[{"_1":2,"_110":-5,"_111":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,75,87,99],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},"mediaId",6472148,"mediaKeyId","5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2","parentId",5776967,"title","Safe Routes to School program reports 603 barriers addressed; $38.9 million spent of combined bond funding","audioSeconds",859,"startMs",3159000,"endMs",4018000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2&start=3159&end=4018","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2/thumbnail_3159000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6472148/Austin/Travis-County/Texas/Safe-Routes-to-School-program-reports-603-barriers-addressed-389-million-spent-of-combined-bond-funding","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6472148-39812e343cd70d8c4e46ecf88a5d3ac3/orig.mp4?Expires=1770412583&Signature=IaexC~GL5-U0QkWOfBSkaUc2iKI7cOc-lGrrtQamjFPczf-5lyVqIKe8l42D4KsScBh~vRMhnstdQD8bSvKHapzGzPUm9~rs10gAK8G7CPTFzjtScFwt4bJEfOXifOXLysUClY9K-ACP-aeLfzEN-pl5kXL0mkIh3NTEYkSyKfmAYVhrXQyeo0aBjmtkyY6C8Q6j3vkGdgJr0ojD1XSRjEHdqWWLCcD~Hlk4lgFGQouEchNxWBGXQ6uZnJGzTUAh4s8N2HnUaPJBXdpt19Q-yXgv2LZfAyNGwzipXQxcz2H9G3OrRC~IfFrgBcUeo16dSad0Ebcy1YYihrrND1r3qA__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","Austin","date","2025-09-18T00:00:00Z","article","Colleen Gentles, infrastructure project manager for the Safe Routes to School program in the Community Services Division of Transportation and Public Works, updated the committee on program structure, outreach and infrastructure work funded by the 2016 and 2020 mobility bonds.

Gentles described the program as four \"arms\": a crossing-guard program, an education team, an engagement team, and an infrastructure program. She said the crossing-guard program includes a manager, seven supervisors, 14 assistants and more than 200 crossing guards who serve schools in Austin, Del Valle, Eanes, Leander, Manor, Pflugerville and Round Rock independent school districts, plus three charter schools.

\"Last school year, 2024 to 2025, we serviced 90 different schools; 36,000 students were trained,\" Gentles said, summarizing the education team's outreach. The engagement team oversees campaigns such as walking- and biking-focused events and pilot programs; staff said they will pilot a bike-train this school year.

The infrastructure program emerged from the 2016 mobility bond and received additional funding in 2020. Gentles said the program's infrastructure report cataloged 4,662 barriers and estimated a notional total cost of approximately $825 million to address every identified item; staff subsequently prioritized projects using a GIS-based model that weighed demand, safety, equity and stakeholder input.

As of the presentation, Gentles said combined bond spend and commitments were:
- $38,900,000 spent on projects on the ground (combined 2016 and 2020 funding)
- $2,600,000 encumbered (projects contracted but not yet built)
- $5,900,000 planned but not yet assigned a funding number, leaving the program on track to spend the combined $47.5 million allocated through the bonds.

Project counts reported in staff materials showed 603 barriers addressed to date: 389 intersection improvements, 165 sidewalk improvements, 28 street projects, 7 trails and 14 other improvements (signals, school beacons, pedestrian hybrid beacons).

Gentles said staff will refresh the infrastructure plan in 2026 to include newly built schools, high schools (which were not included in the original 2016 audits), and updated council and school boundaries. She said walk audits will expand to include high schools and newly opened campuses such as Bear Creek Elementary, Blazer Intermediate and Marshall Middle School.

Committee members asked about school-zone policy and maintenance costs. Eric Bullock, managing engineer in the Transportation Engineering division, said a proposed change to school-zone placement would focus school-zone controls at unprotected crossings and at school frontages. Bullock told the committee the evaluation suggests hundreds of new or modified school zones would be required and estimated maintenance and implementation costs at about $5,000,000, of which roughly 90% would be signs and flashers and about 10% would cover additional staffing and maintenance.

Committee members also asked about projects near school sites that fall in county or ETJ areas. Gentles said the program has generally focused bond-funded improvements within city limits because bond funds are city-restricted, but that staff are aware of edge cases and maintain partnerships with other departments and jurisdictions where co-funding or operational arrangements are feasible.

On programming, Amir Mommy, division manager for Community Services, described efforts to pilot a bike-bus program using trained crossing-guard staff as bike-bus leaders and explained that bike-bus groups will require additional volunteers and training compared with walking-school-bus groups.

Gentles said the program continues to leverage internal and external partners (Urban Trails, Neighborhood Partnering Program, Sidewalks and Bridges, Bikeways, Vision Zero, CapMetro and multiple school districts) to stretch dollars and target projects that connect safely to multiple schools and community destinations. The staff presentation noted plans to refresh the Safe Routes infrastructure plan in 2026 and to release a short list of schools for upcoming walk audits.

","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Austin - Mobility Committee","oneSentenceSummary","Colleen Gentles, Safe Routes to School infrastructure project manager, told the Mobility Committee that 603 of 4,662 barriers identified in the program's infrastructure report have been addressed and that the program has spent about $38.9 million of combined bond funding to date.","taxTitle","Austin, Travis County, Texas","taxId",2819,"location","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":76,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":77,"_41":78,"_43":79,"_45":80,"_47":81,"_49":82,"_51":83,"_53":84,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":85,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":86,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6472153,"Mobility committee briefed on TARP—indings and 12 recommendations to ease barriers to street trees in Austin",1746,240000,1986000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2&start=240&end=1986","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2/thumbnail_240000.jpg","/articles/6472153/Austin/Travis-County/Texas/Mobility-committee-briefed-on-TARPindings-and-12-recommendations-to-ease-barriers-to-street-trees-in-Austin","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6472153-1baafbbcc78049810467479924005dcc/orig.mp4?Expires=1770412583&Signature=ZPm3mzDpNx42~F5btqPcXOvicn5K6CrZW9Zqc2zlneTb2TsXA-NE1Fuo6ah383IG~pyKVqOp8KFvCTsy-HHrq9O22jUQhkDRorf3BnDXOmnYn0ENvvn-pycdvCToC8LiZs2mswdOBEceKEUpfNzvu~-vqTh4x2jKt7Xf7oDLCnCLz4znXSaw9AQ7GyTXBPE0jPMt0ff-TptdcdnCXUsU5R6xdLagPWViP69IMX83WQGKu2EFJP55U9-0VVAV0QwHnnx6jzA6zvQIfu5TZVCu~ZFRv7nvZdoNG7kFAWvdDSsJiW~cMqmfro0DWtEAXqpRdaKRz0t4aiDCbb3O5nmOTw__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Michelle Marks, transportation officer with Transportation and Public Works, told the Mobility Committee that a Technical Advisory Review Panel (TARP) working group spent roughly nine months reviewing barriers to street-tree installation and maintenance and produced 12 recommendations for city leadership.

The recommendations were developed in response to a March 21, 2024, council resolution directing the city manager to \"explore right-of-way design and management plan\" and identify barriers to green infrastructure in Austin rights of way. Marks said the working group\u0000\u0000\u0000which included interdepartmental representatives and private-development designers\u0000\u0000\u0000focused its first phase on clearing regulatory obstacles in administrative manuals and criteria documents.

\"Trees really are vital in public infrastructure when it comes to heat mitigation, when it comes to climate resilience,\" Marks said. She told the committee the group prioritized changes to the Transportation Criteria Manual (TCM) so the TCM would clearly treat street-tree design as part of the sidewalk corridor rather than forcing designers to map scattered provisions across multiple manuals.

Key regulatory and process recommendations presented by staff include:
- Revise the Transportation Criteria Manual to provide clear, holistic right-of-way design guidance for street trees and sidewalk corridors, including how trees must relate to below- and above-grade utilities.
- Update standard specifications and provide preapproved product lists (for irrigation, structural soil cells, root barriers) and clear soil-volume and trench-size requirements.
- Conduct a joint review of the Utility Criteria Manual with utility departments to identify opportunities for more space-efficient practices around underground infrastructure while protecting critical assets.
- Update the city's approved street-tree list to emphasize climate-resilient, context-appropriate species and provide guidance for constrained planting conditions.
- Consider, at a later stage, whether code changes are warranted to require street trees in frontage or sidewalk improvements; the working group said many barriers could be resolved through administrative updates first.
- Simplify or eliminate the current private license-agreement process for street trees and irrigation, which Marks said acts as a nearly second site-plan review and deters applicants.
- Explore options for city-led maintenance of street trees as an alternative to case-by-case private maintenance obligations, and develop an inventory of existing right-of-way trees and conditions to inform priorities and funding needs.
- Incorporate street trees into baseline scopes and budgets for capital projects where feasible and prepare a green infrastructure investment plan once foundational regulatory and process changes are in place.

Marks said staff will consolidate a formal response to the TARP recommendations and deliver a memo to mayor and council in October describing how departments might fold the recommendations into work plans.

Assistant City Manager Rogers, who has worked on similar programs in other cities, urged the committee to consider creative maintenance and workforce approaches. \"We have to be very creative,\" Rogers said, describing public\u0000private partnerships and nonprofit-led workforce programs that have trained young people in vegetation management and produced local contracting capacity.

Curtis Beatty, who oversees development review in Transportation, said the department will seek to start interdepartmental coordination earlier in the development-review cycle so utility, sidewalk and tree requirements are hashed out up front. \"This would not add any time to the process,\" Beatty said, explaining the intention to keep any additional waivers or administrative steps from lengthening average review cycles.

Several council members asked whether medians and other ground-level vegetation would be considered; Marks said medians and pedestrian islands would be on the table as part of the TCM updates. Committee members also pressed staff on how quickly low-hanging fruit could be addressed where utilities are not present. Marks said the working group recommended phasing work to focus first on regulatory foundations, then process improvements and operations, and finally capital-program integration.

Marks and staff said they have begun sharing the recommendations with utility leadership at Austin Water and Austin Energy; those departments are reviewing the materials and staff will seek collaborative solutions to limit risk to utility infrastructure while making more space for trees.

\"If we can provide confirmation from the city arborist that a tree can be removed to maintain water infrastructure that might be under the tree, does that provide some kind of assurance to our utility partners about changing our practices to allow that kind of stacking?\" Marks asked, summarizing the type of interdepartmental trade-offs the working group wants to explore.

The briefing concluded with staff saying they will return with additional details after leadership reviews and after they draft the October memo to mayor and council.

","Michelle Marks, transportation officer with Transportation and Public Works, presented 12 recommendations from a TARP working group intended to remove regulatory, permitting and programmatic barriers to planting and maintaining street trees in Austin rights of way.",{"_33":88,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":89,"_41":90,"_43":91,"_45":92,"_47":93,"_49":94,"_51":95,"_53":96,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":97,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":98,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6472143,"Transportation staff update Mobility Committee on corridor work, Ross Road and Airport Boulevard construction and regional transportation study",304,5014000,5318000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2&start=5014&end=5318","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2/thumbnail_5014000.jpg","/articles/6472143/Austin/Travis-County/Texas/Transportation-staff-update-Mobility-Committee-on-corridor-work-Ross-Road-and-Airport-Boulevard-construction-and-regional-transportation-study","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6472143-291294ef385cecdee39c764f08cb5bba/orig.mp4?Expires=1770412583&Signature=leMLfELJ1KMZBgD~n0zeP1wehGqQjgTMfHNNguiBos3CyTVTHrwSxTkDz-DVPQvZ583cvg4N7p9KCAFSI-EyPfNKpWYCUVrSFXHLxVrsAUvP~gkeWGnFe0ziWJsyjO2m~CUDib28AP1Uy6Mux1k5EG9EA4Pv8MyJDp7~5PxEwy2LQHi-5KdZI~0c9W7sN0rdqXD1zYyj1AjW37EbKdIIfQ2ekfANx3K1k5PUAyDjwaxJzpKj7PTlkP93AZcKC2xNmzxlmli6w0w-Sv8qjs5DwFwnmKZH11fW~c4~nQBJSjE6nwo8Df6aIxqMNBqU5be-JBwF-uny20~gmaEvJmt~Xg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","Anna Martin, assistant director filling in for Director Mendoza, presented highlights from the City of Austin mobility report, focusing on active construction and regional partnerships.

Martin said new restricted parking rules on Stephen F. Austin Drive (an AISD-owned road used for access to Austin High School and adjacent trails) will reserve spaces for Austin High parking-pass holders during school hours and open to the public at other times. She said Capital Metro will implement seasonal service changes focused on UT campus circulation and will extend night-owl service to the airport.

Martin said Transportation and Public Works is beginning a research study to better understand how people in Austin and surrounding counties use transportation and what barriers prevent mode shift; the study aims to inform outreach and communications strategies ahead of heavy construction periods expected in the region.

Construction updates included:
- Ross Road: Major upgrade from U.S. 71 to Pierce Lane serving three Del Valle ISD schools; construction on schedule.
- Airport Boulevard: Work between U.S. 290 and I-35 is underway; the new Charity's Path is being built adjacent to the UP railroad, with signal upgrades and a pedestrian hybrid beacon; construction is expected to finish in October.
- Burnet Road corridor: The city seeks new bids for the segment from U.S. 183 to Braker Ridge (Bright Verde Way) and will advertise the next section (Bright Verde Way to Mopac) later this month.

Martin also noted a public-safety campaign about motorcycle safety and airline service additions at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport; she said the airport hosted a public-art expo on Aug. 23.

Committee members discussed the updates, welcomed extended transit service and asked staff to continue coordination with CapMetro and project partners.

","Assistant Director Anna Martin briefed the Mobility Committee on ongoing corridor construction, a regional travel-behavior study and service changes from Capital Metro, and provided construction timelines for Ross Road and Airport Boulevard.",{"_33":100,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":101,"_41":102,"_43":103,"_45":103,"_47":104,"_49":105,"_51":106,"_53":107,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":108,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":109,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":68,"_72":73,"_74":73},6472138,"Mobility Committee approves minutes; public comment urges participation in Week Without Driving",0,173000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2&start=173&end=173","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/5776967-ea241e6d7931563412a65df99d7d2af2/thumbnail_173000.jpg","/articles/6472138/Austin/Travis-County/Texas/Mobility-Committee-approves-minutes-public-comment-urges-participation-in-Week-Without-Driving","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6472138-6d7cdb7ed58e939fc9516cc5051bde7d/orig.mp4?Expires=1770412583&Signature=eokUP~8w09o48UsWSsVUzwjtU0~5UIx2PO2NIRIeprq2pkIySA9AGOhQCC7ejOnuJypJELLfEblaqiD3BpLYtBxuU9~U4aao8YjsWI3MzABiZA~N976FEA7FLUkumxKt6ZzPwAtiKQp7Nz8ZqLRHZKtF-yqVi~MQdD5rszl6MlN~TSJMbNEQ0I~4cvNrvkFRE3P6ifUE8tTviYl2HrGm~AGNCD-mWKjb16YGE6T5KRbCqYczez8sn~QaSixyeMlOpzR2N6WBKRGnZ-6WhgRq03NRfz-mIQo3Yn9baBV~JgDGMGj6Q0bxghcSHuYfhW1f3bTjyo4yeQJHPcs8cdCxOw__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","The Mobility Committee approved the minutes for its July 17, 2025 meeting by voice vote. Chair Paige Ellis said the motion was made by Council Member Harper Madison and seconded by Vice Chair Zoe Kaudry; she called for a show of hands and said the minutes were approved unanimously by those in attendance.

Earlier in the meeting, a public-comment speaker, Hayden Blockwalker, asked the committee to promote and participate in a national \"Week Without Driving\" running Sept. 29 through Oct. 5. Blockwalker said the campaign, which the speaker described as an education effort now involving more than 23 local organizations, asks people to try alternatives to single-occupancy driving \"to build empathy\" for the roughly 30% of the population that does not or cannot drive. \"The goal is to try not to drive a single-occupancy vehicle,\" Blockwalker said, adding that the effort is meant to encourage people to walk, bike, ride scooters or use transit where feasible.

Chair Ellis opened the meeting at 1:06 p.m. in City Council Chambers and asked staff to proceed with agenda items following the approval of minutes.

","The Mobility Committee unanimously approved the minutes from its July 17, 2025 meeting. A public-comment speaker urged residents to participate in the national \"Week Without Driving\" (Sept. 29\u0000Oct. 5) to highlight transportation equity and alternatives.","actionData","errors"]

Article not found

Safe Routes to School program reports 603 barriers addressed; $38.9 million spent of combined bond funding

Mobility committee briefed on TARP—indings and 12 recommendations to ease barriers to street trees in Austin

Transportation staff update Mobility Committee on corridor work, Ross Road and Airport Boulevard construction and regional transportation study

Mobility Committee approves minutes; public comment urges participation in Week Without Driving