Good evening, everyone. It was Brendan Hogan chair of public works commission calling this March meeting to order at 633 Welcome all first item on the agenda is the agenda itself Welcome a motion if anyone has one so We have a motion from Commissioner Barr. Thank you Second from Vice-chair on the obonco Is there any discussion around the motion? All right to vote them all in favor if you say aye I myself any post In his past Onward to public forum Lighter crowd than last time This baby check on the phones to see if there's anyone interested in speaking it's public forum online Chair Hogan, I do not see anybody from the public online at this time. All right I'm not seeing any in the room either We'll close public forum Moving forward to number four on the agenda the consent agenda is draft minutes from February's meeting and paperwork's regarding complete streets for paving projects there was some Suggested edits to the minutes from last month that were circulated for the commission Going to make a motion to accept an agenda with the edits You may have got that motion commissioner bar. Thank you We have a second from commissioner fox. Thank you Any discussion around that I think we just confirmed that those are edits proposed by commissioner overby commissioner dam yanny and by staff Thank you for that Any other Can I just ask a question about the the complete streets the the ones um are listed For like clark street and uh, there's one other one too that are maybe Will be done As if there's availability. Can you explain what that would be? I know I actually had somebody at the npa meeting Come to me and say what can I do about getting clark street fix and i'm like very happy to be able to send them this But I wanted to know what that really meant might mean for them and paving in clark street Sure We bid uh, this year's work with a couple add alternates, uh, just Depending on how the bids came in, uh Last couple of years have been very difficult bid environment. We were exceptionally pleased this year to get three bidders Last couple of years. We've had one bidder each year It was a much more competitive environment this year and as a result It looks like we're going to be able to add I believe riverside in but i'm not sure about clark street Does anybody on staff know about clark street? You want to come up and just make sure you're on the microphone First time At the moment, um Basically if we have the funding available after we pave our other streets We will be able to pave clark street But we don't want to make the promise to the public that we will be giving it until we're sure that we've secured that funding After all the other work is completed. So, um, as long as the money is available We do plan on doing clark for cy 23, but it's When would you know that you had the money? What is there a time frame that you think it would be that? They would find out if it's going to be done Yeah, so that would be after all That's a good timeline like september august. I would say Okay, I will get I will get back to them. Yes Great and we can certainly keep the commission informed as uh the year advances we are pinched because the inflationary environment because The voters approved a smaller package this year for capital Work as well last year in the 20 22 town meeting day vote $23.8 million bond originally we asked for 40 million And that was not approved. So, uh, the amount for paving is is compressed And so we're trying to do as much as we can with that limited budget I just didn't want to promise something without being real clear about what the situation is for them. So thanks Thank you All right, we have a motion that's been seconded any other discussion around that motion All right, excuse me all in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say I I post All right consent we can end up passes unanimously Moving thank you moving forward item five parking services enforcements in Burlington parks and recreation and waterfront lots Yes, well, oh, I'm gonna get promoted you want to get promoted. I won't need I won't have a presentation but um, my name is jeff pageant. I am the division director for parking and traffic and Cindy white says she's gonna be here tonight, but don't see her So basically, uh parks and rec and waterfront and parking services and Uh traffic group and parking facilities all in sort of working together for the past couple years trying to build what we're calling this one-stop shop for parking services um and one of the hiccups that we've had is that the authority that we get to enforce in lots is articulated in appendix c in our and what I call our appendix, which is all of ours Parks authority is they have the authority to enforce in their lots and that's articulated appendix d So We want to work together with parks parks wants to work with us and we want to enforce in their lots But because we had they had authority in appendix d and we had authority appendix c it was actually If we just if we just went forward with our authority to enforce in their lots and they had it We would have sort of a quasi double jeopardy situation where theoretically Two different city entities could give us two different tickets for the same violation. So So Cindy went to her commission and she's headed to the city council She's a different process for changing her rules to take parking out of their authority And defer that authority to us. So before City council passes that I'm going to you to get authority to take to to recognize parks lots in section 18 of appendix c And then in appendix section 19 We are Would we do nothing? 19 19 goes with 18.  Oh for the rates we reference that because we rat we identify the lots and we articulate the rates in our appendix c Well, they have enforcement and rates in theirs. So what I've done So 18 now takes over their lots 19 References their ordinance for any rate structure. So it's all tight So what I'm asking for tonight is to add the parks lots to To section 18 and then add a reference to parks rates section 19 And then also it's a house cleaning cleaning relative to the one night forcing all Was in there so that's great. Thank you for that We're back for a commissioner discussion on this Commissioner down the audience The only question I had was in terms of additional staffing needs because of the additional enforcement That dpw would be taking on right so So From our perspective. So we have we have the platform. We have the infrastructure. We now have we used to have five What we're called parking enforcement officers now we have 14 positions. We have We have 10 filled now parking service agents And so we have a dramatic and we could have 14 so we have four positions open So we have a dramatic increase in enforcement capacity But one of the items I think we talked about at the last meeting is license plate recognition so we're still working towards that and And a big reason we would like License plate recognition technology available to us is so that we can actually drive through leddie and Look for people who have a paid drive through the garages that look for people who haven't paid it dramatically Streamline our operations. So we're very cognizant. We believe we have The horsepower to do it Right now, but license plate recognition lpr of cr Thank you I'm sorry one and just another note The corollary to that is We write ticket just like when we write a ticket in the garage that revenue doesn't go to the garage the $15 ticket That goes to the parking services, which is a general fund So when we write a ticket to bpr w lots, they won't get the $15 fine that will come to us So we will have some of our differences subsidence By that Very good. Thanks. Yeah, I love talking about parking Uh, I guess my first question is what's the enforcement like now Like what what does the parks department do and what are the rates? If if you have that info do not have a robust enforcement regime That's why we're a variety of ad hoc approaches So I can't really speak to all of it, but it was Not not what they needed it to be they recognized we could bring Yeah, it's good to be impartial in in in that respect. Um, I guess my other question is in the third paragraph of the background section Uh, you distinguish between the traffic ticket that would be uh Be the penalty In this case versus a simple ticket. Yeah, but then you say This traffic ticket has more less severe legal ramifications So is it more more severe or less severe and really what what is what is the difference? That's a type of apologies uh, no a traffic ticket is a A more simple ticket a traffic ticket is Is appealed through the city process and then goes to court as I'm not sure I'm gonna get the word right but more like a Is More like a small claims style court situation whereas a civil penalty is what you get if you You know, you're in a bar fight Staps, you know something It's a much more aggressive, you know, it's a more like the violence isn't involved So, you know a a traffic ticket is a more appropriate Ticket to be issued for parking rather than a civil Yeah, that's that's what I figured. Yeah, but uh, yeah unruly violent or destructive behavior being being more of the civil Yeah, uh ticket thing Thank you for that clarification. Yeah Um At least for some of those slots, I guess it's possible that parks department might still be Kind of monitoring the lots for maybe some of those other things Yeah, and I've already talked to cindy and and we're exploring what authority they would have under our ordinance Because appendix c there are our rules, but there's nothing We have to explore the legal structure around how they would enforce our appendix versus a field Their appendix and that's a conversation I need to have with our legal team with cindy and see what they're You know, are they act do we have jackie and them a held handheld and they write the tickets or We or do they just monitor and then we come We gotta work that out interesting Byzantine even but uh, thank you No, no more questions Oh I know we communicated a little bit about them the waterfront north lot Is that I don't know that that's listed on this document, but it could be that it's in one through six Yeah, yeah, it might already been one through six. We'll check. Yeah, so I was just concerned that it hadn't showed up I know that was a little bit of an odd lot that's got the the 40 year private You know contracts set on it, but still there are meters there. So Yeah, I'll double check that it's there because just like in this memo we added 194 because that was an oversight Right at the Champlain and it came up in the other document that we're talking about later in this meeting about the uh All the parking the parking study for the main street thing. So that's another reason why I saw there was a piece missing so As long as it is listed as one of the municipal parking lots on all the places it's supposed to be that would be great Appreciate you Pointing these things out to us. We don't see it. I love maps Thank you All right, uh commissioner five I'll say i'm really supportive of this you know Push to have dpw takeover or enforcement of these parking lots. It's really great to see the city kind of Making that efficiency across departments. I think that is You know, really good sign of that collaboration um I guess an additional comment to that was that it would be great to hear from parks like how This is going to impact them. So if at some point we can hear from Cindy or some other representative about How the process has gone through there, you know parks rec and waterfront commission or whatever. Um, I think that would be helpful, um And then I know that these the other things on this are Housekeeping, but I did have a question about the 194 lot designation I guess just looking for clarification on like what metered versus permitted entails in terms of enforcement So will permits still be sold and enforced with a metered designation? So it's going to be both instead of just the one is that yeah, so that that Lot is metered by kiosks rec two kiosks And then we also sell 20 permits in that lot and they can park in any spot just without paying Oh All right, thanks Question bar you answer my questions about the revenue, but I guess I would like to just weigh in I'm supportive Uh, but I'd like to weigh in There just needs to be some really clear to find How they get enforced by dbw The park just just so that they know and it absolutely you intended you you said your 10 wants to make that happen Even if signage in there says this If you go to leady right now They just put kiosk in leady and they're going to start charging for parking there and the sign is a is a parks sign Brown sign with the parks B on it and at the bottom it says parking managed enforced by parking by Okay, so it's clear that you're managing and I know that those will come but I just Just wanted on the record that for sure one of the concerns that I might have Yes, that appears for thanks All right Vice chair on the avaco All right. Yes. Um, I'm also supportive of um Um cross departmental, um efficiencies Um, do you foresee any time in the future where the rates would dovetail because right now you Um from what I understand parks is still going in the the Rates are referenced to parks setting them. Is there a time? When you see dpw actually fully So over is it so we've committed so Sorry, I didn't you guys know jackie. I think she's the park services man. I'm sorry. Um, she's running this show so Our first goal is Is to get the authority to actually do the supports here and then We've committed to parks to have all of their permits Digital in our system by this season So we have to make All the permits first and we've already wrecked. We've already sort of hashed through them and started to understand their structure and their structure is Um Let's say it can be streamlined. They have like a 25 dollar permit 35 dollar permit a 30 dollar permit 40 You know, this is like all these like five dollars. It's just very complicated. So I anticipate that after we get all these permits made That we will then recycle back the parks give them our feedback on workflow customer experience and just trying to streamline that so They're part it's parks revenue. So I think they will always have it in their appendix and in their ordinance That they have control of but we will certainly be operation and is their communication Outreach going out to you know, the folks who regularly get um, the season passes to park at oak ledge or whatever that You know, not just the sign book that comes with the permit the information that The enforcement will be through All that works. We're gonna have to work through parks with that They they we see ourselves as providing the back end service and they're the They're the shop or the cash register Relationship at this point. I don't know how that will evolve in the future as far as the concept of our one-stop shop and having a single rate page A little bit away from that, but certainly that's where we're at Okay, and I agree with commissioner fox. It would be great to have someone from uh, park shut down waterfront to About some of you know, these concerns and questions over Sure And then finally really just to echo what some of the other commissioners said wondering where that um non parking issue enforcement in A parks and rec car park You know whose eyes are on what different activities and then what's reported to who like what sort of the kind of where the responsibility Leaves public works and then goes to the police or goes back to parks and rec Um, well at this point, we're fully expecting to patrol there lots. I see this summer We're gonna have somebody going through leddie. I was just letting this big great Yeah, as an example going through and typing plate numbers in because that's how we're doing it for Almost 1600 spaces in the two parking grids. So we're doing it now there And it's what we're gonna be doing. We're gonna have to do it that way. I fully expect that we're gonna be out there Doing that. Can you get a an electric? ESS bike with a portable license plate? well I'd love to have a license plate reader and then figure out what kind of vehicle we put it on But we'll we'll we're working on that front too Okay, there is talk of you know, just some logistic stuff So back end, you know, we're talking about creating a really streamlined front end for our customer It's one stop shop sounds simple back end We're wrestling with is hugely complicated because we have revenues now coming in to different Locations we have revenues in the garage is going to one budget. We have revenues on the streets coming in revenues coming in for Citations and another budget and it's all funneling through the same software It's all going to different accounts different sub accounts to physical banks So we're working with CT office really closely to sort of untangle that back end spaghetti Make sure all the money's flowing all the right places It's a big effort we've been working on it for months now. So There's a lot a lot back end demonstration that's happening in support. It's going to ostensibly up here very soon That's great. I'm appreciative of That work Jackie looking at you I'm recognizing that, you know, like the duck sailing through the water and then their feeder Shuffling underneath. Thank you those speech That's all thanks. Thank you Quick follow on there as part of that Organization for verifying around The buckets of money Inputs feeding different outputs. Do you anticipate any? Ask of city council for like different flexibility or options of How money could be spent? Um, no not as part of this. I mean that is something so it was always an undercurrent for me because I'm always looking to find a great way to do something coordinates is that guardrails on things Well, that's the guardrails So sort of an undercurrent of everything we're trying to do is figure out cleaner neater better tighter ways to do what we do So I come to you to change these ordinances. So we can reflect our goals Yeah, we're always thinking That's a nice segue to our next Very good All right, nothing further From my end. Thank you for that. Uh, mr. Goulding could we check on the phone and see if anyone's interested in speaking It's a public comment on this item Are there no members of the public currently in cube? All right, thank you And none in the room That said I'll bring it back to the commission. There's some suggested language around The ordinance changes that are in front of us here going to make a motion Yes No, that's right. We we got it second Thank you. So we have a motion from commissioner bar a little amendment in appendix c section 18 part b Lines 11 and 12 the word the is repeated twice in both of those So I would strike the second and fourth But they're not re-duplicated. Is it? Yep, I see it. You know with an and 12 catch thank you and Making sure we got uh, this correct. Was it the second from mr. Damiani? With the suggested Edit from commissioner mutan it seems friendly to the motioner on right to the seconder Okay I just understand most of that stuff gets sort of read through by ligo before it that's where the comment goes to the partisan motion approval is as approved by city attorney, so When's the right time to bring it up? That's good. It's all good. Uh Any other discussion around the motion? All right, let's go to a vote then it's all in favor say I I I self any post Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Great. Thanks moving forward and All right, welcome back parking fine reform All right, so I preface this with My see might feel like I say this every day is parking is complicated and Try to think through thoroughly what we're trying to do with goals and expectations and unintended consequences and all these things so what we're So this slide deck is a little bit drawn out and And one thing I didn't address actually is how this integrates with wolves, but that's something I got we've got to do That's a note itself right there in front. I can't be more transparent Um, so anyway, so this deck sort of pulls this concept apart. How do we deal with? parking fractions and what is appropriate penalties? So Just want to lay the groundwork of how ticketing and towing basically works in burlington right now is meter violations You don't pay your meter. You get a ticket You don't get towed. It's a $15 ticket. You don't get towed No parking violations which is Things like park resident parking resident parking areas are restricted to Only people with permits. So that's considered a no parking zone as it's identified It's no parking unless you have a permit. So resident parking here to corner hydrants time limited anything where you're Vented from parking in a location. It's called a no park area However, operationally rpp resident parking Has not been towed. That's just been a historical operating way things And there's also been we've noticed inconsistent approaches to other no parking variation of violations over time throughout the city so It concerns us that the forcements not always consistent And not consistent with ordinance. So we're trying to clean this all up So but we also recognize that it can also be done in a more nuanced way so that the penalty for no parking So there there can be more creative approaches to no parking penalties So this deck is an introduction to our thinking around this And it's really i'm going to go through it sort of a methodical way, but it's intended to Explain what we're thinking and get your feedback. So please interrupt me. I'm going to sort of march if I can't but interrupt me something doesn't make sense So and just to be clear Jackie and I sat hours Trying to pull this apart tease it out and try to get to some Yeah resolution that makes sense. So again this everything we're talking about in this side deck is related to no parking violations Not talking about people parked at meters parked in the garage So we we identified some structural goals We wanted it we want to enhance the an educational aspect of the ticket Fundamentally, we don't want to look at a ticket as punishment. We want to look at it as education opportunity Like stubbing your toe on the corner Do it Okay We want to support the appropriate enforcement of public safety equitable access to parking neighborhood expectations like rpp and business needs like time limited parking downtown And then we also would need to maintain efficient office workflows if we've got to go Read through a whole flow chart for every ticket we write It's going to just be really cumbersome and inconsistent for the public. They're not going to know what's going on So those are structural goals. Our intended impact on the community is to balance the penalty with the offense Lower the social impact relative to minor first offenses And maintain the ability to enforce important ordinances related to safety equity So our structural goals and our intended impacts are kind of the same concepts Just looking at them sort of from a different angle So our approach is to create some sort of progressive penalty scale. It's based on a type Of violation and a frequency of violation. So basically, what have you done and have you done it before? That's the simple way to think of that But we also need to make sure that it's a simple enough approach that we can apply it Equally across all no parking areas in the city. So people don't get confused because People get confused easily and I don't blame them. I've had my car towed So the progress the panel the framework we're proposing is Is level one and level two. So level two is a standard penalty. It's what we're doing now The ordinance has shallow language in it and if you're in If this is a second offense If the violation represents a threat to safety or equity, that's level two You're getting you're getting what's happening today.  That's level two You're getting ticketed towed because that's a safety threat. That's the safety and equity in the city Level one is what we're thinking of is this new sort of category of penalties, so it's like for a first offense and If the violation represents more of an inconvenience then really a safety or equity thing And it would feel more appropriate that you would get a slap on the wrist for this type of offense So again, this is a framework of how we're approaching and we don't know exactly We'll get to what these options might be on the next couple sides, but this is sort of the ideas We have a sort of a detuned approach and then we have the standard approach So we're calling an alternative ticket in tow versus current ticket. So When we're ticketing and towing we have We have three options for each Tickets we can give a warning We can give a half price or I call it half price because that's easy some sort of percentage 20 percent off 60 percent off whatever But I call it half price or a full ticket So nothing a modified ticket or a full ticket and in towing we have similar options. Don't tow them tow them in a couple hours when they wake up and come out of their car or tow them right away And we need to mix those up in creative ways to figure out What's the right approach? And we need to meet these goals of that. I've already stated public safety, equal access, neighborhood expectations, business needs, education of the Person and then workflow for us So I made this matrix This is where I'm patient and pay attention. It's complicated. So here's our here's our tow options and our ticket options These are our goals and Jackie and I sat down and we went through each of these scenarios and we said, okay Does a warning and a no-toe? Address our goals and if it addressed the goal, we gave it a capital a that clearly addressed the goal capital a capital b capital c if it Sort of addressed the goal but kind of a pain for some reason or it was just not clear Then we gave it a lower case, but it's still addressed the goal if it doesn't address the goal at all We gave it nothing So went through as basically the goal here is to figure out which of these mixtures creates the most compliance with our goals So this is what we came came up with so if you look at the warning no tow. I'm going to start in the upper left it Meets the public safety goal because remember everything in level one is not a threat to public safety So everything in here has got an a because by definition This is an inconvenience situation, right? but It a warning and no tow is kind of a pain for us It's from a workflow perspective and it's not terribly good education because you just got a warning There was no it was just a piece of paper that you threw in the glovebox or the background or whatever So we didn't think that was a particularly viable option And then the laid tow and tow Don't apply because we can't tow anybody if we don't give them a ticket Have to have a ticket. So those just don't So then we looked at a half price ticket with no tow and Again public safety it met Doesn't necessarily meet neighborhood expectations and it kind of depends on what your neighborhood expectation is If you live in an rpp zone some people Wholeheartedly expect every single car that doesn't have a permit to be towed right away And some people have more compassion up in Doesn't really squarely meet the neighborhood expectations because it's not feeding um And also it's not as good education because it's Half price and you didn't get towed Um, and again, all of these really have some workflow issues related to them So we didn't like that particularly well similar idea with half price and Delayed tow except she knows delayed tow doesn't even have the f in it because that's such a pain For us to give a different style of reduced ticket And when the if we give the ticket then we got to wait around let's say We're not going to tow somebody for two hours after we give them a ticket Well, now we got to stand to kind of stand around wait, right? So we got to babysit this car for whatever this delay period is, right? So that's an operationally very wobbly for us So we said get rid of that one. So then we got to Full ticket tow. Well, that's what level two is but throw that one out. So now we're left with these three. So these three Now Do something interesting each of them does something interesting. So a full ticket no tow is It does meet this neighborhood expectation thing sort of the way half price did But it's it's a much better Education because they're actually getting a real legit ticket full ticket 75 bucks and you know, you learn something from that But you didn't get towed. So, you know, that it's a nice No tow option, right?  We do get that equity piece, you know somebody's Parked in a 15 minute spot. Well that 15 minute spot is there for some equitable reason You know business has said we need this spot to run our business. So there's an equity component in there So the next three slides actually I get into sort of describing In detail how these are met so So here's one so So there's no b because the vehicle is not removed We haven't we haven't addressed equity there C is slower case because it does remove the vehicle But it's at on the second offense, you know, it does it does have some teeth Um, there's no d because if you don't tow So somebody who's parked in that 15 minute spot right in front of their business They're not, you know, that's not really solving their problem They need to do you know, like I think lean on those I have in my head right They're cycling cars in and out of their 15 minute spot all day long That's a critical part of their business cars blocking that That it can't sit there. It has to be moved Because they need to run their business Uh And uh, so education they do get educated because they take it It's additional back office work for us, but we can do that You know doing that conditional figuring out whether or not tell or not option two similar It removes the vehicle eventually it um, so that Sports equity supports neighborhood expectations Supports business needs but not particularly well They do get educated but here again, we just talked about there's no f because now we got to give the ticket and now we got to wait around This is the one where we delay it And then the third It removes the vehicle promptly so we get equity we get neighborhood meet neighborhood expectations Uh, we meet business needs they get fully educated Um And we have this back office thing. We have to do conditional, but we can do that So these are the these are the preferred. This is a preferred suite of ideas Because they meet the most goals in that matrix and We like having even though number one only has Three goals met we like having the option of a no-toe penalty on the board But how do we apply these? Three different conditions. We've got like 65 different Violations we write I think probably 40 of them are no parking. Yeah, 50 are no parking So we need to go through Because we need to minimize complexity. We can't be writing a lot of different tickets. So Types of tickets conditionally. So we need to go through And look at every penalty Or every violation and figure out which one of these three Really addresses the intent of that violation because every one of our violations has a safety or equity Bent to it some of them are safety and equity some of our pure safety and some of them are pure equity So we have we what I see is the next step is Figuring out how to apply these and seeing if all three apply Then we use all three if we can figure out a way to get one of these to work everywhere That'd be really sweet because that's really simplifies our world but It's complicated. Did you have a question? I'm sorry Yeah Among those 40 to 50 violations How many are toes or like, you know, what what fraction? Well, that's what I'm saying of the shallow toes are actually Toes and if they're towed, is it just out of the loading zone or they go in Displanes So everything I'm talking about tonight is all no tow stuff or no parking stuff. So it's all tow Where are the cars going? No, everything that's considered no parking gets towed. It's a good question though because we do for Different fractions We will tow street to street in town To save somebody that whole trip all the way out to splains and save them 20 bucks and save them the exposure to the 30 bucks the next day Um, we towed. Is that how we normally do most tows downtown? Unless it stops Uh, no Which ones do we just tow street to street? Uh, like the no parking street one Oh, right, right. The yellow signs like when you see the yellow signs out that say no parking Because of like construction or something's happening if you park there you get towed street to street But that must be in ordinance to say that Yeah, they still get mad Rightfully so because they gotta walk So most toes go to splains So like I said next steps we I want to get some feedback on this thought process um Both the framework the sort of two-step framework and these three alternative ticket approaches because then We can go back and move positively and concretely looking at the list of violations and apply to the best of our judgment which of those Ticket and tow options applies to the various and then bring those back to you explain to you how that all works and then We within then in the next month we get that package together Get it to you Get it get your endorsement and then within the next I'd say four to six months We've got to go we got to change ordinance some ordinance in uh Some ordinance in chapter 20 you have the authority to change some ordinance You don't have the authority to change so I need to work with legal to make sure that I I want to get your approval with everything we do, but I might have to go to council to actually get ordinance physically changed There's always lots of coming in from the sides ordinances. You gotta clean up in this process So it's going to take a little while then we still have to after we get all that done Then we have to build our back office system and then we have to get the word out so there's Some grind left to this project, but we're trying to get it right because We really want our ordinances Our we want our ordinances to reflect the values of our community We want our tickets to be written consistently And appropriately all the time. That's what we're working towards. So that's it Thank you for being patient thanks as well the commissioner honiel vavanko for raising this issue a couple months ago and your patience and Getting a larger look at this more than just one particular type of violations. So thanks Okay, thank you Bring it back to the commissioner for discussion at this time Mr. Fox well I guess the question I had is have you Done like a demo or like a test applied any of these options to specific violations and how have they worked like if you kind of Gaged that at all or no, but I did do a first run through and I started trying to apply Where I could do alternative and as I was you know something alternative I hadn't decided what that might be but what could I do alternative? And that was when I realized oh shoot This might not be so simple because I can't just do This option here because if I do this this is the option I choose I can't do it here because it doesn't make sense down. I got yourself different down there Now I gotta sit down like Jackie we gotta we gotta flesh this out. So I guess to answer questions that say we didn't test it in the field But we got tested because I try to do it Yeah Yeah As much as we'd like it to be parking is never black and white unfortunately And what I appreciate about The consideration to restructure this is that I think it gives you that flexibility to be a little more gray with situations that are gray, right? That makes sense I don't know Kind of digesting information. So I don't know if I can come back in a little bit. Sure, but And all I had for it now Mr. Barr sure So I I guess I'll preface by saying I've got some 18 years Parking whether that's good or bad. Um, so I um, one of the things that was challenging in my previous position was that I think there was way too much Giving I mean there was like 10 tickets and then a tow and there were different levels within each three And it was very complex So I I love that you're trying to become a little more progressive, but you're also trying to structure it on the beginning I think that's important because I mean having it You can almost do anything you want To I take it in a tow was was really what I felt like Burlington was always about I have something in between little discretion for the parking advantages is Something that's good. It makes them feel good because then they can make some comfort decisions while they're out in the field and it also Is more of a It's more receptive of the Burlingtonians people that are here the one challenge that any parking Policy or process has is with visitors And you just need to make sure as much as possible that The rules are clear Yeah, I mean and that they're not so different from other places that when somebody comes from boston It comes from somewhere else that we just have this weird off one But but if you park in front of a fire hydrant I mean in most places get towed park in a handicap space and you're not handicapped you should get towed Just a point of clarification is What we're trying to do is we're trying to bake the flexibility into the system Because it's been made clear to us by our legal team that our parking service ages actually have no discretion in the field And that's part of the problem Which is the way we're getting around that no discretion is by giving them structured Discretion so to speak they don't have it, but we're giving them that structure Because it becomes a constitutional issue of you know, so you know the process, right? Another edges to the side one of the things that we're also about communication is we allen a mashtar is a new Traffic manager that's the team that I also lead Does all signs and he's looking at the cost and feasibility and timeline And implications of actually putting those little signs that have to draw pictures on them and we're trying to figure out just How much work that is how much is it gonna cost and will it really Make an impact Something we're so we're attacking this on multiple fronts And I'm a I'm a big believer in Actually putting some information on the actual citation that you give me because Nine times out of ten, you know, let's let's say somebody who's honest and Made a mistake Will read the ticket and hopefully learn from it those that throw it on the ground, you know, whatever But at least you've done as much as you can by putting the information Clearly on a ticket. This is why you're getting this One of the one of the things we're thinking we're contemplating operationally Is we have the ability to to print out a non ticket ticket. I don't want to call it a warning. It's a notice Yeah, and so when we if we come to a two-hour parking area we can theoretically go and Start and met and we we uh measure where their stem is on the tire Nice, it's seven o'clock. It's called chalking. It's chalk. There's a stem And when that gets piping the handheld we can actually print out a little ticket Put on the windshield. It says hey at two o'clock We started the clock on your car. It's a two-hour zone if we come back in two hours You're probably going to get ticketed in tow There are some real operational hurdles to that Just in volume of tickets that are tickets that we would be writing We have to work through that but our that's our intention is to do things like that better communicate with people that hey If you park somewhere and guess what we're watching you and if you don't move we're going to get a ticket and you're going to get towed too or whatever So it's it's the first and last thing you do If that's a good experience then everything else is good Very good. Thank you. Vice chair on the avaco Thank you Thank you so much for for digging into this and I know you're still diving in so I really do appreciate it My concern bringing this up was originally because I because Towing hadn't been enforced on a street that is not resident only but is surrounded by resident only streets So there's a timed four-hour parking So then it just see like I saw cars getting towed and it felt like oh, it's this predatory and so to have The public understand one system where oh you get a ticket and you you learn And then shift to the actual enforcement of the ordinance, right? Well, I'll be in ordinance, but yes Which was you the car shall be towed ticketed and towed was Seemed like enforcement without education. So I appreciate all of these options You know, I'm for the full ticket no tow fitting in with your whoops program in the ideal world but whatever whatever Matrix cube you go through um, the education piece I think needs to be kind of Clearly thought through and then thinking, you know, then, you know, I thought about oh the towing piece And I've lived in Washington, DC. I've lived in new york. I've lived in boston I mean where it's almost like, you know, a hobby for you to get booted Oh So But that is that was you got three tickets in DC This is a long time ago, but I think you got three tickets. I never got booted just for the record here, but You knew that that was That was the eventual consequence if you got three tickets. So that kind of clarity in In decoding the ordinance Would be helpful for, you know, to communicate that to the public and then also to visitors So if you go down a street and see a residential street and you see the towing thing What what's what's the image? What are the values that burlington wants to Um, kind of put forth. So there I think there is something like that that we need to consider as far as um What are the different and I know you said there are 50 different types of tickets, but If we look at a business district versus a residential district Are there ways to think about them a little bit differently every time, you know, you do your matrix Now, I think that's how I think that's I imagine that's how these three Might end up we might end up with all three of these Functioning for three different and like you say we have to come with some justification for why we've applied one version of progression versus another version and maybe it is business that downtown improvements district versus president only So that's very much part of the next step with this Right, but while keeping in mind the f Which I forget what the f stands for The the workflow um Making this so that it really is operationally um possible for Your back end folks as well as your front end You know your your parking enforcement folks to be able to manage that it isn't just this mind boggling like Wait, where am I now? So kind of recognize all those those challenges so I think Keep up keep on keep it on And look forward to kind of hearing more about you know any categories that some of those 40 or 50 parking infractions Fall into certain buckets But with the goal of whatever we do that education piece is really key And what are the values of our city that we want to put forth to residents visitors? Um Again, thank you I commend you in this analysis of this. This is just great. I love this kind of thing I think you've done a great job of thinking it through and it is it is I see how it is complicated, but I also want to Say I really appreciate the focus on the education and behavior change because I know You know the comparison you're either doing you want to improve safety and behavior Or you want to raise revenue? And so in you know, we always hear about people that have speed traps and all these other things that are specifically like So the question always is are we trying to? Improve the safety and all those factors you came up with Um, or are we trying to find ways to raise revenue and clearly you're making it very clear that the goal is not To raise revenue and penalize people. So I I really appreciate that part of the the background of some of this And the the uh, there's sort of two different audiences in some ways We have the population of people that are regular residents that park. So the educational value It has a different Impact than a visitor who will come and be here for the first time And so in some ways you have to you know the way that we do this uh to me You you you almost have a slightly different um Thing going on there. So somebody that first visits, uh the option for uh Half price and tow isn't quite the same and it's it's just it's a little bit different of an experience for a visitor That's like the tow thing is probably not the greatest way to go with the visitor first time. So anyway Just an observation. I don't know how you would actually factor that in and because really it's you know fairness is fair But uh, but my thought is that that the educational part of it is going to be more relevant to the people who live here and You know might do these various things and Be shocked about what happened. So um, the the question I one question I had about the the the frequency Uh of violations, you know, is this How does that factor into this? So is this like the alternate that you get when it's the first defense type of thing? And then and then you're just into the normal routine when it comes to be second and more Okay, so this is just that first and if it's if it's one per year or two per year one For every two years, you know, we still got to resolve that, you know, it's getting back to you mentioned revenues You know, we do have a very keen focus on being equitable and being nice about parking, but there is also the reality that this Department this group is a contributor to the general fund and we understand that the general fund depends on us for they do depend on us for A measurable amount of money. Um, so we have to be cognizant that we can't just give everything away for free because we are a participating part of the city revenue stream, so Something we balance Well, well, it's the their counter thing if everybody was perfectly well behaved and never did a no parking violation we would have no revenue so You know, we cannot you know, it's sort of like yeah, it's like taking money from gambling to pay for education Like if we really want to have you know, we have a lot of bad behavior that we Have taxes on and if people really were good and didn't do that bad behavior We wouldn't have that revenue. So we have we have we have a sort of mixed problem here, you know and But but I but I I appreciate what you're doing is you're trying to make it appear equitable so that if somebody does Get a ticket and the oh the 75 dollars or even the 15 dollars at the at the parking meter They should go it's a contribution to it's a civic contribution in a lot of ways to this this this community Honestly Honestly, I think that if I ever get a parking ticket I go I messed up. I didn't get back in time uh 15 dollars my contribution to this community Honestly, I don't think it's a bad attitude to take but most people Probably don't think that way of which we just gave 37 000 dollars to feeding chitin and as part of our Finds for food program. So it's even more than contributing to The city government were actually contributing to our local well any of any of these any of these fees I don't know how you market it, but any of these fees the That's part of the education. We we do put them We put the money towards something that is for these safety things and making sure businesses have places to park So if I don't know how you're going to factor that in except maybe you could put a little smiley thing on the bottom Of their ticket that says, you know, your contribution don't feel bad.  You're making a contribution to the civic Life here in burlington. So it's it's just an idea. So I think that was Um, so you had the three that I've got you've got full ticket no-toe You have full ticket delayed tow and you have half price ticket in tow or some percentage there Or percentage here. Yeah, right, right. Okay I think I think it's great. And I and I I hope you keep working on it and it and it I think it's looking I think it's looking really great. So thank you very much for that effort Thank you, mr. Montana I really love the burlington code of ordinance and especially appendix three The traffic commission so actually where where all of these Uh Different parking conditions are present and possibly enforced. I don't drive but let's pretend I did And I parked on uh, st. Paul street between maple and main street It's a three hour parking zone, but let's say I left the car there for three and a half hours Shall I be towed like what what what are the odds that I shall be towed? Like for for all of these different violations I I understand safety, but for all of the uh equity violations Are are people being towed daily? So Well, yeah, people are towed every day 10 10 per day So And we do have a dedicated crew everybody should know we have but Six people stand up all night tonight Seven to run the show to just managing that's not including any of the plow drivers That's just our crew managing towing cars and keeping track of where all those cars are And being here at three o'clock in the morning when somebody calls it says where's my car So it's a big big effort Every time these folks A two-year question about the st. Paul street. This is a challenge because those are meters And but it also is time limited within the context of a meter. It's different than if you have a 15 Well, I broke the law. I'm a lawbreaker. I I stole a vehicle and then uh, you know, then that I There are some tricky ordinance things that we still need to work through to get them tight. That's That's I don't think you should be towed in in in a lot of the cases, but I totally understand that there is discretion and if there were some way to Write that into ordinance I think that would be a good alternative to These kind of very very limited like you will absolutely never get a ticket if it's these conditions or You will get this precise combination of penalties If it's this violation and your first time and you know, it's a weekday Um, precisely what we're going to bake is the ordinance That's That's an attack for sure. If you're a repeated vendor, then Do it all the time every week Because we we yeah, we don't want to tow people but you know Just a quick anecdote just to give you sort of what we do with daily is we have people that are They have a five five hundred and seventy five dollars In account balance and it's two hundred seventy five Here in scoff it's over two seventy five, so they'll come in they'll pay two hundred and one dollars and get down to two seventy four So they're not in scoff so they don't get their car towed. Well, what happens the very next week? They get another ticket And then two weeks after that they get another ticket right back in scoff Then we tow them So it's just really hard This is a very blunt tool for education and it doesn't really work And I think two year what their point thing if we need to find a way to educate the public better And I'm hoping that some sort of progressive approach Will ease us into it All right, but under the circumstance that I brought up initially I probably shall not be towed right under the I can't I can't exactly answer that right now because we're we that is a very special case that might just literally sort of Discovered ourselves this morning as we were talking about this So we need to figure out that practical reality meter violations aren't towed meter violations are not towed So that's my interpretation of it. It's not a no parking violation. It's a meter violation park. It's a meter violation situation But I think it needs to be tightened up because I can see gray area I hope the right people shall be towed I Aren't drive All right, uh, commissioner damiani Yeah, I think the only other thing I would add is just as you're going through that matrix of the 50 different things I hope that the sort of percentage discount Stays to a lot of them. I think from my standpoint, that's the middle ground that I see for this and um, I think in terms of equity, it's that sort of helps address the It sounds like a lot of the conversation for equity is around the immediate either adjacent business owners or adjacent residents in like a resident parking area but The equity I think also should be on the person getting the ticket and I think that percentage Discount helps with that And maybe in addition to the little civic contribution if you are going to throw away the ticket Please put it in one of the new Toters that uh, burlington residents have just purchased Because Can be used Very good. Thank you Is it safe to say that uh, so that As you introduced this is a We're talking one sort of narrowly scoped conversation today for like the the safety related stuff Is is this kind of conversation forthcoming for other? categories of things like the Overstaying the meter Well, the overstand the meter is $15 and no toe and I don't My opinion is that's not a terribly steep penalty And that we don't get complaints about people are upset. They come in mad. It's a ticket down Does it feels acute is this if feel it is that Okay, um this thing I sort of Generally on the topic of discretion, of course that when there's discretion, there's opportunity for bias implicit bias Keep in mind as far as sort of training to Make sure that's in mind for the the folks that are You know tasked with Carrying out this discretion. Well, there won't be any discretion It will be code. They won't have it. It will be clearly. It will be It will be if this is their first offense they get this progressive thing if it's their second they get this thing There will be no discretion. We can't get discretion. I'd love to but for all the faculty reasons the bias reasons the constitutional reasons Okay, thank you. All right We've made it around the commission here Anyone in the room? Public comment on this item Mr. Goulding is there anyone on the phone interested in public comment on this item? Not at this time chair. All right. Thank you for that Well, there's no action Requested on on this one. I'd appreciate sort of the context and where you're all headed on this Thank you for the work. Thanks a lot Thank you Alrighty Moving forward item seven on our agenda main street great streets updates Welcome to communication from St. Paul is a great street About parking study And then study both occupancy data and data for all of the parking spaces in the downtown area and then really concentrated on the core The five minute walk zone to kind of the downtown park that there is the perception of they're not being in a parking And so we wanted to see if we could document that about what's true or if there's parts available and it's just Um, you know, not not easy to be found etc And then to really look at what the potential impacts could be of the main street project And again that parking be accommodated in a loss of parking or that parking can be updated on other streets and in other blocks Um, and we did find out some interesting things. There's a lot of data here I'm going to try to just give you a high level overview, but we can drill into any specific Show you some slide. It's what was in your packets Um, but uh Our point so that is a little bit more visible on the screen here, but really all of the data and information Um, so basically as I just said the background is is that obviously, you know, parking should help support the city's multi-mobile and climate holes There was concern regarding the project impact. What that that impact would be on parking Um, you know, one of the things one of the context things that we started to talk about is that COVID has kind of changed some of the demand over time Um, and so there's a lot of perceptions. There's a lot of anecdotes, but it was very little data So we really wanted to collect data and also take a look back at the past study that was done back in 2015 And see how things have changed since that time and we also got a fair amount of information from The parking lot that's just about what they're seeing in trends. We'll get into that so first we took a look at the utilization and The this shows over the course of the day how the parking study area utilization was Of course the day of what you can see is on street on the weekday in the weekend Weekend it's much higher demand Off-screen in the park and supply And I think that it's very important. We'll get into why that is later and how that changes in our perception of the parking But so you'll see circled on each of these is when those peak time frames happen When those peak time frames those peak demand times happened And as I said, we'll get into the specifics of some of that But this graph just shows really highlights that difference between in green You have the on-street demand up and you know 70s and 80 percent occupied and you have the off-street parking significantly lower than that occupancy data It's a little difficult to see here But on the curb on the lines that are on the streets you'll see red perfect red for um You know the highly utilized blocks Down to green is a very underutilized block So you can see there are some blocks very utilized and as you get a little further from kind of that center You end up with some blocks that are a little less utilized And this is during that, you know, kind of peak time window So this just highlights just even how much in the study area that variation was And one of the other things we like to look at is turnover and that really actually dovetails very well in the presentation that just just occurred One of the things that is a concern is if your spaces aren't turning over when they should It does have an impact on the retailers and we definitely heard that from the advisory committee, you know, there's that real concern that That parking isn't turning over in that the parking spaces aren't available for their retail customers as much as need to be So if I park my car in what should only be there for two hours and I leave it for that's a missed opportunity for You know another customer basically to come in and park in that space And of course the the worst of this is when you have a full day employee who parks at one of those spots and The customers aren't getting that benefit of the turnover of that spot So similar to the others the shortest duration the quickest turnover Spaces are shown in green. That's more positive Some of the reds are the longer terms and in this case The longer term parking is usually on those unregulated blocks to where there is less signage and regulations telling people that they have to move along So off-street parking so we've now discovered that there is a lot of availability a lot by available off-street And one of the things that we started to look at is really what is the what's keeping people from going off-street And if we zoom in on the left side of that screen This is just an example of some of the signage at some of the lots And how some of them even if you read all the signs you can get very over what way can I actually park here Am I supposed to how much is this going to cost a lot of it doesn't make sense? And it's not you know, am I going to be total no just during the day I might not stick around long enough to read all the signs to really be able to understand There is a consistent signage. There's inconsistent messaging And one of the other things that we found is some of these off-street lots are costing more than the on-street parking So we're really incentivizing people from parking in these off-street lots and garages and that is where we'd like them to park Especially if they'll be there for a longer term We also just quickly mentioned on safety and security. I know that's something the city is working on And there's been some study about those multimodal connections How do you feel once you get out of your car and you're walking is there safe sidewalk is it a smooth sidewalk? really to make that enjoyable and comfortable trip if we are asking them to park somewhere that isn't right out on the street right out in the open So we started to look at the availability And who owns some of these lots and so the concern that we end up seeing here is a number of the lots Really in that downtown core that blue is what we considered that five minute kind of walk shed to that urban commercial core Is that there's a number of those that are not available to the public on the weekdays until a certain time And because of that you might not be getting as much utilization of them and in a lot of cases I think that is the truth that there were long term leases for some of these spots or they're reserved in case a new tenant comes into a building and there's a lot of potential opportunity there Having those lots not available during the weekday is a detriment really limits that the parking will supply during that time I think I already mentioned that the parking rates also provide that Disincentive to parking in these lots and garages Because if I can park on the street for a dollar or a dollar fifty an hour and to park in a lot of it I pay four dollars an hour i'm gonna spend some time cruising those streets adding to the congestion Looking for someone leaving a spot and that's really why we're getting a really high utilization on the street um in the lower utilization in those lots and garages So one of the questions that came up is how did we adjust for covid? um We looked at a lot of historic data whether it was the study that dpw had the undertaking back in 2015 as well as the data collected by the city in key meter zones And we could really look at a pre and post covid time to see the difference And what we found is the demand over time before covid to now on street is very similar There's very little different there. There should not be any adjustment to that demand Now that's not to say that demand may not have come out of the branches It might be on the street, but those people are parking on the street those numbers that have stayed very consistent over time However at those off-street facilities We adjust up by 40 percent Because we really did see that look at historic data that there still is and I think some of that may be the softness in the office Market and or um, then people are not driving to work as many days per week The parking commitment is not what it once was and as I said that comes through in some of the Parking spaces that we know are leased to either buildings or organizations and there's very low utilization associated with those leases So we did make a covid-19 adjustment. Um, that's not to say this isn't the new normal But I know we don't want to obviously plan for today if there is still going to continue to be a rebound And the parking demand we want to make sure that what that were You know taking that into account Yeah, I can consume it on math. That's that would be helpful. Um, so ultimately looking at the available parking There's 120. This is that peak time on a weekday. There's 124 on-street spaces available in 122 off-street spaces So To me as I looked at each of these and again, it's in your packet. You can look in more detail There's some blocks that only have one spot or have zero spots available There are a number of blocks that have more I double checked the math because I was like, I don't know if that really looks like 124. Yes, there are 124 parking spaces available in that five-minute block shed Um, and then the off-street number here is a little lower than what you'll see on saturday And that's really because all of those grayed out locks are not available currently Um, and we'll get into that, you know a recommendation on that as we move forward Shifting over to saturday So on saturday there are fewer on-street spaces available But a lot more off-street spaces that are available. So the total supply is significantly higher on saturday But again, if I am visiting from out of town, and I'm not sure which of those garages or locks I park in You know, I may not know that there's that much park So we talked about a lot of potential strategies and I'm really looking at pricing and curb regulation adjustments And I think, you know, obviously it sounds like the parking department is delving into that sort of thing As far as the regulation Really in your high demand areas where you want a lot of turnover you want them to be more expensive And you want them to be shorter term and then as you move out from that radius You can get less expensive and you can have longer time periods But if you really want to encourage turnover spaces and quarter trips You want to price that accordingly so that that's the type of trip you get in that space And that it isn't the type of place that I'm going to be there for five hours I want to take the chance to see if I can sneak by and not get that ticket at the mean time Um, we do also want to continue to know what cancels multimodal lengths as I said Really to get someone to park in a garage. In fact, one of my co-workers commented specifically she ran the parking study And commented specifically she went to park in one of those garages It felt very uncomfortable when she pulled in and didn't get out of her car and instead drove back out And found somewhere else to park and so it's really making making that whole experience more comfortable and more desirable And then one of the things that was brought up in the advisory group that we think would be important Is really starting to talk to the owners of the additional supply especially in that core area There is a plenty of parking supply there that could be better shared And um better available and really discuss things like pricing And I think we might get into that on the next side with those private owners too because if those lots if they really understood What we found in like how much of an opportunity they're missing out because they're charging this much Whereas if they charge this much they might get 10 times as much demand You know that that could be an open partnership and the discussion to have um Parking signage and wayfinding is something that would be very helpful so that when I am the visitor coming in from downtown It's very clear to you where parking facilities are that that I can park in Um, obviously we want to continue to invest in TDM practices. We don't want to continue And I know the city feels strongly about this. We don't want to continue building parking for increasing demand We obviously want to um reduce that Um, and then really the enforcement strategy, which you know again the conversation today was about But continue that enforcement if we decide that certain, um, you know meter segments should be um Higher turn off and really make sure that that enforcement is there and I know that has been a challenge to the city in recent years The final strategy is providing additional public parking. We know in light of what's happening on main street With some impact to the parking on street There is there is some interest in that and this is just an example of that gateway Parcel of being able to get a 25 percent increase in parking by restricting and laying it out a little differently Being a little more efficient when we do have parking high demand park off street parking facilities like this get as much as we can Out of them and one of the things you'll also find in the study is a discussion that as parcels free develop Work would be um work with the owners to see if there is a way to let There be a public park who shared situation as well So that that visitor can park wants visit those, you know, because those businesses may be and then also visit other businesses in the border And not have to move and look for a meter in space to visit somewhere else That's one of my slides So just to speak a little to the schedule and we're here tonight giving an introduction of the work that we've been doing The data collection that we've had So just to just to give an update And also have an opportunity for you to provide feedback on this tonight Start getting it out there publicly get it somewhere that is recorded that other people can actually hear Jen speak to the data because it is a very complicated bit of information And then where do we go from here? So in april We look to come back Taking in some of the information that we're getting from the study taking a good look at where the main street concept is going We're gonna start sharing some ideas We have about how we're laying out the regulation a lot of street based on the interactions that we've been having with businesses We've been doing a bit dozens and dozens of businesses over the last few weeks To really have time to sit down talk about the project and talk about what their businesses needs are for employee parking, customer parking, client parking Truck deliveries And also activation of the right away. So we'll start that conversation as well as we want to start the conversation about What parking regulation changes we might look forward to Have during our construction time frame So during construction the on-street spaces on main street are going to be unavailable at various different times And can't be expected based on the way our network is currently assigned That those side streets or some other places are going to just absorb that loss of So we have strategies that we're working on That doing by regulation changes. So we will start Ideally next month. It's a lot to break forward And you also have other things going on. So that's our goal. But as I said, there's also may This office might shift by a month the following month after being able to start this introduction Give a pretty substantial comment period for people to react Is to come back and start concluding something. We do want to conclude the downtown parking study in may that one I don't see shifting Assuming we get to you in april with a good amount of information Maybe start looking at effectuating some of the regulation changes that'll happen in the final condition Probably not all of them. We have a lot to still nail down. But there's some Substantial changes that we watched to capture But more specifically the temporary Those are ones that I think that we can work fairly quickly It'll also be a really successful For the last bullet we are looking to bid the project at the end of june With a contractor award selection around late august early september and likely a start of construction in november That is kind of the super high level Great, thank you for that. Good stuff. Um, I'll start Mr fox Well, thanks for the presentation and the report in our packets, uh, I love reading it so much detail so much data It was really interesting um, you know, I read a lot in the packet about one of the Strategies or recommendations being way finding and signage to our garages and I think that's super important But that like that just can't be the only thing that we do to drive people to use them And I know you mentioned changes in pricing I'm supportive of that of you know Is there a way we can make on-street parking a little more expensive and maybe lower the rates in the garage To just get people into them to get them into that experience of parking in the garage If it's way cheaper um Beyond that I think there are other ways to sort of Think about how we're identifying where capacity is and what when it is and what I mean by that is thinking about I don't know. I'm thinking about these bike counters that show you how many bikes have gone over A strip of space and so is their way to show like for a section of parking or for in the garages Like how many spaces there are um, I know that there are like crowdsourced apps Like I've heard of like something called parks in it Louisiana Louisiana State University, which is like literally an app that shows you When people are moving from parking spaces just because they're putting it in an app And so I don't know thinking creatively about That real-time information so that people can make the best parking decision possible um So yeah, those are some sort of initial Official thoughts Yeah, and the other thing the other question I sort of had and you mentioned this a little bit is that safety and security Peace, I mean, I've heard anecdotally and you mentioned it like that people don't necessarily feel Safe and secure using our parking garages, which is you know really sad to hear Um, and I wonder if we have any sort of like qualitative information to sort of back Back that up I do want to note that the employee wasn't parking in a public parking garage Okay When they felt unsafe, but in our business center meetings, we are hearing from the business community parking More specifically with the downtown garage because of the downtown applied parking program that some of their staff Had previously felt less safe. Um, and just kind of stopped trying. I encouraged a lot of them to try again Would change the way that the directs are organized the way the staff is circulating the garage and the lighting improvements Does feel different Don't have study data Since we've made those changes Yeah, I mean those are sort of my all my thoughts and questions on this otherwise. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I really appreciated the the data and um The recommendation the recommended future strategies also I think Um, a lot of them make sense, you know max maximizing the use of existing parking information technology improving mobility options in tdm I think those are all important pieces of this puzzle also. So just wanted to say that I think that's all. Thank you Mr. Barr I agree with a lot that commissioner fox Uh relayed to you that this is a very detailed study and it's one of the best ones I've seen so A lot of you for that. I know that I participated I can't remember how long ago it was in an unofficial study where we would drive around at night And count all the spaces and we got something like 1300 spaces within a block of the downtown area that people were complaining. I get And I I have to say that I've never not found parking It's never been right in front of where I want to be but a block away two blocks away But one of the things one of the strategies that I I think we implemented was to increase the price of parking in downtown The downtown metro area if you want to call it that to and expand the Enforcement for that to try and dissuade employees from parking there, but it sounds like they're still parking there And I guess I would ask this. I don't know if you have data on this Are employers paying for that parking or giving some sort of subsidy for it? Not in the Conversations that I've heard so far Some of them are paying their employees really really well And that's nice a restaurant under that That their servers make 60,000 a year That's them there I mean, you're never going to be able to get all of the people by making and you can't make it so price High price that a normal person can park there. We don't want it empty Right, right and and one of the things and I don't I know that it's been looked at and I don't know how deeply it's been looked at Is to try and Either incentivize or I don't know if you can force employees to park in Underutilized lots and then give them transportation options to get to the to their employee You know where they work Have you looked at that? Can you I mean it's probably Okay We do have free employee parking in the underutilized downtown garage Yeah, I mean we're trying to create a financial incentive to drive the people who know the downtown the best Which are the folks who go downtown every day to utilize the spaces that the The more infrequent visitors to downtown don't know So We're trying we've got more to do. No, yep. That's the the age old problem You can try as hard as you can and there's still going to be the challenge for it unless you actually prohibit That's right people that work there Who don't necessarily always fold the highest bank positions in our city I would like to highlight, you know when we implemented the spark eaters we changed our rates and changed that structure it was Eight years ago now. Uh And that study came with a lot more recommendations that we we didn't implement because the first couple years were hard That's a lot of change for Burlington that hadn't happened In a long time and then there was But it does feel like we're right at that right time that some sort of time limitedness in the core which the spark eaters don't have They pay their meter they sit there and they are And well one of the things that my previous position is we actually removed all meters on campus And we made it all the mobile payment system and that created the ability to Section it so that I'm sorry. You've got a 30 minute parking allocation here You cannot increase that and then you can't even move to another area within that zone Or you'll be ticketed So I don't think we're there yet because I had a lot I got a lot of flak from while you're you're making it so that only one way can pay it And and we did find other ways to help supplement people that maybe didn't have a smartphone. It could use the the app But so another thing that I wanted to mention too is in wayfinding is is extremely important I think we've made Good improvements in the city. Um, there's always room for more improvement But if you don't have spaces available for people All the way finding the world because it's just going to point them to a full space That the idea that commissioner fox brought up about having some sort of ability to Tell where is the best place to park where am I going to find a space? Unfortunately in our climate you can't put those little hockey puck sensors Under you know six inches of ice in some cases And be able to to actually read it But if there's ways to do it again If it was a way to move to a mobile payment system That can tell you whether the space is being used at any given time And that can give you the data Which might be able to somehow be tied to an app that tells them If you come over here there's a space for you I know Jeff as you've heard it's it's very creative You know he's presented internally the switchover of the payment systems and And the percentages that are going from the cash or card to Park mobile which is sitting back at the moment and It's an increasing number every month. There's more and more of our revenue That system so On street from main street when it gets redeveloped will be kiosks. So the meters themselves will go away Option I know that that it actually saved us money when we did away with coin operated meters Because it's just the fact that you have to send somebody around and then in many cases, especially if there's a lot of revenue you have to hire law enforcement to Be security when you bring it to the bank and due deposits and all those kind of things that it actually saved us like I don't want to throw a number out because i'm being recorded, but they it saved us a large sum Probably somebody's wages for a year Yes, yes Definitely enough to do that That's all Thank you Please chair on the welcome. All right um So in north hampton mass, I think um director spencer I may have over this to you three years ago my daughters in college there and on their public parking Pins what are those big, you know big signs? It'll say public parking and there is a digital Readout that says 254 spots So I know that cost much But that piece of way finding That's maybe, you know, kind of more city owned as opposed to an app because you have to have the app and You're like my father Just driver All those old people Right exactly as I put on my readers So so, you know the better way finding to direct folks there, but I think I'm gonna Talk mostly about this the safe and secure car parks um You know, you can collect all the data that says like We have this parking, but no one's parking here unless we actually just start looking at some of the qualitative pieces of Why are you not parking there and asking? Like this is often a gendered thing often an age thing. So where women wear children where Um elderly people feel safe is Then other people will feel safe So, you know, I look at I think of, you know, the lake What is it? Isn't it now called the downtown garage? Um Where I was kind of most recently and It needs it needs better Figuring out in there kind of where you're going what direction you're heading Where's the exit to to bank street and so forth? Um That helps one feel comfortable if you know where you're going instead of looking around um, also Like I think about The car park at the hospital the medical center Have you been there lately? You know how they have so it's also just moving around as a human in a space for vehicles Where it's dark and people are moving backwards, right? Um, and so they have you know, and it's just paint on the ground They have kind of those dotted line areas that kind of tell you where it's just a little bit safer to walk and where you can cross Not that everyone follows those But if they're lines of the ground Most humans will tend to kind of walk in or near them Um, so I think looking at strategies Like that that is you know an enhanced safety feature where you know, you're just like do I You know am I walking between cars? So I think looking at some of the you know kind of qualitative research on Getting to what is a safe and secure? Feeling in a car park would also help if you think about some of the service workers Who are those service workers? What time are they leaving their work? um, and That might be why they're parking on main street all day long because You know at 11 o'clock at night 12 o'clock at night whatever whenever their shift ends That parking lot could be fantastic But if the journey from their place of business to that car park Um feel sketchy then we as a city have a problem not only for that worker, but also for visitors So these are kind of bigger systemic things. Um but That all my little soapbox done Love the Love the research on this And I'm also one of those people who knows there's plenty of parking downtown Of but we need to point books to it And keep a gdm on the horizon. Thanks Thank you Wrap around here to commissioner damiani. Sure. Um So the sort of impetus for this study is the main street reconstruction project And I was just curious as to why sort of the largest private parking lot at the bottom of main street The main street landing parking lot wasn't included in the study uh So in talking with the property manager for the main street landing They leave and Is still being paid to an adjacent business Parking capability and that goes to what janet's been mentioning There are a lot of people who are still holding those office space leases for parking and they're being paid So property owners the managers are less motivated because they don't want to be a violation of their contracts But yeah, a lot of it is yeah, it's just unfortunate. I mean I see every every weekend They're charging sometimes 20 dollars for somebody to park there for the entire day Um, I mean, I wouldn't pay 20 dollars to pay there for the day But or park there for the day, um, but it's just an unfortunate That that's I know it's sort of outside of that even five minute walk shed But it's right there at the end of this quarter that we're talking about um, so um Other than that, uh, I think with the renaming of the lake view and college street parking lot to be downtown I think it'd be great if the document references that I think it references Downtown maybe in the maps but college and lake view in the text. Um, so I think just making sure to Yeah, that's what I figured. Yeah Um Yeah, and then with with the downtown garage, um I think as We sort of talk more about pricing or other strategies to get people into the parking garage I was sort of just thinking about that one. That seems to be the largest and most underutilized parking garage We have in the city, especially in this core Most parking garages are on flat surfaces So people typically don't want to go all the way to the top and they want to go on the first two floors But for that parking garage, most people are probably heading towards church street So the the sort of top two floors typically get filled first. So just trying to think about maybe, uh I don't know the bottom half has a different pricing structure than the top half or something to that effect Um for that parking garage as as we talk about pricing structures Right Um, and then the last thing too, I think in terms of the sort of Safety for folks going from the downtown garage Um This is still many years out But I think as the street network across city place gets developed and city place itself gets developed That certainly is hopefully will improve the the safety along That quarter for folks walking from church street or to to that parking garage, but Yeah, but that that's certainly a long ways away. So I know there's certainly Immediate fixes. I don't know what can be done in a construction zone along that quarter to be done, but Yes Oh So, you know that connection right now right That's all I had. Great. Thank you question. Montana Wow This is amazing data like so, uh, I guess occupancy was assayed everywhere in in that downtown core at 10 o'clock 12 o'clock 2 o'clock 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock with end of two weekday weekends Oh Right, uh, I may have ran into you uh one day this summer and I was kind of wondering what you're doing Uh Yeah, and this is 67 parking spots are are going to be affected Right Right on I don't know if that's the doomsday scenario, but the one where you assume 40 percent Upward where there's net where there's no, uh occupancy at all in the marketplace garage and there's still 200 to 300 Parking spots available within that five minute Radius is that that sounded about right? That's an unlikely scenario But we still wanted to make sure that if the parking demand did go back to pre-covid numbers And that means all of us who are enjoying that work like balance from working from home a couple days a week Don't have that anymore that that demand could all come back So we wanted to test for that doomsday scenario as you labeled it Oh boy Beautiful So who asked you to do this again in in 2022? Like whoa It's just wanted to ground truth How much do you bill an hour I mean you have to share that but like the the total the total price of the study would would be a good piece of information No, just for a public record. Oh, yeah The data Not at all like this this is It's just good science good good engineering and uh, I hope we could We like as a city right not just the businesses that are kind of using our all the tip money to To get this kind of thing Uh could could think think these ways about other problems that that we could be solving together and uh, that's it Thank you commissioner overby um, I went a second uh all lights cheer O'Neill Bobonka's comments, um About the safety things so a lot of what I might have suggested you've already been Brought forward and um, also commissioner dominiani's questions as well. So everybody's asked some of the things that I would want to ask however, I did want to um emphasize your comment about the problem with the Availability of private off-site parking and I know that it's been I don't know if it was while This director Spencer was in but you were director at the time We we went through this inventory of the downtown Parking off-street and on-street. Maybe that was in 2015, but the intent was to work with contracts with private uh parking You know some parking lots and And when when we look at the paper that the document that you have on page 19 that really shows the ownership Uh of the public Ownership and the private Uh it it it's it's very revealing of what happened uh years ago when they There was so I'm I'm curious. Um, I know you've you've mentioned the fact that there needs to be maybe some Work done to negotiate with the people that have their private lots managed by the the private company who is now managing them Which is in the document um And I'm wondering if you have asked The people that own the private lots the the terms and the duration of the contracts that they currently have with the private vendor That they are currently using So, um So dpw is engaging one of our Community partners to start these conversations. We're going to start with the parking management company first Just to talk about the data that we found the holes that we found in the system that don't seem well utilized Hoping to have a proactive conversation about the rates the structure facilities So that they can then go back to the the property owners I have met with a few of the property owners that do use, um, you know, another service to Manage their lot offered our service. Um as we recently uh developed it during the manuski corridor project They weren't quite ready to move over yet. They seemed generally Satisfied with what was being provided, but uh, this is a lot that was well utilized What I've met with so far. So we've not met with a lot of them yet But it is on our our docket to do Thanks I I think I I just think it was um It short circuited the work that the The commission was doing and that the public works department was doing to have that situation happen And so in my opinion Somebody needs to look at the duration of the contracts and it sounds like Uh, that is something that somebody is going to be doing um Right because I I really and and you mentioned the north manuski Parking management study and and we know it's the same sort of problem that there's plenty of parking off site off street um, but there are challenges to the The utilization of that by people and the fact that you've developed this Program where you would be willing to do the work for 80 cut to the owner of the property and do the city does the work Um, I I think we just really have to keep finding ways to Uh to to release that off you know off site parking lot Uh, and and so so having it available and not four dollars an hour Which is another deterrent to visitors that Park and then they go to the kiosk and they're shocked uh, and then You know bad bad things Spread around about the the experience Um, so I just think it's very helpful that people might want to look at the page 19 If you're study that very clearly shows the magnitude of that situation And hopefully that can be you know dealt with in the future I know that it related to one of the other things that you had pointed out Also in the document page 18 about the the clarity of the signage and by having this mixture of city signage and and the you know the signage where it's there's you you know, there's there's bags over The kiosk and then there's no bag and it's like It's really horrible for people that are visitors And they're the ones that probably get Get stuck in those lots and don't realize it and then they're Um, I have heard some nightmare stories about that. Um So the other questions that I had you had mentioned obviously the multimodal links to parking facilities Do you have um suggestions because it the of Of what you mean by that when you're talking let's say how to get from the downtown parking garage to church street Yeah, I mean, I think some of the things are really simple and are just a matter of actually one of the other commissioners brought it up When you're in the garage, I I might not remember if I've gone up too late levels Which direction I need to head to to get to church street like how do I get directed there? Where should I go where the stairs that'll get me to the path that gets me there? And then some of the other issue is those connections that Laura mentioned that may not be there or may not be as desirable And that could be the safety and security piece, but that could also be the condition of the sidewalk that should also just How circuitous it is so it's really you know, what that whole trip is and how do we make it so that I get out of my car and again as women or young children or whatever it is It's very clear to me where I need to go and I feel very comfortable Taking that route are there companies that have expertise in doing that kind of uh work With parking garages that you're familiar with I would think in most cases it's done as a part of you know, a city project to review, you know sidewalks and street skating overall because it really fits into the Basically how the streets keep this put together and how smooth it is is it accessible by everyone? Is the lighting correct? It's really it's more like a Stalinski bar projects Um Well, I mean I'm no parking expert But you know things to me and it's been an issue with me the wayfinding from the downtown parking deck To church street and how do you get there and that sort of thing now that you walk along between the bank and the uh The current barlington high school is But it just feels like we're not we just don't we don't have the expertise of creativity. I mean, you know like Is it lighting? Is it paint? Is it um, uh, you know, I know I I just feel like we're struggling with the use of that parking deck Because of the and and there's other factors too. I think the the height of it the ceiling height is low Uh, and that has a first that has us that has a that makes it feel unsafe as well But it really and we can't fix that But we could maybe we could maybe do like I don't know if you've ever been to Chicago airport And you go through those walkways that go between one terminal to the other and there's lights and music happening Again, you know, I would think that I think that we need to be very innovative about it But it's but but who's going to do that and it's like is that a company that does that kind of thing Otherwise, or do we incorporate artists to come in and do that? And I know we've we approved recently the high school using the top floor of that for a portion of their outdoor education um set up so You know, obviously the commission here isn't going to do something like that And you're not going to probably do something like that But I don't think we're ever going to succeed with getting that parking that that parking garage uh Being a pleasant safe feeling place Unless we really do something creative and have and the multimodal thing is, you know Some should we have some sort of trolley?  That's another option or or those little pedicab things, you know another option Um, I just feel like we're not we're we keep circling around that problem and um And I and I would like to find a way to better You know come up with a solution to that It's not related to the main street project, but it's related to what's been a problem here for 10 years Or more than 10 years, um You you actually mentioned also related to that the amtrak connections project. What is that? That was a study that was done in the city of rpc To look at Take to the brain, you know, where did they end up parking? Who doesn't make sense? Down Well, and it relates to the fact that we now have the downtown transit center for the buses A distance away from the train And the parking And so so we really don't have a we don't really have these things connected for convenience of a A person visiting coming up on the train Or or coming in on the bus and trying to get to the train So just more things to think about, um Let's see. I think Answered that question. One of the things that you did mention Was that the uh that there should be that implementation of the comprehensive Parking signage and wayfinding system before the main street construction. Is that something that is actually In the work so that we can actually see that happen Uh so that people and I think your guidance was that so that people get used to parking in these alternate places So they're already ready and have no problem with it when all of a sudden their favorite little angle parking spots not available on main street Is that is that going to happen? I mean, are you are we able to do that is Is that going to happen? And there's a timing of it such that that guidance cannot possibly happen I think some construction related signage and some other wayfinding Tactically can happen a large kind of publicly funded grant funded project at this point doesn't have time to be Implemented before november, but the interest is absolutely to do something to enhance Connectivity to new spaces and new lots. Yeah, just to move people as you say so that we have less pain because it'll already be a familiar operation But that funding source was limited to only directing people to public parking So we couldn't even have a sign that said, you know 5 p.m Standard p You know try this lot or try that lot or turn left here The tip funding isn't as limiting as that So we have the opportunity to add that information to our existing wayfinding system to help people find some close high capacity off-street privately There's there's no language out there right now Well, this could be an opportunity for a couple of the lots that Would be in a good position to take over this 67 loss or whatever up to 60 because That's where you could get that private lot owner to come up with a plan right now for this construction project And you know, you'd have to have to work with the private vendor that's managing the parking but It to find to follow your guidance. I think that would be a good thing to do like like you recommend so that People are not you know people they're practiced they get the practice and they might like better whatever Um, this is nothing to do with the I'm changing subjects here, but can you provide an operate an update on the ravine sewer project So the ravine sewer portion of the work Has a preferred alignment that's been identified There is a document on the Great Streets website that can give some information about that So here is the Great Streets homepage. It has a scrolling marquee you can come down You'll be able to find There's the main street bubble if you click in here And actually you're going to start to see some of this parking information show up on the page But we have generally the most recent published information about where the project's at So at top of the list is all about water and sewer There is the information on the ravine sewer There's also information on just the water main and sewer main replacements throughout the entire corridor That went out to property owners In the ravine sewer And There is a map of the entire project corridor of the water and sewer replacement and then this dashed line Shows our alignment of the ravine sewer that'll help behind the fire station out to main street Down main streets to the corner of church street and then from church streets to maple It essentially is interrupting all of the flow in the pipe that comes from north of this location And moving it within our city's right-of-way versus the existing path with crossfets The city on a diagonal Here going underneath the properties Intersecting buildings So yeah, well, well it was originally the railroad bed And it's a six foot tunnel basically Then and it goes from the corner of college street down Down to where you're connecting in farther down fire station. It has a trajectory northeast of there out towards the interval But the other direction the other direction the southwest we are interrupting it. So eventually these properties This is how the tip funding is is able to pay for it These properties have an opportunity to redevelop in a way that they never could before with this piece of infrastructure Flowing In that that that l whatever l-shaped thing Thank you. Thank you for that. I think um I know the question that you that I looked at you one question of how much how much of our tiff borrowing have we already um Done. Well, just yeah, how much have we borrowed obviously you're spent you're borrowing as you spend But how how are we doing with that? What's Inferred all of its debt so far. So we've incurred 30 million dollars of debt And is the uh, are the interest rates that we see happening Everywhere have have you were you able then locked in? Okay, so we don't have to worry about the That all right. I think it was a fairly reasonable rate. It was a reasonable deal for the city So while we borrowed 30 million dollars Through however, it works out. We actually effectually 34 million dollars of money that we can spend Do you know what the interest rate is? I usually multiple Rates depending on issues or something find that for you, but that is not no No, I I know I was looking at it originally when it was being considered So I sort of know what range is but i'm just curious with all the changes in interest rates I was curious how well we did we solidified that in august of last year. Oh, so Hard to know hard to know now I think it's before chaos Yeah, yeah All right, I think that's covers the questions that I had the other ones were were absolutely covered well by the other commissioners Thank you All right, thank you Uh, yeah, I have a couple questions. Thanks Um when can you Define or help me understand how How you count turnover as a percentage? Sort of get the concept of like high or low, but like what is what is a percentage? Yeah, so the percentage of vehicles that turned over in two hours And so we went around to noted plates every two hours We did it by gis by block so that we would even catch those people and Understand if they if they appeared twice in the study or on different streets, then they aren't It's still a turnover that still moved And so that spot on that street did turn over But it's so that's the percentage of spaces on that block that turned over in that period So I feel like from the beginning of two hours to the end of two hours How many spots of yes something different new in okay regardless of whether it's a Three hours on her four hours on her. Okay Thank you Yes, a lot of great stuff there. I would Echo the enthusiasm and Those questions from my fellow commissioners here. I feel like there's You know in terms of like the data counts and stuff is very solid um Some ideas for the actual other layers of data collection come to mind. I'm like Right here are harder things that would have blown this particular budget But I feel like there's an opportunity for like The marketing Angle there or some outreach to current or prospective users there. So really the recommendations Are of the flavor of like shifting our levers potentially like charging a little more for this or charging a little less for that and You know, it'd be great to be sort of pulling people one unlike some of the user experience Questions that have come up of like how was your parking experience today? If you're like an open-ended like QR codes out there or like on the park Burlington website or whatever like what was your What was the worst part of your parking experience that we could potentially help with What was the best part? Also another layer of that, you know, I think we've seen quantitative studies in other towns that show that some Business owners Resistently Underestimate the proportion of people that get to their shops by non private vehicles And overestimate the percentage of people to get to their businesses by private vehicles And seeing that from the time that it sort of makes sense anecdotally To me to think about a customer who maybe had a poor experience trying to find a parking spot Trying to find their way out of a parking garage getting there. Let's get me like in the front of their mind they're made like the provider of business versus a customer that say Kind of pleasant walk to get there Just hopped off the bus stop right in front of it and it didn't it's like that. They're not really sweet That's how it should be. There's no trouble that they're not going in and like venting about that so people don't get a year full not then that It makes sense when I see that stuff from other towns, but I don't know if that That still doesn't um necessarily carry a lot of weight with proprietors in this town that Don't care because their perception is their reality, you know in this um data collection And communication exercise there might be angles there to sort of Do some polling of those numbers for our businesses But how'd you get here today? How was your experience? Ask the shop owners. How do you think your people got here today? How was their experience? Or love The opportunities that this data started Could be leveraged for another purposes and I get certainly if um vision director pageant was Still here. He knows and I Ask him every chance I get like where are we with real-time? Counts there's legal things. They're still working to get there, but I feel like that could be a huge tool and unlocking more possibilities here Be easier to have a number to put up on the sign of like how many spaces are currently available and I know like Years ago probably Pete pre COVID even the idea was loaded of somebody being able to look up before they Drive from South Burlington or Williston or whatever like They sort of like reserve a spot or like know that there is a spot for them before they get like all this sort of setting stuff could be unlocked by the having real-time Counts to feed this but these data counts sort of go a long way and I'm very appreciative of that Yeah, I think that's all I've got Thank you for the study. Thanks presentation here's good stuff Uh, let's check. I don't see anyone in the room for public comments Mr. Goulding could you do a quick check on the phone? Is anyone interested in speaking public comment on this item? Not at this time chairman. Thank you, mr. Goulding That there's no action requested on this one, but I do very much appreciate the update Or we'll see you soon All right. Thank you Next item on agenda item 8 director report Hi Thanks to staff for Running the show tonight. It's uh first. I've got a chance to weigh in on a few things. So, um There is a parking van tonight. You heard that from division director Jeff pageant While the temperatures have been warm today. They're going down to 22 tonight All that wet snow is going to lock up. We wanted to clean up the city for safety So, uh, please uh park off street tonight Parkway, uh construction season is about to restart mid april as we get underway with our construction season The initial work will be on the rail crossings on flin and home avenue. There's some uh communication going out soon about Uh closures one-way traffic and the like in those areas They will then move in later summer to lakeside avenue and pine street and stay tuned for more construction mitigation News, uh on that front We are also going to city council, uh this Coming monday to the board of finance and then to the following monday to the city council for our Paving contract as we discussed earlier tonight and also the sidewalk contract for this coming year Please that we got competitive bids on both of those and uh looking forward to a good construction season Happy to answer any questions. Great. Thank you I'll um move forward to item nine our agenda commissioner yes See here start with uh commissioner mutano. Oh loop around the other way. It's me Yeah There's a ton of exciting projects um Certainly, there is a parking focus at at meeting today um And i'm just kind of thinking about the other modes that people might be using to get into downtown and In particular to get into church street and kind of You know, you're a visitor, right? How how well can you maneuver around? um Beyond just that church street core So um, I get I guess I'm wondering uh Maybe a brief green mountain transit update regarding Stuff Sure, uh, yes Yeah, I think one of the important things to notice while we spend a lot of time talking about parking It's the mitigation of parking in order to unlock a lot of exciting multimodal Uh investments So main street the six blocks for example will be the city's first uh dedicated Off-street cycle tracks on each side of the street wider sidewalks And you know exciting stormwater features bus shelters and the like so I'm excited about that and while we have to talk about how parking can be accommodated It's in service of those multimodal goals paving this year will um Also have pearl street repaved on the upper section which will smooth out the bike lane in that section Bike lanes will be added to platzberg avenue as you all discussed last year. So that's on uh the docket We are trying to secure more grant funding for the north champlain Two-way cycle track that we've talked about for a number of years you may have uh You know earlier in the meeting we discussed the fact that the geo bond general obligation bond Was not for as much as the city identified that we needed money for So we're trying to write grants to fund a lot of this work so that we're not using our precious uh limited general fund money so Hoping that this year that we can secure some grant funding to do the lion's share of the work Uh north champlain because of the signal work at manhattan And the concrete separation that we want to create it's around a half million dollar project It's not just plastic bollards and some pain so um Of course the champlain parkway project, which will be under construction this year We'll add the shared use path this year all the way From home avenue up to downtown. So that will be installed this year as well as well as the sidewalk project Uh construction that I referenced earlier gmt coordination. We have a meeting with them This week or next week. Is it this week? I think it's next week um with their planning team to focus on a number of Coordination issues one of which is now with our downtown being restructured new city placed through streets Main street reconstruction the call street shuttle has seen reduced headways and reduced ridership It's probably time for us to look at how we Root buses through our downtown. Where do we want to establish trunk lines? And where do we want to improve the shelter experience? Have more higher frequency transit so that we can really plan thoughtfully and not be Back on our heels. So I'm excited to do all this work. Uh bike share is going to come back with a Top line company this year. Uh, we're final negotiations with one of the leaders in the industry So i'm bullish for this year All of that sounds so tremendous It's a coming together of all of these things that like Yeah, right right now if I took the train into burlington from say new york I wouldn't feel comfortable kind of maneuvering around on a bike. I rented but you know within a few years Maybe I would and maybe a lot of people would and maybe people would decide You know what? I don't I don't need a car living here in burlington and I think listening to people and kind of Seeing if that's the future we want really Really getting getting everyone's voices in that in that So yeah, thank you. Great. Thanks for your support. Thank you. Sure. Damiani I think the only thing I had was around the toters. I was just curious as to how far along that like do we have a Target number that we know that we're trying to get to and what percentage people have come in to get those and I was just thinking I was reviewing the totter website just for the kind of building that I live in and Um, I think it mentioned that once after May 1st The recycling crew is going to put out little stickers on the bin As a reminder, but I'd be curious if that's possible to do sort of ahead of time now Before May 1st to sort of remind people just another way to Get it in people's face, you know, maybe even at the bottom because that's sort of where I look when I Bring my recycling bin up to the second floor of my building or upside down wherever just Um, yeah, they're adding another place to to see it It's a great opportunity to thank our customer service team Who I know is taking notes tonight across the hall doing incredible work responding to the Large influx of people requesting toters ever since we sent out postcards to every resident in burlington Sales are quite strong Our team in between plowing is delivering all the toters out One of the things we're really trying to work through is educate a lot of the multifamily buildings To not get one small toter for each individual unit, but to get larger toned toters for the whole property It will not work if we need to pick up Eight small toters at one parcel and then move to another parcel and have to pick up six toters It's just we're never going to be able to do our work So that's been a lot of work at the front trying to educating people that similar to how you manage your garbage there's one central point on the on the property and That's going to be what's going to enable us to make this work Is that a requirement or is that more education that like a certain number of units have to sort of share It is a requirement in ordinance that a multi-unit property of a certain size needs to have a 65 gallon or greater toter Which is the middle or larger size So our customer service team's been educating folks who reach out about that great That's all I had for today. All right. Thank you.  We have mr. Goulding Who's been leading the outreach? I just wanted to add the the plan for the stickers is not to go out after may 1st. It's actually to go out Once the snow stops flying hopefully in the next week or so we have Stickers in transit. It should be here at the end of the week And we plan on putting those on all of the existing blue bins During the next few weeks to pick up. So we'll try to be uh proceeding The may 1st date by a couple weeks. Um, so in addition to the landlord outreach Those parts, um, we've got the stickers coming soon and a social media ad campaign coming up soon We've got advertisements in the bed bill The water bill, uh, north avenues and we'll keep plugging away and hoping to catch as many people as possible Awesome. Thank you Great. Thanks for that Mr. Fox Kind of have any comments this evening. Um, just thanks to dpw staff for the really detailed packet this week is Awesome. Good read All right commissioner bar Thanks. Um, I only have one comment and in your email shape shape interdirector sponsor You you might you might have received your look at it already The old east end is looking to try and do some things in their area and just for the greater knowledge of everybody here We're really trying to make it a safer place and we've done some walk audits. We're working with arp Um, we're working with karsher. We're working a lot of different people One of the things that I suggested to them is that rather than come up with all these ideas themselves on traffic calming Is to find out what measures what do you want done and what are the measures that are in the Kit bag here that we can probably implement they're going after some funding So we're gonna have to see if there's creative ways for a neighborhood to help fund some of these things Um with public works, but that's if we could just get um, somebody to join one of our calls That would be great for like Awesome. I followed up with mr. Crowley today gave him. Yeah, date and crates. Who's our new senior transportation manager Uh planner, so he's gonna be dating's gonna be following up with mr. Crowley. Great. I told the length say that so awesome Okay, happy to support. All right vice chair onil babanco um Thanks for the the the snow removal. I'm kind of liking the Wait until the snow finishes Falling before you call this the parking ban Which I feel like in years past it There would be a parking ban and we would still get snow I don't know. I feel like the cleanup seems to be um a little bit better Overlake park sidewalk could use a little love Throw that okay As I slogged out here tonight um No, and I do um thanks to um rob gulding because on the February 17th couple days after our last commission meeting I got an email as a property owner. Did you receive recycling? tote In my email and I was like So just awesome. I think um and of course there Thanks, rob and there are going to be people who think why I didn't hear anything But at least like we know we have hit You know as many marks as possible aside from you know, just Wacking people over the head with a blue head which would wouldn't really be good Rob's gonna walk around burlington with a sandwich sign right rob I'm open to open to whatever we have to do to make sure people aren't out of compliance on anyone Great job. Thanks Thank you. Mr. Overby Uh All right, I I wanted to just first thank the ward two three npa Because they held a really nice uh session as part of their Um meeting last thursday where they were talking about the the commissions and how the commissions work and they had a Four different tables with different commissioners at them and it was really interesting to uh To participate in that as a public works commissioner along with somebody at the table was Downtown the church street marketplace commission um, but one of the things that came out of that was relating to Graffiti and who's responsible for that. So that that's a question. I'm gonna toss out. I'm not asking of an answer, but I I appreciated that particular format that they had for everybody that sat around the table It wasn't you know a presentation or anything. So that was really that was really great and all of you Maybe they'll do it again and maybe some of the other ward NPAs would be doing the same thing I think it was really an excellent way to get people to understand the commission system and what commissions are available and And how it works How to apply particularly that things are going to turn over, you know in may and june for another year Right. Also. I know I communicated a couple times with director spencer about the private plowing companies that are And i'm not sure if other people in the in the neighborhoods are having the same issue But I had communication about the city's probably doing a great job of getting the street plow out of the sidewalk But there are people that are private Plowing companies that are pushing this snow across Into other people's driveway on the other side and I don't know if there's a solution to that but It feels like there's there needs to be something done to help Communicate with people that are doing a private driveway snow removal To help them understand apparently there is there's rules on it. It's just another case of education. What what can we do? And and I had people like more than one person once the first person said it to me I said something about it. Oh, yeah, that happens on grant street as well Instead of just Henry the the last thing I was going to suggest and on the toters You might want to help people understand that they don't need to put the toter out every time every week If it's not full Don't put it out wait till you're when it's full Uh, I had you know, I just think that's another way to help reduce the number of them out there that the city's machine You know guys have to pick up So I don't know how you're going to communicate that but uh Yesterday was the was the pickup on my street and it was obviously, you know What the weather was looking like and I didn't put mine out and I thought Is you know, is that something that we can sort of help people understand to help help you guys out like So, uh, that's what I have to communicate. Thank you All right. Thank you on the topic of toters, I was uh Got a postcard in the mail a couple weeks ago. Also. I am a happy User of a toter currently don't just suggest I know there's sort of a cost benefit here if there's any way to the record target those mailings to the Um The the doubt of the crew that's you're still looking to write off of the bins for Later communication, but I know I don't know where we are with our numbers of Total adoption quite. Yeah, but I do need to pick up trucks deliver them. Yes curious, uh the previous parking ban Saturday may March 4th or so it was still over the school break Um, do you have a sense of like How that went was there a a lot of towing required or? Uh, my recollection, uh, mr. Golding is that it wasn't abnormal I think we towed over 200 cars, which is generally about what we're telling is that right Mr. Golding Yeah, I think I think it was well within the range of normal maybe high end normal But if I recall when we were doing the debrief, um, we didn't think it was unusual Yeah, great. I was uh Coming home from the train station that night Well, the train gets in at about 10 when the parking ban kicks in the parade of Tow trucks was quite impressive. I had no idea that those kind of resources were brought to bear Oh, yeah, the line going down pines through there's like 10 trucks 12 trucks. It was It was as you mentioned 200 cars. Um, it's quite an operation. The operation is quite the Yeah, quite the thing All right, another thing ahead of um, sort of a world's colliding moments today, there's a geeky conference on a particular web development Technology that I pay attention to and use at my day job And I was gonna attend and like something a topic to talk up my eyes like about prioritizing sidewalk Repairs I was like, oh, that's cool. And I was like, oh, it's it's from somebody from rsg Oh, great. And like they're talking they're talking about the brilliance in vermont sidewalks. I was like, oh, all right, so um world The broadcast around the world this this presentation today from an rsg staff are pretty cool. Nice stuff. Um, I'll follow up with staff done like specific questions there, but a general question is I wonder How are we with Getting that sort of stuff into our asset management system The gist of that talk was like doing the separate tool to support the ranking and decision-making arounds when we're Yes, repairing which sidewalks but like more generally like our sidewalks into the asset management thing Yeah, they they are getting in there. They're they're the study with rsg did get it into gis and so that geospatial platform really Uh, gives us a really solid base on which to do the activity scores which laura senior engineer wheelock has brought in the past Layering on top multiple things. How many public requests have we had to replace the sidewalk? What was the objective condition through the rsg report and then? Yes, and then looking at the activity score of where it is in the level of use it gets to order to prioritize the work So I'm pleased with how we do that work. I do appreciate the fact that you know, not everybody Is into the data the same way we are and can wonder why their sidewalks not getting addressed So, uh, if people have concerns are welcome to reach out to mr. Goulding myself And we're happy to answer questions But yeah, that data is directing over a million dollars of work this year and Proud that we're doing that data driven process. Yeah, I'd love to see that objective data driven decision making that's great Lastly just an announcement that's a scoping study for battery street is kicking off Um, I'm sitting on that Steering committee representing the public works commission. It's really well represented by public works staff as well One announcement there there was like a committee meeting Last week and week before Upcoming in mid april timeframe. We the first public meeting around that. I don't have an exact date for that yet, but we'll get the Get the announcement out of that shortly when we got it Watch for that Thank you for picking up that ball that I dropped in the director's report You got it Nothing further from my commissioner communication With that We'll move forward to item 10 on our agenda It's there in the next meeting date april 19th. We have a motion from commissioner bar excellence We have a second from vice chair on the avanco. Is there any discussion around that? All right, all in favor. It's hi. Hi. Hi any opposed All right, we're adjourned 907