2018-12-10-TAC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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There are remaining funds in the grant for the transit study, and the Town Managers and staff have suggested a professional peer review of the study. The Town received about$12,000 for the TNC (transportation network company)fee.This will be distributed each year for a period of 10 years. Fee will vary based on how many people use TNCs (Uber/Lyft) as this is a fee assessed to each ride for the town in which the ride originates.The Town of Lexington will use these funds either towards the transit study and its implementation or towards active transportation. Funds need to be used to offset negative impacts of TNCs, such as for Complete Streets projects, however$12K is not enough to make a huge impact with that. A report is due to the state at the end of each calendar year on how the funds were used or intended to be used. The MBTA grant that we currently use for Lexpress is granted only for fixed routes--at least up until now. Ms Arnold suggested that we need to pursue that question since the needs and technology have changed, and especially if a newer system still served everyone and were still to feed the 2 MBTA routes. In Fiscal Year`18 we received $56,000,will get$52,000 in `19. The grant for the consultant was to see if there might be a better use of the money we have,to serve more satisfactorily. What do citizens ultimately want? Weekends, evenings, more frequency, more homes serviced, and many more suggestions. If Lexington were to run a pilot, what might it look like?The consultants suggested that if we pilot a micro-transit type system, it would need to be within a defined, limited geographic area for a given period of time—then evaluate. However, she noted that we would need money additional to our budget in order to do that. (The Human Services Department houses the Transportation budget.) The consultants are working on a final report to the 3 towns. Ms Castleman asked if we could ask the consultant to please include what they would recommend for Lexington alone,given all the data they have and all the input they've gotten, along of course with knowing the money we have. Given all that,what would be their recommendation for what we might do on our own? Ms Castleman thought It would be really useful information for us to use in our deliberations as we move forward. The meeting was adjourned at 8:55. Respectfully submitted, Sally Castleman