City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the special meeting of the Federal Race City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 1st. Would you all please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. have a welcome everyone it's great to see uh... it's still folks here uh... first of course a session we're here from our some transit friends uh... some transit operations and made its facility and uh... he's a uh... egos uh... but also we have our reports here record you like that first off yeah just as an introduction tonight uh... these are presentations that were previously done at uh... south county area transportation board and uh...

Deputy Mayor Honda requested that this would be a good opportunity for the council to get an update on what's going on in the transit world. So we've had sound transit tonight as well as metro. And hopefully they combine into a more cohesive understanding of what's happening here. So with that, I'll turn it over to Aza.

Thanks, Rick.

Welcome, Aza.

Thank you. So good evening, Council President, Mayor Farrell, and council members. Again, my name is Iza Agus. I'm with Sun Transit. I'm the executive project director for the OMF program, which one of them is this OMF South. So I'll be presenting on behalf of the project team today. And I'm joined by actually several members. When they heard that I'm going to be presenting today for you guys, they're all excited and they want to come and join me. So they are here in the room. John Hamilton, Brian Grevo from our design builder team, Hoffman Construction Company, Sean Duffett, our construction director, and also Dana. Oh, Supriya and Katie just come too. How was the traffic? Was it tough? Okay. I'm glad you guys made it.

It's better on Lirao.

There you go. So first, I'd like to thank you again for the opportunity to be here and share an update about the OMF South project. We are very excited about the role that this project will play in supporting the reliable transit system expansion service for the city of Federal Way and for the entire region where the Sun Transit exists. And we look forward to continuing to work closely with the city and the council and the community to deliver this important project together. Let's start with the operation maintenance facility basics. So our operations and maintenance facilities are essential facilities to maintain, store, and operate light rail link extensions, or light rail operations. OMF South will support, being one of those facilities, will support vehicle cleaning, testing, repairs, and storage of vehicles, equipment, spare parts, guideway components, as well as operator facilities and office space. Importantly, OMEX South will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So it's around the clock type facility working, and it's needed to keep the regional light rail system running reliably. Sun Transit currently has two existing operations and maintenance facilities. The first one that we built is located in Seattle. We refer to it as OMF Central. And the second one that we built is located in Bellevue and we refer to it as OMF East. To continue to support expansion of our regional high-capacity transit, Sun Transit needs two more operations and maintenance facilities. One is in Federal Way, OMF South, and the future one is OMF North. And the one in the North is currently under study as part of the Everett Link Extension Project. Much like OMF South, which we are delivering together in Federal Way, this is a picture of OMF East located in Bellevue. This facility consists of two buildings, the maintenance facility for the light rail vehicles, and the maintenance of way building, which is closer to us looking at this picture, for the guideway components. Parking lots for the employees and the non-revenue vehicles, such as high rail vehicles, trucks, trailers, and cranes, and then train circulations and storage yard. Back to OMF South project. It is an important investment in strengthening the region's light rail network and preparing for future growth. It will connect the Federal Way Link Extension to the future Tacoma Dome Link Extension. On that map, it shows on the upper part of the page there, Federal Way Downtown Station. There is that green line. That represents the main line of the guideway. It's about 1.4 miles to the future connection to Tacoma-Domeling Ascension, which is toward the bottom of the page. OMEF South, located in the kind of a square-looking object there, will include maintenance facility, maintenance of buildings, and training track. And then I also want to mention that the purple-looking line, the purple color or maybe maroon, that's a dedicated test track. It's about one mile adjacent to the mainline guideway, and this will be the first that the Sun Transit agency has dedicated test track to test the train. So looking ahead, OMS South will provide storage capacity for up to 144 light rail vehicles, trains. And this will give Sun Transit the capacity needed to support the growing fleet. OMS South will also be the first one compatible with the upcoming Series 3 light rail vehicles, positioning the facility to support the next generations of Sun Transit's light rail vehicles. Together, this investment makes OMS South more than just a maintenance facility. It is critical infrastructure for a more connected, resilient, and future-ready regional light rail system. The OMF-South project will deliver significant benefits not only to the regional life care system, but also to Federal Way and the South King County. From a workforce perspective, the project represents more than 4 million construction hours, labor hours, and expected to support more than 600 skilled living wage permanent jobs when the facility is completed. We will also support local pre-apprenticeship programs, helping create pathways into construction and skilled trades for members of the local community. The project will also bring community benefits to the surrounding area, including new shared use paths, public space, artwork, and signage. Environmental stewardship is another important component of the project. OMF South includes new wetland creation as well as preservation and enhancement of the existing wetlands and streams. Finally, we are also exploring an opportunity to partner with the city, and you know, Ken, feel free to join me here, on a potential public trail at one of the environmental mitigation sites in Federal Way. This is an ongoing conversation with the city staff and city leadership, and we are able to reach an agreement. And if we are able to reach agreement, it could be another Great example of how Sun Transit and Federal Way can work together to create an additional community benefit while advancing our environmental commitments. Since receiving the record of decision back in late 2024, we have continued to advance the OMS South project. In late May, we awarded the progressive design-build contract to Hoffman Construction Company. They are a local Pacific Northwest design-build firm with Arup and Hatch as design leads and Miller Hall as the architect lead. We are now in final design development. Some early work will begin concurrently with design. As some may have known, BPA tower location is planned for early 2027. They have a specific power down window between March and June, followed by construction activities on the north side of the project, including the city center access, roadway improvements, and the Ling Light Rail Guideway Foundation and substructure, which is all in the same vicinity. At the OMF South site, early utility and grading work will also need to get underway. And in the grand scheme of things, the big milestone is that OMF South needs to be ready to support testing of the prototype for the future generation of Sun Transit's fleet, which is Series 3, in 2031. And then eventually ready to receive the Series 3 train delivery in 2032. Again, as the first facility designed to support Sun Transit Next Generation Series 3, it is an important investment in the future of the regional light rail system that we complete this project timely to support that fleet delivery. So our focus now is on continuing our close collaboration with the city staff, leadership, and the committee members as we move OMS South forward. Our design builder is on board and is engaged with the city staff to ensure design and construction meet the city's requirements. A key next step is finalizing the three agreements with the city that establish the framework for development, partnering, and right of way for the project. Two of these agreements were originally executed in 2018, which was the Federal Whaling Extension Transitway Agreement and the Tacoma Dome Extension partnering agreement, and we are now finalizing the amendments to those agreements. We are also finalizing the OMF South Development Agreement, and this includes refining language around the portion of the public benefits, clarifying haul routes, and incorporations of the most up-to-date analysis of the critical area's impacts. Again, we've been working closely with the city staff to incorporate lessons learned and best practices from our previous work together and achieve the best possible outcome for the city and for the project. So that concludes my presentations, and I'm happy to answer any questions or provide any additional information.

Council Member Sevedosin.

Yes, thank you for your presentation. My first question is slide five, the OMF South details. So compared to the Bellevue facility, what's the scope or how does it compare to that facility, the size and the scope?

The size of OMF East facility, if I'm not mistaken, is probably around 150,000 square feet, while the facility we are delivering here in City of Federal Way, it will be around 200,000 square feet.

So it's much bigger than?

Yeah, a little bit bigger. OK. And we still have the same components, maintenance facility for the actual train to be maintained, maintenance away for the light rail guideway, spare parts and components to be stored. We do have a new feature here, which is called training track, which we didn't have, which we don't have on any of the existing facility in Central or East. And the training track is different from the test track. The test track is the one running about one mile adjacent to the mainline gateway, and that's actually to test train. Training track will be located next to the maintenance of way building is to train our maintainers. There will be a set of tracks, whether it's the standard rail or the specialty parts and pieces, and be able to actually show them the specific components. Rather than bringing them up onto the operating line, we have a training track right there to be able to show them physically these parts and pieces, which is safe and, you know, it's just more convenient and readily available for training folks rather than using the operating tracks up on the guideway.

So the test tracks are the pink ones?

Yeah, the test track is that purple, maroon color line. It's about one mile. And adjacent to that is the green line. That's about 1.4 miles. That's the main line, which will be the future connection to Tacoma. One more comment.

So I do appreciate the economic and community support. part of it and if it really does generate 600 jobs like your presentation says and they're livable wage jobs I do support that and I appreciate that actually but also we've heard those types of promises in the past from different programs and so I would hope that Sound Transit would uphold at least 600 POSITIONS OR JOBS, ESPECIALLY LIVABLE WAGE JOBS THAT OUR COMMUNITY COULD TAKE ADVANTAGE OF AND BENEFIT FROM.

SO THANK YOU SO MUCH. I UNDERSTAND. SO THAT'S THE PERMANENT JOBS AFTER THE MAINTENANCE FACILITY IS COMPLETED? YEAH. AND SUN TRANSIT WORKS VERY CLOSELY WITH KING COUNTY RAIL UNION. THEY ARE OUR OPERATORS AND MAINTENANCE. In the meantime, within the next few years, we will also provide construction jobs that I think is going to be also a benefit to the community of Federal Way and the surrounding towns.

Great. Thank you. Council Member Moore?

Thank you so much, Mayor. It's good to have sound transit here, and obviously this is an important aspect to our community and to the future of not just this community but our region. I appreciate my colleagues' questions or comments regarding the jobs. 600 jobs is good. It's great. And I definitely hope to see that come to fruition. Those are new jobs, correct? Yes. Or are they people from a different maintenance facility moving into this one? Are they brand-new jobs?

I can say at least majority, if not all, are new. Because right now the folks who are already working at the central and east, they've got to stay there. If anything, the demand is getting high. If anything, the reason why I'm saying that is maybe there needs to be some sort of combinations with the train system uh folks who have been working on those facilities working over here to prepare the new employees but i think that's the figure that mostly is going to be new new jobs

Great. Well, I definitely look forward to tracking that and getting updates on that just out of curiosity and to be aware. My last comment is I'm happy to see a very strong effort on the pre-apprenticeship programs opportunities for working families, for our kids, and anybody, quite frankly. So that's a really important aspect for me and to see that connection and And so I just wanted to comment to that and saying that I'll be watching that pretty closely as well and another comment I I am very curious and I know that will be covered at some point when I don't know but the rerouting of If people are moving through that property, obviously they won't be able to go there anymore. So that redirection, I'm very curious about that because obviously there's a lot of people that live there that are going to be impacted by this. So I'm very curious to see how that's going to take place, and I know that that will be explained in the future.

So, Council Member Moore, are you referring to the 20th Avenue South? Yes.

Is that it? I actually just moved there, so I'm going to be heavily impacted, so is that 20th? Okay, I'm told that's the 20th, yes.

Would you like me to explain?

Yeah, I mean, if you have information, or I can wait for it, or yeah. Thank you.

So I think the ability to be closing the 20th Avenue South is going to depend on the completion of the new road that we are designing and building here, 18th Place Extension. On top of that, I'm also learning from the team and the city, we also need to build temporary road 21st Avenue. With those two being said, when they are completed and of course accepted by the city, is then when we can actually close or vacate 20th Avenue. Yeah, so we'll make sure that we follow those processes, working closely with Ken and everybody. Oh, you're here. Do you have anything to add?

I think you covered most of it.

Oh, good.

Essentially, 18th Place, which is a little bit to the west of the existing 20th Avenue, would replace the traffic become a public road with a shared use path for pedestrians that will take the place of 20th then as she said 21st extension would ensure that there's no dead-end roundabout that is too long so that actually provides an extra additional area for the for the businesses to go in and out and a little bit further south area so it's between 340 first and

340 340th, I believe so that's the plan Okay, all right, I guess president thank you, thank you for being here I appreciate it and thank you for being at the farmers market on Saturday Yeah, a lot of people stopped and asked you questions very glad to see you and Mary Farrell as well And if I could add councilmember more I think it's not the first time that you mentioned about your interest in pre-appreciation program and I actually just met with a couple of folks from the city department at the high school, Federal Way High School, just a couple hours ago. So I was there with the instructor, Larry, and also Charissa from Innovations and Strategies, right? I wanted to learn their curriculum and everything else so that I can understand the best support, the best contribution that my project can actually provide for the Federal Way Pre-Application School Program.

I appreciate that. That means a lot. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I have some questions. So I've been to both the Seattle facility and the Bellevue facility. And when we were at the Seattle facility, it was before COVID, I believe. It only operated at night and early morning. And I don't know about the Bellevue facility because it wasn't open when we were there. And I would say when we were at the Seattle facility, I thought it was very noisy. Every time a train moved, it beeps three times and they moved a lot. And we're going to have more trains at this facility and it's going to be running 24 hours, I believe you said. So for the people that live directly across the street from this facility, how are they going to be protected from that ongoing noise and Confusion. I mean, you know, they have nice homes. They probably are not able to move at this point. I don't know who would be able to want to live next to this, quite honestly. But how are we going to protect them so that they're not impacted by the noise level?

I may need help from my folks there in the audience. But I'm not so sure about the three-time beeps happening at the first, you know, Seattle. It's probably something to do with the operating procedure of that train, right?

Right. Every time a train moved, it had a beep so that people knew it was moving.

But I do know, I did check in with our community representative from the Spring District in Bellevue to see how that facility on the east side, the OMF East, worked with the surrounding neighborhood. I believe I've been informed that there hasn't been any noise or even light complaint, right? Because one of the things I remember, I was part of the design bill project of delivering OMF East. We were very mindful together with the design builder to make sure that the noise, vibration, and lights from this train, right, who are going to enter in the middle of the night after they are done with their shift, from polluting the neighborhood. If there is a little bit of time, maybe Supriya, would you like to add? I know Supriya is the Deputy Executive Project Director for OMIC program, and you've been working very closely with operations and maintenance folks getting their inputs for our design.

Hello, thank you for this opportunity. So one thing I will say that are you concerned about the residents that are living on north of 336th? Yes. Yeah, so we have also proposed along the... NORTH SIDE OF THE FACILITY, WE WOULD HAVE AN ACTIVATION ZONE. SO IT IS ESSENTIALLY A PUBLIC PARK ZONE THAT WOULD DIVIDE, THAT WOULD RUN ALONG 336TH AND PART OF OUR SITE. SO FOR THE RESIDENTS THAT ARE ON THE NORTH SIDE, 336 you would not see the facility or there was also fencing so it'll be further away in terms of light in noise does that does that answer your question there is an activation zone with like a park like setting with public amenities and art that we're planning

Which sounds amazing, and I like that. I just remember in the Seattle facility, because we were there at like 1 o'clock in the morning, I think 1 to 3, how noisy it was. And I couldn't imagine living next to that. So I'm hoping that something changes or some technology is new that that doesn't happen here.

Yeah, we have not experienced that, at least for the OMF East. We actually built two TOD, transit-oriented development towers, right next to the facility that currently, that we've just finished. And we did look at, like, what Aza was saying, look at noise, what view they had from the TOD buildings over to the maintenance facility and light. We looked at all three of those factors. But we'll definitely keep that in mind.

Okay. And my last question, because I know we need to move on, is I think you said you're going to build a new wetland and protect the existing High Labus Creek?

That's right.

That's right. Why do you need to build a new wetland?

There is certain ratios, certain calculations. With this kind of project, with the footprint that we need to do, it does create impact to the existing environment because we have to build track, buildings, For the, I believe, through the 401 certifications or the Corps of Engineers permit, working together with the Fish and Wildlife, I cannot speak technically accurate here, but there is a specific ratio that the ASGA applying to make sure that the impact that the project caused to deliver what we are delivering here mitigated at least equal, not more. And I think looking at the potentials of what's going on on-site, if there is potential to mitigate on-site, most likely not because we got to construct on-site, right? Then we look at off-site. The creation of new wetland has a better, how should I say it, would provide us more points as far as mitigation impact. The second would be preservation of enhancement of high potential wetland. And the third would be preservation of existing wetland. It's just the different tiers of how we can best mitigate the impacts that comes with the project being delivered.

Thank you so much, and thanks for being here today.

You're welcome. Thank you so much.

Yes, thank you very much. Great presentation. All right, and now we are going to move on to the next part of our presentation, the King County South Link Connections Mobility Project. Jeremy Fitchner with King County South, South King County Planning Lead.

Well, good evening, Mayor Farrell, council members. My name's Jeremy Fichter. I'm the South King County team lead in the service planning group at Metro. And with me tonight is Nathaniel Waugh, Metro's government relations administrator. And it's just a real pleasure to be here with you tonight to talk about some of the work that we've been doing in the community and some of the improvements that we're implementing starting this week. So just a little bit of background. The changes that we are implementing are associated with the South Link Connections Project, which is a restructure of service in South King County that responds to the opening of the Federal Way Link Extension, which began service in late 2025. And that included service all the way down to Federal Way, as you probably know. The South Link Connections changes reflect three phases of public engagement and were approved by the King County Council in March of 2026. We implemented some minor changes with our spring service change in March, but the majority of the changes are being implemented as of this week. So the map here shows our project scope. So it included 10 jurisdictions and portions of unincorporated King County. 23 routes were included in the scope, including nine peak-only commuter routes that were suspended during the COVID pandemic. The project aligns with Metro's service recovery plan insofar as that it restored the service hours that were suspended during the pandemic. And the changes result in an approximately 28% increase in the service hours compared to fall 2025. And so a pretty significant improvement and increase in the amount of service operating out on the street. Metro implemented some new bus stops as part of this project. Some of the routing changes required some additional bus stops. And we invested over $1.5 million in stop and layover improvements, including $330,000 spent in the City of Federal Way. And those stops really couldn't have been implemented if not for the partnership that we had with the City of Federal Way. So we just really appreciate that partnership and the additional service that we were able to provide to the community because of those new bus stops. Just a little bit about our timeline here. As I mentioned, it was a multi-phase public engagement process that began back in the spring of 2024. We did a needs assessment phase, took that information into account as we were developing service concepts that we brought out to the community over the winter of 2024 and 2025. Got some feedback on those concepts and refined our proposal, which we then shared in a third phase of public engagement over the summer of 2025. And then, as I mentioned, the changes were ultimately approved by the King County Council in March of 2026. And we are now implementing those changes. So we worked with the community and our mobility board, which is a group of citizens, bus riders, that advised us throughout the course of the project to identify mobility priorities for our project. And you can see those listed here. I'll just read them off. Greater transit coverage. In other words, the footprint of where transit operates, improved early morning and nighttime service, faster travel times within and beyond the project area, improved east-west transit connections, and finally increased weekend service, especially on Saturdays. So this slide just provides some of the highlights that relate back to those needs that we heard about. The service change enhances all day, all week travel with trips running earlier and later and more often on all local and frequent bus routes. New frequent service on two important east-west connections, one of which goes right through Federal Way that I'll talk a little bit more about shortly. New weekend service where there currently is none. Easier to understand service, including providing more direct two-way service to improve travel times and providing consistent schedules on Saturdays and Sundays for all routes. Hours from discontinued peak-only routes consistent with our service recovery plan were reinvested to meet mobility needs in the project area. And we also obtained some additional grant funding that supports the new MetroFlex service that I'll be talking a little bit more about that we have implemented in Federal Way and in Auburn. So just some additional statistics here related to those network highlights. We've greatly increased the number of households with access to transit, especially frequent all-day transit, in other words, service that operates every 15 minutes or better, where we saw a 70% increase in the number of households with access to that frequent transit service. Earlier or later trips on eight different routes, 11 of the 14 project routes provide a connection to a link station, one of the three new stations. We added 51% more trips on weekdays and 72% more trips on weekends. As I mentioned, new frequent east-west service on two east-west corridors and new days of weekend service as well. So the next few slides just show where those improvements have occurred. This map here basically just shows, maps out which routes had different improvements. And we've kind of shown routes that have more improvements versus others. So the types of improvements that we're tracking here are connections to light rail, improved frequency, added weekend service, EARLIER AND LATER SERVICE OR A RESTORED ROUTE. AND SO THE ROUTES THAT ARE IN DARKER BLUE HAVE FOUR OR MORE OF THOSE TYPES OF IMPROVEMENTS. LIGHT BLUE TWO TO THREE IMPROVEMENTS AND ORANGE ONE TYPE OF IMPROVEMENT. SO AS YOU CAN SEE HERE A LOT OF DARK BLUE AND LIGHT BLUE LINES IN THE CITY OF FEDERAL WAY. A LOT OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF IMPROVEMENTS HAPPENING ON THOSE ROUTES. This map just shows more specifically which routes have improved frequency. You have them listed on the slide here, but you can see that literally all of the routes in Federal Way had a frequency improvement relative to the service that was operating before we implemented the changes. Sort of correspondingly on this slide, you can see the routes that have service operating earlier or later. That's the case for most of the trips in Federal Way. I'll note that the A line is not one of the routes that's shown on this map because it already operates every 24 hours, but we did improve the frequency late at night, improving from every hour to every half hour. On this chart, you can just see in more detail where we've made span improvements. So the dark color shows the span of service or the hours of service that we were operating before we implemented the changes. And then the light blue is where we've increased the span of service or the operating hours. And so you can see a lot of light blue on the edges where we're adding earlier or later service pretty much across the board. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the two new Metro Flex zones. So Metro Flex is an existing type of service that Metro provides in a lot of different parts of King County. It's a demand-responsive service, which means that it doesn't have a fixed route or a fixed schedule, but riders can request to be picked up or dropped off. by calling in or using an app to be picked up or dropped off anywhere within the defined geography here. And these routes are, these new flex services are going to be offered on weekdays from 5.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. So what we've heard during our engagement process is, first of all, unanimous approval from the King County Council Transportation, Economy, and Environment Committee, unanimous approval from our Community Mobility Board, and 14 letters of support from jurisdictions, community-based organizations, and partner agencies. And ultimately, unanimous approval from the King County Council as well. Just a few anecdotes here on what we heard from the community. I'll just read these quickly. First comment was just want to add that I am really grateful to see frequent local east-west buses that will connect to the three new link stations. The additional hours of service on evenings and weekends will allow more ways to use transit outside of commute trips. The second comment, I really appreciate the effort to add more trips overall, especially on weekends. And making the 187 go in both directions for the entire route would be a complete lifesaver when it comes to getting around efficiently, as it's the main route to and from my neighborhood. And then finally, I live on military and often have to walk down to the A line on Sundays when trying to get around. The expansion of service on Route 183 is something I've wanted for a long time now, and I appreciate that my area isn't being forgotten with the expansion to the network. I will say that I was down here in the community on Sunday myself and got to ride the 183 for the first time ever, and there were 13 other people riding along with me, and that was really great to see. We've done quite a lot of engagement just around the service change to kind of get the word out. We've done 40 engagement events scheduled across August, September, and October. Three virtual information sessions were held the week of August 24th. Focus areas include youth ORCA cards and youth mobility in addition to education around the new MetroFlex service. And that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

All right. Council Member Hamilton.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Jeremy, for that presentation. I'm particularly interested in the MetroFlex. How is that going to be different than, like, say, Uber or Lyft, and have you received any feedback from those companies?

Yeah, I would say it's definitely less costly than Uber or Lyft, probably for a lot of trips. You can ride it for the same fare that you pay to use regular metro bus service, and you can pay for it kind of using the same mechanisms. But it is somewhat similar in that it is a demand-responsive service. So some similarities, but generally a relatively cost-effective option for folks.

Okay, and have you received any feedback from those companies at all on this?

Not that I'm aware of.

Okay, thank you.

All right, Council Member Coachmark.

Mr. Fickner, could you go back to the MetroFlex website?

I can't, but somebody else might be able to. The map. There we go. Thank you.

Thank you for the pilot zone. So the areas, they look quite small. Are you just trying these out right now, or...?

These are pilots, yes. So the pilot period is two years after that period. We'll evaluate and try and identify if we're able to sustain those with resources that are available. Yeah, they may look small, but they do pretty significantly increase the number of households without access to transit, particularly kind of on the West Hill there, kind of north of Peasley Canyon Road. That's an area that really doesn't have any service today, so we're really dramatically increasing the number of households with access to transit there. We do have limited resources available for these zones, and we try not to make them too big because if we do that, it means really long waits or people that just get denied on their trip requests. So we're trying to balance the area that we're serving with the quality of service that we ultimately can deliver.

So somebody told me that they called and found out that you wouldn't go west of Peck Highway. Is that correct?

That is the, in fact, yes, the western boundary.

So it's going to be two years before that's able to be changed?

We'll continue to monitor, and we can consider making some adjustments throughout the pilot periods, particularly if we get feedback or requests for service to other areas. So, yes, we definitely want to get all that feedback, and we'll consider adjustments.

Sure. I can understand the people who live over on Military, and on that side, they would really need that. But there's also people on the west side of Peck Highway that they were quite excited about MetroFlex coming in. In fact, one... A person told me that they might get rid of one of their cars so that they would only have to have one car instead of two. Another person who's mobility limited was quite excited and then found out that that wouldn't be available to them because they don't west of Pack Highway. So trying to figure out how we can help those folks.

Yeah, worth noting that we do have another service that's available west of Pack Highway, and it's the new DART Route 902. DART stands for Dial-A-Ride Transit. And so this DART service is sort of a hybrid between fixed route service that has a fixed route and a fixed schedule with regular stops, and demand responsive service, sort of similar to MetroFlex. The area, the Route 902 does have a demand-responsive area that overlaps with kind of the geography that we were just talking about west of Pacific Highway, and so that might be a good option for folks in that area.

So who did they call for that?

Our subcontractor, Metro's subcontractor, is Hopelink on all the DART service. And so if you look on the timetable for that route, the contact information is on there for requesting trips.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And then there's one other question. We were quite excited about we've been talking a long time about getting some way to get our people from the – neighborhood areas so that they could get to light rail without having to call an uber so if they call dart or how long is the time frame from when they call to when the service would be at their door

That's a good question. I think it can vary, but you can make requests like the day of. You don't need to call the day before. You can call the day of, I believe, and make a reservation to be picked up or dropped off. It is somewhat... The availability is somewhat dependent on the actual schedule because, as I mentioned, these vehicles are providing sort of regular scheduled service as well. So they have sort of limited windows when they're able to pick people up and drop off within the kind of the off-route areas.

Okay. Then I just have two more comments. One is, is this available to anyone or does it only have to be seniors or low-income or disability?

You do not have to be qualified to use either DART or Metroplex. Anybody can use it.

Oh, that's interesting. Okay, thank you. And then I have one other person who's asked me, they have a bus stop in front of their home. There's nothing there other than just the pole. And wondering how they could see if that could be moved down to where there weren't any homes like a block away because the people who ride leave a lot of garbage, trash.

Mm-hmm. sometimes they hang around sure you feel free to send the request to me and we do have a transit route facilities group that's responsible for managing bus stops we do have the ability to put garbage receptacles at some bus stops so we could we could certainly look into that if that's an issue

How did they contact you? Did you have an email?

We can definitely follow up with my contact information.

Send it to the council somehow or whatever. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you. You aren't related to our IT person here by any chance, are you? Not that I'm aware of. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Sessoms.

I have another flex question. Sure. So recently I heard that Bellevue has electrified their flex buses for their downtown area. Have you heard anything about that?

I do think that the city of Bellevue, as I recall, does have a sort of a circulator route that operates in downtown Bellevue. I'm not sure who they contact with to do that. I don't believe that is a metro service. And I'm not sure who operated so it's a little bit separate from from Metro flex a little bit different

Yeah, they picked them up from the riders from the transit station and then ferry them around the downtown area. I was just wondering if you had any plans of electrifying the flex fleet that will be in use here.

That's a good question. I don't have the latest on that, but we could certainly get some information about that together and share that with you.

Thank you. Sure. Council Member Walsh.

Yes, thanks for your presentation. This is kind of following up on Council Member Kochmar's last question. Here in Federal Way, it seems like the places that are most likely to have challenges with trash along the road is at the Metro bus stops. And what is Metro doing to better patrol and take care? of the trash at the bus stops. It seems like that should be a metro responsibility, not a city responsibility.

Excuse me. Yeah, as I mentioned, we do have trash receptacles at some bus stops. I think generally speaking with amenities at bus stops, we put those out kind of at least somewhat based on the ridership that we see at the bus stops. Bus stops with greater ridership tend to have better amenities. So I imagine that's probably a consideration with respect to the garbage receptacles as well.

I think that a lot of the problem isn't the lack of garbage receptacles, but garbage receptacles overflowing and not being maintained.

Yeah, if there are issues with specific bus stops, certainly, yeah, please do let us know, and we can try and address that issue.

All right, thank you. Public Works folks keep in touch with you about that. There have been certain instances, I can think of probably two or three right off the top of my head, where we've had those issues. You may want to relay that to your folks, but we'll have our Public Works people communicate with you about that. Council President Honda?

Thank you. Could you put up the zoning for MetroFlex, that slide? Thank you, Heather, or whoever is doing it. First of all, thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Looks like Auburn has a really large area compared to what we have in Federal Way for their zone. Could we get more of an area since they have such a large area? And how did you pick the zone areas?

Well, generally, we were trying to design the areas in a way that would supplement the fixed-route network, so really trying to increase the number of households that have access to public transportation. The scale for these two maps is probably not identical. I could certainly work with our GIS analysts to get you the actual scale.

Square mileage for that for the areas, but we like I said we were you know trying to balance the quality of service with the Geography served here with both of these But is it so if I imagine this is going to take off I do think people will be using this If you get enough calls for service for Metro flex outside of the zones Before the two years are up. Will you consider expanding the zones I

For sure, yeah, and that might involve kind of trimming from potentially one area to expand to another area, but we're definitely open to making some adjustments based on feedback. So yeah, if you all are receiving feedback from the community, please do share that with us, because we will be monitoring and considering adjustments throughout the pilot period.

So if somebody calls for MetroFlex and they're told you're not in the zone, does the operator, if they're on the phone, because I imagine we'll have people using the phone, will the operator then tell them about DART or the other options they might have for transit?

I would hope so, but that's a really good point, and we can definitely follow up to ensure that the folks that are interacting with customers have that information to kind of let folks know about alternatives.

Because we could also let people know about that if we had the correct information, so we could help educate the public about their options for transit.

That would be great. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Council Member Suffer-Dawson.

Thank you. Thank you. So with the earlier and late trips that are the increase, I appreciate it. However, the areas that were already transportation desert continue to have shorter time frame. For example, 182, the area that I live. And yes, there has been a little change, but especially on the weekends, it starts at 7, but A lot of people work, go to work before 7. And so how do we meet those needs? Because they need their jobs. And so even getting to transit center around 7.30 or 8 may not work for them. And I have two young ladies living with me who now have cars, but I used to take them to the transit center around 6 o'clock, 5.15, 5 whatever, so they can catch the bus from there. Because this one doesn't work well for us. So just... don't think we serve that those areas that don't already have transport bus system very well we still don't do well with those so I'm hoping that that changes and adding to what councilmember Walsh said about trash containers I also want to bring up bus shelters that were removed or seats that were removed and I kind of get the idea behind it but then there are people with disabilities seniors and when you live in the neighborhood that I live in where the buses don't come frequently and I'm on crutches I can't stand for hours if I were one taking the bus how does that help me And so I think that has taken accessibility or, you know, away from people. And so I think we need more shelters or seating area. It rains and, you know, it just, to me, that's not a good way of addressing other issues. I think we created another problem, I believe. So I hope Metro reconsiders that and puts back some of the bus shelters and or seats. because they are needed, they are important, they are necessary. Even if it helps 10 people, it's still helping a community. And so I'd like to encourage that or advocate for it. Thank you.

I hear that. Appreciate your feedback. Thank you. Council Member Coachmark?

Well, I was just going to suggest maybe, Mayor, in your newsletter, you could add an article on this whole Metro Transit, Metroplex, and the... DART and who to contact. And we might just suggest that they do a lot of calls for service for MetroFlex so we can get some more earlier than two years from now because I know some folks would love it.

That's right. It's going to be a popular service.

Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions, Council? Well, a big hearty thank you to both the folks of King County and Sound Transit. Thank you so much for your partnership and for all the work you do for the people of our community. All right. With that, the study session is adjourned. We have an executive session for item four here. It is property acquisition pursuant to RCW 42301101B and potential litigation pursuant to RCW 42301101I. Duration is approximately 15 minutes. We'll be in recess for that purpose. All right.