Recording in progress.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm Charles Allen, Ward Six Councilmember and Chair of the Council's Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

Today is Thursday, April 30th, 2026.

We are meeting both in room 412 of the John A.

Wilson building as well as via the Zoom virtual platform.

The time is now twelve thirty-seven PM, and I'm calling to order this budget oversight hearing of the committee.

This is the committee's third budget oversight hearing on the mayor's proposed budget for fiscal year twenty twenty-seven.

Today the committee will receive testimony from the government witnesses regarding the proposed budget for the district department of transportation, otherwise known as D DOT.

D D DOT's stated mission is to equitably deliver a safe, sustainable, and reliable multimodal transportation network for all residents and visitors of the District of Columbia.

Pursuant to that mission.

D Dot designs, constructs, and maintains alleys, sidewalks, streets, bike lanes, bridges, and tunnels throughout the district.

The agency administers the district's automated safety camera program as well as the bus lane enforcement and freight vehicle camera systems.

Beyond managing transportation projects, DDOT is also one of the primary agencies involved in our public space management, whether it's street closures for a parade or farmers' markets, or issuing permits for streeteries and block parties.

For any public witnesses who wish to submit written testimony in addition to the public testimony we received the other day.gov backslash hearings until Monday, May 11th, 2026.

But Director, before we do that, we have to swear you in, and anybody from your team that is going to be helping answer questions, and then I will kick it over to you so that you can present your testimony.

And uh let me turn it over to you for your testimony.

Great.

Thank you.

And good afternoon, Committee Chair Allen, Councilmembers, and District residents.

I am Sharon Kirschbaum, Director of the District Department of Transportation.

And I am pleased to testify at today's hearing on Mayor Bowser's fiscal year 2027 budget for our agency.

The fiscal year 2027 budget helps DDOT focus on its core mission and deliver on its strategic plan move DC.

It ensures a state of good repair for key assets such as roads and bridges and invests in new projects to make sure that we can provide a safe and multimodal transportation network.

As with all budgets, especially in recent years, some difficult trade-offs had to be made to account for major cost pressures.

Despite this, I feel the 20 FY27 budget helps grow DC by ensuring that DDOT's projects and programs are funded to retain and attract new residents, support economic development, and keep the district moving.

Next slide.

The FY27 budget appears to make major cuts to DDOT, but in fact, the changes are right sizing our operations and will not impact public facing services.

First I think there's a presentation mode.

Yeah, I think we've got it now.

Okay.

Next, the budget eliminates contract funding and vacant staff positions for the streetcar program, which is now ended.

We are also moving more costs out of our overhead indirect budget and defunding non-critical vacant positions.

Finally, the estimate for CABI revenues was reduced to reflect the eliminated one-time rollover from FY25 to FY26.

The FY27 budget on the next slide continues to make significant investments in DDOT's capital program.

First, the local match requirement to our federal formula grants is fully funded.

It ensures that all of our state of good repair work on federal roads, bridges, and tunnels, is supported.

Next, the local budget adds to that by fully funding investments on local street alleys and sidewalks, funding safety investments, as well as improving mobility options like multi-use trails.

Overall, the budget represents a $4.1 billion, represents $4.1 billion over the six-year capital improvement plan, also referred to as CIP, to reflect both federal and local investments, which is a $500 million increase over our current CIP.

One of the pillars of the mayor's growth agenda is growing our economy, including supporting sports and entertainment venues, as well as revitalizing our downtown spaces.

The budget includes investments in roadways, bridges, and transit to build out the infrastructure on the RFK site and improve connections to the stadium campus for all users.

In downtown, investments near the Capital One Arena, including a transformative plaza adjacent to the portrait gallery, support a vibrant and dynamic public realm.

These investments appear in the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development budget, but DDOT will be closely involved in these efforts.

DDOT's infrastructure projects, big and small, are designed to support a transportation network that offers safe and secure travel choices for all users.

The mayor's budget continues to support our agency's proactive work to improve safety where it is needed the most.

Safety is, of course, DDOT's North Star.

And the FY27 budget provides significant investments in helping us redesign our roadways to reduce fatalities and serious injuries in the district.

The high injury network identifies the corridors and intersections where a disproportionate number of crashes occur.

It helps us target both our quick build tactical investments as well as major corridor projects for the long term.

The FY27 budget includes 48.7 million in our safety and mobility capital project to fund quicker build projects and 135 million in our streetscape capital project to fund major corridor investments.

Spot safety interventions allow DDOT to proactively and responsibly address safety issues with quick and medium-sized projects such as built bulbouts, pedestrian refuges, and traffic signal modifications.

The FY27 budget supports our primary proactive program, the annual safety program, which delivers about 100 projects across the district annually.

In addition to the proactive work, the FY27 budget also fully funds DDOT's responsive work, including both the traffic safety input program and post-fatal interventions.

Major corridor improvement projects along the High Injury Network, or HIN, are the best way to make long-term safety design changes.

Highlights include continued work on our most dangerous corridors such as Bladensburg Road, Rhode Island Avenue, and North Capitol Street.

Another key safety initiative at DDOT is our Safe Routes to School program, which has grown with the support of this committee to encompass a number of funding streams.

These investments have allowed the agency to stand up a robust program that works with schools and parents alike to make walking and cycling to school safer.

DDOS continuing to deliver at least 25 action plans per year and will meet this goal annually going forward.

The FY27 budget continues to support operating the district's automated safety camera network, which is a key enforcement tool to help ensure drivers operate their vehicles safely.

To date, DDOT has installed 547 cameras, including 312 cameras on our roadways and intersections, 25 school bus stop arm cameras, and 210 cameras on metro buses to enforce bus lanes and bus stops.

The program continues to advance safety goals by encouraging safer driving, reducing severe crashes, and protecting pedestrians and cyclists in the district.

FY27 funding includes a $310,000 enhancement to introduce an additional 70 clear lanes cameras to improve bus efficiency and safety.

At the heart of operating a transportation department in an urban environment is mobility, offering multimodal options so all residents and visitors can easily and safely travel on foot, by transit, or by bike.

The district's bus parity program is one of the best ways that DDOT can support WAMADA's metro bus operations.

The FY27 budget includes $92 million over the CIP to continue delivering projects to improve bus speeds and efficiency across all eight wards.

Completed bus priority projects have boosted bus speeds by as much as 40%.

DDOT will focus our efforts on the highest bus frequency corridors based on the new Metro bus network, and we'll be updating our bus parity network and plan accordingly in FY27.

Bus parity projects also allow DDOT to deliver safety improvements on our on our HIN.

The initial 2027 bus parity construction schedule includes projects on multiple Tier 1 HIN corridors, including U Street Northwest, Georgia Avenue Northwest, and Minnesota Avenue Northeast.

Meanwhile, initial planning is already underway for a bus rapid transit or BRT on the H Street Benning Road Northeast Corridor.

This project will dramatically improve the transit experience on the corridor, shortening travel times and improving reliability for everyone who depends on the D-20, the D2X, and the C57.

This investment in speed and reliability will also establish a convenient link between Union Station and RFK, giving fans an exciting new option for reaching the new stadium without sending more traffic through the neighborhood.

It will also help local businesses tap into the thousands of people attending events.

Unlike an underground metro tunnel, the BRT allows riders to see the many shops and restaurants along the line.

And unlike driving and circling for parking, it's easy to hop off and on.

This project is also envisioned as the first step towards a crosstow, also known as the Gold Line, connecting Ward 7 to Georgetown and beyond.

Capital Bike Share had a third consecutive record-breaking year in 2025, a sign of the program's success.

Residents and visitors are using cabby to make those last mile connections, or with the advent of e-bikes, taking longer journeys solely with cabby.

The mayor's FY27 budget supports the continued operations for the system through its special purpose revenue fund and provides the needed capital funds to keep the system, the growing system in a state of good repair.

The FY27 budget supports DDOT's goal of building a network of bike lanes and bikeways to keep bicyclists safe and help the district meet its sustainability goals by reducing single occupancy vehicle trips.

The budget will support our existing slate of projects as well as new projects identified through our strategic bikeways plan.

These projects not only improve safety for cyclists, but also, where possible, redesign the roadway to improve safety and visibility for pedestrians and drivers as well.

Trails provide residents and visitors low-stress transportation options that in many cases also showcase the natural beauty the district has to offer.

The FY27 budget supports seven trail projects across the district and moves the needle on completing the regional network.

Many of these projects represent incremental but significant improvements on existing assets.

DOT delivers, and we strive to complete projects on time and on budget while engaging and communicating with the community.

The FY27 budget will continue to make much needed investments in our bridges.

These are long-term projects that will provide much needed improvement and update the use of the roadway to accommodate multimodal users and multimodal investments to the extent possible.

Next slide.

Highlights include the Theodore Roosevelt, H Street, and Benning Road Bridges.

In addition to the Benning Road Bridge and Interchange Project, we also have funding to include a bending road corridor project to improve multimodal access to the RFK campus.

Through our management and operations goal, DDOT will continue to ensure a state of good repair for our existing assets.

The FY27 budget continues to make the historic investment to maintain our assets in a state of good repair.

Allees are continuing to be rehabilitated with a plan to restore 215 more locations by 2027.

In addition, while utilities are doing a lot of work in the district, especially for much needed lead line replacement, we are continuing to make progress toward eliminating poor condition roads.

Currently, about 90% of the sidewalks are in excellent affair conditions, and we are shifting to a more proactive and performance-based approach to get a better sense of their condition.

Finally, we are adding $400,000 annually in our strategic asset management budget to expand a program for camera-based asset condition assessments within the right of way.

This technology will allow us to use our existing fleet to capture the conditions of our roadways signs, pavement markings, and flex posts, reducing our dependency on 311 notifications and inspections.

We hope to add and maintain between 100 and 200 cameras to our vehicles with this budget.

DDOT's sustainability goal includes funding to reduce emissions and strengthen resilience in the face of climate change, especially in historically under-resourced communities.

DDOT maintains many stormwater and flood mitigation assets, and the FY27 budget helps ensure that they are kept in a state of good repair.

Additionally, the budget includes funds that are needed in order to respond to emergencies created by more frequently occurring severe storms.

This budget makes the contractual capacity to respond to these emergencies possible, and the related capital projects need to remain fully funded to ensure that sufficient funds are kept in reserve to address them as they res as they arise.

DOT's urban forestry division is the primary steward of Washington, D.C.'s approximately 200,000 public trees and has a mission of keeping this resource healthy, safe, and growing.

Among the many other benefits, our trees improve our air and water quality, provide critical habitat for birds and bees, and cool our neighborhoods.

The FY27 budget supports the planting and maintenance of street trees as well as trees and other public areas such as schools and parks.

The tree fund is a critical tool as well as the capital program to ensure that we plant 8,000 trees per year to grow the district's canopy.

Of course, the out years have been reduced for balancing purposes, but we will revisit those in future budgets to ensure consistent investments.

Enjoyable spaces are accessible, safe, and welcoming to residents, visitors, and commuters, and we continue to invest in these kinds of placemaking projects.

The 11th Street Bridge Park has completed final design, and we are working with building bridges across the river, our nonprofit partner to move the to the construction phase.

The procurement will begin later this fall.

The park will be built on the old piers from the original 11th Street Bridge and will provide a park connecting the two sides of the Anacostia River.

The project is funded with local and private sources, and we are working closely with BBAR to make this project a reality.

Together, these investments and program priorities shape DDOT's plans to grow the district.

This concludes my presentation, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you very much, Director.

And we've got fairly smooth on the next slide.

Maybe next time we'll have you guys around the slide too.

Yeah, we'll have potato, but uh that worked out great.

So thank you very much.

All right, I'm gonna start by kind of just digging in on a few items and then we'll kind of work our way through.

And I've got some of the questions that we heard or comments from the public witnesses during the public portion.

I kind of have interspersed through here, so we'll turn to some of those questions that people had asked that I know you and your team were listening will be prepared to help answer some of that.

So I'm gonna start with some of the federal funding cuts to make sure we walk through what that's looking like.

So overall D DOT's operating budget is being reduced by about 25 million.

It's a combination of 7.4 million from local funds, 6.1 million from special purpose revenue funds, and then just shy of 12 million from federal grants.

If I'm understanding correctly, that represents about a 27% reduction in federal funding overall, which is pretty steep.

Why are we seeing such a large loss of federal funds?

Um are those tied to very specific projects, or as we've unfortunately seen as uh the Trump administration has withdrawn projects that had been previously authorized by Congress.

Is help help flesh out a little bit more about why we're seeing such a steep decrease in federal funding.

And if you would just introduce uh your team member uh so that's clear for the record.

Sorry, and I should have kicked off with this.

I am joined by Paul Revez.

He's a program manager in our resource allocation division.

And I am going to turn to him for this one.

Excellent.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

Um in the operating budget, we have an area called federal grants, which has indeed seen a reduction compared to 26.

Mr.

Vos, I might need you to pull the mic just a little bit closer to you.

That way I can hear you, but I I know that we want folks to online it'll hear too.

Right.

Um yeah, so in the operating budget, we have a category called federal grants, and that has indeed seen a reduction compared to 26 levels.

That actually represents thank you so much.

Um what's called our indirect cost recovery budget, which is like an overhead budget that we earn when we spend on capital projects.

Um as the director mentioned in our testimony, um, that is being right sized for 27.

It's we've already made that kind of reduction this year, practically speaking.

Um so there aren't any impacts on our operations.

The bulk of our federal grants that we get from the US DOT are actually reflected in our capital budget.

And the capital budget now fully funds or reflects the anticipated grant levels, um, both kind of formula and discretionary grants that we um intend to get from the feds, and those have not seen a decline.

I hope that answers your question.

So the the federal, the federal piece in the operating budget is really not our bread and butter federal grants that we get for um construction projects.

Got it.

All right.

So federal grants are largely reflected in capital.

Correct.

There's a portion of that grant that will be reflected in operating because that goes to your cost overhead to administer said grant.

Correct.

Okay.

Um that's being right sized for FY27, a better reflection of what we anticipate to earn based on the delivery of these larger projects.

And is that because federal DOT has changed the amount that we should be expecting to see from federal capital dollars, or they have changed something around the application of what's allowed to be billed for overhead costs that would show up in the operating budget?

It's a great question.

It's a collaborative process.

We come to an agreement with the feds about what is an eligible rate to charge.

Um it's not a unilateral decision from the feds, it's collaborative.

We have worked with them to ensure that more projects are eligible for this charge.

So we so our operating budget is fully funded.

Um, but it also reflects project delivery, the kind of lumpy nature of capital project delivery.

It's not a smooth spend every year, every quarter.

Um it's lumpier in nature.

So it's our CFO advised that it's um behooves us to kind of reduce that expectation to be more conservative.

Okay.

Um but it is that reduction, I think I heard you say, does not change either project delivery on the capital side or staffing.

Yeah, we're already kind of not spending that higher amount currently.

Okay.

Are there any other grant funds that are not built into the budget that we might or anticipate to receive?

In other words, uh you're trying your best to reflect what federal grants you believe to be coming in.

Are there any federal grants that we want to make sure you have budget authority around, but they just may not be actually awarded at this point?

Yeah, great question.

Um we start with the kind of formula funds, and we make sure those are funded, and then we for those grants that we've won, um, we add that budget authority in, and then as new grants come in, we work with our OCFO to increase the budget authority as needed.

So the numbers in there should reflect our best view of that portfolio for the future, right, for the next six years.

Got it.

Um we've had luck with working with getting new grants as they come in and getting that kind of necessary budget authority um from our OCFO colleagues.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Um looking at the special purpose revenue.

So there's about a $6.1 million reduction in special purpose revenue in the D DOT's budget.

Um taking the overall SPR funds from 28.8 to 22.8.

Is this representing a loss of special purpose revenue?

Does it reflect that special purpose revenue generated by DDOT activities are just being redirected?

Sure, and I can take a um I can answer that.

We have a special purpose revenue that actually covers our CABE operating funds.

We have made some changes to the fare structure.

And we are hopeful that we can make CABE be self-sustaining so that the revenue that we receive from users' fares will actually cover the operating cost.

Last year, I think it was from 25 to 26.

We actually had in that fund some carryover money of six million.

So when that funding, again, it was sort of a one-time carryover.

The drop is to reflect that we won't have that carryover.

Now if we continue to earn revenue and we're actually halfway through the year and we're at about 50% of our costs, so we are on track to be able to cover our costs for that.

If we do hit a ceiling because fares go up, we can always raise that level.

But I think the drop was really to reflect that that one-time money isn't carrying over and not that we won't receive more revenue.

So it's um it's just uh an OCFO way of reflecting that that one-time payment is not recurring.

Okay.

Does the one-time payment was it $6.1 million?

Yes.

That was the one-time carryover.

Um now, if we with the fares coming in, we end up receiving higher revenue that goes into that fund, which we actually think we will.

We just need to change the budget authority.

It doesn't need to have new money put in, the fares will be bringing it in, but we would just change the budget authority to reflect the level of where the the fares are coming in.

We actually think we'll be higher than what's there now, and that's what our it'll match what our costs are, so we're actually where we need to be, but it's just I think reflected in a way that's confusing.

Okay.

So if as anticipated there's more revenue than you're expecting here, what do you do with it?

We actually ask OCFO for a higher to raise the budget authority.

I don't think there's any council step that's needed to do that.

It's an administrative fix that they would do.

Got it.

I guess what I'm getting at is if there's more revenue coming in, then is the agency exercising its discretion about where and how to spend that additional revenue coming in?

Well, in this case, we really want to use all the revenue, the fare money coming in to cover the costs for operate for maintenance and operations of the CAPI system.

So it'll be continued to use be used for that.

Okay.

So your expectation is that if new revenue comes in, sounds like you're hoping that it will, anticipating perhaps that it shall that any additional revenue essentially is recycled back into our CABE system.

Correct.

Okay.

That sounds good to me.

I I would have concern if we were taking additional revenue and sprinkling it around other places, our CABE systems top notch, highly popular, growing ridership, uh being able to put that back into the program, be that uh investing in more stations, upgrades of more bikes, that's what I think we'd want to see.

Okay.

Um let's go through the notable reductions in the budget broken down by D DOT divisions being impacted.

So now I'm kind of looking, we've talked federal, we've talked to SPR, so now we're looking at local.

Um I'll start with a cut that I was expecting to see based on last year's budget cycle.

That's the removal of the 11.7 million dollars, roughly 12 FTEs from the transit delivery division, reflecting the termination of streetcar service and its associated funding.

Are there any other programs that are gonna be directly affected by that cut?

Or that it that is wholly and entirely streetcar?

The 11.7 is wholly and entirely reflecting the streetcar elimination.

Okay.

And the 12 FTEs are well, and I I do like to say it's um 12 positions.

No one at D DOT is losing their job because of the budget change over time through attrition and through other vacancies that we were able to move streetcar staff into.

Um either you've they found a new home either with D DOT or somewhere else.

So we are eliminating vacant positions.

Okay.

There still seems to be 1.5 million allocated to the transit delivery division.

So what activities are left within the transit delivery division for 1.5 million?

So the I used to work there.

Um in the transit delivery division.

Um we support kids ride free and ALTS Adult Learners Transit Subsidy Programs, so D DOT staff, although it's the subsidy payments themselves are in the Wamata KE zero budget.

Staff at D DOT work with Wamada to implement those programs.

Um there's also work with WAMAT itself on bus route planning and other kind of transit delivery in the district, um, even though circulator and streetcar are gone, there's still kind of a transit support function that we have.

Um does that mean, should I read that to mean that the 1.5 million is staff is entirely staff?

Yeah.

The actual subsidy payments for kids ride free and ALTS are not in DDOT's budget.

It's just kind of a weird mismatch over time.

Okay.

You want to do that?

Right, but those positions are to support those programs.

Yeah.

Got it.

Okay.

And so it's kidding-free, don't learn a transit subsidy.

Sounds like you also mentioned a couple of bus, is this the bus rapid transit planning?

Yeah, there's planning work in for bus rapid transit, but also um a lot of work with Wamada about altering bus routes, you know, right sizing the bus network, just kind of like the nitty-gritty of the And that's not paying for the like contract for the plan, that's the stat is directly it's the staff costs associated.

Correct.

Okay.

Got it.

Um do you anticipate, even though you're not doing the direct transit delivery any longer?

Do you expect that the transit delivery division is still a division organizationally that you want to keep for those purposes that you that were just outlined?

Yes, and we do considerable coordination with Wamada.

Um as you know, when they did the better bus network redesign, we work closely with them.

There are a lot of um there's a lot of work streams, and then it then hit us, and that team is leading identifying the dead bus stops, making sure those get taken care of.

There's a lot of um residual coordination that will be a um, you know, a program in perpetuity.

Yeah.

Well, you anticipate my next question, which is going to be so those that's the team that is working on removal of, for example, the stops that no longer exist.

Yeah, I mean they're leading it, they're identifying where they are.

Obviously, the actual going out to that station and unbolting the sign.

Correct.

Correct.

But our sign are, you know, we have our um our sign maintenance team would be in charge of actually removing the signs and updating with new signage, but there are a number of ways that we coordinate daily with WAMATA, even beyond the better bus network.

Um, every time they're making any sort of of route tweaks, um, if they're having a detour, that team would coordinate sort of what that looks like in terms of where they can stage their buses and if they need TCOs to help.

I mean, there's ongoing need for that team.

Got it.

Okay.

Um very important team.

Uh so are there that's a lot to cover.

Are they how many FTEs are in that division then now?

I don't think I packed to you on that one.

Okay.

Um, we'll follow up on that one.

Um are there any vacancies in that division right now?

The vacancies are the ones we discussed vis-a-vis um, the streetcar program, those are the ones that are being eliminated.

Um of the balance, if there are any vacancies, they're all it would be maybe one that we would be planning to backfill.

I apologize and catch that last part.

What was that?

Sorry.

Um, the vacancies that we are eliminating are the ones tied to streetcar.

Um I don't think there's anything, actually, it's it's there's five to six FTEs in that in the remaining transit delivery division.

There might be, I think there's one in the kids ride free program.

We do plan to fill that.

Um, so that's the only one that's only temporarily vacant.

Got it.

Okay.

Um do we so when we're we have a current issue uh with a dead stop, for example, at 8th and H of a streetcar.

Um how do you find the resources to be able to remove a streetcar stop, for example, that no longer exists?

It obviously costs something, so not pretending there's not a cost to it, but in terms of the actual removal, is this a space where there are vacancy savings?

Um, because these aren't massive costs, but they're not nothing.

Um so our bus shelter advertising contract ultimately is the source for bus stop removals and additions and um moves.

Um that there's a lawsuit happening right now, so I don't want to get into some of the challenges, but um, but that would normally be where we would pay for bus shelter moves and removals.

Well, I guess, but if we're no longer operating a streetcar, do we still have a contract that requires advertising to be placed in a stop that doesn't exist?

So um no, ultimately we don't need those, but those have advertising on them, and we could include those removals as part of that contract.

Um, and we will take a look at all of you know I we do know there's still some dead bus stops, and obviously the the streetcar stops don't need to be there.

We're working on uh plan B for how we can remove those.

Okay.

So does this budget include funds for the removal of the street car stops?

So again, the shelter contract, it is a no-cost contract, so the advertising revenue helps pay for the operations, which includes removals and ads, um additions.

So no, we do not have a standalone budget for this.

Normally it would get paid for from that contract.

So even the removal of a station would be covered by the contract.

Yes.

Okay.

Um is there any penalty in the contract for us removing a station ourselves?

No.

Right.

No, we just don't have resources on hand.

That's not a budget line item that we have somewhere else.

Okay.

I've got a toolbox at home.

I can go pitch in and help out.

Think you might need a little more than some wrenches, but I don't know.

We got some good stuff.

All right.

Um we can come back to that later.

Um, let me look then at the planning and sustainability division.

So there's a 6.1 million reduction to the planning and sustainability division going from 19.1 million to 13 million.

What is impacted with that reduction?

That's the CAD ESPR.

That's catching up, yeah.

All right.

6.1, 6.1.

All right, that's going to add up.

Um looking at the traffic safety administration, there's a $3.2 million reduction to the roadway operations and safety division.

What is that reduction represent?

There are some, that's probably the vacancy reduction.

So there's uh $32.8 FTE reduced in vacant positions across D DOT, and a portion of them are in the roadway operations safety division.

Okay.

You got kind of quiet there.

A portion of them are in the roadway operations safety division.

Okay.

And those are vacant FDEs.

Yeah, all of the reductions are vacant.

Um as a point of reference, I think we have 200 operating funded vacant positions, and the budget envisions reducing that by um 32.8.

Okay.

Is the roadway operations and safety division where we have our and I'm not going to get the the name of this correct, but our roadway assistance teams, and I know there's a technical name for this.

What we're talking about is when there is a uh crash or a need, for example, on the freeway.

I know there's a term of art for it and I can't remember what.

Our roadway operations patrol.

Okay.

Yes.

And that's in this division?

That's in this division.

None of those positions were cut.

Um we did have a number of vacancies last year that we have subsequently filled, so they are fully staffed.

Once again, um there may be one vacancy, but for the most part, they're fully staffed.

Okay, but we're not losing any vacant FTEs from our roadway operations patrol.

Correct.

Within their 10 positions within this administration, the um or this division, um, we are reducing by those 10 include eight traffic control officers, one safety tech, and one program analyst.

Those are the 10.

Those again are vacant.

Those do not represent all of the vacant positions, but that is a subset that we were able to scrape out to eliminate.

Okay.

Um I'll come back to the TCOs in just a second.

So what is our I'm just gonna stick with the roadway operations patrol for a moment.

So what is our total number of staff in the roadway operations patrol?

Uh I believe it's about 14 or 15.

Okay.

And that is a 24 hour service.

Correct.

They have three shifts a day.

Okay.

Would it be reasonable to assume that I'm taking basically that number divided by three, and it's roughly three shifts across the 24-hour period?

Yes.

Okay.

Um I know you know I've talked about this, so you know where I'm going with this.

Um of the things that I have talked with both our MPD officers and Fire and EMS in any obviously this is a put uh team that is responding, whatever there's a collat a crash, a collision, um, a disabled vehicle even.

There are certain areas where higher risk comes with that disabled vehicle than others.

It's all a risk, but we're trying to triage risk, right?

Um what I continue to hear from our officers, and obviously across all of government, we're devastated by the loss of one of our officers who was struck on the freeway, is that because there is no shoulder really on the freeway, um, it puts the officers and fire mass at just a much increased hazard.

I know talking from some of our firefighters, they are scared to go up there.

They know that's a high risk.

When I talked with a lot of our 1D officers, which are the officers that often respond on that scene because it's it runs through the first district.

They all have harrowing stories about being up there and they beg for more roadway operations patrol because they feel that that visibility can really help keep them safe while they're doing their their job assisting.

Is there any way that we like when we're thinking about how we prioritize the response?

These this team responds anywhere in the city, correct?

Like how do they get dispatched?

Yes.

Um our traffic management center is really the dispatch for roadway operations patrol.

They tend to respond primarily to the highways and interstates.

That's really where they're most needed.

Um and it's both for blocking traffic, but also helping with the residual clearing after an accident.

Um in addition to being fully staffed, we've really invested in equipment that we know is needed, and whether that's a mobile attenuator or really good, you know, arrow signs that they can pull up, um, as you probably have heard, um work zone fatalities has been a big focus across the country because highways, I mean, for us, about a third of our fatalities happen on our interstate.

And um we are equipped, it is a high risk area.

Um we have made sure that all of our staff and we know all of MPD is going through traffic incident management training that USDOT is leading because while there are so many things that you need to know in terms of how you stage to help on the interstates, it is always of high risk.

And even when you do everything right, you know, we are combating the same challenges we combat on all of our roadways where people are impaired, reckless, distracted, and they're driving right into these work vehicles.

So it's a challenge for our for MPD and our first responders, it's a challenge for rope.

Um we think between the MPD lights and our equipment, you know, there's so many things that we can do right.

Um it doesn't always make us risk-free.

But I do feel like between the tools and the training and the staffing, we are we are well prepared.

Got it.

Okay.

Uh definitely getting the staffing up is important.

I think the hiring freeze that um led to having to hold several vacant FTEs in that division was uh just increase the risk.

So having that fully staffed up, I think is really important.

Um we can follow up after the hearing as well.

Uh I'd love to find what more can we do to help support this.

Um, I think uh, especially in the light of the loss that took place.

What more can we do?

Are there better, you know, are there ways we can help with the partnership with MPD for NMS so that they know how to get those resources up there?

Are there more capital investments in the vehicles themselves or the lights that we can try to be helpful with?

Um I um I met with the the widow of our lost officer, and this is something that she's talked about, really wanting to try to help take that grief that she's experienced, but help make sure that it's not repeated.

And I I was really struck by how many officers I spoke with have experienced how terrifying it is uh up on the freeway when you're standing there with traffic that's moving so quickly there.

So I would love to work with you and your team around how we can help continue to support and build that out so that we can try to avoid this river happening again.

Um on the TCO side.

So you said there were eight TCOs, one uh I can't remember what you said if it was a it wasn't one safety tech.

Safety tech position, these are vacant positions.

Got it, and there's vacant positions, to be clear.

Um we have talked for the last couple of years about how challenging it is to recruit and get people hired for many of these positions.

Would it be fair to say that the reason why you've had some of these vacant positions that have been held is just the same same conversation we've been having about the difficulty to hire into those positions, and you sound like you were saying you're still maintaining some vacant positions, so you still have capacity to bring more on.

This is you feel like a more true-up of the vacancies that you're holding.

So um the problem keeps morphing.

Um I was here a year ago, probably two years ago, the problem was actually retention and recruitment.

Then last year, the problem was that we weren't even able to backfill.

So we along the way, it had some sort of more strategic and targeted recruiting events, and we were able to actually get to the point of having a cohort that we were able to hire, and then everything stopped with a hiring freeze.

So I would say that today, the problem is we haven't been able to move forward on hiring.

We've been able to, I think, trickle in one or two, but really have not been able to hire a cohort, not because I don't think we could, um, but because we haven't had the funding to do so.

Um so I would say before I do anything new on change anything significant, I need to be able to have the green light to backfill the vacancies.

I think we have um been working with GW on a project to look at recruitment and recognition, and we did focus groups and surveyed our longstanding safety text to understand what makes this job inviting, what makes you want to stay.

So I think we have a good sense now of how to how to um bring folks on and keep them.

The problem is just we haven't had an opportunity to do so.

But when I don't know, but weren't these were funded vacant FTEs?

So it was the hiring freeze, or was it funding?

So, well, it's sort of the same thing.

So when we started in the fiscal year, we approved a budget that had them funded, right?

So we when you look at the budget, it looks like their funding is there to support a certain number of of FTEs.

We had a a structural deficit in our budget at the outset of this fiscal year and to some extent last year too, which meant that there was an overspending on our indirect cost recovery budget.

Because we were in the red on that, it bled over into our local fund.

And so in order to make us whole, if we had four million dollars short on the IDCR budget, the CFO said we're gonna cut four million or at least hold four million in your local operating to cover that cost.

So even though we started the year with new positions that have been approved and uh an FTE count, we never were able to hire those.

So it it though those positions are still sitting there, they're vacant.

It might look like there's funding, but we are not allowed to hire them until the OCFO says, you know what, your IDCR problem has now been resolved, and now I'm opening up the hiring door again.

Um and so I'm optimistic.

A lot of the changes that we've been talking about in our 27 budget will fix some of those structural problems.

So we moved our energy costs from IDCR into our um with new money put into our local operating.

We have overtime money that is now added into our budget.

So things that had been contributing to our deficit are being fixed.

And so again, when we start in October, I'm hopeful that we can have the green light to hire all the vacant positions that we've been sitting on.

Okay.

I appreciate you walking through that.

Um I will say I have a separate issue with the CFO making unilateral decisions on a budget that was approved by the council.

Um I want a CFO that is helping work with agencies to prevent or control overspending, or if costs have gone up, being able to help work with an agency to help change that.

But I do not believe the CFO should or can make unilateral decisions to prevent the hiring of fully funded positions that this council has that you requested in this council is approved.

Um but we'll have to follow up with the CFO on that as well, an ongoing problem.

Um the increase, and you kind of touched maybe on now, I'm not sure.

Um there's an increase within the division though.

917,000 allocated to automated cameras division.

Is that related to the cameras that I believe you talked about for clear lanes, or is there something else going on in that?

That increase is tied to adding 70 new cameras to our Wamata buses for the clear link.

Correct.

Okay, got it.

All right.

And now that we have many but not all buses that are equipped with this, what is the implementation at this point look like?

So when these funds are approved, Wamada's able to move relatively quickly with cameras.

Like what's our experience been in terms of once we uh have the funding approved of their actual ability to implement?

Umata's very enthusiastic about the program.

So they do the installs, we pay for the operations of it.

Um this is actually not a full year of funding.

This is prorated, so we are building in some time.

So you'll see the cameras fully installed probably within six months, but um, we didn't have enough money to pay for all, but that will be then we'll have to write size and 28 for a full year of 70 new.

Okay.

The camera tech the our clear lanes cameras, just so the public could also know.

This is gonna be when a bus is going by, let's say you decide to park your car in a bus stop.

That camera's gonna be able to take a picture of a vehicle, the plate, and the location so that we know that was a bus stop.

If a vehicle is parked in a bus lane at a time when they're not when it's a dedicated bus lane, they can take an image of that.

Does it also take images of vehicles that are traveling through the bus lane as well?

In other words, I I know it captures the static vehicle, the parked vehicle.

Does it also capture moving vehicles?

So the uh the bus lane cameras actually are a video clip.

So it actually would show if a bus, if a car was moving or stopped.

And it's really important because if you're a turning vehicle and you're in the right lane turning, it's you're allowed to be in there.

Um we have hatched line usually towards the intersection, and that makes it okay for vehicles to be in it.

So the cameras show us are you idling in the lane?

Are you driving in the lane?

Are you idling at a bus stop?

Um so all of those would get you a ticket.

If you are in the lane because you're about to turn and your blinker is on, or the video just shows that you're turning, you would not get a ticket.

Okay, got it.

And that's the part of the review process to make sure.

Okay.

All right.

Um let me move then to the agency financial management.

So there's a $9 million and two FTE reduction to the resource allocation division.

Why why are we targeting there?

What's because I'm two FTEs aren't responsible for the full $9 million.

I'm not yet or else I'm not going to be able to do that.

Um the bulk of that is this IDCR budget again, this overhead budget is housed from org chart perspective in the resource allocation division uh box.

If you apologize, I'm getting notes that you need to pull the microphone a little bit closer to you, or a teen a bit.

Yeah.

There we go.

All your online fans are like we can't hear them.

I feel like this is too close.

It's not, I promise you.

It feels weird, but it's it's not.

Excellent.

Um yes.

So the director talked in her testimony about um reducing our IDC our indirect cost recovery budget or overhead budget, and that's housed in the resource allocation division or chart unit, if you will.

So the bulk of that is is there.

There's also two, I think, vacant positions that are being reduced from there on top of that.

Got it.

But the if there's a nine million dollar reduction, how are we clearing?

It's not only there, sorry.

Okay.

So the there's as with any budget, there's two pieces the contractual services piece and the personnel piece.

The IDCR budget also funded um staff in other divisions, such as traffic control officers, which was probably kind of not a great idea.

Um that's where we're trying to undo that.

Um so those would be in a different division, like roadway and roadway operations safety division.

Okay.

But I guess and we can follow up afterwards too to get a bit of a crosswalk to make sure I understand where things are moving.

But if there's a reduction in the traffic safety administration line, and that includes TCOs and a safety tech, I don't understand how they'd also be represented from a dollars perspective in the agency financial management.

Again, it's the kind of detail of that funding source.

The contractual services piece is mainly reflected in that resource allocation agency management.

Cocaine.

So the agency financial operations line, actually, some of the 10 FTEs reduced actually reflect um cuts.

These are shared services, so we often would have an MOU to pay for these services, so they're not actually DDOT employees.

And some of those have been reduced.

Again, those are not in uh D dot services, it's all sort of behind the scenes, but so those are not things that you would see or feel, but we're no longer reimbursing for those positions.

All right.

Can I give it a hypothetical perhaps?

Um I believe we've had a long-standing um either a contractor MOU, for example, for DPW and towing services along 8th Street for streetcar operations.

We're no longer doing that, I'm assuming.

I have not seen an idling uh, because they would just sit there and idle in the neighborhood right off 8th Street.

Haven't seen an idling uh tow truck in a while.

Would that be where this is reflected because you're no longer needing to have an MOU or send money over to DMS?

That's a specific example.

We actually moved that off our budget, I think a couple cycles ago.

Okay.

Um that was it's not a very good example.

It's it is a good example of improving efficiency because we would spend a lot of staff time sending DPW money to fund that service, which is needed for strategic car operations, but we convinced, I guess uh the mayor and the council that that should be funded directly from DPW.

Yes, I would agree.

All right, so then are there if these are at positions within DOD that are being housed there?

What are the services that are not happening then if we're not transferring money?

So we still have the budget in place to acquire those services.

So DDOT does buy services from various agencies, the CFO, uh OCP, OAG, et cetera.

And those services are still being provided.

The FTE cut, I think is just a kind of notional display.

I mean, it's not we're not reducing positions to that.

We're still acquiring those services to deliver our projects and programs.

But we can follow up and get more detail on if there are any bad effects on those agencies from those reductions.

But we've been told that no, there aren't any.

And I would say on the agency fiscal operations, the OCFO number has fluctuated in a weird way over the past few years.

So there was a strange spike this year that's going back down next year, and I don't actually know what was behind the increase and the decrease, but we're actually, I think 27 is back to where we were.

Um but I want to just do a quick because it's very confusing, and a lot of these are shifts, right?

And the way it looks in the budget, it looks like net increase, you know, decreases or cuts or increases and more money.

Much of what we're fixing with this is shifting money and costs that were on IDCR that should be in local, right?

So the 10%, the 10 million dollar cut I mentioned, it is we're fixing it by moving positions off, probably should never have been on indirect cost like TCOs.

It's not really an LG, you know, but this stuff, these are legacy positions that were there for you know a decade.

So we're fixing that.

Our energy costs, we're actually fully funded.

We used to have that hit our indirect cost rate for all of our street light costs.

It's about three million dollars.

That actually is new money because it's going into our local budget, but it's not actually funding anything new, it's just we have money to pay for it in the right budget bucket.

Um, and then the other increase there is over time.

Again, it was never fully funded.

So these are all ads.

The 10 million that you're seeing go down.

If the work needs to get done, it was shifted to local, and we've got all these other things supplementing local.

Um, but in essence, there's not a staffing, we're not reducing people or work from these shifts.

We're just kind of right sizing IDCR based on what we earn and right sizing local based on sort of fixed costs that we do need to spend on every year.

Okay.

Well, and what we can do after the hearing as well is just work with you to help make sure we have crosswalk to see all of that.

I've done many budget oversight, and it this is uh fairly common, uh, is that there'll be these shifts back and forth.

It makes it hard for us to track it, but we can work with you to have a crosswalk because we do need to be able to help understand where those moves are happening.

We are happy to walk you through.

I have said to you before, our budget, the budget book is very complicated and not intuitive.

Yeah, well, actually, that's I think it's a true statement for almost every agency.

Uh it's a challenge.

Okay.

Um, then let me move to maintenance operations administration.

So that's where there's the additional 3.5 million added to the streetlight division, which you just talked about.

Um this project is largely complete at this point, right?

We don't have any more street lights that we're adding.

I think that is largely on its course.

So um there are still a small number of kind of unique assets.

We call them differing field conditions.

There's about 3,000 of those, which is you know, less than 3% of our full street light um portfolio.

And they're just unique in nature.

They had some major construction requirement.

So those are still, there's a tail for getting those resolved.

Um, so those are still being worked on.

But for the most part, again, 97% have been fully updated.

We have seen dramatic positive impacts from the shift.

So our energy savings has been fantastic.

We used to pay over 11 million dollars a year in energy costs, and now we're spending a little over three million.

And that is literally just the shift to LED lights.

Um we've also seen that the service repair requests through 3011 and other have decreased by about 75%.

Um, and it's hard to differentiate of the ones that are still coming in.

A lot of them are just requests to make it brighter or dimmer, but not it's out.

Um, and we do still, you know, it's really working in terms of getting the alerts when there's um an outage.

So I would say this program has been a huge per, yeah.

The remote monitoring system, only point one percent of our lights are going offline per month.

So in terms of uh performance a dozen through one requests they're links, and now you know when they're offline.

Exactly.

So um, yeah, all around cost savings in terms of performance, in terms of response time, everything has just been uh it's been win-win.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good to hear.

Thank you.

Um there's also a 1.5 million dollar enhancement to the pavement maintenance division.

Now our street and sidewalk are paving and capital projects are in the capital budget.

So what is a 1.5 million dollar enhancement to the pavement maintenance division in the operating representative?

I think I'd have to get back to you on that.

I I think that's we do have some operating funded positions and some contracts in the operating budget.

Um that might be a kind of net neutral change and add there with a minus elsewhere.

So I'll we can provide a follow-up on that.

We can follow up you're you're absolutely right.

The asset management work that we do for paving is all in the capital portfolio for the most part.

Um and we can talk about that later, or we can talk about that now.

But yeah, that's that's mainly reflected in the CIP.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll get to that a little bit.

We did have some FTE bacon FTE reductions in the um asset management.

I think like a motor vehicle operator or something like that.

Okay.

I guess again, we'll we can track it down and follow up after the hearing.

What I'm trying to understand is if there's a 1.5 million dollar enhancement, but it's not the capital projects.

What what does that represent?

But we can follow up with you to enhancement in the sense there's there's there's a lot of kind of plus pluses and minuses, puts and takes that are kind of net neutral.

Um we haven't in the formal sense, we haven't received any enhancements in our operating budget.

Okay.

And pavement man payment pavement maintenance division is both roadways and sidewalks and alleys.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's not just street paving, it's gonna be all the Trinity, yeah.

Streets alleys, sidewalks, yeah.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Um run through a few more here.

Um a lot of the reductions we're also seeing is in non-personal services, so it's a 20 point six million dollars, it appears to be overall with 4.5 million.

Agency wide, yeah.

Agency wide.

Yeah, exactly.

And and 4.5 million are personnel services.

Right.

That's the same.

Yeah, sorry, I'm moving back up to the full agency now.

Um it looks like in overtime pay is increasing from $755,000 in FY26 to $2.75 million in FY27.

Is that because it more accurately reflects actual overtime costs, or is it that overtime costs have gone up?

Um really the the three million is the accurate reflection of what we spend traditionally every year.

Um it is something that agencies have often been reluctant to put in their budget because it's a big number, and I think externally people think, well, overtime is a reflection of a lack of planning.

If you deployed your staff better, you wouldn't need overtime.

So it's been swept.

And I um have shared with you, I know in some of our meetings that um we do need to write size our budget there.

We always really start the year in the red because 700,000 is not enough to cover our costs.

Um, and our overtime budget is driven by uh special events, whether that's TCOs covering it or putting up emergency parking signs.

You know, we really do work to have our shifts optimized to cover where we need them, but it's never going to be perfect.

And overtime is how we cover things that are mandated to do, but it's gonna be lumpy.

Um it covers our snow operations.

I mean, there's things that are inherently going to happen every year, and it's a relief to start the year fully funded.

Um, you know, a major snowstorm, we can tap into emergency funds.

But usually we have smaller snow events that require require some coverage and overtime.

Yeah, and that's you're kind of anticipating where I'm going with this to make sure we understand the breakdown.

When we have a major event like we had this winter, that's you can't plan for that.

There's no smoothness that you can come up with.

You're gonna go in overtime on that.

Is that reflected in when we have major events like that?

Is the overtime pay budget here where we spend there, or for major events like that, that is gonna be a special emergency reserve overtime.

The latter.

So when the mayor declares a snow emergency, then those funds are usually from our um the contingency budget, and that will cover our cost for that event.

But we can have in a given snow season, you know, multiple events, only one or two are going to be the big ones that become the emergencies, but all the others where we're gonna have overnight prowls, you know, one more shift to plow that um would be the things that we'd have to eat in our overtime budget.

Got it.

Okay.

Um there's also a reduction of about 2.6 million in the energy comes and building rental line.

What's what's being cut there?

Again, it's just an awkward display of the street light transfer.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it's a reduction in one line and an increase elsewhere.

Got it.

And unfortunately the increase wasn't classified.

I saw that too.

It wasn't classified as an energy line.

So it's kind of vexing.

Um I think maybe we can work with OCFO to kind of reclassify the increase in the same kind of budget category.

So that so that's more clear.

Okay.

When we think about our building use, so as we move our sign shop, for example, over to the uh previous streetcar barn.

Um the existing street sign shop is a district-owned asset, correct?

We're not renting that.

Correct.

The sign we it's G Street, but officially it's I guess Watkins Alley.

But that is a district-owned building that we plan to sell, and we're hopeful that um it will be uh inviting.

It's a fantastic neighborhood, as you know, and which ward is that higher.

Incredibly well run by its council member.

Um and I'm sure that the all of the neighbors along the alley are relieved not to have all of the large trucks coming in and out at you know early morning hours.

So um that move will happen this fall, and then I think Dem, I think it's DGS is already working on the sale of it.

Got it.

Um D dot, but the proceeds from a sale would not be going to D dot, that would be going to the district's general fund.

Does the move create any financial savings?

So moving into, I mean, so essentially we were paying to operate and house two buildings, streetcar barn and this building.

The move consolidates those things into one building.

Are there any savings related to the fact that we're operating one, not two buildings?

Well, in the first year, we actually do need to spend some money to retrofit the street car barn.

They have some areas that are designed for maintenance exactly.

So next year um we will be making some investment.

We do have the resources to do that.

Um the um some of the maintenance costs actually is really in the DGS budget.

Um it's uh an owned building, so I know they're not paying rent on it.

Um we do pay rent on the oh, actually, I think they're both owned, right?

So net net, um I don't think there's a savings since there's not rent.

I do think the maintenance.

Right.

I mean, sadly we did, you know, there has not been a major upgrade of the sign shop for some time.

So I think the cost had been minimal, um, which is more reason why we needed to move and move on.

Okay.

All right.

Um, let me run through a couple of we've gone through a bunch of our vacancies specific to the reductions.

So now I want to ask about some of our vacancies that we're holding, I think.

So our schedule A lists about 173 vacancies total.

67 of which are safety technicians, school crossing guards.

27 vacancies are traffic control officers, TCOs, as well as seven vacant supervisory traffic control officer positions.

So you touched on this a little bit, but let's spend a little more time teasing this out.

Um these are the vacant positions after we remove the eight TCOs, one safety tech, correct?

Correct.

So I'll tell you we will have with the ins and outs, and they're not these are really ways that we try to when we we reduce the budget and reduce the vacancies again.

We try to spread it out across the agency to have no impact on services.

So our complement of how many crossing guards or safety techs is going to still be about 250.

Um as you know, we have only 187 filled, but the 250 for the most part is the baseline budget.

Um we hopefully will be able to fill.

I mean, there's another issue of sort of how much we pay them versus what they're funded at.

Anyway, so we've got probably don't have full funding for 252 positions, but today that's the number of vacant positions that we're showing.

Um and I am very enthusiastic and hopeful that addressing some of the you know hours that they're paid versus what we have, we have some room to hire.

We're not gonna be able to get up to 250, but we'll be able to add more for next school year.

Okay.

Um for our TCOs, that's a full-time position.

Where again our safety technicians, school crossing guards can be a little unique in that they're not necessarily a nine to five type of job.

Our TCOs are full-time.

We have 27 vacancies in that position, though.

So what's what's been the difficulty of hiring for our TCOs that's unique or different from our um safety technician spaces?

So it's the same.

It's this well, we have not had challenges in the same way hiring TCOs.

Our challenge right now is that we're under a freeze.

So we haven't been able to post or hire for either group.

So it's not a recruitment challenge.

Okay, and that is the CFO imposed hiring freeze.

Correct.

Okay.

So you had a congressionally imposed or congressionally triggered hiring freeze.

And now we have a CFO.

In 25, it was congressionally opposed, um, imposed, and then in 26, it's been really more of the structural deficit because of our the fact that our IDCR was in the red, and so that's why we've DDOT has had a freeze for the rest of the year for this whole year.

Okay.

Um I don't like, for example, when you talked about the eight TCOs and one safety tech being swept as a vacancy.

I don't like that because those are positions we'd like to have filled and make sure that we are putting folks out at schools.

I mean, your inbox looks like mine.

We get a lot of school communities asking for more safety techs and are frustrated when we say we can't uh deliver that.

So it's frustrating to see a number of FTEs sitting there.

We've talked before about the trend the take the hiring freeze out of the picture for a moment.

Even with that, it's there have been challenges to hiring.

Um difficult budget, it is also hard to carry a large number of FTEs.

Um what was the process that you went through to try to think about in consultation with the budget office and the mayor's office around should you take more of those positions?

Should you take less of those positions?

I'm I'm gonna wager based on our conversations, you would like to see all of them filled and deployed out in the schools.

I don't doubt that.

But what we're carrying a large number.

Can you just share a little more about the conversation that went into how do you trim it down?

And should it have been more?

Should have been less.

And you're thinking in terms of how we what cuts we took this as we're doing formulation for 27, the 38 positions that we cut.

Yeah, specific well, specific to the safety tech and the TCO positions because I know that's something again.

I'm I I'm intentionally saying here.

I know based on our conversations and the way I've seen you respond to the school communities, you get it.

You want to fill those positions and be able to have them out there.

We've talked about the hiring challenges, um, but we also know we're in a very difficult budget.

And so any agency, I'm not picking on D dot any agency just carrying a large number of vacant FTEs that historically has had a hard time filling, even though I want to see all of them filled.

I'm sure I'm assuming that triggers just at least an internal conversation of what's the right number in a tough in a tough budget to trim down of this is what I can realistically be able to hire.

And I would say um when you look in total um of we have 450 in total safety techs and TCOs.

So when we are reducing the vacancies, and those are the sort of total positions, by taking eight, that is a sign that we're not trying to make a meaningful cut, right?

Like as a percentage of the workforce, it's very small.

It's a way to say we need to get to a budget target.

We're gonna just trim across many teams in such a minimal way, so we're not gonna impact services.

But none of my cuts were intended to say we are deprioritizing this function, and that's where I'm cutting.

We really did try to spread it across.

And so slicing out you know, the handful that we did was a way to say we are not trying to reduce this as a workforce um priority.

Once we're able to turn the hiring jets back on, um, these will be a big priority to start backfilling.

Um so uh I would say that streetcar was a little different because that was a program that had sunset, but all these other cuts were not because we had surplus room, but just we're trying to hit a budget target and we did it carefully so that we didn't think there'd be any service or performance cuts.

Um and I do want to say my stress about the school crossing guards is that we're not able to add new posts, but we have made the school posts that are on the list as you know priority.

We have made sure that those do have somebody staffing it.

Now, in a perfect world, it would all be filled with safety tax, then we would have a full complement of traffic control officers that could do traffic management.

We would then have them deployed at the hairy intersections and to help at rush hour.

But what you see is the TCOs are now covering school posts because those have to get done, and we have a lot of un you know, work that's not being done in the TCO space.

And we have a lot of un you know, work that's not being done in the TCO space.

But the safety tech positions, we have 214 posts.

We do cover those every day.

That doesn't mean that we get a call out sick at the last minute and there's not someone there, but for the most part, we are getting those filled.

So for safety techs, the gap is that we're not adding any new posts because we can't.

So what you'll see when we get new safety techs is that they will first backfill the TCOs, and then eventually we'll be able to hopefully get to adding more posts.

Got it.

Okay.

Um we spent a healthy amount of time kind of talking through the overspending pieces and CFO's interpretation and then the impacts on the agency.

Let me spend a second looking at the underspending in FY26 thus far.

So there's some significant underspending in the traffic safety administration, at least appears to be a balance of about 20.5 million in local funds and 1.7 million in SPR funds.

Can you help me understand why does that appear to be a large balance?

Are there obligations that are already made that are not showing up in the budget documents?

Um how do we help it plan to do that?

I'm sorry, is this an operating expenses?

Yes.

It's probably vacant positions, right?

If it's a lot in um sorry, which org chart unit was it?

In the traffic safety administration.

Yeah, that's probably the bulk of it.

It's going to be the vacant TCOs and safety techs.

Okay.

You're talking about spending through this fiscal year.

Yeah.

I don't have that in front of me, but I I would assume based on what that agents or that admin does on the operating budget, that's going to be mainly those those folks.

Okay.

So if we if we have 20-ish million in underspending there from vacancies, and we said we had roughly four million in what the CFO is calling the overspending, are we shifting the unobligated or uh unspent resources there to cover that gap?

Uh so that you can free up your hiring.

I think underspending will give our CFO more comfort in kind of unlocking those hiring requests.

I mean the underspending in that agency alone is five times what they're saying the overtime pressure points are.

I mean, we just had a meeting the other day, maybe it's we're reviewing the same document.

I don't know what's in front of you, but um where we're, you know, hey, is this looking good for unlocking and then ultimately hopefully we can convince our CFO colleagues that yes.

Well, I hope the CFO colleagues are watching and listening to this hearing.

Because if I have underspending of five times what they're holding up your ability to hire from an overspending perspective, that math doesn't math for me.

Unless there's something I'm missing.

So I that's hard to understand.

I think a big piece of that um could be so we have the um the safety camera contracts and clear lanes MOUs.

So I think these are funds that just haven't moved yet for a bulk of it.

Um there may be some of the remaining streetcar savings on NPS, although did you say it was mostly personnel services?

Maybe you said both.

Um I would say it was an operating, it sounds like you believed it was in personnel.

I'm not sure.

I don't have the document, I don't know, I'm not sure what document you're referring to, but based on the org chart, we're just kind of supposing that it's probably stuff.

And so it could be some ASC contracts too.

That's a good point.

Um, some of the savings, so uh so some are you know we'll be going out the door, but a lot of the um the savings it's accruing is what will now enable us to start hiring again, right?

So that's what every quarter or even in between that our agency fiscal officer is looking at how much are we in the red on our indirect cost rate, how much balance we have in the operating budget, and then if there's room between once you sort of clear up the red in IDCR, that's what we're gonna be able to use to hire again.

But I think most of the ones you're talking about, I don't we don't have any kind of balance like that that looks like it's going to be raw savings.

We think those are all things that are our bills that have to get paid.

Um just we haven't made the big checks.

Um I guess so from the council's budget office working with agencies and CFO, we pull together reports on underspending.

So we're able to track both overspending and underspending.

So that's what I'm pulling from is the council's budget office prepares a where are we seeing overspending, where we're seeing underspending.

So if it needs lines, we're seeing that significant underspending, that's what we're trying to understand.

And it could be uh it's the dollars haven't gone out the door, but they're obligated, right?

Or it could be these are um unspent funds from vacant positions we've been able to fill.

So that's that's what I'm trying to tease out.

And if we need to follow up again after the hearing, we certainly can.

But that's that's what I'm trying to understand is where we see underspending, because I again completely think the CFO is wrong if they're holding up our inability to be able to um hire the positions that were approved and funded through the council's budget process.

Yeah, I mean, our understanding is that we are very tight.

So um let's go through what your report looks like.

Um it would be wonderful if that was the case, but um, I know I've been asking our AFO on a regular basis to keep doing true ops um to make sure that we have some room so we can start hiring again.

So they've been looking at it closely.

Okay.

So the I'll just run through what our report from the budget office is showing is a 10.2 million dollar balance for the transportation planning administration, 4.8 million within the maintenance operation division, uh 2.2 million in the maintenance operative operations administration, and it looks like 1.2 million in the agency management program.

So that's that's what we're seeing from our budget office.

Yeah.

We have n we are not aware of any underspending, so we can walk through and again do a crosswalk of these funds will be you know our already earmarked for X, Y or Z.

Um our goal is to find a million dollars room so we can start hiring again.

That's kind of the number they're trying to get at, and we're not there yet.

Okay.

We will follow up after the hearing and make sure we can share what we're seeing and see where it lines up with yours or if we're looking at two different things.

Just to underscore what the director said.

I mean, our our CFO is mainly concerned about what we call earnings to this IDCR.

It's almost like an SPR.

It's almost like you have budgeted authority for 10 million dollars.

Are you actually here we go?

Are you actually earning that?

Is that is that revenue coming in, right?

And you won't see that necessarily in that kind of council budget office report if I'm understanding correctly.

So maybe we can even dig a little deeper.

You're working with Joe, Joe Wolf on that.

Yeah, we can work.

All right, we involve AFO friends to see what the story is behind that.

That'd be great.

Okay, thanks.

Um, all right, let me trick switch to a couple other topics here.

Let's talk public transit.

All right, kids ride free.

But he was so proud, and I was so excited that he's got his kid's ride free card.

But I don't think we asked that's that's not on you.

I was gonna say, and I don't think it's on you guys.

I think that's just with schools getting the cards out.

Um, but I just want to share.

We were very excited to finally have our kids read free card as we are at the end of April.

I um I am happy to hear about his excitement.

And I always say that the kids ride free card, it is um there is nothing like the first time a young, usually middle schooler is able to ride on their own to school, and using that card opens up the world to them.

And our students are like intrepid travelers because they can go anywhere, and I see then as they get into high school, they're all over the city.

So it's a great exciting milestone.

I am distressed to hear that it is now the end of April, and your student just got the card because I have to say, even with staffing gaps, um, our team has been able to ensure that every school has an ample supply.

And if we ever hear that there's usually it's when they're running low, we get them a supply in the next day.

Um so please tell me afterwards what school your student goes to because this is unusual.

I mean, again, I don't we do our our role ends at the handing the cards to the school.

My point was to show how proud he was to get it and how happy I was to get it.

Um I don't believe that was on the D dot side.

Back in the beginning of the academic year, um, there's always a little bit of some bumpiness, but I was not hearing much.

We were working with schools to make sure they had them.

Um my point was more how how proud he was to have it.

And I would say good.

And that's exciting, but I can't let go of the other.

No, I agree with you.

I are really frustrated too, but you know, in our process.

So anyway, we'll talk because if this is a recurring issue at the school, we can help support them and make sure they're attractive.

I think what I see happen, and it's probably more at the elementary school level, is that the schools actually hold on to, they don't trust the kids gonna hold on to it, not lose it.

So they hold on to the cards.

And what they do when they do field trips is they just take their cards from this from the office and they go and s swipe kids through.

They they just don't hand the kids to the, they don't hand the cards to the kids at the elementary school level as often.

I think we don't have the same issue at a middle school or a high school where they're gonna give it to the kid.

But we obviously have in our city plenty of fifth graders that take transit um on their own, fourth graders too, third graders too.

So maybe we don't give it to the pre-K3 kid, but I I feel like we got plenty of kids that can do it.

Anyway, um the funding, it looks like the transfer is expected to be 22.1 million to WAMATA uh N FY27.

The funding level of a 26 was 15.8 million dollars.

So it looks like a sharp increase.

What accounts for the change?

So I want to make sure we got the numbers talking about the same thing.

Um in the mayor's proposed budget, we have a 15.8 million dollar budget for school transit subsidy.

I have that as FY26.

You have that as FY27 as well.

Six and seven, yeah.

Okay, we'll double check on our side.

I think we bought it looking at the same thing.

Yeah, generally speaking, it's a flat budget.

That line item supports both AL Adult Learner Transit Subsidy Program as well as kids ride free.

They have different models of how they operate, but they both are transfers to WAMATA to cover kind of that fair expected fair revenue.

Got it.

Okay, we can follow up afterwards.

We're we were seeing 22.1, but if what you're saying is you believe it's roughly same flat funding.

Static from FY26, yeah.

All right.

Maybe one clarifying question.

Is the 15.8 inclusive of both kids ride free and adult learner?

Yeah, unfortunately, it's just all in that one line.

Okay, all right.

Well, we can work with you and kind of tease that out a bit more.

Um have we experienced or what are our kind of metrics on it?

If we're transferring this much to Wamada, how do we evaluate if we actually got $15.8 million dollars worth of travel, or are there any situations where we end up not having that much and we have to claw back?

Um we believe that that money is fully spent.

Um in fact, they've come in prior years and we've had some shortfalls.

This year, rather than waiting until the end, we are asking them to do true ups during the year.

So it is still hard to know where we'll land, but now they're here's where we're spending, and then oh, these are not being used, so then it goes down again, and then I'll track again as the spend happens.

So um this is going to be a key year for us to see where we land.

We are hopeful that we're in the vicinity of 15.8.

Um there is a good chance that we will be under in terms of what we owe them, but we'll know more after this year when they're actually tracking it very closely this year and and sort of returning the money to the kitty.

Do you mean it's under under meaning that RP.8 doesn't cover?

That the 15.8 doesn't cover.

Okay.

You know, I will also say uh we have I don't think that kids ride free taps have always been the most uh uh accurate.

Um I know when I'm on the bus, I rarely see a bus driver even ask the kids to tap.

They just try to get them on as fast as possible.

So the the tap is not, I think, gonna be an accurate count just because they usually are trying to keep their schedule, so they just wave the kids on and don't even ask them to tap, which will make it hard for a true accounting, which I think is always what we we do our best guess here.

Um that's uh another conversation.

All right, adult learner transit subsidy.

You probably watched the hearing, so you definitely know and heard from a lot of our um uh adult learners uh around the challenges and the ass that they've been pushing on.

How many students do we have currently in the adult learner transit subsidy program?

Do is that a known number?

Because they enroll on their on their transit card, right?

Yeah, it's delivered like a kind of like smart benefits are for the feds, right?

It's a it's a preloaded card.

I can try to find the information.

Sorry, I don't have to.

Okay.

Well, while you're looking up that the other question I was gonna ask is because we try to break apart that 15.8 million to understand what's kid ride free, what's adult learner?

Do we I'm assuming you know the breakdown?

It may not be presented that way in the budget book, but what is the how much is the adult learner transit subsidy funded for?

That is about sorry, I can't say that's a roughly about 1.5, 1.6 million dollar piece of that larger pie.

Okay.

So we can probably extrapolate the number of people from that, but that's anyway.

Got it.

That also helps me extrapolate what the difference is to get to 100%.

People around 4300?

Correct.

Okay.

Um so we it's a ballpark 1.5, 1.6 per year.

Yes.

Yeah, we can if if you need the exact number, we can provide that afterwards.

It also fluctuates on enrollment and use.

Okay.

So do we have a sense of for our adult learners?

Because we have the MetroLift program where people who are SNAP eligible, and I want to be very clear, not all of our adult learners are SNAP eligible, in particular, because we have some RTR schools where a large number of our adult learners are immigrants, are not going to be uh in our SNAP program.

So I just want to be clear that it's not a solution for everybody, but where it can provide savings.

Do you have information about or is it a knowable thing?

How many people are enrolled in MetroLift, and then on top of that, the adult learner transit subsidy.

Because obviously, if you combine those two things together, it really becomes powerful in terms of how much transit benefit we can provide.

Yeah, I mean I've just done a little bit of research on MetroLift.

Um I think it's wildly underenrolled, by the way.

Uh I'd love to get more people that are eligible in this program.

Indeed.

And I did we confirmed with Womata, there's no constraints on their program.

Um so the MetroLift is 50% off of all of their fare rates.

Um that would have to be separate.

So it would not be that all of the fares would be 50%, and you could use your $70 adult learner for the balance.

You would have to use the $70 for adult learner at the full fare, and then separately you would get the balance of your rides using MetroLift.

It doesn't seem like it can be combined with other programs.

This is just for my Googling.

Um I do not know in terms of the concentric circle of adult learners who would be eligible for it, but um my understanding is that it is an underused program, and I do believe that many would be eligible to use it, and that would really help for the balance of the rides to make them far more affordable.

Um look, I am really proud of the kids ride free.

It's been a mayor priority.

Um we love that people um are enthusiastic about the fair uh benefit that we provide as a city for both adult learners and kids ride free.

Um it's very costly, and in a time of trade-offs, um, you know, yes, in a perfect world, we would have more funds for many things, but this year is not one where we actually have room to add to it.

Um add to the adult learning bucket.

Well I'm not making a judgment on what you've proposed.

Um I think I am hearing it's a pretty loud and clear need.

And I think what we've seen Metro costs go up, uh the fair increase since the last time we adjusted this, I do think it's helpful for us to take a look at it and see what would it be.

If our approximately 1.5 million is what helps cover our 4300 students, quick math tells me to go from $70 a month to $100 a month would cost about $400,000.

Um you know it's interesting though, so that cost is our what we're spending annually.

Um interestingly though, it seems like the current spend per participant per month is actually not hitting the $70.

The average is really within 10 months more like it was $41 a month or $32 last year.

So I don't know if we're actually fully paying for the $70, so let alone get to $100.

Um and I don't know why.

It seems like there is a subset of participants who definitely are spending that $70 down.

That's why they wanted to be $100, but there's many that are actually not getting to the full 70.

So I'm not sure.

I agree with that.

But all right, I'll use my own kids as an example here.

Um both now have a kid ride free card.

Um they live a block and a half away from their school, so they walk to school.

The kids ride free card will never max out uh if we had a maximum benefit on it because they walk to school.

They'll occasionally do it for a field trip, they occasionally need to go to if they're gonna go down to MLK library, things like that.

Um but those examples, we're gonna have tons of students who have a kids' ride free card that are not necessarily gonna use it as more of a high utilizer.

And so if we had a cap on what a kids ride free benefit looks like, I think you have the exact same conversation.

Some students are using it at a very high amount, and others not so much.

I think the adult learners are very similar in that.

Is that we've got a good number that exceed the 70, but you're right, there's plenty that don't because their transportation needs are just different.

So that kind of unevenness of what that experience looks like helps inform us though, too.

Do you disagree?

No, I'm just saying that um again, you know, it's a same point of um it's a generous program.

Um adding to it, yes, I understand that many people would like to have it be a higher rate.

Um we just right now are making hard choices, so that is not where we were able to move additional resources.

Yeah.

I again, I'm not trying to frame this as a criticism of the budget choices here.

It's more of a budget choice that's now in front of us.

Um if we're trying to think about how we are investing and growing, um, getting people to where they can uh get to the education they need for that job or whatever's next.

And to me, I view this as part of a growth effort and growth economy as we help people be able to get to the school to finish education.

So we want to look at it.

Um I mean the $400,000 is a not unreasonable amount to try to think about is that something we can fix?

And I think that it's something for the sheer number of people that we've heard from, I think it can make a really big difference.

So we're gonna keep looking at it, happy to continue working with you on it.

Um and again, I'm not trying I don't want you to hear it as a criticism that you didn't do it.

It's a let's see if we can do it together.

All right.

Um we look at the um the costs.

Well I was trying to think about the metro lift conversation we're having.

You looked, did you have a conversation with Wamada, or you said you were just doing a quick kind of independent?

Right.

I just looked to see can it be combined with other programs?

The only conversation we had was is this a program that is constrained at all?

Are you worried about getting oversubscribed?

And the answer was no.

Um, this being the MetroLift program.

Yeah.

Okay.

We'll we'll follow up on that too to see if we can have uh talk to our friends at WAMATA and see are do they have to be completely separate, you know, from the WAMATA card smart chip card, kind of they think of it as different purses, which purse are you touching first and kind of working its way through.

So we'll we'll talk to them about that.

Um the budget fully funds the base Wamada operating.

I'm gonna switch to WAMATA now.

Um the budget fully funds our base Wamada operating subsidy, but does not cover the additional investments contemplated by the DMV MOOS task force, so the larger investment.

How supportive is the executive of that proposal?

And can you talk about some of the efforts to think through what that funding could look like as you were forming the budget?

Um I am actually going to say that uh in terms of sources of funding.

I mean, uh the mayor is has been very committed to uh WAMATA and funding our share.

Um I don't know in terms of having uh a mayor who is, you know, this is her last term, committing the city when every one of our investments is going to be a hard trade-off.

Um anyway, I don't want to speak for this mayor or for the next mayor in terms of uh where we stand, but again, we have an incredibly you know generous portion that we're paying in to Wamada to support the operations.

We're hopeful to have new investments tied around the RFK stadium.

Um, but beyond that, I don't really have any specific color to add.

Okay.

Um the beyond the base operating subsidy, the spreadsheets provided the committee show a $750,000 contract for Metrobus expanded service.

It didn't provide much more detail than that.

Do you know what that contract covers?

Is that our contract with D D dot and Wamada focused on binning and H.

Um are you looking in the Wamata budget book operating budget or in ours in the D dot.

We're gonna double check that.

But you are that is a placeholder for funding for H for the D2X.

I still call it the X2, but service along H corridor.

That's what that is.

The 750?

Yeah, that's in the WAMATA budget book, yeah.

Okay, got it.

All right, so that's not the uh the funding for the RFK campus transit that's separate from this.

Correct.

Yeah, that's two million dollars that was, I think, in DemPed's budget last cycle.

And then plus the two uh 250 that was in our capital budget last cycle.

Okay.

But the 750 is for bus server, shirt or some bus service.

Does that make sense?

Yes.

So there's the 2 million for the study, right?

And then there's the 2 million new that we have in our bus priority line, budget line, and that would be for the design work for the segment of the BRT that would be union station to RFK.

Got it.

That's the new money in this fiscal year.

Separate from this 750.

Correct.

All of it's independent.

Got it.

So this 750 is supposed to be for Metrobus expanded service, is for what we used to call the X2.

Yeah.

I still have a memorized.

That line item you may you may remember it from prior budget cycles when circulator was wound down.

We worked with WAMATA to enhance Metro bus service on the existing routes to kind of make up for that shortfall where needed in that line item was then funded in prior years, and now we're kind of asked part of the budget, the mayor's budget team to have a kind of extra funding for H Street in there.

Got it.

And do we have a sense of what 750 translates into?

Is that a couple more buses?

It's rough still.

I mean, we're still working with MOMADA on the operations to see if the ridership is even, you know, to what extent is it needed.

Oh I'm it's needed.

I mean, I'm uh the conversations you'll hear even on, I still call it the X2.

Um is people can feel already.

I mean, X2 is already a pretty high ridership uh route, and you can feel um it's a little more crowded without the streetcar as an option.

So just to tie it into an earlier question, you had the staff in our TDD group who will work with Womana to determine the best kind of level of service and what we can get for that.

Got it.

Okay.

Um let me switch to a couple of conversations around micromobility.

All right, strategic bike plan.

During our performance oversight hearing, you say the DDOP plans to be able to share a draft of the five-year strategic bikeways plan with public engagement to follow after its release.

Can you give us an update on that timing?

Sure.

And um our team has worked diligently all year.

Um we had about 3,000 comments received from our winter public engagement sessions.

Um so we're now doing technical analysis of all the public input.

Um and so we will have another engagement session late spring, early summer.

Um I don't have dates yet to walk through some more specific recommendations.

Um so the budget allows us to continue to build out um our our network, but exactly where we go when over the next five years will be defined by the strategic bike waste plan.

Okay.

But we how how long of a public engagement do you expect after its release?

Um is it a draft release?

And like you talked about in oversight hearing, you'd said there would be a draft plan, public engagement, and then a I'm assuming then a final plan.

Yeah, I think that the um next round of public engagement will have some more specific scenarios to get feedback on, and then we'll have um a more specific plan with routes, maps be late summer, early fall.

That would be the late summer, early fall would be the engagement piece, or that would be when the final final is done.

Okay.

Um is the intent then to have I think you just said yes to this, but is the intent then that that report that comes out in late summer, early fall then helps inform budget formulation for whomever the next mayor is, I guess, um, to then map out their investments.

Yes, and I'll tell you that um we have ample investments.

It's really not been a dollar issue to do five to ten miles a year.

Um it's really a question of where we're going.

And so the map will refine that, but we've asked for funding to enable us to do all of the bike projects that are on the slate now, and that's gonna continue out over the CIP.

So it's more of the blueprint of where and less about we need additional dollars.

I mean, maybe that's the case, but I think for the most part, we're well funded.

It's really just uh mapping out the the where and the schedule.

All right.

Um when we look at our e-bike incentive program for this year, um, that has been fully funded.

And have those vouchers uh all gone out.

So I thought you'd have uh by the number of pages you just flipped.

I figured you'd have like your e-bike section.

E-bike should be up to the front there.

No, it's got the highlighted.

Um so we're really thrilled in FY26.

Um, well, you know, FY25, very successful 329 um residents received a new e-bike.

Um in FY26, um, so far we have issued 149 vouchers, and 117 of them have been redempt redeemed so far.

Um and you know, this year we switched back to preferred applicants only.

Um the program has been really well run and well received.

And do we have a breakdown of um because this came up during one of the oversight hearings?

Um do we have a breakdown of ward residency?

Um I do.

I have the FY25.

Um the breakdown and um I don't think that's FY2.

Criticism we heard during the oversight hearing was this was only benefiting people in Ward 3.

Right.

So want to give you a chance to share the data.

Right.

Um so I'll say that the breakdown is it's a good mix.

The high was Ward 5, we had 65 redeemers at 20% of the total.

Then the next was Ward 8, where we had 59, and that was 18% of the total.

Um and then followed by Ward 7, 51 redeemers at 16%.

Um then from there, you know, goes between six, one, two, and three um sort of slightly down.

In those were in three wards, five, seven, and eight, which I feel like tracks with exactly what we were hoping and wanting you to do by identifying and prioritizing preferred applicants.

So it's actually even more skewed towards um five, seven, eight when you look at the preferred redeemers.

That was third of the total.

So I think it's a really strong distribution.

Yeah.

Which you can that's excellent.

I appreciate it, because that was what we wanted, and so I'm really glad to see that.

And you would assume that in the FY26, thus, and you may not have the data pulled yet for the 116 that have um taken advantage thus far, but any would you expect to see similar data or since you move to preferred applicants completely, would you potentially see an even higher share in five, seven, and eight?

Um it maps similarly.

We have, but but yes.

So ward five and ward eight, so I do have twenty-six.

Okay.

Um five and eight are the leads at twenty-one percent, and then ward seven, yes.

That's 42%.

21% each, right?

And then 19% in ward seven, uh, 14% in ward six, ten percent in ward one, and then ward two and three are um you know and four are under a pretty a good mix, but um four, five, um sorry, five, six, seven, and eight have been the highest.

Um that's great, and I appreciate you and the team that have been working on this to get that out.

And I can share this with you so you have it for reference too.

Thank you.

I think it's just helpful since we heard I think some uh criticism during the oversight hearing that did not have the benefit of that data, and I think maybe made some assumptions.

It's good to have the data that helps show that it is working the way that DDOT was uh that I was hoping and the way that DDOT's been executing it.

Um that said, I'm disappointed that the FY27 budget does not have funding for it, correct?

Uh there are many programs that are valuable and successful that we had to make some tough decisions on.

But we do not see this as a criticism of the program or it not working well or being well received.

So you're confirming there's not in the FY27 money that I missed somewhere.

There is not the FY27.

That was my wind up for that response.

All right.

Um like many other things, the committee is going to be looking and scouring to see where we can help make some tweaks and adjustments to the budget, and this will certainly be one of them.

Um and if we're unable to do 500, it may be 250.

But I think it's important that we keep the program running because I think you've developed some expertise and the staff of helping get this out.

We've been able to help.

Um, I think it's a bit of a lifeline as well for some of our shops and small businesses.

It's clearly helping our residents.

Um I'd like to uh definitely make sure that we have resources available to continue it in A form, even if maybe it's got to step back a teeny bit this year compared to the last couple of years.

Um then as we map out and move forward.

So just flagging that for you.

All right.

Um the e-bike delivery food pilot, is that continuing to be funded in FY27, or is that also not funded?

So that is actually funded by a private entity, um, Lacey, Los Angeles.

I can't remember what the acronym stands for, but um, but we are just rolled out for the second cohort, so we are providing technical assistance for that.

Um but that is for the bike purchase and then the stations where they can do the battery swaps.

Um and it has been also well received, and we know we now have fewer vehicles or you know, motorcycles for the deliveries, and um we did a great press conference and had testimony from one of the participants who loves it.

Excellent.

Um it's good to hear that one's continuing.

All right, then the other question I would have just from an operations perspective, um, and maybe because we are many months away, it's not a problem.

Then the other question I would have just from an operations perspective, and maybe because we are many months away, it's not a problem.

But are there any staff if the budget decision is for the e-bike voucher program, for example, if that's not continued as proposed, have you already reassigned staff?

Or if funding was found to be able to continue it, it functions within the existing staff and staff structure that you have.

For better or worse, DDOT staff have been taking on more than one job for the past two years.

So the woman who runs our transportation demand management function has been leading this with borrowed resources from her team and has done a fantastic job without staffing up.

Got it.

Okay, thanks.

All right, let me turn to a couple of pieces of legislation and funding for that.

So the Plaza Act.

During last year's budget, the committee funded almost all the components of the Plaza Act.

The initial report identifying three roadways to be closed for up to 24 hours a week is due on December 31st, 2026.

Where are we in that process?

Sure.

And I know we've talked offline about how important we think this program is.

But first step is to find a easy and cost-effective way to close down roadways so that we can have special events.

And so the uh the process for developing standards for closing down roadways that does not require MPD support at every intersection, which is costly and really does discourage organizations from from doing block parties and road closures, is to have some standards that are already approved.

So there is a vehicular terrorism prevention task force.

There are my understanding is draft recommendations that are getting finalized.

So we think that will be imminent, and that will then give a standard list of options that we'll include for ad hoc closures.

So we're excited DDOT was very involved in designing some of those recommendations.

So thing one, how do we close it?

We have sorry of us interrupting.

Is that the part that is that the one that was uh the working group coming through HCMA?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Now it's promised that their work would be done by February or March, so that it would be done before the budget.

I'm gonna say it's imminent, it is imminent.

We know there's a draft out there, they're making some tweaks, but it um it's very close.

And I um have to say this has been a pain point for many people for some time because we have to make sure that our emergency responders have comfort and are, you know, everyone has either access they need or comfort and safety of it.

We have you know not made much progress for a long time, and so this has been huge.

So I know we're all excited to have something over the finish line, but it's even just getting here to where we have some consensus around some draft new standards is big.

Um, so I it'll be soon.

Um so that's sort of phase one that we need to do.

Secondarily, we have um surveyed all of the bids because we know having a closed um area needs to be activated.

We need to have someone who is you know responsible.

We have some, whether it's a farmers market or some other activities, we don't want to just close the road and let it sit idle.

So we've reached out to all of our bids to survey them for who's interested, because I think where we go, we want to make sure that there's an a partner who is excited about it and has some big ideas.

So I think those results have just been collected.

I'm happy to share those with you when we've had a chance to look at them.

I haven't seen them yet, but that's sort of the next step of it.

Um, and yes, and we also know there's the report for December.

Um unfortunately, the staff person that was going to be dedicated to this was one of the positions that we've had to hold because of the freeze.

Um I think we've been making progress though regardless, but hopefully next year um we'll be able to actually have someone more dedicated to the outreach to then operationalizing it.

All right, so the CFO is frozen the hiring of a position that was fully funded for a law that was passed.

Yes.

All right.

CFO.

Um do you believe that you will still be able to deliver a December 31st, 2026 report?

Yes.

I'm not worried about the report.

Okay.

Um it's just stretching you from a staff perspective to get it done.

Yes.

Okay.

Um is the intention that you are combining Plaza Act requirements with part of the mayor's downtown plan that wrote that was looking at pedestrianizing portions of gallery place.

I'm looking at them as separate.

Separate things.

Yeah, separate things.

Not that the downtown bid couldn't also reach out to say we want to have other road closures, but no.

We're looking at galleries square as an ongoing activated area.

But these we're hopeful that the bids will in different neighborhoods will be the ones participating in the more regular closures on their roads.

Okay.

So from the task force's reports, so we should see, I guess there's a draft circulating somewhere, but we're moving towards finalization, hopefully.

Um can't have a hearing and conversation about this without talking about Eastern Market.

So is the idea that this will allow the funds that have previously been put in for Eastern Market bollards to be able to move forward with DGS?

This would give the standard that Eastern Market should follow in terms of what type of bollard.

Now when DGS keeps pointing fingers as to why they can't do it, because there's not a standard, they don't have approval from whomever.

The idea behind this is it creates a standard that the city can look to and all the agency partners that have pointed their fingers at each other, say this is our standard, and we can move forward.

Correct.

Okay.

I know someone from DGS is watching this hearing, so I'll make sure that they get that.

All right.

Um the streetery emergency legislation had specified that one of the corridors would be Adams Morgan for one of the pedestrianized corridors under the Plaza Act.

Is that still the intention that that is a prime candidate and one of the corridors that would be part of the December 2026 report?

We um we need to have a willing partner that wants to do closures on a regular basis.

Um so I am hopeful that the Adams Morton bid would say, yes, we're very interested in it, but I do not think that closing the roadway and just having it empty um is necessarily a formula for success.

So I would need them to support it.

Okay.

Uh yes, the idea would be that there would certainly be willing partners, so I agree with you.

All right.

Um another piece of legislation, autonomous vehicles.

Um D DOT recently posted.

I don't know about the right terminology here is part one of the report.

When will part two be posted slashed released, depending upon your terminology?

Um I believe that it will be this summer that we'll have a final report that would then include some more specific blueprint guidelines, guidance for if you wanted to have legislative changes, sort of things to keep in mind for what legislation is.

Summer's at least three months long.

Is it June?

I don't have that specific information.

Um I can't get more specific than summer.

Okay.

I at least we'll use this opportunity to stress that since we have legislation in front of us, we would be potentially holding hearing this summer before the legislative recess.

Having DDOT complete this would be very helpful to get DDOT's uh report and responses and guidance to be able to help inform the work to come.

Agreed.

And that's uh that's a goal that I would like to do.

That's true.

No, we're working on it.

Early summer, late spring, even does DDOT expect that it would have any change in the permitting approvals between now and then?

In other words, you you have permits that have been approved.

Is there any expectation that you would make any changes in the in the coming months?

Um so we don't so in terms of having regulations that would define what the permitting looks like, um, I don't know if we'll have anything new on that front.

Um right now the we don't have regulations in place, so it is the law that is actually providing the guidelines for who can operate um and it's very they're they're high level.

Um so we have some draft regulations that would then be more clear about what the permits look like.

I don't know if those will get announced, um, will get approved and put in place.

Okay.

That's kind of what I'm trying to get at.

Is there any expectation that rulemaking to permit driverless testing?

For anybody who's not familiar with this topic, there's a human being in the in the seat.

The next stage would be permitting for driverless testing.

Again, still not passenger service.

Is there any intention or plan that DDOT would release the rulemaking on that in the next several months or prior to the phase part two or the report being released?

I don't know.

Okay.

How many staff are working on AV-related policy development program management?

We have two staff on our innovation team that are working on it.

They do other things as well, but they are subject matter experts.

Okay.

On another autonomous topic, our personal delivery devices.

Is the funding preserved for the personal delivery device program in this budget?

So the reduction in funding?

No.

Well, the personal delivery device is a permitted program.

And it is now it's an active permit.

We again the same staff are managing the program, but because it's not a contract, I mean, we are we don't have costs for it.

We're really overseeing the permit.

Um, and again, that's been fairly small scale to date in terms of Howard University and at George GW, sort of in the campus and beyond.

Um, but we are planning this spring to roll out additional permits for hopefully other geographic areas and other providers.

Okay.

Um for automated curbside management.

Um DDAT's currently running a pilot program in Southwest with, I believe, uh parking company Automotis.

What's in the experience thus far?

Right.

I mean, so the the pilots really been looking at at the camera technology, which is fantastic.

Um we are drafting some new regulations that will help us um shift so that freight can be rather than having a decal and sort of the standard way that we had trucks get um permitted to do deliveries, we'll have options to have digital um registration.

Um so we are laying the groundwork by changing the regs to allow and enable for um for the electronic and frictionless payment.

Um so anyway, all of those things are happening, and we are also looking at locations that would be ripe for camera enforcement for freight and and short-term loading and um anyway.

We are doing what we can to lay the groundwork so we can move this forward.

Okay, so what would be the right way to characterize it?

Is is the pilot program operational now, or it is still looking at the camera technology, but it's not actually operational.

Correct.

And it's actually it's the Southwest bid.

It's their pilot.

So we've been, it's not a DDOT-driven pilot.

And my understanding is it doesn't end up in a warning notice or anything else.

It's really a proof of concept for the camera's work.

This is what if we were issuing infractions or were issuing, you know, fair charges, what it would look like, but um it's not operationalized, it's not tied to any of the ticketing system processing system.

Okay, got it.

So it's it's helping prove the technology could work, but there's actually there is no enforcement with it.

It is just a proof of concept, but without any type of uh infractions being cited.

So does it does that help?

Like, is there a you you're measuring, I'm assuming curbside management, uh double parking.

Are you also or is that project pilot evaluating here's what we believe revenue would be generated?

Um we're really focused on clearing up the double parking and the congestion and chaos that happens when you have high demand curbside areas that have both heavy-duty freight during the day and then areas for short-term parking for all of the DoorDashers and Uber Lyft pickups.

So we are looking at very targeted zones that need to get normalized and really they're unsafe.

So the goal of this program would be to help fix the chaos and not it's not about fines.

We do know that in other cities that have done this, they're collecting fares for the first time, which most folks do not bother paying when they're curbside for a little bit.

So we know that there will be revenue, but that's not really the driver behind why we're doing it.

Okay.

Um bus shelter contract.

Can you give us an update as where we are?

Um we had some challenging starts.

I think having the electronic kiosk legislation come in the middle of our solicitation.

Um serve to really dampen enthusiasm for potential bidders for it.

So we've had a couple of iterations.

Um we are that solicitation ended up not getting finalized and was canceled.

So we are working on a plan B.

Um we have an existing our legacy provider.

We've extended for a year.

Um, but uh right now um yeah, there's not much more I can talk to at this stage of the citation of where where we're going, but um we've got a plan B that we'll be pursuing.

I'm happy to talk to you more about it offline, but it's there's a lawsuit and pre-solicitation that I'm sensitive about.

Okay.

Would it would it be easier to separate them and just have the bus contract shelter, but the bus shelter contract be independent?

Yes.

If we know that there's interest, a lot of the traditional bus shelter advertising providers were not interested in participating if there is a competing electronic kiosk, wayfinding kiosk um in the vicinity.

Okay.

Um has the agency considered or would it not be wise just to have DDoC create a uh capital project for bus shelters?

Um if we would need to, I mean, that means create a new budget line for something that not only have we not had to pay for but has generated revenue.

Um I would say that's kind of a suboptimal outcome, but if but that would be something that might have to be pursued if we aren't able to work through an option.

Okay.

All right.

Um and we would love to follow up offline as well to get a little more context there.

All right, let me switch to vision zero in funding.

So there appears to be in the budget a million dollar reduction in the vision zero division accompanied by a loss of six FTEs.

Does that track?

Is that is that again a reorganization?

And so people are being categorized in different places.

So to be clear, within our traffic safety administration, we actually have it looks like a two two to 2.5 FTE net increase.

So there were four local operating funded positions on the Vision Zero team, which is one of the many teams in there.

Um we have really been able to optimize how many NITSA funded, so National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, it's federally funded through the highway safety office.

And the highway safety office and vision zero teams are um it's one team together.

So as we've been able to hire more on the federally funded side through our highway safety office, we've been able to reduce the locally funded Vision Zero staff, but the combined team, um, oh, I think there might be eight people.

I mean, that's larger than ever.

Um, and they're all working in collaboration.

So I think it's if you look at the vision zero locally funded, it does look like a decrease, but net net, I think that team is bigger than it was in prior years.

So is there a what would be helpful for us to see is if there's a essentially a swap.

Um, if there's a corresponding increase somewhere else, so we can see that that kind of crosswalk would be helpful if you could provide that.

Okay.

We can also show you the this is on, right?

We can also say also show you the staff that are funded from the capital budget.

So just like with the federal grants, this is kind of a piece of a larger pie that's in the operating budget.

The bulk of our safety work is reflected in the capital budget, and a good amount of staff are also funded from those projects that wouldn't appear on the list.

I think you're looking at.

Got it.

Yeah, that type of information would be really helpful to us.

Um when we look at fatalities in 2026, so the calendar you're in right now.

Um obviously, if I go dollar clock back to 2025, DC experienced 25 road fatalities, which is a significant reduction.

Um we were all very one is one too many, but we were glad to see the trend line heading in the way that we really want.

Um so far, we've had 16 deaths in 2026, which seems it's above, at least puts on a trajectory to be above last year, closer in line to maybe 2023, 2024.

Um our major injury levels though still seem to be closely tracking with last year's count.

In other words, a substantial reduction.

Um what are you can you help identify with what are some of the things you're worried about when you see that trend line on fatalities?

Um, but that you see the major injuries roughly consistent with our experience last year.

Can you just kind of talk a little bit about what you're seeing, what concerns you the trend lines?

Sure.

And I appreciate you framing it the way you do.

And I've said this before, we should celebrate the drop that we had in fatalities last year.

Every fatality is a tragedy.

And so we were really happy to see a 52% drop.

At the same time, I did caution there is so much variability in the fatalities that the outcome indicator that I look at in terms of our effectiveness is really the serious injuries.

And as you mentioned, well, from 21 to 2025, we saw a 21% decrease year over year across every ward in serious injury crashes.

And they are, you know, they are statistically significant drops because for better or worse, there are a lot more of them, you know, than there are fatalities.

So that is how I think we need to keep our eye on that number and have it continue to go down.

I'll tell you, you know, of the fatalities, you know, about a third of them occur on our um interstates, you know, and the highways, things that are our engineering tools and where we've done the major roadway reconfiguration are I think less impactful.

Um we just don't have the same sort of engineering ability on the highways.

So it's not surprising that that's where we've seen the most.

Um things that we have done in recent years, we launched not only I guess in 24 we started our post-fatal rapid response so that after a fatality, our team takes a look immediately after at the area and has a very fast process for making um improvements to that space to try to address it quickly.

Um and some of those short-term changes, it may be as simple as you know, if it's tree trimming to increase visibility, um, improving, you know, crosswalk markings or center lines or speed limit markings in the roadway or signage, um, but we try to have a very quick reaction to it.

Um, and then we have beyond the immediate, then we often do much longer term bigger changes.

But when I look at our investments that we make across all of our safety portfolio, and that includes the ongoing high injury network, longer-term corridor projects, and now in the interim, we've been doing similar focus, but on the high injury intersections.

So there are the hundred top 100 high injury intersections that we've identified, and we are looking to do those much more quickly.

Now, many of those fall along the high injury network and areas where we're seeing these fatalities, but rather than wait five years to get the full project done, we can do these intersection improvements within a year.

Um, so we have ample resources to make those fixes, and that's on top of our you know, 100, you know, annual safety improvement on top of our 800 TSIs that we do annually, on top of our safe routes to school, 25 um schools.

So I would love to say throw more money and that'll fix it.

I think we have um we are blessed, and other cities look at the investments that we're able to make in our capital budget and how effectively we're able to get those out the door and build things.

Um I am I'm proud of the work that we're doing, and again, would always love to see those fatalities get to zero ASAP.

But um in the interim, we see our crashes are going down, we know our interventions are working.

Um, and you know, I'm really proud of the work that our team does and and hope that people don't question the merits of our of our work.

Okay.

Um I think that to your point around a lot of the uh tactical actions, the after-action reviews, the interventions, I think absolutely make a difference and are helping us.

Obviously, uh for the community or the family and friends, like it will always feel like it it comes after the fact, and we want to be as proactive as we can.

Um I think it's part of the work by DDOT to identify the high injury uh corridors and being able to focus on those areas that are not those aren't responding necessarily uh to an individual event afterwards is looking at a major corridor and making a lot of investments.

Um obviously I think combining engineering with enforcement is a really important part of this too.

So I think there's no one thing we can point to, but I think combining greater enforcement with the Steer Act, greater investment in our interventions and building out the spaces and around engineering safer streets.

I think those things have to continue.

I wanted to move as fast as possible.

You know, I I will agree with DDOT many times.

I will disagree as well sometimes when whether it's Arizona Avenue or other decisions that I feel like are not moving forward in safety.

But I do believe that on the whole, there's a lot of really good investments that are making a difference.

And we can't pat ourselves on the back until we continue driving all the way down to zero.

And I um I want to lead with all the good things we're doing and where we're having impact.

And I do think for context, um, you know, when you do look at the fatalities, I think it's important to note how many are really driven by antisocial behavior that in a perfect world, you know, we look at safe systems, but even with the full panoply of enforcement and engineering and education, you know, you know, these are things that are really hard, and that involves, you know, 70% had speeding as a factor.

Um, and nearly all of those were on sort of the limited access freeways or major arterials.

63% involved some kind of criminal and reckless activity, running red lights, weaving through traffic.

Three pedestrians were struck while on these limited access freeways, including the officer that you mentioned.

Um, you know, four involved drivers or motorcycles that ran off the road and struck an object, four involved a medical event.

Um, so I just want to put context around the fatalities and how hard they are to really solve.

Well, yes.

Um, and right, it's uh I think those are important factors to make sure that uh are noted, and we have to continue to still work aggressively with the tools we know we're working.

Yeah, and the safe system approach, too.

I just want to say post-crash care has been another area where the city has done has made great progress in terms of how our first responders are able to get to the scenes more quickly and how to treat on the scenes because many people who actually are not dead at the time that the first responders get there, it's actually the time it takes to get them to a hospital.

So we're continuing to look at every lever we have.

Okay.

Um I'm gonna pivot to not quite as heavy a subject.

Um, but congestion pricing.

So the report was posted um there was a lawsuit.

Is the has the lawsuit been dismissed since the report's release?

It's funny.

I don't know officially, I assume it would be because they wanted to have it released and it's been released, so I'm not quite sure what grounds would continue.

All right, I'm not sure either.

I wasn't sure if you knew.

Um does this budget provide any funding for updating the study's findings with any post-pandemic data.

No.

Okay.

Let me move to some bid issues that we heard about at the hearing.

So several of our bids have expressed interest in expanding funding for the bid reimbursement program, which currently has a cap.

One of the things that they talked about for the RMA reimbursement management agreement, is that the language is such that the cap is uh each bid is capped at a certain dollar amount, but currently it's that dollar figure is just across all bids and then split up in different ways, not evenly, but split up across them.

Um are there any substantive concerns you have around expanding our the the work through the RMA?

Um I'm first going to do just a shout out and acknowledgement.

Our bids are um really have extraordinary leadership and are such a tremendous asset for the city and the neighborhoods in which they operate.

And um we uh depend on them in so many ways.

You know, the infrastructures, the canvas, they are the ones that really activate it, bring it to life.

Um the 250 that's been allocated is never spent every year.

There are always funds that aren't spent.

And I believe that the bid council president, when she was testifying, said that there's a big uh uh constraint that many bids are not able to participate in the program because of the insurance requirements.

And so it's hard to advocate for more funds when there are many funds that go unused.

Um their current methodology divides them up, divides the money up across all of them.

So I think there's some things that should be fully explored.

If the insurance requirements made these the funds more accessible and they spent them down, then I think we should talk about you know what more money could do.

Um but right now it's hard for me to ask for it when we have carryover funds every year.

So figure out how to fully spend it would be kind of my first recommendation.

I also don't think that any bid, you know, bids are here because it is a private sector entity, right?

So I am grateful that they're able to do many things that we're not able to do.

I don't think we should look at bids as doing replacing city services, especially as our services get better and better in terms of how quickly we can respond to some of the issues.

But there are we have added different types of activities this year that bids can do and be reimbursed for.

I hear you about wanting to not privatize public action, right?

Um in other words, I think what I'm hearing you say is you wouldn't want, for example, the uh the bid to be responsible for all sidewalk repairs, um, that there's a public function and a public good that has to take place.

Um but obviously we have these entities that perform public goods.

I mean, they're collecting from public trash cans, they're repairing public sidewalks, they're engaged in that.

And one could argue that their work also helps free up other public resources and assets to focus on non-bid areas to help improve services there.

One of the things that we heard from the Georgetown bid, for example, was if they could do more that they're not constrained from the standpoint of like they could spend more money, um, they're not constrained that if they were just allowed to go halfway down the block.

I don't think there's an argument you could make that would say the entirety of Georgetown, the Georgetown bid should be working their sidewalks.

But they they seem to be saying, if I could go to the remainder of the block, if I could just go the rest of the half block like that, there's a certain amount of work there.

And from the standpoint of the commercial corridor, the foot traffic is pretty high on the block surrounding a corridor.

Do you have concerns around making small changes like that that would be in the in the realm of half a block to a block?

Or do you feel like that's kind of camel in those nose under the tent and um it expands beyond that after that?

Yeah, I think that um bids should remain within their footprint.

Um and Georgetown is a bid that has been able to deal with the insurance concerns and they are able to do sidewalk repairs well.

Um they are not able to do the sidewalk repairs the same um complexity that we are, right?

So there's like a subset of simple ones that they do and they do it well.

Um, and I know they build up this capacity now, and so that capacity should be used, and I think they feel like we can do more than our footprint.

I would love it if they became a center of excellence that had a service that they could provide for other bids, right?

And so there are other bids that don't have capacity internally to do that level of of quick repair.

So I would say I would, and I know I'm not making this, you know, I know other bids have sort of looked to them and they've been kind of peddling their services.

I think that's a fantastic way that they can use their capacity that they've invested in, and so they're getting a return on it.

Would I would say partner with the other bids, do it in their footprints, and we can continue with the RMA structure for your footprint.

I think it's a slippery slope getting outside of those boundaries.

Um we currently on our sidewalk repairs, you know, we have 39 open sidewalk repair service requests.

So the days when we just couldn't handle them are well behind us.

Um, you know, our average days of repair used to be 420 days in FY18.

This year um we're down to 34 days.

And again, our repairs we have the restoration and and far more expansive things that we can do than I think the bids are able to.

So I want to make sure we're solving a problem.

And to me, I'm glad they've built the capacity, they're doing a good job, use that capacity in other bid areas.

But once you start moving into areas that are beyond and they're doing some but not all, I just I don't think it actually makes it more efficient for us.

I think it just can add to some problems.

So following that thread then, does the existing RMA structure if um if a if a bid in a different area wanted to utilize the built-up capacity with Georgetown bid, for example, with sidewalk repair, would the a non-Gorgetown bid under the existing RMA structure, would they have the would they meet the insurance requirements?

If you're saying that we don't actually spend the entire 250, would they be able to get reimbursement?

Well, um, so they wouldn't need to if they're not doing the work.

They would be pointing to a subcontractor, so to speak.

And I'll tell you, I haven't fully worked through all of the logistics of whoever we paying.

You know, are they a pass through to the Georgetown or bid?

Are we paying them directly?

So I don't, those are things that could all be worked out.

Yeah.

Um because ultimately the entity doing the work is insured to do that work.

And so I think that passes the risk management insurance concern, and we're paying for work that is an eligible expense to be reimbursed within the footprint that's allowable.

So there would be a way to get there.

Okay.

Um got it.

We'd love to follow up if to see, because that they they seem to be pretty clear during the public oversight hearing that they felt like they're the both Georgetown bid has capacity and that other bids would like to use those services, but I don't think they thought it was as clear that they could be able to do that under the existing RMA structure.

But would be happy to follow up after the hearing soon working.

And it may be something that we would need to modify and add some language to it, but I think we are supportive of the concept.

So thank you.

Um one more question, then we're gonna move to capital projects.

Uh at the hearing, we also heard from some of our local businesses around the DuPont Deckover.

Um give you a chance if you had any kind of response to the testimony you heard, a large number of the local businesses were concerned around just the viability of their business, the impact.

Um, I mean, this this is part of what we struggle with with a large number of projects.

Um, you know, I'll say it's part of why, for example, uh in Ward 6 with major projects at Pennsylvania and Potomac Avenue, and then what's coming on Barracks Row uh with the redesign there.

Um, we put in funding to help support our local businesses, and then that's being run through um DIMPED so they can get those dollars and grant dollars out to help support our businesses that are will have an impact.

Um I don't think that happened here.

Granted, that that effort was something I helped do for the Ward 6 projects, but anything that you just want to get a chance to respond to around the impact on the businesses, ways we're trying to help mitigate that, help improve access and visibility.

Look, I hate that any major construction project, it's disruptive for everyone in the area, whether it's a private development, a utility work, or one of our projects.

And I know that it's incredibly frustrating, and I do want to just acknowledge that um I I listened and I know that those retail owners are frustrated.

Um here's where I see DDOT's responsibility.

So thing one is to make sure that we do ample engagement and outreach in advance and then during the entire project so that all of those businesses know what the disruptions look like, what access is going to be there, what the timelines look like, and we have done that um incredibly well.

I did hear one person say we weren't aware, I I don't know how they couldn't know about it.

Um the bid two, as our partner did a great job informing them.

And we've had meetings on this four months.

So I think in that regard, I would say we've done what we can in terms of making sure that there is access, we also bend over backwards to make sure that pedestrians can get to it, deliveries can get to them, staff can get to them.

So all of these restaurants and and retail, they are all open, right?

So notwithstanding it's chaotic and confusing, they are all open and can be accessed.

Um and part of why our projects take a long time is because we want to keep access open.

So everything we do, have we closed down the road completely or a bridge completely would accelerate our time to get it finished?

So there's this trade-off of like, yeah, we could do it more quickly if we closed everything up, but we know that that's we think that that's not a good trade-off.

Um so uh I think we've done a great job in terms of accessibility, in terms of notification.

Now, the merits of whether or not there should be some payment, uh, you know, that's not gonna come, that's not a D dot responsibility.

I don't want to weigh in on the merits of whether we should do it.

I do say that like I don't know how you where it starts and ends, because there's construction happening all over the city, but I will leave that up to council if they think that that's a priority.

Um, but I do want to just make sure it's clear that notification and updated status and accessibility has been done incredibly well, and that's really you know my priority for these types of projects.

Okay, thank you.

Um all right, let's dig in on some capital projects now.

All right, H Street Bridge.

Um we are having ongoing conversations around Hate Bridge, so I'm not gonna put all those into this space right here.

Um I will just say to me the H Street Bridge is pivotal, um, not only because it is an aging infrastructure that needs to be repaired, but also because it can help unlock the potential for the redevelopment um of Union Station, which is I think going to be one of the more transformative projects in not just the city but the region.

That said, in the budget, there's a little over 100 million dollars moving um out of the FY26 current balance.

I want to make sure you get a chance to kind of walk through what it is.

So $61 million is being uh reduced.

$42 million is being reprogrammed.

But so that you can help clarify for the public who may be watching, my understanding, and you can confirm here, you will be putting the $42 million reprogrammed back into this budget, and it is part of a bidding project and some complicated federal matching dollars.

But that I want to make sure the intent is clear so we know that.

Yes, and I appreciate that.

Um we have talked um in you know in private meetings about the how constrained we are with our local matching funds.

So anytime we have a federally funded project, we have to find local match for it.

Um we have a project that is ready to go and we need to obligate the funds to get started on it, and we don't have enough uh local match, we sometimes have to borrow it from a project that may be moving at a slightly slower pace.

And so that's exactly what's happening here.

So there's 42 million that we'll be doing a reprogramming in this fiscal year so that we can start the solicitation for the Benning Road Bridge project, an interchange project, but um we will have money freed up in subsequent fiscal years that we can then reprogram back to H Street so that we don't delay on the construction for that project when it's needed.

Okay.

Why don't I see the 42 freed up in a future fiscal year in the capital budget in what's proposed here then?

In other words, what I need to figure out, because I've got folks that I'm gonna be able to help answer for this.

How do I have assurances that's gonna happen?

Um if 42 million takes is reprogrammed out of this project, I appreciate you've told me that's what the intent is, but I don't see it in the budget.

So how do I know the 42 million is actually coming back into the project?

I mean it'll be it'll have to be effectuated by future reprogramming.

Um really it's we need the current balances.

We can't use out here money, I'm not sure the nature of your question.

But if you're saying we we should point to out year money in order to unlock what's called advanced construction funding from the FH2B Way, we need that money now.

We need those current balances to be put on Benning.

Um it'll have to be reversed with the future reprogramming action.

I want to work with you on trying to help figure out these projects and make sure you have a local match.

I also though don't want to take 42 million out of a project and not have it not have confidence is coming back in.

So are you saying it's gonna later on in this fiscal year or this calendar year, there will be another reprogramming that moves it back?

Or are you I don't know what you buy the exact timing of the actual doing it, but we have to get buy-in from the feds first to fund Benning with this advanced construction methodology that we're using, which may be the second time in our history we've done that.

Um and then once that's in place, we'll work on the timing on undoing the reprogramming.

But it shouldn't impact the timeline for delivering H Street.

It shouldn't, but I what I'm trying to get at, I guess.

Are you is the intent here?

I'm gonna use a word and I I'm not meaning it in a negative way.

Are you using a word that is binding the next administration that they will have to move the 42 million back, or is the intention that this administration before the end of this calendar year will have a reprogramming that puts the 42 million back into H Street?

That I I need an answer to that.

That's what I'm trying to get at.

I'm not sure if we have the exact timing on whether it's gonna be before the end of this mayor's term or not, but maybe we can provide more of a response after discussing it with our federal partners.

Yeah, I mean, we want to move quickly on H Street 2, which is where we need to move the money back.

It actually would come back from this project and reprogram back.

It probably would be when we would need it for the construction costs, which would probably be 27.

So I don't know if it would be with this mayor, but um, but we know we need to put it back there to obligate it to start on the H Street.

So um it would come to work from getting the.

I understand where I'm coming from, right?

So I again I want to work with you so that we have all our projects moving.

If I have nothing in my CIP that shows me the 42 million coming back in, if I'm dependent upon a future reprogramming, there is no guarantee any of us are here in a future administration.

So in what degree are you saying what a future administration should or will do in a way that you can't actually.

Do you guys see what I'm getting at?

Like I need to find a way to help show this.

I mean, the 42 is coming back.

I see it from your perspective.

I think the only alternative approach would be to increase the budget for banning with using existing balances now from somewhere else.

Um and then reducing it in the out years.

But okay let's do I don't know.

This I it seems like it would be a waste of resources to add money.

Um to eat up the CIP room.

This uses existing resources on a project.

Now the signal I get is we're defunding, but it's I mean it sends 42 to one project.

I get what we're trying to do there.

I have nothing on paper that shows me where it comes back.

And so that's the part we can follow up after the hearing too.

I want to make sure you understand where I'm coming from, which is I don't have anything that shows me the 42 coming back.

The condition of the bridge is what drives the need to build it, right?

I mean, that's not changing.

True, but I if I have 42 million less, right?

That changes decision points along the way.

So let's follow up after the hearing.

I think you hear my point, which is I'm I've got to find a way to provide some greater certainty.

And I'm trying to make sure I understand is this a decision that could happen three months from now, seven months from now, or is it 12 months from now?

And to be and respectfully, like you can't bind a future administration, right?

Like you can't speak for another administration about well, there will be a reprogram to do it.

You can tell me with the need, but we're gonna have to do this, and so here's how I think we would do it.

Um, and maybe that's the advice of the professional staff at D dot that will likely carry on no matter who's administration it is.

But that's what I'm trying to make sure I understand.

And I really it's a little awkward because we're kind of we're in that last year trying to figure this part out.

And to be clear, um, I think this is a this amplifies how challenging it is to live with a very constrained um capital budget as well as a very constrained local match.

And we have this is not the first time where we need to borrow from projects because of the timing.

So these capital projects, they're expensive and they go over long periods of time.

And so what we need to do is if in year one we need the money so this project can move forward, we'll borrow it from a project that won't have construction for two more years, put it on here.

There is a lot of these shifts that happen, and um some of it is because OCFO and Federal Highway require fully budgeted projects at obligation, so we have to lock in our money well before we need it.

Anyway, and so we do end up kind of moving money around and borrowing it, but our capital projects that we identify are because they're priorities now.

Could future mayors say, I don't want to do project X and use that money to pay it back?

Sure.

I mean, we always have ways that we can cancel projects or move things around, but usually we've been able to borrow and and fit it in for the timing that we need it and keep those projects on the books.

Um, but I would say for our bridge projects, those are going to be our priority because they are, you know, we need to keep them in a state of good repair.

So that is not one that I worry about us languish, letting language.

I hear you.

I I just don't see the solution for the local match reflected here to come back.

So again, we've done this before in terms of moving.

So I I get that.

I need to figure and work with you around how we're gonna do this.

But I want to keep moving, but I we can come back after the hearing.

All right, um, we had a lot of testimony about our trails, which was great to hear uh advocacy around this.

So Brenda Richardson testified about the need to expand and improve trails along Suitland Parkway.

The proposed CIP funds the project at 38.2 million with 34 million concentrated in FY29.

What's the goal of that project of the Suitland Parkway trail?

And is it realistic that we would spend 34 million on a single fiscal year on trail?

Yeah, I mean, our trail projects are expensive.

Um they're long.

I think you've seen the existing Suitland Trail, which I would not feel safe riding on.

It's there's no barriers at all.

It's you know, the asphalt is really crummy, it's overgrown.

Um hard to call it a trail, really.

It is yeah.

Um, so this is uh a priority, and I actually am excited because my understanding is Maryland has a plan working with National Park Service to upgrade the trail on on the end of it so that our piece will actually then connect into then a more extended trail that will be upgraded.

Um it is all right of way.

This one this segment at this point.

It might have been officially NPS, but we have authority to do this.

So I am yeah, very confident that this project's going to move forward.

Um has a lot of of crashes.

Anyway, it's it's a much needed upgrade.

So I am very confident we're gonna keep moving this forward.

Okay.

But 34 million dollars in a single fiscal year.

Um I think that that's possible.

If that's when the construction hits, yeah.

Are you thinking that it's too much money that we don't need it for the project?

Sounds like a really great trail.

I'm just trying to make sure I understand how we put how we can spend 34 million dollars on that trail in one fiscal year.

I mean, we're moving it away from the roadway where possible, adding a barricade, making the trail 10 feet, so we're widening it significantly, um, adding lighting to the trail.

I mean, these are all things that have considerable expense.

Um, segments will connect with the grid, providing wayfinding and emergency response markers.

I mean, it's a big overhaul and it's incredibly long.

So uh it's very exciting.

I'm I am just trying to make sure we're doing our due diligence, just about that's that's a lot of capital dollars.

Is that what it actually costs to build that?

And if it is, that's helpful, but that just feels like a lot of money for that trail.

And so just making sure we have we have confidence in that price point.

Yeah, I mean, and most, you know, having to build the barricades, add lighting.

I mean, these are things that many trails don't have.

So I think that might also differentiate why this feels higher than most.

Okay.

Um we also heard from uh resident who talked about funding improvements at Shepherd Branch Trail.

Looks like we have five million dollars in FY31, a lot less than 34.

Um, what work is being covered by five million dollars?

So we don't own the land.

It is a CSX property.

Um I have a meeting in the next two weeks to try to see what CSX would be willing to provide.

Um we we don't have a lot of resources to buy the land.

Um my understanding is that they've talked about giving the land to JBAB at no cost.

Um, so anyway, I'm hopeful that you know we have five million available for purchasing.

I'm hopeful that that is something that um CSX, they'll see the greater good that this land could provide for our community.

I don't think they've got any other use for it.

So I'm I'm hopeful that we can have a good negotiation and they'd be willing to sell it to the district.

Um, but this is not the cost, this is really what we'd have to pay.

And if we can secure the deal, then we will need resources in the future to pay for the project.

Okay.

Um pedestrian tunnel.

I don't really have any questions.

I'm just excited.

I feel like this has been in, it's been out, it's been in, it's been out, now it's in, we're moving forward.

This is exciting.

This is good for your.

Do you have a Wamadi earring?

I don't know.

So this is uh it's a Wamada funded project, the 50 million.

Um yeah, I know last night folks were talking about it.

Um, exactly.

We're very excited.

Transformative is the word we used multiple times.

That was used, right?

Um, so yeah, so um, yeah, hopefully that's uh what Mata is going to be moving that forward.

All right, we're gonna protect the funding.

Um, our H and binning.

Uh we've talked a little bit about this, but so we've got we can work with you with because we'd like to find out a little bit more about what that the funding we talked about that was the expanded bus service that's in the budget for the X2 line.

Um but when we talk about bus rapid transit, I think many people mean many different things when I say bus rapid transit.

I think this is the opportunity to be very exciting.

I think it has the opportunity to really rethink what it looks like to move bus frequently, reliably in a way that visually is very attractive as well.

As I've said, I think we want to have center run buses.

I think there's so much opportunity to be able to do this along binning.

Um what does it mean to you?

What's getting you excited about this binning and H Street uh connection?

Sure.

Um we are also very excited.

This will be transformative.

Um when we try to compare catalog transformative, we just throw all the words out.

Looking at um standard bus service and throughput versus party bustling versus VRT, and I think it's really helpful to explain what that looks like.

Um a standard bus service the way they operate now, and it is one of the more frequent routes.

In a given hour, we could transport about 500 individuals from Union Station to RFK with a priority bus lane, which allows for far more throughput and efficiency.

We could get that number up to about 1200 individuals per hour.

When you look at something like a center running lane, we are able to get to beyond 2400.

So it really is a way for folks who are at Union Station to make it an enticing option to get off the train, not to transfer to the orange and blue and and silver, but to get off there.

Any one red line regional rail, and then hop on a the BRT to get to get to the stadium.

So we know we are trying to make the stadium the most transit-friendly stadium in the country, and that means having a bus alternative that will ensure that it's there, you know, the speed and throughput is there and needed that's needed.

Um so we're with you on it.

Center running means that the turning conflicts and the um the double parking when people are blocking the lane, all of these things get removed and they really do run far more efficiently.

So we do have money in our budget for the design.

There's another two million that was put in.

It's embedded in our priority bus um capital budget, so you won't see it as a separate line item.

We know that will help and we will we've already started working on it, but we'll bridge with other design funds in that same budget.

Um, but we at this point do not have funding for construction, and we know it's to do it right, it's gonna be expensive.

So we're um we're gonna work with Wilmada and see what kind of alternatives we might have to help fund it.

What would the timeline look like to get to a decision point, know roughly what our funding requirements are to then be able to put in the budget?

Are we talking about when we're sitting here a year from now, we're talking about having capital dollars identified and then put in the budget then, or is it something between now and then?

Because there's obviously a timeliness of getting going.

If we're trying to get all this up and running before 2030, it'll be here before we know it.

Right.

And um, and the good news is we have enough money to move on the design.

So we're not gonna sit on our hands until we have the full budget available for the construction.

So it won't slow us down.

But I think this time next year um we should be able to map out what the cat the construction costs look like.

And if we are adding money to a capital budget or finding some other ways to help pay for that, yeah, we'll know more then about what those alternatives look like and what we'll need.

Okay.

And when you're looking at the study area here, what is the eastern terminus of the study?

So the idea would be on the east side all the way to the Benning Metro station.

Um, and then the west side, um, we are hopeful that it'll be you know, Georgetown and and possibly Rosalind.

Um so this is again just the the phase one segment would be Union Station RFK, phase two, we're gonna say one A is RFK East to Benning Metro, and then the next, then the phase two would be the the west, going west to Georgetown.

Phase one, phase one A, and then two.

And we might need to break that up too, beyond that.

But I don't make sure I heard that correctly.

Phase one, which can include one and one A.

Okay.

Well, I'm trying to make sure I understand.

That is Union Station to Binning Road Metro.

I think for 2030, Union Station to RFK.

Why not to Binning Road Metro?

Um, if we can do it all, we will, but I think we're trying to be realistic about how much we can get done.

And then it would be shortly thereafter, would be the last that East segment.

If we can get it done by 2030, great.

I'm just there might be a lag for that piece.

Okay.

Uh I'm concerned a lag.

Just becomes a much longer lag.

Like I think we probably want to connect those two metro stations, which I think would be pretty exciting.

Um because I don't want this to be for Sundays.

I want this to be for every day.

And if the terminus is the stadium and it doesn't go all the way to Binning Road Metro, then we're building something for major events only.

We're not building something that actually connects all the way.

I really think it's got to be the whole connection.

I agree.

And I don't, I really want to talk about it.

I like the way Womana talks about it as the gold line, really, and looking at it as an entire east-west corridor, but I'm just explaining terms of timeline and the budget and what we're trying to get to as phase one.

But um, yeah, this whole project, I I know where you're going.

We don't want another streetcar that has one small segment and nothing else.

This is it's intended to give lift to events that are on the RFK campus, but it is not intended to just be a Union Station RFK option.

I I'll push on this pretty hard as we go to the budget then, because I I really feel strongly if if we have it be if RFK is the terminus, that's it.

With a somewhere in the future, we'll build the next section east of the river.

Um I don't think that's what we signed up for.

I think we really want it to be I I get we're I can't build a Georgetown by 2030.

I get that.

But I think it's gotta be Union Station to the Bang Road Metro.

Um, or else we're missing a big opportunity there.

And frankly, something we promised, which is this is gonna be a great transit connection.

I'm with you.

You know, I I tried to argue for that center run.

I think you agree.

I think we can create a really exciting vision of what it could be.

It's just it's gotta go east of the river.

We agree.

All right.

Then we're gonna make it happen because we can do big things.

Um, let's see.

So that I understand the funding.

So last year we put in 250,000 into the budget for bidding and age.

D dot transferred two million for Wamata to study transportation needs, and that's focused more on the metro and the transit at the RFK Stadium station, as well as evaluating potential of another station, correct?

That's what that 2 million is.

The 250 from last year was on H and binning.

Is that a good fair breakdown?

Yes.

Okay.

Um then the $2 million that is proposed in this budget is now looking at the crosstown BRT, which would it be fair to say is building on the $250 from last year's budget for that H and binning connection?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Um for the transit connection, so for the two million that's separate from the H and binning.

Do we have concrete final recommendations or are we still evaluating and drafting what those recommendations look like and what's feasible?

Um so this again has been more Wamada-led, and Wamada does have recommendations about stadium armory and making expansions to that um to the capacity at that station.

And they too are enthusiastic about the gold line, across town BRT.

Um, and I think they um I don't know beyond anything that's been officially released yet, and I do want to kind of give Wamata the opportunity to share the recommendations.

Anyway, I don't know how much has been shared beyond that.

Okay.

Um we need to get more information on that.

Um, when I think about the RFK related planning as well, the budget appears to lay out I think three kind of major projects.

There's a bridge improvement project, a roadway improvement project and a rock parion area ecological restoration program.

So for bridge improvements, it has 18.2 million dollars and it's just listed as bridge improvements.

2.7 million, and I believe that would be FY27, 15.4 in FY28, I think is my fiscal year line up there.

Which bridge improvement is that so the RFK bridges that 18.2 is referring to the three small bridges.

They're um on C Street and Independence Avenue.

They're really um you will know them the most because it is the underpass when you're in the current parking lot and you're walking towards the stadium, you walk under them.

Um those are all in poor condition.

We weren't sure if those would be used in the new footprint.

It they will be.

So this will bring them up to a state of good repair, but far better pedestrian access, it'll be um making big improvements, but they'll continue to be key for the freight access to the stadium, um, which will help very helpfully um ensure that freight is not driving through the neighborhoods.

So um anyway, that's what we need.

That will be a by 2030 project.

Okay.

And those will those expand the size of them, or it's taking those current.

I guess I think since I'm more of a pedestrian, I think of those as tunnels, not bridges.

Right.

Um, so when I think of them, is the idea that they are roughly the same location, same uh space.

It's just rebuilding them so that they are in good condition.

Um they will be in the same locations.

They may be expanded.

I don't actually know if the dimensions are changing, but they will be brought to a yeah, state of good repair so that the heavy weight can be on them and hopefully will look a lot nicer if you are the pedestrian using them as an underpass.

Got it.

All right.

And then the 202 million dollars for roadway improvements.

Can you break that down?

Sure.

And um, this is really building out the roadway on the campus.

So much of this will involve the um Office of Planning, master planning effort.

So it will be looking at multimodal, so pedestrian biking and vehicles, but one of the outputs would be what the new roadway configuration will look like on the campus.

Um we have the money in our budget.

Um I believe it's actually going to end up being DGS that will be leading on the build for the campus roadways.

So we may end up moving that into their budget.

Um, but again, it's looking at whole master plan for the campus.

Okay.

Why would DGS build the roads and not DDOT, who has all the expertise in it?

So we'll we'll be actively involved in terms of the utilities, because there's a lot of utility conflicts that need to happen, giving guidance on that, giving guidance on the permits, we will still have oversight.

But um on private property, DGS usually does take the lead.

So if there are a campus like this, it's not unprecedented for them to be building internal roadways.

I say private property, district owned, different than right of way.

Can you give me examples of when DGS has been in charge of road construction projects?

Um it's more um trying to think of another campus where they've had similar things.

I think at St.

Elizabeth's, perhaps.

Um they may have they took the lead on things like the actual build out of that grid.

Okay.

Does DDOT make the ultimate decision around where the road goes, where the crosswalk goes, what the curve looks like in DGS is just executing your standards.

D dots stand well, not just standards, but I want to oversight, yes.

I mean, when we issue a permit, yes, we are also then coming back and we are looking to make sure that they are meeting all of our requirements for stormwater runoff for curbs.

Yeah, we are actively involved in that oversight.

But are you the decision maker, for example, stormwater?

We will be inspecting and we will be approving.

But are you driving it?

Um again, for the actual construction of the roadway, we will not be the lead agency.

So part of what concerns me is like you're the agency that has the expertise in this, or DOE's got the expertise in uh raparian areas.

Um be doesn't have the expertise in that.

So they've been tasked to deliver a project, they're not they're not the folks that say, but I have the experience actually how to do it right.

Well, you're trying so there's the design and then there's the standards and oversight and inspections monitoring all of those things we will be lead on.

Um it is yeah, we are designing this new neighborhood in tandem actually with Office of Planning and a master plan, but no, it's not unprecedented on these kinds of campuses to have DGS.

None of this is going to be non-standard, it will look very much like a roadway.

But the yeah, but the construction contractor, it'll be led by DGS.

Okay.

Are the road do you believe the roadway infrastructure there should look like other parts of the city?

Or should it be unique to this space?

Um I mean I it depends.

I know there's some um proposals out there, and it's still early of things that are more plazas.

So yeah, I think there will be some unique elements.

I would caution us to learn some lessons from Buzzard Point, for example.

Um Buzzard Point has a river.

It has a bridge.

It's it can it has an entire side of it, two sides, that don't fit your normal roadway uh configuration.

A river, a military base, and you got a big bridge.

The RFK campus is going to have a river on its east.

has a river it has a bridge it's it can it has an entire side of it two sides that don't fit your normal roadway uh configuration a river a military base and you got a big bridge the RFK campus is going to have a river on its east and is not gonna it has big bridges but it's not gonna if we build it like with a road infrastructure in the same way I'd build a neighborhood that has points east north south and west all coming in I'm not gonna build it right I'm I am concerned we're not bringing the right vision of this and we're just kind of laying down what we just have always done I mean I I would just point to Sanees this is not right of way it's district owned property they've done it before they did a fantastic job there they've been nimble they we partner with them in terms of making sure that all of the roadway requirements are fulfilled um anyway I don't share your concerns it's been a partnership that's worked in the past we've got it demonstrated and again it is different than a traditional right of way okay I just don't want it to be we met the requirements such an opportunity for us to do more than just like when I hear when I hear that what I hear is like the floor not the ceiling like yep we just met our requirements that may not be the way you mean it but that's the way I'm hearing it is yep we just kind of met we met our baseline requirements and I think we have a duty to do a heck of a lot more than that and I think our built environment is just gonna has the opportunity to be incredibly special in this space.

Yes and so uh when I say our requirements our requirements it's a very high standard um so I think anyone who any developer that is having to build on you know private roads would say the opposite that um the standards are high but um we are anyway we're involved in every step I do think that it gives an opportunity to do more interesting things again it is a unique kind of campus but um but I'm really excited about what can it can look like and again with CNEs they've demonstrated their capacity um is DDOT advocating for a bike valet to be a part of the stadium uh we will have a bike valet I can say that now can't I but I'm sure there'll be high demand for it and it works great.

Excellent um agreed I mean NATS ballpark uh outy field these are spaces that so many people get to buy bike um and it's a great way because it eliminates that many more cars that are trying to get down there so um I that's good news I like that that's big bike valet all right um let me turn to sidewalks there's a notable increase related to the sidewalks and the budget within the capital budget there's an additional 11.5 million being added to the sidewalks project what does that help represent or do you not agree with me that there's an additional 11.5 million yeah over the CIP it's actually I would it's it's actually a decrease over the current budget it's a hundred million dollar sidewalk investment um the FY27 investment levels are high um they're much higher than compared to the current CIP's FY27 amount as you know there's balancing done in prior budgets where the out years are tapered um so we're back at the 26.8 million dollar level which is what we need to deliver to continue delivering um our sidewalk rehab and maintenance programs I guess it it depends on what you're relatively uh referring to okay so all right let me rephrase it sure am I looking am I reading it correctly that there was 15 point three million dollars approved for FY27 sidewalks last year and actually now we're down to 11.5 or am I reading it as we had 15 point three we're adding 11.5 for a combined 26.8 if I'm doing math right here.

Yeah so for 27 the mayor's proposing 26.8 million dollars for all sidewalks which has four pieces to it I can walk through those if you want right and but so first off making sure I'm reading it correctly that is an additional 18 or sorry that's an additional 11.5 roughly than what we had approved last year so it is an infusion of new capital dollars into more sidewalks and then scored the FY27 correct number from the current CIP correct okay yes all right I think we're saying the same thing so now you're saying that total 26.8 give or take is in four different areas correct yeah exactly 20.7 million for sidewalk rehab work um 4.2 for sidewalk maintenance work then the two million for new sidewalk segments some people call it safe routes to school some people call it sidewalk gap construction yeah and that complements federal money that's not in and not in this category got it so is that a I mean that sounds like a substantial increase or is it again or is it being flat okay that's how that's what I'm trying to get to now is like is it that it's better reflecting in the right bucket no it's it's other other essentially a flat sidewalks budget compared to this I'm so excited for more sidewalk funding.

Or is it again flat?

Okay.

That's how that's what I'm trying to get to now.

Is like, is it that it's better reflecting in the right bucket?

No, it's other essentially a flat sidewalks budget compared to this.

I'm so excited for more sidewalk funding.

Okay.

All right, it's flat funding for sidewalks.

It's right.

Well, and I'll say that in recent years, the sidewalk funding has gone way up.

So we are consistent with what we are getting in 26.

I like the way you spawn that.

All right.

But it's right.

I mean, we're going to be able to do that.

We are joyful about how much we have for our restoration and our our new our new our sidewalk construction program, filling in the sidewalk gaps.

All right.

So you're maintaining an increased investment in sidewalks.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

But the next year it drops back down.

Correct.

Okay.

And then stays flat there, that decreased investment at 15.3.

Yep.

Somewhere in the room.

Yep.

Okay.

You'll see this across the CIP.

Where the next year is fully funded and it kind of tapers on for balancing purposes in the out years.

Oh, yeah.

Nope.

Familiar with that.

Got that trick down.

All right.

So as you think though, because you have to make strategic choices about where you're investing and deploying these different resources.

So with a decrease back down to the 15 million in your out years, how does that influence your FY 27 prioritization?

Or it doesn't because you're viewing it as relatively well, no, because it's right.

I mean, if if it doesn't get bumped up next year, it would feel like a drop.

But you know, we've talked before about the balancing act of the restoration, the longer term repairs versus having sort of the quicker fix team.

Um as we continue to keep our eye on the longer term restoration, it does mean that our need to do the shorter term repairs over time, you know, should diminish because everything gets you know rehabbed and many of these have 20-year time horizons.

Um, you know, there's less need for the quicker fixes.

But I think we've got to find that right balance.

Anyway, I um I'm enthusiastic about the 26.

I think we could absorb a drop next year without feeling like there's any you know significant problem that it's creating um as long as our our restoration continues to get funded at what you have listed here.

Um I've talked about the amazing improvements that we've been able to make over the past few years.

Um in 2018, when we didn't have a way to prioritize the percentage, um, you know, we now have like less than 10% of our roadway in this sort of um poor condition, and everything above that is in you know fair to excellent, and I think that's really where we want to be.

But um, you know, we've restored 3,500 blocks, 375 miles of sidewalk since 2018.

And over that time we see it in having fewer and fewer sort of quick fixes needed.

Okay.

Um road paving, so this is more a question around how we are doing better at not wasting the capital dollars we have for road paving with other work taking place.

So for example, um continue to see either DC water has approved permits to do lead pipe replacement.

I've had someone who just contacted me, they got a flyer that DDOT's about to resurface their entire roadway, but they actually have a lead pipe replacement plan for the summer, so they've gotten a permit approved for DC water to come cut the whole roadway, but we're about to repave it.

Um how are we like my concern is in what ways are we improving that perming and coordination so that we don't pave something and then rip it all back up again?

It's a waste of money and also it's horrible for the environment.

Yeah, no, I'm actually surprised to hear it.

We have been getting much tighter with the coordination, obviously.

Um not only do we not want and we actually have moratorium on digging up roads within five years of it getting repaved, so um, we need to make sure that the DC water is clear on it.

And um, so there is a disincentive for utilities to cut anything right after.

Um in fact, we're trying to line it up.

We give our plan to the utilities to say here's where we're coming.

So if you can get your work done before then, you will not need to do the repaving.

Um and many of our major projects have been protracted a bit, but we've been able to get all the utility work done.

And I look at Kennedy Street, Florida Avenue.

I know if you are living on that block, there's been frustration that it's taken so long, but what we're doing is getting all the utility work done, and then we're finishing our work and then done.

We don't have to worry about any other disruptions.

So we've got some great examples of of how we're coordinating better.

I'm actually surprised that that's still out there.

We go through our plans on a bi-monthly basis with DC Water.

So I don't know if they've updated it and just haven't let their residents know, but it's very unusual that that timing would happen.

Well, we can follow up and let you know about that one too.

All right.

Um, let me try to wrap up hitting a couple of bunch of sport act subtitles, and then we'll hopefully be wrapping up.

Um we have the public inconvenience fee.

What's our intent with the public inconvenience fee?

Like what's the problem we're trying to solve?

Sure.

With that.

Um so anytime someone is excavating our roadway, we want them to do the work as quickly as possible.

Um they are closing the road, whether that means that then residents, you know, have trouble, you know, accessing their road, or whether it's a local street or major arbory, doesn't matter.

We want them to do it as quickly as possible.

So the goal would be to have a sort of this is a bit of a stick, but if you don't get your work done, this is how it is currently, within 30 days, you're going to start having a fine.

And we want the fines to be meaningful so that they'll do their work more quickly.

Um this has been challenging for utilities, and oftentimes there's even when they plan well, um, there is a reason why there's a hold out from one resident who hasn't signed the agreement.

So we've agreed to have the PIF fee not kick in until day 60.

Now, what they were doing in the past, there were a lot of tricks that they would play, including just issuing new permits each time to start the clock over again, and it just meant we had all these duplicative permits.

So there are things that um we're able to have them tamped down on, and they agree 60 days, they can get in and out and get it done, plan better, but then it'll be a really big stick because if the penalty of not getting done quickly is just the cost of doing business, it doesn't serve as a motivator.

So we're trying to couple utilities will have 60 days, but then the fines will be significant, and we hope that that will improve behavior in terms of letting things drag out.

Okay.

Um, should I interpret that as the existing policy that we've had just hasn't been working the way we intended?

Correct.

The 30-day has not at the fine level it is, has not really helped with the it has not had to be the behavior change that intended, not across the board.

I mean, developers have the same issue.

So it's you know, generally working, but we think for utilities, we want it to be we're giving them a little more of a window.

Okay and actually it's really 60 days that permit then expires.

Anyway, there's other pieces to it.

Um but I think I'm very enthusiastic about it.

I think it's much needed.

We've negotiated with the utilities on this, so I think everybody is on board with this change.

Okay.

All right, so you see this as a essentially a compromise or a trade-off of you got 60 days, but if you're still there on day 61, we're coming at you with a much more significant fine.

Yes.

Then you would otherwise pay under our current system.

Yes.

Okay.

Um much revenue are we anticipating generating from that?

Um I think we've seen I guess it's been about four million in new revenue that we think could get generated.

Um, and that's already been a four and a half.

I think the I think the CFO scored it at 4.46.

Okay, so 4.5.

Um, and I actually think the BSA says that the first 4.5 goes back to the general fund.

So I guess what I'm curious about is if it's gonna work as intended, wouldn't that mean that we'd have less revenue from it?

Like if if they're saying we can be in and out in 60 days, and this hefty fine is going to be incentivizing them to say get it done in 60 days.

Why would I see more revenue from it?

I mean, I think I'm not exactly sure how the revenue analysis was calculated.

Um I also so I don't know all that was entailed in looking at it.

Um we also are not getting a lot of the revenue for this today because of the workarounds.

They've been applying for new ones.

There's been some loopholes that we're closing.

Um, so I think we'll actually start seeing maybe there will always be some natural amount that's going to still have to pay it.

But I don't have, I can't give you more detail about the methodology that went into that estimate.

Okay.

I I share the desire.

We're going to get get it done.

Get out.

I also hear from our utility companies these huge costs and fees to come in and get the work done.

I don't have any other worlds to turn to it, so I have to put it back, and it's part of what goes into a rate calculation.

So when I'm I have to just build in this cost doing business, and that means that people pay higher rates.

But we think that the whole premise around this policy is you'll get the work done.

I'm not convinced we're going to see the full 4.5.

Well, and to be clear, the PIF, um, the public inconvenience fee hits all developers too.

It's not limited to utilities.

So some of what's coming getting paid in are from private entities.

Um if you plan well, you can avoid the PIF, right?

Like this is about good planning.

This is about having crews mobilized.

The clock doesn't start before the permits approved.

The clock starts after the permits approved.

So there is a way that they can work and not get, you know, they can wait and not start until everything is lined up.

I mean, they make some decisions about starting digging before they have all of the residents lined up to do their installations.

So that's their choice.

Um, but we're doing what we can to encourage them to plan better.

Okay.

Um is the did the CFO provide like their rationale for their scoring to you?

Maybe it would be helpful for us to see to make sure we can understand what the CFO's rationale was and and um perhaps it's just part of the regular BSA document, but if there's anything additional that you could share with us, it would be helpful for us to see how they're coming up with this to make sure that we can count on it and it goes back and you build 4.5 million dollars worth of general fund revenue off of it.

So in its own way, I want to make sure that that gets delivered because otherwise we got a 4.5 million hole somewhere else.

So it would be helpful for us to understand it a little better if they've got additional contact and information they can share.

Okay, I'm happy to dig into what we do have set on.

Um do you have any other BSA subtitles?

Or is that your that's your think we do?

We can add more.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Uh director, I don't think I have any other questions at this point.

I think we have some follow-ups that we can work on with you and your team.

Um before I do my closing, just I'll give you a shot here if there's anything else you wanted to add that I didn't touch on that um you want to touch on before we wrap up.

Sure.

No, thank you.

Um, just want to say a huge shout out to the extraordinary team at D DOT, who does um incredible work every day.

Um we know this has been a tight budget environment, and we are continuing to deliver, and people have been doing multiple jobs, and I'm just really proud of how much we've accomplished, even you know, notwithstanding the budget challenges, but I do think that we are right-sizing our budget for 27, getting some of these structural deficits addressed, and have some capital funds to do some really exciting things.

So it'll be a great year.

All right, excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Well, this is going to conclude the government witness portion of the budget oversight hearing on the district department of transportation.

Again, thank you, Director Kirschbaum and your team for their participation today.

As a reminder, members of the public can still submit written testimony regarding D DOT's budget through the council's hearing management system at Limbs.dc Council.gov backslash hearings until May 11th, 2026.

The next meeting of the committee will be tomorrow, May 1st, 2026.

The committee will hold public witness portion of the budget oversight hearing for the Department of Energy and Environment and the DC Sustainable Energy Utility.

There being no further business for the committee, the time is now 3.54 p.m.

and this budget oversight hearing of the committee is now adjourned.

Thank you.