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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-07-19-AHTC-minMeeting Minutes July 19th Meeting started -at 9.05 Members not present:Joe Pato,Bridger McGaw and Varda Deepika:Send Meeting Minutes for this and previous meeting to get approved in our next meeting.Question on should we send Select Board a Courtesy Invite,will be sending to all the demographic groups in town such as CAAL,IAL etc.Will coordinate with Susan to do a dry run. Most likely in the evening. Susan:Sold many more passes in teh summer this year than in the past.However,not all have been mailed out.The department is getting two volunteers to help with the process,just waiting on their CORIs. Sally:Looking over Bridgers’s outline for the report,she will send her edits to the outline.She will send her spreadsheet of the other transit systems,eventhough its not complete according to her.She is verifying the numbers and finding some discrepancies.Urged by Deepika to share even the draft spreadsheet,just identify those numbers she is not very confident about. Sharon:Still recovering and is on medical leave.Will be back in early august.Will attend the July 26th online forum.Was attending today’s meeting just so that she did not fall too much behind on the materials. Howard:read the on demand emails from Susan twice,just about through the video,Really informative.Also sent a heads up to his groups of senior residents such as -Lexington at Home membership,copied the people at Brookhaven,as well as the Council of Aging.Will be following up with all these groups in a day or two.When asked about his opinion on teh on demand transit solutions from vendors:Based on what he has read -it's doable if the town has the political will to do so. Susan and Howard to connect on the on demand service piece,including costs.Susan has costs data and hopefully the recommendation for any on demand service to the Select Board will have costs information attached,to allow them to make an informed decision. Susan:This summer we are seeing an increase in ridership even though in the summer it usually drops.We are getting usually 184 riders in one day on all three buses. Carolyn:Bridger and she talked about the funding piece.Getting out the details from the budget and will start adding to the report in the next couple of days.Just ticking off some of the items. Did look into the school budget and get some actual details on the actual contract.Looked at the school bus and SPED transportation funding. Deepika -The school bus fees last increased in 2019,for about 30 dollars.Therefore if one of the recommendations are to look at a possible increase then perhaps model some of the different amounts of increases and resultant revenues.Keeping in mind that at some point an increase in fees beyond a certain point will make ridership fall off as it becomes too expensive for families to pay. Carolyn:increase in fees,look at bus routes efficiency,someone or a consultant that specializes routing to look for efficiencies.In some neighborhoods due to the grandfathering required by the redistricting 2-3 different school buses were coming to pick elementary school children up.Is that still teh case or can there be reduction of traffic.Also keep in mind that there are laws that 2 miles and beyond children have to be picked up by school bus for free. Sally:govt funding,looking at public grants Carolyn:was looking at the overall budget not at specific grants Susan:talking with planning about this,we came to the TDM fund as opposed to the TDO fund. So that we can reserve more funding for non alewife funding.Also hope to encourage the walking and biking to school practices as advocated by Safe Routes to School. Deepika:If the recommendation is to promote Safe Routes to School then the School Committee will be given that recommendation along with all the other recommendations which are within its purview and will then think about how to implement them.At that point Susan B could give more information and encourage certain policies or practices. Susan:One challenging thing,over the past 5 years,the 6 interlinked routes which were loops were transformed into 3 long routes,thus we had to scale back the mileage we had to cover.We were working on the routes before covid,resumed in 2021.A lot of the issues with the 6 routes were that they couldn't operate on schedule.The school pickup and drop off times would create traffic congestion and teh buses would get late.As a result sometimes it would take many trips before they would be back on time. Susan:We didn't decrease three buses;instead of 3 mini routes,they made just one big route. This reduced riders needing to transfer between routes.Everytime a new development or area of service was added the Lexpress had to go to that one too.This stretched the service without adding any additional buses or overall time for service.So the time the vendor had to scale back because of all the areas the service was stretched too.However,when the community center opened up the timing was changed.The on time arrival was getting worse and worse because there were speed bumps,low speed zones etc which increased time taken to service the Community Center..So getting back on time was hard.During school pickup and drop offs one route took 1 hour 20 minutes instead of 1 hour. When Lexpress started it never went near to the Belmont border to service avalon.So when new service stops were added such as community centers,it slowed the service down. Carolyn:actual data with the contracts,looking at the budget 2015 contract,next contract huge jump in price, Susan:Earlier we had 6 mini routes,we decreased to 3 routes.No change in the 6 half hour routes just conversion to 3 one hour routes.2015 to 2017 we acquired new vehicles so there was an increase in price of teh contract eventhough service routes did not get added.More people had to transfer before getting to their destination. Susan and Carolyn to talk offline to understand contracts and pricing as needed. Sharon:Any questions or notices on the buses themselves about the outreach? Susan:sent an electronic newsletter and do a lot more outreach to do Deepika:We need to get to the September 13th 6.30 pm forum,save the date and go to the website.Discussion on what space to reserve.The Cary Hall will be the space for the online in person Forum. To dos: Susan and Deepika meet and figure out forum logistics Sally to send spreadsheet Sandwich board on Depot Square this Friday onwards permission Carolyn -inform them Susan:Is going to book Cary Mem Hall for second forum Deepika:updates on town webpage for AHTC and send out invites to SB and other groups Send slides and survey questions draft to everyone. Susan and Howard to connect on demand pricing Adjourn at 10.05:Primary Mover Carolyn and Howard Seconded the motion.Passed unanimously. Chat Susan Barrett,Lexington to Everyone (Jul 19,2023,9:13 AM) https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd This is the link to the National Transit Database. However,Sally's work is on narrowing down that massive database and focusing on communities our size.