Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

Patient committee meeting at 04:06PM. First order is roll call. Aldrich Bavenich?

Present.

Carl?

Present.

Nielsen present. All of our committees present. Take a motion to approve the agenda.

So move. Second.

All in favor of approving the agenda as written, say aye.

Aye. Thank

you. Next up on our agenda, approval of minutes from 03:25. No. Sorry. Approval of minutes. We don't have we don't oh. Yeah. Sorry. We don't have we'd already approved the last Next up on our agenda is AP 03:25, the appointment of miss Kathleen Reedy, but not present.

I move to postpone next meeting.

Second. Second. All in favor of postponing the appointment of miss Kathleen Reedy, say aye. Aye. Aye.

Next up on our agenda is legislation, o five twenty five speed monitoring cameras. We do have our sponsor here in the room. Sorry that I failed to recognize you, Alderman Sandelmeier. All good. Thank you for joining us today. Would you like to talk a little bit about this?

Yes. Thank you, madam chair, and no worries on no recognition. I am not a committee member, so it's all fine. So o five twenty five is enabling legislation to allow speed cameras away from where they are currently permitted, which is within a certain distance of school zones. The rationale behind this is we have problems with speeding, especially on specific artery roads, connector roads, and sometimes even on our side streets in the city.

And street design changes is a longer process and more expensive process to go through, and this is a simpler process that can hopefully help change behavior in aggressive speeding drivers. The fines do not go into a general fund. They will be dedicated towards road redesign for pedestrian safety. And the other half has to go to the state for the state requirement. And I really have nothing else to add, as for favorable recommendation.

Great. I also see that we have a member of our APD, Doctor. Meguez. Would you like to come up and talk with us a little bit about? I believe that my committee probably has a few questions.

I

will not At this point, let me see what Could

you just give us an idea of how you feel about this legislation, if there's pros, cons to this, and if there's any concerns from the APD? Sure. First of

all, captain Amy Miegeth, Annapolis Police Department. I'm the head of the administrative services division. We're definitely in supportive of this supportive of this legislation. Just because we have this legislation doesn't mean we're gonna put speed cameras up tomorrow. It should be a deliberative process based on where we get have the most accidents and where we get the most complaints.

And then once we do community engagement with the area where we're proposing to put the camera, taking all those things into consideration before having a camera put there. So it just allows us it had to give us the ability to be more flexible. Right now, speed cameras are restricted to school zones, which are somewhat limited by by state requirements. What a school zone is, it's really not as far as you might think it would go. It doesn't encompass a whole area around a school.

It's pretty much the areas just on the edge of the actual school property, not necessarily pathways that kids are traveling on to that school. So we have concerns in communities that we haven't been able to put cameras in because they don't follow the current requirements. But this would open it up. The state requirements are that it would be residential neighborhoods where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and lower. So it's still restricted in a way.

It's not like we're given free rein. And there still has to be considerations where we wouldn't put a speed camera on a downhill. It's 's just not it's not fair to drivers. We generally do our own enforcement on areas like that. Think of Spa Road by the city pumps. That's an area where we do frequent speed enforcement. People come down that that hill, but putting a camera there would, not necessarily be a great idea.

Great. The question is from the committee? Alderman? Oh, Alderman Neil Trout.

Thank you, madam chair. Just a ballpark figure, and I'm not gonna hold you to this, captain Miegas. About how many offhand at this point would you anticipate we would have, how many speed cameras we would have possibly in the city?

Well, right now, we only have five.

Right. Because of a school zone.

Right. Okay.

So we could expand it to more, but every time we add a camera, it means more citations that officers have to review. So every speed citation that is triggered has to be reviewed by a police officer before it's issued. There was some legislation up that would have allowed a clerk to do that kind of review. It's basically checking that the vehicle tag matches the one that the system pulled up, that the picture is, you know, matches the data, that kind of thing. It requires us an officer to certify it.

So it takes up time. On average, our five speed cameras and our one red light camera generate on average 50 citations to be reviewed a day. So that's a lot of work for an officer to to be taking when it's an officer that can be out actively responding to an area where we have complaints. You know, monitoring a stop sign or looking for speeders, you know, it's taking them out of that job to review these citations. So it's kind of a catch 22.

It it can we've seen it make a big difference when they're placed, you know, think of Hilltop Lane and how people generally went well above the posted speed limit on Hilltop Lane and how the speeds have really come down since that speed camera went there. So I would say it's it's been effective. I think one of the the most important corridors we have as far as traffic safety, it's the Forest Drive, Bay Ridge Road corridor, you know, which is a city road a state road sorry, a county road. So I know that the city has worked with the county to do some major safety upgrades along that route, but it's probably, you know, well overdue for those upgrades.

How many cameras would you possibly anticipate throughout the city? It it sounds like it's about 10 citations written per county I mean, per camera.

I would say that if this was enacted, that we would look at adding one at a time. We wouldn't be looking at installing a a blanket of them immediately. So it would be where are our most dangerous intersections and roads where speed's a factor in the accidents? Those would be our first priority. And then, like I said, the second would be where would we get the most citizen complaints.

What do you anticipate your time limit making that doing that investigation before deciding to install a speed camera?

It doesn't take, you know, terribly long to gather the data, but the the problem is there's some roads that aren't very conducive to installing speed cameras. If you've seen the installations where they are, it requires, you know, a cabinet to be installed on the side of the road. So if you have a residential area where you have houses, you have to make sure you find a spot that's not going to maybe block someone's driveway view trying to get out of their their house, or it's not on someone's property. You have to make sure, you know, so finding the right spot can be difficult. But, you know, if we we find places, good places, then that's where where we'll put them, you know.

And it has to have that community outreach. You know, there has to be information given to the community that the plan is to put a camera there, why we wanna put a camera there, and then get their feedback about it.

Do you do sometimes a pilot where you might put a speed camera in for, say, three months and then determine that it may not be necessary?

Well, it's always required that when a new one is installed that there is a pilot period where no fines are issued. Just warnings.

Okay.

And so that gives people a chance to get used to that camera being there. So there have been times where before I was in the program, but you may recall there was a camera at one point on Farragut Road, which that road is not very conducive to having a speed camera because it's such a low I think at the point where they installed it, it was a 15 mile per hour speed limit, which is not a normal speed limit for a road that's traveled on. And so that caused a lot of community feedback about it. Greeting. Yes.

So, you know, you have to think smart like that. There there may be one or two loud voices in a community that really want to see a camera. But if we then hear from, you know, a group of 20 or 30 people in that same community who are saying this isn't an issue and we don't have the accident data to back it up, then that's something that we'll have to consider. You know, how how much is the how is the camera gonna gonna make a difference in that area? Are we just doing it to make one or two people happy? Or is it really do we really think it's gonna make a difference to traffic safety in that area?

Thank you.

Alderman Savage?

Thank you, madam chair. And so for do you know the number then? Because I know we have which some of them I'm presuming the one on on Forest Drive is operated by the county.

No. No. It preexists when the county had their program. So if you recall in the past, Anne Arundel County was limited. They did not have any speed cameras, and they only had they were limited to maybe three red light cameras in the whole county. There was some legislation that they used to have. Okay. But they have recently made some changes. They've started installing speed cameras. I in school zones.

I have been in touch with their program to make sure they were aware of the one we have on Forest Drive. They're happy to have it have us have it there and for us to continue having it there. I don't know if that will change once the safety improvements along Forest Drive, but we've definitely seen an impact on accidents along that stretch, but it is a limited stretch of forest.

Okay. So that's so we get the funds from that?

Yes.

Okay. Do you have a how much do we actually bring in from that camera?

I didn't bring the current data on that. We share, you know, obviously, the the company gets a cut of the it's part of their our contract, but I don't have the contract in front of me or what the the details are. I have not renegotiated it since I've been in this position. It's the standing contract that we've had.

Okay. Yeah. If you could follow-up at some point.

Yep.

Be good to know. Sure. And so and then we so what other cameras do they manage on that contract?

Just the five speed cameras, and we have a separate company that does the red light camera.

Okay. So the five cameras, and that's we've got Tyler, Forest Drive, one Cedar Park.

Cedar Park.

What are the other two?

They're all on our website.

On parole?

I don't think we have any on West Street because of the state highway issue and because there's not really a school. I mean, there's the there's the Monarch. Monarch Academy now. But like, talking with the county about their program, they've been trying to put a speed camera on Ritchie Highway near Saint John the Evangelist School where it is marked as a school zone, but they've had to negotiate with state highways to try and get that to happen. And as far as I know, they haven't come to an agreement yet.

Okay. And so with five total

yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just trying to pull it up on the website.

Those are all managed through the contract.

Yes. And

you said it has to be a sworn officer who reviews them?

Yeah. Per state law.

You can get back to me.

Sure. And

so how much? I'm just thinking about how the contract works with the officers. Like, if we do add them so we don't wanna take up too much time with the officer. Is there is there some way to improve the process where the contractor does the load of the review and then the officer just signs off? Is that permittable, permitted?

So there is some training that's required to make sure the officer knows what they need to check. Otherwise, if we funded, say, overtime for officers to review tickets, that would be another option. That would probably be the best solution barring letting a civilian clerk, you know, be be part of the review process.

I wonder why they included that in the state law.

Maybe we just petition the state to change

Yeah. Well, so aren't traffic officers a little different as far as their training or certification?

They they're the same same basic training, but a lot of them have accident reconstruction, extra schools on that and on DUI enforcement. So they have some specialization in that. Most of our officers are radar and lidar certified so that and we have units for other for the patrol officers to take out besides the the traffic unit as well. Mhmm.

Because I'm just thinking, isn't it you know, we had we used to have parking enforcement officers. I'm wondering if

Right.

Something like that, akin to that position would be able to do this kind of enforcement instead of

mean, have been there have been, you know, efforts in other cities to kind of depolice traffic enforcement. But there's also been efforts to kind of like, and even in the state legislation this year, saw efforts to take certain violations out of enforcement as far as like primary enforcement. So things like registration violations, like if your tags are expired, not being able to pull a car over, if that's the only violation that you see. Mhmm. But I don't know that that that really I'm trying to think of like what would be conducive for someone to enforce, you know, you'd kind of think about things you could enforce on foot almost.

Yeah. And then you're relying on flagging someone over. You know, things like seat belt or cell phone use, you know, barring the there's some some automated enforcement of cell phone use that's kind of up and coming but hasn't been allowed in Maryland yet, which is like by video again using it's kind of that's more intrusive. You're looking into somebody's car rather than just measuring the speed of their car on the outside. You're looking into their car with a camera to see if they're on the phone.

So it definitely is more intrusive than other other ways that we use cameras currently. So, I mean it's, we want the goal is, right, safer driving Yeah. We want people to stay off their phone, but then how it's a balance.

Yeah. Yeah. Those are certainly

Yeah.

Types of cameras that we've heard about before, which might be good to look at at some point. But going back to the officer thing, I think that might be something we wanna talk to our delegation about

Mhmm.

Is if we have we have had parking officers be able to write tickets as they're walking around. We have what other what else was I thinking of? Oh, and then we have, like, a nine one one operators who handle pretty critical tasks. Seems odd to have require a full a sworn officer to

review the

bulk of this work. And I guess the other thing is is bigger picture. So you said you build it. Well, could you get us some of the hotspot data at some point?

Yeah. And actually, so lieutenant Krausz does a traffic safety report every year. He's finishing up 2024. He's still gathering some data. It's been harder to get out of the state system than it usually is.

Where he goes over the worst intersections and kind of where we're at with things like pedestrian accidents and county has a website. They have like a towards zero, which is a traffic safety initiative where they they have a map that has segments of roads that are are the most dangerous, I guess is the way to put it. Forest Drive is many segments of that of theirs, and so is Bay Ridge Road. So I'm I'm really glad that, you know, the city took steps to work with them to get that grant to upgrade the safety along Forest Drive. But as Aldo and Pindelled Charles knows, you know, West Street is also a corridor that's that's an issue.

And again, that's a state road. So we run into all these kind of issues when it comes to it's in our city and it's affecting our residents, but we're reliant on other agencies to kind of recognize. But I know our public works does a good job of trying to put in for upgrades for certain, you know, whether it's the sidewalks in West Annapolis that they try to get State Highway to to add in every year. So

Well, I would like to see some of the overall data because I know I don't know what kind of data software you have or that you're currently using, but I'd like to see over it's been something I've been thinking about for a while now. Overall numbers of accidents, pedestrian accidents, and deaths that we've had in the city, where they happen. And I'm sure we all get our own complaints from residents as far as speeding, but it'd be good also to see speeding enforcement where you've noticed

Right.

The issues we can compare. Because, you know, I'm pretty sure probably with this budget or the next, at some point, we'll each wanna be putting in request for cameras in our various parts of our ward. So I think that data will be good to have at some point.

So we ERVOCAL recently started having a multi agency kind of traffic safety group meeting.

Okay.

And I had been thinking for a while of how we can put together a map with just that kind of data. Not necessarily the where we ticket people for speeding, though that would be great data to add in. It's easier to do the accident data. And so we already started working on that with an ArcGIS product where we can throw that data in there and let people look at what they want to look for, whether it's pedestrian related or not, and kind of see where those things happen. And I mean, it is really highlighted, you know, the main arteries are really the areas that we have the most issues.

But even a small change like hilltop onto forest where they made that light at hilltop, you have to stay there, you can't turn right on red. When they made that change, we saw a huge decrease in accidents. Now most of those were minor accidents because it was people rear ending each other because they thought the person was gonna go, and then they have a low speed crash. But that has become almost nonexistent for accidents. Yeah.

And then when they changed Forest Drive and South Cherry Grove Avenue, even just recently, after we had a terrible fatal accident there finally, had the change where that left turn from Forest onto South Cherry Grove towards Chesapeake Market had to be with the arrow instead of it being Yeah.

Yeah. That's good to know. And that's something I know a couple of us have been talking about introducing at some point is like a no turn on red mandate, at least for most of the camera traffic signals. Last thing I'll say is just and you touched on it. I I do I think cameras will help with seems like they've helped with with reducing traffic accidents.

And, you know, big picture, I I I think it's one tool, like you've mentioned, there are other things we can do. Hence, where I think mister Leshinsky comes in with some of the planning as far as the and and the public works. Yeah. So I think the cameras seem like they work in a limited area. I'm sure they have some effect beneficial effect going out. But the thing I'd really like to push on some of our roads, like we've been looking at for Tyler and Edgewood, is a road diet and Right. Incorporating traffic calming into the actual design of the street, including, I think, Bay Ridge Road or Bay Ridge Ave would be a good one. But I think that's more of a holistic

Mhmm.

View, a holistic solution where maybe at some point we can move away from having cameras, but it seems like a good tool in the short term.

Agreed. I mean, Edgewood Road, you know, as you know, like, it used to be a 30 mile per hour zone and they lowered it to 25 and the road is like wide open there

Yeah.

At the front and it just, you know, I travel it regularly to take my kid to drum lessons. Oh. And and I used to live off Edgewood as well. And so now I'm like, wow, it's really it's really difficult in that first stretch to keep it down because the road just feels like it's you know, it's not 25.

Yeah.

So I think definitely a road diet and some some things added in, because the people turning out, some of the areas, like, you don't you can't see well, and and people get used to the road and they just pick up their speed and.

Yeah. Well, thank you for all the great information.

Thank you. Alderman Sandelmeier, did you?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple possibly overly technical questions

just because I'm learning some

new things, which is good. So we we don't put these on hills. Is that just an internal policy? Is that a state policy? Is that a city policy?

It's a state guideline.

State guideline? Yes. Okay. Is there like a grading of the hill that sets forward that guideline or is it a judgment call? Is it this is hill, it is like slightly up, slightly down, therefore we cannot put it on? What's what's our definition of hill here?

Usually I talk to the traffic engineers, which police officers are not.

Okay. That's a good enough answer.

Yeah. We we get a lot of like traffic engineering questions as police officers, but we are not traffic engineers. So it in the guidelines, it does not have a grade that I've seen. But I'm sure that in traffic engineering there's a certain certain grade that is But spa is quite quite a, you know, considerable.

As is hilltop. But, yeah, one of the it makes sense it's one of those things where it makes sense to me. We do want to be fair. We don't wanna create just gotcha traps. But simultaneously, when these roads are some of our bigger offenders, also wanna find ways to keep our residents safe So just I don't know, that can be a question for the engineers later.

Thinking out loud and musing. The other, this may be a question for mister Leshinsky if he knows or this may be a question again for the engineers. Because I fully agree with Alderman Savage where we do wanna get this eventually to the traffic redesigns for our standards. Because a lot of these roads where we have these speeding issues, these dangerous driving issues are because they're poorly designed. They're too big, they're too wide, and so drivers feel like they can speed on them even if they're not doing it maliciously, it's just driving is stage two activity, you're not 100% paying attention to with every little thing all the time, and it's very easy to go quickly without realizing you're doing it.

Can the speed camera data be used as traffic study data for a road redesign? Do you know, miss Zeljenski? He is shrugging.

He has to come to our

You have to come to the podium. Sorry.

You can come join me.

I'm Eric Lushinski, chief of comprehensive planning. I'm speaking for public works, which I try not to do. But, you know, typically, their process is to do a a study to show what the patterns of driver behavior are for any of these corridors where we have concerns, community requests for change, or council members have prioritized. And tracking the speeding is is definitely part of those criteria. It's like the volume of cars, the rate at which they speed over the I mean, look at percentiles, I believe.

And so, yeah. I mean, that's definitely a big part of it. I don't know what the period is they track. It's like a month or more than a month, but they they they look at it for, you know, extended amount of time to see what the pattern is.

So that could be a pretty decent unexpected benefit of this. It helps accelerate some rotary design during the study phase. Wasn't something I intended to while getting this drafted, but good little benefit. And that's all the questions I have, madam chair. Thank you.

Thank you. And I will say we did hire, in January, eBay. Jeff Wentz is our new city traffic engineer, and he's been helpful, to me working on some issues in West Annapolis and on Cedar Park Road. So Jeff Wentz, w e t f z, w e e z. What's that?

The new

He's a new Lisa.

New new

Lisa. But he yes. Whereas Lee Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Lisa was had multiple hats. She, Jeff, is a 100% traffic projects. So and he's got a really good background in that.

He's not new to the city. He's new to the position. Right?

Right. I think he was he's been or serving as a consultant to public works for several years. So Good. Yeah. I think he designed the Hilltop Lane demonstration project.

Yeah. Yeah. We will invite him to an upcoming meeting. Thank you very much for your time and answers. I think that there's a lot of things for us to think about and unpack with this legislation, But, I will look for a motion to give a favorable recommendation for 05/25 to come. Oh, there.

There's one amendment. I think believe it's

a friendly amendment. Sorry. Alderman Savage.

It's basically, because the the money has to be spent on fashion safety, road design, public transit, as far as implementing and administering those things. And so the money base, it has to be set aside in some fashion. And so what I was proposing is put it into the Sustainable Mobility Services Fund, which would be were also, I think, mentioned in the outdoor dining legislation that money would go in there to do you think any any efforts to improve, to give people an alternative to automobiles will make it safer? So that's what this money is really supposed to do.

I just wanna make a note. The Office of Law didn't have a opportunity to look at this amendment yet, so I just wanna put that on the record.

Do have any questions?

No, I do not. Thank you.

Can I have a motion for a favorable recommendation as amended?

So moved. Second.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Right. So we'll give that a favorable recommendation to the council.

Question. Yes, ma'am. Miss Jessica, will you be, giving us any kind of feedback on this amendment between now and the time that it comes before the general counsel?

Yeah. I'm gonna have the correct parties to look at it from the office of law, and if there's feedback, we'll circle back to that.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Alright. Going on in our agenda, the next step is ID sixteen twenty five transportation board updates. And I should have made this change on our agenda. It is no longer chair for Cregal. It is now chair Tara. You'd like to come? Hello. Welcome. Please state your name for us.

Could you please turn your mic on?

Thank you. The only update would be the change in the, administration of the Transportation Board. I'm now chair. Vince Harriman is, co chair or vice chair, and then we did appoint Boris Land as secretary. So we look forward to that. I did have one question. We I was given guidance from Kurt that you wanted us to comment on tow trucking legislation. And while we received, some legislation, we did not receive anything on the tow trucking. Do you have an update a status update on that?

I think it has. It's also one of yours. Do you wanna speak to that tow truck legislation?

So passed out of this committee. It went to the city council, but it was delayed because there was some slight concerns about jurisdiction. There was a recommendation for an amendment. I don't know what the status of that amendment is. Alderman, did you send that in to the law office? Believe it was your concern?

Is not. Okay.

It was amended. So it is not up for it has not come up for final vote yet, but I believe it's coming up at our next meeting.

So you wouldn't necessarily need feedback then at this point?

No. And essentially the premise of it was it expands out the currently the city only allows towing abandoned vehicles one mile out. So we have difficulty of any vehicle really. So we have difficulty getting abandoned vehicles, oversized vehicles collected by the tow yards. We expanded it out further and with the goal of these oversized vehicles or abandoned vehicles. So if something's left on the city street, we can actually get it.

Thank you.

That was all I had.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And for future meetings, we'll have you right before discussion of legislation so that you don't need to sit through the entire meeting.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming, and congratulations. Next up on our agenda, we have ID 1725 transportation department's update. Marcus Moore?

Good afternoon, madam chair and ATC committee members. Marcus Moore, director of transportation. I'd like to give you a little update on what's been happening in the last time since the last time we met. Number one noteworthy is coming to the conclusion of our transit development plan, which is done every five years. You know, that gives us the vision of how we do business and serve our community, connecting residents with jobs, health care, education, shopping, all of the destinations, and to help them to foster economic, you know, prosperity and expand across not just the city lines, but within the county and beyond.

So, basically, where we are now, we're at that final phase. And, as of March 7, the final draft of the TDP is actually on our website, the city's website under transportation, and you can click on TDP. It'll be there for thirty days for public input, comment. And once that process is completed, we'd like to arrange a, session with this committee, ATC, with the board, Indianapolis Transportation Board, to get a broader perspective of where we are. And, of course, along the way, we've had our stakeholders and shareholders, which encompassed this committee as well as some of the board members in the general writing public.

From there, we'd like to actually present to the full council, which will be sometime in April. And, of course, this is by by contract of getting funds that every five years, we take a look at the health of our system and how we can make it a little bit better. So that's kind of where we are, in that process and just kinda looking forward to hearing what you think of the final product and what is actually doable because some of these, changes will require some funds. So it is, our hope to get it out in April. We were hoping before the mayor presents his budget on the April 14, it still can meet that, deadline of getting this group with ATV together.

But I encourage you to kinda take a look and see what's there, and provide us some other key, feedback. But along the way, each process, each tech memo has been posted for review and comment.

Great. We have a question for you, director Moore. Thank thank

you, madam chair. Are you on the work session schedule for April to present this?

No. It's not there yet. We will we can definitely get the information through the channels of, Gina to get that on there. So we can definitely I'll work on that tomorrow. Okay. Because I think what we've done in the past is had the joint session. We can definitely do it independently with the ATC and the ATB, but it's good if we can have both together and then get to the full council. Kind of aggressive for the next five weeks, but I think it can be done, scheduling wise. But thank you for the reminder to get on that schedule for the April.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you. One of the other things I'd like to update you on, as you probably heard or know a little bit about, we have taken delivery of our two fully electric buses in our fleet. And these were actually ordered way back in the fall or the 2022. And, of course, with supply chain issues and, you know, getting out towards the end of COVID, it it took a little longer, to get them to us. But they are here, and they will be rotated through our regular fleet, a fixed route fleet, which will include, of course, the red, the brown, the green, along with the state shuttle.

These are the larger buses that are 30 foot, 24 seater just like the other ones you see. So there's some routes that can't go on, which would be our micro mobility and our complementary ADA because of the the roads that'll that'll go through. But this has been a pretty big endeavor that we'll be hoping to have an unveiling in about two weeks from tomorrow. They'll get more information on that, and they'll go into service shortly thereafter. But the whole project has been a joint effort from the Maryland Transit Administration, which is MTA, of course, The Federal Transit Administration, both of those provide the grants, and Roanoke County grant, and then we had our local share.

Because these buses are substantially more costly than a regular diesel bus, You know, this was a heavy lift, so so much didn't fall on the shoulders of of the city. So those agencies that I made mention, we're happy to say, did participate, And that we're able to get through to the obligated grants. We do have two more coming towards the end of the year. But as we all know, with other federal funding things, grants, it may be, there's a change. We'll see what happens along the way of how that all works out.

But our larger buses are generally ten year, 500,000 miles, and we've been doing pretty much that. So the buses that they replace have came to us in 2011 and 2012, so having good maintenance folks has been keeping them going. The smaller buses, as we call the cutaways, that can navigate some of the smaller streets, those are, like, seven year, 250, 300,000 miles. And our oldest one there goes back to 2018. So what you do, as you know, with the fleet that we have the size of 15 buses, can't get them all at once.

So they're on that rotating pattern. So we don't have any in the pipeline for f y twenty seven, which is good because that's what we'll be coming to you for our local share. So these buses that we're getting this year, we wouldn't be looking at the older replacements till probably f y twenty eight, but this is a good place that we're in. We've done pretty well with having our buses last a bit longer than the the estimated or manufactured suggested mileage and all, just, you know, doing the things that we should do. But also the MTA, which is the watchdog for the FTA, you know, we have the quarterly meetings to they wanna look at randomly the records of three or four buses and to see what we're doing.

And also what we're doing, like, not doing a PM too fast because that does nobody any good. You're spending more money faster than it's really needed. So, you know, my hat off to those guys that do that for us with Danny Horwitz's help, our fleet main manager for the whole city. We kind of have a very good we have a very good program for the maintenance of equipment and what we do here. I'd like to entertain any questions that you might have on those two aspects, but that's probably the highlights of the last time we met. But you might have other questions for me.

Alderman Savage?

Can we get a ride on it?

Yeah. Of course. Oh, I can before you go, one other thing. Speaking of that, I would like to do what we did two years ago and do that other field trip because some of you didn't get a chance to see exactly how to book that micro microtransit. And if I can step back a moment, the microtransit prospect came out of our 2019 TDP, and we were funded for it last year, we just started out this summer.

Very successful. I mean, even if it's slow lower, like, eight or nine percent some months greater than the ridership of last year's same time, there is a steady growth. And how we continue to, you know, grow that out, mushroom that out, it has really helped, I think, for a lot of the seniors where they don't have to do the big, you know, bonding together to do Uber. You know, it's a it's a lot less. It's just the same cost as a senior would be on our regular fixed route service. But, yes, you can ride.

Good. And can I suggest I think it'd be fun to do something similar to what we saw in in Sweden as far as their promotional? And when I think I showed the picture at one point of electric bus, they made a a library, an actual sitting room library out of one of the stops just and I think that'd be fun to do. Maybe mister Raul and or Mitchell or or Brian or somebody like that would would be up for, like, helping to organize that. But that'd fun. Even, like, you know, kinda like a pop up think, like, a pop up stop down at City Dock, and we could kinda use that Yeah.

Remote. Definitely like, buses. Yeah. We'd like to do that. And part of what we're doing with the press release on the twenty seventh, it'll be at Pitmoyer. You'd like us to draw and be invited, but we're trying to expand just what you're saying for looking at our micro mobility whole platform. Yeah. So we'll have bird bike and scooter. We'll have our electric carts, electric bike. We'll talk about more biking and things of that nature, but we'll have that all out there with our buses and all. But we would like to keep that momentum. And, you know, our PIO is very, you know, creative with those kinds of things, we can do other things of taking the show on the road. Yeah. We we look forward to that.

Yeah. Good. And That was it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair. Do you all have any way of, calculating your total number of passengers? I'm asking that because I don't know if you've gotten up to a 100,000 or 200 and have some sort of little, you know, confetti thing Yeah. Or somebody like that just to give it kind of a little boost.

Yeah. You you sparked my my thoughts here with what you just made mention. On the average, to give you 20 last year, approximately 330,000 people wrote our butts. We're not quite back to pre pandemic, which have been just shy of 400,000. But remember, when you look at elasticity of the market of back in twenty ten, twelve, when we were cutting service and we doubled the cost 50¢ to a dollar, a dollar to $2, we were way up there around 700,000, you know, some fifteen, seventeen years ago, 2012 or so.

But reminds me of our dedicated staff that next Tuesday, which is the March 18, is National Transit Appreciation Day, and this is the sixteenth anniversary. It's around the country. We did a big event, last year for our fifteenth. Yeah. That's right.

You guys were there for for us. So but, yeah, looking at what those guys go through, it's not always the best weather, and we have to look at things from our OEM's perspective, what's okay and safe for the bus to be operated, but they're showing up and showing out that they can do this. They can run-in, you know, bad weather when we were advised to stay home. So coming out to state as transit, a driver, that'll be great. But what I can definitely get for you, I think I've reported it last meeting, the comparative numbers of what microtransit is doing, and that was against the purple and the orange route last year the same time.

And that's where we're about that 8% higher. Believe it or not, November, we were actually double digits, 15% higher than same time in 2023 of what we're doing. Orange and orange and purple against the micro transit. We we hope to continue to see it grow. We hope to see people more making more of the reservations on their phone versus calling.

Right now, it's probably a split of fifty fifty, and that's okay. So just to give you those numbers, we can definitely break it down by day, by route, month, you know, that kind of thing. It's kinda hard to get by stop that's really getting in the weeds, but we can. It's just a little bit more detailed with the service or what we have there with our electronic fear box. But to give you an idea, just shy of, 230 thou 330,000 riders last year.

Great. Thank you. Mhmm.

Thank you. Mhmm. Do you also have the report from Premium and it No. They yeah. Don't

Sorry. They weren't available, but it we can make sure they're here for the next meeting, Specific questions that you wanna have, or they can just share on the overall

Do have a specific Sure.

Yeah. Well, so we've been getting a number of complaints lately, continue continuing complaints as far as premiums, street enforcement. And I know we've been told by law office that basically, we we can't really we have to talk directly with Medco. At least they're the ones who make the decisions. We can certainly raise our complaints with premium and AMRP, but Medco's the decider. So but so have you been undergoing a process to get those concerns to the parties?

Yes. We have. The city's leadership that I'm a part of those calls that we've been having with the concessionaire and the manager and as well as Premium at the table. They've heard our our questions, and some of them will take a little time. But by the end of this month, they have re reported that they'll have a a better idea of the scope of work for premium because they're just still looking at what was in the contract and what they're actually doing and being paid for.

So that will have, by the end of this month, thirty first. So we meet usually the first week of each first week of each month. So we met last week, and that was their their timeline, the end of this month. So we should have something in the April. The others, as we talked about, the garage. Let's talk about specifically Hillman and the way that is operated. They would like to see a couple years of historical data, which we have not had because we've gone gateless October, November in our other garages. We'll be able to give them in maybe April, May, at least a six month review, and we can see where that takes us from there. We'll be happy to report back.

So with the intention of using that to what what do they do they wanna see that because they wanna see how those garage are operating gateless without the $50 fine?

Well, their fine is there. It's a city imposed, a city code, but just the way that system is set up as you set up an account, you don't have to interact anymore, meaning that you'll drive in.

But you don't predict how many hours you're

gonna Exactly.

It's just

You're you're paying for the exact or any fraction thereof.

Yeah.

Yeah. Mister Savage, you come in at, you know, stays, you know, at 12:00 and you leave at 03:08. They're gonna say, we see you leaving, you know, you're gonna be paying paying for four hours. Eight minutes over the next hour, and people are okay with that. Versus, you know, the other part of it is, well, I thought it was only gonna be your three min three hours, but it was three hours and x amount over, and we're paying on the additional on the other end.

I mean, this bank Uber.

Yeah. They are. Well, so I get that they wanna get that information. It'd be helpful, but that's not really I mean, that I guess the first order of business is what I think they've talked when you talked about at a previous meeting with them is we need to get access to that financial model. Based on my recollection of the contract, we have three months at the beginning of the year.

So the March, that's our only window to review that that financial model. And so we can't without getting access to that model, we don't know what their assumptions are, how their assumptions are you know, how changing to a different model is gonna impact those assumptions. And so I think that's kind of the first order of business before they even maybe they don't even need all this data from the other garages. Because what they're gonna I'm I'm afraid what they're gonna say is, oh, we need to see a whole year's worth of data, which means we're not gonna be able to have any our next chance to get the model changed isn't gonna be till next year. Right?

I that's my fear. So I could think I guess I'll follow-up with miss Dickinson because I think she was the one who was gonna take a look at that financial model, but time's ticking. We only have a couple weeks left in March. Is that is that accurate, more or

less,

you think?

Pretty much, because Without getting a a couple of years, we can still say we can give you the six months and you can look at what their model looks like from a gated system to a gate list system. But, yeah, we can definitely check back in and see what information is public information. But, of course, we're part of that whole equation as the city. So, you know, there's a lot of p I a PIA requests that go through the office of law that, outsiders are asking for models from premium NSP that it is not public knowledge. So we'll see what we can get.

Yeah. And then yeah. Absolutely. And I know that's the financial model for this is very held very close. You know, not too many people can don't even know if we pushed hard enough, maybe we could, but it make but in any case yeah. So I think that but I guess the other negotiating potential negotiation offer or tactic could be just to say, look. They could always try it for a month, a few months, a season, as far as removing this $50, have like a grace period for and see how it operates, and then they could use their own data from the

trial period. The the only thing there, that system is not like the Metropolis SP system. The software Right. Yeah. So you you're gonna have a software I wouldn't even call it an upgrade, but a change. Because removing that, you gotta have something in place that tells you that you've just left and you need to pay whatever it was that you were there for. That's the part that that's not there, from what I understand, a part of that platform or that gateless technology that they're operating. And things can be, you know, not really an off the shelf, but an add on, but that may require, you know, some technical rewriting of a of code, but I'm sure it can be done.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just we don't have much time to figure that out.

They own the code.

Yeah. They own the code and, you know, maybe why maybe they could buy or we could buy SP Plus' code and give it to Premium. I don't know. Like, there's there's other software that does it.

But remembering who owns the code? Premium. Who works for you know, the manager who you know, the concessionaire is there. So they're they're bound by what they said in the original contract, what x will be as far as the profit margin or the the business model. So, yeah, they being premium owning it, but they work for the concessionaire and the manager. We have Medco and was it Medco and EAR, AMRP EAR.

But but, you know, it might I guess one of my points is, like, we if if they were to change the financial model and just get rid of the $50 fine, maybe I think it'll probably break even because it'll hopefully get more people in the garage. Even if it brings in less money, it's most likely just gonna impact us. We'll get less waterfall, you know, extra money.

But remember Yeah. When you say they remove it, it's not just them, it's it's our code. It's in the city code and that's what's also applied for the other garages. Who it hits the hardest is those that don't interact at all. So you decide, I'm not doing anything. I'm gonna go in. I leave. They're getting that in the other garages. When I say other, meaning God's Night And Park Place. It's it's not a code that was just, written in 2023 when the garage opened. Has probably been on the books for the last ten or fifteen years or more. We can Yeah. See

Well, and that's what I wanted

to that fine, we want to change the wording because the wording currently, they're they're able to read it into it that it's used in the garage, but it's actually used for a meter space.

Mhmm. Yeah. Because the garage is kind of a maximum charge per day in the code.

I guess is what I'm saying is, when it was just one parking contractor, it was still there. So why wasn't it a problem? Because it was a gate. You can't get out of there unless you did something or break it down as that's the something. So it was never this kind of ease of getting out without a gate opening per se. So it's it's been there with the others and before. So we just gotta look at how it gets modified. You're right.

That mhmm. Good. Alright. Mhmm. Alright. Thank you. We appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up on our agenda is ID fifty six twenty five, multi use path update, by Eric Lushinski. Thank you for coming today.

My pleasure. I'm Eric Lashinsky again, chief of comprehensive planning. I don't have a presentation to share, but I I did wanna provide an update on this project and answer any questions. This is a project aimed at improving bicycle and pedestrian mobility along one of our major corridors, the Bay Ridge Avenue. We call it the Bay Ridge Avenue corridor, but essentially, we're going from the Spa Creek Bridge to Quiet Waters Park.

It's a core North South corridor that is heavily used by all modes of transportation. It's it's kind of a, I would say, critical North South if you're trying to get to downtown. So today, people can walk and bike that corridor, but it's very unsafe for a cyclist. We have some scattered bicycle infrastructure in terms of bike lanes and some share row markings, but they stop and start, and then there's sections that don't have any markings. And so you you it's really a more intrepid cyclist that that use this route.

In 2023, we did a feasibility study through a grant to really look at what we could do along this corridor. It it kind of confirmed that this is a corridor that could be redesigned. And I should say the sidewalks on this corridor are very narrow in some places and have obstacles like telephone poles, you know, cracks, you know. Properties come right up to the sidewalk. You're right against the curb of the street.

So we have some right of way to work with, but we will need to gain some additional right of way in places. The project is basically taking the design of this to 30% design, and we have a state grant to cover this. We got it in f y twenty four, but it's taken some time to get the agreement in order. But we're nearly ready to release an RFP to bring a consultant on for this, and there'll be community engagement scope as part of this. So people live along the corridor who or who would use it or who currently use it can be part of the process.

And we we do have a link to the project on the city's planning and zoning website. So I know I've talked to Auburn Savage about this and and intersection improvements are also part of the scope. So if you can imagine the major intersections are Chesapeake Avenue and 6th Street where the Royal Farms is. It's a major intersection for this. Where Bay Ridge Avenue and Chesapeake meet, there's a sort of triangle right there.

Bay Ridge Avenue and Tyler Avenue, traffic signal there. And then the the the big one, I think, that is not just a city responsibility or county is the Bay Ridge Avenue and Forest Drive and Hillsmere Drive. I mean, that's that's a doozy for people to cross on a bike. So we've made Innerwood County aware of this project, and I think they're gonna work with us. I know they're already obviously focused on Forest Drive. So and have some improvements in mind for that intersection. But I'm hoping to get the project underway by the summer.

Summertime?

Yeah.

2025?

Yeah. Yeah. The money is is in the CIP, so we don't need additional funding. It's a $224,000 grant with a match a required match of $56,000 with a 20% match. So yeah.

We

Start. Yeah. Thank you. Other woman, Thank

you, madam chair. Miss Leshinsky, is there a video or rendition, for this, maybe even on the city's website?

What we have are, we have some illustrations of typical what we had to do is pick locations along the corridor where we could kinda look at what's possible. So we don't have three-dimensional renderings. We have planned drawings that are kind of illustrations in color, and we have cross sections that kinda cut through the street and show that view of a few typical locations, you know. Of so that's that is available. Yeah. Thank you. Sure.

Other questions? Alderman Savage?

Yeah. So the grant the grant was to get up to 30%, you said? And but and so we have the rest tend tentatively funded?

We do not have the remaining design phase funded.

So we have the 30% fund?

We have the 30% funded. Yeah.

Alright. So at least we won't know till we get the proposals back what the cost is gonna be. Yeah.

I can say, you know, we have some pricing from other trail projects that I think helps us. I'm confident that we'll be in budget or the per grant based on recent Yeah. Proposals we've gotten for other trail project designs.

Well, and and think well, one or two budgets ago, I think we got roughly 50,000 for that Right. Ambridge Timber Creek for old rail right of way just to see if we could turn it into a

Thank you for reminding me. That that is in the scope for this as well. We piggybacked onto this. So that that's imagine

it's not gonna need that much to do that.

No. That's the scope for that. So that's the old rail line that went to Bay Ridge. This is a section of it from Tyler Avenue to Bay Ridge Avenue that is wooded today and goes past several communities. And the scope for that was gonna be to look at conditions that are there, topography, tree canopy, the feasibility of putting a natural we were looking at natural surface trail in that context. It's kinda sensitive. There's some storm water features already in there. So it seemed I mean, we'll take a look, but it seemed like unlikely that we'd be paving anything through there. Yeah. So Yeah. There certainly are Yeah.

Barriers there. Don't even know if all the right of way is there still.

But there is there is some opportunities to connect to that from other locations, like near Tyler Heights Elementary, there's a street end that I think there could be a spot for access. And so, yeah, that will be part of it as well.

Yeah. Well, thank you for incorporating the intersection improvements. I think that'll be a big part of this. And I can't find my the email I sent you, but for my colleague's sake, one of the things I was suggesting is is we could potentially save money on the project instead of having to pay money to in some places, essentially, expand the right of way or to get easements to fit in the path is to look at I think I've mentioned before, like, Johns Hopkins rec recommends nine foot wide lanes for the safest roads, and ours are typically between eleven and fifteen Mhmm. Feet wide.

So I think coupling that with potentially taking out some of the turning lanes would give us room in that right of way to do it. But I think definitely needs to be a lot more of a traffic analysis because even some of those turning lanes, I think they're often just put in automatically when some of them may only be needed during rush hour, and it seems it doesn't seem very wise to have you know, to be designing a road for only two hours out of the day when it impacts people's safety for the whole, you know, the whole twenty four hours, the whole day. Right? Right. So I'm glad we're we're looking at that. You said summer twenty twenty five?

This summer.

Yeah. For what part of it?

The well, the whole quarter for the 30% scope.

You think the 30 so the 30%, excuse me, you think will be done?

Not done. We'd be kicking it off by the summer. So we have to issue the RFP, select the consultant, and then which I know, you know, the procurement process can be long, but we've already been talking with the procurement office about this one. So it's not a new they're aware of it. We have the scope written up. It just has to get folded into, you know we're just frankly waiting for the agreement to be finalized. So but How long would this take

consultant to do the work?

I think it's gonna be eight months six to eight month process, realistically. I think by following spring, we'd be complete. Spring of twenty sixth.

Okay. Because you're talking about summer twenty sixth.

To be complete. Yeah. I mean, 30% would be the 30% fate. This is these trail projects take time. I mean, they're really not quick processes, particularly if there is right of way that needs to be acquired. You're right. The I mean, there are definitely opportunities to reduce lane widths in cases, and we're gonna be looking at those and trying to do as much as we can. We're gonna be getting the whole quarter surveyed. There's certain areas in particular where we may have more right of way. City might own more right of way than we think.

You know? It doesn't always necessarily end right at the side. I mean, you can see places where there's fence lines on people's property that might indicate where their property line is. So it could be kind of revealing how much additional real estate we have. We'll see.

But I think it one of the aspects of the trail we looked at in the feasibility study was there's places where we go along shopping centers, like Eastport Shopping Center and the Hillsborough Shopping Center. We looked at working with those property owners to expand the sidewalk adjacent to their parking lots where there's kind of a a shrub line today that's kind of screening the parking lot. Well, there may be an opportunity just to expand the sidewalk area to create, like, a 10 foot shared use path for bikes and pedestrians. So really try to maximize the space in those locations. Really just try to collaborate with adjacent property owners as much as possible.

I think it'll be a positive thing for businesses. So I'm just trying to clear I'm a

little confused on the the timeline. Okay. So you're saying so what what is it that you were saying for this summer you think would be good?

Kicking off the 30% design phase. So just starting the project, unfortunately.

As far as getting the public input?

Yeah. Basically, having the consultant on board, you know, going kind of going public with the design process and inviting participation. It will be done by next spring with a 30% design. We'll have a better sense at that point, I think, how much additional space we need to acquire for the trail. And that'll kinda tell us how much the rest of the design process will take.

You know? I think it it might be more straightforward after the 30% design. It just all kinda depends how much real estate we have to acquire, and and we're kind of working around utilities and things, but I think the 30% phase will be pretty telling. So

Yeah. Okay.

That's usually when you you kinda you learn. You it's kind of a fact finding. I mean, it's it's your first, I would say, real kind of dive into the engineering of the project, you know, where you start to have dimension drawings and survey information, but you learn a lot during that. The feasibility study showed us that this was possible. It showed us where some of the problem areas would be and some potential solutions, but it wasn't didn't get down to, like, the details as much as the 30% will base. Did did you do

because I don't know how this process worked, but as far as the the hilltop design for the quick build, was there a public public outreach component to that?

I don't know. Alderman Schindler might might have been involved with that because I I know that he was really, you know, appealing for that, I think. But

I don't just wonder, like, what triggers it for this because mean, I I see value to public comment, but I also I think also see, honestly, a lot more value in getting it done for public safety. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so I think it has to be a balance, but it's not like when we go out and do a traditional road redesign or there isn't really public comment. So what triggers it? Why why is it nest I I guess it's good to do early on, but then again, it's like what I feel like it's in the public interest. I don't know. What so what's the rationale for doing that 30%?

So the the grantor, MDOT, they do want to see it. I That's part of it. But we we wanna build we wanna have a transparent process. We want, given that we're gonna be along a lot of property, a lot of residential property, and we definitely don't want anybody to be surprised by this. What we may have is a stakeholder committee that, you know, is made up of folks that live along the corridor that can be more involved, and that can help expedite the engagement process a bit.

But I I not thinking that's gonna really delay the process. I mean, we typically would do for a 30% design process, we would do a an initial public meeting to kinda share the intent of the project, get some initial more of a listening session, what are people's hopes and dreams for the project, any concerns. And then we would have a second workshop when we have a preliminary design, 30% design. And along the way, we would field comments from people that have an interest, you know. But I don't think it's gonna be, you know and through the website, we'll have an opportunity for people to send comments in, but, you know, I don't see that slowing us down too much.

Alright. Well, thank you. And then Sure. Maybe we could just have lunch sometime, chat more about it, because it is gonna be, you know, go through my ward and definitely very excited about it. But Yeah. I wanna make sure I I think your points are well taken, and and I think public outreach part will I think certainly wanna make sure it gets done well. Right? Well, I'm a different contractor. The consultant's gonna be helping.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we'll have a good good team involved. I mean, the the the firm that did the feasibility study, I'm sure, will want to continue working on it. So they'll they'll have to submit a proposal like anybody else, but in they were a great candidate for this. So I'm sure this will be an appealing project for a lot of good firms. Yeah.

Yes. Thank you, madam chair. You mentioned earlier about along the the the multiuse, path Mhmm. That there might be some fencing or something issues on either side. Do you anticipate any kind of adverse possession issues?

Okay. No. Alright. No. I don't foresee that. I I think, it's really too soon to say what additional space we will need to acquire, but there's a pretty clear process for how we talk to property owners about this. And we we would be required to compensate or, frankly, negotiate. It can that can cause extensions of time frame in some cases. But I I mean, our hope is to minimize those situations as much as possible, you know. Just the one pinch point that I'm most focused on is really between Saint Luke's Church and Tyler Avenue.

That's where it gets you know, think of Van Buren Street, Parkwood. I mean, that's where it gets pretty narrow right there. That's the one that's the one pinch it's not majority of the corridor, there's actually quite a lot of space. You know, I think along the shopping centers, working with that's kind of key, I think, as well. But the one pinch point is is only about three blocks, I would say. So

Okay.

Alright. Thank you.

Sure. Just one more. Yes.

So just it makes me think about public works efforts, but they're on Hilltop and I'm sorry, Tyler and Mhmm. Edgewood Rowe as far as potential redesign on those. But are you coordinating with them? Because Mhmm. You know, it's certainly a realization that has come to me because I think even with these I know your project is focusing on the path, but as you're you are, you know, well aware to have the crossings where the path crosses the egresses and the connecting roads, those have there have to be associated safety improvements. Right? So it it seems like it really needs to be comprehensive. So is this dovetailing with some of their work?

Yes. Yeah. Jeff, the gentleman you heard earlier is the new traffic engineer. Pablo, he's gonna be very involved in this. I've I've been coordinating with him a lot already. He's he's actually gonna be taking over most of the trail projects once they go into construction, and so he's been engaged in, like, the West East Express and this hilltop lane project that we already have very far along that should be breaking ground in by the summer. We call it the hilltop lane connector from Boxwood Road to Forest Drive. So he's he's really their per point person on all these projects, and so any of the coordination will probably go through him. And Mhmm. Yeah.

He he'd be a good person for you to meet.

Yeah.

Well, I was gonna put you on the spot and ask you about the West East Trail.

That's fine.

Can you give us an update on that, where we are in the

Well, we are moving feverishly to get to a groundbreaking for that by the fall. We as you may know, it's broken up into two segments. One goes from Calvert Street to Taylor Avenue. It's called the East Extension. That is a lot of that is behind the Graduate Hotel.

And then there's another segment that is improvements to the existing Poplar Trail plus the West Extension, which goes from Admiral Drive to Gibraltar. And that segment, Poplar Avenue Poplar Trail plus the West, that is a bit farther along. That's in 90% review construction documents by MDOT right now. The East Extension, the the portion behind the Graduate Hotel, is in 60% design review, but will accelerate pretty quick. It's not gonna change much between 60% and a 100 design.

We were through all of our community outreach efforts. We did pretty extensive community engagement. We did our forest conservation plans for the Poplar And West Extension. That's the one segment where it was required. And so that's they're pretty far I mean, the thing that we're still working on is some of the easements because of the federal funding, which as of now is still in place.

It's about 5 and a half million dollars in federal funding. It required us to go through the NEPA process, National Environmental Policy Act, and we took a while. We couldn't really execute any of the easements until we were through with that. And we're essentially through with it now, so we're gonna be finalizing the easements, you know, in the next month. So, yeah, that's definitely moving quickly on that one.

I'm pretty hopeful. We we're trying to and and the procurement office has also been very engaged because we we need to all of our advertisement for the construction contracts and so forth has to go through MDOT and follow certain federal requirements. And so we've had to have procurement involved kinda early on, and and I think we're in a pretty good place on that. In fact, we have to submit to m dot for the 90% review milestone. We have to submit a draft request for proposals that they review.

So yeah. That's fact, I'm realizing, I think I may have gotten an inquiry just this week from president of Germantown Homewood. So I think I owe them a update. But they've been pretty involved. Ask. Okay. Yeah. They they nothing's really changed since the last time they saw it. So yeah.

Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Sure. Thank you. Okay.

Thanks for your time today.

No problem.

That concludes our agenda. Can I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Great.