Minutes 02-16-2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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16 Commissioner Price asked if there was a way that it was determined that buses or the move to fare free were the cause of the decreased ridership, as opposed to more people living in town. Patrick McDonough said this is part of it, but traffic has dropped, and it would be a strange coincidence if this were not related to the buses being fare free. Danny Rogers, GoTriangle Project Director, said he is here to update the BOCC on the project, and it is moving forward at an appropriate pace. He said the next big step is moving into engineering, and good progress is being made. He said all information has been given the FTA, and there are a few additional clarifications that need to be made regarding the existing bus rail investment plan and the money that is included in that. He said as the timeline has been followed appropriately, the FTA is allowing additional time to make up the clarifications during. Commissioner Burroughs asked if the plan is for the GoTriangle Board to vote on advancing the engineering contract on April 26th Danny Rogers said the schedule must be held to, and that date is correct. He said the draft plans should be ready prior to that date. He said these contracts are not all or nothing and there would be the opportunity to stop, if necessary. Commissioner Burroughs said the draft plan should be available prior to the April 26th date, and then there will be a required comment period, but the Board of County Commissioners and MPO will be looking at the draft plan prior to April 26th Danny Rogers said the draft county transit plans will be available ahead of April 18th, and on that date GoTriangle will share with the BOCC that it is ready to go to its own Board of Directors (BOD) for approval. Commissioner Burroughs said she will have a very hard time signaling positively about going forward with the engineering, having only seen the draft plan for such a short period of time. She asked if more detail could be given as to why it must be April 26th, and why the engineering decision cannot be lined up with the final plan being considered in June and July. Danny Rogers said the FTA schedule for New Starts is on a calendar year schedule, and if a deadline is missed by a month, it may be missed by a year. He said deadlines have been pushed as far as possible to reduce exposure. He said if this is approved April, there is still room to pull out in June. He said if the plan is not approved in April, the FTA may be missed, and the whole cost of building the project would be delayed a year, resulting in inflation being added, the cost of administration would increase, etc. He said it is a much bigger risk to not approve the contracts, than it is to approve them. Commissioner Burroughs said the project would not be knocked out of New Starts, but a year would be lost resulting in increased costs. Danny Rogers said there would be increased costs from project administration for the delay and increased costs from inflation. He said as the project moves forward into engineering, hopefully in the next few weeks, the budget is set on year of expenditure. He said if the project is delayed a year, the inflation does not get adjusted in the budget, and would be a true cost increase. He said this puts more on local ability to pay for the project, as the budget does not get adjusted from the FTA's perspective. Commissioner Burroughs said she would like to see this played out from a money perspective as there is a real due diligence issue here with the timing, and she would like to know exactly how much it will cost to delay a year, versus what would be paid in the first few months of the engineering contracts. Commissioner Jacobs agreed with Commissioner Burroughs, and said it would be helpful to have a timetable of all items and costs, and as the cost is discussed. He said he is interested in GoTriangle's cost and/or Orange County's exposure based on the cost. Danny Rogers said this information can be put together.