renoGood morning folks. It's Friday and we're watching the BiState Operations & Finance meetings today. You can follow long in this thread, or watch live at https://facebook.com/bistatedev
I came in just a tad late and missed minutes approval, but the first agenda item is talking about renting out parts of the St. Louis Downtown Airport that aren't being used/need repair (this is the airport right over the river in Illinois)
They've just been mentioning all of the small properties around the airport and how much they're going to make off of them if rented.
Next up: Contract Time Extension for the downtown tunnel.
Sounds like getting track time was the limiting factor, so they're asking for another year on the construction phase of this contract.
Starting in September, Middle/3rd quarter 2024 is the ETA for finishing. Sounds like it'll just be weekend single tracking when that happens.
Next up, a new contract proposal with WSP USA, which would be an on call engineering firm.
Contract is 3 years, with two option years, for no more than $5 million.
Next up: a contract for more on-call services. Very similar to the previous item.
That approved via voice vote. This past one was 3 contracts rolled up into one, which is odd.
A bigger item next up: awarding a project management consulting contract for N/S MetroLink! It's for $18.9 million. As I understand, this is helping construct a bid for federal funding.
Taulby Roach mentions that this is a City of St. Louis project - entirely paid for by City of St. Louis funds.
Next up: a contract proposal for tire replacement/refurbishment. Only one firm submitted, which is Bridgestone. Contract is for ~$4m, coming from the operating budget.
Passed w/ a voice vote.
Next up: a contract for bus cleaning at the Illinois Metro depot.
This one is w/ Innex Service Co, 5 years, ~2m, from the operating budget.
Passed w/ a voice vote.
More contracts: a modification with our existing contract for track repair.
Contract started in 2021, but Main St., 4th Street & a third grade grossing would be getting fixed with this modification. Until Dec 31st 2024, for ~$6m. Funding provided by FTA Grants, Prop M & St. Clair County transit funds.
Comissioner Simmons asked if this information had been sent to St. Clair County, and Tom Curran (the one proposing the contract) mentions he's not sure. Simmons is holding his vote until we find out if St. Clair Transit knows this is a thing.
Next up: a contract modification for LRV brake calipers. Sounds like a good number of the MetroLink rolling stop got calipers fixed, but this is for the rest of the vehicles. Calipers have a one year lead time, so they're trying to get that started now.
Over 4 years, $800,000. The current contract holder is the original manufacturers of the brake calipers, neat.
Chair Windmiller is asking how this system will look when we have new LRV stock - will there only be one company who can repair brakes?
Taulby Roach mentions that concern is one of the reasons they're trying to upgrade is because newer vehicles are using a more common frame that more companies can service.
We're back to talking about the grade crossing repair: sounds like they're not going to vote on it until the full Board of Commissioners meeting, so that they can confirm that St. Clair County knows about the crossings.
We're having a fun parlipro moment about whether or not that agenda item got tabled or not.
That's all for the official business, now we're on to the workforce & operations report.
Overall boardings are up around 6%. Notable number is Call-A-Ride boardings went down by 16% after they cut service big time there (that was done to lower the amount of Call-A-Ride denials that were happening earlier in the year)
Nov: 5% service rate reduction, 3.5% in April (?), other two service changes were shifting times. Stewart is mentioning he thinks this is as much reduction as we need for now.
Current service level requires 547 operators, we're at 533. Some miss trips going to happen as a result.
Getting to the point where they can "regroup" and think about the "Metro of the future"
"Hiring people is one thing, keeping them is another". Also mentions the new $5k bonus that's gone into effect.
They've got a re-hire program going, offering jobs to folks who left 2-3 years ago.
Also working on hiring younger - 18 y/o with CDL, although Stewart mentions that there are some issues getting them to work inter-state.
Now talking about the new ratified contract with the driver's union - mentions how it's going to help both recruitment & retention now that the contract is in place.
Commissioner Cox asks what the percentage ridership that we lost in COVID - we lost 20% initially. 13 million riders -> 6 million riders this past year.
Here's a table of the current hiring numbers: 32.19% shortage of MetroBus, 19.60% for MetroLink, 42.78% for Call-A-Ride.
Commisioner Cox asks if there's a specific spot they need help recruiting in, talking about job fairs - Stewart mentions they're hiring *everything*, but that MetroBus is the main focus.
Cox follows up and asks what the hangups are for folks applying - Stewart mentions that a background check & drug test loses some folks. Also mentions how training is getting cleaned up to offer more support to new hires.