myBurbank Talks
myBurbank Talks
Ask the Mayor: August 2024 - Special Edition: Burbank's Transportation Future with Nick Schultz and David Kriske
Special Edition recorded on a BurbankBus!
Ever wondered how a city balances the needs of commuters, pedestrians, and residents all at once? Join us for a ride on a Burbank bus with Mayor Nick Schultz and Assistant Director of Community Development David Kriske as we explore the intricate world of Burbank's transportation initiatives. David, our very own traffic guru, brings his wealth of knowledge to discuss everything from the importance of Metrolink stations to his personal experiences participating in Cyclovia events. Whether you're a Burbank resident or just curious about urban transit planning, this episode promises to deliver an insightful look at the city's efforts to create safe and efficient transportation options.
Discover how the Burbank City Council's recent decision to give free bus service for school children aims to enhance safety and convenience for students, including those attending parochial schools. We tackle past criticisms of the Burbank Bus system, addressing its underutilization and the potential for route reconfigurations to boost ridership. Our conversation delves into the balance between the needs of local residents and the influx of employees commuting to Burbank, with a focus on ongoing efforts to make the bus system more effective for everyone.
What could make Burbank's public transportation even more exciting? How about a themed trolley service featuring beloved media characters like SpongeBob and Mickey Mouse, just in time for the 2028 Olympics? We also cover recent traffic reconfigurations, funding challenges, and the future of autonomous and electric vehicles. As we wrap up this special live edition of "Ask the Mayor," recorded on one of the hottest days in August, we express our gratitude to everyone involved and tease some exciting future episodes. Don't miss this comprehensive and engaging look at the future of Burbank's transportation landscape!
My Burbank Talks presents another edition of Ask the Mayor, a monthly forum giving the Mayor of Burbank an opportunity to answer questions from you, the listener, and address issues important to the City of Burbank. Now let's join our hosts as they welcome the Mayor of Burbank.
Speaker 2:Hello, burbank, craig Sherwood here with you once again, of course, with Ross Benson.
Speaker 3:As they say, tally-ho. We got a show with the mayor and special guests. Let's hit the road, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And where are we? We are on a Burbank bus, oh my gosh, why are we on a Burbank bus?
Speaker 2:Well, here's what happened. The mayor, back during oral communications a few months ago, had one of the constituents came up and spoke and said well, I don't feel safe on a Burbank bus. Came up and spoke and said well, I don't feel safe on a Burbank bus. And the mayor says, ah, hard to believe, but I'm going to tell you what I do. That's the mayor's show and we're going to do it on a Burbank bus. Which I gulped and said uh-oh. And guess what? We're doing it on a Burbank bus. So, ross, are you enjoying the bus right now?
Speaker 3:You know the ride is great. I'm buckled in, I got the senior citizen sign over me, I qualify. Who's our?
Speaker 2:special guest today. Well, we have Mayor Nick Schultz with us, as always. Mayor, good to see you.
Speaker 4:Hey, thank you guys so much for doing this. I've been trying to shake things up the last few years and I think this is a first, but I'm really excited to be joined today by not just an incredible staff member, but I like to call him the real mayor of Burbank. Assistant Director of Community Development, david Kriski, is with us. Our Transpo expert.
Speaker 5:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:You've got all the answers to everything. We've got a little pause for you Look at that.
Speaker 3:You know, Mayor, I will admit that David and I go back many, many, many years. I won't say how you had a full head of hair. It's receding. So did I when I started shooting. And David, we know a lot of city employees and he's a czar. He is the czar.
Speaker 2:I call him the traffic czar of Burbank. Absolutely there's nothing in this city that if it moves, he knows about it Right, and so having him on today's show is 100% about transportation in Burbank. We're going to ask you, we've got some tough questions for you and hopefully we can get some good answers for people.
Speaker 4:David's ready for all those answers.
Speaker 3:You know and that's the nice thing, mayor, having David with us, you've been around so many years, but he's been here before when we had dirt roads oh, not that long Long.
Speaker 4:But he's been here before when we had dirt roads, oh not that long, not that long, no, no, in all seriousness, I hope that for future segments of the Mayor's Show. Look, it's an incredible demand on David's time and I appreciate you joining us as policymakers, as a mayor, I'm happy to be here, but I think the chance to really hear from someone who's doing so much good work for the city, so knowledgeable, knows where we have been and where we're going, I think the chance to really hear from someone who's doing so much good work for the city, so knowledgeable, knows where we have been and where we're going, I think that your listeners are really going to enjoy this treat of listening to David and obviously I'll try to pepper in a few policy observations as well.
Speaker 3:You know, and David and I we've ridden in a Cyclovia together. He is a bike rider. I mean, you know, when you ride the bike to work. He's ridden that event. We've done cyclaviers together. He now pushes a baby stroller at events.
Speaker 5:Yeah times have changed with children Probably. My riding is a little bit less now, but, yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:Great to have you, David.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:Well, so we have some questions and, by the way, it was very nice of you to arrange to get us a bus today All day. This bus is not in service. We thought it would be better just to, so we don't have to pull the Star Trek things and go one way or go the other way all of a sudden and try to time that.
Speaker 3:But it's not in service, so we don't have to worry about any passengers getting in the way or anything else. But I will say, craig, where we're set, just so I can set the picture for people. Yeah, tell us, we're at the Metrolink station on the front street side. I don't think I've ever sat in a bus at the Metrolink station. I've taken Metrolink when we've done Cyclovia. But this is kind of neat to be here. There's a lot of people getting on that train and the MTA buses that keep pulling in and so forth. Burbank has robust transportation and this is the hub.
Speaker 5:This is the hub right here. We were one of the very first Metrolink stations we opened. I think we were one of the inaugural stations back in the early 90s when Metrolink started, and we are definitely top two or top three for ridership in the system, at least folks coming in in the morning and leaving in the evening, and that's a testament to all of the jobs that we have here. So, yeah, we've always had a very successful downtown station, and now we now have two more stations, two by the airport, one that was also put in place many years ago than one that was put in just about six or seven years ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, years ago. People don't realize. I talk to people that live here in Burbank and work downtown, instead of paying a couple thousand dollars a year for parking downtown, which I hear it costs. Now you come down here, you get on the train, you take out your laptop, you do some work and before you know it, you're pulling into Union Station.
Speaker 5:You're about 20 minutes to downtown LA from here and I like to say we don't have our subway, but this is our subway and one of the things the city is constantly working on with our other regional officials is trying to make sure that the service coming in and out of Burbank on the Metrolink is like your subway. It's going to be every 15 minutes or less. It's all day, and that's what we're working on and there's a lot of work behind the scenes to make that happen.
Speaker 2:We are going to be talking about it down the line too. But the first question let's get back to that council meeting. Let's get back to the person who complained about security and everything else. So let's talk about safety. Okay, has there been any serious incidents with the Burbank bus system whatsoever? You know, as far as you know, I can't remember any serious accidents, of course, but as far as just personal safety, we hear a lot on the Metro lately about, you know, drivers being stabbed and passengers being shot. I mean, that's of course they're in a little different area, but how safe are the Burbank buses for the average passenger?
Speaker 5:So Burbank bus? Thankfully we have not had any issues like what we've heard in the news in the metro system and that safety is a big issue right now. Luckily, no, we are very safe. We have not had major incidents. We have a lot of safety elements on our system to help people make sure they feel safe and secure. We have cameras in our bus In fact I think you can see one in the corner for security purposes. We have cameras in our bus In fact I think you can see one in the corner for security purposes. We have.
Speaker 5:All of our buses are connected to GPS, which the main purpose is to give information to our riders about when we're arriving to a stop, but it also allows dispatch and others to know exactly where the vehicle is at all times. There's emergency procedures if the driver has an incident or is needs help. There's a kind of a panic system, and so we we do have safety in mind. And then you know I'll say too that a Burbank Police Department they use our buses occasionally for training purposes, so our police also are trained to respond to incidents on transit vehicles, whether it's Metro or Burbank bus, and so I think the safety issue elements that we have in place and the fact that we haven't had any incidents. We are, you know, relatively. We are a safe city. We stay within and in and around Burbank and so I think it's definitely not the situation that you hear elsewhere in LA on Metro and another.
Speaker 3:And that's in the testament right there that burbank, how safe our community is. It's totally different. As soon as you go over that border as you and I know into la or into other parts of the city, and in burbank the riders that want this need it. You don't have your. You never see I've. I listen to the police radio. You never hear them call for a person that's asleep on the bus or drunk on the bus. People use this for kind of different and here in Burbank that's probably one of the testaments why it's safe.
Speaker 2:Let me ask real fast If somebody did feel uncomfortable on the bus for some reason, either somebody was harassing them or they just didn't on the bus for some reason. Either somebody was harassing them or they just didn't. What's the person do? Let the driver know immediately, or what's the procedure for that?
Speaker 5:Yes, I think any rider, if they feel uncomfortable or feel threatened about what they're doing, is always able to get the attention of the driver so that they can potentially take action. Certainly, if it's an emergency, an actual real emergent thing, just like if you were on the street and you see an emergency, you're always welcome to call 911, explain to dispatch that you're on a bus, try and give the location. Likely, if it's an emergency, our driver is going to be doing a similar situation on some of the things that they have. But, yeah, always feel free to let our driver know that there's an issue. That's always available.
Speaker 2:Well, I feel terrible because the name of the show is Ask the Mayor, and I just interrupted the mayor, so I feel terrible. So, please, mayor, what were we going to say?
Speaker 4:No, no, no, I mean honestly. I'm just glad that you all get to really see how lucky we are at City Hall to have someone like David there to advise us, who really knows the ins and outs of our transit system and what we're facing, you know. The only thing I would add is you know, part of your question was how did we end up here today, other than me opening my mouth and getting us in trouble? Look, there is a stigma with public transportation and I hear a lot of times that folks feel uncomfortable taking it. Look, there are legitimate concerns about public safety and those are much broader than applicable to just Burbank Bus.
Speaker 4:I wanted to lead off by just really emphasizing what David said.
Speaker 4:We have a well-run, very safe, very efficient Burbank Bus system here in our community and I encourage people to ride it.
Speaker 4:I think you'll find it to be efficient, affordable, very safe to use and, to the extent that there are broader public safety issues that we have to address, that's not limited to Burbank. We obviously are dealing with upticks in crime across the region and that's going to affect you, whether you're out in a park or walking on the sidewalk or on a bus, and we certainly have and we've talked about on other shows we have. We can certainly talk about how we address that, but in in Burbank we really do have this incredible resource that I think is underutilized, and I just really want to, before we go on to our next question, just thank you all for making the time tonight, because part of my goal in having this episode here on the Burbank bus is to raise awareness about the fact that it's here. It can help you get from point A to point B. It's available to Burbankers and David correct me if I'm wrong based off of our last council meeting, it is now entirely free for Burbank middle and high school students.
Speaker 3:I was just going to bring that up. I know last night Craig had said, on the week that was that last city council meeting you guys voted. My son used to take 20 years ago got wheels. I worked down on the west part of Burbank and he'd go from Muir and it's the safest thing. And, like Craig said, we'd rather see kids get on this bus, where it's safe, you have your safety things around, versus a kid walking the street, you know, and so forth. I mean that should give parents in Burbank. You know, all they have to do is show their school ID, I believe yes, and they can get on the bus. Parents, for parents that work, I tell you, you know, being a parent, the mayor's mayor, you're both parents. You worry about your kid 24 hours a day and where are they? How are they getting around? That was a fantastic move and I'm glad you guys included the parochial schools.
Speaker 2:I'd like, hopefully, the. I don't know if the elementary schools do this, but I know that the junior middle schools and the high schools all students are required to have an ID on them at all times. Now they have to actually wear it on the outside. That's part of the new security. So I'm not sure if elementary schools are doing that, they would have it. But I think if a 9-year-old kid goes to the bus, there's no question that he's a kid and probably needs a ride. So I don't think that's a. You know, they're going to need an ID to make sure they're a student or something.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm just so glad that you guys. It's been a long time We've missed Burbank Bus. You know the kids. Craig used to be a coach up at Muir and he said the kids that they would pack that, but they were the smaller bus. They weren't a bus like this, they were, you know, vans and so forth. A lot smaller, 14 passengers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 20, 19, 20 passengers similar to this 20 minutes for it to make its round trip and then pick another group up. Then another 20 minutes and another.
Speaker 3:It'll take a while for the kids to get used to this, but again, a service that burbank is providing, thinking of the kids, I, that was a fantastic. I know it was voted 5-0. I'm glad to see that. I think you, you guys, your department has worked. Karen pan and you have. She made the report. I don't know karen, since she started with the city and now a parent herself, you know, and and just thinking of those things for a parent is great.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you know from our questions before and over the time, I am critical of the Burbank bus. I think the Burbank bus is a great idea, I think it's something that's really needed, but I think it just isn't executed right.
Speaker 3:That's your train.
Speaker 2:I hope that train wasn't playing. I'm stopping here because it just went right on through.
Speaker 3:No, we've sat at Patty's doing before our show and counted three buses.
Speaker 2:I actually call them the Burbank limousines because at most they'll have one person on them and that's not the driver, oh yeah. So my question is this Is the Burbank bus system really serving the needs of Burbank residents?
Speaker 4:Well, I'll jump in just because David's going to field a lot of questions. I want to give him at least a little bit of a break. But David definitely piggyback off of me. Correct me on anything.
Speaker 4:Look, I would say for the most part, yes, but there's always room for improvement. I mean, you look at the success of the pink route, I mean and I know it took a little bit of a dip, even through the pandemic, after the pandemic, but you see the ridership numbers and I think there are people that are using that. It's going places where people want to take them. Now, when you look at the green route, which was discontinued, what about? A year ago, David? We discontinued that route, but we've talked at council about the need of a north to south running route in the city of Burbank. So I would say yes, I do think it's serving the needs of some residents. I think there's always room to improvement and I think the future of that green route and how we choose to, how we choose to reconfigure it, that could really supercharge ridership if we do it right. But, david, there's probably more that I missed no, that's.
Speaker 5:that's a fair point and a fair observation. I think, uh, as long as we've had the service, it's always been a tension between kind of two major markets uh, the market of, uh, employees and employees, uh, folks that work in burbank. You know, we have a tremendous imbalance between the number of folks that work in Burbank. We have a tremendous imbalance between the number of people that work here and that live here, and so what does that mean? Everyone's coming in from outside to go to work here, and so Burbank Bus is responding to that phenomenon and its primary need has always been to serve folks coming into work and providing an option to driving, to helping reduce congestion, to provide a situation where, if you don't want to drive, work, and providing an option to driving, to helping reduce congestion, to provide a situation where, if you don't want to drive, you can have an option.
Speaker 5:We've always connected from the rail stations into our centers, but we've always had, I think, kind of an underlying comment or kind of underlying criticism that it doesn't serve the residents as its primary focus, and I think that's a totally legit thing to talk about because, yes, on the other hand, this is locally funded. We can talk about how in a minute. But it's Burbank taxpayer money, so why doesn't it serve Burbank? And I think I am welcoming the council's direction to us, which is to kind of look at that tradeoff and to look and see how can we preserve what we support today, which we still have a lot of folks even post-COVID preserve what we support today, which we still have a lot of folks even post-COVID we still have folks coming in a lot to work here with. How can we also pivot to make it attractive for the residents to also be able to use it for better than they are today?
Speaker 3:Well, right, you just brought up a good point. Prior to COVID most people don't know we have about 110,000 people living here and during the day, when everything is up and operational, we're up over 200,000 people. I've talked to the fire department it's at the chamber luncheon the mayors you know they talk about we double our population during the day. Now, post-covid, those numbers I hear are starting to come back. You've reported not all these office buildings are occupied, but people are starting to come back. You've reported not all these office buildings are occupied but people are starting to come back Now and it's funny because the studios are slower than anything. Now there's nothing going on at quite a few of the studios and that's a big workforce, you know. So people don't know that number really grows right here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to kind of piggyback on that last thing and about the north-south routes. Not only the north-south routes, but what about the whole hill area? Because I think we're not. There's no transportation at all. Glen Oaks, or even Kenneth's Residential, is still kind of a major throw-through on the hillside. Why not get smaller buses and more buses and be able to serve more areas? Because I know we're up to maybe getting to new buses we're talking about. Their lifespan is about over, so why not, instead of buying these big buses? I'm not sure how many they seat, but it's probably About 30 to 35.
Speaker 5:Okay, 30 to 35. But it's probably do you have About?
Speaker 2:30 to 35. Okay, 30 to 35. Why not get the smaller buses like Metro Micro uses that hold maybe 10 or 15 people? Get more of them, have more routes around the city.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, we also have a kind of a tension between you know the size of the bus. On the one hand, our policy has always been, um, you know, standardizing on a certain size, because it it is like we have flexibility in which, when, what vehicles we have available to put on different routes if we have different sizes, it just makes it complicated. I mean, you will see your end of the woods only a couple of folks riding, but there are certain runs in the morning from the metrolink where you know 10, sometimes even 20 folks will get on, we're not up at that hour.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute, david. We're not up at that hour, when most people are.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah, and it's actually the earlier Metrolink, so there still is a traditional commute pattern. But we don't want to be in a situation where we have larger loads at certain times of the day and now we need to shuffle that only certain buses can be on certain routes, and so for the fixed route system, we think that you know cost is pretty much the same. A lot of it's the running time and the operations and the overhead, it's not so much the vehicle cost. So we've always standardized on a fleet of this size. However, going into the hillside, we would want to look at smaller buses because, partially, physically they're not going to fit, and so we are part of this upcoming effort to look at our service.
Speaker 5:I think we've also heard from the council and from the community wanting to investigate some of these newer ways to provide transit that's a little more flexible, a little smaller, a little more nimble. We do have smaller vehicles available with our senior disabled service, which is our other component of Burbank Bus. There's potentially opportunities to use some of those resources. So we are keeping a lookout. But I think as long as we're in the fixed route business as a major part of the service, I think standardizing on a size is the way to go. And yeah, you won't see it full a lot on some parts of the system and in some times of the day, but there are other situations when we will need the capacity and we want to maintain flexibility.
Speaker 4:The only other thing I would just great explanation, david. The only thing I would just add is that when you look, so look, burbank bus is not an enormous system. We have two current running fixed routes and then we have a third route that will likely come back in development for the next council to decide what to do with. We have tried to prioritize a bus system that services those in our workforce to help alleviate congestion on our streets right, because we have a lot of folks that are working at the studios. That's important.
Speaker 4:I think that the council and our staff have definitely heard from the community that there is a balance to strike and that maybe there is better ways that we can service those who live in Burbank who don't have access to quality or reliable public transit. So you know, what I would say is that this has been an important topic. David and his whole team at Community Development, they take the charge seriously, they're working, they really are studying and trying to bring back options to the next council to really figure out a more workable, lasting system. So if you have thoughts on what you'd like to see, now is the time to send your feedback.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm glad you said that. I'm going to once again kind of skip around a little bit, but we're staying on the same theme because I've got Ross came up. Ross and I, you know, for years, have talked about why don't they put trolleys in Magnolia Park, and some of these guys put trolleys in and it's a great idea. But Ross and I'm going to let him give you his ideas because they're fantastic. Well, at one time I know he went when Bob Frutos was on the council and they used to go to a lot of dinners together and he used to tell Bob Frutos we've got to do trolleys, we've got to do trolleys and things like that. Cities like San Luis Obispo, they have a great trolley system all around their little community. San Diego, a city like that, has a great. You get off the train down there, you jump on a trolley and go around the whole city.
Speaker 2:But Ross has a great idea how to fund and how to do a trolley Ross, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Let's segue into a quick commercial. Let's go into a quick commercial and then I'll ask this question when we return, because there's a technical thing. I want to make sure things are working on.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's pause for commercial and we will be back in one second. Enjoying the show right now, think you may want to do your own podcast. Well, my Burbank Talks is renting out our podcast studio on an hourly rate. You and your guests can record audio podcasts or both audio and video. We'll help you get set up on podcast platforms and even your own YouTube channel. We can also edit your productions to make you look and sound your very best. If interested, please drop us an email at studiorentalsatmyburbankcom. That's studiorentalsatmyburbankcom. Now back to our show and we're back. Okay, I got to say Ross, before you ask a question.
Speaker 4:Now back to our show, and we're back, so Okay, I got to say, Ross, before you ask the question, I always felt that Mayor Frutos really missed an opportunity here because, yes, he pushed for this trolley, but, man, if he opened a chicken wing place, which I know he loved, he could have called it Wingstop. I mean, there might be a copyright issue but he could have put a stop at one of those trolleys and made a ton of money.
Speaker 3:Finally get a full-time job that he could enjoy.
Speaker 2:Don't call raising chains, that's all. Stay away from that one. Well, you know. Let's talk about your trolley idea here.
Speaker 3:I thought of this. We wanted to think about a trolley. We got a company here in Burbank, I think they're called customs. They now have a ride out at magic mountain that they created. The guys over there are amazing oh yeah we are?
Speaker 3:what is this city known as the media capital of the world? Why don't we build a trolley and get spongebob, you know, on the bus, mickey mouse, donald duck, all the characters that are home to burbank on that bus, on different, yeah, but make them the money that we're paying for these buses, you know, make them um, natural gas or whatever. We're going electric, probably electric, that's what they're probably doing and get them to the money shuffled here again through burbank. But make them media capital of the world. You tell me people, let's say, in four years coming to the olympics or any day coming to burbank, I want to take the shuttle, I want to take the trolley and pose with spongebob you know?
Speaker 2:or mickey master? Yeah, look at the statues we have people. Come just to those statues and just sit there and visit again, would love.
Speaker 3:You know, I know there's advertisement on the outside, but on the inside how many people, as you know, go in front of either Nickelodeon or Warner Brothers and pose in front of those? Have a bus with SpongeBob as your driver, I mean, I think a ton of people would love to get on that bus and and just I would pay just to pose with. Is that a possibility or an idea?
Speaker 5:Well, so you know, with our vehicles, maybe that could be something interesting. You know, like you said, we do advertising. We're not exactly the most popular area for the outside advertising. It has a lot to do with what's going on outside as much as it is in the side.
Speaker 2:Welcome to my Burbank.
Speaker 5:We feel you, but there's interesting things we can do with vinyl wraps and you know you could do like a Visit Burbank tie-in might be interesting. And especially I actually kind of like your idea about the Olympics too, because we may need to be ramping up. You know, temporary service for, you know, worldwide millions of people coming into Burbank Airport and coming to see the game.
Speaker 3:You tell me all our hotels are going to be packed. I've said it on all of our shows. A lot of people don't like staying in hotels downtown Hollywood because of the current crime Every time you turn on the TV and so forth. But Burbank it's safe. These hotels in Burbank are booked all the time. What's it going to be in four years when we have, you know, the olympics?
Speaker 3:People are going to want to stay in burbank and get on the shuttle or a trolley to go around burbank. I'll tell you, on a friday or saturday I'll go down san Fernando Road and the number of people walking from our local hotels down to the mall or down to where Superman is is crazy. And I'm just thinking you put a bus even now with the kids. They would love to probably be on a bus and pose and right, like at the Disney or the Superman. You take a picture of that and you send that all over the world. Burbank is right there. Our namesake, the media I did hear yesterday Mayor Bass said LA is the entertainment capital. You got to admit every show Burbank is the media capital of the world.
Speaker 3:That was an idea of mine. I came up several years ago. I gave it to Bob. They didn't go with it. But now that we have the czar and the mayor, you know I want to throw that out at you. It was an idea of mine and I just think it would be.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think, like the specialized trolley, there's some problems. We looked into it, trust me, you know. At the time the mayor said what about a trolley? So we looked into it. You're kind of getting into the funny markets of vehicles when you're looking for trolleys. We found I think a lot of people buy them and maybe it doesn't work. And then suddenly there's a used trolley market. Come to find out. So it's back to that different vehicles makes it hard to deploy service. But I do think your idea is interesting. With just what you can do now with I mean, you wrap cars all the time, right, and there's a vinyl wrap is very new now modern.
Speaker 3:We have a couple of companies in Burbank. Every year when we do the pink police car, oh yeah, there's a company that wraps. So there's companies here in Burbank to keep the business here. I want to keep the business here, but West Coast Customs, those guys are pretty talented and having it here, you don't have to ship it to la marada, have it wrapped or something.
Speaker 5:If it could come to our yard and have it done exactly, and also maybe financially.
Speaker 3:That's promotion for all these companies where we could get some money from them putting their own wrap on a bus right well, and I totally agree, Totally agree, ross, and I will just say a little bit of a preview for Tuesday night.
Speaker 4:I don't usually like to tip my hand, but one of my parting gifts to the Burbank community. I know we have folks like David that are working on this, but I really think that we need to develop a mayor's task force on preparation for the 2028 Olympics, something that's streamlined and coordinated, a multi-year effort that's probably spearheaded by the city manager, but really bringing the departments together to talk about how we're going to take advantage of it, how we're going to look at creative ways to market Burbank bus to feed into that. So great people are already working on it. But Tuesday night, that's what I'm going to ask for and leave it to my successor.
Speaker 2:Well, let's stay on that, because Mayor Bass has said it's going to be a vehicle-free Olympics. You know? Oh well, thanks, mayor Bass. I know she's on the Metro board, but suddenly you know she's going to speak for every city that there is, and so I know that you guys probably just heard about that one or two weeks ago. It's all new information. So what are you trying to do to?
Speaker 3:plan for that. No offense 2028 is going to show up like tomorrow.
Speaker 4:That's right, we're going to go wow.
Speaker 3:So it's like we finally have this freeway. How many years have you worked on this interchange and getting into Burbank and so forth? We got a great. I mean you lost a lot of hair over this one.
Speaker 5:I think that's where it all went.
Speaker 3:I think you lost 10 years of your life, too, on quite a few when it ran out of money. And then how are we doing this? But you know the soccer, what's happening with soccer World Cup 2026.
Speaker 4:Yep.
Speaker 3:I mean Super Bowl 2027, Olympics 2028. Let's start thinking this stuff. And Burbank we're lucky to be financially in good shape here in town, but with these different things coming in I see dollar signs- I totally agree.
Speaker 4:I'll be happy to ask for the item and it'll be up to Mayor Perez and whoever follows after her to continue the work of that task force and really comes back to our really incredible city manager and our talented staff to make sure that we are, uh have a cohesive and frankly aggressive strategy to capture all those dollars that are going to be coming into the los angeles basin, and I think I think we'll do some good things, david's, I can already see the wheels turning I think he had.
Speaker 2:He took the same gulp that I took when you said let's do it on a rur bus, when you heard the mayor say no vehicle. So, david, what's going on? Are you starting to make? You got stuff in your head starting to spin, and how can we start to accomplish?
Speaker 3:this. He didn't have that gray in that beard last week.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's just the last few weeks.
Speaker 5:Thanks, Karen Bass the announcement about Car Free has been out for a little while and there's been a little bit of chatter in some of the regional groups that me and my staff participate in at Metro and other places, so we do know that was coming. That's going to be an issue. You know, we and my staff originally thought, or immediately thought, we've got at least two venues nearby. We have the Rose Bowl to the east of us, we have the Sepulveda Basin to the west of us, we've got the airport.
Speaker 5:It's not LAX, but I'm sure many people are going to be coming in via, you know, new terminal too, and so the interesting thing is connecting. The only connection, the only one seat ride connection from the Hollywood-Burbank Airport to the Red Line Metro Rail System is Burbank Bus, and so that's one step right. There is, we're going to have everyone coming in car-free. Wherever you're going to go, even if you're going and staying in the mid-city and going to all the venues there you're going to need. If you're coming into Hollywood-Burbank Airport, you're going to need to come through Burbank.
Speaker 4:And you'll be taking Burbank Bus to get through that line.
Speaker 5:That's the only way to get there. So, looking at, you know, just ideas about beefing up service during that time, maybe getting more transit capital during that time, you know, looking at everyone's who, where they're staying in the hotels, talking with our economic development team, visit Burbank. Where do they expect to be the patterns of people coming and staying, you know. The other thing too is I think the Olympics always had a legacy of you're building stuff for the Olympics, but then it's a lasting investment in capital. Well, if there's money that's going to be out there for that, how can Burbank capture some of that? Just in terms of a fiscal, what are some of the things that we want to do anyways? And dovetailing it into potential financial opportunities that come up. But it is A, you're right, it's going to be here before we know it. And also, unfortunately, it's really just starting to kick up in terms of the discussion about where's the money going to come from. Who do we need to coordinate with? That's all just starting.
Speaker 3:Well, I know, I've heard you say, and I know for a fact that you travel to other cities. You've gone up to Portland, you've gone up to different parts of the state of California to see how they're doing things, and that's why I say you are the czar, you are our transportation guide. Now you've been with the city. How many years? Uh 20, 22 years so we're not going to see any retirement before the Olympics.
Speaker 5:I'll be here. As long as you'll have me, I'll be here as long as you'll have me.
Speaker 3:I'll be here and, am I correct, you're a Burbank grad?
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 3:That's what I thought A lot of people didn't know. You know these streets better than some of the tires that roll on them.
Speaker 4:I got to ask Burbank High or John Burrowside, okay.
Speaker 5:Well, that's why you are on that side of the bus and we're on this side of the bus.
Speaker 3:You know a couple other questions. I know that we had that people ask us. One is I'm trying to think the routes and so forth. I know you change them every so on. They have dedicated pages. I know they put Twitters and tweets out. Now I think, uh, when you guys are on schedule and so forth, I mean now with technology, is that helping you from where you were 10 years ago? Because that's, we've had burbank bus for well, we've had burbank bus since 2005.
Speaker 5:before that we had, uh, basically what's now the pink route, the shuttle from when Metrolink opened. So we've had some sort of fixed route system since 1991, 1993, something like that. We were actually an early adopter of using Twitter to get the word out. We were also an early adopter of putting our system in Google and then more recently, probably about four years ago, we moved our system onto a real-time transit system so that you can look at your phone and know where the bus physically is and when it's going to arrive at the next stop. And then, most recently, we've actually kind of started to migrate some of our service information off of Twitter and we've moved it on to the Burbank 311 app. So I encourage any Burbank bus riders existing our perspective to download the Burbank 311. You can see our route map, you can download our schedules and then you can also see the real-time where the buses are on the system at that time and getting next real-time arrival at whatever stop you're waiting for well, I got one more question before you jump into your next one.
Speaker 3:What I know, you both have taken a lot of hits.
Speaker 3:I we read, you know really, I thought everyone liked me well, when you, when you put one-way traffic going down san fern and Craig even went up and drove eastbound, I used to live at Olive and Kenneth. I had a balcony and I could sit out there and count how many cars ran the stop sign or how many were going over 60 miles an hour. Now, again, that's a trial. I know you've taken everybody's complaint and so forth. You've lost a little hair over it. Glad you haven't lost any sleep. The baby causes that.
Speaker 3:But you guys are going to reevaluate that and we're in this safer streets mode. People LA's doing it, they're doing it all over and I last week saw a pretty big, you know show on the safer streets. It's working, oh, working, oh yeah, the number of accidents are lessening and that's a goal. We're tired. You know sharon used to say it. She was a walker and she said you step off the curb, you're gonna get killed. You hear it all the time. We're pretty lucky here. I know we talked about san fern. A little Olive. What's the little feedback that you could share with us with what you're digesting?
Speaker 2:Besides the complaints, I'm coming back to council. Do you know when it's coming back to council? Isn't it after the first of the year?
Speaker 4:It was a one-year pilot right, David, so January to roughly January of next year.
Speaker 5:Yeah, san Fernando, reconfiguration is a one-year pilot. We are going to be going back to the city council with a six-month update, probably in October, so maybe like seven months. What we're doing now is we're collecting data. We took a lot of data before we made the change and now we're taking the same kind of data after we made the change so we can see what the reconfiguration did to other traffic on other streets, what it did to speeds on the streets, what it did to pedestrian stop compliance people stopping or not stopping for pedestrians, looking at pedestrian counts, bicycle counts. So we're collecting a lot of data and kind of crunching the numbers to see what the effects are. We're also doing a big outreach follow-up so we want to hear from our business community members in downtown how things are doing.
Speaker 5:I think preliminarily it's a split. Some businesses really like it, others are a little concerned about it, and so we're going to gather all that up and present our findings to the council in a few months. That's the six-month mark and then in the one-year mark. We hope it's going to be successful. I am optimistic and think it's successful. I use it a lot as a walker, as a driver, as a patron of the businesses. So I'm hopeful, but we could. If we don't like it, in a year we have the ability to undo it and put it back the way it was, like you always say paint is cheap.
Speaker 5:Yep paint, it's paint and plastic is what we say. Some of these improvements and the planners and we just will put it back.
Speaker 3:Now, with that we have, we're sitting right across from now. What's it called? The new apartments on First Street? Yes, that's how many. There's a couple thousand people going to to be left. You're going to have a lot more pedestrians, foot traffic walking into the mall or walking up to the AMC and I don't think people realize that private. You've got a lot more foot traffic downtown than we've had in years. You know there's more places to live and so forth, so people don't understand. You have to take that into consideration. I got one for you that Craig loves this street. He lives down by Riverside Drive and he drives those restaurants looking for a parking spot. Then he goes home and calls to have his dinner delivered. But you and I have shared and it's public knowledge Riverside Drive is going to get a remake in or a look at too, also right.
Speaker 5:So we've got, as you know, we've got three specific plans going, which are the long-range planning documents that govern what we want to do in different parts of our city. We have one for downtown, we have one for the airport area called the Golden State area, and we have an update of the media district-specific plan, and so there's a land use part of it and there's a mobility part of it, and so what we are looking at and we have, so we have an administrative draft out for public review and we you know it's some of it's putting stuff out on the table and seeing what people think, seeing what sticks. But we got a lot of input and feedback from folks in the media district and in Toluca Lake about the walkability, about same messages we hear. Otherwise it's too long to cross Riverside, the intersections are really skewed, people drive fast.
Speaker 5:I like the village-y kind of atmosphere on Riverside. I want cars to go slower, and so we are looking at the data and looking at the cars and the traffic in that area. And so we are looking at the data and looking at the cars and the traffic in that area. And one thought we have, and one opportunity is to reconfigure Riverside from Alameda through the media district so that it essentially matches what's in the Rancho, which is one lane in each direction, center turn lane, buffered, bicycle lanes and parking, so it's for all users.
Speaker 2:Wasn't the BRT going to come in there anyway and do something in that area?
Speaker 5:So the BRT and you're bringing all the good ones in.
Speaker 3:Oh hey, when you came on this show.
Speaker 4:All the light and breezy topics, guys.
Speaker 2:Somebody actually, we actually do, he's not going to trust me to come back. I was going to say we actually do watch the meetings.
Speaker 3:But you know, as I said to David, we're not throwing him under the bus. This is all stuff that he's been working on, Not at all.
Speaker 4:He's literally on the bus.
Speaker 3:He's literally on the bus. So you know we appreciate it. I know our followers appreciate you sharing this. You don't get this at a council meeting. You get up, you make a report to five council members, but the people can't. And we've had people ask us. Craig happens to live in that area. He's meeting with mary over there where that seven-story project I've got things I one day I can.
Speaker 2:There's 18 restaurants in a three-block area with no parking right and they continue to allow more restaurants to come in. I'm going how do they do this? How is the? What makes that then? Restaurants are failing there because they get no business.
Speaker 3:You're going to have how many more living spots where the old Kinko's is or where the car wash was? You add up how many people on foot are going to be walking in that area. You've got to do something to make it safer.
Speaker 5:And you know, the other thing too is A we're giving them more options, we're making it nicer to walk down there and not, you know, just be, you know, fearful of all the chaos.
Speaker 5:We've got a lot of parking in those office buildings that even before COVID, were not used on the weekends, and some restaurants actually share some of the office parking. So those are all policies that we're looking in and looking for input on in the media district specific plan and some of our other specific plans. And then one of them is you know how? You know, if Riverside is a village and you wanted to be able to walk with your family and go to dinner, what can we do to the street to still provide good mobility but also provide bicycle mobility, provide enhanced pedestrian mobility, and we think we can accommodate it with the vehicle traffic that's there. But again, this is what planning is. This is putting it out. Some of these are just ideas we put out. We see what the community thinks, we see what the council wants to do and we're just trying to respond to what we're hearing from our outreach.
Speaker 2:I think it sounds like Hollywood Boulevard just went through this and they're getting a lot of flack by some. But if you really look at the design and the concept, it does look a whole lot safer.
Speaker 3:And people don't realize. You guys don't have a crystal ball, you don't have that snow ball. You know where you can and then wherever the snowflakes fall, you got to have this down pat and and correct again. Pain is cheap, but again these buildings are going to go up in 10 years. I've looked through some of my old pictures of this, when first street or front street no, first street was over here, you know, and front street you know, and how that is all changed. I remember you know some downtown has changed. We never thought some of these hotels were going to be here. So this is a great show. I mean we. I know we've gone over our longer time and we've stolen it.
Speaker 2:We're right on schedule here time and we've stolen it from you. No, we're right on schedule here actually. Oh great, we've stolen quite a bit, but we don't have our big clock on the wall, like we usually do, to look at it.
Speaker 3:But David for me, and Craig, we appreciate you sharing your time with us, because, well, we're not done with them.
Speaker 2:Yet you We've even got to look into the financing of the Burbank bus system.
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 2:So how is the Burbank bus system paid for? Is it through Measure A money, the city's general fund? Where is the funding really for Burbank bus coming from? How much is really the city of Burbank putting into this?
Speaker 5:So yeah. So I'll get a little wonky about transportation finance for a minute. So first of all, it is not general fund, so we use monies earmarked specifically for transportation, for Burbank Bus, so it's funding that can only be used for transportation. So I don't know if people know, but when you buy goods and services in LA County you're assessed a sales tax, two pennies of every dollar. Two percent, it's four half-cent. Sales taxes are gathered by the county for transportation purposes and Metro manages all that money. So we call them propositions or measures Proposition A, proposition C, measure R and Measure M, and those all for a 40-year span over time. Those have been adopted by LA County voters and so every city gets a share of the funds from those sales taxes for local programs that serve transportation. And so Burbank Bus is funded with Proposition A and Proposition C funds, with Proposition A and Proposition C funds. The other big thing that we fund out of those two are the Metrolink stations, the downtown station, so it's transportation funds.
Speaker 2:Is there a formula for the funding? Because I know Measure H. We've all learned what happened when you vote for something and then there's no caveats on how you get your money, because I think we put in. For every dollar we put in, we don't get it back for our homeless thing. But what about for transportation? Is it a do we get? How's the formula that we get funding for?
Speaker 4:You're wondering if there's some sort of like guaranteed local return.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 4:Funding.
Speaker 5:Yes, the answer is yes and that's yes. That is definitely a critique of the Measure H. Yes, and that's yes. That is definitely a critique of the Measure H is there is no local return, and there's been discussions that if that's ever extended, that there probably should be a local return. But for transportation, all four of those sales taxes do have a local return element, so we get the county for all the funds that are collected. Anywhere from 15 to 25 percent is pulled aside and then sent back to the cities by population. Okay, and so for burbank, for all four sales taxes, it's about eight and a half million dollars a year that we get from those I find that interesting to do it by population and not by.
Speaker 2:Like you know, ross said we have about 220 000 a day and I say you know, our population is only about a hundred thousand. So you think that maybe we should a little under.
Speaker 5:We're a little underfunded in that regard.
Speaker 3:Yes, most people find and I I believe there's been studies people that work here don't shop here, and if they shopped here, that money would stay here. But the money kind of comes back, no matter what where you're directly yes, it's, and it's not.
Speaker 5:It's, it's, it's collected at the and then it comes back to us formularically by population.
Speaker 2:So does that pay for the buses themselves? I know we had a Hindenburg at one time, so we. What was that bus? It ran on, what was it?
Speaker 5:We had a hydrogen bus. We were bleeding it. We called it Hindenburg. I don't think it ever went out. One day did it? It did not go out. So the operations.
Speaker 2:I had to bring it up.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I know that bus is in your backyard as a plant.
Speaker 5:No, that bus was disassembled so we fund through those sales taxes. The revenue we get from the sales tax is for the operations and some of the capital cost of the buses. But we've also been very fortunate over the years that our buses have all been the fixed route buses. The larger ones have all been funded with grants, either federal grants or grants through Metro, where we've only had to pay either nothing or like a 20% local match and some of that money has come from developer fees. So all of the impacts financially for Burbank Bus have been off of the general fund.
Speaker 5:Including the maintenance of the buses, including the maintenance. All of that is paid for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do ask all the little questions too.
Speaker 5:All the local return funds.
Speaker 3:Okay, you just threw it out there. The developers I know Craig and I, we talk about this project on Empire. What seven stories with seven parking spaces.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 2:But they have a bus stop across the street.
Speaker 3:We know that that came from the state. A lot of people you see it, facebook, social media people go. Why are those city planners? It's not you, it is not the city that is making those decisions.
Speaker 4:That is comes from we're just complying with state law exactly, and you foresee that project now.
Speaker 3:Craig had told me there were two other projects there that got canceled that's correct.
Speaker 4:There were two projects. Uh, as it stands right now, I don't believe those two projects will be moving forward.
Speaker 3:So the one that is built I know a lot of it is low cost.
Speaker 4:All of it is 100% affordable. All of it is.
Speaker 3:Now a lot of those people don't own cars Insurance, especially with the rate of insurance going up. You can't afford driving a car now. But a lot of those people will take, you hope, public transportation and so forth.
Speaker 5:Yes, but not everyone will, and I think, as a planner, definitely on the broader scale, we tend to overbuild parking at the expense of other modes and there's some bad effects to that. But I think the state regulations that are poisted upon us are a little bit like just smashing the hammer without any nuance of the situation, and I think we, unfortunately, are going to be responding to that and we are Also, as part of those specific plans, a big component of those policies is looking at what we call neighborhood protection. So traditionally it's been neighborhood protection about traffic coming in from all the office buildings, but we're finding that the new neighborhood protection is also added to. That is, how do we manage the parking of developments that may have less parking, where we understand that people are still going to have cars, and how do we now manage what's going to be now more sharing of parking on our city streets, so that we can kind of protect the existing neighborhoods that have the parking that they rely on, and then trying to accommodate these new developments that now may now invoke laws to not have parking, and those laws are only getting bigger, particularly in downtown.
Speaker 5:There is really no need to build. We cannot impose parking requirements anymore. So if you're near transit, they developers of any, really of any housing office. If you meet the requirements of that state law. You do not. We cannot compel you to build parking. Now I'm hoping the market you know you as a developer, you necessarily probably can't build a successful building without some parking. So what it does is let the developer and lets the market figure out how much parking is needed, Because again, I think the cities maybe were a little too conservative with parking. But what the state came to it is again with this hammer and smashed and said no parking, we can't ask for it at all, and so we're going to be responding to that through our specific plan I think one of the problems is I don't throw you know, I'm going to ask you.
Speaker 2:You have no idea, really the exact number, but do you know how many cities are in the state of california?
Speaker 4:oh, hundreds, hundreds and hundreds okay.
Speaker 2:so hundreds and hundreds, and they make a law that a city has to follow, but every city is different, so you can't really put a blanket law, like they're doing, because that law may work for Eureka but it doesn't work for Burbank, and I don't think they take that into consideration when they just put these laws in a very bad reputation party.
Speaker 3:Exactly what Craig says. I don't think the public. You know they want to blame you. It's not you. It's not our city planners yeah, not you not, it's really my fault yeah, don't say before the night before election.
Speaker 3:No, but you know, the thing is people don't get and people are very impatient. As you know, verdugo I used to live at verdugo and borna vista. I could look out my kitchen window and see how many people use that bike lane. People do use the bike lane folks. I've watched people sit and clean my dishes and count 50 at 8 o'clock in the morning, use it and people say nobody ever uses a bike lane.
Speaker 5:Yes, they do. And oh, by the way, we reduced major crashes by 30%. So this was Vision Zero. Before Vision Zero was a thing was Verdugo. I'm actually very proud of that project. We had a safety benefit, we had a safety benefit.
Speaker 2:We had a mobility benefit and, quite frankly, if I'm coming across town to go home from the West, I'd use Verdugo.
Speaker 4:I'd use Verdugo. So do I absolutely. And the one thing I just want to tack onto this, guys, is I totally hear the question. I agree with you and I agree with David. Look, at the end of the day, the solution that's being handed out from Sacramento, it's a one-size-fits-all solution. And look, I don't have all the answers. But I think the reason why is let me ask you this how many of our state legislators have been a planner? How many of them have served on a planning commission? How many of them have served on a city council? In LA especially, it's often the other way around. It's an introductory or entry-level political position and then you see them running for LA City Council. Well, that's how you lose all the nuance. You haven't had to sit in a hearing and balance these competing interests of yes, we need to densify, we need to add more housing, but how do you preserve quality of life? And people have very real concerns about safety on roadways.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, with that Mayor, I will say and I applaud your department, we are very fortunate not only they have david krisky, born and raised here, but also his fellow city employees in planning in traffic oh yeah long-term employees?
Speaker 3:we don't. We are very fortunate. We don't bring people in and they're here a month or two, oh, and then go to pasadena. We're real fortunate long-term employees that walk and drive. You know, I always say a lot of city employees don't live in Burbank, they can't afford to, but they drive in. But your department, I will say majority of you, live right here. So you see it, you know, it's not that you come from out of town and go to your office and not see the traffic on Olive or Verdugo or so forth. You've've lived here, you know it.
Speaker 5:And I would say even my staff that don't live here, burbank becomes their adopted home and I can guarantee you they have just a vested interest in making sure that our community is safe and that it's operating efficiently. I think, definitely my staff is very excited about the Safer Streets Burbank initiative that the council has directed us to look into, because it's really kind of getting to the crux of what people are concerned about, which is safety and walkability, and just you know, I want my city to be pleasant and safe and being able to enjoy it. So I would say, yeah, if we live in town of course we are we want to be concerned about our city, but I think, even if you work here, this becomes your second home, becomes your adopted home, and I think that is pervasive definitely in my staff and I think in all of uh. I think most well.
Speaker 3:You know it's funny. I sit on the magnolia park merchants board and food truck friday night. That first hour are the the new families in burbank pushing the stroller and then that next hour the kids that don't need the stroller. Burbank's changed. I've lived here all my life, 68, 69 years Craig's right behind me. You know we've seen how this city changed. I remember when we didn't have any high-rises, you know, and so forth. It's changing and the people that are living here that are pushing those strollers aren't driving 60, 70 miles an hour because they have kids and so our whole demographics are changing a lot.
Speaker 4:Well, and the two other points and I know you guys have more questions, so we'll get to it. But you know, just to go back to a related and really an interconnected issue, housing we have a three to one jobs to housing ratio in Burbank. So, whether we like it or not, a lot of folks that can't afford or don't live in Burbank are going to be commuting in daily in and out of our city. And so you know, to David's point, they of course have to be part of what we take into account when we're designing our public transportation system. But the other thing I would say is look at the end of the day, I like to think that with more practical local experience and more common sense, we can begin to have better solutions coming out of our state capital.
Speaker 4:But in the meantime, this does speak to the fact that, as we're looking at these changes in law that are promoting more density in our community that is why I know there are those out there not anyone here but there are those who are critical of Burbank Bus. Burbank Bus and our entire patchwork of public transit is so critical to addressing that issue To everyone who has concerns about densification. We have to build a more robust public transit system to provide for the influx of residents who are going to be here. They're already here, they're coming as we build up more. We need more public transportation.
Speaker 3:Great Well, your job is guaranteed for several years. You don't have to worry about that. I want to throw a question at you. I know Craig and I we've debated about it and I threw it at you. Every so often you'll see a scooter on a corner and you and I ask they're not allowed in Burbank. There is a geosystem that they come into Burbank or you can't rent them here, but every so often you see them. If people see them, do they get on the 3-1-1 app and report it and it'll get picked up by the company?
Speaker 5:Yes, I think that's the best way to handle it. Luckily I have a good kind of informal relationship with some of the scooters and I feel like after the boom of the scooter and kind of the hysteria of just concern about it, it has died down and is still an issue, but it's not, as I don't get as many complaints as I used to. And yes, you are correct that they are not legal to rent in Burbank. The municipal code does not allow it. You can have a personal scooter, those are allowed and you can ride them. If you are on a bird or a scooter you can ride it into Burbank. Some of them have geofenced where that electronically will be disabled.
Speaker 2:Especially on the borders.
Speaker 5:So they're all by the borders and get disabled once you drop them in Burbank. But we do. It's complaint-based. If we see them, we will contact them and they've been decent about picking them up and removing them.
Speaker 3:I will tell you, very seldom I go out of Burbank. I've got to get permission to leave the outskirts of Burbank.
Speaker 4:I give you permission any time, Ross.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. You see them in other cities and it's just they're blocking handicap ramps. They're in the way. That's one thing I will say. In Burbank, you can walk down the sidewalk and you won't see a pile of them. You sidewalk and you won't see a pile of them, you know. The other thing is being bike riders. Um, are we going to change some laws about riding on sidewalks, some bicycle laws and so forth? Because now, with these electronic bikes I'm seeing some of the beach communities are having a real problem with them 10, 10, 12 year old kids are on these things right and our chandler bike path.
Speaker 3:You guys were there. I was homesick, but they're getting used and, like craig said, some of these motorized scooters are passing people. You, you, you know. Like wow, right, um, are we going to be looking at some laws about changing some of that?
Speaker 5:so, um, one member of my staff has been tracking the law around that, and again the state has kind of set the table for what we can regulate, and so we as cities are not allowed to restrict them.
Speaker 5:So they are. We must allow them generally where bicycles are allowed. However, there are speed limits, and the real egregious ones that are super fast are probably modified, and so there is a law that says now that it is not legal to modify or to sell scooters that can be modified beyond the limits. And so if we do have a problem with really fast ones that are beyond the legal limits of e-bikes, that is against the law. That are beyond the legal limits of e-bikes, that is against the law. But if you are on a scooter that is lawful, like, lawfully, have the right speed limits and it's a lawfully defined e-bike, we must allow it in our bike facilities.
Speaker 2:Well, let's stay with the future a little bit. I know you don't have an answer for this, but I talked about this Flying cars no.
Speaker 4:They probably look bad. No previews for State of the City Ross.
Speaker 2:We were promised flying cars back in the 60s, by the way. I remember being in Stevenson and they were talking about oh, by 2000 we'll all have flying cars.
Speaker 4:I'm working on it for you, craig.
Speaker 2:I got you Anyhow but instead of flying cars, how about self-driving cars?
Speaker 2:Oh, I thought I was going to ask you I guess we can't stop them coming to Burbank. I don't know if we have that authority or not, but let's say, a driverless car comes to Burbank and please don't let it happen, but it runs into somebody, it kills somebody. If it's usually a driver, you can charge that driver with you know vehicle manslaughter, all kinds of. Who do you charge if the car has no driver? If the car was at fault, I mean what's or it? If the car has no driver, if the car was at fault or it hit somebody for insurance, you can't say, well, where's your insurance? The car just will honk at you or something. Well, I mean, what can we do about that? That's a future problem I think we may be having.
Speaker 4:I'll answer the legal aspect of that question and then I'll toss it over to David, because I don't know if staff has looked at the prevalence of autonomous vehicles. Now we're going to regulate it yet, but I will say look, you can't really. I guess you can charge a corporation under California law, but it's really hard to do so. No, if an autonomous vehicle causes an accident, no one's going to be charged with a crime. But just like anyone else operating a motor vehicle on the roadway, they have to have basic insurance right. Creating a motor vehicle on the roadway, they have to have basic insurance right. So if there's an accident, there'll always be a civil remedy that's available to the aggrieved party.
Speaker 4:And before I hand it over to David, I would just say look, autonomous vehicles. They're concerning to me much like artificial intelligence, and yet that genie is out of the bottle. It is an emerging technology, we're going to see more of it, and so I think the conversation should rightfully be how do we regulate that? And you know, like we deal with housing and transportation, the state really likes to preempt a lot and say you know what you should do and you know what the basic.
Speaker 2:A loud train.
Speaker 4:It's a loud train, an older one.
Speaker 3:Oh, just think what we had before autonomous cars, we had locomotives.
Speaker 4:That's true. So, David, tell me, is staff working on anything yet, or would you need direction?
Speaker 5:from them? Not yet. I don't have a lot of knowledge about the state of autonomous cars, but I know that they're limited to certain areas. They have come to Los Angeles, I think. Waymo, maybe, is here now they can only operate to certain areas.
Speaker 5:They have come to Los Angeles, I think Waymo, maybe, is here now. They can only operate in certain areas. So I suspect we at some point will need to be prepared to see how that plays out, whether the state kind of takes a hands-off approach, whether maybe they regulate it a certain way. How does the safety work? I think the thing that I've kind of thought about, or we've thought about, is autonomous vehicles. They still don't solve some of the other problems we have with vehicles, which is the congestion, the pollution, the VMT, and so it's just like with Uber and Lyft brought a lot of mobility benefits, but it also brought a lot of side effects. And there's still. The fundamentals are still there. And I think again, there's a place for transit, there's a place for walkability, there's a place for biking, there's a place for putting people closer to places they want to go to and setting our land use, and so all those things that we've been talking about are still there. Even with autonomous vehicles. The fundamentals are still there.
Speaker 4:What would? The only other thing I'd add on to that great explanation, david, is just that look baked into our city's legislative platform. I mean, at the heart of it is we believe that cities should have more local control, that we should really be deciding what rules and regulations best fit Burbank, and so you know a lot of what Sacramento's talking about. It's still yet to be determined what the regulations might look like, but I think we and our advocates in Sacramento are always going to continue to push for the fact that Burbank knows best. We know what is a best solution for our streets, and so we're going to be part of those conversations over the next decade about autonomous vehicles and whether they're in our community.
Speaker 2:Okay, my last question. I promise my last question. If I don't get into this, I know people are going to send me emails. The BRT on Olive. He saved the best for last. I know that's about ready to come out. We've sent the letter and everything else and we're not for. And you guys are still talking. We're still talking. We want the mixed flow Because at the most I think it'll say one to two minutes, which really I mean, compared to somebody in their car, might be 10 minutes now because of being one lane. So that's coming. I think it's coming back before you leave, or I'm not sure if it is. But where are we on the olive? I think most of the BRT, we're all in accordance with. What about the olive section? Where are we with that? And you know what? Can you tell people on the show here?
Speaker 4:I'll let David set the table, just factually where we're at. You know, I feel like, as a policymaker, I feel like I should jump in and answer the question about what the council is going to do. But, david, can you remind me, is it coming back next Tuesday, an update from the subcommittee on that? Is it coming back next Tuesday?
Speaker 5:an update from the subcommittee on that. We are due an update generally. It's on our to-do list from the council, so I don't know whether it's not. It may not be next week, but it is soon Very soon, likely while I'm on the council still.
Speaker 5:Yes, within a month or so at the most. So we, the city council. Well, so when the Metro Board of Directors approved the project, the City Council was supportive of the project, with a couple of issues to work out. Between Buena Vista and Lake Street, or basically the five Metro wants to convert one travel lane into a bus lane and the city council said we want to see essentially the ridership prove that it's worth taking the lane from the cars and causing those secondary effects only if the ridership on the BRT justifies taking up that lane within three years Because, again, it's not like we talked about that, part of it is just paint.
Speaker 5:So that's the city council's position. Metro board's position is a little bit different. It's they want the bus lane on that stretch. In March of this year we took an agreement to the council, which was approved, which basically said it outlined how we're going to work with Metro to deliver the project. And part of, of course, that was the conversation that what do we do about this disagreement? And so, for a variety of reasons, we kind of were silent in the agreement about our disagreement because we want to work together and there's lots of other benefits to working with Metro rather than being adversarial with Metro to deliver this project. So the agreement is silent on that, but our council position is the same is that we want mixed flow on that stretch until the ridership proves that it's worth taking the lane.
Speaker 5:And so then the council directed us to work with Metro on that issue. Again, luckily, that design part of it of the project is not a big deal to go one way or the other. All of the stations and the infrastructure, all that is kind of built, regardless of what the configuration on that one stretch is going to look like, so we can work with Metro while we work out our bigger disagreement over this stretch. So the council directed us to continue working with Metro and then assigned a subcommittee of our council two members Council Member Mullins and Council Member Takahashi to serve as staff's kind of sounding board on issues and also help us as staff communicate to Metro our position, but from an elected official standpoint, because sometimes we can say whatever we can and it's maybe Metro staff and Burbank staff and we're all just kind of looking At this point. It's a policy decision and we need the elected officials to be engaged and that's what that subcommittee is going to do.
Speaker 3:And that was a very good decision. I know that night that you guys were voting on that. Pamela, as Craig learned the other day, rides a bike, takes a bus. You know, I don't know Very passionate about transportation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and Zezette. I don't know how many times she's been on a bus, but I get you know that relationship and our council might be changing here in a couple of months and so forth. So you know you don't want to be changing players in the middle. That is a lot of people worried about that project. I know that. Do you think a timeline will be done before the Olympics?
Speaker 5:Yes, it is one of the projects Metro's identified as needing to be in place before the Olympics, so they think it will be open in 2027.
Speaker 4:Which would probably require permits being pulled next year, and I think there's still some discrepancy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Metro is still kind of going back to this talking point of are they subject to Burbank permitting processes?
Speaker 5:Yes, that was a brief discussion, but one thing our agreement, one thing we were recommending that the council approve the agreement from March. And again, let's kind of be silent on the legal part of the disagreement over the lanes is because the cooperative agreement gives the city it basically Metro agrees to abide by our rules.
Speaker 4:And we approved it. We wanted to sign it. Did Metro approve it?
Speaker 5:I don't think so. We are still working. They brought some other minor legal changes back to us after, and so we're working through it, but we think we're in a good spot, wonderful, and we've been proceeding as if it's approved in terms of cooperating, and I think we're going to have that signed soon.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I'm going to have to admit Do you have any follow-up on that?
Speaker 5:No no.
Speaker 2:I got one more question here, which I promised I wouldn't ask, but because I've got the transportation guru here.
Speaker 4:Is it BRT related, though? No, it is not. Do you have something you want to add on?
Speaker 2:Once again, it's ask the mayor, not interrupt the mayor.
Speaker 4:My apologies, you are asking the mayor. As far as I'm concerned, no, no, I'll just quickly say so. David perfectly described the project where it stands. I just want to reiterate, because I have gotten this question in the community, although one of our colleagues did go to a Metro board meeting an official change of position from the city would only come from a majority vote of the city council and that would be communicated through the city manager's office, through our staff or through the mayor or from some official designated spokesman for the city. The only thing I would add, personally, not speaking for my colleagues, not speaking for the council, is that, to echo a point that David made, I do not think that Burbank I've said this before I don't think Burbank benefits from taking an adversarial position with Metro.
Speaker 4:There is a time and a place for the adults in the room to sit down at the table and work out a solution, and I think that nine times out of ten in life there is always a solution to be had. And that's very much where my, in the last months of my mayorship and on council, I move past the point of the rhetoric and the fiery passion. I get it. I get people have their perspective, but we need to work together and find a long-term solution here, and that means treating Metro as the regional partner that they are. That doesn't mean that we have to agree on everything, but we need to sit down like adults at the table and I know our staff is trying to do that.
Speaker 3:That's a very, very good point. I don't think people understand. You've made it very clear. There's projects other than you're sitting on one. You know we get money from Metro. We get money just a little. You've got to work.
Speaker 4:Metro's not the enemy, as some in the community would have us believe.
Speaker 3:You've got to play in the sandbox, and we've learned this To make things work. People, I don't think they have the patience, they don't have the thinking. You've made it very clear. You don't come into your office and sit on your hands for a day and think, oh, what can I work on today? You have so much on your plate in transportation and planning. I will say, um, you know, from everybody, from patrick patrick prescott, the develop director on down, you guys are working. Burbank works pretty darn good All over. You know, look at it and you've got to applaud the homework you do, the work you put in and what we get out of it. You had another question.
Speaker 2:I got one more Just because I've got the two best people to ask the question. I probably don't have an answer to this, but how many? I doubt either. One of you are probably out much at 11 or 12 o'clock at night, but so many times we're out and we're driving down the street and we get a red light. Okay, I get it. We get a red light and then you look at the other and it says walk on the other side. And the entire time you sit at that red light for two or three minutes. Not one car has gone in the other direction.
Speaker 2:Why is it at night time that we have to have the walk signals? Because these signals are all more computerized now. Why do we have to have the walk signals working? Why can't they just have a stop? And if no cars are coming and the sensors don't, you get it green the other way and the speed thing is up Because you're waiting two or three minutes and there's nobody else on the street. You understand what I'm saying, right? Is there anything to that that's? Am I just not a patient person?
Speaker 4:I think I can at least give David an entry point here. A little bit of that really is my fault, not my singularly, but look after that horrible traffic fatality on Glen Oaks a number of years ago the council made a policy decision that we wanted to reconfigure our lights in the city of Burbank. What we were aiming to have less of are those long stretches of road with endless green lights. As much as that's great for the motorists, I think the council at the time and I certainly felt that that could be not necessarily the best environment for good motorist practices, for safe streets, and so we asked our staff to look at how we could redo the timing of the lights so that you do hit a few more red lights. So it was very much an early policy decision and in many ways an early iteration of where the council has come today, and that is asking staff to have the Safer Streets Burbank plan to really prioritize other modes of transportation and to prioritize safety over the fast movement of cars?
Speaker 2:Why can't we move the red lights? It's just the amount of time you're waiting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean David. I'm sure there's more you'd add.
Speaker 5:Yes, I think it's that it's also. You know, we have a lot of technology, but to develop an individual time of day plan for every minute of the day is a lot of work. So you may be, you know, we may have a street that's kind of prioritized because during the day there's lots of traffic and we don't have a special plan for late at night to address that. The other thing too is I'll put it on the other foot when have you come up to a light to cross Magnolia or cross a major arterial and you just missed the window of opportunity to hit the button and you're like but if the light had given you a walk because you were five steps away, how much greater would your life have been? Or your walk that day to make it across? And it's just. Oh, now I got to wait.
Speaker 5:So as to the mayor's point, as part of Safer Streets and just some of our Complete Streets policies, we've always and continue, the car will always still for the foreseeable future, be the dominant form of getting around in Burbank, but it doesn't have to be so biased to be the only form, and if we give just a little bit on the margins, I think we can get a lot of safety improvements. We can get a lot of safety improvements. We can get a lot of just better experience if you're walking or biking. So how can we still have a good operating system but also give back a little bit where it makes sense to make the other ways to get around a little more convenient? I think that's part of it too, but I think offline, send me the location and we will look into it. It could also just be broken. Oh, that's true, it's funny.
Speaker 3:One of the city engineers once told me that happens. Walk up to the box and slap it once, and the light will change.
Speaker 3:And I did that, and I said maybe the clock in there still had some dust in it. Well, you know they say the three E's enforcement, education and engineering. I live up on the hill. They've just changed every light along Glen Oaks. There's new lights, there's some new left-hand turn around Burbank High that at night they don't change as much as they do during the day. I will say that education part Burbank police don't want to cite People don't understand. They're not out there to do the enforcement, they'd rather do education. But lately we've heard people driving out on San Fernando Road the police department clocks somebody at 129 miles an hour. You know that's enforcement. You get your car impounded and again once the lights get changed on Glen Oaks they've been doing that. Police department impounds cars. So everything people don't understand, craig and I see it all the time these cars that are whizzing by us. I'm getting old but I just can't believe how many people are whizzing and flying, you know, and it's slow down folks.
Speaker 2:You can't solve stupid sometimes. You know we got we Anything else for us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, ok, I want to thank your boss, patrick Prescott, who I know gave you permission to come to us, the city attorney, joe McDougal, who everything got run by. You know, mayor, this mayor show, Craig, and I love doing it with you. You have been very, very good. Our city PIO, Jonathan, Karen Pan I want to throw those names out there.
Speaker 4:Shout out to Jonathan and team.
Speaker 3:His team is fantastic. He works with us. One of the best PIOs that our city has seen in many years.
Speaker 2:I will say Don't forget about Legend. We always talk about Legend. I saw Legend on the bike path the other day Setting up the PA system.
Speaker 3:You know, yeah, you know, we work with quite a few of you. When we saw you at the Road Kings car show, we threw this at you. You turned white. I thought I was going to have to call paramedics for you. It wasn't that bad now, was it, David we promised you, we wouldn't throw you under the bus. And for the Burbank, you know, viewers, this is a great opportunity to see you and you, literally, you answered. You helped the mayor out. We appreciate so much.
Speaker 5:We want to hear from our residents. We want to hear from people that work here. What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? There's lots of opportunity If you don't think something's being run properly with transportation. There's opportunities with our specific plans. There's going to be opportunities with our transit study that's going to be starting later this year. There's opportunities with our transit study that's going to be starting later this year. There's opportunities with the San Fernando reconfiguration. So we want to hear from the community on what some of these ideas are. What's working for them? What could we do to improve their lives? I think that's really the message I want to give out.
Speaker 2:Do you want people's email, your email for people to send to? Okay, we'll throw that up on the screen. But you know you made a good point there.
Speaker 3:Every We'll throw that up on the screen, but you know you made a good point there. Every so often you read, you get one or two people oh, the city's not listening to us, they don't realize Burbank's 100,000 people. You are hearing from people, you are taking note, you know you are listening to the feedback and they might not be able to answer them specifically or correct what they don't like, but you know what think about our community. I look at the news all the time. I'm seeing so much traffic accidents and traffic problems and inglewood now and everything. I think we got it. We're really putting it together. Yep, you know who. We didn't forget. We forgot to thank who's that, our city manager, who runs it all.
Speaker 3:Justin and Courtney do a fantastic job. They have been long-term employees. You've worked with them for many years 20, I think, justin's 30-some-odd. They have their thumbprint on the city of Burbank and you know, from graffiti, from traffic, from the animal shelter you name it from our police department to fire department. Mike Davis once said it when can you call a three-digit number 911, and you're guaranteed to see somebody at your door in three minutes, right, you know, not many cities can say that, not at all.
Speaker 2:I think it's time to wrap up, I think does the mayor get anything else, hold on Hold on Our transportation guru, so excited that you were here today and had answers. But the last thing we always do is we ask the mayor what's on the mayor's mind? What do you got for us to wrap up the show today?
Speaker 4:Well, thank you all for having us and David, thank you again for being here. You made me look good, pleasure. No, I think what's on my mind is those zingers from the last meeting me and Joe and Justin going at it. I know they only have 100-plus days to deal with me, but no, what's really on my mind is that, as I look at the last few months of my term, I'm not done governing and there's a lot as we talked about, there's a lot of really critical decisions and opportunities for public input that are going to happen over the next couple months between now and the end of the year, and I want to focus on getting good things done and we want to hear from our community. So in that vein, and quickly, just a couple opportunities for public engagement. So council is going to continue its conversation. Forgive me, I'm just looking at my phone.
Speaker 4:Here we have the potential rent cap community meetings, three of them Saturday, september 7th, 9 am, jocelyn Center. Monday, september 9th that's virtual at noon. Thursday, september 12th, 6 pm at the Los Angeles Marriott at the Burbank Airport. Tuesday, september 17th, 6 pm, virtual. And Wednesday, september 25th, 6 pm at Hotel Burbank. So if you care about that issue, if you have a thought, if you want to give feedback to our staff and the consultant, there's your chance Three in person and two virtual meetings. Come out and tell us what you want to say. I also want to mention that we have 11 more days for the Elephant Parade in Burbank, so if you haven't already checked out that really great artistic exhibit, you've got 11 more days to do it.
Speaker 2:I heard you can buy one of those elephants. By the way, they're up for sale.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're actually starting to sell them.
Speaker 4:It's pretty impressive and they do actually very similar art exhibits like around, like Portland Oregon is doing like a cat exhibit. Same concept this year. It's a real thing. I it's a real thing I don't make enough to buy an elephant when would I put it or clean it up after it.
Speaker 3:Either I tell you.
Speaker 4:That's right. Two more quick things, guys. Fall Festival, saturday, september 7th it's coming up real quick Johnny Carson Park, 4 to 7 pm. They're going to have music, vendor booths, food and a movie screening of the Nightmare Before Christmas.
Speaker 2:That got postponed from last year, as I remember.
Speaker 4:It did, it got rained both times. It definitely did, and what a great way to do what we love in Burbank come together as a community and have some fun in Johnny Carson Park.
Speaker 3:Did I not just see yesterday that who wrote that Tim Burton is getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard? There you go Burbank. High Graduate.
Speaker 4:That is very true. And then, last thing, this is new, but it's something really exciting because in my opinion, we don't do nearly enough for our senior population. There's a 55 and beyond resource fair. It's entirely free.
Speaker 3:Not talking to just you and me.
Speaker 4:Don't worry, I'm not that far behind.
Speaker 2:I did look at this, by the way. I thought, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 4:It's cool, right? Yes, jocelyn Center, 10 am to 2 pm, september 11th. So those are just some of the ways that you can get involved, and I'll be here next month and the month after that and the month after that.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what. You left one thing off that you were coming up on and people can go to We've been doing it for several years the state of the city.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:And you have a great topic and you know I'm going to plug it out there. The public can buy tickets to go to that if you want to know what's going on in the city, and it sells out.
Speaker 2:every year too, it does.
Speaker 3:There's 600 people at the Marriott and you have, I know you've been.
Speaker 4:You and our PIO have been smoking on things.
Speaker 3:We got a lot. I shouldn't say that.
Speaker 4:We got a lot of fun stuff coming up. You can also attend for free. There's going to be a public comment period and I don't want to make any over promises, but we're trying to see if we could live stream it as well. Obviously, it's a great way to benefit the chamber and support a great community partner, but if cost really is prohibitive, we want everyone to hear the message. And I'll just close with this. The theme is Back to the Future. It's about where we've been and where we're going.
Speaker 3:And I can't think of a better place to have had that conversation. Am I going to see you?
Speaker 4:in a DeLorean flying in you just might. But I will say this when we're going Ross, we don't need roads, we're going Ross.
Speaker 3:We don't need roads. What a way to end the show, david. Again, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. We hope you come back. You found that we're not, that you know. We won't throw you under the bus even, and I will tell you people we've got to share.
Speaker 3:The temperature in this bus has been perfect as the hottest day of Mervay and we want to thank the driver, our crew who has been, you know, moving the cameras around everything. This is an adventure for my Burbank Talks to come out and do something like this and it was your idea. Thank you.
Speaker 4:You just tell Nicky to one-up that next year. Oh no, no, no. Okay, we met our match.
Speaker 2:Somebody's got to figure out how to do all this in the logistics you know Fair point fair point.
Speaker 3:But when you go back to work tomorrow, you know I know you have staff in the morning and they'll see that you've lived through it, you know. And again, thank you very much. We're happy to have you and great to thank you for everything you do for the city of Burbank.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes. Thank you. As many times as we might have thrown you under the bus, you always respond to me every time too, which I always appreciate it. Thank you Anyhow, for Ross Benson and David Krinsky and, of course, mayor Nick Schultz, craig Sherwood, saying thank you very much. We're glad you watched a special edition of Ask the Mayor and we will see you next month.
Speaker 1:You watch a special edition of Ask the Mayor, and we will see you next month. Myburbankcom would like to thank all of our sponsors and subscribers for their continued support. To keep up with everything MyBurbank has to offer, please follow us on Instagram, at MyBurbankNews, and on YouTube, at MyBurbank. This has been a production of MyBurbankTalks presented by MyBurbank.