can everybody can anybody hear me ok i felt the microphone all right so my name is andy gets off a senior transportation planner with ramsey county regional railroad authority  and as the mayor said when she kicked this off this is really ball tonight kind of sharing some of the work that we've done thus far kind of maybe this is your first time hearing about this project giving you a little bit of information about what it is what it is and where we are in the process what we're looking at what we're not looking at and then to kind of gain that feedback from everybody here tonight there's a lot of ways to interact if you've seen the the boards across the tables here we've got some different stations here where you can look at a ralitsa and different in terms of vehicles you can submit your comments for accepting written comments on this prop this part of the process as well if you don't want to really talk to anybody tonight or if you want to e mail those in later there's contact information on doing is really focusing in essentially a thirty mile corridor from forest lake through maplewood down into st paul this is really that part of the corridor where there's enough concentrations of people employment of people moving back and forth that it makes sense as part of a long term transportation solution to consider transit as part of that i mentioned before i'm with ramsey county regional rail this study is actually being done in partnership with the rush line task force which is a group of other cities and counties up along up along the line and a number of different committees are formed as well where we're maplewood is the city of maple does represent the technical and at the policy level with the with your mayor on that committee  this study again there's been a lot of work done builds off what was previously done i do want to take a few minutes in just a broader perspective of why we're doing this why we're looking at transit in this in this corridor in this part of the region in particular and and some of the just the facts that are out there is population is growing there's four hundred fifty thousand people a quarter now growing to a ball five hundred fifty thousand by the by two thousand and forty employments also growing unemployment is not all downtown st paul it's throughout the quarter it's really it's in the middle it's the maplewood mall area it's the hospital area it's through out there and how do you how do you connect all those different people in destinations we also have an aging population not everybody will be able to have access to a vehicle providing other options for people to get around and choices into the future will be very important also one of the more concerning things is the people living below the poverty line along the corridor that trend line has been increasing since two thousand and  transmit and the access to jobs component that transit can provide the ability to let people get to a job not just the nine to five or but throughout the day in the evening that's one of the key ways to really reverse that trend and then lastly the need for the need for transit and the need for all other alternatives is growing there's congestion all there on the freeway corridor of thirty five congestion and sixty and sixty one projected to go into the future as the population employment girls with that there's  uptick in transit use biggest uptick is that expressed service getting into st paul into the in the peak periods but it's also a study growth in the urban service and that suburban local which is a problem but a project like this can can start to tap into start to connect those destinations along the way for those of you who have asked where we are in the process if it's all finalized yet the deals done clearly we've got a long ways to go and and as part of this this is this is really just the beginning and one of those first dialogues and it's about right now it's we know that there's a need there we know that there's some opportunities to make these connections through transit we've heard a lot but we've got to do our studying we've got to do our work before we can really figure out what that looks like so that's what's called a pre project development phase and this is what the federal transit administration's this is their process we much follow and you'll see we're still two for you know six years of planning and design before something would actually be built and probably the most important part is just that line up top the ongoing stakeholder and community gaijin along the way i mentioned we do want to hear from you it's very important to us these are big processes and projects with a lot a lot a lot of acronyms and moving parts so it's good to at certain points like right now when we've kind of whittled down some options to take that out and go does this make sense are we on the right path have we missed anything or we're not hearing it so we've been out there we've been in the communities we're always willing to go if there's a group rotary club a neighborhood meeting that you want us there we can certainly make arrangements to give a presentation we done a lot i mentioned eighty one meetings since the start of this study over a year and a half ago which with three thousand people that we talk to but i know that that's just a fraction of the half a million that live along this corridor so we've got a lot of work left to do we also keep our online stuff pretty up to date with the website and the social media tracking if that's more of your way of interacting and the website so i mentioned we were kind of whittling down  process we call it a tiered evaluation but i like to consider it like a funnel so you start off and you go we've got this need for for some sort of transit solution to be part of that transportation picture and you start to look at everything that could potentially work and you start to work your way down and funnel way way down and then you into your second level which is from tear one to a tear or two and tier three you come up with what in the end what makes sense from a performance standpoint is that going to move in people what's the cost of that going to be what are the what are the what are the impacts are you really impacting one population over over another are you providing equal service to different people you access in those destinations that's the end goal  this we do this process is very methodical it's very slow paced we're right here right now this fall we've done some barreling down but after this getting input we're going to go back and come back and do another narrowing down and then come back out again and share that information with everybody and similar meetings this is not a graphic of the hollow waters form of a hydrogen combining with oxygen but it what it is is it's how we when we say the word alternative these are my three my my two acronyms and jargon for the day alternative is basically when we combine the type of transit vehicle that's being looked at a bus based on real base with where it's going to go on the road or sometimes we it the alignment that becomes the alternative and that's kind of the essence of what you do in these studies at these phases you're looking at different alternatives and you're looking at them some are look pretty good some look really bad and you start to look at the differences and see what comes out of there what makes sense i'm not going to go through every one of these transit technologies that's in front of you we do have the the station that's back there we have some videos of a few of these the ones that are the ones that are advancing but i think a general paul to the suburbs suburbs in two stops three stops throughout there that's more than what's out there with the existing express bus routes which are just directly in so if the laser pointer works verily so the next but development community have been attracted to build around it a couple of the other ones right below that is diesel multiple unit consider that like a light rail vehicle but instead of the overhead wires it's self propelled by inboard in bball so you don't have to invest in that the overhead wires is part of it and probably the one below that dedicated guideway b r t so bus rapid transit is another concept where it's trying to take all those things with light rail that have made it attractive and made  it successful and in our region and other parts you know so the frequent service stations are reliable service and in doing that in a bus based system so you've got bosses that actually kind of look a little bit like trains and you've got level boarding you can pay for your fare at the station so you know have to wait for everybody that's that's boarding going onto it so that's being looked at in this corridor as well as a boss option and then lastly is arterial b r t which the difference between dedicated b r t and arterials arterial runs on the road and mix traffic dedicate is in the lane so those are the different transit technologies that have kind of come up to the top here that again this is one where the quick videos are going to do a lot more explaining than me trying to talk about them in a few minutes so the lines up on the map here these are the original options or alternatives that were that were derived some were based on the previous study some were based on stakeholder input that we got to look at as part of this see that we looked at this whole quarter we looked at sixty one we looked at the real core that ramsey county currently owns and that the frontal trail goes through we looked at sixty one we looked at white bread and we looked at a bunch of different local collector roads through through st paul and we looked at all these different ways of getting in to st paul as part of th i'll and i'll touch on that the more in a moment so we did this first phase one of the analysis and really kind of all told us with some things we already knew was that the closer you're into the city the better performing t because there's more density of people and employment but it also can be the most impactful because it is built up but as you go farther out of the city those environmental impact those impacts are a lot less there's a lot more room but your destinations are much farther away so really the first part of the analysis we kept everything in there and we brought it forward so the next part of the analysis on the next part would be what we call looking at these technical criteria there are six of them and i'll go through them on the next slide and basically look at all the options look at them based on the technical criteria and then try to screen some all the really bad ones as i mentioned before a couple of things that were you know sort of the what we call a fatal flaw to or to screen a model was environmental if right away was insufficient or to constrain so if you're on a road and you have to take a side road or a private property those are the options that were were pulled off and taken out the table as in some aspects doing more harm than good land use low density existing or planned development it's not really going well where people are it doesn't even though there might be a clean way of doing it  doesn't make a lot of sense to do that and then capital costs are realized these projects and infrastructure and get very expensive but based on where we're based on what we've seen with other projects if it's more than a billion dollars it's a red flag not being considered taken for d and then lastly travel time seventy five minutes is a long time that's that's from forest lake to st paul but if anything was more than that that was taken off right that was taken off right away because it would be realistic that somebody would make make that trip so i do want to touch on the three things that we are that we are carrying forward i'll start the first one with a dedicated guide so that's the boss with its own lane and that's the only one we're looking at for the full length of the corridor up to up to forest lake and if you're starting a top this is falling highway sixty one are real right away it's actually owned by washington county and here's some track with with with the bruce frontal trail so we're looking at options here where you could fit the the two tracks and the trail and we understand that you know that changes the dynamic of the area and we've heard some of that that here tonight  the safety aspect what does that mean for the property and the area around there and also what is it where to stations go and how do you access it is another one we've heard so that's an option that's being looked for also looking at that but only to white bear lake for a light rail transit again the mold that's operating at the transit technology between the two downtowns into the airport right now and that diesel multiple units that's something we're going to look at to it's not in our region but it's being done successful elsewhere in the country so that's that quarter of that part of course still being looked at but we're also looking at white bear avenue as a corridor and basically that would be using mix traffic so you wouldn't have those major roadway impacts and you'll see here of maplewood mall there in a lot of the development is sort of in the middle i think either of these options as they move forward a way to really connect to the job and entertainment retail and some of that new thing over there is going to be really important moving forward so again these are the four technologies to repeat that are being carried forward the arterial basra the transit the light rail transit the diesel multiple units d m u and the dedicated transit and again we've got the videos and some little blocks that kind of give you a better sense of what that looks like so then we i showed you that big portion the core and there was a block of kind of getting into downtown well as you can see we've got it all figured out we've got eleven different options we only screened out about five of those options from what was originally identified and you know what it really comes down to is there is a lot of different ways to to to get into downtown but also to serve some of those intermediate destinations along the way whether it's metro state university failing village the business park by lafayette  so a lot of things are still that are being looked at and some of these options actually follow the real core of the one that ramsay one of the options follows rail that is currently operated by the freight railroads and a couple the options go up at street level and serve some of the destinations more directly one of the things key things these transit projects there's always trade offs in which we live and it shows a fat a faster faster route in or is it more community serving and that's what the next phase can go to figure out who's actually going to we can do projections on who's going to ride it what destinations it's going to serve other economic development opportunities and then there are those sensitive areas where it really just doesn't make sense to be  to be bringing in transit a couple a couple points on other transit technologies street car was looked at not the old fashioned trolley but the modern version of the street car which is basically a light rail but it operates in traffic doesn't have its own its own lane and that was ruled out because all of us are typically one to two miles being developed and then probably the last one is really the most significant of all this first phase of the study is looking at options on thirty five easy for the rush line corridor were taken off the table and really that has to do with that corridor is actually pretty well served or it's starting to build up its base now there's a been a park and ride it's going to align all lakes with the maplewood mall there's there's options to serve that corridor and that really serves that direct connection into st paul and also the min pass project which is information which is going to be opening in an operating and along and she can answer all your questions on the bin pass over there as as well and really what that did show was that staying more centrally where the people are people and located and connecting the destinations along the way that there is a market for that and that there's an ability to serve that with the options carry forward not going to go into the details of this i think this is actually one of the boards that's back there one of many boards that walks through the technical analysis so we also have a full report if anybody's interested it in that as well but again i'm going to kind of wrap up my portion here in a moment just want to talk to you about a few of the next steps we are collecting comments either right now on the boards talk to staff submitted in the box e mail them to us later we're going to kind of compile all those and then we're going to bring that information back to the policy advisory committee that's the elected officials up and down the corridor and and then show them the feedback and then and then whether what gets carried forward gets modified or not will take that forward to the next part of the more detailed here to analysis so part two of that final and then hopefully by next spring to be kind of another round being all they're talking to people and with the goal of by next spring summer really coming up with what is that that one option that seems to make the most sense seems to minimize the greatest level of impacts and has a potentially a funding plan or a mechanism that can be associated with that and then that gets kind of taken forward and even then it's not all solved we're not going to know how many feet are here to there or exactly where it's going to be located but we're going to have a better a better sense and really it's a confidence level of of what that option is i mentioned earlier there's different ways of staying gauge again they're  here but they're also on all the all the materials so all tonight the way that we had a program to set this up is that we're going to take a sort of the break into a town hall style asked  joy to come up for joy has been helping with our our public engagement to really been out there a big a face in the in the communities and basically what we'd like to do is open that up for just for a for a general q and a we're going to kind of goal a thirty minutes max is what we're thinking last if there's not a lot of questions but a lot of it is we want to hear from you here but we also want we've got all the people with a name tags are all around here and to be the most efficient so that everybody can kind of  one yeah i think you know great input the idea of having it a protected green space and having that be a criteria that's looked at for any of these options what it what it looks like landscaping that kind of fit in with that the overall theme of the community to make it in tailor it to theirs so i think that those are things that you know if this project moves forward a matter what alignment of goals you know are going to be  considerations that that are going to be made you know as far as you know working with all the the different the different partners i think that's what having groups like the task force and the different people here to kind of come around and see if there is a common shared vision oftentimes that brings the different entities together to to work through it i do not have any data on hol frequently use the respond to all trailers but knowing that i biked it on a saturday a week and a half ago it was it was you know it was pretty busy and well abuse and it's not just you know speed bikers it's people there with their families walk in there walking their paths and in all ages so that's something you know important to consider is if there is a co location in all these options are looking at colocation that how that works together to really protect that the safety of the natural environment but also the people that are recreating along there a regular basis raise your hand regular basis for it and then how many people here are property owners their property may be affected by the decision  that first up is is the routes and basically identified those key areas along the line but that's what we want to hear from everybody here tonight i mean as far as there's impacts and things we want to avoid area where does it make sense to the night and that's a goal of this study is looking at extending that and i think what we've shown is it makes a lot of sense if you're looking at a real based option a white bear lake but going any farther north than that would be looking at would be looking at a bus option so that's as far as we've today just might running the study you guys are already impacting my property value secondly i have to disclose to me when that if i were to sell my house to that you guys are running the study so now you're impacting them for insulation for their homes so that you can actually not if you're a boss for a train boy by every ten to fifteen minutes ye and i think that the key word there is studying and that's exactly what we're doing tonight and really it's planning for the future it's it's not what's out there today but what's all there ten fifteen years from now and you know it whether it's with or not it always makes sense to go ahead and take a look at what that could look like we do understand the concerns about what what would that potentially look like if you have transit and you have a trail thresholds that we can have a consultant softball player may be a good example are the videos that sort of shoal what the d m u sounds like and what light rail sounds like light rail is kind of the the the dinning so that you know what's coming u the transit depending on how that how that's done can be acquired or acquire option too because it doesn't have that that that bell aspect to it and that's something as a project like this they move for their state noise sanders federal noise standards and if you're exceeding those standards in in adjacent property then there is requirements under under law to to do mitigation measures and that's going to come down to you know way farther down the process when you when it's more clearly laid all where's it going to go and where is it not going to go and start to think of what can be done to make that a very pleasant environment i mean some of those things you do right if you  stating wyoming and they have expressed buses and they quit they said they hardly have any now big as nobody has a few things will need their cars for the professionals at their end downtown so they said they used to have tons of them running and they yes and i would sit it it's really it kind of a combination of all it's ramsey county has an interest in it in the projects also the cities that i go with have a very important say of you know whether planned put together for rushmore and yet it's still just in that study point it's trying to figure out does it make sense where does it make sense to go and do we have a project here and then it's really all hollow it if that's the case you know how you county right now is is the the lead for this for this project which is how it usually works is is the colonies are the cities are are the local leads and then when it comes time to build all been operated those actually transfer to our regional planning incorporate transit what does that mean for people living there but also people coming in accessing jobs that's one of the things that we've heard a lot is from the major employer is that they want the transit access for their employers or recruiting tool and that's one of the things that look into for the future the more that you can provide that the more you can really help kind of like an engine of not just the east side of the room in this area but the overall region as is is having that kind of transit system so that's more  being crappie quite frankly because it's not i was also an original member of the gladstone coalition that was a citizen who worked very hard on the glasgow a master remember that in all of the maple woods considerations of looking at the comprehensive plan they looked at the trails the bruschetta trail being one of them that it was a green way forward commercial development yeah sure i mean one of the one thing of all around projects for transit and all transportation is there is some sort of subsidy that the public is paying a share of that cost so i think with a whole slew of the more successful the lion the more percentage that the fares covers but there's other ways for revenue and even earlier you mentioned there that idea of some of that commercial development around there helping to benefit the line that's what some other places around the country are looking at as ways to you know make these lin s more sustainable but it's never going to be this isn't this isn't intended to be a money maker or you know a cash balances and you provide another another part of that that family of transportation services to give people all the different choices and