We will call this meeting to order the MPO Policy Committee. And we have approval of the meeting agenda.
Motion to approve. Second. So we have a motion and we have a second. We have any comments? Any public
comment? Seeing none, roll call vote.
You know, actually, I skipped introductions, so I apologize for that. Sorry. You can not nominate me
for chair next, sir. Sorry about that. We'll go back. I am so sorry. So we call this to order and we'll
do introductions. So I'm going to start over here. Hi. Nate Nichols, City of Bloomington Public Works
Department, proxy for the Director of Public Works.
Linnea Wellings, NDOT, proxy for Tony McClellan. Andrew Seabor, City of Bloomington, serving as proxy
for Mayor Thompson. Doug Horn, Bloomington Public Transit Corporation Board of Directors. Scott Farris,
Monroe County Planning Commission. John Kennedy, Vice Chair and CAC Member. Lisa Ridge, Monroe County.
Online we have. Julie Julie Thomas, Monroe County Commissioner and Jason. Jason back Indiana University.
Alright, now we will go to approval of the meeting agenda and motion to approve. And do we have a second?
Seconded again. Any board comments?
And any public comment? Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Ferris? Yes. Banach? Yes. Thomas? Yes.
Kennedy? Yes. Stosberg? Yes. Seaborg? Yes. Ridge? Yes. Nickel? Yes. Horn? Yes. Wellings? Yes. Motion passes.
All right, moving to item three, election of calendar year 2026 policy committee officers for chair
and vice chair. And do we have nominations? I would put a nominating motion for the current president
and the current vice president to maintain their positions for this calendar year. Second.
Can I speak? Sure. I really think I should decline, respectfully decline, because we were not able at
the CAC to elect a chair and vice chair for this year. And it's quite possible that someone else will
be sitting in this seat next month. So I think it would be best if I declined to serve as vice chair
for this year. Can we take and withdraw the motion?
You need to take in support of that. I support the withdrawal. And then what I would do, I would put
a motion on the table that we take into the president and the vice chair, or the chair and the vice
chair separately. So I would put a motion on the table for Lisa to remain as the chair for the next
calendar year. Second. Do we have any other nominations?
to some crazy point of order. I think Julie seconded the motion. Oh, I'm sorry. I did not. So Julie
would have to second the withdrawal, I'm guessing. Do we have to vote? And I agree, yes. Yes, I agree
with the withdrawal of the original motion. I'm sorry. No, no, that's all right. You've got me trained.
I'm just trying to move this along. I know I'm trying to do so.
Any other nominations for chair? Lisa, do you accept the nomination? I will accept the nomination.
This year? This year for 2026. Do we need to vote on that? Is that a roll call vote or anything? I move
that nominations be closed. Oh, OK. There you go. Is that a roll call vote or?
We can do just for chair. Lisa Ridge for chair. Kennedy. Yes. Stossberg. Yes. Thomas. Yes. Banach. Yes.
Ferris. Yes. Wellings. Yes. Horn. Yes. Nichol. Yes. Ridge. Yes. And Seaboard. Yes. Passes.
So do we have a nomination for vice chair? Hold down all those nominations. I would move that we table
the vice chair nominations until the February meeting. Until the CAC figures that out or? Yes.
you anticipate you will be at the February meeting in case we don't have a... I guess I'm looking more
at Lisa, if the chair has a chance not to be there. I usually typically am here. I mean, unless we had
15 inches of snow again, but I would do everything I can to be here. Do we need to second that or is
that just... I think you would have to second it. I will second that. Who doesn't vote for Thomas? Julie.
I have a question. If Julie isn't here, could her proxy sit in as chair? I don't know how that plays
with the rules. Oh, you mean if I wasn't here? Would I send a proxy if I couldn't be here? OK. That
would then chair the meeting. Are we close on that then? OK, thank you. So we'd have a chair one way
or the other. Thank you. So you have a motion and a second.
So we have a motion and a second. Any board comments? Any public comment? I guess we would have to have
a roll call vote for that. Okay. To table the vice chair election. Seaborg? Yes. Sausberg? Yes. Kennedy?
Yes. Thomas? Yes. Ridge? Yes. Nichol? Yes. Horne? Yes. Wellings? Yes. Ferris? Yes.
Yes. Tabled. Moving on to approval of minutes, December 12, 2025. Motion to approve. We have a motion
to approve. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second. Any comments from the board? Any public comment?
Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Approval of the minutes, Ridge? Yes. Nickel? Yes. Horne? Yes. Banach?
Yes. Thomas? Yes. Kennedy? Yes. Stasberg? Yes. Seaborg? Yes. Wellings? Yes. Farris? Yes. Motion passes.
Thank you. Communications from the chair or vice chair?
At our meeting on Wednesday night, the CAC meeting, we had a number of the members on Zoom and it seems
that they kept coming in going. At first we moved the agenda to choose a chair to later in the meeting
because we didn't quite have enough and then during the meeting they kept coming and going. So we eventually
moved to next month to choose a chair for the CAC.
So, as I said earlier, it's very likely that I won't be sitting in this chair next month, but we don't
know yet. And also, we did discuss both the amendments for this evening and recommended that the, or
this afternoon, this morning, that the Policy Committee approve them. And we reviewed the draft UPWP,
and we recommended that the Policy Committee consider it and approve it.
Thank you. I don't have much to say. I know Paul Satterly has sat on the TAC for the last 10 years,
and he is retiring next Friday. So I just wanted to publicly thank him for serving on the TAC committee
for the last 10 years for Monroe County. Reports from officers or committees.
Give a brief one from the TAC. We met on Wednesday, so our new schedule will have us meeting just a
few days earlier than our policy committee meetings. For 2026, we elected a chair and a vice chair,
so the chair will be John Baton from Monroe County, and the vice chair will be Jane Fleet from the City
of Bloomington Utilities. We also gave Paul a great send-off. We'll miss him at the meetings.
And we had an opportunity to review the new business items that we're looking at here today. And the
TIC recommended approval to the policy committee. Thanks. Reports from MPO staff. Item A. OK. On page
eight of the packet, this is a early coordination letter that we received as well as other stakeholders
This is for the Monroe County project at Old S.R. 37 in Dillman Road. This early coordination letter
from INDOT requests comments regarding possible environmental effects associated with the project. This
is a project that is receiving some federal funds through the MPO in fiscal year 26, 27, and 28. The
letter describes that the preferred alternative
for the project is an intersection, sorry, is a single lane roundabout with a curb and gutter with drainage
going to either a new storm sewer or a detention basin. The construction will take place between March
of 2028 and August of 2029. And the letter says that Empire Road will be the detour, but Paul Satterly
is working with them to make 37
69, the official detour. So if you have any comments or questions, especially related to environmental
effects of the project, there is some contact information in here, but you're also welcome to let us
know as well and review some of their other materials in here.
for my own identification. That road is used by some fairly long wheel-based tractor-trailer vehicles.
I'm assuming that that's taken into consideration when designing the size of the roundabout. Size of
the roundabout? Yeah. 80-foot tractor-trailer combination with what I would call run-over area. I don't
know if that's the proper term or not.
where if they're outside the lane, there's a... They're not gonna end up in a ditch, yeah? Yeah. Gotcha.
Okay, thank you. Okay. Okay, next item. All right, on page 16 is a press release that
you probably have already seen. This is from INDOT. This is a notification that they have already reduced
the speed limit on SR 45 and 46 between Kinzer Pike and 10th Street from 45 miles per hour to 40 miles
per hour. Nothing? Why? I mean, I travel that road almost every day, and it's a highly traveled road.
As we well know, it's a highly traveled road.
The initiative came from the Citizens Advisory Committee. Several of the members expressed the concern
that at 10th Street, if they were to make a southbound turn- 17th. 17th. Well, actually it was 10th
Street and 17th Street. But to make a right-hand southbound turn, particularly at 10th Street, the decision
site distance wasn't sufficient enough because the speeds were too high.
And so that was conveyed to NDOT in an NDOT for you. And there wasn't a response for several months.
And then all of a sudden, the news release came out. But then we also had one member of the committee
note that there is an issue at 17th Street this week because of snow piling up. If you were to look
to the north, condition site distance isn't adequate enough. So yeah.
And this is part of an ongoing initiative by the Department of Transportation for safe streets,
safe streets, safe roads, safe design. There was a reduction in Ellitsville earlier this year of speed
limit there to 35 miles an hour through all of Ellitsville. And then there was the sidewalk initiative
announced by the Department of Transportation earlier this, earlier
in 25 also, where they'll be constructing a sidewalk on the 45-46 bypass on the north side between Kinser
College and Walnut to allow for safe passage of pedestrians across there because there's a, what I would
almost, I would call a homeless hotel type
structure there where people are going to Kroger for food and back, and it was a dangerous situation.
It was noted three years ago, almost four years ago, and then the announcement came. There's been a
policy change. The Department of Transportation and the central office about NDOT does now become involved
in the construction of sidewalks for safe passage of pedestrians.
four initiatives altogether so far in 2025 that are outside the norm. I'll say that there, but this
is part of the aggressive approach, not only by the Seymour district, but all of the districts in using
safety countermeasures, 25 proven safety countermeasures, wherever there is a fatality or wherever you
have a, what I would call a,
increased frequency of serious injury crashes. This is all aimed at reducing fatalities and serious
injury accidents, FSI-type crashes. And then the other was the sidewalk proposal for State Route 446,
too. But that's a couple of years out. But that also came out in the last calendar year. So you're going
to see a lot more.
It's a very dangerous area between 17th and 10th. And the deal with the hospital and Discovery Parkway
and people coming over that rise and going down to 10th Street as you're going south is a very dangerous
area. There's a lot of bang, bang, bang, bang because people are going too fast and they're stopped at 10th.
and they come up to the stoplight going to the hospital and it's just smack, smack, smack, smack. It's
a very dangerous area. There was another one, too, last year. There was fatality at 10th and Bypass,
where it was a northbound vehicle turning left at 10th Street, onto 10th Street. 17th, I think, motorcycle.
Yeah, motorcycle. I thought that was a chance. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay. They've changed that was a permissive
yellow left turn. They've turned that to a hard red, hard green. So, you're going to see a lot of that.
Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Seat. Item C.
Page 19, there is a memo notifying you of a modification to the tip that was made, did not require a
committee review. $490,000 in federal funds were removed from the High Street Project and applied to
the West Second Street Project in 2026.
The federal funds that were allocated to High Street couldn't be used this year, and so they were reallocated
to West Second. Just give us a second for questions if they come up. And that was all for construction
in January. That was submitted to NDOT in mid... Mid-January. Item D is, I don't have anything in the
packet about this, but
This is just to let you know that the city of Bloomington is starting to make some changes related to
public meetings, open door, and Zoom. The state's open door law allows public meeting attendees now
to record meetings and to transcribe them. Previously, we weren't required to allow attendees online
to do that.
But now the city ITS department is extending that capability to virtual attendees. And so ITS has enabled
the attendee recording feature in Zoom meetings only for public meetings. And this will allow them to
record the meeting they attend through the Zoom application. It's available without the meeting host
doing anything, having to make any changes. And then also meeting hosts
are to allow in the future, are to allow transcription agents, AI bots, into all public and non-executive
meetings as participants. We do have a attendee, a citizen who attends many of the MPO committees who
has asked in the past to bring an AI transcription service into the meeting. And so that will be allowed
in the future.
What's the cost? The cost? The cost to expand this feature to allow them to do that. It's likely just
a checkbox in the settings. Is it just a thing? I think it is, yeah. Does this include both audio and
visual? That's a good question.
Well, there's two items. One was specifically saying they're allowed to record the meeting and they're
allowed to allow transcription agents into the meeting. So to me that implies yes, they can record video
and then they can also get the text. Because we've always made the video publicly available anyway,
but we have never made transcription of the exact words in the meeting available.
And then staff at the city is also working with all the departments to make all board committee documents
accessible to those with disabilities. That's something we have to do by April. Okay, the next item.
Is it possible for us to be made aware by the
attendee that they are indeed recording the meeting? Is there a checkbox for that? I mean, I guess we
can make it a point to ask at the beginning of every meeting. Well, as a member of the committee, I'd
just like to know that my image or my voice is being recorded by someone other than the public domain.
I can ask if there's any protocol for that. Sorry to make trouble. No, it's definitely a concern. We
have an individual who's done that for TSC, CAC, and Policy Committee. That bot isn't online.
Well, it's a transcription one. What I don't know is if the recording feature allows video and voice
recording. So yeah, we can check on that. If I could add, typically you'll see the name of the AI bot
listed as an attendee. Well, you know, there's NIL money involved.
I'm sorry. That came from Love Field. No, but really seriously. Would you like to withdraw that comment?
Personal comment, yeah. Personal. You never know. We might have a member on the committee at some point
that... Who it is about. Yeah. A whole new world.
The next item is just a few updates on some of the projects that are receiving NPO federal funds. And
I'm sorry, the link in the agenda here doesn't seem to work. That was my mistake. But if you just go
to the tip page on our website, that link is there. So regarding the INDOT project on SR 45 and 10th
Street from the bypass to P. Dallas Drive,
That project letting date, as we did discuss last month, has changed from February 11th, 2026 to April
8th, 2026. The road work is currently expected to start in 2027 after the utility relocations and trees
are removed. Trees within INDOT's right of way were marked in the past couple weeks.
and those trees are expected to be removed in early February pending some discussions with the city.
There is a property, there has been some concern, folks contacting the city of Bloomington Urban Forester
because they're nice large oak trees. There is a property within the project limits that does have a
replanting agreement for the removed trees
And the contractors, at least for that property, will be replacing some trees. But INDOT doesn't have
plans at this time for replanting any other trees throughout the project, as that's not necessarily
a priority for them. That's it for this project. Did you have a comment, Scott? They have marked the trees.
Yeah, and they really are big trees right there by the post office there and wow. The other comment
is about 2027. Are you saying that they're going to let that contract in 2027 versus FY 31 now? Did
I hear that right? Because I don't know, I think the one that changed confused. Well, it depends on
the phase you're talking about. I heard construction in 2027.
That's what I heard you say. That's for the intersection from the bypass. Got it. Including the intersection.
We're not talking about Russell Road. Got it. No, no, no. Two different contracts. Yeah. I got it.
I got it. I got it. I had that messed up. Yeah, Russell Road's fiscal year 30, I believe, right now.
Is that fiscal or calendar? That's fiscal, right? Fiscal. Yes. OK, so it's this year. Yeah.
Fiscal year 27 starts July. Fiscal 27 this year. This calendar year. Yeah. Because you get the fiscals
and the calendar years, whatever. And it's state fiscal year. State fiscal year. I got it. I got it.
Yeah, I got it. OK. The city of Wilmington's High Street project, the construction letting date for
that project has been moved from March of 26 to September of 26.
which is a different fiscal year. We'll discuss that more later. The Old S.R. 37 and Dillman
Road intersection improvement project, that letting date is changed from October of 27 to March of 28,
but those are both in the same federal fiscal year, so funding is not impacted for that project.
And then the superstructure per Paul Satterly, the superstructure replacement on Eagleson Avenue. The
construction letting took place a couple weeks ago or this month. And road closure for that project
is expected to be from September of 26 to July of 27.
Moving on to old business, NDOT calendar year 2026 safety targets. I apologize for the fact that I wasn't
here in December. Took the staff memo, which was before you in December, added additional information
to that regarding the background of how the numbers were derived.
It's not only the number of fatalities, fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, the number
of serious injuries, the rate of serious injuries per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, and the number
of non-motorized fatalities and non-motorized serious injuries. It's a five-year rolling average that
began in 2022, so 2022, three, four, five, and then six.
calendar year 2026 would be the fifth year of the rolling average, and then Federal Highway Administration
would be examining whether the safety performance targets were met or not in fiscal year 20, I'm sorry,
in calendar year 27. What I included in here was Indiana's strategic highway safety plan,
which identifies a 2% reduction in the fatal rate, fatal and serious injury crash rate, the FSI rate.
There were some questions apparently about why 2%, why not 5% or two and a half or other rates and the
answer is it must be data driven, it must reflect realistic targets, it must have attainability and
it should align with
management framework assigned by the congressional intent. And in prior years from, I believe it's 2016
to 2021, the data showed for the state of Indiana at least, it showed that a 2% reduction, annual reduction,
could be achieved, all things considered, and all things held constant. And then this was adopted by
the governor
himself, it was recommended by and adopted by Criminal Justice Institute, also adopted by the governor.
And it shows that, oh, the other question that came up, too, was about zero deaths. And the state of
Indiana, along with a number of other states in the union, subscribed to the toward zero deaths.
objective, which is also recognized by the Federal Highway Administration. This sets out zero deaths
by the year 2050, and that's in the memo two. The adoption targets remain the same from what we had
in December. There were several questions too about
what states are meeting the targets, what states are not meeting the targets. This was the best we could
find was up to calendar year 23. This is from the Federal Highway Administration as of October of 2025.
We don't have anything better than that. But if you look on the left, those are the states meeting.
On the right is the states not meeting as of 2023. And then scroll down, yeah.
Here we go. The X means you're not meeting the targets. And if you look from 2018 through 2023, see
a lot of Xs going all the way down. And gives you an idea of what they're shooting for. The ones that
are meeting their targets are Nevada. I think Nevada was in there, Utah.
I think Iowa was in there too, as the ones that were notable. Yeah, but the bottom line is a vast majority
of the states were not meeting the targets as of calendar year 2023. And now there was another question
where we really got off into the deep end, if you can pull up that other one. The big one. I think so.
Yeah, the big Excel file. This shows, this is from the Federal Highway Administration also, in terms
of the performance measures by individual states, showing the performance measure, the highlight in
yellow is Indiana, by the way. 2017 through 2023, what the baseline was in 17 through 21, which established
the 22 goals
carried forward to 2026. And you can see, well, you might go over to the methodology. There was a question
about the methodology. How did NDOT come up with this? Here's how NDOT came up with this. We can send
you the link if anybody wants to look at this in detail. I don't want to get into the deep dive on this.
shows the rationale for all the targets, the target years, I should say. Some of that's changed in 2022.
The rationale for the target was largely based on economic performance. In other words, more people
working, more people driving, higher volumes or vehicle miles traveled. Therefore, you have a higher
probability of
crashes and not only crashes, but also fatality and serious injuries. Then in 2023, they changed that
basis for their targets, 23, 24, and 25. They refined it considerably. And if you look at the performance
that they're having for 24 and what we have so far in 2025 up to the end of November, we don't have
the December data yet. It's showing a
downward trend in 24 and so far in 25, up through November of 25. Then here was another one. Sure. They
changed how they determined the numbers and so since they changed the methodology, now they say decrease.
They're showing actual performance decrease.
Which is a good thing. Yes. But they changed the methodology in order to do it. No, they changed the
methodology of forecasting methodology about. How are we forecasting this? Because when they based the
forecasting unemployment. It was inaccurate, totally inaccurate. Everything changed after 2020 with
COVID. Everything changed because in 2020 the model didn't work.
2021, the model didn't work either because it was still the residual of COVID. The economy-based model
predicted that 2020 and 2021 would have been lower fatality rates and in actuality, they were higher.
The reason is that people were speeding on less congested freeways.
in highways. I hate to use the term yeehaw, but that's exactly what happened. So given that, the fact
that the economy model wasn't working, they instead adjusted the model for 2023, 24, 25, and 26. And
it's a better fit now, is what I want to say. Not that
you can accurately predict weather, pavement, human behavior, all the different variables that are out
there. And so as a result of your email yesterday morning, put this together this morning to showing
what the actual numbers were for total deaths, suspected serious injuries, traffic
Injury crashes, suspected serious injuries means that an ambulance was required. They went to the hospital
or they went somewhere for medical purposes. Injury crashes means that they were, this is independent,
means that they were injured but it might have been something that didn't require medical attention.
walked away or drove away or whatever. Work zone desks, that's included in there simply because that's
a high priority of Indot. This was unacceptably high and then legislature agreed to the use of cameras
in construction zones in four, I believe it was four construction zones in Indiana. And that is,
The jury's still out on that except that there was a decline so far in 2025 when they instituted the
camera option. The work zone injuries, it's unacceptably high and I can't explain 2023 as an anomaly.
The work zone crashes, how do you have that many crashes in a work zone area where the speeds are reduced
down to 30 miles an hour, but that's what it is.
Pedestrian deaths, you can see a dramatic drop there in 2024, 2025. Pedestrian injuries, that's still
unacceptably high. Bicycle deaths is more or less all over the place. The same with the bicycle injuries.
Why 2023 was only 93, I double checked that and it's truly 93, that was what they had reported.
And then NDOT also is continually concerned about highway railroad grade crossings, even though NDOT
has, to use the term, armored up a vast majority of the crossings. Armored up meaning flashers and gates,
or flashers at least. There's still an unacceptably high number of deaths and injuries and crashes across
the entire state.
I did not get into the weeds in terms of alcohol and drug crashes because I felt like that was just
too much right there. In terms of where the deaths are happening, they're predominantly in rural areas
of the state, not the urban areas, the rural areas.
And the rural area crashes are predominantly left the roadway, which would suggest speed, pavement
conditions, things like that, but probably speed more than anything else. The traffic deaths and serious
injuries that are occurring in urban areas are predominantly right angle crashes.
probably intersection crashes of all type. And again, the suspect there is speed. In terms of the age
of the drivers, if it's a person under the age of 22, the probability is high in terms of the driver
and the occupants being killed. There's also somewhat of a correlation
of older drivers over the age of 65, but that still hasn't been totally proven. I don't know where else
to go with this. Yes. I have a question. So you have targets that's been established and you've demonstrated
that we have missed those targets. Are there compliance or funding issues with respect to the government on
how we're penalized if we don't meet those targets. Yeah. Penal Highway Administration will examine
in 2027 if you've met the targets or not. And then if they did not meet the targets, then part of the
what I would call capacity expansion type money would be reallocated to safety funds, safety projects
instead, or safety money.
So you're not pulling the fund and you're just reallocating it. No, it's not. There's no reduction.
There's no penalty reduction in terms of total dollars. It's just taking it from the expansion pocket
to the safety pocket. It was the only way I can best describe it. Now, this is under, oh, yeah, I'll
let you explain this. This is under current legislation, Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act,
which expires on September 30th of this calendar year. If that, and the likelihood is, if that bill
continues under, if that legislation is under a continuing resolution, then that would keep everything
in terms of the status quo. Now, Congress could change the whole intent
They could change the targets. They could change everything if they wanted to with new legislation.
But that remains to be seen, whether that's pure conjecture on that part. Yeah, go ahead. I got an email
this morning from somebody that works at MDOT on the question of what happens if the state fails to
meet these goals. And the sentence there is,
as I got it in this email was, a failure to meet targets results in a requirement to spend all safety
funds on safety. So that's just an interesting. I don't know what means if you don't meet them. Is it
like lower S safety and capital S safety? It's hard to say. Go ahead.
Sure, sure. Question clarifying about the screen that you were on before in terms of just reading the
spreadsheet. Oh, yeah. So those targets say the target for 2023 being 894.2 traffic deaths, and then
the actual for 2023 was 927. So that was a failure to meet. But in 2024, that particular metric was
met. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes. OK.
but then the targets for suspected serious injuries, it doesn't look like we're met at all by any of
it. And that's been a trend. And so this 2%, whether or not you meet the 2% as a state, and I'm hoping
that we have some local targets coming next maybe, combines those two things together. So it's like,
so in 2023,
2024 it was like half-met, but that still is just like not met. Is that how they count that? Not met.
Okay. Yeah, and the suspected serious injury trend across the nation has been increasing. All those
people speeding on empty roads that are no longer empty.
But they're not going to look at it on a year-to-year basis. They'll look at the five-year average.
They're looking at the five-year rolling average. At the end of 2016. And the five-year rolling average
is 22, 23, 4, 5, and 6. Yeah. When they roll that average, do they also roll that average target, then,
too? I don't know. Maybe one of the things I learned in the email was when I've previously seen the
targets, like for 2025, the target was 812.4.
I mean, they come out and like, well, how do you have a 0.4? That is not the target for that year. It
is the target for the five-year average. So that was sort of- So the target number is actually the average
already. Correct. So it counts for it. So it's not looking at- so that was just a new perspective I
wasn't aware of. So the 2024 average up there, say, of the 876 is actually what that five-year average
is supposed to be.
Trending down. Oh. Hold on. It's trending down. Sorry, that's like a combination of like a math nightmare
and an exciting one. It's a nightmare for us, yeah. The math teacher path is also kind of exciting.
Yeah, I know. OK, does that answer? Yeah, it's an excellent application, by the way. Next time you're
a high schooler, it says, what am I ever going to use math for?
It's self-explanatory, I was just throwing it up on the screen. Katie put this together, while I was
putting together that, Katie put this together this morning, and that was an answer to your email yesterday
also, showing a breakdown. The question we had in an email is, how are the other urbanized areas doing?
The answer was we don't keep the data. State of Indiana doesn't keep the data by urbanized area or MPO.
They keep the data based on county is what they do. So we've put this together in terms of the entire
county showing where the county is and then broke it out into the other. Or Katie did that. I'm not
going to take credit for that. That's her hard work. And this comes from
crash dashboard, the Monroe County crash dashboard. And these are actual annual annual counts rather
than the rolling averaged figure. These are hard numbers. And so do we have any local targets at all?
I mean last year we approved that 2% decline but are there any local targets at all and how hard would
it be to like create local targets? I guess it's like
I mean, I brought up a lot of questions about this last time. It's like, great, so we have to approve
our own decrease, but are we actually looking back and going, how well are we doing it? The only target
that we have right now is the SS4A target, which was adopted in December of 2024. Yeah, and that's just
for the city. Which is zero deaths by 2039. Yes, right. It really is important to note
If you really study the data here, look at the number of, between bicycles and pedestrians between the
county and the city. Look at the high number there. In comparison to the other areas on the chart. In
terms of how many the city has? In terms of how many there are in the city? Yes, I mean, it's
a significant... Well, there's just a lot more people riding bikes in the city. I got the density issue.
I'm just saying that it's a very noteworthy number.
All the other ones are like that, too. Steinsville was placed in there just to keep it equal. Yeah,
I guess I would really love to have some local targets. I don't know. I'm looking at Andrew Seabor over
there. I don't know how easy that would be to do mathematically in terms of trying to make it. I don't
even know if we have to make it equivalent to the state in terms of that kind of rolling average for the MPO.
Just kind of to know how we're doing. It's like, I appreciate that the raw numbers are here, but then
it's like, how are we doing in terms of whether or not we've met that target locally? That would be
Ryan Roblin, too. Because of the SS4A. Yeah. Where would you codify that? I don't think that you'd codify
it at all. What do you mean? So let's say you have a requirement to take
and come up with local targets on whatever category, where would you list that information? Would you
put it in a dashboard or would you put it in a document or would it be provided to anybody? I guess
I was just thinking like, I mean, so if this year and one of the things we're supposed to do as an MPO
right now is approve this 2% decrease and I want to know next year when we have to look at it again,
did we actually achieve that this year? So it's that idea of, you know, so we're
So we're kind of putting a goal out there. And then I think that we need to ask ourselves later, are
we actually achieving that goal? And from what I understand from all the work that you guys just had
to do is that the state looks at this on a state level, but doesn't look at it at all on the local level.
So as a local entity, we should be looking at it on the local level one way or another. And I know,
I mean, the city, and Ryan probably is on behalf of the city, to some degree, looking at this conceptually because
the Safe Streets for All because council did legislate that, that we want to have zero deaths and serious
injuries by 2039. So I'm sure back there he has something going on, you know, and I mean, that's what
some of these studies are in the high injury networks and looking at College Walnut and looking at 10th
Street and looking at Indiana as a corridor and looking at all of those things. And I'm sure he's doing
some of those numbers back there. But as an MPO, it's slightly different than the city. It's a broader area.
And I guess I just partly don't see the point in us having a goal if we're not gonna look back and go,
did we ever meet the goal? My understanding is officially the NPO doesn't have a goal. What we're potentially
here voting on is the statewide goal. The city of Bloomington has a goal, but I don't think we as an
NPO have a goal.
We are essentially boarding on the state's goal. We're supporting the state's goal. Isn't that our goal,
though, too? Because in theory, if every MPO achieved the 2%, then the state would achieve the 2% too.
Right? The state sets the goals, and the MPOs are required to either adopt the same goals as the state
of Indiana, or the MPO would have to come up with its own methodology
approved by the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Transportation to establish its
own goals. And the research we did this week was no Indiana MPO has ever done its own independent goal
setting. They've always adopted NDOT goals. There was a thought about doing it, but nobody ever did it.
And this is going back decades. So. I mean, I'm not suggesting that we do that. I'm just suggesting
that we put some local numbers on that 2% of the state and see how we're doing. I mean, and I think
I did math last time to be like, yeah, if we do the 2%, then that does not manage to get us to the zero
by 2039, which is what the city wants to do. But it also seems like quite a headache
something different right now in terms of this official kind of act. Would it be up to then each jurisdiction
to work on that for their jurisdiction and this MPO policy committee would support that. I don't think
we're in a position to mandate that a jurisdiction do anything like that but we could definitely support it.
So it has to kind of happen at the grassroots jurisdictional level. So we have the city that's discussed
it. I'm not sure, forgive me, I haven't heard comment by the county, but I'm sure that safety is certainly
an optimal target. It may not be quantified as tightly as
as other jurisdictions, but maybe we send out an encouraging statement to the jurisdictions to take
that on. Did we make a statement last year that the state, the federal government, where the state comes
out with a target, but because of 0% in 2039, did we make a statement saying that something would affect that
Ours was different than what the state had decided? Well, it was an encouragement for Vision Zero, adoption
of Vision Zero. And in reality, state of Indiana, Federal Highway Administration were already embraced
toward zero deaths is what it's called. You can look this up, toward zero deaths. And with toward zero
deaths, state of Indiana set a goal of only 550.
goal target. 550 deaths by the year 2042. But their toward zero deaths is zero by the year 2050. How
you get from 550 in 2042 to zero in 2050, I don't know. Automation, maybe. Autonomous vehicles or
something else, technology, I just don't know. But that's written into the state's state highway safety
plan. So where I was going with this, and I don't know the history of what this body has done in the
past, are we in a position to challenge the target, this MPO? Not really. And I don't think so. That's
why I'm asking the question. I don't think you can challenge what the state has put down as a target.
Even though you won 0% by 2039, et cetera. But we're not in a position to challenge what, in fact, their
target is. We had the same exact discussion at the TAC level. And I think it's fair to say that everyone
on the TAC was just equally as uncomfortable with looking at some of the targets, because they're pretty
sobering numbers. But what the TAC would always do when we came up with these, when we were faced with
these targets is
kind of a disclaimer from language that we put in. I think we are in a position where we can't really
challenge or change this. But at the same time, we can kind of note our frustration or however we want
to word it. But the TSC has always done that. I know we've passed that recommendation along with the
policy committee with our recommendations. So that language in the past is something the policy committee
has approved along with.
the safety targets, that could be an option for us too. Pat has it. It's essentially just say, well,
we acknowledge the endowed targets. We strive for zero deaths. And we can work on the wording. But we
have done that in the past. You're correct. Yeah. So we're not challenging. We're just making a statement.
Yes. That's all you're doing. OK. Yes. Is that what people want to do now? Is that where we're going
with this discussion? Well, that's what we would recommend.
What the committee wants to do is the committee, but staff recommendation is you recommend adoption
of the targets. Pat, do you have the language that we've included on the TAC in the past? I've sent
it to you before with our approval language, but it's something we've kind of recycled on the policy
committee over the years. And that might be a good place to start, or we can just use that same language.
We'll leave it.
There's something in the vicinity of we adopt the targets in DOTS targets, however, we strongly urge
the Department of Transportation to seek a vision zero, zero deaths or something like that was what
it was. I can't remember. Well, we adopt the targets, but we will also seek to exceed the targets or
something like locally.
exceed because I mean I guess that's we've not done that before but yeah that's I guess that would be
what I would prefer to do because it's not about and and especially because in theory the state has
already adopted the vision zero right I mean they just won't get there if they're only doing a two percent
decline like it just won't happen um but the
And locally, we have to, and we won't get there if we only do the 2%, which means that we have to try
to have more than 2%. But I think that it would be way too tedious to actually have a data-driven way
to have a higher percent. And so adopting them is easy, and then saying, but our real goal is way more
than that, like a way bigger job. When do we actually have to do this by? February. February what?
Next week. This week, this year. Yeah, next week. So you could actually have it in the motion, though.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was no doubt. I think that's what we've done in the past. I couldn't
remember. Yeah, well, that's why you had it in December. Yeah. Yeah. And they give us the targets. They
give us the targets. We have 120 days from when they give us the targets to achieve adoption, but they
We received the targets late. That's why you didn't use the committees didn't receive them until November,
December. November for the TSC CAC, which means that we got him in October. And then since policy committee
was on a different meeting cycle, it was December. So is there time left for
If someone were to put a motion on the table to add a comment that says, even though this is the target
established by NDOT, our community, our MPO still strives toward 0% by 2039. If we were to put a motion
on a table to add that comment at this late state in the game knowing when this thing is due.
You could do that, but I wouldn't recommend MPO because that includes Ellitsville. OK, whatever the
body is, whatever the body you want to insert in there. Jurisdiction. Whatever the verbiage you want
to use. OK. I'm just trying to get to the next point on what people are trying to move toward here.
We're trying to get into options. Does somebody have the language that the TAC has voted on? I just
pulled it up. I can read it if anyone's interested. And here's what we've sent to the policy committee
in the past.
generally a language that we've used at the policy committee when we've been faced with these numbers
before too. It's kind of a mouthful, so bear with me here. Fatalities and serious injuries that result
from crashes on public streets can and should be prevented. The TAC believes that zero fatalities and
zero serious injuries is a more appropriate goal or target for NDOT and MPOs to pursue.
However, the TAC understands that endowed safety target declaration numbers are intended to convey only
an incremental change towards safer streets and are not an ultimate goal. Furthermore, the TAC understands
that these safety performance targets primarily affect distribution of federal funding and would not
be used to justify fatal or serious injury crashes or as being acceptable. As such, the TAC recommends
that the MPO adopt the endowed safety performance standards.
So it's a nice all-around disclaimer, saying we recognize INDOT's goals here, but we're still throwing
the challenge flag. So you can take out the word CAC and put jurisdiction or something. Policy committee,
maybe? Whatever body you want to plug in there. Well, we would have to plug in the MPO because that
statement encourages the state to have a higher bar.
And I was encouraging us to locally have a higher bar, even if it's not an official higher bar. Because
I don't think there's time to have an official higher bar right now. So do you want to modify that language?
We can do something along the lines of the policy committee. Can we approve with the caveat that
In the near future, the body will produce a local policy that would act in tandem with this. You could,
if you so wish. Yeah. I don't know what that means. You'd have to explain what that means. Well, I think,
first off, we have to decide if they're mutually exclusive, if these
if the goals that we are setting for our own MPO area with the participation of the various jurisdictions
within that area are different than the states. And if they are, then it's a separate evaluation.
or not. I appreciate the TAC's language. It just does not... It says, you know, we're thinking about
it and we're not sure what to say, but we prefer to be toward zero. And we're not sure what to do about it.
I'm personally not suggesting any language myself. I mean, I'm not in favor, I'm not in agreement or
disagreement with a motion. I mean, I would probably support whatever is on the table as long as it
was concise. But you're talking to a state agency, just put a target out there, and regardless of what
we say or do as an MPOPC, it's still going to be out there.
We within our community, whatever documents that we have, whether it be the city of Bloomington, Monroe
County, et cetera, we're going to stipulate whatever we think that should be. So at some point, I'm
not so sure it really makes a difference. Well, the methodology was approved by Federal Highway
Administration, Indiana Division. And then the targets were approved by
various state safety committees and then ultimately it was approved by the governor. So what difference
does it make what we say? Those bodies and those are big bodies and I'm sure we had representation from
people from our area on those bodies. In an indirect way we did. Right and so
I can't add anything else other than what I just said, so. So how about this? You can call this a draft
motion if y'all want. I move to approve the state targets as presented and strive locally to exceed
those targets. Furthermore, over the next year, I move the MPO pursue local goals related to serious
injury and fatality crashes to work toward a goal of zero injuries and fatal crashes.
zero serious injury. It's on the screen right there. The only thing I can say there is the MPO includes
Ellitsville and it includes Monroe County. Okay. I know. I mean, but in theory, like we have representation
from all of those bodies on the MPO and if they're not present right now, then that's- We can't mandate
anything to those jurisdictions. We can encourage the jurisdictions.
to do that. That's why I said pursue local goals. I think that that slides into. And I think Monroe
County is happy to set goals and work in coordination. Not having an engineer after next Friday can
kind of hurdle that for Monroe County. So that's why I've kind of set back. And then I don't think we
can speak for Ellitsville and that they want to
I'm not saying not participate, but what's the timeline on this and are you writing an actual policy?
I didn't put the timeline on there. I guess part of it, it's like, I don't think that you would talk
to anybody and say, oh yeah, fatal injuries or serious injuries and fatality is like, we're all good
with that. I think that the problem is the timeline, the problem is funding, the problem is how it like
the reality of
of it cannot happen. It wouldn't have the same goals to exceed the state goals. Right. Sorry, Pat, but
could we encourage staff to develop a mechanism by which jurisdictions under this MPO could meet together
and develop a local set of goals? Set aside a working committee. Yeah. Working committees.
Well, the jurisdiction's represented in the MPO. And does that fall under the language, the MPO pursue
local goals related to serious injury in terms of my motion, in terms of the formality? I believe so,
as long as we direct staff to action, to a form of action. As long as there's an action I'm associated
with it, I think you're OK.
Do I need to add staff in there somewhere to pursue the M? Well, somebody needs to be responsible for
it. I don't know. Who tells you guys what to be responsible for? You guys. I mean, the policy committee
is recognized as the MPO. We're just the staff for the year. OK. So over the next year, I move the MPO
staff pursue local goals related. Is that?
It has to happen at a jurisdictional level, otherwise it has no real teeth. Should I say jurisdictional
goals as opposed to local goals? We are a jurisdiction. This MPO is an agency. So if we're voting, it's
us asking ourselves for this collective body to establish a goal. We're not asking
the county or Ellitsville or the city of Bloomington or Steinsville, like we are asking ourselves and
we're representing that. So just the point. I mean, that's what I'm trying to say. I think, yeah. But
unless those jurisdictions participate individually, it's not pointed. But because we are the MPO right
now and like this body has control over money that gets spent in those throughout our urbanized area.
And so we can identify safety issues in those different parts of it and go, OK, this is a safety issue.
There's lots of stuff here. Let's funnel some money into a project here that is going to address some
of a crash issue. I don't even think it always has to be money funneling. I think sometimes it's time funneling
raise awareness to different areas and draw attention. So after saying all of that, it would be the
BMC MPO would be the official, the body taking, you know, the action. And then the jurisdiction would
be the MPA, the Metropolitan Planning Area.
which is our official approved designation, our jurisdiction. It's called an MPA. It's the Metropolitan
Planning Area. So that's the urbanized area boundary plus a little bit more area for anticipated growth
in the next 20 years.
It's not going to work unless you bring in a broad representation across the jurisdictions. A buy-in
type of thing, yeah. So can the motion be a motion to approve the state targets as presented and strive
locally to exceed these targets over the next year?
I move the BMC MPO staff pursue metropolitan planning area goals related to serious injury and fatality
crashes to work toward a goal of zero serious injury and fatal crashes. Is that? Firstly, I would be
okay with that. I would probably just strike staff actually, because the committee as a whole should
probably be the one that adopts it, not staff. The agency is going to collect it and actually present
the data. Staff would have to generate it, but ultimately the committee should
take action on it. That's what we wanted. So does this become the responsibility of the chair to drive
it? Any committee member can bring it up. I mean, I just don't know how anything's going to happen.
I think that Pat mentioned a subcommittee. A working committee. A working committee. So then the chair
would establish a working committee.
I don't know. I mean, we already meet monthly, but. Yeah, you know where we live. I think the thing
is like this this motion would commit us to figuring it out, but it doesn't dictate how we need to figure
it out right now. It's just saying as a group, we're going to figure it out. And who's going to report
on status of that? I'm just.
Yeah, it can be a standing item that we report on or discuss each meeting. I mean, I feel personally
like this is asking me to do something as a member of the NPO. And I don't know what to do about that
and where I'm going to get direction on that.
I guess to me, I'd say we get direction, honestly, from staff on that. I don't know how much responsibility
you guys want to have for that. But I mean, I think that there's a good start already by the spreadsheets,
by the crash database, because I mean, it's a motion to pursue goals working toward a Vision Zero outcome.
So in terms of that pursuing, I mean, what needs to happen, we need to
use those numbers that we already have and figure out what the target would be. And we can start with
that 2% reduction, you know, and go like, okay, if we want to do it the same way as the state, then
we have to look at the rolling five year average in order to get the goals. And maybe even going back
a few years and looking at those five year averages and going, you know, have we met a 2% goal? Cause
it's been a 2% straight line goal, right? Like how many years has the state had the 2% like 2022? Yeah.
So it's a while it's been 2%. So like,
like simply doing that like math and like, like talking about that kind of thing would fulfill in theory
that pursuing local goals. Because like this year, we don't have, you know, it would be like how,
I mean, this year I feel like we have to, the very first thing to do is figure out what that has actually
looked like over the last few years.
in the same way that the state had those numbers that they showed up here earlier. It's like, locally,
we should have those figures too. And so. So then, much the same as the state is asking us to approve
a set of numbers, we would go to each of the jurisdictional elements that make up this planning area
and ask them to approve those numbers that we come up with. I think it's kind of making it
difficult. I think we have our data. I know the city does their crash data. The county puts together
a three-year crash report. They pull a lot of those numbers together and I think it's just I don't I'm
not sure what Ellisville does but we still have those numbers out in the county and I think it's just
pulling those just you know city engineering and Monroe County together in town of Ellisville and staff
Let's just sit down, look at where our numbers have been over the years and what's our goal, and bring
that back to the policy committee. I think the data's already all there. It's just, what's our goal?
I think we're making it maybe a little more complicated than it really needs to be because we do have
our data. The data are there for, you know, through 2024. Right. 2025 data will not be complete until
April or May.
of this calendar year simply because we have to proof the data, and it takes a long time to go through
the proofing of the data. And the state won't have their data for December, yeah, for December until
probably March or April also. So there's a lag time there. But yeah, we will have the data up to 2024.
Correct. Yeah.
The crash dashboard looks at the entire county. We can geofence, geofence in the urbanized area for
the MPO if you want to look at it that way. But yeah, that's up to the county. Yeah, I think that's
a good point. Are you wanting the county, are you just wanting the MPO area, what this board oversees,
I guess. Yeah.
But I agree. I think we have the data there. It's just making it all come together and reaching a goal.
And I think outside of the policy committee over the next six months, our entities can get together
and reach that goal to present to the board. Do you, Andrew, do you? I agree with what you're saying.
So the only thing I would bring up, and I bring this up in other forums, this is putting another burden
on the MPO staff. Right.
And it's just something the NPO staff is kind of short of. We're strong. Well, this ties into some other
work that needs to be done anyway. So it's actually a good thing that's happening. And to your point,
Doug, about what you don't know what you can do, or you feel like you should be doing something, but
you don't know what to do. You already have done something, you stated
You stated it earlier, and I'm blanking on what you said. But essentially, I mean, part of it is that
you just don't know what to ask for, maybe. So one thing that other MPOs do is they do put in some local
performance targets that they have in their TIP document and in their MTP, which is
the MPOs long range planning document says they do track that information. And that's something that
we can start to do in our next tip document, for example. Well, and then once this set of criteria is
developed locally, how will that affect the various municipal entities
associated in the area and how they look at projects. Will there be a change in funding allocations
or project allocations specific to these targets? Do we see a change happening? The folks are here.
Beyond what you're already doing.
I can only say for the county we use our crash data and that's what that's what derived the old 37 Dilman
Road roundabout. That's what how it qualified for HSIP funds. You know you went through all your steps
over probably for the last five or six years of getting a road safety audit and monitoring the crash
reports and that's what brings you to develop a project. I'm sure the city of Bloomington is very similar
on things like that. So I think we
I think we already kind of do what you feel like we should be doing, which just we haven't set a in
cities set a goal. Has the county set a goal? No, we look at our crash data. We look at our trouble
areas. That's our next goal for improving that area. And I felt and our numbers are better, you know,
and that's what we use that crash report or three year of data for. So that is our
window of opening up for those projects to be funded. And what you're talking about is cause and effect.
You have events that are occurring from a safety standpoint, and based upon those events that are occurring
from a safety standpoint, you're assessing an area based upon an assessment. You're creating a requirement
which equates to a project, which equates to funding, and so on. Correct. I mean, there's a... Correct.
So we are informally doing, at least in the two major jurisdictions, we're informally doing
what we're trying to figure out how to do already. Well, what the state is putting a number on, right?
Like, I mean, the 2% is the state putting a number on something, like city council put a number,
sort of put, we put a deadline number at the end and left it to staff to figure out what needs to be
done along the way. And I mean, what I'm doing is encouraging us to,
as an MPO, not just adopt the state's number and not just adopt the state's number with some kind of
caveat that we don't think it's enough, but to pursue figuring out what our own number should actually
be. And not only that, but how well are we actually meeting any kind of target at all? Actually,
that works. Right. Yeah, that's a good way to frame it. You're close in the city of Bloomington jurisdiction.
You're close to that now.
I'm not sure that I would call us close to that, Andrew. That format, that modeling. The modeling, yeah.
So what we're really doing in this is encouraging the county to adopt a similar modeling. Well, I think
that what we're doing as an MPO, as a jurisdiction ourselves, is we're saying we're going to adopt a
modeling for that. Like we don't totally know what it is yet, hence the
The motion that I proposed is like, we're going to pursue it. We're going to figure it out. I'm not
putting a deadline on it. But none of us want to have serious injury crashes and fatalities on our roadways.
So let's actually try to put numbers on that. And the first stage of putting numbers on it is honestly
to see how we're doing already. And honestly, the sheet that you made up of local crashes,
it does look like there's been some declines in fatalities. Well, fatalities are kind of steady, but
serious injuries. And of course, like one of the things the state does with that number is base it on
miles driven, right? Of like users, which makes sense in some ways, because like the more miles that
you drive, the more likely you might have an accident. And that's not in our local, in the local page
so far. And I don't know.
I assume that there's the data out there to figure that out, but that would be part of that because
the raw numbers maybe have declined. The vehicle miles traveled for the system, that would be a swag
for us. It would be a what for you? A swag, some wild assumed guess.
So then maybe in that pursuing, it's like, well, we can't do it quite like the state does it because
it doesn't work. Yeah, in terms of vehicle miles traveled and the rate per vehicle miles traveled, no,
it would be challenging. But in terms of the raw numbers, yeah, we could pursue that with assuming you're doing
automatically 25 proven countermeasures approved by the Federal Highway Administration, which is whenever
there's an action, you have an appropriate reaction from the jurisdictions based on the type of crash
it was. So we're building a watch now. Yes. That's what we're doing. We're building a watch. It is getting
complicated. I'd make the argument politely.
is that now we're talking methodology. And I'd want to see the methodology myself before I would agree
with the methodology, because not all of us are going to agree on data and the type of data that you're
taking and pulling into the methodology. And that is a complicated process in itself. We're building
a watch here. Well, can we really have the functional authority to,
influence the Seymour district of Endot. They're influencing us. Say again? They're influencing us right
now. Right, right. Because I mean their roadways would not be, that run through the jurisdiction, the
various jurisdictions would not be subject to what we're talking about.
Except that if we can then say we have this local goal that goes toward the state's goal of zero deaths,
and we've identified this intersection as highly problematic, and that is a state intersection, then
that is an argument that can be used for collaboration with the Seymour District, with all of the entities
that you might need to cooperate with. But until we actually have that data, we can't use it.
The state goes through an annual review every year of significant intersection locations, and they break
it statewide, and then they break it down into the district. And then we meet, staff meets with the
district staff, usually in February, mid-February, something like that. And we go through the individual
locations within our jurisdiction, say, here's what we're seeing, are we missing anything?
This is what we want to do. This is what we're going to do. Boom, we go from there. And then we follow
up usually three to five years after that on a constant basis and a constant manual basis. I mean, I
think the more data that we can locally bring to that kind of meeting, the more influence that you can
have because they've got it. I mean, there's a lot of
There's a lot of crashes. There's a lot of roadway issues and a lot of places fighting for the same
amount of funds. Just to throw it out there, I get really hungry at lunchtime. I don't know if somebody
wants to make a motion. I know we're talking about a goal of making a goal. We're not even saying what
our goal is. I'm happy to do whatever, but I also know
I don't do so good when I get hungry. He's getting hungry. And so I'm just throwing that out there.
And I'm glad you did. And I know we want to get that to adoption. I think everybody has the same goal
and what we want to add to it. I think the next step is working towards our local goals, but that's
not a decision for today on how we get there. But I think we all have the same, I hate to keep saying
the word goal,
I think we all have the same direction of where we want to be. But I don't think it's going to get decided
exactly how we're going to get there today. But I know we need to get that part passed. And then go
to the next step. Would it be appropriate for us to look to the technical advisory committee for advice
on moving forward with this goal? Sure. That would be totally appropriate, yeah.
Should I go ahead and make the motion then officially? Great. So I move to approve the state targets
as presented and strive locally to exceed these targets. Furthermore, over the next year, I move the
BMC MPO pursue metropolitan planning area goals related to serious injury and fatality crashes to work
toward a goal of zero serious injury and fatality crashes. Second. We have a motion and a second.
Do we have any more discussion? There's no mention of the technical advisory committee in that. We'll
just do it. We'll just do it? That's the generality of pursuing it. We can pursue it any way we want
to pursue it. Any public comment? For the record, Julie Thomas did have to leave for another meeting.
Not seeing any roll call vote. Seaboard? Yes. Stossburg? Yes.
Kennedy? Yes. Ridge? Yes. Nichol? Yes. Horne? Yes. Banach? Yes. Ferris? Yes. Wellings? Interesting.
All right, moving to new business. 2026-2030 tip amendment resolution, fiscal year 2026-04. The first
item is City of Bloomington High Street intersection.
I will note that the title of the resolution is incorrect. Sorry about that. Should be 26. The first
amendment is the removal of federal funds from the High Street Project for fiscal year 26 and the shifting of the
construction phases of that project to fiscal year 2027. And this was due to right away acquisition
challenges. The second proposed amendment is a new INDOT project called sign installation and repair
in various locations in the Seymour district.
This is a price tag not specific to our jurisdiction or county, but the larger Seymour district. And
it is primarily repair and replacement. Nothing, no new notable signs. I move adoption of resolution
FY. Oh, one more amendment. Sorry about that. The third one is a new end up project called SR 45 small
structure replacement.
This is almost six miles east of the SR 4546 junction. This is the replacement of a small muddled culvert
with a precast reinforced concrete box and erosion control work. And this has a construction date of
2028. Move the adoption of resolution FY 2026-4. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?
Any public comment? Seeing none, roll call vote. Horne? Yes. Seaborg? Yes. Kennedy? Yes. Stasberg? Yes.
Vanek? Yes. Ferris? Yes. Wellings? Yes. Horne? Yes. I voted twice. Oops. Nickel? Yes. Ridge? Yes.
And no, Thomas is gone. OK.
Motion passes. All right, moving on item B, 2027 to 2028, the UPWP document and 30 day public comment
period. This is our draft annual planning program. We're required to prepare for the Department
of Transportation. I'm sorry, yeah, for NDOT, Federal Highway Administration funding and Federal Transit
Administration funding. I'll cut to the chase. Nothing's changed in terms of what our
goal, what our focus areas are, transportation planning factors on page 32 of your packet, those have
not changed. The planning focus on page 35 of your packet, those have not changed either. We've received
no direction from the Federal Highway Administration or the Federal Transit, or FTA, Federal Transit
Administration.
The tasks all remain the same with the exception of shifting of funding and that shift of funding on
staff time reflects what our level of effort has been over the past year to the past two years. In other
words, how do we bill our time? The one major change we have is on page 69 of your packet under the
active transportation
2.5% set aside for complete streets. The third paragraph down there, what I noted was the city of Bloomington
received $1.4 million safe streets and roads for all planning demonstration grant from the US Department
of Transportation on December 23rd, 2025 to conduct demonstration or other supplemental planning activities.
City of Bloomington, as the recipient of the grant, will use this award to complete multiple corridor
studies, public engagement, begin concept designs for the corridor study. Demonstration activities include
a project using hardened center lines to reduce speeds and temporary conversions of up to five traffic
signals to all-way stop control and also temporary single-lane roundabouts or both options.
In other words, we left it all open.
Actually, the application left it all open. We will, we, the staff, will be focusing more of our time
on this one activity just by virtue of the fact of the receipt of the $1.4 million grant. I do have
a question. Yes. And again, this is more education for me. Okay. Does the 2.5% only apply to transit
in the city of Bloomington? It only applies to
what's called SS4A, Safe Streets and Roads for All. It doesn't apply to Bloomington Transit or Transit-Orient
Development at all, but we threw it into that box because that's where we were directed to throw it
into that task, what's called the Task 500 of Active Transportation of Bloomington Transit. So, again,
education. Yeah. Can it be applied to Alpha County?
As long as it's within the urbanized area, yes. If it's outside the urbanized area, no. And then on
page 74 of the packet is the budget for that specific task and we were required 2.5% means we must spend 2.5%
of our federal funds
on active transportation or safe streets and roads for all type activities. So the budget on page 74
specifically outlines we're spending $7,453. Well, this is what we have allocated. What we spend is
two different things. We're spending minimum requirement of $7,453 in federal funds.
with local matching funds of $1,863. Actually, that amount of money doesn't get you very far. And the
other thing of note here is the overall budget itself. The allocation to our MPO in 2024 was $405,000.
For 2027, our allocation is $198,000.
full 50% cut, and the reason for the cut is the money is allocated on a per capita basis, and the per
capita basis is based on the 2020 census. In March of 2020, 45,000, 46,000 students went home.
April 1st, census came in, and so we lost population.
Lafayette, West Lafayette also lost population. Ours was, I think, larger, if not proportionally, ours
was larger. So we're looking at a situation where funding for our planning activities will be greatly
reduced over the course of the next four to five years until there's another census that corrects the
ship. And we're running a deficit.
I'm projecting that we'll run a deficit this year for fiscal year 27. With that, with the deficit situation,
we've stripped out all the contract service agreements. In other words, we won't have a contract service
agreement with City of Bloomington Public Works for asset management. We will not have a contract service
agreement with Monroe County for asset management within the urbanized area. We will not have any
allocation of funds to Bloomington Transit, it'll all be kept within the staff itself. So since you
call this a budget, the numbers that you put in here for federal and local, who comes up with those
numbers? Who develops that budget? The federal numbers are given to us and then we develop the budget.
And who in the local budget does that? You guys, the staff, the MPO staff? The local budget comes from
the City of Bloomington.
Local match all comes from the city of Wilmington. Again, education. How is that approved? Or is this
the approval right here? Well, it's approved in the city's budget. The match is built into the city's
budget. In other words, planning transportation department gets an allocation of so much money. And
there's a line there for a view of staff. Well, yes. Something like that. Yeah, we're calculated. Our
costs are calculated into the planning
and transportation department. And then our fringe and overhead, which are approved, or cost allocation,
is prepared annually, and that's approved by the Federal Highway Administration and Indiana Department
of Transportation. Will you approve this document, which is you're asking us to approve? Bloomington's
providing the match. Right, but with this document right here. This is a draft, yes. I got it, but when
we approve it next month, or that's what you're asking us to do.
What are we approving? We're approving the funding, or approving the plan on how they're going to take,
how you're going to spend the money? Both. We're approving the whole document. Okay, so the City of
Bloomington, within whatever budget they put for planning and transportation for the NPO staff, which
is going through another process, and eventually it soon goes to the City Council for approval. They're
already done? Already done. Yeah. But not for FY 27-28. Well, but
27 starts in the middle of the year for them. So like, so yeah, so the first half of the year is approved
under one budget and then the second half of the year is approved. It's already been approved by the
city. And you're asking us as a larger body now to approve it. What if we don't approve it? Well,
approve it. Then we lose certification. So we're not approving it, we're certifying it.
Is that what we're doing? We lose the four and a half million that we get every year from the Federal
Highway. We lose all our capital money. And Lamington Transit loses all its federal funding. Yeah, so
what I'm getting at is it's a fator complete. Well, but we can suggest edits or modifications to the
document as it stands right now, right? Yes, and the TAS. The TAS. So when you have the... Oh, go ahead.
Go on. So when you have a deficit to that significance,
Half, 50%. Well, I know the deficit is actually going through the calculation of the entire fiscal year,
27, we'll have a deficit of around $11,000, $12,000. That's the first time we've ever had a deficit.
We've always had a surplus. So throwing out what you're cutting. You're cutting Monroe County asset,
city of Bloomington. Who makes those decisions on what gets cut? SAF did, but that was a recommendation.
We can put those back in, but then the deficit would be even larger. See, that's where I'm going with
it. There should be a dialogue there. And maybe there is a dialogue. I'm just not aware of it. So there
should be a dialogue. If you're cutting dollars, and I'm a county person, not the city person. So if
you're cutting money and funding from the county, but there's no discussion, and maybe there is, there
should be a discussion. Well, we get a certain amount allocated for
administration of the MPO every year. And part of that money goes towards staff salaries. And then the
leftover can be placed wherever the staff and the policy committee agree to place it. And what is that
vehicle where that takes place? Is it this thing? Yes. So this is where we That's where we set it up. Yeah.
This is education. I'm just trying to understand the process. The budget in all the previous years has
been $13,000 for public works, $13,000 from Monroe County. What they actually billed us and what we've
reimbursed was substantially larger than the $13,000. In other words, the surplus money that we had
left over from staff costs
went to asset management. But that kind of ran out this year because we didn't get total reimbursements.
It was already spent, correct? Because I was told when we put in for our last reimbursement, the money
was gone. For fiscal year 2026, the projection I ran is that we would have an $8,000
deficit and actually that $8,000 deficit would be larger if we reimbursed beyond the $13,000 each.
To date, we've reimbursed Public Works $26,000. We've reimbursed Monroe County $26,000, but the budgets
were $13,000 apiece. So we've already exceeded what we said we were going to do.
and then the model projection based on the salary increases and the cost of living and the overhead
and the fringe showed that we're going to run right at zero or a slight deficit for this fiscal year.
Yeah, there was a billing submitted to us for $47,000 and we only had $13,000 in the contract. So you've
got a budget. You've got some
You've got some federal dollars, and you've got local dollars. Those local dollars have been budgeted
through a city body called the City Council, and there's a funding line in there for planning
and transportation, et cetera, for the MPO staff. Is that correct, or did I get that almost correct?
The staff is considered part of the planning and transportation department budget. Yeah, and you have
a portion of that budget here marked for MPO staff, correct?
if it's just planning and transportation. It's staff is part of planning and transportation. It's earmarked
specifically for our salaries. In other words, city of Bloomington planning and transportation get an
80% reimbursement for our salaries. And then they're required to come up with a 20% match. Yeah. So
is there a disconnect?
Lisa with respect to. I just wondered who makes the decisions on we're going to cut this and we're going
to cut that. Well, staff made the decision based on the draft, but if somebody wants to add that back
in, they can do that. And then if you keep getting a deficit, what happens? Who makes up that deficit?
Just to make sure I'm understanding so right now we're reviewing the draft plan so hypothetically the
commit this body could vote to suggest changes so we could hypothetically vote to reinstate something
but we would probably also at the same time need to vote to cut something but that's why this is being
presented as a draft test there is that time to engage before we need to adopt it so I think just
I think that's a base thing. And then I think just from my experience working in other communities or
with other MPOs, in this part work plan, there's a local share that's basically helping to fund the
MPO. My understanding just is that the city of Bloomington covers the entire expense and fronts it for
the greater MPOs good, where other MPOs tell me if this is really wrong,
Typically, there's a cost share agreement where multiple agencies that benefit from there being an MPO
contribute to that local share. So in a way, the city is lifting up this ability for transit and for
the county to have access to federal funds. And if we did not do that, those funds would go away. Correct.
Okay. Thank you. And this is the way it's been for the, for the MPO since 1981.
other MPOs do it as a joint. They both like, hypothetically split based on... They split it and then
it's a joint staff. That staff is everybody's. It's not just a city of Bloomington staff. Correct. Some
MPOs are an independent body that everybody pays into. There's maybe more overhead costs because of
space, but that is how a lot of places do work. So we're dealing with a perception here. Yeah.
City control body Let me let me finish okay, it's a perception I didn't say it's reality. I said it's
just a perception that it's it's something that's managed by the city of Bloomington and not by the
joint of the NPO PC Actually, we're not management Yes, even though you're part of the planning
of transportation because the upfront cost I
We have a staff of two. We can't support our own HR department, our own technology. And the city's plan
commission is who was designated as the MPO. And thus, that's why they cover the costs. I read that.
But they didn't take and delineate it down to the planning and transportation department. I haven't
found that source anywhere. So if you have it, I'd like to see it.
You have the contracting entity as the planning commission, but the body that you are housed, the MPO
staff is housed as the planning and transportation department. Where is that delineated? It's the planning
staff for the planning commission. I won't debate it any further. I'm just saying that one could make
a compelling argument here that there's maybe a disconnect there.
We would disagree. Okay, but that's that's what we have a debate. So, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's my
only point. I will go back to where I started. What are we actually approving when we in February? Oh,
you're not approving anything today. I got that. In February, when we look at the final version, as
we're asked to vote on it, what are we actually voting on? We are voting to approve the plan. The tax
and the budget. The entire document. The entire. The entire document. Any single piece of the document
that you don't like, like,
Either this is the opportunity to bring it up or what I would beg everybody at this point, maybe on
behalf of Andrew, is that if we have any further questions about this document or interest in different
modifications to talk to them about it over the next couple of weeks so that then we can get to the
end of this meeting because it's lasted much longer than MPO meetings usually do. And when this is approved
by the MPO policy committee, this goes to
Department of Transportation, Federal Highway, and Federal Transit Administration as our contract. What
we're doing is saying... Do they have to go back to the Planning Commission? Because that's a contracting
entity? Do they get involved at all? The Planning Commission doesn't get involved with the NBO stuff
at all. Even though it's a contracting entity, I don't know what that means. The contracting entity
is the City of Bloomington and
the MPO staff in Monroe County and the Ellisville and it's the whole urbanized area. I think he's referring
to the Planned Commission's role. Planned Commission isn't involved in this. The Planned Commission
doesn't have an actual role in anything, like nothing from the MPO goes to them. I understand that.
Just bear with that. Everybody's hungry. This is important. Because nobody ever challenges this document.
from year to year, they just pretty much say, it looks good to me. And some of us actually read it from
page to page. But I'm trying to find the reference. And you know the one I'm talking about that establishes
the plan commission as the entity. It's on page four. That was how the MPO was formed. It just says
the MPOPC consists of a three-part intergovernmental steering group committee with the city of Bloomington
plan commission
as the contracting entity, and then goes on to say, and the city of Bloomington Planning and Transportation
Department is the lead staff agency. I found nowhere where it says, and again, this is where I need,
you need to help me with this, is that where does it say that the city of Bloomington Planning
and Transportation Department is the lead staff agency? Who determined that? Did the plan commission
do that? Because they're the contracting entity?
I don't know. That's where I'm going with that. You want me to have the legal staff contact you?
You what? I could have the legal staff contact you. I wasn't here. It's evolved from the planning department
to the planning. I don't want to belabor the point here, but I'm a roles and responsibilities person.
So I'm looking at what is the role of the plan commission when it's specifically stated in here as a
contracting entity. It has been there for years. What does that mean?
But does that mean that everything that you do from an MPO staff, because they're the contracting agency,
you have to go through the city's plan commission to do that? We do not. Because you don't do that.
I mean, that's what you've explained. So that relationship, I mean, that's, I was going to provide this
in writing to you, but that's what that'd be one of my questions. What is the relationship here? I mean,
we're- I can hire somebody from the legal staff. I mean, there's, I'm sure there's a source document
going back to the governor back in 1981. 1981. 1981 that stipulated some of this stuff.
I did quite a bit of research because I'm retired, I have this thing called the internet and I couldn't
find anything. All right. Write it down and I will send it to the legal department. All right,
thank you. Okay, sure. Do we have any public comment on matters not included on the agenda?
None. Any communications from committee members on matters not on the agenda? Just passed something
along. I said at the TAC meeting on Wednesday, but great job to Endot, Ellsville, Monroe County, City
of Bloons, and everybody who was out there. Moving all the snow we had, it was a long 72 plus hours
for everybody. So thanks everybody that had participated.
upcoming meetings technical advisory committee February 25th at 10 a.m. citizens advisory committee
February 25th at 530 and policy committee meeting February 27th at 1030 and we are adjourned.