Travis County Commissioners Court
December 6, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 16
16.
consider and take appropriate action on projects recommended by the city of Austin and Travis County to use campo surface transportation program metropolitan mobility (stp mm) funds allocated by the campo policy board.
>> good morning judge, joining e me is gordon durf from the city transportation office.
>> did we get backup?
I didn't get any backup at the office at all?
is there something we can look at.
>> we did email out supplemental information earlier this morning.
>> I didn't get that.
>> I didn't get that, either.
>> is there a way to get another copy?
>> there is.
essentially what he is giving to you is additional information we received from the city of Austin regarding their support behind the various projects on a list that we developed with them.
so a little explanation of why they chose this particular project is what you have.
earlier this year, the campo area received about $62 million in federal dollars for stp mm projects.
they got nearly another 48 million of txdot prop 12 funds and then another $6 million in txdot category 12 funds.
txdot went ahead and distributed all of their cat 12 and -- I am sorry.
what is it?
prop 12 money.
I am sorry.
so that money has been distributed by them.
the policy board at campo distributed $26.6 million of the stp-mm money leaving 36.4 moneys of stp-mm money to be distribute and that is to be left within the bodies, if campo organization, travis, Williamson, hays, caldwell and bastrop, and then the balance is to to be distributed in the way the county representatives felt most appropriate.
towards that end, Travis County worked with the city of Austin and cap metro, developed the list of projects that I believe you are seeing in that backup now, and this would be what we would recommend that you take to the policy board.
so if you have questions about that, we are here to answer those for you.
>> I think the court needs to know that that second amount that the counties were left to decide how to use was based on population.
>> that's right.
>> distribution.
so the city of Austin, Travis County, we've got, more than anybody else, based on the fact that our population is much greater.
>> that's right.
we've got nearly $20 million.
Williamson about nearly 9, hays, 4, caldwell, 4 and bastrop 2.000000 and keep in mind this represents 80% of the cost.
this is the federal funding side of it so if we need to chase the funds, we need to bring 20% to the table as well.
>> all right.
>> I just wanted to raise for consideration, I think I understand it for purposes of those that are maybe watching this dialogue today, why the intersection at 620 and 2222 basically which is a city of Austin project and scored highly did not make our short list here?
>> we -- gordon durst, city of Austin, transportation department.
we have a project currently under way of the txdot to look at that intersection including including a right lane and eastbound approach to remain three lanes and reconfigure to share lefts and add pavement to add additional approach lane on the east leg leg so we have a project underway we have funded working with txdot to do improvements for the intersection.
the project anticipated here is kind of the next level, where we go to look at some grave separation of significant investment intersection.
we feel there is an interim solution that will help the with the intersection with these delays and that's the project which is ongoing right now, which has been funded.
>> just out of curiosity, what is your timing on that?
there is a lot of interested people that call my office.
>> let me get that information and I will send that to you and your office.
>> thank you very much.
>> the city and the county get together and we tried to come up with this list to recommend to the campo policy board, did you have criteria that you used to guide you?
>> well, from the county side, the projects that are on the travis -- when you see Travis County, it means everybody in Travis County, not just this organization, but the project for Travis County tnr, the braker lane scored high, the blake manor hike and bike trail didn't but we had extenuating circumstances on that in we have the approved bond project on lake manor road so doing them jointly would allow cost savings through economies of scale.
so I feel like we should pursue getting that approved as well.
we have been trying to get it approved for five years and now with the bond program supporting it, it makes more sensetor me to try to get funds for that,.
>> I think from at least the city's standpoint and the discussions with capital me flow, it was the projected we felt scored highly we could move forward expeditiously.
in discussion with the three entities we felt it was important, though, low carts hadn't gotten a project that scored highly.
we felt with this additional allocation of funds, it would be appropriate to assist the carts and their important work that they do throughout the important part of the whole region and that's why we brought it that wasn't highly scored up and got funding in Williamson county and also got funding in other carts project.
we feel it is an appropriate mix.
>> I agree with them.
thank you so much.
appreciate it.
>> the bond approval that we had in the recent elections, I am especially looking at the braker lane design, engineering type situation.
I am trying to determine now how will that mature and fit into what we are doing, if the funds are made available for the particular project which is one of the top priority projects.
>> yes, we don't have that project in our 2011 bond program.
the one we looked at earlier on but it was discarded through the deliberations of the citizen bond advisory committee.
the one project we do have on this list, however that, is also included in the 2011 is the blake manor road hike and bike trail.
>> , the blake manor is a for sure deal, though?
>> with the hike and bike.
>> it is a for sure situation?
>> that's right.
>> so outside of what we dealt with the braker lane type situation, we had braker lane extension and a bunch of other things we got out there, this is outside of that additional design for that particular area.
>> yes.
>> in fact, that was left off.
you are right.
that was left out of that initial deal.
I stand corrected.
>> yes, the one on this list was north title i, the other one was --
>> exactly.
now let me say -- -- north of 281.
>> now, on the sheriff's situation, will you flush that out a little more.
I am saying the blake manor sheriff deal, can you basically?
>> well, I can probably meet with you Commissioner, it is going beyond what we are talking about here.
>> that's fine.
we will talk.
>> okay.
>>
>> [laughter]
>> so with the recommended and approval be the amount of allocation that we have coming?
>> yes.
yes that amunt of money f you add that all up, comes up to the amount that Travis County entities have available in federal funding.
>> to the dallas?
>> to the dollar?
>> to the dollar?
one note is on the blake manor project it is a couple of hundred thousand dollars underfunded.
we ran up as much as we could as far as spending down the money available to Travis County and we were a couple of hundred thousand dollars short but I am hoping because now it is joined with a bond project that through economies of scale we will be able to make up that difference.
>> 25 percent -- at least 25 percent is a minimum.
>> that's right.
>> okay.
I put this on the court's agenda because I felt although we have three members of the policy board, the entire Commissioners court how old address these projects.
will the city council have a an opportunity to responsibility to these recommendations or is it basically a staff function at the city?
>> the city of Austin previously had gotten the council to approve a list that is broader than the list of projects weekend and we are basically directed to move forward with any of these that are viable, so we have briefed the policy board members on the list and provided to all of the council members.
so we -- we've -- we provided that information to them e.
>> and I interpret that to mean that at this point we don't see any reason to anticipate pushback at the policy meeting on Monday?
>> I would not anticipate it but we are -- our calendar is somewhat less flexible in that we just didn't have the time for him to get anything before the council.
>> court members?
by the way, I think we paid special attention to centers and other policy board decisions, impacting transportation -- regional transportation decisions.
>> yes, and the hike and bike as well.
>> at least we tried to, right.
>> yes.
>> that is important, because I think that's -- that some of the other entities probably are not as enthusiastic about accomplishing that, or another way to say that, they had other transportation projects the they were thought of greater priority in their jurisdiction than centers and hike and bike trail so hopefully we can balance that.
anything further?
Commissioner Eckhardt.
>> just briefly.
I would -- we went to a geographic distribution at campo.
I confess, I was not at all in favor of that.
I prefer to merit distribution based on the assessment by campo staff and the technical advisory committee, but that motion did not prevail.
so in light of the desire of the majority of campo to go with the geographic distribution, I -- I would like to move approval of the list in the email that's titled Travis County list as stp-mm project recommendations for forwarding on to campo.
I do want to say, you know, in full disclosure as this moves forward, that if it should be the distribution of all of the money does not meet the 2035 long range plan criteria of the 50% set aside for centers and 50% set aside for bike ped, while I vote to approve this list for the Travis County delegation, if the full distribution of regional money doesn't meet that criteria, I will vote against the ultimate distribution.
>> second.
>> I would add one comment.
I don't know that he's got the latest list, but there is a project p28 and p27 mentioned in the email that may not be on the list you are talking about but it will be --
>> p28 is on there.
>> okay.
great.
it's charlie's email from this morning?
>> yes.
>> it's on there.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> okay.
I see p28 but you see a p29.
>> p29 is funded by Williamson county.
>> correct.
>> not on our list to approve?
>> no, no, it's not.
>> what we have before us is a list recommended by the stay of Austin and Travis County staff.
>> and cap metro.
>> and capital metro.
>> and we have cap metro represented here today.
>> that was a motion to approve the list and a second.
I guess I am -- the rest of that was just commentary, right?
>> the rest of that was just verbiage.
>> [laughter]
>> I second the motion.
>> the motion is just to --
>> read the rest of it --
>> the motion was just to approval the Travis County list of stp-mm projects that is included in charlie's email this morning.
>> any comments from capital metro representative?
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> can you come up and identify yourselves, as a capital metro representative.
they just provided you with a list, also.
>> thank you very much.
I am justin black on the cap metro representative on the campo board, and I have seen the list from last week.
it is the same list, as you guys were provided this morning and cap metro staff did work with Travis County and city of all the to develop this list so we are in favor of it.
thank you.
>> any more discussion on the motion?
all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote, and that motion includes our agenda for the city of Austin Travis County?
>> yes, and thank you very much mr. Durst.
>> yes, we appreciate it.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> absolutely.
come forward.
>> sorry.
>> the chamber of commerce has been very active on this issue and has followed it closely.
>> judge, commerce, thank you for the opportunity to speak today, I am beth anne ray with the Austin chamber of commerce and the infrastructure and I want to encourage you to add mopac learns phase two study on the list, a project that should be funded by the stp-mm money allocated to Travis County.
the chamber is very concerned about mobility and peak hour congestion connecting our employment hub and our town centers and the two maps you see before you today is some research we have done, where we have looked at census led map data from 2009 to determine where the jobs were, and as we looked at that data, we figured out that we have four employment hubs in our five county region.
downtown, in zip code 78701, 03, 04, 05 being the largest that almost 30% of the employment in the five county region.
our northwest area which is the other map you will see, that has less color on it, is the second largest employment hub and then Round Rock and san marcos fill up those top four employment hubs.
these particular maps indicate where any zip code where over 500 employees commute from that zip code into their hub, so whether they are going into the downtown urban core hub or going into the northwest.
this is part of our rationale for advocating for mopac managed lane phase two.
that corridor is a much larger corridor.
as you can see by looking at the maps, many people, thousands of them would use that area on daily basis to commute to and from their jobs.
in addition, we believe that the mopac managed lane -- managed lane project should also be considered as always using rapid transit or express bus giving transit one of the most viable options to become competitive with a single occupancy vehicle when they run on a managed lane and can pass by all of the other traffic sitting on mopac moving at speed and that is' really important.
the chamber has been asked over and over by transit and bike ped advocates to consider mobility, the movement of people first and foremost.
we would argue a managed lane project that has brt or this on it is one of these projects and probably one of the most vital to our region.
many of the projects you are considering did score well.
so did this project even though it is not on your list.
it is on the top ten projects forward by the technical -- by the staff at campo.
it was actually on the original preferred list to be funded.
it had a score of 70.
we would also argue that while the rma for whatever reason did not submit it as a centers project, it does actually connect several centers in the region and, therefore, again, raising the priority of this project for the chamber of commerce.
we would, again, ask you to look over your list and reconsider adding this project.
it is very important to our region to mobility to connecting our centers and connecting our hubs.
thank you.
>> thank you.
>> remind me of the cost of this project.
>> 4,760,000.
>> okay.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> may I just -- say, thank you for your advocacy and the chamber's advocacy, it was of regional significance, all know not put originally on the list which highlights an issue for us through campo, having gone through a geographic distribution frankly, a truly regional project will lose out and projects that ranked very high will fall off of the list because of of what amounts to regional provencialism, with regard to the managed lanes, while I am not a fan of toll roads, I am a fan of managing lanes, managing traffic no.
we can't build much more capacity in the mopac corridor.
we have to manage the capacity we have but at this point the rma will have to rely entirely on bond funding that they are able to get, rather than looking to federal money as a result of the geographic distribution.
>> and among the chamber, would be that the city of Austin, Travis County, others ought to work with them to generate the money necessary to do the managed lanes.
I don't know that all of our projects should turn on what happens at the campo policy board meetings.
I mean, people come with different perspectives, different interests, and the list of potential projects was, what, four or five times what we could have -- what we could basically afford for the money available.
so my thing would be if we really collaborate to the extend that we should, we could do that project a whole lot faster than we ever could with the campo money.
campo money comes with a lot more restrictions that we don't have to deal with if the city of Austin, Travis County, greater Austin chamber of commerce and others interested in getting the project done work together and make it happen.
so my view would be, let's do that.
>>
>> [indiscernible] thanks for coming over.
>> judge, how does that collaboration begin so it doesn't get dropped somewhere and then movement continues for our discussion -- or our discussion continues forward?
otherwise it will drop off.
it will get lost.
>> ms. Ray is going back to greater Austin of chamber of commerce and tells this project still happens and we should get started.
>> and so that will still happen and go.
>> specific to this project, this project will not get lost because it has a revenue stream attached to.
at.
it is a managed lane with a toll associated with it and it is very attractive from the rma's perspective, as a generator of revenue to pay for itself.
the issue was whether they could get it built quicker by getting this feed money.
this project will get built and it --
>> I don't know if it should be a toll road myself but the issue should be addressed.
>> but that's the thing, as a toll road, it will be built because it generates cash and will be a cash cow.
>>
>> [indiscernible] any of the projects from any of the
>> [indiscernible]
>> thank you.
>> mr. Reeferseed.
>> thank you.
I want to applaud ms. Eckhardt her brief but heart wrenching comment that she is against toll roads or not a fan of it.
>> but I lost that vote at campo, too, and a team player, I move forward.
>> we are willing, okay, the revolution keeps on keeping on.
thanks.
>> thank you, mr. Reeferseed.
did we vote on this?
it passed by unanimous vote.
okay.
>> thank you for being so attentive today, ms. Porter.
>> what item are y'all here on?
>> fourteen.
>> we postponed 14.
fourteen is the right one or another one?
technical advisory committee?
>> seventeen.
>> okay.
I did skip 7, didn't I ?
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