# Transportation Policy Committee (MPO) - February 26, 2026 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · February 26, 2026 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6702 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6702?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2026-02-26 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 26, 2026 - **Length**: 9,826 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government held a committee meeting on February 26, 2026, presided over by the Vice Mayor. The meeting covered four agenda items spanning transportation planning and safety policy. Two items were brought to a vote and approved: the Highway Safety Targets for 2026 and the Lexington Regional Transit Asset Condition Targets for 2026. Two additional items — the Governor's Recommended State Highway Plan and Federal Transportation Reauthorization — were presented for informational purposes only, resulting in a total of two votes taken and two informational presentations given during the session. No public comments were heard at this meeting. ## Attendance The following members were present at the Committee meeting on February 26, 2026: - Council Member Baxter - Judge Hanna - Council Member Curtis - Council Member Ellinger - Council Member Lynch - Council Member Combs No members were recorded as absent or late. All six listed members were in attendance for the meeting. ## Votes and Decisions Two resolutions were brought before the Committee and both passed by voice vote during the February 26, 2026 meeting. - **Resolution 2026-2 – Approval of Highway Safety Targets for 2026** [timestamp: 25:51]: Judge Hanna moved adoption of the resolution, with Council Member Baxter providing the second. The resolution passed by voice vote. As this was not a roll call vote, individual member votes were not recorded. - **Resolution 2026-3 – Adoption of Lexington Regional Transit Asset Condition Targets for Calendar Year 2026** [timestamp: 40:30]: Council Member Combs moved adoption of the resolution, with Council Member Curtis providing the second. The resolution passed by voice vote. As this was not a roll call vote, individual member votes were not recorded. ## Highway Safety Targets for 2026 [timestamp: 06:08] The Committee took up a resolution to establish highway safety targets for 2026, with discussion focused on the challenges of meeting previously set targets and how local performance compares to state-level benchmarks. Key speakers on this item were **Mr. Aviglia** and **Council Member Baxter**, who led the presentation and debate on the proposed targets. The discussion addressed: - **Previous target performance** — Concerns were raised regarding the difficulty of meeting targets that had been set in prior cycles, suggesting that past goals had not been fully achieved. - **State performance comparison** — The item included a comparison between local highway safety outcomes and broader state performance metrics, providing context for how the jurisdiction measures up against wider trends. The resolution was **approved** by the Committee. > *Note: Additional detail on the specific numerical targets proposed, the nature of the concerns raised, and the precise points of debate are not available in the source data for this item.* ## Lexington Regional Transit Asset Condition Targets for 2026 [timestamp: 28:42] The committee took up a resolution regarding transit asset condition targets for 2026, focusing on the percentage of vehicles and facilities meeting defined condition standards within the Lexington Regional Transit system. Mr. Aviglia and Fred were the primary speakers on this item, presenting and discussing the proposed targets. The agenda item centered on establishing benchmarks for the condition of transit assets — including vehicles and facilities — as part of the agency's ongoing asset management planning obligations. The resolution was approved by the committee. *Note: Additional detail on the specific target percentages proposed, any concerns raised during discussion, and the vote breakdown were not available in the source materials for this item.* ## Governor's Recommended State Highway Plan [timestamp: 41:31] The committee received an informational presentation and discussion on the Governor's Recommended State Highway Plan, focusing on regional highway project priorities. Key speakers during this agenda item included Mr. Aviglia and Kelly, who led the review of the plan and addressed questions from committee members. The discussion centered on: - A review of the Governor's recommended priorities for state highway projects - Regional highway project priorities and how they are reflected in the plan - Concerns raised regarding certain projects included in or affected by the recommended plan The outcome of this agenda item was informational — no votes or formal actions were taken. The committee used the session to examine the plan's contents and surface concerns about specific projects for further consideration. *Note: Additional detail on the specific projects discussed, the nature of the concerns raised, and any follow-up direction given is not available in the provided source material.* ## Federal Transportation Reauthorization [timestamp: 1:04:52] The committee received an informational presentation on the upcoming expiration of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the introduction of the Basics Act, a proposed piece of federal legislation that would make changes to federal transportation funding and priorities. Mr. Aviglia led the discussion, outlining the significance of the IIJA's expiration and what it could mean for transportation funding going forward. The Basics Act was identified as a key development to monitor, as it proposes shifts in how federal transportation dollars are allocated and what priorities are emphasized at the federal level. The item was informational in nature, and no formal action or vote was taken by the committee. --- ## Decisions - **Resolution 2026-2** — passed (0-0): Approval of highway safety targets for 2026 - **Resolution 2026-3** — passed (0-0): Adoption of Lexington Regional Transit Asset Condition Targets for Calendar Year 2026 --- ## Full transcript Yn ystod y 20 mlynedd, mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. Mae'r cyllideb yn cyflwyno'r rhan fwyaf o'r cyllideb. 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We can either support the targets that KYTC establishes on an annual basis, or we can adopt our own. One of the challenges we have with the highway safety targets is that the actual target represents five years. Four of those years are actual hard data from the past, and then we have one year that we can actually play around with. That would be year 2026. One of the things we want you to keep in mind here is that even though we're supporting a target that's working its way downwards, depending on what's happened in the immediate past, it could actually look like we're actually suggesting a higher target. Unfortunately, the process is prescribed to us by the federal government, so we'll try to walk you through that, and hopefully it won't be too terribly confusing. The other thing we have to keep in mind is that the MPO has adopted a Vision Zero policy, just like LFECG has. One of the things about that is that KYTC does not have a formal Vision Zero policy. They are working towards reducing that number, but it's not an eventual goal of zero. Because of that, over the last couple of years, we've actually recommended to you a target that works our way down to zero by the time we get to the year 2050. One of the exercises we need to do here is to actually do a comparison of what actually happened to what our goal was for last year. Unfortunately, this is going to be one of those really tough, difficult conversations. Unfortunately, we missed our target, and we missed it by quite a bit. We had seven more fatalities than what was our target for last year. There were 54 more serious injuries than what our target was for last year, and then about 50% worse for the nonmotorized statistics, which I know for a lot of you, that's near and dear to your heart. I wish I had better news to present here. We also want to do a comparison to how the state is performing, and in terms of everything here, Lexington is trending upwards. The state of Kentucky is actually trending downwards, and so that's another bit of difficult information to provide to you as well. What we wanted to do also is to just kind of take a quick look at the various crash factors. Justin, you can come up to the adult table if you wish. There's quite a bit here because there are a number of different factors that play into what causes a crash, and one of the things we noticed is that pretty much everything is on the upward trend, and so this is a bit of a challenge that we have because this actually gets into the behavioral issues associated with crashes occurring. Just kind of going through some of these. Alcohol involvement at the very left end, that was up. Disregard traffic control, that's kind of a fancy term of running a red light or a stop sign. Distraction was down, but some of the other distraction categories were up, so that was probably just a matter of how it was recorded by the police officer. Drug involvement up, exceeding stated speed limit was down, but other speed categories were up, and so on and so forth. So just to kind of remind you here, what we're trying to do is head to zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2050, so there is a trend line that we're looking at to get to that point. Our baseline was started in 2024, that's the year after we adopted the Vision Zero Target, and so our goal is to be somewhere on that line. So for 2026, that would put us at 37 fatalities, 101 serious injuries, and then the non-motorized target would be at 22, which is a little bit lower than what we had last year. So if we actually plug that in, those numbers into the one year that we can actually play around with, which would be 2026, thankfully the five-year target actually still goes downwards, so that's a little bit easier to explain. The serious injuries, however, still goes up. Again, remember, four of those years are actual hard data that we have no ability to control, and last year being a really bad year for serious injuries, it means that it kind of is looking like we're supporting an increasing target for serious injuries. And then the fatality and serious injury rate are a function of the other pieces of data, so those will go in a particular direction depending on how many fatalities or serious injuries we have. The non-motorized statistics stays the same. So that's a quick overview over the target setting exercise we're required to go through, but I want you to kind of keep in the back of your mind some of the statistics I just showed you, because one of the things that the federal government intends for us to use with this is to identify the mix of projects that are in our plans and programs and ask, are those helping us get to our eventual goal? And I think we have to look at what's been proposed in the governor's highway plan. We're going to go through that review in a couple of minutes here. The question I want you to keep in mind is, do those mix of projects help us get to zero? And so, Vice Mayor, I'm happy to try to address any questions at this point. Sure. Let's do committee member questions, and then we'll open it up to the public. Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Aviglia, for the presentation. So I'm curious, and I feel like we have this conversation every time we adopt these targets, but there's no specific budget set aside for meeting our goals. Right. Is it then the onus upon us as a government to take those federal and state highway dollars and make sure that we are applying them appropriately, just like you said, we would look at the governor's plan here in a moment? I mean, is that essentially the only way we can put funding towards these items? It's kind of hard sometimes to meet goals when you don't have a means to do them. Right. So from our process, we use our Metropolitan Transition Plan and the TIP to look at the mix of projects that we're recommending to try to help us get to that point. And so we evaluate every proposal that's presented to us on how well we think it's going to reduce those crash statistics. And we present that recommendation to you. You adopt the plan. And then as money becomes available, we adopt or we implement projects through the TIP. Now, one of those processes that we have to consider is the state highway plan. That is how the state decides how they're going to use their resources that are available to them. That is a separate process. And it's somewhat difficult for us to require the state to do a particular project, although I think we have a really good process with District 7 to coordinate that effort. The feedback we sometimes get from Frankfurt and from the legislature is that they are interested in a different set of projects. Now, what we can do at that point is if it involves federal dollars or if it involves a regionally significant thoroughfare or project, the MPO does have the ability to effectively veto the project by not incorporating it into our TIP. We would prefer not to go that route if possible. But that is something that you need to be aware of. And also keep in mind when we get to the state highway plan discussion, that is just the governor's plan. What comes out of the legislature is often very different. Kelly, can I ask you a question just from the state's perspective? When the state highway plan is developed, is there any type of heat map that is applied to areas that maybe make the plan? If we're comparing crash data versus what's on the plan, is any of that cross-referenced or is it just kind of like more of a long-term? That's part of the process. And since that didn't get picked up on the recording here, I'll just kind of repeat that real quick, that the shift process that we went through last year, safety or crash reduction is one of the factors that's used to evaluate the projects that are sponsored, along with things like economic development, traffic conditions, things like that. Okay, that's helpful. I just, you know, the numbers don't lie, and I just want to make sure that we're doing all that we can, not that you guys aren't working hard, but, you know, just. Yeah, I think the challenge for us is that it takes years or decades, unfortunately, to get highway projects implemented and open to traffic. And so I think that was one of the impetuses for the street group is, what are the other things we can be doing to try to make a difference? And hopefully some of those recommendations will start helping out over the next couple of years. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay, now it's working. We're having trouble here. And that's why I didn't pay as much attention there as when you all were talking. But when you were talking about hot spots, I was thinking you might be talking about certain places that are frequent offenders of crashes. Is that what you were talking about? And does that come up in the plan? Like, can they monitor those better? Let's move that mic. So what I was referring to before is our process through the highway plan, which, as Chris was saying, that safety is one of the considerations there for highway plan projects. You're talking more about specific locations. And I was going to say, even outside of the highway plan, our highway safety office tracks all this data on all the routes, comparing certain routes, specific routes, to others across the state. So there is opportunity, even outside of the highway plan, for highway safety improvement projects. And we're doing a lot of those projects now with that. But that's what they're tasked with, specifically looking at that data and then prioritizing projects based on the data of fatalities, serious injuries in certain locations. I guess I was thinking more about more police monitoring, that kind of thing, in areas that tend to have crashes often, like people running lights or speeding or whatever. All right. Thank you. Any other committee comments? Go ahead. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I have one other question. Back on the slide on contributing factors, is there or I didn't notice one. One thing that we track is belted versus unbelted with fatalities. And one thing that we notice, even with our numbers somewhat decreased last year on overall fatalities, that 35 to 40 percent of fatalities are still folks who are unbelted. And we focus a lot of our messaging. There's a lot of opportunity there. But I didn't notice that as far as what we're doing here with this, if that's something that we track. So I was just curious about that. Right. So that's not necessarily a behavioral factor. But that is something that we can get access to. The other issue is motorcycle helmets is also an issue. And, unfortunately, Kentucky years ago repealed the helmet law. So you can ride without a helmet. I guess what I was getting to, there's opportunities, even outside of doing projects, for media campaigns and so forth, as well for behavioral things such as that. Thank you. So just thinking about, I know our purview is over, you know, safety of the roads from an infrastructure perspective. Kelly, from a state perspective, how much coordination is there with public safety or even KSP on our highways with all of this? Like, is there any data that would suggest, well, maybe we need more enforcement or maybe we need more of something else to coordinate how to reduce these injuries and deaths? Or is this literally just from an infrastructure perspective? We coordinate with our Office of Highway Safety, which is in our central office. I'm not sure exactly how much they're involved with the development of the highway plan. But other than through the data, of course, that's where you're asking about enforcement. We work through them to work through local police or whether it's our KSP for added enforcement. But I'm not sure how involved they are with the development of highway plan or prioritizing. How this data affects what they do. Now, they do, I mean, all of that data, and that's why I was asking because I'm familiar with our data points and contributing factors. What we've got here is a little bit different than what we use. But, yeah, they are on top of the data as far as, you know, we talk about engineering, education, all of those type of things are things where they're more involved with. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And enforcement. We call it the three E's, engineering, enforcement, and education. Ms. Reveal, yeah, I have a couple of questions as well. Looking at this chart, it looks like the biggest spike is the not under proper control. Is that defined in any particular way, or is that kind of the catch-all for everything else? Yeah, that I think is the catch-all. Okay. And then talking about the idea of Vision Zero, we have a goal with the NPO. We have a goal with LFGCG. The state does not. Have there been moves in Frankfurt with the General Assembly to adopt anything? Are there ever bills relating to kind of creating a Vision Zero? I'm not aware of any. Okay. Any other comments or questions? Go ahead. Thank you. So this is just a question for somebody who's newer to this committee. One of the things that you had mentioned was, again, if we really felt there was a strong difference in terms of the prioritization, we could go against Frankfurt's recommendation and leave something out of our priorities. Is there a precedent for that? Has that happened before that you're aware of? Not here. Okay. I have seen it back in Texas where I was, but we want to consider that very judiciously. No, of course. And I'm not advocating for it. I was just curious if that was something that there was a precedent for. So thank you. All right. Any other discussion on this item? All right. Let's go to public comment. Is there any members of the public here that wishes to speak? All right. We wrap up public comment. And now let's move to approval or disapproval of Resolution 2026-2. I don't know if you're going to clarify this, but can you pull up, are there specific, these are the numbers that we're voting on? These are the numbers you're voting on, yes. And is this currently based on KYTC's recommendations or these are? These are ours. Ours. Okay. So I'll take a motion for approval. I have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion? Judge Hanna motion and Council Member Baxter second. Thank you for that. Any discussion? Let's get a mic. We need to have it on record. Just curious, if we say yes to this and then we don't meet those goals next year? There's no, as far as the federal government, as far as the state government is concerned, there's no consequences for that. Now, the consequences are we've got more people dying and being seriously hurt than we want to see. Of course. Is there potential for added funding if we're meeting these goals? No. No added funding. No bonus points? No. Unfortunately, no. Don't break it. I think I hear you. We did have a very long meeting just before us. There we go. Okay. So not a question, just a statement for all of us as we're considering all of this. And obviously this data has a role to play in this policy discussion, but I don't want it to be lost on any of us. And I don't know that it is, but I just want to really emphasize that these are all people, not just numbers, and that the work that we do here does have consequences and ramifications. So a lot of times when this data comes across our desks, it can be really easy to forget that. And I hope that we all feel the weight of that while we're reading this, and I hope we carry that with us outside of just this meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments on the motion as presented? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. That motion passes. On to our next item, Resolution 2026-3, Adoption of Lexington Regional Transit Asset Condition Targets for Calendar Year 2026. Mr. Aviglia. Okay. This is a little lighter topic. So one of the other things that we want to track is the condition of the assets that Lexington has for their use. There are three classes that are included in this. And we'll cover those in a second here, but there's a little bit of a wrinkle this year, and that is Lextran's targets are basically staying the same as what they have been previously. But what it means for us as the MPO, we still actually have to take an official action under the federal program. And so traditionally we have supported Lextran targets. This year we're actually going to have to adopt targets that, you know, we will ask Lextran to follow. But since they're the same targets that they've been following, we've coordinated with them and we're okay on that. So one of the other things that we also have to keep in mind here is that Lextran is adding vehicles to their paratransit fleet. Previously their paratransit fleet was either leased or they were provided by the subcontractor that was providing the service. Since now that's changing, and so the numbers that we're looking at here are going to be a little bit different than what we've had in the years past just because there are additional vehicles in the mix that we didn't have incorporated in the past. So the first thing we want to take a look at are transit vehicles. They are separated into revenue vehicles and non-revenue vehicles. And in revenue vehicles, the target is less than 20% of the fleet being beyond the useful life benchmark. And ULB is just a fancy term saying how old the bus is or how old the vehicle is. For fixed route buses, the target is 14 years. Anything beyond 14 years is considered past the useful life benchmark. For a paratransit cutaway vehicle, it's 10 years. For the minivans, it's 8 years. On the non-revenue vehicle side, the target there is no more than 40% beyond its useful life benchmark. And in that case, it's 8 years for non-revenue vehicles. And in case you're curious, that includes trucks, vans, SUVs, automobiles. They're used to provide system support. So, for instance, if a bus breaks down, there's a vehicle that will go out to help get that vehicle moving again or at least get it back to the station. That's a support vehicle. And Lextran and every transit agency I've ever worked with hammers home this point, and that is just because a vehicle is beyond its useful life benchmark doesn't mean it's unsafe. It's perfectly fine as long as we're maintaining it properly. And I can assure you Lextran does that. Okay, so there's a lot on this chart here, but this is kind of reviewing where we are in terms of the current condition of the fleet. And if we look at all revenue vehicles, it is beyond the target of 20% beyond its useful life benchmark. And then for non-revenue vehicles, it's 59% beyond the ULB where the goal was 40%. One of the things that Lextran has told us is that we're going to start seeing some significant changes in this percentage. We're kind of in this transition zone where they're bringing in new vehicles and retiring older vehicles, but it's still going to be probably another year or two before we get to that eventual target. And Fred, okay, thank you, confirming that that is correct. So then the other thing we need to look at are their facilities. There are currently five facilities that Lextran has to evaluate. Their administration building, the bus wash building, the compressed natural gas fueling station, gas and diesel fueling station, and their maintenance building. FDA has a very prescriptive evaluation method for this. And the goal is that you want to have a score of three or greater on that scale. And the target is to have less than 5% of their facilities below that score of three. When you have only five, you either are or you aren't. But the good news is Lextran has achieved that for every year since I've been here over the last five years. And then there's a third class called infrastructure. And at least according to the FDA definition, Lextran does not have anything that's defined as infrastructure. That includes anything related to rail, passenger rail type transportation, or bus rapid transit. So if that's something that we eventually go down the road for, then there would be infrastructure that Lextran would have to track as well. And so just as a reminder, what we're asking you to consider is adopting a target of no more than 20% of revenue vehicles being beyond their useful life benchmark, no more than 40% of non-revenue vehicles being beyond its useful life benchmark, and then for facilities, less than 5% being at or below the FDA term score of three. And so I'll be happy to address questions at this time. All right. Committee members, questions, discussion? I have a question. Go ahead. What is the current percentage? How much of a change will this be from the current situation as far as percentage not within the ULB? So the targets don't affect that. But we're not the targets are essentially the same as what we've had previously. But the actual percent or the actual number of vehicles that are past the useful life benchmark, that's dependent on Lextran bringing new vehicles into the fleet. All right. I have a couple of definitional questions if you go back a couple slides. There was a mention of a cutaway vehicle. Can you help define that for me, the paratransit cutaway vehicle? What does that mean? Fred, do you want to tackle that? Hello? Perfect. The cutaway vehicle is what you usually see with paratransit wheels. It's a shorter bus, smaller capacity. You do not have to have a CDL to operate it, so it's just a shorter, smaller vehicle. Okay. Gotcha. And then I had a couple when we were talking about facilities. I don't think what's FTA stand for? Federal Transit Administration. Okay. And then so that definition does not include the transit center? Correct. Okay. So these are essentially, I guess, not non-revenue but in that sort of category? Yes, support, general overhead and maintenance. Okay. Basically places where people don't get on a bus. Right. Okay. And then overall, just kind of thinking out loud, the idea that we have these benchmarks for the lifespan of these vehicles, right, but also the fact that we can go beyond that particular mark as long as they're well-maintained. So I'm kind of curious philosophically then when we set these benchmarks, there's no real consequence in a way? Like there's no revenue consequence, there's no ordinance consequence. So kind of talk me through, like is it purely aspirational that in an ideal world we replace them at that level but we don't live in an ideal world? So the intent is, the federal government's intent, is that we then have a conversation after we adopt these targets through the TIP on how we're allocating resources for public transportation. And so the question is we have a certain amount of money, should we be devoting a chunk of that to helping LexTran get additional vehicles into the fleet? Or there may be other priorities that folks tell us we would like to see, such as a lot more bus shelters or we'd like to see bus rapid transit or some of these other types of services. And so what FDA would like us to have is a conversation about these targets as we're discussing those other priorities. Yeah, so if you go back to the slide that kind of had the measure of, yeah, this one basically. So I guess my question is like if sort of what we're setting up is either benchmarks or goals, what really happens if we continue to not hit those goals, right? Like what do we need to change either about the conversation? Because I know like resources are always limited and they always have to go somewhere and we probably always have different and other priorities that we'd rather put them in than this, especially, as you say, if they're well-maintained and still usable, right? So I'm not trying to be super pushy about this, but it's almost for me like practically speaking, what is the point or the application of these benchmarks? Right, so if we got to the tip and we have, say, we're going to build new bus stations all throughout, but we're going to have no investment in additional vehicles. I think FTA would probably raise an eyebrow when they looked at these targets. So I think the conversation they would like us to have is, it's fine that you're considering all these other things, but maybe you ought to consider a different set of targets for your vehicles. And so what we're kind of saying here is, no, the intent is to get newer vehicles into LexTrans Fleet when we have that conversation about the TIP. And by the way, spoiler alert, we're going to be having that conversation later this year in August. Okay. Thank you for that. Can I add to that? So this is one of the tools the FTA uses to put all the transit agencies in sort of a standardized format. When we apply for competitive grants, this information is very helpful for that because it shows in standardized terms the condition of our fleet. So we can use that as our narrative to pursue those competitive grant dollars. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other discussion? All right. Did we make a motion yet? We have not. So public hearing, any members of the public like to speak on this topic? Okay. We'll close public comment. We are now going to approve or disapprove Resolution 2026-3 as written up here. I'll take a motion for approval. We have a motion from Mr. Combs, Council Member Curtis, discussion on the motion. Council Member Ellinger. Thank you, Chair. So when we were looking at these benchmarks, and we didn't hit the numbers that we put before, but you feel that you will be able to with the new vehicle so that we're not setting you up for failure here? Correct. I think we have some vehicles that have not entered service. They're at the yard right now. We do additional checks and everything before we put them into service. So there are several vehicles there that have not even been into service yet, and we have grant funds to purchase an additional seven so that we'll get that done probably sometime this year. So we'll fall within the numbers that we're requesting? I think we're in good shape, yep. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments on the motion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. Next is information discussion items, review and discussion regarding Governor's recommended state highway plan and regional highway project priorities. All right, so just as a reminder, the Governor's recommended plan is on the street. It has been distributed to the state legislature and the state representatives who are now reviewing that plan and developing their recommended plan for adoption later this year. That's usually going to be in the month of April. And the reason this is relevant for us is that this is one of those documents that we use to identify what mix of projects need to be incorporated into our TIP because one of the more important things about the TIP is that it needs to be projects need to have a formal commitment of funding from somebody. It could be the state. It could be the suballocated dollars that come to the MPO. It could be LFUCG, city of Nicholasville, et cetera. But this is one of those documents that we use to at least begin that conversation about what projects actually are funded within our region. Now, one of the challenges we have is that the state highway plan is not a truly fiscally constrained document. And so we will have to have a conversation after adoption of that document with KYTC and District 7 to better understand which projects really are able to move forward, which ones actually have a funding commitment behind them. And then we will have that conversation with you in the month of August when we do the new TIP. So what we wanted to do, we went ahead and kind of gave you a list of what was actually in that plan that was within Fayette and Jessamine counties. We emailed that to you after the meeting back in January. We've done a little bit of a deeper dive as a staff on each of those projects, and we've given you that list as part of your agenda packets. It looks something like this. But what we wanted to do is kind of go through the projects that raised an eyebrow from MPO staff and kind of go through with you why it raised our eyebrows and have a conversation about those priorities because ultimately you're going to be asked to consider whether these priorities ought to move forward or whether other priorities need to be reduced in priority in order to make room for these projects. So we're going to focus our attention on four things. So if this is the first time we've seen a project, and there are a handful of those, there are some projects that as staff we were not recommending. There are also some projects that you as a policy committee at least haven't previously expressed support for, but obviously that is your prerogative. You can change your mind. And then the projects that we identify, or you as the policy committee, identified as being a high priority but may have a funding issue or some other priority concern that's identified in the state highway plan. Basically, is it in the out years of the plan or is it in the biennium where the biennium kind of represents that it's actually moving forward? So the first project we want to cover here is Alumni Drive. And this is actually a project that is in our MTP. It's actually something that we think is something that we're going to need to consider in the not-too-distant future. And this is the section effectively between New Circle Road and Man O' War Drive. And there are legitimate traffic congestion issues on this section of roadway, not to mention legitimate safety issues. The challenge we've got here is that KYTC central office is actually doing a corridor study of this section here as we speak. And it's probably got about another year left before it gets completed. And so we're not exactly sure what the scope of work is actually going to be or what was actually going to be recommended. And so we kind of think that this project is a little premature for the state highway plan. And so our recommendation is that maybe we revisit this in two years. When that study is done, we have a little more knowledge of what is being recommended of us. The next one is a new interchange on I-64. This would be in the vicinity of Royster Road. And in the state highway plan, it's actually referred to as affecting US-60, but I'm not sure that we really can say that it's doing that. This is a little bit east of Expansion Area 2 for those of you at LFUCG. And this is to conduct a feasibility study. This has come up from time to time during the state highway plan discussions, but each time the policy committee has been kind of cool to the idea of having a new interchange out there. If we were to do a new interchange, conservatively $30 million. It could be more than that, depending on what's being considered. And with the new Urban Growth Master Plan that has been implemented, that would have to be modified in order to incorporate a new interchange in this general area and then access from the Expansion Area 2 to that, to Interstate 64. One of the things we noted is that this was not a project that was actually identified in or sponsored through the shift process, and so there's no score that was assigned to this particular project. And so one of the questions that comes to mind for us is, should that be something considered if it didn't go through that process previously? There's several phases for New Circle Road. They were identified for major widening. We originally thought it covered everything from Versailles Road southward and eastward all the way back to Richmond Road. It's actually missing the section between Nicholasville and Harrodsburg, so it's not the full freeway section there. But when we put all this together, it's in the $170 million to $180 million range in today's dollars. And one of the things we noted, we're doing an evaluation of travel times and travel speeds right now for our congestion management process that we're required to do every so often. And for New Circle Road or this section of New Circle Road, the afternoon peak period, the slowest time of day, it's still operating in the vicinity of 55 miles per hour, which is the posted speed limit. So it kind of led us to ask, what is the congestion issue that we're trying to solve here? We also noted that the shift scores were pretty low, mid-30s to as low as upper 20s out of a score of 100. And we have recommended in our Metropolitan Transportation Plan projects to address where we think the real issue is, and that is where the on-ramps are merging onto the main lanes of the freeway. They're sometimes really short, so you don't get an adequate merge, and sometimes you have a lot of traffic trying to come on. So the project we were thinking would be more cost-effective is actually making those merge lanes longer and also maybe considering ramp metering for certain times of day. So yes, there would be a delay trying to get onto New Circle, but then once you're on New Circle, we have a consistent speed that we can rely on. And this is a map from that travel time analysis, and the roadways in blue. And keep in mind, this is the PM peak. The roadways in blue have speeds over 51 miles per hour. But you can also see we have some roads that are legitimately congested, like Nicholasville Road, where it's operating below 20 miles per hour. And so this is a resource allocation question here. Do we want to spend the money on New Circle, or do we want to focus on other facilities? There's also a separate project in between Taste Creek Road and Nicholasville Road to install sound barriers. Now we're not sure if this is for both sides of the roadway or just one side. Looking at that cost, I suspect it's probably just one side, but that's something we'll need to get some additional clarification on. One of the interesting things about sound barriers is that the federal government doesn't allow you to just spend federal dollars just on a sound barrier. It has to be part of a larger project. And the reason for that is because the research behind sound walls is concluding that they don't work as effectively as previously thought. The benefit, I think even if you ask the Transportation Cabinet, we're looking at 10 to 15 decibel reduction, which is something, but not huge. And then under certain meteorological conditions, such as a cold, cloudy day, which Lexington has a lot of, it can actually make the sound worse. And then we also heard from places that have sound barriers, studies that have been done afterwards, that a lot of folks through surveys indicate that they didn't notice any appreciable difference. This is another project that did not go through the shift process, and so we do not have a score for this. Red Mile Road. Now this is another one where we do have a project in the MTP, but focuses on the bicycle and pedestrian improvements along that corridor. And you may remember that the MPO did a Campus to Commons study to identify the non-motorized recommendations for that corridor and how do we make that more of a complete street. And, in fact, you, the Policy Committee, actually awarded SLX dollars to do a design study, a design engineering phase of work, which was scheduled for 2028. So this is something where, yes, we agree that this is a priority for us and we would like to see some work done. We're not exactly sure what the Cabinet is specifically proposing. We saw an initial concept which would widen the road and provide a shared use path on one side, but I have my staff and the traffic engineering staff for LVCG are taking a look at that, and they'll provide some comments back to District 7 on that. So this is still a project that probably is worthwhile, but it kind of popped in at the last second and was also not vetted through the shift process, so we do not have a score for this one either. And then there's Versailles Road, where the section that was put into the biennium is not the section that we boosted and that you, the Policy Committee, asked that they consider moving forward with. And there was work done on this section previously, and after the boosting score wasn't even the highest scoring section of Versailles Road. The Oxford Circle to Red Mile section, which we boosted, was the highest scoring section here. And so I think our view from a staff is, well, if we're going to do anything, it needs to be the one the Policy Committee said we want done. Hamburg Connector. This has been on our radar screen for quite a bit. The good news is there's been a lot of conversation with members of the state legislature to try to find a path forward, at least to get the roadway designed, if not built, to get all together. So the issue with the state highway plan may be less of a concern if we are successful with that effort. Let's shift to Jessamine County. There are two pretty high priorities that we think probably deserve some additional consideration. There is Kentucky 169. It's also referred to as Keene-Versailles Road. There's work going on in Woodford County on this road to improve curve radiuses and add shoulders and make it a better roadway from a safety perspective. This would be the Jessamine County portion. And it actually doesn't score poorly here, but this would do similar work all the way down to Harrodsburg Road. And so we think this is something that probably should get some greater attention. And then continuing on inside Nicholasville, basically in between the West Bypass and Oak Street, there's a project to widen that roadway and add some multi-modal improvements. This one actually scored pretty well. And right now both of these Kentucky 169 projects are in that SPP category that's very much over-programmed. And so we don't necessarily have – we're not necessarily a reliable funding source for that. So there were a lot more projects on that list. Thankfully, for the most part, the projects that you boosted through the shift process are somewhere within the state highway plan. Many of those are in the two-year biennium period or have at least some work in that period. And then remaining work in the out years. And I think that's probably more just from a logistical standpoint that it takes a little bit of time to do some of this work. But with that, I have my notes here, and I am happy to talk about any project that's on that list. All right. We'll open it up to committee members for questions, comments. Go ahead. Talking to some folks at the state, they also don't understand this prioritization since we just redid it a few years ago. This is from Versailles. Yes, I'm sorry. Versailles Road. Kelly, do you have any idea? In the next part for 2029-2032 is all the areas that we think are important that haven't been done. And I just don't understand why there would be a priority for something that we already did. Mm-hmm. How about now? There we go. There we go. Well, how would we figure these out? I'm not sure. To be honest with you, I think from the district perspective, I think we were in lockstep with working and coordinating with the NPO on prioritizing our projects, and we provide that information. And I'm not in the room when the plan is developed, so I don't know that I have a good explanation for what's prioritized or not. I did notice some of those projects, some of the first few are just sort of some carryover projects that's been around for a while. I'm not sure why they're still inserted in there, but I'm not really sure. You know, we sort through it in the district sort of like everybody else does. Okay, yeah. Speaking to some state reps, like they asked, too, and no one could answer their question as to why. So I'm just curious. Keep asking. Obviously, I was like, I want the other section. I don't want to, like, remove something and then for sales or not get any attention. Yeah, so we're not taking any action here. This is really for your information and also to ask questions. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other? I have a question. Go ahead. Council Member Lynch. So, Mr. Aviglia, my CAO is scheduling meetings with state legislators and state senators, so I can advocate for the projects in Districts 1, 2, and 6. Is there anything I shouldn't say? I don't think there's anything you shouldn't say. What I think for your district, hammer home, we need Georgetown Road. Yeah, definitely will do. Thank you. Thank you. Quick clarifying question. When we were talking about New Circle Road, when you say ramp metering, you're talking about those little traffic lights that go green, red? That's correct. Okay. That's correct. I have a question about the Red Mile. I know we've had our Campus to Commons conversations. Is that project through us, the Campus to Commons part of it, are we still looking at it doing in a particular phased order, so like the campus part and then the Red Mile to Versailles and then the Versailles to Leestown? That was the original concept, yes. I think the state has come in and said, because there's a proposed development at Red Mile and they have asked for roadway improvements to Red Mile as part of that, I think the state is suggesting maybe those improvements would be, at least for the state highway plan, a higher priority. Does that conflict with our sort of plans or timeline with Campus to Commons, that they're wanting to focus on the middle section of it first? Well, I think if they're willing to pay for Red Mile, no, it doesn't necessarily, because we have funding through our SLX program for each phase of work, and we're going to still move forward with those. Okay. Gotcha. Did you have? No. No? Okay. Council Member Baxter. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Chris, looking at the sound barrier project on New Circle, so if staff didn't recommend it, we didn't put it on, where did it come from? Well, the central office, they make the final calls for what the governor's recommended plan includes. Do you think it's a constituent request? I suspect this came from a legislature or one of the state representatives requesting it. Okay. And then looking over at the Nicholasville Road, the interchange at New Circle Road, we didn't really touch on it, but there's a note that says the description is poorly worded, and I'm just curious. It's called access management, and I don't think that's the best way to describe it. It's an interchange reconstruction. Okay. Okay. Yes, emphasis there. Okay. I think that's all I've got for right now. Thank you. All right. Any other comments or discussion? Go ahead. Kelly, can you explain on the Oak Street-Nicholasville West bypass, is that all the way from the proposed roundabout at Rock Fence Park? Is that past the railroad bridge? Where is Oak Street starting? I think that that project that was listed there in particular is basically the bypass down to the bridge. To the bridge. That bridge project, as I understand it. So the bridge is not, right, because it's already kind of in limbo with the railroad. Right, it's already under contract. Okay. So then the roundabout, if that ever happened at Rock Fence Park, would be separate. Is that beyond Oak Street? Yeah, well, that's right where Oak heads out west. You go from heading south, right? No. Sorry, you're going west and then you turn south. It's right there in the interchange. If it were within the limits of the bypass to Oak Street, I think it could potentially be part of it. But if it's outside of those limits, it would be separate. Yeah, my understanding is it is part of this project. The whole thing. Yeah, so that it is included. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Any other discussion? As Mr. Avila said, there's no action required today. It's just things for us to think about towards the future. Next item is review and discussion regarding federal transportation reauthorization. All right. Just a quick reminder, all federal programs require an authorization act, which basically guides surface transportation priorities for the federal government, identifies what resources and funding the federal government will provide to accomplish those items, and then it also identifies the eligibility and other requirements for use of those particular dollars. The IIJA is the current Federal Transportation Authorization Act, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Interestingly enough, we're not allowed to use the bipartisan infrastructure law term, and we weren't allowed to use this term in the previous administration. So IIJA expires September 30th, and we are anticipating that there will probably be a short-term extension of this act, just because Congress is a little bit behind the curve on getting a new bill put together. And with that in mind, both houses are putting together their proposals. We have one from the House. The Senate is still working on their version, and the Trump administration is also working on a separate bill for consideration. So the first one that's come out from the House side is called the Basics Act, Bridges and Safety Infrastructure for Community Success. What's important to note about this one is that it was a bipartisan introduction, so it was introduced by both a Democrat and a Republican. There are a number of significant changes that are relevant for the MPO and for our transportation planning process, which is why we wanted to go through this with you before it got too much further along. From this point forward, the various finance committees of the House and Senate will be looking at funding and how to fund various proposals. And when that happens, you often see some changes to what's being proposed. The sausage-making process will often change what's initially introduced. So we've got several slides that came to us from the Local Officials in Transportation Coalition. This includes our national organization for MPOs, but also National League of Cities, U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, et cetera. So this is a pretty broad-based group of folks who are recommending what we're looking at here. And you may see some similarities to what was presented to you last year at the request of MPO. The challenges that cities and counties own, operate, maintain on a national level, about 43 percent of the total system, well, that's the federal aid system. It's about 75 percent of all road miles across the country. And then if you discounted North Carolina, where there's no such thing as a county road, it's all state roads, that boosts that percentage up a little bit higher. But yet, when we look at the federal funding that's available, it's only about 16 percent on a national average for roadways that are not designated a state highway. And here in Kentucky, I would say it's probably a little closer to 90 percent, just because most states have statutes that say that their resources cannot be used off of the state highway system. And Kentucky is one of those states. There are certain programs, like highway safety, bridge, where Congress specifies it must be available for off-system use, but we don't have that specificity outside of that. And so one of the things several members of Congress have identified is that this is not what they intended for the federal program to be, that they intended for more federal resources to be available. So this kind of shows up, especially with roadway and bridge conditions. So locally owned bridges are two times more likely to be in structurally poor condition than state bridges. Roadway condition, about half of the principal arterials, not just all roadways, just the principal arterials that are owned and operated and maintained by local governments are in poor condition, whereas the state highway system, it's 7 percent. Now the thing we want to emphasize here is the answer isn't to take money away from the states. They're doing their job. They should be rewarded for that, but additional resources are necessary for our local officials. And then it was noted that quite a few of the crash issues that we're experiencing are off of the state highway system as well, but yet the resources available are fairly meager to move the needle on that. And so there are several things out of the Bridges Act that we wanted to point out to you. So on the bridge program, it would actually set aside 25 percent of that program for MPOs and then rural organizations that don't currently exist and aren't currently funded. And it would be similar to our SLX dollars. It's a set aside that comes directly to the MPO for your purview. And thankfully most of the bridges in Fayette County are in relatively good condition. We do have some challenges in Jessamine County, and so this would be very helpful for getting after some of those priorities. It also would require a portion of the Highway Safety Improvement Program to be spent in MPO areas and in projects that are in our tips. And I just saw these for the first time a few days ago, so I'm reading through them. A big increase in our SLX dollars is also proposed, and those are the dollars that are most useful for the MPO for priorities that we identify as being important. And, in fact, to the point where if the state's not going to do the project, that's the only source of money we have to do things with, and we only get right now about $10 million in a given year to do something through that program, and $10 million doesn't go very far. So as far as MPO operations are concerned, it does look at doing a pretty sizable increase in the federal planning dollars that comes to the MPO. Right now it's about eight-tenths of 1% of the core funding programs. This would increase to 2.5% before you think, wow, that's a huge windfall for the MPO. The thing we have to keep in mind is right now we're robbing about a million dollars a year from SLX just to keep the MPO wholly funded and to do any kind of studies that comes out of our SLX dollars. So if this were to come about, then we could use our SLX dollars for what's intended, and that's to build things or perhaps purchase buses or design things. Another important point is that it would also eliminate the nonfederal share requirement for our planning dollars. This past year LFECG provided $230,000 to match our federal dollars, and while we would probably ask that we at least keep a little bit there to cover the things that the federal program doesn't allow us to do with the planning dollars, this would be a big help for LFEC's budget for sure. And then it would also allow us to become a direct recipient of federal dollars. One of the challenges we have right now is that every penny of federal dollars, sorry, we don't use pennies anymore, every nickel of federal dollars goes to the state first, which then means that it now takes on all the characteristics and requirements of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. And so if we were a direct recipient, then we just need to focus on meeting the federal requirements for use of those dollars. There would also be establishment of rural transportation buying organizations to cover those areas that are not covered by an MPO. There's already language and federal statute to cover that, but Congress didn't provide any money for those programs, and so this would change that. And so our rural counterparts would also be able to put together their priorities and oversee how federal dollars are used in their regions more directly as well. Reminder, if any of these things you want to discuss with members of Congress, I can't talk to those folks. That runs afoul of the federal anti-lobbying provisions. But you, as representatives of your communities, you can say whatever you want to your members of Congress, and I know some of you have some things you'd want to say to your members of Congress. But if you do want to have that conversation, we're certainly here to help and at least point you in the direction of things that you may want to have on your radar screen. All right, I'll open up the floor for discussion. Any comments, questions? All right, clear as mud. Yeah, always. All right, next is call for general public comment. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak on any of the items from today or really anything? Okay, we're good there. On to next business items. Are there any other committee questions, comments, or new business anybody would like to bring up? I have kind of a weird question. Back before maybe 1978, the speed limits were mainly 60 miles per hour, but they lowered them in an effort to help with the fuel, I guess. Why is New Circle Road, why has it stayed 55? So it will kill less people in our first plan. It seems like it ought to be a little faster. So speed limits are prescribed. There is a formal process necessary for that. And, Kelly, I think KYTC oversees that. I know that that's a different section. Yeah, any requests for changes to speed limit, those come through our office, and then we do studies, speed studies, and then we make recommendations up through our central office traffic section, and that's ultimately where they would make a decision on a change. But any request to change a speed limit would come to us in the district, and we review it. Now, one other thing we have to keep in mind is that the only facilities in Kentucky that right now that are allowed to have a speed limit over 55 miles an hour is the interstate system. By KRS statute. Interstates and parkways. Correct. Any other comments or discussion for the good of the order? All right, our next meeting date is Wednesday, April 29th at 1.30, and we will be convening in Nicholasville. We have reached the end of our agenda, so we are adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you.