All right. So last year we talked a lot about u our fixed route uh cost structure. So this year I want to talk more about uh our gom access paratransit system. So, Access provides a critical transportation service that enables riders with disabilities to access work, education, and healthcare destinations.
During the pandemic, when we faced staffing shortages, our on-time performance suffered with riders facing major delays as well as lengthy trips. We heard from our riders, our community, and our city council that we needed to improve. So, we took steps to incentivize recruitment, on-time performance, and customer satisfaction. And as you can see here from our FY2025 performance, we're seeing the results uh of that focus. And we're back.
All right. Uh so we made performance and accountability central to our procurement of a new contract to begin in 2025 with strong penalties and rewards built into the contract. Through the competitive process, the highest ranked firm was the incumbent we drive you. The resulting contract with additional safeguards to ensure service quality and safety exceeded our budget.
Through that process, the contractor committed to access operator pay increases in 25 2025, 2026, and 2027. Uh and so when we awarded that contract, we brought a budget amendment to council that was approved in October of last year. Uh so that's a major contributor uh to the financial picture changes u that we've seen over the course of this year.
As shown here, our ADA ridership declined by more than 40% during the pandemic, but has been steadily rising since 2021. What we've heard from our riders is that now that the service is more reliable and more efficient, they use it more often. This chart shows the impact of the pandemic on our average cost per trip. Our contract covers fixed costs for things like accounting, insurance, and federal compliance and other functions that do not change as ridership fluctuates. As we continued to pay all these fixed costs in 2021, but ridership had dropped by 40% from 2019 levels, causing a large increase in average cost per trip. While ridership increases helped to bring down average trip costs in the subsequent years, the cost of service
provision, primarily personnel, have continued to grow and the higher cost structure of the new contract is evident in FY 2026. Just as personnel costs drive service costs, wage rates drive personnel costs. Under previous and current labor agreements, wages are scheduled to grow by 48% from the 2021 baseline. During this time, there has not been a corresponding increase in the city property tax rate for transit, which was held to the revenue neutral rate last year. Unlike with our fixed route services where we receive nearly 40% of cost reimbursement from the Durham County transit plan for ADA paratransit the
amount currently eligible for reimbursement from Durham County is only 6%. This means that the portion of our budget with the largest growth in recent years must be paid almost entirely with city funds. The transit financial model on the next slide makes a series of assumptions consistent with the current budget. That the service remains fair-free, that growth in fixed route service levels is fully supported by the Durm County Transit Plan and that federal formula funding remains available with modest growth. The major contributors to expenses are the expected growth in contract costs per hour for fixed route bus and access paratransit services. Additionally, there are increases in the funds contributions for indirect costs to cover support from budget finance, the city attorney's office, and other city departments.
Here we can see the impact of increasing costs while revenues are not keeping up. While last year we expected to finish FY2026 with a positive fund balance with the access contract award structure increasing access ridership and the costs of major repairs for buses. We now forecast a negative fund balance at the end of FY 2026. In the outy years, you can see on the net line near the bottom, the difference between revenues and expenditures grows from an $8 million deficit in FY2027 to nearly 12 million in 2030. So, our starting point for FY2027 is a model that shows a fund balance in the red to the tune of more than $10 million.
Listed here is a set of policy options that could be used to reduce this shortfall. First up would be to reduce eligibility for Go Durham access. This one requires some historical perspective. When the federal government enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA in 1990, it included provisions to require federally funded public transportation agencies to provide specialized transportation to enable people with disabilities to travel to and from places that could be reached using traditional fixed route systems of buses, subways or trains. This parallel system designed to complement fixed route services while accommodating disability needs is known as complimentary ADA paratransit designed to serve the same areas served by fixed route with an
allowance for 3/4 of a mile walking distance around the bus or train stop. In practice, there is a threepart test. If a person has a qualifying disability that makes them eligible for complimentary ADA paratransit, that's part one. Their trip begins within 3/4 of a mile of any bus stop.
It's part two. And that trip ends within 3/4 of a mile of another bus stop, part three. That rider is entitled to complimentary ADA paratransit services. At around the same time the ADA was enacted in 1991, the city of Durham assumed the operation of the local bus system from Duke Power, naming it Durham Area Transit Authority data and forming a board of directors for data to govern the system. As ADA came into effect in
1992 and transit systems were required to become compliant by 1997, the data board set up data access as a complimentary ADA paratransit system. At some point, the data board determined that data access should exceed the 3/4 mile radius requirement and be available to all city of Durham residents with a qualifying disability. Despite governance changes over the years, that policy has remained in place. 35 million. 35 million in annual savings
to the city transit fund. Moving down the list, the city could discontinue the use of offduty Durham Police Department officers who provide security at Durham station and respond to calls across the system. 2 $2 million in annual savings. For context, I'm looking at you, Chief Andrews.
Uh, in September 2024, when we were unable to get consistent DPD officer coverage, we shifted to the use of private security personnel. During this time, we saw a significant increase in safety and security incidents at Durham Station. And after two months and with the assistance of Chief Andrews uh and then deputy city manager Ferguson uh we were able to return to having DPD officers providing security services. Uh the next item on the list uh we
participate in a regional call center that responds to approximately 115,000 customer inquiries each year. For context, that's about 80% of the call volume that Durm One call handles. The cost of that call center is $350,000 annually. We are working to explore technology that could reduce these costs, but we have not identified a coste effective solution implementable in FY2027.
Were we to discontinue this service, customers would be able to get information about bus stop locations, trip planning, and real-time arrival information from Google Maps, the transit app, and other services. Next up, when the city took over the bus system from Duke Power, the city took on funding of the private pension system for bus operators and other transit employees. a pension system still in place today. Private sector pension
systems are required to carry insurance provided by the pension benefit guarantee corporation, PBGC. Public sector pension plans are not required to have PBGC insurance for which we pay $150,000 annually. If the city of Durham were to declare sponsorship of the transit pension and make it a public sector pension plan rather than a private sector pension plan, this would result in an estimated $150,000 in annual savings. With respect to fair policy, as we move down the slide, you can see Go Durham is fair free.
We have it on our uh water bottles. Um the council has been very clear about the desire to remain fair-free. However, as a reminder, at last year's budget retreat, we discussed a proposal to return to fair collection while increasing the base fair from $1 to $2,
8 million in fair revenue. The city currently receives almost $400,000 in annual support from the Durham County Transit Plan for Fairfree, for which we are most grateful. 2 million in the FY2027 Durham Transit Work Program. However, that request has not advanced. 400,000 >> right >> for fair free >> for fair free >> subset >> correct that's specific to support fair free for lowincome riders 87% of our riders uh report incomes below $35,000 a year >> just $400,000 >> correct >> do you want to request
and how that process works or is that something that we're gonna get to So, every year there's an annual budget process for Durham County Transit Plan funding. So, we submit all of our services that um we have been operating, any new services like the four and the nine um that we will be operating for a full year going into 2027. Um and then other uh requests and then uh the uh the tax district. Uh, Go Triangle manages the tax district, runs a model that looks at uh, available funding and then other commitments uh, that have been made through the adopted 2023 Durham County transit plan. Uh so uh when that model was run and all of those commitments were plugged in uh future projects uh uh both operating and capital the growth from uh cost
increases. Uh what it determined was uh that there was very little uh capacity in the financial model for uh additional uh new initiatives. 2 million every year, uh, for the foreseeable future, uh, would have, uh, put the model uh, into a negative uh, balance. Thank you, Director Egan. So, when we transition to Fairfree, were there institutional dollars that we uh lost as well in that process and and what what what did those equal to at the time? So we collected go pass revenues from Duke University, Durham Tech, North
Carolina Central University, Durham County, uh and uh the total amount was about 300,000 annually. >> Okay. >> And I know you're raising again this recommendation from last year about returning to a minimum fair collection. Have other cities done and have we have explored other models such as like optional pay, having systems in place for riders to to choose to pay and have we modeled what that could bring in um in that sort of scenario where you still had a base level of zero but you could collect some revenue from from wrership. So um there are some systems that use a pay what you can uh model. What we found is that uh if you were accepting for example cash contributions
uh the cost of meeting all of our uh financial controls and cash management uh requirements uh would likely exceed the uh the cost of actually revenues collecting. Uh there are other uh models where you scan a QR code and you can donate to um a system through that. Um we have not explored uh a model like that um in depth. >> Yeah.
Or like tap to pay you know it's like we've come a long way in the last couple years too in terms of cashless payment. Right. with tap to pay. Um we would we would be incurring significant technology and equipment costs for TAP to pay. Uh the the way that we arrived at the $400,000 that we received from Durham County was essentially to add up the cost of what the county transit plan would have been paying for fair collection equipment,
technology, uh youth go Pass, um and other passes that were supported by the Durham County Transit Plan. So that $400,000 essentially represents money that would have uh that would have gone to the to the cost of fair collection. U so since that cost is avoided uh by going fair free uh we asked for those funds to be uh allocated uh to to fair free support. Thank you. That's one of the questions I know I had when we've had these conversations about do we return to fair free or not. I know that one of the things is the tech that would need to be added to even collect fairs and then you know it's go Raleigh and go triangle have returned to fairs and the analysis that was done was that their wrership was very different than our writership and that most of the folks who are boarding qualify for one of our carveouts anyway and so that we wouldn't
be that it that we weren't going to generate the revenue that maybe some of these other fixed route transit systems were going to generate. >> So the primary source of revenue for Go Raleigh uh where close to 75% of their riders are eligible for the lowinccome pass is they receive uh reimbursement for those trips through the wake transit plan. >> For the low-inccome trips. 3 million annually to Go Raleigh to compensate Go Raleigh for the cost of those free low-income trips.
>> So, they have a a really good working relationship with their county transit. >> Good morning. Good morning. >> Okay.
Am I okay? They have more money, too. So, be fair.
>> Okay. I have just a couple questions about that and then I want to go back to a couple of other things that we talked about. >> I just tapped it. It's still not on.
>> I really Oh, >> awful. Okay. Um, okay. So, y'all submitted this request and can you tell me how much it was and then was it denied outright or was there any are we have the ability to submit a request for a different amount?
like how does this process work? 2 million every year. So they they calculate it through 2040. Um so you know 30 35 million over that 15-year period.
All of those costs are modeled. The uh tax district has to show that it's fiscally constrained that it has a balanced budget. Uh so uh we submitted that in the fall. Uh in January uh Durham County staff provided a
presentation to the board of county commissioners where they showed all of the requests and the different types of requests that had been received from the project sponsors. Uh and uh the direction that they got from the board of county commissioners was to decline those requests based on the uh the funding availability in the model and other commitments. >> Okay. So the direction was to decline the request that we made.
Do we are is there is there any ability to amend the request or once the request is in is it done? We're gonna address that in a minute. We've got some slides after this where we'll talk about so >> Okay. I think that my next questions probably are going to be in there as well.
I just want to one clarifying question is the um offduty DPD officers. Is that only at the downtown station? >> It is downtown station, but they also respond to calls. So if there's an
incident on a bus on a route, it gets dispatched uh they radio it in and then uh those a police officer will report out um to that incident uh location uh either uh if the bus is stopped because of the incident or uh to a a time point on that route where the police can address the um the actors involved. >> Okay. And then the contract for the goer access obviously saw that it was much more than we were expecting. Can you just give me a brief understanding of like what is included in that contract and why we are unable to do it in house or like what the difference in expenditure is. So, um, one of the big, uh, aspects of the commitment that the city made when we took over transit services from Duke Power, um, was that, um, we made a
commitment to the federal government that we would respect the right of transit workers to collectively bargain for um, pay, benefits, work rules. Uh so the folks who drive the buses, the folks who drive the access vans are members of labor unions and they collectively bargain uh for their wages and benefits and and work rules. So in the state of North Carolina, it is against the law for uh municipalities to collectively bargain with workers. Uh so the structure that we have in place allows the workers to bargain with the contractor.
Uh so the city hires the contractor and then the contractor bargains with the labor union. >> Thanks Regan. Um first question is on the the customer call center. Is that just for access or is that for
>> for all all Durham all go Durham services access and fixed route >> and can I mean it's you know it's a relatively small number can you say what the impact might be on customer service >> so I mean there 115,000 inquiries a year um so uh you know 10,000 a month more or less people calling in to ask uh where's my closest bus stop if I wanted to get from this location to that location. So, uh you know, a lot of these services are available with the kind of tools that I talked about like Google Maps and the transit app, but a lot of Durham residents with the digital divide aren't comfortable using electronic tools uh and they're much more comfortable uh making a phone call. >> Okay. Second question is on the the city's sponsorship of of transit pension, right?
That's also a relatively small number. Why haven't we already done that? if it's if it would save us money, it's not going to impact the the pension plans of the workers. Right.
>> Right. So, um we've looked at it. U
there were some compliance issues that we had to address with the pension plans. Uh those have been uh addressed uh through the Internal Revenue Service over the last few years. Um and so uh we uh we wanted to wait until all of those issues were addressed. Um and we wanted to find an opportunity to uh really kind of think through that uh whole discussion.
So that that's still that process is still underway. Uh but um we're we're in a much stronger uh position compliance-wise now than we were just a few years ago uh with the pension system. >> Gotcha. And then the last question is just to confirm.
So right now the the county the the county transit tax is a half penny, right? >> Half of 1% of every purchase in Durham County goes to that sales tax >> and that generates how much a year roughly? It >> generates a little over 40 million a
year. Revenues from other sources like vehicle registration fees bring that up to about $45 million a year. And then uh interest income, investment income uh that's earned on balances in the fund brings in another 7 million. So about little about 52 million >> a year that goes into the transit fund.
Okay. >> Because I know we're talking about, you know, like Charlotte has gone to like a a penny, right? >> Right. They've doubled it, >> right?
And we'd love to do that. I think it's difficult if there's like a large balance in the as we've talked about in the county transit fund. That's just looking down the road in terms of our ambitions for transit which are which are large. Um yeah, I think if we're if we have a transit fund that's I mean in terms of we need to be good stewardships of our public dollars, right? And if we're if those dollars is growing and not being spent, it's hard to make the case for a larger transit investment. So, >> so the presentation made to the board of county commissioners in January showed a $27 million
uh fund balance in the Durham County transit fund. Um, but then broke down uh how that how that will be allocated u uh in future years. What do those allocations look like in terms of local transit buses BRT even? >> So actually keep them separate.
BRT is probably a separate thing but like bus service. Um so uh about 50 million a year is held in a financial reserve. Uh another um about 50 million is allocated to major capital projects like Durham station like the bus stop improvement program, bus expansion bus purchases. Um and then there's uh another about 50 million that funds both
services and additional capital investments. So we're seeing close to 20 million of that is going into our services uh in in future years annually. >> That leaves that that leaves about 50 million u for uh future investments. >> So their model is 20 million annually from the transit fund going into say that again >> go Durham services >> and that's buses.
It's sort of infrastructure maintenance as well as >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Is this not working? >> Be good to know more about that.
What that exactly pays for? Yeah. So, it's u next year it's about 16 million for fixed route services. uh growing out to a little over 19 million for fixed route and then for uh other
5 is the the other that's >> there's other things like microtransit odorm connect fair free um >> so that in total the transit fund is contributing like 19 and a half almost
20 million yeah okay got yeah >> so I'm going to hand it over to the city manager at this point >> we agreed that when it got to the really ugly conversations. I wouldn't make Sean stand in front of you. That'll be me. So, uh, if you wanted So, so last year we did not propose a tax increase.
I am not in standing in front of you today to propose a tax increase, but I wanted to show you if we simply kept all assumptions the same and close the gap with the tax rate. 2 million and in subsequent years. 15 based on the current projections. That's what this would look like.
Again, this is not a recommendation. Obviously, is it is one option that the council could consider. Uh we have previously talked
about not doing a tax rate increase this year. So, I know this is not something anybody wants to do. Um so, let's talk about what you could do. uh this uh I I have said before and many times it is my job to not make your decisions easy but to at least make them clear.
So I think these are your four options and some combination of these four things are the things that I think we need to do to bring this fund into balance. We either could raise taxes uh this this service has one source of revenue from the city and that is the tax rate. we have no other revenues that go into this fund. So when there is a shortfall, you could consider raising taxes to close that gap.
Second option, uh, which is kind of obvious, is you could raise taxes less and include some or more than a few of the options Sean put on the screen. Uh, we reviewed those options. We all recognize that there are some really unpalatable things on that list. None of
us like to do any of those things, but in service to trying to uh reduce the financial strain, we could consider some of those things. 9 million gap. 1 million somewhere else in the general fund? Uh the general fund tax is essentially the is the same tax source.
we just divide it up. So, you could say no new taxes, uh, completely fund this fund and find that money somewhere else. Uh, I don't think I have to tell you guys since we already have a $9 million gap that we started off with two weeks ago, that would not be easy, but that would not be impossible. That would just mean really, really hard decisions. Final bullet is to solicit more revenue from the Durham County transit tax. So the fir before we discuss these options or and that option in particular I want to I actually going to go ahead a slide and come back to one um anything we do I
want I want to suggest we do it as a one-year strategy. I think we have a short-term problem and a long-term problem. We do not currently have a sustainable model or a sustainable financial structure for this transit fund going forward. You have service level expectations for our community that far outstrip our revenue sources.
And yet, as has been the subject of the discussion for the last 15 or 20 minutes, there are substantial revenue sources available to support transit that you do not have control over. Um, so before you struggle with what to do this year, I want to cover this slide and say I believe we need a really difficult but very clear conversation, not just with the county commission, but with Go Triangle and Triangle West, who are the three parties to the Durham County Transit Plan. Because what became very clear to me as we began to struggle
with this is we have all the decisions to make about service and they have all the money. Uh and you do not have unlimited resources. They do not have unlimited resources. But you have a plan and an idea for a transit service that is inconsistent with their plan and idea for a transit revenue.
And that is simply a super complicated and unnecessarily complicated problem for us to try and figure out in this room, which is what we're about to do. Um my proposal to all of you is that we use next year to convene these partners and to make some challenging decisions with other leaders about where this service lives, who gets to make decisions about the service levels and where the money comes from. And I think having a very open and honest conversation with the goal of simplifying and solidifying the future of this fund is necessary and
important because I do not think what you are doing this year is very practical. I will note something you guys leaned in on earlier which really jumped out at me. A normal city council like Sean was a y'all are normal by the way, but other city councils have the option, albeit very distasteful, to decide we're going to cut service by 15 or 20% to close this gap. You guys don't have that option.
And that's crazy to me. It's crazy to me that for all of these departments who might have a budget shortfall, one of the things we always force them to do is, can you spend less? I know you don't want to, but can you? As we demonstrated, you have a formula right now where you can cut service and you will not save a dime of city taxpayer revenue.
That is fundamentally [snorts] problematic. I'm not saying you would if you could. But the fact that I can't put that option in front of you that when we have to show you cuts, it's all this other stuff. You don't see reduced hours, reduced service, that is fundamentally a
governance problem for you and for us because I don't feel like we get to give you very good options. So, my pitch to you is we have a one-year problem and a long-term opportunity to create better balance and less drama in future years. Uh, and less conflict between you and the county commission, both of whom I believe strongly want good transit, but have different visions of how to get there. So, that's my suggestion.
And with that, I want to come back to this slide and talk about that fourth bullet at your Yes. May you talk and then I want to say something. >> Okay. Um at your direction and with your consent, we have had senior level discussions with our counterparts at the county that have been very respectful and uh and I think very true to our governing bodies. We have asked the county for more money from this fund. Uh, and we have made strong arguments as Sean has helped us build very strong arguments showing what other counties do
uh, and how other governments have collaborated on this. Our counterparts have been really receptive to those conversations, but they come back to something which I would want to give voice to to you, which is they have an adopted plan. Regardless of the priorities of those plans being consistent or inconsistent with your values, they believe that the plan that they are one of three parties to bless you. Uh is an adopted policy document that is governed by three governing bodies.
Go Triangle, Triangle West, and the county commission. And that that plan as adopted does not allow for them to just free up money for operations. So, they have not kicked us out of the room, but they've said we have this plan and we can't violate the plan. So, when I put this fourth option up there, I I am not saying I I wouldn't put it up here if I thought it was impossible. I
think the county understands we're in this predicament. I think they know we're probably not done talking to them about it, but I don't want to make it sound like they just have a bank account that they can write. They certainly don't want you to think they have a bank account and they can just write a check. Um, but as it stands today, I think a fourth option would be have some sort of very intensive process over the next weeks or months to see if they would participate in some collection of options.
So now with that, that's mostly how I wanted to frame this out. And while you do not have to make final decisions today, uh either in this conversation or later today, we can revisit this in the budget guidelines. If you want a little time to think about it or talk over lunch, either at the end of this presentation or at the end of the day, some thoughts about what you want us to consider would be helpful. >> Thank you.
Bo, can you please go to the next slide? So, I just want to name some things um for colleagues. Uh I am currently the chair of the TPO. I will
be the chair for the next two years. Uh, and the mayor sits on the go triangle board. So, as far as where we have representation on other boards that adopt transit plans, I'm quite frankly not super worried about that. If it needs to be an exercise to uh, you know, a compliance exercise so the county feels better, that's fine.
Uh, there is leadership on both those boards to have those conversations. Um I will say having participated uh at our TPO meeting on Tuesday um we are already talking about a governance study at the TPO. I participated in the last governance study and I just want folks to really understand the fundamental difference between how Wake County collects and administers its count its fund. there's a lot more municipalities in Wake County and how quite frankly Durham and to a lesser extent Orange County do it. It is a it is a very different philosophical approach. Um and
that matters right now. Um so we are going to be entering these conversations on governance. I'll say this, Mayor Schul wanted to to merge transit five years ago during during the light rail. Why do we have two transportation departments?
Like it doesn't make any sense. So this is not these are not new conversations. we just keep circling and re so I maybe hopefully we'll get it right this time. I don't know.
I will say I don't have a ton of confidence. Um uh because of sometimes lack of political will, lack of vision. I don't know. Uh but I these are not new issues.
Uh they're long-standing issues. Uh earlier councils have faced them. It's a constant tension point. So I just want to share that little bit of of history. Um, I will say that as as the chair, uh, that does put the city of Durham in a in a good spot as far as having hard conversations as far as negotiating things that need to be negotiated. And my pledge to my colleagues and the city of Durham is I'm happy to have whatever
conversation I need to have um, with the with the options that we have and I know everyone has. I I do I I I I do understand that there's some hard decisions um on the fair free part. We have had conversations that we maybe wouldn't be able to keep fair free forever. That has not been um something that there haven't at least been some conversations around. I know there's been conversations on if we get to BRT that is a much higher level of service and and infrastructure costs to get that and so could that could that really be maintained at fair free probably not right so we know that this is a conversation in a cliff I will just say in this moment when we have res so many people are getting nailed right now their SNAP benefits are getting cut they're paying more for health care we heard it loud and clear in our community conversations about how many folks rely it seems pretty
heartless quite frankly to then be like and we're going to nail you on on having to pay for bus service when we know most of the ridership in Durham already don't have enough. They were they didn't have enough 5 years ago and now they have even less. Um so I'm not saying fear free forever. I understand that the model is the model, but I I do believe we have to figure out even if it's for one year, uh some kind of of option of of a mix of do we look elsewhere in the in the general fund for cuts?
Uh what do we really what can we really get from our county partners? Uh maybe there's some cuts that we can do on some of the smaller items. doesn't get us a lot. But I have a huge issue in this moment with what people are facing financially to then also add fairs back into their lives. So that's where I'm at. >> I'm going to go to council member Burris and then council member wrist.
>> Thank you Mayor Promp. Can you hear me? >> Yep. >> I don't want it.
>> Ew. >> Okay. Um, so thank you so much for your remarks because I do also think about the economic environment we're in and what it means to our constituents to impose more financial burdens on them. But I did have a question.
So if we did return to fairs, um, would we have the same and forgive me if you already covered this, would we have the same lowincome writership? Would it be reimbured by the transit fund as well like in Wake County or how would that work out if we had those same carveouts? So when [clears throat] when go triangle returned to fairs, uh they worked out an agreement with Durm County Transit Plan where Durham County pays about $1, uh for the cost of every lowincome trip uh that's made on Go Triangle. So because ridership on go triangle in Durham is much lower than Go Durham's ridership
it was a relatively modest financial impact for the Durham County transit plan. Uh if that same dollar per trip were to be per lowincome trip were to be applied uh for Go Durham, you'd be talking about close to $6 million of annual impact. So, uh, that would put the county's financial model, uh, into a negative balance because of the magnitude of that. Uh, so what we asked for was, u 35 cents per low-inccome trip uh, rather than the dollar per low-inccome trip that's being provided to, uh, Go Triangle today by Durham County Transit Plan.
Okay. Thank you so much for that. And I just want to express also that as we I know there's going to be some tough decisions made and you've successfully stressed me out before noon. So, thank you for that. Um, but I
do have concerns. I just wanted about some of the safety components because I know that there are some bus stops in like Wellings Village in particular where people are deeply concerned about the safety just the people who are stationary to stop throughout the day. So, I don't want to as we have ridership and also our paratransit if we see ridership levels that are increasing. I don't want to like stop momentum on that.
So I am willing to explore conversations to try to make sure particularly around the ADA community they have access. So [clears throat] I don't know if it means looking further into some of the I don't even want to said it out loud. Um just thinking about sorry I'm going back to my notes and it some of the federal requirements and some of the cuts around that but just like can we get a little bit more details about the ridership impact if we did cut those folks who are within that um that uh what's it 3/4 mile bus stop as well and can you restate the percentage of folks who actually um use the complimentary pair of transit I think you gave a stat out for that around the folks who actually the three-part test but the people who in the federal component of it.
>> It's about 16% of our riders of our trips, >> right? >> No, those 16% >> one out of six. >> One out of six for that complimentary >> doesn't meet some part of that three-part test yet. >> All right.
Thank you so much. swallow. >> Stay up here, Sean. We'll have fun together.
>> Um, [clears throat] so so I want to thank the manager for raising the issue of of governance. Um, and I want to put a um I want to underscore the comments that that Mayor Pam Cabierro mentioned. So was I think well I don't know, Mr. [clears throat] Egan, if you were on the call, we had the TPO call.
So we so we had talked about this very explicitly at our last meeting. Um, we have every year or periodically we we have anou that we negotiate with our partners in the Triangle West TPO. We also have a federal funds policy that that regulates
how much how much of the total dollars the TPO gets we can get in Durham. It's been a constant source of of sort of friction here in Durham because we have about like 70% or more of the um environmental or economic justice like residents in the whole TPO yet we're capped on how much we can get total from the TPO for transit projects. It's it's been an ongoing sort of tension there. Um so we started a conversation about what would it look like if we simply merge TPO and Campo because the reality is we have periodic meetings with the TPO and Campo.
The truth is I've been on council for two years I've been on the TPO. I think I've met twice with Campo. So the in fact from my perspective there's very little regional collaboration going on. Um I think we have to be clear that if we were to merge which I think makes a lot of sense we would now be the sort of we would not be we'd be the smaller fish in a bigger pond.
I think that's okay. I think I'm happy with that. I think we've all been to other communities that have seen them build light rail and BRT while we struggle to get our first BRT line. I think we're better off in a larger regional concept because we are regional economy. Um, but I know there's there's
there's also there's different opinions about that whether we'd be, you know, overcome by Raleigh is the big fish or whatever. But I think this is a really important conversation to have. I think especially as we get towards the next census. So that's and that's why we we're going to start a governance committee to talk about this because I think it's really an important conversation because we yeah I think we there's a lot of a lot of different players and as you said structural things that make it hard for us to to like properly address the the the the service needs we have in Durham.
So um I think that that larger conversation is really important. I do feel like where we are now with fair free is just pulling the rug out from our residents and saying okay we're going to start charging in. I'm not comfortable with that. So I want to find a way that we can sort of thread the needle here on this one.
For process sake, I want to go ahead and put a pin in. I think the long-term conversation is necessary. So, just for time today, hearing from you about the options you would or won't consider for next year would be really helpful as we close this section out to move to parking because we still got parking to talk about. >> Yay.
>> Thank you. Um could you just give us I I know it's not on this slide and you've given it to us several times but can you break down the writership for us by um economic background? So um on our fixed route bus system, the big buses, uh we conduct onboard surveys. We ask people questions about demographics.
Uh and what we found in our last survey was that 87% of bus riders report a household income below $35,000 per year. >> Thanks. Yeah, I know that that number hovers around there. It's good to have an updated one.
Um, I'm going to echo what my colleagues have said about this. Um, we don't have the option of differing differentiating among our taxes. And so this is one of those places where we actually can sort of fix the system. Um, and so I'm looking at
options three and four here sort of in tandem. Um, I think both of the like I think the conver the continued conversation is important. Um, I do not feel willing to have fairs particularly given this writership number because this is our like one of our sole ways of actually like moving money around to have equity in how we how we spend and how we tax. So, I'm pretty pretty set on fair free especially if we're just looking for the next year.
I would rather find some money to move in to keep it fair free as opposed to thinking about something where we like do fairs for a year and then revert. That doesn't make any sense to me and I think we will lose all of the progress that we're making in terms of writership and trust. Um I am curious about one thing which is that we talked about I understand that there's the 37% 34% 37%. Um >> that's the the county pays for in 20 in fiscal 27 we estimate that the the
county will sponsor 37% of the service hours. >> So >> for >> is that we've increased our service hours though because we have increased some of our lines rate. So any increase above that baseline of 177,000 hours >> we've had to pay for with our >> no is then eligible is yours working that one. So every service increase that we've done in the last 10 years has been has increased our total system service hours above the blue bar. So all of those service increases, frequency, additional hours per day, uh new routes, all of those uh have been eligible for reimbursement from the Durham County Transit Plan through that green bar.
Okay. So, we it Okay, that was my question. Thank you for answering that. Um, and then yeah, one more question.
Oh, yeah. And and I kind of want to echo what Mayor Prommo was just saying, but some of these some of these cuts like eliminating the customer call center, like I understand why we've put that up there, but to me I'm like it's it's not really going to save us that much money and it is like part of the service that I think is really useful and so like that is not super interesting to me. Um I also feel like yeah the cuts within the department I understand I understand the ask. I'm sure the ask was like manager was like look within the department and I'll look outside of the department.
We'll like come together with like lots of options. I understand that. Um and I think that y'all did a good job of looking internally especially given our restrictions. I don't feel like super excited about any of these options. Um,
obviously the most monetarily efficient one is the um is aligning our ADA compliance with the federal restrictions. Um, so that would be the only one that I'm like even remotely interested in looking at. And even that one of course feels bad. I'm not like saying that it's a great option, but these others being so small and also like being so necessary for the for the running of our bus program, I don't I don't see that there is need to cut I mean I yeah the transit pension maybe, but I mean that's not it's just not going to do much for us.
And so that's kind of what I'm thinking about within there. And that's why the options option number two on our um options for balancing doesn't like really feel super tempting. So those are my thoughts. Thanks. >> So I and I appreciate I I know council member Copac and then council member Baker both I think have their hands up and then council member wrist we'll go back to you. U just
can we go back to the slide? I guess what I'm having a hard time not that slide the one. Yes. So I think what would be helpful is you know obviously the offduty the two items at the top are the ones where we going to get any real juice quite frankly and it's hard to really and I know y'all are tired.
It it's hard to make decisions when there could be places where it makes sense to not necessarily have offduty DPD officers anymore. the it's gotten more secure some of the problems that we were seeing. And then to uh Council Member Burris's point, there's some other places where we really need to maintain that presence. And so I think what would be helpful is both for one and two uh who are we looking at? 3 million number and also being like quite frankly with ADA things I don't want to deal or I don't want to give a council in the future a lawsuit because of how we determine things. Uh and so
those two numbers are the biggest numbers but there may need to be some more analysis that it lowers it because we make some decisions that were like look we're not comfortable with an across the board no more offduty DPD officers. we understand that that there's some areas that really need that. 8 8 because we offer bus passes to anyone 21 and under. Is it 21 and under or 24 and under?
I can't remember. We offer bus passes to seniors and then folks who make a a less uh uh less income, we also offer them bus passes. So, what is that number actually? And so, that's what would be helpful for me to arrive to a decision. I think at the end of the day, it's going to be a mix of things. Um we
all know we're in a in a minute of like really struggling. So, that's just where I'm at. Thank you. Just to be clear on this list, you you guys aren't making this decision today.
We put it up for discussion. We're hearing the discussion. This all is very helpful. So >> yes, you don't have all the decision, the information you need.
If my proposed budget includes any of these, I will call that out. I will use that time to explain to you more of the information you would want and then you can make a final decision. But you're doing great. So don't I I understand you don't have all the information you need to make these decisions.
giving us your high level feedback is very very helpful at this point. >> Yeah, thank you Director Egan, Mr. Manager. Um, so definitely want to echo the comments of my colleagues.
Um, I'll start off by saying that I really would welcome the governance discussions. I appreciate both of your insight where you sit on those boards and with the mayor as well. Um, Mr. manager, if you have, you know, a one-year uh proposal, I would would welcome that too of how we
>> That's my one-year proposal. >> Yeah. Yeah. Of how to how to get to the next year where we have time to to address some of those governance issues where uh either we're able to access more revenue from Durham County or at least we have more control over our system to make decisions about places to save money.
So, I appreciate you highlighting that and I think that's really part of the long-term uh solution. Um, I agree that fair free is really critical, I think, in all times and particularly at this time, especially for the residents who are most likely benefiting uh or who are most benefiting from that. Uh, and I agree with Council Member Cook that this is one of the the the clearest ways that we can help support uh, you know, our our low-income residents um, who are the greatest users and writers of the system. I also have, you know, heartburn about some of the choices that have been raised, but I appreciate you surfacing those because I think we have to see those. Um and you know would be interested to see like on the margins like you know yeah like are there potential savings on you know offduty support if we have seen fewer incidents
due to fair free reducing you know any issues around fairs right on service but I wouldn't want to do that in any way that would jeopardize residents uh or operators who are experiencing uh clear safety issues uh and so you know it isn't a recommendation but I think it would be interesting to see if there's on the margins there. Um, and also better understand what would be the impacts of kind of changing the formula about distance from transit. But I also don't have a clear interest in wanting to reduce the access for, you know, our ADA residents who are using that service. I think for me there's a broader budgeting question and I appreciate the last budget retreat, this budget retreat, the conversations that are still to come.
This is my first time going through this process, but just seeing this in context of the overall budget and just trying to get a better understanding of like, you know, once we see kind of the full picture, you know, to what extent do a hund can a h 100,000 $100,000 decisions add up? Can $1 million decisions add up? And, you know,
today we're seeing the transit fund, the parking fund, seeing, you know, the gaps that exist there. Um, do we have a process to, you know, where I know you were doing this, but are are we seeing options as a council, you know, those difficult choices in all of our departments, uh, surfacing, what are those million dollar options? What are those $100,000 options where we can think about if we are going to find reductions in other general fund sources? You know, how do we understand from the folks who are closest to the work what those are and then how to weigh those decisions against maintaining everything we want in transit and not having to go back and ask residents to to fund this through property taxes.
So I think just better understanding that and really surfacing those sorts of options across all of our departments to give us those choices to really have to weigh in a difficult way I think would be helpful for me and maybe that's still coming. Once again this is my first time kind of working through this this process. So, thank you
for kind of giving us these I think these major bites, right? Uh, you know, at at maybe these have some of the biggest budget implications we're going to face, but helping understand how these adds up and these add up and what our choices really are. So, thank you. >> Um, I'll [clears throat] be quick because I know we're over time.
Um, for me, returning to fairs is a non-negotiable. Um, and I think I'm echoing a lot of my colleagues here. That makes uh this a challenge for for you all. Um, as uh, Council Member Copek pointed out, this is our first tough conversation.
So, if we look at something that's like $150,000, uh, sounds like a very small amount, but if we're trying to close a big gap, we might need to pick a lot of different little things that are $150,000 or $100,000. So, um, we just don't we don't have that full picture, um, just yet today. Um, so, as far as these options for balancing the fund and fiscal year 27, I'd also want to return to that, uh, this conversation uh, later in the day.
Um, because uh, I want to see what the rest of our budget situation is looking like before providing a clearer direction there. Um, that being said, looking at it now, I am open in some form to all of these options, but I want to see what the rest of the presentation is today. Um, obviously option number four would be uh would be wonderful for us. Um, and I also think that uh we really need to have some conversations with um Duke Duke University.
Um, you know, Yale pays New Haven $25 million a year. I think that we need to have some serious conversations with Duke University um starting this year. Thank you. >> Right.
So, uh I'm sorry. Yes. And just on that that last point, I mean, you talked about the $300,000 we used to get in institutional support. And I think it'd be worth having that as an option, too, going back to those partners, um,
Duke University being the main one and others to to to understand based on the benefit that that they're seeing to the constituents they serve, is there more that they should be contributing to help support uh, this and other services? >> I'll be brief as well. Yeah. So I you know I think I think you're hearing on the council strong support for fair free.
I also think you know we haven't talked about this a lot but I think this community supports fair free as well. I think there's strong support across our residents. 8 million. We're still a gap there right?
I think we can ask the county for more. I think that's a tough negotiation. Um, but I think that's gonna that's a those are hard conversations obviously, right? So I think I think the answer probably somewhere in the middle of all this stuff like most negotiations are. I think if we can find some some cost savings, great. 1, I think they're going to want to see what we're doing on our end and that may mean so maybe there's a small slight, you
know, tax increase of 25 cents or something like that. So like a small one, a modest one that shows the county that we're serious about this but also strengthens our negotiations with them. So I think to me it's kind of a little bit of all the above there we got to look at. >> So we will revisit this at the end of the day but I'm going to try and capture what I have heard and you are going to be rigorously honest and disagree if I say something wrong.
Uh there is no support to make any change on fair free. We'll we will take fair free as an assumption going forward. Uh you today have not rule I'm sorry. Sorry, I I did I think what would be helpful uh is that that analysis around if we were to return to fair free what percentage of the writers would be fair free anyway right yeah I'm sorry if we were to return to fairs who qualifies for fair free and what is that dollar amount >> be happy to provide I took that as a request for more information but not necessarily that in balancing the budget for this fund that you want us to really look at that we we will provide that information if that changes your mind or changes our mind we'll have that honest
conversation, but for now that will not be an assumption. I did not hear a lot of discussion of raising taxes other than the last final comment. I did not hear anyone take that completely off the table. I suspect it is very distasteful for most of you, but I did not hear you say absolutely not.
If >> at least for me, it would be like the last recourse. I don't know if that's where everybody else is, but it's like give me all the other options before you get to that option. >> Heard. Heard.
Uh, and then >> it's a contextual because I feel like we see we're seeing it here in the context of the fund. You know, raising taxes specifically tied to the fund is a way to bring the fund balance to health. But that, you know, is something I think that's we need to consider, but that isn't also kind of the overall picture of when we're looking at everything we're doing across the city. No.
Right. >> But that is the third point, right? um bringing more revenue to the fund without raising the tax rate means taking that revenue from other parts of
the general fund which you have also said you are open to us exploring. Um the the answer to your question, we can talk we can revisit it at the end. Council member Copak is I I seek council direction from areas you'd like us to look at only because so the the the the part about can we can we find a little bit here and a little bit there. I think the the major factor the answer is yes we can but and the butt is this.
Most of your budget is personnel. uh most of most of what drives that third bullet is paying salaries. Huge investments that you the council and your predecessors have made. And so there are very few options to save money that feel discretionary.
They are jobs and people providing services. And so I don't I never want to make I don't want to leave you with the notion that well there's this fund program that we're doing that's great but we could cut it to do this. Yes, that also is probably a position running that program or uh or a
salary raise. So, so much of the resources that are out there that feel like a lot of money to pull from are pretty tied up. We can take that money. It is really helpful to hear from the council.
You know, this is an area we feel like we could deemphasize. I'm not asking you to do that here in this space, but over the next few weeks, if you want to confidentially talk to me about that and we can use the leadership team to explore some of those areas, it's helpful to hear from you because otherwise it really is a needle in a haystack exercise. Um, and without knowing the council's priorities, every of th all of those things feel important. We believe we're doing because council directed us to do it.
So, hearing from council, we remove that directive. we'd like to explore the savings is really helpful to get those conversations started. So I think it's a dialogue. Finally, I heard strong interest in bullet four.
I I I expected that I will ask that I will partner with you. I I think our elected officials need to lead that charge. So I I I think
we will need to build a really effective argument, give you some options, and then I will ask working through the mayor to coordinate some group of city council members who will help us enter dialogue with the county about this. >> Okay. >> There's been some conversations around that already happening. So >> yes, >> and I would want to say on behalf of uh DCM Propes who has met with uh deputy county manager Maurice Jones and myself who met with Claudia this week, they have been very professional and very open to these conversations.
They feel constrained. So I I I want to at least say that professionally speaking, I'm been very pleased with this dialogue. I know it's not resolved yet and I think we can continue it. Thank you all.
This has been really helpful. We're going to go really quickly through parking and I'm going to do the first slide which is to say this same problem less discussion and this is why in December we gave you an update from the parking fund. Uh and at the end of that
discussion, you all essentially we didn't frame it this way for you, but you essentially said the same thing that we just said on this slide, which is we we are open to some disruptive thinking in this fund because it is not self- sustaining and it's not going in the right direction. We heard you say this may or we're not sure if we want this to be considered a revenue balancing fund versus a tax supported fund. We heard you say we're not sure we want all these lots. We're open to redeveloping some of these lots. So we think essentially or what I'm trying to say you said is you are open to this kind of discussion about parking going forward because this fund is not self-supporting. the the reason why we're feeling a lot of stress in the um in the transit fund that we that we absolutely have to struggle with now is because this ending
balance goes bad, stays bad, and does not have any options that are going to come around the corner to help get us on the right track. Um, we have equally concerning projections in the parking fund, but we have major assets in the parking fund that you just told us might be available to to change. So, we're not asking you to do really hard balancing in the fund this year, but we want to be really direct about the fact that this fund does not pay for itself. And this balance is going negative.
This going negative is problematic in the same way that the transit fund is, but has more options to fix later. So, the bottom line up front is we're going to probably bring you a proposed budget that has a negative balance in this fund, but we're not panicking as much about it. We still think we have hard decisions to make. Uh, one of the things you've directed us to do and you'll be seeing shortly is to
develop a a fair discount program for downtown customers. That will make this fund go worse. And all of that money still comes from the same place. It comes from that general fund.
So, we believe an offcycle deep dive in this fund is forthcoming, but we're not going to make you sweat it as hard this morning unless you want to. And with that, Sean, I'm gonna let you take back over and finish this up. >> Yeah, I'll move quickly through >> [clears throat] >> Um, so as we look ahead to the next budget year, we expect to maintain current revenues, but do not expect growth as our rates are near the top end of the market and no rate increases are currently proposed. As I said uh earlier, the model assumes no change in rates, hours or days.
No property dispositions or reductions in forces. Indirect costs paid to other city departments uh are projected at a little over $1 million annually. Uh
on the bright side, we were able to secure funding uh for parking deck rehabilitation through the general CIP process. So those costs do not need to be paid out of the parking fund. Uh and those improvements are underway and you should be seeing that across our facilities. 5 million range pime driven primarily by debt service payments for the Morgan Riggsby deck with negative fund balances shown in red. We are effectively borrowing from other enterprise funds until we can get back into the black. Uh and then these are some of the options that the manager has discussed.
Anyone have any questions about basically saying go back one slide. Sorry, it's too quick. I'm >> basically saying uh you can tell us to do the first three if you want to, but if not, we understand four is an option and the fund that was not it could operate in the negative for another year while we figure out better strategy going forward. >> So, how does that impact the budget though?
Because it's already it's already negative fund balance, right? So, we're So >> this unlike the transit fund is an enterprise fund. So it has a source which is the um the fairs or the rates that are charged. Um so it it operates in a negative. It means that it it is back borrowing from some of our other enterprise funds um namely water or some of our richer funds. So I think it's something that kind of sits um I won't I
won't get too far out of my league. um our finance directors here if we have further questions but it sits essentially on our balance sheet and so >> as enterprise fun so we can so we can cover some of the other enterprise for now >> for now >> while we think about the longer strategy >> yeah it's not a long-term solution but it is short-term it has been and so we have enough enterprise funds that are in the positive >> right and and I'll name I've said this before I'll name again that we're like we're pushing hard on transit right fair free and yet we're sort of dealing with these parking decks at some point we got to think about what's the balance between parking and transit And maybe we need less parking downtown. >> Thank you. I just This is a long-standing problem.
We raised rates a few years ago. Didn't really max like the thing didn't get that much better even though it did a little bit, but I think when we get to a point where we're doing a study, I would like to see what other cities have done. That's a lot of high quality land downtown. Um what what have other cities done to to really maximize that land? Um, and
you know, some of the parking lots are a lot older than others. Um, so I I know staff will be creative and helpful and yeah, we'll figure it out. Just as a followup, so with option four with that also, um, if we allowed more space and time to study it for the next year, you all would also try to create alignment was been outlined in the downtown 2035 plan because I believe that we did have some conversation around reutilizing some of the surface parking lots and reimagine what those places could look like. So, I just want to confirm that will be also included in that.
>> Okay. Sorry to bring this up, but we also did just talk about running a pilot for the parking. Is that >> that's coming forward? >> Okay.
And it's still This is >> Yep. It'll make it worse. >> I That's what I That's why I'm asking. Yeah. I mean, I'm just I'm asking if if that is included in the projections that we're seeing today, I guess. No, it's
not. >> Cool. >> You will see that presentation before my proposed budget. So, the financials that come back proposed budget if you ask us.
We didn't want to make a presumption. You guys said you want to see a proposal, so we didn't bake that into the fund. You will see that. Do you know Sean, when are we bringing that or Gina?
>> April. >> You're going to see that in April. You'll get a chance to respond to it. My budget will either include that or not include it based on what the council decides to do.
>> Okay. Do you want to say that into the microphone? >> Yes. In April, we will be responding to direction that council gave us at the December work session where parking was discussed. Council expressed support for staff working in conjunction with DDI to develop some form of parking discount program for first hour downtown uh to be free to try and encourage downtown parking. Uh we have been working over
the last few months uh to develop that proposal. We're going to bring that proposal to council in April. If you decide based on that you'd like to move forward, we will re calculate the fund and in my proposed budget, you will see the impact of that fair proposal uh revenue proposal. >> Yeah.
Thank you for helping us understand the distinction between the two uh and offering option four as a realistic option here going forward and how it works with the enterprise fund and the venture funds. Um just in terms of you know kind of directionally where we're heading. So helping me to think about you know it not just being a fund that is bad and getting worse like we're seeing with transit. You know, obviously we're doing this pilot and if we made that decision, it would make this look worse, but we've talked about potentially moving away from having surface lots downtown and so having not having those lots, not having those spaces, you know, does that help to then
decrease the negative overtime? And then you talked about those being assets is that then allow us to bring in additional new revenue for the city, which may not be reflected in this fund, but it helps to support the general fund. Is that how I should be thinking about the potential for the long-term trajectory? >> So long-term, we'd look at a a range of options and there are smarter people in the room than me to flesh those out.
But some of what I'm I'm re making potential reference to there is selling those assets could pay off debt in those funds. So selling a parking lot for $500,000 could reduce the $500,000 debt. it. Um, other options could include uh transforming this from an enterprise fund into a general fund supported. You could basically decide the revenue will never pay for parking and but we will be willing to support this from taxpayers because we think parking is a public service or because our downtown merchants want us to do that. So again, some of those may be
terrible options. They may be great options, but we will bring you sort of the range of you could charge more, you could get one-time infusions of cash into the fund by selling assets, you could create some new revenue stream, which I haven't thought of yet, but we could we could, you know, we would actually look at what are what are people doing in the world of parking. uh and or we could change the way we finance this fund alto together and make it tax supported which right now it's not but it's getting close to being there >> on the issue of of assets and debt. So as I look at the numbers, so fully one-third of our costs for parking is like debt service, right?
So it's a big big big load right now on the on the total budget, >> right? >> Yes. >> But that's but that's not for older service lot. That's for like newer decks, right?
So I mean like what's included in that three million we're paying uh a year. Like what are we what are we still paying off on? >> Um and I may need um our finance director, but I believe that it is the new deck. So it's the Morgan Riggsby
deck that is >> just that one deck >> is but um and Tim can confirm >> two and a half >> two and a half >> the Morgan Riggsby deck and then there's legacy debt that's about half a million a year. Uh and we actually get support from the debt service fund for the legacy debt. Uh so that's the 515828 that you see in transfer from debt service fund. 5 of the three is from Morgan Risby.
>> Morgan ris. Yeah. And so and so as you said potentially like selling off assets to to to lower the debt is one option. Is there any any option to like restructure that somehow or if that's a possibility because that clearly that one that one deck and that that debt service is like a big chunk of what what's happening here?
>> I'd like to table that question until we do the the deep dive, but I think all of those will be on the table. I would also, and Gina, correct me if I'm wrong, or Christina, we help this fund out from time to time from the general fund. Right now, we're we're doing a a fairly significant capital project on repairs and maintenance in the garages, and that is
out of the capital fund. Correct. Or is that >> it's out of the debt service fund, but is not out of this. So, there are some other expenses related to parking that the parking fund is not even carrying right now.
So, just to be perfectly honest, this this fund's already getting a little bit of help. Uh, real quick, and this is around the parking study piece. Um, I don't want to I just want folks like when we get to that. I No one's using that new parking garage.
So, if we're going to be offering [laughter] an hour free, it pretty much needs to be in that parking garage. Like, right. Not not on street parking, right? It's like, no, push the traffic where we need it and it's in there.
So, >> okay. Thank you. Anything else? All right, I'm gonna hand it back to Christina to tell us what happens next.
>> Um, >> thank you. Um, so we are going to take a small break right now. Um, we have a few um, we're going to do some technical stuff with our computers and so um, we
will take a 10-minute break and so we'll be back here um, to talk about CIP.