City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we are live. We're ready to go. Everyone ready to go? Okay,

I'm going to call this meeting to order. Uh, good e or good afternoon and welcome to Republic City Hall here on February the 10th, 2026 for our workshop. First item on our agenda for this afternoon, we have the 2026 city paving plan presentation and discussion. And we have Mr. Angel Felig here this afternoon to give us an overview. Morning, city council. Thank you again for taking the time to be with us today to go over this paving plan. Again, I'm Angel Fick, development engineer, builds department, here to share this information with you this morning. Okay, with this presentation, we'll briefly go over um our budget this year and upcoming years, as well as recap of 2025, our plans for 26, a process overview with the data and street collection, and then we'll cap it off with some treatment options that we've utilized in the city. Okay, an overview of our budget this year. We have 675,000 um budgeted for this year's plan project. Again, this was included in our 10-year CIP improvement plan prepared by our finance finance team. We have estimated 750,27 all the way to 2035. If you have any questions, you you guys can, you know, ask away. This is open-ended discussion. So, Okay, our paving projects in recent years, I'll highlight 2025, we had 12 roads completed. Last year with about

21,400 linear feet of road improved that included uh South Lin Avenue and Miller Road. This year we planned for around 24 to 25 roads. Um something new this year is we're going back to pressure paving. This was done in the city back in 22. We're revisiting that again. And then most of them being Mel and overlay about 18 17,460 linear feet of road. We'll cover that in more detail later in this presentation. Okay, just to highlight a few of the streets that we paved last year. Lynn Avenue, this is a secondary arterial road, heavily traveled. We improved about 1580 linear feet of road along this stretch. So from the Hines and Lin roundabout all the way down to Miller Road. Um again, this was uh I know we received a few complaints, but I I believe the contractor did the best they could with this improvement with it being heavily traveled. So, okay. Next on our highlights is Miller Road. This is also a secondary arterial road. Um, to the right there, you'll see uh this is just east of the Mason Ridge subdivision. Okay, if I can get this pointer. And this improvement extended from Mason Ridge all the way just east of Lynn Avenue. I'll note that Green County did complete some improvements last year uh starting from our stretch along uh Farmer 186 all all the way down to ZZ. Okay, this is a local road, Alexander

Avenue, just west of Lynn Avenue. Um we received a ton of compliments from the residents along this street. Um you can see there the before condition. Uh a lot of cracking on this street. Uh this street received a um mill and overlay and uh we're over satisfied with the product that um the contractor provided on this street. You can see the codac here was in really bad condition prior to construction and following that. Um, you should drive it if you haven't. It's It's a really good street that was completed last year. Okay, last on our highlights is South Kansas Avenue. So, this extended from 174 MDOT's Rideway all the way down just north of uh County Limits, West Farmer 188. There is still a short stretch of Kansas that we need to complete this year to complete that full full road. So again, this is a secondary arterial heavy heavily traveled. So we're really happy with this improvement this past year. Okay. Next, uh we covered this in last year's workshop. We're just here to give you a summary of our process and give you an idea of how we identify and select roads. our our processes with that uh all the way to advertising bids to start construction. Okay. So, annually our street crews and our inspectors um help us with this endeavor. They go out and they document the condition of each street um and they use a GIS app called Quick Capture. So with that app, they're able to, you know, take photos, note any discrepancies or uh defects in that street and that what what that provides

us is data and a GPS location. And with that, we're able to create through GIS a pavement rating map, which I'll share here shortly. And that gives us um you know it provides full transparency of the condition of our streets and it gives us um a good way to identify streets to select that in that year's uh paving project. Okay. Other other things we consider are objective tie breakers. So that may include any anywhere from uh road classifications uh road conditions the expected lifespan of that street. So, if there's ever um you know, if we ever need to decide on two particular streets to include that year, we'll be we'll evaluate those uh tiebreers. And then following completion of our paving project, we um we ask our street street crews and inspectors to go go around and, you know, evaluate these streets again just to see if there's anything that we might want to include on our pavement rating map. Okay. So bids will be posted this month. Um we'llo host a pre- bid meeting with interested uh paving contractors late February. And um then we'll we'll move on to opening bids in March of 26. Um, I was just I just learned this morning that this item will not need to go to council, but we'll because it was approved in our uh budget last year as a part of our 10-year um CIP improvement plan, but we'll be sure to provide you any updates if there are any changes to this prior to construction. Okay. Following a selection of contractor, we'll host a pre-construction meeting. At this meeting, we'll discuss with the awarded contractor their uh phasing plan, their traffic control plan, a quality assurance plan for any third-party

testing required for this project. And then the plan is to be begin construction in May after schools get out for the summer with a plan to complete all paving and striping before schools reopen in August. Okay, as I mentioned earlier, we have a with all the data that we gather, our street department and our inspectors, we have what you see here, our pavement rating map. So, this is the north part of town and the colors on the left uh you know resemble the condition of the pavement, good, fair, poor, bad. As you can see, it um it takes a ton of work just going around and documenting each of these streets. And our street crews have done a great job kind of gathering this data for us. And then this is the uh south part of town. Again, you see a few more green dots this year because last year we improved most of the poor rated and fair rated roads. Uh you'll see here some of the bad rated streets. um I'll discuss later in this in this pre presentation. Okay, just to give you an idea of the good rated streets, these are aren't typically considered in our paving project because obviously because of the good condition, but examples of this would um these streets would have minimal structural cracking and some minor improvements may be needed for these streets. I've listed a few examples here. Again, if you have any questions on on the items I'm sharing, I may be moving a little fast. So, um be sure to I mean you can you guys can ask questions.

Okay. The next on our rating condition is fair. So most of the distresses observed on these streets are minor cracking, alligator cracking, uh but no progressive faulting of joints or cracks or where you witness asphalt popping out of the pavement. I will say East Mil Street and Souththeast A are borderline poor rated streets. All of these streets will be included in our project this year. Okay, moving on to um poor rated streets in the city. So, this is where most of our our project funding is spent. We focus on poor rated streets, then move down to fair rated streets, so on and so forth. Okay, this is where you may witness severe alligator cracking like here on Southampton Avenue. uh major uh street cuts and repairs on East Lee Street and then severe alligator cracking on South Maple Avenue. Um again, most of our funding is is focused on these poor rated streets and our plan moving forward is to just re-evaluate and recondition these streets to be our in order to provide a a list for the following year's paving plan. Okay, as you saw on the map earlier, there were a few red spots. A few examples of this are on Farmer 160. Again, severe alligator cracking, asphalt, pavement uh failures, street cuts, repairs. Um the reason we're

holding off on this is we're aware of u the MM project that will be upcoming real soon. Um the contractor is proposing to utilize this road heavily to transport stock m stockpile material from Amazon toward to their project site. So it'll only damage it more. We don't want to waste um not waste but utilize our funding to repair a street that may be torn up. Okay, another example of this is West Logan Street. We've mentioned this in uh last year's presentation. We have some storm water improvements to complete prior to uh improving this road. I will say that we have an engineer stamp engineer plans for storm water improvements in that area. So after construction and re-evaluating of those storm water improvements, we can consider paving West Logan Street. Okay. And then West Hine Street, you're aware of some water mane upgrades that need to be installed along that stretch. All of which are in the rightway under our street. So until we can complete those upgrades, we'll we'll plan we plan to uh postpone this improvement. Okay. Again, when we select our roads, you know, for each year's paving plan, we consider project constraints. I'm providing some updates on last year's workshop. Again, wastewater treatment construction is ongoing. So, we'll although we have a section of West Street that will be included in our paving project this year. um north the north stretch of West Street will be left out of this year's paving plan because of the ongoing traffic construction loads on that street.

Again, I I talked briefly about Farmer 160 with the MM realignment project. We're going to hold off on this street until, you know, we can ensure that after improvements are made, it won't get torn up. And then Morris Park storm water that's related to the West Logan Street. So again, we plan to make storm water improvements there with our crews just to improve the drainage just north of the flood plane. Uh slow down that water and improve drainage on that street. Okay. MDOT's M MM expansion in our project, any roads adjacent to that, we're just aware of it. Okay. West Hind Street. Again, our water main replacement, we're holding off until that gets done. Again, we have a engineer working on the contract to prepare plans for that improvement. And then our ongoing INI pilot pro program uh on West Charles Street. We're holding off until we can make those uh sanitary sewer service line repairs. Okay. I'll provide a summary of our 2026 overlay paving plan. Um, we have a bunch of local streets listed this year. Again, these are mostly rated poor on our rating map, so they were included this year. And then a few secondary arterial streets on there as well. The last section of South Kansas that needs to be improved to tie into Green County limits. North Bay a which is in pretty poor shape just east of the park there all the way down to Kent Wood and then the last stretch of farm 174 toward Oakwood Avenue. Okay. Something new this year is uh pressure paving. Uh we have done this in

the past uh 2022. We're looking to install this again this year. Okay, these streets listed on here are mostly fairated streets. So, it doesn't require too many um road repairs to be made before this is done. And again, our main the main intent with pressure paving is to just seal the pavement with the surface layer to prevent water intrusion to lengthen the life of of that pavement. Um, East Grey Street is on here. I'd just like to highlight the new subdivision about to be completed to the east uh Brookside Estates. This will complete uh East Grey Street all the way from Maine to Lynn Avenue. That'll be a major collector for us. Uh secondary arterials included again the last stretch of Farm 174 at Oakwood Avenue. Okay, just an overview plan. I' I'd like to shout out to Aiden who prepared this map in less than 30 minutes. It would have taken me maybe two days to prepare. So, I I really appreciate our uh GIS team for helping out. And we're excited with the new team to be able to, you know, evaluate our process and our rating maps to see where we can improve. Um again, this is just an overview. green are pressure paving treatment options and then blue here is u mill and overlay

Mr. What is pressure? Okay, I'll cover that shortly. Okay,

thank you. Great question. Okay, I'll now cover some treatment options. First being asphalt overlay. This is something you're uh pretty familiar with. We've we've done this in years past. Um, so again, this involves some form of milling and then a 2-in asphalt overlay. Again, this is this addresses um most minor structural concerns. It extends the life of the road about 10 to 15 years. Again, it's adaptable because we can match existing grades after milling and then it it will work for various types of wear. Again, it's less expensive than a full reconstruction, estimated at $92 per ton of asphalt. Again, this is in downtown U by the old city hall and the old public works. This was done in 24. Okay. Now, we'll cover the pressure paving treatment option. Thank you. Thank you, Darren. Okay. So, pressure paving is a seal on the top of a a existing pavement surface. It involves a three-step process. So, first step would be pressure injection of a sealant on an existing asphalt. I'll provide an image here. So, here where you have your existing asphalt, this black black colored um item here would be your pressure injection of seal. So, this would uh help with any water intrusion and it's basically a material that they lay before they they lay this uh new second seal driving

surface that ranges from a quarter to 38 inch thick driving surface. And then they have a second seal driving surface above this. So this the plan with pressure pave is again to limit the water intrusion to the subgrade of any existing pavement and they they consider this a self-repairing uh pressure pavement or treatment option because when it gets heated up you know that mastic melts and it seals all those cracks that we see in the pavement. So, this is a little cheaper than uh your typical asphalt mill and overlay. And we're kind of excited to u consider this option this year. We've heard a lot of good things from Green County. They've completed their um 2025 micro seal and pressure pave project just surrounding city limits. If you'll see farm road 99, 97, farm 186, uh a lot of areas which they covered this past year. Um I'm I can answer or share any information I have on this. I also have a few videos I can share with you just to provide more you know um more information on this.

Sorry there. Uhhuh. Right. And Mr. um we had done this in the past the the Yes, sir.

We have and why did we quit doing that? You know, it was just um it we piggybacked off of Green County's uh contract with Donaldson Construction. It was just something that we at the time we considered streets in poor condition. So, we focused on asphalt overlay. Pressure pave is typically recommended for fair rated streets. So, you know, nothing that um had serious defects, you know, serious alligator cracking, block cracking. and our plan late 2024 to 2025, we tried to focus on poor rated streets which um you know we I shared with you earlier the payment rating map but our plan this year because we have um covered most of our poor rated streets we're moving into our fair rated streets now we're considering pressure pave as an option

okay with the asphalt overlay you're getting 10 to 15 years what are you getting pressure you're getting about two to five years per my research on the sealant. So, this will lengthen the life probably likely more than that because you're sealing the surface from water intrusion. Um, but as far as I know, anywhere from 2 to 5 years for that sealant. So, it's basically just kind of putting a band-aid on it until you get to where you can get to the asphalt.

It can be seen as that. And it also provides us with the flexibility to focus on uh you know poor rated streets first with the asphalt overlay. Focus our funds on that. Preserve some of the fair fair rated streets in the meantime and then re-evaluate streets after a paving project. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Harter. And Colton would like to add something. Yeah, Dan. I was just going to comment too on so the degradation curve of a street, you know, it get as it gets bad, it gets worse. And so another advantage to pressure pave is it it helps you keep that curve higher at a cheaper value. So you keep it at a better grade quicker to avoid that that little downward spiral that it takes.

I had been here when we had done that the pressure paving in the past and I understand that and and I hate to make light of it. It is a band-aid but it's a good band-aid. It it puts you out puts your roads out to complete overlay a couple of years. And I just think people need to know that that this isn't a fix, right, on the road. This is going to get you a band-aid until we can get to get to the complete overlay. So that's I think we a lot of people are under the impression that my road's going to be better now. Well, it's it is, but it's not going to be 100% like you want it to be probably. Right. Correct. Clarify that as well. Okay.

Thank you, Council Member Harter, and a great lead into that, Council Member Campbell. U all great questions and and thank you, Colton, for adding to that. Those videos I can remember from our last trip into this those video are a really good visual representation of how that process works and I know from the graph that's pretty good graph on showing and explaining how that works but those videos really show it into effect and I think it was at Island Green subdivision and there were some other spots through the city that we there were some other spots in the city but Island Green was one of them. Any other questions before Okay. Thank you, Angel, for

Okay, the next treatment option can also be seen as a band-aid. Our our crews perform this internally. They revisit this fall of each year. So, they consider streets where they can crack seal or recrack seal just to extend the again put a band-aid on that road until we can make further improvements. And this is the lowest cost uh p pavement preservation treatment type. So um readily available to our street crews and it's one that they utilize each year. And Angel, could I and and that's something that that's something new to Republic, isn't it? That the vehicle that allows us to apply that that

the pressure injection the the uh for the crack sealing the the machine that melts the tar. Uhhuh. Right. That's that's a new feature that we've added in the last couple years that I know I've seen them going around and even I've seen them go through my neighborhood. I I can remember back when we had approached this before that was a huge need for Republic just on that. I know we call it kind of a band-aid and maybe band-aid, but longevity extending the life of the road, but just seeing how that works and the effect that that has made, I think has been tremendous on preventing that damage from getting worse faster and allowing us to accumulate the do those repavements. So, yes, sir.

But sorry, I just wanted to add that. That was one of the highlights I think of last year is getting that machine and we've got that capability now. I'm sure the crew thinks differently of it, but yeah. Well, I just mentioned that um some of the street crew members and I attended that pressure pave workshop and they were real excited about the pre pressure pave option because um it would kind of limit the amount of crack sealing that they would have to perform yearly. So, Okay. Awesome. They were real h happy and excited about it.

Yeah, that's exciting. Okay, so that completes our treat treatment options that we've utilized in the city. And then I'm providing, you know, just a list of completed roads we've done since 2023. About 30,000 linear feet and 23 around 24,000 linear feet in 24. And then with last year's project, I'll just mention there's a typo in this slide. We actually completed 22,000 linear feet of road and that includes uh a stretch of farmer 174 that Apac completed for us um after completion of the CIP3 wastewater project. So this year we'll be completed the full will be completing the full stretch of farmer 174. Okay, with that I conclude the presentation and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Council member Harter. Yeah, I'm back. Um, so in a lot of the older neighborhoods, um, they're asphalt curbs. Are you guys doing anything with asphalt curbs? I know when you do an overlay or something, I know when you do a complete road, you take it down, it usually doesn't affect the, um, curbing, right? Uh, but as you do overlays and stuff like that, that affects the curbing. And are you planning on doing any repairs to the asphalt curbing?

You know, those are really hard to restore asphalt curbs. So, I think eventually they would just be, you know, they would try to match the existing grades with that asphalt overlay. Um, again, our plan is to with the older parts of town with the limited amount of rightway, we really need curbon gutter systems to for it to benefit, you know, with storm water drainage. But um off the top of my head, those are really hard to maintain those asphalt um curbon gutter types and um we'll we'll evaluate that in more detail, provide you a better answer. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Harter. Do we have any Council Member Gerky? Thanks for all the information. A lot of lot of good good information. Do we have the ability, you know, it seems like we're getting rid of the the bad roads, right? you know, like do we have anything that we can show like year to year of percentage of roads that were rated poor that you seems like we're making a we're turning a corner, right? I just do we have any of that information or provide that in the future? Not readily in the slides here, but it's definitely something that we can provide and like I mentioned, we're working with the GIS team to provide, you know, this data in real time whenever we're asked for this information. So we can definitely

you guys done a great job and I think that's a good way to kind of show that you know appreciate all the good work you've done but I feel like we're turning a corner and and you know having options that we can do more roads for less money and just I think showing that would be beneficial. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Gerky. And I definitely agree. I I can definitely tell between the work from staff on on maximizing those tax dollars for stretching our roads the furthest. It's really it's been enlightening the last couple years to see that progress. So yeah, seeing that on paper would and a graph would be great too. Council member Campbell,

Mr. I just want to say to the whole team, I've said this before, anytime that we can evaluate something in the 164, you know, there's going to be more road construction. I've seen it in the past where freeways are are concrete is grounded off and they're striping the west mount side and then they turn around and grind that off within a couple weeks. So, it really is frustrating to see money spent like that and I just I will always try to it's easy for us to nitpick and have complaints just as citizens but but see's effort to to work with county and know all these things in advance. I just commend you for doing that.

Thank you, Council Member Campbell. Any additional questions, comments from city council. Okay, Mr. Fleet, wonderful presentation this afternoon. Uh really appreciate that and sharing that process too with how we select which roads we're going to uh tackle this year, I guess you could say. But yeah, great information on sharing to the public how those rank and and how staff makes their decisions on which ones get and great questions, great comments from city council. So, was was this the end of your Okay, thank you all. Thank you very much this presentation. Again, any questions or any information you need? I'm available.

Okay, sounds great. Thank you very much. And again, questions from city council or comments, make sure we get with staff if we have any. We are ready. And so our food is ready. Um we'll remain live, but we'll go ahead and get our food, get back here, get settled in for the second part of our workshop. So as soon as we go ahead and go back here to the back and grab our food, we'll be right back. Wonderful.

All right, everyone ready? Okay, looks like we're ready to go. So for our second item on today's workshop agenda, we haveation and discuss. We have Miss Karen Hayes Hayes here this afternoon. Haynes this afternoon to give us an overview.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. Uh, Republic City Council approved a partnership with BNSF to conduct a rail corridor study in June of 2024. Uh, this was an estimated cost um for the city of Republic for 40 42,000. The project included a study of the crossings and rail corridor within city limits, resulting in an outline of a collaborative plan with BNSF to identify potential opportunities for future improvements, closures, and grade separations. Additional details of the project included conducting on-site visits, performing preliminary engineering services, developing cost estimates for construction, preparing draft agreements, and providing comments on preliminary layouts uh or other designs plans and documents in connection with the uh project. Wilson and company engineers was hired by BNSF for the project with work completed last summer. Wilson provided an overview of the study to staff last summer. We are happy to have uh Jim and Garrett with Wilson and company and Jeremy from BNSF to provide an overview of the results of the study.

Good morning. Good morning. Not quite. Almost. Well, yeah, you're right. I'll be Oh, I checked it before. Well, welcome back. Thank you. I was going to say it's good to be back, but I've never been here before, so this place is incredible. So, thank you.

Uh, yeah. So, um, I don't have the clicker thing. I just realized that. So yeah, as Karen said, um last year we looked at uh the railroad through Republic as you are well aware of. Um so this is kind of going to walk through some of our findings. Um and then talk about some opportunities, some of the improvements we're recommending, and then some next steps if we want to move forward with anything. So, a little bit of background on the railroad. The corridor that goes through Republic is called the Cherokee subdivision. It runs from the Springfield Railroad Yard uh to Tulsa. Um it uh yeah, it it's uh excuse me, it's mostly freight rail. Um so, and about 50ish trains a day typically go through. So, So yeah, as Karen said, this was a collaboration between BNSF and the city um in anticipation of uh continued growth throughout Republic um and increase rail volume as uh the country grows as well. So um main goal of the plan was to identify uh places to enhance safety, increase local transportation and um increase uh rail transportation as well. So we looked at um nine crossings total. Eight of them were within the city limits of Republic. And then we also looked at County Line Road because it's so close to the city limits of Republic and um will most likely someday be part

of Republic. Um we didn't look at anything to the north um even though there's two crossings up that way as well in Green County. So um we've divided up um the crossings into zones. Um, so zone one focuses on pedestrian accommodations, um, and some grade corrections. Zone two looks at some closures. And then zone three, we'll look at some realignment stuff, um, that goes along with the MM corridor. So, we'll jump into zone one, which is County Line Road and O'Neal Road. So, this is the existing condition of County Line Road. Um, it's a humped crossing, which means you hump over the railroad tracks. Um, it it's can be a sight distance issue in a h in a humped crossing. So, it's not ideal. And if you've ever tried to turn left, um, when eastbound on County Line Road, you're you're going to be there a minute. So, uh, relatively low crossing volumes, um, and no pedestrian facilities, which there's nothing out there right now. So, uh, and then we also looked at O'Neal as part of this, uh, zone one. So, um, still relatively low crossing volumes there, um, and no pedestrian facilities as well. So, what we're recommending um in this area, and we'll go through these uh in more detail as we go through, um but would be a closure at 194 County Line Road and a closure at O'Neal Road with a uh new overpass along US60 to still make that connection to the other side of the tracks. So, and as we're going along, if you guys have any questions, please feel free to ask. Um,

so this is what county line would look like. Um, it would be a simple closure of the road right there. Um, so just no access there. You have access from farm road 67 as well. Um, it's pretty straightforward. And then same thing at O'Neal, you've got Concordia Avenue right there to get around um, as well. So, with those two closures, um what we would look at is um overpass um on over US60 and the railroad tracks somewhere between the two. Um and then this was just a mockup of what that could look like tying into Frisco Boulevard um out there on the west side of town. Um, we also looked at uh oh uh this would tie into um Kansas Avenue down Let me see if this thing works. So right here maybe is Kansas Avenue um as it heads into Republic which is a secondary arterial road through Republic um and can be a major north north south corridor in the future. So this would be a good um western overpass over the rail and over 60 um that we don't have anywhere else along this corridor or along the US60 corridor. So, and with this um with closing those with closing 194 and some of the other ones, um it does allow for potentially um longer sighting on this side of town, which can clear Main Street um if built, which means there wouldn't be trains stopped on Main Street like there are today. Uh this could also tie into quiet zones. I know the city has considered pursuing a quiet zone in the past. Um,

which is just where trains don't blow their horns as they go through town. Um, so that could all be part of uh what you're looking to get out of this. Uh, zone two would be what we're calling Central Republic. Um, and it consists of West, Main Street, um, Hampton, and Hines. So this is West Avenue. Um again, relatively low crossing volumes. Um and then Main Street, which act which has high crossing volumes. Um and pedestrian crossings here as well. Um so yeah, let's we'll go ahead and talk about these as well. Um, so we're recommending a closure on West Avenue, Main Street reconfiguration, and then closure on Hampton Avenue with some sort of probably a pedestrian overpass. Um, if we still wanted pedestrians to go through there, and then Hind Street crossing safety enhancements, which we'll go through these a little bit more. on this slide. Um, we looked at what it would what it would look like to try to put an overpass or an underpass type structure um on each of these roads. So, the orange is the runout distance for an underpass and the yellow is a run is the runout distance if we tried to go over the tracks. So, as you can see, that goes um pretty much tears right through all of downtown if we were trying to trying to do an overpass in that situation. So then the underpass is a little bit less but still um pretty uh pretty intense um infrastructure requirements for those. So West Avenue is a simple just cut the road off. Um you've got Egan Street and

Broad Street connections right there. So that just simply wouldn't be a through street anymore. And this also ties into the quiet zone as well as additional room for a siding. Um the siding would require additional uh track to be built, but it is a this would be part of if we wanted to do that on the south side of town. Um this would be one of the requirements. Uh these are the possible reconfigurations of Main Street to make it a little bit better. Uh the first one is simply closing Elm Street on the north side of the tracks. Um that eliminates some of the conflict points right there at Main Street. Um and then the other option uh would be to turn Elm Street into oneway streets heading away from Main Street. So uh again eliminating conflict points, people trying to turn left out of Elm Street on the north side of the tracks. Um and then enhanced um pedestrian facilities in either situation. Uh Hampton uh similar you'd cut off at the school road um on the north side and then there's a tie-in road on the south side as well. The issue with this one was we did notice while it's got low traffic volume, there is quite a few pedestrians across here, mostly students from school going into the neighborhoods and stuff like that. So, um something we would recommend here would be some sort of pedestrian overpass or something to get over the railroad tracks here. And then at Hines Street, um would remain open. It's a secondary arterial through town. A lot of volume through here. You've got the schools uh dispersed in this area. The bus barn is um

west of this location and the school to the east. So, um just some enhanced pavement markings, clean up the visibility a little bit, uh regrade the approach, um and then some additional pedestrian upgrades at this uh crossing is what we're recommending. Then we'll move into zone three uh which is kind of the norththeastern part of Republic. Um so Farm Road 93 these are the existing conditions. It's uh severely humped as you come if you're coming south on 93. Um and then you immediately go into a ride in ride out situation coming up to US60 there. um Farm Road 170 um which is very low volume. I know there's a couple of businesses there um but they also have other ways around um and then mm of at uh farm 168 the railroad tracks come and go or maverick now. Um, so recommending closures on all of those, uh, which some of those are tied into the MM project as well. I believe farmer 170 and the MM closure are already, um, planned for when that highway gets realigned. Um, but looking at Farm Road 93, this would be the closure. Um you simply just close the crossing, tie 93 into farm road 172 um which leads back to Boston um and folks can come down that way or uh take 93 out to uh farm road 168. And then um this really doesn't affect the signal configuration here um because it's already set up to be a ride-in ride out. Um but a possibility would be to

make Oakwood a ride in right out as well. Um there's pros and cons to that as well, but that's a little outside of this. Um it does act as a good speed buffer coming into town to slow people down of like, hey, you're in town now. Um but I have had to sit there and wait for left turning traffic, so I get it. Uh Farm Road 170. Um yeah, simple closure, remove the turn lanes. um back on 93 part of that ride in ride out discussion is the J turns are already installed there so that's something else to consider but uh yeah so just simple closure um we have a culde-sac shown here uh just for trucks that come in need to turn around there um and then mm would just the closure and tie into Farm Road 168. Uh, and then zone four is the former Brookline area, um, which just consists of Hail Street, which is another one that is tied into the the Highway MM realignment. So, um, we've got that alignment shown here. Um, and then, yeah, existing conditions. There's not a lot of traffic here at all. Um, we didn't I don't think we picked up any pedestrians trying to cross here either. There's no pedestrian facilities either way. So, um, be a simple dead end with culde-sacs for folks to turn around. Um, and then once MM is built, that will be your new, uh, way through that area or to get to US60 from there. So, um, which again is part of the MM realignment project. Council

member Campbell. So 93. I don't believe 93 is in that agreement. I believe it's uh Farm Road 170, MM, and Hail Street. I could be wrong. I think city staff would Yeah. Yes. Yep. Council member Harter.

Yeah. Just for my clarification, um on that if you can show me on that map up there, where is the the double uh track start and finish? Do you do you know that? Uh actually it's shown um well this would be the new sighting but the the darker red here would be so there's already an existing sighting um on the south side of town. That's where folks uh the trains stop and they cover Main Street sometimes. Um, there isn't a sighting to the north, which is what Jim's going to discuss, the possibility of putting a sighting up there, but this would show an extension of this southern sighting so that trains could stop before they got to Main Street and be off of Main Street. Um, when they do have to stop in order to let other trains go by.

Thank you. I I I found it on my map. Okay. Thank you, G. Yep. Uh and then Jim Townsen's gonna take it from here. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. That's afternoon now.

It is. Um, so as Garrett went through the the crossing discussions, you know what when we originally set out to do this study, it was trying to find those win-win opportunities that could help one the city and the quality of life for the residents there. you know, the block crossings are are something that BNSF has heard in the past that, okay, this is an issue of Main Street and and so on. Um, mainly due to the the sighting that's there. And so what happens is when the train stops and is using the siding, it takes about an hourish to make the brakes so that the streets can open up. And then it takes about an hourish to close them, get the train reconnected so it can go and do its thing. Um so we as we were first looking at okay what what's going on with the overall system uh transportation system here in town and we we saw okay well all the crossings except for on the north side there all the crossings on the south side are all at great and you know maybe there's a opportunity in the future to to just plan for a future grade separation. And we thought, okay, what what about those the existing crossings? Do any of the existing crossings promote an opportunity to to grade separate? As Garrett went through, there's there's a lot of impact there. And and that's how we came up with the the concept at the very west end that

could span the track, span 60, connect both sides of 60 and almost act like an interchange to to connect up with 60 and and also provide some another win for MDOT as a potential funding partner to for them to get interested in this type of project. because as the any kind of access onto the state highway system is a conflict point. Any type of crossing to the railroad is a conflict point. And so if we can try to understand how to mitigate those conflict points, you know, maybe there's an opportunity where the city can win, BNSF can win, MODOK can win, and and there's some some out there that can help facilitate the growth that you guys are experiencing. You know, the other thing that we wanted to do is not wait too long to get some lines on the map. If an idea is worth pursuing, at least having some lines on the map brings more awareness of what you're trying to do with the community. Um because it I've I've been doing this for a while and what I've seen I I was out in Colorado when all the explosive growth was going on out there and many of the communities waited too long to put some lines on the map and development occurred without any discussion without any hey we need to talk about this. Let's step back and talk about this before the opportunity goes away. and those opportunities do go away pretty quickly. Um, so you know, as we

were talking with Karen, there's the industrial park site, uh, Garrett Farms Industrial Park to the north. And we thought, you know, for that site to really be served, rail served, those sightings, the at least a northern sighting needs to be developed to properly serve that because you can't just serve it right off the tracks. and to the south end with Main Street having the highest volume, we thought, how do we how do we clear Main Street? Well, we can make the siding longer to the south, but the only way to get anybody interested in extending the siding to the south is to make it so they don't have to break the train to to use the sighting. So when the train has to break in order to use the siding, it makes it difficult to use the sighting in general. And then it makes it difficult for the community to be served by rail, you know. So this is where you know this collaboration of trying to figure out what are those win-win opportunities that's probably one of them that's a simpler opportunity that could also be phased and allow MDOT to get into the discussion about 60. So what we did is we we took a look at what's out there today. We said, "Okay, the track to the north of Main Street is thousand feet or so to

the north." That amount of track would need to be added to the south end of the track along with some extra so it can actually hold the trains that are you know the the trains today are two miles long. And if you have a 7,000 foot long siding they can't really work. So, as the community grows and if the siding's not long enough, it doesn't get used. It makes it harder to serve the community. So, this concept allows the the track to be extended to the south and have enough length to not block Main Street. But in order to do anything like this, you don't want crossings in the sidings. So you you'd have to close those crossings that go through the sightings to the north. We thought, okay, let's let's look at Garrett Farms property and say, okay, if that were to be rail served someday, there are a couple options that could allow you to have a 10,000 foot long track sighting. you'd have to close Farm Road 148, which is county road. Um, very, very low volume, but that would keep rail operations totally separate from what would happen in that industrial park. And, you know, there are a couple different ways to serve it, but there is a lot of opportunity with that that property up there if it ultimately wants to be rail served. Um, I know that BNSF economic development has been involved in the discussions to help certify that

property. But you know again having this in mind as the development discussions are being had for that those properties is really important because you I if if the siding doesn't go in it makes it so that property really can't be rail served. It could be near rail but not rail serve directly. So moving forward the the key is just continued coordination with BNSF. Um, Wilson and Company is under contract with BNSF in in many different ways to help on communities like Republic with these types of discussions. Um, we're an on call engineer. We have an MSA contract with them for engineering services. We know the railroad industry. Um, on the grant side of things, the second bullets per uh pursue federal funding. So, I'm managing BNSF's grants program for the H Heartland area. And this is part of the H Heartland area. And so there are three major programs that the Federal Railroad Administration has to help communities like public go after funding to improve crossings or eliminate crossings or improve safety really. And and that's the end goal is how do we improve safety for everybody?

um you know and then on the MODOT side we're also on call with MDOT um on the engineering and the railroad side and so we mod does have different funding programs to help with projects like this as well and they do have funding for communities when a crossing is closed to we'll give you $300,000 per crossing for every crossing that's closed. And a lot of times that's used to help facilitate a match or whatever for some other project that you're trying to do. And what in the end what what this does is it just allows these discussions to be had and to come up with a game plan between all the all the partners and say, "Hey, this okay, we're starting to get some development pressure to the south. Let's get something really figured out here before it cuts too late. So, the public infrastructure and investments team over at BNSF, Jeremy is here with me. He's um he manages the the grants program for the south half of the US. And so our work is with Jeremy directly and Jeremy is part of the engineering team at BNSF. So uh Cara Brock Camp, she she would uh interact with the communities in this region. um that so the the interaction with those local public projects managers all of that is within the same umbrella of engineering which is great from uh trying to facilitate these types of

improvements. The left hand is always talking to the right hand and and if you have a question you can contact any of us and we can help get the answers that you need. uh on the funding side. So before IGA, before the the current transportation funding program, it was about 10% of what it is today. So, there's a lot of federal funding flowing out there to help projects like the projects we talked about through the presentation, either grade separations, closures, modifications, uh, lengthening sightings, all that kind of stuff. There's a there's it's about a 10 time amount to to just for railspecific activities. to be able to go and try to capture those funds. And we've had a lot of success capturing those funds. The the dark orange lines on the map, those are all the interotal corridors for BNSF and Republic is on the Cherokee sub, which is part of the interotal corridors. So, a lot of lot of the shipments that are coming from LA, they will travel through this area. So, that's why you're getting 40 or 50 trains a day. That's a lot of traffic. So from a a BNSF focus standpoint, how you know the grade separations, the closures, the just how do you improve safety in general? The safety side of it, trying to mitigate safety issues on the corridor is their number one priority. And in many cases, the the safety aspects

are are in the the the in the urbanized areas like Springfield, but they're also on the outskirts of these communities that are growing, you know, and that are trying to figure out how they're growing and what they're doing and so on because they haven't had to think about these types of issues. In the past, it it hasn't been as prevalent, but now as the volume's growing because the houses are going up and the the commercial centers are going up, industrial parks are going up and, you know, trucks are having to go over the crossings and there isn't enough room for two trucks to hold while a train is going by, you know, between the highway and the rail. And so what what we've developed is this program of idea improvements to help facilitate how your community really wants to grow. So with with our contract with BNSF, BNSF has us help the communities with grants. They pay for the the grant work that we do. The community is the sponsor. BNSF cannot be the grant applicant. So, we'll work with the community to figure out what the right scope is for what they want to pursue. and you know we'll get all the project partners together and develop figure out okay what what's this vision that we're going to try to portray in the grant and go get it and and in some cases it's been community specific in some cases it's crossing specific some cases it's

countywide some cases it's multi-countywide but we it's all depends on what we're trying to accomplish as a whole and what the story is because the stronger you make the story in the grant, the more possible that grant actually becomes something. We have a example in eastern Kansas where we have a grant from Spring Hill down to Fort Scott and the improvements that we're looking at are mainly in in Spring Hill and Fort Scott, but we didn't want them to compete against each other. So, we blended the two, submitted one grant, and they got it. So, there's strategy to this. Um, once a community does receive a grant, then we're also here to help to help make sure that thing gets obligated. And, and you know, helping helping get that grant obligated takes attention. There's a lot of details that FRA is looking for and or federal highways if if you go for a federal highway grant. There's details that MODO's looking for. There's details that you know that have to be all the all the boxes need to be checked before that before the authorization comes to say yeah you can move forward with the grant. the um and then just to make sure that that all the systems are in place so that you know once the grant is obligated BNSF and you guys are are tied up partners uh on the funding side so you absolutely know okay we're going to be spending this amount in quarter one this amount in quarter two and make sure that because all these

programs are reimbursement programs but you want to make sure that you're submitting monthly so that you're not financing the government, financing the feds and and their strategy to that as well. So, with that, I'll stop and take any questions you have. I know we threw a lot at you. Um, but you know, again, you you have a growing community. It's a there's a lot of opportunity here to really make it safe safer uh from a interaction with the railroad perspective.

City council have any questions comments? Council member Campbell. So for the alignment closing street and farm road 97 currently there is 1.3 miles of double track from 156 down to almost they down to 93 miles double track where there crossing as soon as I know this question. So, so then I'm not saying that all those other grades downtown and out west don't need to be closed. I think my question is that could be further in the future, but immediately since M is getting so close to be being realigned, could they not do their double track there where they wouldn't have to stop the trains from West Main Street, O'Neal County? So part the double track that's up on the north side right now is the service track for the the power plant. So the power plant does come off of that track, but there is two tracks there that go from to just north of double. So yes, one of those there is a track that goes to the power plant, but they but they still have double tracks all the way. 156.

But I I think the double track there is also part of that need for to serve the power plant. So what you're saying is if a coal train comes in, they can be utilizing this section for stop trains if they need. Okay, that makes sense. Right. So I don't know the rules, so I got to ask question. Yep. No, I'm glad you are. That's that's great. Oh, thank you, Council Member Campbell. That was a great question. Do we have any other questions from city council? Council member Gerky.

Thanks. Very, very informative. I kind of have a clarification and then question, but so I get the benefit, right? Safety, traffic flow, better utilization of the tracks for BNSF. Um, possible spur, which is great for for property. So I that pretty good assumption of of the benefits of it on there. And so then the cost on there obviously it's a long process you know you said three to five years like how does the I'm sure it can vary a lot but what does the cost share look like as far as what's responsible is it all grants is it combination of grants city funds like how does that shake out and I'm sure it can happen a variety of ways

yeah it it really can vary depending on the project itself you know if you get aggressive with closing crossings beyond say the sighting area. Okay, that allows other funds to get more infused into the project from MODOT and it also gets BNSF excited because there's fewer interactions with the tracks. So, you know, and and you know, if if it turned into even a bigger project where the county got involved, too, and close some more crossings, you know, you you could you could strategize on this at a larger scale and have very little come from the city. But it all depends on how aggressive you you want to get with. But in the end, that s southern sighting, you need to close the at least three crossings or two crossings, the the the crossings to the west of Main Street in order to be able to facilitate not impeding Main Street at all.

The other question you had was um if we extended one of the the sightings, Yeah. Is there acquisition on there? Is easements that vary? It typically there's already easements in place for that. I assume the railroad has right away. Yeah, we when we did the concept, we just made sure that there's space there. There's enough space there to be able to displacement of current. And then and this may not be a question to you. So, if we close down some of these intersections on there, um I'm sure it's the railroads authority, but the noise part, they are they still announcing going through those or how does that work or is that something else?

No. Um that can be part of this, too. But, you know, the the whenever there's an at grade crossing, unless it's a quiet zone, you know that they have to announce that they're approaching and You know, quiet zones are not safe safetyminded crossings. So, there are risks that you're taking on with a quiet zone. And and the railroads don't pay for quiet zones. The communities pay for quiet zones. They run a couple million bucks at least um by the time you get all the equipment in there. But the other safety improvements, there's a partnership there to help pay for the improvements. And with the grant, um, you know, BNSF pays for us to develop the grant with you and, um, typically they're a 50-50 partner in the match, uh, which is a 20% match. So, the city would pay 10%, BNSF would pay 10%. And, you know, that's anywhere from the study side to the engineering side to the construction side. We're we're we also have um this their southwest division too. I'm managing that as well. And so, you know, being able to to see and understand how they work, how BNSF works with these communities, it it's really a a different opportunity from any other railroad that we work with. We work with all the railroads and this BNSF has taken this approach to maximize the opportunity with the federal funding that's out there to try to advance

these improvements with the communities that they interact with and they they partner with. And there are some that want to and we go all in and there are some that don't. and we spend the attention on the communities that want to partner. You know, it it it's the opportunity is here and it's it's it could be short-lived. It could be here for a while. We don't know. It's a yearby-year story, you know, and and so we try to get our grants in and then a year year and a half later, they get obligated. And depending on the schedule that you put in there, it, you know, you could say, I wanted to start in 2028. Okay, that's fine.

Is it fair to say, so there's grants for the actual work for the upfront front work on there? So anywhere along the process, obviously, we'd have some sort of budget for each each phase.

Yeah. Yeah. the the work that we just did for this study probably it really allowed you to leapfrog in terms of project readiness because you you have some ideas that are documented. The key is that you you accept the study as something that the community is is supportive of, you know, and in the end the the the goal is that, okay, we've done this study, now we want to advance some things. And how we advance it, it could be through MDOT, it could just be partnership of BNSF, it could be that we go get a grant or two or three or four. and and you know depending on how you want to phase it, but you know that the key is communicating and and being a partner and and advancing these ideas.

Thank you, Council Member Gerky. Do we have any additional questions? Council member Harter, I know this is probably subjective, but the grant success ratio, what do you does Burlington Northern have that? I mean 90% of the grants we apply for are gone through or uh so last year we hit on nine of the 10 or so. Yeah, about nine of the 10 that we submitted. You know what you know what those dollar values were by any chance or

um they were all studies but it was probably 10 million $15 million worth of grants. We just submitted a $40 million construction grant from Flagstaff. I mean it is just there's different programs for different things and and The other thing I'll say too is historically communities have been intimidated by the railroad. They don't interact, they haven't interacted with the railroad. So the crossing visions are not baked into the plans into the comp plans, transportation plan, so on. It's like, no, that's the railroad. We don't want to deal with them. We don't know how to deal with them. And this is, you know, this study that we just did was the opportunity to create that common understanding of what each other's trying to do and work together to advance it. There are so many communities in so we're working in 13 states that don't know how to work together. They they talk about project by project, but there's no strategy there. It's like we need to we need to cross the tracks. We or we need to improve this crossing at the tracks. Okay, submit your permit and submit your plans and we'll we'll look at them and approve them and so on. But they don't know if what about the next crossing down? What what do we want to do there and when is that going to happen and so on? Well, that that's where these types of plans really help. And then they feed up into your comprehensive plan. And so you can blend in your your land use planning decisions along with the transportation system

that's supporting it. And oh, this Garrett Farms property is now rail served. So it gets a whole bunch of trucks off the off the corridors that are being shared with all your your public. So, you know, there's just a lot of opportunity to with stuff like this just to take a step back and say, "Okay, how do we make this all work together so that it's the community we're trying to build? Any additional questions from city council?" Jeremy, do you have anything you'd like to add? May

Yes, absolutely. First, uh, Mr. Mayor, uh, rest of the council members, appreciate the time and the opportunity to come up here and talk about this and as well as the progression of the study that Jim did a good job of laying out for us. So, just real briefly here, um I the reason why we're here is uh one we're we're certainly trying to advocate for this grants program within BNSF. Uh driven mainly by the need for safety and BNSF strong belief that uh safety is is number one and we're trying to find opportunities that are out there to partner with communities and as Jim already laid out, we're trying to find these win-win scenarios for BNSF and the communities that we operate through. um they're not going to progress anywhere if we don't have the public support, if we don't have the support of community, city, county leaders uh to progress these things. Um and also why are we doing this now? It's uh it's to take advantage of this federal funding that's become available over the past, you know, 5 years or so. Um you guys know as well as I do that projects have become exponentially more expensive here over the past handful of years. Um railroad infrastructure is uh not immune to that either. So, uh, how do we help fill that gap? And a lot of that, we're really focusing on trying to take advantage of this federal funding. Uh, there's a couple grant programs, uh, administered by the Federal Railroad Administration that really focus on railroad centric uh, projects and, you know, these projects that have good public benefit and mainly that interaction between BNSF and the communities that we operate through our at these ATG grid crossings, which has been a big part of the conversation here today through that study. So, how can we mitigate uh the risks that are currently out there? How do we minimize them? Um, you know, a lot of that through crossing geometry, cross enclosure is of course the fail safe way to eliminate that interaction between the public and BNSF or all trends for

that matter. Uh, grid separation does that too. Uh, but also trying to understand too that you guys still need to be able to provide connectivity for your residents. Um, and and it's probably not going to come without some growing pains as well. So, how do we how do we mitigate that as well? So that's where the collaboration between BNSF and the communities that we operate come through. Um Jim said too that we're open to discussion. These are just some options that they come up with if you guys got some other ideas um that we can try to pursue. Um open to that as well. Uh we've got team members who are ready to talk to you. Um I'm out of Kansas City. I I live here in Springfield for a number of years though. Um so this is a second home. So appreciate the opportunity coming down here and see this nice building too. Last time I was here this was not in place. Um, but anyways, uh, to that, uh, Jim did a good job laying everything out, but, uh, don't mean this to be the the endall of of the discussion. um if there's anything else that we can do for the city uh or if we can expand this and take a look at it from a county's perspective and include mod whatever needs to be done to try to advance some projects to enhance safety uh improve some infrastructure and and not just look you know what what do you guys need for tomorrow but what do you need 10 years from now 20 years from now to make sure that uh uh Republic's viable and you guys are accomplishing what you need to accomplish and and BNSF being able to do the same thing so I appreciate your time and if there's anything needed from me happy to answer any questions or or follow up with anything that you guys may need as well.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Do we have any additional questions, comments from city council?

Okay, looks like there's none. So, I really appreciate it, Jeremy, Jim, for for all that information. I know, uh, just looking at that, I know there's probably some unpopular things in there, but there's also some solutions that also make that a a more effective solution for in the future, especially when it comes to safety. And I know all of our crossings are unique and I appreciate having this information to be able to form those partnerships and actually do something about that safety. The railroad that formed our community to begin with and so welcoming them back in for that rail service would certainly be something uh historical for our town. But and the safety the safety is is paramount for ensuring especially by those school crossings and those crossings that are easy for someone to cross. So uh appreciate all that hard work in that presentation and the information. Uh, appreciate the good questions from city council, too. That's a lot of great information, a lot of good questions.

And before I sit back down, we've got some pamphlets here, too. That explains a lot that Jim uh already presented on to you. You're looking at it. A lot of it's the same thing. But, uh, these are certainly meant to be left out for you guys to review, provided externally. So, names, uh, email address, phone numbers, if you guys need to get a hold of us, they're all included in here as well. Excellent. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Perfect. Thank you very much. You don't have a trip back to Kansas City though, do you? You said you're back here in Springfield. My office is currently in Kansas City. I worked here in Springfield office for a number of years. Okay. Well, have a safe trip home. That's my hometown.

So, that was our only two items that we had on our agenda for this afternoon. Does city council have anything that they would like to add before we close? Okay, seeing how there is none.