Good evening, everyone.

Uh, before I officially call the meeting to order, I wanted to remind the public listening at home about how they can participate.

If you'd like to follow along from home, you can do so on the city's webpage at Bozeman.net and click the meetings link.

From that page, you can look under upcoming meetings to find our agenda.

So you'll find instructions to stream the meeting live, list on the phone or on cable TV channel 190.

There'll be several opportunities to provide public comment this evening during the comment periods.

We would first hear from persons in the room.

We'll then take comments online.

If you follow along online, please use the raise your hand feature.

Staff will call you by name at the appropriate time.

As a reminder, you can always provide public written comment in advance of the meeting by going to the commission's page on Bozeman.net or by emailing comments at Bozeman.net.

Excuse me.

Emails noted as being for the transportation board are forwarded to us.

Any comment received before noon today was distributed to and read by the board.

With that, I would like to formally call this April 22nd, 2026 meeting of the Transportation Board to order.

As my first official duty, I would like to welcome our new board members, Grace Gilbert and Simon Ruzinski.

Grace is an economic development specialist with the Northern Rocky Mountain Economic Development District and has lived in Bozeman her whole life.

Simon is a project, an architectural project manager at Intrinsic Architecture.

And I look forward to the perspectives, both your professional backgrounds and your lived experiences or bring as a support.

Welcome to both of you.

Yes.

Are there any disclosures that need to be made by the board tonight?

None.

Okay.

Changes to the agenda.

I'd first like to excuse Hagen Glinds from the meeting tonight.

Can I get a motion?

Move to XUSHADIM.

Second.

I'll second that motion.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

It's unanimous.

And also another change to the agenda.

We'd like to move up the ARB, which is the uh administrative review board.

Thank you very much.

Uh uh update.

Uh if there are any objections, please note them.

Otherwise, all those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

I just have it.

Okay.

And next we'd like to go with staff updates.

Commissioner Ross.

Thank you, Rio.

Uh so first of all, uh big thanks to Rio for recommending that we um do our staff updates in writing moving forward.

So uh we give you guys an opportunity to see everything that's going on, and then hopefully a little bit more time to process and ask questions if you have them.

So uh I we do have a uh a pretty hefty list for this month since we've missed a few.

Um I'm probably not gonna read them all if you don't mind, Rio.

Um, but I do have a few updates on a couple.

Um so our Oak and Ferguson Signal Improvement Project that will um uh be the project that will add the missing left turn lanes at all legs of that intersection and update the traffic signal to provide protected left turn phasing.

Uh that project has been bid and awarded.

And so that's another one that came in under engineers estimate this year, which again shows uh a really good bidding environment for us.

And uh Commission will have that on their consent agenda on May 5th for final approval.

So that'll give the contractor notice proceed.

We expect that project to be completed this year.

Um, another update.

Um sorry, let me get there.

Uh our safe streets are uh safe streets for all, uh, safety action plan and demonstration project.

Uh so that again, um we'll talk a little bit about that uh more with our uh scoping discussion for our transportation master plan.

But again, uh this is going to be the uh federal feder federally funded uh project to do the city's first comprehensive safety action plan.

Um we've awarded uh both the plan itself and the two demonstration projects.

So uh Kittle City Associates will be our lead consultant for the safety action plan.

And we will be uh uh partnering with uh a firm called City In who will provide their crash data platform that will give us uh a much more nuanced, detailed uh platform that we will be able to host internally with staff to aggregate all of the crash data uh that we get from our PD and our uh state sources in a manner that helps us better identify clusters and uh problem areas for future improvement.

And then the second demonstration portion of that project will be implementation of signal safety software at eight signalized intersections across town.

So this will be basically additional intersection detection software that will allow us to analyze things like red light running, speeding through intersections, and near miss conflicts.

And so that again, both of those demonstration activities, the platform and the signal safety uh equipment will be able to it better inform our safety action plan.

And then we'll be able to carry both of those products over into the future as well.

So we'll you do annual rotations of those eight signals to various other signals around town, keep compiling that data, help us both understand what potential signal improvements we might be able to bring for safety purposes, and also where maybe some additional targeted enforcement uh might be beneficial.

And so uh with that, I will open it up for anybody else that has questions.

Are there any questions from the board?

Simon, Grace, Shannon, Mike.

All right, if you're gonna give me more time.

Okay, one I think it's a question I already know the answer to, but when I was looking at the safety action plan and yeah, well, the the data collection sounds great, and the rotating intersection sounds great.

I was wondering if you could just refresh my memory and also for anyone listening slash the rest of us on the board, as to like the current Montana position on why there isn't as much collection at our intersections, like why we don't have cameras.

It's just where my brain goes to.

And I'm imagining a lot of other people in Bozeman also have that question.

So right on.

Very good question.

Yeah.

So uh to be clear, so we don't get in trouble.

Uh the this is not this won't be targeted at any individual driver.

It won't be used for warnings and certainly not citations because our Montana State Legislature passed a law uh outlawing the use of red light or speed cameras across the state.

Um, arguably as a result of our city commission entering into a contract uh to install red light cameras.

And so we had that uh I would arguably say right taken away from us by our legislature, and so that's why uh not not neither Bozeman nor any city in Montana is able to implement um highly effective uh red light or speeding cameras.

Mm-hmm.

What is the timeline for the data collection relative to the rest of the planning activities?

So we will get started next uh for I guess technically, yeah, well, technically next month, um, after the contracts are approved to begin the implementation of the crash platform, the safety data platform.

So we'll basically take all of the data that we have, feed it into their AI system or whatever, and then they'll set up the platform that we'll begin to use as the sort of the existing condition portion of the safety plan itself.

Um, and then over the next couple months, we'll also then get the signal equipment in our uh science signal staff will implement those at all eight intersections that we have initially targeted.

So that'll begin very quickly.

The safety plan itself will uh take place over about the next year, again, with the intent of it aligning in parallel with the transportation master plan update.

So typically in a TMP update, we do some amount of safety study, safety evaluation.

This whole plan will effectively serve as that part of the transportation master plan and feed into the project portion uh that we ultimately end up with out of the TMP.

So there will be time for this data to sort of uh help uh indicate or uh inform the plan.

That's exactly what the purpose is for.

Yep.

Cool.

All right, and what one last update since I got a little bit of time.

Um I am showing on this is not our uh city seal that we usually have on the screen, um, but this is one of the lookbook uh sketches that uh Dene Ginetti, our city uh one of our city traffic engineers developed for our um neighbor traffic calming program.

So uh we have um uh we narrowed down to 16 eligible projects.

Uh eight of those um met all the criteria for implementation.

All eight other projects or all eight other applications though that we received will be addressed either through our uncontrolled intersection project or with our safe routes to school program.

So all 16 applications that met all the criteria will have some amount um some amount of action taken uh for those people that went through the process uh to make the application.

Um so that adds eight new projects to 10 legacy projects that we'll carry forward from past years.

Um so all 18 will be installed uh by the end of May this year.

Um we're gonna have about 13 um asphalt art installations as part of our neighborhood traffic calling program this year.

Uh 19 planners, planters, as well as those neighborhood roundabouts or neighborhood traffic circles will be installed.

Um and then after everything's installed in May, uh we'll begin post-implementation data collection in June.

Online surveys will be created to gather feedback from the applicants and the general public about the efficacy of our installations.

Uh, and then we'll write a report summarizing all of our findings at the end of the year uh for uh both the potential for future permanent installations and also as um a feedback to those applicants in the rest of our city who might be interested in joining the program in the future.

Um Director Ross uh comment on a question.

Uh first being I have deep concerns that there's a grizzly on this, but there's no popcats.

Give it the name.

Think about and you know, ponder.

Um the the other question I had is um you said the uncontrolled intersections program, and I think I saw something in the news recently about putting stop signs at all intersections, but it just you know if you could update us on what that is and what that initiative is.

Shame on me for not including that in this uh month's update.

Um so over the last, well, I've been here four years now.

Um I usually joke that the two biggest things I get complaints about are the flashing yellow arrows at Signalize Intersections and why we have all these neighborhood intersections across town that have no stop signs.

Uh so uh in the past we have um well we city has been hesitant uh to really act on that.

Um it's not ever been my interest in changing things in Bozeman just to change them.

Uh so with the increase uh in interest from our public and doing something about that kind of at this point fairly uniquely Bozeman thing.

Um we went through an exercise of identifying all um I forget the exact date of 300 some intersections cross-town that have no traffic control at all at them.

Um we broke those down into zones.

We then went through a um sort of a programmatic uh uh process of identifying certain criteria for where to place the stop control.

And so generally speaking, all three-way intersections will have stop control on the minor leg coming into them.

Uh all four leg intersections um will grid out each neighborhood so that no uh no street has more than two blocks without stop control on a leg of the intersection.

And so we'll sort of systematically plan out that stop control.

The vast majority will be what's called two-way stop control, so it won't be always stop at all directions, uh, but it will be uh strategically done so that we don't sort of create through streets, if you will, uh out of the placement of the stop sign.

So we're looking at somewhere a little over 400, uh 450 or so stop signs citywide that will have to be installed.

So that means we've got to call in utility locates for them, drill the posts, place the signs, and then paid stop bars.

Uh that's a fairly heavy workload for our sign and signal division.

And so uh my goal is to plan out a minimum of 50 per year with the hope if we get another uh summer and fall like last year, where we get a good bit of extra time in our schedule to increase that as staff capacity is available in our sign and signal division and get done as quickly as possible.

And I I guess I thought that one of the reasons why there were so many uncontrolled was because they required traffic studies to put in the stop signs.

Is that changed or so why there are so many uncontrolled is really just kind of a vestige of old Bozeman, I'll be honest.

So the why they were never installed in the first place.

Technically speaking, you don't necessarily have to have stop signs at intersection unless volumes escalate to a certain amount.

Traffic stop signs in particular, yes, do generally have to have some engineering evaluation.

For four-way or always stop control, that requires a much more rigorous study with uh criteria in our uh MUTCD manual of uniform traffic control that requires volume studies and thresholds to be met.

Um but otherwise you really just need an engineering evaluation or engineering study.

And so again, we took a programmatic approach instead of kind of having to go out and do data collection at every intersection, look at the volumes and decide where to place them.

Um I will put my uh engineering seal on us taking a programmatic or a systemic approach so that we can justify where two-way stop control is valid and how to implement that without dragging this thing on for years.

I mean, look, I like that strategy.

I like it saves people money, it saves the taxpayers' money, and it allows us to do it faster.

And um kudos to you and the staff on coming up with a creative solution there.

Thank you, Mike.

There are any other questions for Director Oss.

Um, can I ask a couple of questions on some items that were on the agenda that you didn't talk about in the staff update?

Please.

Um I was just wondering.

Let's see if I can find it here.

Um of the items talked about some curb extensions on uh Babcock at Black and Babcock at Bozeman.

I'm curious if the design for those curve extensions, and maybe I wasn't digging deep enough because I couldn't find any documentation on it, but I'm curious if the design takes into account the consideration of a potential future two-way protected cycling path, as is outlined in the downtown master plan.

Um it has not.

Um speaking to the need for pedestrian uh safety improvements at those intersections uh and the likely difficult challenge of parking removal in our downtown core.

Uh we did make the decision to move ahead with curve extensions there.

Um if the time ever came where we were so eager, uh, we wouldn't figure out a way to make them work.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Um and then the second question I had was regarding the Micklehattan, um, excuse me, the Micklehattan Road improvements.

Um I was wondering if at some point in time the road improvements would take into account of just a better way to get your bike out to bike fill.

Absolutely.

So uh as part of the bike fill project itself, um, we are going to build a gravel shared use path along MacInton Road, not right adjacent to Backle Hatten, if you've ever been out that way.

Um it's pretty much uh about 20 to 40 foot hill on the uphill side of the road and a 20 to 40 foot slope to the downhill side as well.

Um we did study putting the shared use path right along the road.

It would have required about 20,000 additional cubic yards of excavation.

Um so not terribly um uh cost-friendly, and also we we do generally have um a requirement in our development code now to um uh implement projects to the great ext- is extent possible that sort of conform to topography, uh, avoid uh damaging the resources.

And so we made the decision to uh build the path um separate from the road, and so it'll sort of climb up to the top of that hill, um, traverse sort of along our Bozeman solid waste property and then dip down into the park.

Um so there will be a path along this section of MacAlhatton.

It just won't be built with the road project that will still leave a chunk that is that where there is no uh separated path, um more or less along the golf course property.

Um our partners of GVLT uh have been and continue to uh to to work with the golf course um to hopefully seek uh uh agreement from them to provide the right of way to do that in the future.

And then we also very much understand that ultimately the pinch point is gonna come down on story mill, where the bridge crosses uh Bridger Creek there, and that's gonna probably be an even tougher challenge.

But uh we're setting the pieces in place for a future connection that will be separated from the road all the way up to the bike field park.

Um unfortunately we don't have uh the right-of-way or funding for the bridge to actually make that all work right now.

Gotcha.

Cool.

Oh glad we're thinking about it.

Thanks.

Okay.

All right.

Anyone else questions for Director Ross.

Sorry, Director Ross, I think I introduced you as Commissioner Ross.

I didn't mean to drag you down into the dragon so far.

Nick, please, Nick.

Nick works.

Director Nick.

Fair.

All right.

If there are no more questions, uh let's move on to the next agenda item, which is um approving the minutes, which we have a voluminous amount of minutes to approve.

Can we do this all in one foul swoop?

All right.

I would like a motion to approve the uh transportation advisory board meetings for January, February, and March of 2026.

I will make the motion since I have been here for all of them.

Can I get a second?

I'll second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed great and that has a uh approved um now it's time for um public comment on any item within the scope of the transportation board there will be a time in conjunction with each agenda item for public comment relating to that item but you may only speak once per topic please note the board cannot take an action on any item which does not appear on the agenda.

Every person wishing to comment will have three minutes if you're here to speak tonight you can form a line next to the window for those commenting in this room you'll see a line on the podium turn green when you begin yellow when you have a minute remaining and red when your time is expired.

We respectfully ask that all people who are um addressing the board speak in a civil and courteous manner and we'll do the same we also um ask that all members of the audience be respectful to one another so seeing as there is no one in the room Leah is there anyone online wishing to make general public comment I'm showing no request online.

Okay.

With that we will um move on to the changed agenda item which is about the administrative review board ARB.

Nick if you would like to come up everyone my name is Nick Fokan I'm the parking manager here for the city of Bozeman.

Today we are going to be talking about the administrative review board and how it plays into the parking department all right so there are three levels to an appeal process here within the city of Bozeman the first one being the administrative appeal second being the administrative review board and third being the judicial review.

I'm gonna jump into each of these a little bit further.

Now the first level is the administrative review uh that is myself.

So when an individual receives a citation they have 10 business days to go online or write me an email requesting that the citation be dismissed.

They can provide evidence photos and a statement of why they believe the citation should be dismissed.

After I've uh reviewed that information uh I guess I have 21 days to review that information and I can either dismiss the citation uh affirm the citation or modify the amount of that citation now if they are unhappy with the results of that first level of appeal we have the administrative review board also known as the ARB how this fits in is uh three members of this transportation advisory board uh become members of the ARB and then we have just introduced two alternates so we can have a little bit of variety just in case somebody needs to miss one of those meetings.

So the individual has 15 business days from when my decision uh is made to request to be uh seen in front of this board during this uh meeting it's kind of like a mock uh court hearing so I come up here uh introduce the individual introduce the citation um and that person comes up gives their statement of why they believe the citation should be dismissed um providing every any evidence photos um witness statements anything like that they'd like to bring uh and then I will come back up give kind of the details of that citation one more time evidence photos potentially even the officer uh statement if need be um and then the authority through the Bozeman municipal code that gives us uh the possibility to issue those citations um after that you guys or the three members will talk amongst themselves and either modify that citation amount um

Um and then the authority through the Bolsman Municipal Code that gives us uh the possibility to issue those citations.

Um after that, you guys or the three members will talk amongst themselves and either modify that citation amount, um affirm my decision, or dismiss the citation altogether.

And once again, if that person is unhappy with how their review went of their citation, they can go to this third level, which is judicial review.

So they have 30 calendar days from when the decision is made uh by that review board to petition for a judge to review the citation.

Now this is not like a normal like court hearing.

You don't go in, you don't get sworn in, you don't talk about the citation.

The judge just reviews the citation and uh make sure that the Bullsman municipal code was followed the entire time from when the citation was issued to the decision date um of the review board.

And then again, the same three options uh affirming, dismissing or modifying that citation amount.

So that was a very quick introduction of the review board.

Um do we have any questions?

When and how often.

Sure, yeah.

Um so it's really based around how many people want to uh have their citations seen by the review board.

Currently I was looking at it this morning.

We have six citations in the queue ready for uh I guess ready to be seen by the review board.

Uh so what we've done in the past is just once a month, and I'll reach out to the review board uh prior and just make sure that we still have um individuals ready for that review board.

So it's it's tentatively once a month right now with options to uh skip or postpone.

So a manager for just to help us understand the like scale here of roughly how many citations are issued in the city every year.

So uh last year we made a little over 38,000 uh contacts with how many are appealed?

That number I don't know off the top of my head.

10%, 20%, 30%.

I would say roughly 30% of those citations get.

And then how many of those after your decision?

I mean, you said six, how like how how far back is that backlog?

Uh gotta be like what, a year?

It's not quite a year, so our statue of limitations is a year.

So uh since we actually had to postpone a couple of these meetings, uh I had to void a couple of citations because they went past that statute of limitations.

Um right now the furthest one back, I believe is August of 25.

I mean, but right, so that's that's six and nine months, 38.

Yeah, it's like a fraction of a percentage point.

Correct, right.

We from the officers to myself, we really try to uh educate first, uh trying to make sure that everybody in the public uh receiving a citation uh really knows why.

And and from the first level of appeal with myself, trying to work with each and every individual to make sure that uh they're being treated fairly and they understand why their citation was issued in the first place.

Okay.

Do we want to query the uh advisory board to see what interests exist?

So uh Bryce, you are currently sitting on the board.

Uh do you want to care to give us a brief uh how fun it is and interesting?

Um I'm happy to answer any questions.

I think like manager Falcon just said that parking department does a really good job of educating everybody, so it is a fraction of a percentage that actually ends up at the review board.

And yeah, I think it's you know it's paramount that we give them their their ability to go through this process and their due process, but um it's not usually like it's not usually a tough time for us.

It's usually like manager code can make it very easy for us.

Um it's I don't know.

It's a good practice in letting everybody get their space.

Right.

And sometimes it's very obvious and sometimes not, but um it's a smooth process.

Okay, thank you.

Um I know that you had indicated at one point perhaps interest.

Is that still valid?

Yeah, I mean that'd be happy to.

Great.

Thank you.

I obviously have some experience.

And Shannon, I know it's a difficult time for you.

Is that because it's on Wednesdays, right?

Yes.

Yeah, so I am every other Wednesday.

I've got a meeting right before this.

So I could be an alternate for on those occasions.

Sure.

When it lines up, but it's rare that it would line up.

Sure, thank you.

Any interest from the new members uh potentially, Grace?

I think potentially in a few months.

And I'm real quick, how many spots are we looking to fill on the ARP?

One more.

Uh yeah, potentially as an alternate right off the bat.

That's fine if we don't have two alternates.

Um, be kind of curious.

Like it sounds like Hayden is gonna be our third member.

Yeah, it does sound like Hayden.

I will say the alternates are gonna be helpful because there have been times where we just have been able to get all three uh correct.

And I also know that like sometimes the the people bringing the citations have changes in their schedule, so flexibility will help us get through them for sure.

Right.

And I think if we need to have a third person for official reasons, I would I would love to do the third.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

We've got the three of us and two alternates.

Three alternates.

Yeah.

And maybe maybe Aiden.

Perfect.

So what I'm looking for is a chair of that board as well.

So somebody Mike, you have so much experience, I think.

I can do it.

All right, perfect.

Looks like uh Mr.

Vesler being the chair, and then uh Bryce and Rio as the other members, and then Grace and Simon as our alternates.

Great, perfect.

I exactly alternate.

I do have some language here.

I I think we do need to have a motion.

Okay, would anyone like to make this motion?

Sure, I'll move to a point.

Uh board member Vassilik as chair of the administrative review board for a term to expire at the end of their term on transportation advisory board.

No, I'll second it.

I don't know if I can't second it, but I will.

All those in favor of Vice Chair Veslitz becoming the chair of the administrative review board.

I mean posed.

Motion passes.

Um I would like to move to appoint myself, Rio Rowland, and um well, that's it.

As members of the administrative review board for a term to expire at the end of my term on the transportation advisory board.

All those in favor?

Thank you.

And as I would also like to move to appoint uh Grace Gilbreth.

Is that uh we agreed that you were going to be the alternate?

Is that right?

And Simon?

Okay.

Yeah, so let's move to appoint Grace and Simon uh as uh the alternates to the administrative review board uh for a term to expire at the end of the term at the transportation advisory board.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries.

One just one scheduling thing, May is not going to be a good month for me to do the ARP.

So we'll have to wait until the job.

Already calling in those alternates.

Yeah.

Or we could do it in June.

But I'll be like 11 days.

No.

Well, we'll just do all six.

All right.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks, Nick.

All right, and with that, we will move on to the next agenda item, which I don't have in front of me, so I believe we're gonna move on to the uh work plan.

Is that right?

Correct.

Okay, good evening.

For the record, I'm Nick Ross, Director of Transportation and Engineering.

And the next item on our agenda tonight will be the adoption of our 2026 and 2027 Transportation Advisory Board work plan.

So comes with great timing.

We typically would have our work plan adopted already in the calendar year, but with having two new members coming on board, this will be a great opportunity for us to kind of go over the items, make sure everybody's on the same page before we move forward.

So a little bit of uh background on this.

Um each advisory board within the city is required to adopt a two-year work plan.

Um the role of the advisory board generally serves to advise our city commission on policy matters related to the board that they uh oversee.

And so you guys oversee uh as the transportation board, both our uh transportation engineering department as well as uh uh our parking division as your second duties as our parking commission.

So you'll see here that we've got both transportation and parking items.

Um last year or last term 2024-2025, we got through just about all of our uh uh uh work plan items.

We did carry forward a couple of the uh I'll say more longer term parking items into this work plan.

And so um, yeah, since we have a couple new folks on the board, let's uh if you don't mind, Rio, we can kind of do a quick overview of each item.

Please go ahead.

All right, so we break down generally our work plan into I believe what is it, four different topics.

So board governance, planning, capital projects, and policy efforts.

Uh board governance, this is where we try to both do the duties uh that we are required to do every year with which will uh entail an ethics training, uh, and then also have some interaction between our transportation advisory board and other partner boards or partner agencies in the valley here.

So um we'll have uh at least one meeting each year with our MPO staff and at least one meeting each year with our urban transportation board, uh excuse me, urban transportation district staff.

So the UTD uh generally runs our transit service streamline.

Uh the MPO is that regional plant transportation planning entity uh for which Bozeman is a member.

Um into our uh primary planning efforts.

This is going to be an awesome two-year period to be on the transportation board uh because we get our one in 10 year transportation master plan update as part of that TMP update.

Uh, we'll also be completing the city's first comprehensive safety action plan.

Then uh each year the board gets to weigh in on our five-year capital improvement plan update.

So the city is required to maintain a rolling five-year capital improvement plan that gets updated every year.

That usually aligns then with two um really four meetings a year.

One as sort of a work session to uh pull together ideas for projects, and then a second to review uh staff's draft of the trade of the uh transportation related capital improvement plan and make a recommendation to our commission.

Uh we do have one more really juicy uh more general planning uh effort here related to parking, and that is uh loosely based around our downtown parking program.

And so that those items will be generally run by uh Nick Falcon, and that will have the goal of uh helping the city and our uh downtown partners with uh consolidating around some uh policies, procedures, and potentially even action on uh both the management of parking downtown and potentially even the creation of additional parking capacity in our downtown area.

Over into projects, we have a relatively light two-year period of new capital projects.

We will be entering a period uh where we will be uh constructing a lot of major capital transportation projects that we've spent the last um anywhere from two to twelve years uh planning and designing.

And so with this next year next period, we will have one uh major uh corridor projects.

That's the project that's gonna be um Stucky Road from South Fowler all the way over to South 19th.

Um that project will have uh if approved in the FY27 budget that will have uh planning design budget coming on this summer.

I expect this one to likely end up being a multi-phase project.

There's a lot of changing of land use along that corridor, a lot of sticky uh sort of uh constraints with environmental resources and right-away.

And so the likelihood there, I'm anticipating this has sort of a um uh a foul or light uh agenda where we spend a lot of time up front in the pre-design phase doing a lot of community outreach before finalizing on a shared vision for that corridor and then bringing multiple sections into construction in the upcoming years.

Um we also have a really cool uh active transportation project that we'll finally get into design on.

That is our frontage path.

And so that project has been um uh planned and kicked around for a number of years now.

Uh it is uh going to be designed in coordination with a major sewer capacity upgrade that will happen generally speaking along the very same alignment as the frontage path.

And so that will also have planning and design money uh coming in uh and appropriated this summer.

And so we'll begin to kind of put that thing, uh the concept plan that we have in place for the for the uh frontish path into design and hopefully with the goal of moving up construction from FY29 where it's currently planned into uh sooner years than that.

Uh then finally, our College Street from 11th to 19th project.

Um this year we will be getting we will construct the uh streetscape improvements from 11th to 8th to 11th.

That leaves one section of college that has yet to be reconstructed.

Um, with our Kegy Boulevard project recently uh being awarded to a design bill team, that project that will now uh uh release funding to begin our next urban route project, which we anticipate to be College Street.

Our commission uh will have to act on identifying that as our next urban route project of priority.

You guys will have a role in making that recommendation to them, but we have that planned uh in the next two years as right now what we intend to be our next urban route project.

Uh and then finally, um policy efforts.

So uh you'll see here this is where we get to do a whole lot of parking uh discussion.

Um we do have one uh transportation-related item here.

Uh we have begun working on a shared use path and e-bike policy or e-transportation policy.

Uh so that's one that our code, uh Bozeman municipal code back when it was created and updated up until now has not necessarily had uh the need to um compel us to think about what sort of relate regulations we need to uh put in place for management of e-bikes.

And along with that, because our preferred uh bicycle uh facility is now a shared use path, those two items on a policy level align very closely with one another.

And so we'll have uh the opportunity over the next year, um likely going to be focused this next winter on uh developing an ordinance that updates our uh e-bike policy within our Bozeman municipal code.

Uh and then from there, the rest of our plan our uh transportation planning and policy work will likely come as part of our safety plan and our uh transportation master plan.

So otherwise, we have a long list of parking policy items that uh we would like to uh begin advancing for the city.

One is um a discussion, a review of our residential parking permit districts, um a general conversation about improved curb management in Bozeman, curb management is more of a general thing.

The most proximate thing that you got policy that you got to figure out with improved curb management is though, though, is how we want to manage parking along our curbs.

Um we will be revisiting the potential for implementing metered parking, so paid parking within Bozeman.

Uh, we want this board to take a heavy role in advising our commission on next steps we might want to take in resuscitating that idea.

Um couple more uh maybe smaller scale but nuanced items, looking at improving and updating our uh parking kiosks in our uh parking garage, and then looking at uh improvements in how we collect parking fines.

So, again, this being really the only board that has the opportunity, uh, especially as the parking commission as your duty uh to advise commission on items like that.

We think this would be a good place to have those discussions.

Uh and then finally, uh you'll see as the year goes along, there are uh a couple sort of routine maintenance type things with parking in terms of rate setting and review uh of those policies.

So that was a lot.

Um we did have a work session, I believe Rio, it was in January where we kind of went over 2024, 2020, some ideas that generated this final list.

Um I'm more than happy to entertain discussion before uh I do ask the board uh for a vote to recommend this as our 2026-2027 work plan.

Is there any questions from board?

We'll start over Simon on your end.

Uh no questions over here.

Yeah, no questions from me.

That was that was sufficient.

Shannon, Mike.

No.

Okay, I do have a question.

Um last month we had a um uh we did not have a form, I believe we had uh Jeff from the NPO is that the same who is scheduled to be here.

Is that will that be uh made up at some point or yeah?

Yeah, Jeff could make it tonight, but uh we hope to have him back next month.

Okay.

Great.

I actually I do I one of the questions that came up for me is um looking at these capital projects and thinking about you know how these investments are gonna work.

Um what has the city thought or done about asking for congressionally directed spending requests?

Um you know, Center G put out a press release that he got 20 million dollars in the transportation bill, the SLASCO around, um, and you know that's that's money that's sitting there on the table.

That's something that we can do, and with the shifting congressional delegation, um something definitely to think about to fund some of these projects going forward.

I don't know if that's as much a question as a comment, but no, it's a great point, Mike.

Um so uh by way of history, Montana has generally not had a congressional delegation that um cared to partake in the uh uh direct allocation of federal funding uh for projects.

We won't call me remarks, but uh that's essentially what the uh system acts as now.

Uh we do have uh a couple members in our delegation that are um uh uh more willing to entertain those requests moving forward.

That period of request uh this year ended in March and would likely come back next year as well.

And so as we get into our capital planning this fall, identifying what projects we may want to advance forward but don't yet have funding for them.

I think this board would be uh a great opportunity to discuss that and what our targets might be for next year.

And then um a follow up question unrelated, but um the RPBD boundary discussion, is there thinking about expanding current RBBDs?

Or I know that there was a conversation about the high school RPBD might be going away because the high schools added a lot of parking capacity and have their student well, not have their student population, but it's no longer the only high school.

Um so is there any is that part of the conversation as well?

Absolutely.

So um I I I won't speak for Nick, but as we've discussed this item, the um uh a discussion over whether or not the uh Bozeman High residential parking district still serves its purpose and is um effectively worth the cost to our residents and the cost to us as staff to implement it, would be uh a major item here.

Um we do have other interests though from around the city in establishing new or expanded zones as well.

And so we wanted this to be a bit of a catch-all for residential parking permit districts in general.

Um and then I'm sorry, more questions keep coming up as we're talking.

Um the downtown parking program, and know the last occupancy study was done 21, I think, would there be a desire to kind of redo that to level set again?

Sure.

Um so the city has been working with our downtown partnership on uh sort of a loosely formed parking working group where uh we sort of engage with uh um business owners and uh the general public through surveys on what sort of improvements and what sort of needs we might have moving forward.

Um I do believe uh as part of this overall uh picture, there will be some additional data collection uh done.

Um there's been um certain perspectives that you know 2021 was like a particularly intense year in Bozeman.

And so I wouldn't imagine we do any major type of policy or parking improvement without some form of data collection.

Um but we don't necessarily, at least to my knowledge, have uh like an explicit study planned out for a time and date yet.

Okay.

Okay, I guess we should uh do we need to take public comment on this item?

Okay, I guess we should uh do we need to take public comment on this item if there are any uh anyone online requesting public comment?

I'm showing no request online.

Okay.

Then uh would someone like to make a motion to uh go forward with our plan.

May I may I ask before we go there?

Um Commissioner Magic.

So Commissioner Gen Magic is our Commission liaison.

Um do you by chance have any uh questions, comments, uh discussion with the board.

Thanks.

I have a lot of comments.

Um, but I think I'll reserve them.

Um there are a couple of things that I'd like to like um accelerate.

I'm I think I'm really eager to uh address a number of things here.

Um so I'll talk to you.

Okay, time meet.

Excellent.

Thank you, Commissioner Magic.

With that, um can I hear a motion, please to approve.

Um I move to approve the 2026-2027 transportation board work plan as presented by staff.

I'll second that motion.

Thank you.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Great.

Motion passes and the transportation board plan passes and on to the next agenda item, which is truly exciting.

Let's talk about uh the transportation master plan process.

I couldn't agree more, Rio.

So um I feel uh very um uh it's it's an awesome privilege and opportunity uh to be the director for a 10-year master plan update for the city of Bozeman.

And uh I think you guys are extremely eager to be in your roles right now as the transportation advisory board to do this update as well.

So um by way of uh framing here, um I I really want to make sure we are being as staff, being as transparent as possible and engaging our advisory board as much as possible in the development of this tenure plan.

Uh so speaking to that interest, I wanted to have sort of an introductory conversation with you, and then also make sure to get your input on the actual scoping of the master plan itself.

So uh with any project or study, what you get in the end oftentimes is dictated by how well you scope out the project at the beginning.

So the last thing I wanted to do is bring you guys uh some initial items or initial topics with the transportation master plan without having you weigh in on what we're actually going to do and accomplish with that plan.

Uh so I have asked in our meeting packet uh for you guys to familiarize yourself a little bit with our existing master plan.

We'll use this session then to do a little bit of an introduction and then talk about a few specific topic items that I'd like some input on before we release uh the RFQ soon.

So first by way of um uh how do I want to say it?

There is a little bit of um concern in the community right now that I have heard about now that we have a metropolitan planning organization, an MPO uh that is currently completing their first long-range transportation plan.

Like what's the difference now uh between the LRTP and the TMP and what Bozeman does versus what the MPO does.

So I wanted to start by framing out what those differences are and what our TMP is going to ultimately accomplish.

So as a reminder, our MPO has a regional scope, regional scope across the whole metropolitan planning area.

So we have five main partners in the MPO, City of Bozeman is the host agency, uh City of Belgrade, Galton County, Montana Department of Transportation, and our urban transportation district, though, are all equal partners in the MPO.

Um our boundaries for the MPO are generally based on the urbanized areas of Bozeman up to Belgrade and then down to the four corners area.

So the LRTP is looking at more of a regional scope, and it's gonna be primarily focused on what are called on-system routes or known as on-system routes.

So these are generally the federal and state routes that connect regional transportation through the area.

It does have to be uh holistic and uh dive into even city-related issues, so that is part of the plan.

Um, but it's not necessarily going to have as much of a fine-grained to plan out every single street repaving project or curb ramp improvement or traffic calming installation across all three of those entities.

But it's not necessarily going to have as much of a fine grain to plan out every single street repaving project or curb ramp improvement or traffic calming installation across all three of those entities.

So the focus is going to be more again serving regional transportation, not only within Bozeman, but outside as well.

Another key point here, it has to be fiscally constrained to federal revenue sources.

So none of our individual local revenue sources.

That means in City of Bozeman, our street maintenance fund, our street impact fees, and our TRIM collector district will necessarily be able to be pulled in to the MPO's LRTP and fund projects outside of the city.

The fiscally constrained project list that gets developed with the LRTP then is what now will form the Montana Department of Transportation, transportation improvement program.

So that's sort of the the uh the state and federal uh um capital improvement plan, if you will, for those on system routes.

So again, regional focused, constrained to federal revenue, and will ultimately lead into the MDT tip.

Um drilling down onto the local level, then is where our Bozeman transportation mastery plan comes in.

So this will only cover the Bozeman planning area that is primarily within current city limits, but and also expanding into what we define as our planning area so that we are future looking with our transportation plan for development that may come.

Um this serves as our Montana Land Use and Planning Act facility plan for transportation.

So again, that's probably a whole deep dive that we could do, but uh now within um our uh municipal planning and land use planning, uh all cities of I believe 10,000 people in population, us being one, are uh governed by the Montana Land Use and Planning Act.

The the upshot for what that means on transportation is that uh by doing a MLUPA compliant facility plan for transportation, we effectively do all the the general transportation planning for development upfront, so that then there is no longer an opportunity for more specific public engagement on each land use application, each development application that comes in uh as part of the duties that we're responsible for undertaking.

So that puts a really fine point on the TMP needing to plan out our our particular our arterial and collector grid that then will be uh the uh effectively the requirements of development when they do come in when it does come in as planning applications.

So it's a very, very key point to understand in the difference between the MPO's LRTP and our local transportation master plan.

Umlike the LRTP with federal revenue, this one will be primarily funded through local revenue, so street impact fees that will pay for capacity expanding infrastructure to serve development, arterial collector district, and then street maintenance.

And then finally, the projects that get developed in our TMP will be what eventually then comes to form projects in our Bozeman capital improvement plan.

So all projects that staff recommends into our capital improvement plan and commission ultimately approves have to come out of our TMP.

So we don't really get the opportunity to just throw projects out there that haven't been vetted through a master plan.

So this will again focus primarily within the city and our planning area.

It will uh have to serve as a compliant facility plan with MLUPA.

We'll have to look at primarily what local revenue sort revenue sources we have available to complete the projects, and those projects that get created through the TMP will be what get pulled into our capital improvement plan for design and construction.

I'll stop there if we want this to be a little bit interactive.

Is before we get like further into the TMP weeds, are we fairly comfortable?

Um you're all transportation nerds, I love that.

You've probably seen maybe participated in some public engagement for the LRTP.

I just want to make sure we're clear, at least on this board of what those differences are gonna be.

Is that those are those have a lot of constraints on them under state law about like what we can and cannot do and how much, et cetera.

So like it's not like we want to go on an infrastructure binge at the city.

I don't know.

But if we wanted to, it's not like with there's this whole like ability to really say like we're gonna redo repave every street in the next TMP.

The uh um so three main local funding sources we have street maintenance assessments, arterium collector district, and street impact fees.

The only one of those with significant restrictions on use are street impact fees.

Uh those are um fees collected from development at the time a building permit is pulled.

Um we have to, as the city have to be responsible with very, very carefully assessing what those fees are and what they're used to.

So those can only be used on capacity expanding elements of our infrastructure system.

So I can't use those to pave existing roads, to repair and improve existing roads, do safety improvements on existing roads.

They have to be fairly narrowly defined only capacity capacity expanding elements.

Um our arterial district has more latitude.

Um that is a city uh created uh funding district.

Um it generally has to be spent on arterial and collector routes.

It needs to first serve as the local share portion of street impact fee project.

So basically, if there's any element of a street impact fee project that is not capacity expanding, but still needs done in the improvement of that street, we need a local funding source to fill that gap.

So that's primarily what our arterial and collector district serves as.

From there, though, uh our commission has given us greater latitude and encouragement to use that revenue source for major corridor improvements, particularly around safety and multimodal transportation across the city.

So we have more latitude on where we can use those, but it cannot go to fund local street improvements, so residential street improvements.

Um our street maintenance district then is generally going to be the funding reserved for first and foremost um personnel and salaries of our street maintenance uh division.

Um capital equipment purchases, so neither impact fees or arterium collector district can purchase equipment for the maintenance of our streets that has to be funded through our street maintenance uh uh district.

This is also where our state gas tax gets apportioned, and so that gas tax can also generally only serve to improve existing streets.

So we basically use the gas tax funding within our street maintenance district to do all of our pavement maintenance work across the city.

Uh from there, that's then the additional capital funding relate remaining is what goes towards local street improvements for things like our traffic calming program, even small projects like our uh arterial crossing improvements in our RRFBs and uh sort of our state of good repair work on our multimodal system.

Thank you.

Any other questions from anyone?

Yeah, I got one over here.

Um will the LRTP well, how do I phrase this?

Let's see.

Um, would the transportation master plan for Bozeman look at streets that would maybe also be looked at by the LRTP, or is that going to be governed completely by the LRTP, and we're just gonna kind of work with them to figure out how the Bozeman TMP fits into that.

Sure.

So actually opposite.

And so what all of our um partner agencies have agreed is that we will all maintain a local transportation mastery plan.

And that local plan will sort of be the grassroots creation of the LRTP.

Um we uh unfortunately, timing-wise, we are uh bound to complete our first MPO LRTP within believe it's like two years of the creation of the MPO, and so that has to be completed by the end of this year.

And so that's effectively using our 2020 2017 transportation mastery plan for project creation within the city of Bozeman.

Um the LRTP though has to be updated every five years.

So we'll use basically the 2017 Transportation Mastery Plan to feed into the current LRTP, but then when we complete our TMP update, that's then what will feed up into the next LRTP update.

Got it.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I have one question.

Um I'm wondering about does the uh CIP funding process is is a tenure planning uh scope relevant to the realities of CIP.

I'm wondering about does the uh CIP funding process is a tenure planning uh scope relevant to the realities of CIP.

I guess uh you know you mentioned the LRTP is a five-year plan.

Um I'm just how how effective do you think the last master plan has been at guiding the realistic or the most optimal use of CIP?

It's a great question, Rio.

Um I'll say it's done its job.

Um timing-wise, though, the last 10-year plan probably wasn't terribly optimal for the amount of growth that we saw that hit probably like midway through.

So if you think about the trajectory of Bozeman, we certainly saw very strong growth before 2020.

But when 2020 hit, I'm not going to surprise anybody to say that significantly changed how we do things, how we look as a city.

Um, if we would have been able to do uh a TMP within that period, it would have probably been optimal.

But by way of timing, here's where we get to do our tenure plan.

Um 10 years is about the maximum I would like to see us go.

Um there's nothing that says we have to do it only every 10 years.

And so if the need arose and our commission requested it, we could certainly do an update to our 2027 plan sooner than 2037.

These are generally, though, very expensive plans.

So we have a minimum of 250,000 program for the TMP update.

That's on top of over 300,000 that we're getting from the federal government to do the safety portion of that plan.

So moving forward, we're probably talking about something around a half million dollar project to update the transportation plan.

And is the CIP process statutorily driven by this plan?

Uh the CIP process is actually within Bozeman's charter.

And so uh by charter, we're required to maintain a five citywide five-year capital improvement plan that gets updated every year.

And nothing that falls outside of the scope of the TMP can be really part of that CIP.

Unless the TMP is amended.

And so if something so egregious happened or a need so large a rows, uh, we can amend the TMP to add a project into it and then carry it into the CIP.

Okay.

That's very helpful.

Anyone else?

Okay, Carrie.

All right.

So how are you gonna do this thing?

Um at a very, very high level.

Uh, I thought it would be nice, it would be uh useful to frame um how the overall transportation master plan uh will be developed.

And so uh we'll create a project team that generally consists of staff uh and our consultant team that will be responsible for developing the work product of the transportation master plan itself.

Umce we uh arrive at a draft through loads of public engagement and work with the board, we'll ultimately bring that draft plan to this advisory board.

Um for what it's worth, we will likely bring it to other boards as well to socialize it across our advisory board since transportation does touch so many uh different elements of our city.

But ultimately, this board will have the responsibility of recommending that plan for approval to our city commission.

Umce we've achieved that recommendation, it then will go to our city commission for a final review and approval as a uh formal plan adopted for the city of Bozeman.

So this is by no means the step-by-step interaction that all three entities will have, but in order to get that final approval, staff is ultimately responsible for developing the plan.

This board is responsible for reviewing it and making a recommendation to our commission.

Our commission is then responsible for approving or revising that plan as it's presented.

Clear enough.

Okay, let's break that down a little more.

So, what's our project team gonna look like?

Um we have a lot of work coming up uh in the next year.

Uh specifically another very large planning activity with our comprehensive safety action plan.

Um, I'm proposing and have uh city manager support for this as our general structure for how we're gonna deliver our transportation master plan.

Uh as director, I will serve as uh the project principal.

So my responsibility will be for overall direction and compliance of the plan.

Ultimate decision maker at the staff level for recommendations to the city manager and ultimately commission.

Um, you know, questions, uh scoping, direction of the project, uh, but I will not be the day-to-day project manager.

Uh that will be the responsibility of our city engineer and engineering division manager, Emiliano Esparza.

Um, you guys probably haven't gotten to meet Emiliano yet, uh, but he came on to the city uh almost a year ago exactly, and he has been a phenomenal, phenomenal resource for professionalism and guidance of our engineering division.

Emiliano is uh an excellent project manager from a scope, schedule, and budget perspective.

That's the three main tasks that a project manager has keeping the project within the scope, on time, and on budget.

So uh for full transparency, Emiliano is uh an expert utility engineer.

Uh he came to us from the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Northern California.

Um so he is not a transportation expert by any means.

Um it's we I am recommending the structure though, have been intentional about that though, uh, because we have the support of our city staff with transportation city transportation engineer Taylor Lonsdale, Dene Gininetti, Candace Mastel, our transportation demand management coordinator, and myself from a technical perspective, while Emiliano can focus on consultant management and keeping this project on time and on budget.

We'll then have the support of a consultant team.

So we expect to, I expect to issue an RFQ request for proposals next month to bring on a consultant team that will be responsible for the day-to-day development of the TMP.

Then we'll develop that project in coordination with not only uh robust public engagement, that's not only our policy as a city, but also required by the Montana Land Use and Planning Act, uh, but also guided by what will be considered a technical committee.

So since our TMP is so broad-ranging, um, we've decided to recommend that we create a technical committee that will bring in uh both community partners and other departments within the city, primarily departments like GIS and community development to make sure that they're technical experts outside of only the transportation field that are helping guide the development of this plan.

So this is sort of in a nutshell what our project team is going to look like for creation of this update.

Any heartburn there?

Who would be on the technical committee outside?

You said like other city departments, but you also said uh their public members community.

Wondering kind of what the overlap between that committee and the public interaction might look like.

Uh what we would look for there, um something like uh possibly a representative from um Montana State University, large institutional partners that the city has.

Um people like the uh Downtown Business Association or or uh um uh Bozeman Downtown Partnership, again, more institutional level uh members of our community that have significant needs and influence over the policies that we create.

Is there a public participation outreach plan?

Uh or is that part of the plan?

Yes, so part of the plan will be to create a uh city public engagement plan for large planning efforts.

Our uh city commission has been requesting review and approval of those public engagement plans.

I certainly expect that to be part of the TMP as well.

Great.

Okay.

All right, so what's all gonna go into uh the TMP, the transportation master plan update?

So um I've tried to weave a little bit of this logic throughout the last couple years, in that we don't want to be sort of leaving planning projects that we've already done aside as we recreate the wheel with the new mastery plan.

And so we've developed a very successful bike ped gap analysis study a few years back that looked at more of the existing condition infrastructure components of our transportation system, and particularly where we have gaps in that system with active transportation infrastructure.

That's not going to be something that we try to recreate with the master plan, but bring that study into the development of our TMP.

Similarly, we've done an immense amount of work to develop a sensitive lands plan that will bring an environmental component into the review and creation of our master plan in a way that was not done for past transportation master plan updates.

And finally, one that I was hoping to have in place already.

Got the final grant agreements.

But now our safety plan, our comprehensive safety plan, will be done in parallel with the TMP update.

So these will be the three main planning components that ultimately lead into the creation of the TMP instead of having to redo similar elements within the Transportation Mastery Plan.

Director Ross, can you just provide us all with updated copies of those?

Sure, yeah.

I just think that I mean, I know I haven't read through them all that closely, or if I did, I've forgotten most of what I read, and we have a few new members.

And I often find I sometimes pull up the wrong document if I go to the website unescorted.

I will uh forward that to Rio and he can send to the board.

Okay.

Any questions?

All right.

So let's get into a little bit of a scoping discussion.

So uh I did ask in our packet for this agenda item to review our existing transportation master plan.

Again, this is going to be an update of the TMP, not necessarily a recreation of the TMP.

So, in terms of how we scope out this update, um, my suggestion is going to be to start with the outline of what we have in place already.

Um, I do acknowledge though, uh, that while this TMP has certainly done its job, um, there are some areas where I believe it could be improved.

There's also some areas where I don't believe our further serving our city with our current goals in the form that they have right now.

Um I'll also say that if we were to do this same exact transportation master plan all over again, it would be way more than 250,000.

And so there's going to be an interest here in making sure we are using the funding we have for the most pertinent purpose we have as a city.

Um I will speak very frankly in saying that it is no surprise that our commission, in particular right now, has an immense focus on transportation safety.

Um we have agreed as a city that free flowing of cars is not going to be the priority of our transportation system moving forward.

Uh might lead into a conversation here about how much focus and attention we want to put on the capacity portions of our TMP versus more of the holistic operation of our transportation system.

And we'll get into some of those details here.

Um so first up, our initial our existing TMP has a couple sections that aren't necessarily going to be required either to be updated or for the execution of our plan overall.

Uh the first I want to highlight is a goals and objectives scenario.

So typically with a big master plan, we've done this with the LRTP.

We have sort of like an early action phase of agreeing uniformly to set some goals and objectives of the plan.

We can move forward with what we've established in 2017, recreate the wheel, uh, or kind of uh agree to move ahead with our current policy strategy that we have in place right now.

Um, this again is one of those items that could take a lot of time and a lot of effort to kind of workshop around.

So for the interest of scope and budget, I wanted to bring it up to this board of whether or not you would like an opportunity.

You would like us as staff to have a public conversation about updating our goals or even having them as part of the TMP overall.

And I don't think Rio, this is gonna work well to go through all the spiel and then ask you for your comments.

And is it and so if you wouldn't mind, maybe we could do it back and forth.

Yeah, I like that idea a lot.

Um, I'm gonna actually throw that out to the rest of the board for their uh input before I say anything.

So maybe uh the the question here is whether or not we want to recreate the goals and objectives during this planning process.

And speaking to, you know, a lot of people that are going to be engaged in this plan have likely already been engaged with our LRTP update.

Um that's also a possibility.

We could adopt the goals and objectives that we have agreed to as part of the MPO's LRTP.

Again, this is one of those things that I'm just not there's also there's always the opportunity that you end up inducing planning fatigue in a community as well.

And so with the LRTP just being done, this being more of um, you know, I'll say a nuanced thing.

We're not gonna talk about projects with the goals and objectives.

You know, this is more of a philosophy, if you will.

Um do we want to crack at redoing what the philosophy or plan looks like.

Can I answer that by asking a question?

If I can answer the question.

How closely do we uh track the progress targets over the 10 years that the TMC versus just revisiting it every 10 years and saying, okay, we kind of got this close.

So if I could show my hands I might suggest that the goals and objectives part is a little bit more pertinent than the performance metrics and target part.

Um you could see what our performance metrics and targets were for the last uh uh TMP.

Uh I will be the first to humbly admit that we have not diligently tracked every single one of these and have numeric metrics to justify what progress we made.

That's uh very heavy activity unto itself.

We have chosen to prioritize action and doing the things in the LRTP over spending the same amount of time and tracking our progress.

Yeah, and that's kind of what I was thinking would probably happen.

Because yeah, that's a that's a big task to actually monitor all that stuff.

In my opinion, it seems like the goals are still potentially pretty important because they can kind of guide just like what is the rest of the plan trying to achieve, right?

But I don't know that I I would agree that the targets are probably not entirely necessary.

And they can sometimes be sort of subjective as well, and just a little bit arbitrary perhaps.

I feel like Mike, you want to do that.

I mean, I the this is like a piece that I always talk about, right?

It's the the goals are the abstract and the thing that's nice and fun to say and feels good and makes newspaper headlines, and then it's the individual projects that actually are where the friction exists, and somebody says, well, KD needs to be five lanes because it's hard for me to get home from work, but you know, I do value safety.

And so that's the tension that exists.

I mean, I my opinion, I think having a conversation around the goals as a community is worthwhile, and having the starting point be what was already agreed to in the LRTP and and using that as the scarecrow, steel man, whatever, or whatever we call it now, um is like a good starting point because I think that's other thing, you know.

What's the ideal number of deaths on a roadway?

Zero.

What's the ideal number of injuries?

Zero.

What's the ideal number of you know, people biking and drive versus driving?

As many as possible.

Yeah, zero drivers 100% bike.

I mean, it's just I think that having the goals conversation, it like can set a bar of like what we agree to collectively as a community, and then putting projects through that lens.

Um I think it it you get the initial buy-in up front from the people who are going to be involved in the conversation.

Um people want more you know space to I don't I don't like there's no parking in here, but like you know, if you were to say something like, oh, we need more places to park downtown, okay, great.

Here's how we get there.

And then people can pick options based on the goals that they've already agreed to.

So I like the idea of having a goals conversation.

I don't know.

It's funny that this is in 27 because I was doing all my grad school work right a couple years before this, and that was right when all the performance-based budgeting stuff started to go out of vote because it was too hard to track and it was too easy to manipulate and like work to the metric.

Um and get the metric to just say you're doing great.

Bingo.

Um I'm not for the performance measures or the or the targets.

I think that that's a staff decision.

Yeah, um, yeah, I think uh a community conversation seems prudent and echo what what uh both my fellow board members just said about performance measures.

Um I mean there's nothing on the goal side that looks like it shouldn't be there.

There's also nothing really like glaringly missing, but I does seem like based on where the current policy stances and directions are.

There could maybe be some like blending or reweighting uh of those different goal boxes.

That we we kind of have a sense of where we're going, but yeah, I think further public discussion would be helpful there.

So I will chime in, I guess.

Um I I see the desire we have a limited um we have a limited budget, we have a limited amount of time.

Um our goals are fairly general as is uh I get that, and yet being a planning background, um, I always worry about risking the legitimacy of the project in the very end without having all of the public buy-in that is uh Vice Chair Besselich mentioned.

Um we need and yeah, it is a concern to get bogged down into perhaps this uh goal setting.

Um but I do think probably it is important and will lead to success in the end um if we end up focusing more on the goals and a little less on maybe um you know exactly what types of prior or exactly what projects we're gonna do in the next 10 years.

Like maybe maybe that is more important.

I I do think probably the public buying is going to be important.

Um and perhaps a way to expedite the uh framing of the goals is to uh you know look at these performance measures that we had set in the past and then actually how many of these can we quantify and and say, you know, look how good this goal was or not, therefore what do you think we should you know do with that goal in the in the next uh 10-year plan?

Okay.

All right.

Next up.

Uh we're going to do a rigorous sort of an existing and proposed condition section, right?

We have to understand what we're starting with in terms of not only um our our our street network, but also the demand that we have in serving uh our population.

Um if you've done a deep dive into uh our TMP as it exists though, there's a lot of sort of esoteric um uh um capacity type evaluation though.

Uh both uh volume to capacity maps uh and um also um intersection level service maps.

Um just to be frank, if we had to do 63 intersection level service calculations for the existing and proposed conditions, we're gonna be over 250,000 already.

Um does that serve the goals of this community moving forward to spend that much time and that much money on such a small portion of our transportation mastery plan.

Are there other means that we could take to look at our existing conditions?

Maybe for instance, looking only at volume, right?

It's important to understand how much travel demand we have on our streets now and how much we're gonna project to have in the future.

There's no doubt that's necessary.

Um do we require more of this type of evaluation though?

Um volume capacity ratios and specific intersection level service for the entire for every single intersection across the entire city.

Um if it sounds like I'm leading an answer here, I am I would uh significantly uh appreciate support in using the resources we have to focus on what I've heard from our compute community and our public and this board um as more of the focus of our system, more so than just moving cars.

Um do we want to continue doing uh an evaluation of existing volumes and projected future volumes?

Absolutely.

I think that's important to understand the demand on the system and put a fine point on how important it will be to not only continuing make continuing to maintain and expand from a grid perspective, a connectivity perspective to avoid having to overbuild any one street.

Uh but also as a target and an influence over our need to develop more diversion of those trips to alternate modes.

So I do think volumes, vehicle volumes existing and projected are important.

Do I think intersection level of service for every single intersection is particularly important, especially those that are already built out to their maximum capacity and therefore would not need nor wanted to be widened even more than what they are right now?

I don't believe that serves this community.

Um can this plan look at existing intersections that do not have traffic control and evaluate if it's time and there's a need for improvements, both from operations and safety?

Absolutely.

We might be looking at 10 to 20 instead of 60 to 80, something that can be done within the scope and within our funding and actually serve the needs of this community.

Maybe that was more of a pitch than a suggestion than a question.

Um but I I this is probably the most important decision we make tonight of where we want to allocate our time and money in this plan.

Director Oss, do we need to make these decisions?

I I mean this is so going through the master plan is is a lot in and of itself.

Framing the questions you're posing to us within the context of it all, like my mind hurts already.

Like these are really big like is it possible to revisit um next meeting once we've had a chance to digest the questions you're asking us in the context of it all?

If you would support uh if you would support staff uh releasing the RFQ to begin the procurement process before next meeting, I would say absolutely.

Um what I would not want uh my suggestion, right?

We wanted to do this last month, so we have the opportunity to come back before release release the RFQ and keep the project on schedule.

Um maybe I should have said this up front.

My goal is to have I named it TMP27 because I want this done by the end of 2027.

That means I want to be moving on the project July 1 when we have funding allocated.

Um if we push that release of the RFQ off another month until we could revisit this conversation, we're gonna be into September before we have a project team on board and the plan started.

Um that doesn't mean though that the final scope of work, so city procurement procedure, we will have to have a uh uh a public procurement for a request for proposal uh excuse me, a request for qualifications for a project of this size.

So we don't have to necessarily have the final scope released that then project teams present us uh um uh uh a fee and a final scope for what they can do.

So we can select a qualified project team and then after having them on board, engage with the final scope of work for the project before getting their fee proposal and ultimately coming under contract with them.

If I had the support of the board, that would be my suggestion here.

So we could bring more nuanced conversation and scope back in May, but I could still move ahead with procurement of the team in the interim.

Yeah, what do what is the board think about that?

Looks like a lot of nodding ends.

That makes sense to me.

I mean, is there anything that we're gonna talk about here tonight that would so drastically alter the scope?

Maybe this one.

Um so you know, it would um it it may change the the uh qualifications depending on if uh do I want a traffic engineering specific firm that's gonna go out there and knock out 70 intersections.

I'm not gonna try to make it so I I'm gonna I'll try to lower the temperature a little bit of that question though, and that we can um present the initial scope to project teams from a perspective of um uh transportation operations, right?

Um so maybe not have the exact number and type of intersections to evaluate, um, but state in a way that they are still required to demonstrate their qualifications to do that work if we move ahead with it.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

I mean, I I think it makes sense from in my opinion to go forward with issuing the RFQ and refine the scope further.

I mean, I I would just add, Nick, that um when I was looking to the 2017 TMP, I was kind of in the back of my head wondering what intersection level of service was actually truly telling us.

Um, by way of explanation, um, again, the TMP um it plans out our transportation system, right?

Uh but it is also the facility plan that is referenced in our unified development code to establish the requirements of development to mitigate as a condition of approval for their project.

And so in uh our our past UDC, uh not the one has been uh been approved last uh this year.

Um the past TMP or UDC had intersection level of service as a very finite requirement in a transportation impact study that was a condition that a development would have to meet.

The when this was done in 2017 with that level service at every intersection, the goal was basically um to have that work done up front.

So when a project came in, they knew where an intersection was failing right off the bat.

Um in practice, we still require the TIS to be done with every single with every project of a significant scale, anyways.

And so the usability or the utilization of that component of the TMP really proved to be very little.

Gotcha.

Or did you have to comment?

Um I mean, I think this is an important one.

I see why you put a lot of weight, or maybe not a lot of weight, but this um yeah, it can largely affect the scope.

And I I mean I think, yeah, going forward, so you can get an RFQ out makes sense.

But I I personally don't feel like I need to chew on this a ton because you kind of alluded to earlier, and and like a lot of our sort of policy discussion has kind of moved towards is the idea of all of the systems working and capacity and level of service is something that as a as a city grows is always just gonna slowly plateau.

Um so volumes make sense, intersection operations, like you said, maybe at those those uncontrolled ones make sense, but like we know that the intersections on the arterials and the collectors are gonna slowly plateau to the worst and worse level of service.

So I think focusing more on yeah, like then where does that traffic go once we've hit that plateau, or how does that modality hopefully even change um to something other than a single occupancy vehicle?

So personally for me chewing on it, I feel like yeah, the intersection operations doesn't need a lot of weight.

Okay.

But I also understand chewing on it a little bit more in like affirming that in a in a future meeting.

Um I think the other ones like bicycle operations, uh yeah, general roadway volumes and capacity is gonna give us you know that scope of the system.

Um yeah, we're we're trying to look at all those other modalities more so anyway.

So that's and if you dig into the bicycle operations section, oops, sorry.

Um so there's the LOS map, sorry, I should have pulled that up too.

Um and that is our this was the essentially the bicycle operations section.

So um bicycle level of traffic stress, LOS, um LTS, excuse me, um, is is a very common and and ultimately you somewhat useful uh measure of um uh bicycle comfort and therefore bicycle safety.

Um this also uh I I've done LTS analyses for uh master plans as a consultant, and it is a less data-intensive way to evaluate um the the comfort of a cycling of a street and a cycling facility, but it's not no data.

And so if we look at doing this over 300 miles of city of Bozeman streets, um another one where I question how much are we actually getting out of that when we effectively know already, right?

Our major arterials of collectors are gonna be the least, or excuse me, the most stressful, the least comfortable.

We've already adopted policies to serve bicycle movements and pedestrian movements separated from traffic on those streets.

We also know through this analysis that our local streets are gonna probably be the ones that are the most comfortable and the least stressful.

And we know that we have policy in place for traffic calming to address those streets, those local streets that aren't operating as comfortably and as safely as they can.

So by way of not diminishing the importance of bicycle operations and bicycle safety, but um bringing to a head whether or not we want to spend the time and money recreating this type of map, which I can promise you I've never used once in four years.

Um is this the type of thing that we might be able to repurpose time and money elsewhere.

So when you showed the uh the previous slide, I think um, you know, I see capacity and volumes, and uh maybe it's uh uh remnant back to my grad school days of origin destination studies and thinking about like where are we projecting growth, how do we get the the you know the most efficient, safe um ways to get from A to B.

Um maybe I got myself a little bit twisted around there, uh, which is why I wanted to think about it.

But I think the the process you suggested uh is very amenable to uh moving this forward.

And what you brought up there, Rio is exactly the f the um vehicular framing, the the volume framing that I seek to get out of a consultant team, right?

Not only help us understand how many cars are on the road, but what are the predominant um flows of traffic through our area and also into our area, origin destination studies, especially at the high level can be very useful to understand where the flow of trips come into and out of our community as well.

And so taking the money that we would have spent on that and put on this here and putting it more towards that better understanding, I think is gonna ultimately help us better with our land use planning than it is to do 63 intersection level service calculations.

Agreed.

Yeah, it seems like the level of service calculations are like a systemic capture that we already know.

And if not already will be done as part of a development proposal that comes in one of these blocks, anyways.

Well, and I mean, I think if we're not making decisions on the level of service capture, like why are we doing it?

And I think that that's I mean, I like right.

I I think that that's an interesting question that you answered.

It's like, what's the alternative things we would fund with money that we aren't spending on this?

Origin Destination one is a really interesting one.

Like I hadn't thought that hard about like this informing land use planning, and like the one thing I'm desperate to see is the commercial services south of Katie.

Like there's nothing south of K in town anywhere.

Um, the museum technically, and and but like I want to count that.

Um and it's just like like there's this whole area of town to think about, like how many people are commuting to TNC or the co-op to get their groceries when like, oh, we could locate something south of town, maybe a handful of people choose a bike or something.

So I I mean, I I think generally I am for I'm really curious what alternatives are, but where I am now is like the RFQ, you guys should get started on that.

And I'm happy to drop these if there are better measures or things that would actually inform decision making of staff or decision making of the commission or decision making of this board, because uh I know level of service doesn't do it for me.

That's never gonna be what I make the decision on.

Mostly because I don't understand it.

But that's that's which I think is like part of the problem.

It's very like technical speaking.

It's very much like if you're an engineer, you get it, or if you've done a lot of planning work, you you really understand that.

But no, thank you.

Most people don't.

Yeah, and I think having this conversation just right here, right now, gives me more confidence, definitely on your your proposals to not focus so much on that.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh okay.

Hit that a little bit.

And that's the projected portion that we just talked about.

And so last up, what's missing?

So I have uh a few ideas here that I have felt our existing transportation master plan lacks.

Um but I really want this to be an opportunity for you guys to uh again, not a final speak now and forever hold your peace.

Uh I would be willing to bring back a scope, a more specific scope discussion in May.

Um, but three things that in using our transportation master plan over the last four years, I have found um an interest in having more or uh doesn't exist, period.

First and foremost, we have hundreds of projects listed in our transportation mastery plan and exactly zero guidance on what to do first and then what to do next.

Zero guidance on how beneficial any given project is.

And so by way of answering the question of what we might be able to do with the same funding that we would go use to develop intersection level service across the city.

Other than kind of a gut feel of what's most important to do and how much benefit we would get out of project.

So the project prioritization and cost benefit analysis.

I'm not going to say we can do both for every single project, but at least for our major capital projects, I strongly feel like I could use some guidance and exactly how beneficial those are going to be as I'm proposing them in a capital plan.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Sorry, how do you what are your sort of like thoughts on how that might look in reality?

Sure.

So I'll by way of example.

Our bike pit gap analysis.

The first uh task with that project was just to do a basic infrastructure review, right?

Where we have gaps in sidewalks, where we have gaps in bike lanes, shared use paths, so on and so forth.

We then developed a matrix, a waiting matrix based on factors that then each of those gaps was evaluated on and ultimately resulted in a rough prioritization of what would be most important to be filled.

And so that's the general procedure for project prioritization when you're doing a transportation plan.

Develop some criteria of importance, evaluate the project proposal or the project idea on those criteria, and then spit out a score in the end.

By no means is am I gonna say this is perfect, okay?

Um, but I it's gonna at least generally be a gut check.

I'm not gonna propose that we develop this and then it's just picking from the top every time.

One, two, three, four, right?

It's not gonna be how a city works.

There's going to be judgment calls by you, by us, by our commission of what goes when.

Um, this would be helpful though, to make sure that something very low in priority or very low in benefit does not get pulled up from a poor decision on my part, frankly.

This is not going to our current commission because I think they do a phenomenal job.

Projects can be political.

Okay.

And so there's the potential that we can do a master plan right now in a way that gives some check and balance towards future planning of what projects go when, by way of actually being able to point back and say, well, you know what, that might be your pet project, but it might not be the most important for the community.

So that's by no means throwing shade at our current commission or even future commissions.

But it is a potential thing that you see when you develop a plan like this.

So would you propose then that this is part of the planning process where the public is helping decide how to prioritize?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Yep.

Absolutely.

I like that.

I feel like project prior prioritization, you throw that out to us or the public, you're gonna get some really big buckets.

Um like safety just obviously pops into my head because that's always a target for transportation.

Um I guess just like a challenge for us and for when this does have public interaction, is how to corral that a little bit.

Um, but that that's that's why like I like the idea of like a matrix based on the goals.

Like, does this project hit the goals?

And they go I've never seen a transportation project get controversial or have a thing like that.

Um but I mean, I like I like this idea of having a prioritization.

I think I think something too that would be helpful, maybe not as much a like benefit is so hard to weigh, right?

But like just that cost analysis, like, right?

Of course, we'd all want perfectly safe everything.

Like that's that's always a trade-off in government.

It's you have finite resources and infinite problems.

So, how do you apply them appropriately?

And you know, is a 10 million dollar improvement to one intersection worth it when a 10 million dollars could build 10 miles of bike lanes, right?

Or 10 miles of pay of shared use path.

And you know, all of a sudden you're taking that many more people off the street.

So I I think just like strict cost, right?

And and what is the project doing?

I don't even know if we need a benefit analysis, benefits are always so like kind of what whoever's doing it, it's whatever they decide a benefit is.

First of all, benefit cost analysis are a useful tool.

They are.

Um it's one of those things Mike you brought up earlier, in that um if you know what you're trying to get out of it, it's very, very easy to bake those criteria into the system and have it spit out what you want from the beginning.

I'll be honest.

Um that also is fairly intensive in terms of an exercise.

And so if we had to run a full BCA for every single project, that's gonna be pretty expensive.

Um is there a mix of the two though, especially like you brought up, maybe based on the goals that we've set to begin with.

Maybe then we have an exercise of public engagement to put weights on those goals and then evaluate the project based on uh um at least a um uh recommendation for how each project meets those goals.

That might be able to work itself into a prioritization scheme.

So before I lose my train of thought, I'm gonna interject that I I like the idea all of a sudden I'm just having this thought of like uh you know, a public meeting with uh say 10 different projects for people to rank in terms of how they prioritize them, and then sort of working out what are those uh you know, what are those benefits that you're getting from each of them?

Those can be sort of like worked out through statistics, you know, in reverse.

Um but anyway, I just wanted to.

Sure.

I'll be but another example.

So um we've had uh pretty rigorous and strict application of our impact fees over the last four years towards targeting infill connectivity, right?

We have a policy from our commission, policy and our land use plan to build within before expanding further out into what is largely now agricultural land.

And so it's been easy, frankly, to schedule our impact fee projects based on where those gaps in the existing system exist.

North 27th was an easy project to schedule because it's a blaring obvious gap in that arterial system.

Our Fowler Avenue connection, blaringly obvious need on the west side of town.

With our existing capital improvement plan, we're getting pretty close to having all of those missing links within our existing network filled with the land that we have available for access.

So that's going to put us in a position in the upcoming years of having to figure out how we have to use our capacity spanning money source, revenue source, to go strategically build new capacity within the city in a manner that I don't know that our existing transportation mastery plan guides us, right?

We grid out our arterial collector network, we usually do projects half mile at a time.

We're getting towards the edge of the growth area right now, though, where we're going to need to start applying our impact fees.

We are going to have fewer infill opportunities.

This prioritization matrix, though, might be able to bring in those land use decisions to help guide where we lead with the development of system of our system instead of being reactionary to growth.

That's my least vision.

You know, is a project primarily a safety initiative, or is it primarily an alternative mode initiative, or is it primarily a capacity initiative?

Like just having that kind of clearly identified for like how staff is thinking about a project, especially in a community engagement setting where it's like I'm coming in, I don't I don't participate in the transportation board.

I'm just like, hey, curious about what's happening.

I heard about the the you know a recent death or recent tragedy in our community, and so now I'm interested.

Like I think it would be really helpful for members of the public to have like, hey, this idea that we're proposing is a safety initiative, or hey, this KG expansion is primarily a capacity thing, but we're also putting in some alternative stuff.

So I think that that would be really helpful in the community engagement, and like you know, it's got to be a narrow, like four cat four or five category to be useful.

But um, I think it would be really helpful for people to think through their prioritization.

It's a good player.

Good suggestion.

I think like layering what Mike just said on top of what you just said on having a prioritization matrix that like supports the larger system we're trying to design, and then having those components of the larger system that we find valuable, like as those categories, and then you can kind of weight the projects of like, oh, this is yeah, purely a safety project, or it's like a safety plus capacity project.

Um I think A, that makes it the your matrix like more useful of a tool for you, and then also more useful of a tool for the public.

And I think also that the ones that Mike just rattled off were the ones that were like in my head already, of just like, is it expanding modality?

Is it expanding capacity by expanding with like modality, capacity, safety?

Those are kind of the main ones.

Sure.

Flow.

The whole origin destination thing sounds like if you could have all of that data and have it be 100% accurate, like the magic data in your pocket.

Well, and then because then like, oh, all of these origin destination maps have a pinch point there.

We're gonna have a safety concern there.

And it got, you know, like I mean, the flow is such an interesting one, especially when you think about the way that town's built out.

Like there's so many ways that I like come up with creative ways to get places that time of day and where like right.

I live I live right off KD, so if I'm going west in town, like uh except for like eight to nine and five to six, K is the way I go.

But you know, just last night I went up to college and set up going KD to go west to 19 because it was like, why would I put myself through the pain of running out?

What an OD.

So it's a and that's intentional with how we've planned our transportation set transportation network to have redundancy, have connectivity.

So it's not exclusively one route you could take into and out of your neighborhood.

It's also where the OD study type thing or the volume study that leads into OD study can help sort of guide if we have portions of town that aren't connected well enough to begin with, and therefore might justify some of that vehicular expansion, some of that street expansion, not necessarily in scale of the individual street, but redundant capacity to give more options.

Okay, so we're getting close.

Um we you all understand, and I'm guessing you all agree that we have a highly, highly environmentally conscious and sensitive community.

Um, one thing that our transportation mastery plan has not done in the past is take a little bit of a finer grain look at routing of projects through sensitive areas.

Um as part of our Fowler Avenue Connection project, um, there was uh heavy encouragement from our community uh at the pre-design phase to bring uh an ecological lens or a road ecology lens into that project.

Um we had meetings, I had meetings with uh Western Transportation Institute's road ecologist, and something I learned from that process was that this concept of road ecology or how to apply a transportation plan or transportation system in a sense that an environmentally sensitive way is really best done at the master planning level.

And so that is something that I expressed as potential to those people who suggested it years ago as part of that Fowler project, I did not want to ignore that and one and want to consider if there is the an interest or a potential uh to bring that in as uh a new focus or a new um complement to our TMP that we didn't have before.

Could you give an example of like how that like how would that look on Fowler?

Like Fowler's, I mean, I think for I know I know that four of us were really familiar with that project and how it kind of came about.

Sure.

Um perfect example.

So uh our transportation master plan or transportation system is generally aligned on section lines, literally.

Our Trium collector grid follows section lines every half mile up north-south, east-west.

Um the section line ditch is named because it also follows the section line along which Fowler was planned.

And so when Fowler ended up in our transportation mastery plan, it was drawn down that section line, which also happened to be exactly where that ditch in Riparian and Tree Corridor was.

Taking a bit of an ecological lens to that proposal would have effectively resulted in exactly how that project ended up through public engagement and design revision.

So not necessarily putting it right down that section line, but slight modifications, so it still serves the intended purpose of connectivity through that part of town without necessarily causing so much darn consternation about running it right along and right through that sensitive area.

And so especially as we look towards the northwest part of town, we are getting very close to some similar areas where our tear and collector grid, um, as it's planned right now on section lines, um, is likely not going to be feasible because of ecological impact that it would have on wetland and water courses in that part of town.

Is this the plan where instead of just running those big fat sharpie lines along the section line, we make some decisions on how maybe to modify those with the thought in mind that it's something that we're gonna end up doing in project design anyways, and might better inform both land use and our public for what that project might look like when it does get scheduled in a capital plan.

I mean, I'll just jump in and say that I think absolutely this should be the point where we start planning around that.

Um I definitely like my lived experience growing up in a constrained river corridor.

We're in a river valley here, but they're really spread out, so we've been able on this side of the valley, the east side of the valley, especially to just draw those sharpie lines kind of over the more minor waterways, if you will.

Um so many standpoints, it makes a lot of sense to plan around them, not only from an ecology and environmental standpoint, you know, like giving both the water and the life, um, the wildlife around it space to do its thing, but also from a transportation standpoint, like again, my lived experience and many other towns, if you follow the waterway and build in space buffer for that waterway, then you all of a sudden we have this really great space for your active transportation routes and just for like general human welfare in general.

So, you know, I live on the south side of town and over on the Galligator.

We kind of have that a little bit.

It's a very it's like 0.7 miles, I think, where we've been able to do that.

But I think if we can kind of mimic some of that and what we did in Fowler and other areas of town, like not only is a huge environmental and ecological benefits of just not having the water running quickly out of our valley in a culvert, but having it actually take its time like it's supposed to.

But again, you like end up building your own buffer for these parks for these shared use paths and for all this active transportation infrastructure as well.

So that's an easy yes for me.

Cool.

I want to second that.

Um, I this is so much engineering and logic and math and numbers, but there's the lived experience of transit and pleasure of moving from one place to another.

And so when we protect those sensitive areas and save those for the walking paths, maybe bike paths, I think that adds so much value to the community.

So big star there, yes.

Awesome.

Anyone else?

Yeah, I agree with that.

Um it's obviously like a lot more enjoyable to bike or walk along a corridor that has a little bit of nature rather than something that's just totally paved.

Um obviously we see some of the detriments, I think, even in town of just like Bozeman Creek.

Just kind of forgot about that when we built out our roads how many decades ago that was, and then now we're we're trying to um kind of correct that.

So yeah, I think that would be another great way to start to think about projects, another lens through which to look at things.

Okay.

Uh Director Ross, what about you know, we're we're trying to do a lot of things in this plan.

Um, how like what like the rot ecology component?

Um are there places that we can start to jump start, are there are there, is there data?

I think you point alluded to it with the sensitive um uh lands plan.

Um can you describe a little bit of what exists and what would have to be done?

Boy, so um I would be able to suggest uh and recommend that the sense of lands plan itself has all the data that we would need from an existing conditions perspective to bring in and use as one of those layers of evaluation for the projects that get proposed.

And so I would not expect this to be a section of the TMP that's necessarily a data collection opportunity, um, but to bring in an expert as part of the project team to help guide not just the engineers and the planners, but themselves, but us together for what decisions should be made on routing of projects that of streets that we know will need built, right?

Or will it need built in some way in some area, but maybe not necessarily following that strict grid line.

Okay.

That's great.

Um do you have more of your presentation?

I would like to take public comment as soon as possible if we have any online show.

I'm showing no request for public comment.

Come on, people, this is exciting stuff.

All right, well, with that, um, let's go do one round of both questions and comments.

Um I'll start over with Aaron Simon and uh we'll go this way.

Yeah, um just another quick thing on the road ecology standpoint.

I mean, I uh just thinking, imagining.

Um there's a way to bring some aspects of that into like standard road design too.

I mean, I've always I haven't seen very many examples of this, but I've always thought it'd be interesting to have a separated use path that is separated by some sort of bioswale that collects the treats the stormwater from streets.

Um, if there's ways to like almost create if we're not trying to follow an existing sensitive land or green corridor, is there a way to bring some of those aspects into uh you know street construction projects elsewhere?

Um that's just kind of like a yeah, maybe a bit of a pipe dream per se, but something that maybe we could consider or start to think about.

Um I don't think I have any other questions.

I did just want to also point out the origin destination thing, I think would be a fantastic idea.

I don't personally know the nitty-gritty of how you actually study that, but it does kind of seem like the the magic potion that would inform a lot of different decisions in terms of where to add capacity, where to add multimodal trails, things of that sort.

Um so yeah, I'd put a star on that one as well.

Cool.

So I think those are my two cents.

Um as far as my opinion on the rotocology, um, I was just thinking about how that potentially fits into the goal buckets that we were discussing earlier and how that could be a potential like intersection between the two, like uh encouraging multi multimodal transportation and like how that asks how those aspects of the rotocology piece could feed into other larger buckets, I think would be an interesting question.

So that's my thought.

Um I have just been thinking about the project prioritization component, and I think that um making that clearer so it's more transparent to the public would be incredibly helpful for um I understand that that people are very focused on their neighborhood and they see their neighborhood, and it's hard to see why other things are happening in other places, and so really spelling that out I think would um would be beneficial.

So more stars.

Um my biggest thing is getting rid of the metrics that you're not gonna use and getting rid of stuff that is not gonna actually be valuable in informing the plan and ideas like the rocology that can a lot like demonstrating from the jump that that the city staff has already thought about that.

I think that that was one of the biggest issues with Fowler is it was you know, the original one I think was five lanes and and lots of signalization and following that straight line.

And um, you know, I think that the more that we can demonstrate that up front as a is the decision makers in this community and the people informing the decision makers in this community, the more that people can understand that like hey, you're we are hearing you and we're trying to adjust how we're doing things, and I think making that clear up front is really important.

Um and again, just like I I'm obsessed with this idea of origin destination and like how people are flowing through town and utilizing that in land use decisions, right?

Um, you know, Montana State is like this big black hole in the middle of town that kind of harms connectivity work there and have experiences.

Um, but it's like, you know, you know, a lot of people like making land use decisions that help mitigate that flow and everything.

I think that that's like such an interesting way of thinking about it.

I think that's my thoughts.

Um yeah, I mean, all good thoughts.

I think uh you brought us another great presentation, brought us another good 30,000-foot view of what we're trying to do systemically.

And um, yeah, I think taking out the metrics and providing the public with like those buckets of more you're designing another weighted matrix tool.

It's gonna be great.

Um those kind of larger buckets and and why they're important and those reflecting the community values.

Um, I think will be really helpful not only for the TMP itself, but for the public engagement with it.

Um yeah, make sure whoever responds to the RFU can do or chain testing.

Um, I think everything we talked about is was great.

I'm excited very much.

Thank you.

Commissioner Magic, do you have any parting thoughts?

Um just really great conversation.

Um I'm super excited.

Uh and thanks to Director Ross for what I see as uh really spark vision here in kind of sussing out the direction we may go.

So I'm excited, it's really hard to be in this position of not talking so much.

So thank you.

Um I guess uh for final comments for me.

This was a very healthy and robust discussion.

This was a lot of fun.

Thank you, everyone, for um putting all year into it.

Um the only thing I want to say generally comment, like I would recommend that next time we do uh the transportation master plan, we do it in nine years so we don't have this mismatch with the LMTT or whatever.

Um you know, maybe you can consider doing it in four years.

Um but that's it.

All right.

Thank you all very much.

This is a great conversation.

Yeah, with that we'll join the uh April 22nd, 2026 tab meeting.