Transcripts For CSPAN3 Public Transportation Conference Mayors Panel 20150403

Chairman of the National Association of governors. Our state Senate Chairman of the National League of legislators. Our chamber of commerce lane beatty has become on the National Board of the chamber of commerce. And our mayor of Salt Lake City is now the president and the National League of cities. And so, we are looked at, i believe, as a state that is well run, knows how to get things done, but recognizes that investment in infrastructure are one of the key pillars to Economic Growth and vitality. So were here today with three incredible mayors that are going to talk to you about their stories. But before i do that, i wanted to read the president of the United States, ive been told, is competing with us today, because hes at the National League of cities. So i very much appreciate these mayors being here, but i have a statement i want to read to you from mayor ralph becker who is the president of the league of cities. And he says, quote, National League of cities and the American Public Transit Association have enjoyed a close working relationship for many decades. The results of which have been tremendous transit progress for those cities we serve. Our great transit accomplishments in the salt lake region is an important example of the benefit of this collaboration. As the nlc president and mayor of salt lake i look forward to continuing to work with apta towards a longterm, well funded transportation reauthorization this year. The president s proposed grow america act is an important contribution to this mustdo reauthorization effort. So with that, those who participated yesterday in the legislative conference heard from a gentleman called jeff loving, who represents americas infrastructure alliance. He made three key points that will be the focus of todays conversation. Number one, make it local. Okay. You have local here. Number two, talk about economic benefits and commerce. Talk about how transportation does what its done in utah. Talk about how it will affect your community, and lastly, perhaps most importantly, investment saves money. Now is the time to make an investment, because it will pay dividends in the future. You wont be borrowing. It will cost you less. And i think the mayor will talk about that as we do some local efforts in that record. Youre hearing from three, strong, conservative, fiscally responsible, energetic, motivated, fastgrowing communities. Each of which have a passion for transportation and transit. These mayors have a vitality of their own, and they are developing a sense of place in a these mayors have a vitality of their own, and they are developing a sense of place in a Community Like no others. I like to say that the cities that are surrounding them, salt lake and dallas, and phoenix are suburbs to their cities there. So, let me have you buckle up your seat belts because youre in for a ride here. Im going to introduce the three mayors in the order that theyre going to speak, and then pose three main topics today. First off i want to hear and have them share with you stories about their city and what their vision is. Second, theyre going to drill down a little bit and talk about transportation, and their transit projects and what they see as benefits to the community, what their future for transportation are, and then lastly were going to zero in on the partnerships with federal agencies and things that we can do together and perhaps offer some recommendations to apta for things we can do to be great partners with local government. So the first mayor to my left here, on your right, is excuse me, mayor betsy price. She is the mayor of fort worth, texas, its the 16th largest city in the United States. Established in 1849, i think, mayor . Was an american outpost as part of the mexicanamerican war. But what i found interesting in looking it up online is there were three transformational times in fort worths history. Number one, they were part of the chisolm trail, the cattle drive. And initially established fort worth. Then they became the crossroads of the texas and pacific railway. The second major boon to that city. And then in the early 1900s, they had close to 400 miles of street cars in the dallasft. Worth area. Huge, Huge Investment in street cars. So i think were going to hear from the mayor today as a mover and shaker. She was elected in 2001, the 44th mayor of this city. She leads efforts in engaging and designing a healthy community. She talks a lot about alternative modes of transportation, particularly walking and cycling, and maybe shell talk to you about her walking and rolling town hall. Shes an avid cyclist. Yet she gets time to spend with her family, her husband, her children, and her three grandchildren, and apparently shes a proud maverick with a bachelors degree from the university of texas at arlington. Mayor john giles from mesa, arizona. I looked up on wikipedia what a wonderful thing. They call mesa, arizona the center of population for arizona. Mayor. Center of the universe. Center of the universe, im sorry. Dont sell us short, yeah. Third largest city in arizona, the 38th largest city in the United States, and its history actually goes back 2,000 years ago, maybe well hear about this, with the tribes, and they developed canals in those communities, another form of transportation. Mayor giles is the 40th mayor of mesa. He started his mayoralship in 2014 but hes had a long history with governance being on the city council, and in many, many organizations, boards and committees. He has a poly sci degree from byu, Brigham Young university, so hes a cougar. He has a law degree from arizona state, and has managed and practiced and manages a law office of his own. And born and raised in mesa. Hes a marathoner. Hes a triathlete. He has finished two full iron mans. And this year, he finished his 20th marathon and his fourth boston marathon. So i think, and i hope, we can keep up with him. Lastly and not least the mayor of riverton city, utah. From my community, mayor applegarth serves as the mayor, hes been there since 2006. This year theyre celebrating their 150th birthday. It is a high energy, high growth community. The population has exploded. Hell tell you about that. It was listed by cnn as one of the top places to live in the United States. It also has a rich transit history in 1913 and has the salt lake and utah railways and urban line that went right through its community there. So mayor applegarth has been on city council, hes worked as an educator, he has a law degree, excuse me, a doctorate from byu, is a cougar, as well, and he spent his entire career in the educational system. He does have eight children, and 30 grandchildren. And he is a leader in our community. He is on virtually every transportation community. Our relationship with the Transit Organization and the npo, the best i know of in the country and kudos to mayor applegarth and the things that he does there. So with that im going to ask the mayors to talk a little bit about their cities, and what theyre doing so they can paint the picture for you of whats going on in their cities and then well move on to even more transportation agenda. So we can start with either one of you. Youre miked. Were all miked. Hopefully the mikes not been on, when we were unhere talking. Ive been caught doing that. Were not capital steps, we know youre waiting to see capital steps. Although mayor giles said he would tap dance for you. In addition to running marathons hes a tap dancer. And i guess well stand behind him. I understand that youre coming hopefully the mikes not been on, when we were unhere talking. Ive been caught doing that. Were not capital steps, we know youre waiting to see capital steps. Although mayor giles said he would tap dance for you. In addition to running marathons hes a tap dancer. And i guess well stand behind him. I understand that youre coming to cow town to fort worth in may and i hope each and every one of you in this room will come. Youre absolutely going to love it. We are the 16th actually the 17th largest city now. We got beat out by 105 people in charlotte in the midterm count. I think thats a statistical error. But were one of the Fastest Growing cities in the nation, since the year 2000. About 1,000 people a day come to texas, and about 350 of those people land in dallas or fort worth. So we are huge. Were 800,000 citizens now, and in the next ten years well be more than 1 million citizens. And you know, we always say, were a big, spreadout city. Ft. Worth is 352 square miles and 344 square miles of etj. So ultimately well be a big, big landmass. And texas heritage, as you all know, were obviously behind on mass transit, because we love our suburbans and we love our pickups and were just now getting people to really think about Public Transit. Weve always had it there. Its always served the working class. You mention street cars. Believe it or not we used to have the largest line of street cars, dallas and ft. Worth, but we dont have a single street car any longer. So we really poured a lot of concrete. But we all know as leaders, we know that youre never going to pour enough concrete to accommodate the growth. Youre simply not. And our young leaders, our Young Millennials who are moving there for the high tech jobs, for the Defense Industry jobs, aviation, tourism, all really want one car. And were seeing them move back in the inner city, as well as our suburb cities, but we have to rebuild those inner cities and keep them strong. And transit is a way. They want to be able to leave one car in their garage and not take it out, to take a circulator bus or to take a bus to the intermodal and really get around, and then they want that last mile to be a connection on bicycles. And weve really got a Strong Museum district. We have 65 million tourists last year in Tarrant County. Weve redone our Convention Center and about to redo it again. Part of that is development from our Transit System. Our intermodal that went in made a big difference on what we have done. But we are the fort worth together, gary thomas is here from dart somewhere, even though we like to fuss about our friends in dart, we really are a huge region. And like many of you in this room we tend to not be able to separate dallas from ft. Worth. Once you come youre going to be able to separate them easily and youre only going to come back to ft. Worth. Because we are not the center of the universe. But our public, we have in the last two years and for the next three years well have 34 billion of Infrastructure Construction going on. We say everybody in ft. Worth has got orange cone syndrome. They hate them. Theyre sick of it. Theyre just sick of it. But weve got to get our Public Transit better. Weve got to get it for the millennials coming in. And more importantly than the millennials the silver tsunami is here. The number of people who turned 65 a day, and will for the next ten years, if you havent googled it, google it. It will blow your mind how many of us there are. And im one of those. And they tell me all the time, we want transit because we want to age in place. Were not going to drive for much longer. Hopefully they will but many of us9 them wont. They want to be able to take transit but they want to be technical savvy. They want to pull up the next bus locator and see when the bus comes. Texas is hot. Ft. Worth is 110 in july and august. And you dont want to stand on the corner looking for your bus. You want to be able to be in worth and its the best parking lot in the nation. And were actively remodeling it. In the next four years it will be remodeling, not the proper term, but renovating it and there will be an express lane courtesy of a federal grant down the center. We have a development on the far north edge. In Tarrant County and Denton County both, but ft. Worth city limits, called Alliance Town center. Alliance town center sprung up from an old ranch property. It is now 35,000 jobs and rapidly growing, one of the largest Retail Centers we have got, but part of our Development Incentive is that anywhere from 5 to 15 of the employees there to get a tax incentive have to come from the inner city. We struggled with getting them up to 35. And when 35 is redone, the t, which is our transit authority, will run an express bus up in the morning, and reverse it and run it back down in the evening. And then they will have to develop a circulator system to get there. And thats already in the master plan and ill talk just a second and then let them speak about the t. The t is our Transit System funded by a half cent sales tax from city sales tax and the federal grants and rider fees. Its been very successful. Our next big project is text rail or light rail. We have one rail project now. The first and its a joint project with dart. The tre, the trinity rail express and its about 8,000 riders a day. It commutes it is a commuter line between dallas and ft. Worth. Its been successful because young people and all people, really, they just dont see the boundary between the cities. They like to be able to come and go. They like to go to dinner, go to the stockyards, the museums and back and forth. But our next big project is going to be a light rail project and were excited about that, so, come see us, youre going to love it. Thanks, mayor. Well, thanks for letting me be here. Things are so crowded at the National League of cities with the president coming, we were joking, we drew the long straw and were lucky to come here and avoid all the chaos that is at the other side of town right now. So thanks for giving us an out to that. Ill respectfully disagree as to where the location of the center of the universe is. Its a dual edged sword there. If im a little grouchy im here instead of there right now, its because during march, mesa is the center of the basketball universe. Were a big spring training city. If i wasnt here, id be watching the chicago cubs. Were a twostadium city, so we have the cubs or the as, and i would be wearing short sleeves and sipping a diet coke with my feet up having a great time. So, i invite everyone to come to mesa. March is a great time to be there. Because of all of the spring training activity. The weathers perfect and we have a lot of out of town guests, so, next time youre looking for something to do in march, put mesa, arizona, on your map. Mesa is is a great place. Were one of the larger cities, maybe is not a household word, in your lexicon out here. We kind of anchor the east valley, the east part of the phoenix metropolitan area, where about half a million people, 37th largest city in the country, second largest city in the phoenix metro region. Kind of big on our own, but still very much a part of the phoenix Transportation System, mag and other Regional Transit authorities. We are the beneficiary of a lot of our funding through them, so were the beneficiary of having that asset directly to our east. Im sorry, to our west. But again, on our own, pretty advanced, large city. While there was recently i think a few months ago, an interesting article in forbes that labeled mesa the most conservative city in the United States. And as a large, if you look up here, theres not a lot of large urban cities that have kind of a conservative bent to them, but you see probably three examples of that phenomenon up here right now. And so, its an interesting location to analyze the popularity of Transit Systems. So, im curious to hear my fellow Panel Members talk about that. We are a large city, were a growing city. Economically, we are still trying to claw our way out of a downturn. We have a lot of things going for us. We have a large boeing facility in mesa. We just added the announcement of a new, 2 billion apple facility. Were riding a good wave of Economic Development. At the same time, i grew up in mesa in a downtown area that in my childhood was part of the old route 66, so, we had motels and a very vibrant, interesting downtown in mesa in the 60s and early 70s. Of course with the advent of freeways being built, the north and south of us, our downtown just kind of withered up and died and went to large big box malls. I think i see a lot of smiling faces. People recognize the scenario, its been duplicated all over the country. So were kind of a poster child for that whole, we had a great downtown. We built malls and freeways downtown withered up and died and i was on the city council in the 90s and we would find every possible way to try to pump life into downtown, that was literally a ghost town and we threw a lot of money at it and nothing seemed to stick and towards the end of my service on the council back in the 90s, when i felt like i had worked that out of my system, one of the last votes i had was do we participate in this Regional Transit program thats going to bring light rail to the edge of our city. I remember being more than skeptical, thinking this is kind of cute, walt disneyland ride that will come into our city, but i dont see it as something thats going to help us from a transportation perspective, but i reluctantly agreed to go on with this communist conspiracy of bringing these silly little cars to the edge of ou community and thought i might live to regret that move. I have to tell you, i am so delighted now to come back to City Government and no ones ever been happier to be entirely wrong than i think i am. Light rail has been a huge boon to our economy. Light rail has proven to be successful as a transportation participate in this Regional Transit program thats going to bring light rail to the edge of our city. I remember being more than skeptical, thinking this is kind of cute, walt disneyland ride that will come into our city, but i dont see it as something thats going to help us from a transportation perspective, but i reluctantly agreed to go on with this communist conspiracy of bringing these silly little cars to the edge of ou community and thought i might live to regret that move. I have to tell you, i am so delighted now to come back to City Government and no ones ever been happier to be entirely wrong than i think i am. Light rail has been a huge boon to our economy. Light rail has proven to be successful as a Transportation System to mesa, millennials, seniors, specifically, for reason you know better than i, are very attracted to that. Weve exceeded ridership. Were ten years ahead. But as popular and as successful as it has been as a Transportation System, its been more successful as an economic redevelopment system. The downtown urban core of motels and other businesses that were dying, the Property Values along that light rail route have just skyrocketed and were excited. This fall, were going to open light rail right through our downtown core. The construction is pretty much complete. And weve seen all this Economic Development activity and we have another two miles going further to the east that will be open in two more years, so, through a variety of creative and aggressive financing models with the help of regional dollars and federal dollars, weve been able to pull this off and its really going to breathe life back into the core of my community that like i say, i and everybody i know of had pretty much given up on, so im here to tell that story and to encourage everyone to use us as a place to look to when you want to get excited about light rail. Mesa, like these other cities, were about 150 square miles. And so, were kind of a spread out, urban suburb and community, so, light rail has got a lot of excitement, but at the same time, were so spread out, we have to figure out other ways. One train track going down the middle of our community is not going to have a huge impact on all of our transit needs, so weve tried to be sensitive to that. Theres a lot of park and rides worked into this model. As weve progressed further east, were going to find this next few miles Going Forward is going to take it actually out to where people live in our community. I think well see the commuter aspect of light rail becoming more relevant as we push further east out into our neighborhoods. Like i said, from a commercial perspective, generating excitement about a part of our town, the people looked to with some amount of disappointment and almost shame, this has been tremendously successful and i encourage you to take another look at mesa. Thank you. [ applause ] im the little dog city up here today. I want to make sure you understood one thing mike said. When he talked about it was our 150th anniversary, i hope you realized that was the city, and not mine. With all these gray hairs, i wouldnt want you to get confused on it. I come from riverton, utah. I wasnt born and raised there. I was born and raised in southern california. Im the little dog city up here today. I want to make sure you understood one thing mike said. When he talked about it was our 150th anniversary, i hope you realized that was the city, and not mine. With all these gray hairs, i wouldnt want you to get confused on it. I come from riverton, utah. I wasnt born and raised there. I was born and raised in southern california. And i moved to riverton in 1975. Where 20 miles south of Salt Lake City, so were in the metropolitan area. When i moved there, there were 3,000 people in 1975. In 2015, we have 42,000 people approximately and by 2030, i believe well be built out by then, well have 60,000 people. Were 12. 6 square miles. I didnt leave a zero off of there. Were 12. 6 square miles and we have a General Fund Budget of 9. 2 million to kind of give you a feel for our city. As i became mayor, i wrote down some goals that i wanted to accomplish, some emphasis. I wrote down some of my philosophy and what i wanted to do that way and one of the things i wrote down that wasnt in my campaign, but as i took office, my major job was to spend money. Not to save money. But to spend money, but to spend it in the right way. That has allowed me to do that in that way. Philosophically for my goals, my overarching goal or principle is if it doesnt improve the quality of life for our citizens, why do it . My job is to spend money to improve the quality of life. I also inherited an area in this 12. 6 square miles, i inherited an area that was a lot of farmland and then what permanent buildings we had and what i would call downtown riverton have been most of those have been taken away through widening the roads by udot. So, we had a pretty clean, clear canvas that we could develop. And when i went on the council, there was a Senior City Council member, and his slogan was, which i adopted in my own mind as well, you only have one time to build out a city. Build it out right. Were 12. 6 square miles. I didnt leave a zero off of there. Would call downtown riverton have been most of those have been taken away through widening the roads by udot. So, we had a pretty clean, clear canvas that we could develop. And when i went on the council, there was a Senior City Council member, and his slogan was, which i adopted in my own mind as well, you only have one time to build out a city. Build it out right. And so, that became the overarching goal, too, and so, we dont have a lot of economic redevelopment. We have Economic Development because of that, which has been a blessing for us. And these arent necessarily in the order of importance, but theyre the goals that ive had all the time. One is to have and develop over open space. And we developed open space starting with parks. And in the nine years that ive been in as mayor, little over nine years, we spent 28 million on parks. And thats not a lot of money for you folks in one way, but for us, 9. 2 million for a general fund, we spent a lot of money on parks. Our last project will be finished june 22nd. It will be open. It was our old historic main park. It was falling apart. It had been built in the 50s by volunteers. The sewer didnt work. The power didnt work. The buildings were old. Were just completing a 17 million project where we took the park down to the dirt. And everything has been replaced except the dirt and we even brought in more topsoil, so in a way, we replaced the dirt as well. That project is being completed and we turned it into a, instead of a baseball park, it has been turned into a passing park. We built in 2010, we built a new baseball park, spent 7 million on that. So that is just a baseball and football park. For our young people to be involved in organized sports. And some soccer and some tournaments with girls baseball. We have another park for girls baseball. But this was a passive park. Our other parks are generally programmable parks for youth sports because we have a High Percentage of youth in our area. We have a very young population because of the growth. So, now, were taking and moving into the second part of that. And that is were now moving to trails. We have because we were farmland, we have irrigation canals that bisect our city. We have five of those. And every canal if youre aware of the west and irrigating to the dry farming you have a road next to it, a path, for canal maintenance. We have the jordan river on our east boundary. The jordan river has a nice trail that has been put down to jordan river and completed in our area. Were now in the designing and working with Canal Companies to move ahead and put trails as well. Were basically concerned with active transportation. Which is were moving and that is becoming our city engineers major focus in that regard. Well talk about our road transportation later, but were pretty well completed on that. Weve spent quite a bit of money on that as well. But were moving to the trails. Weve got young people, old people that like to walk, so we need bike trails, walking trails and running trails and in part of our city, horse trails. Theres part of our city that were moving towards higher densities and well be in high densities, so theres no horses up there, but in the traditionaln part of our city we have horse trails and are expanding those as well as we go along and do that. . ; the third goal weve had is Economic Development. Its critical to us to develop rides because were so dependent on sales tax and franchise and so, were in the process right b. Now of finishing a deal that c hopefully will bring about 400 million of construction into commercial construction, into our area. Principally, a Retail Development with some office space, a hotel and big boxes as well. During my administration, weve had the opportunity of seeing big boxes move in. So, we have the walmarts, we have two walmarts in our city. We have home depot. We have lowes, kohls. Before that, we had petersons market and riverton drug. And so it has been fun to see those develop. Development in our county comes from the north and the east. So i learned easily and quickly that you have to wait your turn. But i just didnt want to sit there, so my time was spent a lot of Infrastructure Improvements and thats whats going on there. Well finish out our Infrastructure Improvements in the next couple of years in that way. So Economic Development is important to us. If youre familiar with salt lake, were in the southwest part of salt lake. We sit in a valley, surrounded by mountains or the lake. We are very narrow. Im not sure how wide we are. Q i would guess about 15 miles wide. Zv in that regard and so, we have this corridor and right now, when i moved there, there was one road out of riverton because of the jordan river it was a barrier to us and the sensitivity we have in our area for the lands around the environment around the jordan river and not to interfere with that very much. We now have two roads out of riverton. One is bangalar highway, a road that carries about 45,000 people a day and so, weve widened our other roads so that we have roads, our other road we had in riverton handles 30,000 people a day. We have bangular highway, which goes north and south and east and west. It circles because were against the foothills where you cant go directly out. Weve had those kinds of things and mobility going forth, and well talk about that a little later. But its important for us to include all aspects of transportation. Public transportation is an important part, rail, a very important part. Which well talk about a little later. As i mentioned, i grew up in los angeles, california. Grew up in the smog era. Grew up where you cant see the beautiful mountains because they were hidden a lot of the year by what we call smog in those times. Grew up with a healthy young man, but when youre too involved with athletics, your chest would hurt because of the air pollution that was in the area. Moved to salt lake and saw the big, blue skies and the mountains, but have seen that deteriorate as population has come. A major goal that i have is air quality. We dont have, we have some pollution, but we live between the mountains and the winds move it out of our city a lot against the mountains. Even though the bad pollution of the Salt Lake Valley is not my direct responsibility geographically, it is politically. Thats another critical reason for rail as we develop it in our area. Thank yo 9for letting me be here as a little dog. Nine years ago, when i got involved, my natural interest would have been to be involved with homeless shelters and social programs. Thats where i would normally like to move towards. We dont have any homeless in riverton. I still take part on boards and help finance homeless shelters in salt lake from our city. But i realized that as mayor, the important thing i got involved with was roads. As a teacher, what did i know about building roads and all of that . I was in my first elected office 13 years ago as a council member, what did i know about the political way to work . What i soon found is i looked at grants that were coming our way and development coming our way as far as roads and so forth. I never saw rivertons name on 6z6z it that first year, and so, i do and what do i need to be involved with. And this name probably will not mean anything to you, but mayor tom dolan of a major city in our valley, he was gracious enough to go out to lunch with me and i could pick his brain and he said, bill, get involved in the transportation community. So, ive learned the language. So, ive learned the language. Ive learned the politics. I have the passion. And its critical to our city, the mobility part is a very, very critical issue. And thats why ive gotten thanks for letting me be here. Hello. Thank you. I very much appreciate that. Im going to ask ugh to drill down into the Transportation Initiative that you have. As youve picked up on, youve got city thats got light rail under construction right now. Jf youve got pun one thatgs right on the cusp. Just about the there. Were happy to help you get over that line and then the mayor talks about future development, planning and preparing for future transportation investments. I was just in phoenix last month. And road the line out to mesa. Saw the construction. The train in the middle of the day was full and mayor help me, but it was with those silver tsunamis. Silver tsunamis. Were packing that train and riding it around and loving it. Right. Its there. P, ridership is at its highest point in history. Utah transit authorities, people are screaming for Transit Service and alternatives and options, so wed love to hear from you about a little more specifics about your project. And if you can focus on the benefits to the community. Economic benefits, community benefits. Perhaps environmental and beneficial. Sure. Well, as i mentioned earlier, our ridership has really exceeded expectation, we are currently at a place where we had hoped to be ten years from now and right now, light rail just comes to the edge of my community. We are the end of the line for the phoenix transit line. This fall, probably end of this summer will open three miles from the edge of our city to the heart of our downtown. Through literally down the middle of main street and that as i indicated earlier, from an Economic Development standpoint has been a huge blessing for us. From a transportation point of view as well, its a huge blessing. We are, we have a fair amount of seniors. Arizona particularly the east valley kind of viewed udgtorically as a retirement community. We have one of the amenities we have in our downtown area is a n huge, 100 million plus Performing Arts Center that is a magnet for seniors, so theres awn certainly its popular, we have x 0bzn9 a large senior population and its popular with the senior population, but statistically, actually, mesa is a younger than average community. F9 the ma len yals is whats been a surprise to me. Were in a, our culture has changed i think in ways txat we didnt anticipate 20 or 30 years ago. Folks now dont want to sit in cars. If they can find any way to park a car and get on transit and it works with their lifestyle, they are going to do that. Mor often than not. And thats been the case in mesa. Soo so, we have a large, several large park and rides at this edge of our community where the system currently terminates. Huge parking lot frankly and i m part of the challenge that were going to have as a community is once we move the terminals further east, were going to go back and redevelop these parking lots that arent quite as big a deals as they needed to be and thats a great opportunity for us as well. Its going to provide more Economic Development opportunityo along this very act of downtown light rail route. So, its tremendously popular. As it goes further east, its going to continue to add thousands and thousands more people as we reach like i say ultimately, four or five years from now, well be in the neighborhood i live in, a very s7op r t hahp hc residential kz i n not you know, a low income neighborhood. I could very easily hop in my car, travel a block or two, hop on the light rail, go to downtown phoenix, go to all the sporting events, go to the airport, all like i said, just a short car ride, a blttaa iuur to go to a light rail station. So i think when that happens, youll see it impact not just the menials and seniors, but youll get to the average joes q like myself that see it as a viable transportation option as well. I think thats true. And we have a focus in ft. Worth now on healthy communities. A fit worth and Blue Zone Initiative and we will be by far been designated blue zones and if you can get people out of their community, out of their car and back in their community and transit can do that. Transit can allow them to walk and stand and visit, whether at all levels. Whether its the mobility impaired transit that allows them to get around or whether its young folks with strollers, young families or the its the silver tsunamis, but getting that Transit System expanded adds to the value and vibrancy of your community. We started trinity rail express in 96. It was the first commuter line in the southwest with out 2 million passengers a year and then it sat, but people used it and now, were back, we realized that weve got to get light rail again. If were really going to succeed where we want to be in the city, youve got the starts of it. Zk and our friends in dallas have seen it. Houston, austin and so, ft. Worth has been focused on our text rail project and its our latest project and it will help not only with vibrant, strong, healthy communities, engaged communities, but with our air quality. All our buses like you in the salt lake, we started, theres a brown haze and all of these will help, but tex rail will be our direct to start out with. Goal is ultimately, it will be net worked out across the city. But originally, its going to dfw airport. The airport is jointly owned. Its the third Busiest Airport in the world and dallas has had dart at the airport, you can come out of your terminal, hop on a people mover and go to the dart link and be this dallas. Now, if youre traveling public, coming on business for a convention or if youre coming just with your family for tourists and youve got an apgs when you fly into the airport, youd get a rent car or a 70 cab ride to ft. Worth or a 8 bus ride on light rail . To dallas. What are you going to do . I was on it last month. It is fantastic. It is fantastic. So, we really realize that we have to return our focus on connecting to the airport first and not only wil uuah eq q ur e enl that we need to continue to grow and develop our convention trade, our tourism trade, but it also allows, weve got so many people who live in ft. Worth and work in dallas. And if they can go to the intermobile center, hop on tex rail, go to the airport and hop over on to the orange line on dart and be in dallas with no congestion and you know, everybodys married to their ipad or iphone, so, youre not driving, so what can you do in you can work or you can read the morning paper. Or is my daughter used to say, she could put on our make up and comb her hair when she took the the morning. But we have our partner cities, city of grapevine and Richland Hills are partnered with us and it will be funded with our sales a full Funding Grant and 50 million has been put in one budget and 100 million in this times budget at the federal level and the good news about the federal grnts on this rail project is that it awe allows us ipad or iphone, so, youre not driving, so what can you do in you can work or you can read the morning paper. Or is my daughter used to say, she could put on our make up and comb her hair when she took the rail because she didnt do it in the morning. But we have our partner cities, city of grapevine and Richland Hills are partnered with us and it will be funded with our sales tax and we have a request in for a full Funding Grant and 50 million has been put in one . ; budget and 100 million in this times budget at the federal level and the good news about the federal grnts on this rail project is that it awe allows us to leverage our sales tax dollars. Its that leveraging we would lose if we dont get federal funding. Were really excited about what tex rail would offer. We have 54 miles of trails and many people say i want to take the train to the airport, get on a trail and peddle back into ft. Worth or i want to go to dallas and ride to ft. Worth. I want to peddle to dallas and ride back to ft. Worth and we even get runners who say were going to go to arlington, hop on a bus, go into is dallas for dinner. Its an interesting concept that people are beginning to think q very creatively and innovatively, outside the box, but its Economic Development, its mobility. Its better air quality. Its engaged and healthy cities. It would really make a difference on light rail. My previous boss had a saying, if you like to text, rn twitter or tweet, take transit. Were at an interesting time in our city. We have a culture, well talk n about this later, a culture of unified transportation, roads and transits are together. So, we have that in our city. Or in our state. We also have, i came from a background of riding transit. As i worked downtown, the downtown salt lake, rather than drive, i took, i drove over to sandy to get the tracks lined when that came in. I did express buses and just different ways. T i had a natural feel for transit. I was in a position where i was working ten to 12 hours a day. It gave me time back, i could answer my emails, coming and going and that kind of thing. So i had an interest in that, but transit is really a local issue. Its not locally financed in our area. Xd nor could i, but its a local issue. And so, i was sitting in an npo vsx meeting and they were talking about transit and so forth and some of the new lines and things Going Forward and there was nothing coming my way at all. There was nothing coming my way. Close, to my way. And so, as i sat there, it irritated me. And so, when i was there, i knew that i had to do something. It was my job. So i raised an objection to it. And that we needed to stay in the Southwest Corridor there. Study. And i pledged 100,000 for that study. Now, keep in mind that were a 9. 2 million. General budget. When i went back to our city manager and we were in high budget. It was during the downturn. S7 i said youve got to find me 100,000. His eyes just went like that. i yu youve got to be kidding me. What have you done . And so, we jumped into the study, it was a 2 million study and is going on now, were finishing it up in the next few months and it will go before the city councils, four cities that are involved in this. Where the city council for the preferred corridor to do. Ended up being a 2 million study. Uta threw in through their sources 1 m we pledged 500,000 and went knocking on doors of the other three cities and developers to get other money to round it off. So, it really is that kind of a local issue. And then where we are now in addition to funding the study, thats only the start. Weve had to work on corridor preservation. So, our planning director and i asked him so many times when new development was coming in, he just got sick of me. Do you have the setbacks far enough to that a transit corridor can go through this commercial area. The last thing we want to do is buy building at a time or house at a time, so, we had some various routes, but we had to protect them because of our geography, there was only a couple of ways we could go any way, so we moved in a quarter ofr preservation in that regard and in our area for roads, we got developers to donate land for roads, we have big developments coming in now and my expectation, ive already talked to them, my expectation is that ni we will get donated land. Theyre giving us farmland. Right now, the transit project can go through our city without tearing down one dwelling. Now, thats a, thats an accomplishment of corridor preservation and im proud of 16 u . Hfc 0nod9myw what our people have been able to do with that. But thats only part of it in our area of study or our point of view. One is to educate our people. o7 the foundation of our city is farmland. Farmland and transit dont necessarily mix. But we have it urbanizing, so were trying to bring through education, bring both groups u together. So, we have the peoples support. The last thing that uta needs ifsoi theyre going to build a line through our city is for political pressure to come against that line and protesters lining their board meetings and n not want to, not want it. If that comes, we will be dead. In the water. And so, thats a very, very important part to me as well. But to get it, its my job as a mayor and my colleagues job as mayors in our state to get involved in transportation funding. I dont believe that i should ji6n ask those in the state legislature and the county council in a congressional area to fund any kind of lp[ transportation, road and transit, that im not willing toq n stand out in the front of the parade and take s,n ujuay i asked them and im willing to support them. And so, well talk about that later, too. You raise an interesting point about planning. I think for 50 years, particularly in the high growth urban areas, we tended to not do as good on regional planning. Probably 15, 20 years ago, we started our rtv. Our regional transportation ok coalition and it was made up of dallas and ft. Worth and all the surrounding seven counties involved in it and it has been a major tool in helping connect. Q obviously, ultimately in a john, large areas, you cant operate alone. Its too expensive for one city to run a whole system is. Youve got leverage and youve got to leverage your regional dollars because if we can plan for the right away and corridors to try to get those through and if we can partner up with our partners and have a master plan, then were all better served. The t is in the middle of working on their master plan. Fa the city is updating our master plan. Present a workshop on transit and it was very interesting and thats going on all over the metroplex and i think that will make you stronger by saying as a region, were working together. Dallas ft. Worth used to hardly talk and now, we have weekly dialogue. Paul and gary and a lot of them meet because it doesnt make sense for us to run a line that stops here and youve got to get off and jump on another one. Thats a perfect segue to the next session there. What both of these mayors were saying resinates. T hihq b 18 dck and when one mayor that has an exciting transit project going on in the middle of his co downtown, you become everybody elses new best friend. My mayors to both sides of me are clambering, hey, we need to go out to lunch because i need you to partner with me on some studies. So its made from a personal popularity perspective, its been a great thing for me with my fellow mayors and it just makes a tremendous amount of sense. Regionally, it can bring it together in ways that other issues dont have the same sex appeal. And theres a whole lot of friendly competition and Mike Rawlings is the mayor of dallas and i say its a friendly coop. We get motivated when cities step up and decide they want to 6qr invest in this. That is the best motivator thatnd of to say okay, were quoing to partner and that is the segway to the next option. Which is what can we do to partner this enthusiasm and r commitment at the local level. Were seeing referendums pass 5ajf 75, 80 around the nation, zv conservative states are passing referendums to support Public Transportation. Were seeing local governments step up and extend their budgets to the enth degree to invest in that planning thats so important. The mayor talked about three other cities, stepped up and said weve got to do this for our future. How can we convey that energy q and enthusiasm here to washington. Share that with our congressman. Share with them how important this is to you, your communities and frankly, mayor, you talked about comm t ttay how do we build that grass roots support were evidencing with you and your cities and transfer that here to washington . Ill give you a couple of examples. We passed a bond election, a r 294 million bond election this past november. 220 million of that is dedicated to transportation, to streets and roads and the state of texas passed proposition 1, which was constitutional. We passed that bond election at almost 80 . Fundintu aptees constitutional amendment of several billion dollars a year flowing back into transportation projects. But what you, i think part of what we did was we got out and we talked to, we did town halls and we advertised and talked and we formed coalitions on prop one to pass this state guarantee to get out and talk, but weve done the same thing with washington. We come up here and lobby fairly often and when theyre home and when they have, people tend to think and you as mayors nb understand, you get an invitation to a local elected h official or u. S. Senator or house members election to their fundraiser. And you think, well, they just want me to give them money. Thats not necessarily the case. They want to hear from you. They want your money for their campaign, but you need to be going as transit members, as people working on transit, youve got to go talk to them. Catch them with when their home, when theyre here. Tell them how critical it is. Give them the statistics on the growth. Give them the statistics on whats happening. You know, take them for a ride light rail or where ever you are, but keep them in the loop. Education is whats killing us in d. C. And for us in austin because theyve developed a tremendous disconnect from whats happening at the local level and no one knows better than whats going on than your mayor and council. It can help spread that message, but to do it, youve got to advocate with your citizens. They can help you because theyre voting for those people, youve got to turn your local citizens on to local transit to get d. C. Interested in it. I agree. In order to afford this, you have to have regional funding. You have to work with your neighboring communities and you have to pass sales tax, you have to and i think there is a real appetite out there. All of us share the frustration tryinging to get from point a to b. Thats a common denominator. So, there is that angst to draw upon and if we can rally regionally with our neighbors, you can get it. An amount of money thats going the attract washingtons attention. Youre seeing from their point of view, the reasonable likelihood of a success stories. Washington leadoffs success stories. They love the come to ribbon cuttings. Tell positive stories and if you can paint a positive scenario in your community, you stand a good likelihood of attracting the federal money youll need. As mayor was saying, it has to be a regional priority. In our community in order to expedite things happening, we are able to shift some of the federal stp money and flex it in a way that we can prioritize it xd for light rail. And by doing that, we expedited things happening. Weve used this t pan is the phrase we use, but were using multiple dollars to expedite the funding. Were paying city of mesa funds,q knowing the money will be here q rather than waiting five or ten years to make a project happen. People came to mesa knowing this was our priority and that we would put our money where our mouth is but i think that commitment to success attracted the cooperation of the federal government loosened up the regional dollars in ways that we can focus because we used some flexibility and said we dont really need some of the street projects that we have on our budget. Are less a priority than the transit projects, so lets prioritize our money in a way that we can do a large, significant project and get it done now instead of ten years from now. You know, we have a regional in our area statewide and we need to be working together and we, i had nothing to do with this, but im sure glad that others put in in place. We have a unified transportation plan. So, we are unified in our transit and our road and our active transportation. So, in our, our legislature is in session right now. Will finish this thursday, so we have some major transportation funding were after and the ceo of our transit district, the nbo, or npo is there as well. Hand in hand with their staffs. The city, league of cities in the state is there together. We also are have the business community, the chamber of comers is there with us. We realize that if we werent united in what we wanted and we were fighting against each other between transit and roads and this and that, that we werent going to get it. To say the least, utah is not a liberal legislature. Some of our representatives and i understand their position, are trying to help you as long as it and so, now, whats happened in our state legislature, whats going on right now and today well change some things i think and go forward from this. But right now, theres two types of financing that theyre looking at. For this. One is an increase in gas tax. And one is a sales tax. There are different groups that all have a part of this pie and we have to work together. Our state roads run through our cities. Eu9z u dot in our city is finishing a project, a 45 million road project. So, i cant worry about city nr roads and say to the director of udot, hey, you do what you want, i dont have any interest in it. Hes united with transit as well in this, so, the state needs money. They need more money. The city needs more money for construction and maintenance terribly needs more money in that for roads. So, we have that as well. And Public Transportation needs more money, and so, we have right now, a bill, we have several bills, but the bill that is more encompassing is a sales tax increase where you would get a. 1 for transit,. 1 for local roads and a. 05 for counties and in the rural part of our state where you dont have transit authorities or needs, then that 1. 14 for transit goes to the < county because youll have more roads in that. At first, i thought why are we counting these roads . U we have 30 miles of roads in Salt Lake City and some of our southern communities, we have 4,000 miles of roads because thats all there is injea rural areas. So we have that and we also have a gas tax,xd several bills on the gas tax. One is a straight increase of ten cents on gasoline, five cents on diesel. 70 of that goes for state roads, constitutionally protected roads. The other 30 goes for local roads. The other part of it is is to take our gas tax, 24. 5 cents per gallon and change it into a sales tax on fuel. Also it grows with inflation as a ceiling and a floor. But its that uniting together that each of us have our roles. Our fight in the legislature right now is not its been the between the senate and the house. Its not about the need for more transportation money. A very conservative state,g in mind. Its not that. Its about you do gas tax or sales tax or both . Isnt that kind of nice having mom and dad fighting over how to give the kids more money. I dont care whether it comes out of the left pocket or the right pocket. But the way weve achieved that as mayors is weve said to the legislature with the sales tax we dont want you to raise sales tax. We want you to put it on the ballot. Were willing to stand with you and champion the cause. So what probably will come out is an authorization for it to go from the state to the county council or commission and have the county council or commission put it on the ballot and itok will be then a distributed in the county of corigin it will be distributed that amount in a different way. But we as mayors, and were all united on this, are willing to stand up and lock arms. Its not fair if i say to myxd legislator, get me money, and then i just sit back. The other way to get their attention is to talk about jobs. They tend to forget3w how many, many, many jobs are involved in any transit and transportation project. Then when you start construction, youve got additional jobs on the construction thatfa come in and thats a big deal for any official to be able to talk about jobs. Im going to move this the q and a for the audience but i want to summarize what i heard today. Frankly, to be successful youve got to have four ingredients. Youve govt to have good projects, youve got to have a team that can deliver them. Whether theyre construction or operations, youve got toa engender that trust in the community thats out there. Youve got to putl where your mouth is and at least come up with the local resources to show your commitment. And then you have to have that community that says i want to understand what the mayor just said, there are 85 cities and six counties that have gotten together along with the Highway Department and Transit Agency and every decisionmaking body for the plan. Were not fighting about whats on the plan. Were just in the weeds frankly talking about how to pay for it. Thot÷hno ®n xanr underscore the need here in washington. We can do it. They can do it, too. 8 n they can be r our partners. I dont want to forget and the mayor touched upon the fact that a lot of this investment were talking about in utah is for state of good repair and preventative maintenance. To think about a conservative state that isnt talking as much about the shiny bells and whistles, more about potholes and replacing street pavement and running buses, more buses the number one goal in our state, its an amazing phenomenon thats come to fruition and i think thats aco story we can share. Success begets success. Youve seen it in all of these communities, and i think thats the message we take forward here in washington. Let me open it up to the audience if you have any questions for these mayors. See effect provoke them anymore. I know youre not a shy crowd. Capital steps are waiting. Mayors, maybe one thing that you can share with apta or us as an organization that we can help Carry Forward from your comments today. I love to stand up for transportation. I think taking the message back how critical it is that this country continue to rebuild its infrastructure, that we continue to offer modern, innovative ways to attract people to use traffic because it helps us at every level, from air quality, congestion, time saved productivity and the health of your community, its just a great message. And this group can be a great vehicle for helping pass that along. April 9th dont forget. The best lesson you can learn from whats happened in our community is the importance of flexibility and of looking at the pots of money that you have and trying to figure out how to focus the resources you do have on the most important projects to prioritize. Are there ways that you can shift some of the federal and or regional moneys to address the top needs. Weve all got budgets with a variety of projects on them and if some of the projects that you have funding for are not the most important projects then you need to figure out how to make that problem not be a problem anymore. So thats one of the things im proud of that weve done locally and i would suggest that you take a look at. I think from my perspective is doee what you do best and thats build and offer a Public Transportation. I wish i could tell you that you wouldnt have to worry about your funding. Tell us, as mayors how we can help you with the funding. I have no idea how to build anything. I need your help in telling me what i need to do and where i need to support and what buttons i need to push because my job is to get the funding for you, but i cant do it on my own. W3 sorry for being a little late coming up. To your funding question weve talked a lot about sales taxes and other pots of money. Have any of you used tax increment financing Value Capture, special assessment districts, and could you just give us a little flavor of how to get the businesses that will be taxed in those areas on board with those funding streams. When trinity rail express came in in 96, following that it comes to whatsgi our old t and p. The building is in a tiff a tax increment financing zone. The tiff money was able to help renovate the terminal along with the t, and the city money and then build residential lofts there, and they sold out in less than a year. But the tiff zone around it is n an incredible asset because it helps with the landscaping. It helps with the upkeep on it. Theres another area coming in that the t is looking at for transitoriented development that i believe is also in, that tiff. Hes telling me yeah it extends over to that side. The tiffs have been an incredible tool for us for reinvestment around these developments and we expect to see the same thing as6lf tex rail comes in. That hasntatl been part of our formula. We rely heavily on Regional Transit tax. That was passed in angst that our community was feeling over building highways. Wrapped up in that popular notion of lets build more highways was a component for some transit. So were now the beneficiaries of the transit money that was sold to the public as part5xcn of the more larger aggravating concern about highways. The phoenix system is fairly well built out when it comes to highways as a result of this regional tax. The smaller component that were talking about here now has been the transit money thats allowed us to do the other portion the projects that ive been talking about today. And our funding for i35 the major renovation for this thorough fair across the state, was sadly not getting funding. We justn couldnt seem to get it across the finish line until we revamped the plan and put a transit line up the middle and then suddenly they came in and said well fund it. In our Community Regional and federal funding is taking care of this building. I believe my role is to get that land given to the city so we can give it to the transit authority. We are using part of that is our cda, we can put in other infrastructure and pay for that. I dont know but i dont believe we could do that with transit, money. Im not sure of the law there. But we canjf pay for other infrastructure and then get land donated as a result of that and were requiring 20 open space and that will be transit is in that open space definition, so thats the way were trying to help at the local level. Theres an International Lesson learned here in the asian3y properties. Theyre seeing 40, 50 coming from Land Development properties. Were having a hard time reaching that yet in thiss;< country. Its a long way to go part of our cultural institutional infrastructure. Theres a lot of reasons why. But there is great progress being made in cities that i know of in the United States and we need to keep that pressure on. As the mayor talked about Community Development grants and Value Capture and those kinds of things, its a resource. It probably isnt going to be the primary resource for our business but its certainly one of those leveraging options that you talked about today. Any other questions . Im going to say thanks to these mayors. This is has been an incredible, phenomenal. Incredible, phenomenal. I wanted to show our appreciation by giving them each where is phil Washington Wash wash stand up for america tshirts. Thank you all for coming today. I appreciate it. Stand up for america tshirts. Thank you all for coming today. I appreciate it. Tshirts. Thank you all for coming today. I appreciate it. Stand up for america tshirts. Thank you all for coming today. I appreciate it. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. The capital steps were outstanding, were they not . All right. Ba this afternoon were going to hear from our leaders from the department of transportation. This is one of my favorite sessions actually. We get to beat up on fta. First up is fta acting administrator trees mcmillan. Shes representing secretary anthony fox today who could not be with us. She will also speak specifically about ftas initiatives for 2015. Ter ees joint ftas deputy administrator on july 9, 2009. She has assisted the administrator in leading a staff of more than 500 in the washington d. C. Headquarters office and ten regional offices throughout the United States. With the passage of map 21 she assumed a key role in guiding ftas implementation of transitrelated provisions in the law and overseeing the development of critical guidance. She has also played an integral leadership role in advancing several critical fta priorities to improve the quality and the American Public including assisting in the development of a streamline process for the new and Small Starts Program and securing new funding responsibilities for state of good repair of transit assets. She took the lead in working with staff across the country to ensure the timely accurate allocation of 8. 78 billion for 1,072 recovery act grants. She represented federal transit interest in the partnership for sustainable communities with fellow dot colleagues epa, and nb hud. Please help me welcome acting administrator mcmillan. Thank you. It is great to be with you again. As you know secretary fox planned on being here today, and the only reason he didnt is becaw hes having surgery on his knee. Im sure if he was