Transcript for:
Board of Directors Meeting Recap (May 20, 2024)

feel like a teacher hello everyone well welcome to the board of directors meeting um it's May 20th 302 call call the meeting to order in the first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance Ben would you please lead us in the pledge I pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty justice for all the first order of business is a public hearing on the proposed service changes for the fall of 2024 uh Mr dupler will make the presentation and we have U I have one card from the public from an Ashton Smith okay Chad yes sir uh thank you Mr chairman I'm going to introduce the item and then uh Phil will do the presentation this is a uh a public hearing uh on the service changes for the fall of 2024 uh we came to you back in March and highlighted what those changes were we had some public meetings that we went through um last month and then in your packet you should have seen um all of the comments that we received for uh the the service changes so Phil's going to go through the fall service changes the presentation actually has two parts I'm going to be very clear about this for for you so you know what you're voting on the first part is the service changes as I said as Phil is going to be presenting on the second part of the presentation are the fair changes I wanted to hold the fair changes until June so we could gather a little bit more information and so we'll bring back the fair changes to the board in a second public hearing uh at the June board meeting so just to be very clear on that um we have included everything that we presented at the public meetings in that one excuse me in that one um presentation and so you'll see that again in June uh so I'll let Phil do the presentation and I'll come back up for the action item thank you all right thank you Chad I have my presentation up all right I have the clicker thank you all right thanks uh during the month of uh April we had a series of public meetings and I'm going to go through that presentation for you now uh or at least the first part of it which involves the service changes and like Chad said the U uh the fair changes will go over in U next month H oh a little bit slow all right so back in uh September of 2021 uh we implemented a system redesign which uh was designed to enhance the service by making it uh much more uh userfriendly simplifying the routes adding frequency in certain places where we felt uh necessary and uh U basically simplifying making more direct routes so we had um after that uh system redesign implementation about a year and a half 18 months or so later uh we wanted to give it time for uh people to get used to it and then we started to assess how things had gone to see what went right what went well uh which routes were doing a lot of ership which ones were were not and so that's the first thing we looked at was what was our ridership doing on each of the new routes that we had uh done changes on and so we looked at all of the routes and ranked the ridership the average daily ridership and found that five routes carry a little bit over 50% of our ridership while 17 routes carry a little bit less than 10% of our our ridership and so looking at this and some of the other changes that we had done so for instance uh Route 25 had gotten an increase in ridership uh increase in frequency during the changes as well as Route Six and those had actually done pretty well so we know that frequency does people really respond well to frequency and so what we looked at the what we wanted to do was to shift some of the resource es that are used on the routes on the right side of this chart to the left side of the chart to add frequency to the routes that uh look like that they would perform well with added frequency particularly the route five there uh which was uh right between 6 and 25 both of those have a 15minute frequency in route five is at 30 minutes should I point this I certain oh it's just slow uh so so what we wanted to do was to look at a number of I'm going to go through a number of uh changes that we're proposing these are the ones and I'll go through each one of those in uh a little bit of [Music] detail so this Pine chart's just kind of another way of looking at the same information and you can see that route five is a pretty good slice of pie uh it carries a good chunk of our ridership and that's because we had back in uh shortly after our U ABC or uh system redesign we responded some public feedback uh and actually extended route five to the TCC South Campus and the VA clinic and that has done really well for us that extension has made our writers ship it's actually up 9% more than it was preco and so what we're recommending to do is to take some of the resources from low performing routes and add to route five to give it 15minute Service as well particularly because of those medical connections that it has so these are some of the RS that we're looking at um making some elimination on and because they're the lowest performing RS they're some of the lowest performing but they're also some of the easiest for us to mitigate uh those lost connections and I'm going to go through each one of these starting with uh the southeast zip Zone uh the uh Route 28 which is entirely within the southeast zip Zone uh so those people that are living along Route uh 28 for them it would would be mostly a a mode shift from using fixed route to using the uh ZIP zone so it serves that zip Zone serves a number of uh big uh destinations along in the along the Route 28 the Walmart for instance and the Sierra Vista Transit Center uh and the uh service span is about the same with Route 28 as it is for the southeast zip Zone as well and so uh no one's really losing connectivity who lives along Route 28 they would simply be shifting to a different mode of service well trying to trying to get it to click okay all right the second one is Route 45 Route 45 uh we heard probably the most post about Route 45 from the public on on this change uh starting back in December we had a public meeting and we heard from a lot of people that said that Route 45 just really didn't do everything that they would like for it to do so they uh listed off a number of different locations in the north side that they wanted to access you can see those indicated by yellow dots on the map places like Northside High School and there are two community centers and a library and particularly there's a Walmart there and a and uh technically just outside of our service areas the uh Department of Public safe safety um the driver's license office so those were a lot of the places that people wanted to connect to including and also the north side train station so what we're proposing to do is that since a zip zone is much more Flex and would be capable of connecting all of these locations then what we'd like to do is replace Route 45 with a new Norths side zip Zone serving additional areas between North Side Drive uh and uh 25th Street also serving TCC Northwest the North Side Station and uh and particularly Tex rail what are the what is that cut off Street those besides North Side Drive 25th what are the other cut off streets the the so uh main the main streets I guess so it' be Northside Drive on the south um it would be Loop 820 and a little bit just beyond to TCC Northwest Campus on the North angle Avenue on the uh North uh East Side jaboro Highway on the nor on the southwest side and then uh extending as far over to the North Side Station along 28th street thank you what kind of vehicle is currently being used in that location is it a gillig bus yes it's a bus 40 40f footer yes yes is at any one time um ridership at capacity no this is on the right so this is on the far end of that ridership number uh graph that you saw oh it's never at capacity yes it's never never even close to capacity on Route 45 I have a question and so these resources are going to be moved to other bus lines is that correct yes uh as I mentioned we were going to use we're going to improve the route five to 15 minutes frequency during the day and so the resources that we're pulling from these routes will be moved to route five excellent so what additional resources will we need to help the zip Zone um surface within these areas is that going to come with cost increases yes uh there's a slight cost increase because we're uh adding some resources to the zip Zone and those are outlined in the in the um action item that uh Chad will bring up also uh Route 66 is one of our Express routes it runs two trips in the morning and two trips in the evening they're overlapping trips so those are actually uh takes two buses to operate that route uh but it's um it's currently uh one of our lowest performing Express routes we had made made a change to it in the system redesigned it used to go up uh I35 and we changed it to go up the uh Chism Trail Parkway because we believed that that would be a faster trip indeed it it's you know faster without the traffic uh but it the ridership did not respond to that change at all and it it does uh have other routes serving the same area routes 6 52 and 72 Also Serve uh about 80 uh or so percent of the area that Route 66 serves in the southwest and so what we're recommending to do is to eliminate that route and use those resoures on uh elsewhere again oops all right Route 23 uh is another route that uh we operate between the Trinity Lake Station and the Taran County College northeast campus so we've obligated uh to uh tarant County College District that we're going to maintain connectivity to all of the colleges uh but this round it has a bus that's out there all day and it often runs empty uh and so what we're looking at doing here is through our new zip Zone contract they have an option where they can serve those trips through what they call non-dedicated Transit Network companies which basically means it's like an a lift uh type situation but students would actually Reserve their trip on our ZIP Zone app or through goass just like any other zip Zone and uh a vehicle would show up and take them to the class or back to the station and so um it's much less expensive to pay per trip given that we're only doing maybe six seven trips a day on that bus route also we're looking at uh the dash the dash was created actually just prior to co it was a project that was inspired by Blue zones uh to promote Healthy Lifestyles in the downtown and West 7th districts which are higher density mixed use the idea was try and get people to to walk to bus stops B use of their bicycle put on the bus uh and you know use Transit rather than driving between downtown and West 7th Street uh we launched just prior to covid uh ridership you know never it was kind of interrupted our growth was interrupted by the uh Co pandemic and then after the co had uh kind of subsided then ridership just never uh continued to grow again it never even got back to its launch levels uh it also it competes with route two Route 2 is um goes along mostly the same Corridor and so given that um our some of our funding Partners chose to discontinue and so what we're looking at doing is maybe repurposing those electric vehicles for downtown Molly service wait I have a quick question on that will anything kind of replace um servicing the Cultural District kind of like Molly does for downtown but kind of a Cultural District Loop feeder something uh no not at this time we're looking at um we have route to that does go straight through the Cultural District right but then to get you down Montgomery kind of back east and west I don't know no right now we're proposing we're not proposing any replacement for the dash at this time another change that we were uh recommending is on the souths side zip Zone um we heard from a lot of people in the Eastern portions about how it's difficult to get from uh the areas uh North and you know there's north to south we don't have a whole lot of uh bus routes between um Oakland and Riverside and so it's difficult for people to access the Walmart Neighborhood Market from Points North and so uh we looked at this and said we can make a very small extension at no cost to the uh Z Southside zip Zone include the Sycamore Heights neighbor and we've also looked at uh Route 15 uh Route 15 serves the stockyard North Main area and uh the area is growing there's lots of new development lots of hotels and we want to promote the uh tourism industry and try to you know help get people to visit Fort Worth and not use not rent cars uh to get here so because of the uh extended night life in the Stockyards area and uh the uh new hotels what we're looking at doing is just extending our service in the evening so that we have higher frequency a little bit later in the evening and also 1 hour later uh at night we we've changed that already for the weekends uh but what we'd like to do now is extend it for the weekdays as [Music] well so whenever we make major service changes like these we have to always be vigilant of unintended consequences uh for uh the Civil Rights uh not that we're ever going to do anything intentionally uh to discriminate but sometimes changes happen that uh that you know despite our best intentions kind of left people out so we always do a title six analysis to look at the the minority and lowincome people the different neighborhoods that can be affected and so we've done our analysis and yes routes uh 23 28 45 and 66 which we're proposing to discontinue are in low-income minor uh low-income minority neighborhoods we're taking those same resources and adding them to route five uh which is also in a lowincome minority neighborhood and then also to mitigate some of those impacts we're doing the north side zip Zone and uh the Sycamore Heights extend extension on the the East Side zip Zone and then kind of contrarily it's the dash um because the dash would be eliminated as well that's actually the dash actually serves a uh a non-minority and higher income area and so in the analysis it kind of balances out and that one went fast we've also got one more change to look at is the uh Alliance zip Zone it's not so much a change to the zip Zone but just a way a change to the way that it's being uh run so in our uh newe service we have a new um contractor that's come coming on board during the summer uh that will take over the service that's currently uh offered through a a lift and um uh much like through Route 23 will be having passengers in that zip Zone to to use the the the regular zip Zone app and or the goass app to summon their trip rather than uh the uh Lift app and the similar hours uh as well so really it's just going to be change of the mode of operation rather than a change to the boundaries or the hours or anything and so those are all the changes that we have proposed for the upcoming fall service changes and uh with that I'll turn it back over to Chad unless anybody has any more questions one question so just going back to page 5 uh Route 113 and I'm sorry I haven't memorized all the bus routes yet um that's our lowest one why didn't we consider chopping that one as well so Route 113 is the uh actually that is the shuttle that runs between uh Sundance Square and there's three buildings around Bernett Plaza and we actually have a contract where the management of that uh they they actually contribute at the cost of that great if we're not paying for it then sounds awesome yeah awesome all right thank you thank you so much do we have any other questions for Mr duper I'm sorry I do have any questions I do just um how when will we analyze these again to see what the how the impact of the change so we usually give it we usually give it about a year to a year and a half before we start considering any uh changes again to it okay so at one point we were considering B for some of these routs is is that sort of a giv way to the zip Zone concept or is that still on the table the F there's still that that evaluation that's being done right now on right sizing the vehicles for the particular routes uh these were um opportunities for us to make changes at this particular time uh for the fall M Mr chairman we can come back um at a subsequent meeting Wayne Wayne Gensler has been spearheading a right sizing of the fleet um in terms of what that looks like and then what what additional changes to the hrp bus complex will be needed to support the new Fleet so Mr chairman if you would go ahead and open the public hearing for comments uh we'll hear those comments and then you can close the public hearing and then I'll come back for the motion at this time uh I would like to open the public hearing on the proposed service changes for fall of 2024 um I have one card um from an Ashton Smith um is ashon Smith [Music] present please come forward I believe your address is 2901 Ray Street in Fort Worth you can come around this way oh yeah it's TI how you doing good again three minutes I'll go ahead and started okay thank you brother app well I'm glad to be here today my name is Ashton Smith and um I saw on the news where uh a driver of a train we'll call him a conductor uh he was almost killed by uh someone I don't know if he was homeless or what have you but my proposal is that we Step Up security to keep people safe on public transit and buses and that kind of stuff I've written all over the place New York some of the largest cities in America and they have proposed to spend millions of dollars to fund uh security for people who need it especially those who drive trains and those who work late at night we got to make sure people aren't robbed for what they have that kind of stuff I look at that because I want to make sure that I am safe when I ride public transportation and so these are things that I think about I also read the packet that you guys give me I actually scan it into a machine and it reads it so I can read all that uh in seconds probably with the machine the reason that I look at that as well is low-income communities and those who are affected we should look at how they're affected and why we need more buses in those areas I did look at that as well including in New York most people who ride the bus are lowincome most rich folks and folks who've got money to pay for transportation including myself I pay for things like uber lift but I will ride the bus bus because it'll help me get an idea of those who are affected and so we really want to make sure that we are doing a good job to make sure those who are poor can also to continue to afford this service and to be able to ride it I know the price changes may affect those who are on a fixed income or those who are on Social Security living on an income of $981 a month in an economy like this so I've also proposed maybe some changes to where some stuff can be privatized so you guys can get more funding because you're a government agency there's a lot of companies and things that can't fund for religious reasons or other reasons these are things that I think about that affect people who ride and so I just want us to be safe when we ride this public transportation and I'll continue to ride it regardless of how much money I make I still like riding the bus because it saves me $188 going to the airport and stuff so keep up the good work guys I'm proud of you guys doing the right thing and making sure people have what they need I'm grateful to be here because I know that I'm a part of the bus stop cleanup program and I'm grateful for that program being intrical to people who want it being there for people who want to use it and so I'm grateful to maintain and keep up the work with these bus stops and Report what's broken or what's not I really appreciate you guys you guys are great people continue to do great work and help people who are poor because we'll continue to ride appreciate you guys thank you thank you m smth appreciate your comments thank you I appreciate y'all man ch I I have aair I actually have a question is it too late to ask a question okay uh on Route 28 I see that you're proposing to close that route and use the existing uh ZIP Zone my question is the price different from the zip Zone and the route uh and also the communication piece for those people knowing that they would so the the price um if you buy a day pass there is no difference in price uh and and you'll actually it'll be more clear next month when I give the presentation on the fair changes because we're and you can kind of see it already in the the packet that you have is that all the fair chain all the fairs will be coming together into one so it's a lot simpler to use uh so right now if you buy a a day pass there isn't a change for that um so um if that helps answer your question yesma okay yeah how about he he also ask how the information side of it how do you the information side yes so we'll we'll we'll have to we'll be putting out some information uh through marketing to communicate to the bus riders that the that the uh route is going to go away so that they know to transition over to the zip Zone I we use envo as well on the bus to to help communicate that as well yeah Chris um what's going to going happen is that right now we have lots of fair price points for different Services next month one Fair does it all so what's going to happen is you're going to hear a proposal that we're not going to have train fairs and bus fairs and zip Zone fairs it's a fair whatever fair is in your pocket will work on any service so um okay that's that's sort of the unveil next month and we wanted more time to look at the economic impact of that thank you and part of the communication is once the board approves we can start moving out on that communication piece uh so that everybody understands what the changes are going to be happening in Fall so yeah I mean uh I will just um when you do get that I think we let us have a presentation on the communication piece as well and then allow um being the ability that I sit on Council uh we want to be able to put out that information because believe it or not they come to councel for everything Transportation County and so it'll be good that we'll be able to help communicate that piece because that is a highly I see it's low rouer but it's still highly used in that area sure yeah we we'll do that on the proposed changes you have that going to zip Zone will the frequency be of the zip Zone availability be equivalent to what their experien it'll actually be better if you're talking about the north side it'll be better yes I just wanted to make sure that there's not going to be an delay of any okay no no this this was this is a a great opportunity to share the story so there's a gentleman that came to the um uh Stockyards public meeting and he was a little worried about uh shifting from the bus over to the zip Zone the bus is every 60 Minutes uh and we talked to him about you'll have availability of the zip Zone it'll be available to you every 12 minutes so you can get that zip Zone in about 12 minutes and it'll not have to ride you around the entire area it'll take you to that point so uh and then afterwards we heard from an Envoy that he actually downloaded the he bought a smartphone downloaded the goass app and now is a convert really to zip zone so that worked out pretty well for us so that's a testament to dieter's envo yes so if you would sir go ahead and close the public hearing and then I'll do the board do we have any other comments for the public hearing I I see no other hands this public hearing is closed now we can uh move forward with ba 202 24-23 all right thank you Mr chairman so you heard all the opportunities that Phil went through on the changes that we have planned for the September 15 2024 uh service changes which we also call the fall service changes um uh there was a question question earlier about the U the changes and the cost of those and in your board action item under financing you'll see that these changes result in actually a savings of $664,000 uh $ 64,0 for triny Metro so yes we are reallocating these resources buses operators to the appropriate locations in these changes so that we don't have an increase in um expenses so the recommendation to today is that the try Metro board of directors authorizes the president CEO to implement the recommended changes to be effective September 15 2024 do we have any discussion any more discuss motion by Ben second and second by Teresa all those in favor say I I any opposed Mo motion passes unanimously thank you all thank you very much than all right I believe we've heard from Mr Smith which is sort of a hybrid of Citizen comment um as well as the changes are there anyone else that would like to make a citizen comment seeing none we'll move on to the important Fort Worth Transportation Authority scholarship fund recipients which is a fun moment for us every year it's my favorite part two all right well good afternoon I'm Christina Champion Director of Human Resources each year the for Transportation Authority scholarship fund awards are offered to help defay College expenses at accredited nonprofit educational institutions the committee Awards scholarships based on academic achievement tied to the overall cumulative GPA which cannot be below 2.5 the scholarships are available to employees their legal dependents and spouses so I'm excited to announce the 2425 scholarship recipients we have a few of them here so I do ask that yall stand as I say your name so you can be recognized this year we awarded nine scholarships and received nine for a total of $22,000 Sarah Brown daughter of Jeff Brown director of safety and risk Sarah is attending Tarlton as a nursing major and was awarded $2,750 [Applause] lar bugs spouse of Lonnie bugs Revenue Service agent latar is attending Dallas College as an education major and was awarded $1,750 Mela Carson is the daughter of bus operator and Steward Michelle small Michaela will attend the University of Texas atart Arlington majoring in public health and was awarded $2,500 chance humph is a bus operator and line instructor and began working with Trinity Metro in June of 2017 chance is attending tarant County College as a computer science major and was awarded $3,000 Priscilla momay daughter of engobo momay service planner Priscilla was attending Northwest Arkansas Community College as a nutrition major and was awarded [Applause] $2,500 and Hassan Sali is a bus operator and began working with triny Metro in June of 21 Hanan is attending abalene Christian University for cyber security and was awarded $2,250 Aaron seay son of Petro seay bus operator Aaron is attending Texas Tech for General Studies Aaron was awarded $3,000 and Jonathan seay son of petus as well bus operator Jonathan is attending the University of North Texas as a computer science major and was awarded $2,750 and lastly Allison wise daughter of proud mother leonda Carter one of our lead custodians Allison is attending Oral Roberts for nursing and was awarded $1,500 so I just want to congratulate all the recipients I also want to thank the board for your continued support um and announce that this year's golf tourn will be held at the Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine more information to come yes if we could uh board members if we could gather in front of the de here for a photo with the award [Music] winners e e couple comments and if I may I'd like to thank Christina for her and her committee's efforts with the annual golf tournament always a great event congratulations to our recipients and I'm like a proud papa because Hassan was my mentee of few years ago so congratulations oh thank you tto do we have any comments you know all the all the money we make as board members goes to the scholarship fund that $150 an hour we get and it's it's a150 an hour don't get that much that's because it goes to the scholarship fund 50 so it's it's my pleasure at this moment to recognize two former board members that I served with for years and years and um um they're they're doing other things now in fact both of them have been appointed to the urban rail committee by the mayor and uh I want to read um a certificate for nio genua and Charles and it's pretty much the same so you kind of have to where Charles you guys here yep Charles Charles come on up yes down please many many hours um many meetings um stand right in front stand right in front Nick right there right there oh you stand right there oh okay um it it is a certificate of appreciation and very deeply um felt and meant uh the voters of Fort Worth established the Fort Worth Transportation Authority um attorney Metro on November 8th 1983 to provide public transportation within the city of Fort Worth and other areas whereas Atty Metro's Board of Directors for establishment policy and sets the Strategic direction of the company and Ras niolo janua has served in the board director from September 2017 to February 2024 and where else Charles Edmonds has served on the commuter rail committee planning operation marketing committee and served as chair as attorney Railway Express advisory committee and Raz his devotion and dedication have earned him the esteem of fellow board members attorney Metro Staff business partners in the entire Community now therefore be it resolved by the board of directors of Trinity Metro that the board of directors publicly commends and gratefully acknowledges its deep appreciation to Nick janua for his many years of service and for Charles for his many years of service and contribution to the advancement of public transportation uh accepted and adopted by the board thank [Applause] [Applause] get the two of you close together there and then we'll come around and take another photo okay a pleasure been to Ser on the board uh I was here for several Milestones of progress as you know for course of 5 years and um I want you to know that I September I'll start my 37th year on City boards and commissions and um so I want to thank three people take a picture one I want to thank Jeff Davis Jeff and I have served together in various capacities for 50 years 15 years and second person I'd like to thank is Rich Andy when Rich applied for the job of CEO I knew the day I met him that he was the man for that job and he has put together a great staff great support group and he's done a great job and I want to to that third person is as I celebrate this 36 year of service I sered September November I guess be my 35th anniversary with my wife elain i' like for [Applause] yeah well first of all let me say I support everything all said and but I've got a few just words i' like to say I have been blessed to work for and been exposed to a number of impressive entities throughout my life and while they had a variety of different leadership styles one thing one thing the exceptional ones all had in common was the it Factor it is hard to describe but when you see it you know it and Trinity Metro has it the collaboration between the board management and the trity Metro team has led to tremendous success of the past years and all the truly Miracle accomplishments significantly impacted by the impact the th here most of all you have positioned yourself for position Tre me I should say continue with the growth and development of public transit in World under I Su supremely confident that under riches and others leadership the application of skill sets of all Trinity measure team you have the expertise attitude and it to carry on I'm really going to miss you now that you have set the standard and the culture for Success you need to embrace the principles that have led to this point and all will be fine one time under budget for a$1 billion Public Work project that is an anomaly for the age I I can say so much more but let me close by saying thank you your it has led this agency to Great height it has been a gift serving with you and with no hesit whatsoever I'll do it again [Music] [Applause] right okay getting back to this agenda after that fund uh with Nick and Charles um we have some presentations the first is on the van pool update you don't look like Mark I know lot I know a lots of fun stuff happening good afternoon board members I'm Dietra Whitmore vice president of community engagement triny Metro has a successful vanp program that's been in existence since 1984 and we're now serving 10 counties and sharing one with Denton County Transit Authority our services are really helping to connect people to jobs the growth of our program is really through the collaboration Partnerships with commute with Enterprise and also the North Central Texas council of governments so I have I have asked Mark Pinson manager of commute with Enterprise to come and give a presentation on how well our program is doing and where we're going in the future mark thank you first all I'd like to thank dier um for the invite I'd like to thank the board for allowing me to come to speak to you uh knowing dier you probably haven't heard much about the uh vanoo program but uh to say the least it is a a a one of the jewels of uh Trinity Metro and agency so it is my pleasure and my honor to give you uh more information uh about the program overall so okay so we go over a few program Matrix environmental impact excuse me as well as update and opportunities which is vast in your your uh your area as derer said uh oh there we go so the numbers I'll be giving you today is from fiscal year um 23 um later on the presentation I will go back and give you uh more information uh about earlier fiscal years but for fiscal year 23 uh Trinity Metro vanoo program averaged 183 Vans during that fiscal year and that fiscal year only there was over 12 million passenger miles um that was uh calculated as well as o over $2 million in estimated funding return back to the agency into the program okay environmental impact so of that 183 Vans there was over 9 million commuter miles reduced and again this is just a van pool program off those 183 trips eliminated off the road nearly 285,000 um within the uh the 10 counties that we'll see here later on as well as just under 7 million um in emissions reduced CO2 emissions reduced so these numbers are are very great and very proud numbers that you should all be uh proud of because this really says a lot about the agency as as far as what you're doing bless you um and what your your reach is um you know to the to the um um to the public and the things that we're doing to make our area a better area so as we stated earlier there's a lot of opportunity right for the vanol program while was that while we're at 183 as D always says we can do better right so we're going to continue to do that and and and expanding we have two areas of focus the first area is Alliance Airport area nearly F nearly 600 companies 575 with over 66,000 employees and I apologize the go for FY 25 is not four but 14 for that area as typo as for as I didn't do that I'm getting old so you got to excuse me um and then the second one is the Inland Port area we pick one area to really focus on one in Taran County and one in Dallas County of the 10 counties as you can see that is a lot of territory to cover um but with the help of Dietra and her team and the envoys as well as Melissa and the uh and the marketing team we're really been able to focus in and hone in on areas in which there's no train or bus line to introduce vanpool to CU that's what it's all about that's where you we subsidize vanpool is a Subs substitution for the areas that do not have those uh modes of transportation for the Inland port in the Dallas area with 120 companies as you can see as well as over 177,000 employees we have a fiscal year goal of 10 for that area again as D reminds me each and every month in our meeting the goal is just a goal we expect to uh exceed it each and every time this is where we currently at and I think that it's very important to kind of step back and see you know talk about fiscal year 21 which is not up here in fiscal year 21 the vanpool during Co time we had 57 van Pools by the end of fiscal year 22 as you can see in blue we was up to 161 fiscal year um 23 which I just said was at 183 and then currently we have 193 uh with four months left we very much anticipate being over 200 Van Pools by the end of the fiscal year to really show you how strong the program is here in Trinity Metro please take a look I think there's only two months out of the 36 months plus or three fiscal years in which we took a step back and that step back was no more than four van pools due to um terminations whether it's retirement van pools consolidating into one so NE we necessarily did not lose a ridership but we you know uh went down a van maybe they got into a larger van so two only two months out of that time frame is very very impressive type of deal obviously we're going to uh look at new accounts uh right now the VA hospital in Duncanville uh and one of the 10 counties obviously that was actually found by a current customer who works at the via hospital in Dallas coming out of Arlington and they'll be transferring to this location which just opened up in the month of April so another opportunity for us to grow there and then in discussions obviously as I said earlier about the uh Alliance area JC Penney and and Amazon the four largest um uh camps that we have with Trinity Metro vanpool include locky Martin um Bell Helicopter the number two largest is uh Bureau of Prisons in Grand Prairie and runaway hands down the the largest is a VA hospital so surprisingly so we we not only you know uh provide a great service but as you can see it's to the First Responders as well probably 85% of the ones going to the VA hospitals are nurses and doctors that we uh provide to questions question comments good thank you thank you for the time thank you teacher all right now we're moving into the minutes of the last meeting I'll accept a motion for approval of the minutes motion we have a motion and we have a second to approve the minutes of April 15 all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion carries now we'll go to some information items and reports starting with Reed good afternoon members I'm Reed Lam the vice president of rail here at triny Metro going to give you a brief overview of April for our rail systems as well as our long-term parking on Tex rail I know it's been a few months since we've had an update on that and uh be glad to share those numbers with you this month does my clicker work it does work all right our first up we've got Tex rail for the month of April we saw another very strong writers ship month in April uh we had a record April for texrail again with over 60,000 passengers 6072291931 I'm sure you guys have noticed the uh the new names on the trains that we've got out there and that's been great as far as driving awareness we've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the public on that um so we're looking forward to see what kind of increases we can get from programs like that um our ontime performance speaking of Records we had a bit of a record an ontime performance but not the one we want to set we came in at 95.4% for the month of April that was in large extremely large part due to the derailment of the Fort Worth and Western cars that we had up by Northside if it weren't for that derailment we would have come in well above goal at 98.4% and currently we are working with Fort Worth and Western our engineering department on ways to prevent those impacts in the future so we are actively seeking ways to uh mitigate any future occurrences safety on texr again as you guys know in uh I never get tired of reporting this and I hope you never get tired of hearing it but texr we pride ourselves on safety being safe and reliable uh we are currently 232 days without an injury with our transportation and Signal divisions maintenance away has got another very impressive number at 1372 and our maintenance of equipment continues on at 2117 we uh performed a successful maintenance shutdown last week I just want to give you guys a quick update we were able to accomplish a massive amount of required maintenance work in a 24-hour period we know that that can sometimes be an inconvenience but it is a a definite necessity to keep our system running like it needs to run uh switching over to tr oh we're already there on TR okay our TR had a very uh very good month as well we saw a 20% increase in ridership on TR year-over-year 112,000 66 passengers and we're also 67,000 passengers above where we were last year on TR so again all across our rail modes we're seeing a big a positive trend in ridership our ontime performance was very high with 98.4% the TR team has done a great job with uh working with the current Fleet that we have and knowing that help is on the way with our new locomotives that we just purchased with our partners at Dart but 98.4% is very commendable uh we have seen a big increase in our game trains I don't know if you guys are Mavs and stars fans but if you're not life's pretty sad right now for you if you're not um we hope that they continue on cuz the the numbers we've seen have been pretty significant on those game trains and the longer they go the better it is for us as well so let's see my next item would be the long-term parking uh I'm going to point it at you Christine okay I'll give you some quick uh long-term parking numbers just for last year at this time in at the end of April we had 725 transactions for long-term parking as of last month for this year in uh 24 we're at 1,33 which is a 29% increase this has been a very successful program for us we're seeing increases month after month the trends have stayed the same generally over the the past couple of years that we've had this with tnp is always towards the top but the two uh North rich and Hill stations are pretty close second and third we see a lot of good numbers out of that so um this is something we definitely want to continue and we see a huge benefit in that and as the public becomes more and more aware of it they are utilizing it so it's been a successful program what did the airport go up to parking wise in the last week or two you know I'm not sure just because I I generally tell everyone it's $5 a day long-term parking on texrail and I couldn't tell you the last time I even attempted to park at the airport so Googling it give them a second so long Mr chairman I'm on the website right now oh Chad got shown up um I can tell you it's significantly more than long-term parking at the terminals is $27 per dayoo I thank you that's long term short term short short term more expensive yeah y well let's keep promoting that we got it and with that that's the the rail report for the month of April is there any questions all right thank you um Wayne um operations please good afternoon Mr chairman board Wayne Gensler chief operations officer we'll see if we can get this to work so as uh the last meeting we were involved in faesa had an idea of of giving an update on zip zones for everybody could have a reminder of what zip zones are uh and for the new board members they get a a flavor of what what's been going on and what's the history of of zip zones with Trinity Metro which will soon be rebranded to Trinity Metro on demand all right so what is zip zones zip zone is an on- demand ride share service that is supplemental to our fixed route services and of course Tex Rail and uh and rail so that where they are get uh we put the zones together around Rail stations and bus stops and uh we first launched our first zip Zone Tech Ally speaking an alliance in early 2019 that zip Zone was first funded by NCT Cog and uh it was operated by MV Transit at first uh in 2019 uh Co the Cog came to us and asked if we would take over because MV was pulling out so we got into an agreement with dcta on lift services for the alliance Zone the additional zones came as follows meranti was next uh we did it opened that the same year and then the South zip Zone then South tarant and last but not least Southeast tant you also heard tonight uh earlier this even this afternoon uh a little bit about future zip zones as well so they're going to be Mansfield and they're going to join us this summer July 14th the north side zip Zone which will be later on a service change uh TCC Northeast and and which is the campus on demand service that we're going to provide as well and then ours an area vary based on community needs needs each Zone has a different need so each Zone has different operating hours our two most uh extensive zip zones with the most ridership is Alliance and Southside they they VI for the number one position on monthly ridership somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000 rides per month so it's fast growing people uh have learned how to use the system whether they're using the on demand uh goass app or the zip Zone app that is uh given to us by via you can also uh book rides via the goass and zip Zone app like I said and the phone you could have a customer care phone line number that you can also utilize to book your trip oops okay I'm showing you real quick the two different uh apps this is the uh app provided by via uh if you go on your App Store and download the zip Zone app that's what you'll get it's very much like ordering an Uber uh and very simple to use it's also integrated in goass you can use goass to purchase the same ticket and get the same information about what zip Zone you want to take or how you can connect to a bus or how you could connect to rail or what options you have actually in the Go pass app it gives you options so you can pick and choose maybe you don't want to wait 42 minutes for a bus but you're willing to wait 27 minutes for a zip Zone uh you did hear earlier zip zones are guaranteed within 12 minutes so so they generally fall in about 8 to 10 minutes uh but 12 minutes is what we have contracted for fairs we we talked a little bit about fairs tonight which is going to be later on next month but this is the current fair structure that you currently have when you utilize zip Zone a single ride is $3 there is no reduced Fair on a single ride uh what you can see and what Chad pointed out earlier is your best option is a day pass at $5 you could ride all day long uh and get on and off any zip Zone any bus any train uh so absolutely the best option if you were purchasing a a all day fair so go to the ridership you can see all the years that we have here again you heard it started in 2019 so rers ship was even lower than the 6000 you see an fy21 but you could see the ridership growth over the years 6,234 all the way up in fiscal year 24 currently 156,000 rides a month in both programs so it is a huge driver of our success we when we did a survey of our customers that are utilizing zip Zone nearly half of them were new to Transit and uh and we expect that to continue to to to move forward I do have a a a board action later on with regards to the vehicles that you were talking about so I can show you what what we're looking at and intending for zip zones uh net cost for ride we always look at this number it's always pretty uh uh eye openening every one of them starts high as you can see on the left side of the graph and as time goes on and ridership increases as long as we're not increasing Revenue hours we're reducing our cost per ride alliances the cheapest you're going to say well why is that that's cuz we're using utilizing zip it's not a dedicated service and uh and so it is cheaper but in the long run uh we're you we we really are driving service and what we're going to go to in Alliance is where there's going to be a fair paid by the customer uh we're going to heavily Market it uh through the marketing department and uh and try to reach out to all those 9,000 rides that are taken in Alliance so we maintain those rides uh the cost per ride will go up a bit because the contract that we currently have is going to be higher than than the alliance lift service but it's going to be more reliable and something that we're really excited about because it'll connect with our alliance express bus service that we're going to introduce later in in uh fy2 or early 26 uh so those are the costs per rides uh again they go down as you uh increase ridership we have not increased uh the revenue hours so that's why we're seeing those great numbers in the Merle service was $31 that's been a long longer term experiment has that been a steady $31 yeah I mean it it fluctuates up and down a little bit uh up and down from 31 to to into the high 20s but that one is really it's run Monday through Friday we don't do weekend service and it's so and we don't tweak the hours up we haven't tweaked them down though either so we could take a look at it and uh and see if there needs to be uh some some adjustment to it is a well performing Zone uh it's just you want to have a minimum amount of service so you can keep the 12 minute uh coverage so thank you yep so just do a a a quick brief overview I I I know this is a busy board meeting but just so everybody understands what the zones are here's the alliance Zone you can see some of the points of interest Texas Motor Speedway pero field Fort Worth Alliance Airport Alliance Town Center where a lot of the action goes at at bies and the North Park and Ride uh so people are utilizing our our our Tech our Express Services we expect to utilize it more when we go when we move the mobility Hub uh but people are utilizing to go to work and uh as I said we're at 9,000 rides Uh current last month and it was just a that was a something with not anticipate it uh we have 4177 average daily Riders on that service oh sorry I passed one here's Mark andil for you it started July 22nd 2019 we expanded March 1st 2021 the average square miles is 20.4 square miles hours are Monday through Friday 5:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. it really is tried to meet the business needs of the of the business park there so that's why you see the hours that you see we do also as I said like to keep a minimum amount of service so could meet the service guarantee of 12 minutes some points of interest Walmart Super Center Medical City Alliance meum Airport Tex rail station North side and merant average ridership is 99 daily Riders Monday through Friday zip Zone overview of South tant South tant was created created in July June 1st of 2020 it included Crowley only at the time we expanded June 1st of 2021 adding in Everman and renamed it South tant the area square mile is 30.3 square m it's a lot of roal rural area as well uh we we start a very low ridership in that area but we do uh continue to see growth there uh Monday through Friday are the hours of service 7A to 7p uh points of interest are Crowley city of Everman Taran County uh college campus and then South mallis Square uh much of the rides are the TCC uh campuses that we take people to and average ridership is 55 Riders per day sorry what is the uh that goes off far Southwest is that to get to Chris's house or think it Grandma's house is at Grandma there there was a little point of interest there that we wanted to cover and so so I'm just kidding no it's not but what what was the point what is there that we would do that offshoot what is that again Chad do you remember is it is it the it's just north of Sam's Club Walmart to Walmart okay well we always try to connect everything into a Walmart because everybody likes going to Walmart so or the VA Center so I'm not sure which one it is but anyway do we have an idea of what um a daily Rider's number of trips per day is uh when you look at the average I me when they get on generally they're getting on and off and and do two but the it's closer to three and the reason why he three you go why three well they could take rail or bus so they are connecting most of our Riders are purchasing day passes uh so we really can't see we we know that they use utilize them but we don't have like tap guards in the in the Vans uh maybe one day we'll move there but on the bus obviously we can follow what they're doing uh not so much on on on the zip zones because we don't have that technology in the Vans Southside again it's it's the one that generally wins the ridership uh uh contest every every month uh on occasion Alliance wins but it started June 19th 2020 expanded May May 1st 2021 it's 10.6 square miles it's south of downtown obviously hours are Sunday through Wednesday 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday 6:00 a.m. to midnight uh obviously to take care of the Entertainment District in West 7th area uh many of the University students whether it be Texas Wesleyan University or Texas Christian University utilizes system uh they are heavy users of the system uh points of interest obviously TCU Fort Worth Botanic Gardens Medical District Magnolia Avenue Fort Worth Zoo West 7th Corridor is that cuz they're going to the library or something I think it's they're going to the library interesting enough uh you could see students taking trips to job sites so hospitals whatnot you you could tell that people are going and utilizing the service for jobs uh uh and then ridership there's 554 average jily riders in the Southside zip zone so by far one of the the best performing zip Zone we have and lowest cost as you saw and then last but not least it was our last one we opened zip Zone overview of Southeast the start date was June 1st 2022 9.6 square miles uh you heard with the route 28 going away uh this will be the mode of choice obviously it'll be the only choice in that area but it is it could be well served with zip Zone uh and and actually if you're going to be getting a trip within 12 minutes I think people will enjoy that we have seen steady growth in that zone uh not as fast as we would like it we're going to really inundate it with marketing and and make sure that we grow that zone because it it also included Force Hill if you recall when we did expand did another expansion we added in for still and we really have on a per capita basis a good ridership base in for still and they love the and they can get to where they want to go which is generally Walmart uh but uh other places of interest they can get to including uh the Medical District if they connect at uh Sierra Vista but the other two places are two colleges Southeast and South TCC Southeast and South so anyways points of interest I just mentioned uh there's also the southe or the tan County resource connection people like to go to in the Fort Worth VA clinic and the average JY r Riders currently is at 78 daily last but not least uh we're going to expand our overview of to Mansville July 15th sorry I said the 14th but it's the 15th 36.8 square miles uh hours will be Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. uh they are funded uh 80 20% with the NCT C Grant for the first year of the pilot likely the second year as well uh and potentially the Third year after that time the funding will come from Mansfield uh points of interest are Taran County College campuses Southeast downtown historic Mansfield Methodist Mansfield Medical District we can connect to Arlington in this Zone which we'll be able to do and we'll also be able to connect to the folks in Grand Prairie because Grand Prairie has a connection within Mansfield at their Medical District or their medical center so we'll be able to connect people to Grand Prairie as well so they'll have connections to TCC TC uh Arlington Grand Prairie and ultimately uh Fort Worth here's the north side you talked about with Phil talked about it so I won't review it too much but you'll see hours Monday through Friday will be 5:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and weekends will be 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. uh Northside Station will be a key connection TCC Northwest Campus Walmart Super Center and Fiesta uh again we heard our service is going to go to probably no more than 12 minutes right so it's a it's really an upgrade in service and then the on demand that Phil also talked about will start September 16th 2024 uh it'll replace throughout 23 uh a service will be available from triny Lake Station to Taran County College northeast campus and ours will be uh Monday through Friday 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and so that's an update on zip Zone an overview of the service it is one of our fastest growing or our fastest growing service in the in Trinity Metro at this point in time and uh when we move to Trinity Metro on demand branding uh it'll it'll uh be somewhere very close to 60,000 rides a month that we'll be generating in the on demand product any questions remind me the the zip zone is sight to sight or I guess point to point within its own Zone not jumping one zone to another Zone we are not jumping one zone to the other Zone uh it is point to point or corner to corner sometime so pickup could be Corner depends on how you you request the trip so if you're an elderly person or somebody's disabled and needs door to-door service you can get that you indicate it on the app or when you call up and you'll get that type of service uh if not it'll be a corner to so if I get to a corner your sharing it with somebody but if you were going to Tom Thumb or something like that you'll get right to Tom Thumb you won't go to a corner near Tom Thumb right know I was just going to thank you for this presentation and this update it was very informative because I didn't we were just sitting here Brian I'm looking the the extent that you can travel North is is very impressive as far as South so it is thank you very much it's a great uh system now and uh and thank you for asking for an update it was good for a review for everybody Wayne is there a visual of all the zip zones on our website p on one page on the site on the website and like it shows like all the how how close they are to each other yeah I mean you could see them on our map on our system map and where they're at and how they're located uh so some zip zones won't touch any something and you'll have to go to a transfer station or to a bus stop that'll take you there but uh people can also on the Go pass app do a trip planning and it'll give you how you connect from zip Zone to bus or zip Zone to rail that that's that's the neat thing about Go pass and how they can see where the trip is on your trip planning thanks very much very helpful great thanks what working in communication okay we have a stranger again not Melissa well my name is not Melissa Chrisman I will be giving you an update on the marketing and Communications midyear kpis and metrics my name is Brandon Poe I'm the digital marketing manager and I'm filling in for Melissa and Glenn as they're both out all right it appears I cannot go backwards oh there we go all right we'll go ahead and kick things off with the marketing kpis uh right now we're at 107% year-to-date budgeted ridership and that is equivalent to just under 200,000 rides uh right now as of March 3.9 million rides and Q3 Q4 historically makes about 56% of that ridership so I would like to see us hit our goal here by the end of September uh pass we are at 122% to goal uh the downloads ticket revenue is 99% to goal and that is including the November 2023 promotion where we did totally fair free for the entire month uh and speaking of Fair free this isn't in your packet but I am pleased to tell you about our newest promotion which is the fair free First Fridays that is going to launch June 7th and go through September 6th of this year now I just mentioned we had a goal of 7.8 million rides by the end of this fiscal year and so to support reaching that goal and to continue our celebration of our 40th anniversary will be proposing free rides on all services the first Friday of each month from June to September uh through a one-day only goass promo code so you probably are well aware of the Fort Worth bike sharing promotion in which they do a fairf free first Friday is they call it Friday and that is uh through the blue zones project um hopefully what we're uh wanting to see is an introduction to anybody that hasn't ridden Transit before that you know removes the cost barrier for them as well as motivates any existing low volume Rider that may want to ride even more um to get out and do that each first Friday of the month we'll be communicating this effort uh through a ton of social media posts but also our website's homepage uh some media relations Outreach with our communications director Laura Hannah and a comprehensive paid media campaign through our Ad Agency as we wrap up on as we wrap up on Friday September 6th uh hopefully we'll have those writers ship reports by the 20th with any Go pass um information in the following month back to our regular ly scheduled content um Communications which is handled by Laura Hannah our director of communications also enjoying a vacation right now um some of those goals are National media with a 78% to goal Milestone local media which is 281 per to goal with additional goals being to generate a minimum of $3 million monthly in the value of media placements with that goal being met generating a minimum of 50,000 monthly impress with that goal being met I don't know if you can see that that's 276 million impressions that's a whole lot uh and then sending all planned customer Communications no later than two weeks in advance with that goal also being met now to jump forward to my favorite part because my name's on it which is digital marketing right now our social media platform followers is 101% to goal engagements at 164% to goal and referral traffic to our website at 195% to goal some of those additional goals are to increase the use of Stories on Facebook and Instagram to six per month per month with that goal being met maintaining an average open rate of email and text messages to 26% with that goal also being met and to maintain an average link click-through rate for all email and text messages of 1.2% with that goal also being met one thing you do really good stories they're really easy to post and I get a lot of good engagement just on my own personal Instagram so thank you for that thank you I'm going to make sure I save that in the recording and uh keep it on repeat every morning uh in the next page of your packet page 112 you'll find some of our more popular posts here in the past 0 six months um I should say the most engaged content on social uh the first one on the left right here is the announcement of TR uh with respect to Richland Hills closing and Trinity Lake Station opening uh as well as celebration of Tex rail's 5ifth anniversary on the next page of your packet you will find another two pieces of content that were had high engagement um and that is the how to reach Trinity Lake Station uh as well as riding Tex rail to the parade of lights all right we'll go ahead and move forward into the Strategic Partnerships kpis um which is run through Nicole Adams and ji High our strategic Partnerships folks uh right now our new partners are 121% to goal TCC ridership 13% to goal and city of Fort Worth ridership at 157% to goal some of those additional goals are to attend a minimum of two community events each month and to develop and launch a custom Chamber of Commerce easy run member benefits program with one of the five area Chambers with both of those goals being met were there any questions regarding the kpi metrics update before I move into the name that train no Perfect all right I'm sure you all remember in January we ran a contest and it was called named that train in honor of Tex's 5th anniversary that kicked off in January 3rd and ran through January 31st where we called the general public to send us their favorite name submissions in which the winner would receive a 31-day local pass and a commemorative photo with their named train we advertise this in a plethora of different ways but just a few is the paid and organic social media posts Fort Worth's our telegram homepage takeovers print and digital ads in Fort Worth Weekly as well as culture map Fort Worth digital ads and promotional emails gov delivery emails goass event ads seat drops and text rail TV were all handle internally by us and in the next slide we will see that we received over a thousand name submissions um and obviously the winners are on the screen right now but 10 finalists were selected from that 1,000 entries in which we opened up round two for another month in which we received another thousand submissions of the favorite of the 10 uh the top seven names were selected and Brandon deapo who's in the audience right now I want to give a shout out to him he designed a lot of these names and insignias um that you see before you today so stand up so yeah [Applause] absolutely my favorite's probably Maverick but I'm sure you all have your favorites um publicity plan on the next slide uh was launched on May 14th in which we notified the winners via email and May 15th being a bunch of social media posts and stories that included the trains at different stations um and bled with their new names um and a media release was also distributed to local contacts and in sometime in the future we will be getting together with the winners to schedule photo video sessions is there any questions about the contest or perhaps your favorite name of the train I have a comment yes Brendon of course thank you to Melissa and the whole team for for doing this um uh you know for for many months I guess from the beginning of of texell uh always be on the platforms and especially when kids are there and you know they were looking to see what train was coming up oh it's not Spike how come it doesn't have a name so now I've been on the platform actually this morning and and a couple times and uh kids are excited now you know I saw Ranger this morning and I saw Maverick this morning so I'm looking forward to seeing the other ones and the kids are really excited excited about the fact that we now have names for all our trains which which was only meant to be I mean how can you not have a name unless you're a cow or a bull or something and you don't want to name them cuz they're going off the pasture someday but but any anyway thank you to the team uh great uh publicity great activity and a lot of excitement out there in uh in the naming contest so thank youall for making it a reality absolutely thank you is there any other question or comment perfect thank you that means I did a good job of course okay Nicole we'll talk about the Easy Ride update hello hello good afternoon everyone Hi um as you all know I'm Nicole Adams a strategic partnership manager of the easy ride program um this last quarter we acquired eight new uh organizations and that was towards the end of April um we would like to welcome Northeast tarant County oh sorry I can't see that there we go northeast tarant County uh Chamber of Commerce Texas Christian University steer Fort Worth parent pass uh H Family and Child Services Safe Haven one safe place and and the Salvation Army there we go uh ticket sales for February as you can see did Skyrocket uh organizations purchased large quantities of the local day passes and March remained uh pretty level and it significantly increased in April I appreciate that during the last quarter uh ticket Revenue kind of ebbed and flow and in March ticket Revenue tapered a little bit um as we encouraged our partners to uh with the 40th anniversary promotions of the month that was for those who do use GO pass and they could gain 40% savings uh by purchasing the weekly pass so if you look there to the lower left it shows TCC ridership has increased by more than a thousand rides for um from April no I'm sorry from March to April this was this task was achieved by a collaborative effort with TCC and the Easy Ride team promoting and ensuring students have access to the invaluable resource that Transportation provides um I know I've mentioned previously early this year that from the beginning of the year we have been partnering with the city of Fort Worth to be a part of their new hire orientations and to also promote um their Transit benefit program that they provide as well as training Metro services and we have seen their ridership completely sore um ridership for this month has been 21100 that was uh that's we haven't seen that it's been a few months or so so there consistently riding and it's not just from um their new hires it's also from their tenured employees as well so the Easy r program has created and brainstormed new innovative ways to form Partnerships that are very truly unique easy rout is pride to proud to have partnered with the parent pass app which is the first of its kind to allow for parents to access and rate local resources parent pass users receive 25% savings on local day passes by using the goass app and are able to select events based on public transit options we are also excited to announce that DFW parking officially went live today with their employee Transit benefit program actually while I was sitting here I I got update on the email and they're excited everything went great we had a little hiccup this morning but everything went good so they will be uh using our long-term parking lots and taking text rail on in um DFW Airport parking will utilize the goass app and distribute over 1,200 monthly passes to employees this 5year commitment is a combined effort of triny Metro and DFW Airport parking to develop and to develop a Transit benefit program that will serve their employees while increasing ridership promoting Transit and being a useful resource so as Brandon mentioned one of the Strategic Partnerships kpis was to develop and launch a custom Chamber of Commerce easy R membership benefit program which we were able to deliver on I am pleased to announce that Trinity Metro has partnered with the Northeast tant Chamber of Commerce to develop and will soon launch their custom Easy Ride membership benefit program this strategic move adds additional value to the current robust chamber membership benefits while allowing the Easy r partner program to welcome over 12200 businesses bringing our partner count to over 1300 Partners these significant Partnerships emphasizes our dedication to Excellence and our eagerness to come together has been crucial to our collaborative achievements to create Innovative supportive Partnerships while utilizing technology and transit for the future that's all I have any questions questions comments keep going you want me to keep going going harder we need we need more I'm I will you know I'm competitive thank you okay do you try believe um Community engagement yes good afternoon board members my name is fair brigh quality review manager my responsibilities are to document and work with various departments to address all complaints and circle back with our customers you hear every month about our complaints and how we measure them this month I would like to share with you the campaigns we have we have conducted sorry to help decrease the number of complaints in order to do this we do work well with the operation departments if you would please turn your attention to page 133 and I will report on the success of our campaigns our first quarter starting in October we focused on fixed route through the number of complaints we received rude drivers Rose to the top so we titled this campaign welcoming our customers aboard during this time we reminded our drivers to remember to welcome everyone who B who bought the bus by doing this as you can see the team super exceeded expectations with a 5% drop in this complaint moving over to the second quarter I received complaints that our drivers was missing customers at stops so we started our passby campaign just to do another friendly reminder that our drivers to be aware of who was there also with the help of operation planning and Facilities teams we started a three-year project to install new shelters and lightings it also has begun the operation team as you can see is Contin to doing a great job I like to thank Wayne and Alicia for that if you would please going moving over to page 134 so now we are currently in our third quarter we have turned our attention to our access customers based on the numbers in February I teamed up with the director of operation Ron Newman and we started how may I help you campaign we just doing another friendly reminder of our access driver to always lend a helping hand to those who needed the most and that is to remember to secure their wheelchairs or even if they need a little help with the steps stew entering and exiting the Yellow Cap units and as you can see that I go for the access is 0.5 right now we're at 0.79 which is not bad at all the next time you see me my hope is that our numbers are at gold or below that concludes my report if you have any questions for me I don't think so thank you very much for your presentation thank you Chad all right thank you very much uh I have a a brief report today I have just a handful of items to share with you uh first of all thank you very much for earlier today with the public hearing and the approval of the service changes it's very important for us to make sure that we continue our evolvement of our our system and make those changes as necessary and as a reminder the fair change which was in the packet will be in June so just as we'll have that public Hearing in in the June uh board meeting second of all is the performance dashboard don't forget that uh you can look every day uh if you so choose on the website to review the U the writers ship and other performance metrics uh Reed had mentioned earlier today about uh Tex rail is about 880,000 Riders above where we were last year I was going to give you a systemwide number systemwide ridership is up 745,000 Riders this time over this time last year so we're moving ahead very well uh shooting for that goal of 7.8 million people um thirdly um you have the uh General planning consultant update which is in your packet a couple High highlights here is that the street car feasibility study that we have as task number six we're working with uh the city of Fort Worth on the mayor's Urban rail committee supporting Economic Development and Tourism uh thanks to Nick and Charles who aren't here right now for their participation uh in this committee among all the others who are uh participating in this committee as well we'll be working with the city and providing support to that committee on particular uh ele elements of that task uh as needed um task number eight which is our grant writing support there are a couple items there that I wanted to share uh the one that's listed which is the FTA bus and bus facilities Grant application we did submit that in uh the end of April uh we also have submitted a raise Grant as a reminder for $25 million to help support the tech raail extension and then uh the Chrissy Grant is due next week that we are submitting uh for uh $2.5 million to help support the planning activities and environmental documentation needed for uh double tracking the complete double tracking of TR um next is the fair collection I've already mentioned that to you as well and then we have a handful of other uh tasks that we're working on developing uh Scopes which include a strategic plan a property inventory evaluation of our properties that trainy Metro owns and then working with marketing on a signage and wayfinding task as well to help improve that um signage and we fighting at various stations and other locations across the system lastly I want to mention that on uh May 4th uh as you know uh there were elections um and uh the the city of Blue Mound had a an election that chose to withdraw from try Metro um so that was a successful referendum um unfortunately for us but uh working with the city administrator they want to continue uh providing services to those residents that are within Blue Mound and using the service uh this was an an opportunity for the city to um better utilize the funds uh from the sales tax instead of it coming through us and then us performing those uh those uh Services they're able to get those funds directly and put the money into other uh elements of their city um so I have like I said I've been working with the administrator there to continue uh the services um in um in later dates so I just want to give you a heads up on that uh that as we had mentioned previously this may occur it has occurred and we'll continue on and uh find a resolution between the city and us on future Services any questions not a question but uh right before this I was at an urban lanute tarant County Executive meeting and they went to an extend an olive branch and try to give any resources they can to the street car feasibility study so okay just FYI sure thank you Urban rail study sorry the urban rail study Urban rail study yes yes that's I always enjoy hearing about the what profession great thank you Greg sorry you have to S do the whole thing thank you Mr chairman members of the board I'm Greg Jordan Chief Financial Officer I'd like to draw your attention to page 138 of the packet and um we'll walk through the the monthly financial report and projections um as we we start talking about the revenues I think one of the things that's probably pretty important to tell you right now is um and we're not alone in this situation but we are starting to experience a Slowdown in the sales tax receipts this is something that I've been discussing with my peers across different agencies um as well as some of the folks Fort Worth to and we're all generally drawing the same conclusions from the data that you know sales tax is slowing and as we're all going through our budget process and developments right now those of us on a fiscal year in government service um we're all anticipating uh a really hard look at sales tax um which includes also consideration for a decrease in next year's um budget but we've got more Runway before we get to the budget conversations it's just something that um you know collectively this is something that is occurring we're noticing it and just paying very close attention to it um and so with that in mind sales tax projected to end this year right now we're anticipating about 115.5 million this is roughly $3.6 million below our current year adopted budget um total revenues overall our budget at 320.49 in revenue and again this is this is primarily a function of the sales tax aspect on the expense side we have a total budget of 154.000 we're projecting 149.34 million or 5.4 million below budget fixed rought year-to date is 22.2 million we spent 19.8 during the same time period last year we're projecting about a $1.1 million overage this is driven primarily by Personnel cost however we are projecting Savings in the area of purchase transportation and fuel access is trending above budget by about half a million dollars primarily in the Personnel accounts and materials and supplies access budget is 1 11.8 and we're projecting 12.3 million at the end of the year the TR year-to date is 8.7 and we spent 7.3 during the same time period last year we're projecting year-end expenditures of 7 17.2 versus a budget of 17.3 generating a favorable position of $100,000 at the end of the year Tex rail year to dat 13.4 million compared to 11.1 during the same time um last year we're projected to end the year at $28 million with Savings of 3.4 Bike Share has um slight savings projected at $8,000 this is very much in line with last year's overall performance projecting 810,000 against a budget of 8819 general and administrative areas um we're projecting $46 million compared to a budget of 49.6 which is favorable by three and a half overall we're projecting a favorable position at the end end of the year by approximately 3 A5 million um just incidentally last month we were projecting about a 3.2 million doll good guy at the end of the year so although the sales tax is declining we're also seeing corresponding declines on the expense side too so um overall we're in good shape is this odd that it's coming at now in all sectors it's not necessarily I I think that there were a couple of functions that play into this um one of them is you know we're going into an election year this this is something that we often times see every four years during the this time of cycle um I think one of the other things too that that many people were expecting was you know at some point in this year we were hopeful that we'd start to see a reduction in the interest rates um but the inflation appears to remain a little bit stickier than than most of us thought um I think certainly you know one of my anticipations was that we'd be able to offset even some some sticky inflation with continued population growth and the influx of new people and corporations so um yeah it's very interesting it's something we're keeping an eye on very closely and you know as we get closer into the budget conversation I'm sure I'll have more to share with you in terms of um you know our assessment of what's driving this and hopefully we can we can collectively decide you know what what next year looks like and make the mark too question comments thanks very thank You' we have uh three action items um VA 2024 2124 and 25 um you want to briefly present them you want me briefly present them I I I I could do brief all right Wayne Gensler again chief operations officer if you turn to page 140 uh in your P packet you'll see ba 202 24-21 if you remember earlier on I was talking to you about uh dcta the lift contract and the rides back in October were somewhere around 4,500 a month in Alliance and now as Skyrock at 9,000 what that has caused us to do is come back to you and say the 850,000 we asked you for earlier in the year uh 850,000 was not enough it we have to expanded by 300,000 we're going to switch over to Via in July July 15th uh so we need an extra $300,000 to continue the service through that time period because we will run out of money if we don't uh and so that's what we're asking here for this one uh beginning in July 15 2024 El Alli zip Zone will be operated by via under a contract with Trinity Metro and the interlocal agreement Ila 078 with Denton County transportation will terminate the alliance zip Zone service will transition from a free service to a fair based service uh program customers will have the ability to schedule and pay for their on demand trips through grass and zip Zone uh there is no DB uh program in this type of program so we don't have any there funds are available in the trinity FY 2024 operating budget therefore the recommendation Trinity Metro board of directors authorizes the president and chief executive officer to modify the interlocal agreement with Denton County Transportation Authority dcta for additional expenses related to The Alliance zip Zone in the amount not in the amount of 300,000 for a total amount not to exceed of $1,150,000 any questions that's our lowest uh cost per ride zone right yes and so it'll go down as we get more Riders theoretically no it it will go up when we go into via so this is a different type of service it's like a normal lift or Uber ride Isaac so that it is cheaper and that way except that the customer has free ride up to $50 so they could take that up to $50 and and triny met is paying for it okay turning to page 142 you'll see ba 2024 d24 and that's painting services and briefly I I'll just give you a highlight you know we all we own and operate uh TMP station Fort Worth Central Station and hrp facility all those are getting older uh every day and they need paint it and there's a lot of work that needs to be done not just simply paint those facilities uh that includes you know fixing the dry while we're necessary fixing any of the floorboards or anything else that is necessary during this process so we can make it look first class again uh we'll need special equipment uh for these areas such as we might need scissor lifts we need scraping of the beans and rafters we need to deal with uh scaffolding probably throughout the project especially over at Fort wor Central Station so we put out a bit triny Metro intends to paint all interior and exterior areas of these facilities to improve their condition and appearance and Trinity Metro issued an ifb on March 1st 2024 we received six submittals and chose the best value for services requested there is a disadvantaged business uh utilization of 5% in this contract that we we want to enter into the funds are available in the Trinity Metro FY 2024 capital and operating budgets funds for future contracts will be considered in the respective proposed budgets and our recommendation therefore attorney Metro board of directors authorize the president and chief executive officer to enter into a 2-year contract plus three one-year contract options with DFW drywall experts LLC for painting and related services in the amount not to exceed $750,000 any questions on that nope seeing none we'll go to page 14 3 uh here's an easy one and you asked about this earlier Jeff it's ba 2024-25 Mobility minivans and wheelchair ramps earlier in the year we bid a standard cutaway vehicle we have that bid set aside because we're also looking at what we can use for on demand Services which is a a ride where we want to take care of par Paratransit customers as well as on demand microtransit customers the vehicle that we picked is a very comfortable ride I do have a flyer I could give to you later but it's it's like you were asking a van look it's low floor entry and uh a very comfortable ride we all went operations team went on a ride uh along with Kelly and uh we enjoyed it it was comfortable uh easy to get on and off and something that we think will fit right into what we're trying to do with our on demand Services uh so we issued a an RFP with the other cutaway services this one we we uh looked at the Oklahoma competitive agreement uh that they did a bid on and it's uh falls under the Trinity Metro to it allows triny Metro to purchase vehicles that meet triny Metro's desire vehicle functionality comfort and accessibility requirements through this Cooperative agreement triny Metro will acquire up to 25 micro minivans with wheelchair ramps uh they are called Lone Star proms 3500 uh under the procurement Trinity Metro procurement department has called its procurement policy and the quotation for these vehicles were obtained through the state of Oklahoma contract w797 C this contract complies with state federal purchasing requirements for fair and open compet competition a contingency of 20% is being included for pre pre-wiring and other potential modifications to the vehicles to enable installation of cameras and other Technologies required by Trinity Metro Services the financing funding for this project is in the Trinity Metro FY 24 and fy2 future capital budget uh funds are available in the FY 24 in the amount of $2,210 th000 and in fy2 in the amount of 4.83 million uh our recommendation is to trainy Metro board of directors authorize the president and chief executive officer to enter into a contract with creative Bus Sales for the purchase of up to 25 Mobility minivans with wheelchair ramps at a cost of 3, $899,500 $550,000 any questions that wasn't quite as quick as i' thought I had to get some of those words in so that it's official so 160 pop those are pretty nice Vans uh well they they're they're they're nice fanss yes they're very nice not a question just a comment oh okay we have before Us action items ba 202 24-21 ba 202 24-24 and ba 2024-25 I'll accept a motion for approval of all of those action items motion to approve Motion in a second all those in favor say I I any opposed the motion carries unanimously the next item of business is the president's report thank you Wayne okay good good day Mr chairman board members triny Metro Staff and members of the public Robert Allen CEO for the Fortworth Economic Development partnership has been on a whirlwind tour talking about the future of our city and our economy last week Robert shared some statistics on our City's tax base and gross domestic product a broad measure of economic productivity of our region he showed how the city of Fort wor tax base is 60% residential and 40% commercial an upside down ratio that has residents shouldering more of the cost burden for infrastructure and services on GDP the numbers were even more startling Dallas County in the east side of our region gener rates $92,000 per capita or a total of 44 billion Fort Worth in our side of the region produces 43% less 52,000 per capita or $190 billion so you might ask what does all this have to do with public transportation first you heard me say and I'll say it again every dollar invested in Trinity Metro generates an immediate benefit of $35 so every dollar equals $3 5 those are the immediate economic benefits of Trinity Metro but there's something more significant at stake public transportation is critical to attracting and retaining talent in our city Argo business growth and success companies across many sectors are looking for employees with the skills training and experience needed for new economy jobs in AI robotics healthc care Logistics new manufacturing and education Trinity Metro success is more than bragging rights for our city it is essential to long-term economic success and by extension the affordability of Housing and well-being of residents a few weeks ago this board and try Metro executive leaders had an opportunity to meet for an all day workshop on the Strategic direction of the company we discussed Miss Mission Vision Values we reviewed polling data focus group feedback and our Transit value proposition study we considered a we considered a radical brand simplification to improve the customer experience and ease of using our system it was a fantastic day together our board members gave some great feedback and Direction and we will be sharing those results from our Retreat first with triny Metro Staff and then with the public in the next few months so stay tuned for more on that and finally just days ago we activated Trinity Metro Wi-Fi on our bus and access fleets the service is free to all customers our customers can sign on to the Wi-Fi by looking for triny metro public Wi-Fi on their device and agreeing to our use and policy guidelines one of the great features for customers is they have access to real-time service information and can pay their fairs via goass even if they don't have cellular service we are pleased to introduce this service first to our bus uh and access customers but rest assured we're also working on expanding this program to Tex Rail and in is already underway on on that service Wi-Fi is not just great customer service it will help us drive ridership and build brand loyalty thank you Mr chairman this concludes my remarks it's always hard to follow rich in some remarks um there's an old biblical adage Chris if he was here would remember it it's called a Propet is never known in his own town um it alludes to what you would imagine that because rich is familiar and we know him well he is a prophet um and we need to think about the kinds of things that he just said and some of us have been saying it for many many years um in in Fort Worth and tarant County and this data is is doesn't lie and my hats are off to Mayor Parker my hats are off to Robert Allen and to Steve Montgomery you got to know where you are before you can get somewhere and and we've been in in the past um our city leaders have swept this data under the carpet always talking about how Rosy things are um and Bill thoron said it before he left as the chamber president he said you can't keep doing the same thing over and over again expect a different result so we do have to do things differently and I want to um today I think um Nick said it best and I think the staff and this board I I've never been prouder of of a relationship um it is the it and and I've called it lightning in a bottle but uh because of where we are now and where we need to go we've set new goals we have an urban rail U Vision but we also have better public uh transportation in general and over time we're going to have to advance that cause dramatically to do all the things that we have to do so one of the things I want to challenge the board with uh and the staff is we're at a good place we're a good moment in time but from this day forward I want you to think about what we need to be doing to do the kinds of things uh to move forward and I want to talk about a Relentless pursuit of excellent I just want to talk about doing better getting a 5% more this or that we expect that at this point I want to be relentless every day I want the board to go out I want them to talk about Transit I want the staff to continue doing the great job that they're doing and move forward and do the things that they've been doing and do more uh we have a lot of work to do but but you'll hear me talk in the future but my Mantra now is Relentless we are not going to give up we're going to move forward we're going to be the great City that we can be let's just be relentless thank you and I there's no further business to come before the meeting we are adjourned