Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll go ahead and get started with the City Council Community Planning and Transportation Committee for Thursday, May 28th, 2026. Welcome everybody here in person and watching at home. We have five items on the agenda this afternoon. The first one is a monthly update or so on the PROJECT UPDATES AND DISCUSSION OF THE ACCESS OKLAHOMA EAST-WEST CORRIDOR. SO FOR SEVERAL MONTHS NOW, I'VE BEEN HAVING A REGULAR UPDATE ON ANYTHING, ANY NEWS, ANYTHING RELATED TO THE TERM PIKE IN NORMAN CITY. SO STAFF IS HERE TO LEAD US OFF.

YEAH. THANK YOU FOR HAVING US BACK. came back today to talk to us again and share some information you guys asked for last week. This time I put together a PowerPoint. Not knowing how we're going to do this, so he's going to try to do it from my PowerPoint here, I think, with his notes.

So, thanks again for letting me come down and give an update on this. I appreciate the opportunity. As it shows here from the segment from I-44 to I-35, ongoing work, ongoing field work. There's still some design process, design that we're going through, still working through some right-of-way acquisitions and starting to get into the utility relocation part of it, really. um working uh specifically the more effluent line um is it's been awarded um and they are they have started this project itself it's we're constructing dual 36 inch force mains from the outfall just west of penn heading east approximately four miles to the city of moore's water treatment plant they plan to start to the west end and work their way east towards the wastewater treatment plant so That's one of the bigger utilities that we need to relocate to do some of the construction for the turnpike itself. Construction updates with the current construction that we have ongoing. We have the mainline turnpike bridges over the Canadian River. We started this back in February. And they're currently constructing the drilled shafts. They've started doing the piers and the pier caps, as you can see. They're really focusing by the contract on the westbound direction. That's the first bridge in the contract that we've asked them to get open. They've completed everything on the west side of the river. They've jumped over to the east side of the river and started doing those piers and those drilled shafts on that side as well. And so that's what you're seeing there in that picture. The other contract that's going on is the bridge over 10 mile flats. That project began this April, this spring. They are, let's see if I got anything different. Again, they're working on the drill shafts and the columns and the piers, trying to get above ground. Those actually you can see on that picture a little bit how close to the ground some of those piers are. But it still needed to be a bridge due to some of the flooding that occurs in that area. One other little project we had there was to drain and backfill a pond between Western and Santa Fe. That project is completed. It was where an old borrow pit to make some bricks were. We had to fill that in as part of the construction. So on the interchange, that will be one of the next projects that you'll see is at the I-44 interchange. with the Turnpike, the Toby Key, Peace West Connector, where you look to get that open for bids this summer, award it in July, and then construction will start this fall. That project's gonna be broke up into three different projects. This first project is really the minimal connections to get people from I-44 onto the Turnpike and across to I-35.

And that previous slide, is that the entire width of the project represented on that top?

Yes, that's the width of the project, yes sir. Some other upcoming projects.

I should have Scott do all my PowerPoints.

Is we have a project, an interchange project there at Western. The final construction plans are scheduled to be delivered this summer with a bid opening in August and with construction will start later this year. The mainline bridges over Santa Fe, again, we're letting projects again to bid this in September. It will more than likely probably start later at the first of the year of 2027. The project between Santa Fe and Telephone Road, that's going to be the grading and the paving in that area. It also includes the City of Norman project on 36th Avenue.

Scott, would you mind moving that chair over to someone? Sure, Council Member Kirby.

A couple back where you had the pitters and everything's going in. That would be more in the orange. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You're pretty quick. You're going to almost triple the width of what you're running right now. Triple the width of our footprint?

Yeah.

The length, not the width. The length, not the width. It won't get any wider.

So you'll be able to get all three lanes and the easements in that footprint you already... Yes, sir.

It'll be very similar to that footprint. Because we're on the south side, we're staying within the north of Indian Hills. We're within the statutory right-of-way, so we're not going any further south than Indian Hills. And then the front of droves to the north are, Colin, I don't know, I'd hate to give a number, how far north those are, that footprint. We've always estimated about 600 feet for the total width of that. So it'll be roughly about the same. Yeah. Not too, it's probably just a, it's probably, I would say, let me take that back. I would say the bridges are just a little bit more narrower. The roadway footprint's just a little bit wider. Not much wider than the, not much wider than the bridges though. Is Indian Hills running under it? Like are you? No, Indian Hills will be the eastbound frontage road. And then we'll build another frontage road on the north side, which will be the westbound frontage road. So we'll be reconstructing Indian Hills between, um, Pretty much.

Between 60th and 60th, yeah. To 48th, northeast. So that whole distance, but it will shift to the south side of Indian Hills once you get across I-35. It'll make a shift to the south.

So we'll still be able to cross Indian Hills for free without having to pay?

Oh, yeah, yeah. So at each of these interchanges... Here yeah, we'll keep these opens and you'll be able to cross those there's no toll So there'll be no toll on the city street no toll on the front of drove It's just when you get on the mainline portion of the of the turnpike and the frontage road Roads would go across side 35.

Yes continuously. Yes, sir, and those would remain Yes

As I said, we're coordinating with the City of Norman on their design to incorporate the 36th Avenue Northwest widening project, so it'll be part of that 303A project between Santa Fe and Telephone Road. That'll be again in September. We're looking to put that out to bed in September. We'll get an award in August. And then you'll see construction start on that probably first of next year. Council Member Grant?

In alignment with 36 Northwest Phase 2, is there discussions with property owners along that area? Will any of the work that's going to happen there be... on any part of their property, or is it just city easements?

No, we've already got, we've already have all the easements for that project, so we already have all that already secured. We are currently working on a NEPA study for the entirety of our 36 project. This section is included in that. As part of that, there will be a public meeting that has to be held. We'll probably ask OTA to to be there and will direct any questions regarding their work to them. But there will be some public information out there. And I would imagine that when the project gets closer to start, we will definitely be asked for information, some press releases. I would be shocked if there weren't some message boards out there, but that's not really going to be up to us. But we'll be working with the property owners so that they know what's going on. And the plan for now is maybe except for a small portion, there will always be access. But when we build the bridge across on the south end of the project, you can't really build that bridge one at a time. We'll probably have to close it for a short frame to get that bridge structure put in. But there will always be access to all the homes through that entire corridor.

And on the NEPA study, the public comment portion, is there an ETA on when that might happen?

We have just, so we have submitted our first submittal of the information to the FHWA, the Federal Highway Administration, Sorry, NEPA is just the environmental study that we have to do. I know we're throwing out a lot of acronyms and try to not do that too much. So we expect that we could hear something within 30 to 45 days about their decision making. And at that point, we would schedule a meeting. But I can't guarantee that time frame. It could be 90 days. I don't know. Part of it depends on what their determination is regarding what, if we have to do additional work or not, but we think it's kind of the work that we've submitted to date may suffice because we did a NEPA study on the 36th Avenue up to Indian Hills Road previously, and we had basically, we were set up for a finding of no significant impact, and at that point, all we needed was the the final public participation part of it. And because that project did not get funded, it never progressed past that. So we have a previous finding that was set, and this one is just kind of verified. Building on it. Yeah. And then extending it to the north all the way to 34th Street and more.

Okay. Well, that's good to know that with – because I think the original plan for it didn't have quite the same infrastructure under, that you have all the easements you need and that the APA study – everything associated with that is on track. So thank you.

Yeah, before the construction starts, that's usually a plan note in there that we have the contractor put message boards out there saying, hey, construction plans to begin on this date. We try to stay in constant communication with property owners and a lot in that area to make sure that they know what's going on. And if there's any significant changes that are going to be in that traffic control, we'll for sure make sure that we can get all the people and let them know. Our comms team does a really good job of sending that notification out. I'm sure we can work with y'all's comms team to have that same message that we send out to the public.

I didn't relay anything on the rest of it. That's really all I had on the turnpike update portion.

And then the last project I don't think I hit on was the mainline bridges over 36th Avenue that's looking to let later this fall. So there's going to be a lot of work going on between I-44 and I-35. For a while, we're trying to get that minimum connection open, get traffic going from I-44 to I-35 by the end of 2027. And so there will be some traffic on there, but there will also still be work going on for quite some time. This doesn't include none of these projects that I've talked about. include anything within the interchange specifically. There is some of the work on, I think, the mainline bridges. We're going to try to incorporate some of the earthwork for the interchange into some of that because it does get pretty tight in that area. So if we can incorporate some of that earthwork that we need to do for the interchange within one of these projects, we're trying to figure out that's what we're going to do. One thing that we did last night with ODOT, in conjunction with ODOT, we had a public meeting to talk about their project. They have a project where they are converting the furniture. This is really more and more from 19th south they're converting those frontage roads to one way they're also taking out what we call button hook ramps there at 19th so on the south side of 19th you have these ramps that you they kind of make a hook and you got to stop because traffic's two-way we call those button hook ramps so they're taking out those button hook ramps and they are putting in um new new ramps new um They're not going to be diamond. They're called X ramps. So you will get off. So if you're going northbound and you want to get to 19th, you'll have to get off a little bit further back than a normal diamond configuration. And then if you're on that frontage road, you would get back onto I-35 before 19th Street. I'll bring a picture of that next time. Or you can look on ODOT's website from that public meeting last night to kind of describe that. But We worked in conjunction with them to have that meeting to talk about their project because their project is embedded in part of our project as well to convert those furniture roads to one way and have continuous furniture roads through the interchange and as you continue south to Franklin. So we had that. We had a stakeholder meeting from... noon to 2 and then from 4 to 8 30 that was the public meeting part there were a lot of people that came to that public meeting so i thought it went really well and got a lot of comments on that uh on yeah

you're changing all the frontage roads to one way. So like people who shoot in and jump over to Cook's Feed and Seed and grab what they need and just jump right back out are now gonna have to shoot down and around like four miles extra. Is that what I'm hearing?

Not necessarily four miles extra. So Cook's Feed's just north of Indian Hills, correct? In this area here.

Yeah.

right here and so a mile down so what you'll have to do is you'll go up and at 19th street i did not mention that they're putting a protected turnaround bridge in so you don't have to go through the signal so you just you're not touching any signals you go right you go through the turnaround and then you get right back on because the on-ramp is uh the on-ramp is Are you impacting any of the businesses, like Mooney's? So, yeah, so these businesses right in here, yes, we are impacting with the interchange project.

We can get you more information on those frontage roads.

I'm definitely going to need more information. When y'all have the public meetings, is it just for fun, or do you actually take any advice from the people who show up and express their concerns that have lived here for the lives that you're affecting? I mean, do you actually listen when people speak? Because, I mean, it's already bad enough you're doing the east-west, and it's already bad your north-south is likely to come through my house, but now you're taking and changing the frontage roads. when gas is $5 a gallon for farmers who are coming in and struggling after you've already taken their land. So I'm shaking mad right now because I just, do y'all even care? about the lives that you're about to take. I mean, how much of this is down through eminent domain on just the section y'all is doing, right, this section? Right from I-40 to I-35, how many eminent domain properties did you do?

So I don't know about eminent domain. I don't have that number with me today. But what I have for the east-west connector is currently we have closed, we've settled with closed on a total of 86 parcels. And we're working on 105 parcels along, negotiating, working on 105 different parcels on the east-west connector.

Just on the east-west? Yes, sir. Thank you.

I will say that the frontage roads go into one way. We did a joint study with... with ODOT, Moore, and the county. And that was a suggestion that came out of that project completely just because it's getting so compacted and impacted in that area that that was actually the recommendation. All of the recommendations were to go to one way from Moore all the way down through to

I still don't get how y'all's going through a lot of these fields that have killdeer birds that are protected and they have horny toes. I mean, my brother broke his leg in that field right there that you're about to run through when we were hauling hay. So I literally grew up seeing the wildlife there and I'm just, you know, I can't stop it and I get that or I would. There's nothing I like about y'all guys. And I get what you're doing. You're doing your job. So sorry I'm frustrated with you. It's okay. Just every time we turn around, you're just taking a little bit more and taking a little bit more. I was just walking in my pasture today and dug up a rose rock, and you're about to come through and rip up one of the million-year-old rose rock bang for a road that has little to no importance.

So on the east, on the interchange at I-35, as it goes east, it will go over the railroad tracks?

Yes, sir.

So Indian Hill Road, both the frontage roads and the highway would go over? Yes, sir. Completely separated?

Yes, sir. Completely separated.

And then a period of time it just ends? Yes. truncates for a while until the next phase, the whole thing until the next phase. So, like, this being the first phase of the project.

Yeah, okay. I got you.

And then the second planned phase being further east. Yes. But, like, when this interchange is done, it would just have a truncated eastern end until the rest of its build? How's that feel?

Yeah, so there will be a period of time that you will not be able to continue east.

It'll make you go north or south. You'll have to get on I-35. You'll have to get on I-35 or the frontage road.

Yeah, you'll have to get on I-35 or the frontage road to go north or south. But in between that time, we'll be working on that east side, as you said, to go over the railroad, to go over that floodplain, and then tie into 24th. That's right there to the east. We'll be working on that continually while there's still probably, there will be some work going on in the interchange still. But we will have some minimum connections that you will be able to go north-south to get on I-35 or onto the frontage roads.

Okay. And is there a timeline for, I guess, what I would call that second phase of? East of the railroad tracks.

Yeah, so our goal to get traffic open is by 2030 to get it to I-40. And we have projects that we plan to let later this year.

2030 to get it from I-35 right there to I-40 connection.

Yes, sir. By 2030. By 2030. And so we have some projects on the very probably north and east end where it connects closer to I-40. that we plan on letting or we're looking at the possibility of letting later this year. And so we will be working from both directions to meet in the middle. When I mentioned those parcels that we've closed on 86 parcels and we're actively negotiating and working with landowners on 105 parcels, that doesn't include the portion where the south extension ties in there since we relocated that alignment over there. We just have preliminary plans. We don't have the 60% plans that we go negotiate right away and purchase right away with. So I don't have those numbers yet because we haven't quite identified all the property owners yet. So there will be more to the active 105 parcels and closing on that 86.

So north-south is the way it's...

North-south, so I can give a quick update on the north-south extension, or the south extension. We do have survey crews out there that are performing the fieldwork along the entire corridor. So they're tying in corners and things like that to do the survey. And then the engineers are progressing with the plans from functional plans to 60% plans, which will help us identify all of the properties that we will be working with for that corridor from a right-of-way standpoint. And then let's see. And so we're still within that timeline when we talked about – when we would be reaching out to landowners along that south extension area from that 12th to 18th month, when we had those public meetings last spring, we're still right within that corridor like we said we would be. We're actively working with 39 parcels along the south extension. We've recognized or we've pulled some of those out because they are going to be total acquisitions and so we're proactively getting out in front of them and working with them 39 parcels on that south extension on purchasing those. there's 39 total acquisitions or yes as in taking the entire yeah as a take as as as a having to purchase the entire parcel yes sir so there's there's still a lot more that once we get those 60 plans that will identify more there will be more parcels than those but um based on the alignment that we have and those functional plans that our designers and engineers have developed, there were 39 that we are engaging now, so they're not having to wait.

So when you get your 60% plans and can identify the other parcels, there shouldn't be total acquisitions, it should be partial?

It's going to be a mix. There's still some of them that we are not 100% sure that they're going to be total takes, but a majority of those are partial, will be partials. So there will still be some total takes in those.

And is there a city staff or OTA, have you identified any additional city infrastructure, like what we saw with the wells that are impacted by the proposed work?

routes forward and also any other street i know there's not another situation like 36th avenue but no there's nothing to that extent i think that there may still be a well or two out there that may be impacted we're still addressing that we're waiting to see what the final footprint actually looks like uh and then they'll work chris and the utilities department will work with the ota on those as far as road goes we don't have any roadway uh projects on that area that these will be impacting So I don't anticipate anything like what we've had obviously 36 was really unusual.

So I Know we fixed the maps to reflect the new alignment in our aim plan Does that do we also update the transportation side to reflect that?

I Think I think it was all of them. So yes, I

Not just the map, though, but kind of what the idea. It's 48th, right? Between 48th and 68th.

Okay.

Just curious, because I thought there were some street widenings planned around that area and whatnot.

Well, I think that the road... Things that we were looking to do with the roads before, I think that would still be valid. I don't know that it would really change anything. For example, 48th is supposed to become more like a boulevard street, more of a real north-south connector. I think that would continue to be the case. There really wasn't much past that. In fact, most of the roadways stayed about the same classification or maybe bumped from a rural arterial to a rural collector or the other way. Some of them actually went down. So I don't think that the relocation or the new turnpike alignment would really impact the roadway classifications that we have in that area at this point. In the master plan. In the master plan.

Thank you.

And we don't have any currently designed, budgeted, or voter-approved projects to widen 48th or 36th, for that matter. Correct. Other than Cedar Land 36, but.

No, you're correct. That intersection.

But we don't have any other, we don't have any projects for 48th, for Franklin, for Indian Hill Road, none of those stuff.

I mean, the only thing that we have is the road maintenance on that section of Franklin, and we picked that totally without consideration of the turnpike. That's just the road that you've got resurfacing of part of the rural road. It's just in really bad shape. It needs a little attention.

Okay.

Yes.

Council Member Gansery.

Yeah, you talked about, you know, 39 total acquisitions so far over there on properties and stuff. You mentioned that there's some others that may or may not, you know, most be partial, some might be total and everything like that. Do we have a rough count of how many different parcels that is or different properties that that might be, that rough count that we're looking at?

On the south extension? Um, no, we don't, we don't quite have that yet. Um, because we don't have those 60% set of plans. Once we get that 60% set of plans, we'll have a, a really good idea of what that number will be. So I, I'd hate to give you a number now and it not be accurate. Um, councilwoman, you did ask me last time, um, about, uh, parcel numbers and I wanted to. I'm going to share that again. On the east-west connector, we have currently closed or acquired 86 total parcels. And we're actively working on 105 parcels for the entire east-west connector from I-44 to I-40. There is that section in there where the south extension, where we relocated the south extension, that we don't have a 60% set of plans. So I don't know the right-of-way numbers for that area. So there would be more to add to that number. But I did want to share those with you. that you asked for.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Oh, and I'm sorry. And on the South Extension project, we have verified that there's, we're actively working with 39 parcels on the South Extension. They are going to be full acquisitions, total takes of their properties. So we're trying to, we're working with them, giving them trying to work with them to give them enough time to work with, you know, if they want to get a different appraisal, they need to find a replacement property. So really giving them that time to try to figure out what their next steps are. Is that 39 from I-35 to the east-west connector? Yeah, it's going to be from I-35. Yeah, it'll be from I-35 to Purcell. Yeah, Purcell.

So from Purcell all the way through to the.

That's what we have found on that corridor.

And whenever you say giving them that time, how much time is that?

I mean, we're not looking to start construction, you know, for those people on the south extension for a while. Yeah, so we still have a couple years before we plan on starting construction on the south extension.

Do you know how many of those 39 are?

Uh, no, because they're all scattered along the entire corridor there.

Knowing how many Norman properties there are.

That would be pretty poor.

Yeah. Next time, so. Councilman Gansberry?

Also, do y'all... Y'all have to make a list of like every acquisition you take. You have to make a list of, okay, this is the property that we did and this was the exit cost of that property and everything like that or anything.

Do we keep that?

Yeah, we keep all that data.

Yeah.

Do you share that with like if there's any city that wanted that information for themselves and everything like that about exactly what properties and what the acquisition cost was?

Um, I don't know that we've ever been asked for a city from it. Um, there have been open records requests for that. Um, yeah, I don't know about a local entity asking.

I'd like to see home on that. If it's an open record request to somebody, maybe do that just for full transparency for, you know, everybody in town, you know, for us, knowing that everybody's getting a fair shake and, you know, stuff.

So first, you know, Personally, if I'm negotiating with you, I'm going to have you sign a non-disclosure agreement with my property.

For sure. And that's the thing that we'll do if it becomes an open records request is we'll take out any personal information on that because we have to take out that personal information. And there have been some that have said, yeah, I don't want this being put out. So it would be a little... Probably a little, I don't want to say touch and go, but, you know, we'd really have to dig into that to see how we could get that information. Not even the actual cost? I think we could probably get you costs. Without a person being attached to it? Yeah, we could probably get you costs without a person being attached to it or a parcel. But, yeah, I think.

Yeah, you can't ask, like, down to parcel. I mean, if I sign an honest, close agreement.

100%.

100%. Yes, sir. Yeah.

So that would be something that we need to. We'll talk about and discuss what's the best way to get that information. Because I think I see what you're asking for, kind of based on parcel size and, you know, was there a house on it?

Well, no, so I'm looking at the fact that the parcels that you're talking about, the line there and everything like that, three different towns, it's one town getting a fair shake compared to other towns maybe. But you know what I'm saying. Like, was people given a true... Return on investment on the property and everything like that, you know, okay, that's somebody down the line and noble Wasn't have to take a big cut in the loss Okay, because something normally needed more even you know and everything that everybody got a fair offer.

Okay, shake Okay, I see what you said, but let me um Let me go back and see what I can what we can figure out how to how to get some of that information Being that all this is country

I mean, you got a little bit actually going through town, but I would say the majority of it on the 10-mile flats and then again over on the north-south. Will y'all be putting up like 10-foot fence all the way down that side of the gun to make sure wildlife, farm animals, all that don't get up on the interstate? Because I know with Oklahoma law, if my calf gets out and runs up on your turnpike and a car hits it, I get sued. It's not y'all. So are y'all going to be protecting every last farm down these interstates and make sure none of them animals can get on your turnpike? Yes, sir.

We put up a fence. Yeah. We put up access fences along the turnpike to make sure that the animals can...

cannot get across there yeah yes sir yeah we put up access fence counselor bruce so from uh 35 going west i'm unbelievable that no one's home under any of them domain was taken and then there's no property entering damage So I think the property is different.

I thought there were six properties I can take. There were no homes in that area. Correct. There were no homes. Yes, there were no homes. There were some properties that we've had to go through the condemnation process. Some of those we negotiated out of and we didn't have to go through the entire process, right? A couple of them were... they wanted to get the commissioner's award, what the commissioners thought, then we would start negotiating. There was a parcel right next to the river that didn't have a clear title, and so we had to go through the condemnation process to be able to get clear title on that piece, but you are correct in that there weren't any homes that were purchased through condemnation, but we did have to take some of these parcels of property, of land, through that condemnation process.

And some people just ask, they will just say, we just want to go straight to that process.

Yeah, and we had a couple of those that that's what they wanted to do. And so we've done that. And I honestly think we're actively negotiating with them based on the number they got from the commissioner.

So again, just so that process would be, It's identified through the plans what's needed, and then that's looked at, and then it's appraised. That appraiser, and it's a licensed appraiser, that's reviewed by a second appraiser. That number can go up or down. I've seen both. Usually they pretty much just agree. That's based on comparative sales, and that's usually their main basis. And then after that, if you can't reach agreement, then that goes to the condemnation process. And then that's three commissioners are chosen. Both parties have to agree on the three. So us as a city couldn't go get three we like. The other side can say, no, we want someone that, you know, it's a... a joint deal and then they come out they visit the site they talk to both parties typically and then they make a declaration of what they think the the fair value is and it can go up or down from that appraisal we've seen both on our projects and then that's usually you start kind of a renegotiation but at that point uh you i'm speaking as a city here not as the turnpike authority We can go and put that amount that the commissioners have awarded. We can go put that in court, and then we have access to the property, but that property owner can choose to go to a jury trial if they so choose. So it's a long process with a lot of steps that are put in place.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. i was going to say during that entire process the ota is negotiating with that land over the entire time so from when we first give them that appraisal with their fair market value of whatever that dollar amount may be that that appraiser came up with they send us a number what they think and then we counter so there's a bunch of back and forth um with those before we before we want to get to that condemnation point and and and the reason why we may go to condemnation is say as our projects um have that schedule of we're trying to get one to go to bid at the end of the year right so we have that schedule we have that built-in time that it takes to move utilities and then there's that built-in time to buy right of way Well, if we're pushing up close to that time where we need to move utilities to clear for construction to get it to that letting, that's when it may trigger that condemnation. Are we still negotiating with that landowner during that entire time? Yeah, we're negotiating that entire time with them on that.

Just one other quick question. Are we talking a handful of properties, five or less, that are still remaining open from 35 going west? I thought it was all done.

No, we still have a handful that we're trying to negotiate or they're in the condemnation process. Yeah, there's just a handful. And maybe even some of those, we may have right of entry, so we could go ahead and start the project. We may not have come to dollar amount that we both agree upon, but we could have that right of entry to be able to start the project. But there's just a handful between I-44 and I-35 that we don't have secured. Just a handful.

Okay. Thank you. Councilman Appalachia?

I apologize if somebody's already asked this. No, it's okay. You mentioned appraisers and more than one appraisal being done. Who is choosing the appraisers?

So we have a group of appraisers that we use across the state.

But the homeowner doesn't get to pick an appraiser?

They can go get their own appraisal if they would like to.

Do you still pay for that?

um that would be something that they would just when they in the negotiations say hey i went and got this appraisal i would like to include this in the cost to get paid back for so that would be something that we could we could we could reimburse negotiate and reimburse them for that yeah okay all right thank you i just have a question does the city help with any of these negotiations like do you show up and help with any of the negotiations with any of the uh

Are we involved as a city in any way, shape, or form in anything? No, sir. None of these land acquisitions? Nothing? We don't? Because a minute ago you said, you know, if we pick the appraisers. So that caught me off guard. On our projects. Okay.

So, for example, 36 Northwest, we went through the same process they're using. It's basically the identified process federally of how to do it. Okay. And we use the same thing. No, on our projects. Okay. On Lindsey Street, we're going through. You approved... 20, no, 18, I don't know, easements on Lindsay Street Tuesday night. We went through the same process to get those easements on Lindsay Street. And we're still going through that with more property owners. So that's on our side.

That's why I said I'm speaking as a city. They requested that, the ones on Lindsay, the ones you're going through.

No, we're going through the whole process just like we've gone out there. If it's over $10,000, we've done an appraisal on it. And we base that on our we hire acquisition agents really to act on our behalf. That also ensures it's being done correctly and following the correct rules. We're not tweaking or twisting. I know that the OTA has hired a bunch of them. We use some of the same people. There's only a number of them in the state. And then I want to rewind.

I don't like talking about the north-south to begin with. But you said, were you talking about the 48th on this side becoming more of the corridor, whatever you called it earlier, like you're changing the road, or were you talking about the other side by Washington?

The east side has always been a road that was identified, even in the previous transportation. But, I mean, are you all planning on going down through there and putting, like, a median in it? That's kind of one of the designs that are being looked at at this point. That was always considered.

That was kind of going to be the last of your development.

No, that was in the previous transportation planning documents that we have.

So that's that's long-standing it even shows up that way in some of the regional planning Before the turnpike was even there There's no plans no budget and no voter approved plans 13 million a mile or so. I don't I don't see us widening 48th Avenue. Yeah, that's just in any of our lifetimes in this room Must have been drastically changes ANY OTHER QUESTIONS, OTA RELATED? OKAY. WE'LL BE BACK WITH ANOTHER UPDATE NEXT MONTH.

YEAH. IT'LL PROBABLY JUST BE ME FOR A WHILE, BECAUSE WE'RE PROBABLY GOING TO BE IN VERY SIMILAR PLACES, SO IT'LL PROBABLY BE ME.

WE'LL HAVE A MEETING IN JULY, SO AFTER NEXT MONTH.

And we can bring updated numbers on where we're at with the right-of-way acquisition portion of it.

And feel free to ask staff any questions.

Will you add how many businesses you all have taken on the path to that? Yes, sir. I'll make sure and get that.

Yes, sir. And we are getting a monthly update the Thursday before this meeting directly from OTA. So we're getting our information that I'll be sharing with you directly from them. So I may not get into the right-of-way information just because I think that's a little bit more BUT I'LL BE BRINGING YOU CONSTRUCTION UPDATES AND PROJECT UPDATES EVERY MONTH.

OKAY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ALL RIGHT. WE'LL MOVE ON TO ITEM NUMBER TWO IS A PRESENTATION UPDATE ON THE 2023 BRIDGE BOND PROGRAM AND SEE WHERE WE'RE AT, WHICH ONES WE'VE COMPLETED, WHICH ONES

And I'm probably going to flow straight into the Gray Street, if you don't mind. I just did one presentation instead of a whole bunch of little ones. So quick project updates here. So we're going to talk about the bridge bond and go straight into the Gray Street. This is the list of the projects that were identified in the bridge bond. As you can see, we've completed the 24 and 25 projects. The 26 projects, one is out to bid. The other one is the Franklin Bridge Just In. west of 36 Northeast. We're working on right away right now and completing that design. So we'll have both of those underway this year and probably pretty well completed. The replacement may take just a little bit longer. So as you can see out of the 18, four complete. And then we have several that are under design. We also have the North Porter Avenue, which is the quarter-mile, half-mile-long bridge that's going to go over the top of the floodplain, where it gets about two foot deep in a good flood. That is well under design and right of way. That's the project. That's the $15 million project. We actually, that's the one we secured Absentee Shawnee Tribe funding through them for about $13 million of that. So that's really going to help this whole bridge program. We're going to be able to expand a lot. probably coming and either looking you remember those those ones at the end of the list we want to make sure that we have these identified starting to bring those up or requesting to add bridges to the program later so that's great we're going to continue to look for those partnerships and ways to get these bridges funded then we're also under design on 24th Avenue Northeast and And we're at the point, we're ready to start moving down this list to start getting designs started on some of the others. We want to make sure that we're always out ahead getting the designs completed and that that's not going to be a reason why we're held up, that we're identifying any right-of-way needs that we may have so we can get out and get those done. Our utility relocations, utility relocations, Typically, when we call now, it'll be 9 to 12 months before we can get to you, and that usually puts us in a real bind on all our projects. So we're trying to make sure that we're out ahead. We want to make sure that we meet our schedule, and so far, we have been able to do that, and we're very pleased with the progress and the way this program's going. So we've got four that are finished.

Yes, sir. And there aren't any that are currently under construction, but there are four that are almost there.

Right. Well, 24th Southwest, this is the one over... Merkle Creek. That one is actually out to bid right now. We're just waiting for our bids to come in. You'll probably see an award coming up on that in the next month, month and a half. So we'll be starting another one quickly on that one. So that is just kind of a major repair. It's on a complete redo. We'll be redoing wing walls and fixing some problems around the bridge, making sure it's structurally sound and making sure it meets all the requirements that we need it to meet for safety and for drainage.

Mr. Kirby? 2026 Franklin Road replacement. Can you tell me the miles? Which area that's being replaced? I know right above it you said the bridge, but...

It's just the bridge.

Only the bridge? Yes, sir. So each one's a bridge?

We call it the Toby Keith Bridge. It's the one right there north of his property, on the north side of his property. It's that bridge.

But on the next one down, the 115,000 one, is that the same exact area again?

No, that one is further to the east. That's another... There's two bridges on Franklin. There's another one down the road, right? Yeah. There's just... Yeah, if you think about it, that's where the little river's weaving back and forth across Franklin. Are you doing anything to Franklin itself in between those bridges? No, not with, this is a bridge program only, so this is just fixing the bridge structures themselves and making sure that we're meeting the safety and load requirements and making sure that the drainage works properly through these areas. I would love to come back through and see a future project to get that up out of the floodplain where it doesn't flood, but that is not a part of this project.

Okay.

Just a quick question. So have the projects pretty much come in at the estimated costs, or have there been savings or overages?

We've had a little up and a little down. Joe can speak closer to that. Joe Hill, our streets program manager.

Yeah, so we're... Right now, again, excluding the grant funds for the Porter Bridge, after these four completed, we're about $1.4 million in savings. So 60th was a little bit up, but the others have been down. Great job. update on the 24th avenue southwest bridge for the major rehab that bid actually opened this afternoon and i just got told so um and and as of right now that is uh come in under the estimated cost so you guys will be seeing that here within the next month month and a half and we're hovering right around the number that we want to

So if we're seeing savings, if there are other identified emergencies or repairs that need to happen that can be pulled out of that pool as well? Yes.

So remember when we initially put this out to a vote, we have historically always accounted for, and Beth, if I start misspeaking here, call me out. But we have historically accounted for 100% of our proceeds. When we did this, we accounted for the 76%. I think our requirement is 75. We accounted for about 75% of those proceeds and left that extra. bit of those proceeds as contingency, even though we do have a list. And I can say that we had our most recent biennial inspection with the Federal Highway, and we've taken that information and our priority list that goes beyond this bond program is still staying the same. You might see a couple of bridges move, but we're not seeing a lot of movement. So our original plan is still in place for the 10-year cycle here.

okay thank you and then if we have savings at the end like we do with all of our bond programs we can come back to council we can suggest projects to be added council can say whether they approve or disapprove of that project being added but at this point the savings that we've seen we do anticipate that we will be able to address more bridge structures than we initially thought and you know we're not sure exactly why all of our numbers are coming in it may have been partially that we were just very cautious with our our estimating which is a good place to be but also i think that as we've gone into full design we've been able to see some ways that we can there's some areas where we really talked to our designers and said can we can we take a little out can we do this within good safety but you know we've been able to find some savings through designs also not value engineering just good good good design that can reduce cost but not cutting things out for the purpose of reducing costs which is what I consider value engineering this is more just looking at good design principles and what can we do to make it better correct that we don't

Did you receive any outside funding for bridge maintenance in the city limits of Norman that are not a highway or an interstate?

Bridge maintenance funds are very hard to come by. We have been very lucky that we've taken care of several bridges throughout Norman because we did a road project and the bridge was a part of that. just west of Botak. You've got the Emhoff Bridge, which was like one of our top stormwater issues. Both of those were taken care of through the 2012 road bond, or transportation bond.

So one of those things to be advocating to our state representatives and federal representatives is funding for, I mean, we have over 70 bridges in the city. We're up to about 80 now. I mean, it's just like, If we hadn't done the bridge bond, if voters had not approved it, I mean, we were in bad shape. We're still not there, but this is making a huge difference. Yeah.

And that's also why we, you know, we've got the bridge bond, but then we also have the bridge maintenance.

This is a 20-year program, right?

Ten. Ten. 20-year service on the debt, 10 years of construction. But we also have the maintenance that we ask for every year in capital, and that's to go out and get those bridges that haven't made this list yet and keep them off this list. So I kind of make, this is buying that new or used car, And then that maintenance is changing the oil and putting tires on it and doing brakes and rotors. So, yeah, by using those funds, we'll keep those bridges off this list or be able to extend the life of those projects or those bridge structures. So that's why we have the two programs that work together, just like we do where we have the transportation bond to go out and rebuild or expand or do new things with roadways. And then we have the street maintenance bond where we go out there and fix them. So same thing. We have two different programs that work side by side to take care of our infrastructure.

And would we try to renew it at year 10 or 20?

I think that's something that when we get there, we'll start having those discussions and see where we're at. I can't answer that at this point. We're really early in this program. So we want to monitor that. And when we get closer to those discussions, we'll start becoming more real.

Any other bridge comments, questions, council members?

You spoke to it. I'm just curious. We really don't have any value engineering clauses in our contract related to savings of cost, right?

We're not doing that, right? We don't have anything directly in there, but as we review plans, we're always looking for ways that we can keep costs contained but yeah there's no direct clause about value engineering but that's always at the forefront of our project teams and especially our capital projects engineers are we providing a design for contractors to bid on yes okay so and there's no value engineering clause got it right yeah no we give them the design and they go out and perform the work to our design and then we inspect and make sure it's completed our standards We want to brag for a second, though. So these are those completed projects up there on the top at 60th Avenue Northeast. Great looking structure. First of all, I drove up on it. I was just in shock of how great it looked. Then below that on the far left there is the East Post Oak. Then you've got the Main Street Bridge there in the bottom. And then you've got the Lindsey Street. That's at Lindsey and Claassen. Most people don't realize that's actually a bridge. It goes diagonal under that pole intersection.

There was never any visual appearance that anything was ever happening.

I know. That was a great project. The Main Street and Lindsey Street were both rehabs. So going in there and just doing some major work and it cleaned up back to a better working condition. And then the other two were complete reconstructs.

The Main Street one, the sidewalks on both sides of it were the real big deal. It was, for me anyway, because before, just a little bit east of the Panera Bread and the bus stop was like kind of a jagged metal railing there. And it was... Not a real comfortable situation if you're walking or especially if you're in a wheelchair. So this is wider now and concrete barrier between you and the street. Looks a lot nicer, in my opinion, than it did before, too.

And then we worked with the Parks Department to do that landscaping in that one landscape island where they came in. We helped remove that.

Which takes less minutes.

They came in and took to it as a demonstration of what they could all look like down through there, so.

So less maintenance, less water, less everything to maintain ice. People have asked, and that's been my response.

Yeah, absolutely. So to talk about Gray Street for a little bit, I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty ready for that project to be finished. So it is well over completion date. We have been pushing. This is an ODOT-managed project, so we're not managing it directly. We do voice our concerns continually about the time that's taken to complete the project. They are pretty much down now to getting the railroad crossing completed. That's what's supposed to happen Friday night and Saturday night. So Sunday we should have a two-way travel on Gray Street, which is going to be fantastic. I know that there has been some citizens concerned about the fact that the landscaping and irrigation issues is not near completion at this point. They will continue to work on that, but we felt it doesn't seem good to have a road out there that's completely ready to go and keep it closed off. Let's get people traveling on it and we'll continue to work on the landscape and irrigation.

So there was no landscaping before.

So yeah.

I just add to that that Mayor Holman and myself did visit with former public works director O'Leary about getting some landscaping because I don't think that was included originally. So just throwing that out there. And then I have a question about the outstanding ADA items that need to be completed. What has been identified?

I don't know that we have a, I think there's just random crossings that we're missing some of the pedestrian buttons over here at Webster. There's no big significant large items, just a lot of little cleanup and there's some items that just need to be kind of dealt with. Just they don't tweaks.

Can I put an area on your radar? It's going to be Jones and Gray. And it's going to be over by Sergio's. There's this really weird little... That is totally built correct.

And the reason why is because we worked with Sergio's. We talked to him. And the idea is that they would actually park at that location. So where they're parking today should be the driveway. If you notice, they're blocking their own driveway. So they should be parking over there. So that curb was there intentionally so that people wouldn't be running into cars or... or trying to go through a parking lot when there's a car.

So across the street from Jones will be more of an access for pedestrian slash ADA folks.

Yeah, and there's no sidewalk that continues on that side of Jones. Going south.

Well, I mean, there's a sidewalk on Jones that runs past the theater and runs in front of Sergio's on the west side of it. But then it just ends.

Yeah, there's like a pole.

A pole in the middle of it. And then now it'll be a curb. So someone will have to walk through the Sergio's parking lot and go around it. and maybe wheel around it. So that was what I noticed.

I'm mostly thinking of our folks in wheelchairs because I have somebody who comes in from the original town site neighborhood. That's the, they're not in a car. They're using their wheelchair to get around downtown. And they're not the only one, but just thinking about like, okay, so they're coming down gray and they're going to be on the South side. And then let's say they want to go to onto Jones. Like, figuring out where she can go.

Sure, but there's sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, so there is ADA access. We haven't taken away any access. It's still accessible, and it still meets. We would love to be able to go back and fix the situation on the west side of Jones. It's just we were so far rebudgeted on this project, we really couldn't include that piece at this time. That's something we'll continue to watch and try to find a way to take care of.

And I think we're planning to do a walk-through on Tuesday.

Yes, sir, 9 o'clock. Final walk-through on Tuesday.

Oh, okay. Let me put that on my screen. Hopefully it doesn't take more than an hour. I've got to get back to City Hall at 10.

It depends on how fast we walk.

Okay.

I'll get it on my calendar. We're going to meet at Public Works. We'll walk right out the back door, and we'll get going. And if we need to, I can have staff available. If we're not done, I can have staff available to bring you back.

So fascinating to me that they would open it to two-way sort of tomorrow to the tracks and then go around the tracks and then fully potentially on Saturday night.

And part of the reason for that is because we simply – Saturday night, the problem is you've got to pull all those barricades back in the time frame and the staff that have to be here after hours and doing all that. So we can get the bulk of it taken care of one night, finish up the rest, get that done the next night. And we're trying to get things as close to normal as possible as quickly as we can. And really the reason we're delayed to this point is just it's getting the BNSF and getting the people that they have to have on site ready. We'll be out there. I think we'll have some staff out there both nights. And definitely when they're doing the connections and testing of the arms and the signals, we'll be working out there with that to make sure that we know how it's operating. And so we'll be there full force.

And tomorrow, what is it? First thing a.m. or is it tomorrow night or when does the? Tomorrow, when can I drive to City Hall on Gray Street?

I'd say let's be flexible.

It's going to make it a lot easier for me to get to City Hall.

I would hate to tell you one thing or another, but the work at the railroad will be in the evening or night.

But in the morning, 8 a.m. or whatever, you can drive east on Gray Street.

Paul, what's the... The plan tomorrow morning, 4 a.m., they will close off entirely from the west side of Jones through the James Garner intersection. That whole intersection has to be closed while they do it. It will be full closure with detours around to Main and Acres, depending on which direction you're going. Once they have that done, we have to Right now, all the signals are turned on, but they're all red eastbound, so we have to go through and program each signal. Once that's done, they'll take down the barricades. So how long that takes kind of depends on what we run into, but my hope is sometime tomorrow morning when we'll have everything else two-way, but definitely by the end of the day. You can always go two-way. It's just if you get caught or not. That's right. Well, it was a few weeks ago. It's hard on the bumper of your car to go through those Type 3 barricades, though. Like Chevy Chase, you know.

Once they painted the new lines on the street, people were driving on the two-way already. So I texted her. I was like, I'm going to put up some barricades because I think it's already open. So the traffic signals that face the other direction, the new ones, will be functioning tomorrow.

Yes. Okay. That's why the uncertainty in 8 o'clock, 10 o'clock, noon, 10 o'clock, it depends on the timings.

Throughout tomorrow, so beware everybody who might drive down Gray Street tomorrow.

And then they will continue to do the landscape and irrigation. Council Member Blodgett?

This is the only thing I'm hearing from people. So I thought, since hopefully some of them are watching that have these questions, that you could speak on it. The only thing I'm hearing is the parking and how everyone hates it. So the new way to park. Well, not everyone, but people talking to me. So I just was wondering, what is your advice on how that will happen when most people are in Norman, drive right on you. So if you're wanting to park, how is that? I mean, your reverse lights all of a sudden pop on, but somebody's right behind you.

I'm going to sit there and make them go around me or back up. We will learn. It's just like they didn't do the roundabout ride on day one. I guarantee you the first time they put angled parking and head in, I guarantee you people struggled with it until they learned it. So just as with anything, there's a learning curve, but we've seen it work perfectly and work well with students down on Jones. Or Jones, I'm sorry, on James Garner. You got me all thinking about Jones earlier. So I do think there will be a learning process. I think people will eventually learn to leave some space. I'm not going to give up the space just because you're on my tail. I'm going to sit there. You'll either figure it out or not. But I do think it will take some time to work through it. It's working great on coming westbound. It is working fantastic. I'm hearing a lot of people complain about it, but I think there are people who aren't using it. Every time we propose something new, there's a resistance, and I get that. There's still people who will tell you the roundabout's the worst thing we ever did, and I get people come and go, man, are we going to get more? When are you going to build more? It's a balance.

I'm so tired of all the traffic lights in Norman. We get that all the time, right? There's so many red lights. Yeah. Okay, well, we'll have nothing and everybody can just crash. Just stay home.

Just bike. But, you know, we do. You cannot park head in, so you can't pull across and pull in. So we'll be working with parking for enforcement of that so that people will learn to do it right. Like I said, I drove through there today and westbound looked great. I didn't see a single problem. Eastbound, everybody's just pulling across.

I'm like... What's the direction they're going, though?

Yeah. But it'll be different when there's traffic coming at you and you're not going to be able to do it. Right. But when you pull out, I think once people get used to pulling out and not, I mean, pulling out on Main Street, you kind of just, sometimes you just take a big deep breath and start going. That's gone. Now you're going to be able to just look right out your window and see if there's something coming.

That's what I think. The first time people pull out is when you get home.

You're backing one way or the other. Everybody's scared of backing, but you back out.

And traffic has to slow down. When someone starts backing out, you could swerve into the other lane, which is dangerous. Or you have to slow down and stop and wait for them to back out. So it's a delay either way, in my opinion.

Yeah.

And to, I mean, that point too, people are just going to have to not tailgate.

I don't know.

There's only so much we can do.

Council Member Dixon has a great photo. When you see it, put your blinker on. At one of the schools, everybody's reverse angle parking intentionally, and they're doing it without stripes. They figured it out. So I think that as people adjust to it, it'll be okay.

Just to add to that, parallel parking is more of the same, you know, best practices being turn on your signal, let everybody know what you're doing, and they should get it because they're coming through an area where everybody's reverse angle parking. I haven't seen it be a problem, but it was a question I had. That was my own, and then I've seen it pop up, which has to do with trucks doing that, and will they go over the

Sidewalk and like I said, I haven't seen it yet, but to the design Well, we we actually in fact Paul spent about half an afternoon He went out and measured all the distance from the rear wheel to the back of the bumper on all the trucks in the parking lot So we got an array of trucks. We got dodges Fords, you know Toyotas We got them all and went out there and because they're at such an angle they don't stick

picture of one that showed a truck and it had a hitch on the back and it was not even to the curb.

Yeah, and if you think about the hitch, because you're at an angle, the hitch isn't going to hang over like it does on, you know, straight in parking. So we actually did look at that because we wondered if we were going to have to put some parking blocks out to stop people from getting so far back. And what we actually found is that it's also, I think, enhanced on this one because it's 45 degree angle parking. And so you'll be able to back in. It'll be very similar. I mean, the parking... that was there before. It's at the same angle today that it was when it was before. And before, those parking spaces were between 9 and 10 foot in width. They're all 10 foot width now. We went from 84 spaces to 80 spaces. So there's no significant loss. It's very similar. We're getting a lot of people saying, you made them longer. You made them, no, they're basically the exact same size. So we were pretty cautious in what we were trying to accomplish on this project.

And also, I saw that photo Scott had of everyone pecking on the grass.

Yeah, I love it. I've known that for years. Yeah, I just saw that on my watch, so.

Council Member Bruce?

Scott, I just can't remember the speed posted sign. What is it, 25? 25. Yes, there's really no change in speed from the past.

No, we typically don't change the speed on a street just because we did something to it. And if we do, we do that. We do a complete speed study. Our traffic division does that. And they go out and they do the study, find out what the percentiles are, and then they make recommendations whether it should go up or down. And the speed on me, I can't remember, is 25. Yes, 25.

It just seems like it's higher because three lanes in one direction, people tend to drive much higher speed. So I'm hoping with two-way that it will actually make people drive the speed limit on Gray Street now instead of driving 45 and 50. We used a radar gun one time during an art walk, and 48 miles is the top speed during an art walk on Main Street.

You just haven't been out there at 2 a.m. in a taxi running around. Catch all the lights if you hit the gas hard enough.

Yeah, that's the kind of issue that I've always tried to point out about the one-way streets is three lanes of capacity in one direction. When it's not peak traffic, it means the street is mostly vacant and you have three wide lanes of a straightaway where people can drive very fast, can swerve across all three lanes at once, which happens all the time. And when you build your streets for peak traffic at 5 p.m. on Monday through Friday, well, the other 21 or 22 hours of the day, you don't have that much traffic on the two streets, and it's just wide open, which is what encourages people to drive much faster than the posted speed limit. I used to think the speed limit on Main Street was 45 miles an hour because it feels like you can just— open it up. And so I'm hoping that it will actually cause people to drive the speed limit. And as I said Tuesday, if your current purpose is using downtown as a speedway to get to the east side or west side as fast as possible, then this may not be the route for you anymore. You may want to find another way. Although I don't think there's another way that you're going to be able to speed through town without running into traffic. the days of speeding around and disregard for pedestrians are over downtown. That's just to put it blunt. Council Member Grant?

To that point, I don't know if it would make sense in June or August, but I would like to see, we've had it in the past, data on accidents between cars and pedestrians and bicyclists. Maybe August would make sense because then the soap would open for a month or two. I guess CPTC is at the end of August, so almost like two months worth of data. But just to compare Gray Street and Main Street. And then I had a Ward 4 constituent that was hit on his bike. And he's a downtown worker and musician. So he's, you know, leaving late at night from his job to get home. And I don't know what our trends are. I just know at the beginning of the year there was some bad car accidents in different parts of the city. So if you guys could put that together.

Well, if we're going to do traffic studies, we'd like to do those while both OU and Norman Public Schools are in session so that we get the full picture. If we did one now, it would look very different. Obviously, there's a lot less traffic right now. But for a collection of crash data. It may be a little bit later because sometimes getting the crash data and getting it reported and getting it back to us can take a little bit more time. But we could definitely look at that maybe in the fall. Sometime in the fall and see if we can get that looked at.

Yeah, I'd like to see how it compares. I bet it'll be better. Just thinking about it would probably be better.

Well, and I really think that we're probably getting closer to needing to do more of an area-wide study, and that would be a good time to incorporate that information. You know, with gravy under construction, we can't really tell exactly what's happening with the traffic now that we're up in James Garner. So there's been some discussion about kind of doing a little bit wider space. So maybe we could, if we could find funding, we could look at something like that.

Yeah, and then I was going to say, if memory serves, even when we were working on Gray, we had to put out a PSA about people driving safely around our construction crews. I remember that happening not too long ago.

Yeah, I think that Orange Cone has just become a challenge. You know, like video game, the more you hit, the more you get. I'm not sure. It's long.

And just as a short refresher, 2015-16, we did a two-way study on Main and Gray Street. We had one conducted by an outside firm to look at traffic data and if they could be converted to two-way, back to two-way, and accommodate. And work. And we adopted that. Council adopted that or accepted that study in 2017 or so.

I think it's older than that.

Well, there's been a couple of versions, but when we adopted it, it was Bria Clark's first meeting. And I remember she was kind of as a council member for Ward 6. And there was some other big stuff going on. She was like, why are we doing it? And I was like, well, it's... two-year study and we got to accept it so um but it it was part of what led to us putting this on the 2019 bond or ballot um for consideration and that study did show that not only that it could do it could be done how it could be done too to guide how that converter could be done but showed that yeah that gray street had significantly less traffic than main street at that time that both of them, if I recall, had a lot less traffic than they had back in the 1970s when they were two-way before. And some of that had to do with back then Robinson was like a two-lane road and didn't have an underpass. Rock Creek was a two-lane country road back in the 1970s. And Tecumseh was also a two-lane country road. that was a dead end at Porter and did not connect to Sooner Road yet. And that didn't happen until the late 2000s. So back then in the 70s, Main and Gray really were the options for getting east and west. And downtown was pretty hollowed out by the development of the interstate and the mall and all that. And so it made a lot of sense then to take the two main streets and say, how can we get as many cars through and out of here as possible as fast as possible? And two one-way streets, three lanes in each direction is really great because people have asked, well, what was wrong with it? Why are we changing it? It worked great. Yes, it works great at moving as many cars as fast as possible through downtown and out of it. But it doesn't work great if you're trying to increase pedestrian safety, property visibility, business visibility, and all those types of things. So That's been a lot of my motivation.

Well, in the 70s also, there was still, your shopping just sold out on Main Street.

Yeah.

I mean, I remember spending many, many days down there with my mom.

It was starting to, the mall opened in 76 and things were starting to move out. And I was like, well, there's not as many people downtown as there were, so let's do this. And it was like Porter, Manning Gray were four lanes, two in each direction with no center turn lane based on the pictures I've seen. And so it was a lot different setup as well. But this is not something that was just thought of last minute. Every Ward 4 council member that I've served with in the last 13 years, and even going back prior to even before Mayor Rosenthal represented Ward 4, to Council Member David Ray, Council Member Kevin Pipes, have all been supportive of this change going back over 20 years. And these are the people that have been elected to represent downtown Norman and central Norman over that time period. So anyway, short sort of history on how we got here. For everybody wondering and giving their commentary about it, even though they haven't been involved in any of it all these years online. Any other questions about Gray? It was Mayor, or Mayor, Councilmember Bill Hickman, he ran from there. It was under, when he was on Ward 4 is when we put that bond forward, and he was a strong advocate for getting that on there. Okay, well, I appreciate the update on that project. No other questions about it? Okay. And then the next one is a, item number four is a discussion regarding updates to the bicycle route map.

Before we get started, I feel like I need to talk about some things from the last presentation, because for some people, all those traffic signals is job security. The other thing with the back-end angle parking, they're intentionally wired to give people a little more comfort when they're doing it, but we can always come back and restripe as people get more comfortable with it to narrow that space up and maybe gain some of the floor that we lost.

So we can

We came to you guys a few months ago and talked about the Bicycle Advisory Committee's efforts to update the bike map. It was going on before COVID, if that gives you an idea as to when we got started with this. And because of COVID, we had a lot of issues with not having forums for meetings and dealing with virtual meetings. It just took forever. That's kind of the joke amongst the committee members is that, are we still talking about the map? Can we not talk about anything new for a change? Well, we finally got the map done. We have about 45 days left to get. We have an agreement on the books with TSET to help us print this in 11 by 17 form to hand out at bike shops and for anybody who's interested in a copy of that. But the next step with this map will be to work with our GIS department to get it as a layer on our online maps. So that's where we're at.

So the TSET funding has come in or hasn't?

It has been in place for about two years. They had offered it to us and we just haven't been ready to take it in.

So it's readily available. Yes, it is. You don't have to go through a process.

No, but it's only available through the end of the fiscal year.

Okay.

Well, it sounds good about getting them out into the...

Yes.

I did hear bike shops, but there are places like Lazy Circles does a bike ride. So, you know, bike shop adjacent or rider adjacent. And then we have that Maverick Criterium coming as well.

And a lot of the members of the BAC are hooked into with rides like that. So they're going to know the places too where these need to be displayed. Yeah, I think we got that covered.

We also have access to the university. So there will be opportunities for people to take the small maps as well as we're picturing at some of the retail places where there might be a poster, maybe not with the information on the back, you know, but at least the routes will be available to both generate interest and there will also be a QR code that will link you to the online map.

Oh, you maybe put something up for the students on their webpage or link it to us.

We will work with that. We have one of the VAC members is part of the OU group. So we're counting on basically keeping it updated and the information continuously available through the QR system rather than having to reprint and reprint and do everything. That's kind of the intent. And so OU could take advantage of that. Whoever needed to could take advantage of that. Okay.

And just as a tidbit of information, when we developed the backside of the map, all those rules and everything, the bicycle basics, we realized that there's a lot of our ordinances that are kind of out of date. So that's the next thing the committee is working on is reviewing those ordinances with our legal staff to try to get those current as well. So you should be seeing something through council three or four months down the road.

And then a couple ones. I've kind of been on this one for a number of years because we did it, sort of, but the section of Jenkins between Boyd and Duffy that was, the sidewalk was redone, but we weren't able to do the wide sidewalk because there were trees and some other issues at the time. Since then, those trees have all been cut down, I think. Seems to be that there might be enough space, I say right away, enough space to extend that sidewalk another five feet potentially and get that connection from Duffy to... It might be tricky in front of it because that part that was redone in front of the shopping strip right there, that could be tricky to redo that again. But the part that's in front of the residential... And that would really shore up that connection to me. Since the sidewalks on Campus Corner are narrow, there's just that little gap in the multimodal path. And then with the new Jenkins project, and that mostly being eight and ten feet wide, that coming along, so that would help bring that continuous path down. And then, so I had that one as a future one I wanted to try to get through at some point, and then sidewalk widening, I guess. And then I noticed on here the Emhoff connection from 12th, Klassen, east to 24th is listed as a basic rider route. I think it is a 10-foot path on one side now, on the Hitachi side, or on the other?

It's on the Hitachi side, yeah.

So I know it maybe isn't technically Legacy Trail, but that's the connection to get to the Highway 9 path, though, right? Yes. Okay. And then I know on here it has future path, since I know we just completed the... or it's almost complete, the Northeast 12th Robinson to Rock Creek multimodal path. So that's done now, almost done?

Yes, and that would be part of the, when we update this in GIS, yes. Up there, okay. I mean, we had to kind of... stop at some point.

Yeah, and you already got it updated for the new Float 1 RA, so that's good.

And our intent was to make this, the easy term is a living map, being online as new projects come and are completed and are added in, such as the ones you've mentioned. Those can be pushed out and made available to the folks for the information they need.

And then we do still hope to connect Cedar Lane to Jenkins at some point in the future. And would be a great, it's been talked about as having a path on it too, but would be a great connection south of Highway 9 to connect the west to the east.

Yeah, and I don't foresee us building a bridge in this town that's not going to have that kind of accommodation with it anyway.

So that's not a funded or designed project, but it's been one that I've No, as Ward 7 Councilmember, I was always getting questions about access to Eagle Cliff from the west and Cedar Lane connecting, being extended to connect to Jenkins. And then the Sooner Station? Sooner... The development that we approved on the corner of Jenkins and Highway 9. That village didn't have that, but that was a part of that whole discussion.

I would just like to add that we actually have a complete stress manual that's actually part of our engineering design criteria is actually adopted by council so we will not design an arterial street that doesn't have fully multimodal functioning paths or you know ways that we can do it so yeah any roadway that we do in the future or anything the projects that come through on bonds they will all be built to that standard customer um this is a little bit more in the future but i was just thinking about it since we took that one transit um trip to salt lake city and rode around

And I was just thinking about the different stations and accommodations for bikes or using bikes to get around once you get to a spot. Will you all be in on those discussions if we are advancing towards regional transit about connectivity with bikes?

We'd have some say in that, yes.

Okay. Well, just good luck to us getting it and then making sure it's all connected so people could ride their bike down to the station however they do. the bikes in transit, and then get off. I was going to say, one place I saw even had lockers to store your bike. So that was pretty cool.

And we do work closely with the ACOG and their transportation planning folks.

The other one I had too was, because we've been talking about the Griffin Park, things are ever evolving with that, but because the multimodal path extends along Main Street all the way to 12th, and then we have the new multimodal path on 12th from Robinson North, if we were able to widen the sidewalk on 12th from Main to Robinson, that could be part of the Griffin Hall thing, but I think that would be pretty helpful to do the multi-modal path and you've got those two connected right there. I know it shows Carter is having the basic right of route and then it going into the Griffin Park and Sutton Wilderness and connecting to the new path that way. But that connection from Maine to Robinson, I'd definitely like to see that be a multi-modal path at some point too, if we can get . And then if I understand correctly, You did a lot of questions about bike lanes. We're not doing the green bike lanes anymore as far as painting in that color or any color, but the discussion about protected bike lanes with actual barriers versus unprotected and then kind of a movement more towards multimodal paths instead of in street bike lanes. Is that accurate?

These are on the committee agendas monthly.

But that's kind of the direction of the bike? Yes. Of the advocates and the people on the board. Basically, the way I understand it, if we can't separate bike lanes that are in the street with physical barriers, then preference would be separated multimodal paths that are just not in the street at all.

And that does tie in with kind of the code rewriter update because this technology has changed so much that how you people use bike lanes or multimodal paths, you know, be it just families or be it the 20 mile per hour e-bikes.

Yeah.

So that's all being included in our kind of forward planning.

And it's like out in Vegas, like with West Lindsay Street, you know, it's not, it's not Traffic can move pretty quickly on the new West Lindsay Street. And I've heard some feedback about the bike lanes. And some people use them and feel comfortable. Some folks don't. I get to thinking, well, I was thinking, well, I guess if West Lindsay Street didn't have bike lanes and had a 10-foot sidewalk on both sides and said, maybe that would be different. But you'd still have all those driveways to cross. So that's really the major thing I see is the hindrances, all the driveways. interactions, regardless if we had a path or a bike lane. But I just wanted to clarify that because that's what I was under the impression that we were trying to, where possible, do the multimodal paths instead of trying to build in street bike lanes like we have.

As an example of that, 36th Avenue Northwest was originally designed to have on-street bike lanes. And the new design, in fact, right now we have the consultant taking those off and did a 10-foot multimodal trail. Not only is it better for cycling, but now instead of building 10-foot of roadway... which is about that thick and has a lot more work involved, we're doing sidewalks. So it actually saves a couple hundred thousand dollars a mile on road costs. So there's multiple reasons to do it, but yeah, we definitely are looking towards the... the multi-mobile. I think that there are some areas in Norman we could look at having protected bike lanes. They have their own set of issues and problems to solve that I don't think that a lot, I'm finding out from a lot of communities I'm talking to, they haven't solved them either. So, you know, you've got to be able to clean them. When it's separated, you've got to have the piece of equipment to fit in there to clean it. So there's a lot of weird things that happen with those that make them problematic and it does have to be a hard barrier it can't just be a you know i've had people go just get the little paddles that stick up you know those really don't stop a car at all you know so and once they're hit you've got to replace the whole section of them so we've tried them on some different crossings but we're always i'm a cyclist too so I stay attuned to it, but definitely between the complete streets and the stuff that we're hearing from the PAC, we always appreciate the feedback they give us for our designs too. But that's definitely on street bike lanes are not the preferred decision making that we're having on road projects now.

The main one I only really get complaints about is that one at Highway 9 and 12th Avenue Southeast, the right turn lane to go south on 12th into Eagle Cliff. And then the bike lane and the merging right there. But that's really what I've been getting complaints about since it was done. That's how they're supposed to be done. But anyway, yeah, I just wanted to clarify that because we have gotten questions about bike lanes versus paths and all that.

So, okay.

Any other questions? Yeah, Council Member Bruce. I have a question.

So there's a dotted line, a future path. And I used to see a lot of big groups, like 2530. I don't really see them anymore as much. But when you're talking about a future path, that's a two-lane road.

48th is a bond project.

Yeah, so 48th from Robinson all the way up to Tecumseh is in the 2019 bond program. And the first section is? 24th.

Mm-hmm. 24.

You said 48th, right?

Oh, I mean west. I'm thinking east. Yeah, 48th west. West, west, yeah.

So those are both on projects. The first model is well under design. And it has a 10-foot multimodal bike path on the east side. And we will continue that as you go on up to Tecumseh. And then long-term, we'll continue that to the north as far as we can. So we're actually, that's, again, it's a complete street. So we're going to put bicycle, you know, make sure that ped, bike, car, you know, buses, everybody can utilize it correctly and

not be impeded. You know, I used to really see a lot of curbs over there.

I don't see that part anymore. The traffic, the timing of the traffic, and just the growth of Norman that way has basically, they ride mostly southeast out of Reeves, or out of Forest, they go out towards Draper. It's just viewed as... For the size of the packs, like you used to see, the group's just a safer, a little more manageable route. And it's an easy out and back as well, so that's why you're not seeing the traditional routes that we used for decades over on the west side. They're kind of moving towards the northeast, although this will have to be... kind of recalculated as the new traffic and the new roadways are in place with the turnpikes, but that will all get figured out.

But that's why that's changed. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Customer Kirby.

I was wondering how you picked the advance rider route, mainly because this one out here on Cedar Lane in between the Walmart and 84th, that one's, I've seen a lot of times there was almost altercations because farmers come over them hills with a trailer load of cattle or, you know, a trailer load of hay and bikers be 18 wide across the road instead of hugging the ditch. You know, when you go to shutting it down and about lose $100,000 in the trailer, you get a little bit upset and bicycles almost get hit. They get a little bit upset and there's a whole lot of angry people out in the road pointing fingers. So I was kind of wondering why you chose Cedar Lane being how narrow it is, how... no lines are on it it's all farm and you have post oak just a mile down to the south and it's wider it has lines it has neighborhoods being built on it i mean to me it seems like post oak would have been the the more uh safe route for the bikers and the and the farmers because i mean that cedar as you know people go down mainstream i mean that's farmers and you come over the hill with a 180 horsepower tractor there's no shutting that truck down and i mean there's a lot of hills so and that road has no stripes and some of that's evolving and the advanced designation is

definition related to the to the experience and the competence of the rider not necessarily the route or the road itself so because of the things you said many people would not be comfortable using post-op or or cedar but if you've ridden a lot You actually should know that you're supposed to be over. So that's why that designation is there. And so it gets used some because it's more of an out.

Is there any way we would consider moving it a mile south to a safer road that has stripes and a lot better visibility? I mean, you still have the same amount of hills, but I'm not just talking about the bikers. I'm talking about the farmers because somebody comes over the hill. I mean, I'm glad people were out exercising and everything, but if a farmer breaks every... leg on a cow on a trailer that's enough to bankrupt a farmer right i mean that's their livelihood also we can exercise so i'm just wondering is there a way that we can keep the bikes going and keep the farmers safe because i mean that that's all the routes out here that's the only that's that only three mile section i mean or can we get it widened with some stripes put in the road to where it's i mean and you got i don't know if you ever been the trees overhang the road there is no swerving they're going to plow a tree and end up with somebody dead

Hopefully there is some future and plans for Cedar Lane improvements that would ameliorate some of that.

2019 BOTH program. We're going to be going to 36. And we'll be changing that whole intersection to 36 and Cedar Lane, raising it up to where the site distance will be better and more accommodating for every user. It won't be as great for cyclists anymore because that climb out of that thing is really tough and it A lot of cyclists like it. So that will be going to that point. So from where it ends the four lane to just past 36. But there are no current plans to go any further than that.

Out here where all the farms are and the hay fields and everything where they're coming in and out of them pastures on a tiny little road and coming over them tiny little hills.

There's just the traffic. The traffic doesn't support the need to be able to widen those roads at this point. And part of my issue with Post Oak is we don't own it. We only own one half of it. So to put a bike lane on somebody else's road is a problem. Yeah, but you can't ride. I can't go that way on this side of the road. So that's one concern I would have with Post Oak. Again, I think you're seeing less and less use of Cedar Lane as time has gone on. And with the inclusion of the path on Highway 9, you're seeing more people choose to take that. Definitely not with the farmers.

got a lot of family who actually lives in that and I'm telling you right now you don't want my uncle Jimmy coming over a hill at 84 years old pulling a tractor because he'll be lucky to see him let alone shut that rig down so these are basically advanced they're supposed to be these are suggestions that for people if they do want to ride So that one would be. And we have a neighbor that he rides them every day. I mean, he's out here. He's awesome. I mean, we can obviously, like we said, it's a live talk. I just really, really like that guy. And I prefer to see him getting back and forth to OU and home every day. We have a member who lives out in that area that rides it. Probably the same guy.

Could be. All right. Any other questions about the back stuff? All right. Our fifth and last item on the agenda is the presentation of the April public transit report. Monthly update on public transit in Norman. For anybody interested in the bus system and ridership and all those things, again, we have this discussion every month. We have Taylor here, city staff, to lead us on.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I know we're running late, so I'll try to be brief and round up what I think is really a good multimodal meeting In your packet, we have the memo with the reports, as always. I don't have it on the screen for you, but happy to go into anything in detail that you would like in the report or not. One big update for grants. Found out this afternoon that we did not get the TSET, Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Grant, for the Embark Well Program. I don't know about the other grant applications we submitted, like through parks, but at least for that one I got a notification that that one wasn't.

Did they say why?

It was obviously a general email of we got a lot of applicants. There's not as much funding, that kind of thing. But I'll be requesting a little bit more detail, see if they have a debrief process, so that way next time maybe we can do a little bit better if they have suggestions, or perhaps it was our decisions so we'll keep that project in our list though obviously it's it's a good thing to to keep at the forefront and if you know as funding becomes available or options are presented to change things we could talk about that some more how much would it cost to do that we were estimating just a hundred thousand a year for three years to get started We mentioned that you could do more or less, you know, and just provide less trips per week and maybe less people in the program. You know, you could pull some different levers, but it kind of is how much funding do you have, and then you could provide as much service as you want or as you can.

Would it be out of bounds to think that if we did the regional transit and Embark leveled up service that that could be included in the future it could be one of the things that we could consider funding if there's a again if there's any additional funding that's that could be talked about for sure they were telling us like obviously it takes a while to build rail but one of the first benefits we would see would be some upgrades and bus service

Definitely their commentary this weekend in Salt Lake City was that funding source probably wouldn't replace our existing transit funding. but would be additional. So like one of the first things they said was our additional funding could help Norman put all of its routes on 15 minutes. That would be one of the most impactful things that they would help us fund. But they wouldn't anticipate it, that discussion we had about our tax and it sunsetting. They were kind of saying they didn't think it would replace our local funding, but could be a pretty good additional amount to it.

Yeah, there's a lot of discussion going on and lots of things to decide, and I'd hate to comment too early on, but I think we'll know soonish what those conversations come to.

And then council would make decisions about what we prioritize, what we want to fund, if we want to do the well program or expand on demand or routes or whatever. Yep.

So there could be additional funding through reauthorization, you know, through the formula. As additional funding comes up, we'll always take advantage of those opportunities and come to council and say, hey, what do we do? recommendation we have. But unfortunately, this didn't go our way, so we'll keep at it. We thought it was a good project. We thought it would be really impactful for the amount of dollars we were requesting, but didn't get it this time.

I just got a comment. And, you know, particularly the bus route not going that side, right, the bus doesn't stop in front of the.

Right.

So, you know, I'm probably going to get 15 calls maybe on the subject and, you know, I'll give them the response that we got here about, hey, we're going to push again next year, maybe with a better write-up or something of that nature.

I know people who are thinking about that, this is going to be up and coming. So you may get some advocates that reach out requesting we find some other way to fund this, and we'll do our best to see. But that's where we're at right now. And we did make improvements to Johnson Street slash Wellness Way. Is that whichever one it's called? Yeah, I think so. Some sidewalk improvements through that corridor to connect the Porter bus stop with the Wellness Center. And in the next two or three years we probably we've been talking with embark and now also city Lincoln Edmond we all probably are at the point we need to go back out and do a new update to our local plans what Argo Norman transit plan Edmond shift and okay see moves and then take all that feedback and say okay the routes need to be tweaked here there Everybody seemed to agree that Edmond Get on an embark Same and the council are from Edmond

In the sidewalk that we improved it to make it more ADA compliant, there were some areas that were very, to get from the existing bus stop to the adult wellness. And then we also built crossing that was ADA compliant before you get all the way over to the to the street and then a way to be able to connect into the path to get you in without having to basically trying to make the route as short as we could to be able to assist with that we know it's not the final solution but we at least wanted to go out there and make it because if we were hearing that people were going all the way down Sonic and back up and back around and we decided that wasn't working so and we did share that with the staff so hopefully that words getting out and maybe That will help some individuals.

I know it's not gonna help everybody, but maybe I'll get some relief And then just quickly going to the performance reports for embark Norman in general ridership was really Yeah

Oh, the accident. Yes. Okay. Whatever happened, did we hold an individual responsible? I have not heard an update.

In a month or two, I can reach out to PD and legal and see what we know. I think we talked about this a few meetings ago that we New at the time, the individual didn't have insurance, and this bus was only a few months old when it was hit and pretty much totaled, and we were going to have to replace it. Well, so long story short, it was a paratransit unit that was sitting on Tecumseh, It was behind on queue on that little access road, and they were waiting for the next ride. So they could pull out and they were just doing a layover there and the other party was being pursued by law enforcement and just came around the corner very quickly and had impact to our stationary vehicle. And unfortunately, yeah, pretty much totaled it, even though it was a couple months old. So we basically had to turn around. We spent, 80% of the vehicle was spent with FTA funds, and because it was basically brand new, it had all its useful life, we had to come up with the funding to replace it, or we'd need to send the money back to the Federal Transit Administration. So in January, Council approved us to purchase a replacement, and that should be here in July, August, November,

and um that is a that's like something that i don't know in congress or whatever needs to fix that but like it's like we accept a grant to get a new thing which is a great deal and then we get it and within a month or two it gets destroyed no fault of our own but then the federal government says we have to pay them back for it

Well, they're 80%, right?

We'll come up with our own money and replace it.

And usually... We're talking about the on cue that just had somebody flip a lid yesterday, right?

Boy, that one's just... Well, this was not a business related. This was somebody trying to run out the wall, right? They were just trying to run. So... Usually when things like this happen, it's not brand new. It's half of its useful life, three quarters. It's almost near the end. So you have like one or two years left and it's not that much.

They should put in a thing that's like in the first... year or two if something happens and the federal government replaces it or something. It's like, yeah, what if we didn't have the money then?

And that's why we asked for the grant. This is also a product of the city being, unfortunately, unfortunately, it's a risk reward of being self-insured on our side too. So that's where we're at on that vehicle.

A couple other questions on MTA grants. I understand that it's two to four years to obligate. You got to obligate those funds, two to four years. You have five years to expense. Who tracks that for you to make sure that we're applying to those grants as far as the funding?

Myself and then Jason Heff, who was here, who had to leave. He's the one that does the majority of the work, but he's the one that keeps track of it. And then grant reimbursements are prepared by Jason. I review them. Scott reviews them. And then we go in and pull down those funding. Has the FTA or state level come down and done like, okay, let me do a... Funds on it. Yep. So every three years, the FTA comes to every grantee in the country or their contractor. They hire firms usually to do this. And they do what's called a triennial review. And they'll do a sample of grant draws, pull them out, and look through all the documents. grant draw and they'll look at all your policies and procedures make sure you're following them so that's the federal review and they also they also do everything not just the grant policies but hey are you um doing your agency safety plan correctly are you uh If we were providing charter service, are you doing that correctly? Doing ADA paratransit service correctly and all the regulations that come with that. And then I'll say our annual audit through finance, the single audit, they also usually pick transit to do samples of. They don't have to, but they usually do because of the amount of grant funding we get. And they'll pull samples of grant drawdowns and make sure that we did the proper procedures.

If we ever lost funding, say like five, status or expenditure status.

We've never had to send money back because of an issue of grant draw and we've never had funds lapse because we didn't use them. We always find ways to use the funding. And on the timeline, it just depends on the grant money and the purpose. So our annual grant appropriation that we use for operating preventative maintenance We get that obligated within a year and execute it in a grant and then we usually have three years to spend it So but you could take up to three years to get it obligated or been executed in a grant award and then you have an additional Three years to spend it but that annual grant that we use for our operations. We have to get it In a grant and she spent in that year. Otherwise our budget We'd be asking council for three million dollars more for our budget every year. So I So some of them are quicker, like that annual grant. Other ones, like if we do a capital project competitive grant, we may say, hey, we're going to replace these two buses in two years, so we're requesting money for two buses. That might sit on the shelf for a couple years before we get it in a grant and get it approved and stuff.

So it just depends on the timeline. I understand. I get it. The different, I'm going to call it colors of money that you get.

high-interest item usually from an external party yep and that's why our four of us the auditor for all the financials usually picks transit to do some sort of sampling and then like I said FTA and their contractors come every year or every three years to do a triennial review which is actually happening right now we did the desk audit in the spring and they'll be here on site in early July to do the service or the in-person transit pilot program sorry I was just trying to be brief that's why I was trying to jump through but we talked about micro transit a couple times this past spring and leading into the end of the budget cycle so what council directed was they wanted to keep micro transit program and hopefully cut a little bit of the cost which we worked with the operator via who runs Norman on-demand and oh you our funding partner on the program and And we cut a little bit of the cost. So we saved about, I think it's $50,000 or $60,000 of city funding. And then OU increased their share by a little bit. We try to keep that proportional. So we The amount of OU-specific ridership for the previous year was 24%, so that's kind of what we asked OU to contribute, which they agreed to. It's about $144,000 of the $601,000, so the difference there is what the city is going to pay over the course of next year if council approves the budget amendments on scheduled to be June 9th and then approves the contracts, which we'll be taking to council to review. on June 23rd before the start of the fiscal year.

How much was that again?

The overall contract will be for next fiscal year is $601,000 and OU's contribution is roughly $144,000. Just another question to remind me.

And the number I have in my mind is $20, $25 a ride that is subsidized.

Yeah, roughly. I'd have to go back and do the number again. And I think Council Member Dixon brought this up last week at Finance Committee, and we – or not Dixon, I'm sorry. Yeah, Dixon. Sorry, 10-month-old baby girl that doesn't sleep very well. So I don't sleep very well. So we, you know, at the time this program was introduced, it was decided that late-night service for microtrains made sense, and then Sundays because we didn't run Sunday service. And I think the tradeoff is for these time periods that fixed route don't make sense, you are going to have higher costs for this service mode, but it would be much higher and much less productive if you tried to put a fixed route bus out there and just run fixed routes, right? So the more flexible on demand service when there's not as much demand makes a lot of sense, even though the cost is higher. But that's a local decision of service mode and what service type to put out there at the time. When we did microtransit, we very easily could have put that funding towards more fixed route service or something else. And that's why the Federal Transit Administration allows you to run the service that you look at for the local plans and councils decide on within the parameters of the regulations that they give you. I hope that answers your question. But the cost per rider is higher than fixed route for sure. But the time of day, where you provide service, the density of the areas all play into what mode of service makes the most sense.

I'm just thinking the T-SIT, you know, the senior program with health needs versus all around college student.

It's not just college students, though. You've got people who work like third shift and other things that are using it. And to the college student point, OU is paying for those kids.

Right. So roughly 24% of the rides, because they sign up with their OU account, are OU affiliated riders. So the other percentage is theoretically general public.

And I'd say seniors and people who are in need of ADA vehicles, there's no Lyft or Uber vehicles in our metro area, or at least Norman, that can pick up disabled riders. And so on demand fills the gap there, which is another reason it's had our support continually.

And the paratransit service will still continue to serve the Awe, Embark Plus. And like I said, hopefully in the future we'll find funding for Embark Well. In the next two or three years, if we don't, or even if we do, we'll kind of do that local planning process like we did with GoNorman Transit Plan. And maybe it suggests that we change the fixed routes or we add more microtransit during the day. Those are all things that could be recommended through that process. And just to finalize the microtransit or to follow up on that, we did also talk about doing an RFP in the fall for microtransit service and making sure that we're getting the best bang for our buck because we haven't renewed it or we haven't gone out to RFP or bid. three or four years and making sure that that provider is the best one for that because there are other options such as an uber pool program and just other private companies that provide that service so you know the thought about in growing your embark plus to include seniors related to health and wellness i mean that was on the table too for discussion Yeah, we just need to make sure that our software can handle that because you want to make sure that your paratransit rides are being met through the regulations that we're required to meet them at. Otherwise, we get the dings and then we possibly get in trouble with the funding. And those vehicles are bought with that purpose. Now, if you start... If you have the capacity to serve other needs, FTA usually doesn't mind as an in-kind or incidental use, but you have to be able to show that you are meeting the need of the paratransit service 100% of the time, right? So, yeah, we've talked about that. They usually tell... Other communities have done that where they mix paratransit and microtransit rides or just general public rides. But again, you just need to make sure that you're able to account for the paratransit usage users that we met. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So I think we have a priority queue, right?

You know, it's priority. Right. And as they're coded in the system, this person's a paratransit. They can't be on the bus longer than 60 minutes, similar to a fixed route ride, right? And... Yeah, making sure that there's room on the vehicle, if they have a mobility device. If they don't, then they don't need a wheelchair position possibly, things like that.

Councillor Dixon?

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but going back to this being a pilot program, looking at the five key performance indicator measures we have, we're not meeting four of those. I KNOW IT DOES PROVIDE A GOOD SERVICE FOR A FEW PEOPLE, BUT I DON'T KNOW, I'D JUST LIKE US TO LOOK AT PILOT, TEMPORARY, THOSE KIND OF THINGS AND, YOU KNOW, IS IT WORTH IT? BECAUSE RIGHT NOW FOUR OF THE FIVE WE'RE NOT MEETING THE KPIs ON. AND IT IS EXPENSIVE AND IT DOES COMPETE WITH THE PRIVATE MARKET TOO. and then I will put my club down and stop beating that horse.

No, I appreciate the pointing that out. And some of it is... The funding available isn't enough to meet the demand, you could say, because the KPIs are a little higher than we'd like, such as walking distance or rider wait times. The maximum rider wait time is a little inflated because we originally had it set at like 30 minutes, but we wanted to meet 20 minutes. Well, late night OU wanted the students to, even if it took an hour to get to them, they wanted that proposal to be given to the student. So that's where that inflated number comes from. some of it. So, yeah, I see that, and you could definitely drive down those metrics if you put more funding into the service, right? It's a levers that you pull. But we try to be conscientious of that and keep the services cost-effective as possible. But we agree that the pilot program has kind of run its course, and that's why we should go up to RFP if council would like to keep the service. And that's what seemed to be the direction that we got.

I agree with that, and I think it needs to be put into the budget. It needs to be accounted for, not accounted for and council might approve the additional budget. If we keep it, we need to go ahead and account for it in the transit budget.

And if we have budget issues, then it could be considered as one of them that we decrease a little bit here and there. But that's why I want to do it in the fall, because we inevitably get to a point where in the budget season, We don't include it, and then we have to go to council, and we have a good discussion, but it's always a budget amendment, whereas if we go out ahead of it, we can present the RFP results and possibly include it in the budget from the get-go.

And right now, Transit Fund is not projecting a subsidy fund?

Correct. Unless we have a bus that gets totaled that we have to replace, which is what happened this year.

No operating subsidy.

Things could happen, but yes, that's what it looks like.

So that's one of my main things is... Definitely discussion about the services that are provided in there, but trying to make sure it stays. That's been one of my goals, is try to keep transit within the transit fund if we can. And then we're not trying to subsidize services that we're iffy about whether we want to keep or if we should do the wellness or whatever.

As I mentioned in our discussions in February and April, I would love to start building a fund balance. So, you know, in your water fund, your wastewater fund, you have sanitation fund, you have these fund balances you can lean on if something happens. Well, We don't really have that in transit because we typically spend almost to the dollar. So I know we always want to add service, and I do too, but I'd like to start building up that fund balance if possible. And then if something happens, we can lean on that. Or if we need to replace a bus in general, we have that funding to lean on.

This is all through the sales tax, the public transit sales tax.

Okay. Because the embark service eats up the entire grant. I don't know your world as far as grants. Sometimes you're able to have these programs. You mentioned grants related to transportation. I have these programs, but the grant isn't funded. It just helps sell the program overall. Has this ever been used as, hey, we do these other things as well to help sell the overall transportation program in order to help get a grant for that little niche someplace within the whole program? Does that make sense? It's a supporter argument for a grant that doesn't apply.

Yeah.

Have you ever used it as a supporting item?

I don't know that I have, but we definitely could. We usually mention the things that we're doing that are related to the grant we're going after. So if we're trying to, like the Embark Well program, we might have put in our description what we do, like the general description, what services we provide. But the whole point is we're asking for the funding for something that we can provide. So I don't know if that answers your question. I understand. But no, we definitely in our descriptions for anything, when we're telling the grantee agency who we are, we try to include maybe run five fixed routes and paratransit service plus the microtransit service. So now as far as the details, if it helps our case, then we'll include it. included in any of our FTA grant applications at the moment. Now, with the RFP in the fall, we plan to completely federalize that RFP and that contract if we go forward and do the whole thing and continue it. And that way, if there are grants out there that we can go after, or if our grant allocation increases beyond what we can use it towards Embark, we can start shifting it over to the operations and microtransit program.

Any more grants?

Just was going to express support for the RFP for the microtransit and seeing Best Banford back and then also not keeping it a pilot anymore. I hear support from it from my constituents and people who use it on demand. And I do think that microtransit is still part of the regional transit systems. So it's not out of place to continue to have it. And we're getting the lights turned off on purpose.

And the Central Oklahoma Long-Range Transit Plan, the ACOG, just completed. There are microtransit zones in Oklahoma City and the expansion of our own that's proposed. So it is definitely a tool in the tool belt.

They have it in Salt Lake City, too.

Because the densities don't always warrant fixed route service. So then you just do the Uber-like service, right?

Are they subsidized as much? Is the community subsidized as much? I mean, that's a good comparison to have.

I mean, I assume they are. They're not going to charge the $27. rider right so it might vary some communities do it by the mile it just depends on how your service operates some communities do it if you travel within the zone it's free but if you travel from this zone to this zone it costs this much so there are different examples of how you can charge for it but if you're running it through a city or a transit agency it's probably subsidized in some way or fashion Some transit agencies even partner with Uber or Lyft, and they'll pay a portion of that ride to subsidize the cost, but obviously that's the whole point of them partnering with them is to try to get more rides available for people, so they subsidize the private cost.

Any questions about public transit? We get this update every month, and if you have any questions... Okay, then if that's it, this meeting is adjourned.