I would like to now invite Miss Jeanette Sadiq Khan to the floor, thank you very much. She is the Commissioner of New York City Department of Transportation, thank you. Well, it's great to be here to talk about a little bit about what we're doing in New York City, to bring sustainable transportation programs to the 8.2 million folks that live there. And I think we heard this morning that cities are the solution and we're looking to sort of build on the natural efficiencies of cities and our framework really began for this work in 2007 when Mayor Bloomberg announced his Plan YC initiative. It was the first time that we'd had actually a sustainable transportation initiative in the City of New York and what we did was it really started out as a planning exercise to see how the city could continue to grow and thrive over the next 25 years. And what the plan concluded was that the only way New York City could continue to grow and thrive was to reduce its environmental impacts and to improve the quality of life in the city's business districts and in its neighborhoods and that if we expanded housing, transportation, and energy capacity we would go a long way to make profound gains in that arena. Plan YC called for a completely new transportation policy and new transportation priorities rather than just focusing on improving traffic and moving cars as quickly as possible from point A to point B. It looked at what we could do to reduce traffic and what we could do to expand public transit and look for new mobility options like building a bicycling into a real viable transportation option for New Yorkers. And all of that really requires a very significant change in the way that we organize our streets. Plan YC didn't set any specific targets for modal targets for how we were going to make these kinds of transitions but we did start with congestion pricing and congestion pricing project that Mayor Bloomberg announced two years ago would have charged New Yorkers $8 to come to the central business district and that would have reduced vehicles into the central business district by some 7%. So some of you may have followed it. It was close to passage. It passed the city council. It had the support by a majority of New Yorkers but it was killed by our state legislature. I think it's important to note that the MTA which is our public transit agency has some money for now but in about two years it's going to be faced with a significant deficit. So I do think that congestion pricing in New York City is a matter of when and not a matter of if. Plan YC set a target of reducing carbon emissions by some 30% by 2030 and our sustainable transportation programs are responsible for about one fifth of that reduction. Interestingly Plan YC also found that continuing population growth in New York City paid off significant national and global benefits because moving a million more people to New York City between now and 2030 where we live energy efficient transit oriented lives is much better than having them sprawl out across America and you can sort of see some of the advantages there. New Yorkers actually have about one third of the carbon footprint of the average American. So if you take a look at the top band there you can see the avoided sprawl benefit. So as the mayor likes to say if you really want to save the planet you should just move to New York City or I suppose another dense city like Istanbul. We have a smaller environmental footprint because our mode shares are already distributed pretty effectively. Only one third of all of the trips in New York City are made by car and less than half of the households even own a car. So I think we can still do a lot to improve on that. You can see there's a dramatic number in terms of the trips that are made by automobile under two miles. And so we're really capturing that increment. What can we do to improve that gap that two mile gap. And so what we're doing in New York City we announced a strategic plan two years ago that is a detailed plan and it provides about a hundred and fifty specific goals and benchmarks. And we just released an annual update which which builds on that. And the goals I think are pretty significant. We've got a lot of quantitative targets that are in there and they really do have some profound implications for the way that we design our streets and the way we use the street between the space between buildings as Jan Gel would call it. Our safety policies in particular call for us to reduce annual traffic fatalities by 50 percent from 2007 levels. And you can see we've got some good work that we've done in that regard already. We've reduced traffic fatalities in the city by 30 percent in the last 10 years. And they're now at the lowest level than they've been since 1910. Which is when the city first started collecting data. And we're really much more in line with some of our global competitors rather than we're twice as safe as the next big American city. So one of the things that we're really working to do is to address the over representation of seniors 65 and above in our traffic fatalities. We cannot significantly reduce pedestrian fatalities in New York City if we do not focus on changing that situation. And so what we've done is we take demographic and crash information and we marry it and we've targeted 25 areas around the city for improved traffic calming and walking conditions. And it's in full swing and while it's tough to assign causality to the changes that we've made at this point we've seen a 36 percent reduction in traffic fatalities from last year to this year. And I think the issue of traffic safety is really critical when you're taking a look at sustainable transportation programs because it's very difficult to talk about getting people to walk more and bike more if they're scared about getting hit by a car. So while we don't have mode share targets we do track objective transportation trends and you can see here that most of the increase in travel demand over the last decade was absorbed by public transit. And what our challenge is is really to continue that trend. So finally in terms of hard targets this is from our strategic plan it's completely built around measurable targets and so we're showing New Yorkers what it is that we're doing and also taking advantage of new opportunities as they arise. So now I'm going to talk about some of the key projects that we've implemented since 2007. I think I really want to underscore that I think the biggest innovation that we've made at New York City DOT is the fact that we're now a fast moving transportation agency and I think that's seen as really an oxymoron in the United States fast moving and transportation agencies. So we're showing results rather quickly rather than waiting for planning studies that take decades or years to get done. So our projects are done very quickly we do them with planters, with paint, with leftover blocks from our bridge programs. At a later date we expect our capital programs to catch up but right now we're basically making these spaces usable overnight and I think it's really important because it gives New Yorkers the sense the tangible sense of a greener city and it's something that they can see touch and feel. That's not to say that there's not a lot of intensive outreach and traffic planning and data analysis but what we're doing is we're implementing the programs very quickly after we finish the outreach. We've really done as much as we can to shift our approach how we look at streets from looking at them as utilitarian corridors to move cars as quickly as possible from point A to point B to treating them as the valuable public spaces that they are and recognizing that they serve a variety of roles. And there are many city places in the city that are essentially over paved and so we're really reclaiming a lot of that over paved foundation actually it's I think of it as a gift from Robert Moses that he paved a lot of New York and so it gives us the opportunity to reclaim it for different purposes. So this is what we've done in on Broadway it was one of our key initiatives this year Broadway Boulevard where we basically took a lane of traffic and inserted a linear plaza and we put a protected bike lane in and it really transformed what had been a wasteland in New York City in Midtown Manhattan and created a whole series of linear plazas from 59th Street to 23rd Street and you can see here what we've done is we've flipped the traditional we've actually this is the piece where we've closed off and we've got the the plaza off to the right when we started this New Yorkers were quite skeptical I remember one of our newspapers a tabloid paper the New York Post was interviewing people and to see what their experience was and there was a guy that was there and he started complaining about how he's never going to use this he's not going to eat his tuna fish sandwich in the middle of traffic covered with carbon monoxide and about five minutes later he was sitting down in the plaza happily chewing away so I think that it's people are responding really well this is what we did in Madison Square on 23rd Street it was the longest expanse of asphalt in the city it was like two football fields and we transformed it into a series of new public plazas and these projects really served as trial runs the ones that we did in 2008 for a much more ambitious quarter project that Mayor Bloomberg announced last February and so what we've done is again this is the transformation of Harold Square on 23rd Street and that's that's another angle and that's Times Square again we're doing a lot of this just with paint and with planters and they're extremely popular and there's actually far less traffic on these segments right now because Broadway is no longer through street it's really a local access street so traffic is moving on 7th Avenue and 6th Avenue uptown and it's provided incredible space for people in the last two years we've transformed 52 acres of roadbed and transformed it into a new public space we're also doing more in other areas this is on 9th Avenue this is something that we did last year and this is what we did one of our first projects in Brooklyn on the waterfront you can see the before and the after there and that one we did actually in about eight hours and we really wanted to show people it you can make a difference it doesn't need to take forever and we're continuing to do work on the South Bronx and Queens and throughout the city rearranging our streets in a new way is is key to our mobility strategy and I feel really passionate about the fact that we've got to do more to make our transport our public transport system work better and that means using our streets and prioritizing our streets differently for buses New York City has the largest bus fleet in North America and it has the slowest bus speeds you can get across midtown Manhattan faster by walking than by taking the bus in fact my traffic commissioner says the only way to get across town is actually to be born there so we're doing everything we can to to address that and I think in Istanbul people understand you know that with the right package of technology and designs and planning you can make a difference and and and you can dramatically improve bus speeds and reliability and we had some early successes our select bus service routes on the big crosstown route on Fordham Road we also did it on 34th Street in Manhattan and with just very simple innovations off-board fare collection giving buses the green light and holding it for them longer riderships up travel times are down and an unheard of this never happens in New York City but 98% of riders supported the new program which is like the second coming never happens we're a very fractured group so we're also doing as much as we can to roll out next bus information we just piloted that this summer and we're going to roll that out system-wide working with the MTA's new leadership and the idea is to build a much more robust really true surface subway system and and these are the routes that we're going to be implementing we've got actually eight routes that we're going to be doing over the next 10 years that have been committed to we're rolling out a new dedicated bus rapid transit route on 1st Avenue we're going to be putting in a bike lane and a bus lane this year and we really do need to have that be a new addition to our public transport system and this is really the way that we're going to have it look in the future this is this is the next phase of what we're going to be doing actually on 34th Street we're also committed to doubling by commuting by 2017 and tripling it shortly thereafter which means building safer lanes so these are the street designs that we've got going on one of the big things is that the pedestrian it's much better for pedestrians because we shortened the crossing distances and when we put these kinds of innovations in we've seen traffic fatalities and injuries go down 30% so I think that taking a look at that and and the volumes are way way up that's on that again a different view of 9th Avenue and again this just used to be this vast expanse of concrete and now you can see it's actually in an appealing green corridor this is a narrower version that we put in on Grand Street and again we've we've seen a 30% improvement in terms of safety on that section of the city we just finished our first two way protected bike lane I would probably take a whole other slideshow to go through all of what we're doing to improve our bike network but the idea is is that we're doing we're making investments to make it better and faster each month and really make cycling a viable option for New Yorkers instead of it being this sort of alternative transportation mode you can see the results that we've we've got from 2007 to 2008 we had a 35% increase in cycling and we had a 26% increase from 2008 to 2009 and if we continue the trend we will have doubled bike commuting by in just three years alone and we've seen a significant drop in injuries as well all of the designs that I've talked about are incorporated in a new street design manual that we just released we had 11 city agencies working together for two years and now all of our designs are integrated into this new design manual and so we are institutionalizing all of the changes that we're making so it's a new operating code really for the streets of New York and so on the private sector side on the public sector side these are the designs that you need to use and so we're bringing a very different DNA to the streets of New York going forward the public seems to be responding pretty well to the changes that we're making the Broadway piece this was there's been a lot of polling obviously the Broadway is the the Broadway project is really a big showcase and this was done by a Quinnipiac poll showed a two to one support of registered voters for the program we also have a report that we haven't released yet which which shows even stronger support for what we're doing along on Broadway we're seeing positive support in in what we're doing on the bus projects and we're seeing tons of cyclists voting with their pedals and I think we've really tapped into a hunger for public space this is in Madison Square what ends up happening is we put out these orange barrels when we block off to start the construction work and about five minutes after we block them off these I don't know where these people come from but they like materialize out of nowhere it's like a Star Trek episode suddenly like all these people are coming out of the air and this actually was an art class that took to the streets about an hour after we started the program we've seen huge crowds come out enjoying the new space we did a series of summer streets project where we closed seven miles of Park Avenue for people to walk play dance cha cha very successful we did smaller weekend pedestrian walks in 15 locations and all five boroughs I'm not saying that we've made converts of the 8.2 million New Yorkers I think that you know my experience in two years at the transportation department is that out of a city of 8.2 million people it turns out there are 8.2 million traffic engineers because everybody has a very strong view of how their streets should be used and that's not surprising it's their front it's where they you know go out and enjoy and eat lunch and do do whatever so there are always those that are resistant to change but we are working as hard as we can we did 2000 meetings last year with stakeholders and every single project that we do goes through some kind of adjustment to reflect the public input but I think the real strength of the approach in New York is that it's the policy of the city of New York to make these changes and plan YC is very clear on this point Ricky asked me to take a look at what I thought the upper limit was in terms of car ownership in New York and I think that you know the fact that we've got a third of New Yorkers only a third getting around by car half of the households don't even have cars if we put in a robust bus rapid transit network at bus a robust bike share program if we continue to do we're launching a car share program in New York I think we're going to start to see some really really profound gains in that regard you can track what we're doing on the web all of the information is is out there so I encourage you to see what we're doing follow us on to see our success in the sustainable streets index and also what we're doing with our strategic plan so I look forward to the discussion and thank you for the opportunity to be here today well thank you very much Jeanette it was an excellent presentation it seems like New York City is going to be a very different city to live in than the city I lived in as a student 15 20 years ago


public response. A new poll out today shows Americans wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan, but they disapprove of the way you've handled it. Poll also found that based in part in what's transpired in the last week, a majority of Americans, and forgive me, I'm just the messenger, no longer consider you to be competent, focused, or effective in the job. I was seeing that poll. It's out there, um, from CBS this morning. Um, what would you say to those Americans who no longer believe that you could do the job? Look, I had a basic decision to make. I either withdraw America from a 20-year war that, depending on whose analysis you accept, cost us $150 million.


The Institute Media Award is the premier award recognizing excellence in Australian foreign affairs journalism. The Institute established it five years ago because we believe it's in Australia's national interest to have Australian journalists on the global beat. We knew we couldn't affect the economics of the media industry but we could highlight the very best of Australian foreign affairs journalism and reward it. What happens in the world matters very much to our country. We need Australian journalists on the international beat who understand Australian interests, who understand Australian sensibilities and who can tell international stories to Australian audiences. We put a lot of time and thought and effort into the judging process. Every year we appoint a very distinguished judging panel. We look at four criteria, topicality, influence, originality and quality. What I find very interesting about this terrific short list is first of all the geographical spread. It covers stories really from Canberra all the way to Aleppo but also the variety of the kinds of stories. I think it gives a real sense of the variety of brilliant Australian foreign affairs journalism. One of the traditions of the award is that every year we have a keynote speech by someone who talks about the role of the media in the world. I'm very excited that we're hosting Brett Stevens. Brett Stevens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times foreign affairs columnist. What's interesting about Brett is that he has been perhaps the most effective critic of Donald Trump from within the American media. The reason I think he's been so effective is that he writes on Donald Trump from the position of a principled conservative and he'll give a major lecture on the evening of the media award. How should the media cover the news in the era of fake news? I think it's going to be a very thought-provoking lecture.


Presidents, thank you for your attendance and your request. And with that, we're calling on Dr. Ramirez Bonifacio of the Fort Worth Harvest Church for our invocation, followed by the pledge, please stand. Good evening, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you, and we're so grateful for this opportunity to come and to have your will be done on our great city. God, we just pray your blessings and your wisdom on our mayor and on the men and women of our city council. God, give them wisdom as they're navigating through our challenges and through resolutions for our schools, for our first responders, for the citizens of this great city. God, just bless Fort Worth and bless this time in Christ. And we pray, amen. All right, consideration of minutes from December 13, September 20th, September 27th, and October 4th council meetings. And with that, those minutes are approved. Sorry, Ron. That's okay. Now, we are public comments right now. Our first speaker is Dave Folson. And before the speakers come, Ron, what's important that you know is this is a public comment meeting. You will hear a bell at two minutes and 30 seconds. What that means is you have 30 seconds remaining to speak. At the end of those three minutes, your mic will automatically silence. And so be aware of that. And with that, we welcome the first speaker. Hello, John T. White. I'm Dee Dee Smith, current vice president of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. I've been a paid member since our association began. We're here a few years of slanderous accusations, false claims, and deceitful rhetoric directed at the JTWNA. This is the letter from community relations to then president, R.C. Collette, stating that JCWNA was registered with the city on November 26, 2001. Next is a letter from Michelle Goode, dated October 11th, 2022, stating our neighborhood association is still registered with the city, is included in the database, and is in full compliance with its requirements. I gave this one to Dee to be the president, and that was a mistake. I gave it to her. Before this year, JTWNA has only had two presidents, R.C. Collette and me. I was unanimously voted in seven consecutive terms for a total of 14 years.  That makes me confused on how he could give me the presidency, especially without a vote from the members. Here's a group of newsletters and signage showing how Mr. Willoughby has misused and called meetings under the JTWNA name without authorization and against numerous requests to stop. When Mr. Willoughby would attend a meeting, he was very disruptive and belligerent, speaking over others, including Councilwoman Bivens during her presentation. On December 7th, this Council had to call an officer to encourage Mr. Willoughby out of the chambers which were letters sent to him regarding harassment. We've had that same issue multiple times. The last time police escorted Mr. Willoughby from our meeting, only for him to come back with his camera and had to be removed for a second time with police body cams running. It must be frustrating for you to listen to some citizen presentations and not be able to respond. It is just as frustrating for our neighborhood association to be inundated by false claims, only to remain on mute. Personally, I'm ashamed of Mr. Willoughby trying to tarnish our stellar reputation with city staff and our residents. But in the future, please consider the source. Our next speaker is James Hook. Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. My name is James Hook and I serve as a current president of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. We keep all our members engaged, informed, and up to speed on news related to our neighborhood as well as issues on association, on our association is engaged in supporting or fighting. We've designed our website to be easy to use, highly informative, and it's available to everyone, including Mr. Willoughby 24-7. Everything one would want to know about our association can be found at the JTWNA, including the difference between a free or paid membership, our bylaws, important neighborhood news, and finally, you can get to know the officers and how to contact us. Next is our association's Facebook page, which was recently recognized in a nationwide neighborhood newsletter competition for electronic content. Like the website, our Facebook page is available to everyone with access to a computer or smartphone. Our Facebook page serves as our main platform to reach area residents. It also provides a critical opportunity for public feedback and ideas on how to better address issues we're facing.  We enforce these social media group rules. One, be kind. Number two, no hate speech or bullying. Number three, no self-promotion, and that includes campaigning. And four, all posts should be neighborhood-related with the exception of the occasional lost dog posts from time to time. Mr. Willoughby continued to break all of these rules after many warnings, so his Facebook privileges had to be revoked. Neighborhood associations are the first one to be notified about zoning, okay? And that's where your counselor member comes in. If she takes over the neighborhood association, and they don't notify the neighbors about the zoning case, that's how they get talent points put in. If our neighborhood association is known for anything, it's our involvement in zoning issues. Mr. Willoughby claims that our association does not inform the neighborhood on pending zoning issues. Just another baseless claim that melts away with one visit to our website or Facebook page. Our association sees zoning issues as priority number one. Our association is working to bring more desirable development to our area with the same determination we used to fight undesirable zoning. Here's an example of what our association calls a zoning red alert. All official zoning requests are posted on our website, Facebook, and emailed to all members. Each zoning red alert gives information on the zoning request, what the developer wants to build, what the current zoning is, and a map and a site map of the effective property. Mr. Willoughby has a long history of publicly accusing our association of a lack of transparency. Clearly we have shown how our association goes above and beyond to be a model of transparency. Next speaker will tackle additional baseless claims made against JTWNA. Thanks. The next speaker is Daniel Seraldi. Good evening. Good evening, City Council. My name is Daniel Seraldi, I'm a resident of Fort Worth and a member of the John T. White Neighborhood Association, and I serve as our secretary. I would like to address two additional false claims. These were made by Mr. Willoughby concerning our neighborhood association. They have secret elections, we have a secret elections. It has secret elections. It has secret elections, they have secret elections. Having just completed an election cycle for our association, I would like to quickly highlight our election process, which is clearly stated in our published bylaws. Every two years, our neighborhood association holds elections for officers. Any paid member of the association has the opportunity to run for and serve in these elected positions. These volunteer positions include president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and directors at large. The letter you see to the left was sent to all association members on June 1st, 2022. It includes the slate of members running for officer positions, as well as an opportunity for association members to nominate any other member, including themselves, to be placed on the ballot for consideration. The letter to the right was sent to all paid members on June 15, 2022, with the finalized list of candidates being nominated for office. It includes a request for all member ballots to be returned to DD Smith no later than June 22nd. The next step in this transparent election process was to tabulate the votes. Once accomplished, the results were then publicly announced at a scheduled association meeting. Association meetings are open to all area residents, regardless of membership status. That meeting took place on June 23rd at the Calvary Baptist Church on Williams Road. As you see, this is a far cry from the secret election claims you have heard from Mr. Willoughby. Neighborhood Association John T. White, they hold secret meetings. Secret meetings is another accusation that has been repeatedly made by Mr. Willoughby via multiple venues, including these console chambers. I would like to address the facts related to our association meetings. Even through the pandemic, we utilized Zoom meetings and our association now holds in-person public meetings throughout the year. In fact, we hold more than they're required by the Community Engagement Neighborhood Association's office. These scheduled public meetings, far from secret, are well advertised in the following manner. On the association website, on our Facebook page the next day, tap emails and finally legally place signage throughout our association boundaries. All of which completely refute Mr. Willoughby's claims of a corrupt illegal and secretive neighborhood association. Thank you. The next speaker is Dave Folson. Good evening, city manager, Mayor Pro Tem and the council members. My name's Dave Folson. I reside in the John T. White area and serve as a director of the John T. White Neighborhood Association. Can we restart my clock? Was that starting it? I'm gonna need it. Can we restart it? Okay, the reasons we're forced and that's the right word to present these facts is that we're not convinced the city leadership of the hard work of our association volunteer membership is to let the public know of a precarious situation due to the constant battle with Bob Willoughby versus John T. White. Each of you sitting at the dais tonight have also been the target of unwarranted accusations based on nothing more than Bob Willoughby's personal and biased opinions, neither worthy of your time. But unfortunately a lie told often enough, Ken and does have the potential to affect public opinion of folks unaware of the facts. Our hardworking volunteer members share a common desire to combine our efforts and voices to make Fort Worth the best it can be. Regardless of age, sex, race, financial status, political affiliation, you're welcome to the John T. White Neighborhood Association with only a single, yet well-deserved exception.  I live in John T. White all my life. On the screen, you will see section 206 of our city-approved association bylaws. It defines the association's rights to terminate or deny membership status with a majority membership vote. In particular, it states, examples include but are not limited to individuals who have harmed the reputation of the association or diminished its reputation within the community. Bob Willoughby holds the distinction of being the only person since the inception of our association who paid membership found it necessary to enforce this clause against. For the record, here's how we enforced it. This is a letter sent to the entire association voting membership on May 14th, 2021. It asked the membership to vote to approve or deny future membership in the association should Mr. Willoughby ever decide to apply. Accompanying this letter with several pages of images, printed video, dated material, and audio examples of false, damaging, and slanderous accusations made by Mr. Willoughby against our association. The next letter dated May 28, shared those results with our voting membership. For clarity, 100% of membership voted unanimously to deny future membership in our association to Bob Willoughby for the countless examples of harm he has sought to inflict on our association. This last letter I personally hand delivered to Bob Willoughby to inform him of both our vote and our process. This is our official and final association position on the Bob Willoughby situation. Tonight, we have proved every claim he has ever made against John T. White, both baseless as well as untrue. We now intend to move forward with our real work, regardless of his continued threats to take his association back. You'll no doubt continue to bark, Bob, and you weren't in here to face us, but my friend tonight, we have publicly pulled the teeth out of your bite. Thank you, Mr. Cook, council members, for your time and attention. The next speaker is Billy Jones. My name is Billy Jones. From Dallas, Texas, I'm a journalist, videographer, and Mr. Austin Shotted on YouTube. I'm here today on behalf of domestic violence, victim of gun violence, and rape victims. Well, and the beautiful city of Fort Worth, we may have a problem. Maddie Parker, the mayor of Fort Worth, may not know that she has been in close contact in arms reach of a proud rapist by the name of Charleston White, the community advocate, the CEO and founder of Hypes About Hype Kids in Fort Worth, Texas. He's been seen on many of photos of LPD for years and even claims he's a police officer at times at his benefits, and that he has police buddies that seems to come quicker to his aid than they do to victims that really need help. Either he speaks at their conventions or they're at his high hour or whatever, talking to the public. The Fort Worth officials, through the Fort Worth officials know that they're working with and alongside of an openly proud rapist. Well, if you didn't know, you do now. You're no longer ignorant to the facts. You can go check on YouTube at Mr. Austin Shotted and many other sites where millions help solve. Because New Years Do Pre, versus Texas in 1980 was wrongly convicted of rape, while many other innocent men has been wrongly and indicted and convicted of rape that was innocent via through DNA. They're not free to date, but they was also screaming loud, as you can hear Charleston White repeatedly screaming, bragging that he rapes white women and their coworkers alongside with his buddies, a gang rape in a train is how they describe it. If it was not for a young lady, a mother of three, while suffering, trying to be in a relationship to live again after 10 years of being alone, not trusting a man, after she was brutally raped and assaulted, had not reached out to me, I would have been ignorant like you guys of this vital information of a man that works with and among kids and elderly. I have nothing against Charleston White, but I do have a problem that Charleston White works around kids and that he openly brags and very proud of raping women. I take a man and men to rape and very serious, loud and clear. It's, it's, it's, yeah. Yeah. So, so she's, and so should you guys. Someone to admit such violent acts, it has to be heard. I do not have a problem with the mayor forward. She may have not known such material. Is this or, or it's probably his apartment. None of you guys. Hopefully you guys can help him. It's just not a good look for your city, a forward of Texas. Millions of people have saw the documentary of Hollis and I've contacted CPS. I contacted Cyber Mullins.  You know what I mean?   Now I'm coming to you guys, respect, and I mean, I know y'all probably talking about something or whatever, but it needs to be heard. The next speaker is Jim DeLong. Good evening, I'm Jim DeLong, proud citizen of Fort Worth, Texas. And my subject matter tonight is called de-escalation. There's a short video clip from a TV station in California that I want to share with you. Two Los Angeles police officers pulling over a man on probation, but under the cloak of cheeriness. So you see that a police officer pulled over a gentleman driving a car. She was friendly to him. She knew him, she knew that he was on probation. And as far as de-escalation procedures, she probably followed them very closely. She was friendly and just was not authoritative or accusative, but she knew that he was on parole. And so from that standpoint, she used very good de-escalation procedures, play the tape. So you see that the man got out of the car, shot her, shot the other fellow policeman. When you have a weapon to draw it, you have to put your hand down, pull it out and fire it. You don't have time to do that when someone comes out with a gun blazing. There's just not enough time to do that. And so I'm showing you the other side of de-escalation. Every police officer, every time they come in contact with a person, they've got to be ready for that. You can't, they can't, if they, she trusted that man. Knowing that he was a felon, knowing that he was on probation, he had nine more months, she used good de-escalation procedures and she got shot. If it wasn't for her bulletproof vest, she would have been killed. So when you hear people say it's easy, well, it's easy to be a couch quarterback. And after the fact, look at things and say, that cop should not have done that. Had she known what would have happened, she would have stepped back, pulled her gun, and asked him kindly to get out of the car. That would have stopped him from shooting. And so just be aware, there's another side of the story. And this story could have ended tragically for her and her family. So just please, whenever you see things, remember there's another side, thank you. The next speaker is George Charles. My name is George Vernon Charles, my residence is in Fort Worth. I don't know whether y'all have got a printout on why I'm here, so it pretty well sums up why I'm here. I wanna know if the state of the city address given by the mayor and Dickies building was pursuant to her duty under article two of the organic law of Fort Worth. Now I've tried to find a definition, I have no legal training. So I've tried to, despite that handicap, I've tried to find a legal definition of ceremonial occasion. There is none in the index to the text administrative code. There is none in the index to Vernon statutes. There is none in blacks 11th. There is none in texture third, including the words and phrases index, effective September 26th, 2022. And there's nothing in the Westlaw listing of what used to be in the books and still is, but it hadn't been updated as far as that in the actual service words and phrases, which is about a 40 volume run of books. I wanna know, I wanna know this, was it pursuant? Was it a duty for her to do this? Because the ceremony occasion clearly it is. Now I'm gonna be talking until the next year on this given that we get six minutes, six minutes a month at most. But I don't wanna make any false accusations. And this is a crossroads or a fork in the road as to what I'm gonna say next. You didn't have any trouble getting a legal opinion on whether a certain meeting was in violation of Texas Open Meetings Act. And so I would like to have the word right now. What does the city of Fort Worth define as a ceremonial occasion? Thank you. Next speaker is Lana Stevens. I'm Lana Stevens. I live in district seven with Councilman Firestone's area. And I came up here just to reiterate some concerns we have in our area. We have a lot of roads that do not have sidewalks. And we have a lot of roads that do not have lights. And we have a lot of teenage drivers. We have a lot of fatalities that have happened. And this is seem to be an ongoing occurrence. Saturday night, there was an accident on an area where I've been trying to get two street lights installed. A teenager, a freshman was hit. He is still in the hospital, but if we would have had lighting on our road, sidewalks and even mowed sides of the road, these things could have been prevented. I requested January 10th of 2021 just for two street lights. This particular area of Old Decatur Road does not have any street lights as far as another street, Bailey Boswell. It's very dark. We're working on it, but it doesn't seem like it can come fast enough. I know that they've moved our repairs to our street up, but it doesn't seem like it can be fast enough. I started a petition, a change.org petition last year and I've already had close to 3,000 signatures supporting that the growth that we've had like 2020, the census said our part of Fort Worth has grown 79%, which is the fastest, quickest part or growing part of Fort Worth, yet our streets and our infrastructure is neglected. I know we are trying and trying and trying, but when we have kids getting hurt, all they wanna do is like, there was three kids, they were probably going to 7-Eleven. They shouldn't get hit. We should have safe measures for them. If I've sent pictures of the un-mowed sides of the roads to TPW, I've sent it to the Bardich people and they said that that's not their department. I just need to, oh, I didn't even show any of the pictures. Well, there's a lot of pictures. Hopefully y'all can take a look at them that I sent in yesterday, but if we could just get the grass mowed, some street lights in and improve our area, it would be much safer for our kids. Lauren, please, Lauren raise your hand, please. Lana, please get with that lady there and we can take care of the street light. Operational things are very easy. Next speaker. The next speaker is Adrian Smith. Adrian Smith, District Three. The Fort Worth Business Press had an article that I just read dated back September 23rd, 2022 of this year. Mr. Richard Connor, he wrote the article and it dealt with the current issue that we had found ourselves here within the last two weeks concerning our city manager. Now, I'm not here to bash the city manager because of a relationship.  We all had that right. But I think the apology that you gave to this, the city should have been more to the, I mean to the, I think the apology was to the council and not to the city as a whole. So the residents, the four of us all required that apology. But I digress from that. I think that what comes in the question are the business dealings down in Sundance Square.  Again, this is not, I told you Mr. Cook. One has to question the previous year's business dealings and what has been undermined it or what has not been considered because of a particular family that holds quote unquote sway over the city, the Bass family. So I would just say, I hope people are paying attention to this because there should be no one getting more favorable treatment over others, you know, when it comes to the city of Fort Worth. The city of Fort Worth is comprised of people, not just business interests. So the most recent tax bait debacle we found ourselves where there was a discussion to lower the rate and I feel like you all made a decision behind closed doors to stick with whatever tax rate there was. But one council member in particular used this space, I feel as political posturing to make it as if he was concerned about low, to lower the tax rate even further and that was Mr. Crane. He's not here, but again, I think that was just political posturing. I think if he had that same energy behind closed doors and then brought it out to the open space, I feel like it would have been more believable. So to the city, to the constituents of district three, Mr. Crane is for business interests and business interests only. Regarding the censorship, I could deal with the censorship, the changes in the rules regarding our speaking here. I can deal with it. Kim Neal's departure, it's really, I don't know how they made the news when it's really nothing considering the report we got from the independent study regarding Fort Worth PD. Thank you. Next speaker is Will Dryden. Will Dryden. I live at 7650 Meadowbrook Drive in East Fort Worth and I want to say hi to Mayor Pro Tem Gene DeBivis, city manager Goop, attorney Guzman, honorable council members. Appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. And it's primarily to speak regarding the situation with Mr. Goop and there's some certain things I don't quite understand, but hopefully we can get some direction on that. But I'm a little bit confused about the statement that came out regarding the findings having to do with Mr. Goop. And it's stated from the council with public perception matters and we must go the extra mile to reassure residents and taxpayers removing even the appearance of a gray area, the statement read. The statement also asserted Goop's actions were not a violation of the city's ethics code and so the council came to that count of conclusion after considering the evidence and consulting the city attorney, Mayor Goosman. And then this is what I really don't understand. The city's ethics code bars city employees and their partners from accepting any benefit, including a promise of future employment of sufficient economic value for anyone who has a financial interest impacted by the decisions of that city employee. But hopefully what I say here tonight in my opinion has possible remedies for future bad judgment regarding poor unethical conduct and all leadership positions with our great city. First issue has to do with the recent council action regarding our city manager, David Goop, been directed to recuse himself from any dealings with what's known as Sundance Square. This was basically a slap on the wrist with little consequences in my opinion and probably was felt to be the same with others. I'm not sure what the percentages of total downtown businesses represented by Sundance Square but it could be as much as 15 to 20% of total downtown business. But the council's actions to force Mr. Coak to recuse himself from that responsibility therefore is giving up a considerable amount of responsibility that was hired to manage. Now someone else will have to do that. So far, all that has happened due to Mr. Coak's bad judgment is being shamed to some extent and the taxpayers are overpaying him as a result of his actions in my opinion. And all fairness to the city and his taxpayers, Mr. Coak's salary should be reduced by a commensurate amount that is representative of his new reduced responsibility. Your time has expired, sir. Our final speaker this evening is Bob Willoughby. It appears we have lost quorum. I'll ask the city attorney to address that. I believe we've lost quorum. We have five, one, two, three. We only have five people. We can't continue the meeting without six. Well, this is what Beck just walked out of here and they did this on purpose so they couldn't play my video. This is crooked. My readings adjourned, we lost the quorum.


All right. The robots have informed me that this meeting is being recorded. Let me go ahead. The way I want to. Shall we wait one or two minutes more minutes? Well, now that you let's start them because if you have already started recording. Sure. Let's just dig in and, you know, if anyone joins no problem, we can, we can pick up and catch them up. Okay. I will. I will start sharing my screen. Okay. In one second. Joe, I did need to ask for a revision to the agenda. I've got a drop off at 30 minutes into the meeting. I put an item as the very last item on the agenda. If we could sneak it in before I exit, I would much appreciate it, but it doesn't have to be immediate. Just. If we can sneak it in before we've completed 30 minutes. No problem. Yeah. Actually, usually the first thing on our agenda is to. Review the agenda. So yeah, that sounds good. Let's see what we got here. Yeah. Okay. So. Does everybody, does everybody see my screen? Yes. Okay. Great. So nobody else other than seven is joined. Right. So we all know each other. No, I think so. Yeah. Okay. For, for anybody watching online. I'm Max. Okay. So. So I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. I'm going to talk about the agenda from Cloud. I'm the front-end developer who's participating of these. And this. And who is developing the changes? So the agenda for today is to. Well, talk. I would like to talk a little bit of how Slack is working for us. and it's not to learn any feedback, basically. After that, I will give a brief update of what we've been working out these past 15 days. Hey Felix, can we move number six up to number four? Real quick, do you mind if I make that switch? No, yeah, yeah. No, I'm moving it myself. Oh, awesome. Okay, after it, we will be talking about adopting or retiring the UI themes plugin. After that, a quick development update. And then we will talk about, Joe will give us another update on the header bar, on the header bar designs. We did iterate based on the community feedback. So yeah, you will see. So, first of all, if it's okay for everybody, I will start. So, first of all, we've been using Slack for almost two months here now, or for month and a half. So, and I think it was a great venue for having those long discussions and those quick, the chat format worked really well, especially when talking about some plugins. But some people did say they feel it's not an agent ideal tool, it does have disadvantages. One of them is that, for example, we will need to archive the technical discussions in order for them to not be lost. So, I would like to maybe talk about five minutes about this to see how everybody feels of Slack. So, I will not say my impressions right now after everybody talks. So, does anybody want to say something on this regard? Yes, for instance, I can say a little bit about my experience. I think it's a little bit complicated. I have so many channels, but actually, I'm just using one channel. So, I'm not sure if it's configurable. Typically, we use IRC or we use Gitter, but now I have yet another tool which I'm just using for user experience group. So, I think it would make sense we either use all groups in Slack or we move to something else. So, I don't like to have one tool for this group, one for this and one for this. I think it would make sense if we have one common tool which we are using in Jenkins. So, you said, if I understand correctly, you said that other six in the Jenkins project already use Gitter or already use other platforms? Yeah, typically, I think I have about 20 channels in Gitter and one in IRC and now I have yet another in Slack. So, I'm not really sure why I should just use Slack for user experience group and everything else is in Gitter. So, it's just another open window and I don't see that there are many different features in Slack which are not in Gitter. So, I'm again, so it's just, I don't know, see any benefit in using a different tool here. Makes sense to me. Out of curiosity, does Gitter, is it paid and does it sort of, I haven't used it much before, so does it keep a long-term archive of the conversation or is that something you have to unlock or? I think the archive is somewhere in Github but actually I never cared about it. Gitter's free. It's kind of like a just behind version of Slack. So, it's got some great benefits for open source that you can just sign in with GitHub and it's all public, but default you don't need an account to see it. But it's quite far behind in usability and mobile is the biggest complaint that it has and also frequent disconnection. There's been more than one thread on the Jenkins developer mailing list about it. The last one was started around New Year's, kind of got to, I really saying it's on his list of things to look at but it's not very high up that everyone knows that Gitter's not great but it's an okay solution and satisfies most people. Yeah, there's definitely not gonna be a perfect fit, right? I get wanting to have it all in one place for sure. Like that makes Gitter very appealing to me even though I've never used it before. But the, like if it is, if we're not able to pop in on the phone and just see what the conversation is, it does seem like a disadvantage. I don't have super strong opinions on this. Does anyone else wanna try them? For me, I already have eight other Slack's open so one more doesn't make any difference to me. I've also got five Gitter ones open so Gitter doesn't really make much difference to me either. Gotcha. Yeah, I echo Tim's observations that the user experience in Gitter is far behind the user experience in Slack but the community is far ahead in Gitter compared to Slack, right? We've got, as Uli noted, one Slack channel for UX and we've got many, many Gitter feeds, many Gitter channels for obscure little things, for large things and so I'm hesitant to say to go with Slack considering what are, how much critical mass we have around Gitter right now. So how would this seem as a next step for everyone? If I just, every still has been capturing all our notes there and the pros and cons of both and then I'll remember what we talked about here too. So maybe I can consolidate these pros and cons into our current solution, which is our Slack channel and everyone who's been part of this thus far can do a quick vote on it in Slack and then we can remove it or not based on that vote. Does that sound like an okay solution to everyone? That's okay. Yeah, cool. Perfect, I agree. Awesome. Thank you, Joe. So after this point, Mark, can I introduce your proposal? Oh, yes, sure. So there is a plug, well, the catalyst event that caused me to put this agenda item on is I received a notice from GitHub saying that the UI themes plugin has a known security vulnerability. And the vulnerability is it's depending on Jackson 2.4. I looked at the history of this particular plugin. It doesn't seem to have been through many releases. It's been inactive for many years. My thought was retire it. So I asked the maintainer, Tom Fennelly, their last committer to it. Tom Fennelly said, yeah, I'm not maintaining it. It could be retired, but there might be concepts in it which would be of interest to the UX special interest group. I have, I apparently was just granted or have been granted merge permission. So I merge the security fix onto this thing. So I will no longer get email from GitHub. Therefore, my actual personal interest in this plugin has ceased to exist. But as a UX SIG, if you're interested in it, you might want to be aware of it. The concept it had was per user theming. And if you're interested in it, the plugin's there and it sits in the community. The question was, should we adopt it or should we archive it, retire it? Do we have any idea how much use it currently has? I looked and I could not find any evidence of a release of the thing. So, Tim. I'm looking at the moment. So I would be astonished if there were significant use of it. There is 32 installations. Right. Therefore, not a relevant number, right? In a, in a community with one that's mostly used in the community. Right. Good. So just so you're aware as a special interest group. So whereas it were aware as a special interest group, this plugin does exist. It can be archived. It cannot be archived. I'm no longer concerned about it because the problem it was causing my interest in it has been resolved. Okay. Okay. So, yeah. I'm new to the project, but I would say that anything that causes increases the complexity on, yeah, it's not for the best if it's not being used. I would say that maybe it's worth considering by, well, the most active contributors to the Junkie spread and maintainers to maybe to do something about it. I think it's worth researching. I will do research how it affects, to see if it affects the seed work. So, and FedEx, I would lobby that keep that research intentionally limited. All I think you're looking for is 10 minutes of, is there something wildly interesting in this conceptually because usage in the community is a good indicator and simple themes as noted by Tim is much more heavily used than this plugin ever was. Yeah. Indeed. Great. So I'm going to leave it as open for now, not archived because I'm satisfied. And if any additional investigation happens, great. I tried to build it. It fails one of its tests. I did not attempt to figure out why those tests were failing. I didn't have the time for that. Okay. Thank you very much for raising this topic, Mark. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, that covers the entire topic. Thanks for your time. Thanks very much. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Does anybody want to say something about this? You mean about this plugin? Yeah. I mean, before we move on. No, I think it's okay to look into it afterwards, but not now. Okay. Perfect. Next point on the agenda, department updates. So these last 15 days, we did not have the chance to do much work on the page header and breadcrumbs. We did some, but nothing that's worth showcasing here. We did talk about how to integrate it. How to, if you recall from last meeting, I would like raised some points about how we could merge some parts, have enabled some parts of the changes, but stuff like the header colors and the logo section should be behind the feature toggle. We've been looking into how to do this. We will probably use a Java property at first, and then we will research a better way to do it from the user interaction, but first we will just do a Java property at the startup time. And what we've been working on these past weeks was work on replacing the JS builder from the tool chain based on JS builder by one based on webpack. I've got to say thank you everybody who took the time to review it, paid attention and to comment. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. I think it's an important change because basically all the new UI work can expand on this one. Even the header. Once it's merged, I can apply, there are some optimizations I can do to the header straight away. So other than that, not much and not many updates basically. Okay. Does anybody want to mention something about this? Okay. Thank you. Then to the last point of the day, Joe, if you can give us some design updates. Yeah, sure thing. Felix, would you mind opening up that link? Yeah, sure. I think there might be someone typing there. Could you maybe go on mute for your typing? All right. Sorry, it's just my preference. I think Adrienne, could you maybe mute for the typing? Sorry. All right, cool. Let's dig into the last bit of our meeting for today. And as you mentioned, Felix, what we have on the docket is some header bar updates. This will probably be the last time we look at that, but we have some updates there from the last one. Sorry, bear with me. I'm just clicking around here. Then we have the opportunity to look at some interactive states and what those are about and how those will help us long-term and the beginning of our UI color palette for Jenkins. So yeah, you're on the first slide there. All right. So basic details here that you've seen before, you can go to the very next one, actually. And these are the changes since the previous meeting. So following feedback that we had going on there in Slack, the placement and visual treatment of the admin warning indicator there has been reconsidered. It also has a text label. The feedback was that previously it looked a lot like, a lot like a field input, just like the search box did. It wasn't something that I personally found super concerning, but you know, if it was going to create a user. Joe, I can't really see on your small slide. Oh, could you maybe go full screen Felix? Yeah, probably because I think is I'm sharing my Chrome screen. Can you just hit present in the top right? Present. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. And so yeah, just a pretty small modification there, but that came from some feedback in Slack. So thank you. And then the second thing is we paired back the aesthetic changes to the breadcrumb bar. They were a bit more ambitious before, but something we realized thanks to your feedback was they were sort of making a certain feature less discoverable, which was that ability to use the dividers there to hop to certain pages. So now it should be a little bit more familiar. There's some type adjustments, but it's not quite as changed. And we can go to the next one, Felix. And the last little note there is that of course, whenever we make a change like that, the design is reconsidered for all our viewports. So that's an updated view of what the tablet size and the mobile size would be similar to. And next slide, Felix. All right, so this is just, I wanted to take just a moment to mention sort of the special power of a special interest group. This is the first one of these groups that I've been involved with for Jenkins. And I think this is a really interesting tiny case study of what can be achieved. So obviously we're just getting started and we're just a few meetings in, but even though we're just ramping up in the big picture, this is having a pretty big impact on how this will be designed and how we're creating these changes thanks to your perspectives and your feedback. So this header bar might seem pretty inconsequential, it might depending on where you're coming from, but designing this has actually solved a lot of questions, solved a lot of problems that will inform future design decisions. So this is where the design of it was two SIG meetings ago. And there was some internal deliberation here on my side about improving the design, but for the most part, thanks to your feedback, if you wanna go to the next slide, Felix, this is where it has landed. And for some reasons that are obvious and for some that are less obvious, it's a much stronger design. So thank you all once again for your feedback. I think this is just a cool little example of what the SIG can do. So I really, really appreciate it. All right, next slide. So the next thing we'll look at today is component interactive states. So we're using our first fully designed component, which is that header bar to establish standard interactive states to inform the design of additional components, right? So implementing these states consistently throughout Jenkins should help make the user experience more friendly without doing deep technical changes right away and it will improve visual accessibility. Now, there are currently a lot of different states for a lot of different elements, but some elements in the UI don't carry all of these states. So there's room for improvement there. And as I mentioned, this answers a lot of questions for the design of future components and will help speed things up in that regard. So if you wanna go to the next one, if anyone wants to look at this after the call you're welcome to, of course, these are all the interactive states for that header bar component. So like, I don't have to explain this to you all, but basically how does the design change aesthetically based on how the user is interacting with it, what point in their interaction and that behavior? So this hopefully just gives a little bit of context for two things, which the first one is how we're thinking about these components sort of holistically, how they feed into this long-term vision for a Jenkins design system. And then secondly, how they all connect and inform one another. And this will solve a lot of the problems that we'll face for designing future components and hopefully speed some of that up too. We can hop back, but I wanna be mindful of the time. So let's go to the next slide and we can come back if we need to. The last thing we'll look at for today is the UI color palette. So a lot like those interactive states, right? This is something that needs to be defined in order to have a successful design system long-term. And we gotta start somewhere. This is something that will evolve over time for sure, but designing that first component allows us to establish a lot of this now, which is pretty cool. So a consistent color palette throughout Jenkins will help create more consistent visual affordances, of course, and this will improve feature discoverability. And of course, another big gain here is improvements to visual accessibility. So all these color, the common color combinations that we'll look at on the next slide have been checked for visual accessibility in line with, I always call it WCAG guidelines, but I guess WCAG guidelines. And let's look at the next one real quick. So that's a little bit more in-depth. Those are, that's the palette as it stands today with a little bit of the logic behind all of these color combinations, how they should be used. And as I mentioned, this will evolve. This is not set in stone and how this filters out to people who are creating plugins and contributing UI is something that we will still solve, hopefully in the long-term here with a UI toolkit. But for the moment, just trying to get this established to inform these designs. So that's something I wanted to share. I think that's it for this week that I had to share. Does anyone want to hop back to any of this stuff and talk about it or questions or feedback is more than welcome. It's terrifying for someone who's never done UI design work before. Thank you very much, Joe, for showing it. That scares the daylights out of me to see, oh my sakes, there are so many sophisticated things happening here. Thank you. I'm happy to have somebody who actually knows how to think about these things. The goal of the SIG meeting is to have everyone leave scared, Mark. So I'm glad that it's working. No, I'm kidding. That's thanks for the feedback. There's obviously a lot here just as there's a lot more that goes into implementing these changes. But yeah, we're definitely trying to think about these things holistically. And that means sometimes spending a little more time to solve for this stuff before we can just crank out more designs. But these pieces help us get to that point. These are big steps, even though they're small screens. Do you have any other thoughts or feedback for today's call on this stuff? No, and I am utterly unqualified. I barely resolve colors. So thank you for being sensitive to the mentions there of things that shouldn't be combined with each other. It reminds me that my color resolution isn't that great. No problem, all part of the job. Yeah, cool. Well, as always with anything we've talked about in today's meeting. And yeah, I think that was the last slide. The rest is just about providing feedback and that's in every deck. Yeah, I will close it then. Yeah, for anything we've talked about, we can pick up the conversation in Slack. I will be sure to post that the word is escaping me. The vote, the poll in Slack about getter versus Slack and that sort of thing.  Okay, then before we move on, next week meeting should be just to confirm. Next week meeting will be on February the 5th, which is two weeks from now, same Wednesday, same time, okay? Good stuff. Okay, perfect. So this is it. We will be uploading the, Jeremy will be uploading the video to the YouTube channel as always. Thank you everybody for attending and for your contributions. See you in the Slack poll, basically. So yeah, thanks everyone. Thank you, Felix. Thanks everyone. Yo, bye. Cheers.


This study provides a comprehensive dataset of PFAS contaminants in Kentucky's drinking water system. It uses ArcGIS online to create five maps that show potential hotspots of contamination and can help decision makers identify vulnerable drinking water systems. Additionally, the authors have made the dataset available on FigShare, which adheres to the fair principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. This makes the dataset easily accessible and reusable for future research. This article was authored by Swater Oja, Pete Travis Thompson, Christian D. Powell, and others.


In nearly a century highway agencies and paving contractors have been constructing roads of hot mix asphalt and with good reason asphalt pavements are smooth riding and long lasting. Today there's a new set of tools and techniques called the super pave system that allows us to design even more durable asphalt pavements. Super pave, which stands for superior performing asphalt pavements, is the mix design system for the next century. The super pave system has two key components, performance based asphalt binder specification and volumetric mix design and analysis. It also uses an improved method of laboratory compaction that reflects field conditions. Pavements take quite a beating. Not only are they subject to ever increasing traffic loads and volumes but they also must serve in a wide range of conditions. The super pave system incorporates a new binder specification that classifies asphalt binders into performance grades based on a range of climates and pavement temperatures. The specification sets certain physical properties that all binders must meet but the temperature at which those properties must be attained is determined by the specific climatic conditions at the paving location. Super pave binders are classified by PG for performance graded ratings. The rating contains two numbers indicating high and low pavement temperatures. For example, a PG 64 minus 22 binder used in a super pave mix is expected to be resistant to cracks and ruts at pavement temperatures as high as 64 degrees Celsius and as low as minus 22 degrees Celsius. To select a super pave binder, you first determine the average seven day maximum pavement temperature and the minimum pavement design temperature for a particular job site. To make this task easier, a weather database with more than 6,000 weather stations is included in the super pave system. For pavements in extreme climatic conditions, some asphalt cements may have to be modified but modified or not, a PG binder will have the required properties to perform as expected during the pavement's life. This is what is meant by a performance based specification. Asphalt refiners and suppliers are converting to PG rated binders. The conversions are being done on a regional basis in coordination with highway agencies shift to the super pave binder specification. Hot mix asphalt producers should be able to buy PG binder from the same supplier they currently use. Testing binders for conformance with the super pave specification requires several new pieces of laboratory equipment. But the PG rated binder requires no changes to standard methods of handling, storing and transporting binders. Super pave mixes are based on volumetric properties. The characteristics of the aggregate and the volumetric properties of the mix, such as air voids and voids in the mineral aggregate, form the basis for selecting aggregate gradation and asphalt binder content. The super pave system bases aggregate selection on consensus properties that apply equally at all locations. They include coarse aggregate angularity, fine aggregate angularity, flat and elongated particles and clay content. In addition, each highway agency determines source properties in light of local or source conditions. These properties include toughness, soundness and deleterious materials. These tests for measuring aggregate properties are not new. Many highway agencies are already using the tests in conventional mix design. Switching to the super pave system will therefore require little or no additional training in aggregate selection. To improve the properties of the asphalt mix and the performance of the pavement, the super pave system provides a means for determining the optimum aggregate structure or gradation. The aggregate gradation process is a refinement of an approach already in use by many highway agencies. Gradations are defined using the Federal Highway Administration's 0.45 power chart. The chart can be used to show total particle size distribution for an aggregate blend. The chart is also useful for understanding how aggregate particles fit together. The maximum density line is plotted from the origin through the maximum aggregate size. The super pave system adds two features to the 0.45 power chart. Namely control points and a restricted zone. The control points serve as boundaries for the outer ranges of key sieves. Three sets of control points are plotted. One for the nominal maximum sieve, one for an intermediate sieve, and one for the smallest sieve. Aggregate gradations must stay within the control points. The so-called restricted zone is actually a warning zone, providing a guideline for mix designers. Gradations falling in the restricted zone may have too much rounded natural sand. Mixes constructed using such gradations often experience compaction problems during construction and can be prone to rutting. For best results, mixed designers should choose a gradation that falls between the control points and avoids the restricted zone. The next step in designing a super pave mix is determining the optimum aggregate structure. The aggregate sources are evaluated to develop three or more trial blends that meet the gradation requirements. The properties for the blends are then calculated. The appropriate PG asphalt binder is then mixed with the aggregate, and the mix is aged in an oven to simulate the aging that occurs during the construction process. The trial blends are evaluated by compacting the specimens and determining their volumetric properties. The super pave system uses a new method of laboratory compaction, the super pave gyratory compactor. The super pave gyratory compactor is quiet and easy to use. It more accurately reflects field compaction and research has shown test results to be significantly more reproducible. The asphalt mixture is loaded into a mold 150 millimeters in diameter. A RAM loading system maintains a constant pressure on the specimen. The mold is tilted at a slight angle and rotates while the load is being applied. The number of rotations or gyrations required for each specimen is dependent on the highest air temperature and the amount of traffic expected at the paving location. During the compaction process, the height of the specimen is continually monitored, allowing the bulk specific gravity of the specimen to be continuously calculated. Upon completion of compaction, the specimen is removed from the mold. The volumetric properties of the mixture are calculated and the data are analyzed to determine which aggregate blend provides the optimum aggregate structure. Volumetric analysis is an integral part of most mixed design procedures and is at the core of the super pave system. Extensive studies have shown that volumetric properties are directly related to performance. Volumetric properties include voids in the mineral aggregate or VMA, voids filled with asphalt or VFA, and air voids. Controlling the volumetric properties in the field will ensure that the pavement will perform as expected. The optimum asphalt binder content is then determined for the selected aggregate structure. Samples that have been prepared using different asphalt binder contents are compacted using the gyratory compactor and volumetric properties are determined. The asphalt binder content that results in 4% air voids is then selected. The super pave gyratory compactor can also be used for quality assurance at the construction site by determining whether the plant produced mix meets the super pave volumetric requirements. As we've seen, the super pave volumetric mix design process involves a new asphalt binder grading system, consensus based aggregate properties, and a new method of compaction. The mix design process consists of three main steps. Select the aggregates, binders, and possibly modifiers to be used in the mix. Select the design aggregate structure. Select the design asphalt binder content. The nationwide use of the super pave binder specification is expected by 1997. The asphalt technical working group, which provides guidance and direction to the nationwide super pave implementation program, has set a target date of 2000 for adoption of the super pave mix design procedures. The actual schedule of implementation is however, up to each state highway agency. Many highway agencies are already designing and specifying super pave pavements. The Federal Highway Administration is coordinating the transition to super pave as part of its overall program to implement the results of the strategic highway research program. It includes training and technical assistance in super pave binder selection and volumetric mix design procedures. Training and technical assistance are also available from a number of other organizations, including the Regional Asphalt User Producer Groups, the Regional Super Pave Centers, State and Local Highway Agencies, National Center for Asphalt Technology, Industry Associations, including the National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Asphalt Institute, and universities. Super pave is the next generation of hot mix asphalt pavement technology. It provides a new set of tools for designing smooth riding, longer lasting asphalt pavements. This advanced technology is ready to be put to use today. Super pave, the mix design system for the next century.