Thursday, April 17, 2025, 1 p.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Mobility Committee
0:04 Everyone, I am Paige elli.
0:06 I'm the chair of our mobility committee, and it is one o'clock.
0:12 So for the sake of starting on time, I will call the meeting to order.
0:16 It is April 17th, 2025. The time is 1:00 pm promptly.
0:21 And we are here in Austin City Hall.
0:23 I am joined on the daas by vice chair zoe cadre members Krista lane and chief Vela.
0:29 And we have Council Member Harper Madison joining us remotely today.
0:32 So welcome everybody. I believe we have one speaker signed up for public communication.
0:39 Can you go ahead and call them ray?
0:40 Yes. Uh, it's philip wiley.
0:43 Welcome, mr. Wiley. Thank you.
0:50 Is is this on?
0:51 Or? Hello? Yeah. Great.
1:05 Oh, okay. Yeah, if you can go to the first chart, please.
1:12 Uh, no, that's rpp.
1:13 This is a different presentation.
1:22 It's a different file.
1:29 Um, well, I, I, I won't make you sit there and wait, we have a different, uh, chart
1:35 set that's coming up and I'll just start talking about it.
1:37 Um, there we go.
1:39 Perfect. The, the last time I was here, we were talking about walk sheds, um, in the context
1:44 of uno. And, uh, last time we centered on a half mile radius around the new business school
1:52 that's at the corner of mlk in guadalupe and what the radius of, of, uh, potential residences would
1:59 be that could get from their home to the campus, uh, classroom in 10 minutes.
2:05 This time, we're gonna take a little different view of walk sheds, which is looking at, uh, the,
2:11 uh, three quarter mile walk shed from two different, uh, residential areas.
2:17 Um, because 15 to 20 minutes is what, uh, the target is for outer west campus.
2:23 So 7.75 miles is, is what this would look like.
2:28 The, the center here is on leone, um, and it's basically, um, where ut is putting two different
2:36 classrooms. They've already got plans from the 2012 master plan.
2:42 Uh, two different sites have been identified.
2:44 They've announced it, so they are executing their plan.
2:47 And this shows you, um, where somebody can get to in theory, um, if they're walking in a
2:54 straight line. And obviously it's not gonna be a straight line because from the university housing east of
3:02 I 35, you're going to be walking over I 35, which is not gonna be possible for a
3:08 while until we do a cap and stitch.
3:10 Um, next chart, please.
3:14 And, and so on the other side, and what you typically think of as uno, this is an
3:20 area that's on the border or on the outer border of uno that is not yet included in
3:27 the staff recommendation for uno this round.
3:30 And that's why I wanted to kinda show you, well, in contrast, here's, here's where we are.
3:35 So, uh, 0.75 miles from, um, let's see.
3:41 What, what do I have is, is the address, um, from robins place, 1906 robins place would get
3:48 you to this part of campus.
3:49 So it's a much broader coverage of campus in terms of the classroom space, the libraries, and the
3:57 accessibility. You could walk from robin's place to any of these, uh, classroom buildings and only cross guadalupe
4:05 and only cross one traffic light.
4:08 So that's kind of the contrast, um, between what, uh, ut and the state of texas has already
4:15 bought into their plan and what they think a reasonable walk is for a student to get to
4:20 a classroom. Uh, next chart, please.
4:24 So, uh, I've, the, on this chart, I'm just showing you again, the, the, the first two that
4:29 I've shown you now for robin's place I wanna talk about.
4:33 It hasn't been transitioned yet.
4:35 Um, it is, it isn't a single family street.
4:38 It hasn't been a single family street since I've lived there.
4:41 It's being used as a compatibility buffer.
4:44 Um, and it's looks like it's the, the proposal is to continue to use it as a compatibility
4:51 buffer. Um, could you just show the last chart?
4:59 And this is the west side, the other side of, of the street.
5:02 Thank you. Perfect. Thank you mr. Wiley.
5:08 The next item up will be the approval of minutes.
5:10 And before we take up that item, I just wanted to announce the order of business today.
5:15 Um, we had thought it might be prudent to bring up item five after number two.
5:20 So we'll take up the minutes, the update from the urban transportation commission, and then to item five,
5:26 which is the briefing on approach to construction coordination on public projects as it relates to outreach, safety,
5:32 and mobility. And then we'll come back to item number three, the residential parking program.
5:38 And item number four is the shared micro mobility update.
5:42 And then after those we'll have our normal standing items, which are the director's report and the future
5:47 items to identify. So with that, item number one will be approval of the minutes of the mobility
5:54 committee meeting from March 20th, 2025.
5:57 We have a motion by vice chair cadre, seconded by Council Member Harper Madison.
6:01 All in favor say aye.
6:03 Aye. It appears unanimous.
6:06 That takes us to item number two, the update from the urban transportation commission regarding actions from their
6:11 meeting on April 1st, 2025. Do we have chair summers joining us?
6:20 There we go. Hello?
6:24 Hello. I had some tech difficulties.
6:27 Can you hear me?
6:28 We can. Okay. I don't, let me see if I can turn on my camera.
6:37 Okay, that's great. I can turn on my camera <laugh>.
6:39 Now we can see you too.
6:40 That's great. Um, great.
6:42 I'll start right off.
6:43 So, um, urban, uh, as always, thank you for this opportunity to present, um, City Council members.
6:48 It's really an honor.
6:50 Um, we did have our, uh, annual or not annual, monthly, uh, urban transportation committee meeting on April 1st, 2025.
6:58 And so quickly, um, the items that we cover there, we did have a presentation, uh, discussion item
7:04 regarding the 26, uh, teen bond corridor construction update.
7:08 So we're getting regular updates on that now, I think every quarter, which are really, really helpful.
7:13 And so, um, we're really pleased that capital delivery services is coming out to us, uh, so we
7:19 can continue to discuss and monitor it.
7:20 And we're learning a lot from those discussions about future bond, um, uh, planning.
7:26 So I think that's really helpful for us as well because, um, I think utc will probably make
7:31 a future recommendation about, um, future bonding cycles with, uh, transportation and mobility bonds.
7:37 Um, we did, uh, have a recommendation on the campo 2050, uh, regional mo transportation plan.
7:45 Um, so the comment period for that.
7:47 So they have the draft plan out on the comment period for that just ended on Tuesday, April 15th.
7:54 Um, and so, um, I did wanna share with you our recommendation, um, utc.
7:59 Um, we can sort of direct indirectly influence campo, uh, you know, through either influencing City Council members
8:07 who are members of campo or through, um, you know, influencing council direction to staff and how staff
8:15 work with campo. So, um, this is something that we're kind of contemplating of how we can continue
8:20 to improve this. And we've had a variety of different types of recommendations about campo over the last
8:25 few years. But let me, um, see if I can just read this out to you very quickly.
8:30 I'll try to be maybe summarize a little bit.
8:33 But, um, as we know, um, us code requires that, um, metropolitan planning organizations develop long range transportation
8:40 plans. And so campo is engaged in the draft, uh, 2050 regional transportation plan for the Austin area.
8:48 Um, and we know our region is growing, um, and the transportation plan is a key part of
8:52 that. And campo does wish by their own statements to reduce v cap per capita vehicle, miles traveled
9:00 vmt, and they also support the tex road to zero goals.
9:04 Um, and we know at the same time, this is all, I'm just sort of summarizing our, whereas
9:09 that vehicle miles traveled for capita congestion levels, commute times and crashes in the region have been increasing,
9:17 and we're not meeting the safety targets that were recommended in the texas transportation institute's regional traffic safety
9:22 plan. And we know that highways, uh, expanding highways leads to developmental sprawl traffic increase air pollution per
9:29 capita vnt increase, and it also doesn't relieve congestion.
9:34 And, uh, we, the campo 2050 regional transportation plan actually proposes adding over 300, 3000 new lane miles,
9:41 which is a 26% increase in roadway capacity.
9:45 Um, and that it also proposes to, um, includes the mopac south project, which adds four to seven
9:54 lanes to mopac between enfield and slaughter.
9:56 And it also includes the txdot 180 3 expansion described.
10:00 Um, it would add one main lane and three frontage road lanes in each direction between state highway
10:06 and state 71 and state highway one 30 on 180 3.
10:10 And we also know that, uh, City Council's paying attention to this.
10:13 So City Council resolution 20 24 1 2 1 2 dash 0 6 6 requested that c-t-r-m-a, uh, the capital, uh, <laugh>, the regional mobility
10:25 authority work with the city of Austin to refine the proposal for mopac south project to align with
10:30 goals and intent of the Austin strategic mobility plan, including the urban trails plan, Austin climate equity plan,
10:36 watershed protection strategic plan, and the project connect system plan.
10:40 And requested that the resulting project for mopac south not increase vehicle miles traveled nor greenhouse galson missions.
10:48 And whereas Council Member Ellis all who was the that resolution sponsor in December, and also council district
10:54 representative of the area followed up with a letter requesting the mopac south project include no more than
10:59 one additional lane in each direction.
11:01 And whereas also travis county commissioner's court requested c-t-r-m-a produce an environmental impact statement with a thorough study
11:09 of alternatives before moving forward with the project.
11:11 And whereas, as of the date of this resolution, c-t-r-m-a has been unwilling to modify the project or
11:17 commit to performing a full eis.
11:19 And whereas rtp acknowledges that there are limited sidewalks, this is the campo plan draft plan, it now
11:26 acknowledges that limited sidewalks and bike lanes are a challenge to safe transportation.
11:30 And also in this plan, campo has the opportunity to allocate certain federal funds like surface transportation block
11:37 grants to a ride range of projects, including transit, active transportation and safety.
11:43 And where it is also in the common interest of the regional transportation plan to be ac based
11:47 on accurate forecasting, modeling and <laugh>.
11:51 Whereas previous long range transportation plan, campo used this modeling system called urban sim, um, in combination with
11:58 the state demographer's data.
11:59 And that's what they're using to incorporate the, uh, understanding of regional trends.
12:05 But for the campo 2050 regional transportation plan, campo didn't use urban sim, at least not in the
12:11 same way. And the data used to determine the detailed population and employment distribution for each county has
12:17 not been shared publicly.
12:18 Maybe it ha I don't think it, at time of our meeting April 1st, it had not been.
12:22 And whereas in previous rtps, the campo technical advisory committee sometimes referred to as attack hadn't an opportunity
12:30 to review and provide feedback on the demographic forecast and methodologies used.
12:34 But for this cycle, campo 2050 planning, there was no opportunity for dedicated feedback on the forecasting modeling.
12:40 So this is our warehouses <laugh>.
12:42 And so here are our resolutions.
12:44 So we recommend the future for following, for future campo rtp.
12:48 So we don't advise campo, um, they can listen to us or not listen to us.
12:52 But, uh, the elected officials who sit represent us on campo or city staff could listen to us
12:57 as utc. We recommend the following that for future rtps campo prioritize funding for projects that improve safety
13:04 for all users. They prioritize funding for projects, uh, for, for public transit and active transportation.
13:11 They prioritize projects that result in people living closer to employment and other opportunities that they deprioritize projects
13:18 that increase vehicle capacity, that they deprioritize projects that will result in people needing to travel greater distances
13:25 to reach employment and opportunities that they prioritize projects which have received support from local governments and that
13:32 they include in the rtp about information about weather goals and the previous rtps have been met.
13:40 And they include in a section on the environmental impacts of the rtp and, uh, mitigation measures, be