All right, we'll go ahead and get started for the Board of Public Works meeting for excuse me, the transit commission meeting for um Thursday, May 21st, 2026.

We'll start with a roll call, Chad O'Donnell.

Uh just for correction, it's a 21st.

Oh, 20.

I got it.

22.

Kevin Rayleigh here.

Joe Piper's here too.

One step behind.

All right.

With that, we'll go ahead.

I don't see anything for public comments.

We'll start with the uh allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republican.

Which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

So I think we can go ahead then and uh start with uh item three A, approval minutes.

Kevin Riley makes a motion to approve the transit minutes from March 19th.

Pyprel second.

Joel Piper will second.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Seeing none of a vote.

Oh, Donald I.

Kevin Riley, aye.

Piper I.

All right.

Motion passes.

We'll move to item 40.

Um the first uh discussion recommendation item is uh the review and act on proposed purchase of fare boxes from SBX Genfair.

Um we are bringing forth the proposed purchase of Fast Fair non-registering fare boxes from XBX Genfair uh for ninety-four thousand nine hundred and twenty-two for a total of thirty-one units.

Our current fare boxes um that collect all the fares, the cash fares on the bus are at the end of life.

Um the the company no longer supports it.

Um this version, and only emergency support is available, and there's a lot of points of failure.

This is a 25 or 15-year-old technology um system that um and in fact just two weeks ago it did fail.

So um this was an approved pro uh project in the CIP for this year.

And uh we really didn't need a high-tech fare box, what we currently have due to us switching to Wisco three years ago.

Um that's really uh uh eliminated the need for uh we you know Wisco takes care of our smart cards and um mobile app payments, so we're really just we're really looking for replacement fare boxes that were quote unquote low tech that could do cash uh take collect cash fares.

And so what we did is we conducted an RFP and uh very happy with the results.

We've got all four vendors that do this type of fare box in North America responded, and we got five proposals, and uh we're recommending the X SPX Genfair.

Um it turns out they were the by far they were the best on a technical score, and uh they were second lowest on cost, so they we we feel it's the best value.

Uh one of the things that really stands out is our current fare boxes are Genfair as well.

And so what we'd be able to do is reuse the cash box so it goes inside the fare box, collects the cash and coin.

Um so we can reuse that part, but also the vaults at our badger drive facility.

Um we would not have to change that out or do any kind of alterations with uh all the others, we would have to do that.

And uh we've had very good uh luck or not luck, but the Genfair um systems have done well.

Um they've been around for a very long time, for 45 years.

They're just down in the Chicago area, so they're very accessible.

Um we've had a very good uh experience with them.

So we are recommending this system uh or this purchase, and uh as always we would federal funds will pay for the 80 percent and then the remaining um funds would be used to city operations, but we'd be reimbursing with the uh uh federal relief funds, so there's no um no city funds involved in this purchase and the and we're significantly under the CIP um budgeted amount of 160,000 dollars.

Piper, I'll make a motion to approve and with a second I have a question.

Kevin Riley, seconds.

So Brian, um couple things, and I should know this, but I don't.

When you get on the bus, do you have to have exact change?

Or will this system if you have a five, will the system give you give a rider change back, or do you need to have kind of exact fare to ride the bus?

With with this, what we're going to well you do need to have exact change with this.

Okay.

And that's why we really encourage folks to use uh Wisco if they don't.

Um and we are we're you know, I'm gonna preview things of our budget, but we're gonna propose a fare increase, and it's not gonna be two dollars anymore, it's gonna be two dollars and some change, so it's gonna be inconvenient uh in that regard.

But yeah, we do we do take exact change.

Uh the this system that that we're that's winding down used to give change cards, but that's part one of the things that has been a problem.

But with the card with the Wisco card, you get a lot more advantages of riding.

And so if you get on a bus and you only have a five dollar bill in your wallet.

Yeah, you can you probably you can pay the city five dollars, but you're not gonna get three dollars.

You're not getting three dollars back now.

But we do at the at the transit center, we do have ticket vending machines that can buy individual ride rides from the vending machines.

So there you can get you'd get your change back.

You get five.

Well, it you get changed in credit, you get a uh QR receipt that you can use for future purchases.

And then um the other question I have bear with me.

What was the other question I had?

Oh, um, so the idea is that governor or the COVID dollars is gonna kind of cover the the city share of this.

So we didn't borrow none of this one sixty was borrowed as part of the no, nothing, no, there's no borrowing.

In fact, we didn't there has been no borrowing last year's CIP, and there's no intention to borrow for any of our CIP projects for this year as well.

And oh, I remember my other question.

I mean, off the top of your head, I mean what what percentage of riders try to pay in cash?

It's it's about 25%, maybe a little bit under that.

So we'll collect we'll collect about a hundred thousand dollars between fixed route and metro lift still in cash.

But I expect that number to keep going uh lower um as we move on.

Great.

Thanks, Brian.

Yep.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Uh we'll go ahead and take a vote.

Oh, Donald, aye.

Yep.

So I I'm just curious.

We we are gonna have a little bit more of a security risk, apparently, with this uh uh um it does say it in the text or if we didn't go if we went with a non-vaulting uh solution, we would have more of a security risk.

Okay.

And to mitigate that, that would cost eight about 38,000, and we still wouldn't have as as good of a this is nothing changes and uh all the you you went on the tour, that little window, we would still use that to put the the vaults to put the money in, and it doesn't see the light of day until we take it out on the other end.

All right, thank you.

Yep.

Can I ask one question?

Um just I foresee at some point in the future we're probably gonna go completely cashless for mass transit.

I can't imagine cities and municipalities are gonna keep dealing with bills and coins indefinitely.

Do you foresee how long this system will probably be used, or is that really not something in the purview of this conversation?

I think that's a greater.

I mean, with you know, we've talked about it, some of the transit systems that we work with.

Um we we don't feel we could say we're not collecting cash.

I don't know.

I think that's just gonna be a societal thing.

Okay, you know, you're right at some point, but uh at least in America, I don't think you're gonna have uh you know well, could it be 10 years?

Maybe I don't know.

So and how long is this system uh supposed to be in use or lifetime?

There is no there's no technology, so it's just literally hardware.

So it could, you know, we're using components of the previous system because it's all just physical hardware, so you know it's metal, so metal and a little bit of plastic, so it it should last a very long time.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

All right.

Any other questions?

That we'll go ahead and take a vote.

O'Donnell, I Kevin Riley, I per I.

Okay, motion passes.

We'll move to item five B.

Uh 5B is to review an act on proposed purchase of replacement passenger signs at the transit center.

Um, this is another um CIP item uh that was approved in the 2026 uh uh CIP.

And uh this would be to purchase eight bus bay signs at our concourse at our transit center.

The concourse is where all the buses will come in, and there will be signs at each bus bay that are active.

Um it'll show what route is going there and that and the next time the bus arrives.

Uh we did have these signs previously at the transit center, they were removed uh when the ceiling was redone at the transit center, so there's no demolition.

And um we're proposing to purchase it from GMV, which is our current AVL vendor, and it's just under 100,000 at 900 or 99,985.

Um also would be included is we'd replace the existing sign that's it's like an airport monitor of arrivals in the lobby, and uh and then we can also scroll other messages on that sign as well.

Um, one of the nice things about this uh project over what we had before is there's a push button for visually impaired customers, it'll have braille on there that it will give an audio of when the next bus is coming and also announce what bus space.

So that is an improvement.

Um this is a sole source uh request, and we've we did a lot, we had a lot of meetings.

Alex and I talked about this probably more than either one of us want to admit, and we got Brandon involved, we got finance involved, and and um talked a lot about a lot of different ways that we can look at this, and after a very extensive review, um we we do believe that the sole source would be the most effective way.

Um one of the big things is GMV, which is the AVL vendor that runs the GPS and all the data comes to feed these signs, is they only use one manufacturer, one model of sign for the exterior signs, and that's just to ensure that it works everywhere in North America, um, make sure the sign works properly.

So that was one component, and then it has to integrate with GMV's AVL system properly.

And one of the requirements we would have is that um that they would it would have to be an integrator that has worked with GMV if it was an outsider, and there is only one integrator that has done that, and I requested a quote from them and they never got back to me.

And we we suspect it's because this is a much smaller uh cost uh or a smaller project than what they're used to.

They're used to having contracts between most of these signed projects, they are usually between three to five hundred thousand and up.

Um this is much smaller scale.

Also, another factor is GMV.

No matter what, if we even use that other contractor, we would have to have um that we'd pay a fee to them, and it could equal about a quarter of the cost of this project.

Um other things is you know, this project is about is less than 50 percent what we had approved in the CIP.

There's a couple of reasons for that.

Number one is um the original quote that they provided us, they actually went lower and are providing pricing that they provided in our 2021 contract, and they're also not going to charge us um for the lobby monitor.

It's a free, it's basically a free monitor.

So and then um to further do some savings.

The city sign crew has agreed to do the installation.

Um we do are we are putting a caveat that we may incur 10,000 up to 10,000 dollars of additional cost if there's unforeseen issues with electrical um the you know, if there's some kind of power issue and stuff, we may need to have an electrician come in and help us with that.

But we're excited about this.

This is a nice enhancement for the passengers, especially disabled passengers, and um again the the 80 percent will be covered by a federal grant, and then the remaining 20 percent will be used city operations funds, but then it gets reimbursed with the relief funds.

So again, there's no um cost to the city.

Piper, I'll make a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve, and I don't have any questions.

So Kevin Riley seconds.

I don't have any questions either.

All right, with that, I think we can go ahead and take a vote.

Uh O'Donnell, aye.

Kevin Riley, aye, Piper Aye.

Piper I.

Motion passes.

We'll move to item 5C.

Uh 5C is to review and act on amendment to the clear channel bus uh shelter agreements.

Um we haven't had amendment on this for a while.

Um, but this was effectively reduced the number of bus shelters in the program from 22 to 20.

Um, and uh just to uh refresh your memory if you're if you don't remember maybe you didn't know about this agreement.

But what Clear Channel does is for the them to be allowed to advertise in those 20 uh shelters, they will maintain those shelters so they clean them, they remove snow and ice, they'll do repairs, and they get to advertise, and they also will pay us $700 per year per shelter in revenue as a as a revenue share.

Um last fall we moved two shelters.

One is the much talked about one by the Hope Center that was on private property, and the Hope Center uh told us it had to leave.

Um, so we needed to find a spot in relative short order.

We had one, I do believe that one was moved over by the golf course on Moreland by Moore Downs because the existing one was in bad shape, and then we had another one at Summit and Grandview that was now out of service due to the service changes we did last June, and that was moved to another location.

And what Clear Channel is saying is that those aren't the new locations weren't as desirable, and so they didn't want to include that in the contract.

Um so it is a little bit of a reduction in uh uh in the revenue we receive about $1,400 annually, but that'd be effective May 31st.

Um there's only three more payments in this contract because the contract expires in about a year and a half.

Um we're recommending this change just to preserve the existing um agreement, and our biggest concern, my biggest concern is if Clear Channel said, well, will this be in default or we want to walk away from this uh contract, uh then we have to take on those maintaining those extra 20 shelters, and we just don't have the manpower.

So if we were to take those over, that would be you know, we're we're looking at an additional 20,000 dollars annually, if not more in cost.

So we're recommending the um the amendment.

Kevin Riley will make a motion to accept the uh review and act on clear channel bus shelter agreement.

Piper will second, and I just have a question, Brian.

Is there anything to make you anything?

Is there any concern that they're not gonna renew the contract?

Uh there's very I have a very big concern.

They tried to shop this contract a couple times.

So there uh we are trying to.

I I have been in conversations.

If you would have asked me this question six months ago, I would have thought they wouldn't even consider it, but now they want to they want to have a conversation towards the end of the year.

So my goal would be to try and do it, even if it's not 10 years, if it's a shorter term for a few uh for a few less shelters, that would be wonderful.

We have been removing shelters because we kind of anticipated that even if this agreement goes forward that there would be less and less uh units or less shelters.

Um, but I I hope I'm wrong.

I hope uh we can work out something.

Okay, thanks.

Yep.

All right, any other discussion?

That we'll take a vote.

O'Donnell, aye.

Kevin Riley, aye.

Hyper I.

Okay, motion passes.

We'll move to item five D.

Uh 5D is to review and act and on proposed service changes that'd be effective.

August 20 uh 24th of 2026.

Um this is relatively minor changes.

Um the the total reduction in the service hours would be uh 16 and a half per week, so it's about two and a half percent.

Um it does on an annualized basis reduce our cost by about 59,000.

Um I'm just gonna go over the changes uh real quickly.

Uh the there's a minor change that we're requesting to the routing of Route 5, um, just down the street here.

We're just looking to continue on Madison to North Street, then North Street into the transit center.

It essentially means it's the same distance, but we're going from four turns in that three block area to the two, so it's just more efficient.

Uh and then also the 550 uh PM trip on Saturday night were proposed for elimination due to low ridership.

On Route 9, um, we're proposing to eliminate the 705 and 815 trips uh in the morning on weekdays.

So effectively in the morning we would be going from 30 minute service to every hour.

We're not seeing consistent ridership, and with where we are with funding and such, we do have to still make some reductions.

And these trips have very uneven ridership.

From some days it's very, very low to some days it's okay.

One of them is uh, and this was a request to South High School staff is that we go back to going around South High School, so the East Roberta Tenny loop every trip on weekdays instead of just the before and after school trips because they do have students that use it throughout the day, some of their programs.

We'd have do we definitely have time to do this, and it should boost ridership somewhat.

Um so we're we're definitely in favor of that, and then we're also proposing eliminating the 615 weekday trip on route 15 due to low ridership.

So with that, I could take any questions.

One thing in the city administrator did ask Alex and I just to kind of provide an update.

He will be to the council about where we are in service levels.

If this is approved, we will be in the city.

The the city uh service level uh of ours will be down to 1990 levels, we'll be about at that level.

So thank you.

Kevin Riley makes a motion to uh accept the proposed service changes for Route 5, 9, and 15.

High per seconds.

All right.

Um we'll go ahead and take a vote.

Uh O'Donnell, aye.

Kevin Rayleigh, aye.

Hyper I.

All right.

Motion passes.

We'll move to item 6A.

Uh 6A, real quick, just the first quarter ridership summary.

Um, we have uh we on the fixed route service, we did see a deep decrease of about 9% from January to March uh 25 compared to 24.

Um, one thing just point out is we did do have most of that period, we had a 24% reduction in service hours, so nine percent plus some unfavorable weather.

Um, when you look at those two factors, it is not as bad or it doesn't look as bad.

But also uh one of the things are our big ridership efficiency measure is passengers per revenue hour increased uh system wide to nine percent from or nine nine nine rides from 7.6 over the same period and 24, so that was an 18 percent, so we were more efficient with that.

So that was good, and then just real quickly, our MetroLift ridership continues to grow.

Um, first quarter it was up 15% compared to 2024.

Um, and we're at this highest level since uh 2012.

Um, we're probably gonna be around 15,000 rides on that service for the year.

So thank you.

All right, any other items that we are adjourned.

Okay, thanks.