I don't I can't even know for how long it has been today and I'm kind of all computed out so the faux pas the glazed look it's not you I promise all set Amber yes all set pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th and 20 orders suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law general law chapter 30a section 18 this meeting of the transportation advisory committee is being conducted by a remote participation this meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown on Amherst media and broadcast on the town of Amherst YouTube channel at any time I don't think anybody's dialing in so I don't have to tell people up who are on the phone to dial asterisk nine to raise their hand and off we go so what I'm I have a question if someone does show up I will who will see them anybody who's in the meeting can see them if you hit the participants button on the bottom of the screen it says participants and it shows these little people and it shows a number 10 if you hit that then you can see this thing on the side and it shows panelists and also shows attendees and right now I don't believe it actually would show Chris would it actually show like who the attendees are it would just show like the I mean I've noticed in the meetings lately like the council meeting that it shows the number you have not if you're not if you're a panelist like if you're right now but if you remember the public you can't see who the other members of the public are that's yeah so in the meeting Hilford Amber and I can see people who are out there I think the three of us no we all can't because we're all panelist panelist panel okay I'm just saying like the general participants it's it's the only road out there in like general attendee land with these four or five hour meetings that happen in town sometimes are you at the town council meeting the other night Tracy I was on for part of it yeah yeah that did go on for a long time and I think that and the school committee meeting last night I was kind of anyway yeah they go on for a long time so first up is is I'm still trying to schedule a time when Doug Slaughter can come and visit with us his his schedule it sounds like it's kind of falling in between hours where he's always meeting on our nights but we'll figure that out but he did send a a little note saying that the shorts the super super short story is that the bvta is reduced service because of safety protocols and it has to have had to modify its budget significantly expensive revenues are down and expenses are not cares act money are helping and otherwise there is a gap in the revenue and pbt is working to stretch those as far as possible so I'm still working on figuring out a date when we can all get together he's he's very amenable to to that so he's a good guy what am I looking for now I'm looking for my copy the agenda and excuse me I had a question about that is so I mean I remember back I remember back you know a long time ago there used to be I was curious about like how many actual town routes there are compared to you mass transit routes so and how much because because the money like for you mass transit it comes through the pbt to you mass transit I believe but then so then the pbt a like somebody like Doug is not actively involved that much in the service and so on on the you mass transit routes I don't know whether maybe we should be talking to somebody from you mass transit and I guess my question is to how many other routes do we have the town has zero roots at this time that's what I'm yeah all the roots are either mass transit or pbt a roots so yeah I'm trying to remember who the who's in charge of the well Glenn Farrington right he's a great but it was there was it was it was there was somebody else that used to speak with us regularly I'll buy him before he retired so I'm gonna make a note here to get you mass to but I mean when the pbt has public hearings on their route and route changes they do include the UMass roots yeah so we'll we will get we'll get as what when we figure out these schedules we can get people to come in and chat with us Christine nope I have to remind you to unmute Darcy Darcy Dumont is waiting in the attendees chamber oh look at that so a moderator can like add her Amber added her I think thank you thank you hi Darcy Darcy we were just just finishing up a long discussion on how to deal with the waiting room in zoom so and and we just Doug Slaughter is we're still working on finding a date when he can come talk to us about transit and there's been a suggestion to bring Glenn Barrington I think he said is the fellows in charge now he's often been going to come and chat with us so I'd like to set up sort of regular meetings with those two at some point that might play or quarterly or something that makes sense especially come out of this crazy time so Aaron just a quick aside I mean I remember talking to Ben Glenn over the summer I think you know about some of the root cuts and so on and he said at that time that one of the issues was that without so many of the undergrads on campus like they were actually one of the reasons for reduced routes was the driver shortage yeah it wasn't just a COVID thing it was like they actually didn't have drivers yeah that's been a perennial problem they it's hard for them to maintain drivers because they can't pay enough they'd rather rather it's it's it's it makes more money to deliver pizza than it does to drive a bus apparently or something so yeah that's that's a perennial thing I just wanted to say that I did respond back to the whole road neighborhood got a very nice response back from them saying yes thank you well you know we're anxious to see how how that goes and I'm hopeful Darcy and Tracy who was there a little bit that there's there's some news on the the Pomeroy intersection decision I see the timeline and we're now the outreach neighbors and part of the the effort so isn't it yes Tracy and just I mean back to Hulse Road so when you when you're emailing like members of the community like that on the tax behalf is it possible for the tax to see what you sent them either either as a like a blinds you see at the time or maybe just at our next meeting just so we sort of know yes what what people are hearing or what their expectations might be or anything absolutely I can add you to the add I don't know do you do you want to add us to the email because if you add us all to the email right yeah and also if there's too many people on it it gets put into people spam folders so it would never do that coming from you just for full disclosure I know Megan Rhodes and I've worked with her through the Franklin Regional Council of Governments and Megan just she's just a super person she knows her stuff cold yeah if you want an ally and this she's the best one to have no and and and when I when I share my letter I'll share her response as well it was very it was very nice it was very good right you can't be there that's the way Janet and I are part of the district 5 neighborhood association so that's the other connection I have with the list of people on in a couple of people I just sort of know but those two connect those those are two organizations people who are organizations that I'm connected up with so that that that raises the interesting question that when we begin to take decisions on things down here you know when we need to recuse ourselves I in this case I don't think I think just announcing that our relationship is enough there's no you know there's no physical relationship I mean and I no longer I'm no longer consult the furcog so yeah no no it's right no financial benefits right right just to just to note that I know those two people and again Megan is she's she's just a super transportation person and you know we want some help with this she's and she seemed very knowledgeable as well I mean that's I responded to her as if as if you were like I'd heard that she was the last thing I worked on with her was a traffic calming thing in Northfield so there you go so what happened Monday night I was not able to to stop in and listen but I'm wondering what the story is with the Palmer Intersection what decisions were taken so Tracy was there and Darcy certainly are you trying about the town council meeting the town I'm sorry yes the town council meeting yeah the town the town council is going to actually have a formal presentation on the Pomeroy mass works project on the meat at the meeting on the 25th and then they are going to decide whether or not they're going to refer it to a committee and it's likely that it will be referred to TSO but that's not it's not absolutely where it will go but it I don't know why it wouldn't it seems logical that it would go there sometimes it goes to more than one committee but anyway I did talk to Paul about it and he you know I think one of the things that we want to do is figure out like what's the timeline and how all the different entities can interact with the timeline starting with whatever the plan is for outreach so you know would make sense to me for TAC to weigh in on whatever the topics are I mean the the the issue of the roundabout is obviously going to be a key issue and that's going to be I think that's going to be a big part of the presentation on the 25th and yeah so yeah I'm looking at that the the timeline which goes from starting December 2021 to to bids going out in January 2022 so there's some time there I guess all right well very good correct me if I'm wrong I think the thing with Pomeroy is when we have to enter into an agreement with Commonwealth and that's not that doesn't give us yeah no I'm sorry I'm yeah the contract is we have to have a contract but by June 30th of 2021 so we've got five months yeah so it's not not a whole lot of time I guess sorry don't get don't get wrapped up with the contract with a state you actually have nothing to do with that and it's not part of the project process really that's just a formalization of the agreement between the town and the state that we get the one and a half million dollars okay and but my thought was we'd have to tell the Commonwealth's what we're intending to do with their 1.5 million or are they just accepting of either of the two broad plans that were under discussion they're accepting the two broad plans and they expect us to be finished with something by the 2023 okay thanks so what time of the 25th Darcy that sets of Thursday no it's Thursday no I'm looking at the wrong month it should be a Monday it's a Monday it's a Monday and your guess is as good as mine as to what time you know the agenda will come out on the Friday before and it's probably going to be well it's a presentation item rather than an action item that's usually toward the beginning of the meeting but that means it could be anywhere from that's the guess okay but you know we will have more of an idea probably the Thursday or so before the meeting it's going to come up I will make a point to to look in on that thank you that's good um may I ask a question about that yes Chris please Darcy do you know who is going to be given the presentation is it Guilford or Dave Zomek or Paul or Guilford he was pointing at the screen I'm not sure no which direction I don't know who's going to do it I thought Chris was going to do it again oh very interesting that's what I'm asking if I'm going to do it I need to know we don't know yet I don't know I just know it's on the agenda and Paul has uh has talked about it at some length so I yeah is it likely to yeah is it likely to have a lot of the old information is that what uh what you might be giving us Chris oh what Paul is expecting or what the council is expecting so here's whenever it was we left that oh 2013 and then back in like 2008 yeah we talked about it a lot back then yeah yeah all right excellent yeah so yeah I'm I'm particularly curious as to what role we might be the tack might play in that as you might know um so amber thank you we've got some minutes um I how how they they're they're greatly condensed which I appreciate uh and I'm trying to pull him up here did did everybody have did anybody have a chance to look over them and to make comments for consideration the I appreciate the brevity a great deal I'm I'm in the future I think I'd like to reserve the the the possibility of bulking things out to make more of the description I realize that this is what's required but uh sometimes our discussions we might want to put some more of the internal points into them but that's yeah I do have the full transcripts also if anybody wants to pursue them I mean or re-through them in order to pull more of those points out yeah um yeah no and like I say I realize that this is this is the this is the requirement pretty much here I just know that um minutes are are a good tool for communicating to the public for their a tool to communicate with the public and something who might want to put more into them um other than that does does anybody have a comment on these and I should look for hands when I ask for that and not look over at the minutes that I'm pulling up on my screen here um but um because otherwise um I would I would look for a motion uh Bruce thank you to approve the minutes unless anyone has any comments or changes and and and let's be specific that they're for October 15th 2020 and for November 5th 2020 is presented um I didn't go over them for for the uh the punctuation and the other things that so many of us are good at and I'm not um but um is there a second is there further for the discussion Kim was that a second or was that for the discussion okay that was a second so all those in favor then just sort of put your hand in front of the screen and um we don't have to ask anybody to recuse themselves because we were all there for these two so thank you Amber very much for those um it's kind of exciting to see them you know it feels like the you know the the horses being to move again um North Pleasant Street multi-use path Guilford has an update for us that I'm curious about which you'll need to unmute himself so we can hear so so behind me is the concept for the tunnel roundabout we're going to install on North Pleasant Street and Pine Street underneath what ocean that's the one on the Faroe Islands yes I think so we found this and it's actually it's like it's really cool it's like four four tunnels that actually do come together and they have the intersection and underwater it's really cool crazy but um we we showed you guys the let me get the drawings up again the inner the changes we were talking about for the sidewalks on North Pleasant Street and I will share that with you I would may share that with you the intention is right share so the the intention is to kind of start working on this and work on the easy parts of it um the concept was to take one side of the road and to just repair the existing sidewalk and make sure it's five feet wide and then on the other side of the road that it'd be at least a eight foot wide to ten foot wide multi-use type path um there is some land taking has to be done and but there are some sections we can start like if you look at the section that you're looking at now this is the side of um this is the end the north end of North Pleasant Street at Meadows Street and Pine Street and we keep we have plenty of right away here we can actually redo the sidewalks for a good deal of the maybe probably a quarter mile of this stretch of the road before we start explaining the colors yep so as you look at it the blue is the new actually my hand is running along the use multi-use path and that's outlined in blue the dark blue double line is the curb line for the existing roadway so to your right is the north and to your left is to the south up is west and down is east so is this up in the corner where the Korean other Japanese restaurant is yes yeah okay so on this on this section we're going to have the west side's going to be the wider path and on the east side's going to be the narrower path we're doing away with the little drive the side road this this little side road here is going to go away and um driveways will come straight out to the front edge of the road well there'll be any additional lighting along there for now no this is just going to be sidewalk improvements okay is that something we could work with ever source or we would have to do it ourselves if we were to increase the lighting um you could get we could get um we actually own all the street lights and embers that are on the public way okay so we would have to actually add additional lighting yeah this just looks like it avoids moving poles as well it does the road doesn't change just the sidewalk is going to change and we're just leaving the old little one b the excuse me the little sidewalk on the west side you know that little sidewalks coming out okay we're gonna have a wider just one side wide sidewalk is that is the other side of the street is the smaller side the smaller proper sidewalk on the other side is that um going to be improved like yes it'll it'll be widened to five feet at least and repaved great so this is sorry what are the um the the the like v-shaped things that are intersecting with the red line i'm looking right in the middle is that a bridge or these right this is a paved waterway is where the water goes from the road into a catch basin okay sorry thanks no it's a good that's a good question so this is um it's a culvert yes there's a culvert right here in the middle and so does that need to get improved we're gonna try to avoid it in this at this crossing here we're not we don't really need to do much change here so we're gonna not really change much of the culvert i see is it is there a possibility of adding more lighting in the future there's always that possibility yes okay yeah i want to um just make sure people have seen our subcommittee walk report with recommendations on this because lighting was the reason bruce is asking about lighting is because that was a big part of the subcommittee walk report so well some of us weren't on so to eve's question some of us weren't on the committee then but i know i believe all those walk reports are on one of the pages on like the tag page on the website on the town website um the path would be used much more at night obviously if there would be more lighting but i understand for a bunch of reasons to do it maybe in stages yeah well there was a death that uh happened a few years ago that was you know because it was so dark yes it is dark along there and it does come into a town center so is that something gilford that at some point would there ever be a state grant just for lighting a multi-use path i don't know i mean they give grants for everything else as erin said at least to a village center as well as the campus i mean it's it's a primary route take to add lighting gilford we can keep our eye out for it people in my office have lists of grants that they look through every once in a while yeah if you would chris i would be really appreciated because i i do think it is dark along there at night and uh it would just be better for pedestrians and bikers to have more lighting so did you find this subcommittee walk report online because if not yeah it's right here it's right on the tag page i can email the link right now okay it's under the tag page and then under um traffic whatever yeah complete streets like subcommittee so i'll send it right now is there a tracy is there a chat you could just paste it too oh that's um see well this i didn't see one yeah not set up as a chat but i believe i may be able to because these are done as webinars i don't think we can do a chat um even the even the hosts can't yeah monitors can't do one yeah sorry thank you no no you could show it on your screen and share if you want to share that now i'm just going to share the link directly and then people can read it yes thank you okay um yeah those those are good are you going to be doing those again um they generate a lot of a lot of good data but i think we have to wait till after covid yeah well oh well there's that yeah we had we had groups of neighbors who walked with us so sometimes we'd have little groups of people yeah one of the great things we had in the subcommittee at that time was we had someone who was a pvta driver and so we got a lot of really good insight into bus routes yes that's true yeah kilford when do you see this work is starting in the spring the the goal is is that we're gonna we're gonna try to line this up and start working this into our sidewalk repair and then doing the sections that are doable without getting public more public way and then so you'll see sections being widened and sections not being widened and the crews work jumping down the road so yeah we do expect to start in this season okay will there be on road bike paths added as well no does that require widening the road is that the that requires widening the road a little more yeah how much roadway width is there um and some places we're actually going right up against well some places we're actually taking other taking new right away so the green line in the drawing is the property lines it's the green dash line green dash dash lines so if you if you um i think we sent these all to you last before last meeting yep i can send them again if you if you need them again you can look at them um this on the sheet you're looking at now there's actually four sheets to it the sheet you're looking at now is um basically the first entrance to puffed in coming south and then the second entrance is to the left and the it's still on the west side is the multi-use path and on the east side's the improved regular sidewalk and so we're coming up on the curve here which is near the bus stops it's still the same the west is the multi-use path the east side is the regular five foot sidewalk this is hobart lane right here that's the hobart intersection is there still any thought of turning that into a roundabout um there's still some thought but there's really not enough money to do that so that would be a future a future phase to this can we just paint a white circle in the middle of the road we could try but i don't i don't not think that way it looks like on on um many parts of the the drawings that you're giving us at least on whatever the top part of i forget what which direction that is the top part of your drawing the red line the existing red line is the existing curve and it looks like so is the street getting widened in those places because it looks like the um the proposed curve is further towards the top of the page on these drawings and much of that is that no no and this one here the red line is the existing curve and if you see a dark blue that's the new um right i was just looking further up oh so it's just getting widened so the existing curve will will stay there yes remain okay i'm sorry yep got it so it's just grass in between the curve and the bike path it is okay okay sorry i didn't understand that yep there's telephone poles in there too oh right okay if you look if you look at the drawing i mean i actually i'll zoom in a little can i zoom in you can see the ohh w that's the overhead wire and then you can see the pole like there's a pole here an overhead wire and a pole here so that's mostly the got it yep now let's just telephone poles or did they have lights on them some have lights some do not yeah i mean is there is there a chance of adding lights to the ones that don't have it instead of having all new lighting poles so that that's would be less expensive it would but not right at this part of the project now why not because most of the poles if we add the light to it it'll stick out over the road and we would have to do a different type of light to get back to the sidewalk so you'd be lighting the road is what you'd be doing and not providing as much lighting to the sidewalk as you would want for the walkers there is lighting at the intersection right as at hobart um and that's lit could you add lights to the telephone poles in addition to the lights over the street that these lights would just be pointing towards the bike path it's just a matter of more the more money you're adding to the project yeah so how do we add lights billford most efficiently and as soon as possible um i don't think we're gonna we've already in this at least in the section you're looking at now there was there's been four lights added there since since the accident happened or three lights three lights there and one on hobart so most of the existing poles here i think in this little curve actually have a light light on every pole so there's not much you could add to that for except the middle section yeah my recollection is that when we did this walk that um that we the lighting on the east side is even worse than the lighting on the west side that's that's because the poles are all on the west side yeah so we were thinking that if we because this is like the most trafficky street pretty much in terms of walkers at night and often drunk walkers um as well as a pretty trafficky street we thought it was really important to get lights in um and that they would actually be needed on both sides and a lot of places we wouldn't need them on both sides but on this one we thought they're probably would would would like pedestrian lights be cheaper you know things that go on the walkway you know so they wouldn't have to be as high they wouldn't have to be as illuminated um we'd have to run you conduit for all that or oh oh that's the problem i got it yeah that wireless recharging only works on your cell phone when you set it on top well if that is something like that the planning department could be on a lookout for as some sort of a grant that would really be helpful because it is a major route it yeah you know there are a lot of people who live along there and maybe there is some kind of a state or federal program that could be helpful with lighting are we going to run into potential issues with home owners complaining it's too light well if you if you do though what kim said is have lower level lighting just over the path you know that's more expensive but again maybe if there is a grant of some nature that yeah well on the concerned rate are usually about light going out like i don't hear people complain much if the light is focused going down yeah we we do know i mean that this is a maturing technology too to prevent light trespass and you know preserve dark skies as much as possible so and that's something i know that is always always coming up we do we seem to have a shooter now in town and um he's he's taken out about two lights already oh no now one one on north east pleasant i think one on north pleasant huh bb or bigger it's much bigger off shotgun no it's a it's probably a 22 dammit yeah or a really powerful pellet gun it's it's it's making its way through the through the light into the housing on the top actually yeah how destructive wow when did that start um we noticed um uh we started noticing him and we got calls about him this the well this beginning of this year so we answered a couple calls and they were shot they weren't usually as the photo cell goes out and you replace the photo cell but the whole inside was shot oh no so uh so so gilford i had a question is there lighting on the um east uh east sorry east hadley road path no there's no there's no new lighting on there okay i was i was going to say we should do what they're doing we are well i'm assuming in that neighborhood too that they would want like some kind of lighting just because like i'm sure that that path is going to get high pedestrian usage after dark given all the apartments and everything i don't see details on here but i'm going to take it for granted that all of the transitions the the driveway crossings and the the curb cuts leading to the crosswalks are all super ada compliant the drive driveways and the sidewalk are the same there's no there's no indication of when you're crossing a driveway they're on the driveway is level with the sidewalk okay and but the the crosswalks get the tactile strip or whatever yes yeah crosswalks are all the driveways into the into the or other roads into the housing developments and apartment complexes those are considered roads so they get they get a ada crosswalk and ramp and the whole nine yards um and then when we get the crest view which is actually just off to the right of this bottom picture that's where we switch over from the big path being the big pass now on the east side and the little pass on the west side oh yes and will we had asked for a price estimate of what it would take to keep the path on the west side uh it's not gonna you're not gonna like it we we decide it's moving the road right it means moving a lot of poles is really what it means because the poles stay on the west side the whole run of the road now there are sidewalks on the west side all the way right into north amber center there there's sidewalks on both sides of the road right okay um so then as you go as you're going south farther here this is your first this is the first crossing we may have a problem with and we have to do something with um but if we do we'll skip this section and jump over it you mean the stream crossing yeah right here is that just because you don't have enough land to play with yeah it might be too narrow to put the sidewalk on so we might have to um and then we're then we start going again we're heading towards the Methodist Church we have a little issue with this this stream crossing as well um and this may require um some work as well you may have to jump over this and skip this section as well i get out of curiosity gilford have you applied for any of those um grants for upgraded stream crossings we have are they possible to get we haven't got one yet as yes um as gilford knows uh i've worked on the uh the need for upgraded stream crossings for rivers and flood protection and a whole lot of other reasons so they're really important but they do add expense do you have graduate students it might be in the long term they reduce expense because they last longer do you have graduate students either could um you know fix them as well no sorry for for credit for credit it might be able to find someone to design one but not to not to do the work not to do the manual labor yeah so i saw the new FEMA maps and some of these not these ones but another place is the crossings there are on the new maps does that help in getting uh getting recognition for the need for grants um they it doesn't it doesn't it's really a amount a matter of um it's it's really a matter of what the type of stream you're crossing and um they're really kind of prioritizing the high high value streams the cold water fisheries and Lincoln cold water fisheries have been broken um there's really not a cold water fisheries along north pleasant street here so you're not really um not any i'll argue that mill river is and these are connecting to mill river yeah but it doesn't really go very far up it's very small and shallow it says it doesn't go very far yeah yeah so they get less points yeah so on the other side of main street maybe yes if we're to get that far yeah um so and then we down here this is the Lutheran church i believe this driveway here and then we're moving back up um we do have to take some property in here to make this work um so some of this we may end up doing mostly the west side the five foot wide sidewalk and then leaving the um the east side for the for a year or two later isn't isn't much of the east side like UMass stuff or it's it's it's owner like like it's it's rental units on that side it's um most most the east side is UMass the church and then rental properties yeah okay gilford we've been moving toward recommending that the default sidewalk width is six feet rather than five in order to be able to have the um inexperienced bicyclists outside of downtown be able to use it where there isn't um well the the level two bicyclists rather than the level three or four bicyclists so could the five foot one be made to be six feet um probably not um some places yes a lot of places no so would that just be an automatic thing like if you can make it wider would you make it wider sometimes we do it depends on it depends on what's near us and what we're doing yeah i mean five feet why not right i mean if you five feet is five feet is perfect for right now i mean we have the snow plie equipment that can handle five feet oh i see right yeah those little snow plows those tiny ones if we do six we have to we'd have to change the snow plows around again if you do six do you have to snow plow six feet or can you snow plow five feet on a six foot sidewalk we can do five feet on a six foot sidewalk and then people are saying the sidewalk's narrower well only during snow season yeah according to the yeah i mean according to the the bylaws though it's a courtesy snow plow right and the the um home owners are still on the hook for actually cleaning the sidewalk i was gonna say because i'm out shoveling my sidewalk and it's not even intact as you know because i put a thing on the whatever the quick fix it's broken but i still shovel my sidewalk no matter i just i think i think this is an important place to really try to widen this sidewalk because you have a really high population of students and a ton of people walking up and down the strip if you want anybody to bike they are gonna first of all a lot of them are going to be bad at this um if they bike in the road there's no bike path so they're going to be biking on the sidewalk along with all the people that are walking if you don't want it to be chaos and if you actually want to encourage people to bicycle which i think we do wider space you know and and most of the students are on the west side and a lot of them are just going to continue down the west side even if there's you know a wider path on the east side for part of it well and also if we we think about the population up in the neighborhood there there are a lot of families a lot of new bicyclers that be coming out of there we would want to encourage new bicycles are coming out only the students it's i mean it'd be even better if we could get bike lanes on the road so the more experienced but at least like on the side that doesn't have the eight foot path to have a bike lane on the road yeah get me off the sidewalk i know variance bicyclist could be on the path yeah right and the sidewalk could have the hundreds of students walking instead but if there's no you know that would be the preferable way to do it but if and unfortunately a bike lane then at least out of foot on the sidewalk on the west side this is one of the few routes in town that i've seen people because there is no berm whatsoever i mean your berm you have the line and then you have the sidewalk heading from UMass to the North Amherst intersection it's one of the few places even i who am like a fearless cyclist have felt unsafe multiple times and actually i had a postdoc of mine actually to avoid a car like i ended up heading a little bit to the right and hitting the sidewalk and falling over onto a sidewalk it is very dangerous right there because people are just speeding along so i i agree this is this is a pretty tough um section of town to navigate and our recommendations we suggested if needed just go ahead and reduce the traveling by a foot on each side yeah everywhere overall well and also students are speeding between like the the um the housing and UMass as well it seems like i mean it's it and it's so busy right because because people are using that to get out you know to get north into their homes or further onto highways and stuff it's it's a major commuter route yeah it really is yeah for everyone walkers bikers and cars and it's just not wide enough right for any any of them so so on a on a different part of the project how many i can't see on this and i'll look at my drawings but how many trees are we going to have to trim or remove to make this happen is it any i mean these these quick glimpses that doesn't look like they're any but most the trees that come out are on property that we're taking new property we're taking so we kind of take the trees down before we consider town way so oh i see well okay so that that that satisfies the the the technicalities of it all but but but the big lines the big solid green lines are new trees right isn't that what i saw gilford it is like this one here this one you're looking at here which is across this is um a rental property and we're proposing to take away and redo their driveway and then put a bus pull off here and then put new trees in here this is the bus pull off now over here where is that is this is um this is the driveway into what used to be mark's meadow uh okay so this is right across from the ed school this is yes this is across the street from the ed school yeah that's my bus stop right so does the town still have a tree trees to plant from the the zillion trees that that were in inventory a couple years ago i know that they they've been plugging through and trying to get them planted no we've pretty much planted 300 trees we're done okay we're done we're still planting trees we just finished that go henry so this is what we're proposing and where's the street on the west side by those two trees the new trees yeah where's the street i don't see the street this dashed line is actually the street line oh i mean the side street that goes into that little neighborhood like is it this one here is that where it is okay you know this is um i can't read it that field i think so old town this is old town okay so then where's the next one north and then this here is berkshire terrace right here no there's work there's one in between those and this is fairfield over here on the match line okay fairfield someone i was looking for okay because that's where the bus stop is no yeah so so the the the bus stops and the major modifications that we're seeing here that's for a little bit later when we have to work on the road we're going to try we're going to try to get the bus stop in but we actually have to get this this we need you more land here so this is the overall concept and layout that we're shooting for so um you know from this this 10 000 foot view it looks pretty good like in regards to our complete streets policy and and concepts how much of a compromise is this to that okay the the the two stream crossings things seem to get a little bit narrow we don't have a gone plight completely uh we don't have a robust sidewalk or multi-use path and everything else but generally how do we do in the rest of this we're doing pretty good except for the fact we have no no but no bike lanes that's the only thing that we on the road yeah okay where the crossing is right there uh gilford where the uh you go from one side to the other is anything going to be done to make that as safe as possible is it um will there be lines in that crossing or extra lighting or what could be done to make that as safe as possible um we could make it a no vehicles on well that would be ideal but yeah go with it bruce go yeah yeah can you put an is there an potential for an island in the middle or something was that just gonna make it too wide it's um we don't have enough layout to do it right now i mean what what's kind of happening is all these bigger crosswalks and main roads they're all getting the flashing beacon so i imagine as this works its way through the process it's going to end up this crosswalk will have a beacon and then all the ones from here back to north pleasant or to meadow street will have a beacon as well you mean the ones like uh by kushman or the ones out the side of amers college um the ones like uh on pine street and the ones on east hadley road okay and so there'll be signs up to them as well pedestrian crossing ahead kind of thing yeah then a little button you push and it goes flashy flashy so hi i didn't see many others i i saw i see this one but how many other crosswalks yeah i'm sorry i didn't i just didn't notice um there's not on that one yeah so we get here this is hobart there's one here um and that's about there's there well i think there's one more it must be here i think there's three but i don't see them is there one near the little farm stand because that i would imagine people would cross the road there to get over to the mean simple gifts yes i don't think there's one there yeah i didn't i i thought i didn't see very many which is there's only two right now so um either end obviously the whole thing like where is where is simple gifts along here um it's on this third it's on this actually simple gifts is uh right in this area here it says north amherst community farm yes okay yeah these two right here and is that is that a street to the north across the street no this is a driveway here okay and then the puff tin um is more that way yeah yeah the i keep having to move your picture so i can see the whole drawing sorry this would be the first road crossing that you possibly could do is right in the here is if there could be another one near that farm that might be a good idea well actually this is um this parcel across here is actually the farm too can you point to that put your pointer on it because i don't see it right here right here can you see it i don't know i don't see any i don't see your hand to the south kim on the east side all the way yeah oh it's because it's because your faces are yeah or i'm sorry yeah i had to keep moving your faces too yeah got it yeah so that's that's the parcel where the two houses are right the new yeah yeah what about that we're um yeah what what's happening where um the the grad student housing what what's actually what's going in there you know the the family more grad student housing okay but is there gonna be a is there a crosswalk isn't there a crosswalk there um there is that's this one that's it right here but oh okay i'm sorry yep got it because there yep here's the bike station yeah yeah yeah and across the street is that beautiful bus stop this one which is so lovely uh yeah so it's still gonna be a family housing there that's um i think they haven't decided a hundred percent yet but it's gonna be private it's not umass like it's it's umass it's umass land with a private company running yeah north village right yeah so um i was wondering well i'd like to suggest that you guys consider recommending uh changes as much as possible to get this to the state of what we have in our draft level of service level two because we said that we want to aim for level of service uh two um for any place where we might have an experienced bicyclists or pedestrians or wheelchair users and what we have in that is um driveway crossings marked to prioritize the path flow um what do you mean marked like what does that look like because i've never just i would think at the at a minimum a white line at either side of the sidewalk as it crosses the driveway okay yeah not the not the bright green stripe that that is typically yeah right that would be a little too much yeah well that's only those are only done on road crossings those aren't done in every driveway no so that's what we put in our level of service to at least as a draft and that yeah and that that's that's an interesting question um which which i might expand a little bit so in order for us to get the whole length of this thing into our complete street form um what for so two things one is it's going to want to make sure that what we do doesn't preclude that happening easily in the future but second um how do we get from here to there and what would that take now you suggested that there's some land takings okay that that's a little bit of work and and extra expense but um how much yeah how much expense um if if we were to advocate for you know bumping it up a notch not only the level two but just generally for um for the complete completeness of street so you know there's a lot of projects lining up behind the projects we already have so if you want to make each project perfect every time you're now cutting into how long before you go to the next project um i think may not want to make it perfect but want to consider it at least you know i understand i mean it's it's a matter of prioritizing a matter of of you know this and that i mean basically the problem here is if you want to start widening out for making bike lanes on the road you you also have to start moving power lines yeah is that the is that the big thing the power lines that's the big thing yeah that's millions i i i know well it's just it's it's much more cost okay i hate to say it this way but it's easier to it's easier to kind of make a tree weak and have it fall in a power pole and knock the power pole out and the power company moves it back is an easier way to move power poles than uh than hang them to do it so so i use it just to give we should we should fire the current snow plow drivers who seem to be very good about staying on the road and hiring ones who don't know can't you just send the guy with the 22 around to start shooting some trees up and weakening them that way give a 12 gauge don't take out a couple poles they don't seem to enjoy that as much yeah okay well um so thank you gilford this is this is this is good i'm glad to see that this is moving along so if you if you want to make recommendations on some changes you might i would go ahead and do it because it will have to it will go go probably to the council because they'll have to know what's going on and approve kind of changing the concept of the sidewalks um so i mean you can you can make more recommendations be why yeah i feel like we should make recommendations that the um the sidewalk be at least six feet and you know that a priority in if not now in the future be lighting sounds like i would second that um that's good now so um as part of the further discussion um how much you know and looking at it quickly and and i didn't do my homework and look at the stuff you said earlier um how much sidewalk is now five feet how much what do we what are we recommending how big a change is that recommendation how much is already five feet out there well no how much of it in the new concept is six feet which is to say how much of it is not six feet how much are we adding well the multi-use path we've got that if i let me uh let me move everybody again so the multi-use path we're putting in at eight and then everything and everything else is five oh everything else is five we stay with the five foot when there is the multi-use on the other side of the street but when the multi-use comes over and narrows to five feet could that section be six feet i just i think you want everywhere to be six feet uh because of the number should be the fact that students aren't always going to be crossing the road the fact that it's still going to be dark a lot of the time many of these college students are going to be drunk if you want to have the space on both sides we want people to be social distanced they can't be social distance on a five feet path they can't even quite make it on a six foot path there you go it's a COVID path maybe maybe we maybe we should do a european style which is sidewalks about three feet wide and a bike bike a little path is about three feet wide separately yeah but they're side by side yeah they're marked yeah but then you get the people that walk in the bike path and wonder why you hit them yeah so annoying hithford how much more take you have to do if you made this sidewalks where they're currently five feet wide would make them six feet wide how much more takings would you have to do there's quite a bit more takings you narrow the roadway width by one foot instead if we were to do that we wouldn't use it for sidewalk we'd use that for shoulder in the road for bicyclists in the road but one foot that's really that's really important too well so that that's an interesting that's an interesting compromise i i'm so right now this doesn't show a painted bike lane on the road no there isn't and there won't be and and there was so with the narrower sidewalk there's a possibility for bike lane there's more of a possibility of a bike lane in the future if the sidewalk stays at five feet in the future all right so so um i think gilford was talking about a shoulder rather than a lane right and and i'm exploring the idea of making that shoulder a real lane is sort of adding an extra width i mean if you could get a five foot bike lane on the road um next to the five foot sidewalk and you know that would be that that would be good because then you've got room for a four foot bike lane technically bike lanes are supposed to be five feet not not quite as far as that kib that's a i'm trying to figure it out yeah can't we just make north pleasant one way that was actually that solves it um that was actually proposed once that you would go one way down north pleasant you go up pine street you loop back down and you make a big loop well wait and it was going to bypass umass i thought there was a bypass umass plan right well that's the yeah umass wants us to bypass them on one section of north pleasant yeah what if you made the sidewalk six feet wide in places where you have enough right of way and you don't need to do more takings and left it at five feet where you don't have enough room i have no idea how much of how i mean how much of the uh street would that be i'm looking here now i mean towards the north side you're pretty good right we would we would push it towards the we would if we were to do that we wouldn't take the the land towards the road we take the land towards the houses like in this in this piece here i mean there there's right here there's probably five feet between the edge of the sidewalk and the right line there there's narrows down maybe three or two here so you still got enough time yeah right i mean you've still got enough room to get out an extra foot potentially you do yeah how much land do you have to take to make that extra foot of sidewalk is it just the foot or do you need an additional amount for the foundation it's just it's really an extra foot because we've already i mean when we do five feet it's normally six foot wide base a five foot five foot wide sidewalk so you're just adding another foot of base on there yeah okay so you've already got it kind of included yeah i'm thinking that adding a shoulder where possible would be good yeah i mean as a as a cyclist who's not going to go on a path with people who are treacherous so kim those are two amendments so we're considering to your emotion and do you want to accept those yes so six foot where possible uh shoulder where possible shoulder where possible the definition of where possible is without further taking so is that right yeah right that's that that's that's the working definition and and we were and also kim you're going to add and a future lighting and and yeah a priority of lighting and the priority on this on particularly on the the the big section you know if we have to say one part of the road the road where the eight foot path is yes priority on multi-use path priority of lighting first multi-use and then the other side but lighting on the path on the walking paths yeah so six six feet um sidewalks where where where we don't have to take land shoulders where possible on the street and priority of of lighting on on the path as soon as possible okay bruce are they good for the second still i have a question for the discussion eve sorry on the shoulders feel for what um lane width were you aiming for um we actually are going to probably try to go down to 11 feet through here more because the buses are the buses are out here right yeah the folks in Eugene Oregon and they go for 10.5 or even less even for routes that buses travel normally so that would give an extra half foot on each side for our shoulder potentially so that's fine for Eugene Oregon I don't think I want to go any lower than 11 and have the buses on it I mean you remember who's driving the bus yeah it's good um also at some point um when does the fire department begin to to just paint erin it's not right this is just where you put the paint the fire truck can go over the pain I guess there is that problem with it I mean I mean actually we're talking I mean I sent some information to the town manager he's going to forward it to the TSO about lane widths and parking and in that information we're kind of like saying eight and a half feet would be the smallest lane width we would be willing to go to on a local street and then I think 10 is the smallest we would go to on one of these streets um but I prefer not to have the bus routes the bus lanes on them or the bus bus route on one of those streets yeah eight and a half is actually the legal limit for Massachusetts without a special permit the legal course sorry for what for road width vehicle widths man the thing is that if you narrow the width it tends to make drivers slow down and this is a place where traffic is often going faster than is safe that's part of the idea sorry Marcus Marcus I was gonna say my I just I'm just recalling back to my first experience with the tack not being on the tack but going to a meeting um with about the discussion of a roundabout at the north end of the road that we're talking about and the drivers that spoke up I think would not appreciate an eight and a half foot lane width I think they would be the ones that given the size of the traffic that goes on it might appreciate a little bit more of a space between them so yeah I was suggesting 10.5 yeah yeah the the the encoding 10 as a minimum I think is that's a that's a good thing eight and a half and 10 or I think are good widths I appreciate that Guilford so um so what what form Guilford or Chris Darcy I think is going on to other meeting already do we put this motion this this resolution whatever we're going to call it into um actually has the other meeting already started well I I should notice that Darcy is is disappeared so I think so and and so meeting starts at 6 30 okay I have to be there too so sorry okay so yeah and and Bruce has to leave it as well um and this cat is bothering me um okay so um all those in favor somehow indicate amber it's an account hands let's say oops um that looks unanimous to me um and I guess Guilford and amber will will will type this up and edit it make it make it um appropriate to send to the the the town council and I'll copy the TSO and the town manager this is very exciting this has been in the works for a long time yes indeed I agree um I wanted to to continue our work on getting a presentation or a response to the as yet unproposed questions from the TSO to the attack about what we do and how we do it so that this is the project list prep for town council is what that means I'm hoping that we can take some of the remaining five minutes to look at that with Guilford and just consider how we might want to modify it before we we send it along as as a response to what I'm sure will be a question um and and then we you know maybe we'll do the editing off off you know when we're we all don't have to run away um Tracy um so I had been under the impression after our last meeting that I mean there are the two lists I call them like the big list like with the big financing and the little list for the other projects that have also been requested which I guess even I mean I do have a question about like whether Hulse Road would now like fall onto that you know where we're keeping track of like the main capital projects but I was under the impression after the last meeting Erin that you were just going to go ahead and forward those two spreadsheets to the council or to the TSO yeah not not the two the one the one long one oh all right but I mean I think that they might be interested to see that there is this other list too yeah well that was yeah we ran into problems with that though because that that is that's you know finished projects and and uh really it was getting into territory that might not be ours but yeah before we sent the the long list I just wanted you know to get get specifically because we just talked about it very generally last time but get specifically our ideas about how we should we should form it so I'm hoping Guilford can pop it up there for a second the long list yeah I'm trying I guess I don't know which is the long list and the short list you mean the one okay so the the long list is every yeah the long list is everything with the date that we received it and that's this one no right yeah this is the long one yeah so you have them but they're they're both in the same spread oh I'm sorry they're both they're different tabs right right so this would be the the tab and the and then the projects tab is the one that has the funding and the right the yeah that but then I guess back to the citizen's request tab like at this point because there was this request with the hulls road neighborhood would we be adding hulls road yes I mean one of the things I wasn't clear on with this one is like it hasn't it doesn't there hasn't been any updates in like over a year for example right and I mean I'm sure that the town has still been I mean I I know people who've submitted additional requests yeah well but yeah to us I mean this is stuff that's coming to us the the wildflower thing that didn't come to us I don't know where that went actually of a wildflower and then also I know somebody who requests went out at like the neighborhood that's just south of Akins there was somebody who had who had been asking about that one anyway I'm actually on here um okay so long town oh see wildflower do you see gilford has wildflower on there oh yeah okay and you put l fill on nice job okay l fill has been on there forever so well because it says it says December 17th it's become hulls though so um actually I'm I'm kind of happy to throw this over the wall with a little cover sheet saying look here's here's the stuff that's been coming in that we've been trying to prioritize and some of us turn into projects and um if that's if that's okay I mean I think it shows it shows where we are now I mean I I mean as as um Darcy said she thought it would be very informative for the council to even know that these lists exist and I mean it is yeah exactly so so that's go to the council or when do we talk to the council that's something you know I I I haven't talked to um paul this week it's been a crazy week so I I have not given a push to get us on any of those agendas but I will yeah so what what are the tabs the detail projects tab and the sheet ones tab sheet ones empty detail project is nothing oh so not yet who knows yeah we were just putting notes in here these are like my notes and notes other that's oh sure no I understand yeah I mean I guess if we're just forwarding it forward right to yeah well and we had talked about like at some point um if the with the website redesign if there's like a way to turn it into some doable doc where like the public could also view it huh yeah or maybe get or maybe get you know six month updates or something yeah once once once though you decide to post it it can be posted and then it's just a matter of updating it updating the what's on there yes that's no biggie yeah and that that might also feed a thank you for your note tracy by the way I haven't responded back in writing but that might feed into the the looking forward the work plan idea that that I do want to talk about at some point so wait so Erin were we taking a motion about just moving this to the it seems like we would send it to the TSO right because it mainly is involving things with the right away yeah that I think this this is because um because two members of the TSO um have asked for have suggested that they will be asking for this that we do send it to them excuse me and and you know I would want to copy Paul of course we don't have to vote to send that I mean you can just send it can you I can but I just I just wanted to because we had talked about this and we really hadn't quite settled saying that this was sort of the form I just wanted to make sure before I did that that that I understood that we feel that this is a good form it's good to go that seems fine I guess I have a question about the title though it says FY 2019 oh that we that's when it was put together that's when it started I mean maybe it's to the council and yeah yeah we'll get the appropriate title um yeah and the other things that I'd hope to get to it was it was an update from from Tracy on the prioritization I guess we have one minute left so yes we do that's that's that's the speed into that and so I guess the the the open question there is to figure out what the resources are we might want to ask for um Gilford suggested there might be something that we can tap into but we haven't been able to figure out what that is exactly um so that's that's what that conversation will be and I'll leave this on the list for next time well but it's it sounded Erin from the last meeting right Gilford had said he had a consultant in mind and um that one idea could be that it's the subcommittees at a certain point to to move forward with the consultant yeah yeah um and I feel like the subcommittee I mean when Bruce and Eve and I had talked earlier you know we talked about where we were in the additional information we need so yeah so I feel like if a consultant's been chosen or is close to being chosen then maybe that's something that we can progress yeah but I would I'd like that sort of that that impetus to come from the whole group saying yes here's the concern so it is go for it sub sub I agree I agree I think there needs to be an agenda item for absolutely yeah yeah and and can there I know we're running out of time but can there also be an agenda item just about the tax charge like Erin you said that you've talked that that was in your note as well yeah it's just I mean I just feel like we're sort of stuck a little bit now I mean the council members you know the TSO people have been asking questions about the tack and saying you know the tack doesn't live up to its charge but we've tried to change the charge and so we're sort of stuck and they need to get out of that desire that we were hoping for so I think the answer is yes especially because I expect when we send this first response with this the long list that we'll begin to get some some feedback which is what we really are needing but we're not sharing our draft charge yeah because you're still waiting for feedback from Paul unless you've heard right well they mean they have they they the TSO knows what that is what the draft charge is given it to them you know as this is something we're proposing but this is something we're working on so yeah I propose we um we we are done for tonight because we all need to move oh yes this has been a very long day to be a computer really productive meeting very glad about that but it seems like a couple of us need to move on to our next meetings or whatever yes exactly no I appreciate I appreciate y'all coming in for that I think we lost Chris already right Chris I think we lost Chris we lost Darcy we're going to lose Bruce and Guilford yeah Guilford's gone Guilford's got to go and thank you Amber for hanging in there to the end and catching all of that and thank you for the minute we'll see you in two weeks in the meantime enjoy the sunshine just everybody happy new year


This is the beginning of the second day of our plenary and we start today with our very interesting high-level debate on Cohesion and Implementation with Elisa Ferreira, the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms and Eliana Pavlova, the Vice President of the European Investment Bank. But before we resume our work I want to inform you that there will be two voting sessions of opinions and amendments today. The first one is scheduled from 11.40 to 11.55 Brussels time and the second one from 4.50 to 5.35 pm Brussels time. Please ensure that you are connected for these times and ready to vote by then. So we start our day as I said with this high-level debate and I have the pleasure to welcome with us for this debate, Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms and Eliana Pavlova, the Vice President of the European Investment Bank. Thank you both for accepting our invitation and I would say that dear Commissioner, dear Vice President, dear colleagues, it is a real pleasure to have you with us today. Once again the health situation forces us to meet online. Nonetheless our willingness and capacity to cooperate not only are stronger than this pandemic but have been even intensified by the awareness of the difficulties on the ground in our regions and our cities. We share the huge responsibility of turning the financial resources made available by the EU budget into concrete projects and actions that will make our citizens feel more protected and better connected. Now these investments are not simple figures on our dashboards. Every community must be able to benefit from and contribute to an EU-wide mobilization aimed at securing an inclusive recovery, shared prosperity and sustainability. By 2023 we must complete the 2014-2020 Cohesion Policy Programs and by the next few months we will need to launch the 2021-2027 investment plans. So we have two tasks ahead of us and we must succeed on these two fronts, securing an efficient coordination with the recovery and resilience facility to which regions and cities are contributing in a decisive manner. Now the European Committee of the Regions, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank are indeed determined to face these challenges working side by side, stepping up efforts to support fund managers on the ground, monitor the situation and remove obstacles to an impactful implementation of investments. Europe's regions, cities and villages have already started their transition to a greener and a digitalized future. The implementation and the timely delivery of Cohesion Policy for 2021-2027 in the spirit of GERRIN partnership and in synergy with other instruments will be decisive to ensure that such transitions will be inclusive, fair and of course successful. The joint action plan that we have signed with Commissioner Ferreira two days ago and I wish to warmly thank her for her commitment and closeness goes exactly in this direction, strengthening cooperation to seize together the historic opportunity of a balanced recovery. Now these same priorities are shaping our excellent cooperation with the EIB, aimed at facilitating the access to funding opportunities by regional and local authorities and I really want to thank Vice President Pavlova for her participation today and for helping us to better understand the European Investment Bank's approach to the new Cohesion Programming phase. Finally, I wish to thank the representatives of the Partner Association in the Cohesion Alliance. Our joint efforts contributed to secure a strong Cohesion Policy over the next decade and we will keep working together to make sure that Cohesion values and multi-level governance remain the engine of all EU's development policies and that decision makers at all levels are aware of Cohesion Policy's key role in tackling the future challenges of our union. Now this plenary debate opens in the best possible way our 2022 joint work on Cohesion Policy. The summit organized by the Committee of Regions and the French Presidency of the EU in Marseille in March, as well as the Cohesion Forum promoted by the European Commission will definitely provide two further and outstanding opportunities in order to take stock if you want of the implementation of this crucial policy on the ground as well as of its contribution to finally relaunching successfully our Europe. So dear Commissioner, dear Lisa, the floor is yours. Commissioner Ferreira, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, dear President Tsikostas, dear Apostolos, dear Vice President Pavlova, dear Liliana, honorable members, dear colleagues, as you know and as you just mentioned we have been working very hard together but very professionally and very efficiently and as you also know in early February we will publish the eighth Cohesion Report on the State of Europe's Regions and Cities. This report analyzes Cohesion Policy's contribution to convergence over the last decades. I also analyze it also analyzes our contribution during the crisis and I recall that during the crisis Cohesion Policy was in certain member states it represented more than half of total public investment and it analyzes also the contribution of Cohesion Policy to the long-term recovery. So not only in the crisis but as a long-term instrument that's what it is also including a green transition that has got to cover all regions and to actually avoid also a digital divide and that's a risk. It is clear as you just said it, it is clear that Europe needs Cohesion Policy and on top of it or at the core of it the effective implementation of this Cohesion Policy. We need Cohesion as a value of European construction. We need Cohesion also as an enabler of the recovery and of these twin transitions the green and the digital and we need Cohesion also as a leveler to guarantee that we keep moving forward but that we do it together. So thank you very much sincerely for this timely discussion on the implementation of Cohesion especially as we are looking to finish the old programs and start the new and this is quite a challenge. Trying to streamline my thinking I will make basically three points. In the first one I will outline the state of play of the old 2014 programs sometimes we tend to forget them. Second I will review very in a very synthetic way the progress on the new 2021 programs and future oriented and third I will outline our common work as commission and committee of the regions the work to tackle the challenges in both periods and late gathered foundations for success. So in relation to the implementation of the 2014 programs we can say that it is progressing well given also the unprecedented circumstances we had to face so far and the the figures I'm sharing with you relate to 13th of January so a couple of days ago the commission has paid out 253 billion euros and this equals to 62 percent of the planned funds. These figures include ReactU which as you all know was the first instrument to be financed by next generation EU by the new borrowing and the first use of this money was in fact in ReactU in reinforcing the previous Cohesion funds. Commission has already approved 99.3 percent of the 2021 trench of this instrument of ReactU and we have already approved 20 program amendments for the 2022 trench for the next trench. We expect to adopt all the necessary amendments in the first half of 2022 so of this year so until June we hope to have all the the amendments approved. We in commission have spared in fact no efforts to ensure the fastest possible reaction to the crisis and as you know we have been speedy since the beginning being among in fact the first responders to the crisis and we are determined to see this through to the very end to keep the same energy and same capacity to respond. In fact we recognize that extraordinary efforts will be required in 2022 and 2023 to invest on one hand remaining 38 percent of the programs what remains from 2014-2020 and consequently avoid the cutoff. Cohesion investment is in fact and we all know it desperately needed and we must avoid any loss and it will be a particular challenge to deliver these investments at the same time and we are very much aware of this as recovery and resilience investments and on the other hand the preparation of the new Cohesion programs. The unprecedented amount of funding is in fact a great opportunity but also a great responsibility to make the European Union investments that bring to make these investments bring real value and positive change on the ground. This is also the time to show Cohesion policy as a driver of a convergence that includes modernization that supports the green and the digital transitions and social progress. So this is in a nutshell the state of the art of the past funds now looking at the future and in particular at the what I called my second point progress in preparing the new period. Since the legislative package in 2018 the commission has been cooperating intensively with member states to prepare the new period. In fact 23 percent of investment for growth and jobs programs have already been submitted. Here I'm talking about number of programs so 66 out of 293 delays were understandable in the crisis of 2020 even prolonged in 2021 but now it is time it is time to get the new programs up and running. In fact all programs must be adopted during this year of 2022 because the 2021 allocation will be split in the following years but the 2022 allocation will be lost if it is not used so I call your attention on this. I can only urge the member states that have not yet done so to submit their programs as soon as possible however I have also been clear in saying that speed cannot replace substance so also from our side we are taking some time to discuss the details of these programs as they will shape our common future and the future of our regions for a decade so it's a long-term strategic view that we need. In fact you know the challenges the challenge of delivering a green and digital transition which in fact brings everybody together and in practice leaves no reason behind. The challenge of maximizing synergies and coordination between the different instruments in particular with the new recovery and resilience facility and the challenge of protecting specific areas such as our rural areas and other regions in transition for instance like the just transition fund areas and this is why we must get it quickly but we must get it right. The committee of the regions is the first European institution to adopt its opinion on the long-term vision for Europe's rural areas and I thank you all of you for the timeliness, quality and seriousness of the work you have done. The vision provides an ambitious yet very realistic view of how we want our rural areas to look in 2040 and how to work with local authorities, local people to deliver this and with this I go into my third point and the inclusion policy and in many development policy local partners are the secret ingredient that they are the key of success they are the true success factor. So it is absolutely crucial and I call your engagement on this to involve the relevant local partners and to build to help them to build their own capacity earlier this week and you just mentioned it President Sitsi Kostas together with President Sitsi Kostas and co-chair Ms Sahab Ezolez we launched what we call the joint action plan between this committee and the commission we have set five priority areas including the monitoring of the application of the partnership principle and ensuring effective engagement of local and regional authorities in the new programs we know that partnership must be announced and there is a lot of variance between member states for this reason we in the commission have recently launched the European community of practice on partnership exactly to exchange best practices to discuss the functioning of the code of conduct and to prepare the ground for the update of the code before the next programming period and for this we need your contribution your suggestions and your balance on how things have worked and what we need to improve. I and my services take the partnership principle very very seriously we will keep monitoring to ensure that partners are included and that they benefit to the full from the new provisions and resources to build their capacity we are also concerned to promote partnership and involvement of regional and local authorities in the new recovery and resilience facility annual stakeholder events are proposed for each member state a platform to gather feedback and to exchange views on implementation of key reforms and of investments I urge you all to be proactive in these forums or for promoting the best possible interplay between cohesion policy and the rrf let me just note detail that is not a detail the technical support instrument it is really a powerful instrument a powerful tool to help build better public administrations implement growth enhancing reforms and make the most of investments including cohesion policy and the rrf this instrument is available to national but also to regional and local administrations and no administration is alone in making reforms if you want to do it and you need technical support we are here to help of course with limited means but we have been able to answer I mean to requests from all member states and this is quite an important tool in terms of quality dear colleagues I'd like to close by remembering our mission whatever the challenge whatever the change from green transition to digital revolution from demographic changes to division for rural areas cohesion policy is there to ensure that all regions benefit fully and in fact that we don't split Europe in regions that progress and grow and regions that decline or remain for decades in a stagnant kind of situation so it is crucial first to redouble our efforts to invest the final trenches and to invest them right of the 2014 program so that none of the investment is lost second to accelerate the preparation of the 2021 programs third to build solid partnerships and through capacity building solid engaged competent partners this is our joint work I work not just of democratic accountability but of policy effect effectiveness and this is in fact our joint action plan this is what we signed this week and this will be our common task for the coming years to reinforce cohesion as a basic principle of European Union in our common European house as an enabler of the future we want to build and as a leveler to make sure that all citizens wherever they were born will share this very very positive journey thank you and I look forward to our discussion today thank you once again thank you very very much commissioner it's been a pleasure to see you again today and I really want to underline the importance of this very good collaboration but we have together the committee of regions and their commission and especially with you and the way that we have been moving things forward especially during these very very difficult times so thank you again very much and I would like to give the floor now to the vice president of the eib miss pablova the floor is yours thank you very much a good morning dear president cc costas dear apostles the commissioner ferrera dear elisa honorable members of the european committee of the regions ladies and gentlemen colleagues it is really a real pleasure for me and honor to participate in today's high-level debate on cohesion implementation unfortunately only the virtual this time but i'm really hopeful that we will be able to meet soon in person we at the european investment bank at the european investment bank group really value your institution as as a constant and as a close ally of supporting together cohesion objectives on local and regional level and we are always ready and delighted to to contribute to your debates with our pan european expertise of financial markets and successful project delivery as well as our technical and advisory support the current economic recovery situation is indeed difficult as your background paper for this session right sleep point out so too we also see the scissors effect of combined falling revenues and rising expenditures throughout europe although you have tried significantly to to damper this effect with unprecedented amount of ground and loan resources provided as already commissioner ferrera mentioned from next generation you and in addition to to the traditional budget of cohesion policy funds unfortunately still we see that there is a significant funding gap which remains in the investment budget of many local and regional authorities even in some national authorities as well so against this backstop in the new cohesion orientation paper of the european investment bank which is which i believe is particularly relevant and this was the aim of of developing this very specific dedicated strategic document of the bank which was approved recently by our board is really to serve as our new guidance on how to achieve even more cohesion and how to provide even more targeted and tailor made support for our partners for regional and local authorities for national authorities as well for all our stakeholders for our financing for our mandate management and financial instruments as well as with our advisory support in the previous programming period till 2020 we have done a lot in supporting achieving cohesion policy goals i take a note of commission of error and note that we mentioned that last effort now is needed to successfully complete and finalize the implementation of the the the previous programming period projects and programs where we have provided our support for co-financing advisory and financial instruments and i had i could say here that as you remember we promised and we delivered on this promise in devoting even more of our overall annual financing to cohesion volumes so and we reached 30 percent of our overall lending to be dedicated in the in support of cohesion regions in the last five years the the bank provided more than 90 billion 90.8 billion euro in project supporting cohesion in in the regions last year alone the amount of our investments and operations signed within our cohesion priority objective is is almost 20 billion 19.8 billion euro which is equivalent of more than 40 percent of our lending and operations in EU so we believe that through this increased support we we really provided the the much much needed financing to boost the economies of of cohesion countries in the short run the level of GDP in cohesion regions is estimated to be 2 percent higher than in the counterfactual situation without us supporting the operations and projects even after 20 years regional GDP in cohesion regions is estimated to be still 0.9 percent higher without eab support supporting and co-financing operations this means that our financing can make a real difference however our financing unfortunately is not unlimited for this reason we have in our drafting process of of the cohesion orientation paper thought very hard about what are the priorities for 2021-27 how to to streamline these priorities in support of the overall EU objectives and cohesion policy and we discussed this our drug paper our priorities with all our institutional partners with DG region European Commission with the parliament and of course with EU committee of the region our very important partner in this process and as you remember the main question was where we should focus more our financing can support in the future and the answer is simple and compelling at the same time we have to concentrate our efforts and where we can make the biggest difference and where we can provide the largest added value and it seems like it was also the result of the of the debate we had with you that we have to focus more on less developed regions as obvious less developed regions have more needs and they have really further to go to to reach the the living conditions and the the basic infrastructure levels to the average of the EU so as your investment bank we we try to support them on the path to convergence for these we've been working to understand better regional needs for investments as well as for for technical and advisory support drawing on our unique experience on one side but also drawing on the results of our recent two economic service by our economic team service analyzing the the needs and the requests of corporates and with a special focus on European municipalities local and regional authorities and our analysis is showing that the investment and the technical capacity gaps remain considerable it's an awful an awful limiting opportunities of companies of businesses and of people in less developed regions so we now understand that how better how investment needs and gaps can be addressed and this this varies across the regions and therefore we need to do more so as a consequence we have created a new additional a new target of our financing so which which is now covering specifically less developed regions so far it was approximately 20 percent and now we will be gradually increasing this lending and this reaching the target of 23 percent of our financing to be dedicated to less developed regions of course at the same time we won't neglect transition regions with their specific needs because otherwise they could too fall into the middle income trap and become less developed regions of tomorrow thus we also raised our overall ambition for cohesion financing across both transition and less developed region so far it was 30 percent already last year we reached 40 percent increase and our ambition is to to increase our cohesion lending to reach 45 percent of our overall lending by 2025 for us this is ambitious but at the same time I believe it's a very realistic goal so now our new cohesion orientation paper sets also not only quantitative quantity but also qualitative targets we will we will do more for greener cohesion project this is one of the very important targets because supporting cohesion objectives and climate goals it should go hand in hand and for us it's not only possible but it is really indispensable if we want to achieve and to support the transition to to a better a cleaner future across you therefore it's even not a restriction but we feel that cohesion the cohesion regions and our cohesion target could be reinforcing each other with the other transversal objective of eib as a climate bank which is also reaching our increasing our climate related investments by 2025 to reach 50 percent of our lending of course with special focus and special attention ensuring and supporting just and fair transition of regions another important element of our of our strategy and our specific targets is of course to support and to facilitate innovation innovation investments with special focus on in less developed regions because we want to help to disseminate modern technologies and innovation in less developed regions and this is this means that especially mid-sized companies could count on our support in deploying proven technologies some kind of diffusion of proven technologies to be to be deployed in regions in countries in countries for a first time so in order that of course provided that that investment creates local economics billovers which is a very important and of course hopefully as well environmental co-benefits we will also make it easier for medium-sized companies since they are actually the backbone of the of the european and local economy in the regions to access our financing so now from now on so far we will providing their support for a medium-sized companies only through our intermediated lending through our financial intermediaries from now on the medium-sized companies will be able to to to reach and to to be supported with direct direct support and lending so now we will be providing these the special support direct support to SMEs and mid-cups with special with special attention to mid-sized companies in less developed regions which will benefit of our direct financing in the in the scale of of the threshold of up to 100 million your investment projects we will also increase further our support in making an efficient and policy-driven use of of EU funds and the resources through our so-called mandate management for meaning financial deployment and the establishing of financial instruments both by the bank and by our subsidiary the european investment fund in setting up and implement implementing bilateral financial instruments on behalf of the member states and regions in supporting the the private sector and attracting more private financing as well and last but not least we will increase our advisory offer for cohesion regions because we see that successful projects can only be realized where the needed capacity and technical knowledge is present building on our well-established technical advisory services like jasper's elena and our country specific project advisory support teams so-called pasta teams in the regions and with additional support in visage now in the new invest EU advisory hub we we plan to intensify our efforts and our support to improve the project preparation because it's critical for the successful implementation of all funds available and to support the local authorities in strengthening their administrative capacity of course we will provide additional financial advisory support to help to design and to implement financial instruments and different investment platforms centrally but also in the regions we have noted well your plea in the background paper for this debate that financial instruments should be made simpler and should be aligned with the economic conditions of the of the relevant market something which we can of course fully agree with and which we are trying really to do and to improve also through the support of our advisory support packages like icon pass we believe that the new legislative framework for the period till 27 of course should help us even more having simpler and clear legislation will enable us really when establishing financial instrument and exploring new possibilities and for example a good example here is now we have the opportunity of better combination of grants and loan so ladies and gentlemen when you look in all these features of our new eab group cohesion orientation paper you can see that we have tried and we have now committed ourselves to strengthen substantially our cohesion mission a mission which has always


Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Sunday two Navy destroyers will move to Japan by 2017. The addition of these two ships will make a total of seven Aegis ballistic missile defense ships in Japan. The ships are designed to intercept ballistic missiles post-boost phase and before re-entry. Adding these ships will increase U.S. naval presence, strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance and help to turn North Korean aggression. Admiral Michael Rogers assumed command of U.S. cyber command and became the director of the National Security Agency and Central Security Services Chief April 3rd. Rogers relieved Army General Keith Alexander in all three posts and received his fourth star upon taking command. Rogers served as the commander of U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and U.S. 10th Fleet since 2011. Read more about these stories at Navy.mil. From all hands up, thanks for watching.