Okay. So, um why don't we just quickly go around and do introductions. Um and Deb, feel free to just put it in the chat because we can see it. Um see what you're writing. Um I'm Rebecca Ner. I represent W 2 on the St. Paul City Council, which includes the west side, which is also where I live. Um and I care a lot about infrastructure and safe walking and safe biking. So, I'm excited to have this conversation today. And I will popcorn it to Kevin. Uh, hello. I'm Kevin Walker and I work in the communications and engagement office at Metro. I'm on Chris's team and Sarah's team and I've been part of this project for since 2016, way back. And and we're doing the right thing, which is awesome to see that. So, come a long way with that. But nice to meet you, Deborah. Thanks, Kevin. Jimmy, you want to go next? Yeah, sure. Hi, everybody. Hi, Deborah. Thanks for being here. My name is Jimmy Shoemaker. I work for uh the department of public works at the city of St. Paul. Um I live in the Hamlet Midway neighborhood and um I do a lot of street design and planning for safe walking and biking and I'm going to talk about some of the projects over the next couple years on the west side um that have kind of a a biking and walking component. Um so I'm excited to talk to you in a few minutes. I'll pass it to Ruben. Hello, my name's Ruben Collins. I work in public works department. Also, I work really closely with Jimmy on all of the things he just mentioned. I'll pass to Chris. Before you do, I just have to mention that Jimmy that size of that whatever you just drank out of is truly spellbinding. I get that frequently. I get that frequently. It's a If I finish this amount of water throughout the day, then I can call myself hydrated. So, I don't know how distracting. Wield it. It's extremely distracting, but please keep doing it. Okay. Sorry, Chris. Hi, I'm Chris Bower. I'm an area engineer and the project manager for the project on Robert Street with Mindot. Good to be here. Awesome. Sarah, you want to go next? Yeah. Hi, I'm Sarah Swinson. I'm a consultant with MDOT working on the Robert Street project. And then Kaylee. Hi, I'm Kaylee. I'm the W 2 communications intern who um is the reason why we are having this conversation right now and all of our community conversations for the last three years. Um and then uh Deborah, I know you're uh not able to speak in your microphone, but if you want to introduce yourself in the chat, I know you're I know you and I know you are a neighbor of mine and I'm really glad that you're here. Um okay, with that, uh I think I'm going to turn it over to Jimmy and we'll we'll do um Jimmy's going to present on a few initiatives on the west side. Um, and then we'll turn it over to Mindot to talk about Robert Street. Um, Deb, I would just say interrupt with questions in the chat at any point. And, uh, and again, this is being recorded, so anybody who comes in late or isn't able to join us today will be able to see it. Um, but wanted to mostly just get information out about a lot of exciting stuff that is coming up in our neighborhood. So, with that, Jimmy. Sure. Thanks, Council Member. Um, I'm sharing my screen. You guys can see it, I think. Um, so I'm I'm just gonna take a few minutes. There's a lot of uh a lot of exciting projects coming up on the west side and uh I I would need more than 10 or 15 minutes to to cover them in depth. So, I'm going to kind of fly through them. Uh Ruben um if you see something that's that I'm I'm missing in terms of these projects, please let me know and jump in, but I'll uh just jump into it. So, um uh there's there's several projects I'm going to talk about quickly um focused on the west side. Uh the first one I'll talk about is the Milan overlay of George Street. It's also known as a resurfacing. Uh that's happening in 2025. Um there's a separate funded project that will build a couple pedestrian crossing improvements on Wabashaw uh at Congress and Isabel that I'll talk about very briefly. Um, we are also planning to um uh demonstrate some improvements um uh to a section of a bike boulevard on Baker Street in 2025. I'll talk more about that. Uh and then in 2026 um there's uh a series of improvements, pedestrian crossing improvements happening near schools on the west side that I'll talk about. And actually, as we were talking since we've started this meeting, I forgot about another one that I didn't even have time to label, maybe. Or did I? Oh, wait. No, there's Robert Street also. And um we're building a small section of of Off Street Trail that kind of connects the south end of the Lafayette Bridge to the Purum Trail. Um uh and I don't even have a slide on that. That's so fresh. Um but I can answer any questions about that. So, first I want to talk about the uh George Street Milan overlay. Um, a mill overlay is a resurfacing. It's where we grind up kind of the old pavement that's in poor shape uh and we li lay new pavement down and we add new striping um to the street. Um we, you know, years ago that's all we did. Now we've kind of expanded the scope of those projects um to make sure that we upgrade uh pedestrian ramps at corners. So, here's an example in the top right corner of kind of new pedestrian ramps as part of a Milan overlay. Um, we also it had gives us the opportunity to think about and invest in in in uh even more improved crossings if we're out there anyway and we're doing construction. What can we do to improve crossings? Um, and so those are still a little bit up in the air along George. Um, and I'm I'm interested especially if Deborah has any thoughts about that today or anyone on the call. Um uh and those are are will be partially funded by assessments to property owners and George and I'm happy to answer um what little I know about about that but happy to talk about that. Um we have a survey that's open online at george staul.govresurfacing uh that asked people online where do you want some of these pedestrian improvements? Um and I think as of today 19 people responded. I would encourage Deborah Deborah if you if you haven't already um take a look at that survey. It'll be open for another couple weeks and maybe even share it with a neighbor. Um and uh here's a list of where people requested. So those are all the crossings of George Street along the project between um between uh Cherokee and Ottawa and State Street on the other end or State Caesar Chavez on the other end. Uh you can see a lot of people asked for improvements at Robert which I'm hoping that um Chris and Kevin might be able to talk about. Uh and then there's you know you can see some other ones and the reason why a lot of these people chose these is because you know maybe like at Ohio and Striker there's slightly higher traffic volumes. Um maybe the pedestrian crossings need improvement near maybe the library or at Humboldt or where there are kind of logical connections to schools. So, this will be something that we consider when staff kind of make the final decision on pedestrian crossing improvements, but I wanted to to highlight some of those. Um, okay, moving on. Um, there's something else that we're considering or uh we're recommending is the signal. There's a signal at Striker and George. Uh, the signal is very old and out ofd. Um, and this is an opportunity to think, do we replace that signal? do we remove that signal? Uh, and we've had a lot of conversation about this. Um, and uh, as of right now, the the the staff recommendation is to remove that signal and and turn that intersection into an all-way stop or a four-way stop. Um, uh, it's important to note that the reason why we're considering this, um, the signal, you know, it went in at a time where, um, where those standards are are kind of no longer the standards or or warrants. So, the signal according to traffic engineering is is not is no longer warranted or it does not meet warrants. Um, and we're given this opportunity now with the project to remove it. Um, and so it's also important to note that we're not just going to remove it and not make any other improvements. We know that this is an important intersection. The icy uh icy cup is just off to the screen there. I know that there's a little market there. Um, so, uh, we want to make sure that if we do end up going with, uh, the removal of that of that signal, we want to make improvements to make it more comfortable for people crossing. So, I'm happy to talk about that. Just before you go on, Deborah did put a question in the chat about that, and I'm curious about that question, too. Just slowing down traffic through the intersection even if if the signal isn't there or even if it is there. Yes. Okay. Thanks, Deborah. Yeah, great great great question and we can talk about that now. Um, uh, yeah, we have heard we've we've gathered some data also on how how fast cars drive on George. Um, and so we have some of that information. Um, I would say like most other streets in St. Paul, people drive over 25 miles per hour, which is the speed limit on George. Um, uh, somewhere between the range of 31 and 34 miles an hour. um which is not totally uncommon and it's not something that we're you know we don't want to perpet perpetuate that. So we are also again that with pedestrian crossing improvements at some of these intersections including striper striker um what can we do to design the street at some of these crossings um to calm traffic and so that's part of the the project also um and so Deborah I'd be interested to know um if if if you see even just putting it in the chat if you can think of the entire stretch of George um where where you think the most critical crossings are um for people walking and where you might see unsafe conditions. Um that would be interesting to to learn. Um okay. Um there's also um uh part of our our planned bicycle network includes Manomomen. Manomomen is a planned um what's called a bicycle boulevard, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Um, and one thing we like to do with bicycle boulevards is think about um improving the crossings of streets like George or you know busier streets. Um, so we are considering considering um to to help pedestrians too but also bikes to cross um uh uh George at Manomomen. We're considering a median there at at at George and Manomomen. Uh okay. Okay. So, that's all I have for George Street and I have a few more projects to get through. So, I'm going to keep moving. Jimmy, can I ask a quick question? I I'm taking advantage of the fact that it's me and and Deborah here that so I I get to ask questions which is exciting. Um, you had mentioned that there will be a cost uh there will be an assessment on properties along George for the work, which there always is when we do a millon overlay. Um, one of the things that I know we often hear about on the council is people are surprised by those assessments um, and have asked in the past for the ability to to know those are coming to some extent and to be able to plan for them to some extent. And I know we are reticent to say this is how much the assessment will be because we don't know how much the assessment will be and we don't want to we don't want to say something that isn't going to be true. But um what kind kind of information can we put out or do we put out about the assessment even if it's the sort of you know range or a rough estimate that we're taught just because I think people benefit when they have a ballpark even in their minds for what we're talking about. I I totally agree council member that it it would be great um to know some general ballpark. I I don't personally have a ballpark. I I did check in specifically with our assessments office about George Street and asked if they have a timeline for when they might know that and so I can share that information. Um so I wrote it down specifically. Um my understanding is that sometime in May or June of this year there's a public hearing or there will be a public hearing scheduled at city council and that's when an estimate of the value is sent to each property. Um, and then sometime in October or November of this year, uh, there's a public another public hearing at council and that's when the final assessment value is sent to each property. Um, so that's the information I know. I can't tell you how much. Um, there there are other corridors, you know, where we've milled and overlaid in the past, and I've asked specifically, well, can we use that as a, you know, as a a rough estimate? Um, I haven't gotten a lot of great information about that that it's easy to say, "Oh, because on Victoria it was this much, it's going to be this much on George." So, um, all I can say is that specific to George, that's kind of the timeline. So, I think, you know, if the work happens this fall, um, sometime between May and June, the assessments office has told us this is when we would have some information to share about a dollar value. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, any other questions on the George Street project? Okay. Striker is one that comes to mind. Thanks, Deborah. Okay. All right. So, the rest of the projects are are relatively quick. Um, uh, this is one, I think, council Naker, that you helped uh secure funding for. Uh, and so these are pedestrian crossing improvements um at Wabashaw. um kind of where the the brewery and the coffee shop are. Um and then kind of where the ice rink uh is at Congress and Isabel. Um again, these are just trying to improve visibility for people crossing Wabashaw and shorten crossings. Um and so those will go in. We're hoping that that'll be on the earlier side of construction, maybe even spring of of spring to summer of of this year. Um, another one I talked about was Baker Street, um, uh, the bike boulevard demonstration. Uh, I don't have a ton of information about this yet. Um, but this comes out of, uh, a plan that a lot of people have been involved with on this call, which is thinking about bike boulevards um, across the entire west side. Uh, there's an opportunity to almost like demonstrate or test um, some of these improvements on on Baker Street. This is just an example from from Mandot that uh who we're working with with a consultant um uh and and some installations um in in greater Minnesota, but you can see the kind of things that are possible with kind of these short-term or demonstration projects. And so um keep an eye out for that. I I think um uh the those installations on Baker Street to kind of calm traffic for to make it more comfortable for biking would go in sometime in the spring. Um and then finally, a 2026 project um is uh a federally funded project um regional solicitation that will uh make some pedestrian improvements uh pedestrian crossing improvements at uh several locations near schools. This comes out of a planning effort in 2021 that St. public schools led that we were involved with that MIDOT funded um uh to uh to make recommendations for safer walking and biking across all of the west side. Um a big part part of that is Robert Street uh making Robert Street safer to cross. And so I know that uh Chris and Kevin and their team are are um are doing making a lot of improvements to a kind of the most perhaps the most critical corridor, but there are some other improvements closer to schools that we kind of carved off and applied for funding for and that's what you're seeing on screen. Um and it all kind of comes back to the safe routes to school plan that that we worked with uh the schools on in 2021. Uh that's going to be 2026. I don't have a great uh timeline for that, but it will be in 2026. Uh and that's all of the projects. So, just clicking through all of them that I just summarized. Uh a lot of exciting things happening. Robert Street um coming up on this meeting. Uh I'm happy to answer any questions. Uh there's a question again from Deborah in the chat about Clinton at Castillo. Uh yeah. um that on the back side of the park across from the I'm not sure what NH neighborhood house. Oh yeah, neighborhood house fields. Yes, exactly. Yep. It's um it's kind of on that Yeah. Clinton kind of swoops down and you know I think we see and you probably see a lot of people crossing between that that park on the kind of the south side and then to all those like great recreation fields on the on the north side of the street. Um, and so we're kind of proposing a like a midblock raised crossing there to kind of slow traffic as they drive on on Clinton. Um, and that's what we have funding for to build uh in 2026. Will the changes take into account all the cars that park along there during games? Yeah, and I um there will still be parking uh along Clinton. I think the idea is to um it's almost like there'll be hopefully like midblock bumpouts plus the raised crossing which will kind of um which will kind of eliminate parking right next to the crossing so that visibility will improve so there's more there's better sight line. So in the case like you're mentioning Deborah where there's a lot of cars parking during during games ideally there's improved visibility at that crossing. Um and that's that's the goal of it. Yeah. Sure. Great. Jimmy, thank you so much. I'm really excited just I mean I knew about all of these, but I'm even more excited hearing about them again and seeing them all mapped out together. I don't know if we're if this is accurate, but it seems like the west side is getting, you know, maybe even even more than um a fair share of pedestrian safety improvements in a really short time frame, which is exciting. It is exciting. Yeah. Happy to answer any other questions and um look forward to to getting them out on the street. Awesome. Thank you. And we should continue getting more than our fair share. It's not like now we've gotten them, we don't need to get them for a while. Just to be super what I just said. Right. Right. No, I didn't think that that's what you meant. Um, awesome. Thank you so much, Jimmy. And I will turn it over now to uh Chris Robert Street. Yeah. Um, so Deborah, I saw that you were excited for the improvements on Robert Street. That's awesome. So am I. Um, as we go through this, if you have specific questions or things you want to dig into, let me know. Um, we're happy to happy to dig into that. Um, I was just going to share a couple things. Um, actually just on our website. So, Kaylee, these are things um, you can share too if you want to distribute this to other folks. It's all information we've got on the web. Um, one of the things we have, so we have this is the homepage for our project website. We talk generally about the project. One of the things we talk about down here, we talk about the funding for the project. And in August of 2024, we received $7 million from the regional solicitation to help reconstruct the roadway, which was awesome. Um, and then we talked about how we're continuing to move forward with options to for the vioideuct while we explore possible funding sources. Um, so I'm excited to share that there is some news on this front. Um, Senator Clolobashar and Smith announced that we received a $25 million raise grant for Robert Street and that's going to help us reconstruct the vioaduct and and do a bunch of other things on the corridor. So, um, this just news just dropped on the 8th, so this is late breaking news, but um, really excited that now we've got all the funding that we need to do all the things, including replacing the vioaduct. So, um, really awesome news there. So, we're going to be updating our website and trying to get the word out on that in the coming days. It's really exciting. Congratulations, Deborah. You're basically hearing it first. Like, this is the announcement sort of. Yeah. So, this is this is hot off the press. Uh, and we appreciate everyone's support in that. Um, it's great to be able to to do all this work. Um, the other thing big development for Robert Street is we've been kind of working on figuring out what the road should look like. And that's based on a lot of the community engagement we've been doing over the past several years. We have a concept drawing and and I don't know if you're at any of our meetings or any of our events where we're sharing this, but we have this concept drawing that kind of shows what the road looks like. Um if you want a copy of it, I'm not allowed to post it to our website because it's not ADA accessible, but you can click this link here and get a copy of that if you'd like. Um, and then down here we have a video where we actually walk through the entire project and kind of share what's going on. So, I'll just paste a link to this in the chat if you want to learn more about what we're doing here. You can go to that website, go through the video, and get a copy of the layout if you want. Um, oh, perfect. Um, oh, good question. I'll get to the tree question in a minute. I appreciate you bringing that up. That's a good one. Um, one thing we have on our website too is through all this engagement, we heard a lot of questions from the community. So, one of the things we've done is we've tried to summarize some of what we've been hearing and and have some responses to that like what are we doing about this on our website. So, just briefly to run through some of like the big issues we talked about, we heard a lot of mixed feedback on bike lanes. One of the interesting things though is I actually went out and I tal I I talked to every single person who owns a business or lives along Robert Street where that bike lane's going. I knocked on their door and we we talked about it. Most of the businesses along that stretch of Robert Street where the bike lane's going in like the idea of bike lanes. Um having a way for people to get to their business or their property by bike is a good thing. the the concerns we heard were from people who might be losing on street parking or people who are concerned that the bikeway might create conflicts with pedestrians. So what we're doing about that is we're going back and revising the design um from Caesar Chavez uh especially up to like um I'm blanking on it. It's not King Street. um in from like Caesar Chavez up to Colorado Street or Wood Street. And we're looking at what could we do in this area to try and find ways to get some parking back and redesign the bikeways so we minimize conflicts with pedestrians. So, um that was something we heard was a concern. So, we we're going back to see what what can we do to to make that a little bit better. Um we are proposing a number of medians. And the idea here with a lot of these medians is we want to reduce the crossing distance on the roadway. So we talked about some of those safe routes to school intersections like at Morton Street. Um this is a really important pedestrian crossing for people going to Humboldt. We heard some concerns from especially from some of the folks who live here who have driveways here. Hey, this sucks. I can't get in and out of my driveway. Can you do something different with this? So we're going back and we're tweaking those designs and those medians. And I think there's a way we can get medians to work here and not block people's driveways um for the most part. So, we're going back and seeing what can we do to make that a little bit better for the folks who live there. Um Curtis Street, you know, Jimmy mentioned there's a signal on Striker uh and George, I think it was where we're kind of looking at is is that the best solution for traffic? Um we have a similar question with the traffic signal at Curtis and Robert. And this is something um that generate a lot of discussion. Um, I wanted to share one thing. This is a giant table full of numbers and there's a lot going on here. But this column observed CR is the crash rate that we are experiencing at some of these intersections. And one of the interesting things is as you go through this list and you look at Curtis Street right right here, that crash rate is about twice what it is at the adjacent intersections that just have stop signs. So, what we're seeing is that traffic signal has twice the crash rate of some of the roads with stop signs. So, even though you would think a traffic signal should help, it should make it easier to turn left onto Robert Street, that's not actually what we're seeing. We're seeing it has twice the crash rate of some of the adjacent intersections that have stop signs. So, it sounds a little counterintuitive, but when you have a traffic signal that's at one of these low volume intersections that doesn't really have the traffic to justify it, um, sometimes actually a stop sign is a better solution, a safer solution that has less crashes. It's counterintuitive, but that's why we think that's the way to go. And one of the things we're going to try on Curtis Street is before we yank that signal out and put in stop signs, we're going to pilot that just by turning it off for a year. and we're going to put out stop signs and we're going to make sure that it works. So, that's a good way to test this before we go ahead and make any sort of permanent decision on this. We want to make sure that that's the right call before we make any final decisions there. Um, I'm going to skip over a couple of these. You can you can dig through some of this um you know, if you want to dig into some of this more. We are proposing some changes on Robert Street. Um, for example, we're proposing fewer lanes in the flats area. So, at the bottom of the hill right now, it's five lanes. Today, we're proposing only three lanes. People were wondering, how's this going to work with all the traffic and is it going to create backups? And we've done a lot of traffic modeling and analysis behind this just to make sure that's going to work. So, everything that we're showing, we've tested. And the reason why we're doing this is we're actually trying to get folks to slow down on Robert Street. So, the speed limit out there today is 35. You see a lot of people going faster than that. That's why we think there are so many crashes, so many serious crashes. And by narrowing up the road, we are helping to hopefully slow people down and make it safer for people to cross the street. That's the whole idea here. Um so that's kind of the idea there. The other big thing that um folks have been talking a lot about is this idea of the roundabout at Robert State and City. I'd be curious, Deborah, to hear where you're at on this. It's a big change and a lot of folks have, you know, different ideas about the roundabout. Um, but like you had asked about with George and Striker, you're wondering, you know, if we remove that signal, what are we doing to slow people down? Similar idea there. One of the ideas is Robert Street is kind of a drag strip. You can go as fast as you want through there by installing a roundabout that's going to force all the traffic to slow down as they go through the corridor. And and we really think that that's going to do a lot to try and help make it a safer corridor. People have asked me sometimes when you think about roundabouts, there are different kinds of roundabouts and sometimes people think about the ones in West St. Paul. So, you've probably driven through some of these down by um you know, Highway 52 and Wentworth and have asked, is this is this the right solution? Is this the right fit for our neighborhood? Um, one of the things to know is that the roundabouts we're proposing on Robert Street are going to be different than this. So, they're going to be a little bit smaller. They're going to be a little more compact. Um, I've shared the example of, let me see how quickly I can find Richfield. Here we go. There's a roundabout in Richfield on Lindel and 68th Street that has pretty similar traffic volumes, pretty similar size, pretty similar context to what we're proposing on Robert Street. It's a much more compact design. It's smaller, it's narrower, it does a better job of fitting into the neighborhood. So, um, that's one difference to know, too, is when we talk about having a roundabout on Robert Street, it's not going to be one of these bigger ones that you see at Wentworth. It's not going to have multiple lanes. It's going to be more walkable and more compact. Um, so those were some of the things we've heard from the public and just sharing, you know, some of some of the things that we are doing in response to those questions. Circling back to a question you asked about trees and and it's a good one. There are a lot of trees on Robert Street and with every construction project that we do, we try to save all as all the trees, as many trees as possible. One of the very difficult challenges that we are going to have on this project is we're not just replacing the road surface, but also all of the pipes under the ground. So, a lot of the infrastructure on the underneath the road, some of the water pipes and sewer pipes are 100 years old or more. There's lead water services, there's brick sewers, and it is extremely difficult to tear up these pipes um under the ground and preserve the trees. Um when you dig this these pipes up, um Yep. And and when you're doing that, exactly that, you you you risk damaging the root systems. So, if we go in here and we dig all this up and we damage those roots, those trees will have a very hard time surviving. So, that is a real challenge. So, I would love to say that we could save that uh oak tree at King and Robert. I don't know if we can, and it would be irresponsible for me to promise that. I I just have to be honest. Um, we are going to do our best to avoid tree impacts, but there are going to be many tree impacts that are um unavoidable. Um, but I think in a case like that where you have a nice uh historic tree like that that's been around for a while, we will see if there are some special things we can do. There there might be. Chris, one of the things um I've been working with public works and parks on a tree preservation ordinance for the city when we do work on our right of way. Um hoping that the the good example also spreads to our partners. I know you're already doing that. Um but basically saying that we we will keep trees in place or we will replant them in place or we will replant them somewhere else in the city if we can't keep them in place just as a way of preserving our tree canopy. And I know our forestry team has talked about um part of what will help with that is having them be brought into the engineering at a much earlier phase like a 10% engineering rather than 90% which is where they're sometimes brought in. Um do you consult with a I assume you consult with a forestry team as well when you're doing this kind of work. I don't know if that's yours or ours but um when do you usually engage them in the planning? We do and we already have. So, one of the things that's a little bit weird uh about Midnight Roads, um Midnight Roads are kind of the exception to everything else in St. Paul where we have our own forestry staff and we work with them and it's actually not part of the city's efforts. Um so, what we have done already is we had them go out and do an initial tree survey and one of the things that we filed under initial survey, I don't have the numbers in front of me, is that a lot of the trees actually on Robert Street are not in the greatest condition. There are still ash trees on Robert Street. St. Paul Forestry has taken care of the ash trees everywhere else, but we still have a large number of ash trees on Robert Street that are going to be in tough shape in the long haul anyways. So, what we what we're working on and what we're going to have is we're going to have a tree inventory before we go into this. So, we're going to try and find where are those nice oak trees that we want to save? What can we do to design around that? That's something our forestry staff is working on right now. And then we're going to come up with a replacement plan. um and they've been involved from the get-go. One of the good things I think about Robert Street is we are removing on street parking where it's not being heavily used or where it's creating sight distance issues at intersections. So right now as you go down Robert Street right now there's on street parking on both sides. What we're proposing is to turn that into green space. And the good thing with regard to trees and doing that is it creates more space for trees and especially bigger canopy trees. When you have a really narrow boulevard that's only a couple of feet wide, you can't support a very large tree in that space. But if we can design this road and and remove some of that um on street parking that isn't needed, we can find better ways to kind of skinny up the road and find ways to create space for more and bigger trees uh when we're done with the project. Um, could a future me uh could a future meeting include someone from our forestry to talk about that? Yes. Um, and one of the things to know, Deborah, is we're still a little early in this project where it's hard for me to have a good conversation about tree impacts because we're still trying to figure out what this looks like. I don't know exactly where all that utility excavation's going to be happening. I don't know exactly where everything's happening. So, it's a little bit hard to have that conversation now, but I I would like to say in about 6 months, we will be in a better spot where we will know exactly all the trees out here, exactly what those impacts are, and then we can have a conversation about what's our options and what can we do with these things. And one other effort for you to be aware of, um, and if you'd like, uh, if you want, if you're, this is something you'd be interested in, you could put your email in the chat and we'll add you to our list, is we're going to be working on a community-led visual quality process. And as part of that, we're going to be working with community members to figure out, okay, if we do have tree impacts or if there are things going on out here, what should go back? What kind of vegetation and what should that look like? Um, so if that's something you want to be a part of too is figuring out how we hand what we do with vegetation along the corridor. Um, you're welcome to be a part of that. Absolutely. Understood. So, um, we will make sure that I'll circle up circle back with our forestry folks after this to make sure that that's on their list. I'm pretty sure it was as as what we call a specimen, one that we want to try and save, but I'll just double check that we caught that in the list. And Chris, I do really appreciate how attentive to all community feedback, questions, and concerns you and the team have been. Um, this is just one example, but I think it's it really is noteworthy and appreciated. Absolutely. I appreciate that. Um, it's it's hard because we're we're changing a lot. Um, we're changing a lot on Robert Street and I I think with that comes a lot of questions and concerns. So, um, but that's okay and that's good. Um, we're trying to do a lot of good things here. Um, and working through it all together. Um, Deborah, uh, that was kind of an overview of kind of everything that's going on here. We talked about the oak tree. Um, did you have other questions or any other thing you want to talk about on Robert Street? And maybe while Deborah's typing, I would love to know just if you could say anything more about the vioideuct that the 25 million will allow us to do because I know we've kind of gone back and forth on what would be possible there, but now that we have the funding. So we kind of as we look talk about the VIC and as we look at this we consider it almost as two separate components. Uh so I'll just drop down into street view here so we can take a look at it. There are the retaining walls obviously along here and then there's this bridge in the middle. So the George Street bridge and the and these are in some ways two separate things. With the $25 billion we're going to be replacing these retaining walls. So these walls will be replaced which is important because when you go out here and you look at and see that one of them is leaning, these things need to be replaced. So we're going to go out here and replace all the retaining walls. What we don't know yet and we're trying to figure out is what happens to the bridge in the middle. So, one of the interesting things about this bridge is we think it is potentially the oldest rigid frame bridge in the state of Minnesota. Um, and to get into the engineering weeds here a little bit, I'm sorry. Um, a rigid frame bridge means it's all one piece. So, normally a bridge has peers, it has abutments, it has vertical elements that hold the bridge up, and then you set beams on top of that. They're two separate pieces. This one, it's all one piece. So, if you look at it, there's no joints. It's all one solid piece of concrete that was poured at all one time. And it may be the oldest bridge of that design in the entire state. Um, because of that, it may have special historic significance. So, we are working with the state historic preservation office to figure out what we can do with this rich counselor. Yeah, historic preservation is important. Um, but yes, I understand the sentiment, especially when it's so beautiful. Yeah, I understand the sentiment. Um, so we're working with them to figure out what our options are for this bridge. Um, I don't immediately know what that means. So, maybe that means we need to find ways to preserve this. Maybe it means that we will be replacing it entirely and we'd put back something different. I I don't know. The good news is the raise grant pays for either option, but because we don't know that yet, it's going to take us a little bit of time to work through that. Anytime we're dealing with anything historic, it just takes longer. That's just how it goes. Um, so unfortunately I don't have an answer yet, but at the end of this project I can tell you that we're going to get entirely new retaining walls and the bridge in the middle will either be fixed up so it's nearly as good as new or maybe you'll get an entirely new bridge. Um, we would retain a bridge over there would still be a bridge there. Yep. And another piece of this that we don't know yet, but we know is really, really important, and this is something we're going to be working on with the community, is what happens with all the public art in this corridor. So, that is a really important question. Part of that depends on what happens with this bridge in the middle. So, whether we replace it entirely or whether it's rehabilitated, we don't know yet. Depending on that answer, that may influence what we can or can't do with some of the arc in this area. So, that's kind of what we still need to work through. So, we have a lot of questions, but the good news is the raise grant will allow us to get in here and fix this thing permanently. So, we're not having to come back in here and do, you know, these kinds of repairs like we had to do in 2022 and disrupt the public. We're going to get it fixed. So, you don't have to uh think about it anymore. We don't have any more uh repair projects, which is good. And all joking aside, it actually is really cool that we might have the oldest rigid frame break. I mean, that's neat. And I never even thought about the fact when I go under it that yeah, there's nothing holding it up besides obviously the retaining walls. Yeah. And the beams beams are an interesting design. They're not the regular rectangular beam. So if you're an engineer, it's interesting. Um you wouldn't think much of it though if you if you didn't uh if you weren't an engineer. So that's that's that's again what we're working through with the state historic preservation office um trying to figure out what's the best solution there. And Chris, just to clarify, all of this will happen at the same time. Yes. Like, so I I got to explain like the dramatic pause there. Um, Robert Street is a big is a long corridor and it's not the kind of thing where we're going to go in here, shut down Robert Street from end to end and bang it out in in three months. It's it's not that kind of project. When you're tearing up all the pipes under the ground, it it takes a long time. So, when I say it's all going to happen at one time, what I really mean is that we're going to be building this in in stages, in sections, right? Um, and we're only going to close down the piece of Robert Street that we're working on. So, it might be the case that in 2027 we're working on this piece, and then in 2028, we're working on this piece, and then maybe in 2029, we're working on this piece. We're still trying to figure out like the sequence and the timing and exactly how this all comes together. But the goal is to not shut this down, have it open, come back next year, shut it down again, or like try to try to make this more complicated than it is. We want to come in, get one segment done, get out as quick as we can, get the road open again. Um, what we just don't know yet is in what sequence is that happening and exactly what those dates are going to be. Got it. But the vioideuct will all be part of the road, not a separate time that it has to be closed apart from the road. Exactly that. We we want to get in from one end to the other, get the whole thing done and then get out of the west side's hair um with at least with regard to Robert Street for for quite a long time. You know, this is going to be um fixating. Oh, good question. Um really good question. There won't be any work on fixing 52 at this. No. Um, however, um, if you're a user of 52, if you ever if you ever drive on 52, you go northbound, you're probably familiar with the massive backups that happen in the middle lane going northbound and how terrible that whole thing is. We have that planned um for a fix in 2030. So, excited to share that in 2030, we're going to be coming in here and essentially adding another lane to that uh ramp that backs up. Um, so then you don't have those massive backups in the middle lane anymore. Um, and that's going to be in 2030. So the idea is get Robert Street done. Might be 27, might be 28. It may stretch into 29. I don't know yet. And then when that's done, go and work on 52 and get 52 fixed. So um, we've got a plan for fixing 52 and it won't be happening at the same time as Robert Street. It's a really great question, Deborah. And I Yeah, we're we're all a little sensitive on the west side to having no access or or egress points. Um which we've had previously. Yep. Due to no one's fault except rock slides and mudslides and things like that. But um great. Is there more? Is that that it? That's all for your presentation, Chris? Um yeah, unless there are any other questions. I mean, we can there's a lot to dig into on Robert Street. We can, you know, walk through layout, go into as much detail as you want, but um also I want to be respectful of folks time, too. So, and I don't want to keep putting you on the spot, so it's all good. Um, well, great. I have a I have a question. Go ahead. Okay. Just um to get a sense of scale, is 25 million what it costs to replace the vioideuct or does that increase other ele? Does that increase our ability to do other things outside of just the vioaduct and that bridge? Um it's a little bit of both. So um estimating the the cost for the vioideuct is a very hard thing. I mean I'll just be honest. Um it is not your average thing, right? We don't often replace retaining walls. Some of these retaining walls are 20 ft away from someone's house. Like that's that's what that's how tight this is. And if we we want to do this right, and we are going to do this right, by the way. Um and not create undo vibration and noise and all kinds of other issues when we're working right outside someone's living room, that drives the cost up quite a bit. So, um it's not going to be your average project. We have to take special construction measures in order to do all of this. Um, so we don't really know. We have some pretty wide cost estimates like maybe anywhere between 10 and $20 million to to replace that vioduct um at this early stage. The bottom line though is there will be some extra money even after we replace the vioaduct coming from this raise grant. And the the really cool thing is that does allow us to do more things with the project overall. So for example, one of the things we did in that raise grant is we earmarked half a million dollar. So, 500,000 bucks just for what we call um design elements. And what that is, it's a really vague term, but it's it's stuff that the community is asking for that we wouldn't normally be able to do on a project like this. So, if there is something um we want to do with placemaking or or street furniture or something and we can figure out a way maintain it, um we would that's money set aside for that. So, um, it allows us to do some of those extra things that maybe we wouldn't have been able to afford if it was just a regular roadway project. So, that's really exciting. Um, more lighting on the corridor maybe could be an option. Um, we could do different types of pavement. Maybe we do concrete pavements instead of asphalt so it lasts a little bit longer and you're not dealing with potholes. Um, lots of opportunities to do things with that funding. Um, could we plant the roundabout? Very possibly. Um, that that's something that folks have been asking. One of the things I don't know yet, um, and this is something we're still working through is what the center of that roundabout looks like. So, if we want a compact roundabout, and we don't want a very big one, sometimes larger vehicles have to drive over the middle. Um, so if you think about the roundabout, there's one on Montreal and Lexington. I got that right. So that one that one's entirely paved in the middle. Um, we don't know if we're going to do something like that or if it's going to be something that's vegetated in the middle yet. Um, so we have more technical analysis to try and figure out what that looks like and if that's an option. That's fair. Great. Any other questions besides mine? No, this is great. That's what what I'm here for. And and and Deborah, no, I I appreciate you being here. This is this is a great conversation. I don't mind being here at all. So, thanks for joining. Awesome. Well, if there aren't any more questions, um I really appreciate everyone's time. Really, thank you all, not just for the time here with us today, but all the work that you do all day, every day to make all of these projects happen. Um, Deborah, thanks again for being here and uh we'll post this uh recording and uh Kaylee usually sends we'll send a follow-up email um with the links that we talked about and we'll look forward to continued conversation and work. So, thanks everyone. Thank you. Bye.