Uh, thanks everybody for being here for the, uh, Bloomington, uh, Monroe County, uh, Metropolitan Planning
Organization, Technical Advisory Committee meeting for today, October 21st. Um, yeah, we have quorum.
Uh, I guess we'll start with just, um, uh, introductions, um, and maybe start down at the left Neil,
if you're cool. Uh, Neil copper proxy for the Bloomington city engineer. Uh, Jackie Scanlon proxy planning
and transportation.
Tim Street proxy Bloomington Parks and Rec John Baton GIS coordinator Monroe County Kelly Whitmer Monroe
County Parks and Recreation Cheryl bill and city deputy controller I am unable to hear
Can you hear us now? Can you hear us now? Yes, thank you, thank you. Thanks for letting us know about
that, Amy. We'll start over at the introductions as well. And just a reminder for folks online for the
voting process to make sure to have your cameras on when we get to the voting. And I do like the surround
sound element that we have going on. A soothing voice here. So yeah, we'll start over at the left again
with Neil.
Neil copper proxy for the Bloomington City engineer Jackie Scanlon proxy planning and transportation
Tim Street proxy Bloomington Parks and Rec John Bates in GIS coordinator Monroe County Kelly Whitmer
Monroe County Parks and Recreation Cheryl Gilliland deputy controller city controllers office proxy
for Jeff McKim controllers city of Bloomington
And then you have folks online if you want to introduce yourselves I Think you're muted Amy John Kennedy
Citizens Advisory Committee ex officio
Nick Standifer, general manager for Bloomington Transit. Great, I think that's everybody. With that,
I guess we will move on to a approval of the agenda for October 21st, 2026. If I could get a motion
to approve. Move approval. Thanks, Neal. And a second? Second. Thanks, Jackie. All in favor, say aye. Aye.
Any opposed any opposed nay Or abstentions Okay, seems like that passed We'll move on to the approval
of the minutes from August 26 2026. Could I get a motion to approve? So moved Thank You Neil and a second
Second Thanks, Jackie all in favor say aye aye
Any opposed nay? Or abstentions? Okay, on to communications from Chair and Vice Chair. I don't have a lot.
The MPO has been working diligently, and I know Pat will explain this a little bit later, with
the transportation improvement plan. So we had a bit of a hiatus from these meetings, but we're back
now in Monroe County. We're in the city of Bloomington as well. We're very busy right now with the election
season kicking off, so we have a few more weeks with that. We've had great turnout so far for early
voting. Any communications from other officers or committees? I'm assuming not.
So I think Pat, if you're ready, we'll move on to you for reports from MPO staff. Okay, sorry, just
a second here. First thing we've got from the reports from the MPO staff is our City of Bloomington
press release, October 14th. This is on the one-way traffic pattern, westbound only for West Second
Street beginning October 1st.
anticipated to extend until November 25th. The reason for this is full depth asphalt for Second Street
corridor which is currently under construction. Again this is temporary. It will return to a two way
traffic flow after that. Neil do you want to say anything. No just that's you know obviously one of
our federally funded projects under construction now.
There's going to be a number of changes and construction impacts as it continues. Second thing we've
got is the October 8th 2026 letter from MNDOT for the Dillman road bridge number 83 replacement project.
It more or less states that the structure is historically significant should be placed into a and adopt
a bridge program.
Uh, nothing more than that. It shouldn't have any impact whatsoever on the project project to proceed
as normal. Third thing we have is an October 8th, 2016 letter from I'm sorry, 2026 letter from department
of natural resources for the pedestrian bridge over the state with 45, 46 corridor. Again, they note
that it is historical. Um, it should be.
placed into the adopt a bridge program, though I'm not sure how you can adopt a bridge from that. Given
that span length and given that condition and everything else in Indiana, but nonetheless, that's their
letter. Last thing we've got here is a recent updates to the MPOs transportation improvement program,
the locations of which can be viewed on a virtual map, project locations. We also have that
Back in the back of the room here with the board. For those of you that don't want to see it don't want
to see it electronically. You can see it in actual paper. That's all I've got. Can we comment on it.
Oh absolutely. On item to bridge 83 is going to be located at the limestone Greenway Park. Oh it's going
to be stored there.
Hopefully we will be able to use it on a trail. If not it'll be a great art piece. I don't know. So
Lisa Ridge knows all about that. Thank you. We weren't aware of that. Thank you. That's excellent. It
has a home not an orphan.
Cool. Thanks Kelly. Thanks Pat. I guess that's we don't have any old business to discuss but we do have
some some new business. A new business we've got here is the calendar year 2027 MPO committee meeting
schedule. I believe we already have one conflict in that schedule but that's there for your inclusion.
Usually we try and provide you with this schedule in December and said we're doing it early.
Just to make sure that we don't have any other additional conflicts questions I'll be happy to answer
any questions on any of that. Since you mentioned a conflict Pat could you explain that one or elaborate
on it. I don't. I can't. I'd have to go. Can you call up the link to the calendar. I'm sorry.
Oh, it is the calendar. I think she fixed it. Oh, she fixed it. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because
I can't, I can't, I can't see any conflict. There was a conflict with a holiday in there.
Okay, usually we have these meetings on the fourth Wednesday of the month for the TSE and the CSE and
we always have the policy committee on the fourth Friday of the month. That's the easiest way to keep
track of all of it. So if there's any conflict that comes up, presents itself, please let us know. Okay,
the next thing we have here under new business is the draft transportation improvement program for fiscal year 28.
2028-2032 with the vote anticipated to take place on December 2nd. What I'd like to add to this is that
we initiated a press release which was published later in the Herald Times and the Indiana Daily Student.
Press release, I believe it was on October 2nd. We held a public information meeting open house,
On October 12th, we had one attendee, a single, one is an UNO attendee who provided us with substantial
number of comments we received a couple of days ago in writing. There are several ways that you can
comment here. You can comment to us in an email form. You can comment to us in a paper form where you
can attend these meetings and comment there.
Everybody has a comment form in old-fashioned paper on the desk there in front of you. That's to ensure
that we get the comments. So far, we've received only one substantial comment. We received another comment
on a wording of a sentence, which we received yesterday. That's it up to this point in time. Now, the
Transportation Improvement Program has substantial investment.
If you look at it over the several years, our allocation is somewhere around $4.5 million. It's decreased
over previous years in the sense that we're allocated our funding based on per capita population.
In 2020, when the census came in, students went home for COVID-19. On March 15th, census came in on
April 1st, and as a result, we lost
somewhere around 46,000 students who normally would have been counted under the census. As a result
of that, in relation to the other communities in Indiana, outside of Purdue, they all increased
in population, so therefore their per capita allocations increased and ours have decreased.
It doesn't reflect reality, but that's the way the situation is right now. We've got a substantial number
of Indiana Department of Transportation projects. We met with the INDOT State Transportation Improvement
Program folks two weeks ago, went through their list item by item, all of the projects that are identified
in the draft tip that are online right now.
All of those projects are all valid projects. They're all valid in terms of the timeline. What is subject
to change is the amount of funding program for each individual project. NDOT is struggling to achieve
fiscal constraint. They anticipate they will have a fiscally constrained list to us in November, early
November to mid-November.
but our list is fiscally constrained and will not change unless one of the LPAs wants to make their
change in the project. I'm trying to think of anything else here. I can't think of anything else unless
somebody has any questions. Oh, the votes on this. We're not voting today on this. The Transportation
Improvement Program draft was submitted to the Indiana Department of Transportation.
for their review and also that's highway and the transit side of Indiana Department of Transportation
submitted for their review, also submitted to the Federal Highway Administration and submitted to the
Federal Transit Administration. Those were all transmitted to them on October 2nd. Normally it's a 30-day
comment period for them.
It may be a 45 day comment period because they have major reduction in staff. They underwent a year
and a half ago and it well they only have one person review 14 MPOs. So there's the difficulty right
there. The public comment period began earlier this month. It extends until Sunday November 1st.
And I had initially told somebody five o'clock on Sunday. Actually, it's midnight on Sunday since it's
not a working day. We encourage everybody to submit their comments to us either electronically or in
paper form. We do need, however, your name, hopefully an email contact and hopefully a telephone number
so that way we can validate the comments as being a resident of this area.
Questions anybody on any of the projects or any of the funding that we have I I guess I have one Pat
and you kind of Spoke about this already was just kind of the public input You said that there was one
member of the public who came for the first thing for the open house in terms of like just past tips and
What was like, is this a lower turnout or is this kind of on average? I'm not assuming that this is
going to be having tons of folks filling council chambers. And normally we have a higher turnout than
that, usually less than 10. I'll jump to the chase. Yeah, it's usually less than 10. One was
very disappointing. Perhaps it was because it was on a Monday night.
Usually we have them on a Wednesday night. We couldn't get a room for the Wednesday night though. Wednesday
night is when the council usually typically meets and we draw in spillover from the council either before
the meeting or after the meetings. In this case, we didn't have any spillover. There was a meeting.
I think it was planned commission meeting. It was Monday night and they all left early. So yeah, that's
why we're out there trolling for comments.
I saw that it was posted you know in the Herald Times and IDS and then also on Facebook I wonder if
it would make sense for this to get posted on reddit as well. I know the city has a fairly active reddit
posting and there's a vibrant maybe that's not the best word. There's a community I'll say on reddit
that is that does comment. So it could be a way to drive maybe some more participation. But again anything
online it's there's good comments and bad comments.
obviously, or substantive comments and ones that are maybe a little bit less so. But yeah, I think getting
that public input is going to be beneficial since this is such a impactful program and framework. Yeah,
substantial impact. Yeah. Yeah, OK, we'll do that. We'll do Reddit. That's one of the things that's
never been suggested to us before, so we'll make sure that we do that. OK. Thanks.
The other thing I want to make sure too, someone made a comment. Yeah, one of our lone commenter observed
that the announcement of the College and Walnut Study release was in the Herald Times, I think it was
on October 12th. And he noted that it was interesting that there was a delay in that release.
Actually the release took place on October 2nd from the city city of Bloomington's media public media
release. Why the Indiana Daily student in the Herald Times took another 10 days to cover that.
I don't know. I can't explain anything like that. So you know with the Herald Times all I can think
is the you know outsourcing of jobs from Bloomington to India and things like that. B Square Bulletin
is always good as well obviously with data but yeah.
I think you guys are doing great and then it says it's a it's a Big document, but yeah, there's lots
of stuff that is gonna be impactful for our community So yeah, thanks for all the work you guys did
putting into that and thank you for your Catching all the yeah all the errors that we had in there Scrivener
errors. Yeah. Thank you. No problem I guess we're moving on to public comment if there is any of any
Nobody will we do have many members of the public here, but they're all part of the of the attack Is
there anybody online who would like to have a public comment? I Am not seeing anybody I guess this would
move on to communications from any committee members anybody here have anything they want to talk about
One Pat does yeah
I want to recognize Kelly for Kelly's last meeting today and thank her for all the services she's given
to us over the years. Wish you well. So I can always remember.
Thanks Pat, thanks Kelly. Onto topics, topic suggestions for future agendas. I've got one. And I said
I was gonna keep it easy, but sometimes I'm not. And I've communicated a little bit with you guys about
this, but I was wondering if this could be a good topic to include, would be something on policies related
to, just because we've, I've sent some news articles out, but policies or protocols related to e-bikes
and scooters.
and their usage across kind of Monroe County and Bloomington, just because I've noticed as a pedestrian
and also just people moving around town, a number of folks kind of flying on those things. And I will
say that 13-year-old John Baten would have been so stoked on getting a crazy thing, and I would have
been doing totally reckless stuff with it, because that's who I am and what I was.
But I think when we have a new technology introduced and we haven't really understood it and the impacts
it can have, it can have big consequences, right? And I've seen individuals that appear to me to be
under the age of 16 riding fairly recklessly on these scooters. I saw one individual
turning left from 3rd Street onto College Mall Road without a helmet on an e-bike or a scooter. It's
sort of been a couple of months ago. I've also seen folks, the B line's obviously a big kind of corridor,
but I've seen folks on other trails as well kind of doing burnouts and riding across parks and stuff
like that. And granted, this is more kind of confined to the city of Bloomington because that's where
I live and that's where I'm experiencing this. But one of the news articles I shared recently
was related to a, I think it was like a three-year-old who was hit by an e-bike rider in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
And that e-bike rider was probably 14 or something, but the three-year-old got sent to the hospital,
they were at a park, and this kid just kind of flew across. So I think it would behoove us as a community
to really kind of start to think about how these devices could be
Understood maybe the consequences of them more or at least managed and I know it's really difficult
for us to do this as a community But yeah, I just thought it could be an interesting topic It's good
that I'm here I can actually comment on that we have been working on that with parks and recreation
because we've been receiving a lot of those complaints on the receiving end and
And we've been working with Julius and the Office of the Mayor on creating a new local ordinance to
go to City Council to talk about some new categories of devices because of all of the basically unregulated
devices that have come out that don't meet the category one, two, or three definitions. We've been looking
at a lot of other things. Some other communities in Indiana have already done new regulations.
Carmel did. We've been looking at their ordinance they passed.
The state of Illinois just passed new regulations. The state of New Jersey just passed new very restrictive
regulations. So we've been looking at all of that. And there's kind of a consensus towards how these
are being categorized as micro-mobility devices and then these more substantial 750 watt, more throttle-only
e-motos is what they're tending to be called. And so while I hope
and I think we need ultimately state level legislation on it. There is actually some draft ordinance
going to the Transportation Commission on Monday for discussion for the city of Bloomington. So there
is some action there and would welcome other eyes on it and public comment because it's a draft ordinance
and we're looking for feedback on it through Transportation Commission. Awesome, thanks, Tim. Well,
I have that too.
The 26th at 5.30 p.m. is that discussion, so I would encourage you to attend. Yeah, I'll try to. Thanks,
guys. I probably should have shared this during the communications from committee members, but I would
like to just express concern about the loss of public transportation for the urbanized area of Ellitsville
as of January 1st.
It's going to impact a lot of people who rely on it for dialysis appointments, grocery store work, different
things like that. I just wasn't sure how aware the committee was of those changes that are pending.
That's my fault. I should have mentioned that.
Yeah thanks for thanks for sharing Amy. I guess with that we'll move on to upcoming meetings. Meetings
our next meeting will be December 2nd on a Wednesday. We will have before you a final transportation
improvement program recommended for adoption by the policy committee policy committee will meet on December 4th.
for adoption of the transportation improvement program. So please send us your comments. Awesome,
thanks Pat. Yeah, with that we are adjourned. Thanks so much for everybody for showing up. Thank you
Ryan for helping out here as well. And yeah, I hope to see you guys on December 2nd. I'll say go Brewers
as well, thanks.