- Hello, everybody. This is my first time as chair as well, so prepare for some hiccups, but I've got
- Nate next to me and Pat and Katie as well. So I believe we're gonna start with the call to order and
- introductions. Well, this is the Bloomington Metropolitan Planning Office Technical Advisory Committee.
- Hello, Hunter. So yeah, call to order and introductions. I'll start to my left just after Neil
- Copper proxy for the Bloomington City engineer David Hittle Bloomington director of planning
- and transportation Nate Nichols City of Bloomington Public Works Department John Baton GIS coordinator
- Monroe County Jackie Jelen director Monroe County planning Jane Fleague City Bloomington utilities And
- city deputy controller proxy for jeff mckim controller proxy for the mineral county auditor megan blair
- city of bloomington gis manager lanaya wellings in dot proxy for rebecca packer monroe county operations
- and asset manager for the highway department
- Ben Ayers, project manager Monroe County Highway Department. John Connell, Bloomington Transit.
- Lisa Salyers, Erie 10 Rural Transit Proxy for Chris Myers. And I'm not sure, I didn't see anybody online.
- Is there anybody online? No members online. No members online, okay. Well, thanks everybody. I guess
- next on the agenda is the approval of the meeting agenda. Do I have a motion for an approval?
- Move approval second. Thanks Neil and thanks Jane You may do all in favor if you would like yes all
- in favor say aye All opposed say nay Seems like we have it
- Next up is the approval of minutes from January 20th 2026 Do I have a motion to approve? Move approval
- of the minutes Thanks, Neil I'll second. Thanks Nate What was what was the thing I could say again was
- that all approve Oh, yes, can I get an all in favor everybody say aye aye
- One thing before we go for that these are public comment items. So if there is any oh, yeah Thanks Nate
- if there's any public comment, this is your opportunity of the meeting minutes I'm not seeing any here
- anybody virtually. Just please raise your hand on zoom I'm not really seeing that I guess I can see
- zoom there as well. So it does say that there's a couple chats in the in the zoom
- The zoom chats are okay. It's okay. All right. So I guess we'll do that again. All in favor say aye.
- Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Looks like we have it and I'll apologize again for me flumping flubbing
- around but we'll get better as we move on. So next up is communications from the chair and vice chair.
- Jane any communications. Nothing for me. Thank you.
- Cool I don't have anything personally I do know that Lynette will have some stuff and Ben as we get
- to the highway progress as well. I guess the one thing I do have is we all suffered a storm past this
- past week on Thursday. We in Monroe County GIS we have updated our storm extreme storm weather events app.
- And so that has the path of the tornado that came across Monroe County, as well as pictures of different
- damage points. And those are available on our website. The data we pull from the National Weather Service,
- and so it is pretty cool. It's dynamic, and it changes as the data changes. The one interesting thing
- is that that was the earliest tornado we've experienced in Monroe County, dating back to the NWS data
- I'm pulling, at least.
- Typically we were seeing tornadoes in March, but this is a kind of an early mid February one So climate
- change is affecting us and things of that nature So I guess reports from MPO staff is next Okay, the
- first item is just a resource to share that that I learned about recently I had it up here. Hold on a second
- Give me a minute. Okay. This is just a map that INDOT has made of their, they call it their innovative
- intersection and interchange map. And this is what it looks like on the website. And they also show
- some of the treatments that are mentioned in the map. And that is just a resource I wanted to share
- with you all. We'll not go into detail, but I've provided the link in the agenda.
- The second item is that in dot is currently redoing revamping their public their planning public involvement
- plan which they last touched in two thousand twenty three. So they are taking comments. Feedback is
- accepted by them on the plan by Friday March 13th. And this is what their page looks like.
- There is a link to their draft plan and then you can submit comments about it So if anyone cares to
- look into that I encourage you to do so And I'll stop after each item just in case there's any questions
- that anyone has Item C on page 10 of the packet
- So we have not yet reached the end of the federal fiscal year that doesn't happen until June 30th, but
- every federal fiscal year the NPO receives federal funds and that Those get those must be used by the
- end of the year by transportation projects and anything that's left over will get traded for other years
- or flexed to Bloomington or rural transit and
- And so we wanted to go ahead and give you guys a summary of this federal fiscal year, even though we
- still have a few months left. We have reached zero. So all of our federal fund allocations have been
- spent for this year. Sorry, transit. We don't get any this year. So this chart in the packet simply shows
- kind of where we started here. The first line are the numbers that we had from NDOT when you guys approved
- the TIP last March. So that was a total of $4.64 million coming to our urbanized area. Then they updated
- the numbers in May of last year after you guys approved the TIP.
- The amount was updated to 4.5. That was kind of balancing out amounts from the year before. And then
- we did a trade last spring with another MPO which added another million dollars
- to our total for this year. And so when you guys initially approved of the TIP last year, $4.6 million
- was programmed. And then that amount increased to 5.6 later. And so this kind of shows the projects
- that were awarded in the TIP to receive funding as of last March, and then what the actual spending
- turned out to be this year. So that extra million dollars from the exchange that was added in spring
- of last year, that ended up going towards West Second Street. And then every project except one received
- the funds that were originally allocated to them. Except two, I should say.
- High Street was originally programmed to receive funds, but was not able to use them, so those funds
- were transferred elsewhere. West Second Street was programmed originally to receive funds, and they
- have submitted their funding letters to INDOT and have to the total of five million. So those have been
- used this year. And then Old SR 37 South and Dillman Road
- were also planned to receive funds and they submitted their funding letter in November to NDOT. The
- only project that was not able to receive funds as planned was downtown curb ramps phase five. And that
- was essentially at the error of MPO staff because when we received updated numbers from NDOT,
- Last June, we didn't update the allocations in the TIP to reflect that because it was a lower amount.
- And so that's why, since Downtown Curb Ramps is the last one to request their funds from INDOT, because
- we're now at zero balance, 100% obligated for this year, there's none left for the Downtown Curb Ramps project.
- So that is noted in the footnotes below and we've talked to the city about that. Can I, can I comment
- on that once you're, are you done with that piece of it? So first I want to say thank you Katie for
- all the communication on this and for meeting with me and helping me understand and
- I know there's some additional complications in there from the way that NDOT has been moving funding
- around and understand that. It was a pretty unfortunate surprise to learn that your project isn't getting
- the money that was allocated to it. And it's unfortunate to learn that the reason you're not getting
- the money is simply because you came after another project within the fiscal year. So I just want to
- emphasize that
- I hope in future years we can have those conversations in advance and avoid the situation. Just to break
- that down a little bit, was it because you said that the South Old State Road 37 Dillman intersection,
- basically with the change in the funding allocated, that project ate up all the funds that
- then the downtown project couldn't proceed? Okay, and then we didn't talk about it to reallocate, okay.
- That's helpful. Would that be a matter for this advisory committee or is there like a side committee
- to talk about some of the like reallocations and like, so I feel like sometimes we get projects or like
- reports back that's like,
- Basically this won't finish on time and then we're in a time crunch. Is there like another committee
- or discussion that we could have between the different partners to say hey here's our progress update.
- We're forecasting we might not meet this deadline and then like do some switching in that regard. Would
- that be helpful. We have quarterly meetings every quarter to check on
- the status of each project and whether or not it will be able to use the funding for that year. And
- when we realize that it can't, then we take steps. And to fix that, whether it's doing a trade
- or reallocating funding, we typically talk to Lisa and Neil about those, changing the funds around between
- projects, and then we
- Those always get brought to the committees in the form of proposed amendments and that's how you guys
- see them. So if an outcome of that quarterly meeting is that there's not an agreement then we would
- never see anything because it wouldn't be an amendment. Say that again like if if the conversation was
- between the city and the county but
- for the old state road 37 south and Dillman road and the downtown curb ramps. If there was not agreement
- in those quarterly meetings to allocate money from the Dillman and 37 project to the curb ramps, we
- would never be notified of that here because there wouldn't be an amendment to the tip basically. I
- think that that's accurate. If I can jump in, I think that the bigger, I think what you're describing
- does and should happen but the bigger issue here was the during those quarterly meetings we all thought
- the same amount of money was still there. We thought this money existed and so we were just proceeding
- as usual and then it turned out the money wasn't actually programmed to the MPO as a whole anymore and
- so then the Dillman project, you know, used its money as it was expecting to and then the city project
- came forward and the money was already gone and so
- The surprise was just that the funding allocation was reduced to the MPO and we as a body never addressed
- that. Yes, I think just communication is key moving forward. Thanks for comments, Neil and Jackie and
- Katie for going over that.
- Okay. Item D in pages 11 through 21 of the packet, there is some historical documentation for kind of
- regarding the establishment or what we would say actually is designation of the MPO. And so the first
- item is actually an MOU. And then the rest of them are the formal letters
- sent to the governor and to Federal Highway, which essentially established the creation of the MPO.
- And this is kind of mostly just FYI for you guys, but this is provided because of some discussion that
- took place at the policy committee meeting last month. Some folks are wanting some information about
- kind of the origin of the MPO and how it came to be situated in the city of Bloomington Planning Department.
- And so you're welcome to read through that. I mean roughly the city is because their population was
- approaching that federal population level that would then enable them to
- become an MPO and get federal funds, the city initiated transportation studies a few years prior to
- the MPO establishing. And there's a variety of other reasons why the MPO is situated where it is. But
- this original MOU also clearly creates the grounds for an intergovernmental
- multi-jurisdictional represented policy committee, technical advisory committee, and citizens advisory
- committee. So nothing has really changed with regard to representation of folks from different jurisdictions
- since the creation of the MPO. But feel free to let us know if you have any questions or comments about that.
- Yeah, I thought these were just really interesting to look through and see, you know, the heavy hitters
- in the past that were part of this and just kind of the creation. So yeah, thanks for including this
- in the packet. One thing I might note too is we would welcome any documents the county may have. I mean,
- this is the extent of what we have and we're lucky to have it for that matter. So anything the county
- has in its archives, either the county plan commission or the commissioner's office, anywhere.
- Anything that survived the paper to electronic. I will just say from my standpoint I did see this maybe
- a few days ago and I did go looking and we talked to our legal department to our knowledge. This is
- the only document that was created. I don't think that subsequent inter cooperatives as it's called
- were made. We do have inner locals but those were subject for
- planning and zoning jurisdiction only. They were very narrow in scope. They weren't associated to the
- MPO. So our legal department and myself, we tried to rack our brains and look at different places, but
- I don't think that there was anything beyond this. I'll keep looking. Okay. And we also went back to
- 2008 work program, looked through it too. Nothing had changed.
- at that time from 2008 up until now. So, okay. Okay, item E, some project updates regarding TIP projects
- or projects receiving federal funds through the MPO. There's nothing really too much to add except for
- One project, the project 2200619, that is some of these bridge deck overlay projects on I-69. One of
- them is up there on the map. The project manager reached out to us and shared that construction is possible
- during the fall of 2026 or spring of 27.
- It's also anticipated that the construction at these locations will occur separately. So there's seven,
- I think there's seven locations where they're doing bridge deck overlay on I-69. Five of the locations
- will have shoulder and lane closures, but those will be less than seven days. And two of the locations,
- West Arlington and Kinzer Pike will use temporary traffic signals.
- The roads will remain open, but there may be some weight because of the temporary traffic signals. Other
- than that, that's all the updates I have. If Neil or the county have any updates they want to share,
- feel free to. I'll do a couple quick, just basic project updates. So first, the downtown curb around
- space five project that we were mentioning earlier, it is still moving forward.
- starting design. We're negotiating a design contract right now with an engineering firm. And then I
- wanted to give a brief update on our High Street project. So we are wrapping up right away acquisition
- on that. We are looking to do some tree clearing before the environmental bat window closes on April
- 1st of this year. And then that
- needs to happen in advance of utility relocations, which would occur generally throughout 2026. And
- then looking at project construction, uh, during 2027, I think our, our letting date for the project
- is actually in, uh, I want to say October of this year, September, October, somewhere in there. Um,
- but getting ahead of it so that we can get the utilities out of the way so that the project can successfully
- go to construction. Um, and be happy to update on any other projects if anyone has questions.
- Can I ask a question about the high street one, just because it's a road I travel. Is that street going
- to be detoured off then during that process? So during construction itself, we'll probably break into
- phases, segments of the road, and it will most likely become a one-way street during those phases. So
- there will still be access to everywhere along it, but not from both directions. And then in 2026, during
- utility relocations, you'll probably see
- Similar but shorter duration maybe flagging or maybe short one ways cool. Thanks mill Lynette I have
- a number of project updates and hopefully just to establish a baseline of what you know and what we
- know since paul saturday Retire between last meeting in this meeting So bear with me as I go through
- this list The curry pike phase one project between state road 45 and state road 48
- Letting was in February and was awarded to DC Construction. We're working with Indiana Railroad for
- right of entry along the tracks and have a pre-construction meeting set for March 11th.
- The Eagleson Bridge letting was in January and was awarded to Beatty Construction. We're working with
- NDOT to set up a pre-construction meeting later in March or April. The inspector for the project is
- Bob Rob Burkhart with BFS and construction is scheduled to start after move-in and open before move-in
- in 2027. Rockport Ridge
- Brockport Road Bridge 308, letting was in February and was awarded to CLR contractors. The inspector
- will be Chris Stoner with EGS BLN. We'll be working with them to set up a pre-construction meeting for
- this project in March and April also. Fairfax Road Safety Project, the high friction pavement installation
- at various locations between mostly Shaq Road and Cleve Butcher Road. The pavement cores were completed
- around January 30th.
- Stage three plans will be completed after these core reports are completed and we should expect to see
- those reports in June. That road bridge number 79 replacement, we're working on last parcel negotiations.
- Letting is not until fiscal year 2029. The design is 100% completed. Old State Road 37 South and Dillman
- Road intersection, early coordination letters for the phase of the section 106 review process went out
- February 20th, 2026. Roar Road Bridge 75 replacement. Expect construction to begin in the spring. The
- contractor is CLR and this is a locally funded project. The closure and detour will be established at
- that pre-construction meeting. The Vernal Pike Connector on profile parkway between Loesch Road to Curry Pike.
- There's a meeting scheduled this Friday with Simtra to bring up what was supposed to be completed by
- the Cook Group as part of the approval of the old GE site. Not sure who the design consultant will be
- at this time.
- And then just one announcement, we will be having an on-site engineer starting in March until we find
- a full-time replacement for Paul. The engineer is Brent Wenholt with BFS. He was a county engineer for
- 12 years in Dubois County, so he has a lot of knowledge on federal aid projects, local rural projects,
- plan reviews. He'll be in our office one day a week and attend meetings as needed.
- If you have any questions or would like updates on other projects, I'm happy to answer those. Thanks,
- Lynette. And just to clarify, not all the projects she mentioned are receiving federal funds. But I'll
- talk to her about that later. Thank you. OK.
- Okay, thanks Lynette and Neil. So are we moving on now to old business? Okay, moving on to old business.
- Okay, the first item we have under old business is the Unified Planning Work Program. This is for fiscal
- year 2027-2028. Copy that we have included in the packet is what we call the final draft. As of February
- 20th, 2026, we received
- Adjustments were made to the document itself after comments, review comments from Federal Highway
- Administration, Federal Transit Administration, and the Indiana Department of Transportation. Federal
- Highway comments, and I can send these to you afterwards. I apologize for not having these in the packet.
- They're actually fairly simple.
- Comments include remove all references to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and rename those the IIJA.
- It's no longer the bill, the BIL. It's the IIJA. So all of that has been replaced. All rescinded executive
- orders were removed from the document. Any references to
- planning emphasis areas under prior national administration were removed. Also, under active transportation,
- page 40 of the document says remove any reference to the bipartisan infrastructure law, replace that
- with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was done. Page 41, excuse me.
- on active transportation, remove, again, the reference to the bipartisan infrastructure law, replace
- that with the Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act. Federal Transit Administration's comments
- were, please remove the FTA Region 5 from the reference planning emphasis areas, which we did, replace
- the bipartisan infrastructure law with the Infrastructure and Investment and Jobs Act.
- Remove references to rescinded executive orders which were done and that's in oh and then under discretionary
- programs federal transit administration for planning. Please note that they may be awarded as a requirement
- as selected planning projects must be included in the work program upon award and prior to being eligible
- for pre award authority.
- such as areas of poverty, transitory development, planning projects, et cetera. The Indiana Department
- of Transportation's comments are recommended in addition to indirect endorsement letter. This is the
- indirect cost endorsement letter, which is in the appendices. Please list that in the dialog box in
- the introduction. It lists the approval of the indirect rate that will be used for the work program.
- that we did the estimated unexpended work program balance on page 13. Please also include purchase orders
- under that table. We added the purchase order numbers and then we're showing the carryover balance at
- the end of this current fiscal year as being zero. The individual planning element budget table that
- follows each planning element should be structured in a way and manner showing
- federal matching funds and estimated carryover funds. We redid that table to show that there are no
- carryover funds, period. Summary budget and planning sources, highly recommended the MPO restructure
- the summary budget table, which we did, and that's included in the document. Furthermore, fiscal year
- 27 MPO Consolidated Planning Grant Mark is $298,149. We've adjusted that according to that number.
- On page 25, the fifth bullet, please reword the word equity considerations. We took out the word equity
- and can't remember the word that we put in instead. Page 26, element 300,
- Please include activities beginning for the next step tip update, which will be in 2029 fiscal year,
- 2029 and 2033. We did element 306 performance measures. The eighth bullet suggested rewording the word
- sustainability. So we reworded the word sustainability. Page 40, 501, health plan 501 on active transportation.
- Fifth paragraph, please remove the word equity from ADA equity considerations. Now that's in the law,
- but we did it anyway. Third bullet on page 40, please remove equity from ADA equity, which we did,
- and again, that was in the law. Page 41, active transportation.
- No, no, no. That's a duplication. That's a duplication there. Okay. And then on page 47, under the Title
- VI and ADA compliance plans, identify the LPAs where the MPO will monitor the Title VI status going
- forward and move toward limited funding to those entities not meeting the requirements as Federal-aid
- recipients. We therefore reworded it to identify
- That we would not only review or monitor the city of Bloomington but also Monroe County and also the
- town of Ellisville. That's it. Well thanks for that overview Pat and I hope you guys got a lot of use
- out of a thesaurus during this process of changing the words equity and sustainability. Yeah those are
- bad words. Do we have to have a motion to approve this.
- Yes, there's a request requested action to recommend approval by the by the TSE and the Policy Committee.
- So I guess do we have a motion to approve? I just have maybe two questions really quick and I think
- you addressed them last time, Pat. But I just want to make sure I'm on the right track. The overall
- budget reduced due to the 2020 census and you went over that last time. But just for my own reminder. Sure.
- Did you equally kind of reduce each itemized line item by that percent or was it more of a cooperative
- discussion between because I know like I remember you saying asset management went down to zero or something
- like that. Is it was there like a framework for which you decided on those reductions basically.
- The current budget that we operate under is 325,000 or so in federal funds. This new one will be $298,000.
- It's been a steady cut for three consecutive years, and that is a result of the 2020 census. The funding
- we receive for planning is based on a per capita allocation.
- And since Bloomington went down in the 2020 census, our students went home. They weren't counted vis-a-vis
- other communities. Lafayette went down too, but vis-a-vis the other group two smaller communities, everybody
- went down. In terms of the budget, what I had shown in the draft was I had shown a deficit and they
- did not want us to show a deficit. So we,
- took the deficit out, rebalanced hours, and what we did was reduced my hours, reduced Katie's hours,
- and put those in what I would call the rank order of what we do. And the rank order of what we do is
- element 100, meetings, meetings, minutes, discussions with outside groups and all of that. What is it?
- go to that real quick. Yeah, the inter administration and public public participation. That's that's
- our biggest expenditure in terms of hours. Historically, we balanced everything based on what our time
- had been spent in previous years. After that, we go to the transportation improvement program. That's
- the second largest user of our hour time.
- After that, we went to task 500, which is the active transportation. There's a requirement there that
- we spend a minimum of 2.5% of our federal funding in active transportation. And then the city of Bloomington
- also received a $1.44 million grant from the US Department of Transportation. We will assist in that
- in a modest way.
- I'm not saying that we'll spend a lot of our time on that but because they have the forces to do that
- but we will assist in a modest way task and then going from there the crash report crash report and
- traffic counts what I'd call the traffic count data and the crash report data the crash reports consume
- a considerable amount of time right now because we how do we how do I say it clean up the data
- We received the data in a raw format from the database, the area's database. We cleaned that up. Usually
- that's cleaned up somewhere around April, May, June. And then we posted on the crash dashboard. And
- the crash dashboard was brand new as of this year, too, for that, well, this fiscal year, I should say.
- Then after that, the task 600,
- which is the Title VI, that's the one where we're spending the least. We took money out of that one.
- That one has in it, I think, only nine hours of time, nine hours of billable time in the whole task.
- And then going to your other question about contract service agreements, we zeroed out all the contract
- service agreements. Previously we had two of those, $13,000 for the City of Bloomington asset management, $13,000.
- county asset management given the cut we had to reduce those also. And then previously in pre prior
- years we had also shared resources with Bloomington Transit. There's no resources with Bloomington Transit
- either this year or the next year. Does that answer all of your questions. That so I could compare like
- last month's
- work program draft this program work draft. Okay. And then there just the discussion we just had about
- the you know internal quarterly meetings between staff just to kind of do we don't have to put everything
- in this work program that we do coordination wise like we do have some flexibility. Oh you do have to
- over everything. Okay. So is that in there. I didn't. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- We'll conduct a minimum of four quarterly meetings. That's a requirement also. Preparation of that takes
- an extensive amount of time too because the county and the city all are required to submit their quarterly
- reports. Quarterly reports come to us first. We go through the quarterly reports, review those, look
- for changes, look for key issues that may be evolving, and then we approve those.
- Those go to the Department of Transportation, the Department of Transportation, and then we meet usually
- a few weeks after that to discuss it. Uh, one project that came up recently was old state road 37 in
- Dilman road. That project had originally been scheduled, I think for an October, October letting or
- something like that in 20, 27. And then, uh, it was moved to March.
- of 2027 and it's still only in the early coordination phase. We expressed concern to the county highway
- director over the issue of a March letting is risky. I'll say that. And so as a result of that, we're
- working behind the scenes to move that one to fiscal year 28 and to meet that obligation. We're in the
- process of looking at
- trades or loans. I shouldn't say trades trades. Yeah loans. I shouldn't say loans trades with other
- MPOs so that way we can balance it out and we can have that project go to a contract letting it the
- proper time. So yeah there's everything that's in here. It says responsible agency and end product.
- That's what we do. Yeah. And I know we were starting the process maybe to I don't remember if it was
- last year the year before.
- regarding the complete streets which probably isn't allowed anymore under this current administration
- but there was some discussion I thought was helpful about how do we like score or have a fair rubric
- between all the different parties. I'd still like to see something like that in the future just to be
- completely transparent amongst everyone to say this is how we evaluated that project.
- And I also know Katie invited me to a training of you know there are other jurisdictions have a lot
- more staff that they're able to incorporate other components of MPOs like prioritizing housing
- and transportation or prioritizing other things with transportation. That could be something in the
- rubric or just a discussion amongst us.
- complete streets policy that we developed and adopted three, four years ago, something like that. I
- think it was four years ago now. That was based on best practice at that time. And we adopted it, I
- would call it holistically. And then after the adoption, we didn't realize that the scoring process
- was biased against safety projects. It was actually prioritizing capacity expansion
- or new facilities or things like that instead of safety. So we've talked internally extensively about
- we wanna go through a new scoring process and that may come out of the cake in April of this year, this
- calendar year or May or so. Yeah, Complete Streets is not fully supported on the national level.
- What was the other question? Just the rubric and how we score things and if we can include other components.
- Yeah, it'll be a complete rewrite is what we want to do. And that would come to this committee for review?
- Oh, yes, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. We would hope to bring that to you in April or May. That depends on
- our workload because they're just the two of us and we're being bombarded right now. I understand.
- Thank you. All right, sure. Well, Jackie, to your point, I know it's something
- John brought up at prior meetings too but we never really quite got it off the ground but I believe
- we talked about even having a working group that very reason just helping. So it might be something
- we could still include in the mix to be interested. Yeah the technical advisory committee be heavily
- involved in whatever we do. It won't be just us giving you a presentation and then asking for support.
- You know it'll be a working process.
- Great. Thanks for the comments everybody. Any other comments. I guess this is a motion to approve the
- old business the twenty twenty seven twenty twenty eight unified planning work program. So move each
- a second. And I guess I should have said if there's a I forgot that the phrasing and unanimous approval.
- Public comment yes, sorry if there's any public comment time is now I'm not seeing any Sorry Can you
- hear oh yeah, I see we see you now Eric sorry about that That's okay. Yeah, I raised my hand during
- presentation. My name is Eric Ost and I want to say thank you for all of your work on this this important
- matter. During the Mr. Martin's presentation he mentioned the crash dashboard and I wasn't sure if that
- was something that was going to be scaled back or continued and if it is being continued
- I'm wondering if you could, I appreciate the efforts to clean up the data that's downloaded from the
- ARIES system, but I'm wondering if you could publish the complete ARIES data set for Monroe County as
- a separate file that could be accessed by the public as point of information
- that used to be published by the state, as well as in a slightly modified form by the city of Bloomington
- until 2023, I believe. But it would be very helpful for the analysis of traffic patterns, crashes, in
- a fairly fine retail grain manner, if that complete data set could be.
- published on a hopefully on a monthly basis that would be great. And just that I can send you documentation
- on what that data set includes if that would be helpful. So I guess I'm asking to clarify that the crash
- dashboard will still be maintained by staff despite the funding constraints and also that the complete
- data set be
- published just as a separate file. Thank you. In regard to the crash dashboard, absolutely. That was
- the purpose of establishing the crash dashboard in the first place. And then we'll be refining that
- further as we proceed. In terms of access to the area's database, there's a legal requirement that we have that
- We, the staff, don't see the area's database. That's loaded, downloaded through the engineering department.
- Do you know that? Okay. There's a legal requirement on that and confidentiality. And that's- I'm sorry
- to interrupt. Could I ask for that contract to be provided? That actually, that restriction has been
- mentioned before, but Indiana code declares that accident reports are public data and not classified.
- So I'd like to follow up with someone about that so I can better understand what those restrictions
- are. If they are a contract with a private provider, then that does not obviate the fact that Indiana
- Code declares it as public record. And my understanding. Okay, yeah. Yeah, they are through a private
- contractor, but I'm unfamiliar with exactly what the requirements are. I can research that and we can
- send you an email.
- Eric we discussed this last year and the answer is is the same as it was last year, which is that We
- are not authorized to publish the in dot crash data Only in dot is authorized to publish it and then
- they decide who they give access to the system internally and then the public is also welcome to purchase
- the crash data through the in dot website and
- All of the answers are still the same about that. With regards to your comment about the data being
- published in the past, as I mentioned last year, that data publishing was a mistake and it was not legally
- permitted. And when it was realized that that was not permitted, that data was taken down off the website.
- Okay, I appreciate that. I'd like to follow up with someone
- possibly in a conversation in regards to this, because I think what you're talking about is a restriction
- of a contract with a private provider. You referenced NDOT, but prior, yeah, without getting into too
- many details, I think there's some nuance here and MPOs can access the data. It's possible that the state has
- moved this process to a private contractor. But that doesn't obviate the fact that Indiana code declares
- it is public record and not classified. We recommend you reach out to in dot about that by submitting
- a comment through in dot for you. I will. Sorry to interrupt. I will do that. But I need some
- more information from perhaps engineering or the city in order to formulate that that request.
- because it doesn't, and first thing I'd like to see is a copy of the contract that has this non-disclosure
- language in it. Thank you, that's all I really have at this time. Thanks for your comment, Eric. I guess,
- I'm not sure, MPO staff or engineering or city legal could maybe get in touch with Eric to kind of clarify
- these things
- Online I guess online but off off meeting. Yeah I mean two of us don't don't access don't download the
- data that's actually through the engineering department we can we can research and get an answer back
- to him in terms of an email. Yes. Awesome. Thanks Pat. Yeah. Any other public comment online. I'm not
- seeing hands. It's hard to see on zoom here if there are hands but I don't see any.
- So I wasn't able to expand it but he's all that's there yeah So it does not look like any so I guess
- This is the motion for anonymous or not a total approval All in favor of Moving the old business FY
- 2027 2028 unified planning work program
- Say aye aye Any opposed say nay abstain Seems like we have it. Thank you page 91 to 92 is a proposed
- amendment I
- Indot and Federal Transit Administration requires that transit proposed budgets be placed in the local
- TIP and voted on by the local committees. And so before you today is a request to add a new project
- to the TIP entitled Purchase of Replacement Buses.
- Uh, there, there is a project in the tip currently, but it's specific to electric buses. So this one
- is more general, uh, just for buses in general. And the funding that you see added here is actually
- a flex funding that came from previous NPO years, uh, where the, the annual allocations, the NPO wasn't
- able to be used.
- by the end of the year, and so these amounts, in fiscal year 22 is 69,000, in 23, 3 million, and 24,
- 168,000. Those amounts were flexed to Bloomington Transit. And unlike the MPO, the Transit's able to
- kind of bank that money and use it when they wish. However, they are, I believe, a bit worried.
- Federal Transit Administration is advising everyone to use their funds that they have stored up prior
- to the expiration of the IIJA in September of this year. And so this is a request for your approval to adopt
- project called Purchase Replacement Buses to the Tip so that Bloomington Transit can use the funds that
- were flexed to them in previous three years. And so we're just asking for your recommendation for approval.
- I guess if there's any comments.
- look like it. So I guess we'll seek a motion to approve new business BMC MPO FY 20 26 20 30 tip amendments
- resolution FY 20 26 0 5 Bloomington Transit purchase new buses. All in favor say aye. I said there's
- gonna be hiccups. Do we have a motion to to approve this.
- So moved. I'll second. Thanks Neil and Nate. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any abstentions abstain abstain.
- All opposed say nay. Seems like we have it. Thank you. John you can go to public comment now.
- Sure. Yes. So now we're at the moment for public comment on matters not included on the agenda. These
- will be limited to five minutes per speaker. So if anybody has any public comments I'd like to make.
- Now's your time. Not seeing anybody. I have a public comment. This is as my role as a citizen not as
- a city of Bloomington staff member and I'm
- here as a university elementary school parent. There's been a lot of discussion about potentially adding
- a crosswalk for that school. It is within it's between the schools in the city, the church parking lot
- is in the county. And I just wanted to bring it up to this group. If anyone is interested in working
- on this project, I am organizing parents to get together. And I'd love to just wanted to bring that
- discussion. Thanks. Awesome. Thanks Megan. Any other public comments. I guess we move on. Go for it.
- So communications from committee members on matters not included on the agenda. If anybody has any thing
- they want to bring up. I do have
- One thing here. Oh, actually, sorry. Those are for a different committee. I'm OK. Cool. Or topics for
- future agendas, I guess, as well.
- Seems like none. So we'll move on to our upcoming meetings. We have a policy committee meeting on Friday,
- February 27th. That's at 10 30. It's a hybrid meeting. The next technical advisory committee will be
- Wednesday, March 25th at 10. I'm assuming these are going to be back in this this room kind of for for
- the near future. And then we also have the citizens advisory committee meeting that same day, March
- 25th at 5 30 p.m. And I believe with that.
- Do we need a motion to adjourn or do we just we just adjourn? Okay. Well, yeah, thanks for being here
- today Thanks for sticking with me as we kind of had some little Roadblocks along the way, but uh, yeah,
- we'll adjourn till next meeting. So, thank you