transcript - july 25, 2014 meetingftp.dot.state.tx.us/.../advisory-committee/transcript.pdf ·...
TRANSCRIPT
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TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATIONBICYCLE ADVISORY COMMITTEEE MEETING
200 East Riverside Drive, Building 200Austin, Texas
FridayJuly 25, 2014
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Regina Garcia, ChairRobert GonzalesBilly HibbsAnnie MeltonMargaret CharlesworthTommy EdenRuss Frank
STAFF:
Teri KaplanEric Gleason
ALSO PRESENT:
Josh RibakoveBonnie ListerCarol CompaDebra VermillionGenevieve Bales (Telephonically)Steve RatkeBud Melton
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Call to order Page 03
Introduction of BAC members, Federal HighwayAdministration staff, and Texas Department ofTransportation (TxDOT) staff Page 03
Approval of Minutes Page 04
Update from TxDOT's Statewide Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Page 05
Discussion of TxDOT's Crash Record Information System Page 10
Discussion and recommendations regarding TxDOT's Safe Routes to School safety campaign Page 70
Discussion and recommendations regardingTxDOT's proposed Transportation AlternativesProgram rules Page 32
Adjourn Page 114
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MS. GARCIA: Everybody, I'd like to call the meeting
to order. And if we could just take a moment and go around the
table and introduce ourselves. Bobby will you start?
MR. GONZALES: Robert Gonzales, El Paso.
MR. HIBBS: Billy Hibbs, Tyler.
MR. EDEN: Tommy Eden, Austin.
MS. MELTON: Annie Melton, Dallas.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Margaret Charlesworth, San Angelo.
MR. FRANK: Russ Frank from Houston.
MS. GARCIA: I'm Regina Garcia from Houston.
MR. GLEASON: And I'm Eric Gleason with the Public
Transportation Division of TxDOT.
MS. KAPLAN: And I'm Teri Kaplan, also with the
Public Transportation Division and interstate bicycle
coordinator.
MS. GARCIA: And back here, please, if you all want
to introduce yourselves.
MS. COMPA: Good morning. My name is Carol Compa and
I'm with TxDOT in the Traffic Operations Division, Traffic
Safety.
MR. MELTON: Bud Melton, Dallas.
MR. RATKE: Steve Ratke. I'm a safety engineer with
the Federal Highway Administration here in the Texas division.
MS. VERMILLION: I'm Debra Vermillion with the
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Traffic Operations Division, TxDOT.
MS. LISTER: I'm Bonnie Lister. I'm the TxDOT Au --
I'm Bonnie Lister. I'm the TxDOT Austin District Bike-Ped
Coordinator.
MR. RIBAKOVE: I'm Josh Ribakove. I work in TxDOT
Public Transportation Division.
MS. GARCIA: Great. Do we have anybody on the phone?
MS. BALES: This is Genevieve Bales with the Federal
Highway Administration.
MS. GARCIA: Great. Thank you. Thank you for
joining us.
MS. KAPLAN: Hi Genevieve.
MS. BALES: Hi.
MS. GARCIA: First up on the agenda is the approval
of the minutes from the April 28th meeting. Did anybody have
any corrections for the minutes? Nobody saw anything that
needed to be cor -- could I have a motion that we approve the
minutes?
MS. MELTON: I'll make a motion that we approve the
minutes.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you, Annie. Can I have a second?
MR. FRANK: Second.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you very much, Russ. All in favor
of the approval of the minutes as they're written?
MR. FRANK: Aye.
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MS. MELTON: Aye.
MS. GARCIA: Anybody opposed? No. Okay. So that
order of business is out of the way. Now we're going to have
an update on -- or an update on TxDOT's plan by Teri. Yes.
Thank you, Teri. Take it away.
MS. KAPLAN: I'm walking to the front of the room
because I had it on my computer instead of a hard copy. I had
-- basically I just wanted to hit some of the highlights that
have gone on since -- from the last quarter, since we met. I
am participating with the Transportation Planning and
Programming Division, with GIS coordination. Had a meeting
with Commissioner Moseley the last week of May and one of the
subjects that came up was the state -- creating a statewide
bikeway plan. And there was as suggestion that we -- that the
committee, the bicycle advisory committee, write a letter to
TxDOT making that request to the commission.
The Public Transportation Division reviewed the TAP
rules and made some comments. I participated in the -- in Jul
-- in -- on June 25th, 2014, and TxDOT's Dallas and Ft. Worth's
districts partnered with the North Central Texas Council of
Governments to conduct a public meeting on bikeways, plans and
programs that are underway.
I didn't mention that the first week of the month I
participated in the TxDOT's transportation planning and
programming workshop where I gave a presentation on bikeway
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terminology. And as a result of the public meeting in June and
the workshop, I created the boards that are behind you. And I
have them in 8 1/2 by 11 and I've been encouraging that we all
use the appropriate terminology when we discuss bikeways. And
so I hope that you all are familiar with those terms there from
AASHTO and from NACTO. And the definitions are included on the
boards and the photographs give you examples of the type of
facilities. And I will share that with the Bicycle Advisory
Committee as part of our meeting minutes for this meeting.
I took a vacation in July. Yay. That was the first
vacation since I moved to Austin. Prepared for this meeting
and for other meetings that have been going on. And we have a
big workshop, Advocacy Advance is coming to give a workshop on
pedestrian and bicycle accommodations and the use of federal
funding to promote those ac -- those transportation options.
And that will August 4th. I believe I sent you all the
information about that workshop.
And next week I'll be traveling to Brownsville to
work with our district staff there in the city of Brownsville
to review some areas that may need some bicycle improvements
and also to attend the Advocacy Advance workshop that's going
to be in Brownsville.
And this upcoming quarter I would like to -- of
course we've got the workshop that's coming up in August. And
the environmental -- or TxDOT's environmental section is having
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a workshop in Galveston. I'll be doing a presentation there.
Again I'm going to focus on terminology because I find people
are not using the appropriate terminology when they discuss
bikeways and I want us to all get on the same page so that we
can -- using the same language.
I'm going to travel to El Paso next month and
participate in a FHWA workshop. And the focus is complete
streets. And I'll also be working with district staff there,
looking at bike issues in the area. Hopefully we'll be
authorized to develop a state bikeway plan, and if so and
funding for that is granted, we will develop a scope of work
for that plan. And the next -- and hopefully the
Transportation Alternative Program rules will be approved by
the commission either -- we anticipate in September of this
year. So we will move forward with developing a program guide
and nomination form.
I'm going to complete the second phase of the Tyler
district demonstration map and I'm going to organize my bicycle
photographs. So that's what's on the agenda for me and that's
my report. Any questions?
MS. MELTON: I'll just say something about the
meeting with TxDOT and NCTCOG in Irving --
MS. KAPLAN: Yes.
MS. MELTON: -- outside of Dallas. It was wonderful.
They had the MPO staff --
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MS. KAPLAN: Speak loud so that everyone on the phone
can hear that.
(Laughter.)
MS. MELTON: Yeah, well, I'm speaking pretty loud.
They had the TxDOT folks, they had the MPO folks, all who were
concerned about bicycling and Teri and Karla Weaver gave
wonderful presentations. And the audience clapped at the end.
I mean, how often does that happen?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Not so often.
MS. MELTON: Not very often. I was impressed. It
was well received.
MS. KAPLAN: And actually the accounting of it that
was out there on -- there was some websites that reported about
it -- they only had the actual number of people that signed in,
but there were like a dozen to two dozen additional people that
were in attendance for the meeting. It was very good. Thank
you for mentioning that, Annie. That was Annie Melton.
MS. GARCIA: Go ahead, Tom.
MR. EDEN: Tommy Eden. You mentioned the state
bicycle plan and it sounded like that this committee needs to
take some kind of action to send a message to the commission
recommending this -- that this bicycle plan be worked on.
MS. GARCIA: Are you making a motion that we write a
letter?
MR. EDEN: Well, I don't know that it's in order,
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because it's not on the agenda. And so that's really what my
question is.
MR. GLEASON: Let me -- if I can make a suggestion.
This is Eric Gleason. I'm going to make a suggestion, Tommy.
We get it on your next meeting agenda but it won't -- but we
will proceed with proceeding on the idea in between now and
then and we will bring to you an appropriate item for action
that will further those efforts. Does that make sense?
MR. EDEN: Yeah.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. Yeah, it's awkward because it's
not on here for you take action on, but we will -- we'll make
it work. I think it's important for the committee to weigh in
early on as opposed to later on.
MR. EDEN: Right.
MR. GLEASON: And so we will give you that
opportunity.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you. So that will be on our next
--
MR. GLEASON: Yes, it will.
MS. GARCIA: -- meeting's agenda.
MS. KAPLAN: Excellent. Thank you all.
MS. GARCIA: Thanks, Teri. Next up, Debra Vermillion
and Carol Campo [sic] and Marsha -- is Marsha here?
MS. VERMILLION: Well, actually it's just me for this
agenda.
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MS. GARCIA: Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Pardon
me.
MS. VERMILLION: That's okay.
MS. GARCIA: And here on our agenda it says that it's
crash record information system. Really Debra's going to focus
more on the pedestrian bicycle crash trends, which is the
information that --
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: -- we're hungry for.
MS. VERMILLION: On the agenda Teri said you all
wanted to hear about the system. Well, that's a broad topic.
What do we want to talk about? And then when she read Annie's
emails basically about the crash data that pertains to
pedestrian-bicycle. So I've made -- bring in some numbers
yesterday -- I'm sorry, I should have been passing out two
things to you because there's two items along the top of that
-- to show what Annie and several of you all had noticed
through our strategic highway safety plan, that we have a
problem in Texas with pedestrian fatalities. And I think
Annie's question was basically this is part of the state's
strategic highway safety plan, so what's TxDOT's plan to
address this. So that's what we're going to talk about.
I've got enough of these I think for everyone in this
room.
MS. KAPLAN: Here, we'll help you pass them out. Let
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me finish them up.
MS. VERMILLION: Because I didn't know I was doing it
until yesterday. Okay. I've got my copies. So the first
thing, I color coded -- I'm sorry, I just did this real quick
yesterday afternoon, so I didn't give Teri a chance to put it
in the presentation. So this is the trend or the actual
numbers for pedestrian fatalities and pedalcyclist fatalities
for last five years.
I broke it out by on the state highway system and off
the state highway system because that kind of goes into the
conversation I wanted to have about it. So pedalcyclists, you
can see the fatality numbers aren't real high, but obviously
one fatality is too many. They've been pretty stagnant over
the last five years. We had a spike there in 2012. We had a
spike in all fatalities in the state in 2012. The state of
Texas saw an 11 percent increase in fatalities from 2010 to
2011 -- or 2011 to 2012. So that doesn't surprise me that
bicycles fell into that increase also.
The thing that's most troublesome is those pedestrian
numbers. That is a huge, huge amount of fatalities. That
works out to I think about 12 percent to total fatalities in
the state of Texas. So they're right there along with
motorcyclists, about the same numbers and stuff. So it's a
large number.
If you look at those pedestrian numbers, you'll see
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that the majority of fatalities are on the state highway
system, which makes sense because they're high speed
fatalities. A person gets hit by a motor vehicle, someone
going 70 miles an hour, they're going to die more than likely.
The serious injuries happen more along your local
roadways. Serious injuries are defined as an incapacitating or
non-capacitating injury also. That means it's pretty bad
obviously didn't result in death.
So the numbers are high. They continue to climb.
They -- from 357 in 2009 to 488 in 2013. I looked this morning
at where we're at right now in 2014 and we've had 237
pedestrian fatalities as of this morning in Texas in 2014.
Now I also gave you all a copy of the strategic
highway safety plan pages that pertain to bicyclists and
pedestrians. And we're not meeting our goals. Our goals were
to try to reduce it by 10 percent from 2010 -- or 2005 to 2010
was the original goal.
We are currently revising the strategic highway
safety plan and it will have new goals. We had five workshops
across the state this year. I think some of you all may have
been involved in some of those workshops that basically bring
in all the stakeholders that have an interest in traffic safety
and give your input into these countermeasures. Now the
countermeasures in the strategic highway safety plan are things
that came out of these workshops and from surveying people
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involved in traffic safety. And some of them can be
implemented, some cannot. Some require legislation and stuff.
But the think I want you all to note is that this, the
strategic highway safety plan is a statewide document that
identifies Texas' problems.
The goal from the federal government with this is for
local governments to roll up into the state plans. The
problems in east Texas are not the same problems in west Texas.
The problems in our urban area are not the same problems in our
rural area. Those local MPOs and communities need to look at
their data and figure out what their problems are and kind of
work a local plan to help address that. And of course any
improvements on the local level roll up to the statewide level.
So a lot of these improvements, especially for ped
and bike, really are geared more to local people and stuff.
Not to say that there's not improvements obviously on the state
highway system that can't be made. There are a lot of
improvements that can.
So I know the question that Annie had in your email
was what's TxDOT doing. Well, you all now have a very good
committed ped-bike coordinator for the state. So she's -- she
is a true champion for ped-bike issues. So that's a big
positive. That's a big win. There are lots of programs within
TxDOT that addresses -- the new TAP program will be addressing
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a lot of ped-bike issues and stuff. Our traffic safety program
that Marsha and Carol worked with the staff, they had a lot of
program areas and grants to address ped-bike issues.
One of the other things that we are doing, and this,
Stephen Ratke back from FHWA might be able to -- talk more on
this. Texas is a pedestrian focused state. The federal
government identified states -- let's see if I can read this.
So FHWA safety office has been working aggressively to reduce
pedestrian deaths by focusing extra resources on the cities and
states with the highest pedestrian fatalities and/or fatality
rates. So the cities and states were selected based on the
number of pedestrian fatalities or the pedestrian fatality
rates. Texas is a pedestrian focus state. And Ft. Worth,
Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio focus cities. I don't
think this map is real up to date, because I think El Paso is a
focus city also. So they -- I'm not involved in that. Darren
McDaniel, our safety engineer for TxDOT is involved in that
whole process. They have monthly webinars, so all the states
share the cities that are identified as focus cities. So
they're brainstorming trying to come up with ways to address
this problem in their areas and in our state, along with the
other states. Some of the -- California, Arizona, New Mexico,
Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Missouri,
Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York, and
New Jersey are all focus states.
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So the federal government is throwing extra resources
and that -- resources, I don't necessarily mean money, but help
with addressing these issues of these states that have
identified as focus states. So that's -- hopefully we're going
to see some relief from that. I know our districts are working
diligently. The districts that have problems, especially on
the state highway system. Those of you who live in the Austin
area, it's really disconcerting, I drive I-35, seeing people
try to run across I-35. Really? You know, in the middle of
the night, during rush hour and stuff. It's just like -- and a
lot of the frag -- a lot of the pedestrian fatalities that
happen on the state system happen obviously on high speed
facilities but also on the interstate system, people running
across these -- you know, putting infrastructure and building
crosswalks, you know, those kind of things don't help in that
type of facility. People -- they are -- there are crosswalks
and stuff. It's -- yes, Annie, do you have a question?
MS. MELTON: Well, I want to just reiterate your
problem that you observed with people running across freeways.
A traffic person from the TxDOT office in Dallas once said,
well, if people would quit running across the freeways. But
the truth is neighborhoods have been dissected and they can't
get to the convenience store or whatever, especially in poor
areas of town, without walking a mile one way and then a mile
back, and so they run it.
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MS. VERMILLION: You're right.
MS. MELTON: And I think the long term solution is to
have tunnels under or overpasses depending on the --
MS. VERMILLION: We have tried overpasses I know in
several areas.
MS. MELTON: No, I don't mean --
MS. VERMILLION: They don't use them.
MS. MELTON: -- one like that, I mean --
MS. VERMILLION: But like the pedestrian overpasses.
MS. MELTON: But if it were below grade and the
pedestrians were at grade, or if it's above grade and you
tunnel under when you reconstruct or, you know, do some serious
work on a road, that would be so huge.
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah.
MS. MELTON: Especially in communities that depend on
walking.
MS. VERMILLION: No, you're right. And I know that's
one of the things that the districts are looking at.
MS. MELTON: Good.
MS. VERMILLION: There's always a cost issue. Those
are very, very costly. So they've got to --
MS. MELTON: So are deaths.
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah, but someone's got to pay for
it, so --
MS. MELTON: Yeah, but -- yeah, and so the poor
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people don't have the money --
MS. VERMILLION: No, no.
MS. MELTON: -- to help pay but the truth is that --
MS. VERMILLION: It's not the people paying for it --
MS. MELTON: -- is where that --
MS. VERMILLION: -- it's the tax --
MS. MELTON: -- is happening is in the poor
neighborhoods.
MS. VERMILLION: That's part of the problem, is that
these are very random. There's not isolated areas where they
happen all the time to determine exactly where the risk is. In
a lot of areas. I'm not saying every area.
MS. MELTON: Urban. Urban.
MS. VERMILLION: I-35, up there north where the
Austin district office is, happened all the time. So --
MR. EDEN: It's very costly to build these highways
in the first place.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MR. EDEN: And so maybe whenever these highways are
being built, they can be built with the idea in mind that
pedestrians need to get across them.
MS. VERMILLION: I --
MR. EDEN: You know, if you're building an overhead
highway, why not put in some place underneath or space
underneath where people can actually walk across.
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MS. MELTON: And I think --
MS. VERMILLION: No, I agree, when they're --
MS. MELTON: -- they need to be every --
MS. VERMILLION: -- building a new facility.
MS. MELTON: -- at least every quarter mile. So that
somebody is not walking more than half a mile to get across the
road. At least that often.
MS. VERMILLION: That would be nice.
MS. MELTON: Yes, that would be nice.
MS. MELTON: I know, but that's -- yeah, but that's
what needs to --
MR. FRANK: So --
MS. MELTON: -- happen to change it.
MR. FRANK: -- I know these numbers are like very
high level numbers, but we're talking about freeways and
crossing. Is there -- do we know, like are some of these the
state highway system in urban areas that are a freeway? Are a
lot of these --
MS. VERMILLION: I don't have --
MR. FRANK: -- in the rural highways?
MS. VERMILLION: The majority of those --
MR. FRANK: I mean, kind of -- I mean, I don't -- I
don't need the exact number.
MS. VERMILLION: -- are going to be in urban areas.
MR. FRANK: That's what I was wondering, yeah.
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MS. VERMILLION: A lot of the ones that happen in
rural areas, what the issue is, is people getting out of their
vehicles on the shoulders for vehicle breakdowns and stuff like
that --
MR. FRANK: Yeah. Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- and then they're getting hit.
They're not necessarily crossing the roadways and stuff. Yes,
ma'am?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Question. Where in here do you
count the people in the motorized wheelchairs? We're starting
to see a lot of them. Are they considered pedestrians?
MS. VERMILLION: No, they're not.
MR. EDEN: Pedestrians.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Or bicycles?
MS. VERMILLION: They're a motorized conveyance.
They're not considered either. They are --
MR. EDEN: They're not considered --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Well, they are --
MR. EDEN: -- pedestrians?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- universal pedestrians.
MS. VERMILLION: It's considered -- but as far as the
crash data, the way the officers report them, a wheelchair is a
motorized conveyance and they are captured under another unit
type. We have the data.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Like scooters and that? I mean,
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are they lumped in with like scooters and motorcycles or --
MS. VERMILLION: No, that's totally different. The
motorized conveyance are things like the Segways and things and
the bicycle. I can give you that data. We collect it. It's
in the data and stuff, it's just not considered pedestrian.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah, my -- the reason for my
question is, I mean, you know, out in west Texas, everybody
drives. I mean, it's -- bicycles and pedestrians are not that
common, but we're seeing more motorized wheelchairs using the
car lanes and the near misses are frightening. And so I was --
and I'm sure somebody's been hit already and I was just
wondering if they were in these statistics or are they
something else.
MS. VERMILLION: They are not in --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Because we're going to see --
MS. VERMILLION: -- the pedestrian-bike --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- a lot more of those.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes, we may. I can tell you in 31
years I've seen maybe four people in wheelchair --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: No, no, no. I mean --
MS. VERMILLION: -- so --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- we're going see an --
MS. VERMILLION: But it's going to happen.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- increased number --
MS. VERMILLION: So --
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MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- of motorized wheelchairs as --
MS. VERMILLION: Because of the aging population,
yes.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: With -- well, and you know, it's
-- quite frankly, some of our returning military.
MS. VERMILLION: Right.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: And because those types of aids
are becoming more available to people that used to be homebound
or had to have -- rely on somebody with a -- you know, and
accessorized van or whatever. And they're becoming more
independent. So it's a new population that I think we're going
to have to look besides -- you know, in addition to bicycles
and people on foot.
MS. VERMILLION: We can do that. The data is
collected. They're classified as motorized conveyance because
of Texas transportation code. That's how law enforcement views
that type of -- code dictates that they record them that way.
But, yeah, we can definitely -- and that is out on the TxDOT
website. There is a annual report that has by vehicle type and
motorized conveyance or unit type that is out there. So you
could look at those numbers. But we can start -- I mean, we
already collected it but we don't publish it, for you all's
benefit we don't, but we can definitely get that to you all. I
can give it to Teri and she can provide it to you. And you can
you see what the issue -- if there's any issues with that
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currently. Like you said, there could be more issues.
MR. FRANK: I have one more question. On the cyclist
section on the state highway system, I mean, I know there's all
kinds of wrecks, but do we know kind of if we're trying to
reduce those accidents on the highway system, do we know in
general is it a car -- I mean, a bicycle just driving on the
highway and a car just hits them or are there other kinds of
ways accidents are happening? Or do we know --
MS. VERMILLION: The majority --
MR. FRANK: -- any more about this kind of data?
MS. VERMILLION: -- of the -- is on the state highway
system, especially in the urban area. They are traveling on
two lane facilities that have a speed limit of 70 miles per
hour and there's no shoulder --
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- traffic.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: So --
MS. GARCIA: And there -- did you say at night?
MS. VERMILLION: Not necessarily at night.
MS. GARCIA: Oh, okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Just in general.
MS. GARCIA: And is it getting hit from behind or is
it at an intersection? Do we know?
MS. VERMILLION: It would probably be -- on a rural
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area, it's going to be getting hit from behind.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Yeah.
MS. VERMILLION: Or head-on.
MR. HIBBS: And most of them are in urban areas.
MS. VERMILLION: Most of the pedestrian ones are in
urban areas. The bicyclist ones, it's probably -- I mean, I'd
have to look. It's actually -- I should have read it this way.
Sorry. If I would have known this is want you all wanted a
couple of weeks ago I would have done a little more in-depth --
and I can. We can --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- provide that. I can pull that
together and give it to Teri, she can send it out to you. We
can break it down by urban/rural, by -- I can provide the
motorized conveyance data. We can slice and dice this anyway
you all would like.
MS. GARCIA: You know what, that would be really
helpful to have urban versus rural --
MS. VERMILLION: Sure.
MS. GARCIA: -- broken down, especially so we can
start seeing trends. Because I think a lot of us are
interested in the distracted driver trend and -- not that the
numbers would tell something, but maybe it would give us a
clue.
MR. GLEASON: If I may --
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MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: -- Madam Chair. One of the things I
think the committee can think about, having heard this kind of
information for probably the first time, is not necessarily
make decisions on this today but to think about what you see
here and what kind of information or discussion you might be
interested in having over time about this topic.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: And to formulate an area of interest,
if you will, or you know, what is it -- is there anything here
that you're seeing today that you might want to try and work
with a little bit over time. That -- again, it's a discussion
item today. There's no room for action. First time you've
seen it. Sounds like maybe you were looking for a little bit
more in some areas. But just start thinking about an area of
interest that you might want to focus on.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: And --
MS. GARCIA: Yeah, thank you for your direction.
MR. GLEASON: -- we can put that on the next agenda
as a followup --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- if you want.
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah --
MS. GARCIA: And --
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MS. VERMILLION: -- and I think Teri would be perfect
to coordinate that within TxDOT and then get other players
other than the BAC and stuff.
MS. GARCIA: And just so --
MS. KAPLAN: Well, what I ask --
MS. GARCIA: Go ahead.
MS. KAPLAN: -- members to do is to formulate your
requests and questions, send them to Regina and copy me.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. HIBBS: Okay. Well, let me make a suggestion. I
think that this is very valuable information. And we can't eat
the whole elephant, you know, I can't manage, you know, what's
going on in El Paso, but Robert needs the information that's --
that has to do with his region that he covers.
MS. VERMILLION: We can break it down by counties.
MR. HIBBS: And I need the information for Northeast
Texas.
MS. VERMILLION: We can do that. Definitely break it
down by county.
MR. HIBBS: And if I have that data I can then sit
down and look at frequency and severity and say, all right,
we've go a problem on a certain number of roads where we've had
a lot of accidents. And we want to try to steer some
resources, steer some signage, do whatever we need to to
address it in these particular areas. And I think those of us
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who are on a committee, again, if we'll just -- if we'll kind
of carve the state up into our own area and focus on that
particular area, that could be very valuable.
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah, and we can -- I can provide
you all all the crashes, not just the fatal ones, serious
injury too, because we have a lot of other pedestrian-bicycle
crashes that someone's injured. Maybe not injured but an
incident still occurred.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: And for me I would like your
definition of urban and rural. Like where I live, I couldn't
-- you know, that's definition rural. But we consider San
Angelo urban. But that -- for your statistical methods, that
might not be considered an urban area. I mean --
MS. VERMILLION: Urban [sic] areas are classified as
areas of population less than 5000. So San Angelo is urban by
that definition.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Okay. Well, we consider it the
big city.
MS. VERMILLION: So it's a 5000 or less population is
rural, so it's going to be anything not incorporated in the
city obviously. And then your smaller communities that have
less than 5000 population and stuff.
MS. GARCIA: And I have a question. On the next page
there was -- it says -- I'm not sure if it's directed at you,
Debra, or just TxDOT in general, but it says establish
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countermeasures. Are these things that te --
go ahead.
MS. VERMILLION: Those are the established
countermeasures that the working groups that work on this
document came up with --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- to address the problems.
MS. GARCIA: But they haven't been funded, they
haven't been approved anywhere. It's just so -- this is living
working document.
MS. VERMILLION: And it's not directed toward TxDOT
in general, it's for anyone who has an interest in improving
pedestrian safety and bicycle safety.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: These are some ideas that the
people, the stakeholders who were involved in this gave to the
document.
MS. GARCIA: Gotcha. Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: And this is being updated, this
document, the new document will be probably published by the
end of this calendar year for sure, if not sooner. And we just
had like five more workshops and lot more information coming
into it and everything. So that will be out by the end of the
calendar year. Probably by November. And that will be
updated.
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MS. VERMILLION: Tom?
MR. EDEN: Yeah, one other concern, and that is if
all you focused on is the number of injuries and the number of
fatalities, then we're not -- we're not dealing with the whole
problem because we also need to look at the need to increase
the number of bicyclists and pedestrians that are using the
roadway. So if you can reduce the number of injuries just by
reducing the number of pedestrians and bicyclists that are on
the road, that's not what we're trying to achieve.
MS. VERMILLION: No, you're right. But this document
in particular, this strategic highway safety plan, is the
document to address reducing fatalities and injuries on the
roadways in the state. That's what that document is for. It
has -- it's not addressing congestion and mobility and that
kind of stuff. It's a different -- has a different role. But,
no, you're quite right. If we took all the pedestrians and
bicycles off, we could reduce it to zero.
MS. MELTON: Yeah, right.
MR. FRANK: But I think if we know --
MS. VERMILLION: But that's not going to happen.
MR. FRANK: If we know that most of these accidents
on the rural area, on the highway system are on two-lane roads
where there is 70 miles per hour and there's no shoulders,
maybe those are areas we need to talk about how we can focus on
those areas and try to reduce accidents in certain places where
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we know that's where a lot of the bicycle accidents are
happening.
MS. VERMILLION: And they do.
MR. FRANK: I mean -- and maybe with more data we
could figure that out, but that kind of seems like maybe
something we could focus on.
MS. VERMILLION: And I know Teri, you could probably
address that.
MS. KAPLAN: I had a meeting with Darren McDaniel
recently and we were talking about that and part of the HSIP
program, and he indicated that there's a whole initiative out
there to add four feet in width to those roadways. And it
makes a huge difference in the fatality rates. And so we
started it out somewhat as a demonstration project, but now it
is a funded category. And we are making improvements every
year in those areas.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes, we are --
MR. FRANK: That's good.
MS. VERMILLION: -- going to systemically try to
widen all the rural narrow --
MS. KAPLAN: Yes.
MS. VERMILLION: -- two-lane roadways from -- to a
minimum of 24 feet. So that's effort's been underway ever
since the safety bond initiative at the end of 2004. We've
probably widened three or four thousand miles of roadway since
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then in 2004 just under that initiative in our safety program.
As I said, the districts have done this on their own, with
their own funding and stuff too. But I will tell you when we
started this, there was over 30,000 miles of rural two-lane
roadways that had less than 24 feet. So it's going to be a
long process but it is an initiative that the agency -- and
administration agency have taken on and they're working
towards. Yeah, that's definitely a benefit to pedestrians,
bicyclists, all the road users and stuff. Not only -- you
know, to motorists you have a more forgiving roadway, helps
keep them on the roadway.
MR. EDEN: What category is that?
MS. VERMILLION: The HSIP program is Category 8.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you.
MS. VERMILLION: But the systemic funding and stuff,
we funded with state funds, not through the HSIP program.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you, Debra. We need to move on.
MS. VERMILLION: Okay.
MS. GARCIA: But thanks for giving us --
MS. VERMILLION: You're welcome.
MS. GARCIA: -- info that we can bite off and chew
and we look forward to working with you to getting more safety
info.
MS. VERMILLION: We will get you all some more.
MR. GLEASON: Regina?
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MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: I'm sorry to interrupt.
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: We do have forms at the front where you
come in, if you're a member of the audience and you wish to
make a comment on an agenda item. We also -- I think we'll
probably entertain comments at the end of the meeting --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- if folks want to do that. But we
want to make sure the committee has time to discuss amongst
themselves each of the agenda topics, so --
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Good. I'll try to save some time
at the end of the meeting --
MR. GLEASON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: -- for that.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. GARCIA: We're going to move to agenda item
number 7. We'll come back to agenda item number 6. But Mr.
Mark Marek is here and he's going to discuss with us the
Transportation Alternative Program rules. We've got a lot of
info here. And thank you for coming to help us wade through --
MR. MAREK: Sure.
MS. GARCIA: -- this great info.
MS. GARCIA:
MR. MAREK: Well, I appreciate the invitation to come
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back and --
MR. GLEASON: Do you want to sit down, Mark?
MR. MAREK: -- have an opportunity --
MR. GLEASON: Do you want to sit?
MR. MAREK: -- to visit with you again. I think when
I was here before we were in the process or we just begun the
process, as I recall, of drafting these TAP rules. And just by
way of introduction, the TAP program is the Transportation
Alternative Program of the Federal Highway Administration and
it's outlined in MAP-21. It is the quasi-replacement I'll call
it for the old Transportation Enhancement Program that we used
for many years, I guess all the way back into the early '90s.
I say quasi because there are some changes in the federal
requirements for that program. They've narrowed the scope a
little bit and in talking to some of our sister states, they
have in turn narrowed it some more with respect to some of the
categories they've done in the past. And so under the
direction of the commission, we took that advice and we've
narrowed it beyond the federal regulations also.
But if you have an opportunity the role -- the rules
were proposed to the commission by staff at the June commission
meeting, and those proposed rules are currently out there for
comment. And I encourage you, if you haven't already, be sure
and go out there and look at those rules and offer comments as
you have them to the Texas Register. That's what they're out
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there for. That's what we're trying to get to.
Let me offer a couple of things, a couple of comments
and then I think maybe the best way would just be to open it up
for questions and see what questions you might have at this
point. As I said, the commission chose to narrow the scope
some, or direct staff to narrow the scope some in these
proposed rules, and that's what we've done. For example, I'll
just read straight out of the preamble. The eligible
activities describe those activities for which TAP funding,
Transportation Alternative funding, may be used. These
activities include the construction of on-road and off-road
trail facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and other
non-motorized forms of transportation. Construction of
infrastructure related projects and systems to improve safe
routes for non-drivers, conversion and use of abandoned rail
corridors for trails for pedestrians, bicyclists and other
non-motorized transportation users, and the construction of
infrastructure related projects to improve the ability of
students to bike and walk to school, i.e., the old Safe Routes
to Schools program.
As you recall in the previous highway bill, Safe
Routes to Schools was a separate program administered by
Debra's group over in the traffic operations division. Now
it's been combined with the TAP program so it's included here.
Under comments in that preamble it says the agency is
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placing an emphasis on facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists
and other non-motorized forms of transportation, as well as
certain types of infra-structural projects formerly eligible
under the Safe Routes to School program in an effort to
encourage the development of a safe and multi-modal
transportation system.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Which document of these two are
you in?
MS. GARCIA: And what page?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah, what line?
MR. MAREK: Don't know. I don't know what documents
you've got.
MR. HIBBS: Proposed adoption of --
MS. GARCIA: He was first --
MR. FRANK: Page 3.
MS. GARCIA: -- reading from page --
MR. FRANK: He read this.
MR. HIBBS: -- of new sections to chapter 11.
MR. FRANK: And here's what he's reading.
MR. HIBBS: Page 3 of 11 on the --
MS. GARCIA: Three of 11, yeah.
MR. HIBBS: -- first group.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Oh, that's all the preamble?
MR. HIBBS: Number 22 and 23.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Okay.
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MR. FRANK: Three of 11. Uh-huh.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah. Right here.
MR. HIBBS: Exhibit A.
MS. GARCIA: Which on your -- which document?
MR. HIBBS: Exhibit A.
MS. GARCIA: Exhibit A.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Exhibit A.
MS. GARCIA: The top one.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: That's Exhibit B.
MR. EDEN: It's the third --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I got it now.
MR. EDEN: -- document that's in our packets.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah, see, I only saw one sentence
in the preamble.
MS. KAPLAN: Exhibit A, Page 3 of 11.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Line 7.
MS. KAPLAN: The -- and the 11.304.
MS. MELTON: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: And word for word, the last large
sentence of that -- on that page begins with the agency is
placing an emphasis, that was read word for word. And it goes
on to the next page.
MR. MAREK: So, that's how the department has chosen
to use the federal guidance on the TAP program and put it into
our rules. Several things that were eligible under some of the
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old TE rules that were taken out here had to do with historical
structures and transportation related structures and even back
in some of the old programs, transportation that was not
necessarily surface transportation, some air museums, if you
remember those.
So, it has been narrowed quite a bit and we're
getting some discussion about that already going on. We
haven't really received any written comments at this point that
I'm aware of, but there's been a lot of discussion among the
communities about that. Some of the old streetscape work,
landscape work that we did under the TE program, there may be
portions of it that are worked in as eligibilities as we do
some of these trails and things like that, but by and large
that's not in there and some communities have expressed some
concerns there, for example.
Some of the old transportation museum work. I
mentioned aviation, but there's been other types of museum work
that's been eligible in the past. And there is some historical
transportation mentioned in the federal guidance for MAP-21,
but that' was excluded or at least has been excluded in the
draft rules at this point also.
For some of you all that follow this closely, you
know that TxDOT has had litigation in the past on some of those
projects and has delayed and -- delayed those projects and cost
quite a bit of money and that the commission wants to try to
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stay out of that area moving forward.
The commission's certainly emphasizing the need that
when they do have a program call, they want projects that can
come to fruition relatively quickly and that local entities
have skin in the game, if you will. There -- notice that, as
you read through those rules, you'll see that participation is
limited to construction, not so much in the planning and design
area as we had in the old TE program.
So let me --
MS. MELTON: Is that applicable to the statewide
calls that -- and not applicable to the MPOs?
MR. MAREK: The MPOs have flexibility to do their
calls as they see fit.
MS. MELTON: Okay.
MR. MAREK: And they would not be subject to those
rules. These would be only for a statewide call by --
MS. MELTON: Right. Right.
MR. MAREK: -- by TxDOT. Now, having heard a couple
of the MPOs that have done their calls, they did talk with us
about those and they have limited, maybe not quite to the
extend we have, but they have also limited their planning and
design work that they will include in there again. Because
they asked us to go back and look historically at some of our
old program calls and find the projects and the amount of money
that we had put into projects and planning and design that
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never resulted in a project being built on. And that's what
the commission wants to limit in the future.
MS. GARCIA: I have a question that --
MR. MAREK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. GARCIA: -- just popped up. Maybe it was in
there before and I just never noticed. But it -- these rules
exclude any trail projects that may require eminent domain,
require the use of eminent domain. Do you know the background
on that because I know highway projects use eminent domain very
often and why was this singled out?
MR. MAREK: That is a carryover from the old TE
program. The Federal Highway Administration and really in the
federal legislation itself has always limited highway work,
public -- what they consider broad public work to use eminent
domain. And eminent domain for TE projects was not allowed,
and so that's a carryover into this program.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Thanks.
MR. MAREK: They will not allow us to eminent domain.
I remember once back in the early 2000's we had a program call
and there was a request for a waiver for the use of eminent
domain. The city needed that to connect two projects together.
They had a segment in the middle that was missing and TxDOT
went to the city and we made a request to the Federal Highway
Administration if we could waive the eminent domain so we could
go ahead and connect those pieces together. And the division
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office worked very well with us here in Austin, sent it up to
Washington, but ultimately that was rejected.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. MAREK: So not going to be using eminent domain
with TAP, I don't believe.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Good to know.
MR. MAREK: Yes, sir?
MR. HIBBS: I read the document. Didn't understand
necessarily all of it.
MS. MELTON: It's written by a lawyer.
MR. HIBBS: But --
MR. MAREK: You know, I don't necessarily understand
all of it either.
MR. HIBBS: It created several questions in my mind
because it felt like to me in reading it is that it was biased
towards larger urban areas, particularly those in excess of
200,000. And I'm from Northeast Texas and we don't have a lot
of those. And so are there any provisions for communities that
are less than 200,000? Because I didn't see that.
MR. MAREK: All right. Well, let's talk about that a
little bit. The way the TAP money is divided is between the
major TMAs or the large MPOs, if you will. They get half.
They get half off the top before it ever comes to TxDOT. So
that's what we were referring to earlier about those MPOs
having their own program calls. I know that North Central
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Texas is already out with their program call, they came out in
the spring. And they're currently in the evaluation process on
those projects they received. The rest of the money is
available to TxDOT, or I should say to the transportation
commission, for use in a statewide program call. And that
program call will be limited to communities of less than
200,000 in population that are outside the urbanized area of a
TMA or one of the large MPOs.
MR. HIBBS: So when you say it's limited to, that
means that they're the only ones that get it?
MR. MAREK: That's right.
MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MR. MAREK: That's right. It will be actually broken
up into two categories. It will be for communities with
population of less than 200,000 but more than 5,000 and less
than 5,000.
MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MR. MAREK: It's going to be broken up into two
parts.
MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MR. MAREK: Now, that's a concern. You know, we've
never done that before, and so if you divide that money,
particularly for the smaller communities, like I came from a
community of about 3200. You know, are those small communities
going to have enough projects to be able to come in for their
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share of the money, number one.
MR. HIBBS: Uh-huh.
MR. MAREK: And number two, you know, the -- both the
federal requirements and the state requirements limit the
match, they limit it to 20 percent. In the old days under the
TE program, a large community would come in and they would say,
well, we'll fund 50 percent of the project, 50 percent of the
project cost, you fund the other 50 percent. Well, that was
very helpful, the commission liked that. Not only did they
have skin in the game but, you know, they were going to come
with a larger portion. That's very difficult for a small
community to do, I think even at the minimum 20 percent level.
MR. HIBBS: I agree.
MR. MAREK: So we'll have to see how that --
MR. HIBBS: Yeah.
MR. MAREK: -- plays out in the first program call --
MR. HIBBS: Yeah. Yeah, let's --
MR. MAREK: -- to see --
MR. HIBBS: -- let's ex --
MR. MAREK: -- what happens.
MR. HIBBS: Let's explore that for just a minute,
because from a practical standpoint, small community, and let's
take Paris, Texas, for example. Okay, they're going to fall
under the 200,000 but they got a lot of cycling going on up
there and a lot of activities and all.
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MR. MAREK: Yes.
MR. HIBBS: And let's say that one of these projects
they want to do, it's a million bucks, okay. And according to
what's been written in here, 20 percent of the project cost has
to come from that community, right?
MR. MAREK: Yes, sir.
MR. HIBBS: Okay. Million dollar cost, $200,000.
They go to the local city council, they go to the county, and
those guys say, man, we're talking about a tax increase in
order to find $200,000. You local bike clubs, you all go raise
it and if you all can come up with the $200,000 then we'll do
it. Well, it will never happen. And I'm speaking from
experience because we've tried that in Tyler, Texas, where the
governmental authorities came back to us and said you all raise
the money so you can put some skin in the game. Well, it's a
bike club. You know, I mean it's not structured around massive
fund raising. And so what happens is they die, because it's --
the inability to raise that 20 percent at the local level is
huge. $200,000 in Houston or Dallas is a rounding error. But,
you know, in a small community, it's a tax increase. And so it
just never gets, you know, it just never gets done. And so as
I was going through this, you know, again, in terms of looking
at it from a smaller area perspective, okay, less than those
200,000, I got to tell you it felt like it was really biased
towards the larger communities. And at the expense of the
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smaller communities because, frankly, I don't see how they're
going to do it.
The final thing that really bothered me in the deal
was the fact that in-kind donations have been completely
excluded. And in Tyler, Texas, that's how we got things done
because we couldn't raise the money. So we got people to
donate labor, we got them to donate supplies, and we got things
done that way. And in this particular document, all that's
been completely eliminated now.
MR. MAREK: Yes, sir. You're right, in the draft
document it is. As we sat down with the commissioners and we
talked our way through this -- and really the two items you
bring up are very related, the 20 percent and the in-kind match
-- they asked us to go back and look historically at TE
projects we had done because back when the TE program first
stared in the '90s, we allowed planning and design to be
allowable costs. And they asked us to go back and look at that
and look at the projects that had been planned and designed but
never been built. And it was in the millions of dollars. So
they had us go back and look again and they said, well, for
these that didn't ever get built, were they all urban or were
they rural or was it a combination. And it was a combination.
It didn't fall necessarily into one category or the other.
Another thing that we face at the local level, you're
probably completely familiar with this, is because TE projects
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and TAP projects take a long time, this project is put in, the
city is in favor of it, they've got a council resolution.
Well, by the time the advance funding agreement is signed, all
the design work is completed and it goes to letting or it's
ready to go to letting, the city council has changed. And
they're not longer as in favor of it as they were.
So these are all issues that you're absolutely right,
but just to kind of get some background on why the commission
has done it this way, is so that those local communities will
be incentivised (ph) to go ahead and look at a project from the
time they put it in to the program call, to thinking about how
long it's going to take to actually come to fruition. To have
resources in the game with TxDOT and the FHWA so that project
does actually get complete. Now, that is the kind of comment,
exactly what you said on both subjects, the in-kind and the 20
percent, that I would submit to the Texas Register.
MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MR. MAREK: I think we need to see that kind of --
what kind of response there is to this methodology of doing it.
And if this is not the right way to go about it, what is the
alternative? What is the alternative in terms of being able to
get the projects complete and on the ground and not leave them
undone?
MR. GLEASON: So let me --
MS. GARCIA: We have some comments over here, so --
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MR. GLEASON: Well, let me just take that last
comment and -- the committee has an opportunity today to hear
from Mark, hear the thinking that led to the current set that
you see, and to consider as a committee whether or not it wants
to submit comments similar to the -- to address some of the
issues, for example, that Billy Hibbs is raising. And so
that's where we need to head as a committee today with this
conversation. And there may be other areas, but ultimately,
once Mark is done, it's your opportunity to assemble a set of
comments and then just so that we don't have to write it today
at the meeting, one of the options would be if you can settle
on some bullet points that would be the heart of those
comments, then one or two members of the committee can work
with staff to write something that you all could have a look
at. Just so we don't have to write the comments verbatim today
--
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- in the meeting. But that's where
we're headed. So that's where we're headed and at the end of
the conversation there would be an action opportunity for the
committee to embrace a set of comments that would be submitted
to the register and the commission in your role of advising the
commission on matters of policy importance as a part of this
rule making process.
MS. GARCIA: Go ahead, Teri.
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MS. KAPLAN: I just wanted to add that if there are
others outside of this committee who are interested in making
comments, because I'm sure that you work within your
communities, that the submittal of comments is identified on
Exhibit A, Page 3 of 4, at the very bottom. The submittal of
comments. It gives you the addresses, the physically --
physical address and the online address to submit your
comments. But I would recommend that you read the paragraph
also on Page 4 because there are requirements of persons making
comments to provide information about who you are, disclosures
and such about who -- 3 and 4. Okay. That was -- again,
that's Exhibit A at the bottom of Page 3 and onto Page 4.
MR. GLEASON: That is for members of the public and
for perhaps members of this committee acting as an individual.
For the committee acting as a committee, it will be a single
submittal to the Texas Register and the commission of --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- your comments.
MS. GARCIA: Great. Does anybody -- yes, go ahead.
MR. FRANK: I have a question. So are in-kind
matches allowed under MAP-21 or is that a TxDOT rule for how
this is, you know, proposed?
MS. MELTON: TxDOT.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. MELTON: I just want to make one comment about
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funding mechanisms. A lot of local entities use the bond
programs, 4(a) and 4(b) taxes are also eligible. There's ways
to do that and often the bond programs they lump the trail or
shared use path facilities in with the roads. And that way,
you know, people who want roads, vote for it; people who want
trails also vote for the roads. You know, that's common
practice. Sometimes there's a foundation that might help, but
there are ways other than in-kind and you got to get creative
at that point. Don't -- it doesn't usually come out of the
annual budget.
MR. HIBBS: Right. Right.
MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MR. HIBBS: Well, I just hate to see them take an
option completely off the table --
MS. MELTON: No, I agree.
MR. HIBBS: -- and write it into the regs, and then
--
MS. MELTON: Right.
MR. HIBBS: -- you know, you're forever barred from
maybe getting something done and now you can't.
MS. MELTON: No, I agree.
MR. HIBBS: So --
MS. MELTON: I mean, I like the in-kind option.
MS. GARCIA: Creative financing. It needs to have it
in, right.
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MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Robin, did you have a quick question?
MR. STALLINGS: Yeah, I have a question.
MS. KAPLAN: I'm sorry. Wait.
MS. GARCIA: No --
MS. KAPLAN: This is committee members. If the
audience has questions or comments, we have forms on the table
there --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: -- and after we've covered items on the
agenda, if there's time remaining, we'll answer questions for
the audience.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: There's flexibility in that. If you
want to take comments directly on this topic during the topic
discussion you may make that decision as a committee. So
Robin, if you'll simply sign up so we have a record that you
want to make a comment --
MR. STALLINGS: Sure. I signed up.
MR. GLEASON: -- and when the committee's done, if
you want to invite public comment, that would be the
appropriate time for it.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Do we have more discussion on
this particular item before we start discussing our specific
comments that we want to submit?
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(No audible responses)
MS. GARCIA: Robin, it's got to be quick.
MR. STALLINGS: Mark, I have a question on this
because it's so confusing about the money. I heard you say
that half the money goes to the large MPOs. And so this has
been two years we've all been confused about the money. But
correct me if I'm wrong, but it's about a quarter of the money
goes to the large MPOs.
MR. MAREK: Yeah.
MR. STALLINGS: A quarter is to the small MPOs that
you all are subdividing into, you know, 5,000 and less and, you
know, under 200,000. But then there's half of it that in
another states they're giving out to statewide calls eligible
to anybody. And in Texas we have flexed that money out of TAP
in the first already and these rules provide for flexing half
of all the money out of TAP ongoing. And so it's an option and
it's legal by the federal law, it's allowed, so I'm not arguing
that point or whether or not the commission has the authority
to do that, but whether or not as stakeholders that's what we
would want.
You know, Bike Texas definitely does not prefer this
outcome. We'll be providing written comments. But I wanted to
point that out to the committee that there is a little bit of a
difference and it's a little bit confusing because there's
going to be a statewide call, but it's actually none of these
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are eligible for it because if they've already submitted to
their MPO they're not going to be eligible for any of this
other call. So it's kind of a very limited statewide call,
only if they weren't part of one of the major 11 MPOs. If they
are and they were eligible to submit to the big MPOs, they
can't even submit for any of this money no matter where they
live or how big their town is. So it's either all here this
way for another amount or this amount is not happening, which
makes the money eligible for things it used to be spent on,
like highway rest stops.
Originally enhancements allowed that. So from my
understanding is TxDOT would take some of the money off the
top, spend it on the highway safety rest stop areas, and that
that's not eligible under TAP unless the money is flexed out
into another category that doesn't have the same restriction.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Thank you, Robin.
MR. STALLINGS: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Can you respond to that? Is that true
that TxDOT did take that opportunity and flex half of those
funds out to be used in other areas? And can you let us know
what areas they have been flexed out to or do we know yet?
MR. MAREK: TxDOT, the commission, does have the
ability to flex out a portion of these TAP funds, as Robin has
indicated. I don't disagree with him at all. In the UTP, the
Unified Transportation Plan, which is what goes before the
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commission for them to approve the disbursement of our
apportionments, did go ahead and take that so that they put it
into specific categories. Most of the projects that are done
in local areas. Now, that's no different than what was done
with the TE funds. The commission wanted to go ahead and
apportion those funds so they would know where to plan in that.
Those funds are not gone from the TAP program. They could
bring some or all or none of them back, but they would do that
by commission action, as they did with the TE funds. So I
don't disagree with anything Robin says. They have gone ahead
and apportioned those funds to be sure they have them locked up
on the federal side. And then whatever they decide to put into
the TAP program in a future program call, they will allocate
out of that apportionment back into the TAP program call.
MS. MELTON: Are you say -- did you say they aren't
using them for highway rest stops?
MR. MAREK: Well, they -- they did --
MS. MELTON: The Taj Mahal stops.
MR. MAREK: They did put some into the maintenance
categories, which would include work on safety rest stops. It
could.
MS. MELTON: Well, they're fancy.
MS. GARCIA: Could you -- I think I got lost there
somewhere.
MR. MAREK: Okay.
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MS. GARCIA: They pulled part of the funds out to
turn them into flex funds.
MR. MAREK: The amount that they can flex.
MS. GARCIA: Right.
MR. MAREK: Yes, ma'am.
MS. GARCIA: The flex funds.
MR. MAREK: Right.
MS. GARCIA: So they pulled the flex funds out but
they haven't been categorized yet in what they could use.
Could they use the flex funds for just safety measures on
highways?
MR. MAREK: They could.
MS. GARCIA: They --
MR. MAREK: Yes, they could. And they've apportioned
them into different categories, as she said, maintenance was
one of those that they apportioned it into. And that's to
ensure that they have the funds available from the FHWA. In
other words, by apportioning them, they've told the FHWA we're
going to use them and this is our plan of where they would be
used. Now if they pulled back those funds, let's say didn't do
it at call, let's say they did it first of the year, first of
the calendar year, they would take that apportionment that
they've already locked in with the feds and they would pull
money out of that and direct it to the TAP program.
MS. GARCIA: Do we know what those things were
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apportioned to? The flex funds. Do we know what the flex
funds were apportioned to, what categories they've been put in
in the TxDOT budget?
MR. MAREK: I could find that out and get it to Eric
and Teri. I don't know off the top of my head.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. MAREK: I do know that the maintenance was one of
them, because the maintenance is where we're furthest behind in
the state. That's what we're -- that what the commission is
looking for funding in.
MS. GARCIA: Anybody have any other questions?
Margaret, you looked confused slightly.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah. This big pot of money,
what's it called? As it comes from the federal government, is
it TAP funds, TE funds? I mean, what's it called?
MR. MAREK: It's Transportation Alternative Program
funds. We would call it in Texas Category 9. Just like Debra
was talking about the HSIP funds being Category 8, these TAP
funds are in what we call Category 9. But the federal
vernacular would be Transportation Alternative Program funds,
TAP funds.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Well, can you explain to me how
Transportation Alternative equals maintenance on rest stops for
cars?
MR. MAREK: Because the federal requirements allow a
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portion of the TAP funds to be flexed into other state
categories. That's in the federal MAP-21 highway bill.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Okay. I don't understand why they
just don't say, okay, state, here's some stuff you can use for
your roads and cars, here's stuff for alternative
transportation, and you use it for alternative transportation
instead of saying it's alternative transportation but you can
pull some out to use for non-alternative transportation.
MR. MAREK: I'll speculate, and that's all I do is
speculate. I don't live in Washington and I try not to go to
Washington any more often than I have to. But in order to get
it passed and to get the federal legislation, because there
were groups that didn't want to continue the TE program at all.
So in order to get it passed and get it in as part of the bill,
that is a compromise. That's my guess.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: That I understand.
MR. MAREK: Okay. That's my guess.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I understand that now. Okay.
MR. EDEN: State of Washington.
MS. GARCIA: Did you have a comment, Tommy? No?
Okay. Okay. Any other questions before we move on to our
discussion?
MR. HIBBS: Madam Chairwoman.
MS. GARCIA: Yes, sir.
MR. HIBBS: Was it my understanding that we were
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going to provide some comments --
MS. GARCIA: Right. But I wanted --
MR. HIBBS: -- on this particular --
MS. GARCIA: Yes. Moving on to that --
MR. HIBBS: Oh, okay. Okay.
MS. GARCIA: -- section of this discussion. Thank
you very much for answering our questions and --
MR. MAREK: Certainly willing to come back as this
goes through the process. We'll get the final rules in place.
If you want to talk about the final or see what's in those,
we'll go ahead and come back and talk with you.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. We appreciate you educating us on
the issue.
MR. MAREK: Sure.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you very much.
MR. GLEASON: Mark, are you able to stay for the
committee's conversation on their comments in case questions
come up? Do you have any time to do that?
MR. MAREK: Here till 11:30.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. Just so he'll be in the room to
answer questions --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- as you discuss comments and think
about it.
MS. GARCIA: All right. And, Billy, I think you had
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a particular item that you think you would like for us to
consider --
MR. HIBBS: Well, I think --
MS. GARCIA: -- submitting.
MR. HIBBS: -- I can pull it down and make it very
simple.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. HIBBS: I would like to see that for the
population size that is less than 200,000, that opposed to
having 20 percent of the project cost in cash come from that
community that it be lowered to five percent. Because even at
five percent, that is a big threshold. And I agree the
communities need to have skin in the game. I think they're
already going to have skin in the game from the standpoint of
the planning and the design part Mark just talked about, that
they -- that they're going to have to do up front anyway. But
you look at a small community again like Paris for a million
dollar project, you're talking about $50,000 that they have to
come up with before this even happens. And so I think five
percent for a smaller community under 200,000 is reasonable.
MS. GARCIA: Go ahead, Annie.
MS. MELTON: Is that legal? It's not required to
have a 20 percent match --
MS. GARCIA: By federal --
MS. MELTON: -- from the federal --
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MS. GARCIA: -- standards.
MS. MELTON: -- legislation?
MR. MAREK: Well, all you've got to do is break it
out. You're required from the federal side to have a 20
percent match, but your comment will be using what he said,
that 15 percent of it allowed -- could be allowed to be an
in-kind match and only five percent of it be a cash match.
MS. GARCIA: So that would not be --
MR. EDEN: So --
MR. FRANK: So you could break it apart.
MR. EDEN: -- an in-kind match --
MR. FRANK: You still got the 20 percent --
MR. EDEN: -- is allowable?
MR. FRANK: -- as federally required, but you break
it apart into what could be in-kind versus what could be cash.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Texas is --
MS. MELTON: Let me point out that the in-kind, also
you would not be eligible to count anything that was done
before the interlocal agreement. So, I mean, your engineer
does the cost estimates and you apply, you get it. Those cost
estimates he did or any schematics wouldn't be part of a
in-kind match. It would have to be stuff done after the start
date --
MR. HIBBS: No.
MS. MELTON: -- in the agreement with TxDOT.
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MR. EDEN: But the in-kind matches are allowable.
MS. MELTON: Oh, well, no --
MR. FRANK: At federal --
MR. HIBBS: No.
MR. FRANK: -- level, yes.
MS. MELTON: Yes.
MR. EDEN: At the federal level.
MS. MELTON: No, I like the five.
MR. HIBBS: Not according to this document.
MR. EDEN: Well, at the federal level.
MR. HIBBS: Yeah. Yeah.
MR. EDEN: Federal Highway Administration is not
going to say, no, you can't have these funds because it's being
done in-kind. But the TxDOT rules that are being proposed
would not allow that. And so we're suggesting then that those
would be allowable under these rules.
MR. HIBBS: Yeah, I would --
MS. KAPLAN: For smaller --
MR. HIBBS: That was the second part of my comment,
is that I would like to see the in-kind contributions added
back in there. Because I think that takes a valuable tool away
from the small community that can't come up with the cash
without a tax increase to the local people and they're not
going to support it. So if we get people from, as I said
before, the local jails who could come out there and provide
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the labor, and the bike clubs to help work on these projects,
you know, whatever it is, I think we got a higher probability
of getting things done in these smaller, more rural
communities.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: We did that for a water pipe from
one community to us. We had water, they didn't. And 90
percent of it, the labor was done by prisoners. And it, you
know, that was acceptable to the people giving us the money for
the pipeline.
MS. GARCIA: Does anybody have opposition or -- us
including that in our comments? Go ahead.
MR. FRANK: So I have a question.
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. FRANK: So we're basically -- I think this is
what we're saying. We're going to say we would like to put a
comment in that says of the 20 percent local match that's
required, a certain percentage of that, 10 or 15 percent of
that could be in-kind and part of that would be cash. That's
what we're trying to --
MR. GLEASON: For --
MR. FRANK: -- say, right?
MS. GARCIA: Uh-huh (affirmative).
MR. GLEASON: For communities under --
MR. FRANK: Correct. For under the --
MR. HIBBS: 200,000.
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MS. CHARLESWORTH: Under 200,000.
MR. FRANK: -- 200,000 category, right. Is that -- I
just want to make sure I'm understanding that that's what we're
kind of thinking is a consensus of --
MR. MAREK: And simply say for projects it will be
eligible for department call.
MS. MELTON: Statewide call.
MR. FRANK: I just -- I have one more comment.
MS. GARCIA: Yeah, please, go on.
MR. FRANK: I think there still needs to be some -- I
think it's very normal for there to be a local cash match part
of it. I think we can't say it can be a hundred percent
in-kind. I think there has to be some type of a local
government that has a percentage in there. So we can't make it
like --
MR. HIBBS: Well, I --
MR. FRANK: -- all 20 percent --
MR. HIBBS: -- like I said, I thought --
MR. FRANK: -- but part of it, you know.
MR. HIBBS: I thought at least five percent cash --
MR. FRANK: Yeah.
MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MR. FRANK: Yeah.
MR. HIBBS: -- is reasonable because --
MS. MELTON: A minimum.
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MR. HIBBS: -- again, if you just look at the map, a
million dollars in a small community, that's 50 grand they've
got to come out of pocket. And most small communities can't do
that. They don't have it in their budget. Every single dollar
is accounted for and so -- and we experience this Tyler. They
said the only way you're going to do this is to -- for us to go
out for a tax increase. The community is not going to support
a tax increase on deals so it just dies on the vine. And
nothing will ever get done in the small communities because
they just don't have the liquidity to pull it off.
MR. GLEASON: Right.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: What if we say a minimum of five
percent?
MR. HIBBS: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Instead of saying it has to be
five percent.
MS. GARCIA: That's right. Because the commission
can decide their own numbers anyway or say no, but that's a
good suggestion. Is anybody in general consensus with that?
(No audible responses)
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Moving on to other comments, did
anybody have any other glaring comments that we need to
discuss? I know we're also going to be discussing Safe Routes
to School next, but I don't know if there are any particular
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comments somebody had about the Safe Routes to School program
being folded into this. Maybe it's something -- maybe I -- we
should just talk about that with our next agenda item and
continue this conversation. Go ahead, Tommy. I know you're --
we're trying to craft our thoughts on that.
MR. EDEN: I think the issue that Mr. Stallings
brought up is something that we might want to address. I'm not
sure the most appropriate way to handle it, but --
MS. GARCIA: Well, then blurt it out.
MR. EDEN: Well --
MR. GLEASON: Let the record show.
MR. EDEN: Yeah.
(Laughter.)
MR. EDEN: Well, I see some problems with the way
that the funding is being handled and I think a few other
people in here do too. And so I think we do need to say
something about it.
MS. GARCIA: So maybe after we have a bit of our Safe
Routes to School discussion we'll add in some comments that we
can -- go ahead, Annie.
MS. MELTON: Well, I'm thinking that, looking at the
crash statistics and percentages, that, you know, since the
funding that goes into improvements for bicyclists and
pedestrians, other non-motorists means, does not match the
percentage of fatalities and serious accidents. That given
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that situation we should not be flexing money out of a program
that's designed to increase the number -- the connectivity of
facilities and the safety...
MS. GARCIA: So if nothing else, we should flex that
match back in. What's already been flexed out.
MS. MELTON: Right. Right.
MR. EDEN: That's a good way to say it, yeah.
MS. MELTON: I mean, you've got to give them a reason
for it.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: It's our money.
MS. GARCIA: So it'd be -- according to the crash
statistics with pedestrians and bicyclists that --
MS. MELTON: And the percentage spent.
MS. GARCIA: -- more funds should be dedicated --
MS. MELTON: Yes.
MS. GARCIA: -- to building safe facilities --
MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: -- for pedestrians and bicyclists. Or to
creating safe passage --
MS. MELTON: Right.
MS. GARCIA: -- for pedestrians and bicyclists.
MR. EDEN: I like that. That --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MR. EDEN: -- sounds good.
MR. FRANK: I had -- I have a question --
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MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. FRANK: -- or a comment. Being perfectly honest,
I don't know what all the uses are of what that money is being
flexed out to, so there could be some very good uses that TxDOT
has for those projects. So I don't think we have enough
information to make comments about what that money's being used
for. I think these are -- this is TxDOT's proposal of how
they're going to use the money that they have for this program
and I think we should probably limit our comments to how
they're going to administer the program that they're proposing
versus another global piece of how this whole program works.
It's just my thought. Because they may be more willing to
listen to comments of how they can adjust the program that
they're proposing versus trying to blow up the whole thing.
But that's just my comment.
MS. GARCIA: Yes, go ahead, Eric.
MR. GLEASON: If I may.
MR. FRANK: Yeah.
MR. GLEASON: If I may. One strategy that has been
used by the Public Transportation Advisory Committee in a
similar situation --
MR. FRANK: Uh-huh.
MR. GLEASON: -- in the letter they write, there may
be formal comments that go specifically to proposed rules, that
go specifically to the Texas Register, but as they address the
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commission with those comments, they take an opportunity up
front --
MR. FRANK: Yeah.
MR. GLEASON: -- to address an issue which may be
outside of rules but the conversation around the rules prompted
the committee's interest. And so it doesn't necessarily go in
as a formal comment because there may not be a place for it --
MR. FRANK: Right.
MR. GLEASON: -- in the proposed rules, but it's an
opportunity for the committee to highlight for the commission
an item of concern that came up during their discussions.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: It's just one way you can, you know,
get both points across using this process as an opportunity to
make that point.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. GARCIA: Would you be comfortable if we included
a comment around a conversation, even though it's not specific
to the rules, but would you be comfortable if we --
MR. FRANK: I think so. I mean, I --
MS. GARCIA: -- included the comment --
MR. FRANK: I mean, I think --
MS. GARCIA: -- about crash --
MR. FRANK: -- there obviously is more types of
funding for these types of programs, but I just -- I wouldn't
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want to say we're totally against some things -- and maybe
there's some good projects that are being funded. I just don't
know for sure what they're using that money for, so.
MS. GARCIA: Right. And how quickly could we get a
list of, you know, what's been flexed out and what it's been
dedicated to?
MR. GLEASON: We can get you a list that we can send
to committee members as individuals in a relatively short time
frame I imagine; however, as a committee you wouldn't have an
opportunity to come back and talk about that list --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- in the context of this rule making.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Does that make sense?
MS. GARCIA: Yes, it --
MR. FRANK: Right.
MS. GARCIA: I mean, no, those rules do not make
sense to me, but I understand that they are the rules and
they're in place, so.
MR. GLEASON: Is that fair enough, Mark. I mean,
that's --
MR. MAREK: I believe so. I think you can get it
relatively easily from Marc Williams at TP&P.
MR. GLEASON: Right.
MR. MAREK: Because they just proposed a UTP either
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May or June --
MR. GLEASON: At the last meeting.
MR. MAREK: -- just recently.
MR. GLEASON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Right. It's so recent, and then for us
not to have all the info --
MR. GLEASON: Right. And I apologize not for
anticipating that --
MS. GARCIA: Uh-huh.
MR. FRANK: Right.
MR. GLEASON: -- conversation at this meeting. But
we can get that information out to you as individual members of
the committee, but you wouldn't have a chance to talk about it
--
MS. GARCIA: Okay. And then as individual --
MR. GLEASON: -- as a committee.
MS. GARCIA: -- members we could comment on it but
not as a committee. Yes?
MS. KAPLAN: And just so that everyone is aware that
as a committee you're not supposed to be in conversation with
one another outside of these meetings. And so your comments
that you have with regard to these rules that you're wanting to
put together as a group comment should be sent to Regina and
copied me and then we will put those -- I will work with Regina
to compile those comments. Then we will submit them back to
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you as members to review --
MR. GLEASON: No. I'm sorry to interrupt. What we
need to do today is land on those comments --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- today.
MS. KAPLAN: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Not after the meeting. Today's meeting
is the time for those comments to be discussed and --
MS. KAPLAN: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- agreed on. What we can do is
formulate the letter and then we can send that letter out to
individuals and they can comment on the letter.
MS. KAPLAN: Right. Okay.
MR. GLEASON: But we can't have a process outside of
this meeting that has new ideas for comments introduced.
MS. KAPLAN: I see.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: I'm learning.
MR. GLEASON: Yeah. That's the difference.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. We all are. Even though we're an
advisory committee, just and advisory committee, we still have
to follow those strict rules
MR. GLEASON: We do. And it's important because it
lends credibility to the committee's actions, quite frankly.
But it also follows the Open Records Act requirements --
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MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- things like that. So, you know, it
kind of brings some credibility to the way in which the
committee acts, so that's important.
MS. MELTON: I believe the deadline for comments is
August 11th?
MS. KAPLAN: That's correct. At 5:00 p.m.
MS. GARCIA: And so I know this is the next agenda
item, but with the Safe Routes to School program and -- so
maybe we can craft our comments right away. It seems like the
Safe Routes to School program, projects are still eligible that
in my view there's not really a robust Safe Routes to School
program anymore.
MR. GLEASON: One way to approach that issue would be
to set this conversation aside --
MS. GARCIA: Uh-huh.
MR. GLEASON: -- have the Safe Routes to School
conversation, come back to this item and close it at that point
--
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- if you think you might --
MS. GARCIA: So we can --
MR. GLEASON: -- learn some things there.
MS. GARCIA: -- still keep it open. All right.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I move we table this discussion
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until after we have discussed --
MR. GLEASON: Hey, Mark. Thank you.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- Safe Routes to School.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Thank you. A second on tabling
--
MR. EDEN: Second.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Thank you. So -- and we don't
need to vote on that. So moving forward to the Safe Routes to
School safety campaign discussion -- and maybe we'll get more
clarification. Thank you for hanging in with us.
MS. VERMILLION: Oh, you're welcome.
MS. KAPLAN: Thank you, Mark.
MS. VERMILLION: Okay.
MR. EDEN: Thank you, Mark.
MS. VERMILLION: As discussed at you all's last BAC
meeting, we were going to present to you all -- and I hope you
all had a chance to look at this. Statement of work to go out
to our -- advertising vendors, is that what they're called?
MS. SCOTT: Yes.
MS. VERMILLION: Advertising vendors to --
MS. KAPLAN: Wait, wait, wait. Debra, introduce --
MS. VERMILLION: I'm sorry.
MS. KAPLAN: -- Marsha.
MS. VERMILLION: Marsha Scott.
MS. SCOTT: Marsh Scott with traffic safety.
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MS. VERMILLION: With the traffic operations traffic
safety division. So this is what we came up with based on the
statement of work. Our traffic safety division works with
public information education campaigns. That is what they do.
So Carol Compa, who used to be the Safe Routes to School state
coordinator, and Marsha Scott who oversees that part of the
traffic safety program, were gracious enough to work on this
and come up with the statement of work of what we're looking
for. I think when Teri provided it to you all, she gave you
all some guidance and said, you know, what we're looking for is
what kind of deliverables you want to see out of this type
thing. A lot of the language in this is procurement language.
It's not flexible. This is how they go out with these types of
things.
So, but what we wanted to do today is to get your
input on the deliverables for this project. And then also I
wanted Marsha to talk to you all about the process and how this
works and what you all's -- and you all's input into it and
commitment would be to this process. Because as we talked
about last time, it's a -- you got to make a commitment. It's
something that takes some time. So that's basically what we're
going to talk about. And, Regina, you kept bringing the Safe
Routes to School program in general, that program was totally
eliminated under MAP-21 and the projects eligible for it are
eligible under the TAP program that Mr. Marek talked about and
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stuff.
So as far as a federal Safe Routes to School program,
it not longer exists. We have funding from the
non-infrastructure under SAFETEA-LU still left and that is what
we want to use to fund this effort.
The infrastructure funds have all been committed to
projects. Not all those projects had completed, so we don't
know what the final balance will be. There is a chance there
will be some infrastructure funds left from SAFETEA-LU, Safe
Routes to School, when they're all complete and all the bills
are paid. If that is the case, then the agency will make a
decision on how to move forward to expend those funds. They
never lapse, so there's not an issue with the feds saying we've
had these forever, give them back. Safe Routes to School funds
under SAFETEA-LU have no last day. So there's no danger of
losing those funds. So, but they are -- have -- by commission
action, we're all committed to projects that you all helped
select. Some of you all. Some of you all weren't around then.
But -- and so until those projects complete and the final bills
are paid, we don't know what the balance, if any, will be on
that.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. And then with the TAP program, it
looked like in the rules -- and I don't know if it's the
federal rules or the statewide rules -- that there -- that
education projects really aren't allowed, that it's just
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infrastructure projects, correct?
MS. VERMILLION: Mr. Marek would have to address
that. I wasn't involved in the TAP rules and I honestly
haven't read them.
MR. MAREK: You're correct. They are in the TAP
portion, but there are other programs that allow for education
related to Safe Routes to Schools and --
MS. GARCIA: In Texas?
MR. MAREK: -- use of bicycle -- in Texas. And those
funds, I think, Debra, had never been completely expended. So
there are some available, at least that's the --
MS. VERMILLION: For the Safe Routes to School?
MR. MAREK: For the educational part of --
MS. VERMILLION: And that's actually what we're
talking about today. We're going to extend those leftover
SAFETEA-LU funds. But there are also programs within the
traffic safety realm that address the educational part of
pedestrian-bike safety.
MS. GARCIA: So there are new funds that are
available?
MS. VERMILLION: No, this is the one, the 402 funds
in our traffic safety program and always been available.
MS. GARCIA: That are al -- it's always been
available. Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: For different -- enforcement
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education and evaluation and stuff. So those funds haven't
changed any. But what the statement of work addresses is the
leftover safety -- Safe Routes to School funds that were
appropriated to Texas under SAFETEA-LU. The old federal
authorization program and stuff and how we're going to extend
those left -- those funds that were left over. And they were
left over -- those funds were also committed by commission
action, by -- on you all's behalf. But projects didn't
complete, they canceled, they under ran because those were
reimbursement. They made an aware of $10,000 but they only
spent 8,000, so that's all they got type thing. So now all of
those have completed and we have a balance left and we need to
expend those. Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Is this that 3.2 million?
MS. VERMILLION: Yes, ma'am.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. Debra? Before you go too much
further, could you identify for the committee, this a possible
action item for them, what you're looking for from them today?
MS. VERMILLION: Well, we're really not looking for
anything from them today particularly.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Unless they have --
MS. KAPLAN: Possible comments.
MS. VERMILLION: -- possible comments and the
deliverables.
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MS. KAPLAN: On the deliverables.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. All right.
MS. VERMILLION: It's more informational to explain
how the process to select a vendor for the statement of work
works.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: So you all understand how the
process would work and what --
MR. GLEASON: But it is down as a possible --
MS. VERMILLION: -- that will take.
MR. GLEASON: -- action item, so if there were to be
anything it would be with respect to the statement of work.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: So I don't know if you all got a
chance to read -- and we definitely can take comments other
than right here and stuff. We don't need to move forward on
this in any time frame other than we just want to get it moving
--
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- so we can start doing this work
type thing. The approval of the award of this does require
commission action, so it would have to get on the commission
agenda and stuff. So you'll see with the statement of work
there's a lot of dates in there. Those are very tentative
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dates on the final product and when we can get on the
commission agenda --
MS. GARCIA:
MS. VERMILLION: -- and stuff. So, but I wanted --
so I guess -- how would you like to do this? You all want to
talk about deliverables? Is there anything that you saw or
that you want to make comments on currently? Or do you all
want to hear about the process first?
MS. GARCIA: I read about the process. Go ahead,
Annie.
MS. MELTON: I will just say that my biggest concern
about the methodology of hiring a media consultant to do this
is that their knowledge of, you know, bicycling issues or
walking issues may be minimal and that somehow they need to get
the expertise of people who have previously developed such
campaigns or programs. And I know in the past it's been very
direct, you know, train the teachers or stuff like that. And
that's, to me, that's very direct and has a multiplier effect.
I have actually done a billboard campaign for safe walking for
the Council of Governments in Dallas and I'm not a big fan of
it. And we made it work, but I really don't know how you would
talk about how influential it was to anybody to see walking
campaigns along freeways. Billboards. You know. Mostly I
avoid looking at them.
MS. VERMILLION: Do you want to address that as far
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--
MS. SCOTT: Sure. Yeah.
MS. VERMILLION: -- media and how they can
subcontract out to these -- you know, these that have the
expertise.
MS. SCOTT: Yes. A lot of times the media firms will
bring on someone as a consultant in the campaign who has that
expertise. And one of the things that we -- I worked with
Debra to pattern this -- these deliverables after was a
campaign that we had for teens on encouraging them to wear
seatbelts. And it included sending out packages of information
to all the schools. So that's a big component of these
deliverables, is to target the schools themselves and send
packages of information that they can distribute, instructions
on how to use those. And it can be that someone from this
committee could be a consultant with the ad agency on those
things that are going to be used in the campaign and in those
kits. For instance, with the seatbelt campaign it was for
teens and we started that process by sending a fax --
MS. VERMILLION: Marsha, can you speak a little
louder?
MS. SCOTT: Yeah, sorry. By sending a fax to all of
the junior high and high schools in the state and asking them
-- explaining the program and asking them if they wanted to
participate. And that if they did, we needed a contact person.
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So then the agency would follow up with contact person, any
questions they had about the program, answer those questions
and also sign them up if they wanted to participate. Now
usually the program was managed in the high schools by student
council, so they would have the student council participate in
it and it would be -- they would usually choose a week or a
month when that was the teen click it or ticket month.
And they would have poster contests or decorating
your home room contests. And they would -- we made for them
huge banners that they would hang outside the school about, you
know, wearing a seatbelt. And also they had yard signs that
students could take and put in their yards or put in the school
yards. They had all kinds of sub -- materials that they could
use.
So this was -- we thought this one would kind of fall
along -- maybe along that same thing, because you're right in
that putting up billboards doesn't really seem to fit.
Although we did think that with a lot of schools, like
elementary or K through 8, I think is what this is targeting,
there are convenience stores close around those areas. Or
there might be a gas station where we could put up information
or signs, be careful for -- you know, watch out for pedestrians
for the motorists as well. So, you know, those are the kind of
things we were looking at doing.
MS. VERMILLION: Annie had --
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MS. MELTON: What did you find was the response rate
from the junior highs and high schools in saying we're
interested in doing this and we want to be part of the program?
What percentage actually responded? Because I've done a lot of
this work and it's pretty hard.
MS. SCOTT: It was about -- I think there was --
there's about 1500 schools in the state. We had almost 900
participate.
MS. MELTON: That's awesome.
MS. SCOTT: Yeah.
MS. MELTON: That's good. Okay.
MS. SCOTT: And --
MS. VERMILLION: It was a huge project. I mean, it's
a lot -- you know, each one got a big box of materials. And
then they also got a thumb drive with software that had things
like a newsletter that they could post on their website or that
they could send out to parents. So those are the kind of
things that we're looking at. And all of our agencies are on a
short list. So these are not -- we're not just sending that to
any agency in Texas. These are agencies, there's I think five
of them, who do TxDOT traffic safety programs all the time. So
they're accustomed to how to work with the state. They're also
accustomed to the issues that we're dealing with. So they will
look at whatever you guys come up with here as the deliverables
that you're wanting and then they will propose embellishing on
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that or expanding or what's the creative direction. You know,
what would the look be of the posters and the banners or
whatever you guys come up with.
And so that's why you'll want to look at this project
deliverables, which starts on Page 4. And those are the areas
which will also be evaluated. So what will happen, this is the
TxDOT procurement process, is that we will need to select five
committee members or evaluation team members that will serve as
evaluators of the media firms that are presenting. It will
take approximately two full days out of your schedule. You
cannot come and go, you have to be through the whole full two
days.
And it's somewhat similar to serving as a jury member
on a case in that we have our deliberation room and then we go
in and we watch presentations that are presented in the larger
room by the agencies. Then we go back to our deliberation
room, we talk about it. We discuss it. The main difference
between our procurement process evaluators and a jury is that
we don't come to a group decision. It's individual scoring.
So even though we'll talk about issues like I didn't really
understand how they plan to distribute the posters, or
whatever. You know, you can go, oh yeah, well they, you know,
they discussed it and on their proposal it says on page such
and such.
And then we have question and answer period with the
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vendors, so we go back in and we clar -- ask for clarification
on any issues that we're not sure about. And then each person
has about a week to score their scores of that evaluation -- I
mean, of that -- of each media vendor. You will score each one
of them. And there's usually -- lately there's been four
presenting. So we take a half day for each one, and it will be
two full days.
And then the other thing is there will be -- you
know, we ask that there's no phones, no Blackberries, not
texting, whatever, in -- when the presentation are going on.
In our jury deliberation room you can do that sort of thing but
not in the presentation. So it is a pretty dedicated piece of
time.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: And then --
MS. GARCIA: And what kind of comments do you need
from us or what type of -- can you restate again what kind of
information --
MS. VERMILLION: We would like you all's input on
what kind of deliverables you would like to see from the
statement of work.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. SCOTT: Because this becomes like a legal
document. It's basically an RFP. We call it a statement of
work because it's TxDOT lingo, but it is basically an RFP. So
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this becomes a legal document. Whatever is described in here,
we can't later come back and go, oh, we don't really want to do
kits, we want to do a tour that goes around to all the schools.
It's like, no, that wasn't outlined in here.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. SCOTT: So this is the legal document so the
deliverables need to be pretty --
MS. GARCIA: And would you need comments from us? I
mean, this is something that --
MS. SCOTT: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: -- I'd kind of need to sleep on I think.
MS. VERMILLION: We are -- we can have whatever time
line you all would like. I mean --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Once we get this nailed down then it
will go out to the vendors for proposals and stuff. And then
we have the time line of, you know, the committees scoring and
selecting one and then we get on the commission agenda. So
it's our own time line. Obviously the sooner the better so we
can move forward with this. But we don't -- we're not going to
rush this either. I mean, if you all need time to look at this
and get input into what -- so, you know, we could -- you know,
we can do -- I don't know. What kind of time frame would you
all like to make those comments?
MS. GARCIA: I guess my -- my concern is that to meet
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as a committee and to make decisions, it has to be on our -- I
guess we could have a special meeting or an online meeting -- I
mean not an online meeting but a special conference call
meeting. But it seems like everything we do, if we need to
make a decision, then it gets pushed off three months --
MR. GLEASON: Well, you're able --
MS. GARCIA: -- into the future.
MR. GLEASON: -- to make a decision today, given the
way the agenda item is described. So you can come to some
agreement today.
MS. KAPLAN: Additionally, I had made -- I sent
several emails to you all and asked you to focus on the
deliverables, to review this, and to be prepared at this
meeting to make recommendations. And I sent that email on the
15th and --
MS. GARCIA: Right, but I didn't understand what a
deliverable was.
MS. KAPLAN: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: That was my problem.
MR. GLEASON: No, that's fine.
MS. GARCIA: I didn't understand what the scope and I
didn't know if it was posters vs -- mow I would just rather
have somebody out doing education with the kids one on one. I
think one on one's so much better than a poster.
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MR. GLEASON: So one of the ways we can address this
is we can try and reach some consensus today. The other thing
we can do is you all can send in comments as individuals.
We'll just forward them all, so it wouldn't be a committee
action, but you could, following this meeting, just send
comments --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: -- and that would certainly --
MS. MURPHY: Regina?
MS. GARCIA: Yes?
MS. MURPHY: This is Julia Murphy in San Antonio. I
apologize, I was logged in on my computer but the audio was not
working, but I could hear the conversation. Can you hear me
okay?
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: You bet.
MS. GARCIA: We're glad you're here.
MS. MURPHY: Thank you. I'm so sorry to -- but I did
have a question and while I was trying to call in on the phone
it might have already been answered. And the question is, are
we allowed to share the scope of work with other -- the
proposed scope of work draft -- with other professional
colleagues to get some input on what the deliverables should
be? Because one comment Annie made about billboards, I've had
a similar experience in our market. We ran a campaign and we
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-- it was just, for a variety of reasons, difficult to really
see the effectiveness of that particular media outlet. But
anyway, I'll let you answer my question.
MS. VERMILLION: Marsha.
MS. SCOTT: I don't see any problem with that.
MS. GARCIA: Yes, you can.
MS. MURPHY: Okay. And my -- I mean it's a PDF so
nobody can mess with it.
MS. GARCIA: Go ahead, Russ.
MR. FRANK: On the deliverables, like on the bottom
of Page 5, I -- there's a lot of things about providing
education materials and banners and brochures. And I think on
our work at Houston Metro, we've done a lot of education
campaigns for light rail safety and things like that and those
worked very, very well. I mean, I think working with
elementary schools are very, very good. So I would think we
would like to put a lot of emphasis on those kind of programs
that really target the schools like that directly because then
you really get a lot of kids involved.
And then, as we've already kind of discussed, I guess
a couple people have, on top of Page 6, talks about some of the
prepaid media things and I think we should really downplay a
lot of that stuff. I mean, I'm not a big fan of billboards,
but I really think some of those big, costly campaigns maybe
are not targeting exactly who we're trying to target with this
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program. And really we should put more of an emphasis into
funding in a final proposal on the direct education to
elementary schools or whatever aids schools versus the big,
broad, global campaigns and that kind of thing.
MS. SCOTT: Well, and so --
MS. GARCIA: I agree.
MS. SCOTT: So that would be easy enough to do. You
would just explain that you want little or no paid media and
you want to beef up -- probably what you're talking about might
be -- you could, under public relations, say you want to do a
tour that goes around the state to schools. Maybe each school
district would assemble several school together for a large
media presentation. I mean there's a lot of ways you could go
about that, so.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MR. HIBBS: Excuse me. Is this -- this program is
for all schools in the state of Texas --
MS. VERMILLION: No.
MR. HIBBS: -- is that correct?
MS. VERMILLION: K through 8.
MR. HIBBS: K through 8.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes, sir.
MR. HIBBS: But all K through 8 schools?
MS. VERMILLION: Uh-huh (affirmative).
MS. GARCIA: But there's only three million dollars
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of -- three --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: There's about five thousand of
them.
MR. HIBBS: In other words, it's not just a
metropolitan deal or --
MS. VERMILLION: No.
MR. HIBBS: -- something like that. And so --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Public and private.
MR. HIBBS: -- is the way the money's allocated, and
I -- this three million dollar number kind of sticks in my head
--
MS. VERMILLION: It's over two years.
MR. HIBBS: -- and it was 3.2, is over there, over a
two year period of time. So I'm getting back to a comment that
was in the minutes that I made at the meeting. Why don't we
just take the money and split it up and give it to the school
districts and say, here are the recommendations from the
bicycle committee in terms of the way that we think you should
spend this money and you probably know better than we, you
know, because of your particular geographic tendencies, how
it's best used. And then come up with kind of a list of
preferred ways that they use to do it.
MS. VERMILLION: Because --
MR. HIBBS: Are we too far down the road, I guess --
MS. VERMILLION: -- this is a federal program.
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MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: It's a reimbursement. They have to
incur the cost and then seek reimbursement and there are rules
surrounding how the Safe Routes to School funds can be
allocated, just like you're looking at capitals, there are --
MR. HIBBS: Got it.
MS. VERMILLION: -- Safe Routes to School funds that
there has to be an application process, which the statement of
work would be for this type thing. And that the BAC and TxDOT
has to evaluate and the commission awards it. So it's not an
allocation where we can do that, where we can say -- without
amending the Safe Routes to School rules, which I don't even
know if that's even -- would that even be allowable under the
federal -- probably not. So, yeah.
MR. HIBBS: Understood.
MS. MELTON: I do think that within this scope
there's a possibility of having different strategies in
different schools, so -- or in different groups of schools and
that there might be a package available and that schools would
choose among the --
MS. VERMILLION: That's a good idea.
MS. MELTON: -- opportunities.
MS. SCOTT: We've done that --
MS. VERMILLION: That's something we can --
MS. SCOTT: We've done that before.
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MS. VERMILLION: -- include with deliverables.
MS. MELTON: Yeah, and that would work quite well in
terms of tailoring it to the needs of individual schools. But,
you know, PSAs are great. They're not that hard to do, they're
free. I mean, it is possible to get free billboards, too, but
getting printed and ready to do and all that is pretty time
consuming and I don't think that it works real well. You know,
I don't personally think --
MS. VERMILLION: But that --
MS. MELTON: -- that it works real well, but --
MS. GARCIA: And, I'm sorry, we're running out of
time, so we need --
MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: -- to kind of -- would we have a general
consensus that we would certainly like to target the school
children?
MS. MELTON: Yes.
MS. GARCIA: And would we like to say elementary
school kids?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: K through 8.
MS. GARCIA: Because that's what the program has done
--
MS. VERMILLION: Right.
MS. GARCIA: -- in the past --
MS. MELTON: Uh-huh.
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MS. GARCIA: -- so a lot of those materials already
exist.
MS. MELTON: Right. And they should include some
non-biking or walking materials to the motorists that the kids
could take home, stuff like that.
MS. VERMILLION: And I think that's part of the kits.
MS. MELTON: Yeah.
MR. FRANK: So, do we need to -- like right now then
say can you take some of these things out and then beef up some
other things or are we going to have more time maybe to try to
get input or what are we thinking?
MR. GLEASON: Let me -- actually, Debra, a lot of
this may be (indiscernible). I think the committee today, if
it just wants to send a message, just as you're doing, a
general consensus message, I think that's fine. We don't need
to get really formal about it.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Is my guess. And I don't know how long
you're in the mode of taking comments on these things. We --
if folks have a chance to think about it and then send in
individual comments, if that works for you, or --
MS. VERMILLION: It does.
MR. GLEASON: -- you just want to take what they have
today and run with it.
MS. VERMILLION: I would rather give you all some
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time to think about it. Is a month sufficient?
MR. GLEASON: Oh, goodness, yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: That's like forever.
MS. VERMILLION: Do a month.
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MS. VERMILLION: I mean, it throws off our thing, you
know. My biggest concern is getting on the committee agenda,
you know, because that's not --
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Right.
MS. VERMILLION: -- something I can just --
MS. GARCIA: That has to happen quickly.
MS. VERMILLION: -- call and say, hey, I need to
present this next week.
MR. GLEASON: Right.
MS. VERMILLION: So, you know, we need that leeway
and stuff.
MS. GARCIA: Right. The sooner the better. The
sooner the program can get going.
MS. VERMILLION: So we can say a month. If we hear
from all you before then we'll rework this draft, send it back
out.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Uh-huh.
MS. KAPLAN: Why don't you set a deadline? I mean, I
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think --
MS. VERMILLION: Okay. What's today?
MS. KAPLAN: -- three weeks -- I mean --
MS. MELTON: Or two weeks. I mean, you know --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Well, I got a trial coming up.
MS. GARCIA: Is --
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. GARCIA: Well --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I can't do it in two weeks.
MR. GLEASON: Why don't you all have comments to
Teri. If --
MS. VERMILLION: What's today?
MR. GLEASON: -- you all have individual comments,
get them in to Teri within the next two to three weeks.
MS. MELTON: To Regina and copy Teri, is that it?
MR. GLEASON: That's fine. That's fine as well.
MS. MELTON: Okay. I just want to be clear.
MR. GLEASON: Yeah.
MS. KAPLAN: August 15th. Let's set an August 15th
deadline. That's a Friday. We all good with that?
MS. VERMILLION: August 15th? So that gives like
three weeks?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: What?
MS. VERMILLION: August 15th.
MS. KAPLAN: Gives you three weeks.
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MS. SCOTT: And to give you some ideas, some of the
tours we've done, if you wanted to look at more of a hands-on
with the schools, we've had things almost like, you know, a big
bus that would go around and stop and do presentations. I
don't know if you want something like, you know, that. We've
also had situations where we've toured around and done a big,
you know, like multiple screen shows that are educational in
nature and then we'd have handouts. And then also talk to
people on an individual basis, have speakers or -- you know, so
there's a lot of ways that we could go about having more of a
hands-on approach. Or maybe you want something that's more
grass roots so there's maybe several tours going on at the same
time and they go -- and it's more just talking to individual
classes of children. More on a, you know, a smaller group
level rather than a big assembly level, so --
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Great.
MS. SCOTT: -- there's a lot of possibilities.
MS. VERMILLION: I think there was another action
item we have to do.
MS. MELTON: I move that we allow three weeks for
discussion -- for suggestions to Regina and copy to Teri. And
at the end of those three weeks Regina and Teri formulate a
general consensus statement that we deliver to the commission,
is it?
MS. VERMILLION: No, it would come to --
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MS. CHARLESWORTH: Or to you all.
MS. KAPLAN: To the traffic safety --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: To the tra -- okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- the traffic operations division.
MR. GLEASON: Well, I think what we will do is we
will simply take the comments we have and forward them to
traffic safety. We won't try and formulate a consensus because
that really has to be formulated --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Then I withdraw the statement --
MR. GLEASON: -- at the committee.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- I mean, the motion.
MR. GLEASON: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. And we do have somebody that's
wanting to comment on this agenda item, so --
MR. GLEASON: Well, I'll leave it up -- obviously --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: But we need to go to --
MR. GLEASON: -- we are approaching noon.
MS. VERMILLION: Well, Teri, you said that we had to
have them commit to scoring the projects?
MS. KAPLAN: Well, no, I didn't say you had to. I
just wanted to -- if we're going to -- if we're going -- we
would have to wait for another meeting if you were wanting to
solicit folks to commit to participate in the evaluation of the
con --
MS. VERMILLION: The contractors. And how --
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MS. KAPLAN: -- contractors.
MS. VERMILLION: And when's your next meeting?
MS. KAPLAN: In between -- before the next advisory
meeting, wouldn't we have to make that commitment here at this
meeting?
MR. GLEASON: I would think if the committee wishes
to appoint an individual to the media --
MS. KAPLAN: Evaluation committee.
MR. GLEASON: -- then that would have to happen here
today.
MS. KAPLAN: So I guess what we need to do is ask the
committee members who would be interested in committing two
days toward the effort of evaluating those who submit
proposals.
MS. VERMILLION: And we really would like at least
three of you all.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: When?
MS. VERMILLION: We don't know.
MS. KAPLAN: We don't know that yet.
MS. VERMILLION: Depends on this time line.
MS. SCOTT: Depends on --
MR. FRANK: Just get our comments.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: You know, well --
MS. VERMILLION: So that's what makes it --
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MS. CHARLESWORTH: I mean, I got trials coming up --
MS. VERMILLION: -- hard to commit.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- so I -- you know.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. So when --
MS. GARCIA: Well --
MR. GLEASON: Let me rephrase this. The next time
this committee is scheduled to meet is in October.
MS. VERMILLION: That actually would probably be
fine.
MR. GLEASON: All right. We'll put it on next
October.
MS. KAPLAN: Really?
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MS. KAPLAN: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. But --
MS. VERMILLION: Because by the time we get the
comments, get this --
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- redrafted, it --
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- goes out and stuff, yes. So that
would be fine.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. October agenda. Okay. We have a
comment from the peanut gallery.
MR. STALLINGS: So to provide you all some context,
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Bike Texas has been with TxDOT operating the largest Safe
Routes to School program in the country since about 1998 with
different sources of funds. Sometimes 402 funds. Sometimes
Safe Routes to School funds. And we worked with both TxDOT to
develop their rules for safe routes and we also worked with
FHWA on their guidance for safe routes. On our legislative
side, we worked to pass legislation at the state and federal
level. And we have the only ongoing Safe Routes to School
program in the state with funding from -- identified by the
legislature through (indiscernible) fairly small.
So the big elephant in the room on this topic is do
you go with the media campaign or do you go with bike safety
education for children that's been the most successful in the
country. We've reach over two million children that we can
identify and it's because the program never increased it's
amount of money that we had, so we've never had more to get.
We also learned that 402 funds don't work in a school context
because each year is treated like a separate silo, and Safe
Routes to School was specifically so you could do multi-year
programs. So this year you could schedule things at the school
for next year, which is when schools plan. You know, the plan
the following year, not you get the money, can you drop
everything, change your schedule and accommodate us for teacher
training.
And so we've been able to reach the smallest school
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districts to the largest school districts, hundreds of school
districts in Texas. And that we've identified that if we have
$300,000 in a round number to teach teachers, we'll reach about
300 teachers and 38 percent of them will teach, and each one of
them that teaches will reach 3 to 400 children. So if you take
three million dollars here, using that formula with only 38
percent of those teachers actually using it for five hours of
bike safety education, you would directly reach 3,000 -- 4 --
three million, four hundred thousand children every year and
those teachers are already trained.
So as we know, because the grants dried up, there's
no more pla -- you know, it's gone, the staff has been
reassigned to TxDOT, there is no more ongoing Safe Routes to
School program currently planned. And obviously we're making
adjustments to not do bike safety education anymore like that.
But we would have a chance -- we know that there's still
probably 200,000 kids that are getting trained this year
because we developed the train your trainer program, it's built
into the school districts and has huge credibility. Originally
the curriculum was developed in DPS and we -- I approved with
TxDOT. It's (indiscernible) on other states who borrowed our
curriculum. We're the only state that uses the same curriculum
across the entire state. It's got pedestrian stuff. Even
train related stuff.
But -- so I think that the big elephant in the room
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and for this committee to decide is, do you want to go with a
media campaign or do you want to consider what have the
effective strategies in the past and do them. Because when you
start something new it's a big gamble. Maybe it works, maybe
it doesn't, but we do know some things that really work. And
media campaigns for K through 8, I'm not sure how proven they
are. It might be different when you've got kids in high school
level, but I just think that's something to keep in mind.
Obviously, you know, we might be a consideration and
we might stay in the game if we thought the money was there.
But as it is now, we're kind of retooling to just not do
education stuff much anymore because it looks like TxDOT's
shifted away from that. The new federal money, MAP-21, no
longer allows it and they may institute that. They may
institute that again in future versions of the federal
transportation bill where TxDOT can give money to non-profits
to do work like this.
But this money is unique and final. That it's still
possible to take this three million dollars and do the kind of
programs that have worked for so many years and this committee
still reviewed and ranked the projects like that. Or to just,
you know, spend it on a media campaign.
MS. GARCIA: Right. So that's kind of my concern, is
that a media campaign is a media campaign, but one on one with
a kid is worth so much.
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MS. VERMILLION: Well, let me just point out this
isn't --
MS. GARCIA: Yeah.
MS. VERMILLION: -- a media campaign. It's a public
information and education --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- campaign. So that's the kind of
deliverables you can have in your statement of work --
MS. GARCIA: So we could say --
MS. VERMILLION: -- and stuff.
MS. GARCIA: -- that we want somebody --
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MS. GARCIA: -- to go in and teach kids about safety.
MS. SCOTT: Yes.
MS. VERMILLION: Can we do that with these updates?
I'm asking you to make sure about that.
MS. SCOTT: Yeah. Yeah.
MS. VERMILLION: So that -- it's not that --
MS. MELTON: Even more important is training the
teachers to teach --
MS. SCOTT: Well, you could --
MS. MELTON: -- because -- institutionalize it.
MS. SCOTT: -- specify in the statement of work that
you want to focus on training the teachers.
MR. FRANK: And curriculum, yeah.
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MS. SCOTT: So your target audience then becomes the
teachers, not the students necessarily, so.
MS. VERMILLION: That's the deliverable part of the
statement of work.
MS. GARCIA: Oh, okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Of what --
MS. GARCIA: I see.
MS. VERMILLION: -- you want to come out of this.
MS. GARCIA: Because it's my --
MS. VERMILLION: But it's a --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: It is the companies that will be --
I -- we -- that's our fault, saying media. It's not media.
MS. SCOTT: Right. Yeah.
MS. VERMILLION: They do all kinds of different
things. So it's a public information --
MS. SCOTT: They're called social advocacy companies.
MS. VERMILLION: -- company.
MS. SCOTT: They're really not at -- they're not a
typical --
MS. VERMILLION: Advertising.
MS. SCOTT: -- advertising company.
MS. VERMILLION: So it's a public information and
education program, not just media.
MS. SCOTT: And I don't know the guidelines or
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regulations on whether a company outside of the agencies could
participate or take the grant --
MS. GARCIA: Right. Because we do have this program
--
MS. SCOTT: -- whether they can --
MS. GARCIA: -- the Texas Department of Public Safety
has written that's been being used for the last 10 or 12 -- 10
or 20 years to take into schools. It's in alignment with the
TEACH (ph) program, so it's -- and it's been updated on a
regular basis. Those materials already exists. The whole
thing's already been written. We know that it's successful,
and if we can continue on instead of recreating the wheel, I
personally think that's the way to go. We know it works. We
know it reaches kids. We know that teachers are using the
information. And it exists. You know, why work ourselves to
death trying to recreate something. What do you all think?
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MR. HIBBS: I completely agree with you.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MR. GONZALES: I mean out -- sorry.
MS. GARCIA: Yeah.
MR. GONZALES: Out in El Paso we have a group of
cyclists that actually goes school to school and we educate
them on health and fitness and safety. And we get support from
the local bike shops and that has worked wonders.
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MS. GARCIA: Right. I would like -- and I can't make
a motion, but I would like to see the Safe Cyclist Program or
Super Cyclist Program. I'm not sure what it's called now. It
was written by the Department of Public Safety and it's been --
being promoted in the schools in the past. I would just like
to see that one carried forward.
MR. GLEASON: I've just been made aware that at noon
there's an exercise class coming in here.
MS. GARCIA: Oh, okay. Okay.
(Laughter.)
MR. FRANK: We don't want to stop that.
MR. GLEASON: So if I --
MS. GARCIA: So could we at least --
MR. GLEASON: If I --
MS. GARCIA: -- have a general consensus on that?
MR. HIBBS: Yeah.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: And --
MR. GLEASON: Because we have to return to the rules.
We've not completed our work on the TAP rule comments yet.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. So, we do have a general
consensus on that. Take the safe cyclist program that already
exists and how can we go forward with that program, because
it's -- it's updated --
MS. VERMILLION: I think we have two different issues
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here. Either moving forward with the statement of work for
PI&E (ph) or totally ditching this effort and going out with a
call -- program call for non-infrastructural projects for an
educational campaign. We can't just give the money out.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I like that one.
MS. VERMILLION: So, now, I can't --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- make that decision.
MR. GLEASON: Right.
MS. VERMILLION: So -- but I can bring that back to
my administration and see, you know, what -- if they want to do
that. So what it would be is just like the old -- Tommy, I
know (indiscernible) involvement -- and Annie, you do call for
project proposals, they fill out the application, the BAC and
TxDOT evaluates them. We can limit that to a certain type of
non-infrastructure project. So if it's the education, that --
so let me go back and --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- see how that would work and
present that to you all through Teri, I assume, just to give
you an idea. And then at you all's October meeting you can
make a decision on how you --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- would recommend that the agency
and the commission move forward.
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MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. FRANK: So, I'm sorry, I have a question.
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. FRANK: That would be not doing this whole
proposal --
MS. VERMILLION: Right.
MR. FRANK: -- and it would be individual sort of
grant applications for education is what that other --
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MR. FRANK: -- option would be. Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Yes.
MS. KAPLAN: With a possible limited focus and a
possible limited funding amount.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Of three million, 200 thousand dollars.
MR. EDEN: Limited funding --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. EDEN: -- amount is something that we might want
to add to that.
MS. VERMILLION: Well, it -- that's something we can
probably discuss at the October meeting or whatever. But if
you wanted to do a statewide effort, you may not want to limit
it to a certain amount.
MS. GARCIA: Right.
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MS. VERMILLION: So, you know, that's, you know, kind
of -- if you're looking at a statewide program. We're not
talking about these individual little school things like we did
at the thing. If you want to do a whole statewide program, you
know, you may want to define what you want that program to look
at. And, you know, we got this money that we -- it don't have
to be spread over just two years, but we would like to extend
the funds and stuff and move from that and make the decisions
on how you want that to look.
MS. KAPLAN: And if you're looking at the SOWR, focus
on the deliverables that are on Page 3 or 4.
MR. FRANK: And SOWR?
MS. VERMILLION: Statement of Work Request.
MS. KAPLAN: Statement of Work Request.
MS. VERMILLION: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: Thanks, guys.
MR. FRANK: I'm sorry, so I have one more question.
So we're going to still comments on this and then we'll just
have a discussion next time about if we do this option or the
other option.
MS. VERMILLION: We'll bring the option.
MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Yeah, I would like you all to still
make comments in case you all decide this is the route you want
to go --
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MR. FRANK: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: -- so we have that in place already.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. VERMILLION: Okay? And then we can do the rest.
MS. GARCIA: And then just to re-clarify, the three
comments that the committee wants to make about the TAP rules
is that in cities with a population less than 200,000, we would
like to reduce their required commitment of cash to five
percent with a match of 15 percent in-kind donations, so that
it gives them more flexibility. Yes?
MS. MELTON: I think -- I'm sorry. I think that the
-- it's not 200,000 population for a city but it's for a --
MR. HIBBS: MPO, I think it was.
MR. GLEASON: It's understood. It's 200,000 for an
urbanized area.
MS. KAPLAN: Urbanized area.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Urbanized area.
MS. GARCIA: Less than.
MR. HIBBS: Yeah.
MS. KAPLAN: Less than 2 --
MS. MELTON: So it could be more than one city, you
know.
MR. GLEASON: And I think the --
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MR. GLEASON: I think the five percent cash was a
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minimum.
MR. HIBBS: Yeah.
MS. MELTON: Yes.
MS. GARCIA: Yes, minimum.
MR. HIBBS: Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: And a --
MS. GARCIA: Yeah.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: -- maximum of 15 percent in-kind.
MR. GLEASON: Yes.
MS. KAPLAN: Right.
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: Got that.
MR. FRANK: And it's percent of the 20 percent match,
we'll sort of come up with language that --
MR. GLEASON: We will.
MR. FRANK: -- says -- that sounds great.
MS. GARCIA: Oh, okay. Yeah, we'll --
MS. KAPLAN: Thank you, Marsha.
MS. GARCIA: And that -- also the general idea that
with our crash -- we would like to see funding for safety
programs at least match the crash -- the percentage that's
spent on bike-ped projects at least match the crash statistics.
Say that --
MS. MELTON: Right.
MS. GARCIA: -- for me, Annie.
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MS. MELTON: The crash rate.
MS. GARCIA: You said it more eloquently.
MS. MELTON: The crash rate statistics.
MS. KAPLAN: That's not really not -- we're not
necessarily able to do that.
MS. MELTON: I know but --
MS. KAPLAN: I think it was more --
MS. MELTON: -- since they are --
MS. KAPLAN: Because you can't account for it
necessarily --
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: -- because --
MR. GLEASON: I think the conversation was around
reacting to the discussion that Robin introduced about how the
total program was divided up. And I think in the context of
the department's ability to flex over --
MS. GARCIA: To flex that, yeah.
MR. GLEASON: -- what I heard the committee say and
get interested in was, well, we just heard all this information
on pedestrian-bicycle crash, we'd like to see an emphasis
there. As a -- you know --
MR. EDEN: And the percentages are just a matter of
--
MS. MELTON: Well, it's --
MR. EDEN: -- justification.
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MR. GLEASON: Well, and that was --
MS. MELTON: Well, it's --
MR. GLEASON: -- kind of an over-arching comment
because it didn't necessarily go directly to the rules you were
looking at, but it was to be phrased in sort of an over-arching
--
MS. GARCIA: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: -- way.
MS. GARCIA: An over-arching way. Okay.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Well, it needs to be more
proportionate.
MS. GARCIA: And our time --
MS. MELTON: Right. The funding spent by TxDOT on
bike-ped facilities and the crash rate -- since the funding is
a much smaller percentage of pop -- of, you know, a much
smaller percentage than the crash rate percentage, that if
they're not equal or greater on the spending side then they
shouldn't be flexing money --
MR. GLEASON: Okay.
MS. MELTON: -- out of the program.
MR. GLEASON: Well, why don't --
MS. KAPLAN: I think --
MR. GLEASON: -- fashion and --
MS. MELTON: I know.
MR. GLEASON: -- wordsmith something and we'll get it
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--
MS. KAPLAN: I understand.
MR. GLEASON: -- back to you.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. We'll wordsmith that. So those
were the two major points. Am I forgetting another one that we
made, because those are the only two --
MS. CHARLESWORTH: No.
MS. GARCIA: -- that I wrote notes about. Okay.
Would somebody like to make a motion that we adjourn?
MR. GLEASON: Well, I need to know who we're working
with to write the letters. Is that you, Regina?
MR. GONZALES: Yes.
MR. GLEASON: Okay. And then we probably need formal
committee action on those comments as you phrased them. So why
don't you move that you work with us to write a letter making
the following points.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Would somebody make a motion.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: So moved.
MS. GARCIA: Thank you.
MR. GLEASON: I can't make a motion.
MR. HIBBS: We have a motion.
MS. MELTON: She moved.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: I moved.
MR. HIBBS: Motion seconded.
MS. GARCIA: And a second. All in favor?
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(Chorus of ayes.)
MS. GARCIA: Anybody opposed?
(No audible responses)
MS. GARCIA: Nobody opposed. Thank you for getting
us through this.
(Laughter.)
MS. GARCIA: This legal mishmash.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Regina.
MR. GLEASON: Now we do need to adjourn.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: No, our agenda items for next
time.
MS. GARCIA: We don't have to -- that was just a
discussion. Can we discuss that online? I know -- because we
have somebody that -- sure.
MR. FRANK: We don't have to vote on those. We can
--
MS. GARCIA: We can discuss --
MR. FRANK: -- turn them in, right?
MS. GARCIA: -- that online.
MS. CHARLESWORTH: Yeah.
MS. GARCIA: Yeah.
MS. KAPLAN: I'm always --
MS. GARCIA: I'm sorry about that.
MS. KAPLAN: -- willing -- Regina, through the Chair,
always make your recommendations for the next agenda -- for the
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next agenda to Regina and copy me.
MS. GARCIA: Okay.
MS. KAPLAN: And when you all don't come up with
ideas, I do.
MR. FRANK: And you do a great job also.
MS. GARCIA: Yeah, I'm sorry our meeting ran so long,
but thank you very much --
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We need to adjourn the meeting
--
MS. GARCIA: -- because there's a lot of information
floating around.
MS. KAPLAN: Oh, wait. There has to be a motion to
adjourn the meeting. We can't just --
MS. MELTON: I motion to adjourn.
MS. GARCIA: Second?
MR. FRANK: I'll second it.
MS. GARCIA: Okay. Thank you all. Go home.
MS. KAPLAN: No. Annie -- was that Annie that
motioned?
MS. GARCIA: No, please.
MS. KAPLAN: And Russ that seconded?
MR. FRANK: I was second.
MS. GARCIA: Just to keep us legal.
MR. FRANK: Whoever you pick.
MS. GARCIA: I mean, I know that since we're just --
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MR. FRANK: We're all in agreement.
MS. GARCIA: -- an advisory committee --
MR. FRANK: Anything will work.
MS. GARCIA: -- that nobody will fire us a volunteers
--
MR. GLEASON: You're exactly right.
MS. GARCIA: -- but --
(Meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
I, KIMBERLY C. McCRIGHT, CET, certified electronic
transcriber, do hereby certify that the foregoing pages 1
through 114 constitute a full, true, and accurate transcript
from electronic recording of the proceedings had in the
foregoing matter.
DATED this 7th day of August, 2014.
_________________________________ Kimberly C. McCright, CET Certified Electronic Transcriber
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