Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Good morning. What is today like Wednesday, February 11, in house transportation. A little after nine A lot of travel issues out there. Let's see. Won't make any comments about the roads. They were way better this morning than they were last night. So this morning, at least to start, we're following up on testimony that we had last year and on progress in relation to weights and measures related to charging chargers and where we're at and testing equipment. I know there's some stuff on order. I'm trying to think back a few of the other pieces that we heard last year. So we're looking for an update on the progress we made since we left at the end of, I think we were in here like in April or May year. And we're looking to see where we're at now. So I don't know who wants to go first, but we appreciate you coming to committee and letting us know where things are at. Welcome to the chair.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: The

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: new senate will be underneath the witness or under the day today.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Great. I can just pull it up on

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: the computer that we'll have it to look at.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Scott? It might be good unless you're gonna do it in your presentation, just sort of equate, you know, what we're trying to do with the charging infrastructure to what we already do with the gas up, you know, sort of. Does that make sense? Yep. Sort of explains what we're trying to do, what we already do.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: All right, do you guys all have the presentation up? Vermont EDSC legislative presentation 2025 summary.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: We've got Vermont from Steve Coulter. Steve Coulter.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: What's the name of it again?

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Vermont Weights and Measures EVSE Legislative Presentation Summary. That's the one we have. Correct.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: All right, so if you're looking at just to kind of give you an idea. So last year when we were here, we had talked about we were still waiting for some pieces of equipment. Received one of them. The picture you see on the title slide is actually the piece of equipment we were waiting for. And that is a testing unit, the two pieces, right? So if you see the gray box is kind of, this is a nice picture, this is a nice shady spot. Most of these don't happen. The gray box you see in the right side of that picture is the load emulator, the toaster, it's where you burn off all the heat from the power, and the black box is the actual testing unit. It is in fact a black box. So just to kind of get back to the framing of this. So, weighs and measures tests all commercial weighing and measuring devices in the state of Vermont, that being scales from being your deli scale to a truck scale, hopper scales, to a bunch of scales in between. We also do the same thing with gas pumps, liquid measuring devices, oil trucks, BTMs, vehicle tank meters, liquid propane gas, and a few other things. We do also witness tests, we've started with testing a milk meter that's been put in the state and a few other things. So, this is basically bringing the EVSC infrastructure into that same umbrella of that way. Everything that's used commercially is also tested and inspected to verify that it's accurate and correct for the consumer when they use it. And if you guys have questions, ask anytime. So, the things we're gonna cover today is again, kind of the infrastructure that we've seen out there, kind of show you equipment and testing, inspection logistics, some of our findings for this year, and what we're kind of looking forward to as we're going through kind of progressing this inspection in 2026. We skip to the third slide, should be commercial and EVSE infrastructure. Yes. Did you want it

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: to be on the screen there because it's not?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It's up to you guys. That's more for you than for me. I said, if we're all looking at it, then

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: We will

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: have some people come in.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So what about screen time? No, that's why I asked something. I don't particularly need it up there, but if you guys want it,

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: For thousands of viewers. Or you might always feel that way until I

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: say something wrong. And then

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: I walk out the door and somewhere somebody's listening. So I don't know who they do. But you're right. Maybe it's

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: a little shy of the thousands.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Plus or minus. It's a rounding error. If somebody listens, and I trip up, I hear about it.

[Steve Collier (VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Can share, do you want me to give a little bit of overview of how we got here while Scott's working to put that up?

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: It would be great, think what Representative Pouech is looking for, that sounds great.

[Steve Collier (VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Sure, so good morning everyone, Steve Collier from the Agency of Agriculture. We are trying to do exactly what Scott was referenced, is trying to make sure that whenever people are buying electricity to power

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: the power that they're getting, not getting paid

[Steve Collier (VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: and it is intended to mimic what we already do for gas pumps. And so the challenge has been never existed before, that a lot of equipment was purchased, including with a lot of federal and state grant money without any regulation in place. So there was this push to build all the infrastructure without regulation, and then the regulation is coming after the push. And so that's a challenging thing to build and what we're really focused on is we know that there's a dearth of power available, not too many. So we don't want to be pushing any viable units out, but we also want to be regulating this Yeah, water

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: you're muted. Yeah, I am muted, but I have my speakers on because I'm also sitting right next

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: to that.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: So,

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: is it okay to ask

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: a question? So we're getting there and, you know, how are we competitive to other states, just roughly?

[Steve Collier (VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: At the forefront is our understanding of it. California has a pre rigorous program, but we're really kind of leading on the leading edge of regulating, and a lot of that's because of Scott Nolan and Mark Bucket, who are involved in the National Council of Legis and Measures. And we we meet nationally with the whole group, you know, they spearhead a lot of these efforts. So we're at the forefront, and we started with AC, the slower chargers, and now we moved to DC. We're very pleased with how the progress that we're making. There's still gaps, not everyone is registered, not all the equipment has been tested yet, but we've really done a lot and we've gone a long way, and we're, and Scott is really in the lead of trying to bring any equipment that's not in compliance, giving the business the time and space to get it into compliance, focusing on accuracy above the other units. That all needs to come into compliance eventually, but that's what we're doing and we're pleased with it. Think we're making headway, people are understanding they have to do it. Our group has also licensed the installers who work on the equipment, which is really important to make sure they know what they're doing, and importantly, we want all of the money that's going to buy future equipment to meet the technical standards so we don't have problems in the future. So it's a work in progress. It's hard to build a program from scratch when something started as unregulated, but we feel that we're very pleased with the work, and

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: there's still work to do.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Yeah.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So I understand you are testing these EV chargers to make sure they are selling, that they're representing accurately what they're actually selling. And I assume that in your testing procedures, you are just checking to make sure the charger itself is clearly labeled and functional to the consumer. So I've noticed that there are many different types of level three chargers, for example. And so often you have to figure out how to use a new one, sometimes download a QR code, etcetera. So is that part of your testing procedure?

[Steve Collier (VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I think Scott is better. I always say yes, we're worried about method of sale, then I'll cede the chair.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, of sale and labeling, we are definitely looking into, and that's going to be one of our bigger pushes this year, especially in labeling, consumer knowing what they're gonna be able to get from that device. Like I said, they do vary in range, both AC and DC. So basically for consumers to make cost comparison between units and also make informed choices of, Oh, I need a little bit of charge really fast, which unit am I choosing to do that, regardless of the cost? So, okay, you're going to the picture. Gray unit is that this is the testing setup. Our other setup is the same black box, smaller toaster on there. Got you there. All right, commercial EV and disruption in the state. So, this is, and again, these numbers are moving just to kind of give you an idea. So give or take, we think there's about a thousand commercial EDSEs available to the public. And that includes, so to give you an example, the BGS ones across the street are ChargePoint chargers. During the day, they're supposed to be for state employees. After hours, they are open to the public. So those we consider open and available to the public and they're commercial because they're charging for it. There is basically an identical set of stuff up at National Life that is not available to the public. Anyone, if they go there, they can turn them on, but National Life has taken steps to make sure they're not on the maps for people to try to find them. Again, they're not intentionally being available to the public and they've got people there watching their parking lot even after hours of people get chewed out.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So those up there, not available to public. But if I work there, I could plug in into my church? Yes. Yeah, okay, but they're not public.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: They're not available to They the are commercial, but they're not available to the public. So that's, again, one of those things. Right now, those are following in line of not under our, or at least not an enforcement priority for us. So we're trying to focus on commercial and available to the public.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I hate to just ask questions. So, we have a grant program for community development that helps condo associations and whatnot put in chargers, level two. And I'm assuming some of those, if you're a condo owner, you pay for, but it's not necessarily open to the public. So they may not, if that was the case, if I had a 12 unit apartment building and I put in a level two charger for the people in the apartment to use and they're charged with a credit card, let's say, but it's not open to the public. It's not like even they might have signed it, but they would not be at this point under this.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Yes, well, just to give

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: you another again, there are other chargers. There was another one that was installed very recently in Montoya, I'm not gonna name where it is, but it is at a multifamily unit. I went and saw it this week just because I was like, what is that doing there? Because you can see, but it's available on the map, right? That is not illegal. What I looked at was not illegal for trade device. It's perfectly fine to use for their tenants. But right now it's available on the map, it's advertised as being public. So that's one of those type of things we're gonna have to address this year. That one, they can still use it for the tenants, but we've gotta get it off the public map so people can't find it and use it. And again, I don't know where it's installed. You basically have to block the driveway to use it, and it's an AC charger. So I don't think the intent was for public to use it. So we just gotta find Right now, it's a matter of some In that bigger case, the owner doesn't live there. I've got his name trying to get ahold of him to basically bring that off the public map.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So there is, we'll call it a gray area, but we kind of have a way of like, if it's not advertised for public use, then it can be a private pre use with an association, let's say, or a work business. And they can go ahead and charge for it, but it's their responsibility to know, hey, it's accurate and all that.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, and they also have to use proper method of sale, right? Like they can't charge by time. They still have to charge Or they can't charge by time alone. They still got to use the kilowatt hour. All the method of sale stuff still has to be there just because everybody's got to have the same method of sale, just like you wouldn't expect to go up to a gas pump and be charged by the minute you are filling your tank with.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: So as long as they come with

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the basic stuff, they're not going to be an inspection priority right now.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So on that same subject,

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: are you regulating

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So this charge area that's not available to the public, it's on the map, it shouldn't be on the map, is it your purview to regulate things like that? It's our purview to basically try, again. This is going to be

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: one of those verbs. Hopefully, it's just a verbal compensation. Hey, you didn't really mean it. No, I only meant this for my tenants. Cool. Can I help you figure out how to get it off the map? And usually that's just signing into your system and literally checking it, like unchecking a box or Literally, it's just a clickable button, and usually it disappears.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: And what about the checking it to make sure that it is indeed selling at the appropriate rate that they are?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That we would do, again, some of these we're not gonna know are there because we're still working, as Steve said, we do have a place in service program with service providers, bridge to service agents, to let us know we're doing, I've got a slide on that, but that's also one of our things, because we're not getting a lot of placement services yet, so we're trying to reinforce that with them this spring. Hey, you guys are putting this in, just send us a piece of paper letting us know that they're there. That way we can then follow-up and see where, are they fully commercial and available to public? Are they, as you said, multifamily dwelling, not really supposed to be available to public? Are they a private thing? Making sure of all of those things. So yeah, the enforcement will touch on those. And again, in the long run, if the intent is not to be available to public or not to be commercial, they will not Once we're there, we'll maybe check on them just because we know, because most of these devices can turn over in a moment's time. It's like, Oh, I'm not charging today. I need to charge because I'm losing money on this. Somebody can go in and change their system and basically be charging in five minutes. So, they won't be a priority, but they'll still be around.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Okay, so it's a low priority on your list, but you will be interacting

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: with them at some degree.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, in this case, the one we saw, it was available on a public map, which is how we find the new ones for the most part right now. And again, when you see it and you're like, Oh, that model, and we, at this point, we know makes and models that are legal for trade and ones that are not. That one showed up as a red flag of, Yeah, that's not a legal for trade device. Let me follow-up on that last time. Went down there this week. Obviously, the owner of the place isn't there, but I've got his name and phone number, so now I'm just trying to connect with him to make sure the intent of use, and then if the intent is whatever, then we can make sure it meets our criteria if it's not available. Okay, thank you. You guys talked about functional issues, but just to give you a basic idea, so of the DC fast we did this year, and we've got the numbers that ten percent of them had some functional issues when we were on-site, which is a high number given the fact there's probably only 200 in the state. On the AC side of the low, AC stuff functionality issues we saw only give or take one percent of the stuff we were at. We weren't at all 800 of these, but for the

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: most part, when they're there, they're working.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And just the ranges of, again, labeled, as you guys were talking about, the KWs, we're seeing a range for DC fast of 25 to 300, which is a massive range. A 25 is almost like an AC charger. And on the AC side of things, we're seeing things as low as 3.3 kilowatts, which is almost as slow as plugging it into a 120 volt, all the way up to 21.6, which is again, hitting that low range

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: of DC. Can I ask the functional issues, not necessarily measuring the electricity, but it didn't really work or so?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, functional issues were classified as we had a problem testing it. We might've been able to run one test, but then afterwards it wasn't functioning well enough to run the second test or third test, depending on what we were doing. Some of them, there was a set of, just to give you an example, there was a set of Teslas down in Bennington. The inspector went and used it, everything appeared to be on, he plugged in, started the test, things started and then went back halfway through the test. So, we were not able to complete even one test. At the same time, a driver came in and was trying to use one of the other chargers, and it seemed like the whole place had gone offline at that point.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think anecdotally, people who go and use fast chargers tend to occasionally run into like, I don't know, it's just not working. I'll go to the next one. You have to do it several times. That's not unusual, I think.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: And the other thing we're also learning too, and again, we use a lot of these, they all have a different rhythm to the way you plug them in and activate them. And of them are pretty similar, but some are very different than others where you really have to plug in and you have to let that do its thing before you activate it. Most of them, you can mix and match the order, but there are some that if you do it in the wrong order, they will not work.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: What

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: kind of authority do you have when you go to these places? Are you allowed to say, All right, nobody's going use these chargers until we're done and kick them out?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We can, but we don't. When we're doing gas stations, we do have some inspectors that may put a cone literally at the pump they're going to do next. So we usually don't do two at a time because we've got two cans and little cartridges. So, some inspectors may, they'll be at one, they'll put a cone in front of the next one just so they've got their two available, but most of us just get in line and wait. And again, with the DC side of things, usually it's not more than fifteen minutes if somebody's there, so it's not really a big thing. AC side of things, there was one particular charger across the street. I had to come back four times to find a day when somebody wasn't using it to actually test it, because it basically, some of these become personal chargers almost because somebody gets there in the morning, they're parked there all day for work, and they're charging all day every day during working hours. So, that's where the AC side of things, it's just a different animal of testing because, yeah, they can be used for hours. Even when they're done, as of currently, we do not have the policy that we would unplug the chargers to test it. We're still leaving them plugged in. Again, that may change in the future if the charge is complete. We would never unplug a vehicle that is currently charging, because that can be dangerous, it can damage the equipment and the vehicle doing that.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Some

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of them, they're not supposed to allow you to unplug yank the cord out. There's supposed to be a lock that keeps those in because as you pull it out, you can actually create an arc, like electrical arc, and basically weld the ends of the things, which damages the tips of both the charger and it can damage the plug in the car. And once it's damaged for one vehicle, it basically then, every time it is used, it will more damage itself and it will damage whatever vehicle gets plugged into it in the future, a little by little.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Representative Burke comes in.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yeah, so are you saying that if you're charging, you plug in and you have to go somewhere? You've been there for three hours and it was gonna take four. Does that mean you're not supposed to get pulled out of that?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: You're supposed to, when you deactivate, you're supposed to either Sometimes it's in the card, you can say stop charging. Sometimes it's on an app. You have to tell it to stop charging first before you just try to pull the plug out. It's not like something if you like, again, if I unplug this, this will turn off without any damage. If you do that in EV, you risk damaging both the charging unit, either the plug connector and the actual plug in.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Car.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Most vehicles have those things and they're operational. So, when you plug in and it starts charging, that plug is locked in that car. So, it actually physically can't be pulled out. Just to give you an overview of the program. Think you guys know most of this. So we license, and again, I'll get into the numbers and where we're licensing devices currently. It's $25 per plug for the EVSE devices, annual inspections of as many as you can get to. Hopefully, it will be all of the DC ones and a good majority of the AC ones every year. Going forward, we are testing for compliance to NIST Handbook 44 and method of sale violations. Some of the method of sale stuff is not. There's also method of sale stuff in NIST Handbook 130, which covers method of sale for everything. And BOMAA adopts both of those regulations. We also license RSAs, registered service persons. They might also be called dealer repair people. Vermont still has the older language nationally, they're called RSAs. We license those people. Most of the people that are licensed with us, and it's the same for every device type. These people can sell a scale, they can go place a scale and install it somewhere, place it in a service, they make sure it's accurate and correct, they send us paperwork letting us know it's been there and that they've been doing it. Or in this case, if something's broken, they can fix those devices as well. So, same thing. We're at this point onboarding all RSAs. Certified.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Then they can go ahead and start selling. And at some point in the year, more than likely if it's a DC, you get around to checking.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. And even new ACs we would like to get to just again, to make sure correct method of sale was used. And that's part of the letter that's gonna be going out, is just to remind people, hey, need to have this method of sale first. Make sure you're doing these things, make sure it's collecting tax, because we've also had a lot of dialogue with the tax department, but sales tax is supposed to be applied and it's supposed to be applied across the board. There's no real exemptions for that. So we're also trying to just mirror their message and also provide their information. Make sure again, it's even everywhere. It's currently not what we're getting there. Then follow-up inspections again, when we start to see stuff that's out of compliance like this year.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So the taxation question. So I'm interested in that because we've talked about when we're trying to that we're not getting taxes from EV charging like we are from gas. And so it seemed like an easy thing to say, well, let's just put a tax on chargers. And the response has been, well, we can't do that because we distinguish between if somebody's charging their refrigerator versus charging their car. But you're talking about we are putting a tax on level two and three chargers.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: All power sold away from what I mean, and again, Will Baker at the tax department is the person to talk to for all the actual questions, because he's the one that's giving me all this information. So, I am just passing on what he's basically all retail sale of energy is supposed to have sales tax, both state and local tax, if it applies. And Will Baker would be the one to answer all your technical questions on tax. I'm just gonna

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: be there. Will Baker and the tax part of Okay, thank you.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, he's been very good. We've presented back to back and things just kind of answered different questions. Technical questions, but yeah, from what he told us, it's supposed to apply to all stuff. Even level one? Again, from what he said, that's

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: one other question for him.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: But again, he just said all. So, and again, is like, again, there you could run a power cord to this outlet here, but is that being taxed on the back It might be being taxed on

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: the back He's selling it either. Has to be that Right, he's selling

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: good point.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: But that would be a 6% tax.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: 6% sales tax and if there's a little over 1%, both

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: of

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Right, and throw a gas tax out.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: And

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: can you tell us if right now there are some DC chargers out there for public that is collecting 6% sales

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: tax? Yes. Some brands are on the DC side of things. Just trying to think. ChargePoint is, Tesla is, I think EV Connect and ViaLink who operate are the in between for most ABB chargers were not as of the last one we finished

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: when we were testing them to fall. But assuming we just keep going along, better and better at this, at some point, there's an expectation and a goal that all public electric chargers that are selling electricity would have a 6% sales tax on it. And that will be collected and

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. And I again, this is more of question for Will, but I believe that applies to the tax would still be collected even on the multifamily dwelling things, I think. But that's more of a question for him. Whenever there's a chart, like again, whenever it's not free, there's supposed to be a sales tax on Will told me both the charge for the kilowatt hour, and if they're charging an hourly fee, it's supposed to be 6% on all of it.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: There's an

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: impediment. And so, I've got a level one at my house, and I'm not getting charged sales tax. So, you know, don't work. Yeah.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I have a level two, and, you know, it's going through my meter. There's no charge on my electricity coming in my meter. So is it a gray area?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: That's a question for Will. I don't know on Well,

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: that's a good idea,

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Peter. Yeah. Then again, things, again, we do the ask, we ask people just to finish off the we ask for compliance, then we do some write out, do some paperwork for compliance. If we're still not getting compliance, then things can eventually devolve into penalties and further violations. That's kind of how the program works. Testing equipment. We now have two testing units and that should be sufficient for future for what we see right now, depending on how many chargers we get. But we're feeling like that's probably a pretty good place for now. One unit can do AC and DC, one unit can just do AC only. On the DC stuff, current standard is we have to run two tests of that. One is called a full load test, you get as close as you can to 100% whatever that charger can put out. And the other one is you run at about 20% to give you an idea of how it's gonna How accurate it is throughout the charge curve. AC units, there's three tests. There's a full load, a mid range, and a light load, same thing. You get your percentage there, 100%, 60%, 30%. So those are the current tests we're running.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just a curiosity question. When you take gasoline out of the thing to measure that it's the right amount or electricity out of here. You must be paying for the

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Gasoline goes back in the tank, so we do not pay for that. This we are paying for. And I got my next would be the next slide. So these are the fees that we've been paying. Just to give you an idea of what we've been seeing for the logistics for our testing and the costs that we've been seeing. We did this year, just to if I the big chart in the middle of the first. So this year we did, we expect three seventy meters. Our total cost was 2 and $60.57 roughly $0.60 a meter. Costs are going up, session fees are being added to things where every time we turn it on, you have a fee. Actually this fall, we saw the highest session fee we've ever seen, which was 10.49 per test. So every time you activate it, we spend 10.5. Can you tell us what charger that was? It was at a car dealership on 91. Porsche sells. And that one we had an issue, and hopefully that's been addressed. It was not telling people what it was going to charge it in advance. It wasn't anywhere on the screen, it wasn't posted on paper, because either way, posted on the screen. Consumers got to know what they're going to be paying before they activate it. And that particular charger could be activated. Some of these, you have to have an app or you have it

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: on your

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: phone. Also, a lot of them have basically, you can get RFID cards that will activate them. Basically, it looks like a hotel key, right? You can just tap. If it's not on the screen or on the device itself, it just has to be because a lot of them can be activated with RFID cards. So just to run through the numbers real quick, cost per kilowatt hour we saw, we saw as low as $09 as high as $1 per kilowatt And then we've got the averages for AC and DC there, dollars $0.04 2 for DC, dollars $0.02 7 for AC. And I said, those are going up. We've seen an increase in the past eighteen months. We've been doing this. Session fees, those are getting added on more often. Most of the time they give or take 50¢, sometimes they're like a dollar, the 10.5 was definitely an outlier, but we did see it. Time based fees, you have basically $1 an hour to $1 a minute for charging on the time based fees. How aggressive somebody, the owner is trying to get that purchase out there.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That would be if you're done charging.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Most of the time, there have, again, been a few that seem to be charging by the minute when you're actively using it.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And maybe the charge goes up when you're fully charged or? Oh, trying say anything.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: The one I've seen that were One I can remember that was doing both, it was just a flat rate for you when you plugged in. As soon as you commenced, it was so much per kilowatt hour and so much per minute, and that as soon as you were done, the kilowatt hour charge obviously went to zero, your minute charge kept going. So there's a whole mix. Oh

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: yeah. Would, which And would be a good reason that when you go up to it, you know how much you're gonna be charged.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yes. Yeah, and that's super important again. And it's no different than a gas pump than anything you were gonna buy in the grocery store, You expect to have a price on it where you would know what you're gonna pay with it. There's no different image of this. There's just more ins and outs to this and more ways to charge. For instance, Florida has gone and changed what they allow in the state. They have changed from what the national standard is to, they have said everything needs to be by kilowatt hour, just like gasoline is by the gallon. So, that means any of those, you can't have any these other fees, whatever you wanna make, you have to incorporate into the kilowatt hour cost per kilowatt hour. So, it just makes it cleaner for the consumer. It's not currently the national standard, but I talked to the director of the program there. And he thinks, and again, I actually think he makes a pretty good argument for that making it as clean as possible for the consumer. Everything is the same. You've got to build all those charges in. And it's not a terrible idea. So, it is being done differently around the country. Just to finish up this slide real quick, AC meters take twenty to thirty minutes each because the tests are a little bit longer because it takes longer to get the energy out that you need to get to the minimum amount. They specify DC meters, fifteen to twenty minutes, they're pretty quick. Our initial cost of the two units of equipment was about $180,000 Thank you, the legislature, for taking up a good deal of that, which again, allowed us What that does is allow us to charge a $25 license fee versus some other states that haven't had that done. They have to charge $150 $200 license fees to cover the cost of their equipment and their program. So, this is where that has been really helpful because we've been able to keep the cost down to it's similar to other weighing devices, not having absorbent fees for these new things. And then, annual calibration for our test equipment is basically $3,000 per unit. Right now, we're be doing them on a two year cycle and we'll see how well they hold.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: And Scott, you did three seventy inspections for all of 2025. Is that correct?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, it's meters, yes. Great, thank you. These are all the apps we have to do this. They're all different, they all function differently. Some of them are nice and compliant, some of them are not. We have some that your receipt literally says estimated energy on the final receipt. I brought that up to the company that are supposedly fixing that because you can't estimate a receipt. We have others that provide different information. We've had some that are literally just not matching what it says on the screen of the device, which is also a problem. I've talked with some of the engineers in the background. They say, yeah, either the app or the device itself is not They're getting the number from the wrong end. There's a back end number and a front end number, and it's gotta be got from one of the two, and I don't remember which, to be the one that's actually accurate. We haven't seen any differences big enough to make more than a penny difference, but those are issues. That's one thing almost everybody's working on, I hope, because they all told me they have, but we'll see.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Is there any thought and do you apply, and maybe you don't, to anything else where kind of certify, say, ChargePoint and they're fully compliant, but well, installers, you say, you have technicians who get certified to some extent. Is there any thought of saying, Hey, ChargePoint, we wanna certify you.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well, so they would love that. The problem is they're constantly updating stuff. And Justin Wilson was the person I dialogue with a lot at ChargePoint, he's one of the national people. He is constantly telling me, Oh, everything, our whole system runs on the same software. Every unit has the same software update. I am constantly seeing units with different software on them. We had two units outside of our lab. They are closer together than UI IMGU. They were running different software for six months. And the software's upgraded probably once a quarter. Bigger upgrades happen at least once a year. And we were down in Mobile, Alabama for a national conference. And again, Justin told me time and time again, Oh, we're running the national, this is the software. And there were two chargers, I kid you or not, a block from the hotel, they were both running old software. And I can tell it because they're different colors. I can just look at the screen, I don't have to read the numbers. I didn't poke the bear down there too much, but it's just, this is the things you see. And a lot of these, you have to remember, ChargePoint is one of the different ones where they own soup to nuts. They are everything, but just to kind of give you an idea, every ChargePoint charger can be turned on with the Flow app because they've got an agreement. Now, the Flow app uses a different number of decimals in the ChargePoint system. So, the number is almost 100% different every time. So, that's an issue we've got to deal with both in the ChargePoint and Flow. Mostly it's on the Flow side of things. I've been dialoguing with Flow about other things once they hopefully get to the first thing I talk to them about, I'll start talking to them about that. Flow is a company that's based out of Quebec, not exactly Flow is. And different other ones have different problems that we've seen around the state and everything is different. The other thing too is a lot of the chargers you can mix and match. If you're not happy with your service provider, say your EV connected, which is that like infinity sign in the middle up there. If you're not happy with them, you can overnight change to LinkWell, which is the little pink star. I own a, let's say, ABB charger, I could use either one of those or I could change to a Ready or I can use something else to do that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So some of these apps, they're not involved in actually the equipment. You're saying ChargePoint is. They make their own equipment. They got their own app, and it's all integrated, sort of like mobile, have their own gas pump and all that, which I don't think they do, but maybe they do. Houston, Houston. It's quite a mix of things happening here.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: No Electrify America in the state of Vermont? No. Okay. And just going along, Representative Pouech's questions, it's a bit of the Wild West out here, right? And as an EV charger, you experience, it feels a bit like the Wild West because there was so little consistency. But from a user perspective, I look at ChargePoint, I look at Electrify America, which is not here, but it's in many other states, and the Ford dealers as just very straightforward, the easiest ways to charge. The Ford dealerships, you can just use your credit card. I expect there's probably an app as well, that's a really easy way. But I'm just wondering, you're working with all these different companies and seeing all the challenges and the different ways you have to download the app, scan the QR code, do this, do that, It's a bit ridiculous. So my question is, as you're going through this, do you have any inclination to recommend, here are three companies that seem to be providing a seamless, well documented user experience. And can we, as the state of Vermont, can we have some preferred providers because they are easy to use for the public?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I mean, you can, and some do work better than others. ChargePoint system is pretty seamless, but some other ones work fine as well. And that's the problem. Have never, as Weights and Metters, endorsed one company over the other, because we don't feel like that's our place. As a state, the state could decide to do that and we wouldn't be the ones probably deciding to do it. But they all have their own issues. And again, the downside to the ChargePoint thing, which is a fairly seamless user experience, is it costs the actual owner of the devices more to get that. They're paying a $500 a year per plug fee plus all of that. I've also charge points, customer service, I don't hear a lot of good things about them. Summer and I were on a first name basis with this one lady last summer because we had to call them so much just on our account being head of missions. So again, I don't say whether it's that some or better or not, because obviously sometimes they just don't exist wherever you're going. So, consumer is sometimes tied to, Oh, I go here, so I have to use this new device. And they've been fantastic to work with on the national technical level. They've been really trying to be active and trying to fix the problems we're trying. And their system works well.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: And there is at least one bill out there for requiring public chargers to accept credit cards, which circumvents the whole app download QR code rigmarole. Is that something that you all are looking at as part of your testing?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We are. So there is a statute currently in the state of Vermont that does require that. It's not enforced by us. It's under the public service rule.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So there is a law out there, like if I go to a gas station, they have to accept

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: credit card?

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, for the EV stuff, there's a current law that says all EVs must able to be activated. I think they even specifies that you're gonna have to be able pay cash for them. It's a very strange law, but again, that's not something that we enforce. It is already on the books, I believe, in Vermont, because it was last year, I don't think anything has changed. It's not getting enforced. I will give you the heads up that if legislature goes ahead and does that, the EV industry and its charge point is going to be the first and foremost, and they are gonna scream bloody murder. And if it is enacted, we can enforce it, but everybody will hate it. Well, I mean, just

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: cash, but even if

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: you said it needs to be able to operate by a credit card, right? ChargePoint system basically doesn't do that at all right now. It doesn't allow that. And so, you're gonna get a lot of these people, they're gonna be really cranky. Again, that's what is decided, we would enforce that. They would be very cranky with me, but it's just that's part and parcel of the job. It can be done, we'd have to give them a long lead time because a lot of the assistants will have Some of them will need physical upgrades and some of them will need a lot of changes in the background if they're still gonna be able to work. So again, not saying it's not possible, just saying you're going to get a lot of opposition from industry, you're going to get some that are going say, We're not going to comply with that, and then you have to deal with those repercussions as well off the line because of it. And to clarify, there already is a law on the books that is not being enforced. That's our interpretation of it, yeah. Oh, just one other thing about the app. So this one here is an app, and we're gonna probably start seeing more of these type of apps. This is an app called Monarchart. This is an app that was built to run other apps. So, what it does is it has a master account at ChargePoint or Blink or wherever, and these companies are trying to fight it. But you can get into that and it will, in theory, basically activate whatever device, whatever, to that one app. Problem is, a lot of times this MonoCharge app will advertise and charge a higher price than what is actually advertised on the device, which is illegal. If they wanted to do a similar model, but charge just a fee for having the convenience, that would probably be interpreted as legal. So, you're gonna start to see some of these as well. We actually found about that one from industry itself, because they were like, This is going on. We haven't actually been able to get it to work, but it is out there and doing stuff. So, there's all these things coming on board, to add a little bit more confusion.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Obviously there's a huge interest in committee, and we're past our time and we have other witnesses on another subject, and we do have a little bit of break time after that. I think we're gonna have to find a way to ask you to come back and schedule a bigger chunk of time because I clearly sense we're not done with our questions in the committee. Is that fair to say? We have a lot more I didn't realize, I guess, we were getting So into forty five minutes clearly, would like you to work with Gabby to bring you back. And I'm sorry to do that too. Or we can put you on hold if you can do that, take a break, and come back after this piece because we have another fifteen, twenty minutes in the schedule that we could or fifteen minutes from ten to 10:15 that we could do. But I got to be respectful to the I mean, got out for

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: a little while. I mean,

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: how long I don't know

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: how long it'll take after judging by the questions. This next phase is fifteen minutes. And then we have another chunk after that on people's breaks. Then we'll have to work with Gabby to bring you back by judging by the entrance level. So thank you very much. We definitely need a lot more time than what we allotted. And we'll thank you, and we'll apologize for that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And we'll

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: regroup. And what I'm gathering, I'm assuming we'll bring them back. But today is an advocacy day in the state house. And we do have guests that ask for some time to speak to the committee. And I very much appreciate it. Obviously, subject is very much of interest. And so now we have, I guess, coming up three. I'm not sure who's going first or who wants to be in the chair, but we're certainly welcome. Apologize for being a few minutes over and tell us about your activity and efforts this morning.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That's interesting. I'm taking them on my next big hedge.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: This guy, right?

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Yeah, we know

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: so much it's possible.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I mean, the funny thing, there's this app to manage all the apps, but we haven't been successful in getting it to you, is kind of perfect. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Morning. Morning.

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: I'm Peter Johnke, I'm the Deputy Director for the Vermont Center for Independent Living, and thanks for taking the time today to incorporate the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights. CDR, it's a member organization, VCIL is a member of that organization. And we work as a coalition to advocate for the human and civil rights for individuals with disabilities, ensuring that they're full and equal participation in all aspects of community, life, political process. Our theme this year is to write disability rights into every law. And our hope is that the legislature would consider people with disabilities when putting bills together and ask people with disabilities to come and share how legislation will impact them directly. I myself I refer to myself as a car less traveler, and I advocate for public transit for people with disabilities. And I've been doing that for as long as I've been in Iraq, probably about twenty five years. So when we say to write disability rights into every bill, what we're saying is to make accessibility and nondiscrimination an explicit operable part of a policy and design implementation, not just an implied requirement after the fact. In transportation, typically, means accessible infrastructure by default, sidewalks, bus stops, shelters, detours during construction, that's a big problem. Winter maintenance plans, that's also a big problem. And work zones, procedural rights and accountability, meaningful engagement, have a clear place to elevate problems when decisions are made to reduce access. And then specific language might be, for example, to have an impact statement. For example, the Vermont Agency of Transportation shall, prior to implementation, evaluate whether the act will increase, decrease, or have no impact on access for providers with disabilities, including access to employment, health care, essential shopping, community life, and shall consult with disability stakeholders on identified risk and reduced access. So to quantify meaningful notice for stakeholder process when access is reduced, protect access to work and community engagement, for transportation outcomes, Federal guidance for the older adults and persons with disabilities program recognizes that vocational and social personal trips are eligible trips. However, the local providers oftentimes have to eliminate some of those referring work trips and the proposed caps on vocational trips. So also in the program administration, a lot of times it's thought of to have explicit consideration with access to employment or community participation writers when setting up a trip because it's often thought of as just an administrative process, but it impacts people, definitely. And then a lot of times, we make a sub the assumption that the law complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it doesn't operationalize it. It's not there's no required review, no measurable outcomes, no process when the action is repeated. I do a lot of ADA work. I head up the ECL's Community Access Program. It's a lot of issues issues there. And also, service reduction is not purely administrative. They impact people directly. So we get short notices for trip cancellations or there's uneven incentives, financial risks described by local partners. It makes the program unpredictable to the rider. There's there's no consistency in its effect to access to work, life, even though those are eligible trips under the OMB program. So if there is any statewide program using public funded mobility trips and there's gonna be changes in eligibility, trip frequency, any of those things, make sure they've really included advance notice to riders, partner agencies, documented rationale why those are happening, and process to ensure the smallest possible negative impact on riders who rely on the service for essential activities. And this is especially relevant for the older adults and persons with disabilities transportation program. Some of you may have heard recently, it was in the news, that some people were directly impacted by that and had lost transportation to employment. And there are also a lot of adjustments to that program because critical care is part of that program. So if a provider ends up with more people starting dialysis or somebody who needs cancer treatment, it can throw off the whole program so that now other people who were on the program can't use it anymore. So it becomes really unpredictable in many ways. And I just mentioned the employment issue in the Green Mountain Transit service area. They for for the older O and D program, they were only allowing medical trips. So no employment trips, no social engagement trips because they just they didn't have the money. Was flooding out. We've gotten lots of calls about that. Alternatives don't always work. I had a call from a social worker who was trying to get an alternative for a disabled person who worked, but they they had used public transit, the O and D for the purposes, but they worked ten to three. It was not a regular shift. It's not a regular schedule. They didn't fit commuting hours, so it was really difficult to find any alternative staff. And there were specifically nine people in Colchester who lost transportation to employment. One of them being my colleague in our Burlington office. And fortunately, the town of Colchester came through, put some extra money in the system, upped up the percentage of their share. So the at least those people were able to restore those trips to employment, but wonder how many others weren't. And there's a lot of inconsistent inconsistency across the state because one call somebody said, oh, I heard the O and D program's running out of money. And so they called their local transit provider and said, oh, no. It's it's fine. But what they didn't ask, didn't understand, was the criteria for the program could change. So the providers said, oh, yeah, the program is fine, but it was now more limited because in terms of who was eligible for the program. And then we've also had lots of calls and complaints about reductions to social engagement trips. And it's important. I mean, we understand the importance of social engagement to health. It's vital. My own story, my wife has moderate dementia. Unfortunately, she can stay at home while I'm at work. I do have to help with medication and meals. But I know she's lonely. She's sitting at home by herself most of the day. She's not a TV watcher. And so I always try when I make appointments for her to make sure they're either before or after lunch. So we can go out to eat and have some social engagement. They replace his waist high, so that's usually where we go. But it's so important not only for her, but for me to feel like she's getting out a little bit and not just being sort of stuck at home all the time. It's easy if you don't have a life experience with a disability just to kind of not have that in the forefront of your mind. And so other ways to put disability into legislation is when you're doing definitions in legislation or when you're writing the purpose of the bill. So I would encourage things like using, instead of just transportation, use the word accessible transportation. So it's in the forefront. It's in the bill. People understand that word. I was just testifying in the Senate Committee, and somebody suggested the word universal. And I you know, that would be ideal, but I don't know that people fully understand universal design as opposed to be something being accessible. So I tend to go toward the accessible work. And it's just an example in this one particular bill. It just defined transportation demand management as, you know, what it said, these are ways to work in reducing vehicle miles. You can do bicycles. You can do, like, public transit. You can have staggered shifts, a variety of telecommuting. But what I would like to have seen is that instead of just transportation demand, management is needs accessible transportation demand management means. So again, it's in the forefront. It's on top of everybody's mind to make sure that people with disabilities are not an afterthought, because that's happened a lot of times. Definitely not necessarily intentionally, but as you don't have that lived experience, it's easy to not.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: We have a question for Peter, is it okay to ask a question now? No, absolutely. So yeah, it totally makes sense what you're saying. And I can speak for myself as we review bills and stuff, this isn't something that automatically pops up to check. It sounds like your organization pays some attention or is able to pay some attention to bills coming through. Has there been any training for our alleged counsel or any sort of formal engagement with them since they're the ones who who really get us going in the right thing. And they also review old bills regularly and update them. You know, if we're doing something, they'll go in and update language to make sure it's I guess the question is, how much involvement do you have in helping guide us and ledge counsel?

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: We're always open to having a dialogue about how should we change the language in here. As far as directly working with legislature, I haven't, but I can definitely find out whether other members of the coalition have. And if they haven't, that's an excellent suggestion to to do that work so that it's also in their forefront of their mind. It's also now in the forefront of your mind so that we do elevate that and have disability language in the bill. That was just one of the senators in Senate of Transportation said, Oh, let's get together on I forgot what bill she said. And let's work out for language on that. So absolutely willing to do those kinds of things. Representative Burton?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yes. That's a good point, and I think that it would require the sponsor of the bill to suggest to the drafter, you know, reach out to somebody like you around the It would be hard for you to make a direct connection to the real time, unless we we could figure something out. But anyway, I think it's a really good point. And I wanted to say thank you for bringing these to our attention, because it is true that we tend not to. I have a couple bills that I just introduced this year, and one is H-four 32, which is about insurance coverage for extra prosthetics, and we heard amazing testimony, it was really, you know, the difficulties of people who can only get one prosthetic because of their insurance, and they want to be, they're

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: a runner, they want to be able

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: to run, they need an extra different kind. So it's another aspect of being able to live, and one of the things that really struck me is this, that if you tear an ACL or something, a sports injury, insurance is required to get you back to where you could play. And this was not happening with prosthetics, but I think the whole idea of being able to be an effective participant is what you're talking about. We need to do better. Excellent points.

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: I can take other questions, but I also do want to talk specifically about, and there's a a companion house bill, which I don't the number two, but it was senate bill 75 and I wanna say eight sixty one or something. The the bill that first of all, and I applied before it, is to put extra money this fiscal year so that some of those OND trips can get restored. That funding doesn't get those rides can get back up to at least where they were before. It's crucial, as I pointed out, to have those essential services. I live in East Calais, so I use phone bill a lot.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: the other so, you know, it's it's it's essential to me. And the other thing about that bill, I I also really like the idea that finally after years and years and different studies all going on, Finally, we have a in legislation, alternative funding source for public transit with the package delivery fee. And and I support that. I do have some concerns that may disproportionately affect people with disabilities. I mean, me, I did a quick look through my orders and stuff. And so me ordering online, I probably spent about a $1.05 a month, so less than $20 a year. For me, that's not a problem at all. And I do that to support public pension. But for somebody who's on a fixed income, even that small amount of money could potentially be a problem. And the other thing I think there may need to be some tweaks in the bill is if I live too far away to use DoorDash or one of those shopping delivery services. But so if I do that, they bring down grocery, well, groceries aren't counted because they're not a taxable item. But what happens if I roll the toilet paper in there? That's a taxable item. Now am I gonna pay 30¢ delivery fee on that So little tweaks like that that we need to look at.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: What was the bill number? Sorry.

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: On the Senate side, it was 75. I can't remember whether he was on the House side. It was a companion bill to that. But the I mean, just as an example of why so much of that happened with people just even with large disabilities, people in rural areas don't have access to stores and stuff. I live in East Chalice, fortunate that I can ride share for work. So I get dropped off from the leave either at Wayside and take the bus onto Montpelier to my office. Sometimes I get dropped off near the co op and can walk to my office. And so I can walk in Montpelier and go shopping, go to the pharmacy, but and, you know, get the rideshare going home. But even getting to Walmart, which isn't that far away, but it's a whole different bus route, just isn't feasible. So therefore, I'm doing a lot of ordering online because it's the most efficient way for me to get them. So, questions there. And then I have one other thing I'd like to share. And I we've mentioned before is the infrastructure and the needs for accessible sidewalks in particular. I do as I said, I do a lot of ADA work and always telling towns that sidewalks are programs. So they need to be accessible, they need to be able to repair. Obviously, it's a whole another issue in dirt and maintenance. And that can that can be a problem, and it's not not necessarily an easy one to solve with my vision and vision only one eye. Really, really poor depth perception. So it's hard for me to tell if I have a climb over a snowbank how high it is or how far down it is on the other side. And I just got set up with falling all of sudden because I've sort of an expert in falling now. But it was enough. So I figured out I'm going to take this, at least when I'm walking around and I run into obstructions on the sidewalk or snow or ice or something, I can deal with it. In my backpack, I always put my backpack here. I just bury this little handy tool as hell, open it up, Now I have a handy dandy little shovel.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I can

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: just move the snow and ice out of the way. Then I don't have to worry about stepping over a snowbank and not missing the end on the other side, and then I can go along. So people with disabilities, oftentimes, we have to get creative and work things out so that we can manage. So it's not always easy, but usually we find ways to do it. So any other questions from people? Yes.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. I'm also wondering, so on the transportation side, I think some of the examples you've given us are good. On the transportation side, when VTrans is going to do a project, maybe it's an intersection, maybe it's even just paving, but sometimes rebuilding a road, they have public meetings or they'll have some public engagement with if they come to our town, you know, our town gets a chance to look at their plans and maybe make suggestions of, hey, you know, we really would like crosswalk or whatever we might like. Is there a formal notification to your organization and do you get a chance to weigh in on the plans? This is an opportunity for public engagement to weigh in on the plans to, you know, sort of a one chance to upgrade it.

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yeah. Great question. And I know there isn't a formal process for that. And I mean, it would be best for it to go to the Coalition for Disability Rights, because then it can go up to all the organizations. Right. Because different people with disabilities have different ideas about how to do that. But that would be great.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, mean, doesn't mean you'll get whatever you ask for, but you have input on it.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yes, that

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: would There might be things that get overlooked.

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yes, but oftentimes things get overlooked because again, if you don't have a lived experience, it's really hard to think in that way. We understand that. So that's why we are here educate people and go forward with that. So I wanna thank you for having me this morning, and I'm happy to connect with people anytime. Questions, let me know.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: And you have your contact with us? Or what is the best, like you said, Coalition for Disability Rights, but

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Yes. Well, could send I mean, you send it to me, I can make sure it gets to them. So right now, the current president of VCDR is Sarah Landerlinson, executive director of VCIL. So those emails either coming to her or to me, and mine's easier perhaps than hers. Mine's just petervcil dot org. So that's an easy email to remember. I'm happy to share that.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So VCIL sort of

[Peter Johnke (Deputy Director, Vermont Center for Independent Living)]: Well, mean, that'll change because it's I don't know when her presidency term is up, but that may go to Disability Rights Vermont, or it may go to the Arctic and Rhode Island, or, you know, so it'll be very Actually, I think there is, they have a, not a very fancy website, but I think there is a contact form on their website. Peter, thank you very much for coming. Thank you.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: It's always a summer to go to your pledge pounce on and have a flower session. Here it's good language, here it's not good. It might be helpful.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Just as like the annual housekeeping bills in many departments, where they're changing gendered language, etcetera, like that would be a fairly straightforward I

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: mean, I think you have to, you can't add it to a law that wasn't in the law, but there are disability laws that require it in certain places. Yeah, that would be a good time to like, because they look at it, they can check it. That would

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: be something they try to

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: square it up. The

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: thing that really struck with me is the importance of giving them a chance to review and make comments because, and just so appreciated the position of not blaming, but just saying, you don't if you don't have lived experience, you don't know what what you don't know. And I think as our population ages, the need for this is, I mean, it's so expensive to make these investments. We need to make sure we're getting it as right as we can get right, even knowing that we're

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: not going to get everything perfect. The minute somebody does the debt, oh, and transportation or, you know, once that happens, suddenly it goes. So then for a while

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Cascading effects. Yes, right. Yeah.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. So our guests are joining us via Zoom. We're moving into a little bit of a different area. So good morning, Mike, and good morning, Adam. I appreciate you joining us for a little bit of a background, which I'm sure you got a little bit of before the invite. But I've only been in this chair for one year. This is the second year, and I've heard history of, planning commissions used to have, some input into the transportation committees. It used to be a, there used to be a regional planning commission day at the State House where, a lot of people came and sort of testified and updated a variety of committees of all the activities that you're involved in, which is far more than probably most of us as legislators know. We're gonna But we're gonna kind of go through RPC one after another over the next few days. I'm certainly interested in hearing any direction that you wanna go. We're also very interested in what particularly is going on in your county, what's the needs in your county, what's the TAC activity? And what are some things we should hear within House Transportation Committee to know what's going on in all regions of the state? So this is a first for us and first of many. So I apologize up front. It'll get smoother for the last four or five RPCs that go than the first three or four. So good morning, and thank you guys. See you again by nodding your heads, you can hear me. And welcome, and introduce yourselves and we'll start from there.

[Adam Lougee (Executive Director, Addison County Regional Planning Commission)]: So, Chair Walker, thank you very much. Members of the committee, thank you very much for having us here. My name is Adam Lugie. I am director of the Addison County Regional Planning Commission. With me, have Mike Winslow. He is our assistant director and our transportation planner. So he's going to be our details guy when you guys get down and prodding into things. I'm going to give you basically a general overview structure, and then we'll talk about, as you say, some of the things that are going on in Addison County and some of our needs that we'd like to highlight for you. So first, just a little background. Addison County Regional Planning Commission serves 21 towns in Addison County. We have a very active Transportation Advisory Committee. That's what we call our TAC. That's made up of basically representatives of each of our municipalities. They meet eight to 10 times a year, generally once a month, and they're doing things like setting priorities for the region. We set aside some of our TPI money that we get from VTrans for municipal projects, and they're selecting priority municipal projects. This year, they selected some capital budgeting projects, for example, for a couple of towns that Mike will talk about later. We also have a very active road foreman network. That's the road foreman from each of our member communities. We get them together probably six to eight times a year, and they discuss things like mutual aid, so sharing equipment. They discuss some of the latest best practices for roadways or complying with the municipal roads general permit. So they're a good partner, a good activity, and we work with them pretty regularly. I'm happy to tell you that we just finished the Addison County Regional Plan. We sent that to the LERB last Friday, the Land Use Review Board last Friday. It includes a brand new transportation section, and that largely contains our plans, our marching orders, our priorities, our priority projects. Let's see, we organized our plan largely by travel corridors. It covers multiple transportation modes, so it covers roads and transit, bike and ped, rail, air, ferry. And I would tell you our priorities, our mission and vision priorities are to safely support all modes of travel, to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to enhance regional land uses and the region's sense of place, to exhibit resiliency to natural resources, and one that we hope is near and dear to your heart, to, leverage sufficient funding to, maintain and expand the system as necessary. I am going to let Mike go into details, and we're happy to answer any questions. It looks like you might be raising your hand, sir.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Yep. I just I have the presentation on my computer, but it's not on the big screen. I don't know if we wanna get it on the big screen so then anybody else joining in would be able to see it.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: There we go.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Alright, now it's. On there.

[Adam Lougee (Executive Director, Addison County Regional Planning Commission)]: Okay, great. Thank you. And Mike has skipped right to basically where we are in his where we are in our presentation and where he starts. So I'm going to let Mike take over.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: All right.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: So I'm going to dive into some of the issues in the region and some overview of some of the major projects we're doing. I'm going to focus on two corridors within the region that are of particular importance for projects that are going on funded by VTrans. The first is Vermont 22A. That's 45 mile or a little less than 45 mile route that on the western side of the state runs from Fairhaven in Rutland County to, Ferrisburg where it hooks up with Route 7. It is a main travel corridor, for freight traffic because it connects to the Port Of Albany, which allow is a place where we can have ships offloading on the Hudson River with Chittenden County. So a lot of the freight traffic coming to Chittenden County from the South is going to use the 22A Corridor. VTrans has programmed a number of projects along the corridor to widen it and improve the paving and do some reclamation. The projects are there. They're programmed. They're moving along. Our local communities would like them to move faster, of course. I'm sure that's something you hear from every community on every project. But once those projects are completed, it will be a really nice looking road. Right now from Addison to Virgins, it's a good wide road, good freight traffic, but particularly from Shoreham Orwell South, the road's narrow and needs a lot more attention, and that's where the projects are focused. With that additional work, once that work is completed, it will be an even more attractive truck route. And one of the big pinch points along 22A is the City Of Regents. City Of Regents traffic speeds drop from 50 down to 25. We have the only crossing along 22A of the Otter Creek. And coming off that bridge, there's a 11% grade, which at slow speeds, winter conditions has led to multiple truck stops. The and not to mention that the freight traffic in Downtown Virgins has for over fifty years been identified as a problem. There are 800 an estimated an average of 800 trucks, large trucks, tractor trailers move will go through Virgins each day on '22 a through the downtown. That's disproportionate to most other communities that we've had a chance to look at. It's much more than Brandon, much more than Woodstock. In those cases, in cases where freight traffic does move, it doesn't usually move through a downtown like it is in Virginia.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: We have that problem in Swanton, but yes, you have that in a few other places, but for gens, it's certainly acute. So

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: VTrans recently completed a PELLS study, Planning and Environmental Linkages Study. It was the second such PELLS study ever conducted. The first was on the Burlington Rail Yard in Burlington, which then led to implementation. The idea was to look at alternatives to taking the trucks through downtown Regens. The consultants recommended a new roadway to the north and west of Regens with a new crossing of the Otter Creek that would take the traffic out much like the Morrisville alternate truck route did in Morrisville. And then our policy committee that was looking at it locally also recommended that we continue to consider using Route 17 between Addison and New Haven as an alternative to moving trucks up 22A. 17 would add, I think it's about seven miles to the trucks to each truck's route. So seven times 800 per day is actually a substantial cost in freight movement. And 17 would require substantial improvements as well in order to handle the traffic. It's windy, it's narrow. So a priority in our region is to move that Pell study to actually dedicated V Trans project and going through the NEPA review to get that moving. We understand that that's a huge lift. It would be a big ask, and it would require funding approved by the legislature. So that is one of the big asks coming out of our region.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Another question for you. Are

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: there grants, federal grants for these kind of projects that are a potential source of funding?

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: Potentially, we would need to collaborate with VTrans on finding any of those grants as they might exist. I certainly think that when the Pell study began, there was a vision that there would be more federal funding available for projects like this. The that pot of funding seems to have shrunk quite a bit since the Pell study first started.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. No surprise there. And that would also still require some kind of a state badge.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Exactly. Yes.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: So we're not looking at this happening in the near future, but the next step would be moving it into the NEPA process and getting a project program through VTrans. And that's what we're advocating for.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Represent Burke has a question for you.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, so your request for funding for this

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: study is in this year's T Bill or next year?

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: It is not in this year's T Bill. We want it on the legislature's radar that is something is regionally important.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Any others? All right.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: I'll move on to the other major core, East West, North South corridor on the western side of the state is US Route 7, which generally in good condition. One item that we would like to support is the envisioning of roundabouts at the transition areas between rural land and developed land. We missed that opportunity a couple times in Ferrisburg. We would like to see it happen in Middlebury at the northern end of Middlebury. There is Exchange Street comes out onto US 7 at an area with 50 mile an hour speeds just coming out of the developed area of Middlebury, Exchange and with poor sight lines. And Exchange Street has quite a bit of truck traffic there as well. It's it's the industrial hub for Middlebury with beverage centers. AgriMark is down there, Woodchuck Cider, a number of businesses with trucks. So VTrans has programmed a study there, a roundabout for that intersection. It's been stalled for a long time. The scoping has been completed, currently scheduled for bids going out in 2029. This is another high priority for the region that we just want the legislature to be aware of and make sure that it keeps moving. It's because it's been a while that we've been waiting on that one. The other item that I mentioned specifically is a bridge over Lewis Creek in Ferrisburg. And this is more just for general awareness. That bridge needs a deck replacement. And so it's going to be a big deal when it does get replaced because it's a 60 mile I think I said

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: a 60 mile

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: detour when that project is going on for thirty days. Yeah, thirty days. And that's going to be again, that's programmed, I believe, for 2029, 2030 right now. Want to while we have this opportunity with you, we want to give a shout out to Tri Valley Transit, our transit provider in the region. We have a very good partnership with them. Adam serves on their board of directors. I manage their older persons and persons with disabilities committee and chair their regional operating committee. Tri Valley Transit offers micro transit within Middlebury, which is an on demand service. They also have some fixed route service to the grocery stores from the college. For some reason, my thing keeps moving. And then they have a rural connector between Ferrisburg or between Vergens, Bristol, and Middlebury, our three largest connectors communities. And they have recreational service to the Snowball, which particularly this winter has been very active. Their ridership is way up on that. So we're proud of the service that Tri Valley Transit provides and want to give them a shout out while we're at the legislature. We'll talk about the I'd like to take a moment to talk about the municipal roads general permit and how it's perceived by communities. We are in the second round of that permit. The second round requires all communities to have a second road erosion inventory with by 2027. We have completed those inventories for 19 of our 21 communities. The two that haven't been done yet said that they were going to do it on their own, but are now looking to us to get it done perhaps this summer. So we're hoping to get that done this summer. The towns really appreciate the grants and aid program that the legislature has funded. So we're urging continued support for that program. We've gotten to the point with where some of our towns, particularly in the valleys, are able to meet their municipal general permit requirements, their upgrading of their segments without the grants and aid. That's not as true in the towns with more topography, with hillier conditions. But all of the towns appreciate that opportunity to solve those localized problems that are put into they become more of an issue because of the MRGP with the aid of the states. And we have gotten reports from a number of our highway departments that the presence of the MRGP has led to reduced increased resilience in the face of, storm events. So we've been fortunate to not have the major storm events in the state that has hit the other side of the state. We've had a couple of towns participate in the FEMA declarations. But even the smaller storms that would have caused more road damage because of the improvements made driven by the MRGP have been less likely to need additional work. And so those were our main points. And we're happy to take any other questions.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Yeah, thank you for this presentation. And I'm just curious on the subject of Middlebury traffic, and you were talking about looking at a roundabout for Route 7 and where it connects with Exchange Street. I'm familiar with that area. But I also, I'm in Middlebury a fair amount of time, and my husband and I noticed that there are a number of intersections that are pretty challenging in Middlebury. I'm just wondering if any of these come up in your discussions. Like one is Waybridge Street and Pulp Mill Road. Like when you're coming through the covered bridge and there's like a three way and there's a stop sign, it's challenging. The other place I think about is kind of where maybe it's College Street coming into Route 7. There's just a couple areas in that downtown village which are really challenging for cars and for pedestrians. There are those buckets of the orange flag that a pedestrian is supposed to carry with them across Route 7 so they don't get hit. So those are some of the areas I'm talking about. I'm just wondering if you all are talking about them or if you have concerns about them.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: So the first one that you mentioned, the Pulp Mill Bridge in Seminary Street, that one has been identified as an issue, particularly for pedestrians. And there is a, I believe there is a now a rapid flashing beacon at that intersection. So there have been some improvements there made there, but it is a challenging intersection and the bridge is going to make that a challenging intersection no matter what. The College Street and US 7, the topography of that makes it extremely difficult to address, but the slow speeds makes it less likely to actually have problems. We don't really see the high crash incidents there that you might expect given how challenging that intersection is. And I think that's largely because, cars have slowed down there. The one that you didn't mention was at the high school, Monroe Street and where there's a series of two lights in a row. I would put that as a high priority. There is but there is a project program for that. The town of Middlebury is moving forward with some improvements on that intersection. And another one is on the South side of town and just before the rural area at Boardman Street is an area where the Middlebury Trail around Middlebury crosses and there's no good pedestrian crossing. That would be another spot for a potential roundabout. At this point, the traffic issues there aren't quite as aren't as bad as they are at Exchange Street. And so that's more in the development and scoping and yeah, scoping phase than Exchange Street, which we really would like to move to implementation.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Right. And so has there been it like that near the Pulp Mill Bridge? Has there been any discussion of a roundabout there at that three way

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: intersection? Oh, you're

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: on the way bridge?

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: So let's see. I'm just trying to look at a map.

[Adam Lougee (Executive Director, Addison County Regional Planning Commission)]: There's a triangle on the Waybridge side, and then there's the Seymour Street extension comes in.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: I guess I'm talking about the triangle on the Waybridge side. So it's once you come through the bridge and you're intersecting with, I guess that's Hulph Mill Bridge Road, if I'm

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: oriented Yeah,

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: There has not been discussion around about that there. Those are, town roads. So we would for us to move forward in advance something, we would need to be asked so by the towns, either Middlebury, or that's all Weybridge, by Weybridge essentially.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Okay, thank you. Does your

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: cat have a recommendation for Virgin's either Route 17 or I guess around about or alternative route. I mean, so either of those could work. And is there a recommendation for one or the other?

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: The policy committee would be the governing body in that more than the TAC. The chair of the TAC was part of the policy committee. And I think there's general support for a new road on the north and west, but there's also a feeling that reusing Route 17 could be done more expeditiously. I'm not sure that that general consensus is valid. I think it's gonna be just as difficult to use Route 17 as it would be to use a new road. But the consensus that I hear from the TAC and from the members of the policy committee is do something as soon as you can.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Speaking of TAC, you said you had 21 towns. Would you have a sense of attendance and activity in your, I guess, eight to 10 annual meetings?

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: So we get between five and eight towns represented at each meeting, fairly predictable which ones. Every town gets notified of them. We've got three or four towns that haven't appointed delegates. Let's see. And what do we do? We review oh, I skipped a slide. We review policies that VTrans is developing, the rail policy, the freight policy, and such like that. Our tech, I think, is unique among TACs around the state in that we provide grants to communities, planning grants to communities. The planning grants come from the communities they ask for planning studies. This year, we are funding four communities to do asset management studies, asset management plans, and we hired a consultant to help them with that. And so the TAC approves that funding and receives the final report as well as the communities. That is something that helps keep them involved.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, that's interesting because anyway, I'll go down that path. But I very much appreciate your putting the presentation together and sharing us with your kind of priorities in the county. And it's not a view that we've heard in the last few years, so we appreciate hearing what's going on there. Go ahead, Yeah.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And, you know, it sounds like you've got a couple of your projects in the white book around the in the plan. But, you know, we've been clearly told by B TRANS that we're not adding any more projects until, you know, funding sources are identified. And, you know, so until then, even though the tax might be looking at, you know, the future, it's gonna be hard to add more projects in the next at least five to ten years.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: Yep. We understand that. And we wanna make sure that the most important projects that we've identified continue to move forward. And even if VTrans is saying that, it's still up to us to advocate on behalf of our communities for the solutions that we've seen necessary.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thanks. Tough issue, for sure. Funding is our highest priority issue for the entire session. Thank you. And so, Adam and Mike, we appreciate you not only for joining us, but for going first. And we'll kind of keep learning as we go through all of them. Appreciate the work that you do. And I didn't hear any mention of Heinzburg Moncton Road. Know it's not a state highway. Like that whole if you can't handle Route 7 for a while, you use that Heinzburg Moncton to Route 16116, but so

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Well, I'm sort of curious on the bridge in Ferrisburg on Route 7. So they're not gonna put a temporary bridge there. And so for thirty days, how do you get around it?

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: The recommendation, the official detour would be Route 17 and 116. That's why it's such a long freight detour. There's recognition that most people aren't gonna do that. So there are local roads that

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Yes.

[Mike Winslow (Assistant Director/Transportation Planner, Addison County RPC)]: Vehicles and passenger cars will use, but freight traffic will be asked to make that long detour on 01/1617.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I'll put that toll booth on in Hinesburg sooner than later. Thank

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: you very much. We appreciate it and have a good rest of your day. And if there's anything else, please. Anytime. Thank you.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Thank you. You.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: We've got, just a couple of minutes. I know we didn't have a break, so we got four or five minutes before the next group if they haven't joined on. Bennington. Bennington, we do have a representative on the committee from that area.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: What do they need?

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: What do they need? You know, drive a lot of different places. Addison, what's Addison's got Route 7 is great through most of Addison County. 22A is great through most of Addison County, south of it's

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: not good.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Not in Virginia.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Not in Virginia. I understand. But the part coming out of Virginia and south through that portion of Addison County is great right up until, whatever, I guess, the turn to the bridge or whatever, towards the lake. Even if you upgraded 17 I'm sure the people who live on that don't

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: want that. If you upgraded 17 and it added miles, the trucks are just going go straight.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: You still have 800 of them in in that space narrow the road, or well, Brentport.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: And that road is much narrower, it's much Route 7 was a major project for years. It's been pretty much widening everywhere inside that Brannen Pittsburgh section and up north where the interstate part parallels. But the rest of it is all been done except for that one big one. 22A is certainly a Rhine in that area. Nick's on a little bit early, and we can start a couple minutes early, I think, if we'd keep on chucking through. So today, one

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: of

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: the things I'd heard previously that there used to be a big RPC day here at the State House and regional planning commissions had a chance to share their priorities, concerns, feedback with the different committees. We haven't heard that here in the House Transportation. So we're kind of making a rundown throughout the state. We started in Addison County and now we're in Bennington. And we appreciate you joining us. And we're interested in what you're up to, what your major projects are, whatever you'd like to share with us, and particularly at all as well as your tech group and what your participation levels are and what you're working on, and anything else that you'd like to have a chance for transportation committee to hear what you're up to.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you, Chairman Walker and Vice Chair Corcoran and members of the Transportation Committee. I'm Nick Zias. I am a planner at the Bennington County Regional Commission. Previously, I was a town administrator in Arlington and the chairman of R. A. C. So I wanted to highlight some of the projects that have been happening in the Bennington region, and then we'll get into some of the challenges that we faced. First, a couple of the really exciting projects going on in the Bennington region include the northern portions of the Lulinsick Trails shared use path. This project is going to connect North Bennington with Bennington's downtown and the park lands to the south and provide a safe bicycle and pedestrian friendly trunk that'll facilitate non car movements throughout the town. At the top of this, the northern end of this portion of the trail, is the Peanut Roundabout, a major roundabout project that really highlights VTrans' creativity in the design for constrained sites, particularly in places with really substantial safety risk. On top of this, the town has played its part and undertaken a number of local projects, including a planned extension of the trunk of the corridor to the south. Then further extensions further beyond that in the coming years. We've also been contracted by the town of Bennington to create a five year bicycle infrastructure capital plan, which is nearing completion. Outside of Bennington, we've made some really substantial improvements to our long range bicycle and pedestrian planning maps using some of the lessons we've learned from the state of Massachusetts. These maps will form the basis of our planning moving forward, and that they involve input from our TAC at the time. We've also done some safety projects in the northern end of the county, including in Manchester Village, and a major sidewalk project in Arlington that I've been involved with for my entire career at this point. So a couple of important challenges we've been facing that have been barriers to executing really successful transportation projects. First, there have been issues with trying to accomplish too many things with bicycle and pedestrian projects in particular. Our transportation team is really zeroed in on this. We want to focus on road safety while balancing fiscal discipline to make sure these projects are really successful. So we really see the proposals in Section 17 of H426 as key to getting more safety value out of transportation project planning. These provisions would exempt new bikeped facilities from historic review. So this review at best slows down the new sidewalks, crosswalks, and shared use paths while diverting transportation funds to address historic preservation goals. At worst, it really does stop them. While these goals are really important, we see now is not the time to be focusing on whether new sidewalks make sense in areas that were built before the advent of the cars. So while we see the solution age 04/26 as the best option, the idea of a study as proposed by VAPTA on NEPA related costs will be a really viable first step if that's not an option. Second, we see weak town planning capacity as a major barrier to transportation project execution. The small towns really struggle to retain staff to do this capital planning successfully. If they do do capital planning, it's incomplete and they may plan for equipment, but they really aren't successfully executing planning for more complicated transportation projects like bridges and paving. Instead, they'll save some money, cross our fingers, hope that that's enough, or that state aid will come in and bail them out. In the bigger towns, the 01/1981 world has put renewed emphasis on the need for local transportation planning. So this has placed demands on these towns that may have stretched them beyond their local capacity, and it's triggered a need for more technical assistance. While this capital planning is getting done, it's not getting done as well as it needs to be getting done. So I've studied this as a think tank staff member in transportation, as well as a public official, and now as an RPC staff member, and really see a value in RPC support for local capital planning. So having watched the Addison presentation, I'm really excited to see what they've been up to. While the state funding is not currently available for that work, in the future, it can really make for more self reliant towns moving forward. And then a third thing I wanted to highlight is delays associated with historical review of bridge projects. In the town of Arlington, we have a couple of really good examples. And right in front of Norman Rockwell's historic home is the West Arlington Covered Bridge. A couple of years ago, a state bridge inspection noted the need for major repairs to the bridge, cracked timbers, rotting decking, truss work, misleading. And then last year, VTrans awarded funding for the project, but only afterward did the town learn that they would need further approval from a committee, and that committee has requested design documents despite the proposal being a like for like member repair for existing timbers. That has thrown a major wrench into this project. And this comes on the heels of a separate VTrans funded project on the same corridor that experienced major delays due to similar lack of communication regarding historical review at the award stage of these grants. So we really hope that the legislature takes a deeper look to bring some clarity at the award stage and address the poor communication thereafter regarding state funded repairs to these historic bridges. So I'm happy to answer any questions or anything on these or any other topics you guys wanna highlight.

[Unidentified committee member or staff (non-testifier)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Thank you very much for this, Nick. So just to clarify, so you are requesting that there's language in H426 from last session that relieves certain projects of historic preservation review. Am I getting that right?

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Absolutely. That's all in section 17.

[Rep. Candice White (Member)]: Got it. Okay. Thank you.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Hi, Nick. Can you speak to, you know, basically we have a moratorium for the lack of funding, you know, the state hasn't been taking on some projects locally for the last two or three years. What are the smaller towns? Do they feel? Do you feel the frustration on that end? You know, what projects have you been trying to, you know, push forward and AOT saying, you know, we just we just can't do it. You know, I know there's particular paving project and puddle that they've been trying to get for years. They just, you know, there's no money. You know, we have roundabouts on Northside Drive, no money. But can you speak a little bit, maybe just your communication and how the interaction with AOT on your end and what your perception of that is?

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Yeah, I think the fact that some of these projects that are really needed have been delayed indefinitely, largely, or at least they're pushed out and maybe we'll see them pushed out again. Those round undeveloped on North Side Drive that you highlighted are really important safety features that need to be addressed. But there's also a couple of projects that are off the bottom of the list right now. They're becoming increasingly important. We have the status of the asphalt on Route 7A on the Southern End of Arlington where some patch jobs that were put in last fall are already coming up and it's been three months. So there are issues up there. There are issues with Route 67 in and around North Bennington, Chassevery area that are they may be programmed, but they're delayed and we don't know how long. So those are a couple of issues. We've had scope amendments to bring down the overall scope of projects like the Benmont Avenue Safe Transportation Corridor, are making it so that that project isn't going to get as much value out of the improvements as it could. But while that's important, we've and also seen projects like those in Dorset that will support the major housing development on Raptor Lane be delayed. That we don't know whether the funding status and up in Dorset will be enough or will be sufficient to justify its new town center that it's going to be supporting what may be the largest singular housing project in the county at Raptor Lane. And they did a giant study. They found that it's going to cost them a lot of money. And maybe they'll be able to capture it with housing money to support that project, but we'll see. But that project is very much one that is on the very northern end of the county and sits in a bit of limbo.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you for that. Anybody else have a question?

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: No. I mean, I would suggest you mentioned a couple of asks. If you wanna put that in a brief letter or a one page thing, that would be helpful for us, I think, and send it to the committee.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Absolutely. I look forward to doing that.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Thank you, Nick. I am wondering if you might be able to put a dollar amount with the concern about NEPA. It sounds like you had a specific project. And just wondering what, for the committee's edification, how much that added to the bottom line or influenced things. I have spoken to this as a concern in my community, but it's I think to have more an understanding of how this impacts things more broadly in other parts of our state would be useful.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Yeah, I think the understanding that I'm getting from the more veteran transportation planners on the staff are that this cost associated with historic review, really it differs heavily by project area. But in existing town cores, it can be 20% of the overall cost of a scoping study. And in some cases, may be something that at minimum this needs to be pushed down to the implementation stage. But at the scoping stage, we're expecting as part of our current scoping study in panel that it'll take about 20% of the overall costs of the grant to do historic review for what is functionally across project, across Route 7 in Panel Centre. So yeah, we're thinking in that 20% of scoping study range.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, keep moving.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Reach your floor.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Just to follow-up on that, it's my understanding that this has to be carried out before anything can proceed further. Like you cannot not do this. This has to be part of the scoping study.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Yeah, per the current agreement within the state government, that is how it is being done. And what we know is that that is not a mandatory part of NEPA, that that is a choice that Vermont has made in the past to try to address multiple goals at the same time at the scoping stage. But because we go a little bit beyond what NEPA actually requires, bringing it back to what is the kind of bare minimum NEPA standard would be a big benefit, particularly for these bikeped projects that as I understand it, that this is not a mandatory part of NEPA, period. So we may be able to say, as in Section 17, a categorical exemption is that these areas were built before the automobile. We don't need to be studying this kind of It is compatible. It's categorically compatible. People were walking then, people are walking now.

[Rep. Kate Lalley (Member)]: Thank you so much, Nick. If you decide to send a follow-up letter to us with your recommendations, I encourage you to go into as much detail as you care to on this particular topic. I think these are very valid points. The period where we cannot meet the end, this infrastructure and he had credible cost constraints. Think these are just common sense arguments and they did not jeopardize historic assets. Other places are managing to keep their historic assets. I think we're possibly doing more than we need to at great expense.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: Excellent. Anybody else have it? We appreciate you joining us. I'm glad to hear that you listened to part of the Addison County. It sounded like you heard a couple of things that were worth checking out. We appreciate the feedback, and I can gather that I think there's interest in the committee to hearing a little bit more from you. So if you get a chance to do that, we appreciate it.

[Nick Zaiac (Planner, Bennington County Regional Commission)]: You can expect our letter soon.

[Scott Nolan (Weights & Measures Program, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Thank

[Rep. Matt Walker (Chair)]: you. Thank you. Have a great day. Thank you.