C-TRAN Board of Directors Meeting

0:00 And we are at the C-TRAN Board of Directors meeting, it is 5.30 and let's go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, Cindy, if you'd call the roll. Ryan Davis. Present. Bill Fuentes. Bart Hansen. Present. Tim Hein. Present. Sue Marshall. Ann McInerney-Ogle. Present. Eric Overhalcer. Here. Kim Harless. Tia Robertson. Joshua Waitz. Here. All right.

0:57 Thank you. Now taking a look here, next up is the approval of the agenda. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? Do I hear a motion to add the executive session purchase or lease of real estate RCW 42.30.1101b to consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of a real estate by lease or purchase when public knowledge regarding such a consideration would cause the likelihood of an increased price? I make a motion to approve the agenda with the addition of RCW 42.30.101b. Second.

1:54 Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. And motion passes. Next up, we have board recognition, recognition for the retirement of coach operator Lawrence Allen Moore, and that would bring up Annette. Good evening. Before I begin the resolution, I just wanted to say that when I came here a little over two years ago, Larry was one of the first trainers that I met, and there was some talk about him retiring at that time, and they said he's going to retire, he's going to retire. We just waved it off, so a couple of months ago I saw him. He had the countdown clock at his desk, and I'm like, "You're not going anywhere.

2:52 I don't believe you," and he said, "No, I'm leaving." I said, "No, you'll just buy another car and stay another two years," so I didn't believe him, but now I have to say, "I believe you now, Larry. Thanks for your service." A resolution adopted upon the retirement of C-TRAN transit operator, instructor, and coach operator, Lawrence Allen Moore, and expressing appreciation for over 35 years of dedicated service, whereas Lawrence, also known as Larry, became a member of the agency in February 1991, following his service in the Navy for four years. And Larry dedicated 15 years to the role of coach operator before being promoted to transit operator instructor. Larry has served as a transit operator instructor for the past 20 years, demonstrating exceptional mentorship to new operators and establishing lasting professional relationships.

3:51 Throughout his tenure as a transit operator instructor, Larry has trained over 700 operators for the agency, in addition to training most supervisors and management staff. Larry has earned recognition through steady, reliable performance, demonstrating situational awareness, defensive driving skills, and a commitment to policy, training, and best practices. Upon his retirement, C-TRAN recognizes his outstanding contributions, professionalism, and positive impact on both colleagues and passengers alike. And Lawrence will retire from C-TRAN on August, April, see, I still don't believe you, on April 30th, 2026. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the C-TRAN board of directors, on behalf of C-TRAN employees and citizens of Clark County, we hereby express our sincere appreciation to Lawrence Alan

4:47 Moore for over 35 years of exceptional service and wishes for his health, happiness, and full and fulfillment in retirement. A few words, Larry? Yes, sir, can we reflect that?

5:45 We noted that she joined at 534. Thank you. Next up is public testimony or communication. This portion of the agenda shall be limited to items on the agency's business, which are properly the object of board consideration. Testimony is limited to three minutes. We ask that comments shall be respectful and courteous to all. As a reminder, you can email comments to the clerk of the board, and these will be accepted as part of the public record. I now open the meeting for public testimony. I will take the first person first. Let's see here. First up, I have Mello. Hello? Hey. Yeah. So my name is Carmen De Leon, I go by Mello, and I didn't know that you were supposed to be on agenda items. I thought it was supposed to be open topic on anything you want, because... Huh? Actually, let me address Mello here. Yeah? Go ahead with your three minutes.

6:45 Okay. So, well, what I wanted to say was that, as humans, we are creatures of habit. So when you're in the habit of making money, that's what you become as a money maker. But when you're in the habit of losing money, well, you should just be upfront with people, because C-Tran, and over there in Portland, C-Tran's on welfare, because the state's funded, everything else is funded, you guys aren't making any money, and I guess that's just the way you guys do things here, because, I mean, if Portland is actually making things smaller, less bus services, because they're losing by the hundreds of millions, I mean, I don't see how you guys would want to invest anything into light rail, which is going on billions of dollars, when there's no need to be made. So why is it a money pit? Why is there no regard for the people of Vancouver's votes, which has been since 1996 or '94 that they don't want light rail, and yet the city of Vancouver has voted for it to go all the

7:42 way to what is the library, when it hasn't really been approved by the people. So do you guys just not care about the people, because obviously you don't, and the people have voted out year after year for, what is it, decades, and you guys don't care. So how come you guys are already approving something that the people have not agreed with? And it's not even safe when you look at what's going on with the new, what is it, bridge, because they want to go up, way up, seven stories high, and you can't get up there with a bike. It's dangerous in the snow. It's dangerous in the rain. It's no good for anybody in a wheelchair. So why do they want to add all that to the I-5 bridge when they can just make two other bridges? And why is anybody listening to the city of Vancouver when they're in the hole? The city of Vancouver should not be trusted. Anything that comes out of the city of Vancouver has not been tested.

8:41 Everybody there doesn't have any experience in scheduling and obviously in making money, because I've seen that even just the mayor alone has spent $25,000 on her personal expenses and $90 for her mayor's dinners. So losing money, it seems to be the way of life for the city of Vancouver, and all of Clark County should not participate in it. All of Clark County wants two other bridges and no light rail. And why isn't anybody listening to 500,000 people in regards to only 30,000 people, tiny portion that voted in the last election? So I mean, no wonder people are mad at you. You're way out of touch with the population of Vancouver and Clark County. Thank you, violent. Next up.

9:29 Mr. Chair, I absolutely object to the comment that is inappropriate and inaccurate noted. That is a that was on the agenda. And that's something we're looking at doing next time.

10:28 You'll notice I have a great deal of difficulty getting up here. I thank you, board members for the opportunity to address you again. Hello, Mayor, can you stop what you're doing? Please direct me to ever this time I'm talking to you on a personal level. I think you really don't want to operate the C band program and make it nearly impossible to take advantage of it. It is my knowledge and understanding that C Tran makes it impossible for disabled people to use. And in particular, you discriminate against disabled people like me just because I have a scooter. Have you ever talked with disabled people who use or can't use your C van as an applicant for the C van services? I would ask you to would like to ask you to reconsider your guidelines. So rude.

11:24 I understand that you don't base approvals on a person's health condition because well, that would get you into legal arguments. However, I think you ought to consider the whole person. I am legally disabled. That should be sufficient because I have a scooter and not a wheelchair. I can only use C band based on the weather. I have a conditional use permission, really. I barely managed to function. I'm a 68 year old widow living on social security with no living family to assist me. Medical transportation vans cost over used to cost $200 round trip and only with days in advance notice. I'm a very independent person and C van would be a great asset to me should my mobility van no longer be an option. I've applied twice for the C van and have given to conditional usage based on the weather. How many factors and have many factors that make it difficult to use your buses, especially the C van.

12:23 First of all, I live in a transportation desert. My house is directly behind the Andreessen sound wall between Northeast 63rd and Andreessen. Access is up and around two blocks. If I want to go south and down at the Andreessen and 63rd intersection going North, the only other way to get to a bus stop is through my neighborhood and it's a 1.3 mile route. If I go this route, would you as an able-bodied person be willing to walk that distance? I don't think so. Why shouldn't I be expected to? My health conditions make it impossible for me to spend that much time on my scooter. I was born with cerebral palsy and have had 14 surgeries on my legs since I was five years old. Achilles tendons lengthen, heel bones cut off and realigned with screws. My feet ligaments were realigned and tied to my big toe. Toes straightened, fused, have broken them and fused to them again. Screws through my feet, through my toes. Both knees were replaced with my latest one done December last year.

13:21 My right shoulder was replaced due to arthritis. My spine is extremely arthritic. I will ask for just a leniency for one more minute, if you would. One more minute might be a little please. I've lived in constant pain for 24 hours, 24 hours a day for the last 20 years. I have bilateral neuropathy in both legs from my shins to my toes. My back has scoliosis, compressed disc, degenerative disc disease, fractured disc and massive osteoarthritis, which is pressing on my spinal cord, creating a whole host of other problems. I have severe chronic fatigue, thyroid cancer, which has destroyed my thyroid hormones, lymphedema due to my lymphatic system being shot. It is a horrible disease that causes immense swelling due to fluid buildup. I cannot perspire and cool down as other people can. Heat and humidity make me sick and cold weather makes my bones ache with the screws and things I have in my feet. It is ludicrous to base my usage on weather conditions because you're telling me to anticipate

14:20 the weather two days in advance, better than the weatherman. You don't care about my ability, just that I have disability, just that I have a scooter. Really? Please consider redesigning your CVAN qualifications to allow disabled people, regardless of their mode of mobility. This makes me furious. To ride without me having to be a weatherman to predict whether or not I need transportation and to make it more usable and inclusive. I can't get in to see a doctor till September. You mean I have to base whether or not I asked for transportation based on the weather at that time. So yes, I'm mad. That is hell. Thank you. Next up we have William Burke.

15:11 Hi, my name is William Burke and I'm just basically appearing on behalf of the drivers. At the bequest of some of the drivers on the issue of air quality. The device that I brought in is a little, it's a VOC meter. So it measures the air quality in like microns and through a laser system and a sniffer. So just all the volatile organic compounds is what this device registers and reads. So this has to do with the filtration, the MIRV8 through the MIRV13.

16:08 These are the various filtration systems that are used on bus, on board the bus. And the cost associated with them might be a concern as to how often they get changed which should be changed every 90 days according to the manufacturer's recommendations. But in having those things changed it can prevent the spread of the pathogens that are constantly changing ever more now than ever with the new variants that come in and such. And this has to do with the well being of the drivers themselves if they're exposed to dirty filters and stuff like that and the bus is acting as a petri dish essentially to spread whatever the current variant is or might be.

17:03 And they get held for missing work three days or more without a doctor's letter or whatever and they could be let go I guess. This is something that should be evaluated at maybe the maintenance level to maybe have a device such as this where it would be a simple walk through. They could read, maybe this is dirty because we're getting a heavy reading on this and have the internal filter changed. If there's funguses that have formed inside the fins, things that might not be readily seen on an inspection, stuff like that. And I think that there have been since I initially made a complaint. I think they've addressed it. Tim Shellenberger I want to say. Now when I get on the bus I can't breathe and I appreciate them at least taking a look at that. But a bigger look at that is how it affects the drivers themselves and not being able

18:03 to make it in and becoming sick from the filtration itself that might have been dirty and might be partially to blame for just not having those things. Always in the top shape of being replaced. That's about all I have to add on that note. Otherwise the most of the drivers really would like to see. Thank you Mr. Burke. Next up John Lee. Good evening. TriMet max light rail operating expense per mile is up seventy five percent in two years. Their bus operating costs are up twenty six percent. Ctran operating expense per mile is up just ten and a half percent. Max cost per mile is thirty four dollars.

19:02 TriMet bus cost is nineteen dollars a mile and Ctran's fourteen dollars a mile. TriMet max operating cost per mile is two and a half times that of Ctran. These are numbers reported to the FTA. TriMet lost eight hundred and fifty million dollars last year. They burned through six billion taxpayer dollars over the last decade. TriMet also has forty spare max light rail vehicles. Two hundred and twenty six spare buses, Ctran has just eighteen spare buses. Let's talk about the IBR. TriMet demanded we buy them nineteen new light rail vehicles as part of the IBR. I'm told they reduced that to just three vehicles after slashing ridership estimates last year. Why would we buy them any when they have forty spare light rail vehicles? The original demand was for taxpayers to pay between ten and fifteen million dollars per

20:00 vehicle for each of those light rail vehicles. That was possibly triple the cost of the four and a half million they paid for better red vehicles two years ago. The IBR refused to validate the light rail vehicle cost. Here's a news flash. In January, TriMet signed a contract for fifty six new light rail vehicles for three hundred and seventy million dollars. That's six point six million each. The contract includes spare parts and maintenance manuals, therefore the price is likely less. My take, TriMet's hoping to rip off taxpayers and the IBR has been turning a blind eye. Clark County taxpayers should have nothing to do with TriMet. In the latest revelation, the IBR, in an effort to save money by phasing the project, is going to end the light rail at the Vancouver waterfront at a station roughly ninety feet in the air. We don't need a transit stop ninety feet above the ground.

20:59 With an eight to ten billion dollar funding shortfall, the IBR should eliminate the transit component altogether. They should simply build a two billion dollar bridge that adds lanes and vehicle capacity to I-5 over the Columbia River. A simple cost-effective bridge would avoid the need for tolling. TriMet is slashing bus and light rail service. They only carry one point six of daily trips, according to the Cascade Policy Institute. People want to save travel time and reduce traffic congestion. Allocating fifty four percent of the bridge surface to transit bikes and pedestrians is ridiculous. You know the cost cross river transit ridership has been flat for many years. We need lanes not trains. Thank you. Thank you, John. Next up, Douglas Tweet. Hello, board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Douglas Tweet, Camus.

21:58 Okay, there we go. I sent this earlier. You should all have a PDF of it. There's presented versions of this. I'm giving some updates and new information based on the FSEIS that just came out last week. So in the text are details about exactly how the analysis was done and the links and everything like that. I'm going to focus because I have limited time on the figures. So the first figures on the second page, you've seen this before different versions of this about the actual ridership. This is from Sea Tran NTD data that I got from Sea Tran showing how the ridership plummeted during COVID. And now this is across the I-5 bridge. The green is express buses. The red is the Route 60. That's the only route that will be replaced by light rail. The blue is the sum. This is an estimate of weekday average. And you see that for the last three years, the Route 60, which will be the light rail,

22:57 been saturated about 900 per day, about 450 people roughly. Now you look at this, the next picture, this is historical data. You go 2006, CRC did a survey and they got a total of about 3,300 total express buses and Route 60 in 2006. And then you can see the new data, the more recent data. So it's plummeted where right now about 1,500 total versus 3,300, or less than half of what that is, of what it was 20 years ago. But the FSEIS predicts in 2045, somehow it's going to go up about 20 times to nearly 30,000 in bus and transit. And it's gone down by half in the last 20 years, and somehow it's going to go up by 20 times. That's just not believable.

23:56 Now if we look at the distribution of the layout, John alluded to that. So if we look at the details, I don't have time to go into that, you'll see that roughly half is devoted to light rail, active transportation and bus, and then the rest is going to general traffic and freight. Now if we take the 2019 data from the FSEIS, you'll see that we plot about 143,000 general traffic and then about 14,000 freight, and then you've got the route 60, the express buses and the active down here. But if you add up the number of lanes, it's about half is devoted to 3% of users, less than 3% of users, and the other 97% are crammed in the other half.

24:53 Now if we take the FSEIS new data, okay, the new predictions for 2045, it adjusts a little bit. You can see these numbers, but instead it's 12% gets half, and the rest of us, or 88% get the other half. So it's still extremely unfair to the vast majority of people and truckers who are paying the tolls. Next up we have Margaret Treat. And regarding the bicyclists and pedestrians, the 25 feet that they are allocated on the bridge is based on an October 19, 2022 observed count of 296 persons crossing the bridge.

25:47 There is other data, historical permanent counts were reviewed and revealed several irregularities and were determined unusable. So we're left with a single data point, which is the basis to determine the need for 25 feet of the bridge. That is grossly unfair. And then regarding the ridership, at the October 14th C-TRAN board meeting, IBR presented new ridership analysis using the Stops Model to forecast past ridership data. They claimed daily light rail boardings in the fall of 2024 were about 5,000, but we didn't have light rail in 2024. We had C-TRAN buses. There were about 900 bus boardings per C-TRAN 2024 data on the bus route 60, the one to

26:47 be replaced with light rail. Steve Witter of IBR stated, "These higher numbers are ridership as if we put in that system today, light rail." Again, it wasn't there in 2024. So how can it be an existing condition? It didn't exist. When asked by board member Tim Hein where these numbers came from, IBR wasn't prepared to answer and suggested that technical experts could make a future presentation with details, which hasn't happened yet. It's April now of 2026. Furthermore, I note that regarding the year of the modeling, when it began, it says here

27:38 in the footnote on the program and needs 1.3.2 that the IBR program is using 2019 as a baseline year for existing conditions, except for the Metro RTC regional travel demand model, which are from 2015. When did the modeling start, 2015, 2019, 2024? It's very unclear from these meetings, from the documentation, from the technical reports, and these are questions that should be answered for the board. These technical experts should be invited back, perhaps they're here today, so that we can understand when the modeling started, how did these assertions of 20 times the ridership, where did they come from? What are the assumptions? Thank you so much. Thank you, Margaret.

28:34 Next up, we have Bruce Barnes. Good evening, chair and board of directors. My name is Bruce Barnes for the record, and another thing for the record I'd like to state is that I don't have any Clark County representation here tonight again, but we know why that is. The political coup is already over. Anyways, I would suggest that C-TRAN slows down their bus systems here and reduces some busing because of the cost of fuel. Because the next thing the taxpayers are going to get is a big fuel bill for driving around in circles with nobody riding the bus. So that's one suggestion. A friend of mine just got back from Ireland, fuel is $10 a liter, that's $40 per gallon for fuel, and it's going to keep going up here.

29:34 So we better prepare for it now before we reach an emergency situation. Secondly, I'd like to talk about the interstate bridge project. It saddens me to my core that my dad started this project 35 years ago in good faith to get people back and forth to work, and still we have not churned over one piece of dirt yet. He's not going to live long enough to see this bridge done. His warranty's pretty much up. He's 93 years old this year and he's not going to live long enough to see the bridge completion, as probably some of you. The tolling is what I'm concerned about, right? $1.6 billion worth of tolls have to be raised per year, right, to pay for this bridge. What's that I equate to? It's a $12 to $14 each direction toll. People can't afford their groceries right now.

30:31 I brought this up to the city council, I brought it up to the county council. When are we going to know the true number and let the public know? Because once the public knows that it's going to be that costly, they're not going to want to cross this bridge. So I don't know what you're going to raise the toll to, because if only half the people start using the interstate bridge still and they all go to the 205 bridge, regardless if it's a traffic jam or not, to avoid the toll. Because nobody's going to be able to afford another $6,300 a year out of their pocket when groceries are where they're at, fuel's where they're at, property taxes are where they're at. You know what I mean? What's enough? You know what I mean? And like the lady spoke already, she's a single widow that can't afford to even drive her vehicle, let alone get a ride on your TriMet bus system. And I will volunteer to take you to your doctor's appointment if you do need a ride. I would be more than glad to do that.

31:31 But anyways, that's enough. But the one final thing that I'd like to add is I would like to add that I'm really thankful that they're cleaning up the freeways. And it's not for the sake of cleaning up the freeways. I think it's more about that soccer tournament that's happening in Seattle, kind of like when the Chinese man showed up to San Francisco and they cleaned up that hellhole too. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you, Bruce. Next up is Kirk Van Gilder. Sea Tram board. My name is Kirk Van Gilder, lifelong resident of Clark County. I'm not happy to have to be here tonight to once again, call out people who refuse to actually represent the clear will of the people, the voters, as stated, the county has voted time and time against light rail into Clark County by very large percentages approaching 70 percent.

32:30 There are very few issues that have that much agreement across the political spectrum. And yet several of you voted to continue to endorse the clear voted to ignore the clear will of your own district's voters. But it's worse than that. Article one, section one of Washington State Constitution states all political power is inherent in the people and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and are established to protect and maintain individual rights. That's word for word what it says. And I'll remind you that section 29 says the provisions of this constitution are mandatory unless expressed by express words, they are declared otherwise. You all took an oath to uphold the Washington State Constitution, therefore binding you to follow it. It is mandatory, but some of you voted against the clear will of voters. You violated section one and 29 of the Constitution and therefore your oath of office. And the question is why? Why are you ignoring the will of the voters? There are only a couple of possibilities.

33:29 Number one, your tyrants who demand your own way, voters be damned. You know, I believe the saying is no kings. You need to resign. Two, you think you know better than the voters. You don't. You need to resign. Or three, you're doing the will of others, developers, friends, et cetera, possibly for money or future favors. That would be called corruption. You need to go to jail. The sad reality is that we're 250 years later once again facing tyranny of our own government oppressing us over taxes, regulation, tolls, all of that. Some of you are pushing us back into having to overthrow that tyranny once again, which our Declaration of Independence warned us we may have to do. Is that what you want? Because this is about the only option you appear to leaving us with. Lord knows, we the people have been very clear about what you need to do to fix the problem. No light rail, no tolls. Fix the problem. Thank you.

34:27 Thank you, Kurt. Do we have, Cindy, anybody online? Nobody online? Okay. Well, that closes our public comment and moves us to the consent items. Are there any items that we'd like to pull from the consent? Tim? Thank you, Chair. I'd like to pull item number four, the contract for executive coaching. Excellent. Pulling item number four, any other items that would like to be pulled? Okay. Do I hear a motion to approve item one, item two, item three, item five, six, seven, eight? Do I hear a motion? Chair, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the addition of pulling item number four. Second. Any discussion? We have a motion and a second.

35:26 All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? And then opposed. We have item number four. Thank you, Chair. The only question I have on the contract for executive coaching is, I'd like to better understand what are the details involving that coaching. I see the dollar amount, I see a broad description of what is proposed, I'd like details on what some of the specifics are for the team or the chief executive officer and how that aligns with the strategic priority. Now, point of clarification, would you like that tonight or would you like that in the future? If the CEO can provide an update on that tonight, just a few details, I don't personally, I don't need huge details, I'd just like a few key bullet points over what does that look

36:25 like. Question? Thank you, Chair and thank you Director Tim Heine. So yes, with the consulting executive coach, recall that I initially started out with the Dr. Carroll as guidance for me stepping into CEO role. As we, if you recall, when I started, I did a review and took a step back and asked for everyone to take a moment to reflect, review and reset and it became apparent that with the executive team, we needed some cohesiveness and we needed to be ready, I needed to be ready to lead with confidence and make an understanding of what the executive team needed for me as a leader and what I needed from them. So as we grew and started the program, we've done great strengths of creating cross-functional

37:23 alignment, we've done cohesiveness work together through the coaching for me, I've become more intentional about how I've led and make decisions and account and help and having accountability, which was a big staple for me for creating that foundation within the executive team as we move forward. I learned that I've had to become a visionary, strategize, be more intentional about how I lead and get out of the weeds of used to being in the operations sector. So had to learn to take a step back, let my COO take over with that and be able to guide them and be more strategic in what our decisions are making. We've been able to establish a people for leadership approach and ground our core values that you see in our packet and that we've been utilizing and using that as something not to just check a box, but to become part of how we lead and operate every day.

38:21 There's also greater clarity and stronger accountability and better alignment within our leadership level. And so we're looking to expand on that and be able to apply those, our practices within everyone's department from their direct reports on down through management. Next steps, we're looking to continue the work. This contract also would encompass our board workshop that we're going to have on the fifth. She would be leading that as well. I think that's an opportunity for her to see as a cohesiveness for executive team to be working together on something together, overall arching for the C-TRAN board and for the board members to see how we work together with her as well. And so through this, I feel like it's just strengthened our leadership capacity and directly

39:20 supports our long-term organizational effectiveness throughout the agency and also create retention and be able to prepare for future for pipeline filling and being able to have a good foundation to build on. Hopefully that answers your question. Any other discussion? Do I hear a motion for item number four? Chair, I make a motion to approve consent agenda item number four. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Not seeing any, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Now, moving on to presentations.

40:20 And first up, we have C-TRAN citizen advisory committee CCAC update staff report 26-013. Good evening, chair members of the board. My name is Mike McQueen. I'm the chair of the C-TRAN citizen advisory committee for 2026. I'm also the bi-state commuter representative, and this is my third year with the committee. So I'm here to present the activities on the board since the last update. So since January 2026, the CCAC has conducted the following business, reviewed and provided input on agency funding sources, voted to change the meeting location from the administrative office here to the Rose-Basterman community room at the Fishers Landing Transit Center,

41:16 discussed express route service planning and dispatch and provided feedback on challenges and suggested improvements, reviewed the bus stop prioritization matrix project with Portland State University student consultants and provided comments on preferred prioritization, reviewed fall service change plans and bus stop designs and provided comments on preferred timeline and ideology for changes, supported the outreach needed and recruitment for the social services representative position, discussed each committee member's purpose and intention in joining the committee and their shared values, voted on a change in the meeting agenda to include roll call committee sharing or continued time management and inclusion during meetings, provided regular questions and feedback to C-TRAN staff on a variety of subjects, including training, scheduling and a variety of fixed route and demand response issues, provided a forum for regular questions, concerns and comments from the committee.

42:15 And that concludes my report. That's quite a report, Mike. I mean, when you look at all of those, I mean, there's two or three I could ask a question on bus stop design. I mean, were there any that you were going through that were rather, you know, contentions? Changing the meeting location was a little contentious. Okay. There was some good discussion about the bus stop design. There was discussion about do we prioritize bus stops that have higher ridership? Do we prioritize bus stops that have maybe folks with disabilities that live close by? Do we prioritize destinations? So grocery stores where everybody would be impacted by an improvement to the bus stops. And then, of course, the express route reliability topic was really close to me as well since

43:14 I used that multiple times a week. Interesting. You know, as far as the location, just Rose Besserman, better connection. Don't have to get two buses. There's definitely more buses that serve that location compared to here. My bus actually arrives there as well, so that's very convenient. And it's a very comfy room. It's a bit more intimate, which is really nice to be able to really converse on a one to one with C Tran stops. So it's been well received by the majority of the committee. Have you had the opportunity to take the C Tran survey? Yes, I have. Excellent. That's all I have. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Next up, we have the fine on Highway 99 bus, rapid transit update with Randy Parker. Thank you. Good evening, chair members of the board. Let me get my zapper here. Thank you. Yeah. That's what my mother in law cause it. Okay.

44:13 So I'm excited to share with everyone where we're at on the Highway 99 BRT project in a while since we've spoken. This first slide is the total BRT vine system expansion. The red line here shown on milk plane was completed in 2023. The green line was the fourth plane line, which opened in 2017. The purple line is the Highway 99 BRT project, which is currently in construction. I'm going to talk more about now. And the lime green line is the extension of fourth plane along fourth plane down 162nd to Fisher's landing, which should be targeted opening in 2028. So the Highway 99 project itself is bus rapid transit. The alignment is Highway 99 and Main Street.

45:13 It's about a 10 mile long corridor. The Southern terminus is Vancouver waterfront, Northern terminus WSU Vancouver, excuse me, includes 32 new stations, four existing stations, and what I'm calling a remodel of salmon Creek transit center. It's a park and ride lot right now, but we're going to turn it into a transit center, more like the mill plane transit center. The corridor itself is forecasted to grow with over 7,000 new households and 9,000 new jobs by 2040. The corridor exceeds area averages in many community groups that historically use transit more often, 26% in or near poverty, 26% identified as minority, and 10% don't have a vehicle, which is twice the county wide rate. And many existing bus stops and are not accessible by sidewalk or close to a controlled crossing

46:11 in the corridor right now. Just a reminder of what is the vine. Here's a couple of images. The image on the left, the vine is we operate 60 foot articulated buses. We use stations instead of stops, each station is branded, the whole system's branded. The stations include passenger information displays, cameras, security cameras, lighting, windscreens, and I feel like I'm forgetting something, oh, shelters. Next slide is, this is a typical station design for the purple line, it'll look very similar to the red line. We made some slight modifications from the red line. We moved the PIDs, the passenger information displays to the middle of the shelter.

47:10 That is because to get better camera angles, which then necessitated that we move the bench so no one could hop up on the bench and do vandalism. And then we added this in front of the woman walking there, what's called a leaning rail. So those are, other than that, they're pretty similar to the red line. Oh, and we, the trash can design is slightly different. So this next slide is a typical, what we call a bike bypass station. These are on Mill Plain as well. We made some improvements over Mill Plain, you know, you build enough of these, you get a little bit smarter every time. What we did here is we improved the tactile detection and wayfinding. That's all the yellow and the white striping that you see on there. And on Highway 99, the bike path itself is going to be asphalt instead of concrete, which

48:09 should help with comfort and detectability for the bike riders. Their first one has been poured, if you need something to do for a field trip, go out to 139th and 23rd westbound, and that one's been poured, so it's ready to go. As I said, the northern terminus is at the campus, the WSU Vancouver. The station is where you see that big white arrow. It includes a loop road in, which is next to, parallel to a road that is used for emergency usage. That road is bus only with access controlled at that intersection at 29th. So there'll be a gate and a signalized intersection added there as well.

49:06 And I should point out that we worked a lot, you know, very closely with the school up there. We did the windscreen designs in collaboration with them. The only agreement was that there's no purple allowed at that station. So there'll be one little purple V up there, and that's it. They were pretty adamant about that. That's too much. Yeah, I've heard that. In terms of the timeline, we're in the far right box there. We're in construction. We are, I'll go to the next slide here in a second. We're starting in the north heading south. We started in earnest around November before we got all of our permits. I think I've mentioned that we've had issues getting our permits and still do. A whole other story. But and we're still on schedule to get it opening day in the fall of next year, 2027.

50:04 In terms of the construction itself, the construction's phased. As I mentioned, we're starting in north and heading south. The stations are built in groups, so we didn't, we're limited to like 8 to 10 stations at a time. So we don't just go through and, you know, demo a bunch of stuff and then leave cones up for months on end. The impact at any single station is about three months. They're working on it. We've had continuous business and property outreach the whole time. Eric's group has been out ahead of us. We have weekly meetings with the contractor and the county. In this case, this is the map of the county. We will do that with the city when we get to the city. And we have a project hotline and email that's monitored seven days a week. So we try to stay in communication with the community out there ahead of schedule, ahead of the progress.

51:02 The map I wanted to point out, so the orange dots, they show stations that are currently under construction. The idea is to, we'll start in the north. We started on 139th and 23rd and headed south. We're going to get as far as 88th and then jump back up north and head south on the northbound stations. And this is all how the county wanted us to do it. We haven't started at WSU or Salmon Creek yet because we don't have a permit yet. Hopefully we can get those soon. The blue dots are utility work that goes out ahead of us. So they're all throughout the corridor except in the city. And we hope to, that work will continue through fall of '26 in the county. We hope to be in, oh, let me show some pictures and then I'll talk about the city portion.

52:00 So on the left is the station at 139th and 23rd eastbound that I mentioned that the bike path in Asphalt is done. That's the station that we started at and it's the furthest one along. The one on the right is Highway 29th and 129th near the dental office there. You'll notice as I head south they get progressively like looks like there's less work and that's just because we haven't got that far yet. But having said that, the station on the left at 99th and 117th, excuse me, that looks like a sidewalk but it's actually the footing for a very large retaining wall that's going in there now. If you drive up there now, that retaining wall is there and the shelter has been set. The image on the right is Highway 99, 107th southbound.

52:58 That one, they just set the shelter about two weeks ago I think on that one. The next one, 99th and 99th, I put this one in here because it's a really good sense to give you what goes on underneath the platform. There's a lot of conduit and wiring in those in the concrete there. And then the one on the right is 99th and 88th and that is a gas pipe and the yellow means gas that we're trying to get moved with Northwest National. And like I said, we're 88th as far as we're going to go southbound and then we're going to jump back up which they've done and started working on 139th westbound and then some of the northbound stations on Highway 99. Now the city portion, again, we're going to start in the north and head south. Utility work will begin in this summer.

53:56 We'll go down ahead just like we did in Highway 99, get ahead of them. The station work will plan to take place in the summer, start this summer, go through the fall of 27 and then as I mentioned, there's four stations that are existing. So those stations will see what we're calling a minor refresh. Probably the plan is to upgrade the technology there and do some paint work and that kind of thing. We're also in the city reconstructing the intersection at 28th. I don't have a picture of that but that's in the plan. And I wanted to mention also that you might see some work at around 45th. That's the furthest north station we have in the city and we're going to start that in August-ish to get ahead of the main street project that you all have going there.

54:51 We've been coordinating with them. I think that's it. Questions? Yes. >> Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Randy. Really good presentation. I'm interested on slide 10. Looking at the various stops along the route, the BRT, how did you come up with the disbursement of that? >> So that was decided when we did the LPA, locally preferred alternative. And at that stage, all you're trying to do is get dots on a map. Where they may actually land in construction is a whole other question of like is there a utility we need to try to miss, is the property owner not going to work with this, would near side or far side work better, but things like existing transit ridership. Most of these stations are where an existing stop was, right? So was that station or stop heavily used?

55:50 Is it near an intersection? What we try to do is get rid of sorry, like mid block stops or stations where people tend to run across the highway. Super dangerous situation. That's the criteria we try to be used to when we place them. >> Thank you. >> Is that all? Yeah. Right? >> Thank you. Yeah. I'm I have really enjoyed seeing this unfold. I drive by the 139th every day on the way home from school just because well, they have 50th cut off because of construction and they have 179th cut off because of construction so that's like the only way to get back to Ridgefield. But I just I'm really excited about this just because it's going to be able to connect that northern area all the way to the waterfront.

56:42 What is going to be the anticipated travel time from WSU all the way down to the waterfront? >> Is it 40 minutes? What does that mean? 40 minutes. >> About 40 minutes. Okay. So that's the closest one for us and I you know, I talked to my son goes to WSU Vancouver and when I told him about it, he was like, wait, we can go all the way down to the waterfront and it's like, yeah, you know, you don't have to mess parking or anything like that. So I think there's going to be a lot of people in the north side that are going to be looking for that as an option. I'm really excited about it. Appreciate the work. >> Yeah. Thank you. Randy, 28th street. >> Yes. >> It's got an island there. >> Yeah. I think the island goes away, doesn't it?

57:36 We do a oh, that okay, okay, definitely. >> You'll have a left hand turn lane. We won't do that like 90, the 90 thing, you'll have a left hand turn pocket with like a Y almost that drops down on the lane. With a new signal. >> Clear visibility as far as the signage and all of that. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. Excellent. Way safer. >> Kim, Eric, online, do you have any questions? >> No questions. Thank you. This is great. >> Okay. >> I know on main street it's pretty tight driving the bus through there.

58:31 Is there any plans for development with the city to make the road a little easier to access? >> We're not changing the road what's it called, the curb to curb dimensions on I know we were talking about like from 39 down to 4th plane. Yeah. Right. >> We are doing quite a bit of work there at Safeway and there's a yes, go ahead. And Taylor. >> We're not going to be changing anything with the roadway cross section but we're going to be tying in pretty closely with the city of Vancouver's main street safety and mobility project and they're going to be changing the cross section of main street so it's going to be moving from four lanes, two in either direction to three lanes, one northbound and two southbound. So rather than about nine-foot lanes in either direction, we're going to have to be operating

59:29 in about 11-foot lanes so it will be a much more comfortable operating environment. Yeah. >> Sorry. Was that? I must have misunderstood then. You're asking are we coordinating with their project? >> Can we have you please turn your mic on? >> Thank you. >> There we go. Any other questions? Comments? All right. Moving on to a C-TRAN ridership update. Guess who's coming back. >> I didn't bring my water bottle. >> Thank you. >> Evening members of the board.

1:00:27 My name is Taylor Eit, director of planning and service delivery. Happy to be here with you this evening to provide an overview of recent ridership trends as we move further into 2026. 2025 was a notable year for ridership in C-TRAN. We saw our fourth consecutive year of ridership growth. We eclipsed 5 million riders for the year, an increase of 6% over 2024. This growth isn't isolated to any one mode or part of the system, signaling a sustained trend for the network. A key takeaway we've observed over the last few years is that routes where we've added service and the most recent service changes typically experience some of the greatest ridership increases the following year.

1:01:24 All C-TRAN modes, including the vine, local, regional, express, the current, and C-van experience growth. System-wide, this growth has continued into early 2026, where ridership year-to-date averages nearly 17,000, up 6% compared to the same time in 2025, and more than 10% over 2024. The lines on the chart step up, showing a clear indication of our regular growth year over year from 2021 to 2026 today. And you can see the lines really progressing from the blue line in 2021, the orange in

1:02:18 2022, up to the green line showing 2026 year-to-date. And it's year after year essentially in chronological order as those lines are increasing in average ridership. And as has been the case with recent years, we continue to see particularly strong growth on weekends, where ridership is up 7% over this time last year and 14% over 2024. Surpassing an average of 11,000 riders in March of this year. That's the highest figure that we've seen on Saturdays in at least the last decade, so a substantial figure. This suggests that our service investments are addressing latent demand, and riders are

1:03:16 increasingly relying on our service for non-commute trips, including shopping, essential services, and social trips on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on weekdays. We just talked a little bit about the Vine. The system remains the backbone of the C-TRAN network. The Vine carried 1.9 million riders in 2025 and continues to show sustained growth. Weekday ridership is up 3% year-to-date over 2025 and 7% over 2024. The green line and red line averaged 3,400 and 2,300 riders per weekday respectively.

1:04:10 They carry more than a third of all C-TRAN riders on an average weekday. When the purple line opens, the Vine system as a whole will carry nearly half of all C-TRAN riders on any given weekday. Ridership on routes crossing the Columbia River also saw a moderate increase as regional travel patterns began to stabilize. Portland Express routes, including the 60, 65, and 67 connecting to TriMet Max and Portland International Airport, and routes 105, 105X, and 164, and 190 connecting to downtown Portland and OHSU, all saw moderate growth up about 2% over 2025, carrying a combined 2,200 passengers

1:05:06 per day in March of 2026, so that's a very recent figure. Specifically, regional routes are up about 2% so far, while our express service has seen a more robust recent increase, up about 6% year-to-date over this time last year. This is likely reflecting additional return to office requirements over the last year or so. About 65 and 164 in the I-205 corridor have seen some of our more significant increases, up about 6% and 5%, respectively, from 24 to 25. And I'll end by highlighting the continued exceptional growth of the current.

1:05:57 It's just above some of our other high-growth routes, including routes 19, 48, 74, and 78. It continues to be our fastest-growing service, as it has been over the last few years. Weekday ridership year-to-date averages about 220 riders per day, up 35% over 2025 and more than 50% over 2024. Each service zone of the current continues to see individual ridership growth. So far in 2026, the battleground zone has already become our second highest ridership zone. So far this year, C-TRAN ridership continues to show strong growth indicators, responding well to added service and accessibility improvements.

1:06:57 It's a little too early to know how rising fuel costs will impact ridership. Historically, transit is a lifeline during times where fuel prices rise as high as they are today, and we do see ridership increases as a result. We are likely to see that through the rest of the year. It's just a little bit too early to know. But recently, C-TRAN does exceed the national average of about 2 to 4% annual growth among similar midsize transit agencies in the nation. So I'd like to finish by thanking you all for continued support of service and capital investments that really enable us to continue moving ridership in this direction. It's pivotal to us doing so. So happy to answer any questions you all might have.

1:07:51 Well, Taylor, you got one of my questions with the fuel and cost of fuel today. But the second question, and you don't have to answer this tonight, it'd be great as a follow-up to those, is how are we doing with the student Apple pass? Are we seeing increases there as well? That's a great question. We do, what I can tell you is that student ridership is a really significant driver of our ridership. We see that in trends based on spring break, fall break, and summer ridership. But we can get you specific numbers on actual utilization of TAPs. That'd be great. An email to the board. Questions? Tim? Thank you, Chair. Thanks, Taylor. Great presentation. It's really good to see recent information, current information on such an important metric.

1:08:45 In terms of, and it's great to see the increase in ridership with 6.3% overall over prior year, right? That's with 2% growth across the river, 50%, you said the current, is that about 50%? Thirty-five over last year, 50% over '24. So I mean system-wise, so even the routes in Southwest Washington are higher than that 6%, which is great to see. What's the feedback in terms of why is the current so popular? What kind of service does it provide that gets that kind of growth? That's a great question. I think one of the reasons that we've seen continued growth of the current is that recently with changes in how we've been able to staff the current, we've been able to meet demand

1:09:37 a little bit more than we were able to previously, and we saw that fairly immediately starting in the summer of last year once we made that shift. We coupled that with the extension into battleground, so we picked up an additional zone and also pretty significant additional capacity to accommodate riders. But I think combining that with serving areas that historically have never had access to transit is a pretty significant ridership generator. It's not the biggest figure that we see at 220 riders a day, but it is tapping into a market that has never had access before. And what we're finding is that we continue to see new signups, and that really is an ongoing trend. So that's great to see.

1:10:35 And not only are we seeing people continue to sign up for the app, but we're seeing people make their first trip and then make return trips. So that's a really strong positive indicator for us that it's a useful service and more people are discovering it. So it's going to continue to move in the right direction. Thanks, the feedback is extremely positive, and you literally see the current band everywhere. This seems to be all over the place. Is there a need at night, but it'd be interesting to get an understanding of the cost effectiveness of the current versus regular bots? What's more efficient or lower cost per mile? I'm just curious on what's more efficient to operate. And I know that as part of our strategic planning efforts, we're working on unbundling some of those metrics a little bit more. I'll just add, we do look at it.

1:11:32 The theme with the current is going to be the productivity side of it from a cost perspective because we're not able to carry as many riders. So you're going to see a cost more comparable to CVAN service. It's more of a premium service that we're offering for those untapped areas as a Taylor. For smaller vehicles, the cost per hour is going to be cheaper, but you're not producing as much with ridership, if that makes sense. Thank you. Any other comments online? Yeah, I just want to say Taylor, thank you for this presentation and it's really encouraging to see our community just continue to utilize the services that C-TRAN provides.

1:12:28 And I can say wholeheartedly that the battleground area is very grateful for the addition of the current up here. Just like Tim said, I see that current VAN or the current VANs plural all over the city. And I know we've been talking about it from council meetings, but also in the community of just the flexibility and the usability of the current system with our student population, but also our seniors. And we have a pretty good side of the senior population up here in battleground and they utilize that as much. And so it's encouraging to see the results from your presentation that really speak to that being an advantageous added feature to transportation and battleground.

1:13:22 So thank you. So Taylor, you dork out on these numbers, were you pretty excited when you saw the results? I dork out on these numbers. Sometimes I love to see bike bypasses get paved though. The look of enthusiasm on your face right now. Thank you for the smile. No, this is something we should all be very excited about. These are some of the decisions made by this board, but that's only a partial piece of this. The vast majority of it is the staff that makes this happen on a day to day basis. So I would like to thank the staff, the operators and everybody that does such a great job in making this happen because it is a really big deal. We should be celebrating this. I'm excited to see more people using the system. And that's all we have Taylor. Right. Thank you. Next up, we have the interstate bridge replacement program update, and we have IBR program administrator

1:14:20 Carly Francis and IBR deputy program administrator Steve Witter. Welcome. Press the right button. Good evening. I am Carly Francis. I am the interim program administrator for the interstate bridge replacement program and appreciate you all taking the time to have us here to present. We're going to present an update on our cost estimate for the program and also discuss sort of the activities that we have looking ahead at how to move the program forward. So really excited for the opportunity to provide the update. Thank you. So first and foremost, we have been talking about a five mile program for a long time because there are critical investments needed across that five miles, both in highway and transit components. And the program does remain in the states remain committed to delivering those five miles over time.

1:15:19 We are here to talk a little bit about phasing and how we deliver that body of work, which is really critical to moving forward. But this is just a map of what all of those improvements look like as a reminder. Our cost estimate update is based on a very rich dialogue among a wide array of experts as well as agency participants that identify for each item of the cost estimate, they look at what the body of work is to be completed, what all the pieces and parts of that are, how much concrete you need, how you would deliver it, all those pieces. They look at that and then they also identify what are risks related to each of those things. What's the risk of costs going up on a certain item? What's the risk of some delay in delivering? So there's a big, a large discussion for elicitation of risks and that is the sort of the buildup of the work. The results of that work, as you may have noticed in the paper last month when we started

1:16:19 talking about this, did increase the cost for the five mile corridor between to a range of 13.5 to 15.2 billion with a likely cost of 14.4 billion. That is at what we call a 70th percentile figure or confidence rate. What that means is you are expecting costs to come in at or below that figure 70% of the time. So we use that, that's the Federal Highway Administration sort of preferred plan to figure when you're talking about planning what your costs are and how to match up funds. So we're using the FHWA standard there. As I noted, there are composite activities that build up this estimate. So you have that base estimate that is the identification based on engineering information about how many widgets you need and what kind of folks you need to do the work and all those cost pieces. We call that the base cost estimate.

1:17:15 So that comprises 7.8 billion of this total figure, that's a 70% value as well. We have that risk figure here, so that's the 4.2 billion. And then escalation, that is moving those costs out into time to when we would anticipate those dollars to be spent based on an assumption of having the money needed at that time. So we have a schedule that goes along with this body of work that forecasts when that work would occur. As a note, the 2022 estimate was assumed to be five to seven and a half billion with a likely cost of six billion. That was at a 60th percentile probability, so 60% chance of costs coming in at or below that level. That's based on the typical guidance within Washington State DOT as we were finalizing that body of work. So we have adjusted that percentile factor, just recognizing that we have key deliverables

1:18:10 with the federal government upcoming, so wanted to match up to that 70% figure. Key within the cost estimate, really, there are a number of factors, and I'll talk about more of them, but one notable item is just the significant increase we've seen across the nation in costs for this kind of construction. I would also note there is unique construction for this project, so the in-water work, that sort of heavy maritime marine construction is actually seeing costs go up at times even more than this, but as a national average across all types of projects, since that last cost estimate was completed, we've seen that aggregate figure go up 58%, so it's a very significant adjustment, and we have taken that into account in this estimate. But I would also note on this slide that the context for setting an estimate, identifying

1:19:09 an estimate in 2022, if you look back on this chart, that the slope of that line is much less steep than the slope that you see between 2022 and 2026, so you're noticing that as you look back at the past and think about what it means for the future, this recent history is helping us inform you sort of a different perspective on what we can expect going forward with cost increases as well. Next slide. That's me, I get to do next slide, never mind. So other reasons why the costs increased, we have talked about the escalation increase in costs and also that 60 to 70% adjustment in the numbers we're reporting as a factor as well. Another key component of cost increases is the schedule extension impact. So the 2022 estimate had anticipated construction of that five miles, basically across about a 10-year horizon. We have realized a couple years of scheduled delay specifically.

1:20:06 So we now, I forgot to sort of open with this, the federal government published our final supplemental impact statement last Friday. We realized basically a two-year delay in getting that out. And so that cost and that delay cost is embedded in this estimate already, so it's baked in because of that time cost delay that's been realized. The other piece is recognizing that we did a significant look at how we would deliver this program and that 10-year construction horizon. We have expanded that to roughly 20 years. The amount of dialogue, we had a lot of dialogue with industry. We looked at the viability of conducting that body of work and the interruptions for travelers on what it looks like to have that much construction underway at one time. And so we've had a significant review of that, that's a significant schedule increase. That means that we are escalating costs further into the future and realizing additional escalation and other things.

1:21:05 So that's a driving factor in the cost increase as well. Other pieces that are a little less material but worth noting, we do have scope and quantity updates. So we've had additional engineering body of work, additional clarity on what we're anticipating to do, and that has realized some cost increases. There is just the risk identification and valuation process, we've talked about that a little bit, and then the increased probability cost, which I mentioned briefly before. One item I did not mention is also when I talked about the slope going into the 2022 estimate of inflation and then the slope going into the 2025 estimate and that inflationary curve. We also have a specific inflation curve looking out into the future for this program. We looked back and the inflation curve that we'd used in 2022 looked to be a little bit either conservative or optimistic, depending on how you want to frame it, but it just wasn't

1:22:01 sort of projecting out into the future the cost increases that we'd seen since the '22 estimate. So we've updated that to a program-specific, area-specific inflation forecast. I think as I mentioned, the cost estimating validation process also includes a scheduled body of work that goes along with it. It is important so that you understand how to apply that escalation, what the delivery process is going to be. So alongside providing new cost information for the program, we also have an updated program schedule. So that's on this slide. We do, as I did mention, final SEIS is out on the street now. Hallelujah. We're very excited for that. That clears the way for a record of decision. We are expecting that in quarter two of this year, as well as activities to begin procurement and construction on the bridges themselves. So critical steps this year is a request for qualifications and a request for proposals

1:23:00 for a bridge contractor, so starting that process and dialogue so that we can select a contractor in 2027 and look to start construction in 2028. Beyond that, I will note that start of construction and toll commencement are typically looked to be around the same time folks want to see, and the federal government, frankly, wants to see that you are active with construction as you are implementing tolls. So we're seeing those dates be basically concurrent. That's the intention is have them flow about the same time. Still targeting the full funding grant agreement that is targeted for the 2030 time frame. With a new bridge open to traffic six to seven years after construction begins, that timeline gets finalized with a contractor once they're on board because they will have the means and methods to deliver the work. And then also noted here is just a light rail transit opening of 2036 that does require additional funding, which I'll talk about in a minute.

1:23:59 So on the near term, we have a detailed schedule in our work with the federal government specifically to publishing the final supplemental environmental impact statement to achieving the record of decision and then completing financial work so that we can obligate funds from the federal government. We have both a bridge improvement program grant and also a mega grant that we're looking to obligate by the end of September this year. Some of those funds can lapse, so there's over $500 million that could lapse at the end of September if we don't meet those deadlines. So we are working very closely to meet this timeline and then also to launch procurement along the side of that so that we can get things rolling and moving forward. We talked about we had a $14.4 billion estimate, and then the question becomes, how do you actually move this forward and where do you start?

1:24:59 We've always intended to start at the river, and the team looked at how we would work forward from that and build that bridge right so that we can set the tone and the case for the program moving forward to complete the full five miles over time. So that core set of projects, those first steps include replacing the Columbia River Bridge, connecting it to I-5 as well as to Hayden Island and SR-14, extending light rail from the Exo Center where it currently ends across the river on that new bridge to a light rail station, the light rail station at Waterfront, and also removing the existing bridges. Those are the first foundational steps to have both seismic resiliency over the river and get those multimodal connections started into Washington, so really critical. The other piece that's important to note in our partnership with the federal government, they want to see what they will call independent utility.

1:25:56 They want to know that something is usable when you build it. So what we cannot do is start on a program or a project that is not funded to complete and connect and provide service. So that's a component of our body of work, and as we looked at how to start this program, that was really essential in considering, you know, how to match things up and make sure that we had a functional project to begin with. The other point here is just to note that we are, as both the program and also as identified in coordination with the governors of both states, we are looking to apply the existing funds we have to begin the program and start advancing it forward. So what does that look like specifically? I know I said these words. You have a visual here now that shows that in black, you'll see that replacement bridge across the river and how it connects into SR 14 and I-5 in Vancouver and how it connects

1:26:55 to I-5 and Hayden Island in Oregon. There's also in Maroon, you'll see the existing bridge removal that's there. And then the orange is the improvements needed to grade separate light rail from Marine Drive to build a bridge over the North Portland Harbor for light rail to build the guideway across Hayden Island and a station on Hayden Island to connect it into the bridge where there will be that space for light rail that's built as the bridge is built and then also to connect at the north end of that and build to the station, the waterfront station. There are also on the replacement bridge, there is connected bicycle and pedestrian facilities as a component of the program. The cost for this is anticipated to be $7.65 billion.

1:27:53 So that is above what we have as funds immediately available. So then we started to look at how do we begin the very first steps that are necessary to set the path forward for the first five miles or for the five miles. So you'll see that on this slide. So this is the black components of what you saw previously. So this is information that we did provide with our cost estimate update last month. So this is looking at just the bridge replacement and connecting it to I-5, Hayden Island, SR-14 and I-5 in Vancouver as well. Both the core set of programs and this project will include toll infrastructure so that tolling can begin. So that is also a component of this body of work. As we shared information last month, the cost for this was $5.9 billion.

1:28:48 If you've been tracking details on the program, we were coming into this launch of information with about $5.5 billion, so still a little bit of a gap there. So what we've done since then is worked to refine the first set of projects. One of those components was as the federal government, as we started our dialogue with the federal government about this, they emphasized the need to include bridge demolition as a part of the body of work. And so we added that in to make sure that was identified within the funds we have as the first step of the program. We also identified the opportunity to consolidate packages. So we had previously identified that the bridge and approaches, other bodies of work would be delivered in separate contracting packages. We have validated the opportunity to combine those packages, which does provide cost savings

1:29:47 related to the costs of managing the interaction between all those contracts and less administrative oversight because of fewer contracts to be managing. We also did identify opportunities to reduce the number of relocates for toll infrastructure by way of having one entity that we would be working with, so there was a reduction in the cost for toll implementation and the facilities needed for that. There were also some risk updates there. As you do that body of work, we were retiring some risks and other items. The other piece of this was updating the toll analysis between the states. So that is based on toll rates that have been discussed at the transportation commissions to date in public forum, the Washington Treasury Office and Oregon counterparts analyze what

1:30:43 we could reasonably raise from tolls, so we have an updated figure for that, which has allowed us to close that gap and find a pathway to work on bridge construction and demonstrate to the federal government that we have that gap closed. That is necessary, again, in demonstrating an independent utility program. You also have to demonstrate that you have the funds to bring that forward because we couldn't start unless we could demonstrate those funds. So those updates resulted here. This really is mostly just to identify that both the additional cost of bridge removal and those efficiencies that I described have updated the cost for this body of work to be $5.68 billion, so that brought the cost down. And then the other piece is to note -- I guess we'll get to it on another slide, sorry.

1:31:39 This project includes, then, replacements of the Columbia River Bridge, the connections. It does include transit design for the orange pieces you saw on the map earlier because we do need to get that body of work started in association with our capital investment grant program advancement. It does have tolling infrastructure, as I mentioned, in that bridge removal. We are working to build this information into an initial finance plan that will be submitted to the federal government and also into the metropolitan and state transportation improvement program documents. So those list out the funded projects for the next typically four years in both states. We need to be shown in those to demonstrate financial constraint and that we are in those financially constrained plans. So those are components that the federal government is looking for in issuing the record of decisions. Those are critical pieces to advancing.

1:32:35 And as noted here on the slide, the funded phase does provide that sort of connected, usable space for highway for the bicycle and pedestrian users and then creates that space for light rail extension in the future. So available funding. We do have the top two lines on this speak to the federal grants that the program has already identified, has already secured. We are working to obligate those funds. So we've been awarded them, but not obligated. So that's a critical component. This end of September deadline, I spoke about six hundred million in that mega program, the bridge investment program. We have one point five billion in those funds. There's a billion here from both states, from Washington and Oregon. Some previous state funding. And then the thing I would highlight here is the projected toll funding amount. So this had been one point two five billion based on that analysis.

1:33:32 This has been updated with endorsement from the Treasury offices and those folks who run these numbers, the folks who say that you can do this. So we have this projected assumption of one point five billion, which then brings up that funding amount to five point six nine, which is basically even Steven with the five point six eight costs. This demonstrates that ability to advance forward. We are still looking to advance the capital investment grant program to the tune of a billion dollars from the federal government and have some other perspective and have some other funding that's been identified previously. The next steps for light rail, critical. The first step is building the replacement bridge and building it with the space for light rail. That's the essential first step of the program. Continuing to pursue that one billion in capital investment grant funds, working on the full funding grant agreement, which is expected in 2030, and then working to do the construction

1:34:30 body of work from 2030 once we have those funds in hand in that agreement through 2036, as mentioned previously. So those are sort of key next steps. And it also note that extending light rail to Vancouver, there's been dialog. I know there will continue to be dialog about interest in getting to Evergreen as the which is the intention of the states over time. Absolutely. This first step of getting to waterfront was really recognizing the kind of cost and funding realities that were out there and trying to find a sort of least cost opportunity to get light rail across the river. So the long term vision, as noted, is still to get to the Evergreen station. We are working with partners to talk about how to do that and identify how we fund that, how we sequence it. If there are different priorities based on what we see with costs that are out there. So that's going to be an active dialog over the coming months and probably years to sort of figure out exactly how to bring this forward.

1:35:29 But just noting and wanting to make sure it's clear that the intention is to get to the Evergreen station. We are approaching the program in phases. And so the commitment is to get there. It's just the time frame that we need to stop and we need to talk with folks about. And that and the additional body of work here is looking for identifying cost saving opportunities, pursuing additional grant opportunities, possibly with the federal government and also working with each state to consider both cost savings, funding and financing opportunities. So those will all be continuing as we look to figure out how to achieve the five miles over time. I've mentioned most of these. We are working now towards the amended record of decision, working on updating that finance plan and transitioning the program to construction delivery. Key among this is issuing those procurement documents and then also working on adjusting

1:36:26 the program team and making sure that we have the right resources to manage this construction. Quite plainly, it will be the largest active construction when that bridge is underway that I think the region has ever seen. We need to make sure we have the right resources to be able to do that. I would also note on the next slide, we'll talk just a little bit about the delivery method. So we're talking about a progressive design build procurement mechanism here that's not design build, that's not design bid build. Progressive design build gets you into a conversation and works on final design in a collaborative space between the contractor and the agency and the agency partners who are doing that body of work. You start that dialogue early. You work on finalizing final design with them and it provides you an opportunity to talk about maybe cost savings they see because of their means and methods for construction.

1:37:23 They could say, "I know how to do this piece really cost effectively or different than you had envisioned." It gives you those opportunities to sort of say yes to maybe some things that look a little different than you'd anticipated and also offers the opportunity possibly to identify kind of betterments that may come along that are also sort of cost effective that can be built in to the program. I've noted those timelines for request for qualifications and proposals, so targeting them this year and then selecting the contractor next year and noted some of the benefits here. There's efficiencies and also looking to reduce change orders and claims by way of that risk sharing. With the design build method, you are pricing risk up front based on their interpretation of how you've documented it, so this provides an opportunity to manage that through that dialogue. That's what I have on the updates for our cost estimate.

1:38:18 I'm really excited about advancing construction and trying to get a bridge across the river as soon as we can and I know it's been far too long. Thank you. Questions, comments? Tim? Thank you Carly and Steve for being here tonight in the update. I did get the assumptions from the October 25 meeting, thank you. You gave them to the C-TRAN board, they provided them to me, thank you, so I'll reference them in a little bit. Out of the 13.5 to 15.2 billion updates for updated production, how much is that you estimated is light rail? The cost of light rail within that or to get to waterfront station is like a $2 billion figure? Well, in that, yes, to get to waterfront is roughly a $2 billion figure.

1:39:17 To answer your question, Director Hine, in the $14 billion number, that was a $3.5 billion light rail project that included 19 light rail vehicles, included maintenance facilities in Portland and at the Expo Center, included park and ride garages in Vancouver. So when I was here last fall and we talked about the frequency of the vehicles going down, that removed the need for those 19 light rail vehicles down to three. So when I talk about that $3.5 billion number, that is the larger project that was envisioned as part of the draft environmental impact. So I hope that answers your question. And subject to refinement over time as we identify what the service is and how it needs to be supported by vehicles and maintenance facilities, et cetera. So yeah, thank you.

1:40:14 So with that, is the infrastructure for light rail as part of the transit, part of phase one that transit, is the light rail infrastructure included in that or is that the transit dedicated lane? So the very first step of building the bridge specifically will contain the 34 feet width for light rail on it. And I understand there'll be a barrier between that and the highway components, the highway road deck. There's also a different approach to how you deck what will receive light rail tracks in the future versus the highway lane. You'll usually look for around curves on highways. You'll look for a super elevation, sort of a cross slope to make sure that folks are getting good friction with their tires. So if you look for that, you don't look for that with light rail. So it's sort of a different bed, but it'll basically be that 34 feet and the concrete

1:41:12 deck that's there to then in the future receive the track, the systems, all of those pieces. So that would be completed in the future once we have the additional funds and have the FFGA in place with the capital investment grant program. If I understand correctly, then phase one, the concept of a phase build makes sense to be able to, I wasn't sure about it last time we met, but I understand it better now, but phase approach seems to make sense so that you can build it logical phases that are seem to be the most efficient take care of vehicular traffic. We all agree that we need a new bridge, so vehicular traffic. And then at that point, what point then when that phase is built, buses are being used. I assume buses would be used in that transit lane.

1:42:06 So that on the light rail space on the bridge, that will not generally be, that would not be for the buses. Buses running across the river would be presumed to be in either general purpose lanes or the bus on shoulder component that we are anticipating as part of the program. So right now you have a bus on shoulder that runs southbound from what 99th transit center all the way down to the interstate bridge currently. So that would extend across. So the buses would be sort of in that shoulder lane when it is applicable based on the speeds on the highway. Okay. Thank you. Tolling infrastructure you mentioned, that would be tolling infrastructure on the new the IBR only, correct? No tolling on 205, separate it? Yeah, so yeah, no tolling on 205. This is specific to tolling on I-5. Okay. And then looking at the assumptions from last October, and especially looking at the C-TRAN

1:43:06 data tonight that Taylor provided, I still think you have a ridership issue. You get to the 2200 currently crossing the river. I'm just going off the C-TRAN data. Taylor, you can nod your head at me if I'm wrong on it. To get to the current 2200 crossing, but then to look at the projected in 2045 of 30,000, that's a 14% increase compounded growth year over year. Currently it's 2% increase. There's a big gap in ridership estimate. We're going to have a problem with ridership if something doesn't change. I think the assumptions are incorrect, not on vehicular, but on transit. I think I would note that this is part of the STOPS model, so I think that the analysis with FTA is specific to that STOPS model that we've talked about. So there are both the estimates and the final supplemental environmental impact statement

1:44:05 which were a little different than what has been projected out of the STOPS model, that is that baseline kind of normalizing across all programs, and I don't know if there are additional updates in that in the CIG process as we move through that, or if that stands down. We will update ridership along the way through the CIG process, and so we will be refreshing the ridership over the summer and submitting an updated ridership based on the waterfront station interim location, and that will be submitted to the FTA this fall. And then around 2029, when we seek the full funding grant agreement, we will refresh that ridership again along, you know, working side by side with FTA. And FTA has, let's see, what's the right term, they are pretty conservative on their ridership projections.

1:45:01 So they have issues with the way the 2045 numbers were done, and they've expressed that, and that's why we've modified the approach to be consistent with their STOPS modeling so that they are in agreement with the assumptions that we put into that model. Thanks. So there's a big gap right now in what current ridership is and what the end assumptions are. Understood. I think that's why the updates, that's why FTA is interested in the updates as you continue through the process. So we'll be continuing to update that. Thank you. Brian? Yeah, thank you. This is for, like, once we get the ball rolling.

1:45:59 I had a question just even earlier. How are they going to build a new bridge and not have it impact, like, the commute that's going through? And so I know this is maybe a little bit off into the weeds, but I'm really curious about what forecasted impacts at, you know, I'm thinking about that intersection with Highway 14. I mean, anything, I mean, eventually you have to connect that bridge to I-5, and that's not just something you do overnight, you know, once, right? So what will that look like so we can start talking to people about what that might look like as we get there? So I will share with you what I am most familiar with. So that SR-14 thing isn't a level of nuance that I know will be as strategic as we can be about it. I think what's important to note is the expectation is to build the bridge to the west of where it sits now, at least partially. So building the southbound bridge first.

1:46:57 You can build over the river while the, so one, the commitment is to leave the three through lanes largely active and operating during construction. There will be disruptions to that as we work on making connections, but also the commitment is we can't shut down I-5, so the commitment is to keep it open, recognizing it'll be a construction zone. So you build that first bridge to the west of the bridges that exist right now. The intention is to build it wide enough so that you can transfer northbound and southbound traffic onto it to get them off of the existing bridges, which then frees up the space to start building the northbound bridge, which gets closer and a little bit over the top of other, of the bridges themselves. So you basically are working to build that first bridge, ready the connections. Then you're going to do some, I don't know, I think you'll see in the engineering whizbang series out there, they'll do that like sort of overnight, they'll sort of transition some stuff in.

1:47:56 So they'll be readying things so that you can actually make that transition over a inconvenient, but hopefully relatively short amount of time to connect those lanes across. And then you'll have everybody on that single bridge. You will still be in the three lanes in each direction in that configuration. So it'll be, you know, sort of still kind of tight like it is on the bridges themselves, but then building the northbound bridge, connecting it in, and then doing that final transition of traffic across onto that facility. How long do you think that single span plan will be in place, like five years or so? So I frankly don't, I don't know. It takes a while to actually construct it. I think there's a lot of, so basically for construction of the bridges, again, you're doing that, we are assuming, this is where the conversation with the contractor will get rich, right? So we're assuming you do that one and then the second bridge construction, but you first have to get out there and build false work to work from to build the bridge.

1:48:55 So the first step is getting out there and sort of building those kind of platforms and activities to then build the bridge from. And that bridge, the in-water construction for the bridges themselves, I think even just the southbound bridge is a multiple year process, so I think it's probably four, you know, four years in or something. But again, I am not the guy to have the details of that in my head, so we can follow up if you're curious. No, I was just curious. And then I guess the second piece I have, and maybe this is a condition of some of the state money, is there any obligation for both on the labor side and the material side for things to be sourced locally, I mean, I'm assuming that the, probably the general contractor that we work with, that's going to be a national firm that has experience with it, but like a lot of the subcontractors, the materials, how much of that, do we have an obligation for a certain percentage to be locally sourced?

1:49:52 So I'm not certain that there's an obligation, I think there's an intention to try to explore opportunities to do so. So one is anticipating small business goals on the contract specifically, so we're, you know, anticipate talking with those small businesses here to ready and have them be aware of what those opportunities are going to be. And then also exploring whether or not there is, you know, maybe location-based sort of targets for hiring or other pieces, obviously coordination with labor. So looking to richly explore those things, but there are, you know, sort of there used to be a disadvantaged business enterprise-type set of goals that doesn't exist anymore, but we are anticipating that for small business goals on the contract. Okay. I appreciate that. I just wanted to mention both federal agencies, FTA and FHWA, also have buy America or buy American policies, so the steel that goes into it, the electronics, you know, to the

1:50:50 most part is majority American content. So there's also that as well. Thanks. Appreciate it. Thank you. Josh, you good? You good? Okay. Thank you. One more question. So you brought up tolls tonight. That will be, it was brought up in public comments tonight, where that's going to be negatively received. But it's also, if it goes through, it's going to go through a lot of different things. Sorry, it's going to have a significant impact on I-205 anticipated, I-205 collateral circulation down through, all the way down through 205, the Banfield, everything. What's been the discussions and how that's going to impact overall regional transit pattern? So I would note that with respect to this sort of, I guess, I heard you say if tolling

1:51:49 goes through, tolling is an essential component of funding the program, so it is necessary, it's endorsed by both states as a funding component, so just to be very plain about that. And also in analyzing traffic and the, you know, potential to raise those funds, one, the environmental document looks at the potential for that diversion as well as that is considered a component of, when you look at the financial forecasting, you also look at whether or not you can sustain the toll payers basically to pay back those debts, so there's a fair amount of analysis there. There are a couple of general observations I would make about traffic patterns in the area. This is a little bit from my last, my seat prior to popping over here and being the interim administrator. What we've seen in the region on the Vancouver side is that there's a significant, there's been significant growth on 205, so originally when 205 opened in 1980, it was free clear,

1:52:48 there was a lot of development, it was really, it was the easy opportunity, it was the easy option. I-5 has been backed up for a long time and so folks were making sometimes kind of odd decisions about popping over to 205 because it was easier. What we've seen more recently is a significant growth and the backups on 205 have been much more regular and recurring, it's frankly why the region has put ramp meters up over there to try to help flip the flow of the highway as well, which we've also done on I-5. So what we're expecting with tolling is that some folks who maybe are making some of those decisions right now, when I-5 traffic gets better because of the toll imposed, they may come back. Some folks may choose to avoid the toll, so we're expecting some balancing over time. Usually folks will look to avoid that cost, but I think the other thing you have to recognize is regionally, what are your opportunities, depending on where you're going, what are your opportunities to then get to your destination?

1:53:48 So if you're going to move from mid-Vancouver out to 205 and your destination is downtown Portland, and your options are I-84 or Columbia Boulevard or Marine Drive, those are not particularly optimal connections across the I-5 when you have SR-500 and SR-14 here, which are much more of a smooth connection. So I think there's just this, I know there's a lot of concern and there will be some diversion, it's absolutely a factor, but with the two crossings and the amount of congestion we see on both of them, I think over time it's going to moderate out a significant amount because of all those other regional factors about the facilities that we have. Thank you. Any other comments? Chair Hanson? Oh, yes, please. Kim? Yeah, you've already mentioned it a little bit, you know, and of course it was in the news about Vancouver City Council's disappointment and disagreement with terminating at the waterfront.

1:54:48 So I just wanted to further elaborate on that disappointment and also provide an opportunity to answer some questions. To me, what it means is that it's going to primarily serve, you know, Portland residents and others across in Oregon, you know, of course, I always love when people come over here to go to restaurants and, you know, spend their money over here, it's definitely helpful. But the reality is that a lot of folks travel to Portland, whether it's for jobs, mostly jobs, and they're going to be playing that toll. But then they don't have the ability then to hop on light rail to avoid that, have a smoother ride, a lot of congestion happens before the waterfront station. So it doesn't make sense to avoid traffic to go and park and then try to hop on at that waterfront station.

1:55:44 So again, Vancouver residents would be paying for this, but then not getting the like, you know, the same level of service would be primarily helping Portland residents, Oregon residents come over here. And so my question then is one, you know, has that been taken into consideration? And then how come, you know, what about flipping it, right? Like, why don't we do the library square instead of the waterfront? And has that been discussed at all? So I would note that, as mentioned, you know, really what we were trying to figure out is what was a, like kind of least cost way to get the bridge built specifically. So there's a significant reduction in how we are connecting to Hayden Island and SR14 and I5 on both states on the highway side, we look to reduce those costs as much as possible,

1:56:41 create as much space within the funds that we have to get light rail also across and we're trying to identify sort of the best way to first get things across the river. The commitment is to meet is to get to Evergreen over time. I think the other reality is, as Steve mentioned, there's this sort of three and a half billion dollar sort of, you know, rough cost for light rail, including additional things, but that three and a half billion is associated with getting both waterfront and Evergreen versus the sort of two ish billion that is getting to waterfront itself. So there's a significant financial component to extending to Evergreen that we just need to discuss and explore with folks and figure out how and when to bring forward. Absolutely committed to doing that work and trying to find those timeframes that make sense, but also it seemed like a significant impediment at this time to sort of documenting and demonstrating funding availability and ability to advance. So the commitment is still there to get there and we are expecting to have rich dialogue

1:57:39 with our program partners to talk about how to do that over time. I just wanted to add that in addition to the financial constraints of extending to Evergreen right from the beginning, there are physical constraints. Oftentimes we think about light rail being next to the highway, but as it gets to Evergreen, it is on top of the highway and so as Carly said, the highway scope has been reduced. And so even right now that relationship, those highway and transit are married at that point. And so when we're able to extend the highway improvements, we are able to extend the light rail improvements just by nature of how they're connected to each other.

1:58:31 Well, they can in agreeing with council member Eric, did you have something to no chair not at this time and in agreeing with council member Harless, one of the concerns is, you know, is Taylor just pointed out 50% at one point in time of our ridership will be on the BRT lines, which are within six or seven blocks. In some cases, half the cases an uphill walk of getting to that transit. So the C Street, the Broadway and Evergreen connection in the distance, it I'm really hoping that, you know, we're gonna come up with some very creative ideas there because it is quite a gap. So currently we have planned to find connections at the waterfront station. We have a lot of work to do to make that connection as seamless as possible.

1:59:28 Right now they're just a little too far apart for what we want. We want those light rail and vine to be right on top of each other. So we're working to bring those two vines there. I think Director Hanson, you mentioned other roadway geometry issues around the city as a result of these project improvements being delayed. So that needs to be considered when we work with the city and the traffic engineers about bringing those two fine lines down there. So the intent is to maximize those connections. And I just love seeing the Highway 99 drawing today, you know, all the way from Hazeldale right down to the waterfront and it'll meet right at that station. And so Evergreen has the best connections. I won't argue with that at all, but we need to start this by getting to Evergreen and then we'll get to, I'm sorry, getting to the waterfront so that we can get to Evergreen after that. Thank you. No other comments. Thank you very much for coming in. Thanks for having us. Thank you.

2:00:26 Now we're going to move into executive session and the board will now move into executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.1101 III litigation or legal risks of a proposed action or current practice that the agency has identified with public discussion of the litigation or legal risks is likely to result in adverse legal or finance consequence to the agency purchase or lease of real estate RCW 42.30.1101 BB to consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate by lease or purchase. When public knowledge regarding such a consideration would cause the likelihood of an increased price. It is now time that we will return and send someone to add if additional time is needed, but we will be looking for 15 minutes. All right. Time is now 731. Thank you.

2:01:21 Not quite yet, no, just sort of casual conversation about what it's going to look like, just how to figure out interlocals and you know how decisions are made and things like that. And legal, does that follow any particular protocol that needs to happen? Thank you. Well, I, I'm, I'm assuming that the cities are working among themselves, they'll come up with an agreement and they'll assign the representatives based on their decisions. I think it's best practice to have an agreement and I'm not sure that your attorneys are working on that is my understanding.

2:02:18 And then I would assume all of that is written out all of the individuals battleground campus list center, ritual, washable and late. Yeah. I'll sign the agreement so that we have a copy of it. So without the C-Tran board knows what that agreement is. Yes. Thank you. I'll be working with your attorney on that. Perfect. Thank you. Did you have all that contract information? I'll, if I don't, I'll, I'll get it from you. Yeah, please do. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Seeing no move to a vote. All those in favor. Oh, wait a minute. Online. Do we have any other questions? No questions. Sure. Thank you. Not hearing any, we'll move to a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. And opposed. Motion passes.

2:03:17 Now moving on to communications and from the chair, um, I mentioned a little bit early, uh, the survey, uh, saw that was interested in going through and making sure everybody we're getting that out to the masses as far as getting that survey out there and getting results back. So that's exciting. Um, went to Washington, DC with Leanne and Scott, and that was a great trip. Talked to Senator, uh, Cantwell in Senator Murray's office and the federal transit administration. So I'm very positive trip and, uh, definitely glad we made it. And that's all I have from the chair questions from the board or comments from the board. Tim. Thank you. Chair. Um, I just received a lot of public comments over the past two weeks regarding IBR light rail. And I'd like to thank everybody who submitted those documents, took the time to put that together and share it. Excellent. Any other comments online?

2:04:16 Okay. Now moving on to the chief executive officer. Thank you chair. And as you said, we were in DC last week, uh, Scott and I attended the after ledge, uh, legislative conference and had some good information, uh, nothing to solve all the world's problems. But, uh, there were heavy on the surface transportation reauthorization reauthorization bill. That is a big deal for transportation and keeping the funding for as we continue forward. And then of course, safety and customer experience were topic as well and still a high priority in the current administration eyes. And we get, like I said, we got to visit Senator Cantwell and Senator Murray's office as well as, um, share our annual reports and our BRT, uh, current status as the time. We didn't have any specifics for federal funding requesting, but it was good to chat and give

2:05:15 them an updates of the great things that see trends doing. Um, we're getting ready for our internship programs where be partnering WSU for the future leaders pro leaders project internship program and compto. So we're looking forward to summer months and having internship in an introducing, uh, everyone to furthering their goodness, furthering their experience in transportation. And last and later this month, the next week, we also be hosting a career day in partnership with the Vancouver elite outreach outreach program, and this is the avenue that we look to introduce the younger youth at transportation will get to be over at our maintenance department and get to see some paint booths and buses and will hopefully spark some interest for them as they grow older. And last but not least, uh, the workshop board workshop is coming up in a couple of weeks

2:06:11 at the Rose Bessman room, Fisher's Landing, and we'll get more information out to you as we get going. That is it. Excellent. Thank you. And I did not forget about you this time. Legal tongue. What's new? Um, nothing new. Thank you. There you go. There you go with that. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody.

2:06:45 Thank you.