00:00:06,100	Good afternoon, it’s 1:30 April 15th, 2025. We’re in the Tom Baker room of the City County Building in Bismarck before we start the meeting, we’ll have Pledge of allegiance. This will be the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy board meeting. United States of America.

00:00:40,830	In the Republic for Again, this is the Bismarck Mandan Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board will call the meeting to order if we can call roll. Mayor Berglund here. Comm Zachmeier Mayor Froelich here. Comm Schwab Char Schmitz. Here. Item first or item number 3 on the agenda is review and possible approval of minutes from the March 18, 2025 meeting.

00:01:06,530	Policy board members, what are your wishes? I will move to approve. Second. Is there any discussion He none will call roll.

00:01:27,300	Mayor Berglund? arrive 2050 Metropolitan. Transportation plan amendment. This is an action item, correct? It is an action item, yes. Thank you, Chair Schmitz, members of the board, uh, the first item in your packet, uh, as found is exhibit A on page 9 is a proposed amendment to the Metropolitan Transportation

00:01:49,470	Plan. I’ll bring that up on my screen and share that with you. Maybe. OK. I The arrived 2050 Metropolitan Transportation Plan or MTP was adopted through resolution by the policy board on December 17th of 2024. So it is our active MTP until 2030.

00:02:38,900	The amendment that is included in the packet is proposed to provide revised information regarding the urban regional road program funds through changes to text and tables within the document and to also remove the planning.

00:03:01,770	emphasis areas references from the document in order to comply with the recently issued executive order from our president and also, um, provides for the update of maps, uh, and also to add or remove some minor text to provide accuracy and clarity of information. The details of the changes were all provided in the amendment along with the attachments, hopefully, um, that provided a clear view of what was actually being changed.

00:03:21,630	Um, I will let you know that the proposed amendment was advertised in the newspaper and also on the MPO’s website for a 15-day public comment period, which concluded with a public hearing at yesterday’s TA meeting.

00:03:45,230	Additionally, North Dakota DOT local government, federal highway, federal transit, and the members of the technical advisory committee were contacted and provided the amendment for review and for comment. No comment was received by the public through the review period or at the public hearing, however, written communication was received, uh, by North Dakota DOT local government last Friday indicating that all concerns previously expressed by North Dakota DOT Federal Highway Administration, and Federal Transit Administration had been addressed to their

00:04:12,770	satisfaction. Based on that, TAC did recommend approval of the amendment as proposed. Do you have any questions regarding the items being revised within the amendment. Any questions? And look like it. What are your wishes? Make a motion to accept the amendment. And a second time. Is there any discussion? He none will call roll.

00:04:50,170	Mayor Berglund, Mayor Froelich, Comm Schwab, Schmitz. Yes. Next item 5 is the 2025 safety policy study and is online. Uh, yes, I am Chair Schmitz. Can you hear me all right? I can, yes. Alright great thank you Chair members of the policy board, uh, provide a quick update here.

00:05:18,470	For, uh, progress being made on the safety policy study. Uh, we had a big steering committee meeting with uh. Professional technical staff from local jurisdictions, um, in March and it was a thick, thick agenda we got through a lot. Um, and, and I’ve attached a couple, a couple of items in your exhibit.

00:05:42,100	Uh, the first being, uh, attachment one. The final draft, uh, literature and policy review. Um, based on feedback from from technical staff we will be adding some information in that review regarding. Um, access management. Requirements or guidelines as well as uh site triangle, ordinance, um, policies.

00:06:16,630	As they pertain to uh land development, um, so we’ll be adding those things in and um including some recommendations likely in the safety policy study for best practices and updates to some of those documents, but again, the literature and policy review is really intended to be uh a guiding document and ensuring that we’re implementing best practices, uh, moving forward with the safety, uh, policy study.

00:06:38,130	Another thing that we discussed that’s, that’s critical for this body, uh, would be the leadership commitment and goal setting. We provided some background and examples to the steering committee. This is a requirement of SS4A or one of the requirements I should say for uh safe streets and roads for all or SS4A as a federal aid program.

00:07:04,730	And it involves setting a vision zero target meaning. You know, 0 deaths, zero serious injuries is a goal of, of the safety policy study, and then there’s a target that’s set, uh, for example, by year 2050, um, you know, the biz man, uh, NPO wants to see uh uh a, you know, a significant reduction um

00:07:32,070	towards Vision Zero in in severe crashes and so we’re laying out some some draft options that that may be. included in the safety policy study, uh, but I did want to make you aware of that, um, as a, as a planning tool moving forward, um, because there will be some review, um, to see, you

00:07:51,830	know, what kind of progress you’re making as a region, um, regarding safety and then, um, and, and what that means for the region moving forward. Uh, attachment to in the exhibit is a data review memo. It’s pretty straightforward.

00:08:14,200	It lists most of the data that we collected and how we intend or how we are using it we are calling that a working memo we will be updating it over time here as we continue with our analysis and we are in the thick of the safety analysis, so I think the next time um that I speak to to you all, we’ll be able to chat

00:08:29,670	a little bit more about progress there, um, and then. the last thing I want to touch on is that we are scheduling focus group meetings, uh, for May 1st and then we will have some public engagement pop up events at the Earth Day Festival on April 29th and the touch a truck event.

00:08:52,470	Uh, in Mandan on May 17th and really just to engage with folks, get them some information and uh uh get their feedback about where, where on the, you know, regional transportation system where in your, in your communities, are people feeling, uh, the most unsafe or where have they noticed safety issues

00:09:12,900	or have concerns so there’ll be some mapping and uh kid friendly activities, uh, for people of all ages, uh, at those. pop-up events. Um, I think that’s a pretty good update for now, but I’d be happy to answer any questions if there there are any. Thank you.

00:09:33,730	There any questions? Thank you Thank you, Luke. Yep All right, 2025 ITSRA Kim. Thank you, Chair Schmitz. Uh, the feedback that was received through the small stakeholders group meetings held in March is still being processed.

00:10:03,500	Uh, the information once processed will help to develop a questionnaire that’ll be used through our next round of meetings, um, in addition to those March meetings follow up to uh input that was received and the gathering of additional feedback is still ongoing. A meeting is scheduled, for instance, on April 17th.

00:10:26,130	With um City of Bismarck engineer Gabe Schell, and also from folks, um, representing technology information departments, uh, and we want to have this meeting to identify IT issues that are related to both the traffic and maintenance service areas. Uh, in addition, we are still in need of further information from the city of Lincoln Police Department and the Public Works Department there as well, uh, and so hopefully we, we anticipate being able to share some new information with you at the May meeting, including

00:10:46,470	insights gathered from the different user centers which include, uh, emergency traffic maintenance, transit, and IT. So hopefully we’ll have a little bit more information for you in May. Any questions right now regarding the uh ITS regional architecture or the update to it? Mm All right. Thank you. Item 7, 2025 monitoring report of the.

00:11:12,370	Stephen Thank you very much, Chair. Just a brief update for the board today. Uh, we are, are conducting our monitoring report update. We finalized the contract we have with HDR, the consultant for the project, March 21st, and we held the kickoff meeting for the project, March 31st.

00:11:35,930	I will be meeting with the consultant regularly going forward. We will be reviewing our existing monitoring report document for data and content, and we intend to hold a stakeholder workshop. Likely in early May with jurisdictional planners and engineers, so we can better understand their data and performance needs as we prepare this update.

00:11:58,000	So the contracted completion date for the project is December 31st and more updates will be forthcoming, uh, as they are relevant. I don’t expect it to be every month, uh, for this type of update, but we will come before the board, uh, as applicable until we finish the project.

00:12:18,300	Are there any questions? No, it does not look like it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, and Kim, the 2024 Consolidated Planning Grant. Redistribution Thank you, Chair Schmidtz. Uh, you may recall that we talked about this a little bit at our last month’s meeting. Uh, this is the redistribution of the unspent 2024 CPG or consolidated Planning Grant funds.

00:12:44,230	Now the CPG funds are the federal dollars that are allocated to NPOs to fund their activities and programs. The Bismarck Mandan MPO has no other funding source or mechanisms for its operations and programs other than the CPG and the required local match that. provided by its jurisdiction. So we rely very heavily on this funding.

00:13:05,570	A process has been developed in coordination with the NPOs, North Dakota DOT, and Federal Highway to address, um, the redistribution of any unspent CPG funds from a given year if in the event that there are any, it doesn’t mean that there will be, but just in case, uh, and this process consists of, first of all, North Dakota DOT notifies the NPOs across the

00:13:25,370	state that would be all 4 of them. Of the estimated CPG turnback balance which would include, uh, the, the total balance of all four MPOs involved after which then the NPOs have 2 weeks to provide a recommendation of how they would prefer the turnback funds be redistributed.

00:13:48,930	Now this was accomplished this year by March 6th. The turnback funds are then to be made available when the contracts are closed with Federal Highway Administration, and they are going to be included in the 2026 CPG estimate for the 2026 unified planning work program or UPWPs of the NPOs.

00:14:10,300	So that’s the stage that we’re at right now. According to the process that’s been defined and laid out. North Dakota DOT is to provide the estimated amount by April 15th of each year. is today.

00:14:32,830	Today we receive that figure from North Dakota DOT and it came in at an estimated amount of $799,699 and a, a bit of change. Um, and that does correspond to what we had estimated, so we were thinking that it was going to fall within that approximate $800,000 amount for federal funding in 2026.

00:14:54,530	Um, the good news is that this allows us to move forward with our budgeting and programming exercises, and in fact, the MPO is already beginning to develop its 2026 and 2027 UPWP, uh, yesterday afternoon, we did have a meeting with the jurisdiction.

00:15:21,200	representatives and we began identifying jurisdictional priorities and needs regarding studies, uh, projects, and data purchases for 2026, 2027, and beyond, um, continued communication will uh keep taking place throughout our summer months, um, next several months for sure to refine the studies that are being considered and to put them into a budget and work program. Are there uh any questions regarding the redistribution. of the 2024 CPG funds or uh maybe even something general concerning the UPWP budgeting process. Go ahead, Mayor.

00:15:47,370	I’m just gonna that 799. Or that 800,000, that is specific for the Bismarck Mandden area or is that for all of North Dakota. That is specific for the Bismarck Mandan MPO area. Perfect, thank you. And that is the federal amount, so, um, that’s the 80% portion. Any other questions? OK.

00:16:10,400	Thank you very much. Item 9 is a BisMan Transit update, Deidre, I feel like I’m seeing you a lot. Yeah, no kidding. Chair Schmitz policy board members, um, came and asked if I would provide a short update.

00:16:31,270	So yesterday I provided an update tot, um, so I just wanted to run through what uh we had going on in 2024 and then some of the projects that we’ve kind of undertook so far in 2025, um, so some of this might be, um, things you’ve heard already. Uh, last year we celebrated our 20 year anniversary in May.

00:16:50,370	Um, we offer two free ride weekends, um, the first weekend we had 831 trips, and then the second weekend we had 914 trips for uh the correlating weekend. So the reason I bring that up is, uh, that was the most, uh, free ride trips or the most trips that we had in any weekend on the Kaus since pre-COVID.

00:17:08,100	So that was kind of really where we got our momentum with the Cat ridership increasing, um, and it seemed like that really carried through, um, the rest of the year. So it was a nice way to um. Celebrate the 20 year anniversary we did, um, some, some TV interviews, things like that.

00:17:24,630	Um, we switched to, uh, Brightline Insurance from North Dakota Insurance Reserve Fund, um, they were unable to provide us, uh, an additional $1 million policy, um, that we would need for our contract with the city of Bismarck. So we went out hunting for an insurance provider that was going to be able to be reasonably priced as well as give us the limits that we needed.

00:17:42,270	Um, we found this company, um, based out of Texas, but a lot of nonprofit transit organizations in South Dakota have used them, so I. spoke with, uh, several of their directors had nothing but great things to say about them, um, and it saved us about $90,000 switching, um, so that being said, our policy had started

00:17:58,370	April 1st of last year. Um, we had some claims, not too many, um, but working with them has been great. Uh, they’ve since been bought out by Insurria, which is a little bit larger company, but, um, our prices remained, um, more reasonable than if we would have gone with North Dakota Insurance Reserve

00:18:14,200	Fund and then an additional umbrella policy. Um, on top of our, uh, regular celebrations for the cat anniversary. We did a lot of community outreach this year, um, so we attended the University of Mary Community Fair, United Tribes Technical College Community Fair, Touch a Truck, the New American Job Fair, YMCA National Senior Health and

00:18:34,500	fitness vendor show we also completed travel training with Cloverdale. Um, we also did some train the trainer for them. Global Neighbors, um, we did a group cat bus training so we actually went out on site, um, with them, had them.

00:18:50,000	the bus with us, show them how to pay, how to flag down the bus, how to get off the bus, um, United Way Homeless shelter, we did classroom and on board training. Missouri Slope, we did some para transit training and then through BPS we did life education program for someer transit, um, riders. Um, we also developed the introduction to CA and the introduction to Paransit formal training program.

00:19:09,630	This was through a grant that we were awarded from the North Dakota Council for Developmental Disabilities, so they actually paid for us to do the development of the training materials and put on um some courses didn’t have great, um, Response to it unfortunately, but the positive side of that is we were able to have a

00:19:27,270	formal training, um, that we were able to record and share with um individuals as they request it. So if we’re not able to do some on site or in-person training. We now have a really good resource that we can share with with agencies. Um, we did receive $123,953 in advertising revenue.

00:19:46,630	Um, this is really important for us because we never used to do our own um advertising until I want to say it was 2019 or 2020 when we took it in-house, um, prior to that, we had always contracted this out. We were only getting 40% of the revenue that we were selling on all of our buses.

00:20:02,770	So if anyone remembers when we had the Cas clay buses or the, um, the guards buses, we weren’t really making that much off of that. Taking it in-house. Um, we’ve been able to see a huge increase in what we’ve been able to make, um, year over year.

00:20:20,130	Um, we also were able to get $128,930 in interest revenue, so, um, Since COVID, we’ve been able to have a pretty healthy cash reserves that has provided us the opportunity to invest in CDs, um, and, and obviously having our savings account with a pretty good interest rate.

00:20:37,800	So we’re looking at any way that we can to generate more revenue that we haven’t been able to do in the past. Um, we signed our City of Lincoln para transit service contract, so we got that renewed and taken care of, so we’ll continue to be providing para transit service out to the city of Lincoln.

00:20:54,870	We received 4 replacement pair of transit buses and 2 new vans, um, all of those were, uh, replacements for existing fleet except one van was actually in addition, a fleet edition. So we’ll be using that more for our will calls.

00:21:09,370	So if, um, you don’t know what aw call is, it’s when someone is leaving a hospital or a doctor’s appointment and they need a trip same day as long as we took them there and we’re aware that they need a trip home, um, we, we will go and pick them up, uh, so it kind of gets squeezed in the middle of our existing runs, um, to get those individuals home work.

00:21:21,100	much easier, um, with a van, so it’s kind of those shorter notice trips. We did have our uh 6th annual Stop the Bus for Ministry on the margins. We collected for this year. Uh, we collected 700, um, items.

00:21:39,730	It was exciting to see, uh, when we dropped off, uh, the people that we would be helping and also uh kind of helped organize things there. So we’ve been doing that for several years, just something to give back to the community and we’re always looking for new nonprofits that we can collect for. So this is the first you’re actually collecting for Ministry on the margins.

00:21:53,030	Um, we were able to offer free ride days for all of our elections on both er transit and fixed route. So on June 11th we provided 466 cat trips and 303 pair transit trips and then on November 5th we had 562 cat trips and 358 paratransit trips. So I think it’s really notable to, um.

00:22:14,500	See how many trips we completed because that’s a Tuesday and a Tuesday is an historically our, our, our highest performing trip day, um, but there was obviously a need for the service and then, um, providing it at a free free cost for everyone. Um, our cat ridership went from, or our cat ridership was 121,538.

00:22:36,370	This was a 20%, 20.89% increase from 2023, and I shared this little tidbit yesterday at the TAC meeting. I’m in the process of doing our national transit database reporting.

00:22:53,530	This is where we send all of our information to the Federal Transit Administration, um, and they flagged when I put in that we had such a big increase in ridership because it’s very unusual to see this type of increase um without having major service. changes, um, increasing your hours, but it, it’s in fact correct. We just had seen a lot more um parrot or fixed out riders in 2024 than we had in 2023, um, paratransit, we completed 9, 90,000227 trips.

00:23:14,730	This was a 2.8% increase from 2023. Um, our Black Route was our top performing route, um, our second was the orange route. The orange route is our newest route, um, so when we remove the route in Mandan that the brown route that provided service to the south half of Mandan, we just shifted it over

00:23:31,270	to uh Front Avenue all the way out to the transit facility, um, with that, we’re hitting a lot of the service, um, organizations, Heaven’s Helper Soup kitchen, Dream Center, um. Even Walmart, DCIL, so that orange route is what’s, um, kind of operating as a service loop right now.

00:23:52,730	Um, we did have a reduction in at-fault accidents from 2023, which we had 19 in 2023 down to 14 in 2024. Um, let’s see anything else on here? And then obviously measure one pass in both Bismarck and Mandan, so we’re very excited about what that’s going to bring for transit.

00:24:10,770	Um, on to 2025, this was our fifth year of a clean audit, um, so prior to that we had never had a clean audit, um, and we’re on a really positive run, um, especially with a small organization, um, and the help from the city, um, finance department, we’ve been able to have 5, clean audits now.

00:24:30,100	Um, also did work with the urban directors to advocate for Senate Bill 2254, which the governor had signed on April 3rd, so those urban directors would be, uh, Mayor, Grand Forks, Fargo, and myself, um, so the language from that bill is 2 million of the Department of Transportation $2 million to the Department of Transportation for the purpose of providing grants to fixed

00:24:49,770	route city transportation providers for associated para transit services for the biennium beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2027.

00:25:08,400	It’s a one time funding and obviously it is going to be split up between 4, for urban transit organizations, um, we did propose a split that was fair to everyone, so it was based on ridership, and I, if the DOT goes with that split, I think Bizman Transit would get about $190,000 of that.

00:25:28,170	Again, it’s a one time thing with that, um, bill, there also is um direction for the legislative management, um, team to put together a study, uh, on fixed drought in the urban areas. So we’ll see what what becomes of that, but it’s always good to have more studies.

00:25:46,470	Um, and then last we did get noticed that our FY 26 competitive grants that we had applied for last fall, we were awarded, um, so we’ll be receiving $249,320 in federal funds for our demand response operating assistance. This covers 50% of our early morning after hours, Sunday and holiday service as well as 80% of our mobility manager, um, celery portion.

00:26:05,570	Um, we also did get $611,184 in federal funds to replace some cutaway buses, which, uh, by the time we get the new buses, we’ll have exceeded useful useful life pretty significantly. So that was all part of our fleet replacement schedule.

00:26:22,630	Um, we will also be replacing two fixed route buses, um, so we got 561,000 to replace the first one and then um a supplement from a previous grant that we were awarded of 157,250 to replace um 2 2010 buses that have exceeded useful life in both age and miles.

00:26:41,100	And then I, uh, one more, more exciting, I think, uh, ridership rider facing, uh, Grant that we received was funding for 8 flat tire bike racks to be placed on the um front of all of our fixed route buses, so we have two fixed roll buses now that have the fatt tire bikes.

00:26:53,470	Um, they’re great, everyone loves them, but it’s really unfortunate that only 2 of them have it, so you don’t know what bus you’re going to get if you’re, if you’re using a fatt tire bike and then you’re trying to board a bus that doesn’t have it, gets a little bit tricky. So we’ll be replacing the remaining, remainder of the fleet with those fat tire bike options. Hopefully, um, within the next month or so, depending on availability from our vendor. Any questions? You, you have questions? Thank you.

00:27:12,400	Go, go ahead, Comm. With all these money figures you were, you were talking about. Why don’t we have that in our agenda. You know, you threw all these figures and I lost you at about the 3rd round. I can share it with uh Kim and Kim will.

00:27:33,730	I’m sure be able to get the figures out to everyone. I think that should be, you know, just a list. OK. Absolutely. I will get that over to you. Thank you. Is there any other business for today? Him, you’d come in sheepishly. Thank you, Chair Schmitz members of the board, I’ll be very brief.

00:27:58,370	I just wanted to send out a little reminder regarding the, uh, bicycle friendly uh community workshop that the NPO is hosting on May 21st and 22nd. Uh, we’re hoping to net a really good attendance, uh, broad cross section throughout the community of, uh, local business unit, uh, leaders and elected officials perhaps.

00:28:22,800	I do have some fires back on the, the table by the sign-in sheet in case any of you want to grab one and maybe even a couple and share with your, your colleagues and your associates we’re trying to, um, get some registration, uh, finalized at this point and the registration for it is May 14th, so just a reminder on that.

00:28:40,370	And then I do have some exciting news to share on the, the employment front for the MPO. We have been actively seeking a transportation planner, uh, we’ve been going through the, Recruitment and interview process which just concluded last week, and I’m very, very pleased to announce that we have made an offer to Stephen Larson, who has accepted the

00:29:03,830	position of transportation planner with the NPO, so I hope that you join me in, uh, extending your congratulations and welcome to him in his new position. Uh, we will be advertising for a transportation specialist position opening here very soon. That’s all I have. Thank you.