September 8, 2025 — Transportation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:01] Okay? Great, thanks. Good evening, everyone. I'm calling the September 8th meeting of the Transportation Advisory Board to order. Our chair, Trinium Willetton, is not available this evening, so as vice chair, I will run the meeting. My name is Darcy Kitching. Sydney Schieffer is our technical host for this evening. Sydney, would you please review the rules of the virtual meeting? Yeah. Thank you for attending the Transportation Advisory Board meeting. To strike a balance between meaningful, transparent engagement, and online security, the following rules will be applied for this meeting. This meeting has been called to conduct the business of the City of Boulder. Activities that disrupt, delay, or otherwise interfere with the meeting are prohibited. The timer… the time for speaking or asking questions will be limited to 3 minutes. No person shall speak except when recognized by the person presiding, and no person shall speak for longer than the time allotted.

[1:03] Each person shall register to speak at the meeting using that person's real name. Any person believed to be using a name other than the one they are commonly known by will not be permitted to speak at the meeting. No video will be permitted except for city officials, employees, and invited speakers or presenters. All others will participate by voice only. The person presiding at the meeting shall enforce these rules by muting anyone who violates any rule. The Q&A function is enabled, and it will be used for individuals to communicate with the host. It should only be used for technical online platform-related questions. Only the host and the individuals designated by the host will be permitted to share their screens during this meeting. Great, thank you so much, Sydney, appreciate it. The next item in our agenda is the approval of the August minutes. Mike and Michael, have you had a chance to review the minutes?

[2:02] Do you have any corrections to those? Yes. Just a minor typo. The beginning of the list of board members present, my name is Mills Mills. Should be Mike Mills. Make pills. Great. Anything else that needs to be changed or amended? Nope. Okay, so, we'll, Amend the, minutes to read Mike Mills at the top, and, is there a motion to approve the minutes as revised? I move to approve as revised. Nice stopping. Okay, excellent. All in favor, hold your… raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Aye? Great. Anyone opposed? Nope. Okay, so that motion passes, 3-0. Thank you so much.

[3:04] And the next item on our agenda is public comment. We welcome your comments on anything pertaining to transportation and mobility in the City of Foulder right now. Please use the raise hand function on your screen to be recognized and state your full name. You'll have 3 minutes to speak. Sydney, do we have anyone wishing to speak this evening? Yes, I have Scott. Scott, I'm going to give you permission to talk, and then if you could just state your name, and I'll start the timer. You'll need to unmute yourself, yep. Okay, I'm ready. Yes, we can hear you. You want me to be able to… So thanks, thanks for the hard work you guys do. I've been on city boards. My name is Scott Allman. And I have lived here at 1720 Bluff Street in Boulder for 48 years.

[4:04] Our cousin, Dan Bench. age 88, was struck and killed by a truck while riding his bicycle on Edgewood and 24th Street. Returning from breakfast, here, and headed home on a sunny, calm mid-morning August 4. Many of Dan's relatives As well as neighborhood residents walked around the scene of the accident. And we all asked. What can the city do that might prevent another tragedy from happening at this site? And here are our thoughts. Number one. Relocate the large stone trail marker. Marker is helpful, but being a milestone at the beginning of the Goose Creek Greenway Trail. However, it is hazardous because of its size and its location. Size?

[5:00] For vehicles traveling from the West, The stone readily obscures bicyclists. Its function as a milestone could still be served by removing the bottom 23 inches. I measured it. Location! Move it back from the street many feet. Again, if relocated, it can be seen, but does not hide a bike rider, and I included a photo. Number 2. Add another single-lane speed bump. Alas, the current speed bump could use some adjustment. We want the speed bump to slow drivers. Before they approach the crossing, and not afterwards, when the crosswalk has already been passed. After watching the video of Dan getting creamed by the truck, It appears… The drivers are continuing as normal as they round the corner. The sight of an approaching speed bump may get the driver's attention, and perhaps they will slow down.

[6:06] Is it possible to have speed bumps that only span a single lane? If so, the inconvenient jarring that you get from a speed bump Won't be changed from the current layout This change will make the speed bumps more effective. Number 3. Trim the bushes along the creek. To the west of the path, there was a tall row of trees or bushes. to block cyclists' view of traffic on Edgewood. Do those bushes really need to be there? And thank you for considering this matter. Good enough? Can I… Is it all? Can Susan, my wife, jump in next? Is our hand still raised? Thank you, Simon. All we had for time, but thank you.

[7:01] Thank you, Scott. I just wanted to, chime in here a little bit and just thank you for sending your, your letter to us. I want to assure you that we all received your full, comments, and I just appreciate you and your relatives, going out to the site and doing the work that you did, so thank you very much for joining us here. This, this evening. Valerie, do you have any response for Scott? I was just noticing at the end of Scott's testimony that he mentioned his wife was there with him on the same microphone, and I… it's up to your discretion as TAP Chair, but if you would like to offer someone else lives with him, a chance to speak, that's… that's something you could do, and happy to… to respond also, Darcy. Sure, thank you. Yes, if, if there's another person there with you who would like to speak, you may raise your hand again, and that person can state her full name.

[8:01] Would you like to do that? Yes. Okay, Yumi, go ahead. Okay. Sydney will start the timer for you. Yeah. Thank you. My name is Susan Gayle Allman, and I've lived at Bluff Street for 38 38 years. And, I would like to add that, we think trimming the lower branches on the large tree on the east side of the crossing would also help. The… Tree is beautiful, but it also obstructs the cyclist's view of vehicles that would be also on Edge… Edgewood. So… Add a manually operated flashing light. Around town, we see pedestrians manually operate signals. Could one be placed at this crosswalk. Preserving a momentum is key for bicyclists. Would a cyclist stop and push the button? How much time should it flash to make it across safely?

[9:03] I do not know, but perhaps just the presence of the warning lights, even when off, might get the driver's attention. It would also help pedestrians. Replace and reorient the stop sign. There's a stop sign oriented for the pedestrians and trail riders. It's small, and maybe not even legal size, and it's very high up on a signpost. Replacing it with a much larger sign, and at a lower height might make the bicyclists more obligated to stop before proceeding. And bicyclists frequently ride in a head-down posture, so they may not see the signs that are up so high. If the drivers are obeying the 25 mph speed limit, it does not take many seconds to slow down or stop. We timed them. Thanks for listening. Dan was an avid bicyclist. He would ride 300 miles each month until he was 85 years old.

[10:05] Biking was his main mode of transportation. He is loved, he is missed. We really would like you to take our our considerations, and… We want to make Boulder safe. The pathways, the intersections for people on bikes, people walking, people pushing baby strollers. We'd like you to acknowledge that you're willing to take action in joining us in changing this intersection to be safer. Thank you. And thank you for allowing me to join in. Thank you, Susan. We know. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you both very much for… I'm sorry. Thank you both very much for your comment, and especially in your, you know, your grief, sending us these notes, and, we… you have our, our sympathy, and,

[11:01] Thank you, just for taking the time to send these notes, given that Dan was a relative of yours. And we're so sorry. Valerie, what would you like to add? Yeah, thanks, Valerie Watson, Interim Director, Transportation and Mobility. I want to echo, thanks for both of you being here tonight. I'd also like to just, let you both know that, your TAB Chair, Darcy, and fellow TAB members, as well as city staff. held space in our last TAB meeting, for your cousin and family member, Dan. And after that, we… we did receive the terrible news that he had died from his injuries. And again, just thank you so much for being here tonight and sharing your thoughts with us, during this really difficult time for you and your family members. I want to say real quickly that, you know, it is devastating news for all of us, when we hear about someone who has lost their life or faced a life-changing injury, on our roadways, just trying to get around town.

[12:12] We work really hard through our, our Vision Zero initiative, in a very focused way, but all of our efforts every day, to make sure that nobody is killed or severely injured as they move around the city. I'm gonna hand it over to Devin Joslin, our Principal Traffic Engineer, to talk a little bit about some of the things that we've been looking at at this location since we heard the terrible news about the crash that injured and killed Dan. And Devin can run through some of the things that we've done and that we're considering, but I just wanted to, share those thoughts with you both, that, this is something we take very seriously. I know that our partnership with our TAB members is Very important for advancing this critical safety work that we do every day.

[13:04] Over to Devin, please. Thank you, Valerie. Good evening, my name is Devin Joslin, I'm the City's Principal Traffic Engineer, and I just would like to echo Valerie's sentiments, and just thank you so much for the the thoughtful letter that you've provided, and want to let you know that we're looking at a lot of the same things that you pointed out, so really appreciate your suggestions. And there are some actions that we've already taken. One is that we've already lowered the height of the stop sign and, added some additional signs on the path approaching the crossing To let users know that the path is ending and that there's a stop sign ahead. And we've also done some trimming, of the tree so that you can see that stop sign better on the path as you're approaching it. So please know that that one's already been taken care of. And then the… with regard to the trail marker, appreciate you pointing that out, and that's another thing that, we're planning to get a contractor scheduled and get that marker relocated, in the coming months.

[14:15] So that's another step that we're going to take at this location. And then your other suggestions are certainly valid and are well thought out. And we will be researching those more carefully, in the coming weeks, checking what data we have available, and that will help inform, what additional steps we take. I do want to clarify that the trees along the creek, those are on private property. And there don't appear to be any code violations related to those, so the city's not in a position where we could require the property owner to trim those trees along the creek. Although I can certainly see how that would improve visibility at this location.

[15:08] But yeah, thank you again for the thoughtful suggestions, and know that we'll be taking action on two of those. Thank you so much, Devin. That's really encouraging. Appreciate that the city has been able to take some… some of these actions, so promptly. Thank you. Sydney, do we have others who would like to speak this year? Oh, sorry, Mike, you have your hand up. Oh, I guess we respond at the end of the question, sorry. Okay, Sydney, do we have others who would like to speak this evening? I do not see any other raised hands. Okay. Okay, Mike, do you want to add something? Yeah, can I, I also want to express my condolences About this tragic incident, and

[16:02] Would I be able to share a screen that has some photos on it? Is that… Sorry, is that… I'm not sure… I'll try. Okay. Is that working? Oh, that's the wrong… Here. Okay, we can see the fixtures of the path. Is that not what you're in? Oh, you can. Oh, okay, good, good, good. Yep. So, yeah, the upper left, photo is the one that was, shared with us in the letter showing this stone. Monument can block a cyclist, and the other photos were taken by Alexi Davies of, Community Cycles, and, show the height of the stop sign, making it difficult to see, and, so I'm glad to hear that has been lowered. On the right, is another case that's 47th Street and Goose Creek Path, so it seems this is not the only location where this is a hazard.

[17:10] Thanks. Hi, King. Figure out. I didn't stop sharing. Okay, I don't know. Is there a trick? Let's see. Oh wait, there it is. Oh, stop, okay, stop participant sharing. I was able to do it. Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks, appreciate it. Okay, so next on our agenda is the staff presentation and tab feedback regarding the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, or the BBCP, update. So, I will… let's see, staff will tell us about this item, and they're looking for our feedback. So, Valerie, would you like to introduce our guest?

[18:08] Presenters? Thank you, Darcy. I'm actually going to hand it right over to Steven Riho with our Transportation and Mobility Department to introduce this item. Thanks! Awesome, thanks so much, Valerie and Darcy. So my name's Stephen Rijo, I'm the Transportation Planning Manager, and I'm really excited to introduce our colleagues, Sarah and Tess. from the Planning and Development Services Department, who are here to present on the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan tonight. This is an exciting effort for the City and Region, as it is the first reassessment of the Comprehensive Plan in years. Their team is a bit more than halfway through the planning process, and this is a great time to provide your thoughts on the concepts and policies as their team works to refine these drafts into finals. The Comprehensive plan is important to the work we do in transportation and mobility, as it sets the highest level vision for the city that our transportation planning work aims to accomplish.

[19:00] I've really enjoyed the opportunity to participate in their work as a subject matter expert, along with some of my colleagues, and we look forward to the rest of their process. With that, I'll hand it over to Sarah and Tess to introduce themselves and present to you all in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan. Thanks so much. Yay. Well, thank you, Steven. Hi, TAB members. I'm Sarah Horne, a Senior City Planner on the Comprehensive Planning Team and Planning and Development Services. And Tess Shorn, another fabulous planner on our team, and I are really happy to be here tonight to meet you and to talk about the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan major update. So, as you can see on the slide, our agenda includes just a quick staff presentation, followed by time for clarifying questions and then board discussion. So, the purpose of our being here tonight is twofold. We want to share an overview of the Comprehensive Plan update process with you, and get your feedback on policy direction and potential changes to consider for the update. Why is it important for us to get your feedback? Well, we want to understand what your concerns are, what your wishes are, and what you've been hearing from the community related to transportation and mobility topics.

[20:10] And just quickly, the speakers before, those are really important things to hear and to try to work towards a future where we are all safer and have a better environment to live in. So, we really appreciate what you said and are sorry for your loss, but hope that we can make things better in the future. And so, we really want to understand, what your concerns are, like I said, and doing that helps us create a really well-rounded update, and include as many people as possible in the process. And dovetailing off that, you might be wondering what your role and that of other boards, commissions, or policy-making bodies are. Well, most boards and commissions are advisory to the process, including TAB. So, staff really needs your input, and help in identifying and shaping future policy direction, and we'd love to have your support for our recommendations, and encourage you to share the support during the adoption process next year. And just as an FYI, there are four adopting bodies for the comp plan update. There's our City Council and Planning Board, and then Boulder County Planning Commission, and the Board of County Commissioners.

[21:16] Okay, so now that you know what's coming, what your role is, here's a quick overview of the discussion questions we have for you tonight. They're included in your memo, but we just want to remind you that we have five. The first relates to the overall approach to policy in the comp plan update. A few get into more details related to specific transportation and policy themes, and the last question relates to how far we should go with some of our updates. We'll pull them back up a bit later, and Steven and Chris will facilitate the discussion around them. And so now to the update. What is a comprehensive plan? Some of you may know, some of you may not know. Well, I'm here to tell you it's a really aspirational plan that sets a vision for the future related to community needs and guides how the community changes over time.

[22:04] It includes… the plan includes policies and a future land use map that help city staff, community members, advisory boards, and policy makers move toward, the vision and manage change. For this particular update, we've developed a draft vision based on community feedback, which you see on the right-hand side of the slide. And the vision is, our community works together to ensure everyone belongs, to create opportunities for all, and to sustain the health of the Boulder Valley for future generations. The major update process happens every 10 years, and this is our 50-year update, so it's a… it's a big one. And it gives our community an opportunity to reevaluate how we've been planning for the future. It helps us continue our collaboration with the county on how we manage land in the Valley and think about change and growth. And finally, the state requires that cities with populations over 2,000 have a comprehensive plan. And just really quickly, that diagram at the bottom of the screen illustrates the three levels of planning we use in Boulder.

[23:02] And just the comprehensive plan sits at, like, a 30,000-foot level. At the 10,000-foot level, we have sub-community and area plans, and then zoning and the, land use code, or just the revised code in general, sit at the ground level of that planning. Process… er, framework. And then all of what I just discussed applies to a specific geographic area, which you see on this slide. The plan considers the future for the entire Boulder Valley, which includes everything inside city limits, which you see in that pale yellow on the slide, and portions of unincorporated Boulder County land surrounding the city, which are highlighted in green. And then, there's some notes on the side of the slide. The planning area is further divided into, areas 1, 2, and 3, and these areas relate to the provision of urban services, and if you're interested in that, you can, find more detail about those areas in the, in our online maps and the comp plan. And we can answer questions about those, too, if you have them. Okay, and then this diagram illustrates our planning framework in more detail. So, just quickly, the diagram, it begins with our sustainability, equity, and resilience Framework, and that includes seven objectives that all city work should strive to meet.

[24:13] And then the comp plan is the next, and it's on the screen in dark blue, and it's intended to be really high level, like I mentioned before, and the policies and the land use map included in the plan help guide the citywide strategic plan, which you see in pale blue underneath the comp plan, and that outlines the actions we as a city take over the next few years. And that plan, in turn, impacts the work we do and how we plan to spend money through department plans. budgets, and sub-community and area plans. And you see those in light green on the diagram. And then those directly influence our operating budget, capital improvements program, and zoning and development standards, which you see at the bottom of the diagram. Okay, so now that you know everything. maybe not everything, but almost everything you need to know about the plan. We're gonna focus on this update and our process. So we kicked off the update last year, starting with a Boulder Today, and in that phase, we focused on current conditions, collecting information and data on what's happening now.

[25:13] We then moved to Phase 2 in early 2025 of Boulder Tomorrow, talking to community members about, the vision, which I shared earlier, and community priorities. We're now in Phase 3, which you see in yellow on the slide, and that's, we're now working through policy choices and our approach to managing land use in the Valley, and we're coming to all of the boards, getting your, thoughts on that now. And then after this, we'll move to Phase 4 at the end of the year, the beginning of next year, to prepare the plan and get it ready for adoption, hopefully in summer of 2026. And then, throughout the process, just to touch on community engagement quickly, we've facilitated a lot of events. Several of them have included staff from Transportation and Mobility who've been great partners, as Steven mentioned earlier in this effort. We couldn't do it without them. And this slide just shows that we've done a lot of engagement to date. We've gotten over 5,000 responses. We've had interactive theater events, community-led conversations.

[26:11] And we're using a new tactic, this time around a community assembly, which you'll hear more about as the process moves on. And then, all of that engagement has led us to a better understanding of the issues community members are really interested in, or most concerned about, and you see these on the slide in front of you, and transportation and mobility options are one of those. areas of interest. And so these are areas that are top of mind for community members, so we're drilling down into those a little more deeply, than maybe we have in the past, or just to make sure we're getting at what people need. The plan covers lots of topics, and updates policies where needed, but these are just the areas for community conversation. So, with that, that's a really quick overview of the comp plan, and we have time for questions a little later, but now I'm going to turn it over to Tess to tell you a little bit more about our approach to this update specifically.

[27:07] Thank you, Sarah. My name is Tess Shorn, and I'm here, with the Comprehensive Planning Team. And we're going to quickly share some of our goals related to both policy and land use updates. First, I just want to remind the board that our policy and land use options are still very much a work in progress. The process will continue to evolve over the next few months as we continue to get feedback from the community, advisory boards, policy makers, and our colleagues in various city departments. The current comprehensive plan contains 100… or 210 policies addressing a wide range of topics and community services. Community feedback, including input from city and county staff, describes that current policies can be duplicative, contradict each other, and be repetitive of policies captured in other community plans.

[28:06] In response to this input, staff have established the following goals for revisions to plan policies. First, to keep policies clear, second, to keep them simple, and thirdly, to keep them resilient, meaning that they have the appropriate level of detail to help guide decisions without limiting options as future conditions may change. The policies are still being drafted, of course, but here are the key themes regarding transportation we want you to keep in mind during our discussion tonight. The city aims to create a multimodal transportation system that is joyful and community-centered. prioritizes moving people reliably and safely, is committed to Vision Zero, is adaptable to the future. Moves freight efficiently, and fosters strong regional collaboration.

[29:06] We are also shifting how we think about future land use. Community feedback, including the interests and concerns of City's Planning Board and City Council, drove the project team to re-evaluate the City's land use strategy, as captured in the current Comprehensive planned land use designations and future land use map. The project team has created a revised draft strategy to achieve the following. The plan… plan for change that reflects community values and identity. Enable market-driven approaches tailored for different locations and situations. Integrate climate and environmental strategies into plan designations. Tailor mobility systems that support how people want to move around Boulder, and foster a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient Boulder Valley.

[30:00] Our new land use strategy proposal will also smoothly transfer over existing land uses and shrink the number of categories from an unwieldy 26 to a much more manageable 13. We are proposing a draft structure for land use designations that has four classes. Neighborhoods. which are primarily residential areas, hubs, which encourage a variety of commercial and residential uses, and I will talk in more detail about them on the next slide. And then networks. First in the networks are the parks and greenways. This designation is somewhat self-explanatory, but would apply to our park system and our greenways networks within the city, to identify places for active and passive recreation and mobility. The open space designation would collapse the previous open space designations into a single category, identifying land for open space purposes, which are identified in the city charter.

[31:05] And then finally, the Rural Lands Network is made up of a lot of the land in unincorporated Boulder County that is outside the Open Space Network, but is important To maintain land for agriculture and other public utilities. Finally, we have the institutions category, and this is largely a category that is meant to, kind of preserve our government campuses, university, and industrial areas for the future. Within each of these classes, A unique designation can be applied at the neighborhood scale and help guide redevelopment within the city moving forward. This is still a draft, and we are working through some edits right now. We did include the link to the City Council memo in your packet, which provides a lot more information on our concept for this land use designation.

[32:03] So feel free to review that, and if you have any questions, reach out to us. But moving on to the hubs, which I think are of particular interest for this group, local hubs are smaller in scale and are intended to provide local neighborhood uses. The scale of a local hub would tend to be the four corners of a street intersection kind of moving out on that block, so that would be kind of the scale size. And these places would be, where people within a neighborhood could walk or bike to as primarily modes of transportation. A community hub is larger in scale, and might include a broader mix of commercial and some residential uses. It would have a larger reach than the local hubs, related to who might want to access these spots regularly. People from across the community may access through a variety of ways, and they may also have our larger bus stops and bus transfer areas embedded within them, potentially.

[33:05] The regional hub is really a regional destination, drawing from communities beyond Boulder. So today, these places are, downtown and the 29th Street Mall area, for example. Here is an example, and this is still very conceptual, of how this might typically play out in a neighborhood. A community hub serves multiple neighborhoods by being a central destination. Multifamily development may surround this hub, which is Neighborhood 2, creating a walk… more options for walking to this community hub, and supporting the businesses. And then there may be lower density neighborhoods, around that area, with… and parks and open spaces included as well. So… Some upcoming milestones we have, include a community workshop tomorrow, actually, and we invite you all to join, at Casey Middle School, and we will be walking attendees through a mapping exercise to help us with these concepts that I just talked about.

[34:14] We are also mailing a statistically valid survey to 5,000 randomly selected residents in the planning area on September 15th. and sharing an online open participation survey with all community members on September 22nd. On December 11th, we will share our policy and land use recommendations with Planning Board and City Council in a joint study session. And then, we will come back to you in March of the next year to share the draft plan, and we hope to have a final adopted plan in July of 2026. And then, finally, please visit the project website. This includes a wealth of information about the work we've done so far, and we just encourage you all to take a look at it when you have the time.

[35:03] And thank you so much. Finally, we're gonna just go over some next steps. For the department subject matter experts and boards. After our discussion tonight, we will be working with subject matter experts through the end of this year to continue to iterate our policy and land use options to narrow down our recommendations for the update, and then we will work on drafting the plan update and come back to the boards in March of next year to share public review, the public review draft of the plan. I will now turn it over to the Board Chair for any clarifying questions, and then we'd like to hand it over to Steven and Chris to facilitate the discussion around the key questions we have for you tonight. Great, thank you so much, Tess, I appreciate it. Can you, maybe stop sharing so we can see each other? Great, thank you so much, thank you both so much, really appreciate it. Tab members, what clarifying questions do you have?

[36:09] Any at all? I do have some questions, but I think we can, embed them in the convers… in the discussion, Sarah and Tess. And, Steven, if you'd like to have… more facilitation, go ahead. Pass. Yeah, happy to. I think we split up the questions, in the last few slides, so they would be, you know, top of mind as you all jump into your discussion, so I think… Tess, if you could share those again, that would be great. Perfect, so I think wanted to flash all five of these again, just as a refresher. Can leave those up for a moment before jumping into the first one.

[37:00] Okay… Right, do you want to just take these in order? Yeah, yes, please. So I think, yeah, for this first one, just really curious, you know, about any questions you have about the policy approach to the comprehensive plan update, specifically around reinforcing the what and why over the how, and I think, you know, showed those resources On the right there, just as a reminder, again, how the comprehensive plan flows into some of the other planning documents that we use at the city, so… I guess one question I have about this part is, so I've reviewed the Council memo and the materials provided to… to Council, that summarize the community engagement, which was a really nice, summary of the engagement. So far, and I guess I'm curious about the, the team, the PVCP team, how they are,

[38:05] arriving at the what and the why, so finding and determining those shared community values. I do see some of that kind of shared community values language in the, overview of the, community engagement materials, but it's a lot more, kind of, it's a lot more of the what than the why and the how, I think, and so I'm curious about how the project team is balancing those things. Great question. I think I'll kick that one to Sarah and Tess. Sure, and, I think I understood your question, and you tell me if I didn't, but, we're starting, kind of, our objectives, or our goals for the plan will be the, same seven things that you see under the SER framework, so those have kind of lined up really nicely, in a way, with what we've been hearing from the community. So, we're using those as our goals, and then,

[39:10] people are really, you know, they really know what we… what they want, to see, what they need, and so we have heard, you know, throughout our engagement process, people are saying, we need X, Y, or Z, right? And so, and we need it because, you know, for example, we need more Sidewalks, because… we want people out of cars, and we want to walk. So, we're using that as our what and our why, and then related to the how, and kind of backing off of that, what we're trying to do is lift this comp plan back up, because over time, it's gotten so in the… in the details, which… Sometimes you need to do that, but for this plan, because it's visionary, we want to give departments the room to adapt, and we need more sidewalks, but we don't want the comp plan to say, we need more sidewalks on this street, that street, and that street. We want the department to be able to engage the community further and decide how that happens

[40:08] In between the major updates. And I don't know if that directly answers your question, but I hope it helps. Yeah, I understand. Thank you, Sarah, I appreciate that. I mean, I do understand that this is a very high-level visionary plan, and you're not directing local action. I just, I, I would like, I mean, throughout the process, maybe there could be just a little more sharing of those, you know, what are those, those shared… values that you're… that you're hearing, I think that's a very specific kind of, engagement strategy, you know, to determine shared values, rather than just sort of what do you want, and, you know, how should it function for you, and all of that stuff. Because I think when we land on those shared values, we really have more room for local interpretation that can be really productive toward the greater vision. That's just my perspective as a… as a planner, but I'll leave it to…

[41:02] Mike and Michael to add any other questions. I can't see anyone with the shared screen. Maybe we can just take that down for a sec. I know there's… we're gonna go through all five questions. Yeah. Anything else about this first question, guys? I would just say that, I mean, the comprehensive plan is a… Is a 20-year guide and not a… User manual, so that… Right. …explains that, yeah. Okay, and then, Darcy, I would just offer, too, that, like, on our website, like, on our engagement page, we have summaries of all of the engagement, and that does share a little more detail on, like, how we got to the values, like, you're asking, you know, so… Take a look at that, too. Okay. Well, we can talk more about that in the… as we proceed. Okay, let's… should we go to question two? Oh, yeah, Michael, do you have more about this first one? Well, so let me just, in terms of procedure, what are we covering? Are these clarifying questions? Is this the discussion of this element?

[42:07] These are… this is our discussion. Okay, alright, just wanted to be sure that I understood that correctly. So, yeah, I can understand how you would not want a document like this to get too far down into the weeds. On the other hand, it feels pretty important to me that a document like this contain things that are clearly actionable. In the sense that you'll know whether you're going to meet your… whether you're actually meeting the objectives or the goals that are set out in the document. And in many places, I… I was struggling to find those action items. Not necessarily… and… and so when we say action items. it almost sounds like, well, okay, now we're getting back down in the weeds. And I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about some criteria to know when you're… when you're, you know, you're meeting your goals. So, just as an example, right, there's discussion in the document about the, you know, the need to rebalance our housing stock to accommodate an aging population.

[43:10] And we all know that that's happening, and we can even assess the speed at which that's happening. It'd be nice to know if, you know, how much housing stock do we have for those folks? Are we… are we transitioning, or are we changing our housing stock at a fast enough rate in order to accommodate those folks as they age, or are they going to be forced out of our community because we no longer have the housing stock that we need for our population? So, that's… that's not a how. That's, that's a, you know, kind of a what, but it's a what with, you know, like, some measurements, some criteria. And there are a lot of things like that. There were a lot of instances in… as I was reading through the document, where I was, like, really craving something that… that was actionable.

[44:00] And something that we could assess against to say, hey, you know, we… You know, we set this goal 13 years ago. Are we any… are we really anywhere closer to meeting that goal? And… and in much of the document, I feel like I would have no idea. If I read this 13 years from now, I would not know. if we were really any closer to meeting the goals or aspirations set forth in the document. So, maybe it's quantifiability, I mean, but I think we need to get beyond just merely aspirational language, but into Things that are measurable. Yeah, it's hard to… Yeah. I mean, it's hard to measure what a joyful, you know, transportation experience is, you know, and I appreciate that sentiment, and I appreciate that intention, that one's experience is joyful. And at the same time, you know, we really could… one of the really important whys, I think, from our perspective.

[45:05] Is that we have 60,000 plus in-commuters every single day. I mean, a good transportation plan, or the best transportation plan is a good land use plan, right? We need to provide that massive number of people who are coming into Boulder because their life, their daily life, happens here. But they can't live here, we need to provide them the tools to be able to live where they work, right? Those who want to. I mean, not everybody wants to, of course. But for those who want to, they should be able to live and work in the same community. And that's really, really, really important to me, and I think that's really important to others on this board. Because that is our number one issue, right? That we have so much congestion and traffic, because we have so much in-commuting happening, because there are jobs here, but there isn't the right kind.

[46:01] And the right price point of housing. So, that's a really major issue. So that's a really important why. Anyway, let's move on to question two. Do you want me just to read that? You don't have to put the slide back up if you don't want to, Stephen. I guess we could… let's go ahead, because you've got more data on these… more details on these slides as well. Staff support focusing city efforts on enhancing multimodal options, and more explicitly prioritizing moving people along. network. What trade-offs will be necessary to achieve this vision? Yes. What would you guys say? So, I would acknowledge explicitly that, Slower car travel on arterials may be necessary if it creates safer crossings, better bus reliability, and producted bike infrastructure. And we're showing, you know, with our core arterial network, that this kind of rebalancing is possible and popular when it's designed well.

[47:17] Yeah. I mean, I think we could say that we definitely, support focusing city efforts on enhancing multimodal options and more explicitly prioritizing moving people along the transportation network. Yes! Yes, yes, we do. Now, the trade-offs that'll be necessary to achieve this vision, that's a different question. And as I mentioned before, moving people efficiently also means that they… that they have… they can really take advantage of those options, and only those who are close enough to the places that they need to be every day can take advantage of those options. Every time I'm having a conversation with someone about

[48:01] You know, all the wonderful ways that we have to get around. And then I learn, well, I live in Arvada. So I can't bike. There are no buses that… You know, serve my needs. I have to, you know, pick up and drop off children. All the numbers of, you know, all the ways that people, need to move around, it's only those who live in close proximity to everything that they need who can really take advantage of the multimodal network. Or, you know, those who have a lot of flexibility. And so, there are a lot of trade-offs. I mean, the trade-offs… Huh. we… I mean, we could write an entire paper on that. What are the trade-offs necessary to achieve this vision? Michael, what would you add to this? What would you say are some of those trade-offs? Along… along those lines, again, and this is kind of a, you know, moving this out of the aspirational world and into the action… action item.

[49:05] I'm alone. I feel like it would be useful to… and this, Darcy, you know, you were talking about values. And I think there is one embedded here, right? We're talking about moving people as opposed to moving vehicles, and that's, you know, that's kind of pointing to a value, but what I'd really like to see is some articulation of how we expect to make the trade-offs. So we will, as a city, be comfortable reallocating road space away from vehicles if the result is that it's safer for pedestrians, cyclists, and other modes of transportation. And articulating that straight up, right? And with the understanding that, you know, that's gonna irritate some people. There are gonna be some folks out there who feel that those aren't their values, but, you know, I think this document needs to kind of…

[50:00] take a stand on some of these things, and in many places it does. So I don't mean to say that it's all wishy-washy and vague. You know, there are areas where the document gets super specific. I really like the one Where the fire department's talking about, like, the, you know, how far a fire hydrant will be from any given house. I mean, that's a lot of specificity. But then, on the other extreme, you know, there are these joyful things, and then I'm like, okay, well, what does that mean? So, in this area, it does feel to me like we could take a stand in terms of, you know, the importance of real allocating road space. You know, when I think about that, I'm thinking about, like, bus rapid transit, you know, because I agree with you, Darcy, that the change in our housing stock is critical and urgent. I think that kind of transformation in a city happens at a glacial pace, just because development is a slow process, usually.

[51:01] But transportation can change much more quickly, provided you're, you know, you're brave enough to reallocate road space, in a way to provide quality bus rapid transit into the city. And that could you know, reduce traffic. So, those are the kinds of things that I'd love to see it just tackle, and say, yes, this is what we're gonna do when we face these choices that we know we're gonna face, right? These are things that we're always gonna be bumping up against. bumped up against them in the context of CAN. We're going to continue to run up against them. They are a value choice, and we can speak to them in a document so that, you know. when we're working on another one of these projects, where people are, you know, oh, you're, you know, you're… it's a war on cars, he's like, look, we explained to you why we're doing this, and how it fits into a larger vision for how this city is going to work. Because right now, you know, I worry that that vision isn't terribly clear to a lot of the residents, and they just see what they're perceiving is a war on cars, not a…

[52:09] transformed transportation system that works differently than they're used to. And that's, you know, that's a difficult thing to communicate, but I think this document can really run with that, and I'd love to see it do more of that. Anyway, that's my thoughts on that. Yeah, thank you, Michael. Well, and certainly, I believe that the Comprehensive plan should, at the very least, support the efforts of the City of Boulder with the, parking reforms. the TDM ordinance, all the ways that the city is working to enhance multimodal options and more explicitly prioritize moving people along the transportation network. So if, you know, even at that 30,000 foot level, it can express support for the direction that the city has taken that work. And, I mean, the trade-offs in that are explicit to the, you know, exactly like you were saying, Michael, it's about reallocating some road space, but also providing more

[53:17] more resources, so resources in the form of bus rapid transit, and other kind of regional connections. So that's where I think it can really… that's where this gets to go beyond the city's Transportation Master Plan and other kind of local documents, is this really gets to say, here are the regional dynamics that we're addressing and working on and, meeting the needs of. I mean, really highlighting those, you know, 119, Colorado 7, 36, and all the ways that people are traveling into and out of Boulder. And, The importance of, of, the innovations that are happening there.

[54:00] So, and these, you know, these also come from not just the expertise of staff, but from the community and our shared values. So, I think being explicit about that would be really helpful. I mean, there, you know, and when you talk about trade-offs, you can kind of… there is so much excellent research out there, by, Todd Lippman and others, you know, about how it's not really as much of a… like, the trade-offs are gentler and easier than we… than we believe that they are. So, Michael, when you're talking about to that idea, but the data show that that is actually a net positive in terms of economic vitality and accessibility and all the other things. And so, really, I think also bringing in some of that excellent research that's been done in North America about how these decisions actually function for the community to realize those larger goals.

[55:09] would be really a positive thing to add to a plan at this level, because it is visionary, and it needs to also say that we're supporting your values by, you know, allowing for these policies to take shape locally, and we know that those are a net positive for our communities. So, that's just how I'm seeing it. Question 3 is pretty simple, and I think our discussion so far has led naturally into this. How would TAB like to see the Comprehensive Plan define and describe mobility? So, I think it should kind of mirror what Question 2 gets at, you know, that we are supporting, the multimodal options and priorities that the City of Boulder has been adopting. I don't know, Mike and Michael, what else would you add to, like, a definition of mobility? I mean, I prefer the term accessibility to mobility in terms of really focusing on people over vehicles.

[56:16] That's something that's, that's big in my work, is really focusing on accessibility, on people's capacity and capabilities to move as they, as they wish, and as they, you know, in the… with the most… Flexibility and… and options possible. What would you add to that, Michael or Mike? Yeah, mobility's not about moving cars quickly, it's about ensuring safe, reliable, and equitable access for people to get where they're going, their jobs, their schools. services, community spaces, mobility means… Freedom of movement. Our people, regardless of age, income, and ability, and includes…

[57:00] You know, multimodal, as you said, walking, biking, Rolling, transit, and driving. And prioritizes the most sustainable and equitable modes. So it's like… it's a… mobility is described as an ecosystem, not… not a single mode. Yeah. Yeah, definitely, and incorporating that all ages and abilities Language as well, that we're… We acknowledge that we're sort of an aging community, but we also really need to meet the needs of people across the lifespan. And make sure that young people And older adults equally have access to everything that they need, and ideally with the greatest amount of independence possible. And that's another, you know, thing that goes back to the multimodal options, prioritizing moving people. Is ensuring that people have the greatest amount of independence possible for the longest period of their life.

[58:02] That's a deeply held value in our community. I don't feel super strong about the difference between the word mobility and accessibility, though I understand, Darcy, that, you know, the nuance you're trying to capture. For me, regardless of what term you're using. I think affordability, I think Mike was touching on that in terms of the equity, but I also think, and it would be really nice to see some… Again, some quantifiables, you know, some measurements in here, but sufficiency. Because in one particular area that I'm thinking of, transit, I think a lot of folks, you know, it may be accessible in the sense that it's there, it's available. But it's not sufficient to meet the needs. The, you know, the frequency of the schedule, the routes, it's just not, you know, anything that anyone could reasonably rely on in the modern age.

[59:01] And so I think, you know, we need to own that as a weakness of our system, understanding that, you know, we're not… we're not pulling all the levers here. RTD is involved in all this as well. But the point is to acknowledge that, like, this is an issue. The sufficiency of public transit is a problem, or the insufficiency, I should say, of public transit in our city is a problem that we're going to need to somehow address if we want folks to get out of their cars. And, you know, some people will do it by bike, but we also, I think, perhaps need to think creatively about other ways to do it. You know, some different kinds of transit, I mean, you know. It could be a whole tab meeting to talk about that, and probably more than one tab meeting to talk about innovative approaches to public transit. But I think those are, you know, there are different… there are different scenarios, right? There are the folks commuting in from outside communities who are probably, you know, where the old… the old approach of just put them on a bus rapid transit's gonna work. But, you know, if you're an elderly person sitting in the city, or you have some kind of disability.

[60:10] You know, hopping on a bike is probably not going to work, so you'll need some other, you know, reasonable, affordable, available, sufficient mode of transit to get to your doctor's appointment, or whatever. And so those are the things that I'd love to see this, you know, kind of get to. Affordability, and some measurement of, or… Quantification, you know, of sufficiency. Yeah, I appreciate that, Mike. And I think that's, again, where it can kind of harken back to the city's efforts to, increase access to microtransit, micromobility options, you know, scooters and e-bikes and all the things. But also, like you're saying, paratransit and all the other, tools that are so essential to

[61:01] different members of our community. At the reopening of the Boulder Junction at Depot Square Station celebration last Wednesday, it was so just beautiful and encouraging to see residents from 30 Pearl, which is the, Boulder Housing Partners building in that community, come down, and many of them using mobility devices of different kinds. And just… and in fact, our former member, Jennifer Oaks, was there, and that was really good to see her. But, you know, that… you just make me think of that, Michael, about we have such diversity, and so… such diversity of need, and such diversity of opportunity to, really meet the needs. I think that this definition. should really get to all of that, that in the Boulder Valley, we have people of really all ages and abilities, and all of those needs, should be met within this idea of moving people

[62:02] Through and along the transportation network, enhancing multi-mobility as much as possible, yeah, multimodal options as much as possible, and including supportive systems. And micromobility. So what we have the opportunity to do here is talk about the incredible kind of regional connections that we need and are enhancing, and then also those local, opportunities for getting around after taking advantage of regional transit opportunities. So however you can I feel like we've given you a world of ideas for your definition. I mean, you know, but that's just a lot of, kind of, keywords and a lot of things to… to think about as you're putting that together. And I do appreciate the language that I've seen so far, and what you've been putting out really does get to, get to a lot of that, you know, to the different abilities, and also to, something else that just escaped my mind, but yeah, I think you have already hit on a lot of what Michael was describing, but just to really make sure it includes the fullness

[63:05] Of everything that we've discussed. I think some of it's already in there, right? There is this concept of the 15-minute city, but that's a, you know, that's an example of the kind of thing I'm talking about. It should be possible. for anyone, regardless of age or ability, to reach the destinations that are most, you know, essential to their daily life within 15 minutes, by one mode or another, except car, right? I mean, you know, let's not… let's not throw a car… That leads right into question four. Four. Yes, I know. Right into question four, a mobility hub is a central location that brings together various transportation options, like public transit, micromobility, ride hailing, car sharing, parking, and walking paths to facilitate seamless transitions between different transportation modes. As we're looking to locate mobility hubs. What types of facilities and proximity should we consider facilitating transit-rich walking environments in 50-minute neighborhoods? Great question.

[64:07] Sorry, I thought I might have interrupted somebody there. No? Okay, great. Well, I will… I'll just add that this is my favorite thing, because mobility hubs are so desperately needed and so desperately wanted. This image here really captures what people are asking for in the community. I hear this all the time, I heard it in my own research. And I am so thrilled, as I opened this up and I kind of looked at what you've been doing, I'm just thrilled that mobility hubs are a big feature here. Because these are absolutely essential. This is exactly what people want. They want safe places to access different modes, and to be able to, meet people, drop their kids. Have, you know, to be picked up by others, or, you know, this needs to be a place of social gathering, and also a place of

[65:02] Transfer when we need to use different modes. a place of, protect, you know, protecting our bikes, like if there are bike lockers and things like that, so we can take the bus, those regional connections, as we've been talking about. But this idea of a true hub, I think what you refer to in the materials to Council what I thought was interesting is you refer to, kind of, existing neighborhood hubs, like Boulder Junction and even Table Mesa, as mobility hubs, which they are, but not in this way that is illustrated here. So what I want to see is what's illustrated here. I want to see true mobility hubs that are creative, and that bring in all of these different, opportunities. Now, Boulder Junction gets to that. more than anywhere else in the city, I believe. And perhaps, you know, the downtown Boulder station kind of tries to get at that, and especially with the new extension. Like, we're trying to create these places where people can ride the bus in, grab a B-Cycle, or a Lime scooter, or pick up their bike from the bike shelter, or walk to where they're going. But really, this idea of a meeting place, a true hub, is a place that's also a social hub.

[66:13] And, that's another way that I think the comprehensive plan can really achieve something new and exciting. Because you're setting an expectation that we will cultivate and create these kinds of places in our communities. And then that's really what I… what I want to see. Michael, Mike? Well… Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm a fan of this idea. But I had a couple of thoughts about it. Again, the desire to quantify things. I noticed that there was some discussion in the document about third places, and I said, oh, that's great to acknowledge that concept. It would be a very interesting thing, I think, to map the density of third places across the city to see where there are dead zones, where you need a mobility hub, even if one doesn't already exist, or at least some kind of local hub, right? Some place where people can gather so that we're not driving people to more distant destinations.

[67:19] Just to, you know, to meet with friends, or, you know, have dinner, or whatever. So that… you know, I love it, but I also think we need to quantify it, and to be sure that we're kind of… we have some targets that we're going to hit over time, one of them being this, you know, the time that it takes to arrive at that destination, which is captured here in this idea of 15-minute neighborhoods. But, The other thing I wanted to say is, and I'm not sure, like, what the strategy is here, we've run up against this issue of retroactivity in the past, but I want to kind of flag it here. I don't… you know, when I read the document, there was lots of good stuff describing, kind of, what a mobility hub would look like, but those were all things that the city has direct control over, like sidewalks and roads and, you know, those kinds of things. But it doesn't end…

[68:15] at the parking lot to the development, right? Like, Table Mesa, from my experience, is a classic example of how it shouldn't stop at the, you know, at the boundary of the development. When you enter into that private development, you're now, if you're walking or on a bike, at least at the Table Mesa Shopping Center, in a sea of cars that are all going this way and that, it feels intensely unsafe. There is no, you know, effort, really, to kind of manage the flow of pedestrians and cyclists and other modes of transportation within the Table Mesa Shopping Center. And so that is an example, like, if you want people to feel comfortable to visit these mobility hubs by

[69:04] by foot, or on bike, or other modes of transportation, they have to… it has to be comfortable not just on the route there, but actually within that space. And I think that's something that developers have been inattentive to, in large part because Historically, they've been, you know, their visitors are predominantly by car, so they've been accommodating those folks first. I… we need some kind of strategy to kind of reshape that approach so that, so that they are motivated to make the changes, maybe give up some of the parking in the parking lot to make a pathway of ingress and egress for cyclists and pedestrians that's comfortable. So, I don't know how… the mechanism for doing that, but I think it's something that we're gonna need to attend to. If the concept of mobility hubs is really gonna succeed. Absolutely, I really appreciate that, and I want to add, just in terms of types of facilities, we shouldn't really be just looking at retail and kind of commercial environments for these.

[70:06] Because families desperately need these around schools, or close to schools. There are… I mean, where the South Boulder Recreation Center is right now, and I know that's going through a lot of changes, that's an ideal mobility hub. Because if it were attractive, and, vibrant, and had lots of different access to different modes, and it was exciting, then fewer parents would drive up Knox Drive to go to Southern Hills Middle School, and fewer parents would drive… or students even, would drive to Fairview High School, clogging up, you know, Greenbrier and all the streets, and then there's so… there's just so many schools right there, and having a mobility hub in proximity to the South Boulder Recreation Center would just be incredible. It would be a wonderful community asset. I don't want these just to be

[71:01] located around, shopping centers. You know, I really think we need to be looking at the types of facilities that people Use intensely. And that, they would value those kinds of, changes to. Schools are a perfect example of that. I mean, especially we hear a lot from community members who are concerned about school traffic. And, I mean, this is also kind of my area of specialty, and I think that that's… it really is true. It's not just the parents who are driving also don't want to be doing that. You know, they don't want to be stuck in traffic either. And so, there's… there's a deep need for, for having 15-minute neighborhoods and shorter, even shorter distances, 5-minute, you know, accessibility hubs to schools. So, yeah, Mike, do you have anything to add about this? Well, I would just say that, We need to… I think not just about hubs, but the… the zoning.

[72:02] Which prevents, you know, In most neighborhoods, are… Zoning and low-density housing, and You might be able to walk to, place of worship nearby, but you can't really walk to a coffee shop. And that seems like something that could be… improved, because so much of the city is RL1 zoning, that's low-density housing, that… I mean, that's related to to this mobility hub, although it's a different issue. But that… I feel that that's an important issue. Yeah, and another facility that would be a good determiner for, kind of, mobility hubs, too, would be parks, because, like, you look at North Boulder Park, for example, I mean, it's very close to Broadway. And so there's accessibility to transit there. There are already… it's interesting to look at where these… this diversity of uses are already kind of popping up. So there's, like, there's a coffee trailer, you know, there's a guy who runs a coffee trailer who pops up in North Boulder Park, you know, now and then, and also in… in the… in the park in South Boulder. And so, you know, people… there's a demand… obviously there's a demand there, or he wouldn't be locating there.

[73:20] Periodically. So, you know, where are people already exhibiting the desire for greater, diversity of uses? Yeah, Sarah. Oh, yeah, thank you. I just wanted to mention, just, like, on all of your trains of thought, the land use map changes, like Michael, like, talking about the actionability, we are trying to create policy statements that are more actionable, and then those policies are going to lead to… we're going to update the future land use map, like Tess mentioned, with the hubs, the networks, those things, and the mapping activity we're doing with community members tomorrow night. will be exactly that, finding where there are holes, where something… where someone would like to see a local hub, where… and so we are mapping that out, and that will be the action that we take to make sure that we're saying this is what we want to do, like you said, rather than

[74:10] being… not saying we've been wishy-washy in the past, but saying this is the direction we want to go, these are our values, and you can look at this land use map, developers, to see this is what kinds of changes we want to see. So I hope that helps. I don't know, Tess, if you had any… Anything to add, or if I… No, I think that's a lovely description, Sarah. I think, to your point, Mike, Is, you know, seeing more of those coffee shops and other uses in the neighborhood, through our change in land use with the local hubs and, community hubs, as well as allowing or having a policy that allows more, commercial home-based businesses to occur within the neighborhood, we'll get at that, and then Stripping back a little bit of that future land use regulation of very low density. We're moving away from density entirely in our descriptions of neighborhood types, so we're trying to allow there to be kind of more of that.

[75:11] potential, I don't want to say densification too loudly, but, anyway, allowing more of that potential, development and change in, how we see neighborhoods grow. Yeah, it's a fine line to walk, you know, in Boulder, for sure. But just to clarify, is, are accessory commercial units going to be specified in the plan? Like, is there an opportunity for accessory commercial units and not just accessory dwelling units? We are super excited about that concept. We learned a lot about at the National Planning Conference, and I know internally we're super excited and hoping to translate that into the plan, yes. That's great. Yeah, I lived in Portland, Oregon in the 90s, and there were… what I… part of what I loved was that every neighborhood, you know, you could find… there were a lot of, kind of, not necessarily home-based businesses, but businesses in buildings, in… on neighborhood streets, that were really, really created,

[76:10] liveliness in the neighborhood, and allowed for access to things that people needed, and that was really exciting, and so I miss that, and I hope that we see more of that. Michael, you've had your hands up. I was, gonna note that there is a discussion in the thing… in the document now on home businesses, and, was thinking of that, yeah, as Mike was suggesting, one strategy to reduce the distance folks have to travel in order to get to a third place, or to pick up some, you know, milk or whatever. I think that's a really useful thing. But… and I couldn't agree more, Darcy, with the, you know, the conga line of cars dropping people off on Knox. That's ridiculous. And so many of our schools in the city are like that every morning. And, you know, that points then to the need for increased permeability.

[77:04] Like Knox in particular, that area is… pretty darn impermeable in the right… in the very places you want it to be permeable, for bikes and pedestrians. And so, you know, I think exploring those… and that's, again, an area where I… I love the concept. I just wanted to see some, like, some goals, like, okay, you know, what percentage of the student body… our goal is, you know, no more than 30% of the student body is arriving at the school by vehicle, by car, you know? And so… setting some standard out like that will, 13 years from now, tell us, did we get any closer? Right? Those are the kinds of measures that I'd love to see in here. Not the how, because there's going to be a lot of different solutions to any one of these problems, and it'll be very location-dependent. But to have some goals, that are quantifiable, that we can work towards, I think would be really useful. But in general, I like

[78:04] I mean, I love all these directions. This is all, I think, the right way to go. Well, and just to… again, just to clarify, so BVSD does have its own, like, sustainability plan with some of those goals specified in it. I don't know if they've quantified… I'm not sure if they've said what percentage of people they want to be walking and bicycling to school, but they probably have, because they have a Safe Roads to School program, and I don't have that at the top of my mind, but If the… I don't know if the project team is working with PVSD on any of that, but anyway, Sarah. You're muted. You're muted, Sarah. Sorry, thank you, yes. We are working with BVSD, they're one of our partner orgs. We have several that we're meeting with regularly, and then just, Michael, I, the targets, like, we agree and understand, and we're still working kind of that out, like, where certain targets might land in the comp plan versus department plans.

[79:02] You know, we're working on making those relationships, stronger between those plans, and they talk to each other more, so we're still, working out how that looks, so we would appreciate you thinking about that and giving feedback to transportation and mobility staff as we keep moving, you know, if you come up with some good ideas and things, sharing that, and we'll definitely take them into consideration. Yeah, and maybe the… Absolutely. It doesn't have the standards itself, but maybe it points to a process for establishing them for any given location. That, I think, would be enough. I mean, but just, you know, just stopping with the aspiration for there to be change doesn't tell us how much change, and that's really what I was pointing to. Yeah, and I think I appreciate that invitation, Sarah, because I think that, you know, with the new orientation to transportation mobility planning, in terms of not having necessarily revising the Transportation Master Plan, but coming up with a new way of communicating long-term goals, I think there's good room there for a new approach to tying these plans together and to see opportunities

[80:09] Coming from that, higher view down into local decision making. So, yeah, I don't… Steven, do you want to add anything about that, about process in terms of bringing some of the comp plan ideas into a local transportation and mobility plan? Yeah, no, I think you nailed it, and it was really the slide that I think Tess spoke to earlier that just shows how that sort of flows in the funnel, from the comprehensive plan to the citywide strategic plan to the departmental strategic plans. And so, I really appreciate the work that, you know, Sarah, Tess, and all their colleagues are doing to make sure that it both to your point, Michael, sets a specific enough vision that we can gauge, are we moving the needle in the right direction or not, while then also giving us at the departmental level enough freedom to, you know, react to changes in the industry, changing priorities on the ground, any specific projects, because I think, as Tess alluded to in her slides.

[81:07] there was so much specificity in the previous or, you know, current comprehensive plan that that became a challenge, so… I think, as Sarah put it, definitely still something we're working on to find that right level of detail, and it's why this discussion is so helpful right now, where they are in the process. So, hopefully… Absolutely, and I so appreciate the invitation to engage with you right now. And I have to say also that I really appreciate the tone of this document, and I see it going in a really productive direction. in previous comprehensive plans, I think we have, Kind of limited the opportunities that we have, in terms of taking advantage of new, technologies and ideas, and I really appreciate the openness that you have left here for that, and especially in terms of transportation, which is constantly changing, and

[82:07] always, you know, some new opportunity coming up that we need to respond to and integrate as appropriate. But I really do appreciate the tone of this particular comprehensive plan and where it's going, and I'm excited to be engaged with it, so thank you very much. Okay. Do we have anything else to add to this? discussion. I don't think we're not being asked to… provide any specific, direction. We're just being asked to have a discussion, so I think we did. We answered all the questions, right? There's a question 5, right? Oh, sorry, this is question 5. This is a 20-year plan. Should we push the envelope more? How should transportation, innovation and technology be represented in the plan? What is the next big transportation move? Well, I think we've kind of been talking about that a little bit, but what else… what else is coming up for you all?

[83:05] For me, things like… A fully connected core arterial network. Obviously, transit with bus and rail, and car-like neighborhoods, rather than You know, the low-dense, suburbia that dominates the city, where you have our community hubs right now, our shopping centers, where The expectation is you'll drive there, and you're introduced to it by crossing a gigantic parking lot, so, Those are things that… I would hope can change. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, that… just like I said before, the mobility hub discussion, that Mobility Hub opportunity is such… it's so pivotal to making the whole system work. Because people need close,

[84:00] diverse access, they need close access, you know, to everything that they're doing, and they need that to be a really vibrant place, and they needed to have all the different resources, so the more… Of those that we can have interspersed around our areas, you know, our neighborhoods, the more people are actually going to use transit and micromobility and the other tools, and bicycling and walking. So should we push the envelope more? I mean, I think all of us, I think the three of us and the other two members of the Transportation Advisory Board would say, yes, please, let's make it, I mean, let's really intend that, you know, so the 2019 Transportation Master Plan set a goal of… having… it was, like, 80… I forget, 80% or something of… of residents, Boulder residents, walking and bicycling, on their, you know, daily trips. And, I mean, this is a… it's a really huge change, you know, behavior change expectation, right? And so, facilitating that.

[85:07] And those… I mean, there are some very quantifiable… quantified expectations in the 2019 TMP, and we're not there. We're not anywhere close to those goals, and so… getting closer to those requires a better land use plan, requires more integration of these resources throughout our communities, right? So pushing the envelope, I think, as much as possible, integrating our land use plans, our land use intentions, our land use, you know, incentives with, the, you know, matching those as much as possible with our multimodal aspirations and intentions. however that can look, I mean. I think you all have the right language for that. innovation and technology, you know, this is an interesting point, because I don't think, you know, when the scooter revolution happened, that wasn't something that was planned, you know, it wasn't expected, and it was sort of… it was something the city had to respond to in real time, because it was a… it was a market-driven

[86:17] technology, you know, that was… that just, you know, was appearing in cities and needed to be responded to. So it's hard to anticipate what that next technology will be. I mean, I guess… well, I guess we're seeing, you know, Waymo is coming to Denver. So, there may be things like autonomous vehicles and other things, but, you know, we can't necessarily name and anticipate what technology it will be, but we can, by setting the values, you know, putting our values out there about… we are a multimodal community that provides you know, excellent accessibility for people of all ages and abilities. That… naturally creates

[87:01] A… a system that, provides some boundaries on whatever technology might… might come through. What's the next big transportation move? I mean, I think the corritorial network, discussions and planning processes are exhibiting that, like the Folsom Street, changes that were just, approved. you know, that's really exemplifying, I think, where we're going, that we're integrating transit, bicycling, walking, just more and more seamlessly, and making it easier and easier for people to have more options all around the city. So I think the city is sort of, you know. Showing that. Now, of course, this plan also includes Rural, semi-rural areas on the edges of the city. And I think naturally integrates the Colorado 119 bikeway and BRT and all of that, connecting Gunbrell and Central Boulder.

[88:07] But also those, those, those agricultural communities, this is something that came up in our community conversation on August 19th that we held at the the Chamber, and I think we heard this in the other community conversations that were happening around the city, was people aren't really clear about what those connections are, or what they should be, you know? we weren't really clear on who's living on agricultural land, and what does that really mean for our transportation system. So, I think that some of those connections could be clarified, you know, how do we expect I mean, what we're really talking about is kind of core city stuff, In 15-minute neighborhoods are naturally a, you know. Something that requires a certain level of density. But, you know, acknowledging that this plan also includes some rural, semi-rural areas,

[89:06] I guess the next big transportation move is… is making sure that people who live on the outskirts and in those unincorporated, Boulder County areas can, get… Into job centers and things as efficiently as they… as possible. I also know that the… that Boulder County's intention is to focus housing in the incorporated areas. And so, you know, focusing on trail… transit and trail connections, I think, is a good… good thing to… to emphasize. Helping to make sure that people don't have to drive to get to the rural areas. I don't know. What else? I've got some thoughts on this one. I have predictions, I don't know whether they'll be right or not, you know, in terms of micromobility.

[90:01] I mean, I know that the automotive industry is working very hard on improved battery technologies, lighter, higher energy density, and in some cases, they're making some real strides. Other countries, China in particular, has Batteries that charge much faster than the lithium-ion batteries that we have, and most of the, you know, e-mobility devices that we use here already. If somebody comes up, you know, if… and… you know, I think it's more a question of when, than if. We achieve some high-quality solid-state batteries. We will see, I expect. a drastic uptick in micromobility, because those devices will now be small enough to take with you on a bus. Your last mile challenge goes away. You're not looking for, you know, you're not looking for a B-cycle because you've got a scooter or some other device of your own that is light enough and cheap enough

[91:00] to bring with you. I think that is a… you know, that's a possible future. I'm not going to say it's certain, but I think it's a possible future. And if it comes… if it comes to pass, it will require… this is kind of like when we were talking ages ago about Cannon Basil, like, can we make these bike lanes really wide? Because you know, we don't want to be where France is right now, right? Where they're like, geez, we need to, you know… I mean, we do want to be there, but I mean, their problem is they're having to go back and redo a bunch of their… their work on bike lanes because the bike lanes aren't wide enough. And so I could… I could foresee a future where that's possible. I do think, also, and Darcy, you point to it, one of these dangers, which is, the… a future where technology provides these, you know, Waymo-style vehicles that will compete with transit. And we'll have most of the negative consequences of regular vehicle ownership. And so, it would be kind of nice if this document was kind of…

[92:03] foresee that problem and address it. Like, that's not the kind of future we want. We don't want… we may, you know, there's all kinds of really interesting approaches to public transit. But the key word there is public. you know, that these are facilities that are being provided to people, and again, sufficiency and equity and affordability. My concern with Waymo is that, you know, something like that comes into Boulder, any community, really, it can kill off, public transit. And once it has, then affordability goes out the window, because they have destroyed their competition. And so, those are scenarios that I'm really worried about. And maybe, you know, maybe this document needs to say, like, we're not going there. You know, we're open to all kinds of interesting things, but we're definitely not going there. So, I think that's all I got. Thank you, Michael, actually, for also reminding me, or jogging in my memory about, like, my, kind of.

[93:06] my main comment that I wanted to add, which was, I would really love to see this document, and maybe this also… I'm not sure how much of a balance this is between the comp plan and any successive local plan, but I really want us… As a community, to have more very, direct language about and tools for helping people who are driving to Boulder to leave their cars at park and rides. You know, so I want us to invite people who are coming into Boulder to ditch the car at the edge of the city and hop on the bus, you know, or take micromobility, or whatever. Like, leave your car on the… at the outside of Boulder, because if we're really going to foster this micromobile… this multimodal system that moves people, it can't just be choked with traffic all the time, right? We really have to make sure

[94:12] that we're providing opportunities for people to take advantage of that system who might not otherwise think about doing so, who can be incentivized to leave their car at Table Mesa Park and Ride, or any of the other park and rides that are on the edge of the city, you know, or close to a high frequency, transit route, like the skip. So, 39th and, Table Mesa, for instance. And, I want us to kind of beef up the park and rides and our relationship with RTD in that way. This is something, you know, you go to Estes Park, and they really encourage you to leave your car in that parking garage on the outside of the city. There's… they've got a free shuttle that takes you in, because they just want… they want to preserve that walkable

[95:01] character and nature of their community. I mean, it's also, you know, it's a tiny sliver of what we have, but… it's a good invitation, and I think having those invitations to ditch your car and get around Boulder differently, could be a really positive thing. And of course, which of course frees up the roadways for people who have to use them, for moving freight, as you've mentioned, and for, you know, people who are, whose vehicles are their work, you know, vehicles who have to drive to where they're going. You know, if it's an option. If you can hop on the bus when you get to the city, that would be ideal. Yeah, Mike. I just have a related question, to the… not exactly BVCP, but, the document that is similar, formerly known as the Transportation Master Plan, I don't know what it's going to be called. When… when should we expect a new version, an update on that?

[96:05] Yeah, Valerie. Yeah, thanks for that question, Mike. So, the current update of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan is happening right now. It will be completed in 2026, which is a very ambitious timeline, and that's why our colleagues in the planning department are here tonight, really wanting to Get that high-level feedback on, you know, what are the outcomes that we're looking to capture in those shared values and vision statements? That will then, after that time, the city will be updating its existing citywide strategic plan, because that has kind of a multi-year horizon. I think it's, like, 3 years. And it's up for, you know, updating next year. In 2026, after that citywide strategic plan is updated, then there will be more guidance for all of the individual departments across the city to start thinking about departmental strategic plans. So that's what will replace the Transportation Master Plan, because a lot of these higher-level vision statements and goals are going to be living in the SARE framework

[97:11] the BBCP… the citywide strategic plan starts to talk about those specific actions, so that funnel that Steven and our colleagues were showing tonight. And I'll just mention, you know, I think a lot of the… since I have the mic here, a lot of the comments I was hearing from, our three tab members tonight, they really get at wanting to know how do we measure success, how do we track success, how do we define success, and really wanting to see data-driven ways to do that. And I put a link in the chat just for our TAB members to our transportation report on progress. We published this report regularly, it draws on all of that great data and tons of other data that we collect over time. We have longitudinal data going back years.

[98:01] You'll see that when we come and bring the, Boulder Valley Employee Survey results to you, or the Resident Travel Diary study results to you. And so that, report on progress is something we intend to continue to do, and so I might just suggest, as you continue to engage with our colleagues in Planning and Development Services. You know, think about how you articulate those outcomes that I know you are hungry to see kind of a quantification or a data-driven measure of. How do you articulate the outcome that you're trying to measure? So, for example, I think, Michael, you mentioned, high-quality transit is sometimes synonymous with high-frequency transit, but what are some other ways to articulate high-quality transit? Could it be, the numbers of destinations that those transit lines serve? We always talk about transit and access to opportunity. What does that mean, and how… what is that articulation of that value and that expression of that… that aspiration for Boulder? And so, I think I would encourage you, as you continue to engage, think about ways to articulate that that you haven't seen in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan in the past.

[99:20] That is what our colleagues kind of need at this point in the process. And then next year, they're going to be getting into more of the nitty-gritty of operationalizing those expressions and things like the update to the land use map. And those are important steps that must happen in any BBCP update, but I think right now is that crucial time where they need your help and the community's help in articulating, what does that outcome mean for Boulder? We can talk about it at the conceptual level, but how does that look? What does that feel that you're trying to accomplish? And I think that can be a way to. Continue to just help Shape the process as it moves forward.

[100:05] Yeah, thank you, Valerie. And I think we've touched on a lot of that through answering the five questions this evening. Would you agree that we've kind of accomplished that? Okay, good. I just want to make sure that we went the right direction. Because I do think we kind of touched on that, because this integrating transportation really thoughtfully into this plan is so important, and I think those five questions I want to thank Tessa and Sarah for asking those five questions, because I think they… they helped us kind of get to… get to that, idea of what should it, feel, what is the essence that we're after? What do we really want to make sure is, covered at that high level? So, yeah, great. Okay, thank you so much, and thank you for the link to the Transportation Report on Progress. I will reiterate that these are really important to review. routinely, because, it's… it's a great way to see how transportation and mobility is achieving its goals, and, you know, getting all the… the pertinent updates about projects and stuff. So, really, really great. Thank you for sharing that, and we'll stay on top of those. Yeah, Valerie.

[101:13] I have one more small point, Darcy. Something you said earlier really just, kind of caught my attention, and I wanted to make sure that when we're talking about our goals, just how close we are to some of them that sound aspirational, but we have been slowly making progress over the decades in Boulder, and it's something to celebrate. So you had mentioned, Darcy, for residents, Boulder residents, not People coming, into work, but just Boulder residents. We have a goal of only 20% single occupancy vehicle trips by 2030. So that's… we're 2025. Got 5 years. In 1990, that share was 44%, and in 2023, that share was 35%. So, we've made steady, marked progress over the years on a goal like that, and it's something to really, you know, just take a minute to kind of recognize the tremendous efforts that we've been doing as a city, as a community. They're working.

[102:14] And so, that might also be kind of a frame of mind. That's why I put the, the link in the chat for you all, just to kind of refresh your memories on where we stand with our existing goals, because that could help inform any future input that you give with this process. Yeah. Thank you, that's a really important point. I mean, we have high standards, we have these aspir… you know. these very aspirational goals that we're trying to achieve, and, you know, it can feel like, oh, you know, we're not there yet, but you're right. Steady progress has been made, and I think this is another, you know, when staff present on the, employee survey and the resident survey, we really do see those numbers and the importance of those numbers, that people who live in Boulder are

[103:05] responding to, they're using these assets that we're creating, right? And also, you know, they're available for everyone, and we want to make sure that people who are commuting are also able to take advantage of them. So yeah, thank you, that's a really important note. We should celebrate, and we're also going to keep just driving the message that we need to, you know, get to those goals. But I so appreciate the work of staff And, I mean, all the actions that are, that are taken, and the community's support of those, of those actions through, all the ways that we support them through, you know, taxing ourselves and other things. So, really appreciate that. Okay, great. Anyone want to add anything else before we move on to matters from staff? I'd like to just make a plug, because Darcy, when you were talking about, you know, folks using the park and rides and what would motivate them to kind of ditch their vehicle, my immediate response and thought to that was,

[104:04] a more aggressive use of modal filters, both hard and soft. Now, I know that's a how, you know, that's probably too far down in the weeds for a document like this, but maybe not for the city's, you know, plans, or the city, you know, the city's equivalent Of this document, because, yeah, that's, you know, as I see it, that's… That's… I mean, the Dutch have done this left and right. There's a lot of places where they've just, you know, they're maybe not blocked vehicles entirely, but they've limited the number of vehicles, and they've designed the streets in a way so that it's not a thoroughfare, it's just folks accessing local areas, and then everybody else gets, you know, by bike and other modes, can just pass right through. I think that's… that's gonna be where it's at, at some point. Anyway, that's a… that's a how, and I don't want to… to… to make things take longer than they oughta here. Okay.

[105:00] But the vision can kind of lead to that by indicating that our intention is to create a more multimodal, more accessible system. Yeah, and Tess and Sarah, I just wanted to ask, so there are two members of our board who are not present with us this evening, and I'd really like to make sure that they have the opportunity to provide answers to those five questions as well. Is it, would you accept written answers to those questions from our two members who are not present this evening? Absolutely. I think we should… yeah, Meredith, if we could invite, Trini and, Hernan to… to, answer the five questions on their own, I think that would be really helpful for Tess and Sarah as well, to hear more, More ideas from our commi- our board. Okay, great. Well, thank you both so much. Really appreciate your presentation, and for asking great questions, and for all the work that you're doing. I'll see you tomorrow at the event at Casey Middle School. I'm looking forward to that.

[106:01] Oh, good, and thank you for having us, and thank you, Valerie and Steven, and Chris, and all other transportation staff. They're amazing to work with, and have really helped us and keep us on track, so thank you. And it's great to meet you all. See you soon. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Okay, let's move to… Matters from… staff, we have two items. Let's go to the, regional transportation planning update from Jean Sanson, which we weren't able to get to last month, so go for it, Jean! Yeah, I'll pass it right over to Jean, and just want to mention what a great way to follow up that great presentation from our colleagues on the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan update. So much of the conversation tonight was about this topic, so I'm really pleased, that Jean could join us tonight to share this. Over to you.

[107:00] Thank you all. I'm just gonna get things queued up, if you just give me one minute. And… All right, are you seeing a title slide, or are you seeing a… okay, wonderful. I've seen the title slide here. Oh, that's great. I love it when things work. Well, thanks for having me, this evening, members of the regional… of the… of the Transportation Advisory Board. My name is Jean Sanson. I am the Policy Advisor for the City's Department of Transportation and Mobility, and I'm going to take some time this evening to walk through some of the regional transportation work that we've been doing, over… over the decades, and… and, More recently, of late, some of our larger corridor projects. So… let's see. I'm going to start by providing some background and context on the how and why we, as the City of Boulder, work with our neighboring jurisdictions, as well as regional and state partners to advance our mobility goals, much as we've just been discussing as part of the Boulder Valley Comp Plan update, and is really music to my ears.

[108:07] And then I'm going to share some progress on a handful of important projects that are listed here. So, let's start with why regional transportation and travel has been and continues to be a priority for our community. I think you all stated it so well in the conversation that you had about being able to, provide travel options for not just those who are residents of our community, but those who are non-residents who spend their days working or going to school in our community. So, I think, as Valerie mentioned, we know from the data collected since 1991 that non-resident employees continue to be a demographic that primarily uses single occupant vehicles when traveling to work, which is much different than resident trips, as you see here. So that's really a tough nut to crack when 80% of the people who are coming into our

[109:03] community each day are still coming in in single occupant vehicles. And we also know that the average commute distance is increasing for non-resident employees. Over time, that's even increased, as you've all mentioned, the lack of affordable housing in and around Boulder continues to exacerbate that. So really, this is why our focus on regional transportation that provides safe, reliable, and affordable travel options between Boulder and our surrounding communities is so important to us. All right, so how do we work with partners to address these challenges? So, what you see here on your screen is what we call the Northwest Area Mobility Study, and it is a network plan. So, we affectionately call it NAMS, And NAMS has been and continues to be our long-term vision for improving regional mobility through a network of BRT corridors with high-frequency, fast, reliable transit connecting communities throughout the Northwest area. And how did this come about? Well, about 10 years ago, recognizing that

[110:13] There are significant cost increases and delays associated with RTD delivering the Northwest Rail Commuter Rail Project from Longmont to Denver. RTD and local governments convened to map out this network of priority corridors that we see here. And it became a consensus agreement between our elected officials, RTD, CDOT, and 13 other area jurisdictions, as well as CU, for our collective priorities for the region. And much of the work that we've done in the convening years to collaboratively plan, design, and implement these improvements are modeled on the US-36 corridor, so… Second, I'm having a little trouble seeing my screen. So things like dedicating roadway space for the Flatiron Flyer, or for fast and reliable transit, building separated commuter bikeways, which is becoming even more important as, e-bikes have exploded and people are traveling further and further using e-bikes.

[111:10] And generally, just safety improvements that are going to improve not just comfort, but help us to meet our Vision Zero goals for our traveling public. So, much of the work that we do to build out our regional transportation network depends on the strong relationships we have with our state and regional partners. As an example, the City of Boulder works closely with the Colorado Department of Transportation to ensure that our regional projects are in a pipeline of statewide transportation plan projects, so that state dollars continue to flow to our area. And then it's also important to note that, you know, most of the regional corridors coming into and out of Boulder are actually CDOT facilities, so that means that any infrastructure enhancements or changes that we want to make to a roadway, like 28th Street or Broadway, must be closely coordinated with CDOT.

[112:01] God. And there was a lot of discussion earlier about RTD. RTD is another key partner. They provide the majority of Boulder's bus service. As you all know, RTD drastically reduced bus service during the pandemic, and they have been gradually restoring bus service within our community. We are approximately at 85% of pre-pandemic levels for routes serving Boulder, and that continues to get better and better. We successfully advocated for RTG to return Routes such as the Flatiron Flyer, additional airport service, and, as, was mentioned earlier, the reopening of Boulder Junction Station, which we celebrated last week, as well as the expansion of the downtown Boulder Station, to serve current routes, as well as planned routes That will serve our regional corridors. And finally, but a very important piece of the regional transportation partnership is the Denver Regional Council of Governments, or Dr. Cogg.

[113:00] So, as a regional entity, Dr. Cogg, really sets the policy and helps to allocate transportation funding, which is where a lot of our larger-scale transportation infrastructure dollars come from. So, you'll often see many of our larger-scale projects are referred to as TIP-funded projects, and Mayor, Sorry. Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Speer is our board member representative on the Dr. Cogg Board. So that's sort of the… who the big players are, right? Now I'm going to spend a few minutes, talking about some of the coalitions that have formed specific to these corridors. So, we work closely with state and regional partners, but we've also formed coalitions with our neighboring local jurisdictions that have been really effective in advocating for these regional investments. One of our most influential coalitions is known as the Northwest Mayors and Commissioners Coalition. or MCC. The MCC was founded over 25 years ago as a coalition of governments in the Northwest region, and our mission is to… or the mission of the organization is to speak with one voice as it pertains to transportation investment and priorities. And at the core of these investment priorities

[114:16] is that NAMS network that you saw on the earlier slide. The coalition retains state lobbyists to help guide positions on state legislation, as well as federal lobbyists who have been really instrumental in helping to secure federal dollars for our NAMS projects. Mayor Brockett is the City of Boulder's representative on the MCC, and here you see a photo of the elected officials and staff on our annual trip to Washington, D.C, to meet with federal delegates and agencies to advocate for these transportation investments. So now that I've shared some of the landscape of our regional transportation initiatives and partnerships, I'm going to spend a few minutes walking through the status of some of these projects.

[115:01] Beginning with the Colorado 119, or Diagonal Highway Safety, Mobility, and Bikeway Project. So, again, with NAMS as our guide, much of our focus over the last 10 plus years has been on transforming the diagonal highway, through this, what's called the CO119 Safety, Mobility, and Bikeway Project, and it really is a collaboration between all of the agencies that you see on the slide. And we have received guidance from our Executive Oversight Committee, in which Mayor Brockett has been our representative over the last several years. The diagonal highway, not surprisingly, it's our second largest in-commuting corridor, but it is a high crash corridor. And bus service, like the Bolt, can be slow and unreliable, and as we all know, unfortunately, it lacks a safe and direct bike connection. An interesting fact about the quarters that it's also projected to see a 25% increase in traffic, in the next several years by 2040. So, you know, preparing for those changes at this point in time is essential. And so to respond to these challenges.

[116:09] You'll see that the Diagonal highway is currently under construction, and the entire project is expected to reduce severe crashes and fatal crashes, improve equity, affordability, and mobility for all travelers. So I'm just going to walk through some of the key elements of the project, which include intersection safety improvements, connections, construction of a, commuter bikeway, as well as bus rapid transit stations. So, walking through each of these elements, this is really exciting. Construction of the Nine Mile Regional Bikeway connecting Boulder with Longmont is well underway, and anyone who's been out there can see the shiny new surface. That everyone's so eager to ride, but, we certainly don't want people riding on that path and, sort of falling into a construction area, at either end. So, the map you see at the left illustrates the bikeway underpasses to be constructed, at J Road, Highway 52, Nairat Road, and one overpass illustrated on the right to be constructed at 63rd Street in Gun Barrel.

[117:15] The bikeway will be completely separated from the road. It's going to be a 12-foot wide concrete path, and it widens to 16 feet and underpasses and areas… other areas that are heavily trafficked. And like the US36 bikeway, it's going to be plowed in the winter, allowing direct connections to the existing bike network and bus rapid transit stations year-round. And here, another element of the project, as you see on the right-hand side, is an illustration of the typical bus rapid transit station along the diagonal, which, has a park and ride at this location at 63rd Street. That's going to be a new park and ride, bus rapid transit platforms, and a commuter bikeway located in the median of the highway.

[118:00] And a unique feature of this project are what we're calling queue bypass lanes, so these are going to be dedicated only… dedicated bus-only lanes through the intersection, so that when a bus approaches. It pulls into a dedicated bus-only lane that you can see here. It bypasses traffic that's waiting for the signal, and a special traffic signal will allow the bus to proceed across the intersection while the general traffic is still stopped at the red light. And so with these improvements, buses get a head start, they jump ahead of traffic, and then merge back into the general traffic lane. So, not unlike what we see around the city today with our queue bypass lanes. just a little bit more sophisticated system. And I'll pause here. Mike, it looks like you've got your hand raised. Yeah, I just wanted to ask a clarifying question, because it seems like an inconsistency here. You're showing us at 63rd, a bikeway underpass, and on the previous slide, you showed an overpass at 63rd Street. Yeah, thank you, that's a really good catch. This is an older concept plan, so my apologies that it shows an underpass. What happened in some of the earlier designs is that while we had planned for an underpass, the city has some major,

[119:10] underground infrastructure in this area, which just ballooned the cost of doing an underpass, which is why, the plans were revised for an overpass. So thank you for catching that. And then, on the left-hand side, you'll see a map, that is showing the routing for what we're calling the diagonal flyer. So, the diagonal flyer is going to operate with two route patterns, much like the Flatiron Flyers or the FFs do today. The orange and blue routes that you see here would operate as the the DF1 and the DF2, with one route serving, downtown Boulder Station via 28th Street, like the Bolt does today. And the other route would serve Boulder Junction, the orange route would serve Boulder Junction and continue on to serve CU Maine and East Campuses via 28th Street, terminating at Baseline and Broadway.

[120:02] During weekday peak periods, buses would run every 15 to 30 minutes, and we expect opening day service to begin in 2027, but hope that we're working with RTD to work towards a phased or incremental increase in service prior to 2027. And I really appreciate the conversation you had this evening about the Boulder Valley Comp Plan update, because this… this slide in particular is a good example Of where some of the work that we're doing to provide other transit options, like the upcoming Gun Barrel microtransit, is going to provide that seamless connection for people between the microtransit and the regional bus rapid transit service. We've also worked closely with our partners and community members. to develop a corridor brand. This is kind of fun. People get excited when they see these types of designs. So, it includes, logos, station architecture, concepts, wayfinding design plans, and a marketing strategy to ensure that the CO119 brand is easily recognizable and connects communities along the corridor. So, as we work with RTD and CDOT,

[121:14] On final design plans, you'll see, this architecture built into those stations and the bikeway. And one more slide, but it does… oh, here we go. Oh, I'm sorry, it just went… Pardon me, I'm gonna go back. And while I'm going back, Michael, it looks like you've got your hand raised. Yeah, and maybe you will go so far back as to get back to slide 9, but one of the questions I had is in that, the NAMS, one of the NAMS slides it showed that Arapaho was going to be one of these bus… I thought I saw it was going to be one of these bus rapid transit corridors.

[122:01] Did I get that wrong? Because I didn't see it on slide 9, so I was wondering if it's… It's not happening, or it's set for the future, or what? No, that is correct. CO7, or Arapaho as we know it in the City of Boulder, is one of the priority NAMS corridors, and in fact, after this slide, I am going to do a little bit of a deep dive on CO7. Okay. Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to show some… some inspo photos, as my kids would say, right? Like, work is happening on the diagonal highway. You know, I know that it's causing disruptions, which is impactful to people, of course, but I think, CDOT has done a pretty admirable job of keeping things moving and safe for our community members, and again, we expect full construction to be complete in 2027. Okay, Michael, I am going to switch gears now to CO7, or what we know as East Arapahoe Avenue in the City of Boulder.

[123:05] So, along with US 36 and the Diagonal highway, this is our next most heavily traveled commuter corridor. It connects Boulder to I-25 and Brighton, and it spans more than 30 miles and incorporates 8 jurisdictions. So. Like our other NAMS quarters, the approach that we've taken to designing and implementing improvements is really a coordinated and collaborative one. We, the City of Boulder, are members of what we call the CO7 Coalition, and Councilmember Shu Hard serves as our representative on this group. The coalition is made up of CDOT, RTD, elected officials, other member organizations, such as CU, our transportation management organizations, and it provides a forum to coordinate and advocate for planning and implementation of multimodal improvements, like bus rapid transit, a regional bikeway, first and final mile connections, etc.

[124:05] I don't expect you to read all the details of this map, but I brought it up just to say that we're looking at a program of projects that are part of a holistic, multi-jurisdictional corridor development plan, corridor development plan that we worked on with CDOT and RTD, and are in the process of implementing. So, all of these projects are either in design, construction, or are soon to be in construction along CO7. So there's a lot happening along this 30-plus mile corridor. And let's just take a look at our west end of the corridor for a minute. Zooming into… to Arapaho, what you'll see here is a number of projects that are either underway for design or construction. So, for example, we're excited to share that the city's project to fill in missing links in the multi-use pass system and enhance bus stops between 38th and Marine and Cherryville Road has almost, entirely been completed, as of last month. So we're excited to

[125:10] be able to make those connections for people walking, biking, and taking transit along the corridor. At the same time, we worked with CDOT to complete preliminary design for the entire extent of the East Arapaho corridor, as you see here. And we're currently advancing into final design for the western segment from 28th Street to Foothills Parkway. And through the Safe Streets and Roads for All federal funding, we secured nearly $10 million for safety improvements along Arapahoe between 28th and 33rd Street, with a protected intersection at Arapahoe and 30th. To be constructed in the next 2 to 3 years. So, a lot happening, not just along the entire extent of this regional corridor, but particularly at our west end. One of the, other keynote

[126:00] changes that are happening on the corridor, and you're… this is probably what you're seeing when you're out there now, it's a cone zone, right? But it's also one of the most transformational improvements that are currently underway along Arapahoe is CDOT's resurfacing project between 28th and Cherryville, which also incurred… includes curb or ADA ramp upgrades. The city's been coordinating with CDOT to also, as they resurface, Arapahoe, convert general-purpose curbside lanes into shared lanes for buses and right-turning vehicles only, or BAT lanes as we affectionately refer to them. This joint effort will expedite transit travel for those who use the jump today, and for travelers who will use upcoming planned regional bus service, as you will see on the next slide. And just some… some construction photos here. Okay, so the resurfacing, and bus and turn lane project will be completed by the end of this year, just in time to benefit the introduction of a new high-frequency bus service between Boulder and Brighton that will begin operating in 2026.

[127:05] Managed by Boulder County, this new transit service will offer all-day, 30-minute, fare-free service between Brighton and Boulder, with stops shown on this map. So, at the stop level, we're working very closely with Boulder County and all the jurisdictions along the corridor to ensure that The bus stops are in place and ready for this service, and they're able to successfully launch what they're calling a transit starter service between Brighton and Boulder. And again, I would refer to this as a precursor to bus rapid transit, really testing the market to ensure the viability of bus rapid transit in the future. Okay, switching gears to another corridor, the next NAMS corridor that I want to share some progress on is South Boulder Road. It is a 9-mile corridor that connects Lafayette, Louisville, and Boulder. And becomes, as we all know, Table Mesa at our end. We completed the first phase of a corridor study last year. In fact, Trini, was on, an advisory committee for that study, and we're coordinating with our agency partners now to launch the next phase of work later this year. And the intent of what they're calling Phase 2 will be to design a continuous bike facility and enhance transit service along the

[128:24] corridor, as well as identify safety improvements, especially for vulnerable road users, with the intent to advance design and pursue future funding opportunities. And I'll share that while this project has not officially kicked off yet, it's very important to us that the focus of this study within the City of Boulder be in and around the, Table Mesa Park and Ride area to take a really close look at how access To and from that park and ride, can serve existing users and future users in surrounding neighborhoods.

[129:01] Okay. Maybe last but not least, I know I'm covering a lot here. But, you know, the next regional project I'd like to provide a brief update on is the Northwest Rail Project, and we could probably send an entire tab meeting talking about the train to Boulder, but I'll try to do this pretty quickly. So, it is one of the unfinished quarters from the RTD's 2004 Fast Tracks plan. But with the passage, and we know that hasn't come to fruition, but with the passage of recent state legislation and leadership by Governor Polis. We are seeing pretty exciting opportunities to make Northwest Rail a reality, by partnering, again, with agencies like CDOT, RTD, and the Front Range Passenger Rail District to build and operate A first phase of passenger rail. between Pueblo and Fort Collins, so statewide passenger rail, with the Northwest segment being the first segment to operate between Denver and Fort Collins. And this is what is formerly now called the Joint Service Plan for Rail.

[130:06] Let me just spend a minute walking through that. So what is joint service? Well, it's neither Northwest Rail, nor is it Front Range Passenger Rail. It's a bit of a hybrid. It would provide an opportunity to use new state funds, including fees, on oil and gas production and rental car fees, along with potential RTD funds and federal funding that's already been secured. To build and operate this first phase of Front Range Passenger rail, as I shared earlier, using the Northwest Rail Alignment, providing approximately 3 to 5 round trips per day between Denver and Fort Collins, with the stop shown here at the bottom of the slide. And it's expected that over the years, service would increase as ridership and demand increases, along with funding. As I mentioned, it would be a hybrid between the two systems, so, you know, commuter rail typically operates at slower speeds, and the spacing between, stops is a little bit closer than passenger rail, or inner-city rail, which would

[131:07] Or inner-city rail, which is what the statewide rail would be. Inner-city rail typically has fewer stops and operates at faster speeds. And so, there would be one operator running this service, but it would essentially, operate at sort of faster speeds than commuter rail, slower speeds and front-range passenger rail, and have more, more stations Than what you would typically see in inner-city passenger rail, and that's very much because part of the point of joint service is to fulfill the Northwest Rail, vision. So, a key step occurred this summer when RTD agreed to enter into an intergovernment agreement with partners to create a single government body that is currently negotiating with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, who owns the tracks that would be used for this service.

[132:00] It runs on BNSF tracks, and so the next steps through this agreement are to negotiate an access agreement with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe, fine-tune costs, and develop a finance and implementation plan. And that's moving forward pretty quickly. They hope to have that agreement in place by the end of this year. And so one of the things that we have been doing is working closely with our partners to ensure that design of the Boulder Junction and Depot Square Station, would accommodate this service. So, again, a pretty exciting window of opportunity for this particular regional project. And then, I thought that was going to be the last point I was going to make about regional planning, but I did just want to make a plug for a really important, initiative that is beginning pretty soon. And that is the Boulder County Strategic Transit Plan. So, so much conversation was had earlier amongst the board members about how reliant we are on RTD. And we are, and we will continue to be, but we're also looking at new types of partnerships.

[133:07] To ensure that, we can meet the needs of our community, and Boulder County jurisdictions can meet the needs of their communities to, ensure that we are kind of filling the gaps between what we know we want and what RTD can provide. And so. Boulder County is initiating this project, and one of the first things that they're doing is asking for community members to apply to be on community advisory committees. So there will be two committees, one will be in English, and one will be in Spanish. And the application period is open right now, and so it would be fantastic If you all, as members of our transportation board, could help spread the word that we are looking for, members to join these committees. And I'm sure that we'll have many more opportunities to discuss the transit plan. I think at this point, we're looking to have, the Boulder County and Consultant team come to the Transportation Advisory Board later this year to provide an overview and an introduction to the process.

[134:12] Oh my gosh, that was so much talking. Thank you for your time. Michael, it looks like you have your hand up, or it was up earlier and I missed it. My apologies. I think you're on mute? Yes, I was. Sorry. I was saying, yeah, I was up, and then it was down, and now it's up again. I was, I was wondering if you could share with us the materials that we could use to shop the strategic, Plan project with others. Because I have some folks who I've, you know, might be interested in something like that. And then, I was curious about, and this is the former hand up, was a question about this,

[135:01] the bus service on Arapaho being a county-provided service, not RTD. How did that happen? Yeah, that's correct. So, you know, with limited resources and much of the CO7 corridor being outside of the RTD district. Boulder County took it upon itself with support, and I would say financial support, from all of the jurisdictions along the corridor to apply for Dr. Cogg TIP funding for a two-year pilot project to run starter service. To help, sort of, make the case to RTD, that there is a market for bus rapid transit, and to start building that market for transit. And so. Boulder County was successful in securing those TIP dollars, along with our local, dollars that we helped to contribute to the project. And that's the reason, that as of now, it's going to be a Boulder County-led service with financial participation from the jurisdictions.

[136:07] I would hope that at some point in the future, and with state legislation now allowing RTD to serve areas outside of their district, it could be a service that RTD would take on in future years. Okay, great. And if they don't, and you run out of your two years of funding, does it go away, then? Yeah, that's a great question. We would hope that it wouldn't go away, we might have to modify it, we might have to look for additional funding sources, additional TIP dollars, perhaps, or there could be new models that come out of the Boulder County Strategic Transit Plan to look at funding these types of services. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Yeah, thank you, Jean. This is really a great overview of all the things that are happening in the,

[137:00] in the region, connecting all of us. So, Mike, did you have any questions? No, that was very interesting. Thanks so much. I agree. Of course. And I don't think I have any questions, I'm pretty intricated into all this stuff as well, so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of it, but Let's see. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yes, let me stop sharing. Thanks very much. Yeah, appreciate it. Okay, great. The second, item in matters from… Staff, is the, an update on the transportation maintenance fee And next steps. Steven, I think you're planning on introducing this? Yeah, so, here again to introduce Chris and tee up his presentation on the very important work that he's doing around the transportation maintenance fee, which is a part of the city's long-term financial strategy work. His material builds off the presentation that he brought to this board back in May, and provides several critical updates around next steps as we approach upcoming Council deadlines in the coming weeks. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Chris.

[138:09] Yes, thank you, Steven. Chris Haglin here, Principal Project Manager, and managing this transportation maintenance fee, and yes, we wanted to provide you an update as things are moving. Just as a reminder as to what is a transportation maintenance fee, or what we refer to as a TMF, This is a fee that's paid by both, residential and non-residential properties to help maintain our transportation infrastructure. We've seen this, individual finance mechanism as being one that is stable, predictable, and reliable. It's also scalable, can be indexed to inflation, to make sure that we can cover the costs of maintaining our infrastructure. The rates themselves are based on a property's proportional share of maintenance, and we're using a person trip generation methodology to determine those rates for each of the properties.

[139:10] If implemented, the transportation maintenance fee's revenue would be used to essentially kind of fill in the gaps that we have in maintenance. We've been using a kind of a newer phrase, both the unfunded and underfunded maintenance activities, so sometimes These may be new activities that are unfunded and will be funded, or else they're activities that we currently do, but we don't have the funds to do them at the level of service that we need to meet either our principles or the community's expectations. And some of those specific maintenance activities that this revenue would be used for would be to maintain our pavement and our safety asset management, so related to Vision Zero, bridge asset management, sidewalk and multi-use path maintenance and repair, all the roadway markings maintenance, which you can imagine there's a lot of paint on our pavement, and that all needs to be maintained.

[140:11] And this would also be used for some, much-needed bus stop maintenance as well. In terms of the updates that we have for you, we have integrated the transportation maintenance fee into our 2026 budget process, with our colleagues in the finance department. So it is officially part of the process, and Council will be having a study session this Thursday, which the transportation maintenance fee will be a part of it. It's also been integrated into our long-term financial strategy, so this is a kind of a broader outlook of the city's long-term, financial success. And looking at both, expenditures and revenue, and how we need to, in many ways, look at additional revenue sources, to help maintain the city's economic vitality.

[141:09] For the transportation maintenance itself, there are two separate ordinances, that we are designing and working on. One is kind of called the Originating Ordinance, and the other is the enabling. The originating ordinance is, gonna be numbered 4-20-78, so this is, Basically, within all the list of the fees that the city, charges, various properties, So, essentially, it's the 78th fee that we have in the city. And then the enabling Ordinance 8226, is the one that really goes into the details about the rate methodology, the rates in which different types of non-residential and residential properties will be charged, and just other things related to the management of

[142:02] that fee program. We are also currently engaged in our engagement process with the community and key stakeholders. I'll go into a little bit more detail after that, and then I'll provide you kind of the next steps that are happening, As we move forward with the maintenance fee. But I did want to just kind of, bring you back a couple steps that… to let you know that, this is a project that we have been working on for a long time. In fact, one of my first big projects at the city was working on the 2009 Transportation Funding Report, which identified the transportation maintenance fee as one of the most viable mechanisms that the city can locally enact to provide additional revenue and diversify revenue sources so that we can provide more stability. So… basically to say, you know, this slide really illustrates that this concept of a transportation maintenance fee has been thoroughly vetted. It's gone through two different working groups. It's been delayed at different times for different reasons, most recently COVID, but we have done a very full engagement process.

[143:21] And I think we've also very clearly established the need that we have in these unfunded and underfunded maintenance activities. It's always important to remember that our transportation infrastructure is one of the most valuable assets That the city has and is required to maintain. In terms of some of the engagement, I know, just today, you were provided with our brand new, transportation maintenance… maintenance fee fact sheet. This is a tool that we'll be using as part of that engagement. We've also been engaging with the University of Colorado, the Boulder Valley School District, and the federal labs. It's important to note that under Colorado law, these state and federal agencies are not required to pay city fees.

[144:15] In the past, when we went through these different engagements and working groups, these groups have all had representatives on those groups. And even though they don't have to pay, we would like to kind of enter into, or revitalize conversations with them about voluntary contributions to help maintain the city's infrastructure through intergovernment agreements. So we're in the process of working with those entities now. We're also about to initiate, some work with, our business community with support from the Boulder Chamber and Boulder Chamber Transportation Connections. I just met with Darcy and Jonathan Singer last week to discuss some of those opportunities we have to engage with the business community, so we look forward to getting some of those scheduled and on the books. And of course, we're also looking at the types of engagements that we need to do for the general

[145:15] public, and really using, with all of these groups, an informed level of engagement as we go through this, because I think we, as I've said, it's been thoroughly vetted, and the need is very clearly defined. In terms of the most immediate next steps, as I mentioned, on Thursday, September 11th, we have the budget study session. So this is a study session with Council, led by our finance team, which is looking at the… all the aspects of the budget, but there will be, the transportation maintenance fee will be included in that. The ordinances, that will need to go be passed by City Council have been scheduled.

[146:02] And these, the transportation maintenance fee ordinance is going with a number of other budget-related ordinances. Each year, fees, with the city go through a process to be updated. Many of them change annually, and so the TMF is part of that, the 2078 ordinance will be going with a number of Of other budget, ordinances, and then the other, originate, or the, enabling ordinance will go with, On its own. So we're doing transportation mobility. We'll do a separate presentation on that specific, kind of, the longer ordinance on the transportation maintenance fee. That first reading will be October 9th. That's typically on consent. Council can ask questions of staff, that staff can then respond. But the actual presentation. and public hearings on those ordinance will be on October 23rd.

[147:04] If all goes well, and the transportation maintenance fee is adopted by City Council, there is still a lot of work to do. We would need to kind of integrate that into the City processes for collecting revenue, and also have everything set internally in terms of our standard operating procedures. And then all the, both internal and external communication that we would have around the fee. Preparing, that with our colleagues in finance and possibly utilities, which would be one of the ways in which we would likely collect the fee, is through the utility billing system. So, given all the work that needs to take place following the adoption of the ordinance, we really may not see actual fees collected into maybe the third quarter of 2026, which starts in July. So that is the update we have for you. We're happy to take any questions.

[148:07] That you have at this time, and I can, stop sharing so we can all see each other. Thanks, Chris. Well, and I did figure out my own view issue. I think I… They can resolve the issue of being able to see people when we're sharing, so sorry about that. But yeah, thank you for your presentation. Michael and Mike, what questions do you have for Chris? No questions, just excitement that this is going forward, and… It's not in the too far distant future. Ditto to that. I don't think I really have any questions that need to be asked in this forum, so, I think we can move forward, but thank you for your… your work on, creating materials that are really clear.

[149:00] And that will, definitely answer questions for people as we share them. And, yeah, thanks for your work on, you know, just your diligence and your perseverance, Chris. It's been a… it's been a long… it's been a long road, and I agree that diversifying our… Sources of funding for transportation is such an important goal, and so I do hope that this is able to, to move forward. Okay. Thank you. Thank you guys, really appreciate it. Okay, we can now move to matters from the board. Mike, why don't you talk about the tab letter to Council regarding transportation maintenance fee? Yeah, you can see this, slide. I can see your desktop. Nope. Let me try that again.

[150:05] Now… There we go. So I'm, proposing a motion, to endorse the transportation maintenance fee with a letter to City Council reading as follows. TAB endorses the City of Boulder's proposed transportation maintenance fee, recognizing that the TMF provides a stable and predictable source of funding for essential transportation maintenance. The TMF ensures that both residential and commercial properties contribute fairly, Based on person trip generation. The TMF will free up a portion of existing sales tax revenue to provide the required 20% local matching funds for federal and state transportation grants, enabling investment in core arterial network projects, Vision Zero safety initiatives for all modes, and comprehensive multimodal system improvements Throughout the community.

[151:02] Equity considerations, such as exemptions or reduced rates for low-income households, are an important part of implementation. Therefore, TAB supports the City Council and staff advancing the transportation maintenance fee for inclusion in the 2026 budget. Okay, since you presented this… Motion, Mike. Maybe I will ask, if… There is a… Motion to, proof? Yeah, I move to approve, Senator. Okay. And I will second that, since you presented it, Mike. Sounds good. Okay, so, all those in favor of presenting this, letter to Council, raise your hand and say aye. Aye.

[152:05] You want to post? Okay, so we're going to advance this letter to Council 3-0. Thank you, Meredith, for making note of that. Thank you, Mike, for drafting that, and And refining it, I appreciate that. I guess I'm not clear on, you know, what the mechanism for sending this will be now. Let's add… Valerie, if you want to weigh in on that, that's fine, or we can just… we can get clarity on that after the meeting. Okay. Yeah, I can… And send you some steps after the meeting. Chem. Sure, okay, but thank you for doing that. I think it's important to have our Appro- are sort of… Our approval of the process and the approach. Noted to Council. Valerie, is there anything else you'd like to say? I really appreciate, yeah, I know that this has been a long journey. Just want to, again, give some shout-outs to Chris, as well as Steven, for all of your work this year on advancing not just the fee nexus study, but the orchestration of all of the armature of documents that have to come forward, for Council approval, of the ordinances along with the budget.

[153:22] thank you to them both, and also to you all on TAB. I know we last updated you in May, I think it was, and so I'm glad that you've been able to kind of be a part of the development of this approach, and offer your feedback along the way, and it's so valuable, so thank you for your support tonight. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yes, Chris has done it. Chris and Steven and everyone have done such an enormous amount of work to, advance transportation policy this year to, really help us achieve our goals, so I appreciate that very much.

[154:01] Okay, any, open comment. I'll just say one thing. I wanted to acknowledge that this is the last meeting that Valerie is overseeing as the staff… the lead staff member from Transportation and Mobility, because our new Director of Transportation and Mobility will join us next month. So, thank you, Valerie, for Being such an amazing, just, facilitator, and, helping us all get where we need to go on these meetings, and providing that really essential context, and… expertise, and just helping us really know where we are in all of our discussions. I deeply appreciate your leadership with our group, and thank you so much, and we hope that you'll stay engaged, even with the new… the presence of the new Transportation and Mobility Director. Thank you, my pleasure, Darcy, and just so everyone knows, I will be continuing on as the Deputy Director of the department, the position that I held before I served as interim for the last year. It's been great to work so closely with you over the last year, and we are very excited to welcome Blythe Bailey next month.

[155:18] Yeah, really looking forward to working with them as well, but thank you so much, you've been wonderful. Thanks. Any other just open comment? Anything else you guys want to add? I just echo what you said, and I've always been in awe of how, clear and… Expert, your knowledge is Valerie. Thanks so much. And patience with us newbies. Yeah, and just your clarity and understanding, and thank you so much. Yeah, I have nothing further. There is one last thing on the agenda. There's a future topic for our next meeting in October. We will have a presentation from Parks and Recreation on the Civic Area Phase 2 Conceptual Design and Community Engagement Update. That'll be really exciting.

[156:12] It's great to see these projects just move along the pipeline, and to have the opportunity to, weigh in at every phase, and I just really, really appreciate that. That's a wonderful part of being on a board, is getting to see these projects all along their lifespan. So, looking forward to that, otherwise, we can… Would someone like to move to adjourn the meeting? I move to adjourn. All right, moved and seconded. All in favor, raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No? Okay, so we have voted to adjourn at 8.37 PM. Thank you all very much, appreciate it.

[157:02] Dude. Thank you.