we looked at especially looked at is the impact of physical impacts of this project that might have on Durham so uh we've I don't think I think we showed you renderings last time we were here that really show that you know that we weren't going to have high walls or physical barriers that we can get through Durham deliver the extra track that we need uh and also take care of some of the low bridges that uh that plague uh some of the truck traffic trying to get through Durham and uh and without a lot of physical impact now as far as eminent domain stations obviously they're adjacent to the uh to the rail corridors of the tracks that we need aren't really going to be a problem it's those stations and maybe some of those at gray crossings that uh that Alan just talked about here uh that you know we we have to but we need to take a closer look and see what the impacts on those crossings are obviously when you go up and over uh something right now it's a single track but we anticipate more tracks to be in there so it's going to be a little bit more up and over than than you would need today under the current situation there may be some property that may need to be uh bought or acquired somehow I don't know if there would be a willing seller or to be an eminent domain situation uh but certainly I've I've I've toured some of these areas and I think there is room for these gray crossings uh and certainly um you know I gotta tell you I don't think any railroad uh that runs through here Amtrak the Piedmont folks um NS or CSX whoever runs through here they would appreciate these new gray crosses because railroads are all about safety right and we want to make sure that we have as safe a corridor as possible but I don't think I don't really see a huge amount of other property other than the station areas and one of the things is when you do and I'm just going to keep going on for a little bit here uh sorry I apologize uh my staff will tell me that I talk too much sometimes but you know take when you do a gray crossing or build a station there's opportunity for the coming up with a development plan around that station and that really provides us a whole new challenge right how do we plan for development when you put a station there there's development going to come around that station so uh so I think it's a uh you know potential for housing area housing especially maybe around Ellis Road where there's some public property that the deco triangle owns or uh or other areas I think that that's also involved in in situating the station so I think it's more than just the rail project itself I think this whole planning effort needs to go around these stations so thank you so much let me yield back to chair johnson thank you thank you mr. mayor pro tem other questions from council members council member hyman hi how are you so my question is is based on what is your strategy projected strategy and strategy excuse me in terms of you obtaining input from stakeholders so um we've had a very significant stakeholder outreach as we've gone through the development of this feasibility study certainly we're going to uh and that was a uh a strategy that was uh commented on and had input on from the county in the city I believe some of that was before I got here but uh but we would certainly engage with the city and the county in developing the outreach right now it's this high level we're looking at some big open houses in each of the counties perhaps two in uh in Durham county and also some online engagement some webinars and maybe a survey but certainly that is something that we need to develop in in consultation with the municipal partners thank you thank you thank you council member other questions I've got some questions um so can you tell me the projections for um for how many people would be riding the rail are those projections taking into consideration um the increase in teleworking that we've seen over the last little bit um also the projections for um the traffic congestion over the next few years I feel like there's been a big change since COVID I don't know if people think that's going to continue or are we going to go back to normal and how are we working that in well that's true and it's changing as we speak right so you know some some more people are going back to the office that I think we anticipated up in this point I think it's also reflected in our use of our buses here I know Durham is almost back to 100% on their ridership and go triangles like 87% now I'm going to let Catherine Ailsen speak to that a little bit but we are also looking at how we schedule the trains and maybe have more all-day service available for folks that have different travel patterns than they had two years ago the modeling that we've done so far does not take into account new travel patterns the data basis is pre-pandemic so far the federal transit administration is continuing to accept pre-pandemic or actually encourage pre-pandemic information to be submitted however we're tracking that closely and working with the organizations that that do the surveys go triangle participates in regional on-board surveys as well as contributes to the entity at NC State that maintains the travel demand model for the region they do regular household origin and destination study work which does capture those travel pattern changes so that work is continuing on a regular basis so as or if the project moves forward updated estimates will begin to be based on new data following whatever those federal guidelines are about that great thank you that's really helpful another question on slide number five where you show kind of a close-up view of the corridor and there's an outline drawn like the green the green snake that's going through the region around the corridor what's the distance that you're using from the rail line to the edges of that image so one mile either side of the corridor one mile either side okay great thank you and finally the closing at plumb street I was looking at a map and I was wondering if that would impact if the if closing plumb street would have any impact on pedigree street or with the folks that the street that were plumb street had south if those folks would be would still have be able to come up and go either right or left on pedigree street or if there would have to be some sort of alternative figure it out yeah so a just if there were to be a closure of plumb street just that piece that's north of pedigree across the rail corridor that wouldn't wouldn't affect the connectivity of pedigree to plumb and then further south okay so the only issue would be folks wouldn't be able to go north into that they'd have to go around but they still could go east or west like into downtown or correct okay yeah and options for mitigating that loss of direct connection to the north could be evaluated in in that that study that ellen was just discussing or as development of the commuter rail station plans would move forward if there were to be a commuter rail station there we would envision a pedestrian bridge connection over the rail corridor so that there would be direct access on foot to the station from the north side of the tracks okay great thank you yeah it looks like there's just a few houses there and the green flea market so limited impact but we want to make sure that we talk to those folks and figure that out thank you any other questions from council yeah council member freeman thank you i was just just following up and noting so the direct connection i'm just just trying to get the direct connection to the north would be cut off and that would be reviewed in the county i just i'm sorry the other question i had i think miss beckman mentioned a grade separation at tw alexander i didn't catch the cross street and i was the only i had a couple questions a question around that so i mentioned that in terms of today where there's existing grade separated crossings of the railroad there's there's allston and then tw alexander and everything in between is at grade except for 885 that's i guess the exception the new east end connector but all the other streets today you know involve crossing the railroad so that's that's why i mentioned it okay and so the current plan is all at grade is what you're saying the this this four locations in derm they would be at grade i couldn't catch whether or not you were saying yes okay so we would like the study that the county would do would look specifically at plumb driver uh briggs which is in between which currently does not cross the railroad tracks but you know there's two segments of briggs that aren't connected and then ellis near angier pedigree intersection so we would look at like that area those four crossings and look at what what the impacts would be if we did close or grade separate and if there would be mitigation that would be needed and appropriate for the community like bike ped bridges or other facilities you know connectivity of the what connectivity would be left and like what could we improve uh through uh through our construction project in that area thank you and um just coming back to i think um i'm not sure if it was mr latuga or miss eglson that mentioned the ridership pre pandemic post pandemic but did i hear that go triangle was at 100 percent i know you i'm sorry derm go derm was at 100 percent you said yes go derm i believe is at 100 of pre covid ridership on the buses which is great news and and i'll i'll take that up with that but um uh just acknowledging that there are different travel patterns and uh the fact that this is not a peak directional service is there any consideration around not calling it commuter rail and maybe regional rail that is um i think i've raised that question before just acknowledging hospital patients would probably ride and hospital visitors might ride and so just i think just moving away from commuter more to regional and acknowledging that this is more of a line that connects us across the region might be helpful that's right and i i agree with your comment uh because you know we should be just calling it passenger rail right uh because that's that's what it is and you know commuter is an old-fashioned term i think especially especially with the advent of covid and the new travel patterns that we're seeing from folks so so i think going forward we probably could make that change and then i would just like to highlight i noted a few of the concerns that were raised um and conversations previously around engagement and and supply diversity and and a couple of other areas around you know dollars and where they went i think that you've been doing a really good job of trying to nail those down but i've not had an update so i would love to hear if you're are if you're anticipating doing an update or not um when that would be and and and just making sure that i'm on the up on the update email list if that's what's happening thank you council member um madam manager did you want to speak go for us um thank you uh madam chair um i did want to bring uh to the to the table today that the uh item that you heard was a presentation you have heard from us uh city staff about our um desire to go after all federal funding for which we are eligible for which can benefit the community uh of Durham North Carolina you've actually heard um members here today speak about the the city of Durham um writing a letter or or issuing a letter of support for the grant uh the Durham county will be pursuing in in the context of uh the the planning and engagement uh around the stops that were identified here while this is not an action item as you know it's just a presentation as manager i would like to um see uh your support or lack thereof of signing that letter of support thank you um thank you madam manager do you would you like us to take a voter's just a thumbs up burden had nods okay nods are okay okay madam chair if i might uh madam manager thank you so much and your your your nudge actually goes to my earlier question is our signing on or it would it be reasonable for folk to interpret our signing on to the letter as our indication that the weather has been answered uh definitively or or is this still kind of do we still can we still hedge um her honor isn't here hasn't waited on the discussion i know there's some some discussion and uh councilmember freeman has raised some some issues that i know that we need to have as a discussion as a council so is it is it safe to say that because we give a scent uh or our agreement today to sign the letter to pursue the money which i agree with the manager does that mean we are ultimately saying we've answered whether we're going forward is are the two uh conflatable or so i mean i might let alan also weigh in but uh i alan has said that there's a dual purpose here right so there's a safety purpose then there's a future transit purpose and i'll just let alan weigh in um i would say no uh for sure i mean this is one area that needs to be addressed that's been identified in this study um there are other areas that need to be addressed and other problems to be solved and other money to be found absolutely um so this this does this is um you know biting off one piece at a time to try to get this project done it's a big project right and it will take a lot of effort um sustained effort for probably decades right and that honest that that that was precisely my read i just i wanted that to be on record that that this is a piece of a specific and not the whole project today um so thank you for that thank you madam chair thank you um um councilmember cabillera then councilmember lambs thank you my my thumb was up as well i just wanted to let colleagues know that the same issue did come before the mpo last week uh they would also need a letter of support for this grant uh from the mpo and um i am one of the councilmember liaisons and there was unanimous support at the mpo thank you councilmember lambs yep uh thank you i was going to just say that uh we have stated our vote uh at the mpo level to support it the other thing is i think this is an opportunity to address uh this study from you know through the lens of equity um i i do think that sometimes we we take that buzz word and it dilutes it but this is in case in fact the case in which we could uh you know go back and and look at that area if you look at the great separations across the city uh it is that east storm area that really needs some some tender loving care and i i think this this would allow us to do that um and also i want to say you know uh as we're going through this presentation today we need to be looking at moving people from point a to point b and as we continue to have these very complex dialogues around transit and regional rail which i i agree with councilmember freeman um i i don't want us to get into the habit of thinking that we need to move black brown and poor people like we need to make sure rail is available for people to get from point a to point b and that's how we build a system for everyone and that's how we make sure that our uh folks that are disadvantaged our folks that are advantage and whoever else is collectively helping us get cars off the road and people moving in alternative modes of transportation so i look forward to the results of this study uh and you know and also i think it's on us to and uh really encourage multi modes of uh transportation in any project that we have going forward so uh rail is just one of those so just wanted to state that and i appreciate that comment uh i have not said it yet today but normally i do say that this is the three-legged stool right so it is going to be rail bus and brt and you don't have a brt project planned here yet but chapel hill does and raleigh does right now i assume that in the future in the next five ten years durham is also going to be anticipating the brt project and brt is a great way to move people around all of these should be complementary to each other and should be i have a multimodal uh uh effort to get people around so uh we are focused on building a transit system that's connected uh and serves everybody so that's what we're looking at thank you council member freeman thank you um chair uh johnson i i i appreciate council member um williams comment and i was thinking um along those same lines in my thumb sideways that i want to be really clear that the prioritization um cannot shift in a way that makes us less able to handle it just acknowledging that we're at a hundred percent in durham on our bus ridership that means that we're going to 150 and 200 and so just making sure that that's not lost in that acknowledging that i think it's it's it's route nine that's been brought to our attention repeatedly it still hasn't been addressed and so you know acknowledge the the first you know public comments that we're hearing today around vision zero and and there are so many children who ride the bus who are standing on the side of the roads like those are the things that kind of still leave me uncertain and making sure that our staff understands that even going after federal dollars knowing that if it's competitive or not that there is a a prioritization that occurs when we shift our focus towards regional community whatever you call it when it's rail so we still need our roads for the buses we still need our roads for the commute for the bus rapid transit and those roads right now you know we're moving in a direction where we'll be above the 70 but i don't want to see us stepping backwards so i want to make sure we continue to move forward as a city and um that's that's just mainly the points that keep me like at i'm not sure yet i still need to see the plan that actually does complement where we are going as a city and i know that our staff will get there but i'm still hesitant so i i appreciate your comments especially about route nine and i heard some about route nine when i was walking into the room um i report what katherine does uh we report to our board uh what's going on in bragg town it's just about every meeting since april and we continue to report on what our efforts are to improve services improve the bus infrastructure uh and make it safer along route nine and i know that uh the city uh shawnegan is working on a plan to increase the frequency of the bus services out there which we've been working on that with him too so uh yeah you know it all starts with the local service and uh that you cannot forget as you build it out these regional systems thank you i'll just add one additional comment to that and that i heard something about the the well saw as well in the presentation the downtown station being a little bit of a concern i do want to note that i the conversation i don't know where it stands right now but it would be good to get an update on where we are on wellans village being that that was kind of the second stop that was the most used and figuring out what that looks like and so i do want to hear from staff at some point you know what that means and if that's helpful or not in this conversation so that's all thank you thank you um so just for clarity can we do the thumbs one more time you got what you need thank you so much thank you for the presentation here today thank you all right friends we are at the end of our pulled items we do have a closed session um but i think we should we settle the agenda before we move into closed session madame clerk great madame manager yeah we're ready thank you very much chair johnson members madame mr mayor pro tem members of the council uh i have for you for your council meeting consent items one through six and item eight and then gba public hearings items 10 through 13 thank you is there a motion to settle the agenda so moved second moved by council member william seconded by council member freeman all in favor please raise your hand any opposed passes unanimously 620 um we will now need a motion to go into closed session pursuant to the city manager sorry to the city attorney's um earlier request so moved second moved by council member hyman seconded by council member cabillero all in favor any opposed all right we uh passes 6-0 unanimously and we are now in closed session recording stopped