October 13, 2025 — Transportation Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:03] Good evening, everyone. I'm calling the October 13th meeting of the Transportation Advisory Board to order. Our Chair, Trinity Willerton, is not able to preside tonight, so as Vice Chair, I will run the meeting. My name is Darcy Kitching. Veronica Sun is our technical host this evening. Veronica, would you please review the rules of the virtual meeting? Is everyone able to see my screen? Yes. Perfect. Thank you for joining the Transportation Advisory Board meeting. To strike a balance between meaningful, transparent engagement and online security, the following rules would be applied. This meeting has been called to conduct the business of City of Boulder. Activities that disrupt, delay, or otherwise interfere with the meetings are prohibited. The time for speaking is limited to 3 minutes. No person shall speak except one recognized by the person presiding, and no person shall speak longer than the time allotted. Each person shall register to speak at the meeting using the person's real name.

[1:03] Any person believed to be using a name other than the one they are commonly known by will not be permitted to speak. Please use the raise hand function to be recognized for public comment. If you are on the phone, you will need to press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. No video will be permitted except for city officials, employees, and invited speakers and presenters. All others will participate by voice only. The technical host of the meeting shall enforce these rules by meeting anyone who violates any rules. The Q&A function is enabled. It will be used for individuals to communicate with the host. It should be used for technical and online platform-related questions only. If an attendee attempts to use Q&A for any other reason seeking the any other reason than seeking assistance from the host, the city reserves the right to disable the individual's access to check. Only the host and individuals designated by the host will be permitted to share their screens during the meeting. Thank you.

[2:01] Great, thank you, Veronica. Valerie, is Blythe able to join us, or should we do the, approval of minutes first and come back to him? I'm here… I'm here on my side. We're here! Great, okay, great, it's good to see you. Wonderful. So, this evening, we have, the opportunity to introduce to everyone our new Director of the Transportation and Mobility Department, Blythe Bailey. So I'd like to give Blythe a few minutes to introduce himself, and then members of the Advisory Board, the tab, will have, an opportunity to ask him any questions that you'd like. Go for it, Blythe. Thank you, Darcy, and apologies for my technical issues. My computer is not… cooperating on Zoom, so I'm grateful for… for this tiny little computer that I carry around in my pocket. I'm Blythe Bailey, I've met some of you, and of course. several of the staff of Transportation and Mobility, and just wanted to give you a brief background of who I am, and where I come from, and how I think, and I hope that in the process of giving you all

[3:09] this introduction, I will convey my sense of excitement and delight at being here in Colorado, specifically in Boulder. I studied… first off, I was a teacher briefly, and then I decided to study architecture And almost immediately when I studied architecture, I found that I was much more interested in the spaces between the buildings than I was the actual buildings themselves. And I focused my career on urban design. Both in my studies and then in my practice. In 2013, I had an opportunity by a newly elected mayor in my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, to start the city's first ever Transportation Department, with a clear focus on people-centered streets that are comfortable for pedestrians and people on bikes, and transit users, and that work well for everyone.

[4:05] And it was an opportunity I was excited to take, and I did that for 8 years. I had a brief sabbatical in the parks work… the parks world in the last 4 years. When mayor… a new mayor was elected, he wanted to emphasize our parks and outdoors. In many ways, we're very similar to Boulder, in that we're surrounded by a beautiful natural environment that people love, and is an attraction for our city, and also serves as a core component of our economic and social vitality. And so I had the opportunity to work in the parks world, which makes it… especially nice to have the agenda tonight at my first TAB meeting be so focused on… on park spaces. And so, one of the things that I love about streets is that they are the lifeblood of a city. When I go visit a city, the first thing I want to do is figure out how to move around. I want to figure out how to use the transit system, I want to figure out how to walk, I want to figure out how to use a bike system.

[5:00] I usually do that virtually through Google Maps or some other virtual feature where I can imagine where I'm gonna stay and where I'm gonna go and how I'm gonna get around. And to me, those street spaces blend so continuously with our park spaces. And if a city is a great city, and a great city to live in, and a great city to do business in, and a healthy city for all of its citizens and all of its visitors, it generally has a sense that there's not a whole lot of difference between how you feel in the streets and how you feel in the parks. You should feel comfortable, you should feel safe, you should feel happy. And you shouldn't be threatened by things that potentially can hurt you. And in fact, as we all know, in our streets, these are places that we've… these are places that we've created where you can get hurt. So there's a lot of work to do, even in a great city like Boulder. To make our streets comfortable and healthy and safe for everyone to move around and to gather and to get to know each other. And so I'm excited to be here. It's a great place to live, it's a great place to work. What I've discovered in the… I've been here 4 weeks, but I had a pre-planned vacation, so of those 4 weeks, I was gone last week. But every interaction I've had, both with citizens as well as staff and volunteers like Darcy and others on the board, is just top-notch. People here, it's no surprise

[6:22] to me that Boulder has become such a great place. To be, and so comfortable for so many people. And, I'm excited to be here, and excited to, expand on the great work that Valerie and Garrett and Devin And Steven, and Danny. and Gene, and so many other leaders have done for years up until now, and expand on that work, and focus on just the joy of being in our streets. And, And all the ways that we can move around. I'm really excited for my first TAB meeting, and that's probably good enough. In the interest of a long agenda, I'd be delighted to take questions, and also, just know, TAB members, I would really like to create some one-on-one time with each of you.

[7:09] to walk around, or bike around, or come to your place, come to your office, and get to know you a little better as time allows. So just know that I will schedule that in the coming weeks, and, appreciate getting to know all of you, and thank you for your service to help to help us with all the great work that we're doing. Thanks, Darcy, for the chance to give everybody a brief introduction of myself. Absolutely, thank you so much, Blythe. It's really great to see you here, and we're excited that you'll be, our staff lead going forward. Tab members, what questions do you have for Blythe, if any? Or just welcome messages. Feel free to say anything. Welcome, of course, and yeah, I hope we can do some one-on-one time, so I can kind of get to Well, we can feed you. My wife and I can feed you, so that's a start.

[8:03] But, yeah, just to get to know you, that'd be really great. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, welcome to our neck of the woods. I've been here for… Three decades and, or three and a half, and Love it here. I haven't been to your neck of the woods, but I'm… Glad you, get to enjoy our… what really attracted me initially was the off-street multi-use paths, and now we are working on our streets and making them more welcome to, non-vehicular traffic, or non-motorized vehicles as well, and safer. So, happy to have you on board. Thank you, Mike. I just want to say, yo, welcome, it's really nice to have you here. And, I look forward to getting to know you through these meetings, and, you know, eventually, hopefully, like you said, a one-on-one. That'll be great.

[9:04] So, welcome. Thank you. Yeah, great. Thanks so much. Thanks for making time also to get to know all of us a little bit better. That's really wonderful. We appreciate that. Sure. Great. Okay, so the next item on our, agenda is approval of the, minutes from our September meeting. Just make sure, yep, that's from our September meeting. Only… Mike and Michael were here with me for that last meeting, so we're the… we are the ones who can vote on, whether or not to approve the minutes. So, have you had a chance to review them, Mike and Michael? Okay, great. Are there any corrections? To the minutes. I had none.

[10:00] No. Okay, yeah, me neither. Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes? Sure, I move to approve. Okay, Michael? Alright, second. Second, Mike, okay, great, thank you so much. All in favor, raise your hand, say aye. Hi. Hi. Anyone opposed? Okay, the motion passes 3-0. Thank you so much. Okay, and, we were having a… An issue with our, zoom link for… public comment, but I think that has been resolved. Am I right about that, Valerie? Yes, it has been reposted on the webpage, and those who emailed in have been emailed back with the correct link. Okay. Sounds good. Okay, so that's our next item, is public comment. We welcome your comments on anything pertaining to transportation and mobility in the City of Boulder right now. Please use the raise hand function on your screen to be recognized, and state your full name. You will have 3 minutes to speak.

[11:11] And Veronica, do we have anyone wishing to speak this evening? Yes, I will ask Lynn if she's able to speak. Yeah, is this the right Lynn? Yes, perfect. Okay, yeah. I guess it would be really good if you put a phone number to reach for technical issues when you can't get on the Zoom link, because I lost the last 12 minutes, like, reviewing the event the agenda, and seeing if there were any hearings, and seeing, you know, I get ready for my, my, my comment, you know, a little bit, and I've lost that now. But what I can think of that is… is bothering me lately is the, The transportation, fee.

[12:12] maintenance, I guess maintenance and operations fee. And, I'm concerned with another fee, I'm concerned with the tax, even. I'm concerned with the fact that there is a great deal of developer subsidy in this town that overburdens our transportation system, and then you beg back to the people who Live here, and are using it When you're building as fast as you can with planning board, no, and with the powers that be. developing, like, Papelio's is coming up now. Hoshimoto's? No more. I have to drive way east.

[13:00] to service my car. You know, I only drive my car 4 times a year. One of the times is every 2 years, I have to go out to the airport road to get the emissions tested. And before I go out there. You know what I have to do? I have to drive to Broomfield so that my car gets enough Whatever it needs to actually make the, emissions thing work. I mean, you can't believe the frustration. You wait there for an hour or two, then you go through the thing, and they say, oh, you don't pass. Then I go to Toyota, and they say, oh, you have… you didn't pass because you have to drive somewhere. like… Wh-what? I don't get it. I don't want to drive. I don't drive very much. And now I have to drive per… just… just to go for a drive to get my car? Like, what is that about? You know, my car's an 05, it's probably… but Prius, it's probably close enough to not meeting emissions. I mean, this is what you people are dealing with. Transportation, right? I'm trying not to drive, and I'm having obstructions. I'm being forced to drive just to get to the emissions place, and to get through emissions.

[14:16] What do you think of that? I think that's pretty… disgusting. I mean, you want more carbon footprint? Just so I can drive? Like, why? Thank you, Lynn. Veronica, do we have others wishing to speak? Yes, we have Stephen H. I'm gonna ask if you can confirm that you're able to speak. Hi there! This is actually Jenny DeVos. Steven Heidel is my husband, and I'm on his computer because of the link issue. This is actually about the Goss Grove parking, proposed changes for January. So I've sent, actually, correspondence to TAB in the past.

[15:08] And I just want to make the point that many of us in this neighborhood do not have driveways, we do not have off-street parking. This is one of the highest density neighborhoods, actually, in all of Boulder, and it is probably the neighborhood that is the closest to what Boulder presumably wants people to be walking, high density, riding our bikes, and so on. So we're, like, doing it. However, I have one vehicle that I drive occasionally. Actually, between the two of us, we have one vehicle, and with the proposed changes where the parking limits will be completely removed. So, this was… I got this information from the Oh, geez, I'm forgetting her name. So there will be no limits on parking, which means that Boulder High students, who are the biggest users of this area for parking, will park here all day. It's $1 an hour for parking.

[16:06] Which is, as far as I've seen, is not anywhere else in the city. Every other place is 2 to 3 hours… $2 to $3 per hour. So, the supposed carrot for us is that we would potentially get Eco Passes, but I've lived in my house since 1995, and when we tried to get Eco Passes in the past, we were not able to get them because so many of the students actually already have Eco Passes. And this neighborhood is not really a great candidate for that. We're doing everything that you guys want already, right? So, please do not turn our neighborhood. into the parking lot for Boulder High. It's not fair to the neighbors that live here that have disabled family members, who are elderly, who have no off-street parking. So, that's really all that I have to say. I have 59 seconds left, and I think that… oh, oh, and the 72-hour limit. Thank you, Steven. So, the 72-hour parking limit. We don't even drive our car every 72 hours.

[17:15] And I can easily anticipate where, with the automatic license plate scanning. We will just get automatically generated tickets because our car doesn't move. And then I'm gonna have to deal with that. And that's… that's not gonna work for this neighborhood. It's not appropriate for this neighborhood. So, there's another neighbor who actually came over here to also speak, and so I would like you to set the timer for her to be able to speak as well. Screen over. Okay, thank you, Jenny. I think we can… do that, and she will need to state her full name as well. So, Veronica, if we can… There's no screen. There's no screen. Hold on, let's just wait for a sec. Veronica, can you get the…

[18:01] Are we ready for the next speaker? Yeah, if we can reset the timer, it sounds like this person will be using the same computer, so go ahead, please state your name. Yeah, she's here. And how much time do I have? 3 minutes. Agreement there. My name is Andrea Montoya, and I've lived in this neighborhood since… with my husband, Lauren, since the mid-1970s. We are stalwarts of this neighborhood. We consider ourselves, as we consider the other homeowners who have spent all of this time, the people who keep this… anchor this neighborhood. What we provide and do for this community, what we do for this neighborhood that anchors downtown, anchors the farmer's market, anchors the football games, we are here. We keep it nice, we keep it fun, we keep it solid. I am upset because we don't have any voice in this process, it feels like, to many of us who we've spoken to, and we're pretty active in this neighborhood, that it's just kind of been ramrodded through

[19:02] Here's some of the problems I face in my household on a daily basis. My husband is disabled with dementia at 83 years old. I'm much younger than him, so I'm fortunate to have my health. I do have a cutout for my parking lot. But every single day, there are people who are either partially blocked into my parking, or all the way. And they say, well, just call, we'll come out. I have sometimes have to call 3 and 4 times a day. And if there's an emergency, and I need to get in or out of my driveway, and they have happened with my husband needing to be taken to the ED, he didn't need an ambulance, but he needed to go. I needed to get him to doctor's appointments, I couldn't get out. And… or when I came home, I can't get back in. And… there are… This neighborhood needs a parking solution. If you all feel that this is a parking solution, and it's going to go through no matter what we feel, I've got some things that I'd like to ask for.

[20:06] We need to have parking lines. drawn, and I know that's expensive, but we need for people to be able to have not be able to just park bumper to bumper, stay there for 72 hours, and like Jenny, and like many of us who live here, our car doesn't move for 72 hours. I also would like to request that some of us are able to ask for a disability parking place in front of our homes. They do exist in Boulder. I've seen them up, on West Arapaho. And, I also would like to say that A longer time being stuck into a 3-minute conversation here for what affects our lives in this big of an effect feels disrespectful, frankly. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks so much for your comments. I wonder if anyone from staff would like to weigh in on the parking,

[21:02] program that's affecting Gus Grove, or that the people, the speakers have referred to. Darcy, as you know, I'm new, so I'm learning the programs, but I did want to say to the constituents that spoke up, this is one of the first issues that was brought to my attention. I know that currently we collaborate with Community Vitality on many of our parking management programs, and I'm looking into this, and I'll find out more. I welcome anybody from staff that wants to provide more specifics, but for now, just want the folks to know that I'm hearing you, I understand the challenges, and we're going to look into it. Thanks, Blythe. Anyone else from staff want to weigh in? Okay. Veronica, do we have any other speakers? And I know we've had technical difficulties, so we might need to just give it a minute. Is there anyone else, signed up to speak? We don't have anyone else who hasn't already spoken. Okay.

[22:01] I think we've probably… Provided sufficient time, I just want to make sure that the technical difficulties didn't, trip anyone else up, but I think… It looks as though we've heard everyone who Wants to speak this evening. So let's go ahead and move forward, if there are no other hands raised. Okay, so, This evening, we don't have any actual formal agenda items, so we're going to proceed directly to matters from staff. And we're looking forward to learning about the Civic Area Phase 2 conceptual design, the conceptual design and community engagement update from our Parks and Recreation staff. And let's see, Blythe, would you like to introduce our guests from Parks and Recreation?

[23:04] Would. Thank you, Darcy. And I mentioned earlier that I had a brief sabbatical in the parks world. Between my stints in transportation in Chattanooga and now here in Boulder, so it's a space that I'm comfortable with, and I think that great public spaces are seamless, from the streets and the paths to the parks and the open spaces. And, There's a couple of features about this plan that I'm particularly excited about, and I'll hand off to Steven, but I just want to call attention to them. As an urban design professional, it's really, really important that cities have strong civic centers, that they have centers that feel like hearts, and when I came to Boulder the first time, I was by myself. I managed to find myself in the civic area. It felt like the heart of the city, it felt like a place that creates a sense of belonging for people, right here in Boulder's civic core, and I think that's hugely important.

[24:03] I think our civic Commons, like our… like our people-centered streets, are places where people come together to enjoy and nurture a sense of belonging, and a strong feeling of empathy and care for their neighbors. As a mobility professional, so not just as an urban designer, but as a mobility professional, I know that civic spaces are made that much more powerful. when they are also nodes for movement of people on foot and people on bike. Some of our most widely used and cherished streets for people, the Boulder Creek Path. And the 13th Street Green Street are assets that this plan will enhance. Our colleagues in Parks and Recreation are at the very early stages of the process, but are here to share a preview of the engagement and project process, along with the final concept design to give a heads up to TAB on what they'll be further studying in 2026, and then ultimately building in Phase 2 in 2027. The Civic area has been planned to be a prominent urban center and regional park. The goals of this plan align with and are complementary to the goals that we share in transportation and mobility, connecting community members, stewarding safe and comfortable public spaces, and supporting strong local businesses and neighborhoods. So I'm really excited that Shahomi is here to present, and others from Parks and Rec

[25:22] And wanted to, hand over to Steven also to say a few words. Yeah, thanks for that, Bly. Hello, Steven Rijo, Transportation Planning Manager here at the City. Just want to second Bly's comments about the importance of this work in the heart of our city, and it just being a really great time in the process to bring it to this board. I'd also like to share that I'm one of the folks who's been embedded in the Civic Area work on behalf of transportation and mobility, and just say how it's been a joy to coordinate with both the City Park staff and the consultant team working on this project. I've seen how they've really taken the input from transportation and mobility to heart, as we've iterated over drafts to ensure that this ultimately, you know, visionary plan for our parks is also advancing transportation goals and needs, and this

[26:09] really critical part of the city for our multimodal system. So, with that, I'll hand it over to Shahomi and Mark for their presentation. Hi all, it's so great to be here, and thank you so much for your time, and we'll walk you through a presentation, and so excited to hear feedback and discussion afterwards. I'm Shihomi Kuriagawa, and I'm the project manager for Civic Area. I sit within the Parks Department, and I am joined by Mark Davidson, who is our Senior Planning Manager and Sponsor. Okay, well, I think I can go ahead and get going on the presentation, so I will give us some updates overall on the project, so let me just share my screen. Okay, can you all see that?

[27:00] Oh, yeah, we… Now it's up. Perfect, okay, and I'm just gonna go to presentation mode, so hopefully that stays. Okay, so we're here to talk about Civic Area with all of you all, and we're really excited about it. We just went through intros, but I'll do a brief introduction of our questions that we have for the TAB team. We will do a project background, we'll do key drivers for the concept plan and what all work went into it. We'll do an overview for the concept plan, followed up by next steps, and then we'll open it up for discussion. Okay, so for tonight, we have, some broader questions for you all. Does TAB have feedback on the concept plan for Civic Area? And then, do you have any feedback on the elements advancing into construction for Phase 2? So we did a bigger study that I'll get into, and now what we're looking for and what we're moving towards at the end of the year when we share to Council is.

[28:03] A smaller boundary for what we would like to recommend for Phase 2 construction. So we're not looking for final approval of any kind by tab tonight, but we do hope to have, your discussion and feedback, and we're just looking to get ahead on sharing some info before we come back to this team for more detail. Design discussion. Okay, let's move into project background. So, setting the context, Civic area is sort of bound by very key spaces in the overall urban area of Boulder. So, we have Pearl Street to the north, the CU campus to the south, along with the hill. We are, sort of… a creek runs through it with Boulder Creek. And thinking about all of our different influences out from Civic Area, as well as what we're influenced in by, in terms of all the different urban city blocks, the different connections, and the recreation that already exists here today.

[29:03] In general, the project scope is here in blue, so specifically, we're from 9th to 14th Street, bounded by a canyon in the north and Arapaho in the south. And then we also include the Arboretum Path, which is that blue area… the blue arrow that connects up to the hill. You can see Phase 1 has already opened in 2018 in the green, and that includes improvements from the public library to municipal building. So this blue boundary, like I said, is the bigger study for Phase 2, but we will be recommending a smaller scope of what our current funding can accomplish for Phase 2, so that will shrink by a bit, and I'll get into that in more detail. The project timeline, you can see here, we're at the end of the year, so, we'll be moving towards a council recommendation of that Phase 2 boundary, and showing them concept plan as well at the end of the year in November, so you're getting a sneak peek. And getting some preview and updated, information on what we'll move forward with in design. And then we hope to really, in construction,

[30:08] set off in 2027. So, we do have some time to come back to this board in 2026, when we'll do more detailed design, like I discussed. Alright, let's get into drivers. So, around the city, we always try and balance, these three main items that go into any plan, engagement, technical analysis, as well as policy. And so for us, what's key here is the Civic Area Plan, that was created in 2015 and went through a long engagement process, I think about 10 years of engagement and design. So, that is our guiding, policy, as well as making sure we align to the Transportation Master Plan in 2019. You can see there's a lot of items that we have to align with, across the city.

[31:00] So there's a lot of policy to keep in mind. But specific to you all, our 2015 Parks Plan had these 7 guiding principles. And one of them, of course, is to enhance access and connectivity, and I would say there's two main overall strategies here. It's access and connectivity within the park, and then noting access and connectivity to and from the park. We all know that, we are a mode of, transportation that gets others to final destinations outside of the civic Area Boundary. So for analysis, as you can imagine, there's a lot of technical analysis that went into this plan, one of them being transportation-specific, but balancing a lot of, cultural celebration activities, festivals that currently occur, how can we support up to Recreation and nature, and then, of course, thinking about key gateways and connections throughout the site. So there's sort of a lot that we have to balance here within the civic area.

[32:05] But diving in specifically to transportation and mobility, where does the site hit and land within the sort of broader urban landscape? Thinking about not only vehicular movement, but all of our multimodal forms, such as Bus, rideshare, and then also, of course, the pedestrian and bike access. So, gathering a lot of data of what's existing today, and I would say, where do we need to enhance connections, that maybe don't exist, or, how can we actually, maintain things that are existing and are functioning very well today, such as the Boulder Creek Path, connection up to Pearl Street through 13th, so thinking about, how we align to existing features throughout our transportation needs.

[33:00] And this, slide really is about, sort of, bringing it all together and, looking at where there are areas of opportunity, like I mentioned before, areas of opportunity to connect in a loop and unify the space. If you've been out to Civic Area, you know the space is very chopped up. And so, we're looking at ways to, bring the space cohesively together in multiple ways, but definitely, bike and, excuse me, bike and ped transportation and connectivity is, one of those key features. So for engagement, I just really want to highlight here all of the work that we've done the last two years, really through engagement windows. Of three, and so these windows each were several months long. We definitely not only held public events, but also, included stakeholder events that also, working with Community Cycles, Visit Boulder, a lot of key groups that gave us great feedback on how to think about connectivity, to and through Civic Area.

[34:10] This slide is really talking about and highlighting our equity process, so we were super robust. We tried to be really robust for Civic Area, and reaching a lot of folks from across the city, right? Because we know that Civic Area is a regional park, but also has regional assets and amenities like the Boulder Creek Path in it that users use a lot every day, whether you're local or visiting for the first time. And so we have implemented, several different ways to connect with all different kinds of community members and historically excluded groups. One was a roll-in stroll. With families who care for or have family members who are living with a disability, and so we did sort of an accessibility and universal access walk throughout Civic Area.

[35:02] And this just ties up all of our events that we had. This is only for Window 3 specifically, which is what we're in and wrapping up right now for Civic. So you can see we've had a lot of events. Each window had very similar number of events, if not more, but, again, just highlighting our community organizations, as well as the role and stroll, making sure we're tapping into key advisors, when we're thinking about the mobility in this area. And I would like to just share, sort of, top results of the feedback from Window 3, so you can see that while there are, some key, feedback that we're getting from community in terms of accessible elevated boardwalks, a lot of our, feedback was talking about this place as a park, and so the top 5, the top 5 voted on

[36:00] Features are more placemaking, and it talks about events, the farmer's market, the festival street, and so, really what you're seeing here Spatially, in pink is top priorities for folks, and where they'd like to see Phase 2 funding go towards. So you'll notice that a lot of our comments are all over the park, but the majority start to coalesce around what is Central Park. 13th Street and the Farmers Market. So we think that Phase 2 really… the implementation will be around Central Park. We're still moving through some cost analysis right now, so it's not final, not set yet, until we get to that November date with Council. But just giving you a preview of what we think will be the focus of construction. And so with that, we know, the community and what we got in terms of feedback specifically towards transportation is to preserve Boulder Creek Path and 13th Street, so that 13th Street will be probably an important talking point in our discussion, knowing that, Phase 2 improvements, might be

[37:11] in the Central Park area, in the 13th Street area. We got notes on, safely managing cycle speeds throughout the space, right? So it's a thruway, it's part of transportation and mobility, but we're placemaking as well. So we would like to invite people to slow down, have an event, play a while, stay a while, and enjoy the creek, really, and enjoy our beautiful park amenities. We do have feedback on providing separated bike routes and pedestrian routes for safety through the Arboretum, improving wayfinding. It says from the hill down into the space, but really, I think we know we need to improve wayfinding throughout all of Civic. So that's our overall goal. We'd like to locate primary mobility hubs, which I can get into a little bit more in the detail for the concept plan. Into key activated spaces of the park, and then preserving parking and civic area for accessibility in key locations.

[38:09] Alright, so let's get into it. We've been talking about this concept plan, let's talk about it. So here you can see the overall plan, and then just some high-level notes, and I'll dive into specifically multimodal, proposals that we have for you all. to review. The river, of course, like I mentioned, runs through it. So Boulder Creek really, centering a lot of programming and activity around the creek is the ultimate goal. Making sure that circulation is connected and unifying in the space. And then also thinking about, different flex spaces throughout our greenways for those events and activities, throughout the space. And then just a final note on, the East Bookend as being a separate process, but we're working on it now, to develop some more, density in the area. And then finally, the Arboretum, and thinking about thoughtful connection up to CU, the conference center, and the campus as a whole.

[39:15] Okay, so I will sit on this diagram for a little bit and slow down, but, primary ideas here is to continue to work with our transportation department, knowing that, Boulder Creek Path needs to be the key thruway, and making sure that it's a designated bike route. As well as a separated bike route to, again, promote safety for pedestrians and bikes at those different speeds. I would say we are equally as invested to look at, north-south connections, so one specifically, the 11th Street connection. We have worked really hard on this 11th Street Bridge that's out there today for improvements. We know our folks at Transportation are also, working hard on the 11th Street Complete Streets and complete streets around this area. So, wayfinding and signage is going to be really important, I think, on some of our north-south connections, so really just

[40:14] Making a note there that the connections exist, and What are some of the ways that we can just, make it a little bit more prominent and easier for folks to get around the space? And then, I would like to call attention to the 13th Street, and you'll get to see renderings a little later on, but we wanted to make sure that, 13th Street is going to be, what we think, better improved by removing automobiles from 13th Street, and really making this Bike and pedestrian first place. So we see that as a very important move, one that can help, sort of, congestion, but safety issues in this area, and really, again, unify not only this development on the East End.

[41:00] 13th Street and Central Park, making this whole space read as one, and expanding a lot of opportunity for the farmer's market and other festivities. So, providing infrastructure for plug-in, electrical access to, like I mentioned, the farmer's market, and any other space activator who wants to partner with us through 13th, I think, will be key in making this space feel used, loved, and safe. When we think about moving bikes in and out of this area when festivals are happening, we're also looking at a designated bike route on the west side of, 13th, while festivals sort of have this kind of, quote, shut down. So, thinking about those connections north-south, but then making sure that in alignment with our transportation master plan, we have these key connections that move east-west through the festival street. And then one main thing, too, that I want to call out are our multimodal hubs, so things like robust bike parking, scooter parking, rideshare opportunities we have marked here with the M's, so we're thinking, south of 13th Street.

[42:16] off of the municipal Tate Building, outside of what we're calling our Nature Hub, so this is sort of indoor-outdoor dining, seating, food and beverage, and restroom opportunity. There's a lot going in there. As well as other ancillary bike parking continuously throughout the park. We'll see in the lighter blue dots without the M. And then the pink is all of the pedestrian access and circulation throughout. Okay? Along with circulation, I mentioned key gateways, thinking about identity and views to the park, knowing that there's a park there. I get, a lot of folks, visitors, may not even know that there's kind of a park at the center of everything.

[43:05] So, thinking about big gateways, such as archways, the experience along Broadway as folks come in, and then, of course, those multimodal connections of what is the slower, connection and gateway experience as you move through things like the Arboretum and 11th Street. And then the final thing that I'll say overall is, we're looking to do, again, thinking about loop circulation and, art history and culture. We're… we're really working on a story walk opportunity here, so we can highlight and elevate stories of The past or current art, community that we're working with on temporary Art installations that move around the city and around this area, as well as permanent art installations, so… Trying to think about all the things that we can unify the space, as well as move people through, and then, of course, tell the story of such a key downtown park.

[44:06] Alright. I'll move to the, renderings, so this is the part that gets a lot of people excited, but there's also a key map down in the corner that lets you know just where we're at moving through the park. This is the west end, so behind the library. A lot of this slide talks about, as you can see, more circulation, activating the back end of the library, putting eyes on the park in the back end. And really, trying to promote this place as a nature immersion, as well as, nature play opportunities. Again, access to the creek, but thinking about a connective and fully circulated system throughout the park. This is the Boulder Beach area, and so, this, what used to be parking lot for the library, just talking about converting some of the parking and relocating it elsewhere, but giving it back to green space, open park space, as well as making way for shallow areas.

[45:02] Of the creek so that it's accessible to more folks, youth. It's safer access for the water, as well as thinking about that universal accessibility down to the water's edge for all to sort of enjoy. This is up north, so Tate Building is in the background, but looking at a potential park patio, this is what we're calling a park patio that sort of cascades down multiple tiers and gets you to, the creek's edge as well. This will, be key, again, like I mentioned, to our discussion, and so I'll sit here for a moment. East End, and where the Central Park is located, just to the right. Looking at, going zero curve, so raising this whole area up. table-topping it, so cars do not feel welcome down this area. There might be some logistics, in terms of cars moving through for the farmer's market or other events, as well as fire access, but really making this feel like a plaza and pedestrian and bike first.

[46:09] Giving it back to the community as a public space to inhabit. And then, again, when farmers market and festivities occur, what does this, space look like? And giving that back to the pedestrian and all different sorts of events that could take place along the street. And then I think this is the final slide, and I'll get to next steps and open up for discussion, but the Arboretum is such an important connection. What we heard from the community is, please, please, please think about a separated bike connection that moves all the way up and through both the campus and the right-of-way for the bike path, as well as thinking about an elevated boardwalk for pedestrian. And the reason for elevated is. Really looking at ADA accessibility down what is almost 40 feet of grade change from the top of campus down to civic area, so it's quite the challenge.

[47:09] But we think we can get there with an elevated boardwalk. We're early days on studying this, but we think it would be such a cool opportunity to have a canopy tree walk through the Arboretum, a lot of, environmental, climate education opportunities, as well as an iconic viewing tower that gets you views. Out to the north of our… Beautiful foothills, and that could also be utilized as an outdoor classroom as well. Okay, great. So finally, here we are on Next Steps. After meeting with you all, we go to our Parks and Advisory Board, and then we take it to Council in November. But we continue on to schematic and design development in 2026. So, what that means, for you all is we will come back to TAB in 2026 when we have more detailed design, and we can get into the nitty-gritty of, what does the streetscape look like, what's the section of bike versus ped.

[48:09] what's back of curb, what has no curb. So we'll… we'll get into that more with you in 2026. We're also working on a park renaming and rebranding effort, so that will go into a lot of the wayfinding components we just talked about here. Thinking about a new name and a new identity for Civic Area, that will be with the public and be a public engagement process as well. And like I mentioned, construction begins in 2027. And in the background, we're always working on how to maintain these spaces, and so we are working on a park management plan, and how to really, take care of what we have, and move forward with these new improvements, and how we're gonna accomplish operations. So… This will be the time that I throw it back to the board, and I will stop sharing in a second here, but our key questions, and the first one, maybe we can land on our general feedback on the concept, and then we can move on to,

[49:12] Any feedback on the specific elements moving through to Phase 2 for further design, and hopefully construction? Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jahami. Great presentation, and I was really, grateful to be part of one of the discussions on, the… during the engagement process, so thank you, it was really exciting to see all of this. I'll open it up to our other TAB members to start the, questions, anything… Who would like to start? Yeah, Mike, go for it. Yeah, well, first, all these… concept diagrams look, beautiful, and, it's exciting if we can get funding to do these things. I had a couple of, clarifying questions. First, on, 13th Street between Arapahoe and Canyon, it says,

[50:04] bikes and peds and special events. So, that would be, then, closed to, Private vehicles, other than, you know, festival vehicles. Yes, that's correct. Okay. And then, on the northwest corner of Arapahoe and Broadway, I know there's a couple current, city buildings, and attached to them is, Mustard's Last Stand. I don't know what the status of that property is, is that owned by the city, and is that planned to all be, removed? Yeah, it might be better if I go back to… the specific plan, and just share my screen for other TAB members, just to locate us. So, right in here… That's rare. Right, Mike. So, on this corner.

[51:02] Park Central, Mustard's Last Stand, as well as New Britain, are currently on this corner, and the 2015 Master Plan always had this corner converting back into park. So that's right, those buildings are currently in the high hazard, which is outside of our code to have an occupiable building in there, so for lots of safety reasons. Our park plan has always sought to convert this corner back into park. And sort of moving, staff out to the Western City Campus, and working with our Mustard's Last Stand folks on a new home. So that's what we're working on currently now. I see. So, that… raises the question of the, the other side of Broadway. There's… A couple buildings there. Yes. The Stand and our Riverside, folks. So they're not in a high hazard zone? They're currently not in a high-hazard zone, and to go back to your question, the city does own, the lots and buildings on this side. This is all private property, so we show it as thinking about tying in and stitching into the park, but they are fine to remain.

[52:15] Thank you. Yeah, great questions, Mike. Others? Clarifying questions? I had a question. Go ahead, Michael. Probably just confusion. But on the east end, I recall one slide that showed sort of a plaza format. For that area, but then on another slide, I think it was slide 25, I saw what seemed to be fairly… Delineated pedestrian and separate, bike paths through that area. Wondering if I misread the map. Oh. or if there is a strategy that I'm not seeing in the… in the renderings about how bikes and peds will be de-conflicted in that area.

[53:01] Yeah, that's a great question. Let me go back, and we can flip through the diagram and the plan. So right in here, I believe, is where you're talking about between the tea house and the atrium. I can always… Do us all a favor on our eyes and zoom in. Yeah, there we go. So this is probably just a little hard to read when I'm super zoomed out, but yes, you're right. So a lot of this sort of reads as one color and plaza. We are keeping this east-west connection right in here, and so we do denote with a slight plaza change. There's an existing multi-use path that goes by the teahouse on the south side. We are keeping that route. kind of moving folks through this space. As well as we are now saying this is for pedestrians and bike route through 13th.

[54:02] And then we sort of denote a change for bikes to kind of follow this route in here in the darker. But when events come in, certainly, yes, then we have sort of this need to… And this is a little bit easier to read. Keep the multi-use. That's the slide I was looking at. I was like, okay, great, they're deconflicting bikes and peds here. Right? Because the pink dots are the peds, and the dark blue is the bikes. Yep, that is correct, and I would say that, and then the light blue, yes, we have the multi-pass. So, you know, I know it's not de-conflicting everywhere, but again, we're trying to, make sure that in some areas, we can slow down. Okay, and while we're on this map, another question about possibilities, really. So, you know, I'm not proposing to get rid of the at-grade crossing. of Arapaho that enters that… that zone, but I'm wondering if there's a way to connect the under, you know, the below-grade passing back up to 13th Street, so that those who are uncomfortable with the at-grade crossing

[55:14] Can kind of, you know, kind of get back onto that major north-south 13th Street thoroughfare for cyclists. Yeah, sure. Steven, you can add on if this needs a little bit more explaining, but I know how our team, working with transportation, was connecting to the at-grade compared to our underpass. There's sort of a series of, if you're coming up this way. We can sort of move up and either make our way up into the urban fabric through this route, or again, up to the east. Going forward. I know it's a little bit, awkward, but we do have space right in here where we come up from the pathway as well to do this, this on-grade movement.

[56:02] Right, and so you know where this question's coming from. I know people who… well, first of all, of course. Cars frequently don't stop at that at Great Crossing, and so as a consequence, there are some folks who are leery of crossing there. They see that as a barrier, like, I can't go past that. Right? So then they're going… they're doing the underground thing, and then they get lost in the middle of that. They're like, where do I go now? And… and so I was wondering if there was a way to bring them back relatively quickly to 13th Street so that, you know, if they are doing… If they are just sort of passing through the area, that the detour isn't too significant. I think we can always continue to study it, for sure. The hard part about getting folks under… through this underpass and then up to 13th is we do have a large grade change right here. That was great, yep, Yep. Yeah, well, and that kind of, takes us into the specific elements, question about what are we looking at, in terms of the specific concepts that Xiaomi shared. And, a little bit further to Michael's question,

[57:16] I would just like to know… I don't see these in your renderings, but I'm curious about concepts that you have, thought about to… Help with that de-conflicting, because we know that during the farmer's market and other, you know, festivals in the area. bicyclists still want to move through that area, sometimes fairly quickly, and people are all over the place, and sometimes there are little children, and sometimes people are really confused, and they don't know where to move, and everybody feels it's very tight, right? And so, I didn't see any specific kind of concepts about how you might do that, and I'm thinking things like, you know, speed humps, and… gateways, or something that, you know, lighting that says, bicyclists, slow down, you know, like entering pedestrian zone, I don't know. I would just… I think that that's going to be a really important part of this, because practically on the ground, what you experience on festival days

[58:13] Is a lot of congestion, and sometimes a lot of frustration on the part of people who are trying to move through there, at their pace. And so, I think we're gonna have to really work on that, so I would just suggest that, I guess, and ask if you've considered that. Has anything come up yet about How to do that? Yeah, we've actually kicked around a lot of… actually, many of the ideas that you brought up, Darcy, with Steven's group and working closely with transportation as part of our core team, thinking about how to slow people down, how to de-conflict, some of our pain point or our issue areas, where we have a lot of convergence. Of pedestrians and bikes. And so, right now, what I can say is, we're at the concept level, and so we're still at this diagramming level. We are quickly moving into schematic design and design development, in which, like I mentioned, we'll come back to TAB, hopefully earlier next year. We'll see how our process goes to really dig into, okay, so is it a tabletop here? Is it going to be a change in

[59:21] plaza paving and denoting a clear bike route. So we'll come back in 2026. to have those discussions with you, look at widths, things like that. Right now, we're sort of… it's all on the table for how to get to where we want to go, and make sure that we're keeping folks safe. And getting them to their ultimate destination. And again, I hope part of that ultimate destination is the park, and so yeah, thank you. Yeah, for sure, thank you. I just, I noticed, just in sort of everyday life, that things like the dismount zone, Signs on the pavement, and even on…

[60:01] Pearl Street Mall just don't work often, especially with people on the micromobility devices that we have, unless they are. limited, you know, in their use by those areas. So, yeah, whatever we can do to, to, do that de-conflicting will be really important. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about the, like, the festival street concept, which I think is fantastic, and I really am excited about that, about having a full-time festival street. I've been out to the Wildwoods Activation, which I think is beautiful and wonderful, and so I'm… I'm also curious about what other… I noticed that things like the swing forest were not prioritized, and that led me to wonder, is there an opportunity for temporary activations that could happen in the space? Like, some interesting swings that could be designed by those CU design students and, you know, other things like that. I'm just curious if you've thought about temporary activations.

[61:03] Mark, it sounds like you and Darcy are on the same wavelength, so you can go ahead and jump in to anything that you have to add, but, yes, Darcy, we are looking at, improvements that could be a pop-up moment or temporary installations. Thank you so much for your kind words on Wildwoods. We did that as sort of a pilot program, as a larger movement for nature play, but also just to see if we sort of passively activate an area, does it get safer? And we have had reports of incidences being reported to PD as going down by 50%. Now, we work with a lot of other departments who are doing a lot of work in the same area that also help safety, so we know we're not the only reason, but we're really excited that Wildwoods is such a hit, and so… Yeah, I think, some of the temporary pop-ups could be identified for Boulder Beach or Arboretum.

[62:03] That's great. Yeah, I think the, you know, elements that have beauty and care and kind of signatures on them, like Wildwoods, you know, that I think does probably inspire some respect, and I'm really glad to hear that that's what you're observing. Yeah, Mark, if you want to say anything else about potential activations or the spaces for that, we'd love to hear it. Sean, we covered most of it. Mark Davison, Parks Planning Manager. I think one thing to think about, I would just add, is that you saw the success with Wildwoods. It was supposed to be 2-3 months, it's going to be 12 months. it's a good way to test out design, but we jokingly are starting to call them permanent pop-ups, and if I'm serious about that, though, it's the idea that the Boulder Beach area, if the New Britain building comes down. And we don't, you know, we've only got $18 million to cover Central Park and 13th Street. Could some of these 2- or 3-year pop-ups take care of those spaces, and also inform design while getting it activated?

[63:02] Exactly the same with the Arboretum. We're going to see a huge influx of people from the conference center. We don't have the funding currently to do the full design, so what sort of 2-3 year pop-ups could activate the space to make it feel good, while also helping us think through the design details? It's exciting to sort of, think that through. It is, it's a wonderful opportunity. Yeah, downtown Denver did this on their main street, and had huge success with that sort of approach, so we've got some really good, residents to work from. Wonderful, thanks, Mark, appreciate it. Yeah, 16th Street Mall and its new designs, really, really fun to see that in Denver, and how some of those activations, like you said, can be longer-term, shorter term, whatever really works for people, and however… whatever keeps them excited about it, about coming there. I think those were all of my, kind of. questions. The, you know, another thing that we've heard a lot of, and I know you have too, is that connectivity from the hill to downtown, and it seems like with the boardwalk concept and other ways to kind of move people from the

[64:07] new, you know, convention hotel down to the Civic area, are really positive, and so I'll be excited to see schematics for… for that, and as you get closer to actually designing those… those features, that's really exciting, I think. I think we need more of that… that connectivity. Anyone else have any further questions or comments about specific elements of the plan? Yeah, I have a few comments. Yeah, please. Thank you. Let's see… So, so the Wildwoods area is gonna be permanent, then? Is that… what I'm getting from this conversation. Well, we're lovingly calling it… temporary permanent. It will be, at least out there for 12 months, or until construction starts. And then, in that construction, we're hoping to actually create a permanent nature play area.

[65:11] Yeah, I think I've been to a few farmers markets with my kids. That area is really nice. the… I don't know what feedback you've gotten on the sandbox, that's the only thing that is a little questionable for me, I'm like… it's, I feel like there's no way that's not dirty. Like, that's the only thing that concerns me, like, are they gonna, like, pick up a turd or something, like… That's… that's the… I don't know how that will survive winter anyway, but… And it's such a bitch to clean the kids after the… they play there, so that's… that's the only thing I don't love about it, but that's just one data point. But the other stuff is really cool. I think I'm with Darcy on that bike street, if I got your point right, Darcy. Like, you know, you usually buy food on the east side.

[66:05] And then, I think most people migrate to the west side, like, to picnics, you know, like, picnic blankets and stuff. So, yeah, I don't have a problem when my kids are walking on the market area, you know, even though there are a lot of people, it's fine. But I'm always getting a little nervous once they get, like, if they're going ahead of me, you know, because they're, like, eager to eat their pizza. and they get to that bike area, I get a little nervous. Like, hey, you know, wait, wait, wait, like… because sometimes, you know, bikes… there's electric bikes, there's, like, regular bikers, and they can go a little fast. So that part is always making me nervous, but I don't know what you can do there, because… Like, you know, you have that division, where you get the food on the east, and then you eat on the west. Because usually the east area, you know, the plaza is completely packed. And all the parents, you know, like to set up picnic blankets, and a lot of parents from daycare and school do that. I remember I had to write an opinion piece. I'm part of a community editorial board for the Daily Camera, and I remember a few months ago, there was this topic of the civic area was assigned to us, and I think among the feedback, you know, they give us a big prompt, usually, to, like, talk about this stuff.

[67:16] And there was a big debate about public safety, and, like, moving all the people, the homeless people, the unhoused, like, out of the civic area. Because that's where they… I guess they get a lot of resources. I haven't followed around on the topic, at all since, like, you know, I wrote that. I think, I think my… my personal opinion is, like, you know. I really like this concept, like, I think it's great. And as a regular farmer's market that goes with my family, I think this will, you know, like, the wild west area was awesome, the first time we saw it. It was a big surprise. But do you know whatever happened to that discussion, or what's the overall… Huh. Like… Yeah, what's going on with that? I don't know, I haven't followed up on that, I don't know where, like, the discussion is on that, or…

[68:05] the ideas, but I'm curious, I wanna… I would like to follow up on that. Absolutely, and it's a question that we get a lot specifically through our downtown parks. You know, we're always sort of working on safety, eyes on the street, and then we have to balance it with equity and everyone feeling welcome, right? So, it's… it's a tightrope, I would say. And, for us, the design is just one. thing to tackle in terms of safety and making sure, everybody feels welcome. So what we can do in design is sort of passively activate, like, put a playground and put elements to draw people in and, create a safe zone. The other thing that we have to do is, what we're calling the four quadrants in Parks and Rec, but it's really thinking about policy, it's really thinking about operations.

[69:00] And then it's also thinking about the space activation or the programming. So programming helps, people get out there, educators, events, things like that, to also get more folks in there and make it feel more safe. The policy side, we have to work hand-in-hand with our planning team. And so, whether it's working with our planning team or the county on the day services that we have. Connecting folks to other services in the area so that we don't have things like encampments. working with PD to also help us clean up encampments, but also connect folks to other services around the city. So always sort of multifunctional outside of just design. And then, of course, our operations folks who help, keep the space clean and tidy and make it something as a point of pride for the community to want to be in and activate. Yeah, yeah, because I think, like, I mean, that is, unfortunately, like, a difficult subject, and a controversial one as well.

[70:02] No. But I do feel it's a deterrent sometimes, at least for my family, to go there. And I think I've written about this in the camera, like… like, I live in a 15-minute neighborhood, right? Like, I have a library, walking distance, I have parks, walking distance, I have, like, a big mall here on Broadway. So, like, it's in direct… for me, it seems like it's a direct competition with downtown, right? Because I can get pretty much all of my needs met. Ew. So, I usually go downtown when there's, like, a farmer's market and all my friends are going, so it's like, hey, we should meet there. Fine, we know we can go. Luckily, you know, I live near Tebow Mesa, so there's a bus that goes and drops you off on, you know, Broadway and right there, so it's nice. We try to take advantage of it sometimes. Or, but anyway, like, I think, you know, the public safety is definitely at the tearing. Like, I've had some… I had some great experiences downtown at the farmer's market, and I had some really bad ones, you know, like, there was one time this guy…

[71:05] was saying the most grotesque stuff, about a woman, and just screaming out loud in the middle of the park, and the police were right there, but they couldn't do anything because, well, they said that was his first amendment, right, to speak. And I was like, man, that guy's really pushing it. But… eventually, I think he threatened, or he… you could construe it as a threat to the police, right? Like… And then they, like, arrested him. It was a good lesson for my kids, you know, like, definitely don't do drugs like that. But, you know, still, like, I was like, okay, like, this is a little iffy, you know, like, I have some friends from Germany visiting, their kids were also, like, very, like, man, what's going on? Another time, you know, we went there, and there was, like. to two homeless people started fighting, I'm pretty sure I saw a knife. It was a little bit more towards the creek, right? So… but it's like…

[72:00] I can never feel, when I go to the civic area, relax 100%, you know? I always have to keep… and you should always keep an eye on your kids, sure, but I feel like I have to do it more there than just here in my nice 15-minute neighborhood. And I'm talking to the parents, and, like, other parents feel somewhat the same. So it's kind of like, how much… Sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but I want to keep us on the concept plan, and if you have a question for Shahomi? No, just general feedback, I guess, and comments, because I do want to, like, as they develop the concept plans for this, to kind of, like, take this into consideration, you know, as they have conversations with other departments. But I think that's all I have to say. I mean, that's all I… I just wanted to provide that feedback. And, I guess, like, if you want a question, I guess, will there be any new incentives in this civic area redesign for people like me to go downtown, besides the farmer's market, like…

[73:04] Huh. Are you gonna cooperate… collaborate with the library, perhaps, to do more events? Or, I don't know, some businesses downtown that would be like, oh, you know, we should go check that out. Besides the festivals, I guess, you know, I think those happen pretty often, but… Yeah. And the farmer's market. Yeah, it's a great question, and honestly, off the back of living in a 15-minute walkable neighborhood, it sounds like I'm so glad that part of our parks planning that we're doing in coordination with Comprehensive planning is working to try and create 15-minute walkable neighborhoods, so it's good that, you know, in some ways, you don't need all of the reasons to go to Civic Area, because you have a lot of key basic needs met. The civic area really is supposed to be that area for large functions, so, exactly like well, I would say in synergy with Pearl Street, right? Those are your… gonna be your big, major events. So, can we enhance Taco Fest, Creek Fest?

[74:01] the farmer's market and think of, new partners, invite new partners in to help us activate that space. One of them will be Sundance. So Sundance will be mostly, in indoor spaces, but we do have some indoor offerings that we're working with on Sundance. It's pretty high level at this time. There's nothing kind of for certain on the table yet. But we already are working with new partners, and I would say we just launched, a new series with our, quote, what we call our anchor partners, which is the farmer's market, because they are such a key activator, as well as the library. So, looking at how to get the library outdoors, the farmer's market, we don't really need anything more from the farmer's market, it's just how do we enhance? So that those 13… street. enhancements will really help with new, infrastructure, such as that electrical that I talked about. They need a lot of, is there potential for gas lines? So a lot of the big infrastructure, lighting, shade, all of that for the farmer's market. So we're trying to not break what works, but only enhance.

[75:08] Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, sounds good. Thank you. Cool. Thanks, Hernan. Right. Thank you. Anyone else have any specific comments or feedback about elements of the concept plan? No? Okay. Thank you, Shahomi. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate you being here and sharing this concept plan with us, and we'll be excited to see the next steps. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Yeah, thank you for the time, appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, great. Further in matters from staff this evening, we're being treated to a preview of the transportation and Mobility 2026 work plan priorities, and so, Blythe, I'll let you weigh in on those, or introduce us to those.

[76:04] Thank you, Darcy. I think Valerie's gonna share her screen. And this is to help… the tab… Have a… a fresh point of view on the context as it relates to the, the recent Council request to submit suggestions. So, just to give some perspective, on each of these. The… these aren't ordered in any particular way. I hope that you all recognize many of them. all but… I think there's 14 here, and all but 2 of them are multi-year projects. And I just wanted to stress that, because the… the Council request is, specifically to the boards is to make suggestions to the City Council that can be accomplished in 12 months or less. So with transportation work, that's particularly challenging, because so much of our work spans more than a year.

[77:11] And so I'll just let everybody just take a minute. And, review these, and I'm happy to take questions. There's one more slide in a second, but just want to give everybody a chance to To look over each of those 14… 2026 department priorities. And then, of course, we can come back to this. if anybody has questions or wants to give a little… give it a little bit more time. The next slide is to show, Sorry, I moved away from the screen, so I'm not looking anymore. I hope we're on… we're on the… the core focus area slide. Let me know if we're not. But, the.

[78:04] It says we're on department priorities at the moment. Both of them say department priorities in the second slide. Here, I'll just go to the Zoom. What is the core focus? Yeah, I see it. Yeah, that's the first column. Thank you. I could have just clicked on the Zoom and looked myself. These are… and so, we have our priorities that we're working to develop for 2026, but we're all doing so many things. that are just core functions of our department. So, in addition to those department priorities that you saw on the previous slide, these aren't necessarily projects with, you know, schedules, necessarily. They're ongoing work that we're doing all the time, so I just wanted to give that perspective. This is… these are our core functions. And so the work plan items are done in the context of all the other things that we do, and of course, we haven't listed all of the things, but, there's lots of things in here, snow and ice being a big deal. It takes a lot of our effort and a lot of our funding, pavement management, which of course is also ongoing.

[79:06] and various other things. So I wanted to give the tab a chance to… review what we're working on for next year, also in the context of the things that we work on all the time, as you start to think through what your recommendation or requests are going to be of the Council, given their recent request for For suggestions from boards across the city. Are there any questions for me or staff on any of these two slides? Whoa. That second slide feels to me like it might be an order priority, is that correct? one. Oh, wait. No, I think… I think these are also not in order of priority. I mean, it depends on perspective, but I would say… The snow and ice response is a huge priority, not only because it affects people's mobility, all the modes, but it also impacts

[80:06] when you have freeze-thaw, it impacts the quality of the pavement and how fast it degrades over time, so snow and ice response is super, super important, so listing it at the bottom is in no way a reflection of its priority. Okay. and maybe… Valerie shift back to the other one, but I'll, of course, defer to the The board members? Would you like… are you asking if we have any questions about any of these priorities? I think the intent here, Darcy, was to provide the context of what we're working on. I think. We really appreciate the Council asking you all, as well as other boards, to give them requests. We thought that it would be most helpful for you all to sort of be thinking about what we're already thinking about as you start to think through that, so this was intended to sort of tee up your discussion on what you might be requesting, or what you might be interested in requesting to the City Council.

[81:15] Great, thank you so much. Yeah, and we'll talk about that in our… matters, discussion, In a few minutes. Thank you for, providing this, and I anticipate that we'll receive this as well. Great. Okay, thanks. And so, the second update that we have from… under matters from staff is about the transportation maintenance fee, which we're all eager to see implemented. So, Lyth, keep going. Tell us about the current status of the transportation maintenance fee. Oh, you're muted. Thank you. A colleague of mine used to say, when that happened, this must be your first pandemic. It's…

[82:03] comment gets a little dated as we get farther and farther away. This is one of those things that I just… reflect back on my excitement. The transportation maintenance fee, as well as the transportation demand management ordinance that happened within the last 3 weeks are just… really amazing, groundbreaking pieces of work that I firstly, just want to congratulate this as an update to the board, if you didn't know the, the transportation maintenance fee. On first reading on Thursday was approved by a vote of, I believe, 6 to 1. I think two of the council members were absent. And so that's good news. Of course, it needs a second reading, but I did want to just provide that update, that it… that it passed on first reading. Oh, and now I've navigated away from my notes, Valerie, I need your help on this item. We talked about this earlier, and I have gotten myself

[83:02] discombobulated from my notes. Help remind me, please, of the other elements of this that I was going to bring to the attention of the tab. Sure, my pleasure. Valerie Watson, Deputy Director, Transportation and Mobility, for the record. So, in addition to that affirmative Council vote on first reading, it goes to second reading on October 23rd. After that, it will be enacted, and, you know, we're looking at a, as we presented to you all the last time we updated. tab, you know, we're looking at maybe a mid-year, timeframe for it to be enacted. Definitely, looking feasible for residential, property owners. And then, maybe a little bit longer for commercial property owners. We're gonna see how the implementation phase of the effort goes. The other thing to highlight is that, at the end of Council discussion last Thursday night, there was a request

[84:02] From, one council member for us to look into the possibility of exempting affordable housing, because that's a very broad, suggestion, in terms of all the different types of affordable housing that are out there in our community. You know, I think there was a discussion amongst council members that maybe, first, staff be directed to estimate the staff time and work plan impacts and trade-offs. Of doing that kind of analysis as a future 2026 work plan item. First come back with that estimate on how much time and impact there would be to multiple department work plans, because it would involve not just transportation and mobility, but also partners in the city attorney's Office, Housing and Human Services, and others. So we're gonna first come back with that estimate, and after that, Council will then decide if they want to agendize, a nod of 5, which means a vote

[85:04] of, five council members affirmatively, requesting officially that the city staff across departments, collaborate to explore, exempting affordable housing in some fashion. So, that's just a kind of convoluted update, but wanted to make sure, Tab, that you all were aware of that discussion last week at Council. and I think the takeaway is that we are, you know, now looking towards the October 23rd second reading and official, approval of the ordinance. Great, thank you, Valerie. Yeah, I listened to that discussion and was glad to see, see it move forward. Any questions about that, other cab members? No? Okay, we'll look forward to the next… the second reading and, the results of that analysis, Valerie, thank you.

[86:02] Okay, so… Now, we'll address our TAB's responsibility to advise City Council of the most pressing transportation and mobility issues and opportunities in the City of Boulder under matters from the Board. We all received an email with the template for this letter to City Council, which is due by December 19th. And it gives us a chance to kind of finalize this next month, but we need to identify, first, if we want to accept the invitation to issue a letter to City Council, and if so, The core issue that we want to address, remembering that any project is restricted to 12 months or less. So, let's, let's have a conversation about that. I don't think we need to vote or anything, we're just… we can just,

[87:02] You know, talk about if we… Well, maybe we do need to vote on that. I don't know, it's not… it's not clear to me if we need to vote on whether or not to, accept the invitation to issue a letter. Do we need to do that, Valerie? If you don't mind, I could jump in on this one, Blythe. So, the timing is that the request… is that your letter be sent in December, but that's before your December TAB meeting. So, in your November TAB meeting, that's where you would have worked offline to draft a letter together after this evening, and then in November, you'll vote to, as a tab, send the letter in a discussion. Yeah. That's great, thanks. So tonight, we're just talking about potential topics, whether we want to do that, and what would… what the core of the letter would be. Has anyone had a chance to think this over? I'll just say that, you know, we were presented with

[88:00] three different kind of formats that previous, boards have used. And, I just wanted to suggest that, yes, we do accept the invitation. And, second, I liked the, letter that was sort of what we liked and what we disliked over the year, but it wasn't kind of specific to a project. There were other letters that were more specific to, here's what we want you to do. There's a lot to celebrate this year, and our last… our discussion last month about the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan priorities, I think almost kind of provides a framework for us, because we identified in that discussion a lot of, you know, important things. for, the city to kind of keep in the forefront as that process moves forward. So, I'm curious, to hear your thoughts about… about that. First of all, if you want to, you know, take this opportunity, and second, what else do you think we should

[89:02] What we should address, if there's a specific project we want to advocate for, or if we want to just kind of celebrate and suggest. Can you just repeat, that last part you were referring to? What is a template for what we're doing? there were… so we received 3 past letters, 3 letters from past boards, or past years. I think one was 2021, 2024, and then maybe 22, I don't remember exactly, but, but they all had a slightly different format. So, you know, we could model on one of those, or we could do something completely different. Oh, okay. I thought you were referencing something we did last year. Well, yeah. Yeah, there… so, yes, there… we did send a letter last year, so that was one of the three that was sent to us. Oh, oh, I see. as, as models. And just a practical question, given the rules on public meetings, how did we work offline last year to develop a letter?

[90:06] Good question. I… I think that it was drafted, but one person drafted it. But if we… this is the space where we can talk about topics so that that letter can be drafted for approval at our next meeting, so we need to kind of have that conversation now. Yes, Meredith, please, please enlighten us, or clarify for us. I'm not as eloquent as Valerie, but, in the past, what you're allowed to do is assign two members to draft a letter Email it out, blind copy, to each member, and then you can vote

[91:02] on the draft at the November meeting. Great. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. I thought that we could… we could confer a little bit further. So two members can draft, and then it can be sent by blind copy to everyone. Okay, good. Correct. It can also be, posted as pack of materials for next month. Great. Right, which I think it should be if we're to vote on it next month, so… Yes, that'd be public. Can we… do we… are we in agreement that we should send a letter? Yeah, I think so. I just wanted to clarify, because you referenced this letter we sent last year, the latest one we have is from March of 2024, which technically is last year, but it was before You and I were on the board. referring forward, yeah. Is that the one you're… you're talking about? I don't think so.

[92:00] remember us doing one since you and I… Yeah. No, I think you're right. Yeah. Yeah, it was 2024, but yeah, it was not our current board. Okay. Yeah, that one, does have… some good things, starting with the core arterial network, which I think We should emphasize as a… as a priority, and I'm encouraged with how that's moving forward, to just, Worried about, getting the funding for it. What are the priorities? are coming up for people. Michael, Ernom? Hmm. We can put forth a, you know, a short-term project. I mean, you know, I think the focus on…

[93:03] shoring up funding, as Mike is suggesting, that… that's why I was wondering whether that list was in order of priority, because to me, that's number one, right? Everything is contingent upon having the funding to actually do the work. developing wonderful plans doesn't get us very far if they can't be implemented. I would, you know, for me, that'd be priority number one, two, and three, and then CAN number four. Okay, yeah. I mean, we have emphasized CAN, or the board has emphasized CAN in the past, and that, you know, it has successfully moved forward. Yes, there are some funding gaps for some segments of that, to the list that Blythe showed us, or sort of the array of 14 projects that we were shown, to really move a lot of the priorities forward that we've focused on, so the transportation maintenance fee is a huge one, right? So that will allow

[94:05] Provided that it is, successful in the second reading and moves forward, you know, that will… that will create an environment that allows the department, I think, to focus on some of these really core, things. So, you know, focusing on TDM strategies for the new campus, I think, is really important. Really getting clarity on the micromobility, that was another thing on the list about, kind of, micromobility access and expansion. maybe we can work on drafting a letter that brings all this together around the kind of plans and projects that we've been hearing about. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, great. So, you know, we've been hearing about the Vision Zero Action Plan, we've been hearing about the,

[95:02] the, you know, the overall, kind of, the plans that are developing in the area. And, I think it's important for us to emphasize transportation work that furthers those objectives. So, yeah, I mean, I agree with you, Mike, that we do need to, you know, advocate for filling the funding gaps that exist around some of the core… the CAN Projects. You know, I'm sure that at the same time, everything that's… Everyone is trying to do that at the same time. What else on this list is, yeah, coming up for people, Michael? Well, it's… what's coming up for me is not on the list, and and so, you know, forgive me for… kind of… Just, thinking out loud here.

[96:00] you know, CAN Priorities, SS4A, VSAP, all of these things, or most of these things, not everything. Sundance probably doesn't fit in that box, Airport doesn't fit in that box, but most of them relate to… Safety for multi-mobile, multi-mobility. And I'm just… I'm anxious that, The community, it doesn't get it. That there are probably many members of the community who, if they saw a list like this, would not understand How all of these things are related. And so, I'm wondering if there's a communications component That is needed here. to show… to folks how all these things are integrated. Maybe that's happening someplace? I'm just… You know, it's… Yeah, maybe I'm just spending too much time on Nextdoor, but…

[97:00] You know, I, I see, I see pushback, and, and… I think that… I worry, let's say. I worry that if we are not affirmative in our messaging about how all of these things are important, how they're all related. that, we're vulnerable. And so, I'm not sure… you know, where this fits into a work plan, but I am… I am, partly informed by my own experience as an EPA employee, aware of how if you don't do some affirmative messaging, you are vulnerable when somebody with ill intent comes wielding an axe at your programs. And, and I'm… I'm honestly concerned for transportation mobility in that regard, just seeing how

[98:00] You know, there was not unanimity behind the transportation maintenance fee. Which there really ought to have been. Right? That should have been a no-brainer for everyone on Council. And, you know, nobody loves taxes, of course, but, or fees of any kind, you know, nobody jumps up and down, like, oh, yay, I'm having a new fee assessed against me. But if people better understood. what the… how critical this funding is for the quality of life that we enjoy in Boulder, I don't think there would have been any question. Among any of the council members, much less the public, about such a modest fee. So… I just wonder, you know, again, thinking out loud here, like I do. I'm wondering about, a communications plan around

[99:00] That integrates all of this stuff so that The public understands what the city is doing. how it's responding to Council's directives, and what it's providing to the community. That they may not see. Yeah, I appreciate that, Michael, and I'm with you that I don't think it's the time or the kind of place for us to propose any, you know, projects. I think you're right that this list itself is, you know. all-encompassing in a lot of ways, and that it is really important for people to understand how these projects and priorities fit together. You know, thinking back to the public comment this evening, and the parking, the comments about parking in the Goss Grove neighborhood, I… I would really like to see Structured communications and outreach and, you know, really working on how people understand

[100:04] That program, and also, you know, that it really does serve their needs. So I hear that, and I think that that's, yeah, suggesting… Advocating for a comprehensive Affirmative communication plan From the department about how these priorities Advanced their, you know, the… yeah, the community's interests and well-being. Hernan, were you gonna say something? Yeah, I was gonna say, like, what would be, I guess, beyond, like, I know there's, like, a transportation newsletter. I think there's even a magazine, right, that I get every now and then with updates and stuff. Like, what else would you be thinking? Beyond that, just better… Better communication in those, channels.

[101:05] or… Well, the department puts out press releases and, does other, you know, uses social media and, does other communications. work. So yes, the community newsletter, I think, is… is a great, you know, target for clarifying the kind of these priorities. And, and other kind of targeted messaging. Yeah, I think, you know, it is interesting, this past year, one of, you know, of the things to celebrate being, the Elimination of parking minimums and the adoption of the TDM ordinance and all of these things. I don't… I agree with you that I don't think people really understand the implications of that and what it really means for… for them, for their businesses, for their, neighborhoods, and so kind of working on that messaging, I… I agree, is important.

[102:09] And I, I mean, the, the parking stuff is… is really, it hits home for a lot of people, and so I do think that we have to Work hard to make sure that like I said, not only that people understand it, but that the policies And the programs really work for them. Yeah, Blythe. Thanks, Darcy. I just wanted to… add that I… I really like this discussion, and it's one thing that I think a lot about. In fact, I sort of posed some issues about communication of our work. And just a quick anecdote, it happens all the time, I'm sure it does with you all, for me, socially. People generally don't understand, necessarily, how some of our short-term and sort of focused efforts are intended to help with the big picture of how people move around.

[103:05] And it… and good communication can go a long way towards building support. I would just say an offer, and I think… I think in your letter, you can make this suggestion that We have a communications department in the City of Boulder who would control this effort if there were a new effort towards communicating, and certainly would be something that would be in their work plan that we can't necessarily control, but it seems to me that it would be within bounds for you all to make a suggestion. You're sending your suggestions to Council. So I do think… You know, the details of this are… are something that would need to be worked out, and… you know, in an ideal scenario, you can just sync up with everybody and everybody can understand, but there's all kinds of different… it's at risk of being a lot of work and low award, but I do think it's a… it's an angle that's really helpful.

[104:01] And I appreciate the suggestion. Yeah, thank you. Well, and the department does have a communications professional, at least one. So, yes, but I understand what you're saying about how we can't, like, impact her work plan, necessarily. But let's, let's figure out maybe, a couple of us… can work… Michael, why don't you and I work on the draft? And then we can send it out to others, or… Mike and Michael, do you want to work on it? I mean, who wants to work on the draft? Over the next week or two. I'm happy to work on it, but also, you know, busy dude, so if somebody else wants to jump. Oh, I know. I'm gonna go on it. Yeah. You're welcome to do that, but yeah, I mean, I'm always happy to help with drafting things. Yeah, and actually, I was gonna, you know, answer Ednan's question the same way, which is that, like, you know, it's probably better commission to a paid professional than to

[105:05] A random tab member to figure out how best to do this. But… Right, well, our, our letter is a… you know, it's a suggestion for prioritizing things, yeah. Yeah, Hernan, go ahead. I do have another suggestion, I think I included this in an email a while back. I would like to follow up. I know we've been discussing the CAN, network. And, I think as part of that, I would like to propose updating the CEAP model. To include, emissions modeling, an air quality modeling. There… and I think in the last one, we reviewed… There was a section on air quality, like, at the very end of it, there was, like, just two paragraphs, it had two papers, citations. But… it's… I don't know, like, it seemed like… the papers were not really relevant, or I felt the conclusions they…

[106:03] They were drawn from the papers were not actually accurate. So I think, like, it would be nice to enhance the modeling, I mean, coming from EAV, you know, like, I… we talked a lot about air quality and emissions. So I am interested in doing that, and including that in the CAP. Like, give it a little bit more of a spotlight than… Two improperly cited papers and a couple paragraphs as a side… as a footnote kind of deal. you know. Go ahead, Michael. Yeah, I have a… well, I have a question about that. Because the seat process, as I understand it anyway, and, you know, either Valerie can correct me if I'm wrong. It applies to specific projects that are undergoing review, And… I'm concerned that… you know, as we saw, for example, on IRIS, there was a member of the community pushing back, saying, well, you know, you're gonna slow the cars down, that's gonna increase emissions.

[107:05] And I don't know whether that analysis was correct or not with respect to IRIS. But I would be concerned About a seat process that led us to conclude, well, we, you know, we can't do a project like IRIS because there will be some incremental increase in emissions for IRIS, when the core arterial network as a whole will unquestionably help us move towards a… truly multimodal mix of transportation that Will reduce emissions overall, because it will allow more people to choose, a non-ICE mode of transport, right? Non-internal combustion mode of transport.

[108:02] So, I, I'm kind of, like… I'm kind of curious, like, I would want to know if there's going to be some drastic consequence on a particular street, but I… my sense is that overall, the direction of Council and the direction of all these projects is to push us in the direction of A better mix of modes that would Collectively reduce emissions, and so that we might not Need to know, with so much precision, what's happening on any particular street. You know, The, kind of, the status quo. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Well, and of course, there's the, you know, the question of, kind of, before and after, and, you know, what really happens. I mean, a lot of people have talked about, you know, done that modeling, and… and. Well, it also has a ton.

[109:00] Maybe. But I think that's… I mean, that's one of the problems, really, is this guy wrote the email. And there really… there's really no way to assess whether his study was good or not. I mean, I read it, and I was like, okay, this could be right, this could be wrong, I have no idea, and I have nothing to, like, push back on it, because the city has no… analysis like it, right? We can say, like. I mean, you say the project should, definitely reduce it. And I believe you, but scientifically, I cannot confirm it, right? So it's like, I mean, your model could include, you know, like, yeah, we're gonna maybe see a slight increase in emissions in the first two years, but after year three, it should, like, boom, go down significantly. And then when people push back, you're like, you know, hey, you know, here's the analysis, you know, like, shut up. So I don't know, I mean… Which we would never say. I think, ideally, I mean, like, I mean, and you can say, you know, like, yeah, it's done per project, but you can, like… the CAP doesn't have to be like that, right? You can say, like, but as a…

[110:04] You can make your model as a, you can… you can get information from different projects and try to, like, put it in your model. Like, you can make your model whatever. You won, right? So I don't know, like, I felt… I felt bad, because I felt like that email was, like… I mean, it made sense, obviously he put effort on it, but it's like, I have no idea to verify this or not. And I just, you know, like, it was… I mean, maybe it's right, maybe it's not, but I have no idea. And intuitively, it's like, it shouldn't be right, right? Like, intuitively, it's like, okay, if you increase… multimodal, multi-interpretation, you should get, like, less emissions over time, eventually, right? You should, like, maybe not immediately, but, like, gradually, you should see some decrease, and your model should capture that. So, I don't know, I feel… it's… I mean, it's just good science, and it's… I mean, the CIP, in the end is a model that measures and weighs all these different things, and emissions should be… I think, should be one of them.

[111:04] No. Yeah, well, so that… I mean, I think you're getting right to the point that I was concerned about, which is that… and it really is… has to do with the scope of the seat process, right? As I understand it, the seat process is a project-specific analysis, and what we're… what I hear you asking for Is a network-wide analysis, so that we can discern when we're getting the network effects that Can, you know, pro… collections of projects like Cannes are supposed to get us. And, you know, I wonder if… That kind of analysis would… you know, A, one is doable, right? Is that, you know, do we have the money and the wherewithal to pursue something like that? But secondly. like, is there scope within the seat process to reach outside of a specific project and analyze how this project, in relationship to all the other projects, is going to get us where we want to go? Because I worry…

[112:08] about exactly what we saw on IRIS, right? Which is somebody coming along and saying, well, this project is going to increase emissions by such and such percent. At least, you know, In this very short-term period, and that… does not give us the opportunity, as near as I can tell, to illustrate, no, you know, actually, as part of this, over a longer period of time, and in combination with this… the rest of this network. You know, we expect to see a reduction in emissions, because we expect to see a change in… or, you know, some… some improvement in mode share. I don't know if, you know, I don't know if that can be captured in a project-specific seat, but maybe I'm wrong. I want… I want us just to move away from the specifics of that, because I don't think our…

[113:02] First of all, I don't think that that's what the public is really asking for, you know, is kind of more emissions data. I think what we have heard throughout the past year And what kind of resonates from the previous letters to Council are the, you know, priorities that come up in all the projects about reducing VMT. You know, that's… significant people, right? Reducing traffic, reducing BMT, shifting the kind of parking priorities, and letting all of these pieces work together. And that's why I suggested that our notes from our September discussion about the BVCP could be a good guide for a letter, because there we really homed in on the connections between transportation and land use, and when we write to Council, we want to make sure that they are seeing transportation in the holistic way that we want them to kind of view our work, right? And the city… the transportation and Mobility Department's work. We want them to view it holistically. We want them to understand these priorities in the context of the overall development.

[114:16] and the overall, well-being and functioning of the city, rather than homing in on a very specific technical process, because I don't think that that's either what the public is asking for or what Council wants to prioritize. I really want us to move forward, and I hear you, Arnon, and I appreciate that suggestion, because I think that maybe the, you know, engineers in the department could engage with you on that discussion. And coming from us, I would really like us to emphasize the holistic nature of all of those 14 projects that were listed, and helping to guide Council toward… toward seeing, the connections in the best way that we can. So, I mean, I'm volunteering to draft, because I kind of… I have an idea, you know, that I'd like to sort of draft and run it past you, and you are all welcome to make all the suggestions, and we can refine it.

[115:11] Down to something that we can, vote on next month. How does that sound? We're coming up close to 8pm, so I don't want to keep us going forever, but I mean, we could keep discussing if you like. Does anybody else have any other suggestions for the content of that letter? I was just saying. So you're suggesting the letter be action items, or just, like, an overview of what The city's doing, like, what will be the objective of the letter, in your view? Yeah, the objective of the letter will be to reinforce The priorities that the department has set in the context of the Kind of holistic, you know, development and, kind of BVCP objectives, homing in on some specifics about those projects and how they connect to each other.

[116:08] But the, I mean, these letters are for the retreat, right? For next year? Or is it… I mean, usually they go on the retreat, and they read the letters from, you know, the boards, read the letters from groups, and then they get together, and they come up with this, like, 5-10 point action item that then they give to Nuria to give back to the departments to implement. So, I mean, like… I feel action items will be more… effective. You know, like, then they can… I hear you. They can put it on their list of priorities. And usually, I mean, honestly, the letters usually, like, yeah, they have some weight, but, you know, especially now, with the new election, the members come with their own agenda items, so those usually go to the top five. And then when the boards ride, it usually goes in the next, you know, in the next set of, things. But eventually, you know, it does trickle down back to Noria, I've seen that happen. But usually it's like, yeah, some sort of, like, something to research, or something to, like, implement, some sort of, like, action item in the end is what I feel they're looking for.

[117:07] Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think that that's what I'm… I'm not… I haven't fully formed those action items yet, and so what I am conceptualizing, I would like to get on paper so that I can think it through. and then run it past you all, and you can add other specifics as you find appropriate. Does that sound okay? Yes. I need to… I'm a… I'm a right-to-think person. I need to… I need to write so I can think. I'm a writing-to-learn kind of person. So as I write this out, I think I'll be able to kind of think through some of those specifics, based on the list of priorities that Blythe showed us, and also our… our work this year. I think we have landed on a lot of, great suggestions throughout the year, and so I'll revisit those in our minutes, and mine the minutes for action items, and then look at those priorities and see how we can discuss those as a latticework

[118:07] Of interconnected projects that really feed into the well-being of our community. Does that sound okay? Yeah, let me know if you need any help with the first draft or anything. Great. I will do that. Mike, you have more time than the rest of us, so… I will, I will hit you up for… for some, some help. Okay, great. Well, I think that that concludes our discussion of that. I will… I will draft, within the next couple weeks, and then get something off to Mike to kind of co-draft, and then I can… we can VCC it to the other members of the… of TAB. Okay, the next item is future agenda. topics, and I will open that to Blythe, maybe Valerie, anyone who wants to discuss the future agenda topics for us.

[119:09] I'd like to ask if… Valerie or Meredith might have, A resource they can share on future agenda topics? Hey, I'm happy to run through those. So in November, we're going to have, a couple of agenda items. One is an update on our, Vision Zero Action Plan progress and the 2024 crash data landscape. So, as you all know, we, get, crash data over time, and then, there's some just, like, analysis and cleaning of that data, and then we use that to continue our vision… our ongoing Vision Zero efforts, and inform those. So, that will be coming in November.

[120:01] And then we also have a, development project that has been referred to TAB by Council. That's at 350 Ponca, and so Chandler, from Planning and Development Services will be on hand, to present that item. And then under, I think… I think it'll be an agenda item, might be in matters from staff. We'll have an update on the Sumac Avenue project. December is very light. We may have, an item for that, but it's not confirmed yet, so we'll, wait to see and keep you posted. Yeah, great. Thanks, Valerie. Looking forward to those… those items next month. Okay. Great. Anything else from board members before we adjourn the meeting? Okay, would someone move to adjourn the meeting?

[121:00] I move to adjourn. Thank you, Michael. Second? Second? Okay, great. And, all in favor, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Great. Anyone opposed to adjourning? So, thank you. We have voted to adjourn at 8.01 PM, and, I thank you all for the great discussion this evening. Thanks to our guests, and thanks to Blythe, who are great to have… we're glad to have you on board. Thanks to everyone, and good night. Bing.