The water level or the tech plus all the time.

Okay, then I do.

I thought Microsoft turned off all those automatic updates because they were having problems like them launching like during critical missions for the government and all this stuff.

Yeah.

Regularly honestly.

I think Bryce said he started it like an hour and a half ago.

Oh, really?

I mean, okay, everybody, it is four o'clock, and uh four of us are here, so we can go ahead and get started.

Um we've got three items on the three items.

Excuse me, everybody.

Excuse me, everybody.

Excuse me, uh we have three items on the agenda this afternoon.

The first one is a presentation of the June and July uh public transit report.

We have Taylor here with some stab to go over that with us.

Thank you, Chair and Council members.

So we didn't get to meet in uh July to go over the June numbers, so we do have the June numbers here uh as well as the July numbers.

So um first I'm gonna go through a few things on the memo as always.

Uh upcoming in the next month uh on September 23rd, we'll come back to council at a uh study session to talk about Central Corona Long Range Transit Plan.

This is likely your last update on that before it goes through the final approval process um to ACOG, who uh similar to our other metro-wide uh transportation planning efforts, that will be the body that really adopts the um we may come back to council as a receipt of the report.

But um, you'll get an update on that, and we're getting really close to having final drafts of things.

Um on the grant side, uh, we did want to let you guys know that we have accumulated some grant money to uh replace the last few vehicles that we have on our list that uh we inherited when we took over the operations and our are due for replacement.

So we're working through uh some staff reports to come to council to tie up some money so we can issue up issue POs.

But we have um some funding for three big buses as well as uh we have uh some funding for our uh paratransit unit that has reached its useful life.

But um that's actually one that we we bought after we took over the service, so uh it's one that's aged out our first aged out that we we purchased.

So there's some more information on those grants here in this memo, but really exciting that we'll be able to move forward with those purchases hopefully in the near future.

Is the lifespan on those vehicles five less than five years?

If it's a smaller vehicle like a minivan, it's four years that you can replace it, you don't have to, but that's we start trying to identify funding for those because they do get used regularly, and um there's a mileage requirement or uh or a uh life year requirement.

So we hit the year requirement.

And a bit uh large bus is 12 years typically that you uh have to keep them, and then agencies usually keep them 13 or 14 years.

Just due to funding, or they're still running fairly well.

Uh let's see, uh did want to update council on our transit center uh bay parking lot improvement project.

So they got started on that a couple of weeks ago, replacing the existing asphalt in the bays there at 320 East Comanche that we knew was gonna come for replacement uh when we moved in, but we thought we could squeak a few years out of it.

Um which we did.

We got two almost two years.

We're hoping for a little bit more.

But uh the contractor is moving, and the first week they had everything um tore out and we're almost ready to pour, and then it started raining, of course.

So uh now we're just waiting for everything to get less solute so we can pour some concrete and then they're starting on the east side, which is where they're at now, they'll move to the west side, and um it's a pretty simple project, just tear out and put down.

So we're we're hopeful that that'll go fairly quickly if the weather can cooperate.

Uh for ridership, the first uh report in your packet should be the June embark Norman report.

So that's for the whole fiscal year last year.

We ended for both fixed route and paratransit at 54,898 passengers, which uh is a 25% increase over the 2024 fiscal year total of 403 uh thousand two hundred and twenty-nine.

So uh we're really excited that ridership continues to increase here in Norman.

Um I think it shows that uh passengers are able to get around uh better with the new routes, but also perhaps additional passengers are are finding the system usable and coming on board and and utilizing the system.

So uh we almost have two years of data on the new route system.

And in October, we'll have November meeting we'll have two full years of data to compare to.

But as you're mentioning, a 25.2% increase in total ridership this year compared to last year on public transit in Norman.

So 25% increase pretty impressive.

So still a lot of issues we know with fixed route system that we want to address and expansion of service, of course, and hours, and uh, but people are riding the bus in Norman.

I think there's no doubt about that.

The fixed route went up 44%.

Yeah, they're better than the 25%.

So this is clearly across the board, it's pretty uh pre-focused.

Yeah, uh I think it shows that for the uh funding that we have available.

I think um city council city leadership have done a good job of prioritizing uh where those dollars go with the Go Norman Transit plan that we were able to do fairly quickly after we took over operations and then were able to implement those route changes uh with your all support.

I think it shows that those are all good decisions, and um some of the assumptions came to reality that uh that we were hoping for.

So uh and then because we have four reports, I'll just there's a lot in there, but I want to hit the high points.

So the next one in your packet should be the July embark Norman report.

So we're starting a new fiscal year with that one.

And um again, I I feel like I keep telling the committee that year over year I expect to come back and the numbers have been have plateaued, but at least for July, we're showing a 25% increase from July 2024 uh for the fixed route and paratransit.

We had just shy of 43,000 riders this July, and uh last July we had 34,000.

So uh another good increase uh for summer month when we typically um have a little bit of a decrease because uh there aren't as many people in and around Norman.

So I think hopefully it stays that way, but uh again, I think due to capacity restraints and just uh uh people in Norman riding the bus will probably hit a plateau at some point.

It's just waiting to see, and hopefully we'll have a modest increase after that.

That's somewhat normal, but it's great to see that we're continuing to go up.

And then for Norman on demand, those are the next two reports in your packets uh for June again, ending the fiscal year.

We had nearly 45,000 rides um for fiscal year 25, and then uh for for the start of the fiscal year 26, we had uh almost 2800 rides, which is a little bit less than the last year's July, but um that service is really uh pretty it's close to being maxed out with the number of vehicles we have, so we expect it to be a little stagnant for lack of a better words.

You just can't fit any more people on vehicles uh that's all you know, and there are seats.

So we'll see how the how it uh reacts as we move forward.

But that is one of the services that uh according to the numbers where we're facing some capacity issues, so we're we're monitoring it closely.

Um any questions on the regular ridership report or anything else in the memo.

Um the uh the paratransit software is being transitioned that part, um, which we discussed a few months ago too, and some of the issues that uh is there an update on how that's working out since then.

Yeah, we continue to meet with passengers and uh healthy living staff members.

Uh we've done that three four times now, um, had a monthly meeting with them since May.

Uh it according to the complaints and the amount that we're not getting, it seems that the initial corrective actions that we took based on input that we got are are working.

Um, and I think that shows uh in the discussions that we've had with that group uh that there's less issues to talk about.

There still are some things that we discuss at those meetings that we are looking into, including the next agenda item on on your pack on your agenda today.

So I think it's a good dialogue that we've been having the last three or four months, and uh it seems that things have gotten better as we work through some of the tweaks with the new software.

But but there are still things that the the committee members at the Awe are giving us that we're taking back and evaluating and trying to see if we could do better on.

That's more great.

I was gonna say I was at the all the other day because they're doing that fundraiser six by six on Canvas, and uh saw paratransit out there, but uh all this discussion around kind of where the hospital is um reminds me of a constituent uh issue that was brought up.

I guess this person is either a case manager or help somebody who's on dialysis, and I guess where the bus drops them off and then the heat because we it was hot.

Um they saw their clients struggling to get to where the dialysis is done.

And so there was the question if we could have bus stops closer to some of these services.

I know there's one off Jones and Porter if memory serves.

Johnson Johnson reporters Johnson reporter.

Um for paratransit or fixed route.

I think it was fixed route, paratransit would be something that that person might be able to use.

Right.

Um, does dialysis or having diabetes like that qualify for paratransit?

Um it it could.

I might ask Marilyn Dillon to come up and help me answer that question.

She'll be up here in a minute anyway.

So just a couple questions.

Was the person walking with a walker or with a wheelchair?

I would have to find out.

Oh I knew they were walking.

Um they're struggling just to walk from the bus stop to the to the dialysis center, that's kind of an indication they might be eligible for paratransit services.

So we'll get with um the people with the all and see if we can identify who saw.

Do you know?

Do you know who you talk to?

Uh yeah, they hit me up through Facebook messages, so I'll go back to that.

Yeah, if you can send it to us, we'll have the mobility navigator reach out and try to get a hold of the individual and help them fill out an application.

Okay.

But yeah, we uh as we've had discussions about fixed route bus stops, we'll try to move or add bus stops as we can.

Um, but there are some limitations because of schedules and trying to keep the rest of the system running that we have to look at.

Well, I guess if it's going by the awe, that might be helpful if it's in that general area.

Right.

Where could M4 well be some?

I don't know if that could take gear dialysis treatment or not.

But no, and we'll get into that in a minute.

It's but it's uh at least as designed right now in Oklahoma City, it's for uh more fitness well-being programs.

People over a certain age, and I'm not really sure of the age of the other person.

So okay, thank you.

Any other questions from counsel about the transit ridership?

Thank you, Taylor.

All right, the next item is the continued discussion on the embark well mobility management.

We have representative from Dimborg and City staff here to talk about.

So Taylor Johnson's still here, still the transit and parking manager, and then Marilyn Dr.

Marilyn Dylan was Embark Mobility uh administrator.

Um so we're unable to pull up the the presentation, but uh you all have a copy or should have received one if you want one.

We have a few more over here.

So we'll um run through that.

This is a continuation of the discussion we had two months ago where we started talking um more in depth about Embark Well, how it operates in Oklahoma City, and what it may look like in Norman.

As we all know, there's uh segments of our population that need transportation services.

I think that shows through our bus route ridership.

I think it shows through the Norman on Demand ridership, and I think it could show through this program as well.

It just takes uh, I think as you guys know, funding dollars to to do all these things.

So we're excited to continue the discussion.

So the first um few slides are just a rehash of what happens in Oklahoma City under current currently current embark well program.

So I'll let Marilyn take those real quick.

We don't have to stand together.

So basically our current embark well program is Monday through Friday.

Um it's all available from seven to seven.

Um it's no cost to the seniors, they have to be 60 and over.

Um it is focused specifically on what's called the social determinants of health, um, wellness, exercise, social connections, uh, healthy meals, nutrition, those types of activities and things like that, but just that community connection.

One of the things that they found over the years with seniors is being socially isolated actually is a negative impact on their health to the point where you know there's a 24% increase in heart disease and heart attacks and up to a 50% increase in strokes for for seniors that become socially isolated and lose that community connection and stuff.

So we developed embark well to to serve that need because traditional non-emergency medical to you know, to her point, you know, for dialysis and stuff, those are it's a different type of trip.

Many of the funding sources for your medical type services don't cover, you know, going to a cooking class to learn how to cook healthy food or you know, going to uh a yoga class to help with your Parkinson's or things like that that don't cover that.

So this is kind of designed to fill that gap in the services.

Um we have a few requirements.

Um it's a simple 10-minute um intake on the phone to sign up.

Um it's an honor system that you're 60 and over.

We don't make them fax in their um their um driver's license and things like that.

Um most of the people that use this are actually um use our older Americans Act services for seniors that we have in Oklahoma County as well.

Um we serve all YMCA locations in the Oklahoma City area, all the maps, three senior health and wellness centers that we've built uh through the maps program in Oklahoma City, and then we have a few uh city parks that have some programming that's specific to seniors, and so those are authorized locations as well.

And really the only caveat is is that we asked the senior to go to the wellness location that's closest to their house because Oklahoma City is so large that the trip costs would get very large if they were going across town to exercise.

Um so that's how the program kind of works right now.

Um as you can see from the slide with the ridership and the graphs on it.

Um we started this in 2019 and did about 734 trips the first year as we were piloting it out.

Uh back then the budget was very small, it was $30,000.

Um we got a little grant, and we were able to go up to $35,000 the next year.

Um, of course, then COVID hit, and as you can see, the trips went way down during COVID because most of the destinations were closed.

Um but then it started going back up in 2022, and by this year, we ended this year, uh, was just shy of 6,500 trips.

So it just continues to almost be double um another thousand trips this year.

Um we're going into this current fiscal year, which we are also July to June, like uh you are here in Norman, um, with a $90,000 budget for our program because it has kept growing, and we do expect next fiscal year to have to go looking for more money to continue either that or to start to reduce the number of trips they can take per week.

Right now they can take five.

Um but towards the end of this last fiscal year, the last four or five months, we had to reduce that down to get only three trips a week for were free simply because we were running out of budget because demand was growing so quickly that we could not keep up with it.

Um all right.

Now we're on slide four, and that's uh title embark well, Norman.

So these are just uh some assumptions we're making on previous conversations, as well as trying to fit uh some parameters around what a pilot would look like.

So similar to what they do in Oklahoma City, we would think this would be weekdays 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

Um age 60 and over.

I know we've talked about possibly reducing that down to 50 and older, but that could uh increase the demand.

Um, and then if we don't have enough funding for all that demand, it could increase frustrations for those people trying to use the program.

So just something to think about.

Uh, like Marilyn said, an application required, it's a 10-minute phone call, basically owner system.

Um and then uh they they do this in Oklahoma City right now, but next day trip reservations, so they can make sure to schedule all that out and know what's going on.

And then we would propose within the existing paratransit zone one, um, which the map is available online for anybody that wants to see it.

It's mainly core Norman.

It's three quarters of a mile outside of a fixed drop bus.

That's the zone one service that we're required to ride for paratransit, just again to keep those trip links down and try to see what the demand is for for the zone one service area.

I have kind of a faint memory of like hot spots, like where people is there a map that kind of tells you like where people with disabilities are traveling in the transit system.

Um we might have had one with the Go Norman Transit Plan.

I think they might have pulled the trip origin destinations for a month or two and then put it into a map.

So I don't know if that's what you're thinking.

But I was just curious if Core Norman really has the concentration of this population that we're discussing.

Yeah.

Um, we could certainly go city limits, but if if there's multiple people outside of that zone one service area and not saying we don't want to serve them, we're just trying to serve um a section.

We're trying to serve a portion well, right?

We don't want to serve everybody with poor service.

Um it's just if somebody has to go out to uh Lake Thunderbird and bring somebody back in for service for a program that's gonna take them a longer period of time.

So it'll decrease the amount of trips we can provide is the thought.

But certainly something we could talk about, these again are the assumptions that we're going through.

And this would be a pilot, so they could be levers we could pull later.

So I wonder if the Census Bureau maintains that kind of demographics by census track.

Um let's do a little digging on that and we'll see what what kind of demographics we can pull.

Yeah, we can look into that for you for sure.

But um, I don't remember a recent map.

That's what I was trying to think of when we showed that.

And then for uh the same uh slide, pilot destinations.

We talked about this last time.

Uh we tried, or at least in Oklahoma City, you saw the list.

It's mainly nonprofits or city owned facilities.

So, of course, the adult wellness and education facility, the Norman YMCA, we added the well on James Garner here, as well as the Norman Regional Health Club, because that um is also part of the hospital and it's on the west side of town, so it kind of gives a little bit of a swath for for facilities to be spread out.

Um again, this is another lever that can be pulled uh in different directions.

I believe last time we let you know that the parks locations can be turned on and off.

If they were going to provide a class for a semester, can you make this available for people on the MBAC World program?

So we could certainly look at other locations.

The YFAC.

Are there a lot of seniors or over 60 using the YFAT pool or anything?

Do we know?

That's a great question.

I don't know, James.

But I don't know if we keep that down.

Um that's one where we could if we got the pilot going with these four locations and we heard demand for that location.

We could certainly look at adding it.

Um street rec center, is that mostly kids?

Right there programs for older types there's open gym time, and we do have indoor pick a wall available uh and outdoors, so there's uses up on older population, but a lot of this programmed for youth there.

To Taylor's point, we we work really closely with Oklahoma City Parks Department and their programming manager.

So anytime she was going to be adding senior programming in a specific location, she sends us an email and say we're adding senior programming.

We send somebody over there, they put embark well brochures out there, and that becomes a destination during that class.

We also do that.

Um are you familiar with the Lynn Institute in Oklahoma City?

They have a group called the Healthy Hopeful Community Collaborative.

It's our group of nonprofits that work together on some social challenges.

One of the things they do is something called the on road on the road to health program.

That's for low-income people to help them buy healthy foods to teach them how to take care of themselves, cook the food properly.

It's a 12-week class one night a week.

And so when they do that class, they call us and say we're gonna have this class, and that becomes a destination for well during the class only.

So because you're doing it as a pilot, and because we're trying to keep the assumptions small, it gives us the ability to do this and kind of dial it into what the demand is over the time as we as we look to see what the demand is going to be.

So there might be like surveys as the pilots going on.

Where would you want to go if there's like programming for seniors that they're aware of, but not covered in this we have volunteers that but when we started first started this in Oklahoma City, that's what they did.

They would sit down and call the people that were using it.

So is there other locations that you wish this facility would go to, or if people would call to sign up and say, you know, hey, I'd like to go work out at XYZ.

Um we would keep track of how many requests we got for a location that wasn't authorized at the time, so we have to add thank you.

So moving on to slide five under further considerations.

Uh some of these were uh touched on like the max trips per week.

Uh Marilyn mentioned they do five in Oklahoma City for a pilot.

We think we would recommend three per week just to see we want to stretch the budget as much as possible if we were going to move forward with it.

But again, a lever that could be pulled one way or another, uh, depending on the amount of funding and priorities of council.

Um, the cap on participants uh we would put it at a hundred um just as a recommendation.

That again could be changed if we get into the service and we're not um we're not using as much of the budget.

I think we could increase the amount of participants.

Um, but obviously we don't want to uh have too many participants and then have to decrease the amount of trips per week because there's too many people on it, if that makes sense.

So uh and then the the type of operator.

We talked about this last time where Oklahoma City uses Uber as as a government partner uh to provide the trips for embark well, so that could be a possibility, and then uh embark uh OKC plus OKC uh supplements it with their wheelchair accessible vehicles.

So if somebody's on the embark well program and they need a wheelchair accessible vehicles, they transport them on their plus vehicles.

Um there is also a uh contracted operator uh option if uh we felt like we couldn't get the demand or the service that we wanted through a uh TNC and Uber or Lyft type service, um, similar to like a Norman on demand type of operator.

So uh with that, we we ran some numbers and with three trips per week at 100 max participants, assuming we had a hundred, uh, we would suggest a 75,000 to 100,000 budget just to make sure that we got through the fiscal year and we were able to serve the the three trips per week at a hundred people.

We would suggest a 75,000 to 100,000 budget just to make sure that we got through the fiscal year and we were able to serve the three trips per week at 100 people.

That's not saying that it this is our best guess.

So we we want to be able to not come back to council at all possible if we went forward with it and uh ask for an additional appropriation.

We like to make it through the whole first year if we went forward.

So is that to get us through the rest of this fiscal year, or would that be an entire calendar fiscal year?

So uh that would be an entire calendar 12 months, not for years.

And um, on the if I can move forward with the last slide, really uh number six on the next steps.

We'd like to finalize parameters of the pilot program.

So if we get a sense that this all makes sense, we would look at pursuing grant funding opportunities.

There's the tobacco settlement endowment trust or T set funding that uh Maryland brought to my attention.

They've used to do some um pilot programs.

Um so we could pursue that.

Uh we we have some uh creative partnerships.

Uh only nonprofits can apply for that funding, but we have a statewide group called the Oklahoma Mobility Institute.

That's uh kind of a branch of our state transit association that will apply for grants on behalf of transit agencies, and we would just form a relationship with that that external nonprofit, and they would apply for the funds on our behalf through this if we wanted to move forward with that.

Um, and we can talk about that some more if you'd like some more information.

And then um we would look for next year budget submitted as a through the regular budget process and see how it goes with uh sales tax numbers and where we're looking on existing transit services.

So eight of a percent is it dedicated sales tax.

Hopefully, it's growing uh well for everyone.

And I did hear an unrelated conversations that uh that T set funding source from the tobacco taxes actually cash.

So we can even work on them to uh to expand funding for this particular pilot type operation.

And Maryland has been successful with T SEC grants in the past, so we we would um at least take a hard look at that funding.

And in embark in Oklahoma City, we we've utilized the Oklahoma Mobility Institute twice.

We have two different grants from the Arnold Family Foundation that's that are through through OMI.

Council Martin.

Yeah, I think the T set funding source, if we can get it, is great.

And I would be interested in hearing more about it as we progress with this, and then for the fiscal year 2027, should we expect like a hundred K-ish?

Or do you feel like the pilot will tell us really important?

That's um if if the grant funding doesn't uh move forward uh come to fruition, uh, or even if it does, uh we would just keep refining our numbers, and then in January when we submit our other budget requests, we would submit that as a budget request and it would go through as a normal project.

We would build it in.

We would dial it in some more to your point.

We wouldn't put 75 to 100,000.

The city manager wouldn't like that range.

No, so uh flexibility.

We would we would refine it um to a harder number than that than the hundred thousand.

As we as we do these programs, because we we do regen quite a few programs, like the city where we pilot it for a year to kind of gauge demand while we look for permanent funding if we're doing a grant project and we are continually dialing it in all the way through the year, so that when it comes time for the next round, we're we're pretty confident in in the numbers that we're given.

So uh and I to the T set um opportunity.

I think Marilyn, you mentioned that we wouldn't when is the deadline that for the one you saw?

I knew you were gonna ask me that.

Is it September?

I feel like it's the end of September.

So when we're gonna do that.

So it's pretty quick turnaround.

So if that's something we're really interested in, staff will take that and work with the city manager's office and try to if we need to put some agreements in agreements in place with that nonprofit outside group, we'll we'll bring it back to you and see if we can go after it.

But yeah, I think David, yeah, go for Councillor's.

I guess it's more for you with you already, you know, having a program free year and everything, kind of work into the kinks of it and everything like that.

With the cost of the vehicles, you know, gas, upkeep, all that stuff for your employees, all that stuff.

How much is your does your money line show it's your cost per ride that it costs y'all?

Uh last year in Oklahoma City, our cost per ride, uh it goes up and down every month.

Yeah, based on the mileage, obviously of the trips.

But uh the average was between 980 and 11.72 cents.

Well, that was with Uber.

Um, um Taylor didn't really mention this, but um in Oklahoma City, we we've managed to secure funding for a separate fleet of vehicles that we call the mobility fleet.

Um they look very much like paratransit vehicles, they do not have lifts or ramps, they just have steps to get the vehicles.

So they're only for ambulatory individuals.

We use those a lot for our uh programs with domestic violence shelters, uh, with the child welfare system, and we work in diversion programs and things like that.

Uh we have gotten some additional funding for those types of vehicles from the Arnold Family Foundation.

So we're going to increase the fleet so over the next couple of years, we will slowly be moving people off of Uber from Embarkwell and putting them onto our own internal vehicles because to your point, our per cross trip on a one of our vehicles much lower than what it is on an Uber.

No profit motive.

No profit motive.

Exactly.

But at least for a pilot, three, four, five years.

It's great that we have these outside opportunities to uh test something and not be capital heavy at the end of it.

So it's a great opportunity to test something out.

So just the only reason I was asking that question everything is because with those numbers and if you're doing just the math and everything on the max participants, all that stuff like that.

If we went with the 75,000, just sort of wearing everything like that at the hundred max three times a week, all that stuff like that.

15,600 rides a year altogether for the program.

We would have to our hundred thousand dollars even would come out to seven dollars a ride as a cost that then to cover what we're promising in the thing.

So which is great.

When we're looking at funding already and everything like that, we might have to think a little bit bigger with grants and things like that to give us a buffer there and everything when we're looking at ride per share.

Yeah, that is a low cost.

Our uh fixed route uh cost per passenger the last year we figured was about seven dollars and sixty cents, and that's with a lot of more passengers and not as much labor and things, so that's a pretty low number.

So um and if you keep it to the zone one area here in Norman, our zone, our area in Oklahoma City is much, much bigger, so our trip links are longer.

So the nine to eleven, that's why we kind of went down and did you know I was working for all seven knowledge.

Yeah, and and uh I think our something we correlate to with the budget is our paratransit ridership is relatively high for a city our size.

Um so we want to be aware of that.

If we introduce um services pseudo-paratransit like uh we want to be aware that it could be higher than normal in Norman because of the population we have.

So cognizant of that.

Council Picott.

Yeah, uh just on the grant front.

I think I mentioned this last time we talked about it, but I can't remember.

Um I would look at AARP as well because they have a lot of funding available for healthy living and one of the most competitive grants on the planet.

I had a feeling you're gonna say that everybody kind of knows the uh world's best kept secret or worse than kept secret.

Um it just goes back to what you kind of said originally about you know the the loneliness epidemic and you know how how negative it is on your health.

I've actually read studies that say that you know that that situation is worse than smoking a pack of cigarettes.

It is, it truly is whatever we can do to get people out of that and getting back to the inactive.

So programs.

Um I had a question about that mobility fleet funding.

You said it was our Arnold Family Foundation.

And is that just serving OKC or does that go into it's a program specific?

Um, it is uh called the climb ride program.

Um we won a transportation innovation grant from the Arnold Family Foundation.

We won a million dollars of grant.

Their charge to us was to create a scalable replicable transportation program that could be embedded into a wraparound service model to basically take transportation barriers off of the the table for you know families going through the child welfare system, you know, individuals that are justice involved, things like that.

And so we did it in Oklahoma County Child Welfare.

Uh it was a hugely successful.

Um, and then so they came back and gave us another uh grant for 1.3 million dollars.

So we're in the process of replicating that project, but this time we're working with foster kids over at Pivot as they age out to try to stabilize them.

Um our next hope is to do the same thing with the diversion programs.

Um and yes, we do have plans to expand into other counties.

So I wasn't gonna say something on the revenues.

Yeah, we're we're actually working on some proposals about county expansion around Oklahoma County.

Like Embarkwell, we have a great example north of other mobility programs that we could look at replicating and uh with our fixed route and paratransit service.

The fleet we have, we have regulations that we have to provide this service, and that's where Maryland gets into.

I'm gonna get this fleet of vehicles over here that can be a little more flexible and what what pro transit programs I provide, right?

So I know I hear complaints about the jail not having uh a bus stop, and people are like the city's not doing enough to put the sidewalk.

I was like, I'm not hearing it.

But uh I do I mean the complaints are out there.

Um with the AARP thing, uh we are pursuing that livable city designation.

Does that help in a competitive process?

I will be really honest with you.

I have no idea.

I have been trying to win an ARP grant since 2016, and I'm a really good grant writer, and I usually win them when I apply for them, and I have yet to be able to crack that up.

Um we're early on in that process, but it's my hope in a couple maybe three years we'll have that.

I believe Guthrie might be the only other city in Oklahoma that has that designation.

Um anyways, just throwing that out there.

Come on, I'll have to look.

I have I I I to be honest with you, I gave up after last year, and I think I did not apply last year.

I will I would be honest that I threw up my hands and said, okay, I'm not gonna change the date.

Um yes, uh, to that point you made.

We've I think been advocating to get public transit to the jail in North Norman for several years since we took over the system actually.

So I just like to say that it's not city council that is keeping that decision from 100% not the city of Norman who is keeping that from happening, and if other governmental entities in Cleveland County would like to participate, the city of Norman would uh absolutely participate.

But as of this moment, those entities have not come forward and offered that assistance to us, just to be clear.

Yep, thank you for setting the record straight.

There's been a lot of if I may, my final comment will be there's similar to that, there's always uh uh thoughts and ideas of where transit could go next to Mormon.

Uh we've talked for a long time, the Southeast Norman route and things like that.

So uh I just want to put that out there similar to Norman on Demand.

I think we had the conversation this is gonna take uh funding opportunity from some other transit priority.

So um just keeping that in mind of other you guys hear more than I do of things that want to get done around town and Norman.

So um we're happy to pursue this opportunity, though it's definitely in need in our community.

I just want to put that out there.

And if that's okay, we'll move forward looking at the T set part, but at the bare minimum, we'll keep this as a conversation and search other funding opportunities if the T set doesn't work out, and we'll submit it as a budget request for sure, if that's what council desires.

Yes, and I think the again the zone two conversation about how much that is funded, how much funding it takes to do the zone two paratransit, the part that we're not required to do by law, yeah, by covering the entire city limits.

We're only required to cover within a mile of fixed route.

But we by choice cover all 200 square miles.

It's very expensive.

So do we we have we have three zones in our call city?

We can run the whole city limit.

700 square.

So we can maybe evaluate that as Mark Will is a kind of a complimentary, not complimentary, but you're dealing with a population who's older and may have mobility challenges too.

Maybe they don't quite qualify for paratransit right there.

So if those two things are working together exactly some way we're able to work on funding for that way too.

But I think any options for funding we can find absolutely we'll look for some other things besides the T set because it it is also highly competitive, but I think we have a pretty decent shot with this program, and this particular type of grant that T SID is offered for this is very focused on exactly what embark well does, and so I think we'll have a really strong grant application.

Any further comments from council clear clear direction?

I think so.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, item number three on the agenda is a discussion regarding updates to the bicycle route map.

Let's see if we have David here and bicycle advisory board.

Yes.

Like we have spend money to make money.

Well, I will start out by saying that that AARP grant, I have applied for it three times myself and never got a snip.

And they asked for a whole boatload of information in your application.

I hate to hear that.

I don't want to do this again because just for you to tell me no.

I get that.

Yeah.

So a little bit about this particular map.

The last time we updated the map was when we had our first comprehensive transportation plan back in 2014.

So it was in dire need of being updated.

As we talk about this, it's gonna sound like it took a very long time because it did take a very long time.

The bicycle advisory committee meets one one hour a month.

And uh, you know, that's not the only topic on their agenda.

So we probably had 15, maybe 20 minutes at any given meeting to talk about this particular map.

Uh we were working on this during COVID in our in our Zoom meetings that we were having, uh, and that's how long it took.

Um but essentially what this map shows is all the different bike facilities in Norman.

It shows whether there's bike lanes or maybe a multimodal path, or if it's just signed as a bike route, for example.

And and there were a lot of changes from 2014 to now.

We there was a lot of construction, we added a lot of bike lanes, we added a lot of multimodal paths.

Uh, we actually took some bike routes off the system because they were honestly dangerous, and and nobody in the bicycling community felt safe riding on some of those routes.

Uh so understand that the map that you're looking at.

I I know that there are people who don't like to hear the term, it's a living breathing document, but it is.

Um, and and honestly, the the version that you're looking at there has some errors in it.

Uh, the committee plans to go through it one more time.

Uh we thought we were kind of at that point now, but looking at it, we're not quite at that point yet.

Uh so the committee's gonna look at it one more time, make the final things, and hopefully print this so that the public can have it and post it to the website, and then ultimately I think we want to get it on GIS so that it's it can be more readily available to other people as well.

Consumer for that.

Um, and looking at the dotted lines, um future route, uh, future path, future lane.

Is that kind of in alignment with the aim normman work that happens and the feedback on where these things should go in the future?

It's probably not so much in line with that.

It's more in line with where we know that there are plans to do things.

That's probably one thing we need to talk about next month.

What the committee or yeah, next month with the committee is is making sure that some of those things in the A Norman plan are showing up reflected on this map.

Yeah, yeah.

Could it be transportation and trails?

Yes.

Okay.

We have not had a chance.

As David indicated, we've been working on this for a bit of time, and so the aim came kind of at the end of our process to so we will incorporate that and therefore the living document is to try to make everything that does um come into cycling and normally kind of up to date as we move along, not have to do a map every so often.

I know our GIS person isn't here probably, but do we know if the AM stuff has gotten put on the GIS net yet of the most recent?

I'll go on a limb and say maybe not.

Okay, that's a pretty pretty large absolutely.

Um I'm thinking here you just take the trails piece and just overlay it on this map and make sure there's not any conflicts more than missed opportunities and conflicts.

And the cycling community is looking forward to all the things that were accomplished under AIM to and then hopefully reflect that into opportunities, you know, on the ground for sure.

And that'll folks probably are anticipating pulling this up.

I mean, most bike computers now you can pull up an active map and use it to plan your routes or trail your routes, things like that.

So, because I know the trail plan played really well with the parks plan, and so there's a lot of commingling between the two, and so they already identified destinations kind of on the trail plan that I think you know, obviously, there's a lot of lot of crossover.

And then on the back side, there's just basics of dates for people who are either familiar with or not as familiar with with ride with some of the things that you need to do and think about.

So our population or our target population was pretty much did you get on a bike?

So folks who go out just for a family ride or folks who ride 150 miles a week.

Um most of the stuff on the back will apply to folks learning to cycle.

Um but the routes on the front kind of reflect everybody's level of of capability, and maybe give people ideas of where they might want to ride or not want to ride one benefit since T Sets already come up, you'll see the T set logo on that.

Excuse me.

Um we have been working with them, and they're kind of excited to when this goes final and goes to print because the intent is both brochure size, small poster size, large poster sizes.

Um they will be funding the initial print coverage on this.

Uh and so that was a pretty good thing to work with them.

And so that basically they're kind of anxious and are waiting for us to go do this map.

So or do the brochure, we think of as a brochure map.

Well, and we've had uh Norman regional representatives that that work with T set, attend bicycle advisory committee meetings for the last two and a half years, a couple years, yeah.

Yeah, I was just gonna say to that point.

I don't know what all this what I'm about to ask entails, but if you could put this into an app form, so I'm on my phone, I can just say route me on most of the apps will pick this if we put it in the right format.

Uh and sometimes it's just saving it a certain specific uh forms, right?

Uh Strava ride with me, uh various and assundra things.

We'll just go ahead and just pull that out.

I was gonna say, I'm sure there's already a and then you can you can pull it and then you can use it to either plan or like I said, record what you've done out there.

Council Marker.

Um does the bicycle can be have a lot of input from the local businesses that support bike rides, like Lazy Circles is one of the ones that ops over to mind where they're doing um like easy in town rides, but they'll do longer ones.

Actually, we do.

Uh Steven he was on the uh committee for a while, but family requirements basically children in the business.

He's starting to you know, starting all of those.

Uh he was not able to carry on, but no, we stay in contact.

I'm fairly plugged in uh for the cycling community here in Norman.

So, yes, uh so both the clubs.

Bicycle race too.

Did we actually have that was kind of that was a little bit separate?

Um, but that was also something that was we did support kind of with a knowledge base.

So we do this would be the kind of thing you'd want to get into people's hands that are either doing an event like that, yes.

We had our fingers crossed, it didn't come to fruition to have this available uh at that time, so we recognize those opportunities, and so both next year, the other thing is uh Earth Day activities.

Uh we used to have the open streets stuff things like that.

So we'll try to push this information out both electronically and you know in paper.

The businesses around town, be they the bike shops or the repair shops or whatever, they're all kind of lining up, or we're lining them up to have um larger posters and also versions of the brochure, but folks and takeaway.

Some folks like to carry paper maps, um, so try to make it an opportunity for everybody.

So kind of have recognized that we need to, and as other businesses um kind of supports cycling around, we'll we'll contact them as well.

And I have one suggestion, uh thinking of technology, council member Picock mentioned an app.

I would say even a QR code to get people if they're gonna be at the businesses um connected to you know centralized information, whatever page that is.

That will be part of the printing process.

We decided not to make it uh part of the map because the map will be ever changing, the QR code will go to the most current version online, and so the intent is to print little stickers, little QR stickers that we can update all the time, print a limited quantity, and then put them on the posters or other places that if people would be willing, you know, put them on a window uh people could hit them that way.

So kind of thought about that rather than reprinting the map every time because the QR code has to be updated.

We decided to do that.

If you make it a permanent landing spot for the QR code, then that one should be like good in perpetuity, you're just updating it on the website, whatever changes.

And so that's kind of the way we're gonna work.

That's the reason the QR code well, and it'll be on the mostly on the posters, these will also have them.

Uh they may end up being printed, but mostly the you know for a lot of people will see the uh information is to uh rather than because you have you have we'll have links on here that they can go to, but yes, so that one's we're thinking about and kind of excited about the case.

Okay.

To that point, uh we got a lot of great artistic bike racks, especially in the core area.

I'm not advocating putting stickers on them, but if you were to make magnets, I mean a great place to put a magnet with a QR code on time racks to take you to the bike trail map.

We have thought about a number of those things that you guys put, yeah.

No shorter.

And as you're aware, there's certain restrictions on making those official.

Ah, gotcha.

I'm not going, I'm not going to say this.

Uh, but there is gorilla advertising between putting a QR code and things like that.

So one of the okay, so two things really um did you say they do, or it does not take into account the new bike trails that were part of the Norman Economic Development Coalition thing that they were able to secure funding for.

I don't even know if that's uh published route or anything that they're doing, but they got funding for bike trails out by the lake.

As we're updating for aim, I think we could probably take that into account as well.

And then um Tecumseh between Northwest 24th and Northwest 36th.

Um I know we have we just finished a little section of the multimodal path there between 24th and flood.

Um I know we have there's future plans to replace the interchange at I-35 and Tecumseh, and I would assume we would be advocating for multimodal paths on both sides of that new bridge and interchange whenever that happens.

So we would be that blue would probably go all the way across the other two.

Okay, and then to clarify our current stance the way I understand it is as a city policy, are we moving kind of away from in-street bike lanes and more towards the 10 foot plus multimodal paths where possible?

I'll say in general, yes.

There are exceptions, but yeah, in general, yes.

I think the a lot of the feedback I heard maybe for different is in-street bike lanes.

If we can uh protect have protection between but just a bike lane on the side of the busy street is not desirable.

Busy high volume street.

So unless we can have a physical barrier or some kind of divider between the separated 10 to 12 foot multimodal path is more desirable.

Okay.

I'd rather see them dollars put towards that than any more green paint.

I think we've we for sure aren't doing the green paints anymore.

Pretty much killed the green paint.

Yeah, we discovered it's way too expensive, and it was actually a straightforward decision because the city was having trouble with it.

The can people doing the construction was having trouble with it.

And it's very specialized.

There aren't people that can even install.

To be honest, the cyclists did not like it.

Yeah, I mean it it did give you a visual, but it also created other additional problems for the site.

Yeah, so rest assured as it wears off, it will not be repassed.

Um we have talked about maybe just doing it at intersections or a colored pavement of some kind where the bike lanes go into an intersection and transition, but yeah, yeah, I think it's fair.

Okay.

Any other comments or questions on council about the bike stuff?

Good work.

Okay, and I was at ACOG earlier, and they talked a lot about how their stuff really favors like 75% of the funding went to sidewalk and bike projects.

They're gonna change that so that it doesn't all go to just one thing anymore, but um that they were uh uh they wanted to make sure phones going to all projects, but um they said they were really favoring that and they were gonna continue favoring bicycle sidewalk projects in the metro area.

Every ACOG meeting that I attend, they want a copy of this map too.

Yeah, we've got uh Dave and I are both on the active transportation company for ACOG.

So we we both here and supported and try to get the information that they request.

I think there's maps three, maybe had I think 500 miles of bike trails and sidewalks in it.

You know, so as people are talking about normal forward too and it being more of an eco-tourism parks outdoor package.

I mean, I think this absolutely fits in that bucket.

So I'd support that, whoever's listening.

All right, any comments, questions, finals?

Thanks for all the way.

Yes, thank you very much.

Please let uh share our thanks to everybody on the committee too for the work.

And we're back up to full committee after the two two uh our uh two new folks.

So we're good.

Nice perfect, perfect.

We'll keep us posted on uh how this evolves.

Okay, um anything else?

Any final comments from council?

Okay, thank you all.

This meeting is a good buy.

There is a uh non-profit in the city called Hide and Go Bike, and they basically all they do is community bike.