 I think I saw it. Yeah. I heard he was doing the two stages in 30, and it's like half the stuff we're talking about. So it really will let people know what's living and then it just emerges that's here. Right. No, it's a bit. We should get some glasses on. I'm really realizing how much. Right. That's exactly what they do. That was. Yeah. You've got a very smooth one. I can't read it from here. Put your room. Yeah. No problem. You can look at the light. OK. So that's it. Yeah. You can look at the water. Yeah. Or the water district. Are you going to say something? The water. Yeah. Sort of a soothing link to that. Yeah. That's the deal with that. Oh, thanks. I'll be right back. Yeah. Thank you. I can't remember which one it is. They're not that loud. They've been so much. OK. I've got plenty of them. I'll put my bag down there. They're all going to be done, Mike. OK. I don't marry them. I'm going to decide when they want to pick up something. Good. Yeah. Like, did I? You became chair like the first time. Oh, my God. We're already going to try the e-bike. Oh, wow. Oh, my gosh. I know that was kind of like a sport. Yeah. It was the old friend then one day. The big family. They were drinking water. OK. And he said yeah. I said that he was a lot of votre- Especially was smelting. I didn't know what I was doing in the spring. Yeah. He's from Matthew. Maybe Matthew did something. Maybe he was a buddy of yours. He did buddy years, that's what it was for. I'll set. I'll take the joint. I like one too, but this one. What did he say always? That's the only story. Yeah. They're all out. Yes. They say that. I have something for you. I know, it seems like there's not so much room here, does it? I know. Accounts? Numbers or something? Yeah we're good. I'll wait for my corner. Call the March meeting of the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission to order. First item on the agenda are any changes to the agenda? Are there any changes? Hearing none, is there any public comment with respect to items that are not on the agenda? Any members of the public who wish to address matters that are not going to be handled elsewhere in the agenda? Hearing none. Next item is action on consent agenda. Is there anybody who wishes to pull any of these items off of the consent agenda? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. The next item is approval of the minutes from our February 20, 2019. Is there a motion for approval? So moved. Second. Are there any questions, comments, etc.? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? All right. Next item are proposed transit system changes in Green Mountain transportation with John Moore, Director of Transportation. Good evening. So thanks for the invitation tonight. I'm John Moore from Green Mountain Transit, Director of Transportation. And then Rachel Kennedy, our senior transit planner who's done a lot of the technical work on this project is also with us. So tonight's going to go over some proposed changes that we're going to be bringing out to a public process starting in the next couple of weeks. A lot of folks in this room have probably seen some iteration of this presentation before. And we'll get into some of the slides here. Function key I have to have? Source. Yeah. I'm not trying to do it. It's source. It's trouble. Every once in a while that works. Sorry. Right. This makes for great television. I can't actually scroll through that screen. It's doing that on its own. Well, let me know if you're going to sound about three seconds. Yeah. What are you going to tell us, John? Well, we can free float if we need to. I'm not sure. Everything's all connected. Well, if we need to, we can do it without the PowerPoint. I'll email it out. So we'll do without the PowerPoint presentation. I will email it to Charlie and his team after this meeting so you folks have documentation. But essentially what we are. We have something. Your window into. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. It is wonderful. Thank you, Rachel. So there we go. So we've been in this process for a couple of years now. We've called it our next gen plan. So essentially some service changes. Green Mountain Transit operates in a five county service area. So we are touching all of our routes in some way in some fashion. Tonight we'll focus on the Chinon County routes. And then we'll also get into some of the assessment impacts for the member municipalities, which a lot of the towns you folks represent are member members of Green Mountain Transit. And then talk about a proposed fair increase that we're discussing along with the service changes. Some exciting passenger facing technology improvements we're looking to make, hopefully in conjunction with some of these changes. And then kind of next steps, how we're going to get to achieving these, all these projects. So just a quick overview of the next gen plan. We did hire Nelson Nygaard to do the initial study. They went through and looked at all 50 of the routes we operate in our five county service area. They looked at the service we're providing now. They developed some initial recommendations how we could do things better. They went through and did a very in-depth market analysis looking at areas that we're providing. Maybe too much transit based on the demand. And then other areas where there's probably more demand in the supply we're providing in terms of transit services. So then they developed kind of the initial recommendation for implementation. We've done some internal work since then in a lot of stakeholder outreach and some other just general public outreach and have modified the plan based on some of that feedback and some of our budgetary realities that we're facing right now as an organization. But again, the goal is to attract new riders. You know, we want to maximize the public investment in transit. In Chittenden County alone there's about a $3 million local investment from the community. So it's a sizable chunk of change and we want to make sure we're providing the best benefit to the communities and to the funding partners. And then ultimately the riders. So the plan was phased in three different kind of segments. Phase one is what we're focusing on right now. That was a cost-neutral scenario. Looking at ways to take existing resources and then reallocate them the best weekend to get the most effective outcomes in terms of ridership. The plan also does include a phase two and a phase three. Those are future kind of expansions based on funding availability and other factors. In terms of a timeline, as you can see, we started this back in September 2017 and really before that we had an advisory committee that kind of guided the process. Peter and Elaine from the RPC were on that. So they provide a lot of great regional input. So right now as I mentioned, we're getting into the public comment period and then after that the plan implementation which we have a goal of June 17th to make the changes. So I'll go over kind of a summary of the changes and then I'd love to leave some time for specific questions on individual communities or routes. But one of our primary goals and something that the consultant identified and staff we've kind of identified through the years, if you look at one of our schedules it can be confusing. It's certainly a barrier to ridership that somebody picks up a schedule and they can't figure out where to be and when to be there. They're not going to try taking the bus. So one of our primary goals is to make our service more passenger friendly. We want to simplify our service, make it more consistent in terms of the schedules and ultimately make it an easier to use system for current riders but also new passengers. So we're hoping to do that in a couple of different ways from a scheduling perspective and then also from a routing perspective. So in terms of scheduling changes, one thing we're looking at doing is the four main corridors into Burlington, Williston Road, Route 15, Shelburne Road and North Avenue. We want to kind of target our investment on those routes. We think that's where the highest demand is in terms of transit ridership. Obviously high density travel corridors. So for those four routes we're looking at providing 20-minute service all day long from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. So that's an improvement for the most part. You know, whenever you do a cost-neutral scenario there are trade-offs. So we do operate right now 15-minute rush hour service on some of those routes. So there actually would be a decrease in frequency but based on load profiles in terms of ridership and then kind of what our peaks are. You know, we think smoothing that out to 20 minutes makes a lot of sense from a passenger perspective. It also allows us to be much more efficient with how we schedule our drivers. That's our number one cost kind of factor as our labor costs. So part of this process is a goal of efficiency. We'll see this a little bit later but we're actually providing more service hours to the public with less driver pay hours. So, and we're doing that through a variety of ways. But one of the ways, the major ways is to provide more of a consistent service structure so we can officially schedule that with our drivers. The other routes would operate every 30 minutes. You know, in one thing I'll point out the number five Pine Street route currently operates 15 minutes during the rush hour. I have not seen the ridership to support that so that's why we're proposing to decrease some of those frequencies. Another big improvement we're looking at making is providing better evening service right now. Most of our routes end service between 8 and 9.30. On Saturdays, most of our routes are done running by 7.15. So it doesn't lend itself to folks working kind of non-traditional work shifts. If you want to go downtown, grab a bite to eat, you know, you can't really take advantage of our service. So that's one area that we've identified through onboard surveys and we do kind of a regional non-passenger survey. You know, people want later service, they want to take advantage of that. So we're proposing to provide late night service Monday through Saturday until 11 p.m. on those four major routes. And then also on a Riverside-Wanooski route which travels into Wanooski in a new waterfront airport route that we'll talk about in more detail in a few minutes. Kind of along those lines, we're looking at improving our Sunday service. Again, another area that we're kind of lacking in our service quality. In the city of Burlington right now, it's called Sunday service. It's our Route 18. It's basically a combination of four or five routes. It doesn't really serve anyone particularly well. It's very convoluted, very indirect service. So we're looking at providing, you know, the same service we provide on weekdays on Sundays. So the Wilson and the Essex Junction routes, we do provide Sunday service now every 75 minutes. Not overly convenient for folks. I want to take advantage. We're going to cut that in about half. Those two routes would operate every 45 minutes. We think that's going to lend itself to more people taking the bus. And then these other routes listed the Pine Street, the North Avenue, and that new waterfront airport in the city loop will run dedicated Sunday service, which I think will be a great improvement and should help increase ridership. With this, we're looking at all of our commuter routes. Rachel is going through. We have an online survey right now. So I'm not looking to add or subtract any of the commuter service, but looking at possibly adjusting the times based on travel demands. Some of our initial thoughts that some of our link services, especially up to St. Albans and down to Middlebury, they depart Burlington too late in the afternoon. We're not capturing that travel demand. So we're looking at adjusting those times. And then the other big thing for the scheduling is improved on time performance for folks, anyone really, but anyone that is a choice rider that has a car at home, they want to try transit. You know, if they get to the bus stop and the bus is 12 minutes late, they're probably not going to take the bus again. So we've realized that and we really want to, through this process, provide better and more reliable service. So through the scheduling of these new trips, we'll accomplish that. So in terms of some routing changes, one thing we'll spend a few minutes talking more about, but we're looking at increasing our interlining of routes. Essentially what that means is taking two routes, combining them into one. It does a few things, but probably from a passenger perspective, the main thing is it reduces the transfers. So right now, if you live in Essex and you want to get out to Shelburne Road, you have to take two buses and hopefully they're on time and you can make the connection. Under this scenario, it would be one bus from Essex all the way out to Shelburne and we have some more examples of that. So some other driver scheduling efficiencies, which is key to the cost containment, but from a passenger perspective, a big improvement in service there. Another big benefit we're proposing to provide is direct service from the airport to the hospital and then to downtown Burlington. Right now, to get from the airport downtown, you have to take two buses and it's not overly convenient. So that's something that we've heard a lot about making that direct connection. So again, knowing that we're doing this in a cost-neutral manner, there's some trade-offs to afford some of these improvements. So these items listed in red are some of the eliminations we're proposing. So we currently operate the Wilson Village Service, which operates five round trips from Burlington out to Wilson Village. For the most part, very minimal ridership. I think our last analysis out in the village, it's three or four people a day that take advantage of those five trips. So from our market analysis, just not the demand out there to support those transit services. Also looking at eliminating the Sand Hill portion in River Road segment out in the town of Essex. One thing I'll know about, two things I'll know about that item. Number one, we presented to the Essex town select board and the Essex Junction Village Trustees. They both expressed some concerns with that. And we've also, since this study started, have contracted with the Essex Westford School District. So they're now paying for rides for students. This route's actually up 60% over last year. So we may have to make some adjustments to our plans based on that increase in ridership. It may be counterproductive to eliminate a route with such a high ridership increase. So we're working through some of those issues. And again, the feedback we receive from meetings like this will definitely play into what the final product looks like. So a minor routing change proposed for the city loop in Burlington, primarily to improve the on-time performance. Right now, this bus travels on South Prospect Street, southbound to Cliff. We're proposing to route it down Maple Street. We've proposed that and gone through a public process two or three times in the past. We've met some, met enough public opposition or we haven't followed through with that, but we may try that again. And then a minor routing change in the old North End where we would actually use Champlain Street to travel from Pearl to North Street. That area we're cutting is very walkable. There's the North Avenue route which still provides good service. So we think that's a logical change. And then in South Burlington, fairly large routing modification. We'll be combining the number 12, which provides service to the airport in the U-Mall now with the College Street shuttle. But to do that, we're proposing to eliminate service on Hinesburg Road. But we will have service on Kennedy Drive and Williston. So both ends, we feel that based on the ridership, it's walkable enough that folks will still have access to high quality transit. So as I mentioned, one of the big improvements we're looking at making is interlining. Again, combining two routes into one, reduce the number of passenger transfers required. It also will allow us hopefully to make wayfinding more simplistic. Right now, if somebody gets on a bus at the Downtown Transit Center, they might get on the Essex Junction route, which is the number two route, which travels on Route 15 and leaves from Spot C. So for our customer service folks to explain that can get a little confusing. Through this process, we're hoping to move to a color coded system. So if somebody says, how do we get to the Essex Junction? We say hop on the red line. So again, that theme of making things simpler and easier to understand, we think this provides a lot of benefit. So this is just an example of what the new schedules would look like. So essentially what this is is the red line, the combination of the North Avenue and the Williston route. So again, every time a North Avenue bus leaves Northgate inbound to the Transit Center, that bus will always continue out to Tafts Quarters and Williston. So for those folks that are traveling between Williston and North Avenue, they'll still travel through the Transit Center, but they'll stay on the same bus, again trying to make it as user friendly as possible. So the schedules we're still kind of working on, there's obviously more information because there's kind of two routes built into one, but we want to portray this again as easy to understand as possible. So this is another piece that the consultant identified and something that we've kind of known for a little while is that for folks to be able to understand the system, they need consumable documentation. So Rachel has spent a lot of time with the proposed changes, but also with our current service and trying to develop a system map, a basic, fundamental piece of information somebody needs to take transit. So Rachel has spent a lot of time on this, very clean, easy to understand. And again by the interlining, so combining two routes into one, there's less colors on the map and again a little easier to understand in terms of just the amount of information that needs to be consumed. Again, this is just the incentive downtown Burlington, but compared to what we offer now, much easier to understand for folks who are trying to just get downtown circulation. So this is the current service diagram. Again, we have posted this at our transit center, big improvement to some past documentation that we provided, but just to point out the main service geographic eliminations. So on the top right, the number four, that light colored blue. So we're proposing to eliminate any service east of the Essex Outlets. And then again, just below that, the other kind of light colored blue, the 1V, that complete loop, which as Wilson Village and Mountain View Road would be eliminated. But I don't think it's a surprise that they're kind of on the outer edges of our service area, much lower density, and we found they just can't secure transit service. John, when you say eliminating, look in the upper right, any service out there, does that include the Jeffersonville commuter? No, that would continue to operate. So just the number four would be essentially truncated at the outlets. And again, that one, we're still working creatively to try to maintain as much of that service as we can, but the proposal to date does have it being eliminated. So I guess this might be a good time. We'll get into some other changes we're looking at, but if there's any routing or scheduling questions, I'd be happy or feedback, I'd be happy to try to answer those the best I can. If not, we can continue on. Are people able to be tracking the bus so they know when it's going to be late? Yes, and that's, we'll get into that in a little bit, but that's an improvement we're looking at making. One other note that is not included in that information, Global Foundries and Essex right now served by the number two route. That would actually be served by the number 10, the new number 10 route. So we'd maintain service, but folks would have to transfer if they were traveling from downtown Burlington. So another routing thing I'll point out. I'll go to the proposed diagram. So the purple line, which goes out to the airport, as I mentioned, we currently offer service from the airport on a number 12 route, but to get to downtown Burlington, you have to take that bus to the University Mall and transfer it to the inbound Williston bus. So what we're proposing here is taking the College Street shuttle, which operates from the Echo Center on the waterfront to the hospital and then back down to the waterfront. We're proposing to actually extend that route out to the airport. So there would be a one seat connection from downtown Burlington out to the airport via the hospital. We hit most of the major hotels on Williston Road and then within walking distance the most of the hotels in downtown Burlington. So I think that's a big benefit. One of the trade-offs there is we would reduce service on the College Street section from every 15 minutes now to every 30 minutes. Oh, thank you. Every 30 minutes under the proposal, but we would then be offering 20-minute service all day long, as I mentioned, on Pearl Street and then on Main Street. So we think that shifting those resources to those corridor routes probably makes more sense than a kind of a downtown route with a very short span of service. I have a question for you on the airport loop. It seems like, if I remember correctly, and I probably don't, Tilly Drive was serviced by the airport route and there was a big push to get bus service for that. What's happening with all that medical office out there? Sure. So Tilly Drive, I'm sure most people will understand, but off-community drive in this area. So we've actually never provided service to Tilly Drive directly. We do have an agreement with SSTA, RPCs, involved with that. So it's essentially a demand response service that folks, they have to make a reservation, they take our Wilson bus downtown out to the mall and they transfer. There have been some conversations that maybe that would still be a demand response, but it would start the DTC to make it more convenient. That was discussed a lot over the past few years, but through this process. And our consultant ran the numbers and if that route did exist, it would be the lowest ridership route he thought in the country. So there's certainly demand out there and we recognize that. We're not sure. We don't think the appropriate way is for a full-size bus to provide that service, but we think extending that SSTA service to the training center might be the kind of happy medium there. Hi, John. Hey. Would you mind going back to your Sunday sign? Which one? The Sunday. We talked about a couple of routes that have the 45-minute ridership. Are the rest of the routes listed at a 60-minute? Yes, they'd be 60. So the two main routes would be every 45 and the rest of the service would operate every 60 minutes. And the two main routes being more? The Essex and the Williston. Yep. On the College Street shuttle, you said that's going to go out to the airport. Correct. Is this going to be a free shuttle or is there a cost? So that's actually in the next slide. That's a conversation that we've started with the city of Burlington. We'll continue with the city of South Burlington, but we'll get into some of those details. It's a good question. Any other routing or schedule-based questions? Great. So we'll get into some of the financial impacts and then the College Street shuttle is included in this. I apologize. This is a pretty wordy slide, but... So one thing that we're presenting to the public and then also all these stakeholder meetings, and we've started doing this with all the member municipality, town, and city staffs, one thing that we need to be aware of is that currently, per the GMT Charter, any change of service hours of more than 10 in a week that's increased or decreased would trigger an impact to the member town's assessment. So essentially what that does is two things. Number one, it kind of protects the town that, if ASICS is providing $250,000, we can't say we're cutting half your service and charging you the same amount. So that's a logical and a very valuable kind of protection. The other thing it does, it really minimizes how we can plan regionally and as a system. You know, the ASICS junction route, for example, passes through three communities, so it doesn't stop at town boundaries. So this 10-hour rule really limits our ability to make system-wide changes. So one thing that we've discussed with our board and they're considering, and there is precedent for this that was done in 2007 when the link services started, that they would essentially freeze this one part of the charter. So we would make these changes and there would be no assessment impacts in FY20. And then what we would do and our board would do for FY21, they would look at the actual changes that were implemented and then they would rebalance the assessments and that may be on direct service hours provided or some other formula that they would come up with in terms of population demographics or other metrics. But it's really critical for us to make these changes that we have that flexibility that we can look at these improvements as a system-wide and a regional level, not on a town-by-town level. So there's only been some concerns with that from the town level, so we'll be working through those concerns and trying to find a compromise there. One thing I will say, you know, as I mentioned, the driver pay hours, which is our cost basis of what we pay our drivers, how many hours, through this proposal, those are projected to decrease by 48 weekly hours, but the revenue hours we provide to the public would actually increase by about 110 hours. So, again, this really speaks to the efficiency that this will allow us to achieve through our driver scheduling. It also reduces our rolling stock requirements, so we're going to save some money on the number of buses we need in our fleet. And it would also help us to keep our bus fleet newer, which obviously has a lower operating cost and maintenance cost. So from a sustainability perspective, that's critical through this process. Excuse me. Going back to the earlier point, do you know which communities would be having at least a 10-hour reduction that would require a change in assessment eventually? Sure. So, again, it's a wide variety, but Essex was a community. So right now, assuming there's no service put back on that sand till portion, they're losing about 25 hours a week in service. Milton's losing about 11 hours. And Willison will be losing 11 hours. So there's a few communities that are at that 10-hour kind of threshold. Essex being the highest, the biggest change in service under this. One thing I will caution is, even for Essex, for the example, even though these service hours are being decreased, we're actually adding a number of trips in Essex. But there's certainly a concern that they're potentially receiving less service at the same price. So again, we'll be working closely with Essex and other communities to work through that piece of it. But again, our primary goal is to look at this as a regional system. And even in the Essex case, while there may be some reduction in service hours in Essex, there's a lot of Essex residents that transfer to other routes still have benefits there from other improvements. So is that one of the things you're looking for? Because if in the second year you adjust the assessments based on the service level and the communities who have less service, that will reduce, but it will increase everybody else's, I would think. So I mean, I could see where that would be an issue for some communities that have the same level of service, but their assessment goes up. Right. Well, so in that example, if any assessments went up, the communities would have received more service. But there would still be a situation where the community may say, well, we didn't ask for more service. We don't want our assessment to increase. We want very initial conversations at our board level, and we want to make sure that we understand that there's local budgets that play into this. So I don't have the exact answer what will end up in 21, but we'll work as hard as we can to make sure everyone's in agreement with the funding structure. I guess I was just cautioned about that, that if some decreased communities that are seeing no change in service can't be increased. Yes. And that's one of the things that rebalancing may not be based on actual service provided, but maybe in a rural area, we base our contributions on sensory demographics, population demographics. So again, that's definitely a critical step that we'll have to take to make sure there's equity involved. So it's a very valid question. So in terms of the College Street shuttle, so right now that is a fare-free service. Per our charter, any fare-free service, the community has to pay for the foregone fares. So the City of Burlington right now pays roughly $125,000 that fluctuates based on actual ridership. So because this route will is proposed to be extended into South Burlington, one of the things that needs to be determined is if that route will operate safely fare-free, or if the whole route will have a fare, or potentially, you know, it'll be fare-free for anybody boarding in Burlington. But if you get on in South Burlington, you have to pay a fare. There'll be some operational challenges for us if we went that way, but we could probably make it work. So we had a staff meeting with the City of Burlington Department of Heads last week. We're doing the same with the City of South Burlington next week. So again, from a financial impact, none to us because if it is fare-free, those communities would pay the foregone fares. But that is a conversation that will be happening in the next couple of weeks. If GMT, you know, had to say, I think we'd probably think it would make the most sense to make it a fare service for the entire length of the route. But again, that's going to be determined on conversations with Burlington in South Burlington. In terms of a fare increase, again, as I mentioned, we have some budgetary challenges at this time kind of that we're using this as a tool to help with. But we are proposing a cash fare increase. The last time we increased cash fares was 2005. Peter did a quick calculation, which is very helpful. So we're essentially proposing a 20% fare increase on the cash fares in the inflation rate since 2005 is about 28%. So based on that and doing a peer analysis with some other like-sized transit agencies, going from the current $1.25 to $1.50 seems appropriate. Again, this is all part of our public process. If there's a lot of negative feedback, you know, it will be up to our board to consider that. And then we'll base our staff recommendation on that feedback. One thing that we are proposing to mitigate that increase in the cash fare is to actually reduce the price of our monthly pass. Right now that's $50 a month to try to incentivize folks to use that monthly pass. We're proposing to knock that down to $40. Other benefits associated with that, there's quicker boarding time so it helps our on-time performance less wear and tear in our fare boxes, less cash we have to count. So there are some other kind of marginal cost savings along with that. So we're projecting about $160,000 generated from this proposal. That's a fairly conservative number. That's assuming there was no increases in ridership with these service changes we think we'll see an order between a 5% to 7% increase in ridership, which would translate to the fares as well. That's your question on the monthly. What's the rationale? Because it seems to me on the surface it doesn't seem logical unless your monthly passes are way down. You're trying to get them up. The fair $0.25 that makes the monthly pass that much more attractive. So what's the rationale for dropping it $10? We actually increased the monthly passes by $15 and this was probably 2012-2013. Through some of our surveys we penalize our high volume customer and part of the reason for that is some of the disadvantaged populations they can't afford $40 for a monthly pass. We understand that and there's an analysis that will kind of go into that but I guess the main reason is trying to mitigate and trying to incentivize people to go into that monthly pass. It's really increased the number of monthly passes. Yeah. So right now it's fairly limited. We'll get into some technology improvements that will hopefully help that. So right now you can go to the market center or you can order it online essentially. Yeah. We have a few ticket outlets scattered through our system. People's United Bank but it's pretty limited. Which is something that we want to improve upon. Will there be changes in the price of any of the commuter rates? At this time, no. We're not proposing any commuter price increases. We have a lot in our plate kind of getting through this process. We will reanalyze our financial needs and there may be a proposal in the next 12 to 18 months for a commuter increase. I think one thing we've identified with low fuel prices right now and there's another factor that goes into this that was part of our analysis. The Federal Transit Administration provides a stick program which is a small transit intensive city bonus program. There's five factors which roughly pay $200,000 a piece and essentially what it does is it takes the average of larger systems between over a million in population in a small urban agencies like ourselves if we meet those thresholds we get $200,000 per metric. Historically we've received four of those metrics we actually just lost one. So even if we were to increase the fare on the link routes $200,000 but we lost another $200,000 in bonus money doesn't make financial sense. We want to make sure there's no negative implications from that. I was more interested in making it more attractive to people who are taking that route every day in terms of reducing the cost of a monthly pass. So no plans to reduce it or increase it at this time. So one thing we've heard a lot about is we're facing technology. It's kind of commonplace now in the transit environment even smaller agencies like ourselves that have high quality technology offerings. We do currently have an AVL system which is Automatic Vehicle Locating System through Route Match is the vendor and their app is Route Shout. If anyone has tried to use that app they probably had varying degrees of success with that. We have not been satisfied with them as a vendor. Their bread and butter historically has been more in the paratransit side and they're fairly new to the fixed route technology. So we are replacing Route Shout. We will probably phase out of that by June 30th of this year. And then at the same time the state of Vermont has recently procured Swiftly which is another AVL vending company. We've actually installed all their GPS sensors as of yesterday in all of our urban buses. So we think that it's going to be a much more user friendly app in terms of the actual app usage but also the data consumption should be much more reliable. It should be operating at a much higher level. Another benefit is for the Route Match hardware there's a lot of driver interaction. There's a lot of things the driver needs to do to log into the system. The GPS onboard tracker the driver turns the bus on and they're done. So anytime there's less manual input it's probably a more reliable system. So we're excited about that. The other big benefit is that it's open source data so other third party app developers can come in and consume the data and it is compatible with Google Maps so that will be a big benefit. Swiftly has contracted with Transit as the name of the app. It's an industry leader and we've received a lot of positive feedback on the app from other agencies that use it and from VTrans that they're due diligence. I think the functionality will be greatly improved and then the user kind of side of the app will be much better. We are also looking at to the question on where you can buy a pass, mobile ticketing. This is real time ticket purchases on your smartphone through a credit card purchase. In 2019 people aren't carrying cash or change. This is a real convenience factor. So this is the Swiftly app. Little sleeker and I guess nicer design than the Route Shell app even when it is working. This is Santa Monica, California but they have Swiftly in this app. If you look on the left hand screenshot in the left hand corner there's that bypass option and the way this would work and we're hoping to implement this with the June changes. We're just kind of in the early stages but it's pretty quick technology to roll out. So if you were to hit that bypass this middle screen would come up it would have all of our fair offerings so you could buy anywhere from a single ride all the way up to a monthly pass and then once you purchase that we would set a time that that pass is eligible in a few minutes it's kind of the range that's used and then what you would do when you boarded the bus this third screen on the right would show up on your phone and you would just show this to the driver and there is some fraud protection so number one there's the time so you know if you're boarding the bus at four in the afternoon it shows eight in the morning that's a giveaway there's something wrong and then the word sunset you can customize that word but that's scrolling so you can't take a screenshot of this try to skirt the system so we think this is going to be a big benefit both on the vehicle locating and you know finding out when your bus is coming but also you know we've heard for many years that buying a pass or having correct change is a challenge so this will correct that for anyone that's got a smartphone so we're really excited about this program and again so for the mobile ticketing it can consume many of our current fare structures and then it also will give us the ability if there's a conference in town for example you know we can you know shoot a pass to folks email or to their phone through text and they can use that so a lot of flexibility with the system are paper passes or plastic physical passes still going to be offered yes yeah we'll still offer our current fare offerings you know I think as we go into the future more and more people will transition to this just for the convenience factor but the federal transit administration requires us to continue offering the cash fares and we would continue that the plastic passes as well so in terms of next steps you know right now we're doing a pretty aggressive outreach for municipal staff and stakeholder meetings like this starting next week we'll start our public hearings I think we have seven or eight of them in all of our member communities and then what we'll do is we'll take all the feedback we receive from the municipalities and the stakeholders and the public we'll modify this plan from a staff perspective as needed we'll then present that to the GMT Board of Commissioners on April 16th and then assuming that they approve it or approve it with other changes those would go into effect on June 17th which is our next schedule so that is in a nutshell a lot of information but a nutshell is our plan and our timeline and again if there's any other questions or comments I'd love to hear them any other questions yes I was curious that you said you did have a conversations with Essex was it the school board or the select board about the paying for student fares so we we entered into an agreement with the school district at the start of this school year so there's been some busing challenges in Essex that they face some similar challenges that we do in terms of a shortage of commercial drivers in the state of Vermont so that number four which currently provides service on SanTel any high school or middle school students rides fare free and then we build the school district directly for those rides and does that happen in Burlington as well so are those the only two districts that you're school ministers to? no we partner with South Burlington as well so they have the same they provide school bus service in South Burlington so students can ride fare free so it's a good program thank you further John just let us know if we can help with getting that word out at all we've got a newsletter going out in the next day or two if I can get the list of public meetings we'll get that information soon thank you very much for your time thank you John that was very informative next item on our agenda is the capital program prioritization and take that away and we'll do this Christine will do this yes why is it not on the screen did you click that on the screen yeah they did some dragging yeah try to drag it up drag it which one is yours mine is this one it must be open it's open which one this one it gets you every time I still miss the days of the non-system disk error I eject the floppy disk and then turn it on again does it work yes okay so okay you got it now it's working alright nice challenges this says 2016 is that is that just a date error or are we using a presentation I just want to make sure well March 20 it's 2016 people we've taken a way back oh great I'm pretty sure this is great I know it says 2021 and it says March 20 so you know probably right okay so we're talking about project prioritization I think probably most people have been through this before I've seen this presentation so we'll just do a little bit of a refresh and then we'll go through it somewhat quickly why are we doing this where does the list come from so we're doing we do this every year because the trans legislature has asked to do that to score all the projects in the transportation capital program so the project list is from the transportation capital program we also have the tip as you know and the lists are essentially the same but the capital program is what generates this list and the scores become part of the capital program projects advancing so the scoring it's a combined scoring with VTrans doing scoring and then all of the RPCs score the project in each of the region so overview I think I said much of this it's required by the legislature and we have a methodology VTrans has a methodology that's largely based on asset condition factors for each of their programs and the RPCs were directed by the legislature to consider the functional importance of the facility economically and socially in the region so the scores combined really give the overall project scores and this is kind of some more specific language from the legislature of what they want us to consider congestion mobility availability of alternate routes importance of local regional and state economy, social cultural factors and then the local and regional plans I mentioned before capital program tip two documents that are different but similar the capital program is the agency of transportation's budget for the year it's the projects that they expect to do in that year the current year plus the next four years the tip is really a planning document looking at projects that we anticipate to advance but it's not a budget it's really a planning document we'll be talking about that again in the next couple of months so projects in the capital program I think we've talked about this before there's kind of three separate lists there's the front of the book lists this is a picture of the front of the book list lists all the projects you can see a funding schedule going out this shaded column in the middle is the current year four years three years going out and give some past funding history and these are projects that have money specifically associated with them and are expected to go to construction sometime over the next four years there's two other lists of projects the development and valuation lists we talk about and these are projects you can see that there's some funding designated for them kind of very general descriptions not really a great idea of what the project is you've got a town name and a project number and a route so these are just projects that are being developed not a lot has been done with them last list is a candidate list even less information on these these are projects that exist in VTrans world but not really anything's been done with them and there's no funding schedule predicted for them so projects are prioritized according to the VTrans categories their program categories roadway and they're in separate bins so they're not prioritized across the bins roadway safety and traffic operations paving, park and ride state bridge, town highway bridge and town highway bridge pre-candidates and I'll say a little bit more about that in a minute and then we can talk specifically as you want to about VTrans's methodology but there's a specific methodology for each of the factors and then basically based on physical condition cost per user momentum and then the regional priority so we have a methodology we can use in yes has there been any change in their assessments to account for the quantity of stormwater from different sections of the state roads that would change the priority of doing moving a project of the volume of stormwater coming off certain places or opportunities to address stormwater in the scoring so there is right now an ongoing process has been going on for a couple years to redo the methodology and that is taking in a number of different factors and basically where that is going to be next year for the next two years next year we'll be looking at the new methodology plus this methodology and they're going to run concurrently for a couple years and then we'll transition to the old one but yeah so that's where we're trying to get some of the other factors in and resilience is part of the new methodology so the methodology that we use scores on six planning factors and this is part of the federal legislation we score projects on a scoring sheet I'm going to flash it up but it's also in your packet where projects are either scored high, medium, high, medium, low or no impact and basically what it looks if you want to look at these more closely they're in your packet and how we do it is we start at the top of the sheet for each category and we check the box we find the box that is the highest scoring box that's most relevant that's the number of points it gets many projects could score multiple boxes but they still just get one score for each factor and then projects also get points if they're in the current tip if they're either construction right of way or design in the current tip so the projects that score well using this methodology projects that are in growth areas that's a big factor with it now we made that change a few years ago airports tourism facilities projects that are in high crash locations that's a big scoring factor intermodal linkages regional connections and projects with critical need and also some about corridors with significant congestion so Christine just to clarify this is using your methodology not the V-trans version of the methodology yep so the next there's several sheets in your packet of the way the scores all came out so how this is done this is presented to the tack so the scoring sheets are sent to all the tack members for review and comment and modifications if we think if we think it's necessary and then the tack reviews this and votes on it and now it's here so these have been looked at for those groups this is the roadway list number one project is used to industrial avenue willstons projects been around for a really long time and is in I believe enterprise planning area and has a number of other factors and down from there the new capacity we have two new capacity projects press connector and template parkway and those are scored in the separate category and traffic operations and safety this is a large group of projects number one is exit 16 also high crash locations it's a national highway system it's growth center so all of those factors and paving and then 10 highway bridge does anybody have questions about any of the specific projects they're the bike pad projects don't make these bike pad projects are grants so they're a little bit different so they kind of have their scoring process before they make it to the capital program so once they get on they move on their own schedule they're awarded money I'm thinking specifically the remaining circuit alternative projects that aren't on this list there's two or three of them they're just off top of my head the bike pad or the the mountain view road the bikeway from Winooski to Essex do those get ranked somewhere else or are they down the list they are not ranked with this in this the mountain they are not ranked with this am I telling the truth the only one that would potentially on the list would be mountain view because I think that's in the roadway program but it's not that's a really good question for those but I think still the bike pad projects are not part of this did they still get again thinking about the circuit alternative projects that's a good question being on this list doesn't mean you're going to get funding either not being on the list so I think so the way that so currently the reason that I'm not trying to be unhelpful in my answer but the way that bike pad projects move forward right now with the exception of the roof 15 path from Lyme Kiln to Susie Wilson Road is through the bike pad program through a competitive grant process the circuit alternatives the conversation that needs to happen if those projects are expected to apply to that program in order to get funding or if there's another way for them to go which other ones are you thinking of tim mountain view redmond and then that's in the roadway program then I was just noticeably absent because I thought that was an early phase that's the roof 15 she just mentioned right so that one's moving forward so the Lyme Kiln to Susie Wilson Road is in is in right of way right now it's moving forward even though it's not in the west it's in the highway Christine I thought the phase one circuit alternatives moved independent of prioritization correct yeah I'm sorry Matthew could you say that all over phase one circuit alternatives they moved forward without prioritization and that's what the roof 15 path was was the phase one there were some other smaller phase three bike pad projects I don't know if that's what you're referring to but the Manchester just traded one out for right correct right the roundabout at Bayside Park and Lake Shore is an example of phase three what would have been a bike and pad funded project this is not the capital program no it is not the input that we're able to provide as they're putting together the FY 21 capital capital program so the last so kind of unique I'm sorry this is all in your packet if it's small so a little bit different from the other pieces as we also do a scoring of town highway bridge pre-candidates so this is is unique to this program where we provide scores for projects for up to 10 projects that are moving their way potentially moving their way into the capital program so this is a list of our top scoring 10 highway bridge projects number one project is bridge seven on Bay Road in Shelburne so these would be the projects that are queuing up to be added to the program how do you get onto that list or move your way into that because obviously you start there and move on so all the town highway bridges are on this list you only see the top number all time highway bridges all together all time highway bridges are scored at least every two years I'll help me and what we're asking about slack borders thinking that there's a few of them that should start moving up and so I wanted to be able to convey that but I ranked every year so let me know what those are I don't know what they are, I just know what there are some I think we have a because you have, Charlotte has one you've got one on the list no, they're all on the list you're only seeing the top he's talking about the actual list not the actual list yeah, so just I can let you know so this table shows the state rank also which is interesting or which is potentially interesting because they're not gonna our score is gonna be combined with the state score so I think the lowest ranked one is pretty low so I think there are ways out just a question the kind of what Jim is saying here scoring of bridges is this a traditional bridge a traditional span bridge with buttons and everything or is this including box calder maybe or you can basically a box calder would be a structure made of concrete clear of structure, it's not a bridge the per se that has poured piers and such you think in bridges with I-beams, spans and everything I'm talking box calder there's a lot of box calder Matthew can answer it's any structure with a span over 20 feet so it could be a big box calder but it'd have to be over 20 feet I just wanted to clarify I'm not sure what Jim's the town is dealing with but there are a lot of box calder out there that need improvement but it's just over 20 feet in the kind of structure there's a lot of local bridges and box calder it's less than 20 feet too I just wanted to get that clear that's why I'm asked I wanted to get that clarification what it includes I'm going to hand out a table that has I never keep one for myself that has the projects that are in the current transportation capital program the ones that are highlighted in yellow are new to the program this year so you've got the different programs paving intercept bridge, state bridge, roadway and then the last page are the development and valuation list and the candidate list so just to let you know what's in there projects that have money in 2020 this is just kind of a background piece this is a background piece just if you're curious we'll send the existing proposed capital program for f.y.20 what we're talking about asking you to take action on is the ranking that provides input for the f.y.21 capital program yeah maybe my timing is off I think it's just hard to realize that v-trans is going to be putting together the f.y.21 program in the fall so in the spring they're asking for RCC and input into their process did you say about the yellow ones? yellow ones are new to the capital program this year as most of the new ones, all of the new ones no not all the new ones but most of the new ones are paving because those are projects that advance more quickly it's also important to note the governor's recommended budget what the legislature spits out could be different than this that's up to you to work out with them I was in the senate transportation committee last week and there was a conversation about the prioritization process but I think the notable part of the conversation was how much the senators wanted to make sure there wasn't political games being played with the list that data was driving the prioritization and so I thought that was good to hear and when I say the senators, I mean Tim Ash and Dick Maza were very clear on wanting the right projects to move forward and not any politically based project for what that's worth I did not get the sense that they were going to be making a lot of changes to the priorities that were coming so sorry so are there any further questions if not is there a motion to approve the 2021 regional project scores in town highway bridge pre-candidate regional project scores any further discussion any further discussion we need it to do hearing none all in favor say aye all opposed the ayes have it thank you Christine for that next up is the Shelburne town plan approval your packet documents about the 2019 Shelburne town plan which has recently been adopted by the select board it was reviewed by our planning advisory committee back in November for both approval and confirmation of the plan and the relatively new determination of energy compliance process which we've discussed a few times with this group there were a few small changes that were identified during the pack review process that had since been made you'll see that in the annotated information that's included in your packet both the staff review is annotated in there and also discussed in the memo the pack made a motion to recommend that the plan is approved the planning process be confirmed and that they get their affirmative determination of energy compliance that's also the staff recommendation so I'm happy to answer any more questions that you may have about the plan any questions comments hearing none is there a motion for the mission to approve the Shelburne comprehensive plan confirm its planning process and grant an affirmative determination of energy compliance for the 2019 plan second any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye opposed the ayes have it congratulations Shelburne next up going from the sublime to the ridiculous act 250 recommendations I'm sorry I just crept in there didn't I okay so as you all recall at your last meeting you saw the first set of policy statements on Act 250 proposed changes so what we're doing tonight is just recommending that you add two to that list we could have done this more efficiently so I apologize for that but essentially number nine talks about how in the proposed bill it calls for regional plans to be approved just as local plans are approved in order to be used in Act 250 under criteria 10 the Vermont planners association have thought about this issue a little bit and in your memo you kind of see their description on this issue and why it's in the plan staff's recommendation as well as the ad hoc Act 250 committee met last Wednesday executive committee looked at this just before this meeting and the recommendation is for number nine to approve that for regional plan approvals they should be reviewed by a development cabinet or some other similar instrument of the state the proposed bill has the natural resources board what they're recommending recommending the natural resources board to become to be the body that approves regional plans that feels a little bit like it's not the right organization because that board uses our plan in their regulatory process so it seems like there should be a different entity doing that just to make one clarification for you that just came out of the executive committee before this meeting for number nine on the second line at the end it currently reads are reviewed and approved the recommended change is are reviewed for compliance with statutory planning goals so just being much more clear about what exactly are being reviewed and approved for as opposed to sort of opening it up for other debate that's number nine number ten really just follows that up with if there is an approval process of regional plans how and by who should those approvals be appealed to who should hear the appeals so that recommendation is the environmental court and similarly that local plans would be reviewed that way as well a little bit of background on that particular one there is a body in your memo in the third bullet it describes a regional review panel that has been in statute before and in place to hear appeals of locally approved plans so here at the regional planning commission like we just did we approve local plans and who should appeal that who should get those appeals if somebody didn't like the decision the regional review panel was set up in statute for that but it's been repealed in some places so it doesn't really actually exist at all so the recommendation here is to give some guidance to that as well for the environmental court to play that role any further questions comments discussion Jim what would be the repeal of that review board was that repealed for that reason or did it happen to be in some other larger law that it got lost because there was a different repeal I think it was repealed as part of a broader repeal and they didn't realize that it was still being referenced with respect to them that's what I was thinking so would another option be to re-institute that for it as well so you're not actually going to the environmental court as an option like one or the other since it wasn't meant to be eliminated well no I think it was meant to be eliminated but they forgot that by eliminating it it was also being eliminated for regional plan review so and I think you know we've tried to be consistent in our efforts at advocating for efficiency so the development cabinet or some other we're trying to have it to be something that's existing so I misunderstood the first part of the question so it was meant to be repealed yes repeals from the council regional commissions when that existed because that was the review panel that got repealed that would have under prior where under rule 75 of the Vermont rule of civil procedure there is a process that allows you to appeal governmental action that does not otherwise provide a specific appeal route in the legislation and there are a number of you know one off tight boards or with that don't have an act with a specific appeal procedure included and so the fallback is to file it in the what would now be the civil division so you'd be going to a division of the Vermont Superior Court under the old regime but now the Superior Court's been split between the civil division and the environmental division and the proposal here is to send it to the environmental division because they presumably have expertise in this area I have to admit I'm uncomfortable with environmental court that's why I was wondering what the old option was and I need to be honest and there's built into our system a right of court review with respect to any quasi-judicial decision by the government so built into it and this Rule 75 is sort of the divot filler so if there isn't a specific provision providing for an appeal to a court that steps in and provides that process so for instance select boards make curb cut decisions and 1111 doesn't have an appeal process for that if somebody wants to appeal a curb cut decision they go to the civil division under Rule 75 I understand that I'm just saying I'm comfortable with that in part because in order to go that route you have to be represented by an attorney even under that rule and I'm wondering if there was another option that existed in the past that we could reconstitute but again I don't have the old statutes in front of me so I don't know what it was some of the conversation at the committee was even if they did do that there would still be eventually you would get the court yeah it might have even gone to the supreme court I don't know which I don't know I think the conversation was kind of let's work as much as we came with what we got yeah because I would assume that appeals from if they're going to hear appeals of municipal approvals that RPCs make under the 117 statute those would go to environmental court to be comfortable with environmental judge consistency I mean they're applying the consistency to be able to well and by having it be a particular court that is better versed in these areas the hope is that there will be a degree of expertise and consistency that you wouldn't necessarily get if you scattered it around in different places but that's obviously a dialogue that's going to be taking place over the next two years of legislative session that's okay I just wanted to be clear from Jim's initial question I think referred to the bullet 8 and then the notion that the natural resources board transitioning into deferred whatever it becomes wasn't the right place to apply for approval in the first instance of an RPC so for everyone else who might not have been we do have a separate question who approves the regional plans and is there a judicial appeal around and a reason I think that they've gone with a recommendation and this again comes from the VPA as well for the development cabinet the agency group like that is two-fold one our plans deal there are various agencies that have a lot of interest in a part of our plan but our plans are by name comprehensive and cover the whole gamut of issues and secondly we were a little uncomfortable with having a regulatory body that is going to be using plans and referring to them also being the ones that approve them so we wanted to keep that process separate at least that was the thinking I think that was the thinking of the VPA as well actually VPA looked at a number and I think we'd be okay with alternatives too to that but we looked at the downtown board the development cabinet we looked at an affiliated committee that was associated with the resource board but firewalled from it for some of the reasons you mentioned and again the development cabinet was created at a point where the cork was eliminated they were on the same time in order to kind of fill that gap so that's why we landed there in making that recommendation anything further is there a motion to approve these two additions to the RPCs and and just a clarification as mentioned by although with that edit I would mention consistency with the goals because that's a statutory term if it's going back to 45 I would say consistency right because that's the test in 4302 perfect I like precision I think you might not realize that sometimes but any further discussion hearing none all in favor say aye aye those thank you folks executive director report so the first one is just to let you know the UPWP committee I think it's going to meet tomorrow for their last meeting tomorrow thank you chair we're very tight on the quorum my uncertainty but I think we have a pretty good draft right now that should be in front of you at your April board meeting as a draft and here for action in May so heads up on that there is one last little issue I think the committee will have to work on tomorrow but other than that I think it's pretty well legislative update I guess I'll just pick up the act 250 bill conversation so the house natural resources committee has not yet actually really turned the working document into a bill so you know I think we're kind of working on this position language in anticipation that that might happen clearly isn't going to move before crossover at this point I don't think that would be shocking to see have been this week and so anyway I think just to prepare you I think there hopefully will be a bill that at least is in the house by the end of the session this year that will then be taken back up you know in January so we probably will be revisiting our comments based on what that bill looks like because there may be something more specific that we want to respond to in a different way the other significant bill that has implications for the regional planning commissions is s96 a water quality bill you may have seen an article I think maybe in Vermont David in the last day or two and the bill is potentially going to do two things one it's talking about how to distribute water quality funds to sub grantees to implementers or projects the bill talks about having clean water service providers I think is the term and it right now is written to default to the RPCs the secretary would assign an entity to be the clean water service provider but there are a couple significant issues in there for the RPCs the big ones being that it would require the clean water service provider to be responsible for ongoing operations and maintenance of any project that was funded Charlie's bought a new pair of boots and a shovel whatever it takes to maintain Bernie needs some work to do after she retired it could be the flagger and it also almost has a little bit of a permit feel because it also has an enforcement provision that would have DC take enforcement action against the clean water service provider they're not doing what they're supposed to do so the earlier conversations were more about helping DC get grant dollars to partners locally and facilitating that administrative work your hearts have been in the right place and they're trying but their business office has been pretty backed up the last couple of years and so we were totally fine doing that but these other pieces in there so if you hear something about actually I got an email I think yesterday it was amazing that it would have RPCs monitoring and taking enforcement action on towns there's some spins on how this really would work because like how was how would that work so there's definitely more conversation there that needs to happen to see how it would work it is though I think getting voted out of the senate so this conversation will get picked up in the house which bill is it? S96 the second big piece of the bill is supposed to be raising clean water revenue my impression is that the senate is going to ask the house to work on that so stay tuned we'll see how all of this works because obviously a lot of it is predicated on there actually being money to distribute to partners I think the sergeant at arms is buying it the current plan that might be a tough one folks for the Act 250 I've heard from various people that have done some testimony that they get the feeling that the committee has a clear idea of what they want the comments are coming in they're kind of just really not paying attention to them much I just wanted to know you've got that feel I guess the way I've it's been hard to tell because they're not actually working on a bill that they're editing over time I don't know which pieces they've listened to or not or who they're listening to until we actually see a bill so I'm going to keep hoping for the best we'll plan for the worst I think depending on what the bill actually looks like it may require more intense engagement I will say that to their credit I think the committee and I had the privilege of testifying in front of them last week not as RPC but otherwise that I think they've recognized that this involves a lot more than they realize going into it and I think they realize pretty quickly that they weren't going to be able to turn this around this year so they are making an effort to hear call people in on a number of different issues but we really won't know until we see an actual markup of a bill beyond the version that was that the committee had developed over the course of the last two years and I did testify there I think the day after your last meeting when we first voted on those eight it didn't have a lot of time but I felt like they were listening but we'll see thank you that's all I know there are a collection of minutes, letters and the like in our materials you can follow up with folks if you have questions about that are there any members items or other business to be considered hearing none is there a motion to adjourn thank you assuming no discussion did Jeff tell you to do that ah but I keep the tradition alive here okay all in favor say aye aye thank you very much folks happy spring happy spring we dig out from the snow you have to make a motion I do it it's like we're meeting so that's natural your message they need to have their own seat making that motion on the bill they need to be shown independently it has to be said too I am confident 15 years then it is one line I'm just thinking about for institutional knowledge the clearest way to do it and I'm a little unsure you want to meet halfway like this is my leader