CAPITAL METRO
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ADVISORY COMMITTEE
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

DATE:	September 14, 2004
TIME:	6:00 P.M.
LOCATION:	Capital Metro 323 Congress 1st Floor
Members:	Rene' Barrera, Dr. Bob Harkins, David Patterson, Ruth Young, BJ Taylor and Carl Tepper
Associates:	Jerry Balaka, Joseph Thornton, Jennifer Bennet and Colleen Fisher
Staff:	Barbara Chavis, Roberta Gonzalez, Rob Smith, John Hodges and Sandra Maggitt

1. Meeting was called to order at 6:15 pm by Rene' Barrera and followed by introduction of members and CMTA staff.
2. Minutes tabled, quorum not in attendance.
   Minutes were motioned and approved towards the end of the meeting. Carl Tepper abstained.
3. Transit Orient Development - John Hodges

John defined to the committee that Transit Orient Development simplified is the situation where Transit Authorities takes a broader and more active role in what goes on at and around their larger passenger facilities. Nationwide, Transit Orient Development is usually thought of just being around rail stations, but it can also successfully occur, to a smaller extent, around larger bus service facilities.

There are three primary reasons why Capital Metro is interested in Transit Orient Development:

1. Transit Orient Development produces higher density and usually has a residential component. CMTA gets more ridership if the density around the transit center facilities is greater.
2. If CMTA takes a more active role in the development around and at their stations, they will have the ability to control the quality of the immediate development. For example, curb appeal, which makes the neighborhoods nicer than other places.
3. Economics:
• By taking an active role in what goes on around their facilities, the value of the capital asset is higher if the facilities are of higher quality. For example, if you own property in an area that is of higher quality or proceeded as a higher quality, it has a higher market value. One responsibility that Capital Metro has is to try and maximize the asset value of all its capital asset.
• Producing cash flow is the second economic reason. When a transit authority has a large facility like a rail station or a big park and ride, it is a little like a retail mall. When Capital Metro goes in with a large facility, they are creating value for the things around them but are not getting to participate in that value.

In a Transit Orient Development, you have what amounts to a partnership. Places where these have happened successfully is where the Transit Authorities, the city (or the jurisdiction), private developers, and FTA that usually become partners. Capital Metro is currently working on a partnership to set up in its service area. There are two places where progress is being made, Leander and the City of Austin.

Leander is the more publicized area. The city is pushing a 2,300 acre Transit Orient Development base rezoning. Leander hired consultants to go in and identify land usage that circles around where the major park and ride and hopefully a rail station would go if the Referendum is successful in November. The consultants are identifying land usages, densities and will completely redo the city's zoning and related ordinances. The city's ordinances in places where these are successful are usually edited or completely redone to support the higher density. Capital Metro is one of the entities that is helping to fund this study. The overall cost for this funding will be subsidized by the major land owners in this 2,300 area. The City is going into the second phase of the study and it will be approximately a 4 to 6 month effort before the phase will be complete.

The City of Austin City Council passed a resolution a few weeks ago that directed the City Manager to have their staff produce a Transit Orient Development ordinance draft and present to the City Council by the January 27th City Council Meeting. The City of Austin has started work on this draft in which Capital Metro is participating. The staff's first step is looking at other municipalities across the country that has actually done this successfully. The staff is getting copies of what was done and looking at where they have and have not worked. The City Manager suggested that not only the City Ordinance Department be revisited to help support this higher density and other issues, but also the city's development process.

The reason the TODs work is the partnership perspective. If Capital Metro wants the higher density to happen, someone would have to come in an apartment complex or a small shopping mall, they would have to do the development. The transit authority is not a developer, but they recognize the value to Capital Metro by having this happen. What Capital Metro would do is go into an area where they are considering a major passenger facility and tie up by contract or other means, more land than what is needed for the park and ride or transit station. If they are able to control the land, they will be able to dictate what kinds of usage should be on the land. They would then go through procurement process and entertain proposals from private sector developers. The process that Capital Metro is currently looking at is to solicit proposals from developers. The uses that CMTA would want to make sure is included in the area around the transit facility could be housing, office, commercial, a community center or anything. Developers would have to include those uses in their proposal to Capital Metro. Their profit would come from what else they could do and how well it would work. Capital Metro has not done this before so they do not know what will work best in Austin. They have noticed where other transit authorities have form partnerships with developers. CMTA will entertain this if it ends up being the best thing to do. There are a lot of different structures that will be entertained. The proposals will be analyzed to see which one will be in the economic best interest of Capital Metro.

Capital Metro first encountered this idea when they realized that the strategies and tactics used on the bus park and ride gave them the opportunity to do some TODs on a small scale. Northwest Park & Ride is an example of the new park and ride prototype. It was built on 13 acres of the 23 acres on phase one. Capital Metro's tactic is to buy more land than needed. It is unknown how the market diametric will change at each park and ride. Capital Metro can not say, with confidence, that they will need "17.2" acres. They also know that the most flexibility that they can give their assessors ten years from now is to give them more land so that can respond to all the market diametric. Capital Metro also realize that as they begin buying these sizes for the park and rides and have access land, is there a way to go ahead and generate income from this land. One of the projects, the North IH 35 Park & Ride which will start construction this autumn, has a total of approximately 32 acres. It is possible that all of this land not be needed for the next 20 or 30 years. Although Capital Metro does not pay property tax (tax exempt), there is no carrying cost except for mowing and picking up trash when appropriate. Capital Metro should not let the land "sit there" due to asset value. There can be long-term lease or parking space rentals which will generate income. This would be a small version of Transit Orient Development. There is a certain part of Capital Metro's responsibility to their constituency that tells them that they would need to find ways to maximize the value and to have income sources.

Carl asked if the land was leased out, would it go back into the tax row in any way. John stated that the land doesn't but the business on the land is subject to tax. Carl asked if it's purchased or personal property taxes, and if the improvement of land taxed. John stated that he thinks it would be personal property and the improvements should not be if they are real estate. For example, The Clemons Building at 15th and Lavaca have retail stores. The real estate is not on the tax rows but the building improvements and the value of that lease is taxable so the elements of that under the state laws are taxable, the state itself is not. Carl asked what John meant by the "value of the lease" because taxes are not paid on the amount of the lease. John stated that he thinks the lease whole interest has a value.

Dr. Harkins stated that what he has been cautioned about when bringing in commercial development is that they will be hit with an added warrant tax and to be sure that it's worth their while to do. David stated that the other part would be that when you start developing, would you naturally incur some costs such as security costs. John stated that you could if you do a land lease. It depends on what type of business you lease. For example, the company may already have security as part of their business so the security that they would have help as opposed to increase problems it could reduce them. If you look at all the dynamics from the perspective of a real partnership with that business, you should come out ahead if you are alert in the business deal.

While viewing how TODs have been done around the country, Capital Metro thinks that this is an opportunity to pursue the TODs to get more income and primarily increase new ridership. John stated that Capital Metro is excited about the ability to pursue this, that is will increase the quality of what they are doing and position them better for the future.

Carl stated that his opinion is that Capital Metro should stick with running buses and trains and that he would rather sale the land and let it develop or develop it. John stated that if he thinks this would be in Capital Metro's best economic interest, then they could do that. He stated that what Capital Metro is doing is not buying extra land to develop it, but buying extra land because they firmly believe that this is the most responsible way to provide the flexibility that their successors 20 years from now will need. If Capital Metro is trying to position the business well for the future, are there things that can be done with the land now that will generate income to maximize the value. In a place like Leander, there is a little different take on top of this. The zoning and other elements that the city, as well as Capital Metro, recognizes can increase the quality of their neighborhoods if they can be control this and do it responsibly.

Rene' stated that he has one reservation. He stated that he is in favor of TODs from an urban design perspective. His reservation is that with establishing or creating TODs, in Leander for example is a smaller satellite city compared to the high density of Austin, you are putting a lot of revenue or resources into developing their community but there is not enough priority placed on the city as a hold. For the last couple of years, CSAC has talked about corridor planning and named the corridors that qualify for high density. He stated that he is hoping that the next steps the TODs would have some guidelines or guiding principles that would help direct these developments or the appropriate developments. What he is seeing so far has been suburban development, because you have the raw land. It is a lot easier to development those areas but when you get into the urban corridor you have fragments, hodge podges of zoning which takes more energy, time and cooperation with individual developers and property owners to have these TODs. A good example would be Riverside Drive. There are Grey Fields, abandoned shopping centers and a lot of vacant parking lots with no energy, but there are really good corridors. Rene' stated that he is hoping that Capital Metro can work to facilitate some improvements on those areas (they are all over the city) and make this a priority. They need to have the density in the urban core just as much as they need to have it in any city. Rene' also stated that TOD's should have affordable housing as a requirement when applicable and especially when on a direct route or transit corridor.

John stated that he was recently in an FDA workshop in Denver that brought together the FTA, the city of Denver, their transit authority and a number of private developers that have implemented TODs successfully in Denver. The four entities that participated emphasized the importance of the base foundation pieces of all of them. These entities stated that any development that you hope to put in TODs has to be based on market forces and if it not, it will not work. The first reaction that most people get when they hear this comment is that the developers will determine what happens. This is not what happened in Denver and this is not the approach that the City of Austin is taking. What the city tries to do by their ordinances is protect the public safety and public interest and the quality of the neighborhoods. You can have almost any sort of legitimate market base use that's either done poorly in a way that is detrimental to the neighborhood or you can have it done at highly quality and works well economically and improves the neighborhood. The trick with the ordinance part is trying to go ahead and buy ordinances that help the quality be what it needs to be. Ordinances have a hard time doing that in places where they are use to controlling development in almost any big city. In Denver that were able to get all the entities together in a public/private partnership and realized that none of them had interests that were contradictory. It is an awkward learning curve for these different entities to get together for the first time and come up with some pattern that works with these developments. Denver did, and many other places. Austin will try to do it.

Rene's asked if there were any discussions or conversations about credits for development in respect to trying to (1) decentralize the process where developers could be interested in a particular area and (2) minimizes registration. John stated that in TODs goals occurs at a major transit. The transit element is sort of a catalyst for what happens. The transit element by itself will not make this work. The market demands is what makes them work.

Rene's stated that the reason the question was asked is that it would be very positive for Capital Metro to encourage more housing as part of the component for this process where you have some benefits to the community as a whole and there are affordable housing in higher density working communities with easier access to bus routes. John stated that a core part of TODs is the pedestrian access. They are set up to be pedestrian accessible as it as possible to be. The concept is that you should be able to live in one of these developments and be able to walk anywhere you want; walk to transit to get to work or walk to transit to shopping, etc. These linkages in the proximity of the density are the elements that help make that happen. The housing component issue is being worked through by the Saltillo Project. Capital Metro recognizes that it is beneficial to the neighborhood and CMTA's ridership to have some affordable housing. Affordable housing in most markets means that you have to lease or sale it for less than what it cost you. This means that something else has to subsidize. If you have the percentage of affordable housing too high, the project will not spin off enough profits to give the developer a return. What you find is that you have a really good project but someone with no project will not touch it because it doesn't give a return, it's not profitable.

Rene' commented that from his point of view, every stakeholder involved that's leveraging this opportunity is an equal as a potential outcome.

Rene' stated that he would like to draft a resolution supporting Capital Metro's procedural motion to have TOD as part of their criteria/planning process. He ask committee members to send him e-mails in regards to this and that it could possibly discussed in next month's meeting. Dr. Harkins stated that there need to be a lot more discussion and questions. Carl stated that they are actually putting the egg before the chicken, putting the hold thing down and expecting a TOD around it. They are not going to the higher density area first, and it seems that they are already going with a new resolution. Rene' stated that their resolution can state this, that they would want Capital Metro to focus on corridors that have high density potential or transit potential riders. They could even script it to put weight on it. Rene's asked John if the guideline for TOD has been established, in which John stated "no". John pointed out also that another element is that the city by counseled direction of the city is pursuing creation of TODs ordinances. The city will hold a number of Open Houses to communicate the approach they are taking and where they are at any time and try to solicit comments from the public. He stated that he will make sure CSAC is informed of meeting dates.

4. Downtown Circulator Design - Rob Smith

Rob stated that this is an extremely early time to discuss this topic and would explain why if there is a successful election in November. Capital Metro has been discussing the development of a long range plan during the pass Spring and Summer. The plan has become to be known as the All Systems Go Plan that was adopted by the Board last month. One of the most frequent question from a lot of people has been, "If you build a commuter rail service or build rapid bus, how am I going to get from a station of the stops and to my final destination?" It is especially a frequent question on the commuter rail because the existing line for that service is fixed. An early rollout of the service will not necessarily be moved. It has always been Capital Metro's intent to use buses to provide the activity through the downtown area and potentially to other locations along the line. During the course of this pass summer, there has also been discussions emerged in the community about ideas such a streetcars. Many of the people used Portland Streetcar as a model as to what they are looking for. The final plan adopted by the Board has established what Capital Metro call "four circulation areas", derived from the comments received. The four circulation areas are:

• Downtown - because of the level of activity and people, it is obvious extremely important.
• Highland Mall
• Robert Mueller Redevelopment Area
• Burnet Gateway Area - includes Pickle research center, the domain development, major employers like IBM that are in North Austin will be established as special zones that Capital Metro will be looking at as a more detailed circulation issue.

Dr. Harkins asked to have "Downtown" defined. He stated that he is concerned that one of the highest density users, "UT", has no identification or connectivity. Rob defined "Downtown" (could adjust if they move forward) as UT, State Capitol complex, downtown extending to south of the river. There are issues that have not been worked out as to how far south of the river. Capital Metro intent is that UT is part of what they describe as the downtown zone. An issue that is liable to come up during the work, not only UT, is the connection between downtown and Robert Mueller.

A study will be conducted to look at circulation and other issues in a more detailed way for each of these zones. If the election is successful in November, the Board is committed that immediately after that step; Capital Metro will immediately initiate the work to start the study first for the Downtown zone and Robert Mueller Redevelopment Zone and later for Highland Mall and the Burnet Gateway Area. A study of circulation issues is defined in transit as an alternative analysis, which means that Capital Metro will look at the potential routes and areas that need to be covered by the circulation, the technology that is used to provided that service, and all other issues related to determining the best idea.

One idea for the Downtown Area is that there needs to be a cross east/west connection from the initial commuter rail segment will end at the Convention Center and over to Sea Holm. There is also a north/south movement in downtown both to distribute people from the commuter rail and to reflect the fact that there are UT students and faculty going downtown, and other con activity. The study will look at the issues of where the con activity needs to be and how it will be provided. Capital Metro could be looking at extending the commuter rail through the downtown area to Sea Holm. It could be a streetcar system, buses or a high frequency bus service extending the length of the core downtown connecting to rail and bus service at key locations with a frequency of 70 seconds during peak time. Capital Metro will commit to conducting an analysis and do it in a way that is consistent with the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) guidelines to maintain eligibility for future funding. At the end of that study (approx 1 year) the Board would face a decision on a recommended circulation system with win in each zone. If it is a bus system, it could be implemented and started immediately. If it is a rail system such as a streetcar, the Board has indicated that they will look at calling a subsequent election to determine whether or not it will be moved forward. If there is a positive vote in November, Capital Metro will immediately start the process of hiring the study team that will conduct the studies and establish advisory boards for each of the areas. The studies will start at the beginning of the 2005 calendar year.

Carl asked Rob if he was talking about a subsequent immediate election to look at streetcars. Would one of the options be to take the Red Line instead of a streetcar and extending the Red Line to Sea Holm and cutting it north to the University? Rob stated yes and this would be one of the options. The way that the notice was posted to the Board, an extension of the line beyond the Convention Center will be subject to a subsequent vote.

Rene' asked what kind of stops would there be between Sea Holm and the Convention Center. Rob stated that if it's a commuter rail type system, he can see a couple of stops. If it's a streetcar or bus option, there will probably be more than a couple of stops, which will be part of the study.

Rene's asked if the City or Capital Metro would be interested in a seeing this as a tax improvement district where a percentage of the tax go back to the corridor for improvement by continuous phases. Rene stated that his personal opinion is that he doesn't want to see Capital Metro subsidize that development community. Rob stated that he doesn't know how this will work out but Capital Metro does have some interest. One of the things that is being pushed by the downtown community is establishing an off street downtown transit center to connect buses with whatever forms of transportation that's out there. This is also something that Capital Metro will have to look at, which is sometimes approached as joint developments involving a mix of public and private. Rene's stated that he would like to see something where you don't have that kind of leveraging.

Dr. Harkins stated that he was unclear in terms of the circulator and requested to know what Capital Metro is looking at. For example, is Capital Metro looking at commuter rails going into downtown and what circulates from that or are they taking a view of all the downtown area out to the University? Rob stated that he studies would take a broader view and look at connections to commuter rail as well as internal circulation in those areas. Depending on the type of rail that's chosen, implementation could possibly take more time than the initial opening of the commuter rail line. The current vision for a 2008 opening of a commuter rail line would have circulators of a bus variety extending out from The Convention Center to the lower downtown areas possibly to 12th Street. UT and the Capitol areas will be served by circulators operating out of a station at MLK & Manor along the line in East Austin. Capital Metro believes this will be the quickest travel time for people using the line.

Carl requested to know how close the Red Line gets to the University. Rob stated that the closest points to UT are generally in a residential neighborhood. Capital Metro is looking at a potential station in the area between MLK or Manor Road, which would provide quick connections into campus.

Dr. Harkins commented that he would think there would be a plainer definition before the election as to how the University and the Capitol Center would be served. He stated that all he has heard is serving The Convention Center which means you would have to go all the way to The Convention Center to go back up.

Rob stated that Capital Metro is looking at nine stations in the commuter rail segment. Eight are within the city of Austin, the ninth is in Leander. He stated that comments have been made that this is designed to serve people out of Leander, Cedar Park and places like that. This is not what Capital Metro is looking at long-term.

Rob invited and encouraged members and groups to attend Open House public meetings. Dr. Harkins stated that chances are, local people in Austin will not go to an Open House and that there has to be some other form of communication going out that tells people what benefit this has to the 70,000 people around UT. Rob stated that the communication that Capital Metro can do would be strictly on an educational front. They are focusing on the Open Houses as well as meeting with neighborhood groups and community groups. The presentations at the meeting will indicate where the stations will be. The station locations are:

• Leander Park & Ride
• Northwest Park & Ride
• Howard Lane
• Gateway/Braker Lane Area
• Lamar & Airport
• Highland Mall
• MLK/Manor Are
a
• Plaza Saltillo
• Convention Center

Dr. Harkins stated that there is not a lot of information out that would tell people what the benefits are and if Rob could explain to the University what the linkage is to PRC and campus, it would help. He stated that if there was a meeting, he would be happy to facilitate and work with Rob to get this done. Rob stated that he would be happy to do this but they could not talk about the benefits but could talk about what's in it and how it would work. Rob stated that Dr. Harkins could contact other members of the team and make arrangements. Dr. Harkins stated that he would get in touch with student government and find out if they are willing to sponsor a meeting, which would be a good opportunity.

Dr. Harkins commented that from a University's perspective, with the large number of students living south of the river, the Riverside Complex should be taken into count along with the numbers listed for Far West to link together the circulator pattern. Rob stated that one of the changes in the plan adopted by the Board is an expansion of the Rapid Bus System and East Riverside is one of the expanded segments included in the final version. Riverside and Burnet Road were two of the segments targeted in the plan. This is also included in the brochure.

Rene' commented that strategically it would be appropriate to look at upgrading the most dangerous segment of IH 35, the Riverside bridge. CMTA should coordinate with TX Dot to facilitate this improvement and as a linkage to the airport.

Jennifer commented that West Campus is going to be rezoned and gradually they will be bringing the students back and have a higher density of population in that area. She requested to know if this was envisioned when doing the plan. Rob stated that if Capital Metro sees a movement of people that requires them to change their approach or emphasis, they will adjust the changes.

5. Greyhound Bus Station - Roberto Gonzalez

Roberto stated that they talked with Greyhound regarding the arrival times from Houston, Dallas and San Antonio and unfortunately Greyhound does not keep statistics of number of people that arrive at different periods nor do they keep statistics on ridership by trips. The only information gathered was from information they heard from passengers and what they observed. Greyhound observed high level traffic from UT students on Sunday evenings. The students either take a taxi or have made prior arrangements to be picked up. Greyhound suggested that Capital Metro may want to target this group.

During the last meeting with planning, there were also discussions regarding the services at Highland Mall that ended around the 9:00-9:30 pm hour that returned to the garage. After discussing this with Rob, there is a possibility that instead of sending these buses back to the garage, they would have one or two of those trips return to the downtown area and then return to the garage.

David commented that because #7 connects the #27 and #27 ends early, is there a chance of one of the trips continuing south. Rob stated that Capital Metro is still in a "keep service flat" mode for approximately another year. This is however, something that Capital Metro will be looking into. Capital Metro is looking at something vital that will make the UT connections at the current time. Rene' asked if there was something UT could do to help raise the level. Dr. Harkins stated that until somebody brings some number they cannot. The current numbers does not warrant it. Currently UT has their own shuttle system that provides service to Dallas and Houston. There are two other bus lines that provide direct service the campus.

Rene' suggested that there will be follow-up with the marketing aspect of providing schedule books to the public other than behind the counter at Greyhound. Barbara indicated that there is also a direct line at Greyhound to the Customer Service Department.

Jerry stated that in a previous discussion regarding the #350 not being feasible to serve the Greyhound Bus Station, is there one direction that would it be close to feasible? Roberto stated that the last time it was discussed that the southbound trip would not be that disruptive. Jerry stated that it would be nice to have connectivity between the airport and the bus station because sometimes people get stuck when trying to get to Dallas when their flight can't leave. If you are leaving the airport going north, even if the bus didn't circle and get right to the Greyhound Station, you would still only be 2 blocks away if you were dropped off on Airport Blvd. Roberto stated that people do get dropped off but it is a track across the mall. Jerry stated that at least you could get there. If the southbound direction is the easier one, that works. This way you would be able to put up this information on the board at the airport about how to connect to the Greyhound Station. Rene' asked Jerry to follow-up on this for further discussion.

6. Time Transfers - Rob Smith

Rob stated that it has been approximately three years since this subject was discussed and would probably not have time to revisit the discussion, entirely. Another meeting will be needed to discuss the principles behind time transfer. One on the important issues discussed was that in order to make time transfer work, you would have to look at it as a complete redesign of your service. The redesign would involve a combination of better facilities that can handle the transfers and the design of the services themselves. One of the principles of the design transfer operation is that the route would have to be design in units of travel time that allow the meet of the buses to work. This means that the system that we have now would have to look different in order for Capital Metro to fully implement time transfers. Capital Metro's plan has always been to do this as they rule out off-street transit centers as a part of the long range development of the Capital Metro system.

North Lamar Transit Center is an off-street transit center but it is not what Capital Metro is looking at. It was not originally designed for time transfers, it was designed as a park and ride that Capital Metro converted. North Lamar Transit Center will eventually be designed to function as a real transit center. The two transfer centers that you will more likely see time transfers operations will be the two new facilities.

The North IH 35 Transit Center will open first which is located at the Tech Ridge shopping center along IH 35 between Parmer and Howard Lane. There will be routes extended to this location when it opens. Routes include #1, #935, parts of #242, and eventually Rapid Bus. The goal is to make a transit center that can be built as the area grows and extend service to other part of the community. Capital Metro is also working on a special project involving Federal grants called JARC (Job Access and Reverse Commute). The other location is a replacement for the South Transfer Center located at William Cannon and IH 35. Capital Metro is looking to build a more central located transit center that would serve a larger part of South Austin. Once this happens, there will be a complete service redesigned. This center will also be anchored by route #1. The estimated time frame is the fall of 2007. During the rollout, there will be significant route changes to better accommodate coordinated transfers. There will not be a 100% guarantee that every bus will make a connection. Rene' stated that this will be a great advantage along with the assistance of AVL. David asked if there was any thought to where the South Transit Center would be. Rob stated that they are still in the land acquisition phase and is not able to comment explicitly. Rene's commented that he understands why Rob can't comment. He stated that something that would help with the voting process and the support of the initiative would be (1) articulate about time transfers strategic planning to facilitate the redesign of the system because people are still thinking that nothing is going to change. They do not understand how this is going to work; the functionality, the connectivity and other elements that would make them feel more interested in riding and trying the new system. Rob stated that what he can say is that Capital Metro is looking along the South Congress corridor for this site.

Regarding TODs, Rene asked what could be done today to help redesign the bus stops that have some of the worst places to connect alternate routes. Rob stated that this would take an entire meeting to discuss this topic. One of the things that Capital Metro is looking at going more too far side stops. Clarification - Most stops in the Capital Metro system are near side where the bus stop as it approaches the intersection. More modern transit practice seems to be revolving stops to the far side of the intersection after the bus clears it. The reasons are that dangers for near side bus stops is that impatient motorists trying to make right turns around a bus that has stopped is a hazard to the bus and the car that is trying to turn and to pedestrians in the area. On the far side, it allows the intersection to be cleared. This will also allow the speed of bus operation over time when looking at transit signal priority and other techniques to speed up buses.

BJ commented that there are some places where there are middle of the block stops, but if a bus is at the stop light and knows it's going to stop, what happens to the traffic behind the bus, how do they change lanes to get around? The traffic will be stopped in the middle of the intersection behind the bus. Rob stated that this one of challenges when people are following too closely and not paying attention. He stated that there is no perfect solution as to how to deal with this.

Joseph asked if express buses and limited buses are easier to deal with because they don't make as many stops. Rob stated that some of the biggest and varying of times are on the express routes.

Rene' asked David to clarify what he meant by "With improve service on routes to ensure passenger load is standing room only level during non-peak hours". David stated that he noticed that when on routes #1, #331, and #27 during weekday nights around 9:00 - 9:30 pm, people are standing. He stated that it seems to him that people riding the bus at a non-peak time should be able to sit. He stated that this happens a third of the time that he on the bus, whether it's mid evening or midday. He stated that he has seen these monitors and graphs of passenger loads that are used to reduce service. Rob stated that he agrees and that Capital Metro uses the same tools they use to reduce service to add service where it's needed. Capital Metro does not generally don't strive for standing loads at off peak hours. This is being monitored. There has been a special situation in the pass year and half because of the sales tax revenue where CMTA has not been in a position to add service. They are trying to get by as best as they can until sales tax revenue began to build. Rob stated that the committee could help with this situation by getting the information to the Planning Dept when and where this occurred.

Rene' asked if Capital Metro was working on the following statement. Make transfer between bus routes more user friendly by reducing the spaces between crossing bus route stops to no more than one block apart even if that means inconveniencing private auto traffic. Roberto stated that it depends on each specific case. This information will be looked into and given to Rene' at a later time.

Subcommittee Reports -

1. Rapid Transit Subcommittee - Carl Tepper - No Report
2. Amenities Subcommittee - David Patterson - No pictures have been taken, but there are still issues with UT shuttle stops and Capital Metro stops (30, 40 and 50 feet apart). Information will be e-mailed to Rene'.
3. Technology Subcommittee - Richard Greenwalt - No Report
4. Fixed Routes Subcommittee - Jerry Balaka- Jerry discussed the stop at the Hilton and the possibility of moving it closer to the door, which the Hilton is okay with. There is no shelter and what happens is that people walk away and the bus flies by. Roberto stated that when the Hilton was built, they were fine with the bus stop being in the area that it is in. The problem is that within 50 to 100 feet is the left turn that the bus has to make to get onto 7th Street. There is a right turn lane and the bus has to go over one lane. Within 50 feet it has to cross over four lanes of traffic. There is no exclusive use of the area but it does say "Designated No Parking Bus Stop Only". There are delivery vehicles that park there and no way to get this regulated. Jerry stated that after 6:00 pm, there are not any buses that will be useful with people going to the airport and he is suggesting that buses not go by the Hilton after 6:00 pm. There are not a lot of flights leaving after 7:30 and 8:00. Roberto stated that the Hilton is not the problem but operators not being fully assured that the zone is clear and the closeness that they have to make the left. Rene' asked Jerry to work with the Downtown Austin Alliance to get additional people involved.
5. By-law changes - Tepper/Barrera - No Report
6. CSAC Membership - Rene' Barrera - Rene' stated that he sent an e-mail to the committee that was sent to him by Nancy Crowther/Access. Rene' stated that this would be very advantageous to have to send out to, not only people that the committee knows, but to organizations; as well as a link on the web site. This would be good to have with all the meeting coming forward.

Jennifer stated that she would like to be a member of the committee and requested to know how to join. Sandra will send Jennifer an application via e-mail.

New/Other Business:
Rob will be sending the committee information regarding the workshop on September 29th.

David stated that he has noticed that the UT shuttles that he rides have become more unreliable. Rene' asked David to provide specifics on where he has seen delay times so that the customer comment logs can be checked for complaints.
Special Note: Roberto Gonzalez took the time to visit with Jerry Balaka at numerous bus stop locations.

Future Agenda Items:

1. Adopt-A-Stop Guidelines- Lamont Ross
2. January 2005 Service Change - Roberto Gonzalez
3. Membership
4. Park and Ride - New vision and upgrades - Rob Smith
5. Rapid Transit
6. Transit Education
7. Web Site

Meeting adjourned at 8:00 PM.

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