Good afternoon.

Welcome to the October 2025 Public Works Committee meeting.

City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Chairperson, Councilmember Burke here.

Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Here.

Councilmember Clark.

Here.

And Councilmember Taylor.

Present.

Council members, we have two consent agenda items.

Uh, would any of you like to have those items pulled?

I move for approval of the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

I can't second.

Second.

Okay.

Okay, we have a motion and we have to vote, uh, take a voice vote all in favor of approving the consent agenda.

Please let us know by saying aye.

The motion passes.

Thank you.

City clerk, would you please read uh general item one?

Item G1 resolution approving an application for federal funding for the lead service line replacement program.

Okay, we have Ms.

Courtney Driver to uh give us uh this uh information.

Welcome.

Yes, thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Burke, members of the committee and council, good afternoon.

So this um request is for approval of an application for federal funding for the lead service line replacement program.

And the lead and copper role was first issued in 1991.

There's been a few minor revisions since that time, but there's a there was a significant revision in 2021, and the utilities department is responding to those revisions now to make sure that we stay in compliance.

Part of the um two key components of those revisions is we have to do a service line inventory, and then there's also an emphasis on replacing um any lead services, um lead sources in our distribution system within a 10-year period starting in 2027.

So there's we've we've completed the um preliminary inventory, and now we're working on actually going out and replacing those service um those lead service lines.

So there's federal funding administered through the state.

There's funding cycles every two months, and the maximum per cycle is two million for what they call find and replace projects.

These are um situations where we still need to go out there and do some excavation work, and so for some unknown areas, so it's it includes exploratory work and replacement.

There's another group of up to five million dollars for um situations where we already know that the it's a lead service line or galvanized line requiring replacement, um, and so there's up to five million dollars for that.

So the request for us is to um request permission to make those applications every two funding cycles, one for the two million dollars or up to the five million dollars for those two buckets of money, and we intend to do that um until all the funds are exhausted or until our projects are fully are fully funded.

And um if you have any questions, any questions on the report I know we have applied for other cycles of this money correct?

Yes, okay.

How are we coming on spending it and do we have any idea what the total cost is gonna be and how close we are to getting that kind of money?

So um that's a good question, and I'm sorry I didn't mention that.

So we have applied over the past year, and I brought a similar item in October and January, October of 2024, and then January of this year.

Um the state has informed us that those resolutions are valid for a year, so which is why I'm bringing back a um a follow-up request.

We have been awarded two two million dollar um loans that with 100% principal forgiveness.

So those are like grants, um, and they are um yeah, so we've been already applied for that, and right now we are developing our different zones.

We haven't spent any of the money yet.

We're working with the consultant to um section off those zones and start spending that money.

Because I know Rosalind Road is going to be closed, I think next week several a block of it to replace some of the galvanized pipes.

So we are moving along, I guess.

Yes, as we find if we are out there and we uncover it, we go ahead with our with our crews and do what we can.

Um, but this is going to be a more um structured effort to really create the zones.

The the way you um qualify for 100 percent principal forgiveness is that you have to show that a certain percentage in each project is in an underserved area.

So that's what we're doing.

We're taking all the areas that we found that are either unknown, um, you know, definitely known to be led or definitely known to be galvanized, and then we are uh sectioning off our zones so that we qualify for that 100% principal forgiveness.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, council member Scott Andrew Bulwin.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, so in the report it says that this will go towards uh private right away or public right-of-ways and private property.

Does the uh the private property owner do they have any funding that has to go towards any kind of replacement of on their property?

Our goal is to be able to um replace those up from the um right away to the house.

Of course, we're not gonna go inside the house, but our goal is to get as much funding as we can to be able to fund that for the property um owners, and of course, we'll still have to work with the property owners to even get permission to be on their property.

So that's a whole process that we'll have to to set up and and work with legal about how that works.

But um, that is our goal and trying to request as much funding as we can.

Thank you.

Councilmember Scipio.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair.

Um Ms.

Driver, do you have any indication that these funds will continue uh from the Feds down to the state, or are these some of our at-risk funds for infrastructure?

Have you gotten any insight on that?

So, what we're hearing and what we've been told is that this money that's been set aside for um for this type of work is is there and that it's not at risk.

Now, of course, there's utilities all over the country that are trying to get this money, and they've portioned out different uh amounts for each state.

So North Carolina only has so much, which is why we're trying to go ahead and get a get ahead of it and get as much as we can as early as possible.

But I think what has been set aside, which is the 15 billion nationwide, um, what we've heard is that that's still there and still in place.

Thank you.

Any additional questions?

If there are no additional questions, can I get a motion to approve item G1?

I move for approval of item G1.

Sorry.

Okay.

Uh let us know if you're in favor by stating aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

City clerk, would you please read item G2?

Item G2 resolution authorizing the purchase of 11 paratransit vehicles for the Winston Salem Transit Authority.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Fansler.

And good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the committee, I appreciate your time this afternoon.

Uh want to take it just a moment to one say thank you again for another iteration of something Worcester related.

So thank you for hearing us out.

Last month we spent a lot of time talking about fixed route bus needs, and the item before you today is going to talk a little bit about our paratransit fleet needs.

And so want to spend some time talking about a replacement and item before you really is uh to purchase 11 new paratransit vehicles.

And so I want to got to go through a little bit of what we're talking about.

As you know, currently we have 40 pair transit vehicles that we operate the paratransit service for today.

And similar very similar to our fixed route, we have not done a great job historically on a routine, routine recurring replacement schedule.

And so we found ourselves behind replacement schedule.

And so we are several buses behind where we should, 27 to be exact, of where we need to be regarding buses that have exceeded their useful life.

And so in doing that, uh we have a you know documented need now to make sure we make demonstrated efforts to catch up.

And every year, uh what the city of Win Salem receives formula-based funds to um in from FDA to specifically target aging fleet through the 5339 program.

And so the item before you is gonna is going to discuss the replacement of 11 vehicles, and one what I want to do is talk through kind of our current fleet, what we have that currently you facilitates the paratransit service, and then the two different types of buses we plan to procure moving forward as the replacements of those vehicles.

And so if you'll bear with me, I want to talk a little bit about the current model and then the two proposed models.

Currently, this is what you see.

This is not a stranger.

This is the high roof, the the the elevated ceiling, raised roof Chevy.

Uh, and so this is an 18-passenger vehicle.

Uh, and so one of the biggest things here that we wanted to mention too is you know, this facilitates a lot of our higher capacity transit needs for on the paratransit side, particularly particularly industries for the blind dialysis.

What we haven't done is consider how that impacts our overall ridership needs, because if you ask me what our current ridership per hour is, we're much lower than that, right?

At about two and a half to three passengers per hour.

And so that's a big thing we want to address with this current model.

You've seen this.

This one of the big things that I want to highlight too with this particular bus is this is a CDO required because it's 18 passenger.

And so there's a barrier there, obviously, with how many CDL drivers you have to have retained to operate these a barrier there to make sure we constantly have the proper staff with that CDL requirement.

So you've seen this, you're well aware we've been buying these for for many, many years.

Moving forward, the two types that we're going that we are asking for uh consideration today are uh eight of these LTVs.

These are smaller, still raised roof, high ceiling, low floor that allow non-CDL operators.

Now, these still have very much capacity demand that we have for certain needs for paratransit.

These are 14 passenger and allow for um several uh well, mainly two uh wheelchair accessible uh spaces in these particular buses.

And so I want to take a moment to explain why we're still considering buses of this nature.

One of the main reasons for that is because when we dispatch buses in the morning, it could go to a dialysis run that could have eight or ten folks.

That same trip could return going to pick up a single passenger, right?

And so the efficiency of the system when you dispatch and scheduling, you have to have a vehicle that can handle multiple kinds of trips.

And so that's that's a large part of what the need is to make sure we're properly scaling fleet as efficiently as we can, reducing the overall size, but making sure they're still satisfying a dispatch need throughout a service whole day.

So that's a part of a nuance that we have to make sure we're satisfying when we dispatch our vehicles every day.

So eight of these is what we're proposing to purchase with this procurement, and additionally, much smaller, much different than you have seen in our service is a completely electric, and let me go back because I failed to mention this is um non-CDL, it's still gasoline motor.

Okay, so this is not electric or hybrid.

We'll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment, but this is still uh our uh our gasoline engine.

From there, the e-transit, now this is a fully electric model, okay?

Four passengers and two wheelchairs, much, much smaller.

Um, and so there are isolated cases where this works great for what we have needs for, where we do those uh door-to-door service where we have that doctor's appointment visit, people visit, where we have someone in particular with uh ADA uh access issues where we could have this ramp satisfy that and side load with a low floor van.

Very different.

Now, one of the things I want to take a moment to talk about is because this is a major switch from from uh from a diesel or gas motor to uh the fully electric.

A couple things to highlight on that, and I want to talk a minute about that is uh the infrastructure needed to support that.

So we're working with sustainability department now to make sure that we outfit the existing garage to install the charges to satisfy to to uh facilitate these.

But as I go through this presentation, I want to take a moment and talk about sustainability at large.

One of our partners is NCDOT integrated mobility division.

So we reached out to them and say, okay, what's the best practice in the terms of electric or hybrid vehicles in paratransit space?

And there's not a lot of cases where they have given a demonstrated examples of how to facilitate that need for electric fleet on the parent transit side.

This one satisfies a lot of those boxes.

It's much smaller.

There's a barrier there that I want to make sure we're all aware of though, because today our parent transit vehicles, when we dispatch in the morning, travel about 120 miles in a service day.

What we're hearing from Ford, which is just the Ford e-Transit, is that's about an 80-mile service that we can have from a charge.

So we have to have some operational challenges to make sure we can satisfy the demand for each vehicle.

What we've got strong support from our team at RATP contractor that's administering our transit service is that they can facilitate that.

And that's an effort, I think, to where we can make some operational tweaks.

We do shift changes and we do fleet maintenance to schedule things accordingly to make sure that we can integrate sustainable vehicles into the existing model that we have dispatching vehicles.

So I think that's a big step in the right direction to integrate our sustainability goals while also making sure we're providing the service that we commit to in a full service day.

One of the things that we were asked is, well, what about hybrid?

You know, I see the gasoline motor, I see the I see the electric and the hybrid.

And that that's one of the missing links really at scale in the paratransit world is when we reached out to IMD, which which serves the entire state of North Carolina, they uh they were they they indicated that there's some barriers there to having enough available uh fleet and providers in the hybrid space.

So we're continuing to see how the industry trends on maybe some hybrid options there, but not great options today to satisfy the hybrid bus in the paratransit space.

A couple other things, and I'll wrap up, I just wanted to highlight.

We talk a lot about right sizing fleet, right?

We talked a lot about that when we did the big 29-foot clean diesels last month about right sizing our fleet.

We know that if a lot of times you're gonna ride by a paratransit bus and you're gonna see one or two folks on the bus, right?

Understand that.

I think what you see before you satisfies a lot of those those type of trips.

We still have the need when we're taking eight or ten folks to the dialysis center, we try to cluster those together.

We take in large groups to industries for the blind, where this model is going to serve a lot of those needs while still being able to facilitate the next trip.

And so what we're committing to is trying to introduce uh a mixed procurement package that does a couple things, right size our fleet, reduces that CDO burden so we can make availability for driver uh, you know, really availability across our or the the transit organization to make sure that we never have service disruption for lack of CDL drivers, and then lastly, is to make sure that we're trying to move forward with sustainable options and reducing the overall carbon footprint as we move forward to these type of advanced and see how they integrate, right?

Understand there's some operational challenges because they don't go as far.

We need 120 miles a day.

We're gonna get about 80, and so we're gonna work hard with RTB to make sure that we integrate that into the existing dispatch software to make sure that we don't have any service disruptions as you bring us back in in charge.

That's a lot to unpack.

It's a 1.2 million dollar procurement for these 11 vehicles, eight of the the 14 passengers and four of these, three of these, excuse me.

And we're hoping for approval of this body, Madam Chair, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Mr.

Fansler.

Any questions?

Mr.

Councilmember Scott Andrew Bowden.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a couple of questions.

Um first for the electric vehicle.

Um, what is the charge time for for from fully dead to full uh fully charged?

Nine hours.

Okay.

Um and then what is um the I guess uh trummer with the the voltage of of the charging port for that they'll be using the experts on the way.

All right, good, but I'm trying.

Good afternoon, members of uh city council.

Good afternoon.

The we're intending to use level two charges or 240, I think is what I heard from sustainability for these.

Um we have considered using a higher voltage in case we decide to go with a higher uh more robust um uh type of vehicle, but um just to be able to test out how this worked first.

We decided to it was cost prohibitive to go higher than that for now.

So thank you.

And my second question is uh the life cycle of the the light transit vehicle versus the electric vehicle.

What is that look like?

It's the same.

The same in terms of FTA's requirement, it's the same.

Okay, it's still subject to the same maintenance requirements that we put on all of our buses, and so they have to satisfy FTA useful live.

And so their job is to maintain that bus until such time where it will be on the city to replace, which is in this case repair transit seven years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Sipio.

Thank you, uh Madam Chair, uh, Mr.

Fanzer.

This is very interesting.

Um paratransit is such an important service that we offer to our residents, particularly um those who have to deal with dialysis and doctors' appointments.

That's really critical service.

One of the things I'm noticing on this particular model, Ford e-transit versus our current uh the green bus, the step here is lower to get onto that.

On the newer model, how would people who have those little uh challenges stepping up getting onto this bus?

Do they have to go up that ramp?

Yeah, so the the ramp provides the mobility access for anyone that has issues accessing the vehicle.

So it does also offer a uh an option for four passenger gear that can access the actual personal loading door there, but any immediate access will be facilitated through the folding ramp.

Okay.

Um I know that we're concerned about the charging, right?

Um I don't know if you've considered perhaps getting in the electric SUV that's always charged in case you just have to make a run to pick up four people versus if this van is down because it hasn't been charged.

But is your backup going to be a gas model that you already have?

Yes, so we have 40, 40 vehicles.

We're gonna make sure that any schedule ride we satisfy with the available fleet.

Um this is the smallest vehicle that we have considered, and I think it gets back to that overall service model where at two passengers per hour, and if there's mobility access, this is probably gonna allow for efficiency access via the ramp.

For a lot of reasons for maintenance for overall schedule availability and run cut that whole day, this is gonna be the smallest option I think that we are prepared to consider at this time.

Uh that's great.

Now I have one more technical question.

Uh I didn't want to assume this too much, but we have uh a fleet of 40.

We're gonna replace 11 vehicles.

Right.

Do we keep some of those older models just for backup, or do we just sell all of them?

FJ requires a spare ratio, which we know four we have 40.

Some of those aren't in service every single day.

So any point right now, if you go over to the garage, you're going to see a number of vehicles that are in inventory in service that are not being dispatched that moment.

And so that is we 40 vehicles is how many we own and have in service.

It does not mean they're always on the street.

And that gets to what FTA requires calls a spare ratio, which is essentially spare fleet that can be dispatched when you have a breakdown, when you have over increased demand, or whatever the case may be.

And so 40 is that number based on the current number of service hours and routes that the paratransit system supports today.

But do we get rid of those vehicles when we replace them?

Yes.

So they they follow the city's uh procurement process for disposal.

So essentially it goes to auction.

Yeah, and in the life cycle?

Seven years.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Andrew Bowen.

Thank you.

One more question.

The for the EV, the the lift, uh, is that a separate battery from the battery that moves the vehicle?

I do not know.

I believe this lift is manual on the other uh vehicle.

That one is battery operating.

It's connected to the vehicle.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Mr.

Fancler, thank you so much.

And thank you also, Miss Garvin.

Uh, you have uh put a lot of thought into uh and a lot of detailed planning into uh replacing this aging fleet that we have and serving the needs of our community.

We appreciate it.

Can I get a motion to approve agenda item G2?

Approving second.

Okay.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The motion passes.

Well, that concludes our very short agenda, and uh so meeting adjourned.