Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And thank you very much. We're back on Tuesday, 02/03/2026, House Transportation Committee. House Committee on Environment asked us to take a look at H six thirty two that they are working on. I guess what's called a drive by by most people's standard here in the building. And we have our alleged counsel here to kind of walk us through Section 24 inside the bill. We're not going through the whole bill, but Section 24 on H-six 32, they've asked for any feedback from the House Committee on Transportation. So with that, welcome back to the committee. Happy Tuesday for us. It's all yours, Damian.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. For the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. So I'll do a quick walk through, give you a little bit of legal background, and then I think we have a witness here from DEC who can answer more questions about the program in more detail than I can. So let me pull up my screen. And this is from miscellaneous environmental bill h six thirty two that's being looked at down in house natural resources.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Page four. Page 32. Six thirty two.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: What page are you on? So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm on section 24, which is page 33.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: 33.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Alright. Yeah.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the this is amending session law from 2021 when we created this program, and it creates in the Department of Environmental Conservation in consultation with the agency of transportation an emissions repair program that applies to repairs of certain vehicles that have failed the onboard diagnostic systems inspection or what's known as OBD inspection. And this is basically where for modern vehicles, your emissions components are linked into this onboard diagnostic system. And if a component fails or a sensor fails or something like that, it'll trigger something for your inspection, which then triggers a repair. So this could be everything from sticking wastegate in a turbocharger that's causing the air balance to go off in the engine to an oxygen sensor to other pieces in the emissions there. So there's any number of components that could be involved in this. And so what this would do is it would provide point of repair vouchers, or what it does is it provides point of repair vouchers to individuals on an amount of up to, and I'm gonna scroll down here, up to $2,500 provided that the vehicle has a fair market value of at least double the amount of the voucher. And the proposal in the bill, currently, the criteria is that you have to qualify based on income for the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP. And this would strike that language out and provide that a Vermont registered vehicle owner's Vermont income tax status or adjusted gross income is as follows. So you're qualified for up to $2,500 if you're not required to file an income tax return. If you're at or below 185% of the federal poverty level, you would also qualify for up to the maximum voucher amount of $2,500. If you are at or below 250% of federal poverty level, the reduced voucher amount you would qualify for is up to $1,875, and then up to 300% of federal poverty level would be a reduced voucher amount of up to $1,250. And then this basically allows you to if you failed the OBD systems inspection and it requires repairs that are not under warranty, so most vehicles now come with an emissions equipment warranty. It varies depending on your vehicle. So some vehicles, it can be as much as 150,000 miles. Other vehicles, it can be a much shorter distance like 50,000 miles. It depends on depends on the vehicle and which scheme it qualifies under. And so if they're not under warranty and you require this repair to pass the inspection, then you can qualify for this voucher up to $2,500 provided that it's that your vehicle has a fair market value of at least $5,000. So you couldn't qualify for a $2,500 voucher if your vehicle's fair market value was below $5,000. Does that make sense? So and so that that's the change. My understanding is that this would increase income eligibility, but I do wanna defer to DEC to talk about what they're seeing with uptake and how they expect this to affect the program. Everyone else? What's federal poverty level? Federal poverty level for Vermont

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: hold on.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Is $15,650

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for a single person, $32,001.50 for a family of four. Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Keys? Does I don't

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: know if you does anybody know how much this will cost? So it's I defer to the department. I imagine they've got some projections or at least an idea.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Yeah.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thanks for doing this. True. I may you may have said this already. So this is this program started in 2021. Is that

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it was enacted in 2021. I don't know when it was implemented.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And the systems, are they just for emissions or is it for anything that pops up in This

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is for emissions.

[Candice White (Member)]: Just the

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: air quality. Yes. Which is why this is under DEC. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is addressing the emissions repairs, which can be quite costly.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And, really, the program's there. I could ask more questions about, you know, how you take this voucher and go somewhere or maybe have have it done right there at the shop.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My my understanding is that there are there are participating shops. And, again, DEC can speak to this more with how the program's been rolled out and where they where they expect things to go with these changes.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And has the amount of the voucher changed funding this?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. The voucher is still up to $2,500.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And if it costs more than 20 if it's it's up to 2,500, but if the shop, you know, let's say it costs 800, they put the new sensor in and, you know, you don't have to pay. I assume the shop goes and gets paid elsewhere from the state. If it costs more than 2,500, this has nothing to do with the inspection. Like, if you say, hey, I've spent 2,500, still not passing, you still don't pass inspection. That was the question.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So you do the repair and it still won't pass inspection. So at at that point, my understanding is that it depends on whether there's another component that needs to be repaired, so you haven't fully repaired the vehicle, or whether you can get certified at that point that you've done all of the repairs, but the sensor still won't function. I believe there is an exemption process there, but I would defer to DMV to talk more about how that process works for getting your inspection sticker processed if you've done all of the required repairs, but the OPD system is still registering an error.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And just one last follow-up question, which maybe you can answer, with the assumption that our state inspection program is within that taking on a federal government requirement for emissions checks.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So we do have a under the Clean Air Act, we're in what's known as the ozone transport region, which requires us to have a state implementation plan to achieve air quality. Part of that plan is what's known as the inspection and maintenance program, which relates to inspecting and maintaining vehicle emissions equipment. And so right now, under federal law and under the the SIP that we have, which I believe is I'm not sure that has been approved by the EPA yet. I know it's been submitted by the state. We're required to do that emissions inspection program. As you may or may not have heard, New Hampshire, our neighbor recently, passed a law to discontinue their emissions inspections, and federal federal court recently enjoined that and required them to continue doing their emissions inspections. So it was supposed to stop on Saturday, and they've been required to continue while that case continues. They also do have a waiver application into the EPA, which the EPA has not acted on yet. So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks. President McCoy, and then representative.

[Candice White (Member)]: So this emissions repair program started in 2024, or it was amended in 2020?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So assistance emissions repair assistance program started in 2021.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: So now what they're doing is changing qualifications from LIHEAP to your income tax return.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So it's the percentage of federal poverty level.

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: Yep. Okay. So we've had it right along. So do we have figures on how much when it was with LIHEAP? How many of these we actually

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: bring the payer or Department can provide that information. Okay. And

[Patricia McCoy (Member)]: then No, I think that was it. So that's a big change. We're just taking it out of the using widely just using individuals' income tax return. Okay.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Yeah, I'll defer to the department for all of the details on how they have administered the program, what sort of uptake they've seen, why they're proposing this change, and the day to day sort of how the program runs and what they're looking at. Any other questions on the bill?

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Yes. So the very last line, it says fair market value. Is that a robust enough description to be effective?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that And again, I would defer to the department to see how this has worked in operation. I think that is a fairly well understood term. Granted, there may be differences between, for example, J. D. Power values, which you all will remember from last year, which we use for the purchase and use tax as the clean trade in value versus like a Kelley Blue Book fair market value. And as you know, fair market value can depend on whether it's a clean car or a car that's in poor condition, etcetera. And so I don't know the extent to which that has come into play with their ability to provide vouchers, but I would defer to the department on that. And they can certainly if they think that term needs to be cleaned up, I would defer to them.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: A lot of times fair market value could be what I'm willing to pay and what you're willing to sell. So it isn't a publicly known commodity.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think we do have a lot of resources in the automotive world, though, that look at the broader market and figure out, you know, maybe you or I would not be willing to pay what Kelley Blue Book says is the fair market value for a certain model, but another person would.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: I'll visit with them about that definition.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And certainly, if the committee feels after they've heard testimony that that needs to be trued up, we can find out a better term that you're more comfortable with.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Dave, were you here when this was originally Pennsylvania?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was here, but I wasn't doing transportation.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: I'm just trying to jog my memory of why we picked the money. Think that was sort of, we had that for Miles Smart and some other programs, I thought it was sort of easier to sort of verify and go through that, that's why we picked them instead of doing the API based on your tax return. But I don't know if I'll make that up my head or if that's

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: actually what happened, but I think that was

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: actually why we did it. Was a little bit easier and it coincided with the other programs that we had that we're doing without paying

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: for refunds.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And I could certainly look back to see if I can find information on that. Yeah. And I'll I'll make a note to go back and see if I can find any info from I think Anthea was the transportation attorney at that point. And I still have some of her notes, and I can still find the testimony online, etcetera.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: So it was a rhyme and a reason why we did that. We didn't go the other route.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well,

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: just to make sure I understand correctly, the biggest change is not switching from LIHEAP to tax returns. That has to happen in order to create a graduated additional set of graphics to provide financial assistance to? Because LIHEAP is 180%

[Candice White (Member)]: of the federal poverty level LIHEAP.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I've got to double check. I think it's 185, but

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Correct.

[Candice White (Member)]: Alright. Patricia. Yeah.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: but, yeah, I'll I'll double check Just see if I can yeah. One eighty five in Vermont. It's like so So and I don't know if they're again, I think this is a good question for the department. Why why the proposed change? Certainly, if it's 185% of federal poverty, this opens it up to more individuals based on income.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. And

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't speak for the department, but that may be part of the impetus here.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Big

[Candice White (Member)]: picture. I missed a little bit of this because I was trying to find the document to follow you. So apologies if you Sure. Said this already. But we're doing a bit of a drive by on this from the environment committee. And it's a program that's been established a couple years ago, and they are suggesting changing some of the criteria, some of the income eligibility criteria, which may or may not affect how many Vermonters are able to take advantage of this program. So perhaps there's a fiscal note or something that they could provide to us to give us an idea of

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: how people

[Candice White (Member)]: were using it, how many people would be able to use it.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The department may have some estimates on that. I don't know if they do. And, certainly, if the committee wanted it, you could request information from Logan on this. But, yeah, I don't have have any information, and I I don't have any firsthand information on uptake either. So I don't wanna

[Candice White (Member)]: And there's no reason for us to dive too deep because it's already in legislation, but I thought representative Keyser's suggestion that maybe referencing Kelly Blue Book or G. E. Powers market value versus just market value, and that's a good suggestion.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. Well, it'd be worth asking how they determine that currently. One of the things to keep in mind with legislation is often we leave terms general to allow the department or agency some discretion to figure out how they're going to make that determination. And they can speak to how they're doing that, and then you can decide if that aligns with legislative intent or whether you wanna spell that out with more detail.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Yep.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Questions?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I would yield to the to the department this point.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Hey. Thank you. My name is Deirdre Rutzer, and I am the mobile sources section chief at the Air Quality and Climate Division at the Department of Environmental Conservation.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's a mouthful. So

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I am going to share my screen. I'm not a Zoom user. Okay, share your screen. So I appreciate the opportunity to speak today about the proposed amendments to the income eligibility of the Automotive Emissions Repair Assistance Program. So emissions, inspections, and repairs are an important part of maintaining Vermont's air quality because motor vehicles are the largest source of air pollution, which is associated with a variety of public health and environmental impacts. Importantly, the authorizing legislation passed in 2021 provides relief to low income Vermonters while protecting the air quality of all Vermonters.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I apologize. I have question right out of the gate. Yeah, sorry.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just to educate myself, highest out of all vehicles are the highest emitter of air pollution. Is it specific pollutants? And then question number two, is that true for all states?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I can't quite speak to all states, but it's definitely a significant source of air pollution. In Vermont, I know it's mobile sources we generally refer to. They are the primary source of nitrogen oxides. And I would say a significant source of volatile organic compounds and those together combine to create ground

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: level ozone. So it's focused on ozone, right? Okay. Thank you.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So this legislation provides financial assistance to low income Vermonters with vehicles that need emissions related repairs associated with failing the annual motor vehicle inspection. So only motor vehicles that are subject to the onboard diagnostics emissions inspection can fail that emissions test can qualify for this program. These vehicles include passenger cars and light duty trucks that are 16 model years old or less, as described in DMV's periodic inspection manual and the air pollution control regulations. Larger trucks like dump trucks or older vehicles that are older than the 16 model years aren't subject to the OBD emissions inspection, and therefore aren't eligible to participate in this program. And the program launched in August 2024. So following the first year of implementation, we determined the need to revisit some of the applicant eligibility criteria. The current criteria are shown on this slide. And the first bullet is bold. That's the one we're really focusing on. Currently, the income eligibility for the Automotive Emissions Repair Systems program is the same as LIHEAP, which requires an applicant's gross household income to be at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. In practice, relying on LIHEAP criteria isn't feasible for the agency for several reasons. We just don't collect the same level of information as LIHEAP. Not all applications to our program participate in LIHEAP. And LIHEAP looks at household level income, whereas our program considers individual motorist income. I've provided the committee with a handout also that you should have that goes into more details on why using household income presents several challenges with auditing.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: we're proposing using adjusted gross income, considering the number of dependents claimed as opposed to using gross household income. This amendment streamlines the eligibility and auditing process and makes the program implementation more efficient. And as an example, multiple transportation focused incentive programs like Replace Your Ride, Mileage Start, and the electric vehicle purchase incentive program that were previously administered by VTrans use adjusted gross income as their income criterion as well. So ANR wants to follow this existing process. AGI, adjusted gross income, is more easily interpretable by applicants as it's reported right on their federal and state income tax forms. And this change would allow for income verification and simplification of the auditing process working with the Vermont Department of Texas, yes?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I believe the other programs that disappeared or not disappeared, out of funds was a self certification and then with some audit follow-up because there had been some audit follow ups to ensure that the program has worked. So I'm assuming this would be a self certification and was the LIHEAP a self certification too?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So the way that we're currently running it, we have self certification, so they self certify. But if they also participate in my HEAT or the SNAP program, They can also provide their letter of acceptance just as proof that they've been accepted. But if they don't participate in these programs, to do the verification that LIHEAP actually does is a huge heavy lift that we haven't done. We're just relying on self certification. And exactly as you had said, the other programs ran. That's exactly what we want

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: to do, is do auditing after. Okay, thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Rose and Jason.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: How much this program costs and who pays for it?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So we only have one time funding. And in 2021, we received $375,000 from the transportation fund. So that's why we were working with VTrans at the beginning of the implementation. And then at the time we were trying to It wasn't our intention to implement the program in house. We were looking for a third party administrator. And when we did requests for information and we held a few requests for proposals to solicit a third party administrator, we failed. But we had gotten a lot of feedback that it really wasn't enough funding at the time, the $3.75, because they were expecting that that would be one year of the program. So why would we get a third? How would anyone propose to be the third party administrator of a program that was really only funded for one year? So we decided to go back to the legislature to see if we could get additional funding to maybe entice a third party to come on board. And in 2024, I believe it was state fiscal year 2024, we received $600,000 of general fund funding. So it was just one time funding. That's the only funding we're working with at this point.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: It's just gonna now, with your changes that you wanna make, is that gonna decrease the amount? To increase the cost of the program, right?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: We're hoping it increases participation in the program.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Which would cost how much?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I don't know. It depends on how many people apply. I can get into a little bit more detail in a moment on

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: that. But

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: no, I don't know what future participation of the program looks like. But right now, we're only working with the one time funding. So just to sum up, changing the criterion from household income to adjusted gross income would make the income criterion more applicable to this program. One, it would enable efficient auditing of the program. And it generally remains comparable with LIHEAP income eligibility if we're looking at the 185% of the federal poverty level.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Representatives? Were we auditing this program before? The past? Is that something that we Do you know about audit?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So as I indicated, we did verify some of the applicant's income based on the documentation of participating in the other programs. But we have not conducted an audit of the program.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. So,

[Candice White (Member)]: just to clarify, so the program was started in '21, funded in '21, with 375,000.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So it has gotten off the ground even though you couldn't find a third party to administer it? Yes. After we failed finding a third party to administer the program, we decided to run a smaller program in Hempstead.

[Candice White (Member)]: Do you have any just data on who's used it, how much we've spent on that? Yes, I do.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I have other slides I can share. And then just come back.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Stop

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: sharing. So we have had

[Candice White (Member)]: 114

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: inquiries to the program. And of those, 105 applicants were prescreened for basic eligibility. And based on the outcome from those that prescreening, 25 complete applications have been submitted. And we've issued three repair vouchers. And there were two applicants that weren't eligible based on warranty coverage, but they were being improperly denied warranty coverage either through the dealer or the manufacturer. And we worked with them to rectify that situation. So those vehicles were also repaired.

[Candice White (Member)]: Can I just ask further, was there funding in 'twenty two and 'twenty three?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: We didn't stand up the program until August 2024. We struggled with that third party administrator piece at

[Candice White (Member)]: the beginning, so it took some time. And so I'm assuming that there's still a good amount of that 600,000 sitting, kind of waiting to be deployed? Absolutely, and the program kind of gets to the point where you're feeling like

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yes. We still have the majority of that funding,

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: This

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: is an interesting diagram. Really, only a handful of people have been approved, and since then income levels from one program like the, as a bar versus just income as a bar, you had said, it's not really changing much. So the bar hasn't been, say, significantly lowered. We wouldn't So there's nothing to say that the program isn't gonna necessarily double or triple the amount of users. This is all there is unless, you know, it's not out there being pushed by the inspectors or whatever. I mean, do you expect more take up with this change?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So I have two proposed changes. One is from the household income of LIHEAP to AGI. I don't expect that to do anything other than to ease the process and simplify audit. The other second change, So this one is basically including a sliding scale of voucher amounts, And it expands eligibility for lower and middle income Vermonters while still preserving the highest voucher amounts for those who need it the most. So we're hoping that that will Increase the uptake. Increase some uptake, yes. I

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: mean, it's hard to think that somebody who we met a lot of you couldn't even afford a cab car and get it inspected, really. Never mind the repair.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Represent Casey and then represent Wells. How much how

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: much do we spend on the bureaucracy side of this to to implement all this? I mean, for what you have what was less than 17. People right that we helped.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So this is our current budget as of December. So we have implemented these three repair vouchers, which equates to about $5,500 The startup costs were a lot of the initial request for information and the multiple failed attempts to solicit a third party administrator. And then the majority of administrative is working with contracting with repair facilities and conducting outreach as well.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So we've spent 54,000 plus to do $3,600 in repair vouchers?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: About $5,500 in repair vouchers.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Okay. That's a good ratio.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: No, it definitely took some funding to stand the program up. And we are using a quarter of an FTE to administer the program in house at this time. And if you're interested in some additional thoughts on why uptake is so low, I can provide more information on that.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: How many garages are participating statewide in this program?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: We have two contracted facilities. Just two.

[Candice White (Member)]: We

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: were provided funding, but we didn't have a position. So we've allocated 25% of a quarter of an FTE of an existing position to implement. And I would also like to say that the intent of this legislation in 2021 at the time was to establish the assistance program as a safety net for low income Vermonters while discontinuing the time extension waiver, which essentially waives required emissions related repairs triggered by failing the emissions inspection. And the the assistance program was intended to help low income motorists who would no longer have their emissions related repairs waived. However, the waiver and the repair assistance program have been operating simultaneously, pulling from the same applicant pool. So it's my understanding that DMV is actively working on discontinuing the waiver with an end date of later this month. However, so five seventy nine repair waivers were issued in 2025. So once those waivers stop, we expect that more people will apply for the admissions assistance, admissions repair assistance.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: And if I fail an inspection, would you send me to DEC to try and qualify?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: If you fail an inspection, who would I be in that scenario? I'm confused.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Would you give me a chance to go to DEC and

[Candice White (Member)]: see

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: if I qualify? If I fail, I'm done.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: If anybody fails an emissions inspection, they're able to apply right online, or they can call if they don't have access, and we can walk them through the application process.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is the reflorage required to tell them?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: The garage is not The

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: inspection station

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: should But be more we have Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The inspection station that failed that did the test, that found the failed emissions, would they be required to sell them? It might be economically, might be an option to them, available to them? In other words, we have this program out there that not very many people know about. They're not required to tell them. How do people find out about it?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So as an inspection station, they're not required to disclose this information as part of the inspection. But we have done outreach and provided information to all of the typical entities that typically field low income questions and inquiries. We're listed with two eleven. We've given information to the community action agencies. We're collaborating with the Department of Children and Families Reach Up program. They also have some funding for families that they help to that can go toward motor vehicle repairs. They can also help with safety repairs, where our program is specific to just emissions. So we'll refer to each other's programs, essentially. We've done social media posts. We have developed materials for state inspection facilities to provide to potential applicants, but that's their choice to do that or not. And then we also have a program webpage. And then we also have information up on DMV's webpage and the automated vehicle inspection program, the ABIP program. We have information up on that website too.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Representative Keyser? So you say there's two inspection stations that are participating in this. Where are they? Shelburne and Bennington. Okay, got them scattered. Why do you think there's been so small uptake from the providers?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So, as I said, the waiver has been operating at the same time. So that's easier to take advantage of because you don't have to get your car over here. You don't need to make an appointment with the garage, go in. That's a per easier process.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: And that would blend completely with what you might think a repair shop would want, something that wouldn't be too complicated.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So And No,

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'm Okay, fine.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: It's just that we're working on a car. I would like to work on a car and not do his paperwork. And that's just that I don't ask for a reply. I just make a comment about waiver. You're right. That's too bad. Very valuable thought. What concerns me is that if we open it up to the How many waivers?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: It was five seventy nine

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: that we Yeah, gave an that this thing could balloon into a social welfare program, an unintended circumstance. So if we've spent approximately $20,000 if we take out the startup and outreach of $36, that gives us about three that were done for $20,000 a piece. I appreciate it's at the beginning of the process, so you're going to have higher startup costs and things like that. But you'd hope that you would get down to something less. But if you had even $10,000 per thing, they're talking about almost $5,000,000 So it's hard enough to swallow right now. Thank you.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Representative Pouech. And maybe you said that. I mean, can we look into the inspection database to see the number of vehicles that actually failed this particular Do you know that number?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I don't know off the top of my head, but I can stop sharing my screen and get to it

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: pretty quickly. And then a portion for a portion of those folks, they got a waiver. Correct. And a few actually appeared to gotten it fixed. But then there's a bunch of people that failed. We assume they've gone and, you know, had it fixed on their own. So, yeah, it'd be interesting to get the number of exactly what percentage of cars failed this.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Didn't say earlier that a 100 of a 115 failed at a previous graphic.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That was the people that inquired of the program whether they were eligible or not.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: And 100

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: of them failed. They

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: weren't eligible for the program. But they failed their admission test. Was 115 people who must have failed their admission test that didn't inquire about this program.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: No, it was let just stop sharing my screen. Me So I do want to point out Well, let me get to it and it'll be easier to point

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: out. So

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: these are the applicant in eligibility numbers. So the vast majority of people seeking assistance refer safety repairs. And then you can see that some just were not subject to the emissions inspection, whether they were probably older than the 16 model years. But you can see that this only 2% expressed, I guess they were unable to travel. So yes, we only have two repair facilities, but that doesn't seem to be the limiting factor with regard to the law uptake. So these are all the people who applied?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Okay, so more than half, it doesn't even qualify because it's not an emissions issue. So, okay. So I guess if I was under the assumption, people didn't get it because they didn't need the income.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I think the majority of our staff time spent on the program is on the phone explaining the difference between emissions and safety, because it's just not something that everybody understands.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So the two places that are running the program now apparently don't explain it very well to the people who think.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Well, we're administering

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: it. Yeah, gotcha.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So that's why probably we have a lot of administrative time is explaining.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: All right, so then my question was, out of all the inspections that happened last year in the state, do you know how many failed this mission?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: I'm going to pop into my email and open up that report. Are there any other questions while we wait for my email to

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: slowly we're going I

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: let us get behind, now I'm even further behind. And we do have a follow-up from last week because I didn't allow enough time. So go ahead, run for the invite, and then we're going to This is a drive by and we're getting awfully deep. We're to wrap it up. Ask your question. Deirdre will try to answer the previous one and this one. And then we're going to move on to our next witness in our other topic.

[Candice White (Member)]: So the program gives up to $2,500 towards emission repair to pass inspections. Why are there just two shops participating? I would think that any shop could take $2,500 and make a repair.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: So the way that we're running it is to contract with the repair facility. So the motorist goes to the repair facility, they diagnose the problem, they repair the issue, and then we pay the repair facility directly. Especially if we're not proactively verifying income eligibility and all those things beforehand, we wanted to provide the funding straight to the contracted repair facility instead of giving it out to individuals that were not 100% sure qualified. I think that was the approach we took.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: You're welcome. In 2025, so how many vehicles failed the onboard diagnostic emissions repair? Not emissions repair, test, is about 13,888 vehicles failed. And steeper. In the state of Oregon.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Can say that again, please?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Just the OBD, the onboard diagnostics emissions test, 13,888. How many inspections? For the OBD emissions inspection, there were 383,955 tests.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, there's two parts to that. There's 500,000 registered cars. How come there's only 383,000 inspections? A second. That's your percentage

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: for inspection. How small vehicles registered that undergo the inspection are required to do the OBD emissions inspection. So it's a smaller subset. Gotcha.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Casey, last question on this, and we're gonna This is a committee discussion again for after send over.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Did you already is that stuff been sent over to us?

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: The supplemental slides I did not include, but I can include those. Yes.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: The one

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: I was commenting on, the one on the finance part there?

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. The question.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Yes. I'd like to send that maybe to our lovely assistant over there. She can send it on to us.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: Yeah, no problem. That sounds great.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you very much. We're going to switch over to Jesse on another topic. I appreciate you coming in. I apologize for bumping you late. Made up for her by making the next section late.

[Deirdre Rutzer (Department of Environmental Conservation)]: No problem. Thank you so much.

[Candice White (Member)]: Thanks, Tony.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Vinnie likes to get into and just keep digging sometimes. Thank you, David. Jesse is here. When we covered quite a bit on highway safety and whatnot, there was a huge we did the joint hearing with the senate, and we took quite a bit of crash data testimony. And we heard a fair amount about some wrong way drivers. We heard about some fatalities. And there was mention of a program that is in the works of some sort or another. That's, I think, what we're headed towards for follow-up today is some positional information on highway safety and a program to deal with the wrong way drivers and some technology that I don't know if steel augers thunder, but I heard it's coming out of state south of us. They're using it fairly effectively. Couple south.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: I'll roll right into it.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So yes, welcome back.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: This is very appropriate for us.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Alright. Well, thank you for having me down. My name for the record is Jesse Devlin, and I am the manager of the safe system session at the agency of transportation. I'm sorry you're stuck with me again, but I hope today that I can provide you with a general update on some of the different, wrong way driving countermeasures that are available, kind of what we see as, constraints or challenges, talk about what we're doing in Vermont, and also a little bit about what we're seeing in New England. So when we think about wrong way driving, I know you've had some presentations in this session and past sessions, but when looking at the percentage of crashes, of fatal crashes and serious injury crashes that involve a wrong way driver, the number is still relatively small. And I say that not to minimize the potential severity of a crash because obviously a wrong way crash is typically higher speed and head on, but in terms of that percentage of fatal crashes that involve a wrong way driver, a percentage of serious injury crashes that involve a wrong way driver, over the last five years were less than one percent.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Sorry. Perfect. So in this case, I mean, this you said, you know, so somebody's speeding, crosses the red the yellow line and hits somebody head on. That's not a wrong way to drive.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Correct. So this be in a

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: only on an interstate or

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Limited access. Limited access. Okay. So this is looking at more of a divided type highway scenario where you have dedicated space for your direction of travel, and you're not anticipating a car coming the other way. So this those are typically classified as head on type cross center line collisions, which are similar in terms of severity and Yes. You know, concern. But for this data set, it's slightly different. And I know that, I know you saw some numbers around the number of reported incidents that we've seen, and it's an interesting data set because we, I don't know if you remember that exactly, but there's a large portion of those reports that do not have law enforcement intervention. So what that means is that a driver hopefully saw their error and self corrected, but it doesn't provide us an opportunity to understand some of the characteristics around that event, mainly impairment or demographics of the driver or potentially as important, where did the wrong way incident originate? So looking at kind

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: of the

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: national research associated with wrong way driving, what we're seeing is that there is a substantial percentage of wrong way drivers that are impaired, but There's typically an overrepresentation of drivers that are either above the age of 70 or below the age of 25, and a majority of the wrong way driving crashes that result in fatality occur at night.

[Candice White (Member)]: You were,

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: I was gonna say, but which? So this is kind of a national perspective. Okay.

[Candice White (Member)]: So this is Oh, this is nationally in the third or is this Vermont?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So the number on the top is Vermont and this is really kind of looking at the reported wrong way instance, we're really talking about the interstate system. From the national research perspective, that's essentially national efforts that are looking at the data from, you know, a nationwide perspective. So thinking about countermeasures, there's several different types of improvements that can be made to help counteract long way driving. The first piece that I'll talk about is passive signage, and this is really about fixed signs that are located on our system. In 2019, VTrans implemented a project that enhanced long way signs and installed retro reflective tape on exit ramps on Interstate 899193, And 189. And this obviously, this helps with drivers that initiate a wrong way movement at an exit ramp, but it's recognized that that is not the only location where a wrong way event can occur. So in addition, we've implemented a policy that will, include wrong way signage on back to back with all interstate speed limit signs as those are replaced to help provide an additional warning if there is an event that occurs or initiates on the mainline system. Middle category here is activated signage, and these are more technology based and essentially consist of a detection zone that would identify when a vehicle is traveling the wrong way on an exit ramp. And when that occurs, it would activate a series of flashing lit type signage that would hopefully, gain the attention of the driver and allow them to self correct before they reach the interstate or the higher speed component of the system. And the last piece I put in here is also infrastructure improvements because we're always quick to kind of jump to technology as an improvement, which it is, but there's also elements that can be implemented from an infrastructure perspective that help to make the initiation of driving the wrong way difficult or uncomfortable. These are things like ramp alignment or tracking pavement markings or the reworking of median islands to again make those movements difficult, make those unanticipated and unplanned movements difficult to accomplish. So the picture on the screen is actually of, the Exit 16 interchange, the diverging diamond. And I put this out there. I recognize that this is a massive project and is not the wrong way driving countermeasure for every interchange. But it is a good example of an element of a project that kind of inherently makes wrong way driving difficult because it is preventing those left turns or those confusion areas that often are the case with wrong way driving, and it makes the turning movements onto an exit ramp very uncomfortable. And as a driver, it's hoped that you would feel that it is uncomfortable and not a natural movement.

[Candice White (Member)]: So thinking about Do we have any of these activated signage in the state of Rome?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So no, but I'm gonna touch on that in a minute.

[Candice White (Member)]: So we can drive on anything on this road.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So so thinking about Vermont and the activated systems in particular, there are some constraints to it. And I will say that these systems are relatively expensive to both install and maintain. When you think about our infrastructure on our system, I'll think about traffic signals, for example, it's fairly easy to see when a traffic signal is not working properly. A light doesn't work or the cycles are wrong indicating detection's wrong, But with a activated system that relies on only activating when a driver is driving the wrong way, the only way to really test that that is working properly is to drive the wrong way. So part of the installation with the activated systems is to have that annual maintenance that will actually work to maintain, calibrate, and test the equipment, which includes temporary closure of ramps and is a involved process. And again, with these activated systems, I'll I'll kind of reinstall this that it does only address a portion of the wrong way events and it doesn't identify improvements for improper use of U turns or crossing the median or deliberate and proper wrong way driving. So from a regional perspective, looking at some New England states, New Hampshire does not have any of the activated systems installed on theirs on their network. They are looking into some potential alternatives and what it might look like for them. Massachusetts has 16 and Rhode Island 33. Looking at costs, installation costs around the state range between 75,000 and 100,000 per system, and the annual maintenance cost ranges between 4,500 and 17,500. And there is a pretty wide range there, and as more of these systems have come online, I think that it's been recognized that the maintenance component is more than was initially anticipated, and the cost for recent installs are on the higher side of that.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'm wondering if, you know, the percentage that it happens in Vermont and it's only capturing a portion of them is reporting is very low. I wonder if like in Massachusetts, I'm thinking of like the Mass Turnpike designed a long time ago, lots of opportunities for the wrong way, exits to go the wrong way. Do you know, are our statistics very low compared to other states or do you happen to know what their statistics are?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Well, the number I had on the screen, again, that was that's not necessarily number of incidents. Again, that's fatal crashes. Yeah. The hard part for us from a data perspective is we don't know exactly how many users are, you know, going the wrong way down an exit ramp and self correcting and it's never reported. One thing that is a benefit of these activated systems is that it there is a data collection component. So when there is an incident, it collects that and we're able to kind of report on that. And I will say just anecdotally, I don't have hard numbers on this, but anecdotally, I think all of the states that have installed it that I've talked to, you know, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut has a fair deployment as well. I just didn't have the cost and numbers before, you know, these slides were due. But all of the states have indicated that there are definitely more incidents than they had thought or was reported without the technology there. Thanks. What what do you guys do for maintenance? That cost 4,500 to 17,500 a year? So so it is vendor based. So, essentially, the the, you know, manufacturer comes up to site and physically works to close the associated ramps, which cost money in terms of traffic control, signage, and elements. Cost money to bring them up here, and it cost money to perform the calibration and tests.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: So so we don't have anybody that can do that? So what we've seen with a lot of

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: the other states is they rely on the vendor to do a lot of the, like, the annual testing, the maintenance in between more of the straightforward technology infrastructure type maintenance has been done in house. And, you know, I don't know the exact technology components to it, but I think that we as a state would have that functionality to do the in between maintenance and not the annual testing and verification. So I'm sure that, many of you have driven through the construction at the Exit 17 Interchange on Interstate 89 over the last couple years, but this is a project that included ramp and intersection improvements as well as a bridge replacement. And the project has was really developed in order to enhance safety, enhance mobility, and address an aging asset. Being a project that included modifications to ramp locations and operations and having to focus on safety. We elected to use this as a pilot project to install a couple of the activated warning signs, one each at the northbound and southbound exit ramps. So this work is anticipated it's anticipated to be installed in spring of this year, so 2026. And again, this is an activated system that would have a detection zone where the radar would essentially determine when a vehicle when or if a vehicle is traveling the wrong way, and that would trigger a series of illuminated signage to notify the driver of their error and allow for, again, self correction before it got to The United States system. Our what we're trying to get out of this pilot is a lot of what we talked about. Right? It's understanding the true installation costs, understanding what we can do for maintenance and what we would need to provide to the vendor, really understanding those costs and the complexities around it. We want to test the ability to integrate with other systems. So these, like I said, these do have the capability to collect data and give us real time information. And it also has the capability to link to law enforcement and different reporting systems.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Jesse, when you say it allows for driver self, correct? If I missed it, you're talking about throwing it into a quick, like, three point turn and then head back out the other way. Yeah. They're not gonna be able to loop so they're gonna they're gonna just so three point turn it and head it back.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: That's a good point. Right? So with the install of these systems, it doesn't necessarily mean you're creating a jug handle or something like that to allow for that movement. It's intended to notify the driver that there's an error, allow them to pull over, and determine a safe time to self correct. And you are putting these in this next this coming spring or summer on the Exit 17th? Yes. In spring. On the northbound headed towards, I guess, Exit 18 where the south where the northbound people are

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: getting off and the northbound we're

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: getting off where they're running side by side on that part

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: of game. So it'll be installed on both off ramps.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So The ones coming south.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So so the south so the southbound off ramp Another

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: picture, it's probably obvious. Where did

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: you I can actually show

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it. Yeah.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So so the ramp to the far left of the screen, that's a southbound off ramp. And granted, it is not necessarily directly next to the on ramps, but it is a different location. So for drivers that have been driving this for, however long, they're used to a certain scenario and this has changed that. So we did think that it would be beneficial to include there. And on the other side of the interstate, the, northbound off ramp is actually the loop ramp, and, that is directly next to the on ramp. So there is, a proximity component to that, and there also is a significant expansion of the capacity of that ramp. So, again, that is a different scenario than what drivers are used to. So we're really trying to understand.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yeah. I wasn't quite done. That's okay. Ahead and jump in there. Well,

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: it's two questions. One, where did the funding come to do this project? Sometimes we have federal grants and whatnot. So that would be my one question. And two, why not just put lights that flash all the time? It'd be easy to maintain. We have plenty of those everywhere, LED lights, you know. So it just is going all the time. The only way that's gonna see it is going the wrong way.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So first question in terms of the cost. This is under an active construction project. So this is utilizing project funds. So this particular project is a 100% federal as it is, containing safety elements, and it's within the interstate bridge program. So this is a project cost associated with that. With regards to the constant illuminated signs, yes, that is an option. So I know that some states have installed that in some areas. It's not one that we've necessarily considered here because it also doesn't provide us the data either. And before we were to make any sort of major investment, I feel that's prudent information to have as well.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So it's a pilot

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: project. The ongoing maintenance in FY twenty seven and '28, that falls to fund money then? So we'll be able to cover some of the first and likely second year maintenance under the current project. But after that, it would likely be within our maintenance.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And on the kind of bigger picture part, and I can see where having the funding makes an attractive tribe, have there been any other particular entrances or exits on 899193, our interstate fees that have had more than one or any kind of repeating wrong way driver coming up the wrong do you have any is there anything that stood out that there was another place that you would wanna try if funding were available? Is there any other exit entrance that's has this happened more than once?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: It's it's hard to gauge based on numbers, but in terms of kind of what we see on the site, there are certainly locations that I think would would take priority over others. So I think that, you know, we'd be able to just from a roadway characteristic perspective, identify better candidates for future installations.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there a recommendation coming at the end about what we should

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: or shouldn't do? I think we wanna see what we what we can learn from the Colchester installations before we, you know, make any sort of recommendation or plan for a full build out or partial build out or other locations.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And representative, please? How

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: many I know it probably varies from year to year, but but the last couple of years, how many runway driver incidents that we had that were that we know of. Yeah. So I think so going back to, like, this these numbers. Again, I just wanna stress that this is look at the overall number of fatal crashes we had in Vermont and how many of those were linked to a wrong way driver. So I think over the five year period, there were two fatal crashes involving a wrong way driver, and I think there were about five serious injury crashes that involved a wrong way driver.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White?

[Candice White (Member)]: Do you know what the data is from the past ten years?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: I don't. I just have the fives, but we can get that.

[Candice White (Member)]: I think it's significantly higher.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: What else do we got?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: I think that was it. So I hope that provides kind of a general overview of the countermeasures that are available, some of the steps we've taken, and what we're looking at for

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the future. The attention to this out of those very high profile wrong way crashes and quite seriously bodily injury, the speaker asked us to spend more time on highway safety related issues. And it is encouraging to have a test or pilot project. Last time we spent that whole multiple day and a half on highway crashes, there's been two or three more fatalities on Vermont Road since just two weeks ago. So they're not all related to wrong way driving, but certainly gets us off to a strong push towards the 70 in the course of the year since we've had, I don't remember exactly the number, but it's more than ten percent.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Yeah, we've had three fatal crashes and four fatalities. First month, we took barely even in the second month.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So something a little bit scary to represent the case.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Why would I like the idea of the flashing lights. It does sound cheaper, and I think I'd pay attention to that if I was coming on to it. But the I just why are we going to this was was that ever been tried? Have we tried? Are we just relying on data that we've heard from other states as far as I mean, both systems? Yeah. Really, both systems. So we don't have real we haven't had

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: installations of the, you know, permanent flashing LED lights on our system. We did progress to the activated system because it does provide that detection, and it does provide that information on the data component. Understand there's a maintenance component, and that might be something we learned from the, you know, from the pilot and some of those lessons learned, for, you know, potentially how we make future improvements.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: How many companies out there actually do this? Is that just a unique unique relatively limited, but

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: they also have a scale of products that, you know, can get to AI based all the way down to that more of this static sign with Illumination. So these companies do provide kind of that full range of products.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: We're short on money. So it's like don't know. I'd appreciate I'd appreciate it if we were trying to do what's more fiscally responsible rather than go for the the great big huge prize.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Yep. Kinda. And I I don't disagree with that. I and I think that's why we're kind of looking at this from a controlled environment, right? And it's not a, you know, full rollout of, you know, 20 of these systems. We're trying to understand what this can do and, how it should and can be used in Vermont. I'd be interested to see what they do for maintenance. I'd be like to see how they earn that dollar. Yeah. Thanks.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Correct. So I I heard you say, which sort of makes sense that these particular exits, the whole system has been totally redone. So where somebody might have taken a left turn to go where they needed to go for fifteen years, now that left turn is not there. They need to go a different way. So it does make sense that this is a place to put an emphasis on of like trying to educate and let people know is, I'll say two things. Is there anything else that's done to like, you know, tell people once that exit or that entrance opens up, is there anything else that happens to like educate people to say, hey, this is different, like in the approach or something? And then, number two, I would go along you know, R. Keyser in that for the cost of these, you could probably put up 50 flashing lights at exits. And and in the end, all this does is flash lights just like that. And although, like you say, collects data, but I gotta assume you could put some things on, you know, across the road, a temporary box for a month and collect that same data.

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Well, I will say so in terms of flashing lights, anything like that will have a maintenance component to it. Yeah. And I will say one of the things that is nice about the Exit 17 site is there is a power source that is readily available and can be utilized to, you know, provide consistent power to the system. And that is not the case for all of our exit ramps. And I will say that, you know, with flashing beacons and items like that, solar has works most of the time. But throughout the winter, you know, there is some reliability concerns associated with that. So I don't wanna give the impression that just rolling out illuminated signs would allee fully alleviate maintenance concerns and items like that. And I think your first question, sorry, was about kind of the change system.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Other education that goes on?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Terms of this site, I mean, obviously, there is, you know, new signage that's dedicating the messaging to the traveling public of where they should be and what movement should occur. This project will have street lighting at the exit ramps will which will again help to illuminate the where the driver should be and where they should not be. So, I mean, there's not necessarily a a large education campaign about, you know, the but Right.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Yes. So I understand the danger when you change the route, the exit. Thank you. When the driver goes through the wrong way over this new system,

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: the what obviously, law enforcement somehow is being notified. Right? There is that functionality. Yes. How does the driver know? So the the driver knows because they drive through this initial detection zone, and then following that, it immediately illuminates a series of flashing lights that will drive to their attention. So there's those lights. Yep.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yep. Yeah. So there's a certain amount of research and development as needed. You did ask me it triggered me a little bit of a question. What's the you mentioned street lighting, etcetera. That must have changed over the time as the lighting in my house has changed and whatnot. Is it substantially easier to light up intersections and whatnot now?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Well, so our guidance is a little bit dated. So our our guidance is from 2015, and one of the efforts that we have on ongoing and starting up is to really kind of revamp a few of those elements to both look at, a focus that has a little bit more on the active transportation side, but also look at the intersection lighting and items like that to make sure it's up with national standards and practice and really kind of bring that into the forefront.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay. So One more. So this system has the capability to notify 911. Will that be turned on when it's put in?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: So I think we'll have to work with our law enforcement agencies to understand kind of how that functionality will work and how it can work. But we wanna be able to understand those capabilities and test it, you know, assuming that all resources have the capacity for it. So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: everybody else is all set? No? Thank you very much for coming back in, Jesse, and walking us through this. And I appreciate the effort on the safety side. And I think it's an interesting note that our lighting issues are outdated and need to be looked at again. So I appreciate the on that for next year. Should we all be back here together again?

[Jesse Devlin (VTrans)]: Again, I think the focus is to really kind of there's been a lot of improvements specifically on the bike ped side for street lighting, and that's evolved since our guidance was in place. So thought it was a good time to really be able to kind of update that and have a focus on that. And that'll have kind of corresponding impacts on what we do within a nurse intersection. So that's kind of the focus of that this project and this effort. So