Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: There it is. Good morning, Thursday, 02/26/2020 02/26/2026, House Committee on Transportation. We are joined this morning by our legislative council. We went and took feedback. Just reset, make sure we're all on the same page. Took a lot of time to get a tour of the state, through the regional planning commissions, the transportation advisory committees, the planning commission executive directors, the whole variety all around the state. One of the themes that we discussed as a committee that we thought we had heard was there was a lot of discussion about can we or can we not change speed limits? There was a lot of talk about traffic calming. There was a lot of talk about villages, designated downtown centers. There was some sidewalks. There was lots of other pieces. One of the reoccurring themes that we had was that towns and people that would like to, municipalities would like to change speed limits. There was a lot of discussion to that. So what we asked the agency and our election council to work on is what are all the various scenarios that would be involved in setting a speed limit or potentially changing a speed limit. And this morning is what we're spending time on understanding, at least the effort here is to understand what are all the scenarios out there and how would a community or a municipality go about the process of changing up or down speed limits? So at least we know what is the current process before we were to get into the possibility of whether or not there should be any changes to that process. Are all the situations and where do we go? So that's what we're trying to do this morning. And Damien, welcome back to the witness chair. Understand you worked with the agency to develop the scenarios and present them to us. Then we're going to have the agency comment on the information what the law says. And get their comment on it at next. But, Lourdes, you're going tell us what the law is.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I'm going to give you well, for the record, I'm Damon Leonard from the Office of Legislative Council. I'm going to give you about a 10,000 foot overview. So I am going to defer to the agency on the practicalities of what a traffic and engineering study looks like, what traffic calming measures are, and so forth. But I'll give you an overview. And I will say that we're going to get a little bit into zoning law, which a long time ago, early in my legal career, I was a land use and zoning attorney. I am not that anymore. So I may not be able to answer all of your questions. Their zoning laws changed a lot in Vermont the last fifteen years. So but I will try to give you an overview. And if there are questions I can't answer, I'll take them back to my colleagues who can, or I'll pass them on to the agency if if it's something that they might be able to answer. So let me pull up my presentation for you, and we'll go on.

[Rep. Candice White]: Oh,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: did I not send this to Gabby? Okay. I'm sorry. I will pause and send it to the committee. Sorry about that. So while I'm getting started, though, it's only about seven slides, and we're we're really working in two areas. One is the regular motor vehicle laws where there are rules around how you set speed limits for state highways and municipal highways. And then you get into the zoning laws where they're essentially there are special rules for certain areas that have been designated in the state under both there's a long standing one under our designated downtowns program, and then there are some newer ones that came about with the state infrastructure or the the new I'll call it the new downtowns program, which allows you to designate village centers and designated neighborhoods. So Sorry about the not having sent this to you ahead of time. It should appear in your mailboxes momentarily. Alright. Now let's go ahead and get into the presentation. Alright. So before I get into the state law, I'm gonna talk about the manual on uniform traffic control devices or MUTCH, which is the the federal regulations that apply to things like signs, including speed limit signs. And so this is basically federal standards and guidance that's applied nationally so that when you go from Vermont to New York, to Pennsylvania, to Ohio, to Indiana, you're going through and you're seeing the same signs and you're seeing the same traffic markings on the road so that you have predictable laws and you don't end up with different markings, meaning different things in different states. Under Vermont law 23 VSA ten twenty five, we provide that the MUTSID as amended shall be the standard for all traffic control signs, signals, markings within the state. So that basically sets up those federal guidelines as the default. And the MUTCD provides that when you're setting speed limits in general, speed zones other than statutory speed limits so this is something where you say all limited access highways in the state shall have a speed limit of blank, Shall only be established on the basis of an engineering study that has been performed in accordance with traffic engineering practices, and the engineering study shall consider the roadway context. It then goes on to define that, and that includes things like schools, businesses, pedestrian traffic, bicycles, other traveling infrastructure there, bikes, pedestrians, vegetation. So if there's vegetation that limits site distances, if the terrain limits site distances, etcetera. And so it talks about all of these different things, traffic volume, etcetera. So that's sort of the default when you're setting speed limits, and Vermont's law reflects that.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So the federal requirement says, really, in no case can you stat or change a speed zone limit without a traffic stem. So

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that It's the default. Think of this as the default. So it's really important to note that the requirement around the is basically that states substantially be substantially consistent with it. Not that you have to be 100% entirely consistent with it. So lot of states have supplemented or modified it. I think probably every state, although I have not done a comprehensive survey. Many states adopt a state manual which takes the federal manual and modifies it. Some states do like we do and they adopt the federal manual and then adopt a supplement. Other states just adopt the federal manual wholesale and like Vermont, they then modify that through their statutes. So and that's what we've done in Vermont is the default, and you'll see this reflected in our statutes is to do a traffic and engineering study when you set a speed limit. However, we have set instances, which I'm going to talk about towards the end of this presentation, where that is not expressly required by statute. And so we'll we'll kind of work through that, but we've set that up in our statutes. But the the default, both when the traffic committee is setting it for a state highway or in the instances where a legislative body of a municipality is allowed to set it is that there's a traffic and engineering study to support the speed limit. We then have a couple of special zoning provisions that when you're in one of those designated areas, you can set a speed limit below those levels, and there is no requirement for a traffic or engineering study in the statute. And so I'll talk about that as we go through. So 23 BSA ten eighty one is the basic rule and the maximum limits in the state statute. So if no other limit is set, the maximum legal speed on a state highway is 50 miles an hour and then the maximum can be altered for two twenty three VSA 1,003, QR of seven and ten which is I will say it's actually an incomplete list because there are three other provisions in title 24 that also allows speed limits to be altered. 23 v s a 1,003 permits the traffic committee to determine on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation that a step for its speed limit should be revised. They can revise it up or down. It applies to all highways, including school zones and interstates, and it becomes effective when the appropriate signage has been installed. And for school zones, the state law requires them to consider data collected for school for a school travel plan as part of the federal safe routes to school program in addition to any engineering and traffic data. So this means that when you're in that school zone there, there's additional data that they'll consider. But this is the default for state highways. And so this can be on the interstate. It can be on Route 2, Route 7, etcetera. And the traffic committee is sort of the default there, and they work with traffic engineers at the agency as I understand it.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Can you describe who makes up the traffic committee?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a great question. I might punt that one to the agency here. Jeremy

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Vee, chief engineer. So the traffic Committee is comprised of the Secretary of Transportation, the Commissioner of EMV, and the Commissioner of Public Safety for their delegates, and currently both the Secretary and Commissioner AOT sit on it, and then there's a delegate for public safety.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes, thank you. Representative Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: No, sir.

[Speaker 0]: Sorry, I misunderstood my thoughts. Alright,

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so next up is 23 BSA 1004, which is the interstate and other limited access highways. Again, it permits the traffic committee to adopt rules governing vehicle traffic on limited access highways. So this includes the inner interstate and then several state routes, portions of them where it's limited access. And then the regulations governing the use of state highways and limited access facilities provides that the speed limit is 65 miles per hour. So that's set in rule, adopted by the traffic committee. '23 VSA 1,007 allows for local speed limit settings. So the legislative body I wanna be before I get started here, I want you to note that from the orange block to the green block, we have a difference. Orange block at the very top is any legislative body of any municipality, or it's the legislative body of any municipality. The green block is specifically the legislative body of a city. So if you are in a town, this authority does not apply if you're in a village. If you're in a Gore, does not apply. You have to be in a city. So legislative body of a municipality, again, on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation, set a speed limit between twenty five and fifty miles per hour on any municipal highway. So any town highway class one through four, you can set the speed limit between twenty five and fifty miles an hour. If you choose not to do an engineering and traffic investigation, the speed limit can be set between thirty five and fifty. So in order to get below 35, you're required to have that traffic and engineering and engineering and traffic investigation. And then on all unpaved roads in the municipality, you can set a blanket speed limit of between thirty five and fifty.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So the Slack board could do this. They could change a road that's 45 now to 35.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If it's a town highway.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Without And an engineering or traffic study.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's what the law permits. Yep. But if they wanna go below 35, they have to do an engineering and traffic study. So and they could choose to do the engineering and traffic study for the higher speeds. And the engineering and traffic investigation may show that the appropriate speed is 40 or 45 miles an hour. And then they would set it in accordance with that study. So that's something to keep in mind. And I can't speak to the mechanics of how the study is done and how you've come to the conclusion. But the study may show that the speed limit that you were having, wouldn't it be great if we went down to 25 here, is not supported by the data.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Just a follow-up. So, can hire any traffic engineer or are they

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding is that by anybody? So this is something where I would defer to AOT, but my understanding is it doesn't necessarily have to be a traffic engineer who performs the study. But again, I would defer to AOT.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Sure. So I think there's professional ethics that come in here where you would be a licensed professional engineer and have, how do I say it, some experience and capabilities within the traffic realm, and by stamping that study, you're serving as such. I think at the very minimum, it would need to be stated by an engineer. You can't be a self proclaimed expert without any credentials.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That's the expectation, Ben. All right.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Well, perfect. Representative Lalley, you're up

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: in the

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: next I'm a little confused. I'm wondering if there's a downtown designation designated area.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I haven't gotten there yet.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Okay. Yeah. Are

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: there other questions on the first part? So,

[Rep. Candice White]: yeah, just to kind of push a little further and to understand, the engineering of the traffic investigation, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think it's based on seeing how fast the traffic is going and making a recommendation based on the current traffic speed, what the recommendation should be. So if my town feels like the town of Warren wants to slow the traffic going on Route 100 by the town of Warren entry, and it's set at 50 miles per hour, and they feel like it should go down because of people crossing the road, etcetera. I think they've done a traffic study and it's found that indeed traffic goes 50 miles per hour. The study is showing what the traffic is actually traveling at, but it's not reflecting the desires of the town that feel like it's too dangerous traveling at the rate that cars are currently traveling at. So I feel like that's kind of a critical piece. How does the town supersede the study that says this is how traffic is traveling, but maybe it's not the way it should be? So

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: what we know from experience, both nationally and state, is that changing the speed limit alone doesn't necessarily result in behavior change. So when we do an engineering study, yes, existing seeds are a component of that, but then you can look at the geometry of the roadway, any other mitigating or extenuating circumstances. And I think what we see, would recommend, is that if you want to change the behavior, yes, the speed limit is part of that, but you also have to, to some degree, change the context. And that can be narrowing of lanes, bolt outs, there's a way to do that. Also enforcement's part of it as well. There is, they've come back to old orthodoxy, there's engineering, education, and enforcement, and just pulling one lever doesn't necessarily result in a behavior change. And to build on that, if you don't actually result in a behavior change, going to speed limit can be more harmful, because now you've got a greater disparity in what the traveling public is doing. So you may have somebody following rule at say 25 miles an hour, but then you have others who are going forty-forty five miles an hour, and when they try to pass or they come up onto that car, now all of a sudden the situation's more dangerous.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. So, Doctor. Shinberg?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Sorry. Just responding to that with a little history, probably in about 02/1010 would be the name of the town of Norwich wanted to extend their maybe 25 mile an hour speed limit out a bit because of the Saint Chris to Schools program and they wanted kids to be able to. So they did a traffic and engineering study at 10:30 in the morning that went to school. And they came up with, I mean, the speed limit could be increased. And it caused quite a bit, and there was a influential legislator from nowhere to, anyway, but eventually they got what they got. But it was just a very interesting, and I think that things have changed since then, definitely, with the context where they, I think that they were not looking at the context of the bicycles and kids riding bikes and the fact that it was a small zone, the fact that it was down at 10:30 in the morning, and it was just looked at in terms of traffic. But I would say that things have changed a lot since then. It

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: was a funny incident. And you go, Representative Burke, the representative?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: I'm here. Thank you very much, Kate.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. So stay on that. You are saying that the context needs to be brought in because it seems like, I think Pinesburg, the state highway coming into town is straight flat. You're coming off a giant hill, and then saying it totally, although there is data, that people have been going faster since COVID than slower, less or no enforcement. And so if you're using, well, how fast are people going as a sort of place marker, it would feel like you're already sort of up against people who are driving excessively. The road's been designed for high speed and it's straight. So, of course, everybody's gonna be going faster than if it was a curvy road and if you're a local municipality and great enforcement. So how much does that piece have? That's the starting point of the study. It's how often is it pushed back and even though that's the speed, there's that desire to reduce it. Guess that's Jeremy. Sure.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, I don't have any data on how that unfolds. I will say, again, this is where the professional credibility comes in. As Representative Bure indicated, the mindset is shifting and evolving. But again, just to go back to the baseline, changing a speed limit and changing nothing else very rarely results in a behavior change. And to some degree does change or result in a more dangerous scenario. So we very much try to push back on the notion that I point up a sign and people are going to alter what they do. Now, that doesn't mean that with some engineering, like I said, narrowing lanes, holdouts, just lane shifts, pretty example of that is Danville, right? Route 2 just shifts a little bit, but it makes people feel like there's a constriction and they need to slow down. So all of this has to be looked at collectively, and it's not just variadic speed, it's a collective analysis and should be a suite of recommendations and not just, yes, go up to speed limit and your problem's solved.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Let's get through the scenarios and then let's get into that because I would have three follow-up questions to that as you probably would too because of how does that process actually interact and that's what we're gonna hear is what's your chances to feedback on that. Those are Let's get the scenarios lined out and then we'll get into that because I think that's where the committee wants to go with where you're at. So let's

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: get the background and then get there.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So Alright. You're fine. There we go. So getting back to this, I do wanna mention that the Vermont Local Roads program used to have a guide to setting local speed limits. According to their website, they're currently updating it. So there was a guide from about ten years ago, which laid out model ordinances for the municipality to adopt. How do you do an engineering study? What are the considerations? And a lot of what Jeremy was just talking about too, about how speed limits are most effective when they're coupled with other changes to the roadway to change behavior of drivers to make drivers feel like they need to go slower. Getting back though to the law on this. So we've talked about municipal roads for state highways. The legislative body of a city can establish again on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation, a speed limit between twenty five and fifty on any state highway that's not a limited access highway. So if you think about Route 2 and as it goes along I-eighty 9, the municipalities there can establish a speed limit along the state portions, but they can't establish a speed limit on I-eighty 9. With both of these, the 23 VSA-one thousand and seven D provides that the traffic committee does have authority to overrule a municipality. So they can overrule and their decision is final. So if municipality sets a speed limit that the traffic committee feels for whatever reason is inappropriate, they can overrule that and set the speed limit differently. It is just for these two top provisions, so the the orange and the light green. With the final piece here, and representative Lalley brought this up just a moment ago. If your municipality has a downtown development district that has been designated as provided pursuant to 24 VSA chapter 76 a, that language there permits the speed limit to be set at under 25 miles per hour. It is silent as to whether any engineering or traffic study is required. And typically when the legislation specifically calls for or when the law specifically calls for something in one place in the same section and then in another place does not, we interpret it to mean that the legislature intentionally omitted that language there. So, my reading of that statute, and I'm just one opinion here is that there is no traffic and engineering study required for a downtown development district to set the speed limit below 25 miles an hour. The law does not call for that. That's not to say that you couldn't do one or that it wouldn't be advisable to do one. Just saying that the law does not call for that. And that has been in the statute for quite some time. I don't have the exact date when that was added off the top of my head, but that is that is not a brand new thing. But as we'll see, that was mirrored in act one eighty one when they adopted the downtown and village centers and the designated neighborhoods language. So for act one eighty one allows the regional planning commissions to designate downtown or village centers on an approved regional planning commission future land use map. And once the that downtown or village center has been identified on the map and it's been approved, and then the municipality has reached what's called step two under the act one eighty one provisions, which means that they have a confirmed municipal planning process and a municipal plan with goals for the for investment in that center that's been identified, and a portion of the center is listed eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. So these are three things you have to meet to get to step two. Then the municipal legislative body can establish speed limits of less than 25 miles per hour within the center under the same provision as provided for designated downtowns. So, again, there is no express requirement for a traffic or engineering study, and you're allowed to go under that 25 mile an hour limit. That then brings us to designated neighborhoods. So this is a planned growth area or village center on a future land use map that may be then approved as a designated neighborhood by the Land Use Review Board. And then once you get that approval by the Land Use Review Board, no need to reach step two or anything like that. Once you've gotten that approval from the Land Use Review Board, you then have the ability for the municipal legislative body again to establish a speed limit of less than 25 miles per hour within the designated neighborhood. Again, there's no specific requirement in the statute for a traffic or engineering study in this case. Representative Forbes,

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: can you define the Land Use Review Board?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. The Land Use Review Board is they used to have a different name, but they review Act two fifty appeals, and they have other authority that was granted under Act 181. But there has been different versions of that board for the past couple of decades in Vermont, and they typically review Act two fifty decisions and appeals and have authority around that. So that's the end of the overview of the law. I think this is where I let you take over unless there are other questions for me.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White]: Yeah. Thank you, Damian. So just back to slide seven and just the designation of downtown and village centers. So the requirements designated

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

[Rep. Candice White]: a downtown or village center on one of the regional planning land use maps from Act 181, which are still in development, and I'm not sure what has been approved at this point or not. Yep. Okay, they have a municipal planning process. They have municipal goals for investment, and they have to be on the National Register of Historic Places?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there there's two different things here. So the first is the downtown and village centers. So a regional planning commission, and I'm just gonna walk through the law here. A regional planning commission would apply to the land use review board for approval and designation of all centers that are shown on the regional plan's future land use map Is for that

[Rep. Candice White]: that am I conflating?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, no. You're getting out of my yeah. You're getting out of my area of comfort. The so the regional plan future land use map would identify downtown centers and village centers that are eligible for designation as as centers. It gets approved by the land use review board. And then the areas that are approved for that, there are different benefit steps that are provided. So once you've got an approved center, you can receive benefits that are associated with the different steps. Step one is basically you've just been included on that map, and the map's been approved. At step two, this is considered the mid level designation. There's a step three as well. But you reach step two if you've been approved and you've made it to step one or if you have a designated village center or new town center under the old law. And then if you have a confirmed municipal planning process that's been adopted pursuant to the statute for that, if you have a municipal plan with goals for investment in that center and a portion of the center is listed or eligible for listing in the National Register for Historic Places. And so once you get there, there's a list of benefits that are granted to sort of incentivize municipalities to get to that point. They include various things like funding priority for certain things, authority to create a special taxing district, priority consideration for affordable housing funding, caps on state wastewater permit fees, etcetera. And one of those things is, quote, authority for the municipal legislative body to establish speed limits of less than 25 miles per hour within the center under 23 BSA 1,007 g. And there's no language in that that either requires traffic or engineering study or requires it to be on either state or municipal roads. It just says within that center. And if you look back at 1,007 g, the older law, this provides that notwithstanding any requirements of section ten twenty five of title 23 downtown development districts that are designated under the law in title 24 may have posted speed limits of less than 25 miles per hour. Again, no language requiring study or investigation or study, and no restriction as to whether it's a state or municipal highway.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Do you know if

[Rep. Candice White]: there is a current list of towns that fall under all these that that meet all these criteria? Is that available?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that there is. I don't have it, but I can try to get it for you.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Lalley?

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: Yeah. I would be also be interested to know if maybe ACCD has this information about towns that are interested in having the status, kind of like how we are seeing with the local option tax right now, where there are seven towns that are going put it on the ballot, then there are something like 11, I think, we heard testimony are exploring the options. My guess is that would be a snapshot of pent up demand. And it would be interesting for us to have as we look at this issue.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that was the designated village centers. It's worth noting that the designation for the neighborhoods is that the Regional Planning Commission, again, would request approval from the Land Use Review Board for designation of area areas. Gosh, my childhood accent is coming out here. On the regional plan, future land use maps as a designated neighborhood. Areas that are eligible for that include planned growth areas and village areas identified on the regional plan future land use map. And then the approval following approval by the Land Use Review Board, you will get certain benefits. And among those benefits are the authority again. And this doesn't even reference back to title 23. It just says authority for the municipal legislative body to lower speed limits to less than 25 miles per hour within the neighborhood. Another thing that's worth noting here is there is no floor that's set with these three provisions. So everywhere else, we've said 25 to 50 or 35 to 50. Here, it doesn't say anything beyond that. Under the federal rig standards, you're supposed to move in five mile per hour increments. So I assume they would do that. But beyond that, there's no sort of requirements around this. This is also not subject to traffic committee review and override like the two where it goes through the municipal legislative body following a traffic and engineering study.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just a quick question on the traffic committee. Do we have any authority

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: or ability to give them direction

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: and their deliberations of what they may or may not consider?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We could set that in the statute.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: That's what I'm talking

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: about. Yeah. You could set parameters within the statute as to what they can and can't consider.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Or sort of weight more.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Weigh more. Yeah.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Consideration of sort of like a waiting system. You should weigh safety a little more. But maybe it's more way more.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We can sort

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: of say, hey, this is what we would want.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. That becomes a policy discussion and how you want to shape policy around state speed limits. Different states have done this differently. So there are some states that have special considerations for certain areas. There are other states that sort of defer to the professional expertise of whatever panel they have or whatever entity and state government sets the speed limits. And so it becomes a policy decision for all of you and your counterparts in the senate.

[Speaker 0]: Just another thought, maybe if you

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: can maybe go down that path.

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

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: couple of questions. One, I'm looking at minutes from these meetings. There's more than just a few members. I'm curious how, you know, who gets appointed to these.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're talking about the Transportation Board and Traffic Committee are two different things. Yeah. So tripped me up when I started in this role as well.

[Rep. Candice White]: Makes sense.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: How does municipality go through the process of asking for a review?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the statute itself provides that up here. Sorry. I just lost my statute. Inadvertently closed it. The the statute itself provides that Let me just pull up the exact language. I don't want to misspeak on this. So, ordinances, it says, quote, the ordinances have the full force and effective law and are in the case of ordinances adopted under subsection A and B of this section subject to review by the traffic committee. So, it's not the municipalities necessarily asking for review the traffic committee apparently II would read this to say that the traffic committee can review it on its own motion whose decision shall be fine or is final. So I think the municipality could ask the traffic committee to review. Traffic committee could review on its own motion. I don't know if there's an existing traffic committee procedure to review all of these when they come up. I defer to agency of transportation on that. But as far as the the statute provides, it doesn't specifically direct that the municipality then submit it to the traffic committee under 1,007. Any other questions?

[Speaker 0]: So I'm not sure that I have this all right, but you have a basic rule that says 50 miles an hour, then there's limited access, you have all the state highways, then you come down eventually through traffic studies required to take any changes and that would go. Then you have interstate and local access. You've got local speed limits. Inside of that, you've got municipalities, cities, and designated downtowns. Then you come over to another one where we have a newer or actually not new, an area that is designated downtowns, which could be on the state highway, and they now are saying once they're designated to a certain level, they're going to be able to change the speed limit within their community without any of the processes of the other areas. So essentially If you need neighborhoods which

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: are treated

[Speaker 0]: the same way, they can make that effort. If they're zoned or they're approved to a certain level, they're going to be able to change in five mile an hour in groups in that section, whether it's on a

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: state highway or not. Yeah. So I think you can think of this as sort of three umbrellas. There's state highways generally done through the traffic committee or through state statute. There's municipal highways generally. So, outside of a special land use designation done pursuant to statute within these ranges from 25 to 50 miles an hour And then there's a subset of state highways that in cities that can be set between twenty five and fifty by the municipal board or the city council, excuse me. And those two are reviewable by the traffic committee who can overrule the legislative body. And then there are these areas that have a land use designation, designated downtown village center, designated neighborhood, etcetera. And those have a process where the traffic and engineering study is not expressly required by statute. There is no traffic committee review that's provided in statute, and they can go below 25 miles an hour with no floor set in statute.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Representative White?

[Rep. Candice White]: And was there a designation that that that final group that you just spoke about can only change in five mile per hour increments?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's the standard for speed limit signs. So under under the federal manual on uniform traffic control devices, MUTSID.

[Michelle Boomhower (Director of Policy, Planning & Intermodal Development, Vermont AOT)]: MUTSID.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, sorry. Provides that speed limit sign should be in five mile an hour increments.

[Rep. Candice White]: Okay, changing that.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So my assumption is that since we follow standard signage, and that's the the default our requirement for signage, nothing in here says that you can go outside of the required signage is that you would at least have to go in five mile an hour increments, but it doesn't prevent them from dropping the speed limit to 10 or 15 miles an hour.

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

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah. Just point of clarification. You can think and I can double check this. You can change the speed limit more than five miles an hour. I think what Damian's reference is you can't have a 33 mile an hour speed limit.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yes. So you can

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: go from 50 to 35, but you can't go from 50 to 53. I gotcha.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Thank you. That's very good.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry. That's a good clarification. I apologize if I misdirected there or was confusing. Any other questions before I give way to Jeremy? Great.

[Speaker 0]: I guess on. Thank you very much.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I don't have a formal presentation. I guess Damian provided the information. From AOT's perspective, I think we see that there's broad inconsistency. As the law reads today, you have granted, and I'm not judging this necessarily, you've granted a three person select board more authority than the traffic committee. And I'll just use my town in Roxbury. I believe we're a designated village center with step two status. So, our select board in effect could reduce the speed limit under 12A to five miles an hour. It could be argued that nobody could do anything about that. And I think it could likewise be argued that that would be in violation of the MUTCD and would jeopardize federal funds.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: How does that work?

[Speaker 0]: Is there some kind of audit process to them? Would the federal funds how do they know what has changed or not changed? Does the agency stay in compliance with it

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: and So there's any number of ways this can come to the forefront. They do conduct random audits. That's more specific to our programs and our projects. But if there were to be a high profile instance, they would obviously find out about it and question how we got there. In practice, what they would probably do is direct us to remedy it. Pending the outcome of that remedy, they would then potentially withhold federal funds for that portion of over, at the very least.

[Speaker 0]: I just understand what we're looking

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: And I think up to this point, I'm not aware of a scenario where this has actually unfolded. I'm obviously being a little facetious to say five miles an hour, but I'm just trying to demonstrate how vague and unrestricted the law is currently written is, or could be argued it is. And at the end of the day, I think we would want to, to some extent, make sure above all else that we're compliant with federal law.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: That was my question. Is this an actual example or just a hypothetical worst case? Have there been any examples of municipalities setting speed limits that have caused AOT to raise the flag up the flagpole?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'm not aware of any. And I think where we're at right now is we're really focused on the designated areas, whether it be neighborhood, village centers, or downtowns, as the ones being most problematic because they don't require any engineering study, and they don't have any review capability under the traffic committee. And that's where I think it would get us into problems with federal highway, in that it clearly doesn't follow the MUTCD. State, under state statute, doesn't necessarily have could be argued, I don't wanna be a lawyer here, doesn't necessarily have veto or review authority.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Doctor. Clifford? Yeah. I'm just wondering, is there a difference if I assume that there are some designated downtowns or village centers that the roads that pass through them are not class one town highways. Is that correct?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct, that was my example with Roxbury. So, Poueville is a state highway through the entirety of But

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: would it matter if it weren't a class one? Is difference there between being a community that has a class one town highway and a large fee limit and a community that doesn't?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think it could be argued that the Class 1s would fall under 1,007, and that would then be reviewable. You could also argue that it would lose its reviewable status because it's now a designated downtown village center or neighborhood. That's where there's a lot of contradiction within the law exactly where this falls. As Damian said, you've got at least three umbrellas and potentially more because you've got town highways within those designations, and then you've got state highways within those designations.

[Rep. Candice White]: Thank you, Jeremy. The committee has heard a lot of testimony from regional planning commissions that traffic calming abilities for towns are really a priority. Almost every single one said, we need more support being able to slow down traffic, make it safer for bikes, pedestrians, schools, etcetera. So knowing the desires of our communities, and then can you just help us or me understand the federal desires? Why would they be upset or be pushed to hold back federal funding if we've got towns who are successfully lowering their speed limits to keep people safe?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So I think you've got to parse out a little bit. Successfully lowering speed limits to keep people safe in and of itself isn't necessarily true. And how you phrase the question originally was traffic calming. Federal Highway, I don't think would take any opposition to saying, yeah, if you want to have in a densely populated area with bikes and pedestrians a lower speed limit, okay, do it the right way, which would require, again, narrow lanes, other calming mechanisms beyond a single white and black sign. And so I think that's where Federal Highway's position is. It's, yeah, you can lower the speed limit to pick number 20 or 15 miles an hour, but do it the right way so that you don't create a more dangerous situation.

[Rep. Candice White]: Okay, so you're saying not just speed limits, look at the whole picture, look at other devices as well to support that.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think Federal Highway, the worst case scenario is you take something, and I'll just use again, Roxbury, it's straight, sounds a lot like Heinzburg, fault of lanes. You can see the entirety of the town. People do not go 35. Throwing up a sign at 15 miles an hour doesn't achieve the outcome, and now you've created a much more dangerous scenario. If we want to have a 50 mile an hour zone, they could support that, but you've got to do it. You've got to change the context. You've got to do the engineering. You can't just slap up a song.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Representative Pouech? So in Heidelberg's example, it is state highway. It goes to 30 right after, right when the village starts, it's close to 30. How do we get traffic? We can't do anything. Heidelberg can't do anything to the road. How do we get traffic coming? Pump outs or even just flashing signs that say how fast people are going. These things, how do we do that?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So you can do that through the 11:11 permit process. In Roxbury, as an example, we are putting up radar feedback signs. You can do other traffic calming, things like, gateway signs and vegetation, And all that's allowed through the 11:11 permit process.

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

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: think that what we're seeing here is demand that we're not able to meet. I'm not singling out the agency for this. I think it's a bigger issue of our need to implement the vision of land use that is in Act 181, which is beyond the purview of this committee, sadly. But I think that that would help us coordinate funding to direct more resources to fix these issues, make it easier, quicker, and just simpler for towns to do this. And honestly, I would love for us to move, to keep working towards this goal, and to have something that in the future could even be a kind of opt out situation where if you have this status, this is the menu of things that you are eligible to have. You don't have to speed studies, don't have have all this complicated stuff. We want to have fiscally productive, thriving communities where people live and you can live as you want without a car, you can have social experiences, all of this stuff. We've got to figure out how to make that happen. And I just hope that we can work holistically towards these goals, because there's just so much incredible opportunity that we are leaving on the table as these villages and downtowns just become ever more dilapidated from lack of investment. And transportation is a huge part of it, but I think it's more than what we can expect from the agency to do. That being said, I think that it would be worth noting whether or not the approaches that we take right now with these little statutory fixes are up to doing the job. And if it is worth considering at some point in the future a supplemental to the MUTCD, as our neighbors to the South Of Massachusetts have done, where they have this process of thickly settled communities. And that would help to coordinate land use and transportation in more predictable, logical, common sense ways so it doesn't have to be this big lift. Because it's a big lift for our municipalities. It's also a big lift for you guys. And so if we could sort of come to a point where we agree that we want to have these nice things in these settings and then just move forward on that, I think that would be very helpful. Acknowledging we do not live in that world now, that's the world I think it would be great if the monk could aspire to.

[Rep. Candice White]: Representative.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Danville, I mean, think we're aware that that's, you know, one end of what can be done for traffic calming. That the Danville have eleven eleven permits to do all that work or was that state work done?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's state

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: highway. My experience with just putting some trees in our park in Ginesburg, which was right along the corner there, took several years to put in just a few trees. So while the eleven eleven is the process, I would say the cost and the process of getting those things approved would be, the town of Heinzburg, I doubt, could do that with the budget they have.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Certainly Danville is the Cadillac. I don't think anyone's Again, denying my personal experience, we read our feedback science very quickly in Roxbury. We haven't installed them yet just because winter set in. As far as getting the eleven eleven permit and we procured them through a local vendor, that wasn't terribly onerous. Again, not diminishing Heinzberg's experience, but it shouldn't be difficult to put some of those amenities within our state.

[Rep. Candice White]: We were

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: to purchase the signs, maybe get a grant, who knows, put those signs up, then Heinzburg would be responsible for the maintenance of those signs going forward.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So thank you very much for all this. Extremely complicated and convoluted. It feels like it's been layered on without any thought about what the effect of the prior process is. Do you think the agency has the appetite to bring legislation or words, an act that may consolidate this stuff and get it around where you could explain it in one sentence?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think that would be the desirable outcome. Obviously, there are a lot of interests here. And I'll be just totally honest, I don't know that we could do it justice in two weeks. I think clearly the existing statute has a lot of contradictions, leaves a lot to be desired. And yes, the outcome for maybe next year is a much more concise, consistent statute that lays out expectations, limits, thresholds, all of the above, so that towns have a clear path, the state has a clear path, we're fully compliant with the MUTCD, etcetera. Well, this member of

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: the committee would support that.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. That's a great spot for us to transition. We are to come back to the speed limit, the speed discussion, and perhaps it's in that direction or wherever it might go. But our witness has another commitment, and you have another topic to So hit we're going to shift gears for a moment, go into this transportation alternatives and the presentation they're going to give us, and then we're going to go back and pick up the issue related all around speed limits as a committee discussion. So just pause on that. We'll get this part going, get our witness to go where they have to go, and then we'll come back to that speed limit conversation as far as work or discussion on what committee may or

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: may not want to pursue.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Great. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I know there's some discussion about transportation alternatives program and how to more efficiently use that money. Just to set where we're at today, it's about a $4,500,000 program annually from Federal Highway. Through state statute, there's a couple limitations. One is 50% of the money has to be used for environmental mitigation projects. A lot of times those take shades in the form of salt sheds. And then the other limitation is that there's a $600,000 maximum award that can be granted to a town. At this point, the agency would propose the following just to make that a little bit more efficient use. We would recommend raising the allowable or I guess decreasing the environmental mitigation to 25% of the funds and raising the maximum award to $1,200,000 I spoke to this committee before about where inflation has been. And what we're seeing is that $600,000 just doesn't buy a lot today. And just some data for you. So beginning in 2023, we started tracking cancellations, and we have had 21 cancellations within the Transportation Alternatives Program. These are canceled projects. 16 of those have been mitigation projects, and 13 of those were salt sheds. And oftentimes, that is because of a lack of funding. So you start down the process, you get a design, you go out to bid, and then all of a sudden you don't have enough money as a municipality. So of the 21 projects, total cancellations that represents $5,900,000 and 4,600,000.0 of that was environmental mitigation projects. So again, in that timeframe, we've only made 45 awards. So in effect, on the environmental mitigation side of the house, we're seeing 35% cancellation on those projects. This also, I want to say, we see a lot of requests for supplementary funding through either municipal mitigation or whatever. So this doesn't even capture the whole picture, because there's a whole other subset that got an ATA grant and then needed to come back and were awarded additional funding to complete their project. So, that would be our recommendation as it relates to transportation alternatives. I'll just sort of add in why this is problematic when projects canceled. So when we get funds from Federal Highway, we need to what's called obligate those funds within three years. And we make a grant award, and we basically have to encumber those funds. And if a town is progressing the project and goes two or three years down the road and then cancels the project, we have to jump through certain hoops to make sure those funds get obligated and don't go back to Federal Highway. So I think everybody wants projects to come to construction and be executed as fast as possible. And what we're seeing is that's not happening within the TA program today.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Representative Burke?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: I

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: believe that is typically eightytwenty. I'll confirm that, but I believe it's eightytwenty.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: So, the other 75% can be used for all the other purposes that are in the statute, say for its schools, for example.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Like PADD.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: And it just would be up to the committee to decide. Even though it's probably hard to sort of stipulate so much to use for those, because it depends on what your applications are, but I would hope that we could get some preference for Safe Routes to Schools projects, BIPET projects.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, I think without a doubt, BIPET would make up the lion's share of that difference.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: And within that context, Safe Routes to Schools would be part of that.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Potentially.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, on that, so what limits how much the federal government gives us? Is it a formula fund that they give us? So that number that we have in our budget this year, that's what they're providing for this year. And there's projects from previous years that are out there hopefully getting completed, but that's based on formula funds.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I don't know if it's a formula fund or if it's because there's a bunch of different formulas within the reauthorization bill. I don't know if that's tied directly to the formula or not, but it is a set amount within the Surface Transportation Bill at the federal level. So we get again, roughly 4.4. That amount doubled with IIJA. So historically it's been closer to 2.2. And then with the passage of IIJA, it jumped up to 4.4 for us.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And even though you mentioned that sometimes municipalities find the project to be much more expensive. Now they have to do their match and they might decide not to do it. Have we lost federal funding or have you been able to sort of recover from those instances?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So far, we have not lost any federal funds. This year is our most challenging year in that regard, and we're going to have to jump through some hoops to make it work. But it is a little snowball effect. It keeps building because the amount you carry over every year gets more and more. So I think there's a very real possibility that without structural change, at some point we could lose federal funds.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And that structural change, you're saying, maybe by changing the percentage through water versus transportation because then you're saying more of the, I'll say water projects, salt chain projects have had delays.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, that clearly shows that the environmental mitigation projects make up the lion's share of the cancellations. And within that, certainly salt sheds are a huge percentage.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: White and then Doctor. LaValle.

[Rep. Candice White]: Jeremy, could you just remind us, so under transportation alternatives, Safe Routes to School, BikePad, are there any other programs that fall under that? I'm still a little confused where all the smaller programs fall into the bigger

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: budget. Yeah, so the programs themselves don't necessarily fall into that Federal Highway, and I can give you the authorizing language, basically says here are eligible projects that would meet the transportation alternatives requirements. Now, a bike head project could fall into three or four different programs, as an example. Likewise, for the environmental side of the house, we have municipal mitigation that also qualifies for transportation alternatives. So it's not that the program falls under, it's looked at at a project level.

[Rep. Kate Lalley]: So the whole issue of SALT is another topic of great interest these days. I'm wondering, do you have a sense for, are these projects being funded through another means? I understand that there's a lot more they have more options basically than just this program. And do you have a sense for is some of that happening or are they just pending?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So I think the majority of them are just canceled. I'm not aware of many that return our TA funds and then go to another funding source. Again, I wouldn't necessarily be made aware of that, but I do know that the majority of the cancellations that I see, the project just dies.

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: Just a quick question, I'm all for changing the percentage. We can determine what that split is, but I'm comfortable going to 100%, whatever that number might be. But my question is, since we got the representation from the legislative body got bounced from being the Enhancement Grant Committee, My concern is raising that 600 to 1.2, and you don't need to provide this now, but can you share the amount of applications that you have received and what the average amount is? My concern is just on 1.2 is you're talking about four communities if they all max out as opposed to the 12 or 13 that we're getting now. So you're diluting the thousands that are out there. But if you could provide that information just to get a sense of what the average request is and how many grants that you get. And secondly, it says roughly 35 of these are getting cash services. Does that mean we have like $700,000 that is just sitting there because it hasn't been able to have been allocated?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We have significantly more than that. I want to say I just interrupt Matt. So before the end of the federal fiscal year, I think we need to obligate $3,500,000 or else we'll lose it.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Above what's this year? Well,

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: again, it's a rolling thing. So essentially, and I can pull these numbers, but essentially in federal fiscal year '26, if we don't obligate $3,700,000 we'll lose whatever the difference is. And I want to say in federal fiscal year 'twenty seven, that number will be significantly higher. So that's the building snowball effect. So what you see on your budget on a page is what we are getting apportioned this year, but we've got to look back three years to see what hasn't been obligated to determine what's actually at risk of being lapsed. If we look at the total amount being encumbered, it's probably closer to 7,000,000 or $8,000,000

[Rep. Timothy R. Corcoran II (Vice Chair)]: So that's good. If you can get that money, maybe we can work around that. If there is a surge of extra dollars that it's going to go out the door, maybe we can talk about going with a higher cap and then bring it back down after a

[Speaker 0]: couple of years of debt.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: And if I could just, so the $600,000 cap is actually notwithstanding language that as I understand it, we will revert back to $300,000 at the conclusion of IJA. So again, potentially making the situation worse.

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

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: are you sending out notices, towns, planning commissions to to women, to regional commissions about these opportunities and, you know, like, we need applications.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, it's not that we need applications. It's that we need them to actually build the projects. Okay. So that we can obligate the funds. We have applications enough. Okay, so

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: it's not like you're,

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It's Yeah, it's the issue that once we make a grant award, that fund or that money is essentially, I'll just say encumbered, held in escrow, whatever you want to call it, and doesn't get obligated until the town reaches a certain milestone of having what's called a PS and E package, which means, okay, it's fully designed, it's fully permitted, we're ready to go. Then we can obligate the funds, and then there's another set of thresholds that we then actually distribute the funds. But right now, the logjam is actually getting the funds obligated.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: And is it the match that's the barrier?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think it's financial, not exclusive of the match. So if the max award is 600,000, and I'm just throwing out a hypothetical here, and all of a sudden your salt shed that you thought was 550,000 comes in at 750,000. Now you've got your match plus another 200,000, and for a small community, that's just not fiscally viable.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: And does the match have to be in dollars, or can it be in Yes. Could they, like the public works people in the town, do some of the work that

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. For federal funds, the match cannot be in kind contributions. It has to be a financial match.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Representative McCoy? So the funds being obligated are the obligated by September, if it's a company federal, not we don't have to do it by June 30.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Correct.

[Speaker 0]: Okay.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, it's all the lapsing and obligation timeframes are all related to federal fiscal I'll also add another wrinkle in this, in that the more unobligated funds we have, you may have heard, and I don't get too wonky here, there's this thing called August redistribution, where we get additional funds that aren't used nationally. Well, by having unobligated funds, it lowers the amount of August redistribution we have. So even if those funds don't get lapsed, because they're sitting there unobligated, Federal Highway won't give us more funds because they're not even spending the funds you have.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And this change would help us get that money out the door?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The goal is to be able to make grant awards to more projects that are delivered more predictably and provide a grant award at a funding level that is needed to fully execute those grant awards.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: So you think the seventy five-twenty five split would that would be help.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I think it would help.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: You wouldn't go higher.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I don't know that we would be opposed to it. We're trying to sort of read the room. I don't think we would object to removing the restriction altogether. So if you wanted to just say, You've got full flexibility, we would certainly endorse that. But again- It

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: would you from doing similar projects at all.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It wouldn't prevent us, no?

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: This would be one of the eligible projects. Yep. I that's, I know there was a recommendation from a transferred patient for Vermonters to go to eightytwenty just to sort of have more projects in the blood pen, maybe it is a good idea, for all the reasons that you've talked about, to go to just open it up.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, if there were no specific restrictions, A, no project would be excluded necessarily, and B, it would give us the maximum flexibility to obligate those funds as quick as possible.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Seems like a very important thing to do.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, so we would certainly welcome 100% flexibility.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Do you know offhand the percentage of applications versus the percentage of awards?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Offhand, no. I can certainly have Joel Perrigo come in with that information.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: I think we've seen on the municipal side, roughly a third gets awarded two thirds, they aren't enough funds. I'd be curious to see that. Another question, I don't know if we want to put you on the spot or perhaps I should do the work itself, But the type of projects under the transportation alternatives for not the water quality ones, but whatnot. Are they similar projects that are under the downtown fund projects that get approved?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'd have to get back to you on that one.

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Not sure. This is a mix of, let's say, paths. And I wonder if traffic climbing, say bump outs and signs, could qualify for the transportation alternatives.

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, I'd have to look at the federal requirements and see exactly how broad the authorized projects.

[Rep. Candice White]: I think

[Michelle Boomhower (Director of Policy, Planning & Intermodal Development, Vermont AOT)]: the major nuanced difference between the Downtown Transportation Fund and the Transportation Authority Program is the flavor of money. So Downtown Transportation Fund are state dollars only. And so that makes those projects that's why we get a lot of small projects delivered quickly because there's less regulatory oversight. TA is federal with our state match. And so that's where some of the elements that you mentioned that you might do for the Downtown Transportation Fund Fund could be incorporated into a bigger project. In terms of eligible activities, there's that possibility. But you wouldn't want to do standalone little projects with transportation alternative funds because the administrative burden would be

[Rep. Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Right, so you have federal requirements and Yeah. Right. Okay.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: We need to let you go, I think, is what I'm

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Peter Westman is eagerly awaiting me, Calvin.

[Speaker 0]: Will Damien, was there a language that was being worked on that we might or might

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: not include in this table?

[Jeremy (Chief Engineer, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No, I haven't worked with Damien yet, I We

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can certainly help out. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: It's also part of this

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is where the conversation is coming from. It's part of HH63. Is language on these lines.

[Speaker 0]: Think we're going be looking for you to look at both pieces and begin to bring something back to potential consideration, I believe. That's the direction we want to go.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want me to work directly with Jeremy and Michelle to put together something that tracks what they were discussing this morning? Along with the feedback from Representative Burke and Representative Corcoran.

[Speaker 0]: Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. I had something to say.

[Rep. Mollie S. Burke]: Just came in, but I need that big break.

[Speaker 0]: We can take a break. Why don't we do that? We're going to adjourn until eleven