City Commission - Regular Meeting

And now we move into a workshop of the Macallen City Commission held in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. All workshops are open to the public and serve as an opportunity for city staff to present detailed information, reports, and updates to the commission in preparation for future action or decisions. While no formal votes are taken during these sessions, workshops play an important role in the city's policymaking and decision-making process.

And good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's city commission workshop. We have a few items. The first is do we have any questions to staff regarding our upcoming meeting? No mayor. Anybody? No. If not, we'll go to the second item. uh presentation on transit update. Well, mayor and commissioners last I think it was last meeting as for an update on showings on in the downtown district and so downtown services just put together a presentation.

Thank you, Ike. Um mayor, members of the commission, I'm happy to be able to provide a an update on the transit department here today. So we'll look at the agenda u talk a little bit about where where we started as a department of the city of Macallen. We'll go over a little bit about performance and the value of of transit. We'll touch on you know some of the future things that that we're currently working on as well as some challenges that we're that we're currently facing and and will face in the future. So the early stages in in in the mid1 1900 1900s, not 1900s, mid1 1990s, um the city attempted to pass um a sales tax for infrastructure including public transit which failed twice. There was a partnership with interfaith interfaith action and that you know led to successful initiative in 1997 and included transit funding. Just wanted to highlight there was a study done in 2013 that looked at, you know, how Macallen came up with or put together a plan to to put public transit out there and to build the the the the central station downtown. It was it was commissioned by the transit cooperative research program. I'm sharing the link if you guys are interested in reading that. It's it's it's a nice read. Talks a little bit about, you know, the what what transpired during that time. 1996 there was a feasibility study and then in 1997 Valley Metro which is a a department of the lower Rio Grand Valley Development Council uh began operations of um Macallen Express which is known as the MIE bus back then it was five routes and they were contracted by the city to run that service and then the development of central station there was a need that was identified to have a central hub for for

transportation both local and inner city. Not sure if uh if you remember, but um Greyhound had a bus terminal, small bus terminal on 16th Street and then the uh Mexican operators had offices around Archer Park and it was all kind of all over the place. So there was a a need for a centralized hub and so the initial plan called for having this the station on the expressway and so you know downtown merchants kind of fought to to bring the terminal downtown because they thought it would it would help business and so my understanding is it was a contentious debate and um they determined that the downtown site was the best suited for the terminal at the time and despite the conflicts they were able to you construct the facility. The facility opened in 2001. In 2005, the city um broke away from the LRGBDC and decided to run the transit system, you know, um operated uh directly and it was then rebranded as uh Macauan Express Transit, ME. That was in ' 05 and ' 06. uh my stint with the transit department started and then in 2010 we uh renovated the bus station and renamed the system what it is today Metro Macallen with a new logo and and the green colors going on to to performance. Um so currently we provide approximately 700,000 trips a year. What I could tell you is that we've surpassed our pre-COVID numbers. Um, all of us saw a huge dip in writership at the time of COVID. The industry as a whole has struggled to get back to pre-COVID numbers. In fact, I think they're right now at 1997 numbers. And we've been able to with a little bit of growth been able to surpass our pre-COVID numbers.

It's estimated we estimate that about 60% of our trips are workrelated and that'll have, you know, a tie to economic development. But but before I go into that, um we have um looked at, you know, our Google ratings. We're 4.3 out of five stars with 194 reviews, 82% favorable reviews on Facebook. And then um what I can tell you is that so far this year, we've had, you know, 31 complaints for numerous things. That's less than 1% of our trips that we provide, you know, result in in a in a complaint. maybe half of a percent. Um I think the sentiment is that you know our passengers are are happy on paratransit. Um 60 with 60 reviews all five stars. Uh anecdotally you know my staff member shared with me that recently a passenger came to the office and thanked them for you know keeping them alive. I guess we we take that person to dialysis on a regular basis. And so, um, from what we can tell, you know, the public is is generally happy with with our system. Obviously, we're looking to make improvements. Uh, one of the the top reasons that we we get complaints is is reliability. Um, we right now um if a bus leaves the station on time and gets to the station on time, you know, that's our on-time performance. We're in the process of bringing uh to you here soon uh an award contract for a more robust CAD AVL system. CAD AVL is um computer AED dispatch that will allow us to get on-time performance to the granular level. So at every stop it'll tell us you're you're running a little bit later, you're running early and so our dispatchers can help you manage our system better. Um and so that's some of the some of the things that we're working on in terms of you know having uh better customer service. um transit enhancements. We uh well before that, sorry. Uh

visitors at Central Station. We currently average about 2.2 million visitors at Central Station, both people using public transit locally and traveling into the interior of the US or into Mexico. So we do have, you know, uh right now six daily departures to Montter out of out of the bus terminal. uh sometimes in the summer when when when demand increases they they they h they maybe run sometimes even as much as one time an hour. What I can tell you is we're working with with Mexico to to come up with creative ideas for synergies to co-promote their service in Macallen and um you know we've got the World Cup that's coming people are going to try to get watch some games in Mexico. So they're prepared uh with resources to to you know accommodate whatever increase in man that they might have. transit enhancements. We put out 1.6 million in walkways and amenities amenities since two 2023 sidewalks and uh and shelters. And we'll continue to run that program on on an annual basis. Uh $5 million in equipment, some of that accounts for uh new vehicles and then about $15 million in facilities and infrastructure. As far as economic development, it's estimated that um our system uh accounts for about 11 million in worker productivity and then the passenger trips that are that are generated on our system uh generate 3 million in local spending for a total of about 14 million in economic activity supported by Metro County. Uh on top of that uh we are a member of the emergency management team and so we we were the first to respond during the uh co for the imig immigrant influx and uh as well as as a result of the recent flood we got uh authorization from FTA to procure four high-profile vehicles so LMTVs and so we've got three one on the way ready to be deployed on a moment's notice to help with high water

rescues so we contribute there as Well, moving on to the to the future of transit, we'll talk a little bit about our service expansion which we undertook about a year and a half ago is when we started. We'll talk a little bit about bus rapid transit and transit oriented development. Um, bus rapid transit is um it's high it's high-capacity transit is kind of a precursor to any rail projects. It takes um prioritization to help improve uh reliability, efficiency that uses bigger buses. Sometimes you'll see those articulated buses, 60 foot buses. So that's bus rapid transit in a nutshell. And then transit oriented development is a planning concept that integrates you land use and public transit to create pockets of dense walkable areas that that you know kind of promote economic development. And so in fact, as a matter of fact, this week we'll have consultants in Macallen looking at our service area. Uh we did get as part of a uh competitive grant. We got a million dollars to study both BRT and TOD. So that's underway. So we'll get in front of you a few more times uh in within the next 18 months about the progress of that. Part of that will be a substantial amount of outreach to the community, to our to our riders, non-riters that could potentially benefit from from these plans as well. and then ultimately downtown revitalization. If you can see on the left is a system map. Prior to our um uh system redesign, we had a total of seven routes throughout the city of Macallen. Now we have 12 routes that we operate and a microtransit system, an on demand system on northwest Macallen. If you recall the reason that we are operating microtransit northwest Macallen we had a route that was going to to&m but as a result of COVID and because it was

underperforming we uh we suspended the route and microtransit is a little bit more efficient way to to run transit in an area where we're still trying to determine what the best route is but we we felt that we couldn't do away with service to to&m and northwest Macallen so that was that was the premise behind that and so as you can see we're we're at 12 routes we're looking to be closer to 18 vehicles in maximum service before the end of the year that uh incorporates a um circulator downtown. Doing that will allow us to to further invest in the downtown area through transit funds and then uh we're adding service and some routes to have 30-minute headways instead of an hour. So, that's in the works right now. We're working to hire uh additional drivers. Now the um the next couple slides are for illustration purposes only. Um just kind of wanted to share what's in our brain about bus rapid transit and transit oriented development in the future. Uh and again we'll we'll provide you uh regular updates on how the plan is is going.

We've already received federal grant money for I'm sorry. we've received or been recipients of federal grant money that specifically allocates for BRT studies and all that.

Yes. So, we did receive, like I said, a million dollars for for the BRT and TOD study. Now, the the premise behind BRT and TOD is there has to be a certain density on a corridor to be able to support the investment. There's substantial investment. Just as an example, uh Waco did a study uh and they were looking to implement BRT uh that, you know, the they got sticker shock. It was about a 40 $40 million investment um 10 of which was local, right? So I want to make sure that we're you know kind of aware of what what that type of investment is. But because of that, you also need to have feasibility study that that supports the investment into into that type of service, right? So that's what we're working towards. Very well. Um, again, an illustration of what, you know, our north hub could look like if there was, you know, transit oriented development and BRT in the area. Airport in front of the airport in Witchah. And then um we talked about downtown revitalization. We uh we did put together a grant and the commission approved the submission of a grant a mill $9 million grant with a $1 million local investment to to fund improvements downtown. You know, we envision um a more walkable downtown with wider streets, maybe some bike bike share and a trolley there for illustration of you know our circulator downtown. When will we get a response?

I think l latter part of June. We'll know if we if we get that funding. Uh regardless, having the circulator downtown will allow us to use other pockets of money to to invest into downtown, which is the ultimately the the plan. Okay. But at the very end, we need density. Well, we need density, but you know, the um one of the challenges is is um what do we invest in, right? I mean, we're we're a car centric state in Texas and we we continue to expand roads and build highways.

In my experience, the talk of investing more on transit versus highways was taboo. Uh I think the narrative is starting to change a little bit and that's what we're we're trying to that's what we're trying to do. I mean I I think we have once we had adopted the something we have people against it and makes it a little difficult to to do.

And so how do we convince people to and condos traffic is always going to be horrible.

Well, I I think that you're correct. uh our area was uh not used to me uh any type of transit uh of any magnitude but more and more we're we I believe that we are going to get more people are using Ubers and lifts a lot more people are not willing now are considering not having a vehicle and and be able to to move in this area and I I believe a a transit system uh like ours think we should keep investing in it.

I I mean I I what I'd like to be able to do is is come back again. Like I said, we we talk about this study that we're that we've commissioned. It'll we'll come back and we'll get feedback and try and find a way to sell it to the community. But also, you know, one of our challenges is funding. Um, in my tenure with the city, we've seen a slight increase in uh, state funding for transportation, for public transportation. Our biggest funders is Federal Transit Administration. 4% of our budget comes from the state. Um, and so one of um, my responsibilities as a member of a uh, Texas Transit Association or State Association for Transit is uh, I'm spearheadating a committee that's going to work with a consultant to try and figure out how to best sell transit to elected officials across the state to the transportation commission so that they increase the investment in transit. I mean, it's that's what it's going to take is be seeing the value. So one of the things that as an industry I think we've not been able to do is is sell the value value of transit and so that's one of the focal points right now in the next benium for

I think we know the value of transit but I don't think car people know the value of transit. What's the what's the utilization of of the parking ride in the new one in terms of people parking there? Not not so much right now. see people dropping off their their kids there because we we do have a route originating there going to UT utrgv and that thing is is packed every day and we do see you know parents dropping their kids off there but in terms of utilization of uh of parking there right now it's it's not not yet been fully fully utilized

I'd love to I remember back in the days in Houston I mean it was utilized of course that's totally different that was Houston it was always packed and we'd get into the other one and let's go It's something we definitely need. I'm not saying let's stop, let's anything. We definitely need it. If we're going to if we're going to one way or another fight traffic congestion is going to be through this. I would recommend that we do some social media campaign.

Publicize the routes that we have. how they can use it and plan accordingly ahead of time so they can use it. The other the other that's one one of the points I wanted to make. The other thing is um roughly 400. 400 of those 400 how many are covered? About 100. Right. So we we have in in the works about 15 more shelters this year before the end of the fiscal year. 5 15 15 15 Yeah. 15. They're expensive and people don't use them. It's just a spa. Yeah. So, and the maintenance and the maintenance.

Yeah. So, the we have to put science to it, right? So, the ones that are mostly used. Yeah. That's what we do. We we uh we set uh and that we set parameters as to what the usage based on certain usage 15 plus per per day uh lightings or or boardings per day uh would potentially trigger us to look at putting infrastructure there because it's not only the shelter we have to make sure that we have rightway. We have to make sure that we put

Yeah. It's and so it's it's something that we are we are working on. Um and so we'll continue to budget for shelters and and sidewalks. You know, we're work right now we're working on 23rd. We're soon we'll bring you uh um authorization to award a contract. We're working on solicitation for uh concrete work for specifically for transit. So we'll have a contract in place. The case that Commissioner Roelly alludes to is the one stop that I've been talking about for two terms now. It's on the west side of where road immediately west from HB and I understand that there may be a rightaway restriction,

but I I know that there's four or five old ladies there. I I don't I I I completely agree with you. In fact, they they they put a log there so they can sit there. Yes, we we we need to put a shelter there. It's the at the top of our list. Yeah. Uh we are going to need potentially uh an ement from SDC, another construction there. So So I was very happy to see it was a a public entity that took over, not a private one, because hopefully over time it's a little bit easier to work with because they're servants students that probably would end up using the bus anyway. Yeah. So, I I'll I'll work on on

the other thing that Commissioner Roelly also alluded to, so I'm just kind of writing off your coals and I'm very glad you brought it up is do we have any present uh public transplant awareness campaigns and if not do we plan to do that more again in the future? Right. So, one of the things again we're doing that that that study and there's going to be a lot of outreach opportunities there. We're on top of that we're we're want we're going to bring a firm to help us with messaging putting out messaging to the public. So that'll be we're going to do that in conjunction with uh with the development of that study to get people to know the system, know what we're doing for the future and and attract you know some of those nontraditional writers. And then the other issue I'm sorry I got three more questions. I already had it here.

Commissioner before we leave that point just because two of you have brought it up. Um, MCN is in the process of working on a a whole new guide for putting PSA's uh information out. Uh, and is preparing to do a better job of supporting departments and putting that messaging together. Um, we're in the final stages of putting that together. Uh, we've rolled some initial comments out to the directors and we're going to bring you a whole, uh, revamped program. um in in the next month or so. So, that message we hear loud and clear and we're working on that. Just wanted to make sure you knew we were already ahead. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Oh, sorry. I didn't want to forget. Oh, no problem. Thanks for raising that. Attrition of bus drivers. Uh has that been remaining? I know that's kind of addresses the the second bullet point on growth and recruitment.

Yeah. So, I I'll I'll touch on that. Um, first and foremost, on behalf of the department, I'm I'm sure I speak for the for the uh citywide staff, thank you so much for the comp study for for authorizing the city manager to roll it out the way that they did. I could tell you that we've had a lot more success in getting uh drivers, potential drivers to apply to to the to the job postings uh compared to before. Uh it's helped reduce our our attrition. A lot of times drivers left because of getting better pay somewhere else. So that's also we've seen a decrease in that. Anecdotally I can tell you that some of the drivers that have left for for monetary purposes have been calling and be like hey can can we come back? So so certainly has helped. I think the the um the comp study the the the higher um higher rate of pay for drivers has helped tremendously to to attract and and then retain

have vacancies right now. We do. We do, but the we have much less than we've ever had before. So, I think in order to get to full staff, we need five five more. We were we were running about 10 drivers short. Right now, we're about four or five. So, cut that in half.

My last question um is before the revamp of the additional routes when we went from 7 to 12. I mean, where my mom lives or where our restaurant is on North 23rd Mona, I I would have to wait an hour for the next bus if I missed it, right? It was always at the bottom of the hour. So, I could walk from there to McAllen in less than 45 minutes rather than wait for the next bus stop. And I remember one of the things with the new North Transit terminal was to reduce that. And of course, we had an increase in routes. So, I don't know because I'll admit I've not gotten on the bus in the last four years. Has the wait time been adjusted so that I'm not saying all the routes, but at least some of the ones that are core to the city or near city center been reduced to where it's at least 20 minute wait rather than the full hour.

That is the next step in in the in the in the rehab or the the kind of redesign of our system is adding a second bus to service to decrease it to 20 minutes. It goes without saying, you know, the more frequent the stops are, the more regular the people can depend on it. So even if they miss it, they don't have to sit or wait or walk for an hour, right? They can just wait another 10 minutes. So that's the next step that that that that was approved by by the commission to add add drivers and right now we're in the process of of uh launching that. And of course with that saying, I know we need more bus equipment because you can't be running every 20 minutes if you don't have more buses to meet that metric. I'll touch on that in just in just one second.

Okay. Uh before I go there, you know, one of the things that that we need to do is is maximize local local resources, local revenues. Um so I, you know, with with the blessing of the commission, I'd like to explore, you know, actually advertising on the rear of the buses, not on the sides. We want to be able to keep our branding.

We currently do it in house. We have a lot of our city um um events and stuff like that advertised in the rear of the buses. We'd like to be able to capture some revenue. Uh obviously we'd come back with, you know, authorization to award a contract for that, but but I think that'll that'll help us secure some additional revenues as we continue to grow, maximize our our our revenues. Um and then on top uh resources. So we part of the process of u the uh the budget every year is look at you know our needs for the next fiscal year but also you know 5 years beyond as we you know saw the need for additional buses some of our fleet is becoming of age to get replaced. The cost of a new bus right now is $850,000. Uh right before CO we got them for 100 380. uh middle of COVID, latter part of COVID, close to 600. So now they're at 850. And fortunately, the city's not had to invest in equipment. We've been able to get 100% federal funding with transportation development credits, but even then, we we only have so much of that federal money to go around. So, one of the items that's on the agenda is the approval to rehab one of our existing buses. We had we found funding for one for one vehicle and it goes to to a company in California and they completely rehab it to like new condition for about $320,000. So for we can for the price of one bus, we can almost get three of our existing fleet, you know, to like new capacity. So we're exploring that as an option to be able to keep up with with the resources if we don't get, you know,

when you say like you mean engines or interior or what? They they'll do they'll redo the engine, rebuild the engine, transmission, they'll redo the flooring. Um, and so it'll look like new and you can run it for another 10 years in like new condition. Again, this is this is an exploratory microtransit or what was that? What is that? Microtransit. So microtransit is on demand service. we use small vehicles uh to cover greater area and and why don't we utilize more of those just throughout because if the use isn't there for a lot of the routes or maybe it is I'm not sure but a lot of times I see the buses and I I don't see much use

well I mean we could certainly look at microtransit in in other areas of low usage what I could tell you is um microtransit shouldn't be a long-term solution because you're using a small vehicle, smaller capacities, and you're going to end up with, you know, similar amount of vehicles on the road versus having a fixed route system. What we, again, we can look at other areas. What I mean is smaller vehicles and uh replacing the bigger ones.

The problem with that is the wear and tear on the smaller because we've been there. Uh when I first started, we were running, we called them Frankensteines. There were some buses that were had a chassis with a with a body that were not designed for uh the stopand go and weight loads of public transit and we had a lot of issues. I understand that that could be a solution but from my experience those those buses not made for public trans are not made for for public transit for for that type of service.

Okay. Any other questions? Thank you so much. Um I've always I think a lot of us here have been very big proponents of public transit. Certainly as our community and the communities around us certainly the route I think it's nine or 10 that goes from park transit terminal to UTRGB is a very good progressive step because I've been on that route a couple of times you know some years back and you're absolutely right it is packed in the morning and it's packed in the afternoon and it brings a smile to me because now we're bringing people who don't have a vehicle rather than spend $500 on a car payment they can use that for rent they can use that for food and other things but it's only a buck to get Edber. Well, especially with price of gases. Oh, yeah. And I mean, we don't know how long.

I I don't know if anybody has crystal ball, but what I've I've read is that all of 2026, it might peak in May, but you know, there's

Yeah. No, I mean and then that's where you start looking at other cities to to draw it so we have a stronger city core like the mayor refers to more density right to support more routes more frequency maybe like the BRT you know to to support that you know and who knows maybe one of the routes that go to your tribute gets extended goes around the courthouse because I guarantee you there'll be one writer on that one at 6:30 in the morning you commission and lead by example Have you ever thought of putting the like the ones the the metro the ones on the south side are uh they're just painted black? Yeah. Have you ever thought of putting the city emblem on it

on the on the shelters? Yeah. They look kind of plain. That's why I'm asking, you know. Maybe a nice in the middle emblem. Okay. Yeah, we'll look at that. Go back to that comment you said. I don't know where we're going to go with that later, but our city makes possible if we do decide to go that route that

it would be at the wish of the commission. We we'll certainly bring it back before we do anything. Excellent. If there's no other questions, we'll recess into executive session.

concludes the work. Okay, we're back and we're done with the workshop. Uh, Perita, we had no

shop of the Macallen City Commission. Workshops are held on the second and fourth Monday of each month at 400 p.m. in the city commission chamber located on the third floor of Macallen City Hall. The public is always welcome to attend or view online. Thank you for staying informed and engaged with the city of Macallen. And now from Mallen City Hall, a meeting of the Mallen City Commission. And good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today's city commission meeting. Actually, we have a joint meeting, but we'll call this meeting to order.

I call meeting in order for the Men Utility Board. We have a quorum. Mayor. Okay. And we'll go with Mike. Are we doing the pledge and everything or later on? We can do that now. Mayor, if you want to come back for the proclamations after we can do that. No, you know what? I'm going to