Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, everybody. It is recording and it is 4. So, we'll go ahead and get started uh so we can get through these four items. Um welcome to the community planning and transportation committee meeting for Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. And we do have four items. And the first one is presentation of the December public transit report. We got Taylor here to go over that with us.

Thank you, mayor and city council members. I'm Taylor Johnson, the transit parking program manager. Uh going through the uh memo as always. We did make uh an addition an update on one of our new cutaways. Unfortunately, it was involved in a accident uh a few months ago and uh the the other involved party did not have insurance. So, you're going to see a item on your council uh meeting next week to replace that uh unit. It was basically a total loss. it was [clears throat] hit at a high speed head on and

it would have cost about 50% of the vehicle to get to to fix it and that probably wasn't going to be a good idea. So unfortunately uh because it was so new um and because we're not getting any insurance proceeds in the federal funds that were used with it, it's going to be city dollars that will have to completely replace it. So, that's what you're going to see on your council meeting next next Tuesday is to authorize us uh to move money around and fund that purchase if you agree with it. It's going to be about $192,000. It was uh 181, I think, that we paid for it a year ago. So, just wanted to update you on that. The warmer What's the What's the recourse

for the driver? Yeah. I mean, I assume they're I mean, that's a criminal offense. they'll lose their license, I guess, all that. Yeah. I haven't really dived into what happened to the driver. I just know that we're not getting any funding for the vehicle replacement, unfortunately. So, wow. [clears throat] Uh anyway, they were uh being pursued. They were already on the Oh. So, it it was just a bad situation all around. They're being chased by the police.

Yeah. This [clears throat] is the one where the the embark driver was parked waiting in park plus while waiting for their next assignment. They were running from the police that came around the corner, lost control and literally we've got the camera footage of them just ramming the the vehicle. Um there are some remal, but it's such a long shot on this this so we but we As you know, Taylor's saying, we if we don't replace this bus, we will be giving the money back to the the feds. So, we'd rather just replace the bus. Yeah.

Counier. Uh that was good to know. I was actually going to

start off with that part. Uh the other question is say they did have insurance, does that pay up to what their insurance pays out and then we still have to fork over the rest? So, it depend on how much we would get from [clears throat] the insurance proceeds, but uh we would take that money and apply it to replacing the vehicle or fixing it either way. But if it was a replacement, uh all the feds care about is hey, we gave you x amount of dollars for this vehicle and then we calculate how much federal shares left in it over the life useful life remaining and that's how much they would want to ensure that is either put back into a new vehicle or the city would give back to the feds. Does that make sense? So, if it's a 12-year bus, which this wasn't, and it got hit when it was seven years useful life left, you would calculate how much is left on that federal share, whatever we p whatever we got for it.

Council, [clears throat] so is there a criminal investigation against the person right now? I haven't followed up with PD about that. Like I said, I was just mostly concerned about the vehicle replacement and the funding for that. But do we have a PD case number? Yes. Okay. I was just curious if if that footage was available to show what happened if that's something that we could see to explain. We can follow up with PD and legal. But yeah, for now we just need to get moving on this replacement. We can continue. I think along with that though, having the whole story play out at least gives a broader generalization over, hey, we followed this all the way through as far as we could. So now we're having to have an ask, you know, and stuff. Also, don't want to

just for the general public. I don't want to jeopardize the case if there is one in any way, but just to be able to better explain $192,000 like magically having to go. Council Bruce, I just don't know. How's that play out? Is it a criminal? Is that is it a criminal civil? Depends on what he was running probably. Well, I'm just thinking about the court of record. So that you know, it depends what he was running for. Yeah. Yeah. There's no history of it. So there's no deterrent and again if it's a mun if it was a municipal charge then it wouldn't be on court record I don't think no it wouldn't

yeah no it's a probably a felony charge um so he might not be working him or her might not be working for a while um but also one of the charges was also driving without insurance so that you'd be looking at going getting either restitution or um and they would have tacked on you know felony damage over x amount of money as part of that probably too and everything that they did to him also. So unfortunate situation but yep there's more information in the staff report with that agenda item. There's a little blurp here in your memo but just wanted to go over that before you saw that next Tuesday. Thank you for that.

Uh that might be in the report too. I can't remember. It should be. it will be.

Um, also next Tuesday, going to the second page of the memo at the top for [clears throat] the central Oklahoma long-range transit plan, uh, ACOG and the, uh, and Embark felt like it would be good for all three of the transit agency, uh, cities to receive the plan. It's not that you're approving it, uh, but every city is saying, "Hey, we acknowledge it. We're receiving it." Uh, and, uh, it's been approved by ACOG. That was the only body that needed to approve it. We participated in it. We came to council three times last year and gave updates or Embark and Nikk did, but um just want to give you a heads up on that as well and that'll kind of be the the closing of that for this committee unless there's an update that the they're working on a recommendation that we need to come back to council on from that plan. So, and then uh I think I'll move over to the the wrership which uh again we're not seeing as great of gains as we did the previous year but uh this past December was up [snorts] a little bit on the fixture out side we had 43,899 compared to 38,424 and then also on the plus ridership it was 2 even which is uh interesting that it was even that way compared to 18 uh 1,818 in last December. I think that is a little bit attributable to the weather. We had a a great month of December with pretty good weather, people getting out and about. You typically see the wrership decline in the winter months because people just don't want to take as many trips.

So, that uh that probably played a factor into it. Um and we'll see how uh January uh comes about with the weather in February as it ramps up some. But as you could see the uh routes on Monday through Friday were up. Uh interestingly the Saturday routes were [clears throat] down a little bit but overall still a uh a good month for ridership on the fixed route and paratransit service. And especially if you look at the bikes uh they added mobility they were up uh almost double. it was,460 for bikes uh that were used on the fixed route service compared to 701 last December. So again, probably a little bit to do with the the better weather, but it's good to see that use riders are using those devices such as bikes to extend the reach of their trip. You know, the transit can't go everywhere. So

fixed route Monday through Friday is up 17%. And fixed route Saturday, it says 13.5%. But yeah, I think that was a let me see a mistype on the on the table. And then plus is up 10%. Right. Well, maybe not because it shows both those down. Well, plus is up 2,000 compared to 18. 18. Yeah. [snorts] All right.

And then for Norman on demand, uh, which is the more red report at the tail end of the the memo, uh, we are seeing our key performance indicators uh still do better. Uh with the decrease in demand we've been talking about the last couple months, we've been able to uh make sure that those weight times and walking distances are are doing well with where we wanted to be or our targets. But the number of riders in December were about 1,800 compared to about 3,400 last year. So, still that [clears throat] decrease in demand that we've been talking about the last few months, which uh is great on one hand because we're seeing a decrease in the cost of the service as well because it is that uh demand service that you put the hours out that that you need to once you realize that there is a decline in demand. So, we are seeing a little bit of savings there that hopefully will help out with this year's budget.

Happy to answer any more questions about transit or anything in the report. Um Council, sorry. I have uh one from slide eight, I believe is what it was. And if they then were showed that we had 20 denied rides so far for 2026 compared to four from 2025. I know it gives that little blurb in there about how we might not really have that much information over why, but do we know what types we're seeing? Is it this the slide the page number five on on the slide number? It was slide number eight. Eight. I see that. Yeah.

Yeah. On there was talking about that 20 denied there and the four and the other I just seen what's a trend or what are we seeing it? Do we have one specific things that's keeping people denied overall or you know I'd have to go back and look at the denied trip specifically and I can and I'm only one because if it know the type of clients that I serve if it's a trend and a reason [clears throat] then I'd love that information so I can try to fix it on the hospitals in if we can help somebody get that you know. Yeah. Uh, no. We can definitely look into that and make sure that we're doing everything we can possible to avoid those denied rides. Any [clears throat] other transit comments, questions?

Everything at the transit center going smoothly? Uh, you know, uh, smooth as it can be. Got the everything replaced or the the concrete the drive for. Yeah. Yeah. So, the operations is going really well. We haven't had the any issues with the concrete. Uh, no no news. That's that's been a great addition. Um, [clears throat] obviously we have security there for a reason. There's issues that happen. Majority of them honestly are smoking uh complaints and there's really not a good fix for that. But, uh,

yeah, it's it's going fairly well, I think. Hopefully you guys aren't hearing too much and if you are, please pass those along so we can help alleviate that. Okay. All right. Thank you, Taylor. All right. Thank you.

And with that, we'll move on to next item, which is a project update and discussion of the Access Oklahoma East West Corridor. And so, uh, talked to staff about providing, uh, semi-regular updates when there's information available about, um, what the OTAA is doing and what their progress is on their plans and all that stuff. So, I think staff's got some info to talk to us about. As the mayor said, you know, we wanted to start coming to you and just keeping uh information as fresh as we can and keep you as updated as we can uh and just be really transparent with what we're hearing and what we're getting from our partners at the Turnpike. Um there go. So, I've got to say it was we had the holidays in there, so there wasn't a whole lot of new information, but we've got a few things that's worth discussing. Um, as we discussed at our last meeting, uh, they OTAA did award that contract to go over the river between Newcastle and the city of Norman. That'll be go extending past 72nd Street. So, it will be in the rightway or adjacent to the rightway of the city of Norman. So, we're going to start seeing act seeing things happening in Norman on the east west connector. Uh, expecting that to begin in February, maybe early March. We have gotten notice of a pre-work in early and midFebruary. So, that's moving along pretty quick. Um, that's going to be a pretty big project. It's going to be a very large bridge structure. It's going they're going to be working on that for a while. And then also, if anybody is looking in the area, there was a detention pond kind of northwest of 48th in Indian Hills. Uh that that is

being filled and uh being drained and filled at this time. And that's part of the OTAA work. They actually let that at the same time. They're already doing that work. So, we got ongoing work on that. We just kind of wanted to show what the east west connector just remind everybody what it looks like here. Um we're uncertain of the time frame pretty much from I35 on exactly what will be happening. Just kind of want to remind everybody that their goal and what they're telling us will occur is that there will be traffic between Newcastle and I35 by the end of 2027. If you do that math, it's really quick. So that's a lot of work to be done and really a relatively short time frame with when we look at the projects that are being done there. Um, I don't know that means it's going to be four lanes and completed, but there will be cars going in two directions is what their goal is. Uh, just kind of a little reminder just to look at kind of what what our real focus at the moment is because of our projects on 36th Avenue Northwest. Uh, they're planning on going out to bid uh on that turnpike from Santa Fe uh 48th. I keep trying to get them to use our names, but they won't. I don't want to use Oklahoma City names. Uh to 36th Avenue, expecting that to go out uh to bid in July. So be awarded in August as shown here. And then the the turnpike bridge over 36 probably going to be uh towards the end of this year. And then uh we also have 36 to the railroad will be out past that probably into 2027. I can also share slides if you'd like us to.

Um, so this is information that we uh we go on to their board agenda, their commission agenda, and we download what their schedule is for for their bid letings. When you see that word letting, think bid means the same thing. And this is what we pulled off that we think impacts us in the next year. Again, we already talked about that interchange at 60th could be going out in June. So he probably about add about 3 months to that is when we expect start of project. So we're looking into the fall of seeing 60th Avenue Northwest starting to be having construction at that location. And then they'll start working between 48th and 36. I'll be putting that out in July. So about a month behind that. We're going to see a lot of construction start there. And then they'll start they're they're proposing to go out in September for the bridge and approaches at 48th Avenue. So now it's all starting to tie together. We're going to start seeing pieces really start to work together. And then October they will bid the second part of the 48th to 36. So they're going to bid the earth work and the drainage first. Then they're going to bid the paving of that location. So it's going to be two bids. It's going to look pretty seamless though by the time it's all done. And then uh in November they're going to uh go out to bid for that bridge over 36th Avenue. So there's going to be a lot of activity, a lot of motion, a lot of action. We're going to be seeing a lot of work starting out there in the next year. Um I I would like to tell everybody it's going to be seamless and we're not going to know anything's going on. It's going to make that area of Norman hard to travel. There's going to be a lot of work, a lot of movement. Uh we'll do everything we can to get updates and keep everybody informed. uh do PSAs as often as we can to get the information out there and try to help our citizens be able to negotiate all this to the best of their to best of our ability. Um there are

coordination meetings. There's a meeting next week uh that's between the county more and Norman and the Turnpike and we'll be at that to hear if there's any new updates and we'll share any information we get from that meeting in February. and we are still coordinating with them on what at 36 can be done and what overlaps there are. So, we'll be bringing more information as we get more on that uh to council to this committee to be able to discuss to keep you guys updated on that. Also, um kind of got ahead of myself there with the 36 coordination. Really, there's not a lot of changes from the last meeting. uh they need the drainage structure that would go south for about threequarters of a mile that's draining the area that will be north and west of the turnpike that is city of Norman. Uh so there's coordination on how we accomplish that. Uh their numbers show a little bit bigger box what we had in our computations on 36th Avenue Northwest project. Um they need it. They're going to be ahead of us. So, we're trying to figure out how that works and how that will coordinate and we'll keep you informed of that. And then also, we don't know if there's going to be some overflow and need to do some of the work on 36 in that same area at the same time. Um, that continues to to be a discussion point. Um, but we'll continue to work on that and in a few minutes I will update you on grants. But we did get a large grant for this roadway which is just complicating it further to be honest, but in a good way. It's a problem I like having at the moment instead of the previous problems that we had of not knowing how to fund this project. So I would like to tell you have all the answers. We don't. We have a lot of questions, but we'll be fleshing those out quickly and we'll keep you apprised. It's really all I had. If anybody has any questions, I will answer anything I

know. [clears throat] Yes. Um, so we are getting an award from the feds on 36 wide. Yes. And that will be the last item. I will bring you all up to date on that. The last item on our agenda is going to update you on all of our grants and where we're at on all those. And then the grant is do you know how much is that for? 25 million. Okay. Uh, when you say it's complicating things. How does that is it just like when you get the money versus when the work is happening?

A lot of it's timing issues. When are we going to get it? We've got um obviously this is a federal grant. It's not through uh ACOG and and department and Oklahoma Department of Transportation like we normally get them. Uh we're working directly with the Federal Highway Administration and US Department of Transportation. Uh this is the first grant we've gotten of this size. We're very excited. Um, I don't want to steal all my thunder for later, but it it does add some complications as far as timing goes receiving those funds uh in coordination of when uh the turnpike needs to be able to be moving forward with what they need. And how does that work? Can we utilize part of what they do as matching in our project? We don't know yet. Do we need to do they just reduce the size of our project and that reduces what? There's just so many questions that we have right now. Uh we actually are just waiting to get our our direct contact with FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration, so that we can ask these questions and find out more. We just don't know right now. So,

and then um with needing to explore agreement options, what does that look like? Um, I know you are going to have that multi- agency meeting and that'll probably help, but are we talking a resolution or a contract?

So, it'd be very similar to what we have to do with the with with ODOT. If you think about it, we come to you and we get a resolution to do a project and we usually bring it before we do the application. So, that's part of our application process. So, it doesn't feel the same. And then we come back later with a contract. And it'd be a similar type of process here where there would be a a probably a project agreement up front that says this is our framework and then there would be an actual contract later if there needed to be one. And then so work is expected around fall to start. Yes. On the turnpike. So over 36

between 36 and 48th and then probably later in the year into the first of next year uh for the bridge over 36. So we could see a resolution by summer or early fall. It could be sooner than that. Okay.

Like I say, this this grant has changed the dynamic in a lot of ways and without having the answers on the grant, it's hard to make a lot of decisions right now. Uh we're hoping we have our our contact with FHWA. We just don't have the date that we're going to get to start that communication. Uh we did have the first uh just general meeting with all the grant recipients across the US today. So that's step one. And within the next couple of weeks, we expect to be able to move forward into step two, which is the the one-on-one where we can actually start going playing the whatif scenarios that we have in play and trying to figure out what we do. And and really my goal is what's going to be best for Norman. How do we how do we

leverage all of our opportunities the best to decrease what our responsibilities are on the project? And that's that's the the the the moving piece that I don't know today that I'm I'm really working hard on. Okay. And staff. It's not me, it's me and staff. It's not [clears throat] a oneman show. I appreciate the kind of outlook on a timelineish. So, thank you. No fire. So, when you say resolution, you're talking about a resolution between the city and OTAA essentially, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. What would it look like if that didn't happen? I don't know. I'm just curious. Just Yeah, I we have no idea.

I I don't really have a direct answer to that. Um you know, I just don't know. Okay. We haven't we haven't really approached it from that way yet. Um I I do know that the discussions that we've had would not be what was brought prior. It would be much reduced. And I' I've seen what the agreement with Oklahoma City looks like and it does not resemble what we saw before. Um it's much more paired down. It's very clean. It it would be very specific to this and this location. Uh so but that's to be seen and if it even becomes necessary.

Uh council Hel I just wanted to go back to the grant award. I know we're going to talk about it again later and I know that it's not all that goes into this, but um having been to Washington DC with Mayor Hullman and Councilwoman Grant a couple of times, talked about this with the Chamber of Commerce and to actually see some fruit potentially come from that is a really rewarding kind of thing. And I don't What are we going to talk about next time we go to DC? Oh, I've got I've got ideas. [laughter] Ready to get that one off? Yeah. The agenda. Agreed. Agreed.

All right. Any other comments or questions about this item? All right. Thank you very much, Scott. Appreciate the update and look forward to the next update on what's going on. But, uh, they are starting construction on that bridge in the middle of the river next month. Is that I would expect by the end of February, if not the end of February, the very first part of March connecting Newcastle to I 44 to I35 is what they're

Yes. All right. Well, thank you very much. We'll move [clears throat] on to item number three, which is discussion regarding streetscape designs for different commercial districts. And um yeah, got quite a few slides to go over on that one. So, I'll let you guys go and then we can just go with questions from there. Uh, thank you, Mayor. Megan and I are going to talk about streetscapes and this was a requested item. We didn't have a lot of direction, so um we'll present what we have and and be glad to answer questions and um include other staff as needed for the presentation.

Okay. I'm Megan Felen. I'm park planner. Um we wanted to start off with just a quick review of our philosophical approach to streetscape design. Uh so we want to design with best practices in mind with focus on the idea of a walkable and bikable city. And so this diagram is kind of a good way to zoom out and look at like what is a complete streets. Um complete streets design approach creates roads that are safe and accessible for all users. Um, so with our new projects being installed, Porter Avenue streetscape, uh, Grey Street two-way conversion, and also the Main Street Median project, we are modeling future projects and thinking through these elements. So, sidewalks, travel lanes, transit, and bike lanes and also the planted areas.

Can you go back to that one real quick? So, an example though of what I kind of want us to think about when it comes to this is look how many lanes that someone trying to make that crosswalk has to walk in front of. So, that's a complete street that's supposed to be friendly, but you've got to cross over six lanes of traffic, two bike lanes. So, uh to get from one side to the other. And so imagine um a little that little slice of median coming out further and there being a place for pedestrians to there it exists on Main Street right now. Main Street and 24th there's a the median goes all the way out and the crosswalk goes through it.

So a pedestrian doesn't have to try even though if you get stuck in that middle there's not another thing and there's not a light to push but you don't have to try to cross 10 lanes all at once if you can't make it. you've got that little center thing which may not be the most comfortable but thinking about those things or on the curves those being bumped in closer narrowing the distance basically the pedestrians have to walk in between um where possible. So those are some of the one of the reasons I want to talk about this issue is so we could talk about these examples and and see what we have in Norman and what we might be able to improve on. Thank you. This is kind of zooming in a little bit, but um looking at some green space buffers, uh furniture, bike racks, having a pedestrian zone that's wide enough for multiple people and people with different abilities to to walk safely and comfortably. Um that, you know, green space. Uh we have a couple of inspiration images at the end that show different ways of doing it. um just it's a really nice way to create a buffer between the traffic and the pedestrian zones. Um and then also the frontage zone for the um basically functions as an extension of the building. And then zooming in again, you know, just the idea of of humans walking and biking and, you know, feeling comfortable um accessing um sidewalks and roads and, you know, getting places that when you're not in your car.

So, we're going to talk about uh three projects. um one or two that are completed, one that's under construction, and we'll start with Grey Street. Um within the next few months, that's going to start to to look quite a bit better than than it it does today. But basically, the streetscape items that we've included on this project include like the intersections, they're going to have stamped colored asphalt to better delineate and to to look better. Um, lots of plant materials in the various islands. We're trying to be more use more drought resistant, less water type plants. These are all still being irrigated, but um hopefully at a lesser level than what we've done in the past. It'll be street furniture with with some some benches, some trash cans, um decorative lighting, um decorative signals, um and then street trees um at select locations.

I had [clears throat] a question about the position of the benches um you know, facing buildings rather than streets. And I was just curious if there's a design reason for that. Well, I think um I think it's because where the sidewalks are, they're up against the rideway. So, you have to put them between the in the parking area basically or between the in the grass area between the roadway and the sidewalk. And then you want them to be able to to set from the the paved area. So, so that's what drives that in most cases. And then Um, [clears throat] was there extra money to do the streetscaping for Grey Street?

Uh, so yeah, actually I probably should have mentioned that earlier. So this project was primarily to go from one way to two-way and which which changed the parking and all that and and that was this was added at a later date at request of council. And so, uh, luckily this was, I believe this was going to be a 100% city funded project, but we were able to go out and and secure federal funds, which abled us to incorporate [clears throat] the streetscape into this and still stay within our um, 2019 bond budget. Okay. I appreciate the clarity on that since uh, for a second it looked like we might not get it right. customers.

As we do more of these benches ideas, you know, and if they did different projects, has the city thought about trying to program where you can have it in memory of and have residents that basically for a certain price put a plaque on the I know, whatever, you know, to kind of recognize somebody, maybe make some money back that way. Also,

there are some around. Um I know across from the library there's one that um one of our actually co-workers, he retired today, his family did. Um so yeah, that that can happen. Um actually what we're because of what's going on with the unhoused in that area and everything. We've actually had requests to remove a lot of the benches away from certain properties. So, um, we're being sensitive to that and we're adding the center media and so people can't lay on them as quite as easily and things. But,

um, but but that is one thing we're addressing on our projects. Um, so Porter Streetscape uh recently completed. Uh, the landscaping is starting to really come in on that project. I think this summer it's really going to look nice. Um, of course, we had some have some of these markers for the the main intersections that I think are a nice touch on this particular project. Um, we upgraded the bus stop on this project to just look [cough] a little bit nicer than some of the other areas. Um, this one was a very challenging project just because we have a small amount of right away. Um, we ended up adding some planters along the edges that have been a little bit controversial. Um, but that was kind of where we were directed to go just because there was not enough areas to put um some of the various plants. And I guess we'll see how that plays out and learn from it on this project, decide if we want to do that in future projects or or take them out. Um, so some of these are city maintained and I know that we worked along Porter with some of the businesses that were more involved for um, planter styles that they wanted. Um, how does that work on the maintenance of uh, the ones that those business owners wanted?

I think right now the city's maintaining everything regardless of what they requested in front of their um, houses or in their businesses. Um, and that is one one thing that we're going to actually talk about, I think, in a little bit. But, um, the city pays a lot for maintenance. And so, there's there's things we want to start doing to help with that and maybe get some ownership from the various businesses to um, help with, you know, picking up trash. Um, maybe pulling a few weeds here and there. Not be good to revisit a downtown bid. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Good to hear. And with the planters, I know it's winter time and everything's dead, but how are they holding up functionally? Do we know? I I don't think there's been any issues related to that.

They're they're good. Uh and everything along Porter, we we hire a contractor, seeing one that does a lot of our mowing around town, and they go through there and pick up trash and and weeds. They uh weeds. They got there about once a month and and all those planters have irrigation so they're they're doing pretty good. U we haven't had any or notice any anything um that needs maintenance or you know so they're being maintained pretty well and um not getting messed with too much. The um kind of only negative thing about them really is uh some of them the sidewalk is narrow and they're on the inside of the sidewalk and not the outside. So people walkers or people in a wheelchair are forced to go closer to the street to go around them. So the pedestrian is buffering the planter boxes from the traffic and it should be the other way. I'd rather the planter box get hit by a car.

Yeah. Than a person, you know. And Porter, the traffic moves quickly. It's narrow lanes which is good, but it does move quickly. And a big truck has its big wide mirror hanging out. You know, there's not a lot of room to move. and the planters take up space on narrow very narrow sections of the sidewalk. And that's been my only criticism of them. And then just wondering how long are they going to keep working and do we have to dig up the sidewalk to fix them if they stop working and I think is all on the backside. So, um it shouldn't be too much um to do any repairs there, but we'll continue to monitor. And yeah,

and that's something I just want us to be conscious about in the future is that we should never uh design a streetscape where the people are buffering the parking or the planter boxes from the traffic. And that's a situation we have on Porter right now. We switched the street parking around so the sidewalk is buffering [clears throat] the traffic from the parking when the parking should be buffering the people from the traffic like we have on Main Street and Grey Street and Campus Corner. And so I know Porter was designed when it was still a highway and removing the street parking was a way to ensure that traffic could flow better through there, but now it's like I it's it's not a pleasant way to walk even though it's a much improved environment than it was before. It has continuous ADA sidewalks which it did not have before. It has lighting that's continuous and all works throughout the whole quarter which it didn't have before. So there's a lot of improvements. I don't want to discount any of that, but it was designed when it was a highway. And removing the street parking uh to me has been one of the biggest uh regrets of mine that I didn't push for a changing that before we did it. Um and uh what part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because I want to make sure we never do that again.

Okay. Um we probably So it's not a great idea putting them at the back curb. I mean they're so we're probably better off just eliminating them in the future. If you remember before we had the light poles that were right up against the curb and then everybody shied away from that even some traffic was being crowded. This would be the same type of thing. I think they would get hit fairly often and that's a street design problem. it is if people are hitting things on the sides that's a problem with the street and that's one of the reasons I strongly believe Porter we need to do the three lanes on it

because then that would provide the buffer or at least a little bit between the sidewalk and the traffic um like we see now on Boyd Street which has been great by the way um I would just add that a road diet on Porter would be supported by the surrounding neighborhoods uh they want a lot more walkability and they love the changes, but um see opportunities for traffic [clears throat] not being so overbearing on their ability to cross and all that. I think that and that's all that's all up for discussion for sure, but I think the traffic volumes are are really at a stage where it would be hard to threelane that and and give us a reasonable level of service. But yeah,

but I realize you're considering everything. And remember when we did James Garner, we wanted to see what that would be, what the impacts would be on flood and order. We're getting close to that. I think that we're about to normalize what James Garner looks like. So I think we probably need to do another study and we can take a look at that again. And I think that one of the other things we have to consider here is that that we were trying to work within the existing rightway and we really didn't have the money and we couldn't have gone out and bought the rightway to move the sidewalk up to the doorfronts and then have parking like we do on Main Street. That would have been a very difficult and the problem is we didn't have that all the way through the corridor.

So we would have had this in and out in and no parking and it would have been a very awkward situation. So what we tasked everybody with was to come up with a way that we could get ADA sidewalks in a very confined urbanized space to the best applicable way we could. And I actually think our designers and our team for what they came up with with what we had, I was really shocked we're able to get what we got. And also want to state that the only reason the planners are even there is because we have huge public outcry that we were not putting in enough green space and it's very hard to put in green space where there is nowhere to put in green space. I mean we would have been buying people's parking lots and then we would been started get into takings and it would have been a very ugly situation. So that was our attempt working with multiple people and citizens and [clears throat] we had public meetings on this and that was the number one thing we got is you're not doing enough green space and if you don't it's not a walkable environment and we said well the best we can do is planters goes yeah go to go do planters. So those those could be removed.

Yeah I think I have I'm not married to them. Some of them are going to have to be removed because they are they are they are creating a spot in an era. But I will just tell you there are there was already a sidewalk in front of Friendly Market in that whole strip mall and now there's two sidewalks and the one that's out front is got parking and then the sidewalk and then the busy street. I don't understand. And so that is a problem to me that why is there two sidewalks? The sidewalk was part of the building and outside of Rideway. Right. But you and so we didn't have that's what I'm saying is then at the a block over we didn't have that and it was very awkward and so that's kind of where

I'm not saying this is the best design. I'm not I'm not that's not the argument I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is

we were given constraints and we we designed within that. Right on that section though, there is a drive lane between the two sidewalks. And now if you're in a wheelchair, to get to the signal to press it to crosswalk, you have to go into the street on Eufala because this it doesn't connect anymore. It used to when it was a when it was a whole corner, but now there is a sidewalk, a drive for payload parking, and then another sidewalk. the sidewalk that's in front of the businesses to get from the business to the crosswalk, you have to roll out into Euphala, the intersection there now because there's a solid curb. And so things like that where it's we got rid of the angled parking because we wanted to allow traffic to move faster and better through that area and we did that. But now we have two sidewalks in front of the one building and one of them is very narrow and it's next to a busy street and it has parallel park on the other side. So the people are buffering the traffic from the parking which is backwards to me and watching it every day. The lack of a center left turn lane on Porter and all of the cars stopping and trying to turn left with no left arrow, no left turn lane really causes a lot of issues on Porter every day. And we see the people trying to swerve to go around him and it backs up. And so, um, that's why I've just been so adamant about this for years is that the four way four-lane configuration does not work and it makes it hard to walk across Porter from main from downtown when you're trying to go over to Stash and all those businesses over there. Porter acts as a barrier for downtown Norman in its current configuration. And so, honestly, I want it to be three lanes

with a center left turn lane. we're going to study that

and do it like regardless of what that says, we should do it because that's what people are asking us for and it's what would make it better in my opinion. It may not be make it better for every car that's trying to speed through downtown Norman, but it will help the Highland truck, Highland Dairy Trucks turn left by having a dedicated left turn lane and a left arrow that they don't have right now. And it would make it safer for people walking on these narrow sidewalks if traffic isn't going by as fast. And that's I've just been watching it for seven years now from the front row on Porter. And that's just my observation of it. And again, it's it is so much better than it was before when it comes to ADA access and the ramps and the lighting. And it looks a lot nicer. But those are a few of the issues I've seen with it. And when I look at the design, it's from 2008 when it was still designated as a state highway 77. And I know the idea would be it's a state highway. we need to be able to move traffic north and south as quickly as possible. Um, and so it made sense. Let's eliminate street parking. Let's have a solid curb and uh and it makes it easier so there's less conflict. But, you know, um, but I just think that that's the last missing piece to this to Porter.

We're happy to look at it, but you know, our concern is if we decrease the traffic here, that traffic's going to go somewhere and we don't want that in the neighborhoods. So, we've got that balance. Sure. You You can't say less cars are going to travel, but where are they going to go? We got to figure out that's that's part of what we're concerned with, but we're happy to study it. Well, I think and we we've agreed. We There's other locations in town where we've proposed to go from four lane to three lane and been absolutely shut down. Right. So, and there's other areas where it's been requested. We've looked at it. We said, "Absolutely, that's a great idea." And we've done it. So, I think we've got a track record here of not fighting on this and trying to do it and being respectful to it. So,

except for this one, this was the one for years. It's been constant push back, I'll just say. I know we've been talking about waiting for James Garner, but James Garner is open and it's going and it's gotten busier and busier. And I just we've been saying we're going to wait for a really long time. And now we've done the streetscape. We've got businesses on the other side of Porter to the east that are that are that are flourishing. Uh, Artwalk is doing really well and Porter is just this thing in the middle of downtown that is hard to cross and people the Highland trucks trying to turn left all the time. The bus is now trying to turn on there. It's just that's what I'm

we discuss with our transportation group and have a perform a new study and see what it looks like. Okay. council. Um I'll just say whenever you're wondering where the traffic's going to go in the neighborhood, I'm gonna put Finley on your radar. Um that is the one that I see once they get past the four-way on Maine and Finley. They're speeding either side of it mostly going east towards Alamita. [clears throat] So um anyway, that was just my input on that. Yes, I pretty much exclusively take Finley when I And you got the light at Robinson. So you come I take Finley all the time. But yes,

that's my go street. That's how I always went to Porter to work every day. Finally, just drive slow and neighbors. I can't promise I did that, but [laughter] I will in the future.

This is the main street median maintenance project. It's not necessarily looking at the streetscape, but um you know looking at our medians where we currently have you know Bermuda sad and some trees um and some smaller planting areas. We're hoping to move towards something more like this new median that we've done that's really um using native plants that are heat and drought tolerant and low water use. um boulders and stone mulch for more durable landscape. Uh we're not having to mow and weed whip and um really trying to reduce the need for herbicide and irrigation.

Council Grant, um I really love uh the heat and drought tolerant native plants. I was just going to ask uh where does milkweed fit into an option for planting [clears throat] because of thinking about the monarchs and supporting Yeah. Um I mean I I think are they pretty heat and drought tolerant plants as well? It depends on the variety. Okay.

Yeah. Like the prair there's some prairie milkweeds um that are really good. And I think just jumping ahead really quickly to this slide that shows the um porter streetscape plantings like I think plantings like this milkweed would be great in there. Uh I think on the main street medium we were really trying to go for easy maintenance like this is

it's not high maintenance but it requires a special knowledge to maintain it. you know, you can't just go and spray something or mow it all down. So, um, yeah, I mean, I definitely see like lots of pollinator plantings in these kinds of areas and and that's really important to me, too. So, even the stuff on the main street median. Um, I chose a lot of it for, you know, pollinator and habitat. Yeah, I appreciate that. I just ask um if you could throw some pretty milkweeds that will survive in there. Yeah, that would be my only suggestion. Okay, thank you. Yeah,

I think it looks a lot nicer on Main Street. And then the bridge project and redoing the sidewalks on the side is of course a lot a vast improvement for that section. Councilor Gansbury thing I like about the main street also is having some of the rocks and stuff put in there also the boulders and everything. I would like to hear from the police and everything, but I bet that probably helps a lot with when a wreck happens and going across lanes and everything by having those boulders there to help slow down certain wrecks and things like that as well, which just helps out with our safety on the other, you know, opposite side wrecks and stuff like that also.

Yeah, we did we did think about that. And also there's a lot of crossings here kind of in the middle. So, guess somewhere to rest. I was going to mention the the one there in front of pen there that where really you're supposed to go past each other and turn but it's uncomfortable so a lot of people won't do it and so I know that's not it's a streetscape thing but um I didn't know if we had any plans or ideas to address that at some point that situation especially now there's a coffee drive through another c they're on both sides now it's not on our radar right now But um yeah, we definitely relax. It's one of those things I think all of us have navigated one or two times

sometimes, especially when it was Hastings in there. But yes. [laughter] Okay. [clears throat] Uh yeah. So just reiterating like using native plants that are drought tolerant, low water use, and pollinator friendly. Um reducing the need for mowing and herbicide use. And then uh Tim kind of mentioned the community buyin for maintenance and care and just I think putting in new landscapes that are, you know, are pretty could potentially encourage people and business owners to then care more for what's happening [clears throat] in front of their business or their home or they're walking and they see some trash, pick it up and

um, you know, encourage people to care a little bit more. Do we get any community groups that reach out about maintaining an area? Uh, not particularly. I know that we have adopted streets, but uh the these are [clears throat] mainly um parks guys or or our contractor that goes through there and picks it picks it up. We do it. We're very grateful for anybody that that walks by and picks up trash or we'll gladly work with any volunteer group that wants to go out there and volunteer to clean clean up our pool.

Curious if you got like um fraternity, sororities, church groups, anybody or even the Sierra Club for Norman, Red Earth group? No. Anybody's reached out? We haven't got anything else along roadways or anything like that, but sometimes in parks, but not really in medians. We never had been approached about doing traffic or even downtown for streets. Yeah, we haven't been approached. Usually it's a park. It's like, hey, we go to this parking. Gotcha. We usually get Okay, good to know. Thank you.

We also have a street tree ordinance um in development. I think they're uh you're probably familiar with that. It was presented to city council. um looking at a historical tree district to preserve the tree canopy, you know, the large tree canopy that exists in some of our larger or our older neighborhoods. Um promoting and maintaining street trees and then establishing a commercial tree district that will allow the city to maintain the long-term health of trees in our commercial districts. and Scott or do you know as part of the James Garner inter well this probably might be for when James Garner main street is redone at some point would that driveway right there be closed do you know in front of

no okay no that drive because that's their parking so that's not part of it that would be be retained and the reason I just bring that up is uh thinking about any opportunities to extend the street parking where there's Because one of the things I've noticed on Grey Street is that we're not able to do some street parking on several sections because there's so many driveway entrances. And it's like if that parking lot just had one driveway entrance, we could add 10 more street parking spots. Or if they access Yeah. Unfortunately, so many of those they're they're that way. And if we we don't have a lot of leeway to be able to take away their access in that way. And a lot of them are one way parking. That's the only way in. Yeah.

You couldn't get it. You couldn't Yeah. or even if with they do have an alley, you can't it's not wide enough to be able to park. So, you got to be able to pull through all the way. It was hard. We we really tried to work on that. Another thing that we found is in Norman, I don't know, but a driveway is like gold. Do not give it up no matter what. Don't ever give up. Um so, it's it's hard to get people to do that. But certainly I think as we would see redevelopment, we take those opportunities uh much like we are in the center city district where we're seeing where when things are developed, we're creating uh on street parking where we can or where the the developer wants to take advantage of that. And as we if we saw redevelopment through this corridor, we do the same thing.

Almost done. Um just a few slides with inspiration for streetscape designs. And you know, we're not saying everything is what we want to do, what we're going to do, just

um just some elements, you know, here you see that planted vegetative buffer. Um Oh, sorry. And then that large crosswalk really indicates like, hey, there's humans crossing here. Um again that planted buffer and then using um different paving options for pedestrians versus vehicular traffic. Um similar idea here with the planted buffer here. Um the expanded tree wells are really nice. Uh they allow for more habitat diversity, more green space, and then also longer uh life for the street tree. Um here it's really nice because you've got and this is you know kind of can't do this in many places but you know pedestrian areas planted street trees cyclists you know more pedestrian area and then more of a planted buffer. So

so I guess the last last thing we want to talk about is basically ideas for funding future streetscape improvements. Uh, one thing that parks has been talking about is a dedicated capital funding kind of like we do for sidewalks today. Maybe put x amount of dollars per year towards these type of things to help improve um the looks of Norman in various capacities. Of course, Norman Forward 2 is coming up. That might be an option. You have a percent of artwork in in Norman forward one. maybe a percent for streets for streetscapes or something, you know, that example's from the center city if I recall. Right. I was going to mention that, but yes. Um,

center city, too. Everybody that's been in the center city committee [clears throat] has seen some of these renderings. It's kind of what we're looking at for the intersections. Um it basically um kind of bumpouts uh like Mayor Holdman mentioned uh just to shorten the walking space between the the uh for the pedestrians and then allows parking on the outside edges. Council, I would say with the [clears throat] center city example on the bottom with the typical corner treatment, I really love those half walls. I see it as a place for people to like meet up, you know, before they go walking to their next location. So really love that example.

Yeah, there's a lot of things we like about this this intersection. Um, so other so future transportation bonds, we definitely could work in more uh streetscape projects as a part of that. Private partnerships, I know a limited amount of people have come forward offering to donate x amount of dollars. Um, so that would be be good. And and if and if they're paying for it, maybe they'd be willing to help maintain it just to have it keep nicer. Of course, there's always various grants you can go after. And then tiff districts just like we're like center city where it's generating is it 47 million I think somewhere around there. That's what we generate. And it's not [clears throat] all for streetscape. I mean it's there's infrastructure and other improvements. 25 year. Yes.

Total. Yes.

Um so I think that's really what what we um put together to present today and glad to entertain any other questions. Um, one was to get kind of the ball moving a little bit on um, north north flood between acres and Robinson. And um, I mean, I kind of envision it as being able to kind of look like the plaza district in OKC where it's a two-lane street um, has commercial on both sides of it that has setbacks, has suburban setbacks. So thought maybe about some kind of overlay where they could do some more urban stuff, but uh having a plan for maybe the next uh enhancement bond package for North Flood or if we can apply for a grant funding, but that section from Acres to Robinson, being able to redo the redo the street, not widen it necessarily, maybe a turn lane if if it's possible, but the lighting, uh the ADA sidewalks, uh being able to add street parking, angled street parking or parallel along that corridor. Um it's just as far as a streetscape section goes and then maybe other work on uh you know what the buildings in the future could look like if there's redevelopment that type of stuff. And so I was thinking about that part of North Flood and then the part of the Porter just at you know as we move forward down the road if there's changes to Porter. Um even the potential the idea of looking at the Porter corridor overlay and seeing it's been 15 plus years. Anything we need to update about that? Anything that current property owners would like to see updated in that? Um Grey Street too like if there are opportunities in the future to consolidate. I know staff has probably tried already, but if there are opportunities in the future to consolidate driveways and we could add more street parking along Grey Street.

Um, one that I was thinking about was our lot that we owned across the street that our single driveway into that lot means we can't put row of street parking right there. And I think our goal is to sell that lot for it to be developed into a building. And so I would envision there not being a curb cut there once we sell it. And so I really would like to get rid of it and [laughter] put street parking along there. I think you're correct and probably as part of the development of that we would require that to be closed potentially. Not definite, but that'd be a potential. And if we did, we put it upon that developer to develop that street parking across that frontage. So I [snorts] think that's something that's very likely that would happen in that location. Okay. Yeah.

But in other locations, like I said, as it becomes available, add it where we can. Yeah. And if there's opportunities for us to do it because I mean, who knows how long we'll own it. But if there's opportunities to close it and then do that street parking, that'd be great. Anything we can do to not rely so much on the surface parking lots in my opinion. And then same thing with East Main Street from Porter to uh Genley. Well, all the way to Griffin really at some point, but 12th.

Yeah. All the way to 12th really. Uh but uh specifically the commercial section that we've seen so much private investment in uh being able to get a streetscape at least designed and figure out how to fund it later but uh because they had asked about the street the main street and then Finley and then the alleyway behind it too that whole block. Council Graham have some comments about that, but those are the kind of main ones I've been thinking about. And flood primarily because it seems like the only commercial corridor we haven't really done anything to and that I can think of. There's been no improvements. So, Council Brand,

um, actually, Council, go ahead. Um just to add to the mayor's point on north flood um that is in the tiff district master plan discussion. So I could see funding there and same for east downtown especially between Porter and Finley that was a discussion obviously Griffin um further east. Um, and to piggyback on the alley improvements and public parking improvements, um, there were requests for better sidewalks and possibly colorful sidewalks if we could get them, but again, all those were in potential tiff districts project areas. Um, they're just we haven't created those yet. Council.

So yeah, I just want to also talk about the area of North Flood from Acres to Robinson. There's been a lot of private development that's happened, upgrades to the strip mall that's been there. Yeah, new tenants are getting ready to start moving in there. But I would also like to see if we are going to look at something in that area. They've expressed some interest in the past about turning that into more of kind of an automobile district since a lot of the businesses down there kind of fit that mold anyway. but also capturing uh Highland Parkway down to the back end of the library for university is that and just if we're going to talk about making it that probably is already the most urbanized street in Norman

for what it is. Um but if we could capture that industrial park too and bring that back into James Garner and that would be I think that would really bring a lot to that area because we've really diverted a lot of the traffic off of flood for those businesses with James Garner. um they're starting to feel it. So

yeah, I agree. I think that kind of a identifying what that area is, but you know, generally to the west behind the commercial businesses where the commercial and the residential because we did have a resoning last year um on Highland Parkway on the edge of the residential and the commercial that we ended up approving, but I think it went back. like he went back and then he came back again after talking to the resident or the neighbors and stuff. We ended up approving it. He was just wanting to build a

storage shed I think it was. But just that question about commercial and being right up against the single family neighborhood and so being able to identify sort of like what was on Porter where this is the commercial area, this is residential. Um, and then those public improvements like on Highland Parkway and University and up and down through there. I was just at the Walden Cleaners yesterday and it was it's like, oh, the sidewalk is sort of sort of a sidewalk through here.

Uh, but I think it has a lot of opportunity for the existing businesses. There's opportunity for the uh apartments and stuff in that area. I think just if we can get a plan together for the streetscape part of it and then figure out how to fund that at some other point that would be really helpful. And just again I just keep thinking about the plaza district and how that looks with the two-lane street parking sidewalks could be like that. Um anything else on that one from you guys? I know I know Lisa Craig was looking at CDBG money for that East Main Street, but haven't heard much on that. Been given her estimates. So, we can circle back and talk to her about that. I guess

you mean the neighborhoods uh around there because there was a sidewalk inventory that was asked of original town site, first courthouse, and old silk stocking. and that was going to use CD her community development block grant funds um to fill in uh missing sidewalk or fix it if it was well I think this was um I'm not aware with that specific project but this was actually main street to the east in that business area to do upgrades through that segment that'd be awesome [clears throat] be awesome

and there's um as you even continue going east on Main towards Griffin and what there's multiple residential properties that have street park angled street parking in the ride of way and um it's been there for a long time and it seems appropriate and the Sarkeis Foundation has the angled street parking too. So, it's uh thinking about that extending all the way down to Griffin at some point. And then uh with those businesses just east of Porter, it's kind of one of those cases where normally I've seen where we go in and put in the sidewalk and redo the lights and make it look nice. We typically start to see private investment come in after that. In this case, they've, you know, redone all the buildings. There's it's almost I think every space has got somebody in it. Um, and they've it's all been organic and all on their own without public improvement, at least on the main street facing part. So, um, we've been talking for a while about trying to get at least get something on paper. We have a plan for that area going forward.

Yeah. I'll say during the border uh negotiations, the owners of that section were really worked with us. They were one of the best groups to work with. They were really seemed to be engaged in making it a better situation and so it made it a lot easier on their property there on the corner. Yeah. To be able to do things like what you were talking about earlier. Having that wide the wide sidewalk in front of there and the patio at Maximillians I think has been a big hit. So I'm okay. Any other comments?

I want to piggyback on this for a minute too. I I do think there's a lot of really exciting opportunities that we can look at as we start looking at this. Personally, what I want to be able to do is as we start moving forward, obviously not with our current transportation projects, but I want us to have a standard detail that is a tree well where basically the water comes in off the curb. It goes into this tree well and there's a way for that to help take some of the water away. and then maybe the inlets incorporated into that and rain gardens like what we showed there on the edge of the and and I I'm excited about those type of opportunities. Um I can say that that our department uh is is was forward thinking. James Garner actually is is built opposite of a normal roadway to try to be more green to try to get more opportunities to do things that are better for the environment. And you know parks helped us a lot with that. Um the the doers helped us with that to plan. I mean it was a team effort, but we really just said we want to do something different with this roadway, but we we're looking forward to to trying to incorporate more of those type of items. We love having the the green, you know, landscape strip and in our more urbanized areas. We think it's all good. We we really support all those items and like to see those especially in future bond projects that be incorporated into the bond at the start towards part of the projects.

Yeah. And we got a ton of rideway that could have a tree [clears throat] or parking there. Excuse myself. All right. [laughter] All right. Okay. We can move on to the next item which is the public works grants up to date.

I just want to end on a high note. I just wanted to spend some time and tell you guys about all the great things that's been happening. I don't think anybody realizes because it happens incrementally and over time and in pieces, but we've been really successful in in grants and we've had a lot of really big success very recently. Um just kind of some of the types of grants that we go for. Of course, we go after the uh federal emergency management uh building resilient infrastructure communities, which is the brick grant. We think that's going away. So, we may not be applying for those very much anymore, but we have in the past. Also, the hazard mitigation grants, uh, we've been successful in those. And then through, uh, Federal Highway Administration, FHWA, and the Department of Transportation, uh, safe streets and roads for all, which I'm going to talk about in detail in a minute. Uh, the surface transportation block grant programs, that's the money we get from ACOG. So, that's that funding we get all the time. So, we've been really successful with that. Again, of course, the Federal Transit Administration, the FTA grants, that's helped us with our buses and our transit. And then the bridge investment program, uh, that's where we've worked with absentee shaune tribe, and they've been great partners, but it's taken a group effort. There's a lot of people that are involved in this, a lot of different, uh, departments. Staff does a great job. We have great partners, uh, in the the county, other surrounding communities. Uh, takes a big effort to get a lot of these done. And I'm going to try to share a little bit of that and how we've been able to be uh how well we've been able to do with that. So when we say recent rewards awards, I'm talking about since December 23rd. This is what we've been able to to get. So SS4A is a safe streets for all. That's the $25 million for 36th Avenue Northwest. Um this is our first big federal grant that we've gotten on the transportation

side. And kind of what we've heard is once you get one, you're probably going to keep getting more. They you kind of prove you can do it and you kind of get your name on the list. I I can't uh I honestly do think that the uh the chamber trips and the work that the council members have done at at DC on those flyins have definitely been a big input here. I think that's been a huge help. On this last application we did, we had letters from Tom Cole. We had letters from OTAA, O DOT, we had the city of Moore. Oh goodness, I can't even if I try to name them all, I'm going to miss half of them. Um M stat uh you know, we the just we went to anybody we thought could write us a letter. And you know, I don't think it hurt us at all to have the uh chair of the appropriations committee give us a letter. Um that that may have been the final tag there. I'm not sure. Um but that is almost a $40 million project. It does start at Tecumpsa Road. It goes all the way up to 34th Street and more. So, it's three full miles. Little chunk in the middle that's taken out. Um where that that's the one that we're talking about when we found out. We found out on Christmas Eve. Uh we actually one of our partners said, "Congratulations on your SS4A grant." And all of our hearts stopped and we all went searching went, "Oh my gosh, we really got it." They sent the email after hours on the 23rd. I'm like, a federal agency sending after hours. That's bizarre, but uh it made for an exciting Christmas. And then through our ACOG applications, uh we got another 16 over $16 million. Uh that was all the first couple of weeks of January. So, in a very short time frame, we found $41 million that we didn't know we were

going to be able to expend. Uh and this is furthering projects. um we had to put this table together. We have so many projects that are underway or that we have that we have grant funding for that we didn't need we needed to track it. And I'm sure we're missing something. I have no doubt. Uh but you can see here when you add all this up, it's $84 million in grants. And these are projects either currently underway or that we have secured grant funding for. And this is really attributed to the team that goes out and chases these grants. Some of these we actually went out and we had uh consultants help us with. Um but you know, you can see there at the top, those are those ACOG big projects, the gray, the Jenkins. Uh the newest ones to be added this year. Uh they're in FY. They're they're FFY29 projects. So, we're we're out a ways, but that's Tecumpsa Flood and 24 intersections, which is I don't think anybody who travels that way doesn't think needs help today. Um, and also Constitution, which is one of our 2019 bond programs. So,

so those uh we just voted on those at ACOG this afternoon. That's right. Thank you very much for I heard it was unanimous vote, which means I know you voted for them and uh Oklahoma City and Norman were the only ones that got on this one anyway. And so she goes, "Congratulations Oklahoma City and Norman for getting all the money." And by everybody could everybody can apply. Norman OKC were just the right ones. We we had very good applications this year and were very fortunate. This is better than we've done in a while. This used to be the norm. Uh I will say also on the u the uh SS4A grant, there were only two recipients in the United States that got the full 25 million. Oh wow.

Norman Oklahoma City. Um, and I thought that was really unusual. And I'm very close friends with the college with their public works director. I'm like, "Hey, congratulations." And she did the same thing. What? So, it's all just kind of filled out. The uh the Tacoma flood 24th that 7.5 million and that's max 4 million basically four million for the Constitution Street.

We got 800,000 for a transit vehicle replacement. And we got um uh STB GUZA safety projects. We got ADMS phase one VDO detection upgrades phase five reflect reflector back plates phase four pavement markings phase two signal and No, we didn't. Yeah. And the signal improvement project. And then we also uh acres and James Garner roundabout that was a that's a clean air grant. Yep. So, we actually applied street lining.

That's that's an $800,000 grant, over $800,000 for that project at an 8020 split. I'm hoping that the project's actually smaller than that, but we went for everything we could get on that. Uh, but that's a clean air grant. So, and that but unfortunately that is FY29 money again, but we will be working to where that first uh opportunity we have to bid that we'll be able to bid it. Uh, we think that's going to help a lot. Uh we have a preliminary drawing but it's we know it's got to be moved but that's how we decided we could actually do

I have to double check but the thing they gave the handout they gave me shows uh FY2026 AQG program recommendation project award list and that is $815,000 for the roundabout and then $158,000 for the Constitution Street path lighting project and that's an exciting project because we're actually going to do solar lighting on that. Yeah. So, we're we're we're really trying to do better things or things differently, not the same way. I know you said the roundabout is fiscal year 29. When is it going out to bid? So, that could be bid in October 28.

October 28th, but by the time the neat part is Jason's not here, we're going to steal land from him. Um, for the rideway, we have no private rideaway acquisition. Um, the the thing that that we that had me very mindful of, and I don't want to get into a lot of details, but we can't infringe upon the park, so we have to move it north a little bit. Uh, but we're really excited about what fit there. We we worked with our we worked with Garver that did the the work on James Garner because they had all the information and all the plans and they sent us back and go, it works. And we think it'll be a great improvement over what's there today. Uh we hear, we know, we understand. I drive it every day, too. And you know, it's

I was going to say, I literally just heard from one of the worker owners at Grey Owl about it, and I was like, were you put in for a grant? No, we're getting it. And that was earlier today. Check the box. Happy to tell folks. Um, is there a press release coming out about some of these awards for ACOG or It's coming out in your weekly. Uh, we have a section on it in the weekly. Um, we can certainly do work with uh with our comms and get that out. We'd be happy to I wanted to share it here before I put it out. It would be I'm just asking I'm happy to boost it when you get it together, but that is one that I've gotten so much feedback on and I just want to be

We do too. in the works. We we're we're excited. I think there is a lot of excitement. Um our staff, while we're looking at it all going, it's a lot to get done. We're we're also excited and we're ready for the challenges. Um and then I had a question about the bridge investment program. Yes, that was the absentee sha. That's the absentee shaune for the Porter Street bridge. Um that's a 13 and a half million dollar. That's pretty significant. Um, so I'm thinking about what that means for the bond. We did six million $60 million bond and what that means for like that's 13 million in savings. Where [clears throat] how are we using that to help? So that has not been determined yet.

Okay. But you know the first option is we could always say hey we got another bridge. We want to extend it to this bridge. Uh we'd probably say let's watch the program and make sure we don't continue to see great high you know really big inflation. this came in in later inflation, so we're not as bad off as other programs. Uh, but definitely we're excited about that savings. It's going to be a great benefit to the program. So, we could either add more structures or there's also the option that you just use that and do early on payoff. So, the the options are there and that's something that we would work closely with finance department, but no decisions be made without council action with what to do with that. I was going to say if memory serves there were a specific set of bridges that would definitely be worked on or replaced.

Correct. And then there was maybe a smaller list of potential ones that could be included. So it sounds like we might talk about paying off early and or maybe touching some of these other.

Well, and so those those add what we did is we did uh as our as bond council was explaining, you have to account for where 70% of the bond funds will be expended. We accounted for that 70% and what we said is this is this is what looks like will be the best fit for the other 30%. But we don't know there could be we could have a bridge failure you know between now and then that we have to bump something ahead of it and so we go okay this these two fall off to make up the difference. That's why we left ourselves a little bit of wiggle room in there which we haven't done in the past. That's a whole different concept, but this is this is all this is just extra how do we what do we need? What's the needs of our community? What fits what fits it best. Yeah, I

these are the problems I enjoy. So the I don't stay awake at night with these [clears throat] problems. So but absolutely that's we're excited about that. Absentee Shaunie have been other great partners. I failed to mention them earlier um [clears throat] but that's been something that's very good for us too. Thank you. That's awesome. Now, we're not done.

We got more. We got more in the hopper. We got more things we're looking at, more uh applications we're working on. Uh the first one is better utilizing investment to leverage development or build grant application. Uh the build grant, the the notice of funding opportunity. If you ever hear us talk about NOFO, that's what that means. Um that one is out. We're actually currently working on that one. This will be the third time we've applied for that one, but we've gotten feedback from the federal government on what. Well, you could have tweaked this and tweaked that. We have We're feeling pretty good about this. We think there's a strong chance. This would be for Cedar Lane Road and 36 Avenue Southeast. These are both 2019 bond program and these were both supposed to be funded through other sources. They're not meeting the ACOG. This is a great way to get us in there. We're doing it as one project because they intersect each other. So, what a great way to just take care of it all, but we're looking at a $17 million uh grant for $21 million worth of work. Um, great opportunity. We really are feeling pretty good. We're doing this one inhouse, so we're not paying anyone to help us with this one. Uh, the next one is the rural surface transportation grant. This one is with the Absentee Shaunie Tribe. This is for 24th Avenue Northeast between [clears throat] Rock Creek and Tecumpsa. Uh this is one that we recently came back to council and requested to take it to a three-lane from a four-lane. So again, we we do agree uh on a lot of these. Um we're excited about that. Another great opportunity. They have a uh a grant writing a writer that does those. Uh they did say that we don't know that we can continue to carry the the weight of paying them. It's not a large fee and we're happy to pay that to see if we can get these grants. They they have unlocked that treasure chest for us uh for on Porter. So, we know that they're successful. We're looking forward to

that one. I don't know that that NOFO is out. I think we're waiting for it to be able to jump into that. And then the last one is federal state partnership for intercity passenger rail or FSP grant. Uh this is the one where we're looking at a planning grant for the Tecumpsa grade separation. uh BNSF are being great partners here. They have brought in their consultant that writes these grants and they are completely different from the other grants we write. Uh you can't even put them in the same categories and we're working with them and they're paying for the consultant and there's a chance that they will probably wind up helping us with the match funds on this one because this is to their benefit too. Um this is a planning grant. So this is basically be able to go through design and the the uh the NEPA which is the environmental study which you have to have to for those you have to have in advance. So we'll get that out in advance. Uh we're submitting that in February. We've been working with them for several weeks. We're really excited about that opportunity too. So here's another 27 million in grants we could get in the next six to eight months if things go well. Um, we talked a lot about the 36th Avenue Northwest grant and that SS4A grant, the safe streets for all. Um, 2012 bond program. Have not been able to get it funded. And that is probably one of the biggest baines of my existence since I've been here is trying to get that one funded. Very excited to finally see a way to get that done. As I said, there's still a lot. We we are at a point we were we we feel that we could have plans ready to go for July that could be bid at the same time as them. Unfortunately, we can't do anything until we have our project agreement with them, our grant agreement with them. And if we go out ahead of it, they can go, "Huh, yeah, no money for you." Um, so we are on we're but we're doing the environmental study for that one. We'll you'll be seeing that coming very

shortly, probably not on the next council meeting, not the 27th, but the following in February, uh to go out and start that NEPA study, uh that environmental study, so that we can be ahead on that and get that ready to go because that could wind up being where we think that's going to be what's going to limit when we can start that project. But we're moving full speed ahead on all the plans, getting those done. Excited to work with our partners and more. Again, I mentioned all the people who helped us get that grant. I know I missed people. I apologize for that. But the list was long. Um, so a lot going on. Um, a lot of excitement. Um, a lot of internal discussions, a lot of putting teams together. So, I really just wanted to come to you and just share with you guys what's been going on, especially the new grants. I wanted you to hear about that and just get that information. [cough and clears throat]

I just wanted to say, I know we kind of beat you up in here from time to time, but you and your staff are highly appreciated. you do a good job. I appreciate that. I I I give a lot of it to the staff and to our partners that we use, the consultants we work with. Uh there there's a lot of people that, you know, it kind of takes a village on these on these projects when you get them to this size and takes a lot of effort. But I appreciate it when we come to to to you as a council and ask for support and you guys always back us and help us get the the projects keep the keep the projects moving as necessary. And just it's a good example of the scale of cost of infrastructure. Yes.

And that we got to be real creative about finding ways to get funding for it all. And uh I think also thinking about, you know, planning for ways where if we can't get it, if we can't rely on it or if it takes 15 years to get it for a project after voters say yeah, you know. So, um, it's really nice to have the ability to get that when we can and and we're having discussions in house about some things that we may change internally. Um,

you know, talking [clears throat] about, you know, deferral program, it's great. If we know a project's coming that we can say, okay, instead of you building it and us tearing it out, why don't you just give us what you would pay for that? Um the problem is is what the what the developers pay for it's different what we pay for it and it never really covers the cost. Yeah. Um on projects, you know, there's been some where we've kind of speculated that it may be coming out, we may just say instead of you giving us money once you just build it and then we can try to it's hard to scab onto those. We did it on Porter and it was very difficult but we made it work.

Yeah. To have like everyone but we're we're looking at opportunities and options. Um, also, you know, I think that being more subjective with right sizing roadways, you know, it doesn't have to be four lane. Uh, as soon as I got the 36 grant, I immediately got the email, great, you're going to make that five lanes with turn lanes into every right turn lanes into everything. I went, no, as a matter of fact, we're not. So, you know, it was funny that we and I had other people going, great, that's only going to be three lanes, right? I had both I had both ends coming in about a week. So, uh, you know, we're trying to balance and find what works best for the community and how we can, yeah, get projects completed.

I think Al East Alamita was originally four lanes, but it's three. And North 24th was going to be four and it's three. Um, 48th between Robinson and Rock Creek, we came in, we're actually going to maintain two lane in some areas because there's no driveways. Why Why have turns where there's no drives? Council answer also want tell you and with your people out there these next three four days and everything like that tell them thank you in advance for all the hard work the late hours all that stuff that they're going to be out there doing in this cold and everything else and it's very very highly appreciated by the city that we can count on such a group to be able to get that done for us.

Yeah, streets and storm art will be going to 24 hours operations starting tomorrow morning. We we will be we'll be on it until it's over. Steam ahead. Any other comments, questions, grants, anything else? Nothing. Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate staff. Thank you. Yeah. And to us forget careful where we What?