00:00:07,500	It’s 1:30 on May 20th. We’re in the Tom Baker room of the City County Building in Bismarck. This will be the Bismarck Mandan Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy board meeting, but before we start, we’ll have the Pledge of Allegiance. I see the I see flag I see of the United States of America.

00:00:35,270	And for which it stands one nation undergone individuality and justice. Thank you. We’ll call the meeting to order if we can call a roll, please. Mayor Berglund, Comm Zach Meyer, Mayor Freli. Here. Comm Schwab here Schmittz here. First item number 3 on the agenda is review and possible approval of the minutes from April 15, 2025.

00:01:07,130	Paulmor boards, what are your wishes? I can move to approve the minute. Second Is there any discussion? He none will call roll. Mayor Berglund, Comm Zachmeyer, Mayor Frelich, Comm Schwab Chair Schmitz. Yes. Item 4 is the fiscal 2026 recreational trails program or RTP applications. Steven. Thank you, Chair.

00:01:44,900	Give me just one moment to share a screen for those online. All right, so the North Dakota Parks and Recreation District recently solicited for applications to for the fiscal year 2026, recreational trails program or RTP. They opened their solicitation on April 1st and accepted applications through April 13th.

00:02:31,700	Applications for projects that are within the MPO area are required to bring the applications to the NPO, uh, for support, uh, for this year’s solicitation, we received 2 applications, one from Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, which is exhibit B and one from the Lincoln Park District, exhibit C. Um, we found that both these projects are consistent with our Metropolitan transportation plan. I will note that these projects we do not prioritize.

00:02:55,830	We are simply requested to review and if a policy board should approve, we would provide a letter of support to the applicants to take to the park district. Uh, I will provide a brief overview of the applications using exhibit A, uh, first from Bismarck, we have their Cottonwood Park, South Trail connections.

00:03:17,200	They are proposing a project to rehab the shared use trail connections within the southern portion of Cottonwood Park. The project includes 5901 linear feet of 10 ft wide shared use trail that is currently aged in cracking. Uh, including 176 ft of trail that needs to be removed and replaced.

00:03:40,600	The pros, uh, proposed project is located within one of Bismarck’s most popular parks and provides a number of important connections. The application from the Lincoln Park District is the 66th Street Southeast Pathway. This project is would be constructing a 10 ft wide gravel pathway starting at Santee Road going south along the west side of Sixty-sixth Street. Ending at the south city limits approximately 180 ft south of Humbert Drive.

00:04:08,870	The project would include topsoil stripping, common excavation and earthwork to establish ADA compliance grades for the project. The compaction of soils and placement of a six-inch gravel base with an alternative for the Park District to pay if funding is available for that in the future. Uh, they would like to do so in the future.

00:04:30,270	This will include ADA compliance crossings at 2 streets with concrete panel and domes to warn users of crossings. And uh the federal and total costs are included in that exhibit. Now we have representatives from both Bismarck and Lincoln, uh, with us today. If there are any questions, uh, from the board on either of these projects. Members Right.

00:04:59,600	Any questions? There’s no prioritization. So our, our more action would be to recommend support for both, correct? Correct. I I saw of Support both. Second Do we have any discussion? He none we’ll call roll. Mayor Berglund, Comm Zachmeyer, Mayor Frelich. Comm Schwab. Yes Cheer Schmittz. Yes. Thank you. Next item 5 is the Bismarck man an MPO self-certification.

00:05:47,130	Steven Thank you. I will be just one moment. Hm So this is a routine, uh, self-certification or uh certification is required by United States Code, NPOs must certify their planning processes are being carried out in accordance with federal law.

00:06:24,170	The self-certification must be updated at least every 4 years, but we, as a best practice update every year as part of our annual tip development and try to account for any changes to federal code. They may have taken place over the last year. The self-certification declares our compliance with current highway bill legislation in 10 different areas, including operations and functions, air quality control, Title 6, and civil rights.

00:06:48,600	Disadvantaged business enterprise and non-discrimination, um, the self certification, uh, in the paper packets is, has been slightly changed since packets were sent out, uh, to remove equal employment language that duty advised was uh needed to be changed because of the January executive order, uh, rescinding equal employment in federal programs.

00:07:16,270	So, um, for now, everything else is being left as is until we receive word of any other changes to the federal program. TAC recommended approval of this self-certification at their meeting yesterday. Are there any questions? board members, any questions of Steven? Um OK. What would your wishes be? So are you looking for an option for acceptance.

00:08:06,430	Yes, we would be looking for a motion to approve that motion. Second, Is there any discussion? A none will call roll. Mayor Berglund. Comm Zach Meyer, Mayor Frelich, Comm Schwab. Yes Schmitz. Yes. Item 6 is a 2025 safety policy study and Luke Champa. That who we have. For sure. I, I should have confirmed early on. I did not do that.

00:08:40,870	Expected look to be on, but we are not seeing him online, so. Uh, with the board’s permission, I can go ahead and give that update. Go ahead. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you, Kim. Uh, the safety policy study is moving right along, although, um, we’re we’re not even halfway through the year.

00:08:57,070	We are almost 1/3 of the way through that, um, that study as far as completion overall. So things are going very well, uh, we have collected all of the data, um, that we have needed and so the consultant is deep into um the uh the safety analysis and developing the, the modal high injury network analysis for the

00:09:19,770	study, uh, yesterday, Luke Champa was able to share a web app um which included an interactive map that will be rolled out to our steering committee, um, and this kind of detailed crash density and um mode separation, um.

00:09:44,330	And so we’ll be further reviewing that to, uh, to kind of further this high injury network analysis that’s being conducted, um, and speaking of the steering committee, our next steering committee meeting is going to be held June 26th, so we’ve got a lot of materials in addition to that map that are being developed and will be shared with those steering committee members.

00:10:02,600	There will be a crash trend summary memo that will be going out for review, uh, as well as a high injury network memo that the consultant. We’ll be sharing in in addition to those items, we’ve also been engaging very heavily in our public outreach efforts.

00:10:26,930	Uh, we’ve taken a couple of a couple of opportunities to have community conversations or public outreach, um, uh, through local events, uh, the first was on April 29th in Bismarck. We had a booth at the Earth Day Festival down at the Bismarck Event Center, and that was very, very successful.

00:10:46,670	We had a lot of participation, um, folks coming in and putting dots on our map and, and providing lots of comments for us, um, and our second engagement opportunity we took just this last Saturday, um, May 17th, and we, uh, had a, had a booth or a vendor stand at the Touch a Truck event in Mandan, and again, um, the weather actually cooperated with us for that. It was a little cool, but it wasn’t raining. It wasn’t too windy. We had lots of foot traffic.

00:11:03,800	We have lots of dots on our map and lots of comment cards. In our, uh, in our box to go through, so we will be compiling all of those items and trying to see some trends and um uh make note of how they might align with the data that we are collecting as well.

00:11:21,500	Uh, in addition to that, the subconsultant Emergent strategies, uh, Jolene Ree is conducting some focus groups, um, these are, are conversations with very small stakeholder groups such as um, uh, law enforcement, first responders, youth drivers. And, uh, transit and active transportation advocates in the area.

00:11:48,530	In fact, uh, tomorrow morning, we’ll be having the active transportation, transit and disabled, uh, focus group conversation prior to the, um, bicycle-friendly workshop. So it seems like a pretty good fit, um, that’s about all I have. If there’s any questions on the, the safety study, I will certainly entertain those, be happy to answer those. Any questions? Yeah All right, thank you.

00:12:12,000	Item 7 is a 2025 ITSRA. Progress report. is S So. Sure, Jet, I’m sorry. I should have asked. Is he available? No, he’s, uh, yes, I am. Uh, thank you so much, uh, board.

00:12:37,830	I have a very small presentation, uh, prepared for today’s meeting and uh can you confirm if you can see this in my screen? Yes, we can see it. Perfect. Thank you. So, um, we are working with the regional ITS architecture plan, um, uh, uh, for the, um, from, um, India’s CEGBTI, uh, with the Bismarckman and MPO and this was our uh work plan and we are still in the very early stage of the data collection, uh, or

00:13:00,530	uh very early stage of the project where we finished the data collection, uh, from different, uh, small groups. And uh those data collection took uh took place, uh, since March 12, uh, until May 1st and uh we have heard from each of the groups that we have identified for our, um, uh, for this uh architecture and uh

00:13:25,730	here are some uh specific items. I’m not going in very much in details onto those technical terms, uh, unless there is any question about that, uh, but, uh, we have been able to collect, uh, most of the information that we need and now at this point we are in the phase of uh coordinating the

00:13:44,400	changes with our, uh, with the stakeholders. So the way we are doing it is by preparing a document. Which will, um, uh, which will have some additional information, uh, for example, the, uh, we have collected some information from them about the roadway elements which include the vehicles, the roadside, um, uh, the roadside, uh, field

00:14:04,670	elements as well as their uh centers uh we are going to uh include those um information in the document. We’ll update the rules and responsibilities for each stakeholder over there and also you will identify the total uh services that has been proposed for these, uh, for, for the region.

00:14:28,930	And that will include some of the services that we have, um, identified in our prior architecture as well as uh some uh there’s a couple of new um services that we are going to um move from existing or from planned to existing service packages, um, and they also as part of the meeting we have identified some challenges, mostly, uh, some, uh, data

00:14:53,800	sharing challenges that we will also, uh, mention. In that, you know, in that document and uh um uh from here what we are going to uh work on is, um, uh, whatever changes that we have identified, we’ll start including into the architecture slowly.

00:15:12,430	And we’ll give the uh by the end of this month, uh, we will be sending out these document and waiting for maybe a couple of weeks, uh, for the stakeholders to get back and we’ll start um input, uh, putting those changes, uh, in place of the architecture at the same time, we will be preparing for some additional um meetings where we will collect information about

00:15:33,870	whether all the systems that they have, how they are performing, so based on that, uh, we’ll have uh And another meeting with uh um a specifically with the IT group, uh, probably at the beginning of the fall semester or uh beginning of the fall season. Uh, so that’s uh pretty much all what I have as an update.

00:15:52,730	I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you have. Po member board policy board members, any questions? Thank you, sir. I made 2025 monitoring report update, Steven. Thank you, Chair. Just a very brief update for you today.

00:16:23,500	Um, and we have been holding biweekly meetings with the consultant for this update, HDR to review the existing monitoring report. We have completed an initial review, and HDR has begun to work on a document outline, and we have set May 28th at 1 p.m. as the date for our monitoring report to stakeholder workshop, so many of your jurisdictional staff have been invited to participate to review.

00:16:47,000	the document and suggest, ah, data to incorporate into the update that would benefit the, your offices. Um, we will have a more substantial update to bring to you in June. Are there any questions? questions. Thank you. Thank you. Item 9 other