 Hey, everyone. Great to be with you all remotely. Sorry, I wasn't able to join in person, but thanks to CalBike so much for having us and for making this remote setup possible so we could bring in some experts from all over the country to talk about federal infrastructure legislation and transportation policy and what does it mean for California. So, we're going to spend about the next hour talking through the new federal transportation bill, what it means for biking and other modes in California. And our goals for the session include that attendees will come away with a greater understanding of what new policies and funding programs were created through the bipartisan infrastructure law passed late last year, aka the infrastructure investment and job. Understand what opportunities there will be to advocate for good projects in your communities. You'll come away with a better understanding of who the decision makers are and what their roles will be at different stages in the process of funding and implementing projects, and how we can build successful coalitions and what comes in the projects that we need to support healthy and sustainable and affordable transportation in our communities. So with that, I am going to introduce our panelists and invite them to share their name organization location and a little bit about the work they focus on. So I'm Carter Rubin from the Natural Resources Defense Council based in Los Angeles and I work on sustainable transportation advocacy. Karen, you introduce yourself. Sure, I'm Karen Whitaker, I'm the deputy executive director with the League of American bicyclists, and I work mostly on federal policy and strategy. Thanks and Kevin. Kevin Mills I'm vice president of policy for Rails Trails Conservancy out of Washington DC and work on trails walking and biking policy at the federal state and local level. And Laura. Hi good morning I'm Laura Cohen I'm with Rails to Trails Conservancy and I'm the western region director and our office is right here in downtown Oklahoma. Thanks and last but not least my colleague Zach. I'm Zach Icardi based here in the East Bay at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and I work on state and local transportation policy. Fantastic. So, with that, I am going to hand it off to Karen to give us an overview about what is in infrastructure investment jobs act and what it what it means and what's new. Thanks, Carter. Next slide. So, when we talk about the big infrastructure bill that passed last year, Congress calls it the infrastructure investment and jobs act. And the administration calls it the bipartisan infrastructure law. So, if, if we call it the bill or the ii jay we're talking about the same piece of legislation, I think the administration just likes leading with the word bipartisan. So, they call it bill. But either way, proponents from both. Both Congress and the administration think of this is really a once in a generational bill they like to talk about it, and as transformable transformational, and it, it really is very different from any legislation we've seen in the last 30 years. But whether or not it's transformational really depends on what happens now and how the bill is implemented. A couple of reasons why they use terms like that. It has the first climate title we've ever seen in a transportation bill and should mean that we never see a transportation bill without a climate title moving forward. There's a stronger emphasis on equity and safety, and that when we're talking about active transportation biking and walking is better integrated across all the programs. And then the other thing, when they talk about it being once in a generation, part of that is just because of the sheer size of it, and the amount of money that is in there. That money can go in a lot of different ways. And that's why if we wanted to be transformational, we really need to work for that. Next slide. So, when we talk about what's in it for biking and walking. Enrolling. There's a couple of specific things that that were done. And when we talk about funding that really changed one transportation alternatives which is the program where about 50% of federal dollars for biking walking comes from that had a huge increase so California in in 2020 got 76 million of federal dollars in 2022 they're getting almost you're getting almost 124 million. And Kevin and Laura will go into more about how that works in California. So when we look at safety. We've seen biking and walking fatalities increase significantly both as a percentage of overall fatalities, and an actual numbers. And so one of the things this bill does is they created a rule that says if your state has a high rate of vulnerable road user fatalities that means that 50% or more of your overall fatalities are people outside of cars, then you have to spend 15% or more of your safety dollars on that. So when we look at what California was doing between 2018 and 2020 the last years we have data for California was averaging six and a half million a year or basically two and a half percent of their it's a starting in 2023. They're going to have to set aside 40 million a year for vulnerable road user safety and that's a big difference. It's a difference in California it's a bigger difference in some other states as well to really have to think about how are we improving the safety of people outside of cars. There's a bunch of new programs there's climate funding there's a carbon reduction program and the protect program the protect program is much more around resiliency. But biking and walking is eligible under those and we think there's a good argument to invest in biking and walking to help reduce carbon pollution. Next slide. The programs I just talked about are what we call formula programs each state gets a chunk based on their population road miles some other things, but then there's also a set of competitive grant programs or discretionary grant programs. And I'm going to start at the bottom on this because the rural grants program that just opened, and that has a $30 million a year set aside for small projects. And so if you're looking to do some biking walking trails in rural rural areas now it's the time to apply that just opened. There's also the safe streets and roads for all program that's going to come in at about 1.2 billion a year. And that's loosely based on vision zero so the idea is you write a plan to improve safety on your streets and get to zero fatalities. And then you use this program to get projects that will help you get there. That's a, that's a lot of money and it has a specific focus on vulnerable road users. So we think that's great. Then the top program, the raise program you, you know, it was tiger under Obama, it was billed under Trump and now it's raised under Biden. That program is about three times the size it has been. So 1.5 billion a year, and that's a program we've done really well on. So when it started under Obama, biking and walking was getting, I don't know, anywhere between three and 5%, which was at that time we were usually getting one and a half percent of federal federal dollars for biking and walking. So to go to 345% was a big increase. That was great under the Trump administration we were in that two to three range, but last year under Biden under Buddha judge, biking and walking projects got 18%. And I want to point that out because the implementation of the bill, it's up to what we do, but we also have a very willing partner in the administration. It's another reason why we really need to take advantage of the changes in this bill and to do so right now. And those charts show the difference of how the funds went out under raise under the first year of of Biden versus the last year at Trump and you can see a lot more went to biking and walking in complete streets and a lot less went to new roads and expanded road capacity. Next slide. And then one of the things I'm really excited about is the changes to policy like we definitely want to take advantage of transportation alternatives and all that but now we have an opportunity to also sort of integrate biking and walking into a lot of other things. And part of that is through planning so there's now a set aside for both states and metropolitan areas, metropolitan planning organizations to do complete streets do prioritization plans do other plans related to reducing single occupancy vehicle travel. There's a in the safety section there's a real focus on reducing speed. I know that the number one reason people don't bike or walk more is because they don't feel safe. And so focusing on reducing speed can really help with that. So there's new traffic calming eligibility is red light and speed cameras are now eligible I know that can be controversial but it's a push towards safety. What the administration did is there is there is some language on on repairs to bridges, which it used to say, you know, if you're repairing a bridge you have to make sure that there's that you're putting in bike access, unless you say it's too expensive. And at that time a state could say oh it's too expensive we're not doing it. Now the, the language change to say you have to have biking and walking access or bicycle and pedestrian access. The administration has said, when you do a repair project we're assuming you're putting on biking, biking and pedestrian access, unless you prove to us you can't. And so those kinds of changes can make a huge difference. There's a planning pilot project to say how well does our transportation system get you from where you are to where you want to go, regardless of mode, better eligibility for bike share. So we're using bikes, a study on how to use bikes during and after natural natural disasters. Next slide. And then one big change that we've seen is for the very first time. Congress is requiring do t that when they set car safety standards, they think about people outside of cars. So how well does automatic emergency braking work for pedestrians. And there are hoods and bumpers built and what will that mean when they, if it crashes into someone biking or walking or rolling. All those sorts of things, it's not perfect, it's not where we wanted it, but it is a sea change and how we think about car safety standards. And that's, and that's going to take a lot of advocacy, we got our foot in the door and we need to make sure that this is done well. Next slide. Let's talk about where we started and what we wanted. We got some of it, we didn't get all of it. When people to judge was going through his nomination process, he kept talking about the need to make our transportation system, more people centric, and less car centric less auto centric. And what we saw in this bill is we got a lot of what we wanted on the people centric side. What we didn't get were the things we wanted on the less car centric side. We wanted things like a fix it first to say you should do maintenance before you build new capacity you should have your road should be in a state of good repair before you build more. And that when you do maintenance you should bring things up to a complete street standards for everyone. We wanted performance measures with teeth, we wanted change, we wanted a higher percentage of funding to go to transit versus highway. We didn't get, and that's something as a bicycling community and we need to think about, you know how, if we really want to build a bicycle friendly America, can we do it just by adding more bicycling and walking and enrolling facilities or do we need to think about addressing that car centric side of our transportation system. Next slide, because when we look at where the money went. There are definitely better policy changes we definitely see that transportation alternatives went from 0.4 to 2.6%. That's a huge difference. We now see 5% of funding for climate, but we're still seeing over 50% going to the highway program. So we need to think about what is our goal now to really move our transportation system to be more sustainable. With that, I'll turn it over to Kevin and Laura. Thanks Karen, I'll just do a little interpretation here and just note that, you know, I think maybe a big takeaway is that there's more of everything in this new bill compared to last time. And so it's great that there's more for active transportation and transit. There's also more for highways. And so how do we make sure that, you know, our state departments of transportation and other agencies are maximizing the opportunity to make those highway investments actually work for active transportation and transit. So I'll hand it off to the law and Kevin. Yeah, thanks Carter. So next slide please. So yes, there is a lot more money and it's for everything as has been said, and you know that in terms of the dedicated money for active transportation that's something we're really pleased about but as Karen and Carter laid out it's a whether or not this bill is transformational entirely depends on how implementation goes and that's why the state and local advocacy that's going to go on from now on out for the next five years is absolutely critical so. So but in addition to the more money we do have better active transportation policy and it really matters how the money is focused. And that there's more of it. And, and so we're definitely pleased to see a number of things there including more of a focus on connectivity getting people where they're going, and more of a focus on equitable access, and then is Karen laid out really well, a broad focus on safe and sustainable transportation system that that we, we think will serve us well as well. So, next slide. So I want to just dig in a little bit more to the dedicated sources for trials walking and biking in this bill so transportation alternatives recreational trials, and then a brand new program called active transportation infrastructure investment program. So, next slide. So transportation alternatives, as, as we've heard it's the top source nationally for active transportation. These are grants that are awarded by the states in California, that's folded into your active transportation program, and then urbanized regions, get a portion of the money sub allocated and become a decision maker for that. And over the five year life of this bill. We got an average increase of nearly 70% for this so that's all great in terms of the policy changes for this program. It's also really valuable. We have documented through this spending report we do each year that under the fast act, we had a big leak, leak in the bucket of this program, and in the form of transfers to other purpose, so basically at the end of the year and sometimes even at the beginning of the year states would plan to shift all this money over to roads or bridges or what have you. And so, so that there's essentially a moratorium on such transfers this year, and, and clarity that you have to have a very robust competitive process and get clearance all the way up to headquarters of us to see if you plan on transferring any of this money is really, I think, a really positive development. Another thing is there are a couple at least a couple of ways in which this money. There's there's an opportunity to be more equitable about how it gets allocated and one thing is that the up to 5% of it can go for technical assistance and that is a real opportunity to help the communities that have had the least capacity, and the least of these dollars to to be competitive and to to to have better opportunity to take advantage. And then the other thing is that there's flexibility and match so federal money by matter of course 20% of the state or local match for those federal dollars, but that can be averaged out now, not just be for every single project so a state that has been convinced it out to care about equity. What could, in fact, make sure that those those matches are lower for the places that have the least capacity to provide a match that's really good development as well. Okay, this is actually Laura will tell you a bit more about how these things are playing out on the ground in California. Thanks Kevin. So in in California we have chosen to take all of that transportation alternatives federal money and put it into our active transportation program a state program that was formed six years ago. And I see Lori waters is here from the California Transportation Commission who's managed that program for a number of years now and done a great job and it's a program that gets a very intense amount of scrutiny and active engagement by NGOs so it's no easy trick to manage all of that and get all that input and feed it into the program. So, as has been noted, the federal amount of transportation alternatives is increasing with this new bill and so that will in turn increase our active transportation program in California. The obligation rate that second bullet there so this is a useful metric in understanding is the money actually being programmed and spent and allocated to specific projects so California in FY 20 had 116% meaning we over obligated in that year and FY 21 was 82%. And these this data is actually tracked by Rails tutorials conservancy we have a transportation alternatives data exchange that's a report that we do every year we survey all of the states to find out how are you using this money. Who's using it on for transportation alternatives who's transferring it away how well are you doing in obligating and reimbursing that money so really good metrics to understand how effective the program is. Federal highways doesn't do this at least not in a way that's public facing and easy to access so. If you haven't ever checked that out and you're kind of a policy walk and want to understand how this money is being spent and how California is doing with respect to other states. That's a good place to go rails to trails website and just trade. If you Google it that you should find it. So looking forward, the California ATP will be 118 million federal about 134 million states so we more than 100% match the federal money. Also very rare across the country so yay for California, having said that even though this looks like a pretty nice chunk of change, the demand way outstrips this amount of money. We're a big state you know we would be what like the largest countries if we were a country in terms of our budget. And so only 22% of projects are funded and yet a vast majority I would say score really well the really strong projects is a great demonstrated need they serve a lot of communities that really need the safety and mobility, and they're going unfunded every year and because the project is the program is so competitive. A lot of communities probably don't bother to apply if they think they don't have like, you know, the perfect project so we know the need is even more than the number of applications coming in and I'm sure the CTC staff would would agree with that. So there is a proposal from the CTC to allocate $2 billion from the budget surplus in California to the ATP. And that sounds like this crazy amount of money and yet it would only go to partially supplement some of the last round of projects that didn't get funded and some of the future projects that wouldn't get funded. So, and I just learned because it wasn't clear to me when talks mentioned that there's 500 million in the governor's budget from the surplus to add to ATP for next year. And then the other 500 million in his more recent proposal is in addition to that and so that's a really helpful clarification because that gets us to a billion that's much better. And so we're getting there. Rails to trails and some of our allies are still advocating in the legislature for the 2 billion from the budget surplus this year. So we hope we can increase that figure even further. So, if you are engaged in advocacy, ask for the 2 billion support from your legislators as the budget process goes forward which is starting now. And the other thing to that's really important is that if you want to have a truly successful program, how it's implemented is as important as getting the money there in the first place and I think California has done a really good job the CTC and in the last few months in even before it was set aside in this new bill of 5% for technical support and administration. We've committed to that for a number of years and so we take some of the money from the program and put it into the active organization resource center, and this is basically designed to support applicants to this program to help them develop the kind of projects that will be competitive develop competitive applications and to have all kinds of resources that using, they're using best practices for thinking outside the box in what will be transformative. So, definitely invite you to look up the, the resource center if you're working in a community that is interested in applying for ATP or even if you just want best practices for bike ped projects in California. So there's webinars and live training there's a lot of web resources and we at Rails to Trails have been very involved in technical assistance to disadvantaged communities so for a number of years now. I think that Trans has hired a team of consultants to specifically help number changes each year but a certain number of communities with very hands on help to develop their applications and you know it's been really successful. We're on the left we in the last couple of cycles we supported 16 applications and 11 of them were funded and in many cases, those are communities that either had never applied before because they didn't have the resources it's a pretty complex application, or they had unsuccessfully applied before and we helped them get over the finish line. So, it's been a really successful program. Next slide. So, switching gears so recreational trails are also an important part of the overall picture and biking in California and elsewhere. And there is a recreational trails program in the federal bill. It's always been very small California's share in the past has been about 500 million. I mean sorry, five and a half million a year. And that didn't grow in this recent bill unfortunately we advocated for that and it didn't happen. So, it's a very small amount of money. I mean as you can imagine five million plus is, you know, three projects. So, we are trying to supplement that with more investment in California and what it's been sort of a feast or famine because at the state level for recreational trails, it's been very dependent on the passage of a park bond which happens every now and then. You get a bunch of money from a park pond and then it slowly dwindles down and nothing and then you have no kind of consistent significant funding. So, Rails to Trails is co sponsoring a bill this year AB 1789 along with the California Parks and Rec Society. And this is to take some of the budget surplus that we have in California 75 million and invest that for next year and then 15 million a year additional after that. It just passed its first committee a few days ago unanimously. So we're excited about that. So if you can send in a letter call to your legislative legislators saying please support 1789 that would be great we really need this to complement the active transportation transportation program. And Kevin I think this is you. Yep, it's well yeah I'll take one more slide and Laura one more and we'll move on so yeah just before jumping into connectivity just one other thing on transportation alternatives which is that late last week, the Highway Administration put out its guidance on the program these both these programs. And one thing they clarified is that trail maintenance is is an eligible expense under transition alternatives, just as it would be under recreational trails. And I think that's notable, particularly as more and more places we work with our thinking about how you make your trails part of a climate resiliency strategy. I think that you know strategic uses of maintenance dollars that are that are really about upgrading systems to you know make make these assets more important to the community. So, but so we are very excited that as part of the bill, IAJA there was authorization of brand new program that's about active transportation connectivity. And I know in many places in California for years you've been doing your planning that way really thinking about how you connect these different pieces of infrastructure to each other, how you connect people with safe and convenient routes to locations. And this this particular graphic is of the Bay Area trails collaborative has plans for a gargantuan 2600 mile I believe Laura mile trail network, serving the greater region. And, and it's this kind of strategic thinking that I really think is propelling our whole movement forward. And we think that it's that it's important to create funding sources that are really adapted to that evolution in where people are going, because one of the things is different about these kinds of big connectivity plans is that you need much more grants than what you would typically, typically get out of the traditional programs and so that that need for concentrated investment really says we need, you know, some to supplement the usual sources with some things where, you know, you're going to get a million dollars at a, you know, at a crack and what have you. So, so there was a bill in the lead up to the reauthorization that was called connecting America's active transportation system act. And it was about providing those larger grants for connectivity within regions like this, as well as between communities and, and we called those spine for ladder. And in the infrastructure bill they included this they renamed it the active transportation infrastructure investment program. And they authorized it at 200 million a year rather than the 500 million year that we saw it. And it also left it subject to appropriations which is why now with the fiscal 23 appropriations process opening. It is time to advocate that they, in fact, launch this program and take this bucket that they created in the reauthorization and fill it up with money so that they can start administering it. And, and so there is your colleague letters in the works in both chambers, and probably the simplest thing. If you're engaging with any of your members of of Congress is to have them talk to representative Pappas office in the house or Senator Markey or Senator Sullivan's offices in the Senate, and let them know that you're interested in being part of this dear colleague effort and making sure that this this program gets some get some resources. Laura. Next slide. Yeah, just to kind of close out. Yeah, that program that Kevin just mentioned we're really happy to get that program. So it's competitive grant program that California could compete for if there's money allocated to it and it would be a great compliment in addition to the ATP and the other investments we have in California so definitely encourage all of you are engaged in this to help get that funded at the federal level. And then we can compete for it so the state can compete and local agencies and tribes can also apply directly. So, you know, we can, I think California would do really well in that program and get some extra resources for a state. So just in closing, there's a few things you know pulse action if you want to take these back to your communities and your organizations and spread the word and if you would like social media messaging or action alert messaging from us on these. Feel free to contact me be happy to provide you with that. So as Kevin mentioned we need the federal funding for this new connectivity grant program. And at the state level, we want to have additional funding for the ATP from the budget process. And we want to support AB 1789 which is more funding for recreational trails. There's also, if you are wanting to be involved as a stakeholder in the implementation of this. BIL or the federal bill by many, many names. There is a stakeholder group that California State Transportation Agency is running that's been meeting for a couple of months. And Eric first is the contact if you're interested in getting engaged with that. So I hope you take these calls action back to your people and thanks very much. Thanks Laura and Kevin. So Zach and I are going to put a quick kind of cap on this discussion. And I think one thing that I hope you you're taking away from this first presentation is that we've made really impressive progress, upping the transportation funding for active transportation through, you know, successful federal advocacy by the groups here, and many, many partners. And that is an important work to celebrate and think about the opportunities to deliver great projects in the communities where we live. You know, at the same time, there is still this huge fire hose of a federal highway money that they could totally sink our broader efforts, you know, for still building spending $2 or $3 on highways for every $1 and active transportation that just digs the hole deeper. So, you know, leveraging our collective advocacy muscle and skills to ensure that those funds that are coming to highways are actually redirected towards active transportation and transit investments, which which federal allows them to be is going to be really instrumental in our success. And that's going to require building really diverse and broad movements to specifically at the state level, convince our state DOTs and in California that's Caltrans and the California State Transportation Agency to shift our funding priorities and maximize the flexibility they have with this highway money to invest it in the right kinds of projects. And so, Zach, if you keep the next slide, you know, I just wanted a quick visual, who do state DOTs listen to now. There's the huge, you know, inertia and status quo orientation within state DOTs towards road building in service of suburban sprawl. And the people who benefit from this, the status quo are very actively involved in protecting what they have so the companies that are, you know, receive public money to build new highways are very active in lobbying the legislature and the agencies and the all developers and the warehouse builders are all very motivated to protect the house things work right now and they have resources and political power and so to outgun them, we will need an even bigger movement that extends beyond just active transportation advocates and environmental advocates and I want to touch on who some of those groups can be. In California, I mean this is, these are the people that I see really active in the transportation conversation or who will need to be active in order to successfully shift our legislature and administration's priorities for how to spend our transportation money. Labor organizations are really, really important to the Democratic caucus in California. That's why I put them at the top of this list. Of course the construction trades are the skill laborers who build transportation infrastructure. We have our public transit operator unions, and then there's like the service workers the hotel workers who who ride transit and great numbers who advocate for good, good transit alternatives. They're the truck drivers and Teamsters who are, you know, making a living in goods movement. Local elected officials are also really important in this they are often, you know, not just sort of passively receiving state funding but actively engaging and advocating for local priorities and I've seen that often it's the the most kind of car oriented communities that are very active in trying to protect the status quo and so I think there's an opportunity to mobilize more progressive local elected officials. Then you have business organizations, active transportation groups, social and environmental justice groups, medical and public health organizations and green groups are all are all ones that have shown up in and what I would view as successful legislation funding I think to build the power that we need in order to really shift the funding where it's needed will require all of us engaging with all of these groups because I don't think any of us can go it alone and get the impact that we're looking for. And so I will hand it off to Zach to close it out. Thanks Carter. Just just a few more here and then we'll get into questions so start thinking about questions. In the same way that the federal transportation bill is not guaranteed to spend money on the kinds of projects that advance our goals as Carter was saying there's so much money in the highway funding pot and if that money isn't flexed to spend on good good kinds of projects. That support walking, biking, public transit, maintenance, EV charging infrastructure, all of those things. Then it's going to continue to perpetuate the status quo. It's going to continue to be so perpetuate negative impacts on communities. And not only the same is true for advancing the bills equity and safety goals. And so when we're thinking about building this more diverse, bigger tent movement, we also really need to make sure that that we're doing the work. Making sure that the people who are most impacted, especially those who have historically and continue to be most negatively impacted by these investments are at the table. So broad movement important, but also movement that's centering the voices of the people who have been most vulnerable and most impacted by the infrastructure decisions that we've been making for the past several decades. And here I won't go picture by picture, but these are just all pictures of people who represent those exactly those communities in cities around the country. The other thing that's going to be really important about expanding this movement and really leveraging all of the expertise that lives in all of our communities is recognizing the interconnectedness between local, state and federal policy in driving this work. So federal transportation dollars get spent on projects that originated at the local level so local local governments, community organizations are proposing projects those it folded into local plans regional plans, state transportation investment programs. There's a project that ultimately get funded by money at all these scales and we really need to think about like all of the places in the project development pipeline, where we can be active and change the way that these dollars are spent. These are constraints that are imposed by federal law by state law and by local law and that that part is really, I know present in a lot of our work but local land use laws also constrain the efficacy of state and federal investments just the way that state laws often preempt what local governments can do. And then lastly, when we're actually showing up in and we've seen this in in how important this has been in our own federal advocacy. When we're going to to talk to members of Congress about our priorities, they care a lot more about hearing from somebody who's in their district who's in their state who has the lived experience of of of feeling the negative impacts of highways that have been paved through neighborhoods of unsafe streets of the pollution that comes from warehousing in particularly low income communities of color and and those folks, working with those folks to advance shared goals is the way that we're going to really move the needle and change the hearts and minds of the decision makers will buy this this funding so Carter and I wanted to close by just inviting everyone here to join us in the work of of expanding this tent. So engaging existing allies as well as potential new allies who again kind of cross the spectrum of the folks that Carter mentioned earlier, and really striving to understand what are their goals, what are their priorities. Where is the where is the overlap. Where can we really work together, and then making sure that everyone can get on the same page about how big the risks and the opportunities are with Asia implementation. So really working through like what where should we be focusing and through that all get ready to engage your elected officials on those on those issues that really, that really said at the overlap of all of our all of our goals and interests. So, thank you all, I'll take them slides and and we can go into questions. And I'll just bring the mic over to folks and start here. Hello, I had a question. I think audio just cut out. Can you, can you repeat that from the start. Sorry. Sorry, say that again. Could you start over we you cut out about halfway through. I have a concern about the ATP the active transportation grants. So in my community. You know, we're, we have some funding that we got in some of the early earlier cycles, and they're actually not very strong proposals because they totally neglect bicycles. So they're, they're sidewalk projects, which are our public works is kind of an anti bicycle organization. And so they don't want to go into much effort to implement bike infrastructure. Especially if you have to remove parking or something like that. And so, is there a way that we can twist their arms to get them to implement this bicycle infrastructure when when they're, you know, so much against it. Thanks. I can take a quick stab at that. And I bet Laura may have some perspectives here too. But, you know, 1, you know, there's obviously the opportunity to directly engage with your local elected officials. And if you find you're striking out there. There are their efforts underway at the state level to rewrite a lot of the program guidelines that that are kind of the rules for how these competitive grant programs work. And I think there's, there's certainly the possibility of updating the ATP guidelines to perhaps reward projects that include bike elements more, you know, more make them more competitive in the process or, you know, create more accountability checks to make sure that the cities that are applying for these grants are making better faith efforts to incorporate bike facilities. And NRDC participates with a group coalition called climate plan in California that is really directly engaging with the California Transportation Commission and Caltrans on the updating of these guidelines. And so, feel free to reach out if you're interested in mixing it up with the state officials in a way that might help, you know, improve the outcomes that ATP is delivering. What I also like to add is if there's a city that your city competes with, or maybe sees as a competitor and and they're using bicycling. If you could get some testimonials from another similar community, particularly from the business community they're saying, Oh, you know, we're getting more traffic this way we're, you know, we're bringing in the type of employees that that we want to get through seeing less congestion because of it. What other but whatever benefits they're getting or their reasons for building out bicycling infrastructure may be helpful. Thanks. Thanks both I'm wondering if you guys can see us, the virtual panelists can see us and I'm going to invite folks with questions to come up here. Unfortunately, but it'd be great to have the questioners introduce themselves and like their name and where they're from. Hello, my name is Christopher Ford and I'm with Santa Ana active streets out of Santa Ana in Orange County. Two questions. Anything. Is there any call to action right now on the. More recent, so just wondering if there's any advocacy call to action there. And then finally, is there any criteria to actually collaborate with NGOs or community groups or residents than just asking for the signature and a letter of support for specifically like raise grants. And I just bring that up because we already got a request for a raise grant letter of support. They talk about a connecting with certain communities but we don't know if they've even talked to the communities. So it might seem like a bike project or a pedestrian project looks good on paper. But my concern is they're also taking advantage of disadvantage of communities because they they score well in the scoring ground so is there any actually other criteria to actually collaborate and actually provide a little bit more criticism. Because they're actually connecting in a more holistic way. So I missed the first question about, is there a call to action for something didn't hear that. But onto the second question on raise if someone's asking for a letter of support, you're, you should totally be asking those questions like you say it's working with this community who in that community did you talk to. I think that that that that outreach has happened, you know how can we help you make that outreach. I would, you know, you can definitely ask those questions and you can also say look. Have you thought about in thinking about this project have you thought about this piece or that piece. I'll also say this DOT is asking in the applications for a little more information about how did you get public outreach. To help with that as well. So that's what was the first what was the call to action question. I think there was also question Carter you may be able to jump in too since I know you're part of the climate plan coalition but. Yeah, there have been. There has been a lot of feedback on the governor's proposal for gas tax rebates and how that could, you know, basically reward driving when what we really want for climate goals is a shift to investments in biking walking and transit. I think there are a number of NGOs and coalitions that are working to rebalance that kind of a proposal to be more incentivizing to biking walking and transit. I know climate plan and some other groups are working on letters. I don't have to kind of have those details candy immediately I don't know partner do you have anything to add to that. I can share that energy see signed on to a letter that transform out of the East Bay was organizing. 20 sign ons, you know, basically saying that our organization shared priorities are that, you know, people are economically struggling with inflation, regardless of whether they own a car and the cost of gas goes into everything that we buy. So we should not just have rebates for car owners but broad based support, as well as investments in transit and active transportation with our budget surplus. So we all are are pushing that. My understanding is that the governor's proposal, you know, is feeding into this annual budget process that the legislature will take up so it, I think the ball is now in the legislature's court some extent with the, you know, the governor negotiating and engaging extensively. So, you know, my sense is whether. You know, the next step is, is whether Anthony Rendon, the speaker of the assembly and Tony Atkins the president pro tem of the Senate, you know what their priorities are going to be and I think that'll that's sort of the locus of engagement going forward. I think this is a case where having strong labor partners and and business partners is going to be helpful because those were groups that really backed the sales tax. They wanted to increase an SB one a few years ago and want to protect funding for for transportation and so our wary of things like the gas tax increase holiday that the governor was also proposing. So I expect this to be to not go forward exactly how the governor proposed it but it's, it was, you know, not a helpful starting point. So we're trying to steer it in the right direction. Actually, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things. I'm the program manager for the active transportation program at the California Transportation Commission and want to thank Laura for her comments because she did a really good job explaining the program and it's very complicated so she did a great job on that. So I wanted to say to you on the projects that were funded in the early cycles, I could see that happening in the early cycles we, the program does not tend to fund that kind of project anymore they just are not very competitive in the program now. And some other funding sources have have been created that have taken up a lot of those kind of sidewalk projects. And I would say, and also the on the guidelines we actually just adopted the guidelines for the active transportation program in March, but we start a new program every two years. And we get feedback from stakeholders on the guidelines on the scoring rubrics on the applications. Interestingly, we don't do not get a lot of advocate participation in the program anymore except for a few people on Laura. I don't know why that is we did get that in the beginning. On the one hand I hope it means because everybody's pretty happy with the way things are going but on the other hand, I know how to run a grant funding program. I'm not a technical expert on a lot of these things that you guys are. And I would encourage more participation because we just don't get it right now. And so one of the things that came up was having NGOs participate in projects. And that's something that I've been thinking about because I've heard this lately and something that I'm thinking that maybe we should have incorporated something about that in our last cycle. And we didn't because it don't need help from people like you on how we can bring that into the program. And then the last thing is on the stimulus package, the 11 billion or whatever it is, there's 500 million in there for active transfer or the active transportation program. There's another 500 million in the budget. I understand from what we understand those are two separate things. So there is a billion. But we haven't heard a lot about the stimulus, the gas price stimulus, other than us really so, but that's, that's what I know about what's going on with that right. So, thank you. Thanks, and we're just about at time. So I'd like to invite my panelists to share like one closing thought or call to action. So maybe Karen, you want to go first. Sure. I think, you know, I appreciate all these questions because it shows that you're you're thinking about the programs and you're thinking about how to access them. And my last thought would be to contact us all offline and we may be able to get you in touch with, in my case, people that are more local than me, who may be able to help you with this. But again, this is a great time to be going after this funding and appreciate that you're all here thinking about that. Kevin. Yeah, you know, critical moment for for implementations and great opportunities at the state level and some directly from the feds and all I'd say is, I know when you're working in a place you you're really focusing on a lot of the challenges you still have yet to overcome. But I think compared to to most states. You know, you've been doing a great job in California. And, you know, we're going to be looking for states that that are showing the way so that we can get other states to to follow best practices and step up. Right. So, so we'll definitely be, you know, working hard in California to get the best outcomes for the state but we're also going to be looking to you folks as as national models that they will want to share with others. And Laura. Yeah, just thank you guys for for being here and for engaging in all the different ways that you do. I don't know if this room is being used immediately right after but I think Zach and I can maybe stick around if there's so we didn't get to some questions and if we can't answer them we can confer with the panel and and get back to you so happy to try and answer the lingering questions. And Zach. I'll just echo everyone's thanks for everyone to everyone for the work that you do and for being here and say that Carter and I and energy see are excited to work together so reach out. Reach out when you're when you're ready to do that. Thanks, and I'll close this out by just saying that I've had a chance to join a lot of the Cal bike events in person and I know that many of you represent by school coalitions and organizations across the state. And I think that's a voice that is missing in a lot of the conversations that I'm in with state officials. It's often folks like me who are kind of really high level policy advocates and not enough of that on the ground experience and especially in a place like California where there are rural constituencies that are often very outspoken pro highway I think we need more voices, especially if you are in inland California Central Valley, North Coast would love to connect with you all and make sure that your priorities are actually reflected in the decision making and so that's, that's partly a shout out to the person in the chat who was asking about Gino, but anyone, we'd love to have more local voices in the state conversation. So please join me in thanking all the panelists and have a great rest of the conference. Thank you.