HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-05-17-AHTC-min AD HOC TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
MEETING MINUTES
May i th 2023
Meetinq Minutes May 17th AHTC -
Some of the notes are after the fact thus may not be word for word accurate, but the gist is
captured
Attendees: Deepika Sawhney, Bridger McGaw,Varda Haimo, Sally Castleman, Howard Cloth,
Carolyn Kosnoff, Susan Barrett and Joe Pato
Meeting began at 9.05. All members were present though Sally joined us closer to 9.15.
Bridger approved the motion to approve the minutes, Howard seconded and it passed
unanimously.
Howard is meeting with a senior citizen group and will record their feedback and report back to
the committee as to their issues encountered.
Varda spoke with Susan Barrett last week, and talked about bus routes etc. Varda suggested
we make connections with business folks in Burlington to seek support for Lexpress which is a
Lexington town service. Has anyone ever done this before was her question.
Susan Barret - The town ever sought sponsorship for any type of town service? The economic
services department head has reached out to Lexington businesses for sponsorships. However,
it isn't clear with what success.
Varda clarified that the enquiry would be for Burlington businesses.
Carolyn Kosnoff- even if the idea is to ask the vendors on an enquiry basis, with no defined talk
it over with the Town manager so that we can make sure
The bike share at Takeda joined our program
Howard - spoke to Mile Moran(sp?) - to create sometime of a rapid bus line from longwood to
kendal they were looking for local collaboration, so we could look at that model and do it too
Bridger - Should we develop a recommendation as to how we do it as opposed to actually doing
it. People sponsor buses all the time. They're are all kinds of ways to sell ads on buses for
municipalities. Like magnets etc . Watertown experience -was a collaboration. Sold
sponsorships to lower the costs of running the buses. How big is the PEI (?) The idea is to
figure out how many businesses are there and so look at the entire possible revenue of the
service. As opposed to marketing the service to the businesses today, asking them to write a
check to run it. Or should we instead create a recommendation - suggest a plan to be made.
Policy recommendation as opposed to the action.
Varda - good ideas don't go anywhere without somebody doing anything about it. Concept of
champion needed.
Bridger - The idea is to gather trial insights from people who could potentially be collaborators.
Is this something that makes sense to you?Ask companies such as Cafe Nero or Lahey Clinic
Deepika - Survey working with Nishanth, to be distributed on Car Free Day at LHS and through
the parents network
Bridger - Have we not done any surveys since 2011 on this segment of population?
Susan had advocated to get a survey out - coming out of covid. In an effort to rebuild ridership
covid -we have the base of questions, in general time to do a more thoughtful approach.
Bridger - this information may help. We need the info in 2023 to get the budget in 2024
Deepika - go with the student survey (from LHS and Middle school) Do a quick and dirty effort
which gets us some data? It's hard to ask the schools to send out a community wide survey
when we are asking the community to fill out so many different forms anyway. We can get some
info this way.
Sally - Shefali the previous student rep did write a survey earlier as to what would make you use
the (express.
Deepika - Sally do you have that info and could you share it with us?
Susan - car free campus day, that will take more than (express to do so. Work with Nishi to
figure it out . Is it just about (express
Pato - Select board meeting on June 5th. At that time SB will discuss TAC recommendations
further.
Sharon -Was looking into group homes and how close they are to the bus routes. However the
town could not share the data, even of how many group homes are there and where they exist.
Deepika -we wanted to create a heatmap which areas in town house the most low income
residents and how close are they to mass transport i.e. Lexpress. Also whether they use it. The
town Assessors have a map that shows every neighborhood by real estate price so one can
extrapolate economic level of sub communities
Varda -wouldn't capture if there were rentals amongst these.
Susan -We have the data, through a software called REMIX from MBTA where we map out the
low income properties. Thus get a heatmap of the economically vulnerable. She knows where a
few of the group homes are (3).
Deepika - can we ask these group homes some of the questions, send them a survey through
Susan. So that we can extrapolate from that data as to how much they use or dont use
Lexpress?
Sally - The questions we are asking why do we need to know where they are located
Deepika explained because then we know if they are being served adequately or not, especially
the last mile mile problem.
Sharon will send survey questions for the group homes to Susan.
Susan - presents her goals and documents at a high level.
Deepika - suggestion to all to read the document offline and ask her clarifying questions via
email, then we can have a discussion
Varda - need to have an chance to go through it more carefully
Howard -would like a micro transit focus, whether it makes sense to put together something
ourselves would a Via pilot would work.
Susan - have been communicating with micro transit vendors since 2019. They are a private
business, and want to make money. They have three offerings from just use of the technology
or they become the turnkey provider. Newton was an early adopter and hence was given a very
discounted price. Nobody can get in at that price, now. The price is a minimum of 4 vehicles for
$1 M. Newton is currently struggling to understand how to support the VIA service. Salem (?)
and Newton have found that the number one destination is the high school. The seniors were
left for a long time waiting for a ride because it is taken up with ferrying students.
The services were filled with youth. Therefore the senior citizens were left with no services.
Deepika (thought) is there a way to only open up Via like micro transit to seniors and mobility
impaired? Can we meet with a couple of vendors and see for ourselves what their offerings are
and whether it makes sense?
Susan -to share the vendor presentations for micro transit. She will also share her document
Bridger -we aren't trying to solve the TDM problem. We are only trying to solve the Lexpress
problem. Ideally Lexington should not get into the TDM issues or regional issues or even bus
ownership. Otherwise the Town will end up owning a quarter million dollar bus for 10 years. We
shouldn't be in the bus operation business. Whether Lexington should own and operate its own
bus service is also out of scope for the committee (Not sure what was said?)
Should Lexington contract its own transit. It's not the full charge of the committee.
Micro transit is a method of delivering service to people There are various actual companies,
let's look into it.
Deepika -why look at via because if we mothball lexpress then how will these people be served.
We have to at least mention their options.
Bridger - look to the charge of the committee as we work.
Sally -we may wait a little while to talk to via and we know that buses are the most efficient way
to take people around. Microtransit only serves very few people per hour. It may be more
worthwhile if it's at least 3 per hour.
Kosnoff-would be interested in hearing the presentation from via, we need to have some other
option for our residents who need the services.
Susan B - there are a variety of vendors who provide these kinds of services. Spent the time
learning how Newton and Salem did, they gave presentations. Meeting with a Newton
transportation representative on Friday. Send those recordings to the AHTC.
Bridger - To Carolyn, Varda and I will reach out to budget analysis on the school bus.
recognizing that we aren't a regional coordinated entity for transportation.
Deepika will look for the school bus budget info and send.
Varda - notifying the town manager - to possibly reach out about sponsors, reach out business
in other towns. If they have any appetite for marketing. Would they be willing to contribute a
service, where the routes are currently serving. We start with who is already being served. A
little bit of marketing help can be the new incentive for these businesses.
Sally -we can also say Lexpress is on the chopping block and so stand to lose the services.
Meeting ended-adjourned around 10.05.
Zoom Chat Text:
Varda, I spoke with the Burlington TAC members, and they suggested since their group folded
you first just start with Melisa Tintocolis.
Sally7 Castleman is calling my phone
Car Free Campus Day is a brand new initiative that was only announced a few months ago, so
we scrambled to create an event and came up with a simple tabling for 5/23 at lunch time. We
will start there and see how we can enhance this in future years.
Car Free Campus is an initiative of MassDOT Safe Routes to School
We have all that data available in REMIX
REMIX is our transit planning software
I can show this to all of you at a future meeting if you like. We also know were some of the
group homes are, just from communication with riders from those.
Car Free Campus Day is a brand new initiative that only was announced a few months ago, so
we scrambled to create an event and came up with a simple tabling for 5/23 at lunch time. We
will start there and see how we can enhance this in future years.
Car Free Campus is an initiative of MassDOT Safe Routes to School. We have all that data
available in REMIX. REMIX is our transit planning software. I can show this to all of you at a
future meeting if you like. We also know where some of the group homes are, just from
communication with riders from those. Where is the briefing VIA delivered to Lexington and the
other Town Managers already?
During TriTown Transit, they came in twice to meet with the people working on that which
included the town managers of Lexington, Bedford, and Burlington. Additionally, as part of this,
some of us went out and visited Harvard which was using VIA tech on their own vehicles as an
invitation of VIA One of my recommendations is that we have our TMA operate our service. The
reason the MBTA had suburban communities start their own services is because they do not do
coverage services, they only do ridership services and they knew in these areas you want a
coverage service. 128 Business Council is a non profit TMA
Bridger McGaw to Everyone (May 17, 2023, 9:54 AM)
a Non-for profit entity that HIRES A BUS COMPANY TO RUN BUSES