So we went over this office and do what they call it.

It's awesome.

It was couple of slides.

Okay, everybody.

It is five o'clock.

And Councilor Peacock is not going to be here, and Councilman Logit is going to be here later.

So we'll go ahead and get started with the two items we have on the agenda for the city council special meeting for Tuesday, September 23rd.

The first item is a discussion regarding the Central Oklahoma long range transit plan.

We have Taylor here from our city staff.

And it looks like some uh ACOG folks here as well to discuss that further.

Thank you.

Mayor Holman and Council.

Taylor Johnson, your transit parking program manager for uh public works department.

I'm just here to kind of introduce this topic, and I'll let Chip and John uh carry it on from there.

But this will be your third update on the uh development of this plan.

Uh it's really been about 20 years since we've done this as a region, so it's very exciting, and we're getting close to the end as you'll hear.

So I'll let them take it away.

You have your good hands uh as you've been in the last couple meetings, and I'll let them introduce themselves real quick.

So evening everybody, I'm Chip Nolan, planning manager with Embark.

I'll be going through the slides here and then make uh the other questions at the end, but also we're gonna show Rebecca.

Nice to be here again.

Uh we're getting close to the end of this project, and so we're very excited about it.

From A colleagues' point of view, this is 20 years since we've done this as a region, so very important.

And secondly, we've got our 2050 plan coming up next year, so we need something very concrete and give us some good direction going forward.

So, this this plan is really gonna help us, and hopefully, we'll get some good discussion later.

So, thank you.

So, with that, I'll dive right in.

So, we've got our agenda here.

We'll do project overview, go through the vision, uh, and then how we develop the vision uh and then how we deliver on that vision.

So, our project partners, uh the first few slides uh here, I think you'll see before.

Project leads, uh Embark and MAPS are contributing uh part of the funding, and ACOG is also contributing part of the funding.

So, project leads operating partners uh and then government partners here uh that we've been coordinating with throughout the project.

Project overview.

Uh so these are projections on the left are from the ACOG's 2045 plan, and they'll be working on update in their further use projections in their 2050 plan.

You can see 434,000 residents, 320,000 jobs that will result in 1.1 million trips over the next 20 years.

So this plan hopefully will guide strategic investment to accommodate this growth.

Uh we want to build on previous planning efforts, uh including Go Norman, uh Edmond Shift and uh OKC moves in Oklahoma City, consolidating those planning efforts and building on those uh those great uh great plans.

Want to connect communities by increasing the amount of transit we're providing.

Uh and then another component of this is also uh stimulating local economy and economic development, which I'll get into in one of our slides in a little bit.

So again, we are assessing local service.

We are defining clear recommendations and then identifying responsible investments based on um the funding that should become available.

The vision and goals for this project will develop an intentional plan for cohesive network of transit services that supports growth, promotes economic mobility, enhances quality of life, and facilitates opportunity across central Oklahoma.

We want to provide communities with meaningful access to transit, create compelling reliable rider experience on competitive service options, so people want to take transit, and utilizing our resources effectively uh so that we can figure out where and how to spend the limited dollars that we have for for transit.

Here's where we're at.

Uh third time we're coming to you in the third and final phase of the project.

We're uh presenting uh presented to Edmund Mobility Commission last week, presenting to MBARC's board next week.

Uh and we'll be presenting to ACOG as well on our draft plan here.

And then eventually we'll be asking the ACOG board to formally adopt and approve this plan once it's finished.

So developing the vision.

So on the left here, uh you can see that uh the level of detail you get into with different planning efforts.

So we're in the long range plan here, so you can see that it's the fuzzy purple circle.

And then as you get to your midterm and your short term, you get into a little bit more detail.

So when we look out 2030 years, we recognize that the recommendations in this plan will change once it actually comes time to implement them and you get the funding to make that happen.

We fully acknowledge that a lag will happen in the 20 years.

But that's the level of detail we're at.

And the process we went through is we have our planned high capacity routes through the RTA, local planning efforts for previous planning efforts, previous planning studies, and then stakeholder feedback, been meeting with stakeholders throughout this process.

And we identified opportunities, partly by looking at uh population employment density and other uh typical metrics that typically drive traits.

Developing universal alternatives, getting input and feedback from the public and stakeholders, and finally refining a network based on all of that input.

So we have our planning horizons here.

It's a 30-year plan broken up into three segments.

We have a short-term plan, a midterm plan, and a long-term plan.

One of the things to note here is that the short-term plan doesn't have any RTA projects in it.

The short-term plan is focused on kind of existing priorities, including uh you see on the bottom there, local service investments.

So uh improving frequency and service spans, and then a couple of projects with cities that are already kind of in development.

And then as you get further out, you have your RTA projects in your midterm, and then some additional uh BRT and streetcar projects in the long term, and then more local service investments at each each phase.

So our public engagement summary.

So we've had a lot of uh 29 different board meetings to virtual town halls, um, website views, 84 public comments.

So people are saying that uh we need to respond to the growth in central.

There's a desire for increased service frequency and longer service spans.

Uh, there's a need for improved transfers, uh, and then there's a desire to for transit service between jurisdictions to be better, and then we need to prioritize transit reliability.

And so, what we did in response to that is we're proposing on-demand zones to uh expand uh the geographic footprint of transit into new areas, uh core network of high capacity, high frequency routes, um, improved passenger and driver facilities, uh, upgraded amenities, and then improving uh crosstown routes and uh weekday connectivity uh between jurisdictions and then technology upgrades uh that help improve the customer experience.

So here's the vision.

Uh so you see here 16 high frequency routes, 430 miles of high capacity, high frequency service, uh, eight cross-town routes, 13 on-demand zones, and then the red lines are the RTA corridors.

Those have gone through what's called an alternatives analysis process.

RTA has decided on the route for those corridors and the mode, uh, but they have uh not secure dedicated funding for that.

I think they're exploring financing.

And then uh the purple is the new Oklahoma City maps BRT that we're hope to launch by 2030, and then the solid blue line in the Northwest Corridor is the existing maps for BRT line.

And then the fuzzy uh colors are intentionally fuzzy because those are local uh bus service enhancements.

So the green is high frequency service, the purple is local bus service, and then the kind of orange pink is uh on-demand zones.

And so this gets to the transit.

This slide talks about economic development.

So the American Public Transit Association has a methodology that they use for to look at the economic development of transit around the country.

We apply that same methodology to this study area and this plan.

So they typically see a five to one return on investments.

So you're seeing 151,000 additional jobs accessible by transit, 1,300 sustained jobs because of the transit, um, that 100 million dollars in annual uh growth in the local economy, uh 1.1 million hours of reduced congestion annually, that results in 28 million dollars in annual savings from reduced congestion.

So we're trying to capture the some of the economic benefits of this investment as well.

So long term, uh, you can see some of those performance metrics here, uh decreased transit trip times between key destinations, uh access to additional jobs, uh access to additional residence, um, and then you can see here the that those numbers for the capital and the ongoing operational maintenance costs are in range of what we think this would cost between 500 and million and 725 million capital capital costs, and then 125 million and 175 million in annual operations and maintenance costs.

Between 500 and million and 725 million capital capital costs, and then 125 million and 175 million in annual operations and maintenance costs.

Yeah, I mean, this this looks like a big sticker item.

It is a big sticker item.

So our 2045 plan uh was 10 billion dollars.

So what we were gonna spend in the region over that 30 years of time was gonna be 10 billion dollars, and that's on both construction and maintenance.

So you've got to remember it's kind of a we got to that point now where about 50% of our transportation dollars goes into maintaining the facilities that we have.

So that's a thing.

Well, one of the things that we really wanted to kind of take into account, and these are the numbers that the chip has been told me about is that if you think we've got congestion now or we've got some fun moving around now, add that many people into the region, and then we'll have more fun, and we'll be sitting at lights for longer and so forth.

So this is an option that ACOG at least is saying that we've really got to go in this direction in order to give us a better opportunity to move around our region, and for us to stay competitive against other metros that are looking for jobs and residence and economic development.

So this is something that we really got to discuss more in the future, and we've got to kind of weigh the costs of these things, and it's like, well, the average driver says, Well, I don't really want to pay for transit, but do you want to sit at the traffic light for another two or three minutes too?

So it's kind of it's kind of a balance we have to have, and this is one of the investments that we may have to make in the future in order to have that balance going.

The price tag looks like a lot, but just the uh OTA South extension announcements a day is over a billion dollars just for that stretch of highway that they want to build.

Just the South extension, not the east-west, not the whole rest.

So we could fully fund this entire program for the entire metro area to ride a train or whatever transit from Norman to Edmund to Will Rogers Airport to Tinker Air Force Base, the largest employer in the whole state, downtown OKC to see the thunder play, people come to Norman to see the Sooners play on Saturday without having a drive.

All of that could be funded almost twice for what they want to spend on just one section of the terrain.

So anyway, good context.

So delivering on the vision.

So we spent a lot of time talking about key actions on delivering this plan.

We're trying to really uh crystallize this into four concepts.

So enhancing the rider experience, establishing strategic partnerships, diversifying services, and increasing reliable funding.

So we'll have a different slide on each of these.

So enhancing the rider experience, so um standardized branding, integrate fair systems, invest in transit-oriented development and mobility hubs, so we can create a seamless, intuitive, attractive transit experience.

And you've got a kind of a visual here on the right of what that could look like.

Uh, and in the final plan document, there will be an action plan, implementation plan of steps that staff will follow.

ACOG and Edmund Norman and all the transit agencies will uh will keep up to date with and monitor and carry out to help implement some of these diversifying service.

So, and there's lots of different types of service here.

Uh so this is we're talking about high capacity, frequency for your core network, crosstown, express, and local bus for fixed route, and then for demand response, you've got all day on demand, night and weekend on demand and paratransit.

And then uh enhancing strategic partnerships.

This one may be not get as much attention, but it is very, very important.

Uh public agencies, uh, so it's both you know, MBARC and Norman and ACOG and Edmund and RTA all talking together as staff on what to do next, public-private uh businesses, partnerships with universities, partnerships with large employers, uh, nonprofit organizations, um, and uh on on what can we do to expand the use of transit.

Uh and finally funding.

Um we will need additional reliable funding sources to to make this vision a reality.

But as we talked about earlier, you know, um in the context of other transportation projects, uh, this may not be quite as expensive as it might seem at first glance.

Uh so we also want to make sure that we're aligning with the regional planning process.

So it's really important that we I would like to come back to you with this on a regular basis.

We'd like to update this five years from now, uh, and maybe have um uh have Taylor and and I report back to you regularly on the progress we're making in this plan.

Uh we want to review current transit performance in the next update, uh getting stakeholder engagement, uh analyzing existing transit and projected transit demand, uh, and then evaluating new and innovative solutions that have come on the market since the last plan update.

Uh I don't want this to sit on a shelf until uh you know for the next 20 years.

So finally, uh we are um hoping to take this to ACOG for adoption in November.

Uh we're welcome your feedback for you guys are project website um that uh is still live uh that we continue to update and add new material to.

So we hope you'll go on there.

Uh give us your feedback and your input and looking forward to your questions.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Other questions or comments from council?

Councilmore Grant.

I was just curious, uh, because I've talked to somebody in Moore who was a little sad about um not having the bus system that Norman does.

And the emphasis was on somebody who is blind who needs to take public transportation, um, and the community engagement that you had and feedback.

Were there any specific discussions on ADA?

Yeah, so we part of the first step.

I think so.

The graphic on the top right, um, when we say identifying opportunities, one of the first steps we did was we took uh census data and we created uh um combined different groups, so it could be uh population density, people that don't drive, people that are elderly, kids that don't drive, um low income, so markets that traditionally are have a higher rate of transit use, and we're created a heat map basically of where those populations are, and that was kind of uh a big basis for for the recommendations in the plan.

And then with 20 years added on to that, you can kind of tell.

I mean, you said there would be changes, but do you foresee those populations kind of staying where they're at?

So one of the the first steps, the kind of underlying basis for this is ACOC's 2045 projections.

And what they do is they are projecting where population and employment are going to be in 2045.

And so we use their projections as kind of a starting point for this, and then we added our transit analysis on top of that.

And so when we do future updates, that'd be what we do as well.

So we take for next update, we probably take the ACAR 2050 plan, and that would be kind of our starting point for the next update.

And if I wanted to go ding around dig around those maps, would I be able to find the heat maps for the ADA?

Yeah, so you can go to our project website, connectcentral okay.com, there's uh a story map in there uh that has a lot of um uh visuals and maps, different maps in there that uh you can explore.

But I think we'd get to what you're looking for.

Any other comments, Roll Williams?

Questions okay.

All right, well, um we get somewhat regular updates and have discussions every month in CPTC about just public transit in general, and so that's always a standing agenda item on CPTC.

So if you ever have any questions about the regional transit stuff, um we can bring it up in CPTC anytime.

And uh Taylor can usually uh talk about what we're doing in Norman or research and find out what's going on with the general metro area too if we need or if we need ACOG folks to come down again, we can.

So I think it'd be great to have definitely have a regular update at the very minimum every five years.

But um, for the I know for us uh we want to stay pretty regularly updated on progress with RTA and then the general just regional transit.

So quick question, Ship.

If if you're interested in more community input, our communications chief can attach that to her weekly uh outgoing communication to the community.

Absolutely.

It's got 12 or 14,000 people who receive it, but we'd be happy to share that QR code and link to in the next uh outgoing weekly.

If if Taylor can put fingers on that, we will we will make that so that'd be thank you.

Okay, all right.

Well, that's it.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate you guys going down.

Thanks for and look forward to continuing this discussion.

Item number two is a consideration of adjourning into an executive session as authorized by Oklahoma statutes to discuss pending litigation associated with Wadi Wolf Inc.

versus G.

E.

Johnson.

Second.

Okay.

All those in favor taken by saying aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.