all right we are on air and it is 4 o' so we'll go and we do have a limited time today um due to the candidate Forum this evening so um go ahead and get started with the community planning and transportation committee meeting for Thursday January 25th 2024 we we have four items on the agenda and we'll try to get through as many of them as we can and um we'll go ahead and get started with item number one which is our monthly U report on public transit we have Taylor here with us as usual thank you chair uh real quickly uh the the memo the staff report is in your agenda I'll go through uh some of the the the memo and then I'll go over some of the numbers like I usually do but uh we're still making good progress on our vehicle uh procurements over the last 5 years I know you guys all know that we've gotten a lot of vehicles ordered uh from Grants thanks to the local funding you've been able to authorize and the the purchases you've been able to authorize so we have the current order is five pair of Transit uh Ford Transit Vehicles we have two of the five um they're coming in as they are done uh one of those supply chain issues that we've never dealt with before before the pandemic so we're getting them as they're completed and then uh next on our Horizon is an order of six pair Transit vehicles that uh we got a grant for in the summer um we're just kind of waiting on the these these other ones to get in before we get begin that procurement process so we're making good strides there still on the Paratransit side uh on the second page uh now that we've completed the recommended route Network we just wanted to uh put into uh in front of council the next priorities of the Gorman Transit plan or longrange Transit plan uh the first priority after the recommended route changes was Sunday service which we've uh somewhat accomplished with microtransit we're we're really testing the waters with that uh seeing the ridership seeing the hot spots so that's really good data that we're gleaning from that and uh we'll be coming uh back to council I think in later in February to talk more about microtransit during a study session so I look forward to that and getting more into depth on that program and the next steps for that and how we want to proceed prior oh sorry uh will you have um I was looking on the on demand report is there a part that would tell us the writers ship just on Sundays and then the other days of the week breaking it down like that yeah um we can definitely do that uh I I'll be honest I haven't finalized that presentation or anything so anything you all want to see in that if you have specific data points please send them uh to Daryl uh to Scott and we'll uh to myself and we'll try to make sure we hit it on that presentation okay yeah we can pretty much get you any data point that you think is relevant to help fuel the discussion um Sunday service for sure and then really like the what hour is the busiest what hour is the yeah the slowest on an average I think that would be helpful for sure okay yeah we got plenty of time so if you think of anything else after this please send it our way um the second and third priority were increased frequency on the uh the two other major routes that are now 60-minute uh service Route 112 and 110 and so uh we have other priorities after that but just wanted to put those first three in front of you just for consideration as as we move forward with uh improvements what uh what do you think is the reasoning behind that other than the route changing but it having such a high increase in ridership is just more accessible now it's going more places or yeah the the 112 it's really hard to compare the old routes versus the new routes cuz they changed so dramatically uh but the 112 got extended from 30 minutes to an hour so it goes out much farther uh and basically covering double right and it's hitting um higher ridership places uh high ridership places as it extended so it's going up 24th in Maine and 36 it's hitting the the mall area Robinson Crossing Brook Haven um and then it's going back the same way and uh Lindsay West was already a decently ridden route but since we've extended it people can obviously reach more destination so it and I I think that was really good foresight by the Consultants uh and the priority as that being the next one is to recommend that um as the next highest priority was at frequency because we are seeing the fruits of that extended route right yeah more than double ridership from last year right okay so and then um let's see I'll go into the numbers a littleit but yeah so for December um we had still an increase in the overall ridership 31,000 um from 26,000 last December of uh 2022 um with that the average daily increased uh fiscal year ridership for the whole system is uh 203,000 passengers which is a 35% increase over December of 201 22 year to date um so we're we're really clipping along with our our ridership for this fiscal year it's really exciting um you so that's systemwide mhm that's systemwide uh and then they B the next two paragraphs on the first page of the performance report break out fix route versus uh Plus or pair Transit so fixed route um is really the dominating one of the two driving the ridership but you also saw a increase for December for plus ridership but it really es and flows it's demand based right so people don't get out and about as much that month versus last December um inclement weather days uh can affect PA Transit Riders more than fix drop Riders although it affects them as well um people moving you know again demand based so it can have in flow but increase on both sides of the system for December and then for Norman on demand which we will again get into more later in uh February we did see a increase of passengers um for December we had 2600 Riders and service to date we started August 21st is 10,770 so um again I won't get into all the details that's there in your report I know we have other agenda items but I'm happy to answer any questions on that um uh how many are I guess returning or how many people are paying to ride it yeah so we we get into the question from last time I recall we get into the returning rides under the uh second page engage engagement service to date it's the third um table uh the active accounts is uh where users have engaged with ride requests at least once so you have that about 2,000 ride Rider accounts are those with at least one completed ride so that's when they've actually taken the ride they Haven any they haven't just requested it or or looked at booking it and that's at, 1400 and then the repeat Riders is at least two completed rides at a th um we uh also have in the paragraph it's not in the table but approximately 177% or 595 active accounts have been completed more than five rides so uh that kind of drills down and we'll we'll get into more of that with our presentation in February um obviously but um yeah the more you go out into completed ride it kind of funnels down to you're getting into the people that really use it on a frequent basis um and then maybe we'll get more in depth with it next month but the budget for this I think we had a little bit of maybe not sticker shock at our finance committee meeting last week but basically the public safety sales tax and Transit expenditures are driving a deficit that will be problematic within a few years if we don't change course on that so um the on demand system was identified as the I think the number one contributing factor along with our large purchases of vehicles you know which aren't going to be every year but uh the on demand system I think that's been probably the biggest challenge we have with this is it has a lot of benefit and I really like the partnership with ou but um the cost of it is going to be something we really have to wrestle with Council Scher yeah and you don't have to have an answer for this now this is maybe for your future presentation um but I I think I'm still interested in um I guess the difference in like who's using safe ride if like we can know that I can't remember what the answer to that is um like how effective I guess especially as we have that conversation around like the partnership with ouu and like our students actually using it um and what is the percentage of that overall group that um like all those yeah active accounts and things like how many of them are ou students just really interested yeah we can break it off into Safe Ride specific um yeah I do see it on campus Corner every time I'm working there um people getting dropped off and picked up in it so it's definitely being used but I think it would be helpful to know how how much are the students actually using it taking advantage of it and so is OU contributing they were to yeah they're what's the like the amount that they were contributing to the so the initial uh service we purchased was uh 640,000 and then we OU partnered with us to add another 120,000 so it's overall contract price of 760,000 got it okay so they added 120 mhm okay yeah it's a great partnership I'm thankful we've been able to do that but uh yeah the budget is of concern for sure going forward with that and how we pay for Transit yeah and thankfully you know we always marketed this as a pilot program so uh we can have a good discussion about uh where we came from how it's going and how we want to move forward right perfect okay uh anything of note with the transit center any issues uh thankfully I think we moved past the the biggest issues uh we were a little bit worried about the the HVB during the cold uh a big glass box up there in the front but uh we didn't have any uh extenuating issues so the Lobby's being maintained okay the bathrooms are okay nobody's destroying anything or yeah uh no more semis running into the the what none of the no more semis running into semis running into the awning aw yeah um that's a funny something we couldn't really prevent I don't really know how to prevent that so uh you know it's it's a public facility so we're going to have some sure constant we may need to replace the uh paper towel holder and just do electric drying that might help some of the issues with the uh the sewer line backups we every once in a while we'll still have to call in a plumber not not anything like we were dealing with in October but just to get it uh running again so we might have to make that switch but uh overall I think it's been a a great addition for the public and for staff so I haven't heard any positive or negative feedback from any the properties next to it since it first opened anyway the first week got one complaint but haven't had any directed same I make a comment please yes would you would you identify yourself yes for the sure I'm Chris nny one um from uh lots of friends who use the buses I've been hearing comments about the transit center and uh they don't feel safe they feel that there are people using the building that shouldn't be using the building um I've heard comments about um wine bottles marijuana cigarette smoking um people staying in the building that shouldn't be there or don't seem to belong there um people spending lots of time in the restroom um toilet backing up U people using the sink and the toilet for washing things um you know several people have mentioned to me that they don't feel safe there um they feel like the lobby is being used by you know other citizens rather than bus passengers uh so you know I mean we really feel like we need a some sort of security monitor or somebody watching the facility because right now it seems you know from what I've heard it's being used like a de facto homeless shelter um so those are the comments I've been hearing since since the fall and uh now that we're getting into Colder Weather um it's yeah I mean we we still have problems there so it is an indoor public space that's open um but uh probably not something uncommon that Embark has dealt with in Oklahoma City I'm sure right uh with facilities and the station um something we've talked about before about if there was a need to have some sort of supervisor supervisor or security of some kind uh to just uh oversee how it it's going and Embark probably having solutions to that in place already yeah we've we've talked about that I think the initial discussion was we wanted to see how uh it reacted and not start off by assuming we'd need security um I know sometimes we don't always hear the feedback but I I haven't heard uh that level coming back to us I don't know that Embark has either Lamar um just a few complaints um not that many however we try to keep it safe and secure as possible we utilize the camera system daily we try to monitor from a remote location um I personally go down to train Center um every morning set for about an hour two hours monitor things there um there was one particular time of person stayed in the bathroom Lo I did go address it um but outside of that I really haven't heard uh as in depth that she gave the the complaints yeah so we anytime if anybody is hearing that we'd love to have that pass along so we can repord it and then be able to provide that feedback back uh but yeah Oklahoma City they they do have uh a security uh Personnel up there and we're happy to look into that we just didn't want to uh spend that cost if if unnecessary um one thing I would encourage citizens if they have feedback about things like that to call us at 405 235 ride it's 235 7433 our customer service staff are trained on what questions to ask so that we can properly investigate those things and so that is definitely the best way to get a hold of us um I know many people say well I called a did compli nobody did anything I can absolutely guarantee you I will stake my next paycheck on it we investigate every complaint that comes into that phone line every single one so it's and you know those they're trying to get you know date time and the kind of information that we will need so I do encourage if if you hear from people please encourage them to have them call us so that we can properly address yes we spent a lot of money on that a lot of time to get that um and I know we all want to make sure that people feel safe using it and that it doesn't get you know messed up or anything but uh okay I appreciate that I appreciate the comments I appreciate that feedback as well any other comments or question questions from Council about that okay keep it moving all right move on to item number two which is a presentation from Imark regarding Mobility programs and coordinated Services good afternoon everybody uh my name is Dr Marilyn Dylan I'm the mobility management administrator at Embark um I know you all are on a very tight time schedule so please raise your hand if I start flying through my sides a little too fast and you need to stop me and ask a question I'd appreciate that um and this was just a reminder this was born out of uh the December cpnt meeting I think uh there was some discussion about additional programs that embar provides in Oklahoma City and just wanted to get more information on that so yes yes we want to share with you kind of the what's going on in in a more Statewide and Regional Manner and far as far as our planning and coordination that's going on so really briefly I wanted to kind of share with you many people don't really understand what Mobility Management Services are uh these are Services geared to what we call Transit dependent population most individuals have no access to a vehicle or very limited access to a vehicle or they live in a one vehicle household where they don't really have access to that uh one of the things that we find is individuals in those situations often get socially isolated because they don't have the opportunity to travel and go out into the community the way that other individuals do so we really try to gear these programs to those type of things and I want to share a few statistics with you about what that means in terms of social isolation in terms of health um there is a 50% % increased risk of dementia for seniors that live alone and are socially feel socially isolated there's a 29% increaseed risk of heart disease for people over the age of 50 that live alone and are isolated 32% increased risk of stroke and for people that already have heart failure actual feelings of loneliness can make them four times more likely to have another heart attack um so so the you know those connections that we all take for granted when we can get in our car and go over to our friend's house and watch a movie or visit things these are extremely important important to quality of life and so that is what our entire service is about is quality of life this is just a long list of the various things that we do um at a bark in Oklahoma City um one of our biggest programs that we've had for a very long time we have the older American Zach grant for Oklahoma and Canadian County we've been doing that for almost 40 years I think it's 40 years it is 40 years this will be our 40th year renewal of this grant but we do uh daily meal site transportation to all the Oklahoma County senior nutrition sites uh we serve 10 different Loc across the city we have 21 grocery shopping routes that run once a week Monday through Friday to allow people that no longer drive to still go to the grocery store there's usually a social activity uh each week uh around that so they will often get together and play games maybe go watch a movie first and then go shopping things like that so it's very nice and then of course obviously we have our non-emergency medical transportation for seniors 6 and over it's roundtrip door too um and obviously it's funded through the older Americans act so there's no cost to them one of the other programs that we have and this is a city of Oklahoma City program it is sponsored by the City of Oklahoma City um in cooperation with the YMCA and the City of Oklahoma City's parks department we also pop po um partner with the maps office the Metropolitan are projects office who has built the senior health and wellness centers in Oklahoma City you all have one now at the awe and Taylor and I are actually working with that staff right now to collect some data on Transit gaps and we'll be sharing with that with you in a few months once we let the the data collection kind of take its course and we get get a sufficient number of responses but this is a great service it just runs 8 to 5 Monday through Friday it doesn't cost the senior anything they can go and exercise have those social connections the only requirement we have is that they go to the center closest to their residents uh we we won't take them clear across town if there's a YMCA two blocks away so that's that's our One requirement so this is a so there's Embark plus yes sir this is not that this is a separate deal that the City of Oklahoma the city is paying for yes sir through Maps or through their budget City budget or whatever it started out as a pilot program I had a there was a program called New Freedom from the Federal Transit Administration many years ago we had a tiny little budget left and they said please find a way to spend this and close this grant out and so I I made the suggestion well let's try try health and wellness transportation for seniors because I had gotten sick myself and had to go through rehab and had discovered very quickly that everyone on Medicaid That was supposed to go to rehab with me 5 days a week was only going once cuz they would only transport them once a week and so I thought this is a perfect way to solve that problem let's make some senior health and wellness programs so that's how it kind of got started and it was so successful that they chose to fund it permanently as a permanent program is it different vehicles too or um right now and I'm going to get into that on what vehicles we use right now we have a subcontractor that helps us with this um we don't use the internal Embark Fleet for this um but later on we're going to kind of talk about how we're going to be starting to move some things in that direction when we get there will you be you talking about how it Compares how Embark plus compares to this or this is on demand um so it's we don't we won't come the same day it's not same day you have to schedule it in advance you know so you one and we would take up to one to three days in advance you can schedule six months out on Embark wall if you want to um you can schedule recurring trips um it's it's runs a lot quite a bit different than the the pair Transit service with pair Transit service being the the federally regulated and required service you know we have to do that a certain way um Mobility programs and the the things that we do give us a lot more flexibility in some of the ways that we are able to do it and do it very cost effectively okay so some of our other service that we're doing so what we found out during Co was um we've delivered all the food boxes for during um for the regional Food Bank during the pandemic um those um Amazon commercials you saw where they were doing it not in Oklahoma City we Mark was the the provider of all of those Services during Co um we also have a sheriff air trip subsidy program um this what used to be I'll say used to be one of our most popular programs with seniors they often used it for health and wellness Transportation they also would use it quite frequently to go to church on Sunday before we had Sunday service one of the things we've determined with the sharare program is that it's not affordable enough and it's one of the programs we intend to revamp this year in our budget process right now it provides a $4 trip subsidy with a a TNC company in Oklahoma City that's not enough for a low-income individual when the trip cost is around $25 total so we're we're looking at ways that we can increase the budget for that and provide a greater subsidy for each trip so basically we would pay like the first10 or $15 of the trip and then the customer pays the rest and then of course we have a a partnership with the Oklahoma City Police Department seniors that are victims of identity theft are provided free transportation to the bank to their attorney's office to get you know important documents meet with the detectives attend the court sessions if they wish to um so it's just one of those things that we it was one of those needs that we saw um knowing some of our police friends that we had SP talked with that this was a big problem and we found out that police officers were doing an extensive amount of time transporting people for these types of things to resolve a case and so we we partner with them to take that load off them and if you'll recall we do have the climb ride program this was an Innovative pilot project through a transportation Innovation Grant with arnal Family Foundation we got a million dooll um their charge for us was to go into the Oklahoma County child welfare system and see if we could improve reunification rates for families in the child welfare and foster care system if we could close the transportation Gap and the answer is transportation was the biggest Gap um we have improved reunifications from 35% to 63% in Oklahoma County instead of it taking 1 to 2 years uh it takes on average 12 to 16 months that's a $4,000 per month per child savings to the Department of Human Services for every child that comes out of a case early they save $4,000 a month and they've chosen to continue the yes they have chosen to continue that we last year we executed a permanent funding agreement with Department of Human Services so climb rid's now a permanent um part of Oklahoma County Child Welfare Services we are actively working with them on a rural replication of this project in a more rural setting we're also actively working with them to expand this into tanif services for temporary assistance for needy families and we are looking at the possibility of another Grant project to do a proof of concept of this model um in uh Juvenile Justice and children aging out of foster care so we're quite excited about how that looks obviously we do a lot of Partnerships to improve outcomes it's one of the biggest things we we like to do is as is uh transportation services enough to move the needle on an outcome and improve outcomes in Social Services and what we find is the answer is most definitely yes we partnered with the Palomar Family Justice Center um providing uh domestic violence Transportation since 2019 it averages about 275 trips a month there's a dedicated vehicle and a driver to that uh the driver when he's not busy moving uh Palomar participants also moves climb ride so so to your point about which vehicles we use this is kind of where we get into this is how we try to save money with costs we have the Palomar vehicle dedicated to the Palomar but it is not always busy because there's not a domestic violence person every 5 minutes that needs to go someplace so we utilize those empty seats on that vehicle to move some of our cly Marine participants we've recently in December of 2023 launched a similar service with the remerge in Oklahoma City which is a diversion program for single mothers um we've done 387 trips with re merge in just the the first 30 days um they are also riding on a co-mingled vehicle with other participants in our social services um because what we find is a lot of these individuals are getting services in the same places they're going to the same locations to do things and it and it makes sense and we we're all able to be really efficient with the the shared beles so one of the things I really wanted to share with you is what's coming next to Mobility Services in the central Oklahoma area um Taylor may have mentioned that um Embark has won an intergrated coordinated access and Mobility Grant in 2021 um we have half a million dollars and we're going to be replacing our trip scheduling software that we use for par transit services um our our software is old I will tell you that is extremely old the the newer software models are what they call continuous Dynamic optimization it's much more similar to the way an Uber software Works um and it provides so many more um bells and whistles so to speak as a mobile application the ability to schedule your trips through your phone or off the web so those are some very exciting developments that we're going to be having the other big thing is that Embark is assuming uh direct recipient in control of the 5310 funding for seniors and individuals with disabilities in the urbanized area um let me kind of give you a sense of what that looks like so this is what we call the urbanized area this is the entire metropolitan area the blue boundary that you see right there is what you call our urbanized area that that money it's a little bit over 1.2 million doar for many many years it has been at the state level of control um this will bring it under local control and enable us to develop out a more coordinated Network and what do we mean by that okay we're talking about Vehicles here so just to be clear this is uh not pair Transit because we're we're getting into the federal law section 5310 is a different pot of money than reg this is probably longer uh than need we probably need a longer conversation that we're so the software though for parat Transit does that U address the scheduling as in day of eventually yes um when we first put it in making it more on demand yes sir yeah not when we first install it uh we need to get it up and operational and get all of our our our internal business process and service processes aligned with the new system and then we will start adding new Services I have quite a few ideas up here in my head about ways that we can make a pair Transit much closer to getting on a fixed tra USS um but we want to do it in a stepwise and a very intentional manner um so that our quality of service doesn't drop um in the inter room so when I say that we coordinate and Co Engle this is what I'm kind of talking about um in many years in many places around the country everything is happening very siloed with Transportation you have an agency with a vehicle here you have an agency with a vehicle here everybody's paying for fuel and maintenance everybody's paying a driver and everybody's moving their own participants instead of working together in a ordinated manner well when you do that you got four Riders and four vehicles with four drivers that's going to cost you about $600 for all of those trips whereas if you work through a coordinated Software System and a co-mingled shared ride type of a system those the software the new generation software is smart enough to know which vehicle they need to put each Rider on you can fill up every seat on the vehicle and those four rides just now cost you $140 plus you have three other vehicles and three other drivers that are available to do other things and we're very very excited andark has been named the the obviously for the urbanized area but Taylor and I are also very very excited that we've also been named the coordinating Agency for the central region which means that we are able to coordinate with um Norman and and also the City of Edmond stuff so it's really going to be a game Cher for how we can do things here and going forward in the next three to five years because 5310 uh you know parat transit's very somewhat narrowly focused right it's people with functional disability that does not allow them to ride the fixed route well this is for seniors uh more ambulatory yeah yeah the people that aren't eligible for pair Transit but don't drive right and uh you uh the 5310 program will fund vehicles and that's historically what it's been used for and it can be uh uh it's very flexible it doesn't have to be a Transit Agency that has these vehicles but in the regulations uh they do encourage and almost mandate that they when they're not being Ed for your trips you they need to be available for other trips so that way they're being used as maximally as possible but that sounds good theoretically but so historically not it's just very hard to manage that so with the new software we hope we can pull all those 5310 vehicles that are round um I think the quanas cruiser is actually a 5310 vehicle I believe it might be and pull them into a network where they're really Mom and Pop shops that could have these um all around and just pull them all together say okay this vehicle yeah you're using it Monday Wednesday Friday but not Tuesday Thursday right so so we we've been working on this for quite some time um we've made contact with we have some of the larger Fleet providers in Oklahoma City that are already you know the Oklahoma City Housing Authority is going to join our coordinating Network the Community Action Agency has quite few Vehicles the daily living center Adult Day Center that's going to join in and I just met with Dale Rogers Training Center last week and they want to join into this coordinated Network so we just went from two Mobility vehicles to 37 Avil to Vehicles so but things are going to change quite rapidly and we're quite excited about what was going on we just kind of wanted to give you guys a little brief thing as we move forward in the 5310 and moving that money down from ODOT to Oklahoma City which won't occur until October of 2024 um we will continue to come back and give you an updated report on how that network is developing once we start to get more of the the really nuts and bolts pieces in place we want to make sure we keep you up to date on it okay councilor Sher um yeah I guess just one clarifying question about about the 5310 um so who is eligible for those nonprofits um cities um public transit providers uh Social Service Agency passengers oh passengers passengers is based on the program okay um so um it's supposed to Target seniors and individuals with disabilities but they encourage what they call incidental use which is why we can use them to move people from Palomar we can also use them to move people from Remar the fill up the vehicle on the seats efficient yeah that's awesome because um we've heard some things about you know people that can't use PA Transit needing some more kind of on demand to like to go to the doctor's office or you know things like that and so being able to utilize that within Norman um I think will be really awesome I know that it has not until maybe October passed but um pretty exciting that we could potentially be in this like coordinated system yeah we we've been talking to some of the Cleveland County agent Services regularly attends our coordination meetings and and we continue to receive other inquiries from agencies so if you know of a nonprofit here in Norman that does have a vehicle that wants to talk um you know please have them call call me um that's my Mobility management at Oklahoma City okc.gov let them let me know um and if there's anything that we can do if you want to have a more detailed discussion with me and and get into the nuts and bolts of ridership and how we pay for these things and and the budgets and things I am happy to meet with you individually or however Taylor wants to handle that so yeah I think the purpose of this presentation was we're about we're four and a half 5 years in of being the transit operator and uh I think with the route changes Transit Center opening we're finally at a point where we can look at these other um transportation options uh that can be more flexible I think we've gotten over the hurdle of a lot of things that have sucked the air out of the room with Transit um finally we can finally focus on other things and uh I think that's what we we need as council member Scher said there's a lot of people that can't use the fix drout bus or can't use Transit so what other services can we provide and Maryland does a great job in Oklahoma City with a um not not as large of a budget as you would assume for all these services so it's not nearly as big as you think it might be yeah I mean because we have lots of conversations about like the transit needs and the gaps and what's happening in our community um and to hear that there are some really wonderful programs that you're doing in Oklahoma City that could potentially be modeled here um I think is really exciting um for the community we're very excited about um I tease everyone and this is my going to be my swong song as I walk out the door to retirement is making sure we have a net for everybody to get where they need to be before I go that's a great goal so does the on is our on demand qualify under the 5310 um the Norman on demand no have accessible Vehicles it no the it does not qualify for that funding maybe we need to have a deeper conversation yeah I'd be interested in having like a drill down to just talk about that yeah but I think the good news is uh hopefully someday and I don't remember the timeline about on demand for repair Transit and really for a lot of these Services if we can get the the software where we co-mingle all the trips and and really have that robust uh management system uh we will be able to provide that that level of service but we we need to make sure that the uh federally mandated Paratransit service is being served properly adequately and to the letter of the law before we can really dive into co-mingling and making that's why I say we kind of want to do it intentionally we want to give us ourselves a little bit of breathing room after the software is initially launched then we're going to assume the 5310 money in October of 2024 and then our goal is about that time to start having some really intense conversations about what can we do now that we've got this software yeah ideally I think for me anyway be to have our on demand and our Embark plus be somehow combined bed mainly because we're going beyond the requirement and providing Embark plus to the entire city limits instead of just the was it one mile or two mile 34 of a mile 34 of a mile is all required to so we really only required to cover what 35 square miles or so but we're covering 200 square miles okahoma city has the three Zone border to border system as well they're doing the whole city the whole city miles yeah so some way than being able to be on demand would yeah we're very very hopeful with that and and our our goal also is is always to you know that inoc sental use can go over to pair Transit as well and fill those seats up as well and make the overall cost of the service lower right well I definitely look forward to discussing further for sure than you very much appreciate thank you okay um item number three on the uh agenda today is a discussion regarding engineering design for two-way Main Street project um this goes back quite a number of years uh we did a comprehensive study 2015 or so 16 on converting Main Street and grey Street back to two-way I always remind people that they were originally two-way they were made one way and um so uh that kind of gave us an idea of the feasibility of doing it how much it might cost to do it traffic patterns might look like and so we've talked about it for for years that study is kind of what led us to putting the Grey Street 2-way project on the transportation bond in 2019 and um I know several of us have gotten regular inquiries about from business owners and Property Owners on Main Street asking about that and then um and that being part of our future plan so thought it'd be good to have a discussion about it so Scott David appreciate you being here thank you very much and we'll be pretty brief I got some information here that we'll go through quickly here at the beginning just kind of set up as you said sometimes just a little bit of history is always a good thing uh they originally were gray and and Main Street were uh one lane each way um they were they were sorry they originally configured as two-way streets one lane each way with angled parking so that was the original setup as it as it grew and then in 1974 they were converted to two to oneway streets one in each Direction and that was part of the topics uh program there and you can see that there are a lot of things that happened there it was University Boulevard to Porter Avenue was in that because that was most accident prone area in Norman at that time and the on street parking was identified as one of the cause of those collisions I don't think anybody's too surprised by that so the pictures I've seen of like the 50s and whatnot it shows four lanes like Porter with no turn lane but two going in each Direction but no Center turn lane at all is some of the pictures I've seen on Main Street yeah yeah where it was just like Porter is now I guess but yeah no signal no turn signals no turn lane just kind of a free-for-all is what the pictures look like I was looking at some of the historical photos are even more fun because there's no lanes and people are going all directions at the same time yeah so in all different types of vehicles yeah yeah got some pictures in there we got you know horse and carts sitting right next to a car uh so the requests to convert back to two-way have been coming since the 90s so it's been a constant it's been something we've been discussing off and on for a long time in 2002 a study recommended that Maine and gray streets remain one way and then in 2014 the comprehensive Transportation plan or CTP uh showed changing the tra showed the changing the traffic patterns um it made a lot of interesting comments there that David is is much more uh attuned to talk about than I am but uh they could be reduced by one travel Lane through downtown it basically recommended going to two lanes so it would still be one way uh but there'd be two lanes instead of three lanes and it also recommended uh extending them further and taking them all the way out to the roundabout on Main Street and then at University doing a lot of work there to make that a better Terminus and a better way turn around to get back through uh with that they recommended there' be foot buffers to help with the parking and of course now we probably look at those as being bicycle lanes and other uses as well as just a buffer Lane and but it did say that there should be further analysis for two-way uh at that time and then the two-way implementation study was began in 2015 so these are basically the covers of those two studies you got the comprehensive Transportation plan was completed in 2014 and again it had those discussions what we discussed and then also the main and Gra Street uh conversion to 2-way operation uh report that was Again by Freez and Nichols so they did both reports they were able to maximize the data that they had and that was completed in 2016 and again that was a lot in response to the questions about these two streets and their uses so there was a focus uh group for the conversion study and I'm not going to read all the names off there you can see them I think you're going to recognize almost all the names on that list a lot of very active uh citizens most of them active within the main in gry Street corridors so this is kind of coming from that study why convert back to two-way streets uh the negative attributes of one-way couplets versus two-way uh two-way can induce higher traffic speeds you got a little more complex uh one way is higher speed so back I said it I I read it completely backwards uh it's it's more complex for the traffic circulation um and also the development energy in the neighborhoods the problems that it causes um there's a lot of potential economic enhancements with the two-way um the Terminus issues that we discussed where that one-way ends and what you do at those uh we've seen a lot of changes in traffic volumes and the patterns and uh this is a little more consistent with the the center city visioning process and again it was part of the Norman Amber of Commerce Municipal agenda in 2016 and 17 so just kind of a quick picture here of what it kind of looks like you can see the two red lines there that's Maine and gray uh you can see that they start their University going one way and they go all the way through to Porter um again the CPT said that those should be extended all the way up to the Terminus there at the roundabout on the East End and then all the way that they need to do a lot of work there at the Terminus University uh changing some Lanes to be much different flow than it is today so just a quick discussion the existing one-way system is just a picture there of Main Street uh One Direction it goes all three lanes going eastbound with the angled parking on both sides and we've come through and done a lot of bulb out work and the two projects we've done on Main Street to reduce that width by bulbing those out at the intersections and he kind of a little diagram there at the bottom of what that looks like and this is what the a proposed two-way could look like uh of course a two-way directional flow so there be one lane in each Direction with left turn bays at the intersection so you'd be able to make a left turn safely uh maintaining the angled parking this drawing shows it is head in angle parking because we're going in the downtown area to the reverse in angle parking we'd recommend staying with that on Main Street so it's consistent through the whole area uh and then we'd still have the bulb outs at all the intersections you would recommend it being reverse angle or yes yes yeah that way it's consistent so right we're already doing it on on Gray and James Garner be kind to me be complicated to have two different parking systems in that close an area and probably cause more confusion in in any case one side of the street the parking lines would stay the way they are currently yes and the other one we'd have to switch the bulb outs and we'd have to do switch all the striping so you'd actually have to change the bulb outs to where the car would pull in the other direction uh you wouldn't have to but it would definitely look better and it would also gain those parking spaces you'd want it to look right if you did it it would look a little awkward if you didn't do it that way so we get counil peacock I just say is that a piece of the project that you could phase in while the road was still open I mean basically you can make the two-way conversion and then you come in later after the road's open and do the bulb out switch or is that complicated it probably complicated because you'd have to close a line of traffic they have room to work to do that effectively so you basically have to close down that lane that You' just change so probably better to do it before you made the whole change so that you could so that you could maintain two lanes of traffic right and it'd be a little bit smoother and then you could just restripe it all at the end as one project that makes sense I'm just trying to figure out a way to minimize the impact to the area and it's already should be changing one bull bat on each side of the street so two per block out of the four I guess is correct Council sh so would you be shutting you'd have to shut the whole Corridor down or just like would you do it in sections like the section of Main Street is closed to do the conversion oh no I don't we'd actually have to close the entire roadway to do the conversion you'd probably have to close one lane yeah cuz you do it while it was in the one way condition so you could probably keep two lanes open and work in the that makes sense well I know one of the biggest uh complaints I've always heard and had myself about parking on Main Street is trying to back out when you're ready to leave uh very difficult to see and traffic moves very fast and uh it seems like always you go in and there's nobody parked next to you or there's a small car but when you come back out there's a really big truck or a big van parked next to you so where you perfectly can't see and I know a lot of cars now have rear view cameras but my old 1999 truck does not so it's still you could see in those door front windows yeah and and there are people that have concerns that you're going to have to pull past the spot and then back into the spot so people behind you you have to be mindful that there could be people backing into spots but the safety uh impact that we've seen over time we think it's it's worth the Merit uh if you think about if you open the door and you have a young child and they start running they're not running towards the street they're running towards the sidewalk and also as you're pulling out now you have that line of sight and so there will be a change and there's going to be people aren't going to like it we're going to get complaints about it whichever way it is ideally with the two-way the traffic is moving slower so it's easier to be ready for somebody to stop and back in and and yeah I would agree if if that isn't your thing and you're in a rush all the time then maybe Main Street isn't the street for you to take anymore this would be my recommendation folks any other ways to get across now yeah there were lots of pros and cons uh they went through they did a great job this is straight from the study I'm not going to sit here and read all these I don't think that's the point we're at today just that they did we out and there was definitely pros and cons of of every one of these options that we had you know the different uh categories that we see here so the two-way study findings uh converting M gray to two-way using the three existing travel Lanes on each Street will reasonably accommodate traffic operations with 20% growth so they said that it is feasible uh the preferred configuration they did look at alternate configurations they looked at two lanes in One Direction and one lane in one so that it switched on the two streets so you still maintain three lines of traffic in each Direction uh but the preferred traffic uh configuration was one Lane East Direction with the c Center turn Lanes um it would reduce speed through downtown uh would be pred that Main Street would be the predominant travel street so they still thought that it would carry the more traffic than Gray Street and then gray would be the Lesser travel streak between the two and it seems now too with grey Street going to two-way that if we don't do this there would only be one travel Lane going west uh now we' have four going East so that would seem unnecessary too if we didn't go forward with this at some point um one of the other uh issues that they talked about was doing the road di that we already discussed just going to two lanes from three lanes um one of the things that really have to look at is coordination with the Quiet Zone and make making sure that we maintain that and then there's a lot of work that goes into when you go from one way to two-way uh as we've just gone through on Grace Street uh there's a lot of effort that goes into that with the BNSF um and we they said that we should conduct public information and discussion meetings uh obviously the big to me the big guilla in the room is uh finding funding sources for the for the work to be done it was also recommended to confirm the James Garner Avenue and Porter Avenue projected traffic volumes uh through ACOG to make sure that what we see after that James Garner is complete see it's the it's important to keep in mind that the two-way study that Freez and Nichols did was based on traffic projections from ACOG because there was no James Garner coming down there was no change to Porter Street Porter Avenue so we wanted to see what happens with those changes in place perfect yes and then we also thought you know after that we brought in the change on Gray to two-way and we think it like to see how that impacts the traffic through downtown also so we can kind of get a real good picture of what we're what we're seeing in the two-way study they had some very clear next steps and these were their next steps uh the first was city council accepting the study that was accepted uh implement the railroad quiet Zone which has been completed uh the con and then construct James Garner extension uh from acres to flood that's under construction we still think we're on schedule for an April completion on that uh if we can get it to stop raining for more than a few days and then um secure funding for Main and gray conversion we've done that for gry street so we have secured funding uh then the design detail of recommended improvements again we've completed that for gray and then actually go through and do the conversion we're expecting the Gray Street to be bid by OD do in March and which means we'd be seeing a start probably in June so we've made quite a bit of of work uh a lot of progress here on those next steps so to get to a Main Street two-way conversion the next steps the first would be to do engineering design we're expecting that to be between $5 and $600,000 with what we're seeing right now with current engineering fees and the work we go into this one we do not believe we need any RightWay we've we've done all this within the RightWay so far and we don't see any change in that we shouldn't have any utility relocation we've done all that with the previous projects we're not widening out on anything so I think that's a good thing and then uh we need to find the funding for the for the two-way conversion right now based upon the prices that we're seeing on Grey Street we're expect that to be in about the $4.5 million range down the future and so I did want to make sure that it was noted that unlike Grey Street where we're doing sidewalks and some curbs and all new lights and everything Main Street already has all brand new sidewalks all brand new lights I say brand new within the last 20 years and it all still looks in good shape uh but all that all the utilities have already been buried all the overhead lines have been buried all the water mains have been updated everything on Main Street has already been done that would be it's going to be a lot of what's happening on gry street as far as that type of stuff so um less intensive probably it will be it will be we're looking here at you know since we initially costed Grey Street we've had about a 50% increase in construction costs so we you know tried to this is a little conservative but we don't think that we've been you know just crazy with the number Council peacock where is the bulk of that cost located is that at the intersection of the railroad uh it's it's the intersections but you know every one of those intersections will have to have a new signal pole and so you got to be looking at controllers and just the items that go into all that that's really where the bulk of the cost is we've seen a huge increase in the cost of pole of the signal poles so that's really where a bulk of it would be um what we were discussing internally was do we do we do this and come through and do a Mill and overlay on the entire project well this was all just done a few years ago that seems like it may be a little early for that so maybe we can reduce some cost by just by just grinding the striping and put new striping down but we would have to look at what we're doing those areas where we're reversing all the parking uh striping we may want to Mill that area so it's not so confusing with cross lines we want to keep a good look we don't want to look like something we've patched we want to look nice abely so we've kind of looked at all those items and kind of ballparked it where we think this might fall uh looking at it being a future year when would Main Street probably be up again for repaving every 10 years or so you know we're trying to get to a point where we're doing some preventative maintenance in between and so that usually preventative maintenance is usually in the fiveyear period so we're coming up into that uh that helps preserve that surface a little bit longer but you're usually looking if if you're in a really aggressive 10 years but a lot of times you're going to wind up squeezing that more to 15 and possibly more okay um and as far as funding sources um I know it'd be nice to be able to get the design of it done and make it an eligible project for grant funding or ACOG funding especially since it's a pedestrian Improvement and a economic enhancement project too I would argue um so if there was ways we could get funding for it even if we it' be nice to be able to do it without even having to bond it out and pay interest too um and uh so I I would wonder too because you mentioned the center city and when we hired um when they came in and did the center city study uh The Firm from Berkeley I think one of the first things they mentioned on their walking thing was how Main Street being one way was problematic um and was something we should change or should be a priority to change um I don't know we'll be getting the Center City you know infrastruct we can we can research we can look into those okay there's one of those couple of pictures there where there's yeah so the building on the left that would be where the First Financial Center is now or the what I call the Vista Building but um that's where that that's the corner of Maine and Peters but see we don't have traffic issues yeah yeah in all directions and then the one on the right you'd be looking at like big brew and uh Adam and Eve and um you know that that side of the block so yeah it's pretty fascinating um any comments or questions from Council Members two thumbs up yeah let's make it happen yeah I'm on board with moving forward with figuring out um how to have it ready how to get it to be a shovel ready project perhaps and we can apply for whatever funding might be out there and then um go from there but definitely the overwhelming feedback I've heard is is support for it and our Studies have shown that it would work and um and again like I said I think with the 2-way Grey Street it would only make sense you wouldn't have one one lane going One Direction Four going the other broke up among two streets and so um so yeah I appreciate the update Scott and David and I think from our standpoint we're we're good to move forward whenever when in whatever way um is necessary yeah we could certainly uh put in a capital request budget request um see if if there's room in the budget to be able to accommodate uh what the other projects are being requested well maybe we put some aside and save up or whatever but yeah i' be for I even be open to uh you know phasing in over a few years like maybe you just kind comp set the light Poes but you don't convert them and you don't turn them on until we've actually done the the striping and the conversion so you could do it over multiple years maybe even with surplus funds or however we figure that out but sure but we got to get the design all done we can get to that so that's what we'll we'll we'll forward with the design yeah that way if we have a design ready and a project ready maybe we can make the case that yeah this is enhancing Public Safety as far as pedestrian safety it's enhancing economic benefit to our businesses downtown and so maybe we can get it would probably stand a much higher chance of getting funding than some of our other projects that we're having trouble with as we've talked about so okay any final thoughts questions okay thank you very much um and given the time uh limit I think item number four if everybody's okay we we'll probably have to postpone that one till next month um since we've been asked to stop at 5 stop at 5 so if that works for everybody okay okay then um I appreciate all of you for being here everybody watching at home and City staff uh for your work on these items and we are adjourned appreciate you guys
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