[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] So, thank you all for coming out tonight. We're talking about our updated national mobility plan.
[0:07] Free's in Nichols is the consultant for the city on this.
[0:11] And without further ado, I'm going to turn over to Eddie Aust to introduce his team and to get the steady start.
[0:17] Very good. Thank you very much. I'm going to stand up. I've been sitting all day.
[0:21] So, I'm going to stand up and then I'll turn it over to Brian Crook's, Brian is leading the master mobility plan effort.
[0:29] I'm Eddie Haas. I was here in 2017 when we developed the mobility plant update then at the time.
[0:36] We also developed another finance tool called Capital Recovery fee that seems to be a real hit with some folks and others maybe not so.
[0:44] But anyway, the mobility plan is critically important piece of planning.
[0:50] Not only does it contemplate how the city is going to grow long-term and it's rooted in your comprehensive plan or future land use plan.
[0:57] It's important that this mobility plan take a look at how things are going to be over the next 20 years.
[1:04] So we are going through a travel demand modeling process to take a look at year 2045.
[1:09] What are the travel demands going to be?
[1:12] How might that affect the current network as currently planned?
[1:15] And then we'll make some adjustments from there.
[1:18] We are working with a steering committee.
[1:20] I see some committee members here tonight.
[1:21] Thank you for coming.
[1:23] We will be working with a steering committee.
[1:25] we will be providing inputs, things that we have heard from this public meeting, so that they
[1:31] understand the kinds of things that we're hearing, but we'll meet with them three or four
[1:36] times throughout the process and we come up with draft recommendations before we roll the
[1:41] thing out for another town hall there will be another town hall later the summer early fall
[1:47] when we have the draft plan. So we are working with this here committee. The third thing is when
[1:54] You signed in, there was a little QR code, hopefully you had a chance to take a look at that.
[1:58] That's a little link to a survey that we have, hopefully it won't take 10 or 15 minutes.
[2:03] Just an attitude and a survey about traffic and transportation.
[2:07] What are some things that can be done better by the Transportation Network?
[2:12] So if you get a chance, please take that that helps us in our planning process.
[2:17] One last thing, so I mentioned the capital recovery fee, recommendations that are developed
[2:23] as part of this mobility plan will also fuel the update to the cap recovery program list.
[2:31] So by law, those two have to be synced together.
[2:34] So there's kind of two efforts going on there.
[2:35] There's a mandated update on the cap recovery program.
[2:38] So this will help inform that.
[2:40] So we got two things really going on tonight.
[2:42] So we've got about 20 minute overview of the works that we're doing.
[2:47] Then we'll take a few minutes of general questions.
[2:50] The idea is to get to these breakout tables all the maps are the same on either side, but Brian will be on one side
[2:56] I'll be on the other
[2:57] So then that way if there's any, you know, direct questions you might have we can try to answer those you can point to things on the map
[3:03] But if you have some big ideas we'd love to hear those also
[3:06] Okay, so without further ado, I'll turn it over to Brian Kricks. You want to stand up or sit down?
[3:12] Stand up, stand up for a while. Thank you very much, Eddie. So thank you all for coming out tonight
[3:17] We do appreciate it. Public involvement is really, really important component of the planning process.
[3:23] And we value your input. And that's why we're here today.
[3:28] So introductions, again, this is Eddie, Eddie Haas, Brian Crooks, and we're working with
[3:34] Christopher Syms with the City of League City to develop a new
[3:47] So before we get in to talk about the specifics of the Therapher plan, we want to kind of give a brief overview of what Therapher planning is.
[3:55] And in its asset, it's a framework that access a guide to develop the transportation network to accommodate future demand.
[4:08] Okay, so what are the benefits?
[4:09] It access a guide for key decisions.
[4:12] And again, we talked about a framework for future mobility.
[4:15] It helps us preserve right of way, which is very important.
[4:17] We want to make sure that we have enough right of way to build roadways if we need it.
[4:21] We also don't want to build too much, but make sure we have the right size to manage the
[4:25] development.
[4:26] It is a living document, it's a policy document that can be used as reference.
[4:32] How do we develop a 34 plan?
[4:33] Well, as we see, and we talked about stakeholder public involvement is key.
[4:38] We review existing plans and projects.
[4:40] We'll conduct a safety analysis by looking at crash data, which we'll show you shortly.
[4:45] We have a vision statement, goals, and objectives that we create or follow.
[4:48] We look at travel patterns and demographics to see where the growth is, and how people are using the network.
[4:54] We look at existing issues and needs, and we have those maps out here today for you to look at.
[4:58] And then we also look at thoroughfare design standards.
[5:00] We want to make sure that our design standards and league cities are consistent across the network,
[5:07] and also they provide a good connectivity with adjacent cities.
[5:12] And from that, oops, excuse me, and from that, we get a plan report, we get updated roadway functional classes,
[5:19] we get a new therapy plan map, and we get an implementation and action plan to take those ideas
[5:24] and put them into actual plans, policies, and programs that will help us develop the roadway network.
[5:30] So how do I use it again?
[5:32] We use it as a guide, we use it as a reference, we use it as a mechanism to ensure appropriate roadway cross sections.
[5:39] We use this as a tool to coordinate planned development.
[5:42] One of the best things we see with Thurford plans are the outputs is just getting local and regional agencies to coordinate and school districts and other key stakeholders to understand each other's needs and use that cooperation coordination to develop plans that actually work for communities.
[5:59] And we also use it for resource for local data requests.
[6:02] we can use the crash data or some of the travel or demographic data as the baseline for future studies as well.
[6:09] So keys for a success for a third of our plan.
[6:12] One is we want effective data collection analysis. We want to make sure we're using the latest data, the right data for us to make the right decisions.
[6:19] We want to make sure that we have continuous stakeholder involvement like talking with you folks today.
[6:24] We want to make sure we have flexible recommendations and action plan that's
[6:28] pragmatic and reasonable, and then we want to make sure that the plan just doesn't
[6:32] sit on a shelf that we're constantly looking at it, refreshing it, as we move forward,
[6:36] as new development things, new development plots come forward.
[6:39] If we need to make changes, or revisit decisions, we can continue to do that.
[6:46] When we do look at three different plans, they don't occur in a vacuum.
[6:49] There are all sorts of other external influences outside the community that impacted, and
[6:55] we're briefly to go over some trends that are happening in transportation.
[6:58] One thing is funding.
[6:58] The federal government is offloading a lot of funding responsibilities on the state and local
[7:03] governments, and that puts additional stresses on those funding mechanisms.
[7:08] We're seeing climate change, resilience, and people are more concerned about the impact
[7:13] of transportation on the environment.
[7:15] There's a real movement towards traffic safety and an understanding that we just can't
[7:21] build our way out of congestion.
[7:22] We need to look at other alternatives when we develop our transportation network.
[7:25] There's always been a push towards the bike pen, but now we're seeing things called micro-movility,
[7:31] which are smaller, self-propelled vehicles that can take the place of these regular bike
[7:37] pad. Those are becoming more and more influential. Usually in larger cities, but they are happening
[7:43] in small cities as well, like e-bikes. We are seeing more e-commerce, remote work. We're seeing
[7:55] about talking about flying taxi caps.
[7:58] I think we're a little bit of ways from that,
[8:00] but people are starting to talk about that.
[8:02] We're also seeing a move to reconsider housing choices,
[8:07] just having a larger understanding of the housing types
[8:10] and this missing little housing,
[8:12] that's starting to talk more and more about it.
[8:14] The impacts of COVID-19 is one as well as other ones
[8:17] that we're unsure of.
[8:18] So lots and lots of influences.
[8:20] And again, there's other external forces
[8:21] like changes to decision makers,
[8:23] changes in city regional plans, changes in funding, taxes and regulations that all impact how we build our transportation networks.
[8:34] And so let's get to the third of our plan, update itself.
[8:37] Our project is still working with the city is, again, we do plan input, which is
[8:41] recording with the city to collect data and coordinate between agencies to get stakeholder input and click more data.
[8:47] We're looking at forecast growth and growth and travel behavior.
[8:51] We have some of the maps show the forecast travel volumes and we're working with ACAC to get
[8:57] modulated.
[8:58] Maybe do a model run.
[9:00] Again, we talked about public involvement, plan development.
[9:03] We're doing network review and doing other recommendations.
[9:07] We're going to do that roadway design classification review.
[9:11] The plan map and report is the final product and then just general project management.
[9:17] So, the project process, again, you can see where we're starting right now, we've had the kick off,
[9:23] we're doing a plan-in, but now we're doing the stakeholder meeting.
[9:26] And as we move forward, we'll start doing more demographics network review, plan development.
[9:31] The biggest thing here is the third fair plan sign-off between the capital and recovery
[9:36] fee.
[9:36] So, as soon as we start trying to build determined impact fees for roadways, we have to have
[9:45] If there are a plan pretty much buttoned up, otherwise it's going to cost us a lot of money.
[9:48] So there is this hand off that's going to occur after the plan is finalized and then we'll
[9:52] finish off developing the third of our plan and then in parallel we'll be developing the
[9:57] impact fees.
[10:01] So let's talk about what we've found so far through our initial data analysis.
[10:06] So this is the community overview.
[10:08] This is taken from the US Census and just give you some very basic overview here.
[10:14] We see the population cohorts, which is, I think,
[10:20] which is middle graph for this age profile.
[10:22] We're seeing that basically the population
[10:23] is relatively evenly distributed throughout all the
[10:27] in-home classes, which means there's good representation
[10:30] of all age groups throughout the city, except when
[10:32] they get very old or because the population drops.
[10:35] We see really, really good internet access and access
[10:38] to mobile phones.
[10:40] We have a relatively healthy housing stock.
[10:43] We have good household incomes and we have a lot of white color jobs and good homeownership.
[10:50] So overall basically we have a very healthy community that have a lot of good disposal income.
[10:55] Lots of very well educated population which means they're probably going to be very highly mobile and have lots of traffic activity which is what we're seeing.
[11:05] And then when we look at the transportation profile in and of itself we see here about 40% of people with 40% of employees
[11:13] within the city drive less than half an hour to work.
[11:17] But we do have about 20% of the drive over an hour.
[11:20] We see that most people have automobiles,
[11:23] and they're about 6% that don't have an automobile,
[11:26] but that doesn't mean they don't have access to one,
[11:28] but that is a concern.
[11:30] Again, we see a very young cities.
[11:32] When we look at the population by generation,
[11:33] we have millennials, generations, e-in generation alpha,
[11:36] which are very, very young populations
[11:38] comprise the majority of the population.
[11:40] We have a very, very high, very well-educated population and for commute to work, almost
[11:48] everybody commutes by car, and surprisingly, 9% of people remote work, which is kind of
[11:54] consistent with what we're seeing. That is actually the second biggest commuting, which is
[11:58] the decision not to commute.
[12:03] Again, population here, this is from the ACHAC forecast
[12:06] from 2020 to 2045. They're showing a lot of forecast growth in the southwest corridor,
[12:11] And then along the proposed Grand Parkway to FM646 along the south, with employment growth, it's a little bit more dispersed, but there is a strong growth along the proposed Grand Parkway route FM646 as well.
[12:27] In terms of development, this was taken from our water and wastewater group.
[12:31] They, again, they show a large development that the pink along the Grand Parkway then, again, scattered development, parcel development throughout the city.
[12:43] So, what about the actual roadway network itself? Well, this is the 2018 Theraphyr planet you've seen on your board and this is going to form the foundation for the Theraphyr planet update.
[12:52] We can see that there's a very well-defined system of arterioles and collectors and that there are spread
[12:59] appropriately throughout the city at proper intervals.
[13:04] When we look at projects and planning, we can see all the various projects that are in various stages of planning that
[13:09] doesn't mean that they're all going to get built next week, but they're in very they're doing
[13:13] design or doing environmental clearance. We know with the Grand Parkway right now and Chris I'll let you jump in if you want to.
[13:22] If you really want to, it's planned for construction in 2526 with a completion date in
[13:28] 2029 as of right now.
[13:33] We also did, we will look at traffic counts and we look at screen lines so we can see
[13:38] how people are moving in and out of the city.
[13:40] And so what we're seeing here right now is that most of the traffic is happening, most of the
[13:45] access and egress into and out of the city is happening in the central part followed by the
[13:51] Eastern portion and then the Western portion.
[13:55] Okay, but when we look at traffic volumes itself, we're seeing that again, most of the
[13:59] traffic volume is hopping along 45 again with some major traffic flows hopping along
[14:04] Main Street and SH96.
[14:09] We also notice in 2045 with the addition of the Grand Parkway, we're not really seeing
[14:13] as big an impact as we would expect along the entire roadway network.
[14:17] We are seeing it continuing along FM646, but we're not necessarily seeing it extend to the
[14:24] rest of the network, which is a little surprising, but we're going to revisit that when we do
[14:28] our analysis as we continue on with the study.
[14:32] Commuter flows, this is a little bit confusing, so I'm going to walk you through it.
[14:37] This is from the Census Bureau, and it's looking at basically a commuter flows into and out
[14:43] of the city overall.
[14:44] So what it's showing you here is that most people leave
[14:48] league city to work in other communities.
[14:51] Only a very small percentage of people actually live
[14:53] and work within league city.
[14:55] And for those people that do leave,
[14:57] they are going sort of up 45 towards you.
[15:00] Or to the surrounding communities adjacent to league city.
[15:06] In terms of accidents, this is access from 2013 to 2022 that we took from the text.database.
[15:13] And this is all accidents and then we put the fatal accidents above. There's been roughly around 50 fatal accidents in the past 11 years.
[15:21] Most of these accidents are happening on text.run facility, so interstate, state highways, farm to market roads.
[15:28] But we are seeing on occasion some fail accidents occurring on the local roadway network and we're seeing these little spots.
[15:36] These little blurs where there are some accidents and activity not fail accidents happening within a community which tells us there might be opportunities for us to implement some programs to improve roadway safety.
[15:46] But we're going to look into that a bit more.
[15:50] Issues and needs we've already had a stakeholder meeting.
[15:52] We came down.
[15:53] We talked to the school districts.
[15:54] We talked to the city and we talked to various community leaders.
[15:57] And we develop this issues and needs map.
[16:01] Based upon what we've collected so far,
[16:03] we do have copies of these maps on the boards
[16:05] so you can look at them in a little bit more detail.
[16:08] But we're seeing, you know, they're telling us
[16:10] accident locations, areas of congestion,
[16:12] where we need sidewalks and things like this,
[16:15] and planned development.
[16:16] So you can look at those maps,
[16:17] and when we do our breakout sessions,
[16:19] you can provide additional comments.
[16:20] We'd really appreciate that.
[16:24] So now that with this is sort of ends our presentation,
[16:26] so what do we need for you?
[16:27] We need your input.
[16:28] But you guys are the transportation experts, you live in this community, you travel throughout
[16:32] this community, you have intimate knowledge that we want to gather so that we can make
[16:38] the best decisions and help put together the best mobility plan we possibly can.
[16:42] There's also a survey we've talked about, and you talked about earlier, we'd love for you to
[16:45] take that survey, takes around five minutes, and there's also an opportunity for you to
[16:50] click on a map and provide comments.
[17:00] OK,
[17:11] and why do you think they need a commuter rail train?
[17:21] OK, so your concerns are really solutions to make the roadway safer.
[17:28] Whether that's adding in some form of other transportation mode or just improving traffic safety.
[17:34] Would that be?
[18:08] OK, sure.
[18:21] Well, let's make sure we get your comments when we do our breakout sessions that we write
[18:25] them down, so they're recorded, and then our team can have a look at that.
[18:29] You know, somebody else has already brought that up about transportation services for
[18:34] special needs, so we want to make sure that's included in the input session.
[18:50] Okay.
[18:51] We'll talk afterwards, okay?
[18:53] Is there any questions?
[18:54] I
[19:22] think it applies to people.
[19:24] People are almost in the case of constantly, and it's been worse and worse and worse
[19:28] and worse than ever.
[19:30] Okay.
[19:30] Well, please, we do have maps.
[19:33] We want you to go and mark up the maps where you think the problems are or what your concerns
[19:38] are.
[19:38] This is why we have the public meaning so that you can make sure that those concerns are written
[19:42] down.
[19:45] I think
[20:12] when it comes to the bus route in a call from Mars, that is strictly a school
[20:17] district decision not to sit.
[20:19] So we look at it from a state that gets there exactly in the middle of the city, but the
[20:25] actual traffic direction comes from the CSA, so it's a bit of an office.
[20:32] I know that's totally an interesting question, but I have a doubt that I'm seeing one more
[20:40] So what I know we've been one of the tools that we have on the top of all, is the one of all of us are the
[20:52] third things I have.
[20:54] These are even media to me, and they're the one product.
[20:58] So we have multiple time activities, just a few years of safe rock school, right
[21:06] for us, or sidewalks, and those areas, we've been unsuccessful in securing any
[21:12] more of which work, or I think, all of that in process.
[21:15] We work with the developers that they come in on the main and why hence they're
[21:19] in the future.
[21:20] So that's not really the answer for a quick day, so I should say.
[21:47] And there are programs, I don't know, if you're doing safe routes to school through HGAC, they offered there's a specific program to try and improve, make this kids traveling to school safer.
[22:00] We did talk to some stakeholders already, the school districts, we did talk to them.
[22:05] They did make us very clear that they're concerned about the safety of kids going to school.
[22:11] We do also have crash data so we can look at where are the accidents, where pedestrians
[22:17] and cyclists have been hit, not all accidents are reported, but we can look into it and it
[22:23] should help us with all those things that should help, but please make sure we get your comments
[22:28] down and please mark up the maps before you leave about the areas that you're concerned about
[22:32] and market so that we know exactly the areas that you're concerned about.
[22:36] And this is exactly what we want you to do in the public meeting as to tell us your concerns.
[22:40] Mark them down.
[22:42] Don't please just don't leave, go ahead and mark up a map, make a note so that we know exactly
[22:46] what you're talking about.
[22:49] Is there any other comments for right now?
[22:54] Okay.
[22:54] So what we're going to do is we're going to go into a breakout session, which means
[22:57] The idea and I will each take half the room,
[22:59] and we have a map for you to mark up,
[23:02] and we have the boards, and we have a chart,
[23:04] so we can talk to you about any issues that you have.
[23:07] Feel free to talk to us about really anything
[23:09] we're getting transportation and league city,
[23:11] and make sure that you get any input that you have
[23:13] or concerns you have are marked down,
[23:16] so we can go back, look into them,
[23:17] and formulate a response and make sure
[23:19] that your concerns are included in any kind of plan update.
[23:24] Okay, is there anything else to Chris?
[23:49] That doesn't mean that those portions of the city are quite late
[23:53] or that it's not called the road to what the city says
[23:57] that it's not called or to what the city says.
[24:04] So the issue for the city is that it's not our kind of interesting
[24:08] and it's not that they can't be corrected.
[24:10] They can't be paid.
[24:11] It's a whole different government agency, and it's not a quick process to get it through.
[24:20] So when you're talking about these to the fourth way, you know, we have to call them.
[24:28] We have it for the set process.
[24:29] They say it's a way to get it through to our CFB.
[24:33] It's fun.
[24:34] It's fun.
[24:34] It's fun.
[24:36] It's a lot of CFB projects.
[24:41] So you have a work in the set of process, it is to get text off, talk, content, you're competing with
[24:50] and which other things stop running in the region and to say that there's much more complex
[24:57] process to be included in half of the project. So again, I'm not saying that that's not something
[25:03] we don't really want to be able to have concern about that. But I just want to point out that it's a
[25:09] different process when you thought they would work if you could see that in the past.
[25:15] Again, and just let me add a little bit of thing. There are, depending on the, it's a lot of
[25:19] it depends on improvement. Some projects, it's very competitive to get funds. Some projects,
[25:26] The district already has funds that they disperse out to the cities based upon a different process.
[25:34] So obviously the bigger like the commuter rail projects, the high speed rail projects, the overpasses,
[25:41] those are going to be much more competitive than if we're doing like a small safety treatment project.
[25:51] So when we look at improvements while we like, everybody likes the big projects,
[25:56] right? Everybody likes it. But the reality is you can get a lot of good benefits from these small projects.
[26:02] And text out, one thing that text that does look for is projects that are shovel ready because there's always projects that get delayed and deferred.
[26:09] And suddenly the text out has a bit of money left over at the end of the fiscal year. So if you have some small projects that are ready to go,
[26:16] you have a really good, I'm not, it's not guaranteed, but you have a chance of actually getting funds to build those projects.
[26:22] So, but there are also other, yes sir,
[26:32] main at 45.
[27:10] We can,
[27:19] we'll have to, we'll have to go through and see what, you know, if people say, well, we want to have a space port in Galveston.
[27:24] We're probably not going to submit that to text.
[27:27] But if it's what we're looking for, I mean,
[27:29] everything that you say is recorded.
[27:31] It goes in the plan, goes like, it's recorded as a comment.
[27:35] But what we do is we look for, we go through the comments,
[27:37] and we generally see things that are happening,
[27:40] or we see specific things that we haven't heard of that are
[27:43] are concerned, like the young lady mentioned about services
[27:46] for disabled people.
[27:47] Well, we got to jump on that.
[27:49] Okay, that's not, that's not going to slip through the cracks.
[27:52] we're definitely going to contact partners and find out exactly what do, do our due diligence
[27:58] to find out exactly what services are provided and make sure that there is going to be some
[28:02] information in the mobility plan talking specifically about services for disabled persons. Absolutely.
[28:15] Okay, well let's, when we just take a few minutes and then we'll break out into groups, please go ahead
[28:21] and do the survey if you can't stay. We hope that you can all stay and please make sure we write
[28:25] any comments, mark up the maps, please leave as much information as you possibly can so that
[28:31] we can use that to help us update the mobility plan.
[28:37] 30 days, and we've talked about, we may open it up later on because right now a lot of schools
[28:43] are closed, so we haven't been able to distribute this for a minute, but it is open.
[28:47] It doesn't take you as something that you can do while you're at the dentist's office or it doesn't take
[28:52] for a long time to design for that you can do it on your phone, so it's very, very quick.
[28:56] All right, well thank you very much for coming and we look forward to talking to you some more.