OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

October 23, 2025 Community Planning & Transportation Committee Meeting Summary

Public Meetings & Live-Streams — Thursday, October 23, 2025
BodyNorman, Oklahoma
SessionPublic Meetings & Live-Streams
DateThursday, October 23, 2025
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 1:12:36

Transcript — Verbatim
0:18

How about yourself?

0:22

Same.

0:24

Actually, I have to work it with Terra.

0:27

All right, everybody, it's four o'clock, so we'll go ahead and get started with the community planning and transportation committee for Thursday, October 23rd, 2025.

0:38

We have three items on the agenda.

0:40

The first one is our regular presentation of the monthly public transit ridership report.

0:47

This one for September.

0:48

We have Taylor here from staff to go.

0:51

Thank you, Mayor and Council members.

0:53

Yeah, I'm Taylor Johnson, your transit and parking program manager in public works.

0:58

As always, we have a few updates here on the memo in your packets, as well as some ridership numbers.

1:04

We can uh go over and answer any other questions that you guys have.

1:08

Um the memo here, I just want to highlight a few things on the maintenance and vehicle procurement.

1:13

Uh we appreciate council approving uh acceptance of grant funds, moving some monies around, and then the authorization to purchase of three large buses last Tuesday.

1:22

So we're busy uh getting all that paperwork done um with the Washington state contract folks and getting that PO issued and getting those on order.

1:31

So those will be the last three big buses that we need to replace as a since we've inherited the system.

1:38

So and it'll be a while before we need to replace them because they're 12-year buses.

1:41

So we will have replaced all of them in the last five years.

1:46

Correct.

1:47

Yeah, because we inherited all the buses we inherited, were old pretty much, and we've replaced all of them.

1:52

And then I did get a question the other day from someone about I guess one of the older ones was in service, and they asked about when we were updating all the buses.

2:02

I was like, actually, there's only two left.

2:04

So we're almost there.

2:05

Which you know, some of those older ones, yeah, they're still on the road, they're still they're not as nice on the inside, but they're still performing fairly well.

2:12

So yeah.

2:14

Um, and then uh moving along to the bottom of the first page on the Central Oklahoma Long Range Transit Plan.

2:20

Uh, we came to council last on September 23rd to give an update, and that was uh likely the last update to you all.

2:27

Uh it'll go through a few more committees and then on to ACOG, likely in November, where we're anticipating adoption of that.

2:33

And then uh ACOG staff is is uh we're gonna be working with them on looking at how the implementation plan or action plan for that long-range transit plan works.

2:43

So uh just a reminder it's uh culmination of all the local planning work for transits, uh making some recommendations, but um at a high level, what can we do to move transit forward um collaboratively in the ACOG region uh for into the future?

3:00

So we'll be working on that in next uh calendar year.

3:04

And then on the back page, uh it's the last bullet at the top, uh, technically under the grant section.

3:10

We talk about the T SEC grant.

3:12

We um came to council a few times to talk about embark well, and so we are pursuing that grant.

3:19

Uh it's the physical activity section of T SET, which is the the uh tobacco settlement endowment trust, and hoping to launch a pilot program for that embark well, which is senior focused transit to you know help encourage health and wellness uh for that population over 60 is what they do in Oklahoma City right now, and as we discussed, we could change that if council um wants us to, but we're at least gonna pursue that grant funding.

3:44

It's a hundred percent, which is great.

3:46

If we we could possibly get some additional points if we asked for um less than 100%, but we felt like that was the most prudent thing to do at this at this moment, and we'll be going to you on October 23rd with a grant resolution, um, hoping to get that approved so we can submit that.

4:02

The deadline's November 18th, I believe.

4:06

So and then lastly, on the Norman Transit Center parking lot project.

4:10

Uh, that we had a final walkthrough on Monday, so that project is it's good to go.

4:15

It looks great.

4:16

We're we're pretty happy with it.

4:17

And if you drive by or stop by and look at it, um hope everybody everybody else is happy with it.

4:23

Uh something we knew we were gonna have to do, but uh we were hoping we could limp through with the asphalt a little longer, but it just wasn't becoming yeah.

4:32

Moving on to the ridership.

4:33

So uh in September for both uh embark uh the fixed route service and plus we had 47,643 riders.

4:41

That's a little bit more than last September, which was 44,679.

4:46

Um so again, like last month, we're starting to see uh what I would call uh good regular growth.

4:52

The last couple years we've seen 20, 25 percent ridership, so now we're still increasing, but not nearly as much as that, which is still fine in the in the industry.

5:03

Um I would like to point out on the table on the right there, uh just some of the the 112, the 121 and 122 are over 30 percent over last September.

5:13

Um so that's that's great, they're still uh gaining uh locally, and then the the main street one ten and east Lindsay 11 are down slightly, but uh you know the main streets it's it's it's 50 riders and and uh 111 it's obviously our most heavily ridden route, so it's uh over a thousand, but still a very heavily utilized route.

5:35

So try to keep it in perspective uh uh and and point back to uh the numbers we were doing last year, but obviously as we go forward, we may not see as much gain.

5:45

And then um and Saturday service for main street is up 35% though.

5:51

Yeah, so you know it can vary by month too.

5:54

We've talked about that how many weekdays versus uh weekend days and just events, game days, things like that.

6:01

But overall, still uh healthy growth and healthy ridership uh for us.

6:06

And I always like to point to the ridership or service hour for fixed route uh weekday is still 22 uh over 20.

6:13

Uh still very good for a system our size, which is great.

6:16

And uh which routes are 30 minutes right now?

6:19

The only one that's not 30 minutes is one ten.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Parking Management█████████████████████████████████████████████48%
Public Transportation█████████████████18%
Food Services████████8%
Homelessness████████8%
Technology and Innovation███████7%
Zoning And Land Use█████5%
Public Works██2%
Public Safety██2%
Tax Increment Financing██2%
Summary of Proceedings

Community Planning & Transportation Committee Meeting - October 23, 2025

The Community Planning and Transportation Committee convened on October 23, 2025, to review the September public transit ridership report, discuss proposed updates to the city's parking management plan including potential food truck leases and rate adjustments, and consider the vacation of an unimproved alleyway causing safety and sanitation issues for residents. Staff presented data indicating steady fixed-route growth alongside a decline in demand-based on-demand services, proposed significant changes to parking fees to address operational deficits, and outlined a legal strategy to vacate a problematic alley to benefit abutting property owners.

Consent Calendar

  • No consent calendar items were discussed or approved as unanimous actions during this meeting.

Public Comments & Testimony

  • Resident Concerns: A resident noted the alleyway acts as an "attractive nuisance" and mentioned broken fences, expressing relief that the city might assist with re-establishing fence lines.
  • Legal Safeguards: Council Member Counselor Grant requested legal input to ensure the city is protected from liability should food trucks tie into city electricity in the future.

Discussion Items

Monthly Public Transit Ridership Report

  • Ridership Data: Staff reported 47,643 rides in September for fixed-route services (Embank and Plus), representing a slight increase from the prior year's 44,679, though growth has slowed compared to previous 20-25% increases. Routes 112 and 121 saw over 30% growth, while Route 110 remained heavily utilized but saw slight declines. Saturday service on Main Street increased by 35%.
  • Fleet Replacement: Taylor Johnson confirmed the recent purchase of three large buses, which will be the final replacements needed to modernize the inherited fleet; only two older buses remain in service.
  • Long-Range Plan: The Central Oklahoma Long Range Transit Plan is anticipated for adoption by ACOG in November, with work on implementation starting in the next calendar year.
  • Grant Pursuit: Staff is pursuing a 100% funded T-SEC grant for an "Embank Well" senior-focused pilot program targeting health and wellness for residents over 60, with a grant resolution to be presented for approval on October 23.
  • Norman on Demand: Ridership dropped by 38% year-over-year (from 4,760 to under 3,000). Staff attributed this to a fare increase ($2 to $3), the removal of six free sign-up rides, and service tapering. However, total accounts grew to 13,800, with approximately 4,400 active users.
  • Service Frequency: All fixed routes operate on 30-minute frequencies except for Route 110, which currently runs on an hour. Staff noted that improving Route 110 to 30 minutes is the third priority in the long-range plan, requiring additional staffing and potential new buses, and offered to provide a cost breakdown if requested.

Parking Management Plan Updates

  • Proposed Fee Changes: Staff proposed increasing hourly rates in the East Gray Street lot and around the County Courthouse from 25 cents to 50 cents per hour to address operational deficits. Council considered a uniform $1/hour rate but leaned toward the 50-cent increase. A three-hour minimum may be required at the 50-cent rate to cover transaction fees ($0.35).
  • Asset Usage Incentive: Staff proposed lowering the Aspen Avenue (Asp) parking lot rate from $1/hour to $50 cents/hour to incentivize usage of the underutilized lot.
  • Lease Rate Adjustments: Annual lease rates for the East Gray Street lot are proposed to increase from $450 to $600. Staff also proposed creating a lease system for 21 spots in the Aspen Avenue lot, potentially at $800 annual for a 50-cent hourly rate, utilizing a lottery system.
  • Food Truck Policy: Staff proposed allowing food truck permitting in city lots, noting the complexity of space requirements (often 3 spaces per truck), access to pedestrians, and electricity. Staff recommended allowing trucks in corners to minimize space loss, with a strict prohibition on city-provided electricity initially to mitigate liability.
  • Long-Term Leasing: Discussion arose regarding long-term leases for residential developments in the center city, necessitating potential changes to the annual lottery model and longer commitment terms.

Alleyway Vacation (Reed Avenue and Cook)

  • Issue Description: An unimproved T-shaped alleyway between Reed Avenue and Cook is a source of significant neighborhood disruption, hosting encampments of 30-40 people and safety hazards including used needles and trash.
  • Proposed Action: Staff proposed vacating the alley, which would legally transfer the 20-foot wide property to the abutting homeowners (10 feet to each side). This would allow neighbors to fence off the space and potentially secure CDBG funds to establish a fence line.
  • Process: The process involves a resolution of intent, planning commission review, court filing, and notification to utility companies (noting ONG meter relocation efforts) and abutting owners.

Key Outcomes

  • Transit: Staff is directed to pursue the T-SEC grant resolution for October 23 approval and is tasked with providing a cost estimate for expanding Route 110 service to 30 minutes if requested by council.
  • Parking Rates: Council indicated consensus to proceed with the proposal to raise hourly rates in Gray Street and Courthouse areas to 50 cents per hour (with a potential three-hour minimum) effective January 1, pending legal review of transaction fees and rate authority.
  • Parking Leases: The committee agreed to move forward with increasing the Gray Street lot lease to $600 immediately for the upcoming cycle, with the Aspen Avenue lot lease potentially starting July 1 to allow for further discussion on residential long-term needs.
  • Food Trucks: Council granted staff the flexibility to develop and incorporate food truck policies into the new Parking Management Plan, emphasizing the need for legal protections regarding utility connections and spatial requirements.
  • Alley Vacation: Council reached a consensus to proceed with the vacation of the alleyway between Reed Avenue and Cook, directing staff to issue the resolution of intent for consideration on November 25 and to begin notifying abutting property owners.

Meeting Transcript

How about yourself? Same. Actually, I have to work it with Terra. All right, everybody, it's four o'clock, so we'll go ahead and get started with the community planning and transportation committee for Thursday, October 23rd, 2025. We have three items on the agenda. The first one is our regular presentation of the monthly public transit ridership report. This one for September. We have Taylor here from staff to go. Thank you, Mayor and Council members. Yeah, I'm Taylor Johnson, your transit and parking program manager in public works. As always, we have a few updates here on the memo in your packets, as well as some ridership numbers. We can uh go over and answer any other questions that you guys have. Um the memo here, I just want to highlight a few things on the maintenance and vehicle procurement. Uh we appreciate council approving uh acceptance of grant funds, moving some monies around, and then the authorization to purchase of three large buses last Tuesday. So we're busy uh getting all that paperwork done um with the Washington state contract folks and getting that PO issued and getting those on order. So those will be the last three big buses that we need to replace as a since we've inherited the system. So and it'll be a while before we need to replace them because they're 12-year buses. So we will have replaced all of them in the last five years. Correct. Yeah, because we inherited all the buses we inherited, were old pretty much, and we've replaced all of them. And then I did get a question the other day from someone about I guess one of the older ones was in service, and they asked about when we were updating all the buses. I was like, actually, there's only two left. So we're almost there. Which you know, some of those older ones, yeah, they're still on the road, they're still they're not as nice on the inside, but they're still performing fairly well. So yeah. Um, and then uh moving along to the bottom of the first page on the Central Oklahoma Long Range Transit Plan. Uh, we came to council last on September 23rd to give an update, and that was uh likely the last update to you all. Uh it'll go through a few more committees and then on to ACOG, likely in November, where we're anticipating adoption of that. And then uh ACOG staff is is uh we're gonna be working with them on looking at how the implementation plan or action plan for that long-range transit plan works. So uh just a reminder it's uh culmination of all the local planning work for transits, uh making some recommendations, but um at a high level, what can we do to move transit forward um collaboratively in the ACOG region uh for into the future? So we'll be working on that in next uh calendar year. And then on the back page, uh it's the last bullet at the top, uh, technically under the grant section. We talk about the T SEC grant. We um came to council a few times to talk about embark well, and so we are pursuing that grant. Uh it's the physical activity section of T SET, which is the the uh tobacco settlement endowment trust, and hoping to launch a pilot program for that embark well, which is senior focused transit to you know help encourage health and wellness uh for that population over 60 is what they do in Oklahoma City right now, and as we discussed, we could change that if council um wants us to, but we're at least gonna pursue that grant funding. It's a hundred percent, which is great. If we we could possibly get some additional points if we asked for um less than 100%, but we felt like that was the most prudent thing to do at this at this moment, and we'll be going to you on October 23rd with a grant resolution, um, hoping to get that approved so we can submit that. The deadline's November 18th, I believe. So and then lastly, on the Norman Transit Center parking lot project. Uh, that we had a final walkthrough on Monday, so that project is it's good to go. It looks great. We're we're pretty happy with it. And if you drive by or stop by and look at it, um hope everybody everybody else is happy with it. Uh something we knew we were gonna have to do, but uh we were hoping we could limp through with the asphalt a little longer, but it just wasn't becoming yeah. Moving on to the ridership. So uh in September for both uh embark uh the fixed route service and plus we had 47,643 riders. That's a little bit more than last September, which was 44,679. Um so again, like last month, we're starting to see uh what I would call uh good regular growth. The last couple years we've seen 20, 25 percent ridership, so now we're still increasing, but not nearly as much as that, which is still fine in the in the industry. Um I would like to point out on the table on the right there, uh just some of the the 112, the 121 and 122 are over 30 percent over last September.

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