meeting for order at 6:02 just uh
today's meeting is a hybrid meeting.
Transportation advisory board is in
person but staff or members of the
public may be attending virtually or in
person. Staff, we have a forum.
>> Uh yes, we do. And two members joining
us virtually. Ally will be serving as a
regular uh member for this meeting.
Right.
Our first item of business is to approve
the minutes for the February 25th town
meeting. Are there any corrections to
the draft meeting minutes provided in
the agenda packet?
Okay. Seeing none, I
uh roll
motion
to approve the minutes as presented.
>> Second.
>> That's rusty.
>> No. So unless unless there any any
objections, it just sounds like there
are are none. You can consider the
minutes passed.
um
proceeding seating has approved that is
presented.
Thank you guys for bearing with me. Our
next item of business is public comment
staff. Has anyone signed up to make
public comment?
>> No one has signed up to make public
comments. Not seeing any uh anyone
virtually who wishes to make public
comment either.
>> Okay. Um
I guess before seeing that we don't have
anything um
before we move on I do know if we
usually do this but we did get a few
comments in email and so I just want to
at least virtually acknowledge or in
this meeting that we did receive those
and um I know my staff has robots
responded to at least one of them. So,
um happy to talk afterwards about um the
other one um regarding a specific
intersection near the former office
depot space.
>> Okay.
>> Did were you wanting to discuss that now
or
>> um
I don't think we need to. I just wanted
to make sure that it was acknowledged at
least.
>> Yes.
>> Great. Thank you.
>> Um
okay. So we will move on to regular
business
um which is the 2027 through 20 2032 uh
transportation improvement program. Um
John Mortonson, our transportation
engineering manager, will be presenting.
All right. Thank you very much, Erica.
Good evening, everyone. I'm John
Mortonson, transportation engineering
manager, city of Isqua. I'm going to
give a presentation about the
transportation improvement program.
A minute for the PowerPoint to connect,
right?
All right. The purpose of tonight's item
is to review the updates to the 2027
through 2032 transportation improvement
program and to receive tab feedback on
the project updates, updated themes, and
use of depth.
The feedback that the administration is
requesting from the tab tonight is do
the proposed updates to the six-year
transportation improvement program align
with the mobility action plan
and
with regards to the major theming
changes
and changes with this update.
Specifically,
one to have feedback on the emphasis on
smaller scale projects
prioritiz prioritizing maintenance over
building new and more expensive use of
debt financing primarily paid for with
revenue from the transportation benefit
district sales tax. That's the.1%
sales tax that goes towards
transportation in order to deliver more
projects sooner.
As you think about the feedback that
you'll be providing tonight, I want you
to be thinking about the mobility action
plan policies. And I wasn't planning to
read these unless there's tab feedback
to go um read these. Hopefully, you were
able to look at it in the packet ahead
of time, but when the six-year tip was
put together, these are the policies
that were considered for many of the
projects.
It's not.
Okay.
Not sure why it is showing the hidden
slides that we put in for future
meetings. U
I shared it differently than I've ever
done before. So I too am learning. All
right. Um a little bit of a step back
though and talk about how the TIP or
transportation improvement program fits
in with all the other plans that the
city has. And you think of the
comprehensive plan and particularly the
transportation element is the highest
level with the vision, goals and
policies. And then that feeds into
functional plans like the mobility
action plan, the supply climate action
plan. And those type of plans have
strategies, actions and resources. And
then the mobility action plan feeds in
to the transportation improvement
program.
Next, I'll give a little bit more
background.
The city is required by state law to
update the transportation improvement
program every year. And in odd number of
years, like last year, it's done as part
of the capital improvement plan. And
that's when bigger updates happen
because the city council and mayor are
able to look at holistically. Okay, we
have this much revenue and we want to do
improvements to the parks, the
facilities, technology, transportation,
utilities, and it really allows the city
to look at things holistically.
And
when we're doing these even year
updates, there's only the transportation
improvement program that's getting
updated as a standalone document. That
the updates are for the most part more
minor and limited in scope just because
there's not an opportunity to have a
discussion of trade-off of okay, if we
do this extra transportation project,
how does that affect this park project
that has the same revenue stream?
Another
uh piece of information that I wanted to
share is projects that are in the tip
are used when the city calculates the
traffic impact fees and bicycle and
pedestrian mitigation fees that
development growth pay to mitigate their
impacts and projects in the tip
improve facilities for anticipated
impacts. of development and growth and
respond to community needs.
So, what is the HIPP? It is really a
six-year list of transportation capital
projects. It includes project summaries,
estimated costs, potential funding
sources. It'll identify grants that the
administration plans to pursue and it
shows when the city thinks the project
will be designed by a rightway and
constructed.
Now, why different projects are included
in the TIP? There's a variety of
reasons. Some of them are to satisfy the
goals of the mobility action plan and in
the packet with tonight's materials for
scores to show how well the different
projects align with the mobility action
plan. But there's other reasons why
different projects are in there. Um some
of them were identified in the transit
study that the city did a few years ago.
Also other things
has a system called C flip fix where
residents can submit their concerns
whether it's traffic calming or signs or
general improvements and out of that
new projects are sometimes created and
then sometimes it's other goals for the
administration and also I'll also add
the strategic plan so consider taking
care of existing assets maintenance
projects. So those type of projects
don't score well with the criteria in
the mobility action plan, but they're
also very important in order to keep the
system functioning.
Uh also smaller scale projects that have
immediate benefit. It could include
congestion relief. It can include safety
improvements
and
uh just aligning project revenues with
forecasts. Now different ways to
prioritize looking at and a lot of this
is the guiding principles of the
mobility action plan. Improving mobility
in the spot today preparing for growth
thinking about the environmental
sustainability and the impacts of the
projects and creating regional
connections.
Now, a little bit of I mentioned how in
odd years we update the capital
improvement plan and some of the things
that came to light as we were updating
the tip this year are the capital
improvement plan or CIP had made some
assumptions that we're adjusting for and
one of them was revenue due to the
school zone safety cameras. There's been
one on second near the middle school and
high school for many years and the city
recently installed new cameras on
Newport Way at Isqua Valley Elementary.
There were some delays in getting the
cameras up and then right now it's only
ticketing in one direction. So some of
the assumed revenue in the school's own
safety fund is less than what was
assumed when the CIP was put together.
Also with this update, trying to think
of how to utilize debt from the
transportation benefit district for
projects. The cost of construction keeps
going up at the a rate greater than the
city's ability to finance. And so the
thought is let's finance and get ahead
of the rising cost of construction.
Another thing that was really considered
and put a lot of time and thought into
is the real estate excise tax and the
demands on that revenue stream. That's a
revenue stream that funds transportation
projects, but it also
funds street operations, which is how
the city maintains the streets,
facilities, parks,
and a variety of technology. So, it's a
revenue stream that's very much in
demand. And when the CIP was put
together, it was overprescribed and so
the city knew at some point we would
have to unless revenues exceeded
projections, make some adjustments. And
so, some of that came to light with this
update. And then just regional,
national, and global economic factors
creating uncertainty. the price of oil
greatly impacts the cost of
construction.
So that's something that could make the
projects cost more money. In the other
direction, the economy slowing down and
usually when that happens, the price for
our projects goes less. So I don't know
what's going to happen. It'll be quite
interesting to see.
Now, I'm going to go over some of the
updates from the six-year CIP to the
27-32
TIP.
And one of the projects that has been
prioritized as a priority for the
administration is the front and sunset
left turn improvements project. That was
one that it's been a city project, one
of our concurrency projects for years.
And then unrelated to that, the
transit study that the city did also
identified basically the same project as
a way to help improve bus speed and
reliability. And I'll talk more about
that project later on. And then the
Gilman Bridge rehabilitation project
wasn't shown in the CIP because the
revenues were already budgeted, but
we're assuming additional grant funds
will be coming and the costs have
increased on that project. So it's now
in the TIP. That's more of a
technicality with how it was added. And
then a couple of projects were moved to
future years. The I90 crossing was moved
to future years. We recently completed a
study looking at the preferred crossing
location. The project's very expensive.
And so we're going to slow down and not
show it in the next six years. And that
way the city can decide if wants to
proceed with that project or not. And
then the transit signal priority pilot
which came out of the ITS plan and
moving this to future years is not
because the city does not want to do PSP
or transit signal priority. It's more of
now is not the time.
I went through and I read the King
County Metro's guidelines on when to
implement TSP and Isqua currently does
not have any corridors that have enough
transit in order to implement TSP within
their recommendations. And the pilot was
just to install it at one location,
whereas reading King County Metro's
guidelines, it says it's better to do it
along a corridor rather than one
isolated location. So, moving into the
future years will allow the city to
eventually do some transit corridor
studies and identify locations where it
makes sense to do it, but be more
deliberate rather than just spending
money on a pilot that does not align
with in county metros guidelines for
TSP.
Some of the primary drivers for changes
to existing projects, the two Newport
Way projects, SR900 to 54th and Maple to
Sunset,
they were split into what I call
tiplets. So for the longest time, we
would call it TR22 and TR23. Now we have
TR22A, TR22B, and TR2C.
That's because these projects we've
identified as ones that would be phased
for construction and one to actually
show it to help add some more
transparency. And then the strategic
small capital project that is one that
has been used for a variety of small
projects that came out of the city
strategic plan that was put together I
want to say around 2019 and we
identified small I'm going to say larger
small projects that um with a grant
source that we want to try and get some
external revenue to try and do more
larger small projects.
And
then there is a project is TR 101 and
that is to improve the pavement on the
road going up Cougar Mountain Zoo. So if
you've ever gone up from Cougar Mountain
Zoo, it's 190th and 191st and the
pavement's in terrible condition. A few
years ago, the city hired a geotechnical
engineer to do an investigation and out
of that came a a fix. And one of the
things that
we realized while we're putting together
the tip was in July of 2027, there's
going to be a new storm water manual
that the city is going to adopt. And
when that happens, the fix for the
pavement up there would trigger a whole
bunch of storm water improvements, which
would at least double and probably
triple or more the cost of repairing the
pavement on a and it's not to say that
the city doesn't want to treat storm
water, but that's a low volume street
and the administration doesn't think
it's the best use of resources to spend
millions of dollars to treat storm water
in the forest when there's There's other
locations with lots of traffic in the
city that could use the the funds to
treat the storm water. And the Black
Nugget retaining malt, it's TR33.
As the design's gotten to some of the
details, some of the
project costs have increased and so
right now the budget has the majority of
the revenue budgeted, but additional
funds will be needed. So we showed it in
the tip and that when that project goes
to construction and then TR 80 90 91 and
92 those are all projects to replace
existing IT and signal assets and just
updates to the replacement schedule
based on where the replacements are
currently.
want to talk a little bit more about the
front and sun sunset left turn projects
and this is one where design will begin
this year. The administration plans to
apply for a grant to
complete the design and go to
construction and with the grant the
administration is going to apply for
funding for the whole project which is
two phases as shown here. phase one and
phase two. The figure on the right, that
is phase one of the project. And what it
would do is
redesign the
western leg for eastbound traffic on
Sunset Way. And it would add a new lane
that would be a through right lane and
then there would be a left turn lane.
Phase two would do a little bit of
reconfiguring on the other site, so the
eastern leg for westbound traffic. And
what it would do is convert the existing
right turn lane into a right through
lane. And then the left lane would be a
left turn lane instead of a left through
lane. And those two improvements, those
two phases would improve the
traffic at this heavily congested
intersection. And it would also help the
currently 554 and I want to say it's 556
after the fall, the the but major bus
route that goes through here. And that's
why it was identified in the transit
study.
Another project that I want to talk a
little bit about, the TR28 Northwest
Seamish Road non-motorized improvements
project and the plan is to issue debt in
2028 to construct this project. This
project is on Northwest Seamish Road. It
goes from 93rd place southeast to the
entrance to Lake Kamoth Bay State Park.
It'll
be a
basically a fair use path or oh did you
have up
okay sorry first
interrupting your thoughts so yeah it it
u connect the residential homes to the
state park and the rest of discipline in
a non-motorized way and it will install
curb and gutter a multi-use trail for
pedestrians and bicyclists it will
construct storm drain improvements
traffic calming elements, raised
intersections on both ends of the
project and illumination.
The timeline for the transportation
improvement
program. Tonight, the administration is
getting feedback from the TAB. Next
month, the administration will take the
show to the environmental board for
alignment with the Isabella climate
action plan and then the tip will be
presented to the mobility and
infrastructure committee at their
meeting on May 12th.
At the city council meeting on June 1st,
there will be a public hearing with
adoption anticipated for June 15th,
which is ahead of the state's deadline
of July 1st for the city to adopt it.
And going back to the feedback that the
administration needs, do the proposed
updates to the 2027 to 2032
transportation improvement program align
with the mobility action plan? And are
the themes major themes and changes with
this update? Specifically,
one feedback on the emphasis on smaller
scale projects, prioritization of
maintenance over new construction, and
extensive use of debt to pay for
improvements sooner rather than later.
And that concludes my presentation.
the discussion
um using round format and I see that I
share that has questions or comments but
just want to be sure we don't have
anyone raising their hand yet.
Okay. Yeah.
>> All right. So, thanks for the
presentation, John. I appreciate all the
details there. Um I have a few questions
uh to go to. I think I'll start with one
of Robin without that comes back to me
at some point hopefully. Uh so the first
one is uh we talk about the the focus on
smaller projects um and that uh in the
materials associated with meeting uh
there's a scorecard for various
projects. Uh so I took a look at that
and what I have I have a question about
how are we updating the scoring rubric
the way that we score these projects
based on the change to you know
directive to to do smaller projects.
>> Yeah. So the scoring criteria did not
change and so the scoring criteria comes
from the mobility action plan and did
not change it to for different
priorities just went and scored them
using the existing adopted criteria and
that is what was presented.
So um
so we did a rep prioritization
essentially or we're rep prioritizing
some of these projects. Um and it seems
to be that it's done in somewhat of a
subjective way like we expect we're
going to get you know some smaller
projects done. Um it would be really
nice to make that objective. There are
lots of ways that you can incorporate a
uh return on investment type metric and
certainly
uh looking at directives to have smaller
projects with uh shorter term impact
that's something that naturally fits
into a scoring metric. I think when you
go through that objective exercise,
you may be surprised at what you find.
Like some of the ones that we still have
in there may be uh ripe for reducing
priority or delaying because of that.
Specifically, when we talk about uh
whether we should do uh transportation
benefit district debt funded uh earlier
construction or earlier funding of some
projects. Um that's that is specifically
where we want to do some forecasting and
say we're expecting a good return on
investment by uh incurring this debt. Um
it feels a little handwavy now like the
there's a directive that says oh yeah
we're going to incur more debt in the
future because it would be more of
expensive.
Where's the math is the question.
So I'd really like to see that
>> processing all that. Okay.
Yeah. Any any feedback?
>> Well, I guess a couple thoughts are one,
the criteria does have is it possible to
implement and I'm paraphrasing because I
don't have the criteria in front of me,
but it does give points points if a
project can be implemented in the next
six years. So that is one of the things
that we already are giving more points
to projects that are easier to implement
then not implement.
And as for
the benefit
I'm just going to think out loud that I
think it depends on what the criteria
is. What are you What is the city trying
to achieve with the project? Is it like
the
front and sunset project where it'll
provide congestion relief? It'll provide
improved transit and it's within the
means of what the city has to be able to
do it. So, that's one of the ones that
have been prioritized. Right now, we're
showing it's traffic impact fees in a
grant, but if the grant's not
successful, then I imagine that the city
would look at using the transportation
benefit district.
I know that the mayor has a big priority
on wanting to
make improvements to help people get
around
any way that he can. And so, that is
really a priority. And so some of the
improvements
aren't currently shown in this six-year
tip because we're actually doing studies
to see what projects would actually move
the needle versus which ones would not.
And those projects would be proposed as
part of either the probably the the CIP
or possibly the
27 to 28 budget. So there is work being
done behind the scenes that's not
currently shown in this tip that I would
say a lot of the
smaller projects that are shown in it
are ones that have been a priority for
the city to do for a long time and we're
just
showing them usually in the templates
for project TR58.
>> Okay. So, so I think what I heard is
there's a lot of hypotheses that for
example using debt makes is is worth it
because it achieves the benefit that we
want. Um that's that's something that
can be made uh objective, right? We can
say specifically
we're we value the benefit that we get
by a certain even dollar amount on that
and say, you know, it's worth it to to
pull that in because of that. If I may
jump in on that, of course, any analysis
you try to do in the future is going to
be best guess, right? Noted, uh, price
of oil changes projects dramatically in
terms of cost, especially about asphalt
and other equipment or or shipping of
equipment in, um, the cost of debt
changes a lot through the years. And so
I think as we try to hone in on
something that is more objective or
trying to get as much data as possible
to help us make these decisions, I want
to acknowledge that there's a lot of
limitations on our ability to predict
the future. I think your point is still
one that's well made is that we have
these ideas and it would be good to back
them up a little bit more evidence. But
I guess um what I'm trying to say is we
can only do that to a limited extent.
Yeah,
>> they're all going to be guesses and
forecasts and um and so they're all
going to be rough because I don't I
don't know that we want to spend all of
our time making a lot of estimates that
we know aren't going to be um exactly
accurate by the time the future does
come.
>> Yeah, I I'm totally with you that
there's a lot of uncertainty when you do
forecasting. However, I I still stand by
the position that it's important to make
it objective and, you know, put your
put your model down on paper so that
people know what you're talking
>> and I I just I haven't seen that beyond
the hypothesis stage at this point.
>> Yeah. Um, so I was
first of all, sorry I'm late today, but
uh probably I just want to say
I have a class that is timed as such
that I can get here this quarter and
that's not going to change for the next
months. I'm just going to have that be
anyway. Um
for for this I was kind of wondering
about that second one of prioritizing
maintenance but we're building new of
that does seem good off the surface. I
would just be slightly concerned because
we already have a lot more car
infrastructure than we have other types
of infrastructure that that could cause
a bias towards car infrastructure
because we don't have as many bike lanes
as we have car lanes
only doing m or prioritizing maintenance
over building new without some kind of
an adjustment for
those other things could cause a bias
towards construction. Does that make
sense? Yeah. No, thanks for the
feedback.
>> So, I just think that's that's something
that should be considered because I hope
this board has be very concerned about
balance between
>> Oh my gosh, mom. He just paid on the
blanket.
>> He does.
>> Derek, do you have anything to add?
You're off mute.
>> Nope. Sorry about that.
Just wanted to double check.
I'll make sure I don't get what's
currently in my head out. Um, number
one, please pass the cookies around. Um,
and they're very important. Um, I uh
passed on some comments to John and
Andrea earlier. Um,
selfishly, I've loved that the crosswalk
on Black Road is uh um fastly rapidly
approaching. Um but uh I this is the
first time I can think of this is a bit
scattered that we're being asked uh to
weigh on the issue of debt um issuance
and that's just I we do talk about
broadly generally the board addressing
you know um cost effective procedures or
um like you mentioned John that um it's
already in the scoring system of you
know what can be acted on um asked one
of the MAP principles is investing
wisely, but um I don't know if they've
ever been asked to weigh in directly on
something like that. And it's just it's
not neither good nor bad. I don't
necessarily have any reservations about
it, but it's kind of, you know, I had to
go back and open up the um tabs, you
know, homepage of what what were we
created to do? And it's my view is that
it's more policy based, but whereas I
like a financial decision like that
typically is, you know, in order to um
anything with revenue typically sits in
council's hands. I know we're not being
asked to vote on, you know, a a tax or
anything like that, but it's just um
it's like I don't think that's
necessarily helpful feedback, but it's
um something I found interesting. No,
>> I I think it's fair feedback.
Okay. I like I I think you hit on one of
the points here which is
you know kind of triggering me into
thinking how do you think about debt
more objective? Um and this is you know
it's essentially because you guys asked
the question is it good to incur this
debt? Is it is it what is the
transportation advisor going to think
about that? And so that's that's kind of
why I go down this road saying, well,
you know, we got a hypothesis we really
want to dig into, but that's not really
what I want to talk about now. What I'd
like to talk about at this point is some
specific projects. Um, so I saw some of
the the changes uh to the list of
projects. Some of them I really like
like uh the um improvements to to dog
wood at front. That's something that's
come up in this group time. It would be
great to see some progress made on that
intersection as well. Um some of the
projects I I
struggle but I I don't really
understand. And I'm hoping you can dig
into some details specifically on this
TR23
uh Newport improvement uh from Maple to
Holly. So I see that split up into
multiple sub projects. Now, uh, TR23A,
um,
specifically what I'd like to understand
is what do what do we expect to see as a
benefit of the additional lane paving
that's associated with that project?
>> Yes, I've come prepared.
>> Thank you.
>> All right, give me just a minute. Got to
reshare this because it wasn't going to
show that I had slides after the
presentation
including for this project.
>> All right. I will try and give an
abbreviated version. So, because I'm
going to be skipping over some stuff,
feel free to ask questions. And so
what we what the city gets out of the
Newport Way Maple to Sunset project is I
want you to look first at the
figure on the upper left which shows the
regional growth center in blue and
central Isiqua and I think that's an
orange or red I'm not sure.
>> Yes. Um but that is where the majority
of the growth in Isakqua is going to
occur and out of that growth and I don't
have the exact numbers in front of me
but I think it's like 4,000 homes and
12,000 jobs. So people are going to be
going to the regional growth center.
Yes, there will be people who will be
living in it. And this might also be
looking at central fuzzle. I can't
remember. I saw something from the long
range planning group and it so what
that's going to do and you see Newport
Way in yellow and that is a corridor
that serves the regional growth center
and one of the main corridors that
serves it and as a result that corridor
is going to have a lot of growth in the
future. Right now, it's mostly two lanes
other than right at Maple where it has
three lanes just right after the signal.
It's got 12 to 15,000 cars a day, no
bicycle facilities, no continuous
sidewalks, stop controlled
intersections. The pavement's in poor
condition. The storm water is handled in
drainage ditches instead of a treatment
facility.
And
so in order to mitigate for that, the
project is going to construct sidewalk
on both sides. It's going to mostly be 6
ft wide except for around Isqua Valley
Elementary where it's going to be 8 ft
wide to give a little extra room for the
kids and their families walking to and
from school. It'll have protected bike
lanes that are going to be six feet
wide. landscape planner strips
and for the most part um one lane each
direction except for the section from
Maple to 900 ft south and I'll talk
about why those why the extra lane is
proposed to be added and it has to do
with as I mentioned earlier there's
going to be a lot of growth in the
regional growth center a lot of jobs and
it's going to
make it so that
People who are turning from Juniper and
Holly onto Newport Way are going to be
stuck unable to make the turns. And the
city has an adopted level of service of
D or better. And Juniper would operate
at level of service F
with
161 second delay trying to turn on to
Newport Way during the PMP hour. and
Holly would operate at level of service
E with a 38 second delay trying to turn
on to Newport Way.
>> Um, sorry, which direction?
Turning south.
>> Well, either direction.
>> Either direction.
>> Yeah, because if you're wanting to turn
north, well, it's easier to make a right
turn. you're going to be behind people
who are going to be turning to go south,
which is a harder movement. So, okay.
Yeah.
Okay. So, the solution to that is to
construct roundabouts at the
intersections of Juniper and Hollow.
Back to this. However, if roundabouts
alone are constructed, then what ends up
happening is the level of service at
Juniper fails
and the level of service at Maple fails
because without that second southbound
lane, there is a
queue backing up all the way through the
intersection at Maple and Newport. Now,
tonight when I came here, it wasn't so
bad. But a lot of times when I've been
on SR900 heading towards Talis, there's
a queue from where it goes from two
southbound lanes to one and it backs up
past where we're meeting tonight. It it
would do something very similar. And so
that's why the second southbound lane,
it it's a combination of the roundabouts
and the second southbound lane in order
to reach the level of service for
Juniper and Holly. That way people who
are trying to get around town are not
stuck in congestion that does not meet
the city's level of service. So from a
traffic perspective, that's what it's
doing. So is this uh backed by
simulation data that has changed a
little?
>> Yes, lot lots of modeling and this was
before I had my current position. I was
the project manager and I kept saying
can we get rid of that southbound lane
because when you do have a sec second
southbound lane, you're widening the
road that much more. You have that much
more storm water, higher retaining
walls.
And I was really hoping that we could
get rid of it and we've modeled it and
modeled it and could not get it to reach
the level of service without the second
southbound lane going past Holly.
Yeah. So my so my intuition says that
the bottleneck is furthest south and so
essentially with the additional lane
you'll have more capacity for cars to
back up but you'll travel even slower
two lanes merging into one later on. But
the modeling doesn't didn't uh
>> I'd say there's two problems there.
There's one problem that I don't think
can be solved which is trying to have a
whole bunch of people go down Esqua
Hobart Road to Maple Valley and Black
Diamond. And then there's the problem of
how can people who live in Esqua off of
Holly, whether accessing the school or
off of Juniper, how can they get around
town? So, we're trying to solve that
problem. We're not trying to solve the
fact that there's more cars trying to go
south out of town than there's capacity.
>> Just the idea here to basically relegate
that back up to a different lane and
have a
Well, the way a roundabout works is you
yield to the vehicle in the roundabout.
So, if you're on Juniper and you're
heading west and then you want to turn
left on to Newport that the people who
are actually heading south on Newport
will need to yield to you. So,
>> so there's an asymmetry here where the
southbound traffic on Newport is bad in
the evening, but the northbound traffic
is not so bad in the morning.
>> Correct.
>> Basically, because you get a Delta
effect,
you don't have bottleneck to the north,
>> right?
And then, yeah, just happens to be nice
that the the feeder roads are on the
eastern side. Um
yeah, I I from like an environmental
concern, you know, paving an extra acre,
maybe two acres when we finish the
project.
Um it's it's a lot of pavement. It's a
lot of long-term maintenance, and it's a
lot of like through the school there. Um
you know, two lanes is going to cause
people potentially to go faster,
although the roundabouts maybe are going
to slow it down. Yeah, the the
roundabouts will slow it down and um at
Holly the roundabout will have raised
crosswalks which will slow people down.
The travel lanes are going to be
narrower which is another way to slow
cars down and yeah so I it should in
theory slow down and make it as a a
safer environment. Another reason for
this project is, and I know you didn't
ask about it, but I'll just quickly
mention it. This is a corridor that has
a history of serious injury accidents
and
>> at least one bike fatalities on this
section, right, like 10 years ago.
I didn't
>> Oh, wow.
>> Uh bikers, it's a thoroughare for
>> Yeah.
Um
>> I always go around back
>> and I feel like
>> yeah it's people really speed already.
So I think anything to slow up.
>> Yeah. So the the project will add nine
safety countermeasures to try and
increase safety along the corridor.
And so Adam, did I answer your questions
or do you have follow-up questions?
>> I think you did. I think the simulation
data as long as it's showing that the
intended effect is there
>> basically to improve flow electric town.
Um
were there just as a small followup to
that um a lot of times people will find
alternate routes as they're traveling
through town uh and cause a lot of
traffic on local streets. Was that
something you looked at as well in the
simulations?
>> Not in that. Now,
when we do our full concurrency update,
it
has a system of modeling how the trips
happen around town and I think balances
things based on the the growth. Um, and
that also demonstrates this project, but
wasn't specifically looking at Newport
Way. So I think the concern might be
that you know traffic instead of going
down Newport now goes you know from
Seventh to Holly and you know cuts the
corner there and creates a lot you know
kind of moves the back up onto that
street. Uh it's it's a slight concern
that maybe that's far enough out of the
way that people wouldn't do it but is
there going to be a round of that full
modeling before we uh take on this
project to you know show any side
effects there? That's not something we
normally do. Now, I I guess I'll also
add the residents on 7th Avenue between
Juniper and Holly petition for traffic
calming, and it is the first project
going through the city's traffic calming
policy. And I anticipate that there'll
be trafficcoming measures along there,
so it might not be the best cutth
through route.
Yeah. Thank you.
gonna check for others first. Just
Okay.
It's been a while since I
say I don't think it was related to that
project specifically. I was more
wondering about uh
I don't think I remember my question.
It's been like 30 minutes.
>> Sorry.
>> Think of it.
>> Yeah. I I just I
have landed that we had our chair vice
chair meeting. I know uh the amish
nonorized
uh also came. I think we wanted like a
little more detail on that if you have
it or just I don't Adam I think this is
just wrote it down. So
>> yeah that was on the 190s through
>> which project was that one?
>> 28
>> year 28.
>> Yeah. Um
I'm so appreciated the uh the layout of
the board. Do you have one for for that
project as well?
>> There might be. Let me find something on
the internet. Did not come prepared to
show you that one, but I think I can
find something.
>> I think one of the things we were
chatting a little bit about this last
week. Uh, one of the things we were
talking about was um, is it one of the
objectives of that project to connect
major bike routes such as the Mountain
to Sound Greenway? Um, kind it kind of
goes through there, but it's on roads
for that part of it and we're trying to
move it to protect trail or what? So,
Mountains to Sound Greenway is actually
on the other side of the freeway. So,
Belleview's been building even though,
yeah, there is the I90 trail um with
those great switchbacks and
pavement in terrible condition, but u
has been working towards improvements to
along Newport Way. So, there's currently
near T-Mobile, there's a pretty new
shared use path. Believe is getting
ready to do another project that's going
to go from
42nd
anyways where the I90 at the east gate.
They got another shared use path that's
going to keep heading to the east. And
so TR22
is building a shared use path that's
working its way towards Belleview. So,
it's it'll take a long time, but
eventually like the transcontinental
railroad, we'll meet in the middle and
maybe put a golden spike down and
celebrate. Um, but let me see if I can
find something here. I do have something
to share for TR28
and but it it will eventually connect
into the existing non-motorized
infrastructure in Belleview, but not for
a long time. So let me
TR28.
This is what it will construct. So it
has
the two travel lanes. Here's I90. It'll
put in a improved barrier between
the city street and the freeway. And
then it will have curbing gutter
landscape planner strip and then a
multi-use
trail for pedestrians and bicycles.
And the limits for that project
are up here. You can see
oops there it goes 193rd is here which
connects into a lot of the homes in the
neighborhood. And the state park
entrance is over here. Now, I don't
remember the number off the top of my
head, but the city does have a future
year transportation project to
eventually take it where this project
ends and continue the improvements
towards Belleview.
That
>> end. That would be awesome. I'm trying
to think of where the sound wall uh on
the side of the highway
is, but it's somewhere around there.
>> Yeah. So there's sound wall in well
probably
about right here.
I want to see it's somewhere in here
is where the sound wall is.
>> Thank you.
>> Oops. Thank you for doing that kind of
impromptu.
>> No problem. But I uh I'm excited to see
that. I know that's um
that's been kind of a multi-year journey
and uh connecting better connecting that
kind of weird call weird but segment of
you know feels almost almost like an
island right and there's just one way in
and out um peninsula then uh yeah it's
improving connectivity and iPad safety
and connections
All right.
>> Which was it was related to the debt
since that was questions. I was
wondering you guys have made the claim
that would be better services sooner.
That seems intuitive. I'm wondering what
the I'm assuming you guys have some
evidence from other cities because I
know that a lot of decisions based on
how refactors
like the results they receive. So is
there like evidence for other cities
that have got good returns of their like
the debt that they've taken out to
finance transit?
>> I have not reached out to other cities
to compare. I think it's just looking at
with the increase in construction cost
versus what it's been
the ability to finance projects and I'm
relying on the finance department and
others who are much more aversed.
That's why when Erica made her comment
about
commenting on debt, I I felt like I
could relate a little because it's a
little outside of my area of expertise.
But um
>> the general philosophy that the
administration has is costs are going up
this much and borrowing is like this.
So, let's get the improvements now. And
Andrea probably can articulate this
better than me.
>> Let let me jump in. Um I think we've
we've seen it from some of our own
projects. So it used to be in the past
that the city carried a lot more debt.
Um we have very little debt as a city
compared to most other cities and
compared to what we've done in the past.
And so what that means is um we are not
doing as much capital projects. We keep
pushing off um John's been around for
several CIPs as have I. we keep pushing
off projects into the future and every
time we do that the cost goes up and as
John said the cost of borrowing um
versus the cost of inflation the cost of
borrowing is is uh lower especially for
governments and a little more uh
predictable depending on what kind of
debt we issue. So um so that's the idea
there. Uh, I think, you know, something
that we're going to be also asking our
city council to weigh in on is, um,
there's some trade-offs. We can do more
projects up front, but then that means
that there's fewer projects in the
future that we can do, right? Because,
um, we'll be using that money to pay off
debt. And so, that's kind of a a
trade-off uh, there. But I think overall
what we see from other cities, what
we've seen in certainly how we have done
things in the past is um using more debt
to get a little more done at once uh
does save on costs.
>> Yeah,
>> that's the general trend.
>> Yeah, I've heard a lot you do a project
quickly large money versus a long period
of time smaller
example of this. Yes,
>> it should have been done like five years
ago, 10 years ago.
Okay, I'm not gonna jump the queue
because I do I remember in the beginning
I remember forget that but I did I um uh
I emailed a staff uh earlier this week I
mentioned um that uh I have to look up
the projects I guess TR 12. So, the one
you mentioned at the beginning here,
John, the left turn on Sensit
Improvements. There's another smaller uh
project along the street uh the village
uh theater crosswalk. And I'm curious
about the intersection of those two
projects because if it's easier to take
a left turn on the front, but we added
there's one more
place that uh pedestrians could cross
and where you have to wait, I guess.
Yeah. What does that do to Yeah, I'm all
for making things ped more pedestrian
safe. I just want to put that on there,
but I I um Yeah. No,
>> it's a great question. So
I would say that the
congestion relief from the reconfiguring
it is more than just the left turns even
though it primarily focuses on it. So it
makes the whole intersection whether
you're going straight on sunset straight
on front making a turn from one or the
other it it makes it overall better. And
then I the pedestrian myth block
crossing at the village theater. So it's
if I remember right from your email that
you had mentioned you remembered back
when it's probably Stephen who presented
about pedestrian crossing and
the risk of having too many and we
already do have a lot. And when this
project came up, I I had some of the the
same concerns. And
>> um there's also a philosophy that when
you have a midblock crossing that you'd
want to put it in a location where
people are already crossing. And so
right now with the Dish Theater, when
their show gets out, there's a lot of
people who are parked on the other side
and they're not walking up to the RFB.
They're not walking down to Dogwood to
help someone make a left turn
sort of. Um, but they're just crossing
front there. And since that is where
they pedestrians are crossing and that
is when they're primarily crossing which
is after a show which is different than
the main commuting time that from an
engineering perspective and a safety
perspective I felt comfortable with it
because we're making safety improvements
to a crossing where people already are
crossing. We've said that that's where
they want to cross.
>> Thank you.
Yeah, I hate to be a broken record
based on what you've said of project
TR23.
Um, I wanted to dig in a little bit
deep. I'm looking at a map here and
doing some measurement. And, you know,
we're talking about paving a lane, one
extra lane between,
uh,
uh, Maple and Holly.
uh which is you know somewhere let's you
can go all the way to sunset eventually
that ends up being a mile of pavement
uh the holly portion of that is is like
maybe half a mile
a quarter mile of that is between
maple and juniper
so
if I understand correctly the the
purpose of the additional is to avoid a
backup for people trying to around town
by uh getting onto Newport from Juniper
and Holly.
The portion of pavement that is between
Juniper and Maple going southbound, if
you're visualizing this with me, I
should have zero effect on that purpose
because that's traffic coming from
Juniper and Hollywood not travel on that
particle. That's half the pavement.
So you talk about between
Maple and Juniper that pavement.
>> Yes.
>> Yeah. If we don't put that in, then what
ends up happening is the traffic going
through the Juniper roundabout backs up
through the intersection at Maple,
causing the intersection at Maple to
fail. That's why it's in there.
>> That doesn't make sense to me. the
intersection at so
>> calling the intersection at Maple Tail,
>> right? Because at Juniper because right
now you would have the
there would be a backup
>> the the current backup goes past.
>> Yes, it would. If you had a roundabout
without extending the second southbound
lane, then it it causes Maple and
Newport to fail.
>> Okay. I I remain skeptical of this. I
can we schedule some time like
Okay, I'll reach out to John
>> for that. It's 7:04. So, I think um I
can give some kind of closing. I do
think we went into the weeds on this a
lot, but there's lot multiple projects,
right? and um new suggestions things
from the administration. Uh so good
robust discussion but
see if I can summarize I need you all to
help me uh and then before we move on to
the work plan
>> I
since we're here for suggestion I just
wanted to say generally kind of
mirroring some of the research that has
shown
that
I think a lot of people including me do
not want to see a lot of extra on
services in Isiqua and I know that you
guys are definitely already considering
that as a design goal. You've said that.
I just want to reiterate that as a very
important factor considering
adding extra lanes and things like that
is that any potential benefits to
traffic need to be weighed against flood
risk and things like that and extra
water treatment.
>> I know that we're already doing that,
but I might as well reiterate that as a
very big priority, I think. Yeah. No,
thank you. Appreciate the feedback.
>> Possible
to this side asking for
>> Yes.
>> I guess the the questions that we're
trying to answer tonight.
>> Yep.
>> Um, as John does that, I guess I'll just
go uh to Ally or Derek. Anything
anything to add? Any any thoughts as you
were reading through the packet?
Um, I think the only thing for I don't
really have any big thoughts. I'm
definitely like not going in to the
weeds as much um with some questions,
but I definitely support that
improvements to that intersection that's
kind of in question on Newport. Um, I
traffic that road a lot and make a lot
of left turns from Holly and Juniper.
So, I would support improvements there.
I agree. Um, yeah, just like Ally, I
don't have really much specifics to add,
but um, it seems like we have good plans
coming up.
So
folks, uh, do the proposed updates
aligned with the maps?
Um
I know in a lot of these I am seeing the
um improving mobility uh I think in
Newport way that's you know clearly
uh
getting at
preparing for growth. I know it sounds
like there's some concerns uh with the
details, but um so I don't know if I've
uh
you know, we typically try and do things
consensus and so I don't want to make
any grand statements if we don't have
that. But um
I think that one in particular uh aligns
with like one of the map ones that says
like address things with a history of
like severe fatal collisions because
that is a really dangerous road for like
pretty much any modality especially
currently bikers and walkers. Um
and so I think I think that calms
traffic there is good as well. like the
improving track is just about
but I think that really aligns with that
I I lean towards
kind of separating the parts of like I
for for any of these projects I am more
in support of things that support
pedestrian safety than things that
prioritize this like automobile
speed transit because I think those
things for example not just with batting
lanes but with other things like that
often times I I don't think that a
project should have to include vault to
get the like in in this case like adding
bike lanes and the green strip and
sidewalks does not have to necessarily
go along with adding an extra lane. I
mean, I'm not obviously if the city
transit partners think it's necessary.
It's just that like I'm assuming that
those things don't have to go together.
It's just cheaper if you do it all at
once, right?
So, I'm going to say you can add bike
lanes and sidewalks and planter strips
without adding extra vehicular lanes.
You cannot add extra vehicular lanes and
meet city policies without adding the
non-motorized facilities.
>> Yeah.
Um, and I think that's a a good thing. I
just think that like some level of
separation in projects is like
if a project is going to break these
other things and what am I trying to
say? Like the additional benefit of
we're going to be getting this
pedestrian safety almost shouldn't be
considered when you're considering
whether or not to add an extra lane
somewhere because presumably you could
add that pedestrian that pedestrian
safety features without adding extra
lane. Does that make sense? Like those
are two separate goods that we're
considering and they don't have to be
bundled into like an all or nothing kind
of situation when we're trying to make
this decision. I think that applies to
any of these projects is like the
different if we can separate out
different parts of them, it maybe makes
it more logistically complicated, but
it's a little bit more honest to the
actual application if we can separate
out the different goods that we're
getting from it. I don't know if this
makes any sense. I don't know
articulating myself well.
>> I I hear what you're saying. It does
make sense. Although
>> it's also hard to split out because I
mean it is a project that is a package
deal. It's
>> like a lot of the the funding that's
gone into it is for the complete
package. So
it would put funding at jeopardy if we
started saying okay yes grant we took
this money from you and we said we do
these five things and now we're going to
just do three of them. So the grant
system means that they are kind of a
package,
>> right? Yeah.
before I guess I'll preliminarily ask
you John if you feel like you have the
feedback you need or is it a bit feel
like it's a bit more split and segmented
than I might like to give you but um if
you are feeling we can
we can continue discussing
before I
Well, I feel like it was good feedback.
I'm curious what Adam has to say.
>> Or is it overall?
>> I just summary.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> Go. Go ahead.
>> I want to make sure that you understand
that. I I applaud the vast majority of
what's in this. I think it's there's a
lot of great stuff in here. I I like the
prioritization of some of the specific
intersections that we've seen have
problems and you know won't necessarily
cost that much uh to address. So the
only thing I'm really digging into today
is that extra lane and you know what the
some of that is based on um some lacking
of uh you know objective measures of
improvement. Uh so like we'll relist the
projects we don't necessarily say you
know we want to improve traffic. this
project is going to improve this
traffic, you know, this latency, this
throughput, so on and so forth. So that
would be really on the whole overall I
call the changes.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of the and
I'd have to watch the YouTube video. I I
felt like, and you guys can correct me
if I'm wrong, that generally the tab
supports the proposed six-year tip.
There are some specific questions,
mostly from Adam,
about the the second southbound lane.
He's giving me a hard time, Adam. Um,
but uh and we can meet and talk about it
in detail and give you hundreds of pages
of traffic reports to read and
>> Okay. I I don't disagree with that some
degree. I also um I guess I'll kind of
let I know I could raise some cons
categorize them as concern some
curiosity about us even being asked the
about the taking on debt in the first
place and I am seeing within the
anticipate transformation guiding
principles of the map is that that
includes and encompasses economic trends
and so um
I I guess it maybe is so strange that
we're being asked that But um okay, if
you uh I feel pretty good about this. Uh
anyone else before we switch gears to
the next item? God, that's going twice.
I'll ask officially, do you have all the
information you feel like you need to
move forward?
>> Yes. Thank you.
>> Um and our next item is the 2026 child
work plan. And to approve that, um,
Andrea Leoner, our deputy city
administrator, will be presenting
tonight. Please go ahead.
>> Great. Thank you so much. Um, this is
also in your packet. Uh, well, and and
really, uh, Chair Boyd, I'd love to turn
it back to you because we presented, uh,
the work plan to city council two weeks
ago and got some feedback. So, do you It
was Well, I
>> I Okay.
a week and a half ago. Um, so do you
want to share how that discussion with
council went and what kind of feedback
we got?
>> Sure.
>> Back to my
um uh so
got feedback from the council on Monday
last week. Um had some feedback from
council member Walsh. um I think looking
for a little more emphasis or she was
asking about um bicycle and pedestrian
infrastructure. Um I don't know if that
was just not jumping out immediately um
based off of the work plan, but Andrea
did a great job of um highlighting the
touch points where we will uh address um
items that have more of that flavor. Um
and um I want to be sure I at least
brought that up. Um some of the places
that will um address that are like when
we talk about the trail standards, the Q
trip reduction
that
um and then uh it's a report card for
the map report card or the tab report
card. It's a map report card. um the
look back um over what we um
uh progress on the plan um that will
include what's being done about bike
bite pad as well. So
and and the tip itself there was a lot
of discussion about bicycle facilities
and pedestrian facilities and safety and
that's really where we put all those
kind of policies into action. So thank
you for all your comments on that
tonight.
Um
I think her last comment is just about
um um advising us to you know find look
at the gaps what's not helping our uh
transportation system and I the
questions that Adam raised uh might be
uh us doing just that of do we really
need one more lane
um Adair um uh asked about uh the micro
for transit. Um I think that's on our
work plan. Um uh specifically bringing
up the idea of fixed route shuttles. I
know this board has um addressed and
advised uh the advance port of
Metroflex. I know there's been
discussion on you know best and highest
use of city dollars, the writership of
that. And um
and then uh something that we touched on
tonight, Council Member Jen asked about
um bonding of transfers benefit funding.
So um
we addressed like usage of debt but um
uh
and she encouraged us to offer um
you know anything that we're not that we
would want to see in the case we just
talked about this but we still can we
another 40 minutes or so if there's
anything that we weren't seeing in the
tip that um
or just projects we'd like to see in the
future. We can can also be proactive
about that. I know typically we are
addressing what you know um the
administration is um asking us to
address um our agendas are set right but
um Adam and I meet uh before each
meeting with uh city staff and so you
know where you can have break the table
things that we might want to address as
well things that you're hearing out in
community or experiencing right Um
just a reminder that that's an opening.
>> Yes, thank you. Um I will also just kind
of provide a highle summary of what I
really heard from council. The theme was
making sure that um TAB feels empowered
to give us feedback because council
really wants to hear from you. And so
the comments tonight on the tip very
well noted. Thank you for all of those.
and um just making sure that you you are
empowered and you know that the doors
open that council really wants to hear
from you um on any ways to improve
transportation in a city
that um I thought was good to hear uh
council's support and respect of this
body and wanting to hear from you. Um
other things that we've discussed since
that city council meeting though so we
looked as we were looking at the work
plan and we were talking about the tip
um in the meeting with the chair and
vice chair um we were talking about
criteria and this idea of how are we
applying the criteria? are we um
including all the information we should
knowing that now we have a new mayor who
has a little more direction you know uh
as as John said looking around at how
we're um we are have uh lots of projects
that address bike and ped we have some
that do all three for including cars um
but the mayor does want us to look at
how are we getting around a little
easier how are we using our existing
streets and intersections. If there's
ways that we can manage our
infrastructure better, not necessarily
adding lanes, but using what we have and
managing traffic flow better, then we
should look at those things. We've
talked in the past with this group about
IT or intelligent transportation systems
and traffic signals. And so that's also
part of this effort using our existing
infrastructure in a way that's going to
facilitate movement um which also helps
out transit. So, um I think what we're
looking at is uh with the larger CIP
update happening next year, I think, um
it would make sense for us to dive a
little deeper into some of the
transportation project criteria. Uh
let's work with staff. I've heard
feedback from staff about um how to use
that infrastruct how to use that
criteria to grade those projects and
maybe wanting to clarify that and make
it uh to your point Adam more objective.
I've heard that kind of feedback from
staff and so I think what I would like
to suggest given this work plan and the
concerns that we've heard through the
tip discussions of uh towards the end of
the year certainly in the fourth quarter
um starting to take a look at the
criteria again see given new mayor's
priorities given different perspectives
among um uh our members and some of them
are going to be new by that time
that um maybe we want to take a look at
and make sure that the criteria are
serving us that it's clear for staff on
how to be using those criteria to grade
projects. There was the suggestion of
going through um uh a like exercise to
try it out and score some projects and
involve this body more and and
increasing the transparency of our
scoring uh the projects and so we might
want to uh look into that uh towards the
end of the year. So I would suggest that
we modify the work plan um to include
discussions on criteria and another
examination into those in advance of the
CIP update.
I agree. Have any
um any objections? Guess procedurally,
do right now it's in here to approve it
as is, but do we have to do anything to
I I think the if there was a motion to
approve as amended, that amendment would
include adding uh to the work plan an
examination of criteria unless there's
other amendments you want to make and
other changes to the work plan.
I guess as a
way of order on that like what which
month might we add the uh
uh deep dive into the the scoring
criteria with potential
scoring exercise. First of all, I'm
absolutely in favor of that. I think
when we get into that level of detail in
doing exercises in group, we get a lot
more uh deeper opinions that are a lot
more wellounded. So, I think it's a good
use of time.
>> Yeah, I was thinking fourth quarter
likely November. I see we generally
don't have a meeting in December
necessarily, but I think that's an
exercise that we can do November and
even spilling over into January if need
be. Um, we staff get really involved in
the CIP updates uh starting later later
January, February. I'm looking at John
so he can correct me if I'm wrong, but
some of the criteria discussions we can
have kind of in advance of that to help
staff um do the updates. So we'd be
looking at amending the October November
one of those meetings to include
a a deeper dive into Yeah. Right now we
have for November we have um banal
banial traffic calming program report
um potentially trail standards
and the central Isqua station alignment
study potentially. So these things uh as
you know move around we have a couple of
dates that are highlighted um including
November for some of these studies but
um I think if we get too far um too if
we get too early I think the the
discussion is going to be really hard
from a staff perspective to be able to
manage that. So that's what I'm looking
at end of the year. Um and that will
lead us nicely into the CIP update and
the timing of that.
Okay. Um, if people are happy with that,
I'll make a motion that uh we
approve the transportation advisory
board 2026 work plan with uh the amended
addition of a deep dive into scoring
criteria for tip and zip projects
to be scheduled uh in probably fourth
quarter meeting.
You do all I guess if there are any
opposed
by your consensus. Do you approve the
amended work plan?
Thank you.
Andrew, do you have all the information
you need to move forward?
I think you do. Next item is reports.
um
staff report. Please go ahead here.
>> Uh great. Well, um first, uh thank you,
Chair Boyd. I think you also wanted to
have time to just recognize Thomas.
Thomas Valdz uh was the former uh staff
liaison to this body for a bit and uh he
has since as you all know moved on to
the city of Kirkland. In fact, I have a
meeting with him tomorrow morning as a
safe Kirkland employee.
So, if you have any uh regards to pass
on to him, I can do that. Um, so Thomas
uh is is uh pursuing, you know,
advancement in his career and he's um uh
chosen to do that in Kirkland because
they have a nice path for him to be able
to do that. So, we wish him well. Um, I
miss him dearly every day, but uh you
are all unfortunately stuck with me
until we get to fill the position. So,
thank you for your patience uh with me.
Happy to also help and support any
questions that you have or anything that
I can do. Um we are looking to fill the
position. Um we're advertising right
now. So, if you know anybody, please uh
you can you can send them my way or
refer them to the city website. Um, so
my hope is that I have the position open
for another week or so, three weeks
total, and we'll see who we get. So, I
know that there's already been a couple
of applications. I don't know how many,
but some folks have reached out to me.
So, we're feeling optimistic, especially
in this job climate, that maybe we'll
get some great people in. Uh and then um
in terms of other things, I think we
look forward to taking the tip next to
the environmental board, looking at
scheduling a good time for that, getting
their feedback, moving that through. Um
otherwise, I will just encourage
everyone if you have not uh if you care
about light rail and isqua, that's our
big effort right now in the city. And so
I will be taking a group of folks uh
starting we're meeting at city hall
downtown at the Eagle statue at 1210
tomorrow. That's noon 12:10 uh to be
able to take the 554 down to um the
Sound Transit HQ and uh provide public
comment in support of Isakqualite Rail
and building out ST3 on the east side.
Um hopefully you're all aware that the
Cross Lake Connection opens officially
this Saturday. There's a big um opening
ceremony and ribbon cutting and all of
that. And so with the Cross Lake
Connection, we're excited to see those
trains running along I90. First time
ever in the world that such a thing will
occur on a floating bridge. But um also
uh some service changes in transit. And
there's some rumors going around town
about different bus routes being cut and
canceled, etc. And so if you hear those
rumors, please refer them to me because
there's a lot of misinformation
unfortunately going out there. So I'm
doing a lot of answering questions etc.
Um but just note if you normally take
the 554 Monday morning it might look a
little different. So I encourage you to
um to uh look at your transit routes um
because there's going to be some changes
with the with the um crossway connection
happening.
>> So the 554 will get cancelled. the 554
is. Yeah, I mean, yes, we there will no
longer be a one seat ride um on the 554
to Seattle is changing. You will have to
stop and hop on light rail um and finish
your trip that way. So, it's now a two
seat ride for us to get into or well,
yeah, depending on depending on where
you come from, where you're headed. Yes.
So,
>> yeah. One one of
>> I just started school this today
actually for the my last quarter.
I
looking forward to my experience this
quarter.
>> They they are are promising uh fast
transfers, but we're going to let us
know how that works.
>> Yeah,
>> I'll report back next month.
>> Would love to hear it.
>> Would love to hear it. Best of luck.
>> Yeah. Uh that's it for my report. Thank
you.
>> Thank you.
I guess I can connect, but I would uh
sounds like you're feeling a lot of, you
know, because of the misinformation. So,
um I don't I can't speak for everyone,
but however I can help you, too. Just as
long as I think I need to get the the
like here's what's changing and whatnot.
That way, I can um I mean, always will
refer people to you, but if I can answer
folks questions too as I'm encountering
them or having these conversations, then
the 271 is not being cancelled. Okay. Is
that something that's coming up a lot at
people? Interesting. Okay.
Um then to the chair report. Um thank
you Andrea for yeah mentioning um all of
Thomas's great work and I know um I and
I think I I can't speak for all of us.
We all wish him the best. um he was a
great staff leaison and so please pass
on yeah um gratitude to him when he meet
tomorrow and um personally for me I
think he left before his um working
email was out before I could respond to
him so I do feel pretty bad that as a
chair I didn't um send them happy trails
and thanks for everything he did so yeah
please pass on I will thanks thank you
>> um and then um is it okay for me should
have asked you before for me to give it
just a update about the interview
process process
had or not go through the details but I
guess I should share that um Andrea
myself and Julian as a past chair and
vice chair um conducted interviews for
the um open positions and um those went
well and we should have uh know about
those soon. I'm forgetting the details
on that.
>> Yes. Uh we look to uh have council
confirm those appointments at the
meeting next week, the council meeting
next week. Um so moving uh I think we
have I don't have their names right in
front of me but Tessa
Dave
says or not. So um
>> uh they will all it will all be um in
the packet in tomorrow. So yeah um
Dave and
um we are we are asking that Ally uh
become a full member instead of an
alternate. So thank you Ally for your
continued interest in participation.
Thank you.
And I thought,
oh yes, there's one more woman who's
But overall, we had Yeah. good
applicants. It was a tough decision. Um
and I'm looking forward to um this next
round of
members.
>> Yes,
I see her face.
Sorry. Sorry. Uh Connie.
>> Oh,
>> Connie M.
>> Uh I don't remember her last name. Uh
but yes. Um and I think what was
interesting, you know, I will just say
this, we did have great applicants. Um
it was very hard to choose. And if
there's any of those applicants watching
tonight that did not get chosen, um we
really want you to come back next time
because it was very hard to choose. And
it was an interesting discussion amongst
uh Julian and Erica. Thank you for your
participation in those interviews and
just wanting to make sure we have
diverse perspectives and so really
looking around at um how are people
getting around isqua now? What
experience do they bring professionally?
What lived experience are they bringing?
Um what voices can they help us have
access to that we maybe don't right now.
So those were kind of the major con
considerations for who was selected and
why.
Oh, before I forget, um I believe Julian
is excused tonight. He mentioned that to
us this verbally and I think that's why
I had it Yeah. an email. So,
>> thank you for excused. I have Haney,
Cynthia, and Julian.
>> Y
>> um other business or announcements? Do
any board members or staff have anything
to share?
>> Um, well, we do have an update. John
corrected me. Thank you, John. Sometimes
I live too far into the future. That's a
hazard of my job. And John reminded me
the 554 will continue going to Seattle
until the fall service change. So, this
quarter,
live it up while you can. That means I
don't ever have to go to school with
that many transfers because I'm
graduating this June, which the audience
>> literally I get to ride the 554 into
Seattle my whole time in school.
>> Okay. Um
and
appendex of packet.
No one else has anything to share. Then
we are adjourned at 7:35.
>> Thanks everyone. Hi. Thank you. Thank
you.