Okay, okay.

Anyway, I I wanted to share that for while we had while we have the time.

Should be live.

Just a second.

Hey Matt and Jim, can you hear us?

I can now.

I'm trying to turn the video on.

I'm getting the hourglass here.

There we go.

Yes, can hear you.

Can you see us?

Cannot see you.

See the opening slide.

Okay.

Go through it.

You have to talk about it.

It sounds like you have some background noise.

Um, we could see you.

All right, we have a quorum, and uh I'll call this meeting to order at 7005 p.m.

Is there a statement that was to read at this point?

Yes.

Uh twentieth twenty twenty-sixth meeting of the transportation commission is being held in person at twenty-nine hundred business center drive and electronically.

Members of Transportation Commission and staff are participating in person and from remote locations to video conference call on Zoom.

Maybe can be accessed by the public in person or via Zoom.

So um the first item on our uh well, agenda is public comment.

Um we have any speakers in a signed up for we do.

Um let's see, Mr.

Fisher, would you like to say um would you like to speak in the public comment period?

Yes, uh, sure, thank you.

And uh okay.

I have to just remind you, even Mr.

Fisher, you have three minutes.

Yep, not a problem.

Uh if you hear any background noises because my one month old son is in my lap right now sleeping.

We'll see if that happens for three minutes straight.

That would be really great.

Uh my name's Carl.

My name's Carl Fisher.

I live on Henry Street in Old Town.

Uh I actually submitted written comments and an attached memorandum earlier today for your consideration regarding cut through traffic and uh you know consideration for a possible dwell time based approach to studying pass-through commuter traffic in old town.

I mainly want to attend tonight to emphasize that this is an issue with real day-to-day impact on residents.

Actually, just looking out my window, I think Henry Street finally cleared up after about two hours of typical traffic that we see uh every weekday here.

Uh the city's prior traffic mitigation studies found that approximately 42% of traffic within the studied area, which was actually around uh the Duke Street corridor consisted of cut through trips that neither originated nor terminated in Alexandria.

I think that's pretty typical for the entire city.

Uh many of us who live along the corridors, uh like Henry, Patrick, Duke, Washington, Braddock, to name a few, uh, experience this congestion noise and safety impacts associated with that traffic pattern on a on a daily basis.

Uh the intent of my uh what I submitted is just for your consideration, uh, not to advocate for that to be the immediate sort of uh idea, but rather to encourage the commission and staff to continue exploring innovative and data-driven approaches to distinguishing destination traffic from regional pass-through traffic uh that we all have to deal with.

Appreciate the commission's time and consideration.

Thank you for the work you do on transportation issues to affect the city.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So I have a question to you guys.

Um how would we sort of keep the ball alive with Ms.

Then is this something that you guys would take somewhere else within the staff to kind of give some honoring thought to?

I mean, this is clearly a you know a big deal to kind of go to congestion pricing, but I know this DC has just sort of had a report on it, and I don't know if that would be kind of the most logical first step to do something like that, whether it's the kind of thing you'd go get a grant for to be able to uh to do that.

It would be.

Um unfortunately though, the state has not given us permission to do congestion pricing.

Got it.

And so uh we we could study it as much as we want, but we would never be able to act on it until legislation is proposed.

So then what we would probably think is to perhaps put it in the legislative package for uh because I don't think we've ever done that.

I was gonna ask if anyone in Virginia has.

Uh not that I know of now.

Yeah.

And as I'm always been told, you need to warm the frog before you're ever going to get anything uh passed in the general assembly.

So you might as well longer than for that frog has multiple meanings.

I'm not sure which one is being used here.

The real life hopping code.

Um but I I think it might be something worthwhile to at least uh noodle on at some point that it may be something worth, you know, maybe bringing somebody from DC or something to talk to you guys in the future to see where that uh where the options might be or what the initial roadblocks are for.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you very much.

And uh there are no other speakers.

Uh and I will say though, that we um this week we are hosting uh four high school uh seniors uh for a two-week kind of visit, uh technical visit to the city, and one of them is online right now.

So thank you very much for joining Langley.

If she could hear me.

Okay.

And then we had some other comments that were submitted uh umically, but I uh they're not present enough to give us this one, but yeah, move for thought here.

All right.

Uh the next uh item on our agenda is the minutes of the April meeting.

I've had an opportunity to look at the minutes.

Anybody have any comments or questions?

If not, uh motion to approve the the minutes.

Thank you.

And the second second.

All right, all right.

Any other discussion?

If not, uh all those in favor of approving the minutes of the April meeting, say aye.

Aye, as opposed to nobody opposed, and the minutes are approved.

Oh, and actually, um uh Matt uh or I'm sorry, Commissioner Mislanka and Commissioner McMahonis.

I I just I I heard an aye, but I just want to make sure to that that for the record we can aye, yes, correct.

Aye.

Yes, correct.

Okay.

And then uh Commissioner Miss Lanka, you're muted.

So okay.

I'm uh I wasn't at last month's meeting, so I I I probably should abstain.

Okay.

You mean you didn't watch the whole video and then double check it against the minutes?

It's getting my oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

And next I'm on our agenda is a discussion item about the Duke Street line use plan.

All right, we have Michael D'Arazio from uh Department of Planning and Zoning Depending.

Yeah, uh some razor uh planner would be um uh neighborhood planning with the department planning and zoning.

So this is just to provide the commission update on where we are bigger landing plan.

Actually, do you mind saying a little closer so the mic?

Yes, yeah.

We're a friendly bunch here.

Yes.

Usually usually uh so again, this is just to provide an update of where we are in the status of the plan and um where we are with uh the framework plan.

So we'll go into a little bit more detail about that, but uh just provide you some background for everyone that doesn't know where we are.

Uh so we started this plan in June of last year, 2025.

Uh we've had the next slide.

Next one.

Okay.

So just to orient everyone, uh the plan is really looking at the um four-mile stretch from uh the west end, which is corn landmark mall site, to uh union station or community metro area.

So if you look at the uh PowerPoint right there, you'll see kind of a four-mile stretch.

Uh so during this process, you know, one of the big things that we've been doing is uh really looking at uh how to engage the community in multiple ways, whether it be pop-ups, traditional community meetings, workshops, um, you know, uh making it accessible online as well as in person.

Uh so we've had 50 or 50 pop-ups.

Uh we've really tried to engage the businesses along Deep Street as well.

And then um let's see if you go to the next slide.

And um, yeah, pretty much been trying to uh engage anyone that's willing to participate and trying to meet them where they're more most comfortable.

So again, this is just a view of Duke Street going from the Lemont Mall site all the way to by the way.

I think that's a really cool picture.

Oh yeah, I've never seen before until I saw it in the and I thought that's a really neat uh yeah picture.

So it's uh see what science the construction is like on the landmarks next time.

Oh yeah, it's trying to have some uh we took some drone footage last year or two of the construction site and it's cool to go to the next slide.

So again, we we started in June of 2025, uh formally before that we were doing some uh preliminary work meeting with some people uh informally about the plan.

So where we are right now, uh we just released the plan framework, which is a set of uh framework plans.

Um essentially that uh start kind of building out the plan.

So you know, looking at mobility, parks and open space, land use and building heights, and those are kind of the foundations for the plan for uh essentially any development that happens in the future, they would have to adhere to these plans.

Go to the next slide.

Uh just a little bit of background of the community about the area along Duke Street.

Uh so um you see in this PowerPoint, the uh the green is Deke Street and would represent citywide.

So uh for the most part are um some differences in this you see a little bit higher foreign-born population, uh the median income is a little bit lower, uh a little bit more of a minority population.

Um actually slightly less people use public transit.

That's very intriguing to me.

Is that because of the Metro station?

So you guys are counting both metro and bus and yeah, use the success data.

So anyone that says if it's a public business.

Go to the next slide.

Uh so I'm gonna focus today mostly on mobility, but the um the framework plan where we are with the uh the planning process.

Uh so just a little um you know preamps like what we're talking about when we look at planning for mobility uh along the corridor.

You know, one of the things that we want to do is we want to make sure that there's good design, that we're integrating safety with anything that we're doing, um, and that we have a public realm that supports you know active use of it, that people are able to get around well, they feel comfortable, they're able to get from one place to the other comfortably safely.

Next slide.

Uh, another thing that I want to point out that we're trying to do this plan is recognizing deformative trees, um, you know, not just for the environmental impacts, but also for trees uh really help with even slowing down traffic visually, like if you have a lot of street trees on a certain street, uh people tend to slow down a little bit more, um, just kind of visually using that.

Uh so that's one of the things that we wanted to highlight there.

Um, during this planning process, we've heard a lot of different things uh from the residents or business owners from people that visit people that work here.

Uh so for example, how they relate to traffic mobility.

Um, obviously, one of the things around here on Duke Street is congestion, as you often see, and um also just making sure that there's a visit corridor design along the whole street.

And then uh one other point there related to mobility would just be uh safer connections and perfect safety and accessible for all, whether that be whether walking, biking, maybe by transit.

So before we got to the framework plan, we started building out um looking at the plan area.

Now this is kind of showing the boundaries of the playing area right now that we've uh through the process defined.

We started out not really with a specific plan boundary, um, but this is kind of come out of multiple discussions with the public and um with likely visuals as well.

So uh this is the land use theme map where we kind of started organizing the Duke Street corridor, uh, organizing it into areas that we saw for opportunity for development where we really wanted to retain small businesses, and also uh where we wanted to retain affordability for areas like uh Fox Chase areas that's outlined there.

That's a pretty big community that has uh both market rate affordable housing as well as conveyed affordable units, so it's one of the areas that we really want to make sure uh you know retains affordability that it has today.

Go to the next slide, and so this also led to uh kind of earlier in the process in October and September.

Um, we had several meetings kind of defining principles for the different uh themes of the small area plan.

Uh so these are some of the mobility and safety uh guiding principles that we developed.

Uh this shouldn't be a shock to you that we want to make sure that it's safe for people to get around as a well-connected system, streets and sidewalks and alleyways uh that it supports a variety of travel.

Um again, walking, biking, transit, driving.

I want to make sure that everyone can get around, whether it be yeah, however they want to get around, and then uh incorporating current emerging next slide.

So this kind of brings us to the framework plan for the Duke Street.

Uh if we have the next cloud here.

Uh so really where we are right now with this plan with the framework plan, this kind of shows the um proposed uh bike facilities uh along with proposed uh recipe connections, as well as uh proposed um streets.

Now, when you're looking at the proposed streets on this map, really it kind of shows the network of streets that we would see if there was redevelopment.

If you remember uh land use themes map, there were the opportunity sites.

So, like any of these new streets here, for example, um, you know, if Alexandria Commons were to redevelop, we'd want to see a retail street in the middle along with uh some streets that back up to the park.

So that's kind of uh how we're playing out the new street network for any potential new redevelopment.

Uh and then when we're talking about the proposed bike facilities, so that's a mix of including any proposed facilities that were in the gamp, as well as any new connections that we're proposing here.

And we're very uh broad right now with defining bike facilities.

You don't see it classified by you know dedicated bike lanes that are on street or that are off the road, whether they're share rows or whether they're uh multi-use path.

So we're this is where we are with the finding process right now, but we will get to a point where we start classifying those types of bike facilities, and this is just the other side of um the extreme.

It's a fairly large corridor, so it's hard to read if you have the whole map up here.

And one of the things that this does um that I'll just mention too is obviously it builds on the deep street transit way.

That's uh that's kind of long.

Um so the Duke Street Transit Lay uh that was approved by council uh several years ago.

It um helped kind of lay out some of the things that you see on this map where there's uh proposed bike facilities or shared use paths.

So that that's kind of building on what was already approved, and it's gone through the process.

And uh where we are with the um plan right now in terms of getting feedback.

Uh so we have right there, there's a link to the engagement hub link where we encourage everyone.

We have the map digitally where they get uh to say there's an add marker button right there where you can add any comments uh that you would like um about uh whether you agree or don't agree with uh where we're proposing bike facilities or new streets uh or anything like that.

And you can read everyone else's comments, exactly.

Yes, and uh this is just kind of showing different ways to engage.

So the next meeting that we do have is on May 28th.

That's gonna look at housing and health specifically, and then we have another meeting in June.

Don't know the unblading dates confirmed yet, but later June, and that's gonna focus a little bit more on transportation.

Go to the next slide.

Um, so just kind of showing next steps and where we are with this process.

So again, we just released these framework plans.

We're getting feedback right now from the public for these, and then the next thing we're gonna do is we're we're gonna be releasing um a set of um different uh recommendations for the plan.

So this is gonna probably be early summer, where we're releasing uh some of the information with a little bit more detail.

Um so right now it's a little bit more broader to these framework plans where we're proposing, but then in the future, again early summer, we're gonna be showing uh a little bit of people, and then the plan is to release the draft full plan in September and then go to public hearing December.

And uh see presentation, but happy to ask any, you know, if there are any questions, anyone has anything.

Oh yeah.

I think uh comment and a question.

Sure, yeah.

Um, so for the meeting that's focused on transportation, comment.

Yes, I think the original date that was proposed conflicted with the transcription.

Right, maybe request or suggest that those are that yeah, but okay, yeah, well that thank you.

And then my question is for the map where you can put markers and add comments.

How does that work?

Because I was on there the other day and I saw very few comments from other people that sit's been live for a while.

So how yeah, um, so there's a couple ways.

Um so you know, one of the ways is just to add a marker on the map itself.

There's a and there's a video for each one of the maps as well that kind of helps um introduce the whole theme with what the map is about, and then it has a little um instructions on how to add a marker, but you can add a marker, and then it has a common field where you figure comment in, um, and then you just post it on there.

So it's pretty easy.

Okay, um, I mean, we've also been getting feedback.

Um, there's uh kind of a more general uh lead feedback.

Um it's actually called, but it's like you see them on the bottom of the screen really with like sticky notes.

Oh, more quite generalized questions that questions or comments, yeah, or comments, and then on up front on the first page, there's also like a general map that we can uh put comments on as well.

So we've been receiving feedback through that.

Um it's kind of hard to say.

It's I mean, it's definitely something that is uh I mean there's a lot to it.

There's a lot going on these maps, so we don't necessarily understand or don't expect the public to initially have like comments on you know where a certain bike lane is proposed or anything like that.

Um so we we hope to get more feedback, but there's other opportunities as well during the process.

Thanks.

Yeah, I have several uh thanks for the side.

This is actually uh pretty exciting, and I was intrigued by the the boundaries, and so it kind of left out most of the place where residents are who might also have some input on Duke Street because they're having to cross through it.

Um but my first uh comment question relates to community meetings, and we I think you've had 50 meetings or you know 50 pop-ups or something.

Anyway, yeah, you've had an awful lot.

But what I didn't see there was kind of a breakdown of how many of those are by language because we were at the traffic and parking board uh and I see Sarah was on the we were talking about the Beauregard um future project.

Yeah, and one of the concerns there was making sure that there was really good outreach to the people who are uh non-English speaking.

Yeah, and so I think what helped to start uh highlight how many of these kinds of meetings have occurred for them and what that interaction is occurring.

So that's just you don't have to really respond now, but it's just for the as you publicize those versions.

Yeah, yeah, I can I can respond to that.

Yeah, um yeah, it's definitely something that we've been um severally uh cognizant of people that speak different languages.

So um most of our meetings either by request or you know, we know it's gonna be larger meeting while translators available.

Um I know that some of the um outreach that we have, we've made sure that we've had people that are capable of speaking different languages, um, doing outreach in the actual plan area um end fields.

Yeah, I mean it's something that you know if someone wants some translation, we will offer it.

Yeah, so that's all good.

But what I was hearing from one of the board members the other night is that they learned with some other projects that you really have to do more than that.

You really have to go into the community and speak directly to them and then get feedback from that as opposed to saying there's going to be a meeting if you want a translator to let us know.

Oh, right.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And we would have introactive okay, okay.

Um, and as part of the uh Duke Street Promotion Project, one of the early on, we sort of were trying to visualize what uh Duke Street would be like.

And I had suggested at the time that people should really go to the Columbia Pike and look and see what's happening there.

And I and I think that would be useful just sort of to give people some pictures of what what's occurred on the three miles of uh Columbia Pike in terms of making it a different feel than just being this trend roadway for motorbabies.

Sure.

And what I had been seeing uh particularly, but I think it would be useful to identify is that one of the problems with making sidewalks walkable is all of the utilities and polls, signs and everything else that are there.

So forget the width of it, you've got all that other stuff.

So I think that should be identified as part of this project is the and I know it's gonna cost money and being majorly disrupted, but I I really think that should be a vision for this project to get those utilities out of uh the sidewalks, like uh existing, so basically in future too.

Yeah, I mean because it's very developed.

Consistently have new projects that come along, then darned if a utility doesn't show up right there in the sidewalk because that was the best place to put it.

Yeah, and that's right.

I know sometimes yeah they'll and the utilities have the ability to do the things.

I mean, it it costs money, and unlike on Columbia Pike, they did.

And it's a world of difference when you uh walk bike or drive down Columbia Pike and see what they have done in terms of uh you know changing uh changing them.

I I don't know what the length of Duke Street was.

Long Pike was three miles, yeah.

Yeah, so it I would certainly uh suggest that be part of it, and later we're gonna talk if I I'm gonna raise a uh an issue, uh but it was part of our conversation back in January uh when we were identifying or talking about approving the um uh bicycle and pedestrian network gaps.

Okay.

And one of the conversations that uh Melissa had uh points that Melissa brought up was sheriffs.

Um those really are no longer considered a uh part of the bike facility.

Uh they're just it they discovered that they're not very safe.

So I I think it would help in terms of this going forward the kind of the future this is to not identify places we can put sharews, but identify what we have to do to make that a safe connection.

And in fact, that's I think hope for as part of this uh money that's getting given to the city here, the project that's coming to the um uh city here.

Um, and then the other thing is in terms of this uh connectivity and stuff and this is why I was intrigued when Cameron Station was left out of this was that there we need to be sure that things connect.

Uh and so when I look at the map, I don't necessarily see sort of how they're planning to connect to the planned parts of Cameron Station because they're supposedly uh in the uh small area plan for um the uh West End to include uh bridges across the uh Cameron Run uh Cameron Run, uh at least two of them in the Ben Brennan area, and so there should be some vision from you all.

And how is the Duke's uh street corridor going to connect to that stuff?

And I would also say when you go up um like um Fort Williams Parkway, uh for instance, that was supposed to be a connection to Seminary Road and to Duke Street, and there's nothing there, and and so you're not really seeing that uh in this map.

So what's that what's that connection look like?

Uh uh Christine coming back to the whole slides.

What are these are yeah, right there?

There you go.

Yeah, it's conversation there.

Yeah, I mean, uh I'll say for a conversation, you know, we we do show one proposed connection if there were to be uh redevelopment site along South Biggest Street.

Um connection uh you see that green square there.

Uh we do have the the amp that proposed some enhanced type facilities through camp station or link up to big street.

Uh but are you referring more so to bridge here uh south there and shire and uh no there's a trail that runs along here that is not being shown to show the street part or the backward run trail is here, and then it's kind of connecting over here.

Um but yeah, it's like we go into the ghost world.

Well I'll say and so for instance here on Wheeler Avenue, and I'm planning to provide this comment.

It would be great to have a connection right there because as I come down Wheeler and said, I haven't win my way this way into here, yeah, just go straight across.

Yeah.

Okay.

No, I mean that's a fair point.

I mean, yeah, encourage everyone to make comments.

So the my real point here is not dose this all out, but to sort of because people would say, well, why would you want a bridge there?

Yeah, well, because you don't know that that's the homes run trail.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, uh one point that I will make uh if you go back up maybe five slides or six slides.

Um the one that kind of shows the corridor uh one more 10 slides.

Uh there you go.

Um yeah, so I I think one of the difficulties too is that we do have to we have to define a boundary for this plan area so we can include everything.

Yeah, and if you look at this map, it kind of shows the different small area plans that this goes through.

So one of the things that we do have to do is yeah, we have to make sure obviously that we define a boundary and can't include everything, but also that we look at the um the plans, these sometimes it does go through, make sure that yeah, any connection.

Well, completely undersold and all of that, and that is kind of what I'd mentioned to Sarah on the the Boryguard project is it's not so much asking you to expand the project, but it's making particularly for people who don't understand why you've got this.

I mean, roadways make a little more sense to people because you actually show all the roads, but you don't necessarily show the pedestrian bicycle connections to the Duke Street uh plant.

Yeah, it connects outside of the plant.

Exactly.

Okay.

And and then that I think helps bring kind of the conversation as to why this is important.

Um if it just looks like it goes off the end of the earth, then we don't need it.

Right.

I would say another subject that I'm impressed by those banner signs you have on the it's gonna be awfully hard for people to say I had no idea that there was a lens process under uh that's uh an idea.

Um on that note, I also wanted to commend the staff for the quantity and variety of ways you've done public outreach on this project.

And it someone who has participated in many of these hearings, it feels like the staff is really cities really engaging with communities and trying your darnest to get the word out there.

And I forget exactly what you called it, but it was some small group working sessions, and those seem to be particularly the workshops.

Those were particularly as a participant, particularly um beneficial and informative, and I just really appreciated those.

So thank you for all the part.

Um I wanted to highlight a couple.

Well, so one I've noticed a little bit in what I've followed of the process, and you can see it a little bit in the comments that have the few comments that have been left online on the mobility network that um people may not people engaging in this land use plan process may not be really familiar with the um Duke Street in Motion effort because it happened then, and if they didn't participate then, they're participating now.

But they're saying like someone's talking about needing a dedicated bike facility along a section of Duke that we know that that plan is yeah, um, so they I would just encourage you to um have that sort of spidey sense about that missing link where there's information that needs to be brought to the same audiences so that um obviously so that we're not reinventing the wheel or having them engage on things that have been talked about, but also making sure that when you come forward with the a land use plan that has a mobility network, that it's actually already representative of what has been planned for the mobility network in the same land space.

So like I can't really see in the way we depict it on this map.

Um there's like Duke Street Transit way, but there isn't really like obviously someone will be like, well, there isn't a Duke Street Transit way yet.

So what does that mean?

Is it something that's being planned by this process?

Is it something that was already planned?

And then how that relates to those other facilities that go alongside it.

So I don't have an answer for you because I think it's just a challenge, but um, there's probably an audience of folks who would benefit from continuing to be peppered with, oh, go here for what it looks like, what's how we're building upon a foundation of planning for the transportation system, especially along the center of the core or the backbone.

These bike lanes are right with these translator and connects with yeah, and whereas the Duke Street and Motion didn't go into the rest of the network, expanding it out from that core spine, it was really just focused on the spine.

So sort of differentiating between how this land use plans mobility network is gonna build on it, um, grow from it, but and make it more useful because we're making better connections to it.

Yeah, um and so related to that, I think that an important piece of what's gonna come out of this is ideas for parallel routes and new blocks, the kind of cutting up of the big spaces here.

Yeah, um, and so I'm looking forward to seeing how much of that gets into the plan because once it's in the plan, it helps people visualize when projects come forward and they want to develop a piece and it's gonna create a new block and it's gonna cut here and create new new um connections, it it prepares people for that.

Um, but I think that that's really important, and there's still some pretty big spaces here.

Um that I know you can't you can't pre-plan like within somebody's property as well, um, unless they want to get more involved and come up with some ideas themselves at this point, but um, but to some extent to the extent that we can thinking about how those parallel routes for pedestrians, there's some good good places showing up in here now, pedestrians, bikes, cars, I mean, even cars, it helps to have parallel routes because then it's a it's a relief valve.

Yeah, it takes yeah.

Um as for a specific uh problem area, I just feel like I need to give a plug for this northeast corner of the west end parcel where Van Dorn is is we're we're indicating uh a bike facility, but I'll just call it a multi-use facility that needs to go along Van Dorn and connect with the trail system.

Okay.

Um so yeah, if you go forward a trillion slides to put the mobility network um on the West side.

Yeah, yeah.

So you kind of see that in the top corner there.

Yeah, as you go up, if you've walked that, it's there's a lot of grade change.

And there's nothing, there's just like a narrow sidewalk next to the road.

And yet we're we're about to build a whole neighborhood right there.

And that's gonna connect that neighborhood is going to be able to connect to the trail system right there and get all the way across town per Casey's point.

But um, but I think some special attention should be paid to how that transition happens because of the grade, because of the size of the road.

Um, I don't know how much uh right-of-way width we have to work with vis-a-vis where the road is today and the sidewalk is today.

Um, because even off the side of the road where the resident where the residential neighborhoods are there, it drops precipitously into where the apartment towers are.

Yeah.

So yeah, so it's it's um it's seductively close, though.

I mean, it's yeah, it's you know when we talk about gaps, that is one of those kinds of gaps in the um if we could just do an up by where they were doing the landmark, the sidewalk now is just wonderful.

And it's nice and wide.

Right.

Yeah.

On the other side of the side.

No, on the um uh west side of uh exactly the west side.

Yeah, but then you have to get to the east side to get to the trail.

Well, with some vision, you come down the west side, and right there is the homes run trail and put the bridge and you pick up the trail and off you go.

Down where?

Um, if you go all the way to there, you can get onto the trail on that side.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

So but it's seductively close.

It's just trying to figure out what is the solution, the design solution, because right now that doesn't really work.

So you have to get onto the street network, climb like climb up the hill.

And I mean like walking or biking, either way, get onto a narrow sidewalk, which I think there was a pedestrian pit there relatively recently.

It's a really dangerous T intersection.

It was up at the next, it was at uh Sanger and Breckenbachers, I think.

Um well, I think there was one right right at where those little bus signs are too.

Um, but then you have to come down on that side and you're on the wrong side of the road for all of the West Evelopment that's happening.

And so it's just it's just one of those tricky nuts, but it's in your plan area.

You drew it in.

So I feel like you you've gotta you gotta tackle it.

You own it, you gotta at least acknowledge it.

Um, and and that doesn't mean the plan solves for that level of detail, because I know this is a big plan, but it's just like saying like highlighting it, talking about what it needs to achieve, setting the the playing area for other teams to write grants and get get money for studies, get money for design, but you gotta put all the pieces in place so that it's really easy to do that.

It's like in the landmark site plan, there's uh a marker for a bridge across 395, but no one was prepared to commit to where it was gonna go, let alone fund it.

But at least it at least it's in the plan.

That kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And in fact, that then got picked up when they did the Alex West small area plan.

Yeah, right.

So it became pretty compelling to have that.

And back to what we were talking about earlier, you start having it all built in there, and sooner or later, someone's gonna say, well, let's get it done.

Policy says connect.

Any other uh comments questions online?

No.

Anybody online is a McManus or Commissioner Mislanka?

Anything you'd like to add or discuss any comments?

Any questions?

No questions from me.

Thanks.

No further comments.

That's that's just a discussion item.

Uh next item on our agenda is very much.

Thanks.

Is an action I am just on on the uh the city's smart scale application.

Um you want to look at this office.

Yes.

Uh so Sarah Brant Burrell is uh here to speak on that.

Yeah, uh good evening, commission members.

My name is Sarah Brant Perel.

Um, are you all able to hear me?

Yes, okay, great.

Um I'm here, I'm a capital manager project manager with Test, and I'm just here to give you a brief overview of the city's um upcoming smart scale application, and then um seek your support for a letter uh to city council.

Um so just as a brief um, there we go.

Before we get started, I just want to quickly provide a brief overview of what is smart scale in case folks are less familiar with it.

Um it's a federal grant that's funded um and administered by VDOT every two years through a competitive application.

Localities are invited to submit projects which meet needs that have been identified in the statewide Virginia transportation plan.

And then the projects are scored against six different categories, which you can see here on the screen, such as land use, safety, congestion mitigation, and then those projects that do receive the highest scores across the state and by regional subsets, then are awarded funding.

Next slide, please.

So we're proposing for the upcoming funding cycle where funds would be available to be spent in fiscal year 2033.

The city is planning on submitting two different applications.

So in total, we would be requesting permission to apply for up to 35 million dollars in grant funding.

Next slide.

So the request for the King Street Bradley Safety and Mobility Enhancements project for up to 27 million would go towards implementing that project.

Some of the key elements of the project include a new dedicated bus lane, improved and new sidewalks, protected two-way cycle track, stormwater treatment, and a number of bus facilities and pedestrian improvements.

Next slide.

We did submit this in the prior SMARTSCA funding round, but we were not awarded funding.

So we're training again.

So much of the project engagement and outreach did occur during that earlier SMARTSCA application period.

Some of that extensive community engagement included presentations, meetings, online feedback forms.

The project as designed and still consistent with what's being submitted now, was approved by the traffic and parking board in June of 2024 and then city council in October 2024.

And we are currently planning on going back to the community this fall to provide an update on some of the stormwater design, which has continued to advance along with the project design since the 2024.

Next slide.

So then the second project we're submitting as part of our application is the Mount Vernon Avenue North Intersection Improvements, and that is improvements to two intersections of Mount Vernon Avenue, Executive Avenue, and Russell Road.

Those were identified as critical places to implement safety improvements such as intersection realignments, curb extensions, and additional pedestrian improvements during the Arlandria Chilargua small area plan process.

Those ones identified in that small area plan process became a concept plan through TESS to come up with safety improvements.

Next slide.

Similarly, this project started and has done extensive public engagement.

As I mentioned, it started with the Arlander Chilargua plan in 2023 one.

And then Tess staff took over in 2023 to begin doing outreach and developing concepts to implement some of those suggestions.

Concept plans were then approved by the Traffic and Parking Board in early 2024.

And we have since then been, we have hired design consultants to help us develop full construction documents and applying for smart scale funding for the construction of this project.

So we are planning on additional community engagement in this winter with project updates to come.

Next slide.

So with that, we we are requesting that the Transportation Commission endorse a letter to City Council supporting our application to request up to 35 million dollars for smart scale applications.

So if you have any questions, I am more than happy to answer them.

Thanks, Sarah, for the presentation.

I feel like I'm seeing a lot of you this week.

So one of the questions that has come up or comments that has come up in the past is the fact that we didn't get approved for funding before we submit the SMARS.

Can you explain why we didn't get uh that funding approved?

Um that's a great question.

Uh I think there, you know, that's possible yeah.

I think Northern Virginia was poorly represented in the last funding uh cycle, and I don't believe a lot of projects were received funding.

Um we've also been working with VDOT since then on the King and Bradley project in particular as well to continue the design work um and ensure that we're meeting all federal and state requirements from a design perspective to helpfully strengthen our application.

Um, we also it kind of depends too on the projects that are submitted each year, it is competitive.

And so um sometimes it's just the luck of the draw, and who else is submitting projects?

Um so it could have just been a particularly competitive year.

So um you don't get feedback from VDOT as to why you didn't get selected, you just don't get selected.

Correct.

Okay.

Um so would it help if our letter was more robust rather than saying we just support it?

Should we be more detailed or something?

I mean, is there more that we could do to make uh both city council or maybe a city council needs to be more robust?

I I don't know to make sure that uh you know you showed those, I think it was five or six criteria for uh selection.

Uh is enthusiasm one of the breakthroughs.

Um I wish.

Um, you know, I think in terms of advocacy, um, I think that can be more helpful um during kind of the review and assessment process.

Um I know in January when there's the hearing of the uh commonwealth transportation board, um, that is possibly an opportunity for input.

Um my understanding at this point is um it is just a requirement that city council grant us permission uh to apply for the grants and then authorize the city manager um to use and enter into any agreements to spend those funds.

So um while we do appreciate any enthusiasm, um, you know, I don't know that it's um it it moves the dial.

And then my last question, I I think you said that since uh you submitted before you guys have been actually working on uh enhancing the uh the plans.

Um we've been trying, we've we've made them more, you know, we've continued to advance the design so that the intent is more clear.

Um we've had continued conversation with VDOT so that they are clear on what the objectives are, um, which can be hard when you're submitting a high-level concept and people from all over the state are looking at it.

So we've been you know trying to do as much as we can to strengthen the application and make it clear.

Um and our plans are are further advanced, so I think they're easier to understand.

Good.

That's that's good to know.

And perhaps that's the part of the lesson going forward is we'd have to spend a little more money to get more money.

You know, I know I'm done with federal transportation grant programs and lots of them have uh debrief process, you know, if we know it's at the discretion of the applicant if they want to do it, but uh if they do, then the staff USDOT sits down with them and points out where they could the application could be stronger.

So maybe that's uh something to speak up for in the future for some of this grants and others.

Yeah.

So yeah, because I mean a lot of efforts put into these things, and then when you just get rejected, then you go.

And it could be there's something we just didn't think of, or I mean that wasn't made clear, and you know, so we'll have somebody on uh on one.

Council member Chapman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Councilmember Chapman, your hand raised.

Yes, I do.

Uh good afternoon or good evening, everybody.

Um I apologize not being able to be with you.

I'm trying to balance uh this meeting and uh stormwater uh meeting as well.

Um Sarah, do you think or or even actually to the commissioners?

I think it might be helpful if um maybe there's something in the letter or maybe a separate letter about um what Sarah mentioned in terms of Northern Virginia not really having kind of any projects approved.

And I think I'm I'm following the conversation.

Maybe there could be something also about council maybe uh advocating for a feedback mechanism so um localities know uh why they didn't kind of score higher or what what could be missing.

Um if you want to add some more teeth to that letter, there could be some stuff that um could be maybe suggested for the city's legislative package.

But I I do believe there was dialogues between um more senior staff members and myself with VDOT and the transportation board.

Um when the decision did come out, I was not privy to those.

Uh so I I would ask, you know, perhaps check with Hillary um for feedback on that.

Um I think there was some if I do recall, I think there was a joint letter from Fairfax County, maybe Arlington County, um, from you know, uh concerned that Northern Virginia did not receive as much funding.

Um, but there are several conversations kind of at higher levels.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and I'll um just kind of chime in too.

Um the CTB has uh so yeah, to Sarah's point, actually, Northern Virginia wasn't awarded any project uh in from smart scale the last round.

And uh so the fact that this uh King Street project was not funded is not really a surprise, and it's not necessarily indicative that it's a bad project necessarily.

Um and additionally, the smart scale process is very, very quantitative and it's intended to be very quantitative, so that um you know with the intent of avoiding any potential politics going into uh the uh prioritization of projects and also um yeah, and and also you know, to to ensure that the the projects are meeting the criteria now.

Um how these projects are actually weighted and and the weight of each criteria it changes uh from round to round as well.

And you know, the land use was um uh greatly diminished in the last round as a um as a criteria as well.

So there's a lot uh yeah, there's a lot of discussions around smart scale, and there are every single session.

So yeah, it was my recollection that we discussed maybe the last time smart scale criteria were being worked on, that there were problems with the proposed set.

And um, I I appreciate you um giving the benefit of the doubt to the idea that quantifying having having a highly quantitative evaluation process depoliticizes it.

I think that is the intent, but the process of establishing the criteria and and their weights is highly political.

And that part, so I guess for for um Councilman Chapman's benefit, that probably isn't something we can put in our letter because we don't want to politicize our letter when we're asking for a specific project to be supported.

But that idea that if we don't set if we don't set the rules of the game so that they can actually benefit us, then the rules of the game won't benefit us.

And land use does make a difference in that in a big way for Northern Virginia.

Um and that isn't to say that like I think that we should be trying to spin it so no other part of the state gets money, but it really does come down to volumes of humanity that we are supporting here, and we have to design systems that can do that sustainably, because we're not asking the rest of the state to to manage this quantity of people, this quantity of jobs, and to do it with the least impact on people and to keep to keep Virginia attractive for business and generating all the tax revenue that we generate and all of that stuff connects back.

So um, yeah, so I don't know if like our our best influence is to think about the criteria next time that comes around, next time we as a jurisdiction have a have us um a place to give input on that.

But I would suggest uh what uh councilman Chapman that suggested is to add this again to kind of the legislative uh ask is to you know smart scale needs to be.

But I would suggest uh what uh councilman Chadman that suggested is to add this again to kind of the legislative uh ask is to smart scale needs to be and I wonder if some of the is it your staff communications with uh staff from other jurisdictions, but also with uh with Richmond folks about about things like debriefs and uh and reevaluating some criteria and whatever do we need a little stalking horse for some of us so that we can help to you know if we could do kind of a legislative proposal that define it more carefully, you know, what is the problem?

Yeah, you know, I had talked to someone the other day who uh works for VDO and he said things were gonna change in Northern Virginia that we're gonna get better uh people committed to Northern Virginia that may not have been necessarily there before that might also help this uh this process a little bit.

So it's great.

Yeah, okay.

Any other um comments?

I'll um make a motion to endorse the fiscal year 2033 to 2034 smart scale grant application, inclusive of both the King Street Bradley Safety Mobility Enhancements Project and the Mount Vernon Avenue North Intersection Improvements Projects.

Um to whatever extent you feel is necessary, Ward Smithing the letter to speak to council on the the broader concerns about ensuring we really understand um uh our competitiveness in this process and that we think that we have great projects, and these are some motion for second.

I'll second that all right.

Okay.

Um we have to vote on that.

So all those in favor say aye.

Aye, okay.

All right, we'll deal with uh missioner updates.

Um updates for me too.

Okay, see yes, I do if I can get my act organized here.

So this month, traffic and parking board got to meet before Transportation uh Commission uh got to meet.

Uh, but one update, I don't think I mentioned this last month is that uh we did select a new uh representative for the transportation commission that'll be uh Kristen Phelps, and she's busy submitting her uh application for city council to approve her selection, and she's fully ready to get on board on a in the September meeting.

Um she's already a representative on the dash uh transportation commission.

Advisory correct advisory board, right?

Yeah, so she'll bring some, I think some good experience to this uh commission also.

So I think she'll be a really good asset to that if we ought to uh have on uh board.

Um one of the conversations we had at our uh traffic parking board the other night was uh valet parking on the 100 block of North Lee Street, and you saw four or five uh emails this evening uh about sort of the same thing.

We did approve the uh valet uh parking uh the people who live in the uh townhouse community nearby were not uh supportive of that.

Uh but you know, the the tension, the challenge there is how do we um you know make the restaurants viable and provide parking, but not have them just swarming the streets with parking, so the ballet parking becomes a pretty uh useful tool for that.

Um is that I saw letters maybe uh conflated two things, letters about a corral.

Yeah, so the right next to the bike valet is the bike corral.

And um at times the uh bike, the car valley isn't necessarily in business.

And so it it appears as if somehow the the corral is is blocking the street, but in fact it's not what compounds all of it is that delivery trucks are now parking on Lee Street as well as Union Street to deliver to the um restaurants, and on top of that, you've got the illegal parking.

So one of the things city council approved in the budget uh for this coming year is to uh increase the number of contract uh parking enforcement and one of the areas that they'll be um more rigorously patrolling.

If I get wrong, Max, let me know, um, is that section of uh Lee Street to try to let people know that that's not the place uh depart.

But you know, the overarching problem is that uh there's a lot of demand uh for parking and there just isn't enough parking to supply everybody.

It would be perfect if we could say that truck deliveries could only occur at midnight, but then the residents say that's too noisy, and so restaurants don't want to stay open late and stuff.

Anyway, uh we did approve the the valet parking and then kind of with uh hope that the increased enforcement will solve some of the the problems that these residents uh uh were concerned about.

Um certainly the representative from the restaurants indicated that it was really uh a pretty popular uh with uh people uh patronizing the restaurants along uh Union Street.

So that's kind of one of the things.

Remarkably, that took a very long time to uh get through uh sometimes it's it's really quite intriguing the length of time we uh spend on some of these things, particularly parking.

Um the other one um and uh the traffic and parking now uh uh thanks to the city council now has the authority to approve food trucking truck food truck vending.

Um, and so we got to vote on removing food truck vending on Eisenhower and adding it on another street called Landover Park, Landover Park near the swimming pool in Warwood, uh which interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

So it it and parks and rec were pretty supportive.

On like the back side.

Uh it yeah, it's because the front like yeah, it's not on the front side, it's on the side street.

Okay, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's on the side street.

Um, and parks and rec was kind of supportive of this.

And so, you know, maybe there's an opportunity to kind of activate um the pool and uh with some activity along the food truck.

So it was kind of nice.

There's that uh right, Bradley Metro state's not two parking spots for food trucks.

Is anything being done about that to change that?

Well, there's actually been a truck there, really.

Yeah, recently.

I feel like there's been a decade in which it wasn't there, yeah, but there's one there now.

So I don't know what that's I think part of it is just staff time being able to go out and look at each of these and then do whatever they need to do to sort of quantify whether it's being used or not being used.

And and I think one of the interesting things with with now having this authority is the staff is actually engaging more with the fruit food truck companies, kind of understanding what their needs are, and it's not quite as restrictive as where uh trucks uh can park.

There's still restrictions, you know, you can't interfere with uh other retail and and that sort of thing, but um well, the construction getting underway there and they write some nine definitely demand, I would think.

Well, I know on um the block off of Patrick, there's a food truck almost always parked there to support the heritage uh project.

I don't know if they're actually uh authorized to be there.

I focus more when they block the crosswacks and not worry about uh the other parts of it.

Um so anyway, that was uh um and uh kind of a really interesting conversation was about residential parking permit changes.

So you all probably know that parking permits are generally uh restricted to residents, and then there was an exception made for child care and home health care, uh, so that they could also be able to park in there.

And now there's yet another proposal for what was initially called uh the house manager edition.

Uh and so this was presumably somebody who is employed by the homeowner and is working in in the in the person's home and they wanted to have the residents uh wow, first world problems.

Yeah, and so it became we spent 40 minutes, 45 minutes talking about this with basically we punted we planted it and said you know, bring it back to us another time, go back and do some more uh work on it.

But one of the uh interesting things was they proposed increasing the fee to get a permit and that the uh permit fee is going to be 500 a year up.

And on the surface, that seems like a lot.

Across the board for any for this house manager, oh the house manager person.

The home care one I think is 200 uh a year.

But when you divide that by 12, that comes out to 40 a month.

That's the price of one parking ticket.

What is a residential permit cost?

The first one I think is 90.

Uh first one is uh 55, 55 and it works up to um but what we were saying is that it this would be very convenient for people, but maybe we're underpricing the parking because we got feedback before we even made any decisions saying that there's already not enough parking.

So you're gonna add more people who could possibly park in our than the parking area.

Right.

So this might be that place where we start looking at you know what the appropriate price is for uh for parking.

And I think a good starting point is how much do you pay to park in a garage a month in old time?

Um and kind of work from uh from there.

So honestly, it should be more expensive on the street for certain types of users because the street is the most precious resource.

Yeah, and if you know we don't have control over all the off-street pricing necessarily, but if people are saying there isn't enough parking, then uh my economist friends would say, well, the problem the way to solve that is to start charting more than free for parking, and you might find that scarcity starts up.

Do we limit how many residential permits a household can get?

No, but once you get to the third vehicle in every subsequent vehicle, it's two fifteen per year.

So it does escalate and there's a price element there for people going away.

But if but if you're if you've got a house manager, you might well be able to afford five permits.

And you're just like and so the nuance here is these aren't necessarily people who are residents.

And and so this takes the uh the child care and the nursing care kind of the next step.

Um and you know, one of the questions, well, how do you prove that this person is an employee versus a contract or you know, something else?

So anyway, uh sta staff is gonna come back and I suggest waiting six months before they brought it back because I'll be long gone from the ward cycle.

Interesting.

Um if I may a couple more things on the kind of updates, which is um I I saw today that um the city's been awarded some funding uh for uh the bicycle bicycle network gap analysis that we talked about in uh January, as well as the Mount Burning added corridor study.

Yes.

And then also a new one, which was looking at hybrid beacon beacons.

Um Alexander's gonna participate with other jurisdictions on that to sort of understand the behavior of those and are they really uh effective for getting drivers to stop for people trying to uh across the streets.

And I thought those were all really cool, but I what I think is really even cooler and um would have brought this up earlier, but I wanted to have these also is is again the amount of effort that you guys have put in and TNES to get funding outside of uh getting it from city council and so really credit to you guys for all of these different uh funding uh that uh that is coming in to the city.

But that brings up my uh comment.

So uh a couple years ago we created the funding dashboard, and so you go go look at it.

And um I really struggled uh to really find some of these, and again, it's it's kind of an awkward uh dashboard because it's not a city dashboard and all.

So I would I would just say it's really great to have it, but it'd be nice to look at trying to make it a little more uh user-friendly.

Um and I'll I'll when we get to the capital projects update, um, I'll reference that again, but for now that's all I've got to do.

Can ask them if they can hear us.

Hi, everybody, can you hear us?

We are back.

Yes, good.

Yeah.

Sorry, it looks like um the internet went out.

It's it uh business in our drive, so it's back up now.

So let me share my screen again.

Um listen to everything.

Um, the only thing I wanted to mention from the last planning commission hearing.

Um, we also got a Duke Street update.

Um, so I don't need to cover that.

But um we had a discussion session on what is going to be an upcoming um text amendment item related to substandard lots.

And this doesn't sound transportation related, but um we also had a docket item which we we've deferred and will come back again.

Um that for which the concept of what constitutes an approval for a substandard lot um and coupled with that a special use permit um related to a lot without frontage, really is like circling around how the community defines what's an okay parcel to develop and how it relates to other parcels and how it handles its parking, how it handles its relationship to the street, how it handles um emergency access.

And there are all sorts of processes for staff to do these analyses and make a recommendation.

Um but there are clearly differences of opinion across the community on what um what is the right threshold.

Like is that really approvable?

And what I find interesting is um that there are lots of substandard lots in the city and lots of uh lots without frontage, so places that have homes on them that aren't fronting a street and people live in them every day, and they're part of the fabric that we live in, but when they're evaluated on a case-by-case basis as a new thing to bring in, we don't hold them to the same standard that we've held development in the past.

And and I say held, you know, some of the stuff is old, right?

So this has existed for a really long time, and we have different standards now.

Um, but from a transportation perspective, I think this concept of um frontage and access and the difference between what um what would optimally would like to see and what is tolerable.

Like I thought it was I think it's really interesting to think about what is the difference between access you get for a house on a lot on a piece of land in a block versus the apartment on the 22nd floor of an apartment tower on this end of the apartment tower when there's there's a elevator bay that the emergency people have to go up and they have to go up 20 floors and then they have to get into the hallway and run down the hallway.

And like we don't think if you laid that apartment tower down on the ground and you you did a comparison of how far emergency vehicles or personnel have to go to get to a place.

You you we wouldn't we don't hold the same standards for for different kinds of places.

Um, but we don't think about it that way a lot, vertical, the vertical city that we have, and then the horizontal city that we have, and what we're used to seeing.

Um yeah, so I just think it's interesting because the more of the vertical city we build, the more there is a transportation, I don't know, parallel universe we create and accessibility and um service parallel universe and um and it does it hits places like the traffic and parking board when you think about loading and the ways that we accommodate in designs, loading and deliveries for the vertical city versus the horizontal one.

Um yeah, so that that that discussion um piqued my interest in a bunch of different ways.

But we'll we will see that come back with um finalized proposals pretty soon, I think, um, for us to consider um updating how we think about substandard logs.

That's it.

All right, um Commissioner McManus.

Do you have any updates?

Oh, you're muted, Commissioner McMahon.

The Dash, thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chair, the uh Dash Advisory Committee is really uh uh doing a great job.

And I want to kudo the marketing and public engagement team at Dash.

There are a whole series of community events that are coming up over the spring and summer that I'll send to Chris uh and encourage uh other members of the commission if they'd like to attend.

Uh and I think it's a real great way to interface with uh riders of Dash, users of Dash, as well as the Dash Advisory Committee.

Thank you.

Okay.

And then Councilman Chapman had get off the phone, right?

I'm still here.

Okay.

Just uh just a quick update because I think everybody kind of knows what council's been up to uh in the last couple of uh days.

Um but I believe uh Sandy Marks, councilwoman Sandy Marks is going to be a new addition uh to our commission as well.

Um I believe she did get appointed to this commission.

I will check and make sure with the mayor that she has all the details uh to make the next few meetings.

Uh oh.

I think we got cut off.

Commissioner McMenus, I can see you.

Yes, I I heard you, I think I heard you, but I think right at the end it got cut off.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well done the other day.

Can you hear us?

Yeah, I can hear you.

I can hear you now.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, yeah.

The internet is not good here.

No worries.

I'll keep it quick.

I I think we're gonna have an additional council member, uh, councilwoman marks uh is going to be added to the roster for the transportation commission and most likely attending the future meetings.

Okay.

All right, good.

So I did testimony uh uh Tuesday night for the Commonwealth Transportation Board um about uh uh the has to deal with the smart scale application, but in this case, the uh the project that's uh ready right now for uh for funding and uh uh the uh phase two of uh of uh uh you know to uh safer schools basically kind of projects.

And um I'll also just in testimony um the dramatic improvements in uh city's response times on on um project delivery and the I don't ask me details about what the VDOT uh dashboard is all about, but we're all green, I know that now.

That's uh and uh and then yeah, I guess last year uh you know two people I expressed some dismay at uh uh at this, but now we're definitely uh took doing much better sell.

And it's it's it's interesting how um permit streamlining and uh process improvements uh been with us uh now and uh for decades, you know, and everybody's for it.

So it's uh it's always uh great when you see actual improvements in process like that.

So uh uh and it was only like seven or eight people testifying, but Alexandria had three of us, so because Hilary talked about the process uh uh improvements and Jim Durham uh talked about the uh uh access the safe was the school project um so uh uh uh well represented that one.

Can I interject?

Because this came up at the city council meeting the other day.

Uh somebody you know contended the city was you know failing in all of these grand things and everything.

And I think would be really useful to uh figure out a way to cheer on uh the successes and you know it if the if and this kind of comes back more on what we talked about in a minute ago, but you know, that funding page if we could really have a vision of exactly what you know has happened and how it'd be easy to go from there to see these projects and kind of understand uh you know what's happening uh with the projects because as I said earlier, you guys are doing really good job.

And so when we get a hiccup, and then then somehow that becomes you know, malfeasance on the part of you guys.

It just seems hopelessly wrong to hear that.

Um I think we need more cheerling.

Um unfortunately, I think you guys need to need that, but I I think it would really uh be useful whether it you know it it occurs at a city council meeting, uh, so it gets picked up that way, or it's you know, an e-news or something.

But I I can't even begin to quantify the number of dollars that the city has got, but it's a lot of money.

Yeah, it is.

When you think about it, um just look at the Duke Street Motion Project alone.

So anyway, I would highly encourage some effort uh uh better cheerleaders uh now we also have to look opportunities for like when we can speak up and about it and others as well.

So this is just uh leave it to the staff to pat their own back, right?

So all right.

Um to the written items.

Um I'll provide it to you um information about them.

Are there any that people would like to be have poll so we can look at in more detail for me it'd be A and E.

A and E.

Okay.

Anybody else?

All right, okay, right.

So on A, it's Holland Lane and Reineker's Lane.

I would I would just again sort of compliment staff.

The it's not finished, but it has really made a difference in terms of kind of how you're the road is being uh used now.

And I would argue that it's actually so slowed some of the drivers down.

There's a few places where it still needs to be uh fixed up, but it it's really it's a really nice ad to the uh the network.

And the other surprisingly is Reineker's lane.

Um you may or may not have ever used it, but parts of Reiniger's Lane is only one way as you get closer to King Street, but they added a bike lane, so it's now in both ways.

Yeah, I haven't I have used it a couple of times, and that's like this is so cool.

And when you get to Reineker's and Duke Street, the traffic light has been adjusted so you actually can get through and make the turn on to Duke and then on to the new bike lanes on Holland.

So it it's really kind of one of those gap things, but it it's just uh just a sweet uh ad uh to that thing.

So kudos again to all the staff who worked on that.

Yeah, it's it's nice to see.

And oh, I would also say that it's really nice to rate ride on Holland because it's so nicely paved, it's so smooth.

Even on a bike, it's like, oh, this is heaven.

Um and then on E.

Um, so one of the things that was intriguing to me was the uh landmark sidewalk project, and I thought, oh, this is pretty cool.

So I went to the page where it uh they have a project page for it, and they don't really have much detail on it now.

But funding was available in 2024, and it's just you know the process of getting that.

Well, I wonder when we got that approved.

And so this is what happened.

I go to the uh dashboard page and I finally figure out how to find this particular uh project.

You click on it, nothing happens, and you highlight on the green button in 2024, and that just tells you the amount.

So we applied for I think it was 10 million and got 6.7 million or 6.8 million or something like that.

Yeah, but when so then I started kind of digging back, and I think it was like 2019 was when we first applied for it.

And so you know, one of my comments has always been just this long tale for when we you know submit the request for uh a grant and then how long it takes to get it, and then how much longer.

Well, in this case, it's really cool because it's now starting to happen.

So I've forgotten about how long ago it took to apply it.

So it's it's really neat that that's uh coming forward.

And I think they're gonna have a public hearings um later this summer uh to kind of uh energize that, and that also might be that opportunity to kind of say, well, oh, what about going down the hill to towards the home drum uh parkway?

But I think part of it is also crossing uh Duke Street, which is for years had nothing.

Um so it this is gonna be a really great ad for the sidewalk uh network in particular, but also the people who are pumped for riding on sidewalks, yeah.

So that's that's really uh again kind of highlighting the success, but sort of arguing where the the dashboards still could have a little tweaking to make it more useful for the so that could people again could better understand the effort that has been taken to get to this spot.

Um you guys worked really hard.

I mean, some of the people probably did that are long gone, but nevertheless, some of you some of us were on the transportation, you and me actually, yeah.

Ramiro was applied first to talk about if you remember yes, yeah, yeah.

So anyway, that's my comment on that.

Okay, all right.

Oh, actually, there was a second piece of that, which is that when on the uh smart scale projects for this year, you had a really nice page.

Oh, cool.

And I went to look, and the sidewalk one isn't listed on here, and I thought, well, it's probably because it's not much money, but then I found some that aren't as high.

Um, so I don't know why it didn't get included.

Uh maybe it wasn't as cool as the others, but uh here would have been an opportunity though to capture that.

All right, any other comments on the written items?

Not um any other business people want to take up.

Thank you for your your many years of service.

Well, I get one more meeting.

I get to be here.

Oh, good, good.

All right, then I'm taking two months off because you guys are taking off the minute.

Okay.

And then the withdrawal symptoms will say what am I gonna do now?

I'm thinking of coming to testify to the project parking board.

There you go.

All right.

Well, there's no other business.

Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Anyone?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Let me send out the word.

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

We are adjourned.

Well, thank you, Chairman Levane.

You did a good job of running.

You learn from all that years of lobbying it.

Or out before the work and complaint.

You must have worked with Chris to have just a perfect agenda to make this nice and short.

Make it easy on me first the first time.

Despite the internet going out second, yeah.

Yeah.