Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Matt Walker]: And thank you. Good morning again. Back here Thursday, 01/29/2026 in house transportation. We are welcome back with our group from the public transit piece of the Agency of Transportation. So this time, we have Dan in the chair.

[Ross McDonald (VTrans Public Transit Program Manager)]: You made

[Chair Matt Walker]: it to the chair last time you were here, I don't remember if you made it up to the chair on the last visit. Not not Either way, welcome back to committee, and you're up for the next

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: well, if

[Chair Matt Walker]: it takes you got forty minutes, or up to forty minutes, and they're a little so before that. I know people have meetings to get to at the lunch hour. So don't expect Welcome to back and hand it to you.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Thank you, Chairman Walker. I appreciate the time here today. For the record, I'm Dan Currier. I'm with the Vermont Agency of Transportation. I'm a public transit coordinator on our public transit section. Also online with me today is Ross McDonald. I'll just let him do his introduction real quick.

[Ross McDonald (VTrans Public Transit Program Manager)]: Oh, sure. Thank you, Dan. Ross McDonald, Public Transit Program Manager at VTrans, and thanks for covering this for Yes, the program,

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: thank you, Ross. I'm here today to provide testimony on Section 28 of Act 148, and this is from the 2024 legislative session, just not to get confused with the Section 28 that's currently being presented here from twenty twenty five's legislative session. And so this one is focused on mobility service guides. Just a little recap of the legislation as it was passed. And so the ATC of Transportation, I've highlighted some sections in yellow, which were sort of the key elements that we were utilizing. In consultation with existing nonprofits, Shell organize a mobility service guide and deploy a web based service guide to outline the different mobility service modes that could be considered for deployment in Vermont. And so with that language and then a little bit more guidance, which was to the mobility guide should include web based requirements, should help us to define some of the program types and options across Vermont, provide information related to existing initiatives, and then provide details of other existing programs that maybe provide foundation for or complement a new program. And then for each of the programs that we identify, it wanted us to also provide some details, and it's a range of costs, any service characteristics, any revenue capture options that existed, any technical assistance, and then finally, if there's any potential funding out there that these services and mobility options could be applied could apply to, to start the options. The next series of slides is some screenshots from our guide and how it's laid out, and as well as the web link to where it can be viewed, and I did share a copy prior to this testimony with the committee. So the mobility service guides really are, the tagline that we included, and by the way, the guides are still up for revisions if the committee or other members the nonprofit organizations would like to make any adjustments. The community resources are really to help identify transportation options to improve access. The website, we've used our existing Go Vermont program as the website for the guide. That program has a series of resource and that we have a community based resource tab on our site, which is where this guide has been added. It's currently a PDF and that PDF is made accessible for anyone, whether you need a screen reader assistance or so on. And then the guide is broken out into four main sections: active transportation, passenger transportation, ride sharing, and then public transit that also does school bus services. And I'll go into more details about each of those sections. So the active transportation section and every page of the guide is outlined this way where you've done a screenshot of the guide here on the right. And so across the top is going to be the heading of the chapter, as well as a short description of what active transportation is. And that's what the text is here. Active transportation is the service mode based on human powered transportation and involves physical activities, including walking, cycling, wheelchair, rollerblading, and so on. And then we focused in on the service providers in Vermont that have been really focused on active transportation from local motion to the Vermont Agency of Transportation bike and ped program. There has been some bike share in Vermont, and I've highlighted the Chittenden County Transportation Management Association for that one, because they're the Burlington based bike share. And then Walk to Shop, which is a nonprofit operating walking efforts across Vermont. And then our Mobility Transportation Innovation Grant program has been a source of funding for a lot of this active transportation work, which is, as you all know, being discussed this year as well. And then Govremont has a trip planner, which is in the green box, that really focuses on providing options for people for their commute, which includes walking and biking as well. So if there was a walking and biking path in your commute, the trip planner can help you discover that and will give you directions on how to walk or bike. The next section, actually it's two pages, which is why there's a screenshot on the left and a screenshot on the right. It's focused on passenger transportation. This service mode moves people from one location to another using various modes of transportation, including bus, van, or car. These are operated by public or private agencies in this case. And so it starts off by focusing in on the public transit system and the Transit Royale, which is our transit app. And so the transit app allows anyone in Vermont to discover public transit, download turn by turn navigation, see all active bus routes, and get bus map and guides as well, so that anyone can ride public transit. And Ross presented earlier on that in his overview of the Transit app. We talked about micro transit, that's our on demand public transit in Vermont, and we've got many regions across the state that is operating public transit today. We talk a little bit about UVM and their employee shuttle options, and then we go into door to door transportation, and there's a lot of operators for short term transportation. The first one is actually our Broad Public Transit Association, which helps to manage our Medicaid program. They receive that contract from the Broadiva, I will not butcher the name right now, but they're really focusing on door to door transportation through the O and D program and the Medicaid program. Then we have Gopher, which is out of the capstone here in Central Vermont and the services they provide. Sorry, I'm gonna move the screen here. Freewheeling, which is a service provided in the Mather River Valley for anyone that needs a ride to doctors or medical appointments. We've got special service transportation out of Chittenden County, that's SSTA. They are partnered with Great Mountain Transit for the ADA service, but they also can provide non ADA service as well, which is a fee service. And then finally, Neighborhood Connections providing service in Southern Vermont. And so they're a partner with Southeast Vermont Transit as well. Representative McCoy?

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: Yes, thank you. So this, is it an app, or are you just going to the website for the first one, this transmit?

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: For the Transit Royale? Yeah. If

[Chair Matt Walker]: you were to click on that link,

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: it would take you to the Go For Mott website, and would load you onto our page that talks about the Transit app, and then you would download the Transit app onto your mobile device, and then you'd be able to see the bus routes on the And Go

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: that is Doing that currently?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Yes.

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: Okay, so this cost of 10,000 to start up and 15,000 for ongoing operations. So it's 15,000 right now for the ongoing operation. That is correct. For the app.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: That is correct. And that was providing free access. You should know we did sunset that 15,000 this past fiscal year. We got asked whether we wanted to renew or not. We declined that renewal. The app is free for anyone to download. The Transit Royale piece allowed people to see more of the backend, like you got up to instead of the current routes that are active, you got to see every route, including those that were inactive. And so, and we weren't having a lot of, not a lot of people were saying that that was a need to see every route no matter where it was, no matter when it was. And so the transit Royal piece, that 15,000 is not in our current, we're not currently paying for that piece

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: of

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: this So what will people be able to see in that map? Well, they'll be able to see all active transportation in Vermont. They'll be able to see up to I think it's the three hour block before and after a route is active. And it's a free download. If you want to open up and pay, I don't know what the app is currently charging. It was $2 couple of years ago per month to get the full access, they can do that. Okay.

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: So they just kind of get

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: the basic They get the very basic, but it's still offers on there. That's correct, then go further. Thank you. You. I

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: was going to go back just to the micro transit. What is happening with the micro transit service being up later? Sure. I don't know if you wanna talk about that now, if you're coming in to talk at a different time, it's fine.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: I don't know if we are coming back, but I'm happy to at least provide some highlights of what I've been hearing. So the current microtransit service in Montpelier will shrunk, so it just serves the downtown region, and then a new fixed route bus was added back in, which was the Mollie S. At That's the right, that's right. Which is, look at configuration.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: It doesn't serve the train station? It does. Okay.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Yep, and that's the micro train, serves out the train station, that's correct. And then there's a couple of lengths down into Montpelier is rather long, down until Route 2, down by where the Dairy Cream is. And so, yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: So it's still basically

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: It's still basically serving the length. That's right, if you want to get to the hospital, they'll bring you to the downtown Transit Center, and then you'll hop on the Hospital Hill bus up to the hospital, or the mall, or Shaw's as well.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: Yeah, remember hearing that it seemed like was so many people were going to the hospital anyway, but it made more sense to keep fixed rates.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: That's correct. And then if I may just add, during the rural transfer that we've discussed with this committee, that service will be retained by Tri Valley Transit as the transfer continues. So microtransit will still continue to operate in Montpelier even with the transfer. And can I ask one more question? About the gopher, what's happening with that? Not really sure. Tri Valley Transit is working with them understand how they can support the service, but I can't speak on behalf of Tri Valley. If you would like to schedule time with Jim Moulton or I can follow-up if you're interested.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Awesome, great, thank you. Yeah, so you'd just like to

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: know what's happening. Absolutely, yep, I'll have a follow-up. Patricia McCoy?

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: Thank you for this,

[Representative Candice White]: this seems to make a lot of sense to have this all in one area. So my question, looking at the passenger transportation page Yep. When I look at all these options, should I assume that these are all open to me? Because I, like, I from hearing about different programs like Gopher and Free Willing, like, think Free Willing is really for seniors. And you note that, but could I use that if I'm not in the senior category? I guess my question is, should this page be more explicit to say this service is for these people, like Medicaid or Medicare or seniors, or are there not those parameters that I think there are?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Some of these programs do have those parameters. Freewheeling has their own set of parameters. We weren't trying to capture every nuance in that. And so having a note on this page, stating as much that, hey, currently it's serving seniors and those with disabilities, you might be eligible as well. Visit their homepage for details of that might be helpful.

[Representative Candice White]: Yeah, think that'd be really helpful.

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: So as with the transit royale that we talked about, all of these other ones also have like a cost, a startup cost and an ongoing operating Have we already gone through the cost of all of these? And are we at the ongoing cost for all of these? Yes, we are. Okay.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Yes. So we're partnered with everyone on the page. Gopher has a partnership with Green Mountain Transit and not with VTrans right now. And so that's the only relationship here that's a little different. Freemily has a small grant from us. SSTA is Green Mountain Transit's consultant. And so their costs are really part of the ADA, complimentary paired transit service. So that's not really captured there. So the neighborhood connection is also the grantee with us. Okay, so the

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: only one really that is not ongoing is the 15,000 for the transit we're at. Okay, thank you.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Thank you for the questions. The next section was focused on ride sharing. This mode is all about individuals sharing rides with others. So this is people connecting passengers with drivers who then use their personal vehicle to provide the transportation, and think carpooling, right? That's really what this is all about. The very top of the guide talks about the GoVermont programs, Carpool Matching. That's a free service. Anyone can sign up and they get free carpool matching. It is self-service, so you do need to do it on your own. As the program, the public transit section supports this program, so if you do need help, we do have someone on call. We also have a call center that can be called if there's issues. And so that's right off the top. And then we talk about the van pool program, which is again, it's a program that VTrans helps to manage. We have contracted with Community Enterprise to provide the vans and then people at the employee do the driving and they ride as well. And there's a small amount of money that the riders pay directly to commute with enterprise. VTrans also covers 50% of that ongoing cost. We have a Guaranteed Ride Home program, which is really a backstop. If anyone has an issue with one of their trips on transit or even with the carpool or the vanpool, they can use the Guaranteed Ride Home program, which helps to reimburse up to four times a year, up to $70 for a cab ride, an Uber, your friend drove you and you've got their mileage reimbursement. I mean, scenarios are numerous. Like how did you have to get home in an emergency? This program can help reimburse you. And then finally, I would talk a little bit about car share of Vermont and how that's been operating.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I just have one question. Who did you say

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: that you contracted with for the van pool?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Commute with Enterprise. Commute with Enterprise. And by the it's the same Commute with Enterprise that does the car rentals. So it's a different division of that Exactly.

[Chair Matt Walker]: I thought you said that.

[Representative Patricia McCoy]: Just wanted to Yep. Okay, thanks.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: Do you have a rough number of how many of these van pools there are? Yes, I do.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: And so currently we're operating 19 van pools in Vermont. That number does go up and down seasonally. We add van pools when the winter ski season starts because the resorts use the van pool program. So we dropped down to 15 or 16 during the summer and grow to 19 in the winter. And that number has fluctuated. We were down to 12 during the pandemic, and we grew up to 22 right afterwards. And so but 19 is the average right now per month.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: And are there any so this is through you and anybody, the business has to be part of it or can it just be the employees who There is a contract that has

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: to be signed by someone. Usually it is the employer that signs the agreement with Community Enterprise, but consortium of people in theory could do it. And the commute with enterprise does have what's called a flex van pool where riders don't need to be part of the employer to access the van pool, right? And so we've got a lot of flex scheduling these days where people work from the office three days and at home too, so you can use the van pool three days, someone else could then use the van pool those other days and you don't even need to be at the same employer anymore. And so as long as the flex van pool has been started by the employer, it can open up to anyone that's along that route. Are there

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: any employers who run vanpools outside of this program?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: JPeak actually was our largest vanpool operator outside of this program. I believe I've heard that they might be going back, but that's just some information I've been hearing from our consultant. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not yet.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: It seems like there's some incentive to use this. Is there any disincentive to it that you know?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: The liability coverage is constantly pointed at us. So enterprise provides all the coverage for the vehicle including comprehension in case of an accident. That is one of the items constantly cited as a drawback because the coverage isn't high enough. And so additional coverage could be added by the employer, but that's not always a welcome scenario. And sometimes that does fall, the bank pools don't ultimately get created because of that. So, but usually it's not, it's usually once it's started, it's been very successful. In a minivan. Let me see, other SUVs that we use and then we can go up to 15 passenger vans if we need to. Flex them up. And they can vary, they can flex vehicles in. The main office is in Boston, so they can come up and they've got a huge fleet coming in Thank bring data you. Ripson White?

[Representative Candice White]: Yeah, and just to clarify, is VTrans supplying the vans or is the employer?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Commute with Enterprise is actually providing the vans. And all VTrans is doing, so we're providing the subsidy. The employer is then providing access to their employees to sign up, then the employees drive the vans and ride the vans. Okay, thank you. Great question, thank you.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: And are there any other than having a valid driver's license, there's no other requirement. You have

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: to have, they do let me see, what do they call it? There's like a light DMV check done by them just to make sure that your driver's license has no violations on it. Besides that, anyone can drive Oh, there is an age as well. 21, 25, 26, the number is there.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Bill two years ago said, pull all this information together and put it in a place where people can see it. Obviously, even people that are pretty heavily focused on public transit and options have lots of questions. I can see where the value of trying to put it in one place. What's the process to keep it updated moving forward after all this work?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Yeah, great question. Because it will become a GoVermont resource, the GoVermont program each year contracts with a marketing firm and that firm helps us to maintain our website and all of our resources. So we'll continue to rely on them to help keep track of the year to year changes that we wanna make to these and Be Trans once a year goes through all of our guides. We have resource guides that we provide at the county level as well about all the transportation options. And those guides are updated yearly, and this will just be part of that annual review.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: Representative Quirk? Dan, I just went to the link for the Interjection Network, Rutland, and I see that you and Ross are an extremely, Right. And there's it seems like after 2022, I don't there's no information. Like, is there anything that says September 2021 and 2022, pilot plan, pilot start September. Is that pilot operating?

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: No, that pilot, they did the planning phase for that pilot, and they were working with Richmond, and then there was no outcome of that pilot. Fremont Transit and the school system did not end up starting any service. So is there anything that could be picked up from that study, that work that was done, maybe it was another school district? Absolutely, and that report's there to provide an example of work that was done, because it does have options. The report highlights the schools that are close to public transit routes and actually I'll just advance my slides real quick, if I may. And so, and I mean, this is, it encapsulates all of the public transit that is currently servicing schools in Vermont. And so it represents some really great efforts, but not every school is adjacent to a school, to a bus route. And so there could be additional work using the model there. But I agree. What ultimately the best option for that report is, it provides a framework of how you could continue to have that conversation with school districts. Like what were the steps that were taken to have a partnership? And each of the transit agencies, as you'll see in all seven are represented here, work closely with schools all the time. So having schools talk with transit agencies about what the options are to provide, we call it school trippers service, and that's the definition that the Federal Transit Administration has defined school transportation as. Those types of services could be stood up. As long as it's published and open to the public, a lot of

[Chair Matt Walker]: things can happen. You had a pretty good pitch.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: I know it was here last year as well, I think about some of this.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: So anyway, I'm just interested in that, but something we can talk about here in the trans community that could be more efficient.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: And just to highlight one small thing, we do have some federal requirements that do restrict public transit from providing school, like yellow school bus transportation. That is truly restricted and so if it's not public transit that's providing school access, it's really not where we can go for the public transit system. And so it's just a funny little caveat and federal requirement that we follow because we also don't want to step to the realm of charter service, service that is truly needed to be paid for. And so when there's some regulations that also fall around us in providing direct service that doesn't meet the public transit requirements.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Yeah, I don't know. Thank you.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Thanks, thank you. And this is actually the last page of our guides, and it really highlights the public transit, where you can see the relationship that public transit has with the school systems. I tried to really highlight the schools that were being served and the route that's being served so people could find this and click on it and then discover, oh, what does that look like? And whether it's a school board, school district, the transit agency, a town, you can kind of see how we've grown and how we access schools with a public transit service.

[Chair Matt Walker]: There's a lot of information on these links. Yeah,

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: I remember I kind of pushed for this because even everyone's sort of confused about what all the options are. And there were so many things sort of new grants trying different things. This seems to satisfy it. Two questions, one, and I don't have the website open in front of me. Is there a place where if you have questions, can call and talk to somebody? That would be question number one. Yeah, I guess that would be my question.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Great question, yeah. And so that's one thing that Ross and I were actually talking about. It's like, okay, what's next? Now that we've developed the guide, what should we include as like the final step? Is there a contact page we should add? Should we put someone's phone number on here? What's an email address? And so, yeah, so we do plan to add that level of detail. So the Go Vermont program is the main call number on our website when you visit connecting commuters. We'll also include the coordinators information, so there's different coordinators per region. We have Jeremy Whiting, he's our GoVermont coordinator lead for this program, so he'll be on there. And then as a public transit section, we'll help to manage, because many of this work is directly through us anyway, right? We have relationships with all of these partners, and so we'll have to do that facilitation if someone needs a warm handoff. Thanks, yeah. Thanks, yeah. It's great to just see it's sort of all there. And I think my thought on how

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: this could help would be a small community that says, hey, how do we improve our transportation or what's out there? And then this would be a resource to start those conversations.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: And we're also thinking that sharing the resource guide through the regional planning commissions to get it sent directly to the municipalities would be a good step as well, so that they can see firsthand the outcome of this work, and then so they can then start having those conversations as well.

[Chair Matt Walker]: Vice President White, then Representative Lalley?

[Representative Candice White]: Thank you for this. This is really helpful information. Dan,

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: think

[Representative Candice White]: I was chatting with you and Ross briefly last week on some language in this bill that some of us and I have put together where we would require public transit to meet with schools on a semi annual basis to just look for efficiencies like this. And I think we were aware of some of this going on, like in Chittenden County and down south in Middlebury. It's great to kind of see it all here. And I think you all had expressed some concern about legislating these conversations to happen, to just not make things too onerous for these different entities. But maybe something as simple as requiring public transit to meet with high schools to start there. And again, you've got programs that are up and running, so that's great. I'm potentially thinking about my area, which I don't think has anything like this going on, like Mangalore Valley, Waterbury. So I think the hope is that we can learn from some of these success stories and look to other parts of Vermont that have not taken advantage of these efficiencies to see if they can push them in that direction. So I guess my question to you is, if we were to require that public transit meet just with high school entities to look for efficiencies? Does that seem like it would be terribly onerous or it may be worthwhile to look towards some efficiencies like that.

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: I feel like I'd like to pass this question over to Ross. Okay. That's our manager for the section.

[Ross McDonald (VTrans Public Transit Program Manager)]: If that's okay, Chair Walker. Yes, a few things. One, we're very thankful to have had two years to put this together and we needed some time last year to come back to the committee to seek some further guidance in terms of how to use, what to include and what not to. And so a true iterative process, and we were expecting some ideas coming out of today's discussion, we have some, to you know just kind of try to reflect and meet the need and the expectations here. When we talk about school transportation, I did spend quite a bit of time last year with some of these committee members and and representative White included to talk a little bit about how it's been done to date and how the limitations in place, as Dan had kind of recounted, make it a little more difficult to stand up school transportation through public transit. First and foremost, we need a public transit route that makes all the sense in the world. And then if we can identify schools along that route, then we certainly contact those schools and try to add the ridership numbers and the value of providing some school transportation. And it's not easy and it's not something that we can kind of force because of those limitations. Public transit route wouldn't work otherwise or the school transportation needs is so different than the public transit needs for a commuter route, let's say. And so in terms of requiring these discussions, I am a little concerned about folks being required to have the discussion say, well, looked at our service maps, we don't have any plans to have services in your area and we don't see this working, but we had to meet. And the high school saying, yeah, you know, we don't know why we're meeting either. We we we know that, you know, this is pretty much on them to to deal with transportation issues. But and and I wanna hearken back to the the transportation for Vermonters program because that was really instructive where we had some really good faith efforts to kind of intuitively suggest like, wow, Mount Mansfield and the commuter patterns should align and we could work with these entities, GMT and the school systems, to come up with a route that would do more things for more people. And at the end of that study, it really showed the timing, the days of service, the costs were really prohibitive of us moving forward with, you know, all hands on deck type of assessment. I'm thinking that most of our efforts with these types of considerations will end up in the same place, where it just didn't fit and we weren't able to check all the boxes that were necessary to get to that transit school hybrid. But it doesn't mean it can't happen. I would think a requirement to consider, you know, your existing roots and future roots and how to serve schools is to confirm that that is being part of the consideration through new start applications or what we call the CMAC applications for any new services, should we could include a line in the 20 items that we ask for. How much is it gonna cost? What's the ridership? What's the hours? Who's paying? All those things. Two, have you spoken to any schools along these corridors and to confirm that that has been done? That's the type of stuff I think we can do. Of course, as we talked with you, Representative White, with using the Transportation four Vermonters model and Tri Valley Transit, who does such a nice job with it, when they come into your area in the Mad River, for us to pilot that consideration to see what that would look like, And again, just with the Mount Mansfield, with the Mad River Valley, further encapsulate and collate the information, the successes, and the reasons why or why not to move forward was something that I thought would be more meaningful as a case study and something that we could either replicate or have a lessons learned program rather than force folks out to these meetings.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: Thank you, Ross. Yep. Is there another quick question?

[Chair Matt Walker]: Because I know we gotta wrap up. Probably go right.

[Representative Kate Lalley]: Mine was kind of just more of a comment. I wanted to say thank you. I appreciate this. I think we're trying to shift from cars dominating because it's the easiest and most convenient mode of transportation in our state. And I think this is helping to make things

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Transportation)]: a little less,

[Representative Kate Lalley]: reducing some of the friction around these alternatives. I wanted to make a little suggestion about, in terms of bicycling and the imagery that the agency uses, this is not, I mean this globally, could we please, please start to show people wearing clothes that look like they're maybe going to a job and not just always recreational? Because I think that that makes, it kind of perpetuates this idea of cycling as a recreational thing and that is a mischaracterization of how it's used these days. And I think how this committee has been, the policy that has been supporting that for the last couple of years. So just a request that

[Dan Currier (VTrans Public Transit Coordinator)]: Yeah, and we're happy to pass that on to our bike and ped program. Yeah, so. Thank you. Thanks.