Hello. Welcome to this Relative Report, recorded at 10.50 on the 14th of April 2022. I'm Trevor Neal, Research Director of R&G Research, presenting from London. Today we're going to look at asset classes, we're going to look at the global, and then we're going to home in on the leader in the asset classes, which particular security can we maximize the message of the relative rotation graph. And there is a very strong one. Let's begin though with looking at asset classes from a top-down view. The first chart we're looking at is a chart showing the MSCI World Index in the middle, and then all the asset class ETFs, traded ETFs of, and I hope you can see an immediate, very striking message in them. We can see the commodities rule. So we've got the two ETFs, the Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index, and then the ETF of Gold itself, the well-known IAU ETF. And then around the center here, we've got everything else. So all the treasuries, emerging markets, the small cap stocks, everything else, stocks themselves, moving around close to the MSCI World. So moving with the MSCI World. Things which are away from it, other things from which you can get some outperformance. Now what's very striking, these two here, the two commodity-related ETFs, we've got the commodity index furthest to the right. That means that on a relative basis, the strongest, uptrend, and then second, and but a long way away from the rest of the group, is gold. The direction of this is downwards, but slightly eastwards. So downwards, but far to the right, means that this is a very strong ETF, relatively, against the MSCI World, which is pausing a bit. This downward movement is the pause. But actually even in the last week, this is a weekly sample, this has moved to the right. So this is improving again. So this one is far to the right, a very good position, the best position, and starting to edge further to the right as well. When we looked at the asset classes versus the MSCI World, we got a clear message about energy and the continuing strength in energy, despite a small pause, but really outstandingly showing it's the best game in town compared to all the other asset opportunities. But how do you capitalise on this? You can buy that ETF itself, but it's been driven quite clearly. I think I can show you now by a particular segment of the whole commodities group. In the first graph, when we were looking at the asset classes, we saw the outstanding show by the commodities. Commodities being furthest to right. Yes, a little bit of a pause going on, but no real cause for alarm. But commodities, of course, has many things, and let's break this down. To do this, I've chosen the CRB Index of Commodities Commodity Research Bureau Index of Commodities. That's in the centre here. It's made up of 19 most actively traded commodity futures contracts traded in the United States. So when we look at that, we can see all the big commodity markets. So we've got some interesting themes here too. If you look in here, the other constituent from the metals group and the biggest one, copper, is right down in here in the lagging quadrant. So metals as a group is rather split up. And we haven't got a consistent theme in that. But energy as a group has got a consistent theme. All of them, except for one, are in the leading quadrant. And this is the only group within the commodities asset class that is all together with a strong message. In that sector, we've got WTI crude, gasoline, the heating oil are all in the leading quadrant. Now there's one that isn't, and that is natural gas. But natural gas may be the most interesting one because it's in the improving quadrant. So we're going to concentrate on these now. But just looking everywhere else, you see sugar, silver, coffee, cattle, cocoa, everything else is in this poor quadrant here or heading towards it, soybeans as well. And there's aluminium there, by the way, as well from the metals group. They are dispersed or they're looking poor. But Brent crude oil has been moving, and the WTI, have been moving ahead very, very strongly. They were in a bull market for many months before the Ukraine warned or got ahead of themselves, now corrected and really stabilizing, look at how they're going up again. But this is a very mature bull market that's going on in Brent crude oil and it's hard to join it at this point. Maybe not wrong to join it at this point, but it's not at the beginning of the move, that's for sure. But there is something that is, and that's this natural gas which we see is in the leading quadrant. And look at its behavior here, how it's swung around here, sample to sample, this sample here from here and a week ago and a week ago and a week ago is expanding, so it's moving around faster and it's heading in a northeasterly direction. While it isn't across the 100 line here, on the left, so on a relative basis, the trend is not so strong, it is improving substantially and also the momentum is improving substantially. So I want to look at this chart. This is a weekly chart of the natural gas nearest contract futures. You can see we just broke into a new recent high last week. We have got an MACD, which is turned positive a few weeks ago, and we have got a relative strength index which is screaming upwards here, very, very strongly and powerfully here. So we've got a very bullish chart in play. But notice this band here. Where did this band come from? Now, look at this. This is going back, this is 2009 here. We have had one, two, three tops in this zone here, between just above $5 and just above $6. This puts below it an enormous, enormous base. It's been at $2 to $6 since 2008 till last week. Technically, when you have a big base like this and all this trading that's gone for literally years in that relatively narrow range of prices and when you leave that, that really is a seismic shift in change in the structure of a market, just as it was here. When we fell away sharply here, this was sort of the invention of cheap natural gas which has dominated the world for a number of years. But now it's looking like this is changing. Cheap natural gas is now behind us. The fall here was very, very fast indeed and therefore it leaves very little resistance if we start to move up here. So this could move up very, very fast and with a great deal of ease supported by this enormous technical base. So I think that this is a great opportunity rather than buying into something which is really, really short and is near its all-time highs and is maybe mature in its move. This one is much closer to the beginning of its move supported by this enormous base. So my favourite is natural gas from the energy sector, from the commodity sector which is favoured from an ROG of asset class groups. Thank you very much indeed. I hope the trend is with you and thank you from all of us here at ROG Research PV. Thank you.


Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020. Boy, that seems like such, such ages ago now, doesn't it? Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the meeting law, general law, Chapter 30A, Section 18. This meeting of the Transportation Advisory Committee is being conducted by a remote participation. This meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown on Amherst Media and broadcast in the town of Amherst YouTube channel. Anybody dialing in the phone can, my phone can press star nine. I won't do that, I'll just raise my hand in the picture if it, others can press star nine to raise their hand and be recognized. People with video can click on the raise hand button at the bottom of their screen. Otherwise, I, that's me, will try to watch for real hands and gestures to recognize you. Muting when you're not speaking is recommended. Though we often, though we more often try to speak before I'm muting, and we are interrupted by inadvertent background noise. Of course, with two dogs working things out, I don't know, Amber. Let's see. All right, and then we're off. So thanks everybody for coming. So Darcy, I think you have the shortest time with us tonight, because again, we're having conflicting meetings. So I'm wondering if there is a day that would work out better for us to meet so that, that you could maybe join us more regularly if you wanted to. Christine, I just, that's a question of Darcy, but you waved your hand to her, Christine. So I'm thinking. I'm sorry, I was waving to somebody in my family. Oh. Yeah, I have, unfortunately, our TSO meetings are, you know, they're on Thursday evenings at 630 and they're not on, you know, first and third or second and fourth. They correspond to the town council meetings. I could give you the list of what our calendar is and you could do the opposite weeks. I don't know if that would be good for you, but I could provide that if... Yeah, I mean, that's, we're only doing it twice a month. So, I mean, that would work for, I guess we could just pick two every month. Tracy, you have an idea. Two things. So Eve says she's in the waiting room, but I didn't see her there. Oh, or now she is, I guess. Oh, and Kim is stuck in the waiting room too. Can Amber let them in? Yay. Yeah, I think there's a delay when someone goes in there as to when it comes over. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just seeing them now. Few minutes. Okay. Also, in the TSO packet for this meeting today, right? There's a list of all the projected dates for the TSO meetings best on the council meetings. I mean, so if this time slot is good for people on Thursdays, Erin, maybe we could just try to do the opposite week, sir. Yeah, but that would be fine for me. I mean, originally we picked sort of the first and third because that's the easiest to schedule. It's the easiest for me to remember. Yeah. But otherwise, now that's of course, I'm delighted to make our meeting so it's easy for Darcy to come to them and not run into conflict with something else. It's not that I expect you to come to them, Darcy. I know that you're pretty busy, but we do appreciate it when you stop in and help us out. So with that work for everybody, we have to go back and revisit our schedule anyway, I guess. I mean, don't we typically just do our meetings out, you know, like the next couple of meetings and if we know when the TSO is meeting, say the next two, three meetings, then we can just, I mean. That's how we end up doing it, but we started with the first and third. Well, our next, just let me grab, I have a very low tech here. I have the next, the next meetings are January, in the next year, it's January 7th, January 28th, February 11th and February 25th are the ones in January and February. So we skipped three weeks there in January. So I think that you probably don't wanna be the two middle weeks. And so there'll be times when, you know, we may not coincide. Yeah. But I'm amenable to whatever you wanna do. I know, I feel kind of like you shouldn't necessarily schedule around me, but. Well, okay, but I think I'd like to nonetheless. So our next meeting is the 17th. All right, and we, I have ours is also. Yeah, so that one, that would be the first one to move or skip because after that, then we start on the 7th, which is yours. Darcy, is your TSO meeting on the 17th starting at 430? No, 630. 630, thank you. Cause I think I'm gonna go to that. Right, right. Oh, on the North Common, yes. Yeah. I had 430 written in my calendar. We had, we've had a couple of meetings at 430, but our regular is 630. So if we postpone our next meeting, really it's postponing to next year. Cause I don't think there's a date after the 17th when we would be able to get together. Is this something that could be done, like if we figure it out outside of the meeting, just so we don't take up your time. I can do a poll and see when everybody's available. And then I can connect with Darcy and see, I mean. It makes, well, so Amber, yes, thank you. And if you would just put down the Thursdays, that are not TSO meetings, that would be great. But I would like to work through, take our decision on the 17th, what about just meeting from 5 to 630? Yep, that would be fine with me. I do think we should meet on the 17th. Yeah, I agree. Alrighty, so let's meet a half an hour early. And now if Darcy wants to join us again, she can. Although I wouldn't be super high-stem. If she had to leave early to get ready for the next meeting, because I know it takes me some time to wind up for these things. Yeah, I always need to leave by quarter after six. Yeah. All right, well, thank you, Darcy. Thank you, everybody. I think that'll work out very well. I appreciate that. Okay. I don't have any announcements, but I thought this might be a place to slide in some news that I'm hoping that Tracy will share with us about her discussion with the Capital Projects Manager over at the university about changing the location of a bicycle route sign. The reason this caught my interest and I appreciate Tracy bringing it to our attention is that, is the realization and we've often stumbled onto this that there are a number of important streets that are not enamored. They are in UMass, if you will. And so their design and decisions taken about them while they affect Amherst and Amherst, the Amherst community directly, we have no authority over them at all, except that UMass seems to be willing to help out at some level at meet our requests. So I thought this was an interesting case of that. So Tracy, I'm not exactly surprising you with that question, but big with the context. Yeah. So, well, I mean, I'm a UMass employee and I live close to the UMass path. I mean, the UMass path between Amity and campus is a UMass state controlled road. It's not our road. The project had just come to my attention, just as somebody who walks and bikes and drives along that route that with the redesign, it's finally open to the public. And with the redesign, they had put up a few signs that directed people to get off the Arthur Swift extension and go onto the bike lane on road. And then at the roundabout, that's now at Fearing, they wanted cyclists to get off the road at the roundabout and get back on the path. And then after the path north of Fearing to get back on the road on the bike lane, the first section of the bike lane before Fearing, it has a buffer area that's painted. And the bike lane after Fearing, north of Fearing does not. Anyway, it all seemed very complicated. In addition, there were some signs posted that basically said bike route sign this way directing people to the bike lane and a no bike. Basically, no bikes allowed otherwise. It's sort of ironic just, you know, based on the history of that route. And the idea that like the Arthur Swift extension was created as an extension from the Norituck rail trail to access campus. But the project manager, I did talk to her and I know some cyclists have reached out to her. And that she's been very responsive about that. She said she's taken it under consideration to eliminate those signs. I mean, my sort of take on it is that cyclists who are comfortable on road should probably stay on road. They can be in the bike lane. They can go through the roundabout in the bike lane. And, you know, until they get in your campus and then they can take the route to the path to like the center of campus. And on the southbound direction, there's also a bike lane, which I think that many cyclists won't use that. I mean, there are some cyclists. I know who will turn left at university and Mass Ave, like on left across path onto university at that, like blinking light, but you have to be a pretty like confident cyclist to do that. And so a lot of people don't do that particularly. And there's also the valley bikes right at the southwest storms where, you know, those cyclists are not, are more likely to be recreational cyclists or less likely to have helmets and so on. And so I don't think that all of them are going to get on the bike lane, but they're just going to stay. So, um, yeah, but she seemed really receptive. Tracy, Tracy, what's supposed to happen at Amity? I mean, that was the part that really shocked me is like, you're, if you're southbound, you're in this bike lane, and then you get to Amity and there's just nothing.  Guilford might know more about that, but I mean, when I talk to the program, manager, she just, the project manager, she just said that the state jurisdiction ends before Amity. Right. And that it sounded like there may have been some ideas. I mean, I've heard, you know, rumors of potential redesigns of the Amity university drive intersection, but I've never heard progress about that. Again, Guilford might know more. I mean, it does, as somebody commutes to UMass, like there is a lot of back up there. There's, it's only one lane of trafficking insurrection and there's a lot of back up. When UMass is in session, of course, trying to turn left onto Amity. And it's only the one lane, right? So that's a big queuing area. And I mean, over the years, right, there's been many redesign plans for the university drive section from Amity to route nine. Some of that seems like it's happened, like near the big Y Plaza and so on. And there's a whole bunch of projects, development going in at route nine, like including the expanded medical buildings on both sides of the road and the little rotary that's going to be at South University Drive and like all those kind of things, as well as the redesign of route nine, which I guess it's slated for construction next summer, Guilford with route nine from university drive to South pleasant with the bike lanes and the sidewalks. So, but in terms of the other section. Yeah, I mean, it's nice. I mean, so what the, the way is striped now is that, as you said, the bike lane going south towards Amity, it just ends. So. Yeah, so I don't know. It's an interesting question. And I hadn't expected to end up at it about that Amity university drive intersection, which is kind of been a perennial subject that kind of, you know, it goes away. It's been identified as the culprit and a whole bunch of things like the traffic to the neighborhoods that are trying to avoid, I see you Kim, the traffic that is trying to avoid that intersection by going to the neighborhoods as well as, you know, just being very ineffective and dangerous trans intersection. I don't know. I hadn't thought about that. That's something you might want to work on with that on our project lists as there's no specific request about it. Of course we could get one pretty easily, but there it is. Oh, and the jurisdiction. Yeah, the jurisdiction is definitely. And we got to be clear. There are three. There are three entities that the three responsibilities here. University is one, the state and then the town. I don't think I'll meet exactly there, but those would be three different bodies taking responsibility. So, so Kim. Yeah. What was I going to say? This is a. Yeah. Guilford roundabout. And, and yeah, this is a, this intersection is a conundrum because it's also like nobody really lives there. And you know, I'm not sure anyone would write, but we all know that's a, that's an issue that particular intersection and not just for bicycles, obviously, or even pedestrians, but for everybody that intersection is, is a real. Issue. So. To you. Guilford. Unmute. Maybe, so I'm interested in Guilford's response as well, because he's certainly. More aware of the details of the history than, than, well, than me. And, but for us. We're beginning to ask a question.  Which I think is as interesting. So, Guilford. So the, the plans for that intersection are about, I'd say they're probably, they're done. They're a hundred percent done. The state UMass, there's actually only two people, us and the UMass, they're responsible. Yeah. UMass did the design when they did. When they did their side of you drive. We were going to submit it for the mass works grant, and we submitted the one in the south instead. So the plans are all done. It's just a matter of how to figure out where it's going to fit in the funding process. And it is a roundabout. Is it a mini roundabout or is it a real roundabout? Wow, that's exciting. It's bigger than the one. It's bigger than the faring street roundabout. About the same size as the one on triangle street. Okay. So, so it's, it's not quite the, the mini roundabouts that, that we're, we just got a primer on recently. Well, I would say that the one on faring street isn't a mini roundabout either. Yeah. It is small. Yeah. All right. So, so. Yeah. All right. Well, well. Good. Thank you. It's, um, I guess maybe I'm mildly. Disappointed that we didn't get a chance to, to slip it onto our priority list. But even that is being held in advance now. So. Or do we put it on our priority list now? I don't know with our scoring system. Do we. We can put it on there. Um, so go for it with the, with the plans, what's happening with the private road, the parallels university drive? Is that involved at all with them? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the roundabout. It's not going that far. The private road stays. Oh. And so any possibility that it might become a. The bicycle route, the parallel bicycle route like has been suggested in the past. Uh, no. Okay. There's too much. There's too many driveways and parking areas. I mean, Athena's, I mean that's Athena's parking areas. And I think that's the, that's the only way. That's the only way. That's the only way. That's the only way. The only way that. The, the, the. The pot shop is going to have there. Wait. One of the pot shops is going to have their parking in the, in that road too.  Businesses in there. There's three. There's three marijuana establishments in that interest. In that quarter. Yes. That's the cool corner. Alrighty. Well, well thank you. Tracy. That was out. Well, yeah. It's not really an announcement. I guess my, I did. I guess it was a bit of a shock. I didn't know. I didn't know what to do when I was going to drive or what to do. But you know, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do when I was going to drive. I didn't know what to do when I was going to drive. It did sort of leave me with some questions. You know, as a UMass person just about what review, like their projects undergo and what kind of input. They get from the public or others. Right. It feels like sometimes the university isn't communicating so much with the town. But I was wondering if that extends to some of the construction work as well. So. I mean this project manager, when I've talked to her. some of their emails, like she's been super responsive. But at the same time, I'm sort of wondering how did, because in this few parts of the design I don't like, how did they happen? Like, did anybody say, like, don't put up this no biking sign there? And anyway. So this is kind of bigger of like philosophical process questions. Yeah, Kim. Well, I've tried many times as a faculty and a concerned town member to interact with, you know, the planning people at UMass. And I happen to have like a really direct connection to Shane Conklin. And he still is like, who oversees all the projects at UMass. And he still like, just shoes me off to someone else and it never ends anywhere.  And I'm not sure why. I'm going to continue to investigate this, but it makes no, it's nonsensical. So just a note, a side note or an observation on the sort of Tracy's interaction with the university. And we're not talking about big changes here, but there are nonetheless significant and our interaction with the UMass DOT regarding the repairs on route nine. Those have worked out very well. So it's, I don't know what the magic potion is, but maybe we should be one to establish your relationship directly with UMass. I don't know. But I guess I'm going to ask you, I feel for if I'm getting too crazy here, if route nine was just too easy and now university drive. Let me put it this way. In one instance, you're dealing with a state organization which is trying to appease the people and the people in the Commonwealth. And in another situation, you have a state agency which is a large private business or public business trying to make its money and stay in business. I guess it's up to us to decide which is which, but okay. Well, yeah. And I guess either or both, it's effective to communicate or deal with them with clear sort of wealth, organized and understanding their side of the issues directly. And that's kind of feels like what happened to me. We need this. Here's why and here's why it's good for us both. So we get the upper level view of what they do to their roads. We get the very upper level view of how they're changing and what they're going to do. But that's all we get. They do things on our roads. They don't even tell us about until we start doing it. So that's the lower level stuff. They just kind of just do it. But I know like Aaron, right? You had reached out to the university about or we talked about just with, I mean, the university drive projects, it makes me just think about like Lincoln Avenue or like other projects that we've talked about that it seems like there could be changes there on the university end. And I soon recall that you had written a letter or we had talked about like reaching out just so to be kind of kept informed or find out like what's happening. I mean, I feel like with the university drive, I mean, just as the first thing I became aware of it is when the road was open and I saw it like in action, right? So it makes me kind of wonder about other university projects a little bit, but. Yeah, I think since the university's changed since March that I don't know if Guilford might be the point of contact the university looks to and working with the town on these things. Lucky Guilford, I guess. Like I said, we get the bigger picture of what they're doing, but unless it's gonna tie into a town road, we don't get the final details. Yeah, and I guess that's been my frustration all along is that, yes, a lot of their work doesn't actually touch our roads, but the way their modifications move traffic around, that does because then the traffic ends up, for instance, on Lincoln Avenue, because nobody thought that, oh, put in the parking lot there is gonna drive people a little bit further up. Oh, having a crummy intersection down here is gonna move people on the strong, you know, it's just, I'm sorry, I bent it. Guilford, who is your main connection at E-Mass? Same as yours. Okay, I'm gonna talk with him again. And he's not gonna like this voice that I use, so it's fine. It's, yeah, it's not something... But we're different, you and I are in different positions, you know? Yeah, but he's gonna give you the same thing, but you have to understand that he is not the top of the... I know, yeah, I understand, yeah. And actually, so what I'm going to wonder out loud is whether an entity like, let's say the TAC, which has a different voice, not one of authority or, but one of knowledge and one of capability would be, I mean, just a member of the TAC going to, you know, the project manager for this thing had the effect that we needed, but if there was a safe body to, for instance, share future plans and maybe to get ideas, I'm wondering if that isn't an effective mechanism that we might propose. Tracy. Hi, so I had reached out to some of the people I work with about the project, like including people I thought might have some insights, like you've worked on roundabouts and done roundabout research and things. And one of the faculty members I spoke with told me that they had reviewed the preliminary plans for the design on University Drive before it was completed. So, I mean, there is, and I remember from back when I was on the public transportation bike committee, like that there was a UMass committee, like with Albaim and some other people and they met periodically. And I don't know exactly what their function was because I wasn't invited to those meetings. I didn't work at UMass then, but it seems like there is some kind of review and I've been trying to get some answers from that faculty member about like how to tap into that. And I haven't heard back from them yet, but I mean, I will, and even before today's talk, I mean, I said, I think this is gonna come up at TAC if you have any kind of insights into it. Let me know. Yeah, and historically, like the PTB, PTC, whatever it was did have, well, a role to play with figuring out the round about that exists at the other end of campus. That design actually, you know, they spent some time helping us understand it and understanding what we needed there. And that's worked out pretty well. So, all right. Good question. Yes. Could there be signage put up into presumably the town project will not be done in the next few weeks to redo that intersection? Could there be signage put up, you know, where the bike lane just ends about which where bikes should go? I think that you might drop a note to public works to get that into the hopper. I mean, it's something that makes sense, but you know, that's Hilford. We have to talk to UMass about that. Oh, that's far enough on their side of the line. Yeah, basically the line for the intersection is about 10 feet from the pavement at AME Street to the north. I mean, I guess so one question on the southbound because that's where the bike lane ends is like what percentage or how many cyclists are going to be using the bike lane as opposed to staying on the path? Like it seems like a lot of the traffic is going to be on the path. And even when I talked to some cyclists who said they would use the bike lane that they would probably still like merge back. Like it, you know, I don't know, maybe near like the Mullen Center.  I mean, the path is the most direct route. Like that's what's been there historically, including for people connecting to the rail trail. And most of the time the volume is not that high. Like where a lot of cyclists are going to come off the path like across the street. And there's no, there's no arrows or anything to get cyclists who are on the path like leaving campus onto the bike lane on the southbound direction. So I think the most of the traffic will stay on the path. But with the bike lane ending it would be nice to have something. But yeah. All right, so thank you. Thank you for that, Tracy, as I would like, let's see. We don't have any hearings. Oh, so Amber had news on minutes. I didn't have it. Oh, her pace has disappeared from my screen here. Kimberly. I have to leave in 10 minutes, just so you know, because I'm filming my daughter who is doing a variation for the Nutcracker on for the Mary Maple.  So where is it going to be streamed? Where can we watch this, Kim? I, on all the town sites and the BDI, the BDIC every place has it. It starts at five o'clock and it's going to be a great like little production. So watch it. Sorry, I have to plug in. Sydney's doing it alone, Eve. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. Wait, does she have her tiara? Did you find a tiara? Yeah, she has it. Yes, someone gave me a tiara which I asked our community for. And she's amazing. And I know I'm biased, but it's pretty cool. No, I thought you were going to be late because of that, not leaving early, but that's either way. So no problem. Thank you very much. And how exciting. And that's not in any video, Kim. What I was saying otherwise was that I guess Amber has mastered another piece of software and is putting together minutes. And I just wanted to have a chat with her about that. And I don't know if it would be helpful. I mean, I'm happy to offer some editing time because it sounds like it's a very editing heavy process and really there are only elements of our discussion that really I think are valuable to record. We're not required to record a lot of it, but recording all of it is also too much. So I don't know if offering help is helpful or if she's just going to slog through that on her own. And she disappeared. So I can't leave her unless that's her ringing in. She had to do a child thing right now. She had to go pick up a kid. She turned, Guilford is the host. She made Guilford the host. Oh, lucky Guilford. I have to serve tea. Yeah, yes, please. No, Amber did figure it out. She's just working through it. It's kind of interesting. It gives you all the information, but it doesn't like certain things. Like it doesn't like my name. So when you guys talk about me, it doesn't talk about me. So she's going to put those back in, but she should have the first set for the next meeting probably. Yeah, and will we, would it help if we, somehow or other, disposed of ourselves a little bit differently, maybe speak more slowly or louder or without this crazy accent? No, it's- Everybody has to speak English. Yes. No, it's just, it just takes time. Okay, and our audio from our individual machines is okay and all that other good stuff. These are important. It's like, if we can help out, that'd be great. No, it's just the AI that picks up the different things. It doesn't like numbers either. So it makes numbers something else. Okay. Upcoming projects. Anything new on the project front? Can we, I'm sorry, was that you Eve? No. Sorry, my other phone is leaving a message from the state of Massachusetts. So there's noise in the background. I apologize, it'll finish soon. But I just wanted to say full disclosure is that I'm as former tech member trying to keep up with notes and writing up what's going on in the tech for the indie. And I'll be trying to do that each week, although it's pretty hard to get myself motivated to do it between Thursday night and Friday night when it needs to get in for their weekly indie. But if that's helpful to Amber, she's welcome to look at my write-up, right? And then use it to inform her summary. Okay, thank you. So upcoming projects. And the intention of this is that as we move along and the world comes back to life when these vaccines begin to roll out and everything that while there seems to have been sort of a quiet period with people looking for intersection changes and stop signs and speed bumps and all those things that they look for, that this would be the time to slot, just mentioning them, talking about them, getting a look ahead, some intelligence on what's coming up. And I don't know of anything. We almost put Amity Street onto it, but otherwise, is there anything Gilford that you can think of? Tracy's thought of something I'll ask her next. The only thing that's really being worked on right now is the grant that the planning department has and Chris can probably talk to you more about that. You mean the mass works grant? No, the downtown grant. So we're working on a grant with the state mass DOT and it's called shared streets and something. Anyway, we did get a grant for $129,000 in the summer to do some work and it was mainly supportive of downtown dining, but now we're trying to figure out what we should apply for in the second round. The state I think has $10 million to dole out and we could get as much as $300,000, I think. So one idea is to try to build part of North Common and that would mean building possibly the sidewalk on the South Pleasant Street side of the North Common and possibly redoing the sidewalk on the North side which includes a bus stop. So that's one idea. The building commissioner also has an idea about doing some improvements to the South Pleasant Street on the West side of South Pleasant Street in front of the restaurants where Oriental flavor and Fresh Side and Veracruzana is and making it more inviting and possible for dining and application, but no decisions have been made about exactly what we're gonna be applying for. But I think we'll probably be putting that application together towards the middle or end of December. I think it goes in the beginning of January and Guilford has a lot of input on that. So as I said, we haven't really decided anything about that. And will that be funding for planning or designing or construction? Which, what's that for? It would be planning, it would be construction. Guilford and his team would do whatever planning and design is necessary and then we would use the money for construction. So the most likely thing at this time, I think is improvements to the edges of the North Common, but there are some other ideas being loaded out there. Excellent, that's all very exciting. I have to say that when the Jersey barriers went up and we're unpainted, that was really not terribly inviting, but after a while, let's say it was kind of nice that we took back so much of that street for us and not cars. So, well, that's exciting. Tracy, you were trying to get a word in edge-wise at the end there. Oh, you have to push the mute button again. Well, I also appreciate that unlike Northampton, we didn't rip ours up, like get rid of ours. Sorry. That was good. So just with the list of projects is, like I always feel like the list of projects was kept with Guilford, right? And that he pulls up the list for us at meetings, like on a spreadsheet. And as we looked at the last meeting, he pulled it up in real time, that the list hadn't been added to in a while. But it seems like some other projects might have come in. Like I just have heard other different concerns being raised or something. And I have a few different versions of the list, like in my files from previous meetings, like there was like kind of like the little projects list, which is more just citizen requests. Some of which are never gonna rank necessarily high enough to actually get implemented, but we're just keeping track of them. And then there's kind of the major lists. We're looking at like say, and even I and the Bruce have been working with the prioritization plan, realistically, like we're probably only gonna have one or two projects a year or less, right? So like in terms of the bigger projects, how long does it take to like move everything all the priorities along and so on? But it did make me wonder, if it does still feel to me like there's some different lists and people are keeping sort of different information if there's one kind of central place or one central document where all that could be. But then also if there would be a way to have a publicly accessible version of that, just so one, in the name of transparency, then so everybody can sort of see that these are the projects, similar to C-Click Fix or something, but just so the public could see like this is the list of projects that have been under consideration. Some of them have been on the list a really long time, say like East Pleasant Street and some of the other projects. And then it would just be a way that any of us could access it at any time and any citizens could access it at any time. And I don't know, it's just an idea, but one to have like one list, but then also if there's a publicly accessible version of that, like not to make it editable or anything, but just something that now so much stuff is in the cloud, like can it just be like a link in the cloud that the public can see or something? So Kimberly. I was also wondering maybe sometimes these things get a little complicated, but perhaps every six months we could publish our list and update it every six months, which doesn't seem to burden someone. No, I mean, that would be an alternative version or something just to have one there, yeah. I have to go now, I'm sorry, bye. Oh yeah, goodbye, good luck, break a leg. Oh no, is that the right thing? I'm sorry. Well, the... And what's... So where this has been in the past and I think we should think about this definitely. Certainly it wraps into our discussion about the charge, but thinking about that, one of the things that we took out of our charge was that comprehensive, you know, keep track of everything it's ever asked of public works to do. And that's certainly something that I don't think we should be doing. But short of that, we broke our list into three pieces, if I remember, and just revisiting those. This may have been just before your time Tracy, as I think about it, but there was the active, these are projects that are funded. These are major projects. And I can't remember how we decided major, but are funded and are gonna be worked on. And here's the funding source and here's the funding year, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And then there were the... Oh. I haven't, see, this is the big list. Yeah, so this was from one of our meetings. This was February, it says updated February, 2019, which says was the big list. Yeah. And then in the meeting, we also had this separate spreadsheet, which I call the little list, which is like all the... So I think I'm happy to revisit those, especially when we have a clear understanding about what our responsibilities will be. I don't take responsibility for everything that we have no authority on, but be that as it said. So the reason I put this particular note on the agenda, this particular item, which is not making lists or updating how we take in projects and how we're gonna keep them track and organize them, is that the Pomroy intersection was an interesting thing to learn about. And I wanted to sort of set aside a time to put our heads together and maybe ask Gilford to say, hey, what is it out there that we might want to just get onto into one of these processes?  This is sort of the intelligence gathering moment. And we'll visit those, the idea of how we track it eventually, absolutely. Bracey, thank you. So, Gilford, how are we doing? Good, we're doing great. We've got a big work downtown. And I'm wondering also, as out of the 40R meetings, I'm recalling that a piece of the 40R is dependent on access to transportation. When you draw the line, you have to draw it in a special way that includes transportation. I'm wondering if there's anything about that effort in downtown Amherst that we might want to think about and be aware of. The 40R, may I answer that? Yes, please. I hope so, because I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, so the 40R is an overlay zoning district that's allowed or authorized by the state for towns and cities to adopt. It includes the right to make developments that are denser than what are allowed by zoning. It includes the requirement to include affordable housing and it potentially includes a payment from the state to a city or town for additional units over and above what is normally allowed via the zoning bylaw. The planning board and the CRC, the Community Resources Committee, are really trying to decide is 40R something that we want to do? And there are members of the planning board who are really excited about it and other members who are much more lukewarm. The CRC is kind of waiting to hear from the planning board about what they wanna do. So I don't think it's anything that's going to be coming up really soon. And when it does come up, it's really going to be proposed in areas that already have public transportation. In fact, that's one of the requirements that you're supposed to have these developments in places where you already have public transit. So in the downtown, we have bus routes. In any of our village centers, we have bus routes. So I'm not sure at this stage of kind of conceptual planning, whether the TAC would have much input. Once we get down to the nitty gritties and decide exactly where this thing is gonna be if we want to do it, then the TAC might have some input. But right now I don't think that they would. Yeah, no, I wasn't sort of worried about the input so much as the question as to whether it might be appropriate or something that we need to think about. It's a project, it's something pretty exciting about redeveloping, planning the downtown. And I remember they had transportation component, transportation, in this case, public transportation. So that's why I bring it up. So thank you. So as the segue, yes, Chris. Because we're in the state of upcoming projects. So we're always fishing around for money and our town was recently designated a housing choice community. This is the second time in the last five years that we've been designated. And the reason that we were designated is because we've produced more than 500 dwelling units in the last five years. So the state is really pushing cities and towns to develop more dwelling units because they need the units to house lots of new workers. Anyway, so we got the housing choice designation. Therefore, we have access to up to about $300,000 worth of funds and the planning department and I think Gilford's staff is putting their heads together. And the thing that seems to make the most sense is to try to complete the Mill Lane extension, the extension of the Mill Lane sidewalk from Route 116 to Graf Park. It's really, it's kind of all part of a picture. We have low income housing development down there. It's not affordable with a big A, but it's affordable with a little A. A lot of low income people live along East Hadley Road in the housing developments. So we put money into CDBG money, community development block grant money into building a multi-use path along East Hadley Road that gets us as far as the intersection of 116 and East Hadley Road. But then there's no good connection across 116 to Graf Park. And we've already put several hundred thousand dollars worth of improvements in Graf Park. And we would really like to be able to make those improvements accessible to the low income people who live at South Point and the boulders, et cetera. So we are currently working on putting together a housing choice grant application, which I think is due this coming Friday to extend the Mill Lane sidewalk. We have some money from, I think CDBG from last year, but we don't have enough to build the whole thing. So that's one thing that we're working on and we're hoping to get that money and we could get as much as $300,000 for that. And then the other thing is, we're currently looking at projects that we can apply for for 2021 for community development block grant. And they're mainly interested in doing capital projects in areas where there's a preponderance of low income people. So one of the possibilities is to rebuild part of the sidewalk on the Northside Valley Avenue that would serve the people of Clark House and the Ann Wellen Apartments. There are other ideas for using that CDBG money as well and I'm sure if it's been in conversations with Dave Zephyr and Nate Malloy, who are most familiar with that, but I just wanted to mention that, that we're trying to get some money to do some infrastructure improvements, use that CDBG money. These are things that don't always come into the public realm. They're kind of things that staff works on. We have a general sense of what's needed based on work that the TAC has done, based on past work that DPW has done. And when we see an opportunity, we go and try to grab some money to get things done. So that's all. Excellent, yeah. I recognize these projects. I mean, we've talked about that West Street, Mill Lane intersection and had some ideas that Guilford presented to us and we endorsed and pointed at. So Tracy. I had a question about the Mill Lane project is so, like one of the things that's come up at past meetings, I think Kim brought up some issues too, just about the traffic signals like there, that it's like complicated with the traffic coming off of East Hadley Road. Yeah, and then I think Mill Lane is not actually a signal. Is that right? That it's actually just. Yeah, the signals at East Hadley Road. Yeah, and then just kind of, yeah. But it sounds like would that be part of the project or the project would focus on the sidewalk piece of it? The project would focus on the sidewalk. The project would go across 116 where East Hadley Road comes into West Street. And then it would go across that little bridge. Right. I mean, the building that is really. That's a house, right? So if you look at the big project, you'll see it's on there. Big project. It's on there. Right. And I would take it for granted that the crossing and the whatever hardscape is put down to get people safely from the West side to the East side or East side to West side of West Street or South Fudden Street, depending on where the crossing is, would stay out of the way of future improvements that would make, you know, sort of the rest of the improvements that the CDBG money can't support right now. And that's, that's cool. Oh yeah. And so on Kellogg, so is the project just from like Ann Willen back towards North Pleasant because there's also that section at Kellogg where there's not really a sidewalk, right? So if you keep going towards the high school, there's a little, it's like a, it's a major pedestrian corridor for a lot of people, but it's just like a line on the side. It's like a shoulder line or something. So probably be an ability to get people from Ann Willen and Clark House to the post office. Oh, got it. Okay. Got it. Yeah. And the bus and everything and got it. So one project I had flagged on our list of projects and that we'd come up and we talked about it. Some is also pot wine and 116. Like, is there still things, is that still on the big project, little project list? Or somehow it seemed like it had gotten moved up that there had been concerns about that with the big projects on the crosswalks. And is there a timeframe for that one? And now is that a roundabout too, maybe or something? Okay. Well, so that's an interesting point. Cause things like that, you know, we've been able to put them on the list. And if something comes along like this, this funding because we're a good place to live that people want to give us money to help them, you know, make it better for those, you know, we can plug them in. So that's, that's a, that is a real value, I think that we are bringing to the table.  I mean, if we're trying to take the pedestrians out of the roadway, take them out of the roadway and put them up in the air. You have to, you have to get accessible and the. I mean, they can be. They can be, but they're enormous. It's cheaper to put the roundabout in. It probably is cheaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm not, I'm not saying it's cheaper. I mean, it's just like, yeah.  I come from this country with lots of those sort of things. Yeah. I have to confess to grinning a little bit on this because this is an idea that's been brought up in a lot of places. And the design and the implementation is often so much more expensive that either nothing happens or something lesser, but that would really be cool. I've seen some beautiful pedestrian bridges, you know, with, with, you know, stay cables and the likes of that. Well, we don't need to go that maybe. I mean, just a little bit of concrete here and there will be fine, but it was a bit of a ramp. But yeah, they're very, they're very difficult. And I'm not sure that they work there. Well, I've understood that people are not comfortable with them. Maybe people who think the sky's falling, but that's. Yeah. So, well, you know, if the earthquakes had happened around here too, it's, you want to be caught up on that one. Well, I mean, people have been talking about crosswalks there, but you'd also, you'd need to have something besides crosswalks, like crosswalks alone, do not solve it. Right. No, no, no, no, no, yeah. That's, that's part of what we understand. And you need the crosswalks as well. So. And they should be at least like flashing or a light or something, but. Right. Or, or maybe I don't, I don't know what the, what they're thinking, but maybe they're going to be bringing the traffic across on the, on the, the north side of the Mill River there. Instead of running it down the west side of west street or whatever. So, yeah, Steve. So just, I wanted to ask some specific follow up. So, Guilford, can you clarify what, what exactly is the status of what's happening at that intersection? Cause I know people went out and measured it. Like, is the status that we're just waiting for a grant to show up or is the status that there's a survey or what is, what, what, yeah. At Potwine, do you mean? Yeah. At Potwine. Just in a concept right now, everything, I mean, there's only, there's only so much money and so much time and what's gotten pushed to the front of, what's been getting pushed to the front is the main intersection at Pomeroy and West Pomeroy, Pomeroy and 116. Right. That one's going up to the front and going to get the major attention for the next couple of months. Yeah. And that's going up to the front because it got funded. Is that right? And then because it got funded, that means it requires staff time and energy basically. Yeah. It means it's got to get designed. It's got to get pushed to a lot faster. That'll probably be your next, if depending on how the committee holds together and what you're doing, that'll probably be something you're tasked with doing something with soon. Well now, so what's the status? I'm sorry, Eve, go ahead. So for the potline one, it's in concept right now. So basically as soon as staff has time, you'll go back to trying to think about what might be done there. Is that the idea? Right. We actually, we broke it down to three phases. We've got the cheap phase. We got the intermediate phase and then we got the thing behind me phase. So what is the phase mean option? Yes. Okay. So it's not like stages of the plan. Well, actually the way we have it laid out is we can build it in stages so that eventually you end up with the roundabout. But what you've done in the previous ones, fit into the roundabout design as it goes along. Oh, great. So do we have any sense of when that first phase might be able to go forward? After way, probably after we get done with West Street and Palmaroy. West Street 116 and Palmaroy. Yeah, so this sounds like a good place to put in a plug for you for extra hands for you, Gilford, huh? Yes. I mean, to make the committee work better. I mean, the reason we don't have the list on the web post anywhere is because we're supposedly changing our website. And we haven't got to that yet. So we haven't put new stuff out there. But then again, keeping the list up once we do, that's, yeah, I mean, talking to people about, you know, a halftime person to help manage the requests and stuff would be good to move this a lot and keep it up to date. Yeah, three C. Well, I mean, in some committees, right? Like, you know, a lot of committees I see they have like a list of kind of upcoming projects that they, as Kim said, you know, every six months they could even be like in our quote packet or whatever, you know, and then people could also access it that way. And it could go on our page or something. I did have a question about the status of, because I know that, you know, from our last agenda, right? I was talking about East Pleasant Street too. And so some people haven't asked it about what's happening with East Pleasant and doing the survey there related to like the sidewalks and so on. So East Pleasant's in the queue, it's North Pleasant, which is the one you voted as the bigger priority is actually going forward a little faster. And actually what you guys saw in the previously is kind of what we're pushing out into the public soon. And then we'll start trying to get things laid out which actually do work on North Pleasant this summer. So for North Pleasant, you're talking about the section from the North roundabout on campus, like up towards the north, the center of North Amherst. Yeah, okay. So I don't remember ever voting that North Pleasant was a higher priority. I remember voting that they were both our two highest priorities, but you said that North Pleasant was ahead in the queue, which I believed you. But I don't think we ever said it was a higher priority. You actually voted that one before you voted the East Pleasant one. It went for an analogically. Yeah, yeah. So, all right. So when do you expect the East Pleasant survey to start? Sometime this spring. So like April May kind of thing. Hopefully, we have a lot of surveying that has to be done now, Pomeroy and 116 is gonna get the first of it. And then it's gonna move around quickly to some other projects. If the CGBG work is funded, then we have to move the survey or over there and do some surveying along the middle river. And then we'll go from, we'll work our way back. So thinking of that and thinking of synergies, will it be survey work on the bridge over the middle river where West Creek goes over? We have to survey the riverfront and the top of bank and that stuff, yes. Yeah, so does it make sense? You know, with that idea of synergy in mind that to sort of expand that survey a little bit to catch what corners and things that we might need to understand the safer crossing that Chris has mentioned we're gonna be doing and maybe even beyond that to get sort of the ground work for the improved intersection that we're sort of fantasizing about. Or is that so tightly held together that the answer would be no? The answer is always possible. We try to mush things together as much as we can. We actually have a third thing we're trying to do at Potline or Mill and West Street. There's a third thing we're trying to do which we haven't really talked about because it's more of a maintenance thing for us. So yes, there's gonna be a lot more going on in that little area. Oh, how is that pedestrian bridge still safe? That's the third thing. Okay. They're very good Marcus. So I wanted to spend some time but this is your moment Gilford.  I'm gonna ask you to do the magic trick now.  Before you move on to the next agenda item, the subcommittee just wants to say one thing about future project discussions. No.  No, I was gonna go on to work on the pedestrian plan but... Oh, okay. So you... Is Chris still here? Yes. They're in here. Okay, great. But she's getting a cup of coffee so she turned her screen off. Oh, that's good. So Bruce and Tracy and I met yesterday and talked again through sort of our whole process to develop the prioritization plan. And last time we met, we said that, you know, we sort of came up and decided we really needed some technical assistance to finish it up. So we would like an opportunity two weeks from now to tell you guys a little bit more of where we are and what kind of assistance we want. But Chris, we thought, since you had mentioned the idea of going to the PVPC, that that might be a possibility. We're really, we don't know if there's someone at the PVPC, but if there's someone who's worked on, you know, systems of the level of service matrices and how those play into point scoring systems. We really want someone who's got some experience having worked with that kind of system before and to help us sort of do each of those steps and make them talk to each other if that makes sense. Yeah, so I think what I said earlier was that PVPC comes out with these DLTA grant, you know, requests, I guess, I don't know how to describe it, RFPs or whatever, but they're specific to certain topics and they might have like three topics a year or five topics a year. And if you can fit your project into one of those topics then you have a greater chance or a chance of getting this technical assistance. So I haven't seen a PVPC request or proposals yet. These will come out in December and they'll do some kind sometime in January and then we'll work on them throughout the next year. So once I get that, I'll have a better sense of whether some of the things that you are trying to do would fit into their whatever topics that there were working on this year. That's great. So Erin, for the agenda for next time, can we put those two things into an agenda item as a package? Yeah, so Tracy, I'm gonna ask you to send me a note for that. And good, thank you. And then I'll make sure I'll get it in right and make sure you get it in. So all right, thank you, Eve. Thank you, Tracy. Guilford. Oh, and Bruce, Bruce is on our subcommittee too. Thank you, Bruce. Well, no, I had to pick someone to, and so is it Bruce who's gonna send me the letter? You decide, but I just would like a note from one of you to a correspondence to kick me in the shins, it's good for me. I'm hopeful that you all had a chance to go over the stuff that Amber sent us on the pedestrian bicycling plan. It brought back memories, I have to say. I hadn't realized how much work we put into that and how far we got, including the rating, I remember the rating system, but not that we had gone that deeply into it. All of that said, I'm delighted that, I'm delighted that to be getting ready to roll this out. I really think it's a very, it's a nice piece of work and would like to get this last little piece tidied up and sent out, and so we can put it all together and say la voilà, and send it out into the wild. It can do, it has the potential for doing a lot of good that I can see, and that would be nice. Tracy. So I just have a few process questions about this. So the pedestrian bike network plan right now, I think it was finalized in 2019, but a lot of the work was done in 2018 and we're almost in 2021. And so I know when the original plan, I wasn't on the tack then, and Marcus wasn't on the tack then. I know when the original plan came out, there was like a public review a little bit, but I don't know, you know, now that it's been a few years and so on, if it needs to, before things are finalized or for example, before the council, if we wanted the council to adopt the plan formally, if there's value added to that, like whether they would need, whether it would benefit from having a chance for like public review and comment again before saying it's finalized, like an agenda set of final. And so I don't know if are we gonna be at that stage, are we gonna get this done in 10 minutes, but... Yeah, this is part of the thing that I promised to extend you all and have, and I'm sorry. Our preface, part of our preamble talks just about that, how this is a snapshot, this is gathering and that part of what we envisioned our role at that point and I think we're gonna re-envision our role now is to, as opportunities present themselves to forward the plan and the issues that are identified and the solutions that are identified in the plan, bring them up to date. We have to stop, I mean, that the report is done. They've done the research, they found what they found, they've learned what we've learned to get to that point and yes, time has gone on and yes, there've been requests and there've been more accidents there's been more stuff that would have changed the new report if we did it again, but we can't do that. This is it and really what we were asking is that, hey, here it is, let's get started doing this work. That was, that is the intent of this report, not to be omniscient about these things. So, I know that...  I might say that, but I think that that has to be where we deal with it, so... I mean, are we asking for somebody, like are we asking for the council to approve it or anything? Oh yeah, absolutely. I think absolutely and this is another thing that's got to go into our discussion about, ongoing discussion with the charge is, here is this thing that has a lot of time and effort and public input, which I know you're unhappy about, but has been happening. Not unhappy. Not you, not you, not you. You, the town council. Oh, sure. Okay. So, deal with this or don't, it's your peril. Yeah, what I imagine and we'll think about this together is that, yeah, we're gonna just get on the agenda with the town council or the TSL, I'm not sure which is the most appropriate poly town council in this case and offered as a public resolution or whatever the appropriate process is, Eve. Actually, Chris was gonna say something earlier. Yes, you wise. Yeah. I was distracted as I was waving my hands around. Chris. I think there's still work that can be done on the maps. The text is pretty much done, but the maps are still in flux and PVPC did as much as they could given the amount of time and money that they had, but you now can choose to make changes, additions, subtractions or whatever to the map of proposed pedestrian and bicycle links. So that is something. That was what I'd hope to work on tonight. And I don't know who chairs these things, but he seems to always run out of time. Eve. Yeah, in my opinion, we've been waiting for a year and a half to get sort of the data so that we could effectively work on and it would actually be good for us to take that map out to the stakeholder group. So to the, you know, mass bike to the Stavros Center to, I don't know, low income advocates and sort of say, does this route make sense? Do these routes make sense? And not just do it, just you guys. I would do my opinion before that, and just do it with the map. I agree that don't mess with the text, although there are two typos that need to get corrected in the text that I know of, but other than that, I would, I still, I think it'd be good to get the map, the map out. Yeah. So I don't know if my anxiety gets done.  And when it comes time to implement, you town council figure out what, how to engage the stakeholders that you're preventing. I mean, this gets back to the issue of how town council wants us to interact with stakeholders.  Here's what we've done. We're going to give it to you to be approved or to accept whatever you want to do with it. And the way it works is to, you know, this next step, when we implement it, you need to do this with stakeholders. That's, that's what I would suggest and hope that we end up doing. Mike, Chris. So. So, I mean, maybe that's a good question for Darcy, because on, you know, Darcy is a council member and she's also the chair of the TSO. Yeah. And so the TSO is meeting right now, by the way, but maybe that can be, maybe that could be something we could check in with the, just with Darcy as a first, like take it in. And I'm looking forward to checking in with, with the completed, with what we can call final. So we say, here it is, you know, we're ready to, we're ready to, ready to rock. So, one, two, oh, we're still, we're still at Guam. I see faces disappearing. And it's. So, can we, what page is the official, like it puts everything together map? I get a little bit confused because there's so many different maps. But didn't Amber, she sent a map as a separate attachment, I think. She did, but. Each map does something different. Yeah. But the one that you are looking for, Eve, in the report, if you still know where it is in report, it is. So here, here are the numbers. Oh, Guilford sharing it. Yeah. It's, it's the last thing before appendix B. So it's like that. There's the pedestrian map and the bicycle map is those two Guilford. This is the pedestrian map here. It is the bike and walking networks, bicycle and pedestrian plan. There's a final walking. Yeah. That, okay. You're getting closer. That looks like it. There's the level of service. It's page 74. Yeah. Okay. Can we get down to? Wait, where did you get those tabs? I have it set up so I can do this. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. That's the plan. And then this is, oh, I got the final bike up here twice. So I, yeah. I'm sorry, Bernie couldn't be with us tonight. Cause I would want him to, to be able to sort of poke us and look at this with us and poke us about so we could. I mean, since this was one of the main items on the agenda, is this something that we could discuss in more depth on the 17th? Because we're already at 10 to seven. So maybe we just, I mean, when I had looked at the agenda before the meeting, I know we got, you know, on the university drive discussion, but it seemed like this was one of the major items. So. Yeah, it was intent. That's what was my intention, but I was finding value in, so that for Dar, I thought for Dar, I see it over here, a lot of that stuff. Yeah. Let me just go down. Sorry. Just a quick picture on this. Can we go into the Pomeroy Lane? Cause I wonder with the town's acquisition of the golf course, if that changes anything down there. Sorry. The town doesn't currently own the golf course. It doesn't, but it will do very shortly, right? Well, it's been like very shortly for a very long time. Which do you want to? This is the bike. Yeah. I was just curious if we included Pomeroy Lane going out that way as, you know, in need of a, because it would be, you know, accessing a green space, eventually. So I'm going to suggest that we put off, marking this up until the 17th, as you say Tracy, and I'm going to ask that we all look at this and figure out where we want to put our marks. Sorry, Gilford. We're going to have to postpone that exercise until next time. But the, and what I was going to do instead in these last few minutes was to answer that question. That's an interesting question. And yes, and so that's it. And so along those lines of answering that question and not doing the marking up, one of the things that we realized when we were talking about the Mill Lane intersection, in fact, because that came hard on the heels of the proposal to, or the approval of money to improve Groff Park was that where there are changes in a whole, hey, the traffic is going to change and we really do need to look at the important nodes in the traffic network around those changes. Okay, so now we own or will come to own and turn mostly into a solar farm, if I recall, this piece of property that is at this intersection, this very intersection that is getting a lot of attention right now. So I'm sorry, Guilford, I interrupted. I just wanted to keep things going along. So you were saying Oh, no, no, it's just, this is, we don't own the golf course yet. No, but we will. I mean, that's pretty fair to complete, no? We don't own the golf course yet. And actually they're gonna have two areas of solar farm, right? Basically, just up around that picnic sign and then off to the left, the far left is gonna be solar. It's more to the right. Oh, okay. Yeah, so that green, that whole entire green spot you see where that's actually not all the golf course, that's golf course plus extra land. Oh, okay, okay. Golf course plus wetland, yeah. No extra. I wouldn't call it wetland. A lot of it's a nice hike. I mean, we actually have a sewer line which runs from East Hadley Road down that green strip all the way down to the golf course. There's actually a sewer line and a easement and actually a road that runs through there. So then there's conservation land that ties into it and other protected land. That's why it's such a big, weird shape. Yeah, I'm just hoping to get fishing there something. Okay. Yeah. And even now, you know, the sewer is so close to it? Even with the sewer so close, yeah. I trust Amos not to overflow it. Since I've been here, we've only had one release down there. Only one. It makes it look more closer. It was big in two. So can you bring up the network map there, Guilford? While we, now that we've answered that. Well, this is the, this is, let's see. Can we maybe talk about this next time? I mean, we will. Yeah, I know, but just Kim isn't here. I just wanted to, I just wanted us to get familiar with it. We don't have time to really work on it, but I think it'd be good to look at it, practice a little bit, get us, get remind, you know, remind myself what it feels like. So this is the bike and pet basemap. So they're all have different meanings. The level of stress was the one that we wanted to make some corrections to because we didn't kind of agree with some of their stress. Yeah, can we talk to you about that at some point, Guilford, because that partly informed our thinking about our sixth peer level of stress idea? Yeah, I mean, that's fine. Yeah, yeah. And there's, this is an analysis that is used as their, their decision, their version of the stress basic, that matrix that they had here, this plugged in those numbers and just the colors popped out. And you're saying there's some mistakes. I don't remember that, but maybe I fell asleep at that point. I do like that Mill Valley is red and that's probably just the size of the potholes. No, Mill Valley is much better now. I remember when there was a 5K race there around, like basically running around the potholes. And I mean, it's much, it's much better. Yeah, you get the whole 5K just going around the potholes. But I mean, this is wildflower here, this red line. Yeah. And they marked it high stress, but there's sidewalk, there's the roads wide there, it's a neighborhood, it's not a high speed area. That was one we were... Well, I think there's a neighbor or two who might disagree with a high speed area, but yes. Well, it's not... It's wide in it. Yeah, it's... No, sure. Yeah. They based it on speed, posted speed limits, not actual speed count or speed studies. Yeah, yeah. And then this is, this is the crash analysis map. Great. Yeah, that was... Can I ask you a random question about the level of stress map? Yep. So why is the very northern end of East Pleasant orange instead of red? Of East Pleasant? That's another, that's another attitude in this. Because they dropped the speed limit right there, right? Well, it drops close, it doesn't drop... It was there, yeah, it's right there, yeah. But if you ever walked on that stretch, it's not safe. No. See, that's the difference between using their criteria versus if you wanted to use like real criteria. Ouch. Like actual speeds or actual traffic studies, that type of thing versus just... This is the posted speed. Well, I mean, we have the ability to edit the map a little bit now. Yeah, but that's part of what we wanna do. Right. Well, we wanna post the maps they gave us, then we wanna do the revised maps and these are our maps. That's what we want. Got it, right. Yeah, they didn't want us to change their map, yeah. No, I understand. And I wouldn't wanna change your maps too because the process, their analysis is described and it's fair, it says, we didn't walk the street, what we did is we took the speed limit and the width and that's what we plugged in and this is what comes out of that. And this sort of is similar to the discussion about when we have to implement a piece, this is really just a starting point because that's all we had the money for. And we do have the GIS layers now, right? So it can be edited in-house and just updated. Yes, great, okay. And then, I mean, yet, like Aaron said, this is where you start. And then if you disagree with something, we go out there and we verify everything and say, well, no, this should be this or that. Yeah, that's cool. Great. Well, yeah, according to our, according to our, you know, if we're doing our six level prioritization plan matrix, then probably one of the things we'd wanna do is recategorize this according to those six categories at some point. Yeah, a different project and it takes two more colors than we've got here. So. I can use some MSGIFT season stuff to help. There you go. So, okay. I'd love to know. The one that we're looking at then is the one that's called, that's the Viking Walking Network. So the last one. That was the last one? Right. That's the one where we are putting our pencils to create the networks. Because these ones, actually I'm looking at them. I think, Eve, did they get a lot of our notes already? They did get a lot of our notes before, but then we had a couple of little things that they didn't add to it. Yeah, and I don't know if you remember, Erin, but there was one day we were like, okay, let's do this crash, like last add everything we can. But we all got too tired and we only get half the town. Isn't that road off Northeast Street a dirt track? How is that yellow? Northeast Street? Yeah, like right. I mean, I'm pointing at my screen. Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. Down, down, down, down, down. Keep going down. Oh, this? Yeah, that's a dirt track. It is. It's not a road. It's not really a road. That was some other things. Like this isn't a road. Yeah. This isn't a road. Right. Well, I mean, it's yellow probably because it's where the cops sit, but that's about it. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's, yeah, there's like six roads right here rolling through this. So it's okay to correct those because I mean, those would have, I don't know what, if that was something that did GIS, you know, get coded as a road. And so it's got their work automatically. It's just the person that was running who was doing it. That's how they picked them up. And they show Rolling Ridge going all the way from East Pleasant to North Pleasant. Right. Which doesn't. How are we going to get those? Those are important fixes. No, those are easy ones to do. Yeah. Okay. How are we going to do them though? So something that we need to sit down to do or is that? Well, when we mark all these up, we'll just mark them all up and then I'll give them to somebody and then I'll have them just work through it. Okay. So we'll do the mark up and then you'll work through it. But like, for example, if some of the colors are on things that aren't, like you must have a base roads layer, right, go for that you're using. So couldn't we just like, exclude anything that's not actually on the road? If it's all level service on the roads that are recognized as roads? Yes. I mean, we could just immediately like, exclude all those other ones. But is that the markup that we have to do? Is that what you're... No, no, you need to do the other markups. Okay. I mean, you can fix the road layer is what I'm saying. Yeah. Great. So we can fix the colors. Wildwood cemeteries marked in there too. As a road, I guess. Yes. With low stress. Yeah. It's not stressful. I mean, if you're sitting around in the ground, it's not really stressful. So did they use how, how are all those roads? Were they just like from an aerial? From the aerial? Anyway. It's some data that you met. I mean, that PVPC has. Interesting. Okay. So they don't have our latest GIS. They didn't have our up-to-date GIS at that point. I'm surprised. We're a member after all. They were all, I mean, they were told where it is and how to get it. I think they just use what they have. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. You could always share, I guess, back. Let's put it, yeah. Gilford, seriously, there's a, we have 16 MS students in the GIS program this year. And they're just in the process of figuring out what their internships are gonna be that they're required to do. So this could easily be, you know, a project that you get a master's student to help with. Okay. But we would probably want a description, a description relatively soon to get out to the students. Ah. Can I just ask for a GIS grant?  But then you have to pay them. Only GIS can know what that means, though. But. Paul would understand that. Real life, great GIS experience. I've been a GIS grant. I spent a summer editing transit routes. So just by the way, Eve, I've had some experience with interns in town hall and it's gone very well. In fact, one of them worked in town hall after he graduated for a number of years. It worked and went so well. So that thing, it's an excellent idea, but I think we need to be clear about what they're going to be doing. And I don't know, Guilford, if the process is in place to supervise, to for you to take on the additional responsibility to supervise them. I don't know how all of that works, but maybe you'll let us know. We take interns on all the time. Okay. So interns are actually easier than employees. Well, yeah. Yeah, I was suggesting that because this would be a pretty high qualified, highly qualified intern. Right. Of course. No, that would be great. I need the best come from UMass, so yeah. Well, it's the master's program in GISP as opposed to like this undergrad who's taken a course or whatever. Yeah, of course, yeah. And they're required to have a work internship to get their master's degree. Got it. Yeah. It could be a win-win situation. Exactly. So Bruce, you've been very quiet this evening. Well, I'm waiting for my cue. So can we, because we are already after seven, can we like finish up soon? I hope. Shall I move to adjourn? Well, wait, so, well, not that fast. I guess, so one thing, Erin, you have this thing here about the status of the tax charge and it seemed from our last meeting, like that we had worked on the charge and you had incorporated comments and had a new draft but that we were looking for feedback from the town manager before proceeding further, which I thought was a really wise choice instead of us continuing to spend our energies just to see what feedback we get. But we haven't received feedback yet. Is that correct? Well, and I have been in communication with Paul and he has promised and on the strength of that promise and some conversations that I've had with Darcy, I'm thinking that we're still that doing our work, what we're doing here. And so we have things to present as the wheels turn and making that consideration. I mean, two things, one is, I think we've gone really far with the charge as it is and there's not much that we can change without knowing more and I'm trying to get to that more. That we wouldn't need to know. And so I'm not hiding anything and I try not to avoid dealing with it because it is sometimes very uncomfortable. But no, I think I'm hopeful as I am every week that there'll be something to do and something to say about that. The only thing that I meant to offer earlier is that the TSO, oh, everybody saw the your note, Tracy. Right, yeah, I mean, I hope they opened up the link there. I don't think we need to talk about it much but just to see it there really as it is an expression, I'm taking it as an expression of certain ideas that are developing on the TAC, on the TSO. For the TSO about the TAC, right? Or something. Yeah, so basically really the thumbnail sketch that I would take away from it is that the TSO is telling the TAC that no, you're not gonna do parking. Well, I'm cool with that at some level. I mean, I guess the reason I sent the comment is I'm not, I mean, the TSO, it's town services and outreach. And a lot of what they're, if you look at their chart, a lot of it has to do with like day to day business of the town. Right. And I mean, I would never think that we would wanna get involved and we've had discussions about this previously about very specific details about parking. But I do think, if we look at our charge parking is in there, and I think from like a larger perspective, like there are some, I know that the TSO and the council are the keepers of the public way, but that it is still useful, I think, just from coming from our perspective to maybe add in terms of on the policy level or on like, for example, they were talking in that memo about criteria that they would use for making parking decisions. And it seemed like there were some criteria which I think are important that they hadn't considered. And I think that the authors there, they had said, well, the TAC is just a group of volunteers, right? But we're actually an appointed member body of people who have shown like a certain amount of expertise and knowledge about transportation issues. And with that background, we may have insights that would be helpful to decision makers. Yeah, so, that argument. We may want, I mean, I could make that argument individually, but I think as a TAC too, there were some things that I thought that could deserve consideration. We should respond to. Well, possibly. I mean, it could be a TAC discussion about it. I did think the language is rather dismissive, but yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the response, well, so in a way that feels like a response to what we've sent because many of the points that we made that were very clear about the authority that we expect, the interfacing with the public that we would expect to be involved in, the types of things that we're moving along, those are mentioned, those are all kind of hinted at, they're suggested or outright stated. And related to parking, that's not what they want. And so at face value, that's what it is. It's just about town-wide parking is not the TAC's responsibility. Okay, what is in between the lines I don't know, I don't know how to respond to that. But I also guess, I mean, just because we're taking, I mean, I think like the TSO meeting might it's happening now and I was thinking of even going over to public comment. I mean, I could say that we haven't discussed it if we wanted to have a response as a TAC. But I guess, I mean, my general response individually and as an TAC member not speaking for the TAC would be that, I mean, like for example, I was thinking about things that weren't on their list of criteria, you know, that I think just our insights can help. Our insights can help with the policy. Right, and that's all. Well, so yeah, so I don't know what our response should be. I want to couch what our response is with what I learned from everybody. I'm hopeful and heartened actually that the discussion that we had earlier when Darcy was still with us. Right. That will go with her into the next discussion. Yeah, if we can adjourn this meeting, I'd go over and I just, can we have that as an agenda item for the next meeting where we could talk about, you know, TSO and the parking a little bit? Then I'll have to get some sort of responses as part of the deadline. Yes, we can do it. No, we're just that we can decide if we wanted to, I mean, maybe, I mean, one, the TSO will have an update on, you know, what they discussed and how it progressed because this was just one proposal by two of the TSO members and they had on many different options that they were looking at. Yeah. So the short answer is yes. And the long answer is we'll also figure out what that is and we'll be in touch Tracy certainly. So, all right. So thank you for that. That's okay. I'm sure that Bruce is not too upset of being interrupted for that. But I'd like to, but if we adjourn, I'll go over to TSO. Okay. So Bruce, go ahead unless there's anything else not to monopolize. Now, this is not, this is not a motion that can be discussed. I move to adjourn. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you Amber. I know she's got a lot of work from this now. Thank you Amber. Hi. Thank you Amber. All right. Bye. Bye bye.