Community Planning & Transportation Committee - Regular Meeting

and Transportation Committee meeting for Thursday, June 25th, 2026. We have two items on the agenda. First one is project updates and discussion of the Access Oklahoma East-West Corridor as part of our regular monthly update on anything going on with the proposed turnpike in Norman. So we have staff here to lead this item. Go ahead and get started.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm Tim Miles, City Engineer, and City Manager Powell is going to jump in on some new developments. It'll be the play-by-play. I'll do the color commentary. So we'll go ahead and get started here. So as far as the Toby Keith Expressway between I-44 and I-35, there's not a lot of major changes since last time. There's still some of the, I'll have some photos of some of the construction, but we're also progressing the design in this area. They're working on right-of-way acquisitions. I understand that the August meeting will have a lot more information to share. I don't know if a member of OTA will be in attendance at that one or not, but I don't have any new right-of-way acquisition information. And then they're continuing with utility relocations, primarily the Moore effluent line that's in conflict with the proposed turnpike. So here's a few new photos. And bridge construction takes a while, so there's not a lot of changes from last week, but they're still working on the bridge over the Canadian River. They're working on the piers, as you can see in that upper right picture. And, of course, that bridge is quite a bit higher than the one over 10-mile flats. You can see the piers towards the back of that picture, and they're only a few feet off the ground because basically they're just – they basically are trying to – that's where the water elevation – they have to be above to – TO MEET ALL THE REQUIREMENTS. WE'VE TALKED ABOUT THE POND THAT THEY'VE ALREADY BACKFILLED. THAT'S KIND OF OVER BY 60TH AVENUE. BUT THAT'S BEEN COMPLETED. AND THEN THEY'RE HEAVILY WORKING ON THE DESIGN FOR THE connection between i-44 and the toby keith expressway the bid i mean the design is done but the bid will be in june and it's typically a month the next month when they award their contracts and i'm guessing this is they're saying fall construction Usually it's about a 90-day start date after they award the contract, so about three months past July, August. So October is probably when you'll see construction going on that.

They did indicate in their preliminary review of the numbers in the bid packages that there weren't any surprises, so that costs were stable and kind of where they anticipated costs for that next package to be.

Okay. So these are some of the projects that are coming up that we're bidding. So project one is basically a bridge at 60th Avenue. That's the one that's labeled number one there. Number two is a bridge at 48th Avenue Northwest. And then project three, that's actually, there's actually two separate projects. OTA is required to bid their grading projects separate from their surfacing. And that's kind of, it's a requirement, but it's from years ago back when contractors kind of focused on one thing. They would either do the grading or they would do the paving or whatever. Now contractors basically do all of that, but they still have to bid them separately. So it's two separate projects. And that project is actually tied to our 36th Avenue Northwest phase two project, the one labeled number four there. Last week, we had some coordination between those projects. We worked out the details where they were constructing their box two. And when we were picking it up, we were coordinating how the trail was going to pass through the Indian Hills portion of the 10-foot trail that we have on the east side of the road. And we did learn that, so projects three and four there, they're planning on having a 60-day start date basically from when the project is awarded. So with those being bid in September, they'll get awarded in October. So in December, we should see breaking ground on both of those projects, number three and four. And then shortly following that is the bridge over 36th Avenue, the one number five, And then today, about lunch, we got an update that that one item number six there, which is phase one, which I don't know what part phase one is, but I assume it's the part that's going to get cars basically on the east-west connector between 44 and I-35 is going to be bid in January. And apparently that project is also going to be Constructed in conjunction with an O dot project that basically is is north of this interchange that will convert the 2 way funding drugs to 1 way. And then they're doing work up at 19th street at the very top of the. Aerial photo there. It's gonna have a turnaround basically its own little separate bridge that some vehicles that are on the frontage road on the on the East side of the road can go up and do a u-turn and come back to the other side That's about the extent of what I know on that. It was just a brief update that I got today on that As far as the south extension everything's fairly preliminary still on that I They told us that the survey crews are performing field work throughout this whole entire area. The consultants are advancing from functional to 60% planned. So functional is about 30%, really. 60%, it gets into a lot more detail as far as your typical roadway sections, how much how the water's gonna drain and how much they have to cut and fill in certain areas so they get the actual footprint of what the project needs to be. And at that point is when they start to know how much right-of-way they have to acquire for the project. And so they did say that they're on track to have their property acquisitions identified by no later than March of 2027. But it could be as a lot of it will be done like this fall. But that's kind of their timeline is when they'll know the actual footprint of the project and how much right away they will need to acquire them.

They did their conversation with us kind of focused on where they anticipate interchanges on that alignment, including all the way down into Noble. Obviously, ODOT said we want an interchange on Highway 9. And they had initially looked at an interchange at Lindsay, which is kind of limiting when you go east. When you look at Alameda, it actually crosses the lake already. So they thought Lindsay is already relatively close to Highway 9 and maybe too close, too frequent. a distance for an interchange with Alameda that actually goes east and west to get to downtown Norman. That seemed like a more logical location. And then the last conversation was Robinson or Tecumseh. And the thought was Tecumseh actually gets you to the hospital from the east side. Or if you're down south, you know, depending on the nature of the injury in that ambulance ride, if you're on the north-south extension and can exit at Tecumseh, that's your speediest path to get to Tecumseh. Norman regional and if you are southbound on that north-south connection to get off at highway 9 to get to Norman 9 the emergency department out there, so I think right now they anticipate the interchange at highway 9 Alameda to come see and then When you get to Indian Hills to be able to go east-west that's what they anticipate right now Fascinating

take Tecumseh all the way across town through every intersection and stop sign and light instead of just staying on it and going all the way west to get to the west side. That would be a strange justification, I would say. And a lot more stop signs on four-way stops. Because if you're just two miles from that interchange and you can go west all the way. At 75 miles an hour. Yeah.

anyway so um saw these maps there you see that i did so we're already being stuck with something that we don't absolutely don't want has been made clear i mean they just filed another lawsuit what two days ago to try to shut it down like they've already done once You're wanting to add stuff. I mean, the whole purpose of this turnpike is to be able to make it from point A to point B and save 20 or 30 minutes. So why are we taking more people's homes, more people's properties, more people's lives to throw on two more on-ramps and off-ramps? I mean, that to me seems pretty counterproductive. It also, you're right there in an area that Once again, in 1965 was a lawsuit to protect, took 112,000 acres from residents. And we built a lake and we swore to protect this area. And now you're talking about putting some on-ramps and off-ramps because some corporation that don't give a crap about people's lives or farms or heritage wants to come in there and do it. And you can't really see But just to the right, a hair right there on Alameda, that's my family's farm where my mom died and we carried her out, where my grandparents died and we carried her out. And y'all's wanting to put an on-ramp. And there's a lot of other families there that have the same story as I do. And y'all's wanting to put an on-ramp for no reason when you have one at Indian Hills and one at Highway 9. And like Steven just pointed out, to go up Tecumseh would actually cost somebody their lives because I don't know if you ever hit around the interstate, you get clogged up, you'd have a better chance hitting I-35, shooting over down Indian Hills, and then right back to I-35 to get to the hospital, which saved you 30 minutes. I mean, there is absolutely no reason for on and off ramps on that north-south. I mean, you're going to have it at Highway 77. You're going to have an automatic one every five miles. If you want to speed up the trip, quit putting stop signs on 60th. That would expedite the distance. And you know what? You don't have to take nobody's house to do that. This is simple putting a flashing light and not a stop sign. So I want to know as a city who knows where this council stands, where people got elected to protect, is adding or even considering these on and off frames. Like why we're not giving kickback. Why we're not going well. These ain't going to happen, so let's just shove them aside and say let's try to do the best we can to work with everybody that we're going to take away their homes for a road. I don't know if you know, but when Highway 9 went through, it screwed our lake up. Algae bloomed the hell out of it because of how much roadway was put in. This is more than double. that and it's gonna go right back into our lake where we get our drinking water. So I would think the most sensible, most stewardship way of going forward would be to make sure we put the least amount of asphalt and concrete and take the least amount of land because once again, a lot of families sacrificed for that lake to be there and now their grandchildren, like myself, are sitting here watching The Turnpike Authority and partly the city of Norman ignore what so many people sacrificed to make sure that a million people had water and could survive this far into the future. So if we can avoid out, I mean, between Indian Hills and State Highway 9 should not have an on-ramp or off-ramp in my professional opinion. And I'm going to tell you, I will fight that. All the way to the end. I mean, I will. We're going to have some long meetings as long as them little dots are on that map.

Council Member Grant?

Did they work with staff on the locations?

They had recommendations for locations. Yeah, staff didn't request any additional recommendations. ON AND OFF RAMPS, ANY ADDITIONAL CONNECTIVITY. THERE AREN'T FRONTAGE ROADS IN THIS NORTH-SOUTH ALIGNMENT UNTIL YOU GET DOWN INTO NOBLE CITY LIMITS. THERE'S A ONE-MILE STRETCH WHERE NOBLE HAS REQUESTED TWO INTERCHANGES WITH FRONTAGE ROADS IN BETWEEN THE TWO. BUT HERE THEY HAD ORIGINALLY PUT ON, FOR THEIR CONSIDERATION, HIGHWAY 9. They looked at Lindsay. They looked at Alameda. They looked at Robinson and Tecumseh. And we said, obviously, the fewer, the better.

That's insane.

That's five in Ward 5. Is there a single other ward that's going to have five on and off ramps?

Which city staff did they consult on?

POTENTIAL LOCATIONS FOR INTERCHANGES?

I THINK THEY PUT ON THE LARGEST EAST-WEST CORRIDORS ON CITY STREETS. OBVIOUSLY ON SOME OF THE SMALLER ROADS. YOU KNOW, ROCK CREEK DOESN'T GO ANYWHERE. THEY DIDN'T CONSIDER THAT BEING A LOCATION. FRANKLIN, TOO CLOSE TO INDIAN HILLS. SO THAT'S JUST KIND OF WHERE THE CONVERSATION BEGAN. And we said, if you're going to put one at Tecumseh, don't put one at Robinson. If you're going to put one at Alameda, don't put one at Lindsay. I mean, that's been the conversation to date.

What style of interchanges are we talking for each of these?

They're probably going to be like a diamond. A tight diamond. So it won't be much. Not a screwy.

Did they say if they're taking additional rooftops for each of these?

I looked at their maps. With or without any interchanges, there are no additional homes. What they've already identified as the right-of-way is the right-of-way they've identified, and the number of homes does not change with or without any of those interchange considerations.

Is there a reason they want at least two?

What they'll describe is when they have long stretches between interchange opportunities, they've experienced motorists recognizing I went too far and try to flip U-turns in a, you know, 70, 75 mile an hour expressway and wind up causing fatal accidents. So... they they're going back in existing stretches of uh turnpike right now and adding uh interchanges not based on uh development needs but to give folks the opportunity to legally change directions and go back the other way so okay that's it for me right now i did you ask which city staff had recommended these

No, been consulted.

Yeah, we meet with them about monthly and get updates. And every update we get, we bring you back.

Has any particular staff member recommended these locations as good spots or was it a turnpike?

What we said was fewer is better than more. And if you put one at Lindsay, don't put one at Alameda. If you put one at...

uh robinson don't put one at tecumseh so that's been how many is going on the east west like i'm gonna i'm gonna add that again we have five going through ward five right here by itself is there any other ward that's going to have five of them in that one ward and then also to say it's because of turnarounds i've used the one going the turner i've used the one uh the indian turnpike You go 40 to 100 miles without a single turnaround. Constantly. You go out and you follow the same thing. You go, we're talking five miles.

Yeah, they're going back there now.

So to turn around and backtrack a mile, that's no more than what us farmers and everybody else are being asked along the Indian Hills at I-35, where they're going to turn and make it one way to where now we can't hit like Cook's Feed and then go a quarter mile back to Indian Hills. We're going to have to go three quarters of a mile down and around. And, you know, that's part of it. That's what they keep telling us. You know, that's just part of it. And we need to accept it. Well, I'm back on that. They need to accept that you're talking about no more than five miles. So the two that they got should be effective. And then when you go south to that one on Etiwad Road, that's Ward 5. That, once again, they don't need that if they're going to have one at McGuire one mile away. And then three miles south of that, they're going to have one at Highway 77 where it crosses over through Noble and Lexington area, and then they're going to put another one on the other side of the river. So you're looking at the largest gap is maybe seven miles if they just go through and only do them at the main highways. I don't think that's a hard ask, and I don't think that's a long way to go. I mean, at worst, you have to backtrack two miles. And once again, you say, well, it's not taking rooftops. You're taking land that people are farming on and that they have animals on and that provides income for their families. One of our oldest farmers is going to be taken out on the Indian Hills and Franklin area because it literally goes through every one of the properties he owns or leases. So I know to most people you're just seeing little on-ramps or little just diamonds and it's not that much more, but to these people, an acre is their livelihood, whether it has a house or not on it. If it has a fence and it has animals with hooves, then it is their livelihood. And we need to, once again, as the third largest city, We need to step up to the plate and we need to give them. If you're going to come through here, these are the rules you're going to be by because they're going to do this to 100 more towns that don't have the authority and the power and the amount of people here to fight that we do here in Norman. So we've got to stop it where they're just bombarding and they come through and they go, hey, we're going to come through your town and we're going to do this. No, you're going to come through our town and we're going to. do this because we are the committee. We are the town. You are the manager. You are the mayor. And it's you that gets to make this. We are the people who were elected by the members of this community to stand up for them. It's not the OTA. They have no elected officials. So they don't get to come through here and tell elected officials how to do their job or how they're going to come through and do it. It's kind of our job. And they need to come through here and treat us with respect and ask us what is the best route instead of coming through with demands. I mean, in my opinion.

They will... It will require cooperation and coordination to make any of those happen. The folks at the City of Noble are absolutely interested in on and off ramps at Etowah and McGuire. and have requested frontage roads along that stretch in between those two interchanges. So at Etowah, the northeast corner is Norman City limits and the other three corners are Noble City limits. So Noble has requested that those interchanges be included.

So they can fade it all out of Norman and onto Noble's properties?

Yeah, that I don't know. But yeah, that intersection with three legs is normal one leg.

Because that's wild care protected property right there on that northeast corner. That's the Stan Ward donated 80 acres to wild care. So that would be wild care property that we're talking about just ignoring.

Council Member Gadsbury.

Look at this map and Ward 1 goes out there to 48th Avenue on Lindsay and Alameda Street as part of Ward 1. If I was looking at this map and trying to pick what I thought was 1, where can we use some actual improvements if they're going to do something already there, you know, and stuff? I would probably pick Lindsey Street as the one in the middle of town. I would pick, if they need one up at the top by Indian Hills, I would pick Tecumseh because it's less congestion up there already. Tecumseh's going that far out, and everything gets a lot less. I could see why Noble wants Etowah, and that's basically because the high school literally sits on this side of it. So they probably want that for easy access on and off for people maybe coming to The high school and everything there, awesome. But anything else, I don't have no problem with that. But I do believe that we limit it to about two, three maximum going through town. I mean, we know they're going to put one on Highway 9. But I thought Lindsay gives them a good exit that's not used by a lot of traffic already to get them out to Lake Thunderbird if they're taking the interstate in to come out through Camping or something like that. Gives them a decent exit out there and everything maybe. I don't want anything, but if we have to do something.

I just wanted to correct you real quick. Ward 1 stops at 36 on the west side. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right.

Yeah, you're right. Council Member Bruce.

I'm just thinking about flow, you know, demand on those roads and stuff. I can actually see where, what is it, three miles from the university on Lindsay? I can see, you know, game days, you know, I'm coming from Tulsa. I'm hitting that to get out. Does that make sense? Coming in. And so I can see, well, there'd be a heck of a lot of demand on wherever the exit is on those particular days. And then on... We're going to go east-west. So they're at Sooner. Is that a 12th Street, I guess? Is that an exit up there? Is that a plan off Ramon Ramon? On Sooner? 77.

I thought they had identified one on Sooner Road just because it's old state route. 77. Yes.

Is that what you're talking about?

No, at the top. See, I'm thinking, guys, I'm thinking, you know, going to Tinker, I mean, IN THE MORNING, AND I SEE IT GETTING BUSIER AND BUSIER AND BUSIER.

OH, I SEE, AT THE TOP. YEAH. ON THE EAST-WEST CORK. YES. YES, THERE WILL BE AN INTERCHANGE THERE.

OKAY. AND I GUESS THE ALIGNMENT ON INDIAN HILLS AS IT GOES UP It gets really close to Tinker Air Force Base up in Midwest City if they stay on that route. So yeah, that could really change the traffic flow on Sooner Road for all the commuters to Tinker Air Force Base on a daily basis.

I think the east-west corridor, that's all been finalized, where all the interchanges are today. So we're just talking about south now, potential locations, I guess, is what OTA is talking about.

But I didn't know of any property east-west that were admitted on the domain. I know in my ward, I don't think there's any. But I'm thinking as you go eastward, were there any properties where that went through the legal process?

I'm sure the answer is yes, because there's always somebody that... for whatever reason, they don't want to negotiate or they're not interested in selling their property at all. So it goes to him in a domain. And there's a lot of other reasons. We actually have a project on Lindsay right now where a person has passed away and the property is tied up in a court. And for us to be able to acquire What we would need for our project, we would need to go to Mnet Domain to speed up that process. So there's things that happen all the time. So I'm sure that there are Mnet Domain along there.

So I'm thinking the ones that, you know, the ones that remain open. I'm thinking the other 99% complete, the ones that remain open, the ones going through that Mnet Domain process.

Usually it's about a 90-day process once that's started. OTA will have access to that property, whether or not the final numbers have been finalized or not within that time frame.

On their website, I think they have a page that identifies right-of-way that is under their control, whether or not they've closed escrow on it, but they've been awarded access to it. I think that's a component that we can find on their website.

And I think in the August meeting, they're going to come talk about that, especially for the east-west. The north-south is more preliminary at this stage.

Council Member Grant?

Yeah, let's just see. I thought it's a concept. Was there talk about a grade separation at some point?

Yeah. We are working closely with BNSF Rail. They actually steered us towards a grant opportunity to develop a grade-separated railroad crossing at Tecumseh in those tracks. Fortunately, it is largely undeveloped right around that time. railroad crossing site that's currently at grade so there's enough real estate to have a grade separated railroad crossing the grant will it would provide funding for design so we could figure out if you go under the train tracks there or over the railroad tracks there when we think about the one transit commuter rail system a station stop would be located just to the north of of Tecumseh in that area. So we don't have a whole lot of grade-separated railroad crossings in Norman. That would be the furthest north, which... How does that work with their diamond energy? There's plenty of distance from what we've seen. It's far enough away. Yeah, it will be close to it.

That railroad track's like almost right behind the odd queue at most.

And I know we don't have any committee meetings in July, but we will be talking to OTA in July.

Yeah, we'll bring you either a study session or a pre-council conference because we still have regular council meetings and study sessions in July.

So we could probably get some information from them about eminent domain right away, where they're at and... their logic for what we're discussing today.

It sounds like, yeah, their next critical time step, according to what they've got on their website, is end of August. They kind of pretty well need to finalize what it is they're going to send out to bid. So between now and then, we'll have more of these conversations and council's input directly with the Turnpike Authority.

they want to remind everybody that their website, that accessoklahoma.com, that's where I've taken these, created these maps from, and you can zoom in where they have more details on the plans. It'll zoom in past the yellow and you'll be able to actually see the ramps. So they're at Highway 9 and at US 77. There's more detail if you go to those websites. If that's useful, I guess we could start having that open at this meeting to be able to zoom in on certain areas. We might do that in the future.

Because it gets updated just about every single day So if they acquire another piece of right away, they put that on the map and you'll see it the next morning another Just thing to keep in mind because we were actually talking about a cog earlier there and the cost of Urbanization or widening streets and pipes pipes for the number one cost for sprawl basically But we know how much the cost of the 36th Avenue widening project is per mile, well over $10 million per mile. And Lindsey Street is 2.5 miles of two-lane country road between where Four Lane ends and where this interchange would be. Alameda is 1.5 miles from where we recently widened Alameda to where an interchange would be. And Tecumseh is 2.5 miles from where it will eventually be Four Lane to 24th Avenue. So just between Lindsay and Tecumseh, that's five miles. SECTION LINE ROADS THAT WOULD BE UNIMPROVED TWO-LANE COUNTRY ROADS BETWEEN THESE INTERCHANGES AND UNIVERSITY TRAFFIC FOR GAME DAYS. AND SO RIGHT NOW, NOT A LOT OF TRAFFIC ON THOSE RELATIVELY. THE TURNPIKE AND INTERCHANGES WOULD BE INDUCING NEW TRAFFIC ONTO THEM. improvements other than 36th Avenue for those circumstances? Do they do widening or funding to improve streets, section line roads where their projects are what cause the traffic increase? My guess is... We don't have any... We have no planned projects to widen any of those. We have no budgeted, planned, designed, nothing. I know this would be 10 years out, but FOR US, WE'RE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO DOING THAT. WE HAVE OTHER PRIORITIES IN THE CITY FOR STREET IMPROVEMENTS THAT ARE NEEDED BEFORE WE TALK ABOUT WIDENING.

YEAH, I WOULD THINK THE DISTANCE BETWEEN 48TH AND THAT INFRASTRUCTURE, HOWEVER MANY Hundreds of yards, that is, not miles. They would get you to an intersection to make it a logical place to tie in.

So on Lindsay, Alameda, and on Tecumseh, they would maybe do that 0.5. Yeah, that would be my guess. Lindsay, that would put it still at two miles. Tecumseh would still be two miles. And Alameda would still be one mile. And so that's five total miles. There's only two interchanges, so still four potential miles of widening. So nearly $50 million is what we'd be talking, in today's dollars, just based off the 36th Avenue project. So where would that come from is going to be a question. If it happens and these interchanges increase traffic, will the city of Norman be the one expected to address those traffic issues created by the . So questions I have about it and our ability to meet those demands if they were to arise. But I appreciate the update, the communication on this transparent about what OTA has planned and the discussions they're having and where they're at in their processes. I think valuable information for Norman residents. So any other questions for staff about this? Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate you. Look forward to the next update. All right. Item number two is a presentation of the May public transit report. We have Taylor here from the transit staff. Taylor Johnson.

Thank you, everyone. Happy to be here. Taylor Johnson, the transit and parking manager for the city. I'll give you an update for May, and then when we meet back again in August, you'll have a couple of months of updates worth. So the first one, again, I have your memo and the reports, as always, in your packet. One I wanted to update you on is the new cutaway to replace the unit that was hit in that accident behind on Q should be here in July. So hopefully in the August meeting we'll be able to tell you that's in service barring any issues or things that we need to correct upon, you know, delivery inspections and things like that. It's not in your report, but I also wanted to let you all know that FTA, the Federal Trans Administration, is doing our triennial review at the beginning of July, so it'll be here July 8th and 9th in person. We've already been going through the process. They request information. months in advance, like a desk audit, so we can send it to them. And then they review some things. But ultimately, it's the two-in-day in-person visit that they dive into things. We go over stuff. They visit sites. And ultimately, they go back to their offices and come back with a report to give us recommendations, but they work with us on any issues they see, potential issues, I should say, and we try to answer their questions and make sure we're doing everything correctly. It's a review. It's not necessarily an audit. They just want to make sure we're doing everything that we're supposed to be doing in order to keep receiving that grant funding.

And ACOG, the board, we approve the report. several items from Norman actually and one was FTA related.

Yeah, so that was our annual TIP amendment for transit. We get a federal allocation of funding to the Norman urbanized area and while we have to submit a number for the TIP, In advance, so up to four years, we always go back and amend it when we get the actual number because we never know what the authorization is going to be, if funding might increase or decrease. So that was what that was, was just putting in our current allocation. So next year we can program the grant and start drawing down the funds.

And federal dollars are beyond mission critical. Public transportation does not happen without the federal allocation. Our one-eighth percent sales tax that the voters approved basically funds our local match. And other jurisdictions that don't have that sales tax have to work mightily to collect that through the fare box to be eligible to receive those federal transportation dollars. So we're... 80-20 split, 85-15 split, with the federal government picking up the lion's share of the cost of public transit.

And I think I mentioned while we were going through transit budget presentations this past spring that once they did put out the formula funds for this next year, we were about $98,000 more than this current year. So that helped the budget out a little bit, and we made sure that was put into the budget book before it got printed. That's always good to be able to do that, and we always hope that number goes up a little bit every year.

With the federal fiscal year end, not for another couple of months, we don't always get that information in such a timely fashion. So sometimes we get lucky, got it early.

And we're going off kind of into the details, but our allocation is based off of population and population density with other areas that are between 50,000 and 200,000. Okay. There's also formula funds for agencies that are higher in population, 200,000 to about just under a million, and then a million plus. And then there's different pockets of money for rail, if you have rail. So they put a big number at the top, and then it trickles down ultimately, and that's how we end up with our about 2.9 million. Moving along, we... I think I mentioned this at the last meeting, but this will be the last time we put in the report. We did not get that TSET Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Grant for the Embark Well Program. We will continue pursuing funding and other grant programs for that. We did receive a TSET grant for the playground equipment that we needed for the Reeves Park Playscape, is that correct? Yes. Playscape. Kidspace. Kidspace. I think I said Playscape every time. I don't know why I said that. So that was good, but we didn't get the physical activity grant that we submitted for the Embark Well program. So I'm pretty sure we talked about that last time, but just left it in this report for when we go around in case anybody reviews it after the meeting. And then... We've been talking about microtransit a lot. We did get that extension approved by council on Tuesday, both with VIA and with OU for their funding contribution. And as we've been discussing, we will start formulating that RFP. We already have a draft going out this fall and making sure that we are looking at all the options Contractors that could provide the turnkey service there might be other other options like an uber pool But trying to do that research and then going out and making sure we're getting the best bang for our buck Providing hopefully a similar level of service With the goal of decreasing costs or at least keeping costs at the same rate. So We'll be working on that Probably over the next couple months Then we'll have a date for you in August as well Moving to ridership numbers, for the Embark system, we were really pretty close to what we did last May, so it's not a lot of change. Ridership on Saturday did go up, but that's because we had one more Saturday and one less weekday, so that's just how months vary sometimes. If it would have been the same days and we had the same amount of weekdays, we would have had probably a little bit of an increase. And we did have a... 300 ridership increase but it probably would have been a little bit more if the days would have been the same but that's that's the story there for plus the ridership again was pretty much the same we had about 42 more riders this May than past May so kind of holding the lines here we're not decreasing which is good and overall for Embark we're about I think the number is about $43,000 from, it's not MagiPool, but from the $500,000 ridership mark for just that service alone. So we'll see what June ends up being, but hopefully we eclipse that mark. Again, there's nothing fancy about it. We don't get any more money, but it is the next milestone, if you will. And then for Norman on Demand, and then I'll take any questions you guys might have. If we... had a ridership in May of about 2,233. And last May, it was that 3,382. Again, that decrease that we've been talking about the last few months. So we'll see. As we go forward into the fall, how that ridership number responds to new students coming in, folks that haven't used the service maybe before or as much, we'll be working with VIA and OU to put out new marketing materials. We did change the hours of service. We cut a little bit of the cost, but we're starting at 7.30 instead of 7, Monday through Saturday the whole time, right? Starting at 7.30, so I'm looking at Jason, trying to keep everything straight. And then on Sundays, we're cutting back to instead of ending at 6 p.m., we're ending at 5 p.m. So we try to do the least amount to the service as possible while also trying to find those dollars that you guys requested earlier in the spring that you wanted to see a decrease. So working on that. Other than that, I'll take any questions you guys might have.

Council Member O'Brien.

So we are moving on demand from pilot to something we're doing regularly, or are we going to wait until after the RTA vote? So maybe did it make that determination?

So I think that'll ultimately be up to you all. I mean, we have to have contracts approved even after we go out to RFP. But I think that's the goal, that we would go out and see what responses we get, have those conversations with council in advance of budget. It's always budget season, but in advance of budgets really getting kicked off and those discussions we've had. So that way, if it was council's desire to make it into the budget, we could. for the next fiscal year and maybe beyond, at least the monetary value. Now, the contractor might change. The way we provide the service might change, you know, but that's kind of been the discussion we've been having is it's kind of clunky how we've been doing it year to year with it being really after the budget cycle kicks off. So we're trying to get out ahead of it this year and make sure that we have something a little bit more permanent if that's what council wants to do, keep moving forward.

I kind of see it being part of the one transit if it gets passed. And then potentially that might help with those hours and service.

Yep. And I think regardless of what the timeline, I think it could, we don't have to wait on one transit. That could be a part of if there's funding that trickles to us through them, that could help pay for that or it could help pay for something else and that frees up money and then we're here. You know, I think... Again, we need to make sure that locally we're able to fund that service and be comfortable with it and not necessarily rely on the future what-if money.

Okay. Council Member Bruce?

So, micro-trends. So we talked about this the other day. Essentially, you bought a standing army for minimum service at $100 an hour. Is that correct? Correct.

Right. Usually there's at least two drivers out there because they want to be able to fill the demand. They have the historical data of knowing that Mondays are less likely to see rides than Friday nights, so they do ramp up on the weekends and things like that.

So the minimum is $200 an hour for that time frame. Yeah, most likely. And then we subsidize the riders at about $25 per ride.

I think it's around $20, $25 a ride. And the ridership per service hour on the service in May was four and a half. So we average about four to five riders per service hour. So that one vehicle on the road, even though it's $100 for us to pay for that vehicle to be on the road, we're serving four to five passengers. So that's where you get the $20-ish or it breaks down. It's not just $100 per passenger, if that makes sense.

as the contract of New York is competitive with market if I hire you know called uber should be an issue so why wouldn't we, or anyone, anyone say, hey, here's my voucher. I gave so many rides. I'm a provider. I gave so many rides. Here's my voucher. Does that make sense?

That has to be thought through. So we could, other transit agencies have done it where basically there's a share of fare program where transit agencies will pay up to a certain amount for a fare on an Uber, Lyft, or taxi service. We could certainly look into that. And we'd have to have a way to flex the rides that are requested as wheelchair accessible vehicles over to another option. So I think in our RFP, we'll definitely make that a highlight. And we did with this one, too. How are you going to provide wheelchair accessible vehicle rides? But yeah, that is an option. We could simply do a share affair with private companies. We don't have any control on supply or demand with that. But we could subsidize those rides. This one, because we kind of, like you said, bought a standing army, we can somewhat control the supply and demand where the service can or can't go. Not that that matters at the end of the day, but just, you know, there's more levers we can pull with this contract than we can if we just subsidize a ride.

And just so I'm clear, the current ridership for the year, $457,193? Yes. And that's on?

Target of $500,000. And I may have misspoke earlier. That's just for fixed route. Yeah. For service overall, yeah, that doesn't include parent transit, which, yeah.

And out of the measures, one, two, three, four. Seven measurements, four are positive, two trending positive, and one that's negative. Correct. And one of them being quite a bit above me in a good way. But yeah, 457,000 plus ridership, that's good.

Yeah, and I will say just a little.

457,000 trips weren't in a car on the road. Exactly.

The one that's well above, I assume you're pointing at the number of bus passengers per day on average. These are kind of baked into Embarks KPIs up in Oklahoma City a little bit, and they didn't get that number changed, which is why it's so low. But it is up from a year ago. I'm not super concerned with the number of paratransit trips provided because that can fluctuate just like on-demand trips. If somebody moves out of the city or they no longer need it, maybe it was temporary eligibility or something else happened, then that can go up and down. Maybe folks move in so the number goes up, the demand goes up. Yeah, I think we're doing overall pretty well on those, as you can see on those guys. I appreciate you bringing that up. We would like that on-time fixed route arrivals to be way higher. But that's something we've always struggled with and other transit agencies struggle with as well. So that's been a topic of conversation with Embark during our monthly meetings is trying to get those on-time arrivals back up on fixed route.

Council Member Bruce?

The model that you follow now with the loop routes, is there another model you guys are considering or have considered in the past?

So we actually switched our routes in October of 2023 to be less loop routes and more bidirectional. So they do have a small turnaround at the end, most of them, to then go back the same way they came out from the transit center. So providing that more A to B or direct service. So we did make that switch. There are some transit agencies that have... looked at providing more on-demand service and taking away some of their fixed routes for the least less productive areas of town and feeding that into fixed route. So it's kind of changing up the meal plan and how some areas are served. But we have tried to optimize the fixed route system with the budget and the vehicles and the staff we have at least three years ago. It's about time. That was in 2021 that we adopted our going over and long range transit plan. It's probably about time to go back out and make sure our assumptions are right. Things have changed. There's new developments. No more parking minimums downtown. That might adjust how transit is utilized. Things like that. Just to follow up the question, you've got a lot of variables. There's just a lot of variables in your business.

What software are you guys using to help make your decisions?

So we use on fixed route, we have a CAD ABL system that keeps track of ridership and on time performance. It's out of California is called Synchromatics. There's other companies that do the same thing. It's not anything special. So that helps inform our, it has ridership by stop level. And then on paratransit, we use a software called Ecolink. And it's a really robust scheduling software system that keeps track of how long somebody's been on the bus and the ridership, make sure that we're picking up people on time and different things. And then on Norman on Demand, since that's through VIA, they have their own software. But all of that kind of gets data rich, and then we siphon it down to what we need to make our decisions, right?

Just one more follow-up question. So that's software. but it gives you a strategic picture for decision-making.

We try to use it, yeah. We don't want to just have data. It's customer-facing. In a sense, you can see the bus. You know where it's going to be. But also, we need the data to try to inform where bus shelters should go and where that should stay assigned, right? Because there's more ridership here than there.

So you guys are taking that data, but the data

Oh, like, hey, you should change this route. No. I mean, that might be out there. There might be some AI-driven software that we don't have. But no, usually it's you're playing with a map kind of thing still and making sure that... Your routes are serving the areas of town that may need service. You're looking at census data. You're trying to prioritize where folks have one car or less per household, right? Might have low-wage jobs in the area, high density, ultimately get to what most places call a transit prosperity index, I think is what it's called. So all these census data kind of... lets you know that this area is a hot pocket where people might ride transit more, right? So that's what we did five years ago, and that's what you continue to see. We did that with the Central Oklahoma Long Range Plan through ACOG. They distilled a lot of data from the three member cities and their transit agencies through our separate data platforms, looked at census data, and ultimately that kind of informs where you should put your dollars at and make tweaks.

As a whole, right now we're in the process of basically adding 1,200 people living on Amhoff Street, on the east side of town. Has there been any thoughts about, as that comes online, of adding some kind of transportation bus stop there, when the bus stop's quite a ways away from that location now with... Because that's going to be our affordable housing groups there. So some of them may or may not be able to utilize vehicles or might depend on the bus. We're also going to have student housing there also and then new family housing that's being built there now too.

And just east of Klassen, right?

This is all between 12th and 24th on Amhoff. Right. That you're putting that many people in automatically, you know.

So in our GoNorman long-range transit plan, we have a southeast Norman route. It would hit that area of Classen 12th and Constitution, and that's about as close as we get to that. But that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. We look at all the data.

So the affordable housing would be about a mile from there.

Yeah, if we funded that route as currently planned. But those are the type of things that we didn't know about five years ago. So that's why we every once in a while need to go back and say, well, that development's new. This development's actually coming online two years from now. Things like that also help us inform where we should put transit routes. And then sometimes it's unfortunate that we can't just, with transit fixed route buses, we can't magically serve every area with a bus stop. So sometimes we had to make hard decisions. We went through that.

Yeah, we had a lot of things. We had a lot of that that we talked about three or four years ago, right?

And that's where microtransit can come in sometimes and serve areas that fixed route can't or can't.

as these places come online and open.

And that's what I appreciate. I feel like we're getting more and more requests from nonprofits, private developers, like, hey, where is transit? Where's the nearest bus stop? And unfortunately, sometimes I have to tell them, well, it's a mile away. Okay, well, can you extend the bus route? I can't extend the bus route. We actually, I'm meeting with Mission Norman, Yep. Next week to talk about that. And it's the closest route is Brandywine.

Which is an extension.

We did extend it further east. And I don't know that we can extend that specific route anymore. It's the most heavily ridden route. It's already kind of crushed for time. But we're happy to meet with folks, talk to them with that. I know that land costs, where their existing services are.

As those come online and things like that, I mean, we'll probably, I might have a town hall or something discussing just so they know where things are located.

And if you ever hear of a development or folks thinking about where to locate or anything and you know it might be transit related, please have them reach out to us or at least consider where there might be existing transit routes if it works.

We've been talking about even as far southeast as Cedar Lane for quite a while because of all the growth in Eel and the Walmart down there.

So that's the southeast Norman route. I think the southeast Norman route would be heavily utilized. It would go by campus and it would go by a lot of student housing.

Hopefully tie into that nor links is the largest apartment complex in Norman in as far as The area takes up.

Well, it's got the golf course on it And it would hopefully work five is all rule that actually is the largest apartment complex It would hopefully tie in with the southeast Walmart, which we talked about Walmarts before they're great for transit there one sub shop and And maybe with a future RTA stop or one transit stop as well as near Highway 9. So I think that route would be a good candidate for future funding. Okay.

Any other transit questions? Appreciate you. Thank you. All right. Any other comments, questions for our staff or anything?

I just want to say thank you for all you do with the transit. Absolutely. Yeah. It's definitely team effort.

I was going to say if we could let the admins at the AWE, I don't know if they could publish something about that we didn't get that grant, that we tried to get this grant for. I know they've been asking about that. Just letting them know we tried to get it, we didn't get it, but we're going to continue to try to find other ways to get that specific thing funded. Council Member Brandt?

When you're submitting that grant, what did that process look like? Like if you got letters of support from either people who go to the AWL or the AWL itself, would that make a difference? Or is that part of the application process?

We got letters of support from Embark, I think from the AWL, or Healthy Living. Who else, Jason? There was a few letters of support we got, yes.

I can't remember off the top of my head. I remember those two at least.

At least those two. So yeah, we tried to, I don't know that we got any.

I think that program lets them go to the Y and other things.

Yes, we did get one from the Y as well. Thank you. Maybe even from Parks because of, oh well, maybe we might have got one from Parks Department because of the awe and different facilities. So we'll have to go back and check. get back with you about why we didn't score as well as we thought we might we might request an exit uh i don't know if they do that sometimes grant programs do a debrief or an exit interview if you will uh but no it was a simple you didn't get it you didn't get it at this time right yeah usually um they will follow up with you and say hey you didn't get it then they'll submit another saying hey um if you want any feedback email us and we'll give you feedback and then they'll take a

It's going to be interesting to hear what it was.

Yeah, me too. I hope, I guess I hope, there was a lot of good projects and there wasn't enough money. I think ours was a pretty good project, but we'll see what they say.

Okay. I just want to ask you one more question. How far out on Alameda do you go? Do you drop off before? Is there a way for the kids to get on a bus and ride to that library right there, or do they hide?

The closest is Alameda and Vicksburg. Okay. Again, with the GoNorman Long Range Transit Plan, we have a route to go to the Eastside Library because that was a point of conversation we had, and we wanted to kind of plan for that in the future, but no, not at this time.

So when they develop that corner at Alameda and 36 and add on to what's already existing there,

here in the future is that possibly yeah again it just comes down to funding what the next priorities are between and between Alameda Vicksburg or 24th and going out to the library there really is not there's not a ton of transit ridership I would argue either so you have to make that decision too of there might be a destination let's let's say more Norman Tech too more Norman Tech might be a good destination but there's a lot of green pasture or not transit uh development between here and there. So how much of a route do you want to dedicate to not really picking up anybody to serve a location? So all that has to play in where we prioritize service.

Those could be like express routes type of thing where there's, instead of every 30 minutes, there's a bus that goes to Moore Norman twice a day or there's a bus that goes to... but not every two hours.

It doesn't need a school year to do it during the daytime necessarily.

But it'd be nice to be able to get it to where it is going out to that spot.

Yeah, and you could do limited service, but we've talked about frequency. People get reliant on schedules, but if they know it's only a peak time, if you will, then I think that would work. There's a nice sidewalks right there too. Oh, yeah.

It's a sidewalks all the way there.

And also just, again, maybe not tying it, I guess tying it to future funding a little bit, but when we talk about one transit and increasing frequency or maybe adding service areas, that could be on the horizon. Yeah.

Yeah, there could be additional funding locally for things that council might want to prioritize, new routes.

So we could see that good transit plan happen a little faster. Correct.

all right anything else the only thing i wanted to that's it for transit really but um for public works just uh but it might be good at our next meeting in august if we can get a progress report on gray street how uh that'll be the first three months in with it being two-way How's it going? If there's any big problems with it or concerns or crashes or people are still partying the wrong way.

Just for the public, I'd like to see if there was any decrease in accents or increase in accents. You know, nothing like that.

I was going to say the crash data I was hearing would come forward maybe in October, November, and they would start the study when school starts.

Yeah.

But we could still get an update on like.

Yeah, first three months and then get another one in November or whatever, December or whatever.

to tell you how many accidents they've worked there.

And if council, if you have any other, if there's been any other road improvement projects or anything like that that's happened and you're wondering about traffic counts or crashes or... is it better than it was before or not, just ask staff, and they can look into that, and we can discuss it in this committee, or they can do one-on-one, whatever. So we've done that for quiet zones. We've done it for West Lindsay Street before a few years ago after the project was done, got an update to see if it had actually reduced crashes, and it had by over 50% when we got an update last time on West Lindsay. Okay, any other things from anybody about?