Thursday, January 15, 2026, 1 p.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Mobility Committee
The Mobility Committee, chaired by Council Member Paige Ellis, approved the minutes of its December 4, 2025 meeting and heard a briefing on a new municipal maintenance agreement (MMA) with TxDOT, the first comprehensive update since 1986, which is scheduled for the January 22 council agenda. The committee received a preview of the 2026 Local Mobility Annual Plan, which will be published January 31, and briefings by memo on the 2026 CAMPO call for projects (roughly $383–384 million in federal funding available) and fiscal year 2027 congressional community project funding requests. Director Richard Mendoza also delivered the department's standing report on ongoing mobility programs. One member of the public, Scott Johnson, spoke on distracted driving and a proposed working group.
0:04 This is the mobility committee.
0:06 It is January 15th, and we are meeting here in City Hall.
0:10 I am the chair Council Member Paige Ellis.
0:13 I am joined by other council members that serve on this committee, including Council Member lane, Council Member
0:18 Harper Madison. And Council Member, Council Member Vela.
0:22 Um, vice chair cadre will not be able to join us for this meeting today.
0:25 So it will just be the four of us public communication.
0:30 I know we did not have anyone earlier today.
0:32 Have we had anybody sign up for public communication yet?
0:35 Yes, we have one speaker.
0:36 Okay. Go ahead and call them scott johnson.
0:47 Good afternoon council members.
0:49 I'm scott johnson here to talk about distracted driving more.
0:52 I found out since we last spoke in December, that the city does, does have a driver program
0:58 that is listed in there to do things such as not use their mobile phone to be sure
1:04 that if they have bluetooth capability, that they're using it to not wear headphones and to not use
1:10 two-way radios. However many departments have put in place their own policy starting in the two 2010s.
1:19 I'm not sure exactly when, and this is very important when the city goes to make policy, which
1:24 I hope will happen after the proposed working group on distracted driving that I talked about to you
1:29 and the public safety committee, that we need to walk the talk.
1:33 And this is one way that you might, if you get a vision zero presentation from staff joel
1:39 meyer, someone, them that question.
1:42 We know that it's challenging to identify distractions when there's no camera in the car.
1:49 There May not be someone else in the car, but these kind of questions I think can be
1:54 very valuable. And I would encourage you to ask them if they come in your next meeting, the
1:58 meeting after that, about what's the city doing to identify distracted driving among those who drive in the
2:05 cambridge mobile telematics, uh, report.
2:09 That's very important and that the staff use from tpw it listed the awareness piece is being extremely
2:16 important for change. It always is when you can't do something that the, the government can't do something
2:26 to, uh, limit it simply by, uh, enforcing it.
2:31 There's has to be an enforcement and and awareness piece.
2:34 Hopefully both of those can go hand in hand.
2:37 We, we need to do better there.
2:39 And therefore that's gonna be the main initial focus of this proposed working group on distracted driving that
2:46 I've been talking to y'all about.
2:48 So that's all for now, and I look forward to this item being discussed further within the first
2:54 quarter, hopefully of 2026.
2:57 Thank you. All right.
2:58 Thank you for your comments.
2:59 We appreciate you being here.
3:02 Item number one is going to be approval of the minutes for December 4th, 2025 mobility committee meeting.
3:09 Do I have a motion?
3:10 Motion made by Council Member lance, seconded by Council Member Harper Madison.
3:14 All in favor of approving the minutes, say, aye.
3:17 That is unanimous for those of us in attendance.
3:20 Um, Mayor proam Vela has stepped off the dais just for the record, but he'll be right back.
3:25 Item number two is a briefing on the municipal maintenance agreement with texas department of transportation, also known
3:32 as tdot. And I have director mendoza here today.
3:46 Good afternoon chair. Good afternoon committee members.
3:48 Richard mendoza, director for transportation and public works, and I'm also joined by ms.
3:54 Amika bose, our assistant director over office of the city engineer.
4:01 And what we're gonna present to you today is a update to the work that we've been doing
4:08 to establish a new municipal maintenance agreement with the texas department of transportation, which is gonna outline all
4:18 the operations and maintenance responsibilities for tdo facilities that are within the, the incorporated limits of the city
4:27 of of Austin. So this is work that's been ongoing for some time.
4:36 Um, as you see on the slide, the last time a mma was executed, adopted, and executed between
4:45 the city of Austin and the texas department of transportation was in 1986.
4:50 And so it has been revised a number of times.
4:55 However, those revisions have been restricted only to reflect the addition of new highways, revised highways, changes in
5:05 the city limits, as well as abandoned routes.
5:10 According to the, uh, texas transportation code, txdot requires a municipal maintenance agreement with all municipalities within the
5:19 state that is crossed by state highway.
5:23 So this mma basically allows for state assistance on repair and maintenance on those routes that cross into
5:32 municipalities and those roadways.
5:34 As I stated before, our current mma was last executed in 1986.
5:40 Again, it's been revised multiple times.
5:42 However, outside of revisions that only cover new highways, changes in city limits, if there are changes in
5:52 terms of the general requirements and or responsible responsibilities for certain maintenance aspects, that requires a new municipal
6:02 maintenance agreement to be entered into with the state.
6:07 So that's what we're bringing you here today.
6:09 This has been an effort that's been ongoing.
6:12 As you can understand, texas, uh, I mean, uh, transportation and public works has been leading a multi-department
6:19 review and coordination amongst, uh, the different departments as well as with the state to arrive at this
6:27 updated, uh, agreement for maintenance and repair responsibilities.
6:39 So the new mma will cover maintenance responsibilities between the city and the t dot on these primarily,
6:46 uh, following asset items.
6:48 They include our pavements and bridges to include resurfacing, rehabilitation and preventative maintenance, roadside maintenance covering mowing, sweeping
6:59 litter, debris removal, snow and ice control, herbicide seating landscape, and, uh, tree maintenance, all traffic signals within
7:07 the city street lighting or elimination, including poles, conduit and service repairs, pedestrian facilities such as sidewalks, bridges,
7:18 rail repairs, graffiti, concrete repair, and much of the new shared, um, uh, shared use paths that you're
7:25 seeing built now and drainage facilities both inside and outside of the normal state right of way.
7:34 I'm gonna begin with an update on the general conditions that have been addressed in this, um, new
7:40 mma. So the next few slides, we'll give an overview of those, uh, updated general conditions as well
7:47 as the roles and responsibilities.
7:50 So the new agreement includes reference to specific code numbers for traffic regulatory treatments such as signs, signals,
7:58 and pavement markings. It's a lot clearer and more definitive in the maintenance responsibilities for these specific assets
8:07 than what was, than what was included in the 86 agreement.
8:12 The new agreement also differentiates between controlled and non-controlled highways.
8:17 So basically these are freeways such as I 35 and mopac versus the state surface routes such as
8:25 north lamar and east mlk.
8:27 You'll see nuances in the maintenance and repair responsibilities between these two categories of state facilities, uh, within
8:35 the city for general conditions.
8:39 Beginning with drainage requirements, the state retains responsibility for all drainage infrastructure within their state right of way
8:49 as well as their state drainage easements.
8:52 The city will maintain responsibility for all drainage repair and maintenance outside of that state right of way.
9:01 One caveat that I do want to mention, and this is particular succinct to the I 35 capex
9:08 project, where they're building a large drainage tunnel, and our watershed department has asked for enhancements or betterments
9:14 to that project, is that when the city does seek a betterment to that state infrastructure, drainage infrastructure
9:22 during construction, in that case, the city will assume maintenance for those, uh, additional betterments in either water
9:31 quality or water detention facilities.
9:36 The new agreement also contains language requiring all new pedestrian facilities to comply with the american disabilities act
9:43 of 1992. And obviously this is because the current mma predates of the a da act of 1992.
9:53 So all maintenance new facilities related to pedestrian sidewalks, curb ramps, have to comply with the a da
10:00 act and we assume responsibility for maintenance and repair of that pedestrian network of sidewalks and other accessibility
10:09 items such as a da ramps and now shared use paths.
10:15 So those are the major highlights of the general conditions updates in the new mma.
10:20 Uh, next we'll talk about, uh, city and state responsible roles, uh, beginning first with the non-controlled access
10:28 freeways within the, uh, city incorporated limits and as depicted on, uh, this map on the right.
10:36 So, um, what's new here is maintenance and cleanup associated with local enforcement of ordinances, city ordinances such
10:46 as homeless encampments, graffiti roadside vendors, no parking areas.
10:51 So this is a new caveat in the mma that was not covered in the former mma, but
10:57 essentially all maintenance responsibilities have stayed the same, uh, for the city.
11:03 Um, all streetlights on non-controlled access, uh, high, uh, state facilities are the responsibility of the, of the
11:13 city. And then an added language is that the city is responsible for all maintenance and, uh, repairs
11:23 on anything not specifically delineated as a state responsibility in the mma state responsibility for non-controlled access freeways,
11:36 or they remain responsible for maintaining the travel surface and shoulders.
11:41 This includes the, uh, pavement, resurfacing pavement, res striping.
11:46 Um, new is they assist in mowing, sweeping ice control as requested by the city if state resources
11:56 are available. This was formerly a responsibility, um, born by the state and the former mma.
12:03 However, recently we've discovered that during winter storm events, the city is more adept to respond quicker to
12:11 road treatments, then the state is able to, knowing that the district is 13 counties and they're responsible
12:17 for the rest of the roadway.
12:21 Also, state responsibility are the traffic signs.
12:24 They do retain responsibility for some of the traffic signals on state routes, specifically farm road 16 26, 18 25 farm
12:35 road 2304, uh, ranch to market road 2244, ranch to market road six 20 and 360.
12:44 They do this in the form of a compensation to the city.
12:47 Transportation, public works signal, uh, crews actually operate and maintain the signals.
12:53 Uh, you'll find these, uh, along the major state corridors, north lamar, south congress, mlk, um, but they
13:01 do, uh, compensate the city for that maintenance as well as on the controlled access, um, freeways.
13:09 So in the controlled access freeways, um, that's the access roads where you have signals, city operates and
13:16 maintains those signals. Uh, and we get a payment from the state for that maintenance.
13:21 But on controlled access, these are the freeways, uh, serve.
13:25 It can only be accessed by on and off ramps, uh, not by driveway curb cuts.
13:31 Um, for this, for this, uh, state and highway system, the city retains responsibility for, uh, bike and
13:40 pedestrian facilities. We retain responsibility for cleanups in the enforcement of local cord code ordinances.
13:50 Uh, uh, as I previously mentioned, we perform all of the signal operations and maintenance with compensation from
13:58 the state, and we also operate all the, uh, elimination and street streetlights on these corridors.
14:04 And a lot of this is the, the streetlights are covered under a separate elimination agreement between the
14:10 tdot and Austin, uh, energy.
14:13 And then again, another, um, comment is introduced all other duties not delineated as state responsibility.
14:26 Estate responsibility for, uh, controlled access freeways throughout the cities remains the traveled services surfaces like, uh, pavements,
14:36 foundations, all the main lanes, ramps and frontage roads to support proper vehicle, uh, loads all traffic signs,
14:44 pavement markings, and highway routing.
14:47 Signs remain the responsibility of t mowing, litter, clean cleanup, and snow and ice control on the controlled
14:56 access freeways remains the responsibility of tdot and they can assist outside of those boundaries.
15:04 Uh, and upon requests from the city on the frontage roads, as was stated on the prior slide,
15:12 uh, of city responsibilities.