- Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here today. This is the August meeting of the MPO Technical Advisory Committee for Wednesday, August 27 2025. We'll go ahead and get the meeting started. We'll do introductions. And if there's anybody online, we'll get to you at the end here. I'll start to my left. And if you can just please
- Introduce yourself and the agency you're with and as usual if you're a proxy, please just let us know who you're pinch hitting for today So with that Ryan, I'll let you start us off Brian Roebling City of Bloomington planning and transportation proxy David Hiddle Rebecca Swift operations and development division director for Bloomington Parks and Recreation I'm Nate Nicko with the City of Bloomington Public Works Department Paul Satterly Monroe County Highway
- Kendall Kenoki City of Bloomington engineering proxy for Andrew Seabor Jackie Jalen Monroe County planning Jason George, Menorca surveyors office as proxy for GIS coordinator Hunter Jackson proxy for the county on there James League City Bloomington utilities
- Linnea wellings in dot proxy for Rebecca Packer Megan Blair GIS manager city of Bloomington John John Connell Bloomington Transit Cheryl Gilliland deputy controller city of Bloomington proxy for Jessica McClellan controller city of Bloomington Thank you and we have anybody online
- Great, thank you. Okay, with that, we can go to approval of meeting agenda. Do I have a motion to approve today's meeting agenda? Thanks, John. Thanks, Ryan. Any public comment on the meeting agenda? Okay, hearing none, here's the staff for roll call vote. Oh, okay.
- Yep, I think we're good. We can just do this by all in favor. Say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Great. Thank you. Motion passes. Next item is approval of minutes from our last meeting on July 23rd, 2025. I have a motion to approve meeting minutes from last month. Motion to approve meeting minutes. Thank you, Megan. Second. Thank you, Ryan.
- Any public comments on the July meeting minutes? Okay hearing none just put this to vote all in favor, please say aye Any opposed Okay hearing none motion passes Thank you for that Moving along to communications from the chair and vice chair. I Think John is out today Paul you want to pinch it for?
- John and any updates want to pass along? Yeah, I can go over some of the county highway projects Both our vernal pipe connector sunrise greetings project and Fullerton phase three are winding up and putting the Final touches on the sunrise greetings project as we speak still have power to hook up to the traffic signal. So once that's done we'll be opening that and
- Fullerton they're paving the base on the last section today and that should be wrapping up Sometime in February, I think we've got a ribbon cutting open or schedule for September 11th, so there should be a flurry of activity for that getting prepared for that so goal is to open by the 11th and if not we'll put out an announcement for that and
- Then our Eagleson Avenue bridge is Still active and we're looking to cut start cutting trees During October break and that project will be under construction next year So that's Eagleson Avenue on the IU campus In our pedestrian crossing warning light project at seven locations on the south side of
- Bloomington area are have been installed and we are awaiting Duke's final connection for power at five locations and we've got two locations that are solar powered which are are Currently active and working. So that's the update Okay, great. Thanks for that Paul and I think Katie sent along a invitation for the ribbon cutting
- on September 11th for the Fullerton Pike project. So we're all invited and please feel free to attend that. It'd be an exciting project to have completed in a pretty major East West connection in the community. So I'm excited about that. Moving ahead to reports from officers and committees. Anyone have any updates they'd like to pass along or share? Okay, I'm hearing none.
- Over back to staff and a couple of reports just to pass along. So Katie Okay, I just wanted to let everyone know that The current surface transportation bill Also known as infrastructure investments and job act also known as the bipartisan infrastructure law so as a reminder this law was signed in signed by Biden in 21 and
- And it authorized over a trillion dollars in federal funding for roads, bridges, transit, utilities, internet, et cetera. And this is the bill that provides the federal funding that comes to our communities and gets distributed to NDOT and to the MPO in all of the local urbanized areas, including ours. This bill is up for reauthorization renewal in September of 26.
- And they've been discussing it all year this year. The US Department of Transportation recently issued a request for information asking for the public's input. And the original deadline for the public comments period was August 20th. But that has now been extended to September 9th. So if you're interested in providing input to the federal government on that,
- Related to the surface transportation bill The link is provided to for you in the in the packet The the MPO our MPO did submit a response to it and there are also a lot of other coalitions by coalitions local officials and transportation coalition, which I mentioned in the agenda
- They're a combination of a variety of organizations, regional planning organizations. They also submitted comments. So feel free to share your input with the federal government on this very important bill that provides federal funding for us. The next item I'll talk about is that in the packet, you can read the early coordination letter.
- That was sent to a variety of departments at the city and county as well as the property owners. This is an early coordination letter pages starts on page 17. It's an early coordination letter from in dot related to their project at SR 45 and Hickory Leaf Drive. Just go to that page here.
- This project is primarily to bring the intersection, do some basic things to bring the intersection up to compliance, to ADA compliance. So there is a bus stop there, and that's one of the reasons they need to bring it up to compliance. So they'll be moving the bus stop, putting in a pad, doing new crosswalks, ramps. No drainage work is expected there at this time.
- So, likely you may have been one of the departments to receive this letter, but I just wanted to share it in case you haven't seen it. If you have any concerns, feel free to let me know, or you can reach out to INDOT about that, but I do have their direct emails if you don't.
- The next thing I just wanted to share briefly is That a while back we talked about Fund fund loans that the MPO does with other MPOs and that how that process works and we didn't We hadn't written anything up to describe that process
- So I have written something up to kind of give you an overview of how the distribution of funds for the MPO happens. So just briefly, I'll say at the start of every fiscal year, we receive the funding. The TIP document is what describes where that funding is going to go for the next couple of years.
- Also maps out the illustrative years so goes up to five years in the future The MPO then does try to take some precautions when To ensure that the federal funding has the best chance of being used Those precautions are listed in this document
- The reason we try to take those particular precautions so we don't we try not to allocate funding to a project with a letting date past the end of the third quarter of the fiscal year we Try to prioritize funding projects within the first two quarters of the fiscal year The next step of the process is if a project cannot use their funding or may not be able to use their funding by the end of the fiscal year
- They can then move that funding to other projects that they're doing or other projects that are in the MTP planning document. They can also allow other LPAs to take that funding. If the funding then can't be used locally, then we pursue a trade with another MPO to try and get that money back in the future.
- those trades at this time don't require policy committee approval or anything and then ultimately if There's still leftover federal funding at the end of the year that hasn't been able to use be used by the projects that have been planned out and been designed then Then the funding goes to to Bloomington Transit so I just wanted to kind of lay this out and in writing so that you guys could
- attempt to understand how the funding gets used up throughout the fiscal year. And this is something that we can include in the tip document or make as a policy to make it more official. But this is just kind of how how the process works at this time. This is just a response to some of the confusion from earlier in the year.
- Does anybody have any questions about this? And feel free to Read it later and and come back at a future meeting or email us with questions. I Know at the policy committee level there was questions about the trade process So I think this is really good to have in writing because was it last year? Has it been two years now where we had the trade with Indianapolis? Funding yeah
- We hadn't traded money with another MPO ever, I don't believe, until a big trade in 24 with Indy so that Second Street, First Street, First Street could get done. I know it's a lot to digest, so feel free to just think about it for a while and come back to me.
- Thank you for that, and if anybody has questions, please feel free to follow up with Katie. That was a lot of material to cover, but I think it's really good to have documentation of that, because like I said, it was an area of interest at the Policy Committee. If there's no further questions on that, I think we can move along to old business, and we have several tip reports updates here. Go back to Katie. Yeah, so as you might remember,
- The TIP, which is done every two years, is every two years we do a call for projects. So Bloomington and the county and Ellitsville can submit projects that they would like to use federal funding for. And then those projects that receive funding are put into this TIP document. And then those are the ones that are slated to receive that funding for the next couple of years.
- and up to five years so The new tip the most recent call for projects was last last September a year ago and the new tip is Was created and then is the goal is is to have Federal Highway approve it and for it to take effect at the start of the federal fiscal year of July 1st however, and
- The NPO submitted that tip document to INDOT and Federal Highway on time. However, Federal Highway is, their staff has been cut and they are doing a lot right now in terms of staffing and processes and they still have not approved the tip yet. The goal was mid-August, but we have not heard from them. However, they hope that it will be soon. So that's the update on that. So at the moment we,
- are just working off of all the projects and the funding that's in the current TIP. However, they are no longer taking changes to that TIP. So pretty soon here, we should be moving forward, but we have not received official approval yet. And then item B,
- This was a placeholder for all of the for the county and city to share updates on projects that are in the tip Paul shared his Kendall if you if you have any updates you'd like to share, please feel free Kendall Kenoki City of Bloomington. So I think Biggest update on our tip projects is Second Street. That's gonna happen in 2026. Our letting date is September 10th, which is
- Coming up so I'm very excited for those bids to come in. So we'll soon know who our contractor is going to be Utility relocations are happening right now The next phase was just approved by the Board of Public Works last night is a sanitary sewer replacement All the way down between the beeline and west of Rogers So there's going to be some lane restrictions some possible closures that are going to happen on Second Street
- So apologies in advance for the headaches that are coming from all the utility relocations. We still have a lot to do this year. So that's moving forward. But I think that's probably the biggest update. I know Neil updated everyone on High Street last meeting. So no new updates there but happy to answer any other questions. Thanks. Thanks Kendall.
- There's no further questions on any of those items. I think we can move ahead to new business and a bunch of proposed tip amendments Yes, so as I said, they're no longer taking amendments to the old tip even though that is legally the one that is Governing at the moment. However, I've learned that we can go ahead and make our updates to the new tip that has yet to be approved so
- These are all of the amendments that have been made, let's go to the page, that have been made since the TAC and policy committee approved the 26 to 30 tip back in March. So you have seen some of these changes before, although some of them would have only been showing
- Fiscal years 24 through 28 you wouldn't have seen any of the updated numbers for 29 to 30 So there is a lot here, but you have seen probably the majority of it I guess I'll go quickly through them So
- Little bit more significant change. There was work bridge deck overlay work on North hard straight street hard straight road over Branch Jack's Defeat Creek Near SR 46 They have moved to that to a year beyond this tip. So There is no longer funding slated for that project in the next five years and
- Number two, you've seen before, this is scour protection in a variety of locations. On I-69, this is a new project that was not in the tip that you saw in March. Another new project is small structure. You saw this last month. Another addition is the pedestrian trail bridge over SR 45. You saw this one last month as well.
- The next two are also new projects that were approved for the old tip last month. A sidewalk from Kinzer Pike to Walnut Street on SR 45. And then repairing and replacing joints at SR 48 and I-69. So railroad work at three locations
- in the northeast part of Basically pretty close to the line between the city and the county That was supposed to happen last year it's being moved to this year These are just Some changes that
- Lisa and Paul at the county had to Dillman road some some small funding changes. There was a contract for the county that came through and got finalized back in May. And so these are the updated numbers for the bridge inspections and inventory project.
- Item 10, just the construction date has been moved to 2027, fiscal year 27 for that, for Fairfax High Friction project. Just a small funding increase for the NDOT project.
- So installing new cable rail bail it barriers and then we have A bridge deck overlay on Stevens Creek, which is a new project from in dot And then we had some changes to College Avenue and walnut phase one Due to some of the funding loans that happened back in the spring So this is correcting for those changes
- Item 14 same thing College in college and walnut corridor improvement project phase two Just correcting some numbers to balance out funds The details of the of the loans we've we've discussed them at past meetings But they are noted below each of the funding tables and
- So the improvements to SR 45 and 10th Street from the bypass to Pete Ellis, the funding amount for the project is still taking place in this fiscal year, but the funding amounts have increased. Just a funding update for the Eagleson Bridge project.
- and a funding update for the West Second Street. Another funding update for Dunn Street and a funding update for High Street. Also Rockport Road and
- And for the other Pete Ellis, SR45 Pete Ellis to Russell Road project, just an update for that.
- No just for my education the project regarding the railroad crossings and other counties. But I think the total is shown between all counties. How does that work. Where did it go. Thirty three.
- How does it work? What do you mean? So it says that within the planning area, those projects are eight hundred thirty thousand seven hundred fifty four, but funding listed below is for the entire project, including all locations. That two million number is for projects outside of our county. There's seven locations. Three of them are in our area. So that's what the they had hundred and thirty thousand was for.
- and then the rest of the funding is for the other five locations. This is what they give us to put on our tip the total amount for all of them together. And I will say at the last TAC meeting somebody did have a question about the work that was being done. And we assumed, and I think Paul was right when he
- shared what he believes it would be. I asked them last week, they said that these locations will receive our normal grade crossing safety improvements, which include new lights, gates, candle levers, and constant warning time track circuitry.
- And these should all be on the map that we have here. So projects that fall within the MPA, the Metropolitan Planning Area, which is what this green boundary is, those are the projects that have to be included within the TIP document. Everything outside of that lives
- Is either both in the tip document and the statewide? Transportation improvement plan which is called step document. So the things that occur both within our Metropolitan planning area and outside of it are in both documents the things out in the rural area outside of this boundary are just in the step document so
- That's why you see more on here than what's actually in our tip document because I've also included the Monroe County projects that are happening outside of Outside of our planning area So
- Request for this is just a recommendation of approval for these changes so that we can get the new Soon to hopefully be approved tip document updated with the correct numbers Any other questions for staff on these proposed tip amendments I
- Do I have a motion to approve the tip amendments that are proposed? Thank You Jane, thanks Ryan any public comment on the proposed tip amendments Okay hearing none all in favor, please say aye aye any opposed When abstained, thank you Cheryl
- Okay motion passes. Thank you Any public comment on matters that we did not include on today's agenda Hearing none communication from committee members on matters that we didn't include on the agenda and that can either be communications or topics or ideas suggestions for future agenda items and
- Okay. Well, thank you all for being here and our next upcoming meeting will be September next month at 10 o'clock on September 24th and Policy Committee will be on September 12 Thank you all again for the time today and especially the proxies for pinch hitting appreciate it and we'll see you next month. Thank you