Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

the reason why. Excellent. Excellent. All right. Welcome everyone. Uh, today is the Thursday, April 23rd meeting of the city council community planning and transportation committee. Today we have three items on the our agenda and we're going to do these out of order a little bit because we're waiting on some people to arrive. So, we're going to start with item number two, which is the presentation of the March public transit report. And I believe uh Mr. Taylor Johnson has a report for us turn out for you. Thank you, chair and our temporary chair. Thank you.

And council, uh, yep, Taylor Johnson, your transit and parking program manager. Uh, this is our regular report like we provide every month. Happy to answer any questions as we go through it. I'll hit some highlights, but not a lot of uh, changes for this and we'll get into some more deeper discussions on the transit budget as a followup from February as well. Um, probably the the bigger thing on the on the regular memo is uh on the grant to T set for the uh embark well program.

We're still waiting on official notification on whether we got it or didn't. It's my understanding that they tabled the the grant selections uh last month. So, we're still waiting to see that come through. Um, we're still hopeful that we'll get it, but I know there's a lot of good projects in there. So, um, moving towards the wrership though, and again, happy to if you see anything in the memo you want to talk about more, we can. In March for the Embark Norman system, which is fixed route and paratransit, we had uh 45,000 rides and that's about a,000 increase over uh March of last year, which was 44,000. So, uh, not a huge increase, but, uh, still an increase nonetheless. Again, I think we've been talking about this for a little over a year that of a plateauing and not seeing those 20 25%s, and we're still kind of going back and forth, but we are doing well. Uh, especially year to date, over over last year to date, we're still on track to to hit 500,000 rides on just fixed route. And last year, we we did it with both fixed route and paratransit. So, we're we're projecting pretty well. Um, and uh, both or fixed routes on Saturday were up a little bit, which is good. And we continue to see a really good increase on our West Lindsay route, which we talked about last month as well. Um, and that's good to see. I think people are responding to the added frequency still that we added a couple of years ago in October of 2024 and realizing they can get to and from campus and downtown um, along West Lindsay Street. And then that route goes all the way up by the mall and and Robinson and and 36 as well. So it's a it's a long route, but uh there's two buses on it, so it makes it a little bit easier to get around on it with with added frequency. So uh for Norman on Demand, which is the last uh report in the

regular memo or the regular update, we had uh 273 rides in March uh of this year and uh just over 3,800 March of last year. And uh again, demand is down and that's a little bit of what we'll be talking about in the transit budget report is just that microtransit service. So happy to take uh any other questions, but or any questions you guys may have. Questions for anyone. Think we might see a little uptick on that West Lindsay when the two homelands close. Okay. Maybe people have used using that for the grocery store there maybe instead.

Maybe. Uh so the west Lindsay route does have the homeland along Lindsy Street that's going to stay. It does get clo uh as close as a route gets to the uh west side Walmart as well. Okay. So that uh they could still access that but um there are some other and then the east east Lindsay route it goes right by um Homeland on the east side but it also I was thinking I was thinking when they both shut down then. Yeah. No, people will definitely change their pattern some and um go to wherever is convenient ridership over in that area. Yeah, it could be if they prefer homeland for sure, then they might change their their travel patterns.

Uh are we seeing any impacts from the increase in fuel costs that are kind of nationwide? Not yet. Most of our buses are CG, so that helps. So, we're not really seeing a lot, but I know that overall the city is probably going to feel that at some point. We're getting reports that the price of diesel fuel um cheaper in Oklahoma than it is anywhere else. So other states are coming to Oklahoma buying as much as they can and taking it out. So could be an availability issue as much as it is a price issue. We're having we're having there's not an availability fuel. So we're making orders and they can't fulfill the order because there's not at the terminals at the rack as they call it.

There's no fuel to deliver to us or having to start thinking about our fueling a little bit differently. Oh my gosh. Do we uh I know like when you think about housing stock, you look at how many how much stock the market has. Do we have any kind of gauge similar to that for fuel? I mean I I haven't heard any responses on that yet. Um but like said the what we're hearing right now is it's not necessarily a supply issue because of blockage or you know any of that but it has more to do just the cost here. So that people that are coming from other areas to buy it here to take So I guess it's cheaper so much cheaper here that you can pay the transportation costs on a tanker full of dieseling and that's kind of what we're seeing right now. 10,000 gallons a truckload is what they move.

Yeah. So it's it's a whole new it's not that we've never experienced this before. Do you think it might even get to the stage that somebody like the governor has to step in and maybe limit how much out of state we ship out to be able to fulfill duties in state? You know that that that's an interesting question. Um looked at by ACOG just to kind of get their wheels. We shouldn't have to pay a higher price because they're coming and taking our lower cost fuel out. That's worth conversation. Yeah. Sorry to have to go on a tangent there. I just thought appreciate it. Thank you very much. No problem. Yep. Okay. So, we ready for item one? Yeah.

Okay. Uh we're going to move on to item number one which is a project update and discussion of the access Oklahoma east west corridor. I believe Mr. Scott has a presentation on

Yeah, thank you. Uh doing things a little bit different today. Uh uh Mr. Turn January is here with Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. He's actually going to do this today. We also have Brandon Lamb here with Po and Associates. Uh these are part of the team that we've been working with uh for several months to a year uh about the OTAA projects and the movement and the items that we've had moving forward the 36th Avenue Northwest project and uh they offered to come today and do this uh for us today and took them up on that offer. So with that, I'm going to turn it over and let Trent take over.

All right. Well, thank you. And like Scott said, thank you for the opportunity uh to be here to present and talk about this uh the the Access Oklahoma projects. Uh thank you for sliding me down the agenda. I looked at my phone, it said I had 20 minutes to get to Norman, then five minutes later it said 40 and I was like, "Oh, I got to go." So, uh so I was not I shouldn't have relied quite on that traffic time reliability on Google as much as I should have, but I did. But so thank you for for pushing me down the the agenda. Um so some corridor wide updates. There's there's obviously there's ongoing field work um as the design is progressing towards getting those plans to a bid letting and when we say field work we're talking about going and doing geotechnicals uh bors trying to get that information for the bridge foundations for the for the pavement foundations. U maybe there's probably a little survey work still probably going on to tie some corners down. So those are the types of things we're talking about ongoing work in the as part of the design process as we uh progress towards those projects getting let obviously there's rightway acquisition and utility relocation activities proceeding forward um we're focusing really between that I44 I35 corridor um to to meet our deadline of having something open between I44 and I35 by the end of 2027. Um we're we're very very very close um with acquiring all the rightway and with the negotiations going on with the land owners there. We're we're getting a lot closer there. So you'll see a lot of utility relocation things going on um in the in the in the future coming up in that corridor. Um construction updates as I start from the west side to the east side. the I44 interchange. The construction for that interchange at I44 and the Toby Keith Expressway for the East West connector is going to be split into multiple packages. The first work

package will establish that connection between I44 and the Toby Keith Expressway. And so you will see uh there at State Highway 37, there's a diverging diamond uh bridge interchange that we're going to put there. There's some uh connect ramps that are going to be two-way two-way ramps that allow you to get on and off the turnpike to get onto I44. And so that's really what we're going to focus on on that interchange. And that construction for that first package of that interchange is planned to start this fall. And so um we will take bids, the bid openings will take place in June. And then we'll award that we usually award the project the next month. um as long as we get good bids in. The second project that's currently ongoing are the mainline turnpike bridges over the Canadian River. Construction began this February. Uh most of the clearing has been completed. Um as the and the contractors really started working on substructure elements and a lot of those elements that are underground. So they've started the construction on the drilled shafts. I think they they have built some of the uh a few of the columns. And so they're they're progressing from the west to the east. I think I was told by uh our director of construction that they're working they've now moved from the west side of the river to the east side of the river. So they've got a lot of the the substructure work for at least one of the bridges done to start on the other side. The other projects that's going on the other project that's going on over there is the turnpike bridges over 10 mile flats. So that's between twint between Penn 72nd Northwest Avenue and Western and 60th Northwest Avenue. Construction just started this beginning of this month. Again, most of that work is subsurface. It's working on the drilled shafts, trying to get everything up out of the ground and so they can be above

ground. And especially since they're working on this in this spring, this area floods a lot. They really want to get out of the ground so they can continue working without having the weather impacting their schedule. Um, this project doesn't quite go all the way to the western interchange, but there's another future project that we plan on letting later this year that uh that will address the the western interchange. We had one little project there. There was a project to drain and backfill a pond just south of Tala between Western Avenue, 60th Avenue, West, Northwest, and Santa Fe Avenue. It's almost complete. They were installing sod. It used what we found out what it was was it is a big pit borrow pit of clay for where they made they made they used it to make a lot of bricks and so I think it was anywhere from 20 to 30

the deepest part was like 40

the deepest part of it was at least 40 feet and so it was it was there was a lot of fill that we had to put into that um because the alignment goes right over that pond um we needed to get that done and out of the today cuz if there is some settlement that needs to take place after putting all that new that that new fill in there, we wanted that to occur for as long as possible before we go start uh the mainline work through there. Upcoming projects, those are all the currently ongoing projects on that corridor. Some upcoming projects, as I said, is the Western Avenue interchange, 60th Avenue Northwest project. The plans, the final construction plans are scheduled to be delivered this summer and then we will put those out to bid in August and then so construction will start probably later towards the end of the year or maybe the beginning of 2027. The next project is the mainline bridges over Santa Fe Avenue, 48th Avenue Northwest. We're scheduling to put those out for a bid in September 2026. Again, those will probably uh the construction will probably start later in the first quarter of 2027 on that project. And then, as Scott mentioned, the project between Santa Fe Avenue and 48th Avenue Northwest, Telephone Road and 36th Avenue Northwest, um we're looking to put that project out to bid in September 2026. and we've been coordinating with the city the city staff on um in incorporating those plans into our project. Um and so we're going to be looking to put that out to bid um like I said in September of this year. Again, looking to start construction sometime in the quarter, first quarter of 2027. Um and then finally are the bridges over 36th Avenue Northwest. Um we're looking to put those plans out the bid by November 2026. And so those I would say will probably start later in the spring.

Um with them just being turnpike mainline bridges, they're I'm not going to say they're not important. Uh they just won't take as long as some of these other projects. So that's why you see it letting later in the year. So there's going to be a lot of work that we're putting out the bid between now and the end of the year. And there's going to be a lot of work going on from a construction standpoint within that corridor. Um, again, our our target date for that is to get something open between I34, I44 and I35 by 2027. Um, if you go east of I35, actually, what I don't have on here, Brandon, when are we when are we letting the first interchange project for I35 and the Toby Keith Expressway? uh first project at I35 opening as in January of 2027.

Okay. So with all the contract construction contracts and procurement times Q2 27. Okay. So thanks Brandon. So we'll start shortly after we've got all this going on. We'll start on the the interchange there at I35. Um we um we're we're working through that right now. Um there's an ODOT project that's tied in with our project uh between 19th and 34th. Did I say that right? Yes.

Um where they're converting those frontage roads, those two-way frontage roads to one-way frontage roads and uh reversing the ramps there. Um and that's due to our project. That's how we we we when we're tying in all these frontage roads that needed to be that needed to happen as part of our project. It's going to help facilitate traffic while under during construction and so it's it's it's pretty integral to that project. They are we're having a ODOT is hosting a uh stakeholder meeting and a public meeting May 27th. May 27th. That's right.

And that's all part of the corridor study that we participated in. Uh and it's basically going to be oneway corridor, oneway frontage roads through most of it from Robinson North. This is just the early stages of that. that's going to help as he was saying with the the construction phasing to get that done.

And then so if you go east of there to I40, um we are it's it's it's in different stages. Um there's some of it where we are getting really close to 60% design where we can start um the process of um letting uh property owners know what we may need um or need to acquire uh for the project. There's uh if you go to the north end near I40, there's uh several pieces of property we've negotiated with land owners and have acquired. Um and we've done a lot of our studies up there. Um and so we may be looking to fasttrack a few of those projects to the north there. Um just because we're in we're in a good state on that and um that would allow us to get some of that um start to see some action along that corridor. Um, I know that that's not necessarily a Norman, but it, you know, we are continually working on that stretch as well.

Um, so I'll pause right there if there are any questions about the East West Connector, Toby Keith Expressway corridor there. Yes, sir. Um, we I I think we're expecting it'll be concrete, not black top on on the Toby Keith Expressway between 44 and 35. Yes. Concrete mainline. Concrete mainline. Concrete furniture. And just out of curiosity, what is your typical street profile? Section. Yeah. If you don't have anything weird going on in the soil, how many inches of base concrete? It's normally Huh.

Are you talking about the profile or the typical section? So, it's probably 10 to 11 in of concrete. That's what I'd expect. 10 to 11 in of concrete. Eight inches of bag base. Normally eight to to a foot of a base and then normal sometimes eight inches of stabil stabilized subgrade. Oh, plus three inches. Let me start over. 10 to 11 inches of concrete, 3 to 4 in of asphalt, 8 to 12 inches of egg base kind of on the east side where we're getting into more cut scenarios where you might have groundwater coming up. So, and then um 8 inches of stabilized subgroup. So, it's a it's an interstate standard

typical section is what we designed that too. So, just kind of give that a comparison. Our arterial roadway would be 8 in of of stabilized subgrade and then 8 in of concrete or asphalt. So, you're looking at that next thickness. That's because be able to handle that additional traffic load and the truck load because there's so many more so much more heavy trucks on the on the roadway. And when we do a lift of asphalt, it comes out about two inches at a time.

It depends you. We we will so on an 8 in roadway, we'll do two threeinch lifts of the the bigger aggregate rock and then we'll do a twoinch lift on top of the smoother step. It's the better driving surface. So that's usually you don't there's limits but you get much beyond that you start having trouble with compaction and so you want to keep it good compaction is going to fall apart on you quicker. Does concrete come out all at once? Comes all out at once. Wow. Yeah. Should come see it. There's going to be a lot of it. All of it. Come help spread it. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure. Yes, ma'am. on the part where you said um that that the time was going to come for you to let homeowners know what you need from them. Uh what is that? What we need from them? So, it'll be some some property whether it be a total take or a partial take. Just letting them know there's a section between um the street to the east. I'm sorry. 24th 24th 24th and Sooner

Sooner State Highway 77. state highway 77 that we asked the designer to go look and redesign and shrink their footprint so we weren't having to acquire as much. And so that process is a little bit further behind the other ones. And so what I mean is when I when I say we need to ask the property owners, it it is for for the property to be able to build that project, but it's it's a little further behind than the rest of the corridor because we did say, "Hey, designer, go shrink. You can shrink that footprint where we're not having to be as wide as what they originally showed." So we we narrowed the footprint. I think we um there were some properties that were going to the acquisition was going to be a total take. They're no longer going to be total takes. There's there's some properties that we were having to take I don't know the dimension a good partial of their property and now we're reducing that. So, it was really trying to be efficient with their design, asking them to be efficient with their design and they did a really good job of of pulling that right away in. So, it is we're we're getting close to that process. I keep looking at Brandon where we'll be sending them letters saying, "Hey, this is the rideaway agent. We'll be reaching out to you to discuss and negotiate." um and answer any questions that you may have of how this process is going to work. Um so it that that's what I meant by that.

Um and are there no total takes or are there still some there are still some total takes? You know how many? I don't know off the top of my head. We're still kind of uh reviewing the final rideway plans to get that process going. Yeah, we're we're we're not quite have that finalized the rideway plans finalized and so we don't want to go out if we didn't have a finalized and a good set of rideway plans, we don't have to go talk to, you know, try to buy something twice, right? And so, um, but we're getting very close to to being able to go have that conversation with those land owners between that area.

What What will that look like when you go have a conversation with one say that's going to be a total take? Mhm. What will that look like when they're not going along with it?

So, um that so we we contract out the that the the uh the rideway agents to go do to to help with help us with this process. And so, they're going to come talk to them. They're going to show them the plans. They're going to say, "Hey, this is this is this is the footprint we're taking and it's I'm it's going right over your house." So, it's going to have to be a total acquisition. Or maybe the house is in the very far back and we're building and it cuts off access. It's going to be a total acquisition, right? So, they're going to have that conversation explaining why. And then they're going to give them the appraisal. There's this big giant appraisal that we have them do. So, we have a a company go do an appraisal and then we have a different company do a review of that appraisal just to verify that they looked at the right comps and they that that it was a good appraisal. And so, we'll make sure that they have that appraisal, make sure they understand that appraisal, if they have any questions about that appraisal. Um, and so they're really starting that conversation of of of what we're what we're asking. Um, not an easy conversation at all. Um this is this is the this is not that that that that process is not taken lightly. Um that that it can be very it's going to be very emotional, right? And so we want to have that conversation, have that dialogue and and and and there's going to be some back and forth of here's the appraisal, this is how we got to our number. We're going to let that land owner. We're not going to ask them then to sign that paper or agree to that number. It's take this.

But will the timeline be on that? So it varies and and and why I say it varies is it depends on how we have structured when we plan for the roadway to be open. I mean like how many days will they have is what I'm saying. Like when you go to them are you is it going to be like you have 30 days, you have 60 days or 90 days? So, and I and I guess that's why I'm saying it it it it varies depending on where we are. So, with that that project that I'm talking about, it's a little bit further a little further out,

but um so we're saying, hey, we got to have the road open by this date. It's going to take this long to construct it. Um it's going to take this long to get it to design. And so once we know where we are from where it's going to get to that that that 60% um or that certain that certain percentage of design we can also we got to add in there it's going to take you know a certain amount of time and I'm going to say you know it it could take up to a year before we could purchase that property. It could take up to 18 months. But if we're if our timeline is scrunched based on when we got to get the road open and when we got the plans designed and when we started acquiring right away and then when we got to get utilities out of the way, there could be a shorter amount of time that that we don't have to negotiate. And um we we that's not what we want to do. We want there to be plenty of time to have that conversation, have that back and forth. Um, but there are times based on the timelines that that that were set to get the road open that it does get squished down. So, that's why I say it varies. I I can't give you a specific amount of time. Um, it would just it just it just really depends on on on property to property. And would you say the people that just um for example one that's going to be a total take would you say that they're already aware right now that is that it their property will be

for the most part if the main lines running right on your property like on your house uh OJ has done trying to do advanced acquisitions and that's where they'll try to do

yeah so if it if it's very clear Thank you Brandon Thank you for getting me going. If it's very clear that we're going to be a total take, we have we do we have done and do advanced acquisitions. Are there some parcels out there that, as Brandon said, we're still trying to tie down? Yes, there are still parcels out there that we are still trying to tie down. if they if there's some if there's if there's uncertainty with that land owner, like they're not unsure when they go look at the map online and they see the yellow line, the the marker yellow line. Um, if if that if that yellow line is is going over their house or going over majority of their property, taking their access, we probably tried to already reach out and do an advance acquisition. If there's a little bit of uncertainty, we haven't quite talked to them yet because we want to make sure what we're going to go ask them for.

I hope that makes I hope I explained that. I I'll say this the process that you just described is is basically the same process that we do. So, it's very familiar. We playing the same game with that. Um those appraisals are done by licensed appraisers. So, it's not picking somebody to go out there and pick a value and they're doing it by industry standards. There there's a review appraisal by a licensed appraiser to say, "No, you missed something." And so, you know, we we follow basically the exact same process that they do. And it's basically what's set out in the land acquisition rules. So,

and then I'll touch on real quick the South Extension Turnpike. Um we received and reviewed functional plans for the entire corridor including the Toby Keith expressway interchange south to the I35 ch interchange in February. And so when I say we we received and reviewed functional plans um is we we got almost 30% plans. Um very very preliminary. Um they still got pretty good geometry but there's still some some engineering things to work out uh with those plans. And those plans are those those functional plans are being used by our rideway professionals to identify those total acquisition properties that we that to build the south extension turnpike. And we have notified those property owners that the process uh to negotiate for the property has we is has begun. And um this this generated from when we and I was at we were at all of those um open house meetings uh when we were were asking for information about the area when we were looking to uh move move the alignment and and the thing that I kept getting in that in that meeting was I just I just want to know we just want to know what's going on. And so that that led us to say, "Hey, we got to let these people know what's happening if we're taking their property." So we made that decision and we pushed our designers hard to get that turned in so we could start making the contact with these people and several people have reached out. Several people left their contact information and I think there's roughly 40 total acquisitions that we have reach started that process to reach out to.

Um, and so we started that process for the south extension and we're asking our designers to stay with it and and and and continue to push on this um so they could provide us those 60% sets of plans by the end of the year. And what that's going to allow us to do is go allow that's going to allow us to go get a good set of engineering or rideway plans. And then once we have that good set of rideaway plans, we can go start reaching out to all of those other property owners that there's some uncertainty of how much property we need. Is it going to be a till or will take? And so again, really trying to to provide some certainty to those people that and property owners that are along that route of how they're going to be impacted. Um, and so that's that's really what we're what we're trying to get to right now on that south extension uh corridor. So, but that that's the update I have on that.

Do you have any timeline estimated on when that part of the process will be wrapped up for the south extension, the rideway process, notifying owners and kind of really dialing all that in? Yeah. So, so we we really started notifying, so we said at the uh open house meetings that in 12 to 18 months, we would we would um start notifying land owners. I think those were in September. No, no, those were in April, weren't they? I believe.

Yes. Because my appendix ruptured right before that. Um and so, sorry, that's how I remember that is how I remembered it. Um, and so, um, we're we're right on that we're right there in that timeline where we said we would start reaching out to property owners. And so, I'm I'm anticipating by the first quarter of 2027, we will we will we will be uh reaching out to those land owners about partial acquisitions and there may be some additional total takes that we weren't we weren't we weren't real certain about until we got more into the design. So, um, our anticipation and and and how we set the the schedule and how we directed, um, our design engineers and our rideway professionals is we want to look at we want to be having these sending out letters, having negotiations with everybody along the south extension by um, next year, early next year. So, um, those sections, Brandon, please correct me if I'm wrong. We're we we're looking to get from the east west connector to state highway 9 oh 2032

and then from state highway 9 to I35 by 2034. Um when we went to Noble and kind of in that area, we we heard a lot about um provide they they were needing an additional access point to I35 Noble specifically. And so there could be some opportunity down in that area that we could start sooner. We have another very big river crossing that we've got to do. There are all of the environmental studies that we've got to do. all of the uh water resources types of studies that we've got to do. So that that takes a very long time to get through that process. So you may see us start working down there on that river crossing because we did hear some feedback about how how impactful an additional way for Noble and other other towns in that area to be able to access I35 a lot easier.

Is that going to shoot down by Slaughtersville? Yes, it'll be down there near Slaughtersville. Yes, sir. So sorry I just started talking and took off. Sorry about that.

What I would like to share is that so uh when we had our last council meeting where council approved the contract uh for 36 uh director E. Kelly uh was evidently watching part of that along with some of staff. they were uh keenly aware and they heard about this committee and they reached out to me and said what's this committee you guys kept referring to and when I told them about this committee they have committed that they are going to send me an update so in the past where I'm giving you information that I could pull publicly they have offered to actually and that's what we read from today they will be giving us information because they want to be more open and more transparent with with the city of Norman so we're going to be getting information I'll be presenting it in the future. Sorry, but that's how it's going to be. Um, and so we're going to be getting a lot more direct information and I'm hoping that maybe in the future we'll be able to get maybe some of their uh some photos of some construction in future meetings. Uh, today we're all kind of trying to figure out how we wanted to do this. So, a little bit uh a little bit different, but I really appreciated the fact that that they reached out to share that and then to come down today to kind of kick off this new way of us presenting information to you at this committee.

No, it's a it's it's really helpful. I mean, I'm sure you're aware it's a very contentious issue here in Norman. And so, I think uh the more transparency is a great way to put it. the more communication, the more advanced notice we can get, just the more open we can be about the whole conversation, I think is going to be a benefit to everybody. Council Hankle, as a part of those reports, would it be possible to get updates on what land acquisition and total takes and all that stuff, what those numbers look like, and kind of roll those in for Scott to keep us updated. We can do that. Yeah, because we we track all that and um yeah, we can we can for sure share that information much to monitor it just for peace of mind, but also to know what housing stock we're losing because it's always a give and take. That would be great.

Yep. Yeah, we can we can for sure add in so we know what a true number is, too. Are there any questions? Anything else from council? All right. Well, I appreciate your time. Come and drive down here. Hopefully get back up the city's not as much of a headache. Oh, no. That's okay. I got plenty of time now. Thanks. Thanks. All right, we're going to move on to item number three, which is a continued discussion regarding the FYE 2027 transit budget. And uh welcome, Mr. Johnson, back to the table. Thank you, sorry, I went to sleep. Um yeah, so it's it's in the presentations go first.

So it's in the title. We talked about this in February about the uh FY27 fund 27 transit budget and uh I'm not going to rehash all of those u that whole presentation again but just a short I think it's five five slides um we uh were given direction to come back um after after that meeting to uh keep microransit but shave the budget a little bit. So, we went to our our contractor VIA and had that conversation. And obviously, we don't want to uh cut the service as much as possible or cut the service too much because then it just is a downward spiral, but what makes sense in terms of uh maybe not as needed where we could still provide a quality service. So, um we're going to give some updates to the uh projections and then we'll have that more in-depth u microtransit uh service. So uh on the left just like in February here's our projection slide on the left revenues right expenses on the revenues we had a little bit of good news from the uh FTA aortionment that we'll be receiving next year and uh it's about $98,000 more so that's a that's a good thing and then on the right the update is uh we were given direction to add in the additional security services through embark uh for all the whole service span and that has been reflected Ed there.

That's the one that results in restroom access open to close.

Correct. As long as it's in operation, we will we can keep it open uh all day. Sometimes that can be a struggle, but um I it's my understanding uh I didn't get the numbers updated, but the uh sales tax uh numbers could be uh a little bit off from what you're going to see in your budget book, but it wasn't drastic, but that that could be a little bit of a change. So, this is pretty close to what you should be seeing if everything goes through as presented here. Um, that that green number did get a little bit bigger on the surplus at the bottom. And this is without microtransit. So, we had that separated out at the February meeting. Um, and again, just representing of if we didn't spend that, it would be about a 10% budgeted um uh fund balance uh for fund 27 if it if the entire thing wasn't spent. However, we do have this microtransit Norman on demand service and uh unless we just cut the entire thing, um we obviously need to have that as an expense light item. So again, we were given direction to keep possibly keep it but try to cut some expenses. Um the budget that was presented in February for microransit was estimated about $650,000 and uh we were able to shave that down to 615 uh 502. And I'll I'll jump down to the the second bullet. The reduction includes starting at 7:30 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. So just a later start time, which decreases the vehicle amount of vehicle hours, and that's it adds up quickly. and then cutting the last hour service on Sunday. So, we provide Sunday during the day service from 10:00 a.m. to 6 pm and it's stopping at 5:00 pm instead.

Do we have uh ridership numbers that back up be able to make those changes and not impacting certain? So, that's what VIA provided um to us the 7 to 7:30 time frame. Um, you could argue that it is uh a higher ridership 30 minutes, but uh trying to achieve the most bang for our buck per se without cutting something else. That's kind of what we were looking at. So the and we still have fixed route service out there at that time.

Um except for on Saturday it'll be a 30 minute uh time that we don't have transit service. But so we still have ch fixed route service and um the idea was those folks uh if they they needed the service they could probably wait another 30 minutes or or so to get that ride. Um there are some less uh lucrative I'll say hours in the in the evenings and especially on Thursday, Friday, Saturday as you get into the 2 to 3:00 a.m. times slot. But that's kind of what OU is helping contribute and paying for with their safe ride service is getting that 10 10 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. service Thursday, Friday, Saturday, which is what historically it's been. So there were some discussions about that and ultimately it was left there. But the good thing about on demand service like this and we've talked about it is you put out the service that's needed. So in those later hours you're putting out one to two vehicles, you're not putting out five, right? So again, the 30 minute start time, you're you're losing not just 30 minutes, you're losing possibly two or three 30 minute periods because of each vehicles that's out, right?

Um so with that uh that expense, OU is uh agreeable to pro provide about $144,000 and that's in proportion to what we saw their OU wrership in general from last fiscal year. Um, so we've kind of tried to keep that um connected as much as possible to some data, not just come up with some nebulous number. And the city expense at the end of the year um obviously we'd have to uh encumber the entire amount, but with the OU contribution would be about 457, a little bit over that. And like I said, we uh reduced the overall budget um that was presented in February about by about 61,000 with the reduction in service plus the increase in the OU contribution that they're willing to do. So um that's really what the presentation was for today was just to get that direction on continuing the microtransit services um at that new expense. And um with the budget book, I think in its final stages, this would be a budget amendment request like past years. So

I believe we'll be able to put your draft budget document in your hand uh next week's council meeting. I think Kim has them at the print shop. Oh, there's Kim. They've actually been delivered today. There you go. The model of efficiency. That's how we roll. And uh we're we're planning on early or in the fall putting out an RFP for microtransit services um just to make sure we are getting the best bang for our buck with what we're providing um with the current contractor. It is it's time for us to do that. We've been doing this with VIA for about uh this will be the fourth year.

So uh we'll make sure we're doing that. Uh unfortunately we were meant to do it this past year but then we weren't able to get it going before the budget process started and then we're not sure if we have a budget and what that looks like. So we want to get ahead of that next year and make sure we can present to council and city leadership. Hey, here's we did the RFP. Here's what the results were. So um that's that's kind of what we wanted to come back and discuss with you after the direction we got in February. So I big supporter of the program. I think I mean just the the savings are are great. Um the only question I have is you know originally we had talked about this idea being primarily as a u an accessibility option you know

not able to schedule a ride a day in advance and you know kind of working with some of the limitations of the existing embark accessibility system. Is there an option to just strip it down to just that to where we're operating a certain hours, but they're just for mobility challenges? Because I don't know. I I I see the value in having it run till 3:00 a.m. for OU students, but also are we are we trying to do too much with what we have here? And is is it an idea to maybe strip it down to just kind of a core function? I don't know. I'm just spitballing here, really.

Yeah. So, uh, yeah, that that is one of the reasons we wanted to start the program. Um, we have some data and that's in the report that was given of how many people request or get wheelchair accessible vehicle rides. Now, that doesn't mean that others with different disabilities aren't using the just normal minivans, right? But we we do have some of that that data. Um our hope is with the new paratransit software we've been told by embark that at some point we may get be able to provide same day rides that the software is capable of that. Now uh something that we'll battle against is um there could be too much demand and it could be hard to on the on the paratransit side right

uh because we don't charge a fair we can't kind of curb that demand um and possibly charge a premium for same day service. Those are conversations that other cities have, but once we get to that point, I think we'll just have to have those conversations about what that looks like. So, I think if you if you just provided uh we'll call it I guess ADA service for on I don't know that this I don't know if this would be uh there's a scale worth it, right? Yeah. So, uh if we wanted to scale it down that much, we'd have to really uh do a mirror check and make sure this is the best way to do that. Gotcha. That's exactly you would invest in if it was that because it doesn't fit their client. No, for sure. For sure. Yeah. And I will say this is a great

just 12 to three. That's why I didn't I mean it was it was really to kind of I think that's where you was going like 11 to three is different or something. Well, yeah. I mean we it's very had a very clear intention with what we were trying to do originally with this idea that was to fill that gap of right you know something that I don't say embark wasn't doing but maybe wasn't doing to the level of service that residents were the expectations yeah it's not what we're required to do right so so just thankfully for that extra 98,000 that helps us continue to hold on to more of the service without requiring a general subsidy I think it's great

and we'll we well uh I think we was talked about in February. We'll every year we do our best not to add on during the year, but like we had an accident this year, total loss, and uh it was an FTA funded vehicle that we just got, so we had to pay the check to replace the whole vehicle, right? So, stuff like that happens, but we'll do our best to obviously the old one. Sweet. Usually wrecked. Send pictures of the PD so I know not to run into. Awesome. So, all good news. So appreciate the update and uh anything else from council? All right. Well, that was our last item.