 We'll call to order the Thursday, April 4th meeting of the Regional Transportation Commission. Who have a roll call please? Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Commissioner Montesino. Commissioner Alternate Clark. Commissioner Hernandez. Commissioner Alternate Guildelson. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Commissioner Alternate Shiros Carter. Commissioner Ropkin. Commissioner Alternate Lind. Commissioner Alternate Calentari Johnson. Commissioner Alternate Pigler. Commissioner Alternate Joe Clark. Commissioner Eads. Chair. Chair, you have a quorum. Thank you. And I see that we have commissioners Peterson and Rodkin on the way in as well. All right, we'll move on to item two. Consider AB 2449 just cause requests. Do we have any requests today? Commissioner Keros, do you want to state your reason? Just calling. Yes, I'm ill. And commissioner Felipe Hernandez. I think he might be on the attendees list. So we're trying to fight him to promote him. Yeah, I see commissioner Montesino has his hand raised. So he might be on the, on the other side as well. Speak and then we'll promote him. Commissioner Montesino. Yes, also I'm taking medical reasons. That everyone are we waiting for one more? We're just looking really quick for commissioner Hernandez. We know that he will be also participating remotely. Okay. This is still me, right? Yeah. All right. Does it look like he's on just yet commissioner? I'm sorry, chair Brown. Okay. I do see some hands raised. So maybe if. Commissioner Hernandez has a different name than his own name. Maybe he should rename himself and then we'll know that it's him. Okay. So I think we'll move on for now. And then we can come back to this if we need to. Okay. We'll move on to item three additions or deletions to consent or regular agendas. We have on, we have posted on our website. I'm sorry. Revised agenda. For items. Item 23 has been deferred to a later date and item 29 has been taken off of the closed session. We also have a handout for item 24. Great. Thank you. The handout was posted online. Yesterday. Correct. Do we have any hard copies? It was just public comments. Right. The handout was the public comments. Yes. Yeah. Do we have hard copies? No, it's on the website though. I will move on now to item four or communications. This is for any member of the public to address the commission on any item that is not on today's agenda. Okay. Okay. The time. And we'll start with those in the room. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning, chair Brown and commissioners. I'm Matt Farrell. I'm the chair of the Santa Cruz County friends of the rail and trail board. And we wanted to express our disappointment that item 23 was deferred to a later date, but we encouraged the RTC and the county to work together on solving the challenges of moving this project forward. We're very worried about the potential to lose the $68 million active transportation grant funding from the state and would hope that you can do everything possible to make the June CTC meeting and get this money allocated. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. I'm Grace Voss and I'm an avid cyclist who believes you can learn a lot. We can learn a lot from history, especially when it involves a fatality in January of 2008, an 18 year, 18 year old boy was riding his bike downhill on East Cliff Drive when he crashed into a FedEx truck that was making a right turn on to Jesse street just ahead of him. The bicyclist died from head trauma. In 2008 was seven years before the opening of the nearby off road Iran, Iran, a Gulch multi use path connecting the East and West sides of Santa Cruz. This path has one entrance at Brommer street and another at Broadway. It allows bicyclist pedestrians and the handicap to travel safely in this area, avoiding busy East Cliff Drive for the bicyclist who died. However, Iran a Gulch opened seven years too late. The state of California has the opportunity to save the lives of bicyclist pedestrians and the handicap once again by completing the rail trail. This off road trail should be completed sooner rather than later. Why? The state of California has awarded us almost 68 million dollars for its construction. Please let's not repeat the past when the Iran a Gulch path was delayed for many years. Let's act now and save lives. Let's discuss the resolution to accept the 68 million state grant for the rail trail. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning. I'm Paula Bradley. I'm a resident of district one and a cyclist at the board and supervisors meeting Tuesday, March 26. The inject included the coastal rail trail project segments 10 and 11 and supervisors meeting Tuesday, March 26. The state of California and McPherson voted against staff recommendations to move forward with the project. Their actions risk critical funding for the project. The largest ATP grant ever awarded to the state almost 68 million dollars jeopardizing the entire rail and trail project. The ultimate trail is a key component to an integrated multimodal transportation system for the state of California and the state of California. The goal is for supervisors Koenig and McPherson to reconsider and not stop the project at 73% of county voters want including your own districts. Zero mission rail transportation is the least environmentally damaging public transportation. Transportation emissions are 70% of county GHG emissions. The project would offset GHG emissions many more times than would reserving the trees proposed to be removed. Reduction in this reduction in transportation related GHG emissions with the rail and trail project is the most effective way to reduce emissions and would be consistent with the county's 2022 climate action and adoption plan. Please commissioners continue to support the coastal rail trail project despite the setback. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Regarding the rail trail discussion I'm ahead of myself but this is a reality check. There's only one track and it's really not suitable. It's really only suitable for freight. It can only go one way at a time drop off cargo and return without interference. It has been said that a trip from Watsonville to Santa Cruz on light rail will only take 45 minutes. But that's only if there are no stops along the way which is not practical for commuters and those carrying their work equipment. Plus how will they get from the train to their jobs and back? What about stops along the way? How long will it then take to get from Watsonville to Santa Cruz? If there are stops how many will there will be needed? Where will these stops be located? Where will people take the train? People taking the train park their cars. If there are stops the trip will take much longer than 45 minutes and there will only be time for a few trips a day. Not very commuter friendly or getting people off the freeway. More importantly who is responsible for rebuilding the track and repairing the trestles? And who will pay for these improvements? And how much will that cost? I appreciate supervisors McPherson and taking on these questions. I hope they stand firm. We all live near the tracks so Zach Friend may not be refusing himself. Having a light rail commuter train doesn't seem to make very much sense. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Hi. Firstly I hate standing up here talking. So I'll try to make a brief. Every day the postal trail isn't completed as another day that forces children biking to school or along busy streets. They're forced to ride their bikes and there's cars driving too fast, drivers distracted, people on their phones and not paying attention. And every day the trail isn't built. I'm wondering how the supervisors who vote for this project I think it's unconscionable. I think I'm just really shocked. We have $68 million accepted. Also I'm here representing the underserved people of Watsonville. My career I would spend a lot of time in Watsonville and a lot of the folks I talked to would work up in North County, Boardwalk, Posco and other places. A lot of them even worked in Capitola and they would express to me they would really like to get to work on a train instead of driving 45 minutes one way to work. And so I'm here for the underrepresented. I'm not here for the folks who have a heck of a lot of money and I'm here speeding with you to please think about the folks who can't be here because they're right now at their jobs and working really hard. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Brian Peoples with Trail Now. We're a local organization advocating to build the trail in a timely, cost effective and eco friendly manner. We were established over a decade ago. We actually were a political action committee in support of 2016 measure D with our support measure D one. We're actually a political action committee against John Leopold who was for the train and John Leopold for 12 years was overwhelmingly defeated and the message truly was that he was for the train. I personally got involved with this agency over 25 years ago. 25 years ago I've been involved in transportation and the reason is because I want to improve our transportation for our community and what I see examples of trails being built such as in Kirkland up in Washington purchased their railroad the exact same time we did. They are ready. They also had a railroad operator trying to fight this. They were successful rail banking it and they've had their trail for a decade. We've only built one mile of a trail because of our approach. So we're asking you to basically go through and do the rail banking. Now one other personal thing I want to mention is two years ago on this day I broke my neck scheme. And in that medical center there was a 12 year old child who was hit by a car. So that same week that I was operated on they cut my throat. I called into this meeting because of my frustration with this organization. We need to open the coastal corridor as soon as possible. And we all know that the fastest approach is to follow Kirkland approach. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Good morning. Welcome. Hi. My name is Barbara Jordan. I'm a resident of district one and I'm here to express disappointment in your votes. You and Mr. McPherson the other day. But I also would like to reiterate that there's 73% of us that voted for measure D including district one residents. And it would also like to point out in response to this person that the rail banking idea in the county council review was not identified as something that was a short thing. If you read any analysis of it it is not a given for given. And it's very questionable that that could be done. So I am a rail and trail advocate. Thank you very much. Thank you. Hi. Welcome. Hi. As I read all of those public opinions and thoughts are considered. I would just like to add my personal opinions as someone that does use the rail the rail trail over by mission to get around sometimes because it is for me using my wheelchair safer than on the street. And if you were to pull up the trail the rails and put in something that went at any speed. That wasn't on a guided system. Then it would no longer be extra safe. It would be just as good just it would be just as dangerous as going down mission straight for me. So that's just my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Any further comments in chambers? Yes. Good morning. Welcome. Good morning everyone. Hi. I'm a physician. I live in district one and there are two issues. Number one is countless friends of mine have been hit on their bikes by cars and they're very experienced riders and they've had a lot of trauma. So we need to be aware of how dangerous it is to cycle in Santa Cruz. Number two is I'm closely aligned with UC Davis. Dr. Susan Handy and Dr. Amy Lee and they've done the studies that show no matter how much highway expansion you do there will always be congestion. So you expand the highway by a lane or two and in two years the effect is negated. So highway one I live where I can see the traffic and the traffic starts at 230 going south and in the morning I once lived in La Selva and it would take me an hour to get from La Selva to UCSC to my job. Highway one cannot take further expansion and solve our problem. We need to be more aware of what is happening. We need to be aware of what is happening and look to what Europe has done where the rail trails are very successful. So thank you and I hope you will reconsider your votes. You too. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional public comment in chambers? Seeing none we'll go to zoom. My apologies we do have one more public comment in the room. Thank you. I am in the reception of the obvious Scotts Valley area lack of sport and funding of pedestrian bicycle traffic mitigating projects. Scotts valley area and city are severed by freeway with the crossroads of all the San Lorenzo Valley in North county. We support large of the industrial office and service industries in the county with associated workforce traffic. associated safety concerns impacting all of us. Funding and project decision should be impartial, objective, balanced, equitable, and completely nonpartisan. I actually have a considerable amount more to speak that direction by the time. I know what's on the agenda today with everybody and I'm very passionate about that. I ride my bike every day, so I'm very passionate about bike projects. I will let everybody else have their time to speak. And I will appreciate, I will address this in an email to you guys on my concerns and I would appreciate if you just take a minute and take a look at that, thank you. Thank you. Last call for any public comment in the room. Saying none, we'll go to Zoom. Mr. Michael Sainte. Yeah, thank you, Chair Brown, morning commissioners, Michael Sainte with CFST, also an Aftos resident. I read in the lookout that the Coastal Rail Trail segment 10 and 11 were not approved by the Board of Supervisors. To be more specific, it was not approved by two Supervisors, I would like to thank Supervisor Hernandez and Cummings for voting yes, and support the construction of segments 10 and 11. So that's going, what's going on here? It could be that the Supervisors that voted no are legitimately concerned about the amount of trees being destroyed in the shortfall of the fund. Or they are trying to stall the project and even get a canceling of the trail. This may be a reason, but the same supervisors voted no as commissioners in April of 2021, blocking potential passenger train service on the rail and board levels. Although I do support continuing segment 10 and 11 as the ultimate trail. I'm going to give these two commissioners to those who are voting no. They are an example of frugal spending and very environmentally concerned about vast numbers of trees being destroyed. I'll be looking forward to their vote on the segment 12 of the trail that includes the ox lanes throughout the process. This segment will destroy from many more trees than segments 10 and 11, approximately 1100. And it's also very short of funding as well as having an EIR that is vastly efficient. After voting no on 10 and 11, how could they possibly vote yes on segment 12 ox lane project? This will be very interesting in the future. Some would say this is a predicament for those that want to stop the ultimate trail. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Will go next to David Hart Public Transit. Good morning. Good morning. Yes, we can. Thank you. Good morning, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Somebody set up into microphone on phone on that's why it's a Commissioner much less than first you have an illustrious record of public service truly, as other public agencies do no project into that until the day of the day of running every moment before the choice to stop. For segments 10 and 11, let's plan for success rather than I urge you to accept the funding grant and trust that you're able to do the right thing is concept report. And all of their future development, they will certainly accept the grant. Accepting the grant is not a choice. Let's plan for success rather than assuming more forward. Thank you. We will go now to Diane D. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. To urge you each I'm here to urge each of you to always always or front of your mom on the future residents and businesses in this county. The county will continue to grow. They will definitely alternative transportation. A free way would never be enough. Zero initial transit is the most efficient. Please urge your colleagues and all elected officials to listen to the will of the voters and accept the $68 million now and funds that will come in the future for both rail transit and transit trail. Thank you. Online public comments so that it doesn't create feedback loops. We'll go now to Lowell Hurst. Well, I believe you need to unmute. We need to ask him to unmute. Looking on it. We're having some technical difficulties. We're going to work on it. Okay, we'll come back to you, Lowell. We're going to go to Lonnie Faulkner. Thank you, commissioners. It sounds like the. So. Can can someone. Turn off the microphone. Probably the center. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay, great. I'm going to test. I still hear an echo. Still hearing an echo. Okay. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. I'm a resident of the first district and founder of equity transit. In the wake of last week's display of four representation of the community by the two currently seated supervisors who serve here as commissioners. We are disappointed that item number 23 was removed from agenda. We would like to remind the commissioners and the public that we the public are given the funds to buy the rail corridor from 2012. Specifically to implement rail. Not a trail. However, Santa Cruz is one of the most dangerous dangerous counties in the state to walk a ride a bike. The trail was a welcome initiative. The engineers determined that both would be accommodated on the rail corridor. But it is the activation of rail that will provide us with a critical alternative to drive in. Not just from north south along the corridor. Our rail line will connect us to the community. Our rail line will connect us to the California state rail network. Allowing us to travel by train to Monterey, Illinois, San Jose and beyond. In April of 2023, Caltrans noted they anticipated our rail line to be active within 10 years. The chair of the transportation commission Carl Gordino voted to approve the largest ever grant for segment 811. Our rail trailer 222 to be built adjacent to not on the rail. Mr. Gordino spoke here in 2021 prior to the measure devote reminding Santa Cruz that our promise was to activate passenger rail for our community. Passenger rail is the most energy efficient environmentally smart safest form of transportation. Approving both the rail and trail project provides critical equitable robust transportation option that meet the needs of many all along the real corridor and receive nearly 74% support across the county with the clear opposition to measure D in 2022. Not moving forward this project depredenses the future of the trail for our Watsonville neighbors and for our entire community. We urge the commission to do everything possible. The trail project forward and the passenger rail program forward as well. Thank you so much for your time. Lola, are you able to unmute yourself? Do we have other attendees with their hands raised that we can come back to Lola? We'll keep trying. Well, in the meantime, we'll go to Jean Brackelbank. Oh, did we lose? Wait a minute. I haven't started talking. The clock, please. Thank you. I'm here today to applaud the wisdom of supervisors McPherson and Coneg. When these two supervisors voted to move forward with the segment 10 and 11 portion of a trail, they also asked very important questions that they want answered. Asking questions and getting answers is a challenge to the public. The questions that they asked were formalized in the motion and anyone who was at the meeting and who has, by the way, now read the minutes of that meeting will know that the things that are being said about both supervisors are outlandish and unfair. So let's try and figure out a way to have this conversation without personal attacks and misstatements of fact and falsehood. Again, I applaud the two commissioners on this RTC who are also supervisors. One of them my supervisor for their wisdom and for their willingness to ask the hard questions in everything that we do going forward for future generations, including ourselves to err on the side of caution is smart to do otherwise is dumb. I want smart people working for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Again with low. All right, so we are going to go to Barry Scott. Thank you. Good morning. This is Barry Scott from Rio. While I was. Unpleased with the vote by the board of supervisors. I want to thank. Supervisor McPherson for responding to emails and saying that clarifying that he asked that the remaining staff. He continued back to the board. With answers to. I'm encouraged. These things are being. And I. I trust the person to. His vote. Understands. Roring campus. To move the track. At their own expense. In segment. And that there are ways. On the matter of. Completion of the. Santa Cruz to. The Santa Cruz. Project. Will cure probably the. Part of that. It's not a walking project. It will be the completion. Of the years long. To leave it. Arrow there. Would be a mistake. And in as much as. That project. I think. I think. California. A work for a major grant. A year or two ago. Tells me that we need to keep going. And. Build that. That includes. The rail trail. That's on shoulder. Whether improvement. Thank you. We'll go now to Sean. Or. An accident that they've been in. Or. Anyone that they know. They complain that cars are driving too fast. On the shoulder. And too many cars. So they're really talking about cars. And. Our. Unableness. To. To. To. Manage. The common sense of drivers. Were literally powerless at that. Because we can come. To these meetings. With a with another statistic. Another. Injury. Another close call. Or a death. Every time. We're talking about cars. Now. There's been a complete failure. Of. Tesla to deliver completely. Autonomous vehicles. Years. Late on that. And there isn't one. Accessible. Self driving vehicle in production. Not one. We've had electric cars. Since the 80s. There is no new technology that's going to come along. And save us. Right. Rail is well known to be the most. Efficient transportation. Our rail corridor is subject to. Federal speed limit. High speed rail will never exist. In Santa Cruz. And that's a good thing. Nor will heavy freight. Because there is no such term. It's made up. As if it relates to something else. Like interim trail. Another made up term. That's a good thing that doesn't exist. We're going to go to David date. David, you should be able to unmute yourself. Yeah. Thank you for taking my call. You know, I've been involved in this for about 15 years. And the quote that comes to mind is if you repeat the lie often enough. It becomes the truth. How many lies have been told. Along the way of this 20 year project. That we have to keep the tracks. Or else we would lose $10 million in prop. One 16 funds. All we decide to do. To change the tracks. One 16 funds. All we discussed spending over 100 million and only a four mile segment. That both the train and trail fit despite the need to demolish low income mobile home units and pursue eminent domain against farmers and residents. That the capital at rest will could be renovated before finding out that 30 others. And the capital trust would need to be demolished to accommodate a train. Let alone an adjacent trail. It is clear to me that we are no closer to realizing the pedestrian infrastructure than we were in 2012. We have a budget deficit crisis, a transportation crisis, a housing crisis, and a pension liability crisis. And anyone on this commission honestly say that we are in a position to prioritize a train in 30 to 40 years, over patching our potholes or building an interim trail today. A trail that will save lives, reduce greenhouse gases and promote safe walkable communities. Spending money we don't have to enshrine a pie in the sky train only ensures that we get neither in our lifetime, while our roads congestion and public transit decline. Yep, that's all I got guys, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, we're gonna try again, Lowell. Thank you very much, can you hear me now? Oh, that's great. Hey, Lowell Hurst here in a beautiful west side, west side of Watsonville. And regarding the freeway, I wanna say thank you very much for the work that's going on, the repairs, the fixing, the bridges, the ramps, thousands of people every day use that transportation network. And so I just wanna express my thanks for trying to fix the freeway. When it comes to sections 10 and 11, let's trim that overgrown landscape, trim up the overgrown landscape. Let's don't let $68 million of CTC grant money, state grant money, don't let it disappear. Other people would like to use it, but we need it here. Let's get Santa Cruz County moving, build the trail, use the rail, and I say thank you. Thank you. Any further comments on Zoom? All right, seeing none, we will close public comment. Let me pull my agenda back. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, hi, we'll return to the public comment in the room. Welcome. If you could just turn on the microphone. It's a button, a little gray button. Is it different up there? Is it not the gray button? Yes, sorry, I was late. I didn't believe the parking here. I've always come on my bicycle, but I'm on crutches today. All right, I wanted to thank supervisors, McPherson and Koenig for their farsighted and brave vision and votes. There's the $67 million that would go for destruction and risk and extra expense in Santa Cruz really belong somewhere else where it can be deployed for active transportation. To think that anywhere else in the state you could get a couple of miles for $68 million instead of a whole installation that would benefit another community. That's really important. As Lonnie Faulkner said, this is one of the most dangerous places to bike. And yes, we need that trail and we need it quickly. People have suffered terribly. There's been accidents because that trail is not in. And so let's get that happening. And the only way to do it is to look clearly at what the facts are. It's not like there's 100 years of foolishness. No, there's 40 years of obstruction. I'd also like to say that on the other issue that I am in favor of the widening of the freeway down to Park Avenue. And I do believe that saving those trees after that is a good idea. We'll find out later whether that is kind of like picking a Python or does the traffic flow well because we've got three lanes where we need them. And again, I really appreciate you folks putting a spanner on the works of this grant that will do so much damage to our community. Thank you. All right, with that, we will close public. Yes. Are we reopening public comment? Okay. Is there anyone else in the room if you could raise your hand that you haven't spoken and you're still interested in speaking on public comment? Okay, you'll be our last public comment today. Okay, thank you. Is this Stallone? Okay. My name is Susan Kaufman. I've lived in Santa Cruz County and Santa Cruz City for most of my life, about 40, 50 years. I am in support of the rail trail, especially specifically with the rail line. I'm asking you to move forward. I know it's a very costly project. I'm grateful that there's $68 million in a state grant available to help move it forward. Even though it's costly, it's more costly not to have a rail trail. Many people cannot just walk or ride their bikes on the trail because of disabilities, because they're trying to get children here and there. And so we really need the rail line. And the environmental costs of not having the rail line are so much higher in a fragile, precious environmental state that the world is in right now. Rail line is safe. It's the most energy efficient way of transporting people and the majority of the voters have asked for it. Please, please move the rail trail forward. We really need to think long-term instead of short-term. And if we really want it, we can get it. We can make it happen. So thank you. The majority of the voters really, really want it. And we need it in our county. We need a good alternative to Highway 1 other than widening. Thank you. Thank you. All right, with that, we are going to close public comment. We are moving on to the consent agenda, but before we do, I'm receiving messages from those watching at home saying they're still receiving a really extreme echo. So I don't know if it's just because it's really loud in the room or if it's something with CTV, but if we can continue to try to address that so that when we get to public comment on the next item, hopefully we'll be able to have everyone participate. All right, we're moving. Yes. So we do have Commissioner Hernandez back. So if we want to go back to item number two. Oh, thank you. Okay, we will return to item number two considering AB 2449 just cause requests. Commissioner Hernandez. Yes, I'm here for the medical reasons. Great, thank you. That's all we need, right? We don't need to vote for that, for those reasons. Commissioner Hernandez, is this more than, have you utilized Just Cause two times already this year? Because if so, we'll need to do this under emergency circumstances. And the commission would just need to entertain a motion to approve this participation by emergency circumstances. First time. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on now to our consent agenda. Do any commissioners have any questions or comments on consent agenda or any item that you'd like to be removed? Yes, Commissioner Schifrin. Oh, no. Okay, Commissioner Brown, any? I do have a couple of comments. Okay, go ahead. Really quickly. So on item 10, I just want to thank our staff, Tommy Travers and Jason Thompson for coordinating this item. And also want to thank Luis Mendez for really getting this going. This is an item to approve a contract for vegetation management using goats. And so look for, I think on social media, you'll probably see when they're out there and get out and check out the goats there. It's just wonderful. And I really appreciate the staff for finding non-toxic alternatives for managing a real line vegetation issues. And then I want to also, I think Grace Voss just left, but wanted to thank outgoing Bicycle Advisory Committee member Grace Voss and welcome Jay Riddle, who will be joining as the city of Santa Cruz Alternate, along with Matt Ferrell on that body. So welcome, Jay. Thank you, Grace. And that's all I got. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. Love those goats. Any further questions, comments, any items that we'd like removed? Okay, is there any public comment on consent? Saying that in the room, do we have any public comment on our consent agenda online? I don't see it on my end. We do not, okay. Great. What's the consent agenda? We have a motion and a second. We do have some folks online, so we'll need to do a roll call vote. Commissioner Peterson. Yes. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montesino. Yes. Commissioner Hernandez. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Yes. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Kiddos Carter. Aye. Commissioner Rockins. That passes unanimously. Great, thank you. We'll move on to our regular agenda. Item 20 is commissioner reports. Do we have any commissioner reports? Yes, commissioner Koenig. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair. A few weeks ago on March 20th, I went to Sacramento along with our interim executive director, Mitch Weiss and the Central Coast Coalition on behalf of the Regional Transportation Commission. Central Coast Coalition consists of Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. It was formed to lobby for our collective transportation interests. We met with State Senator Laird, State Senator LaMone, Assembly members Pellerin and Addis, representatives from Assemblymember Greg Hart's office and Speaker Reeves's office and California Transportation Commissioner Joseph Cruz. Our request of state representatives was to continue funding important transportation projects in the Central Coast region, even in the face of a deficit year. We asked them to look at creative ways to get this funding in a year where budget deficit could be as high as 30%. We asked them to look at relocating truck weight fees from the current use for debt service to funding new transportation projects to consider issuing a climate bond with funds earmarked for active transportation and transit projects to consider creating a successor to the gas tax, which of course we've seen revenues from that go down as more people adopt electric vehicles. We suggest that they look at higher tiered vehicle registration fees so that we continue to have money during this transition to invest in our transportation network. What we heard back was that this budget deficit that the state faces is big again is high as 30% and that something will need to be cut. And so that's really what the legislature is everyone in Sacramento it seems is trying to figure out now. We also heard that the bonding capacity for the state is about 15 to 20 billion dollars. So while a climate bond is being discussed there are a number of competing interests with other bonds looking to go out including affordable housing bond and education facilities bond. And finally there are discussions happening about successors to the gas tax and possible extension to cap and trade. But those that have flourished have taken a back seat in the current year's budget to the current year's budget discussions. So unfortunately not a ton of encouraging news will learn more in the coming months about whether our state representatives can come up with any creative ways to continue funding important transportation projects in the near term. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional reports? And on this end. All right. Thank you commissioners I will just say briefly and staff correct me if I've got any of these facts wrong. But just a reminder to everyone that there will be 24 hour closure of highway one this weekend from 7pm on Saturday to 7pm on Sunday between 41st and Bay Avenue. Do I have those two right? I always get those two wrong and park. Thank you. So yeah I knew I was going to get it wrong again. Thank you for the correction. So just a reminder to everyone little detour 7pm Saturday to 7pm Sunday. Maybe just stay home that day. All right. With that we will move on to item 21 our director's report and I will turn it over to Mr. Weiss. Thank you. Last month I reported on the work that began on the highway one on Slyery Lane's bus on shoulder project between Bay Avenue Porter Street and State Park Drive interchanges that includes the construction of a bicycle and pedestrian overcrossing at Marvis to Drive and replacement of the Capitol Avenue overcrossing at highway one. As chair Brown alluded to the work to construct the new Capitol Avenue overcrossing will require a 24 hour full closure of highway one for crews to safely demolish the existing over crossing and hallway materials. This closure was postponed from the previous scheduled dates at the end of last month because of rain and will now take place this weekend. The full closure of highway one will take place from again as Saturday April 6 at 7 p.m. through Sunday April 7 at 7 p.m. between Bay Avenue Porter Street and Park Avenue interchanges signs with detour information will be in place to direct drivers but we encourage drivers to seek alternate routes. I'd like to provide a brief update on segment five of our Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network. This project proposes to construct seven and a half miles of the trail spying between Wilder Ranch and Davenport. The scope of this project includes a new multi-use paved path with striping on paved shoulders and paved parking lots at Davenport and Panther Yellow Bank beaches. The project also includes a bicycle and pedestrian over crossing at highway one at Panther Yellow Bank beach. RTC staff in coordination with the Federal Highway Administration Central Lands Division is implementing this project. We were awarded two grants for the project. The funding for construction of the trail and parking lots includes $33 million in federal funds and $8 million in major defunds. The project was advertised for construction by the Federal Highway Administration with the engineer's estimate of $32.6 million. Four bids were received on March 26 with the low bid being just under $32 million. Although there is sufficient funding to build the trail and parking lot projects based on the construction bids received, the Federal Highway Administration Central Land Central Federal Lands Division in coordination with RTC is working to identify funding for the project mitigation prior to awarding the contract. The Federal Highway Administration recently received updated cost estimates for the environmental mitigation required to construct the project. That estimate exceeds the available funds by $89 million. Staff will return to RTC with an update on the project award at the next RTC. Also regarding the rail trail, we've withdrawn item 23 on the segment 10 and 11 environmental review from today's agenda. We need a little more time to work through this issue. Our intent is to bring to you at our April 18th TPW meeting, an item that is focused on the scope and funding of this project to be followed by an item on the environmental review at our May 2nd meeting. There are a few staff announcements I'd like to share with you. First, we're pleased to welcome two new staff members, Johnny Esteban and Max Friedman, both who started on March 19th as transportation planners. Johnny, I think Johnny's here. Go ahead and stand up. Wave. Johnny has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Seattle University and a master's degree in energy engineering, specializing in energy management of transport systems of the Barcelona School of Industry and Engineering. He recently worked as a postgraduate research intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, reconducted research related to micro-mobility services and on-demand transits ability to address social equity barriers and improve accessibility for disadvantaged communities. Max. Max is a recent graduate of the Masters of Urban and Regional Planning Program at San Jose State University. While pursuing his master's degree, he worked at the San Jose Department of Transportation, assisting and acquiring state, federal and regional grants and managing grant funded projects. I'd also like to recognize Deputy Director Luis Mendez, who recently celebrated a milestone 30-year anniversary working at RTC. Over the past 30 years, Luis has earned the respect and admiration of commissioners, colleagues and community members for his professionalism, dedication, understanding, cooperation, work ethic and enthusiasm to improve transportation in Santa Cruz County. Luis is on vacation today, but I'd like to bring a resolution of appreciation for his years of service at RTC at the next meeting so we can give him his well-earned recognition when he's here with us. That concludes my report. That's great. Thank you. Welcome, Johnny and Max. Congratulations, Deputy Director Mendez. Any questions? Yes, go ahead. I just want to, and regard to the item that's pulled today, there's a lot of concern about the grant being lost. Can you say, I do not get the feedback that it's going to be lost. Can you say yes or no? But was this delay going to jeopardize the grant? Well, so the issue is getting the allocation from the California Transportation Commission, and I have some familiarity with that. I guess I would note that at the June meeting at the last year at the California Transportation Commission, they approved 18 time extensions for active transportation program projects. And that is just one program. There are many other time extensions on their agenda. It's not something the commission wants to see, but I do not envision a short time extension jeopardizing this project. And certainly it's the commission's discretion, but I think everybody wants this project to succeed in a little more time to have a little more discussion. But it's not going to kill the project. Any other questions? Okay, we will take public comment on the director's report. Hi, welcome. Go ahead and say your name if you'd like it included in the record. Thank you, Brian Peeples, Trail Now. So first of all, commenting on the North Coast Trail, that's been delayed over a decade, and that's a great example of the approach we're not taking the right approach. Trail Now worked with the local farmers, and we tried to rail bank that and build it where the tracks are. We would have a trail there today if we had followed that pattern. And so we continue to see it delayed. We continue to see it be an exceeding budget allow amount. So we just want to point that out as more evidence that we're not approaching this right. Secondly, to address the grant funding, Mr. Wise, we sent you a note, a request to address with the CTC administrator Lori Waters, who we talked to and get an understanding that the process for a minor adjustment or a major adjustment on a grant, she specifically said that what we were looking at would be a minor adjustment, which is approved by the administrator, does not have to go in front of the CTC board. And so we're asking that the RTC staff include that in their analysis. Let's stop making these assumptions that we have to do the ultimate trail. The fact is, according to Lori, it would be likely a minor adjustment, which would be addressed by the staff. And they wouldn't have to go in front of the board if we chose the interim trail. And so that's really important. And I think it's important that staff addresses that so that we can bring some of the public swirl out of the equation. Because right now, people think you're going to lose the money. You're not. You need to start. And so staff, you shouldn't come in front of the board. You should not come out and discuss this until that is answered. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Any additional public comments in chambers? Seeing none, do we have any comments online? Yes, we have Gene Brockelbank. Good morning. And my thanks to the director in the director's report for bringing facts out about delay and losing. I hope that every news media that is monitoring this meeting today that repeated the harang by Fort members yesterday at their demonstration and in the news media that our supervisors had somehow or other jeopardized the $68 million. I hope that the same news media who passed along that misstatement of fact will correct those misstatement of facts and will quote the director's report today so that the general public can be put at ease. It's amazing what factual information can do in terms of either educating the public or riling them up. We know what happens when we know what happens when the public is riled up by some politician's name. I'm not going to mention right now. But that's exactly what's happening around this. And I want information. I want educated residents. I want people who are educated to be engaged with their government. I think we all benefit from that. I noticed the clock was started late. So I'll end my comment right now. But my thanks to the director for the information and news media. Let's spread that word. Thank you. I have one lingering question on this. So item you mentioned executive director that segment five is seeing some significant potential cost increases for environmental mitigation. And he's at up to eight million dollars. I'm just curious what that's from. Do we have any information or anyone on staff of information about that? I mean, other segments we're talking about tree removal. But segment five is largely through farmland and along the coast. I don't anticipate reading about the issue. Yeah, you're right. I'm the one commissioner and I'm going to Grace Blitzley of your staff. On the north coast, it's largely impacts for riparian areas that we've had into red legged frog, which is a federally protected species that we'll be mitigating for. We have an excellent partnership with state parks to do incredible restoration of some of the foul farmlands on the northern portion of the project, and to achieve some of their restoration goals as part of the mitigation. Thank you for that information. So we still have one more public comment. Let's finish the public comment and then I'll go to the directors for additional questions and comments. So we have Mr. Michael St. Thank you, Chair Brown. Michael St. with CFST. Is it appropriate for me to comment on the commissioner reports? Okay, I didn't hear anything about commissioner reports. So if it's not appropriate, I'm okay with that. Just a very quick one. Commissioner Koenig mentioned something about trying to get funding, raising money for projects and stuff like that, and mentioned cap and trade. Personally, I think cap and trade is not that great. You're basically allowing people to pay for polluting. Another possible suggestion would be a carbon fee and dividend instead of cap and trade. It puts a cost on carbon emissions per ton on the fossil fuel industry, which are normally paid out to the citizens. But I imagine could be directed elsewhere. So in your future meetings, maybe bring that up to the legislators. Thank you. Any further comments on zoom? All right, seeing none, we've addressed the issue of the mics being on in the room and maybe an issue with the volume in the room, but I'll also ask the speakers that when they're calling in virtually to make sure that you have your speakers turned down so that you're not also creating a feedback loop of hearing yourself while also speaking. So we're just continuing to try to address the issues of the echo with the virtual public comment. Directors, you had questions and comments, excuse me, commissioners, questions and comments about the director's report. I just wanted to clarify some information about the segment five project. While I think the director talked about the remaining concerns around environmental mitigation. I might have missed it whether in fact there's been really good news about the segment five project. There are really two components of it. There's construction and there's mitigation and it's a federally funded project mostly. And the bids went out for the construction part and it was very worrisome since bids have been coming in very high. In fact, the construction of the six plus mile trail came in. There were four bids. The low bid was below the engineer's estimate. So while there are remaining problems with that project. The fact that got some bids for a significant rail trail project below what the engineer was estimating and within what the project got from the engineer was estimating and within what the project can support, I think it is really very good news. Did I get that right? Yes, sir. Further comments, questions on the director's report? All right, seeing none. We're going to move on to item 22, our Caltrans report. Good morning, Commissioner Eads. Good morning, Chair Brown and members of the commission. Good morning, Commissioner Eads. A few items. I'll start with what is probably you've seen in the news and that is a slip out near Rocky Creek bridge on the Big Sur coast. Initially it isolated around 1600 people around 1000 residents and then 600 visitors to the area. We've since been able to establish a convoy routine where in the morning we have a convoy area with the pilot guiding the vehicles and then again in the afternoon at 4 p.m. we're continuing to reconsider those times in coordination with the Monterey EOC but the goal is really managing risk right now. The more vehicles and vibrations we have in that area, the potential that it could continue to degrade. We're also looking at ways to stabilize the slope. The goal in the near term will be to put up K rail temporary rail along that area and then as after the slope is stabilized to a degree where we have comfort with increasing the amount of vehicles there then we will install a temporary signal system which would allow for 24-7 access limited still to one lane but 24-7 there's also a couple slides to the south which is the other part of the isolation for those particular visitors and residents and so we're continuing to work on those slides notably there's Paul slide which the goal is to get that open in May and then just north of that still south of the community of Big Sur is a fairly new slide called Regents which is a very tall and long slide coming down onto the roadway that the specific way that that slide has occurred we need to get equipment on top of that and then slowly well as quickly as we can move that material down working in all daylight hours so that one we're looking at probably late July to early August to have it fully open so we are looking at a duration of time with some closures I'm continuing along Big Sur coast so just be aware if you're visiting down that area or intending to next I want to just talk about a few funding opportunities first a couple at the federal level the call for projects for three different programs the federal level mega infra and rural was just released it's a consolidated application and there's five billion dollars available nationwide I won't go into the details of the individual programs but SECRTC has been successful with this program in the past we're happy to continue conversations around joint applications and ways that we can support RTC if there's interest in applying for these programs the deadline for application is May 6 and then the next program I want to talk about is the it's a new federal active transportation grant program it's called active transportation infrastructure investment program and it is similar to the active transportation program or street safe streets for all I talked about last time so there's outreach meetings that are occurring by webinar actually on April 9 so that one's not really guess that's upcoming still but I mean then applications are due on June 17 of 2024 and then finally a state grant program the active transportation program which is program through the California Transportation Commission they're going to be announcing that soon and they're expecting to have the grants due in June 2024 and there's about $568 million available in funding finally just wanted to acknowledge the fact that there's the biannual packets of projects that Caltrans has submitted it's included in your agenda the really for us we wanted to give insights into things that we're working on in Santa Cruz County provide an opportunity to coordinate with either RTC staff or local staff on is there you know collaboration on any of these projects is there a desire for integrating additional elements that may not be already part of our project what we could coordinate perhaps receive joint funding and then do something slightly different than what we're already planning so really it's an opportunity to collaborate and coordinate on those upcoming projects and happy to that concludes my report happy to take any questions speed limit issue on Ben Loman on highway nine that has been brought to us to the RTC several times I just want to thank you to Caltrans is trying to work out just what this how long this will be and so forth and what process we go through it's been really a great cooperative effort and I look forward to it being completed soon any other questions or comments from commissioners seeing none do we have any public comment on this item yes Lowell Hurst here in Watsonville I just wanted to thank Mr. for the work that is taking place on main street also known as highway 152 highway 152 does bisect the city also highway 129 and so thank you again for paying attention to Watsonville and trying to help keep us moving your work on highway one is greatly appreciated as it also bisects the city so thanks to Caltrans I say thank you seeing no further public comment we will move on now to item 24 zero mission passenger rail and trail project update and railroad bridge loading assumptions sorry to interrupt is your microphone on it's like on the yeah that's green now alright thank you commissioners thank you chair brown my name is Riley Gerbrand associate transportation engineer on your staff I'm here today to provide you a project update on the zero mission passenger rail and trail project to discuss things that we've been working on as a project team and also some bridge loading design assumptions I do have our consultants HDR engineering online I wanted to check to make sure that we have Mark McClaren Tiffany Mendoza and Peter graph see in the list of attendees I make an announcement okay so we're waiting for we won't wait for but we're going to have Tiffany Mendoza HDR mark McClaren from HDR and Peter graph from HDR support us on this project and they're being given a promotion request to get them onto the zoom panelist and so when I'm so thank you for that interlude so today we're going to provide a summary update for you guys on the commission regarding the public engagement opportunities that we had for milestone one of this project which occurred from February through to beginning of March we're also going to discuss the infrastructure evaluations that have been ongoing as part of the project we're going to provide some recommendations for bridge design assumptions and standards and review and also summarize the review that the team has done on the coastal rail trail projects next slide I wanted to take a note too that to mention that we did receive several public comments on this item those comments have been provided there is a handout that is available on this item for you guys to refer to and read as you know the Santa Cruz branch for that goes from Pajaro in northern Monterey County to Davenport in northern Santa Cruz County it's been an active rail line since the 1870s and it currently provides freight and recreational passenger services for Santa Cruz County the branch line was brought into public ownership by purchase of the branch line by the commission in 2012 and it has a unique opportunity to provide transportation investments to improve equitable and multimodal transportation services for the county and in 2023 your commission directed staff to award a contract to HDR engineering to assist us in completing the project concept report for the zero mission passenger rail and trail project which aims to bring 22 miles of passenger rail service as shown on the screen as well as 12 new miles of coastal rail trail also shown on the screen next slide and on your screens is the schedule for the project we're in this first phase the project concept report which will wrap up in spring of 2025 and overlaps and leads into the environmental documentation phase for the project which would ultimately lead to the commission's ability to improve the project and then after that we would go into right away the design phases have a potential for beginning construction as shown on your screen really in next decade next slide and as the first milestone of this project staff brought before your commission in February the project development teams recommended preliminary purpose and need statement and that kicked off a month of public engagement for this project which Tiffany Mendoza is going to summarize for us next slide thank you Riley my name is Tiffany Mendoza with HDR supporting the RTC on the development project so the first phase the first milestone of the development of this project concept phase included developing the preliminary purpose and need statement as he mentioned outreach started with the February 1st presentation and public hearing to the commission following that from February 5th to March 4th we had a virtual open house available for participants we also held two in-person open house meetings in the middle of February those were held in Watsonville and Santa Cruz RTC staff supported a table at the Watsonville farmers market and additionally throughout February and March we held several briefings local city councils agencies and stakeholders these included Capitola City Council Watsonville City Council Scotts Valley City Council Santa Cruz City Council Santa Cruz Metro the TAMC Rail Policy Committee and a meeting with the California Coastal Commission next slide please throughout these meetings specifically the open house meetings we had approximately 100 individuals participate in those in-person open house meetings and 231 users participate in the virtual public meetings we received a wide variety of comments ranging from support for the zero emission aspect of the project to a desire for alternate modes of transportation to divert traffic from highway 1 to comments on affordability of the project many commenters also agreed that the preliminary purpose and need statement fit their vision for the community other key topics that we heard from commenters included themes of safety, reliability frequency, affordability and equity we also heard that many participants want to see elements of the project incorporate infrastructure for other modes of travel near the rail stations such as biking, bus walking and rideshare and we also strongly heard support for connections to the Bay Area Cabrillo College UC Santa Cruz and other community locations commenters also agreed that the project would help to lower vehicle miles traveled in greenhouse gas emissions and a more detailed summary of all of the outreach conducted and what we heard from the community is included in a report as an attachment to today's commission agenda next slide finally I'm going to share a reminder I think we shared this with you in February but a reminder of our upcoming engagement opportunities for the project we have just completed this winter 2024 milestone we're looking ahead to our next round of public engagement kicking off in the summer at which time we will be sharing conceptual alignments and discussing potential zero emission vehicle types we also have two additional rounds of public engagement planned as we move forward with the project concept report in fall and winter of 2025 and I think that wraps up my public engagement update and I will hand it back to Riley for the evaluation update for the project we're going to be summarizing the evaluations that have been taken and are ongoing and also discuss bridge loading design assumptions and standards that the project team is proposing for use on the project as a note the evaluation of existing corridor infrastructure especially bridges is a key component that guides future project tasks such as the structures conceptual design and development of alignments so it's a critical thing to take on early in the project to get the project team working on the other aspects that are coming along which existing rail bridges on the branch line are adequate for their in their current situation or need strengthening or repairs or need replacement each bridge is going to be evaluated for the following and we will talk about that in the next slides second is capacity which we'll talk about in the design loading assumptions as well as functionality and in support of these evaluations rail bridge inspections were completed in February as a first step in the process the purpose of these inspections were to verify the conditions of the existing bridges from previous inspection reports as well as to assess the conditions and obtain adequate information for performing the further assessments so on your slides are going to have two slides here of just typical bridges that we might find on the rail line these are not bridges on our actual rail line except for one of them but they are typical bridges that we typical bridges that we do have so first just to get you guys framed the one on the left is the deck plate perder on the top right is a through plate perder where the rail line, the rail sit lower and then we have a steel truss bridge next slide and then we have concrete bridges the one on the left is actually the capitol of concrete bridge on the eastern side of capitol and then we have several timber trestles this is not one of our timber trestles but just typical we might find on the rail line next slide first we completed the inspections in February steel spans if we do not already have them scheduled for replacement for various reasons were inspected to gather enough information to perform structural ratings concrete span bridges were visually inspected to assess the current conditions and to assure that there are no immediate structural issues that we were not aware of and then timber and timber bridges and steel trusses were inspected on a cursory level and the inspection results feed into the infrastructure evaluation when we switch to the next slide Peter Graff and Mark McClaren from HGR will be with us here via zoom to provide a summary of the preliminary results on the evaluations as well as to discuss the design loadings and some design loading assumptions that we have from the project team thank you Riley can you hear me I want to make sure okay great so here's the structures inventory table which is also included as attachment to the staff report and it shows the approach for replacing and repairing bridges that are suitable for passenger rail service this is based on condition currently the majority of the existing bridges need to be replaced in order to accommodate passenger rail service this includes 16 timber bridges five steel girder bridges one steel truss bridge and one wrought iron truss bridge are preliminarily recommended for replacement due to the level of existing deterioration and significant level of rehab that would be required to meet operational and maintenance needs there's two steel bridges over highway one in aptos that will be replaced as part of the auxiliary lanes bus on shoulder and coastal rail trail segment 12 of the project the remaining bridges that require further analysis to determine whether capacity and functionality meet the needs of passenger rail service for these bridges the project team is in the process of developing load ratings in order to understand their available capacity load rating a railroad bridge is a procedure in the industry used to evaluate and understand the load carrying capacity of a bridge and the resulting load rating can be compared to the anticipated loadings to determine whether the bridge can safely carry the loads or whether it needs to be strengthened or repaired or if it's substantially under capacity it could need replacement currently with these bridge capacity assessments functionality is will also be considered functionality considers existing bridge with respect to other surrounding facilities and with the future rail or road alignments the bridges need to be the remaining bridges need to be evaluated for roadway vertical clearance, horizontal clearance and whether alignment adjustments are needed for the passenger rail facility for example in the county of Santa Cruz they requested the project lengthen the rail bridge spans over Soquel Drive in order to provide for future bike lanes and sidewalks next slide so this slide depicts some of the design loadings considered the first the industry standard for freight rail is Cooper Yeti live load and that's shown in the diagram there it has a number of closely spaced 80 kip or 80,000 pound I should say axles that typically govern freight bridge design as well as a lot of traditional passenger rail designs the loading effects and you can see there's two different pictures there one shows a diesel freight locomotive and another shows a multiple unit passenger train this typically varies the effects of this Cooper Yeti live load varies based on span length and span type with span length typically shorter spans you have say one axle on a span and it produces a fairly high effect from that single axle but as you get into longer spans then you have many of those heavy axles applied to a long span and the load effects can vary compared to this compared to this live load diagram the effects of the live load diagram freight trains are typically considerably heavier and traditional passenger locomotives can be considerably heavy as well talking about that axle load on a short span but for passenger trains for longer spans the effects typically become less so at this point designing for Cooper Yeti live load preserves the ability to carry freight trains and traditional passenger trains if we were to consider any lower standard loading standard the cost savings would probably be minimal maybe 5 to 10% per bridge as materials are only 30% of the total cost of a bridge itself so you're not saving a lot say by going to use 60 from an E80 and for existing bridges in order to reduce project costs and maximize number of bridges that can remain we're going to develop maximum bridge loading demands for comparison with the calculated rating capacity to see if those existing structures can be maintained where applicable by using Cooper Yeti live load this would preserve the ability to align with the California state rail plan and maintain a connected network to the state rail system and provide potentially coordinated inner city rail services and this is important for a more competitive state and federal funding so at this point our recommendation is for any new structures, any bridges that need to be replaced we recommend that they be designed for Cooper Yeti live load for freight and passenger loading for existing bridges to ensure the existing capacity is adequate we recommend that these existing structures be maintained or strengthened to meet freight and passenger demands next slide so this slide describes our next steps we're currently performing steel span ratings where we believe the condition is adequate and we want to investigate the capacity and functionality further to see if we can keep some of the steel bridges from there we're going to develop a concept approach for each bridge location whether new or existing and we need to of course develop a live load criteria for the project as discussed on the previous slide so some of the existing most of the timber bridges will be replaced with concrete bridges to meet current industry standards a lot of the class one freight and commuter railroads have already replaced or scheduled replacing their timber bridge inventory as it's generally too costly and time consuming to maintain some of the existing taller timber, steel and truss bridges will be replaced with either steel deck plates through plates or trusses and the configuration will be determined by the analysis and type for repair of existing structures we need to as I mentioned develop those capacity ratings and way against way with the functionality of the crossing and for concrete bridges we want to ensure adequate completion capacity and functionality then these will be repaired as needed and reused so that concludes my part I guess I will hand it back to Riley and we've got the third part of our item today it's the rail trail overview that the project team has undertaken and what we're doing is in coordination with the county of Santa Cruz and the city of Santa Cruz design teams of the rail trail being developed by those agents partner agencies we're looking for opportunities to maximize the use of the rail corridor for both rail and trail the review was supported by field reconnaissance of the branch line as well as review of other existing rail plus trail facilities such as the sprinter line in northern San Diego county to identify best practices and compare the existing rail and trail facilities with what is planned for the coastal rail trail and adjacent potential passenger rail service under development so what we've done is look at the existing designs and the existing corridor with the focus of optimizing the use of the corridor in the right away particularly in areas of constrained corridor width which we have several on the branch line and the goal of the effort is to look for ways to integrate both the rail and the trail in the corridor both facilities in such a way that would enable a phased implementation of both facilities and minimize cost excellent so what the project team is doing is developing options for trail and trail cross section design criteria that would facilitate this integration effort the process considers among other things trail user experience the geometric requirements of frequent passenger rail service which may differ than the current rail service on the branch line as well as the operational and maintenance needs of both facilities and the project team plans to present cross sectional design criteria options for the commission's consideration at a future meeting to address these factors implementation of a cross sectional design criteria would likely require design revisions such as minor shifts to the vertical and or horizontal alignment of both facilities such an example concept is on the screen right now where we could fit a rail and trail of both facilities in a 35 foot right away this is just a concept not meant to of what would be coming at a future meeting horizontal realignments would enable optimization of space along the corridor and enhance the user experience and vertical realignments could eliminate certain elements such as retaining walls between the trail and rail to minimize costs and maximize the operational and maintenance characteristics of both facilities next slide what we're doing is identifying areas right now for focus for right away or structural limitations that have right away or structural limitations such as from 38th to 41st avenue 41st to 47th avenue where we have narrow right away we're going to return to the commission with options for discussion and consideration at a future meeting next slide also we've identified that developing railroad setback standards for outside of the railroad right away would have benefits standards could provide local jurisdictions planning departments with guidance when reviewing building and development permits adopting setbacks could result this would be something that we would recommend to the different partner agencies that adoption of setbacks could result in less right away conflicts for the project other facilities in the corridor next slide so future updates on the project we're coming back to your commission with criteria for rail and trail cross sections as I mentioned and then later we're going to come to your commission with a discussion for vehicle types for the project that are being considered in different pros and cons of those vehicles next slide and that brings us to the end thank you for bearing with us on that item we are here both myself and the other RTC staff and our consultants if you have any questions. Thank you I appreciate that quickly if you could just the staff report mentions that we're providing direction today can you let me know is that just direction by consensus or do you need to vote I'm going to defer that to Sarah I guess I'll jump in and say we will do whatever you do however you tell us to do it it will give us more certainty if there's a vote okay and can you say just in plain language for the sake of having it in the record what does a no vote mean and what does the yes vote mean a no vote would mean that you do not accept the recommendations of the staff report which would be to adopt the design standards as recommended which is a Cooper E80 loading for new infrastructure on the rail line and to secondly to evaluate the existing infrastructure for the current operational freight needs as well as the assumed loading needs of the project so in that scenario we would we're proposing to accept to adopt that standard look at what the capacity of each bridge is compared against what we know and anticipate the demands being and then design to that level for the existing pressure so that's we would carry on with less certainty developing with no vote developing different project concepts that I think it probably differs there on that so can I jump in real quick so with the no vote it's the challenges so when we start thinking about these bridges and the design concept unless we know how strong we're going to build a replacement bridge it's difficult for us to be precise in the information that we present to you in the concept report so that that provides a less valuable information to you. Thank you. May I please add Sarah Christensen of your staff I would just add that when we develop projects we want to nail down our design methodology early and have that clarity we don't have that clarity then it's possible that we have to go back and redo work which we obviously want to avoid that costs more money and time as well it could delay the schedule so we're trying to be as proactive as possible bringing good information to the commission to make decisions on the project and a no vote would just make our jobs a little bit more challenging as we move forward. Thank you. Commissioner questions on this end? Yes I hear you thank you go ahead. Thank you for that thank you for that report so I'm looking at this bridge existing structures and draft project approach and it seems pretty daunting I mean we have bridges that were built I think the earliest in 1904 many of them in the 20s 30s and 40s 50s antiquated so it seems to me if I'm a business person and business opportunity presents itself let's just say in this particular case a rail trail right? If I'm a business person have you ever heard of the concept of getting to know early and know early? Business people want to know early whether or not all their efforts are going to be worthwhile because getting to know saves a lot of money time effort and so forth so one of my big questions is we're trying to make decisions here based on a little bit of nebulous facts and projections and so forth but if I just look at this one item if I'm going to make some sort of decision today even though it's a it's a preliminary one the whole concept of money comes into my I guess thought process so give or take ten million dollars how much do the project renovations to what was it E80 what are we talking about I mean how much does that cost I think Sarah or Peter might be able to answer that the bridge guy would we are this is Sarah Christensen again we are very early on in the development of this project and we have heard loud and clear that the commission desires cost estimates accurate ones as accurate as we can be and the recommendation that we've come up with is it balances many different factors needs of the the branch line the future uses and the fundability of this project so this is an ambitious project for this county it is going to be an expensive project as you saw most of the bridges are going to be replaced we don't know how much each bridge is going to be it could be 5 to 10 million for some of these smaller bridges and it could be depending on what type of bridge we end up with it could be in the tens of millions for a single bridge so so we are dedicated to providing that information about a year from now we will have those cost estimates and we'll be able to provide more clarity to this commission and to the public you know earlier thank you for that Sarah so earlier our executive director and I forget what project you were talking about but you mentioned the term project exceeds available funds and for me those words should be impressed in our brains a little bit because it's like a cautionary tale on so much of what's happening as far as transportation is concerned and I don't think it gives anybody any pleasure to be just eternally doubtful and skeptical about quote rail trail or whatever but at some point the whole concept of cost benefit comes into comes into mind the two supervisors can defend themselves very well but on the I guess position and responsibilities of supervisors are all the people up here we have a responsibility to kind of fair it out the things like are there red flags does this deserve more scrutiny should we look at it a little bit more closely should we question some of the reports and and just you know what is going down and perceived as fact when it's just really really soft facts for example if I look at the benefits I mean mentioned here in terms of you know what this project does sometimes and I think I mentioned it when you were in scott's valley you know having a quantitative analysis of if there is in fact lower vmt or ghd emissions reductions how much when you read any kind of book you know what an annotated bibliography is where you can kind of go to the source of what you're saying and why it's true and a table that explains things I think the RTC kind of deserves that a little bit instead of just throwing out what the benefits of rail are and fewer people are going to use the highway well how many fewer and is that really true okay or what have we seen in other jurisdictions smart trains vmt Bart for example do those people go by on their trains and all of a sudden see no traffic or very limited or fewer people using highways or they still congested so I guess I want more facts and cost benefits and whatever and I guess I just heard we're a year out from knowing more in terms of what financially where we are but we're going to make decisions today that we want to move forward okay it's a little dubious for me yeah and I I could I guess I would just add that in coming to you with any sort of estimate of future that it's necessary to make assumptions and whether it whether it's our our you know revenue projections and measure D or anything those are all built on assumptions and what we're asking you now is to approve one of the key assumptions that doesn't mean that there that when we get the concept report we're locked into building 80 bridges everywhere but that we need to make assumptions in order to bring you that that type of information that you're asking and I do agree of that for the importance of having that information thank you and then just a quick reminder where commissioner questions right now and we will take additional comments and discussion after public comment Commissioner Rodkin at two meetings ago this commission decided by a unanimous vote I believe was unanimous to take about a year to do a serious assessment of the alignment of this system its actual real costs what assumptions we were going to make and so forth and so both in good humor and respect I would question whether you don't many enjoy challenging this whether at every meeting we're going to hear a challenge before we get to the end of what we've already agreed to might take a year to find out I wouldn't make that assumption I mean it's so faulty so that I mean the issue it takes time to develop these disinformation as we've been told by our staff and to figure out and so I think both Bruce and Manu at the last supervisors meeting pointed out that you know it's sometime in December we don't know exactly when we'll be done but somewhere in that range we'll be getting information that really is necessary to make some hard decisions I think that's, I respect that I think there's room for skepticism and people will you know see what the facts bring us and where we're going to go with it the specific question that I have is I understand that if you're going to replace a bridge it doesn't make much sense to save 10 or 15% as we're being 5 to 10% to build it at less than freight standard or one thing it would throw potentially I wouldn't say it would but potentially would throw into challenge our right of way based on the freight easements that we've gotten so forth if you actually build a brand new bridge and it doesn't carry freight but my question is for bridges and if you're going to do major rehab of a bridge again you don't want to do it and then have to tear it and come back and save 10% by having to rebuild the bridge but some of these bridges may only require minor transformation of some kind we're not done yet with that part of the study is it possible that even if we adopt this general standard of E80 that it makes sense to take bridges that are not going to take a lot of work to change if we simply in effect left them alone and plan at some point in the future they're going to have to be replaced because no bridge lasts forever but I guess I'm trying to get a sense of how to improve the standard of E80 and have it built to a freight standard so we can make further calculations and come up with numbers about what it's all going to cost whether there might be room for value engineering in some of these tight budget situations to not build basically bring a bridge that we're not messing with very much up to a freight standard if it meets passenger rail service standards are there bridges in that situation is that potentially a source of value engineering savings what's your sense of that in terms of where we're going that's my question I don't know who I could take a shot at that one if that's okay so E80 is a standard freight load the current operator locomotives that are in use are less than the standard E80 right so we're just trying to plan for the future and keep our options open and if we were to adopt a lower standard we're not we are not recommending that for new bridges because of what you said it doesn't really give us a huge benefit but we would have a load restriction on the line which is okay because our branch line is always traditionally had a load restriction because all the timber trestles have never been intended to meet E80 standard so we want to keep our options open and set ourselves up for success and go through the process and there will be definitely opportunities for value engineering in the future I would caution though that if we know a bridge needs to be replaced or a major repair needs to happen we have some concern about opening a new transit facility for operation building up the ridership and then having to close it down to do a major repair or replacement I was clear of my question I don't think if you're going to replace a bridge or do a major rehab it's not worth it for 5 or 10% but I was just questioning whether there might be some savings potential on some of these not every one of these bridges needs major overhaul some of them probably carry a freight load right now that's my question the other picture part of the puzzle is funding and grants and the fact that this county is going to need to acquire all the grants in order to construct this project we're going to need to be very successful in securing state and federal funding and that's to build the capital project right there's less grants out there to do rehab of bridges and repairs and so we want to get it all done up front that's going to reduce our operation and maintenance costs and make this line feasible to operate and maintain the operational level that we are anticipating so hopefully that provides clarity Mr. Schifrin yes thanks for the staff report has there been ongoing communication or consultation with Roaring Camp or other private railroad operators as part of this process yes we have been in consultation with Roaring Camp because I think one of the there is the Tesla version and there's Honda version and you know the Honda version might require rehab more frequently that happens on railroad lines but if that becomes a difference between something that's feasible and something that isn't feasible of course difference I think the commission should know that so is it is the commission going to get some alternatives that look at Tesla vs Honda and you know what can be done at different cost at different cost levels with different levels of risk I think the commission would benefit from having that kind of analysis is that the intention the intention of the staff and team is not to gold plate this project or to build a Tesla type of project as you explained we want something practical, economical and we're just getting started we intend to bring a lot more information to the commission and you know there will be opportunities for value engineering in the future we just need to adopt this methodology that is going to help us give clarity to our team our consultant team, our staff so that we can bring adequate information to the commission there will be flexibility we always want to keep our options open to adapt and shift if there's opportunities that come up in the future so I would just say we're needing this now to bring the information that the commission desires and that we will we're going to figure this out as we go with the commission thank you I think I'll add one thing to that response so I didn't the recommendation 3 on the staff report for looking at the existing bridges and evaluating those bridges based on their existing capacity and the anticipated load requirements of both the freight and the passenger rail services will be happening in the coming months one of the big items that we will come back to you the commission for is a discussion on the vehicle types vehicle types will have a large impact on the bridge evaluation and the capacity there's as mentioned by Peter Graff in the presentation traditional passenger rail service uses those front locomotives for transporting the passenger cars they're similar to freight the freight locomotives other vehicle types exist with different pros and cons and some of those are lower loads on those vehicles so those will play into the cost that we're going to be coming back to the commission with when the vehicle types are discussed additional commissioner questions yes go ahead thanks commissioner Brown I applaud the specificity that you brought to the committee today I think it's going to be essential going forward you know the old saying without data you're just another guy of an opinion and we've had a lot of those in the scope following up on what you just said will the scope of this project include defining what other at the current status of the bridges what other modalities would be appropriate including bikes and pedestrian we will definitely be coming back with as I mentioned the different vehicle types for the passenger rail service over the bridges the use of the bridges for not passenger rail service no we won't be coming back with this project for that discussion we will as a project team and be looking at how we use the bridges and the retrofitted bridges whether or not those provide both passenger rail service and trail on one bridge or separate them off we're going to look at that from a cost benefit perspective but not using the existing bridges for different modalities specifically so I don't want to reopen a wound but it's my understanding that the discussion of a trail adjacent to or not adjacent to the rail remains open so why would we not appraise the current bridges for their suitability for pedestrian and bicycle traffic it's a rail study it's a rail study but it would also address the question of whether or not a new bridge construction could work in parallel to the existing bridge or require an entirely new bridge so I think it's a fair question I think I think I'm seeing what you're saying which is we are our project is looking at putting passenger rail service on the branch line rail trail I believe is the project as it's labeled correct thank you for the correction yes so we're looking at bringing passenger rail service from Pajarrota Santa Cruz as well as completing 12 new miles of coaster rail trail those would be segments 13 to 20 and phase 2 of segment 11 bringing passenger rail service to that area would require either rehab of the existing bridges or new bridges so we can as a project team look for opportunities to where they exist to put new bridges in places that would allow the retaining of the existing bridges for the coaster rail trail due to the constraints of the rail corridor that would probably require acquiring right away but that is something that we can look at and if it's the specific direction of the commission like we can make that a more imperative so I'm going to perseverate I would hate for us to go through this exercise and should the conclusion we don't need to train or we can't afford to train and it's not a foregone conclusion but I'd hate to get there and then hit the reset button and ask you to reassess these bridges for alternate uses so I would propose it would make sense to ask both questions simultaneously forgive me for interrupting but I'm assuming if a bridge can handle E80 loads of a train it can handle some bikes and pedestrians as well so was that not included essentially within what we're looking at if the bridge can't handle E80 what can it handle and could it handle now we fully understand the question so you are correct chair brown in that locomotive loads are of the heaviest loads beyond you know roadway and any other kind of mode we as part of this process we are focusing on the project concept for the zero mission passenger rail now keeping our options open we're doing assessments we assess our bridges often and it would I suppose be a subsequent study that would be needed to look at what bridges we would go through a similar analysis however it would be for pedestrians and bikes loading versus train loading and then we could you know if we go down that path then we're we would bring that information to the commission but it is not included in the scope of work for HDR contract and we're trying to focus and keep moving forward with this rail concept report and then this commission will have an opportunity to make a decision in 2025 and then there will be subsequent steps obviously so I'll be dogmatic one more time if we're looking at building novo expensive tank train bridges as outlined in this proposal with accommodation for an adjacent trail would it not make sense to simultaneously look at the existing bridges and say hey we can have two a new one for the train that meets the 80 and the existing one for bikes and passengers so what I'm asking you to do is have a little foresight and assess these bridges with the thought in mind there may be more than one bridge at a certain spot and each bridge may have a separate mandate could I respond to that because what's really being asked for here is that we spend more money that we don't have we're going to be lucky to do the to get the money to complete the rail study to start adding things on is going to cost more money take more time and just make it more difficult to reach a meaningful conclusion I think it's important to move forward with this and the I don't see any being dropped this trail now is it just rail only can I bring this back to staff yes for responses thank you I didn't interrupt you so I didn't appreciate being interrupted I just wanted I just wanted a clarification of the question because I think that might help us are you asking if we have a place where we have an existing bridge that we are not sure we have to replace now that we look to see is there some option to both do both the rail and trail that might keep the existing bridge for example for like pedestrian and then build a rail only bridge that would be somehow better than refurbishing the existing bridge or replacing the existing bridge with something that's going to do both I mean is that it's door number one should a bridge not be able to reasonably upgraded to E80 and we are postulating a new train bridge would be built would it be better and cheaper to build a new bridge that was both or better and cheaper to leave the existing bridge if it could handle pedestrian and build a new rail bridge thank you that would depend on a case by case basis we are developing the alignments the alignments are another factor that we need to consider because if we need to straighten out some of these tighter curves we need to shift the alignment over maybe we need to acquire right of way hopefully not but there is a possibility that a scenario may exist in the future that could look at a bridge I guess converting an existing railroad bridge to a trail bridge potentially and then building the rail bridge adjacent that is my question and then just to clarify in order to do an analysis to look at a bridge for a trail to convert I guess a rail bridge to a trail bridge similar to the study we did I think in 2021 for the capitol it would be a separate analysis and it's not included as part of this concept report process to the extent that you're describing Commissioner Peterson thank you I'm curious as we are being asked to direct staff to design new infrastructure to support the EAD loading are those designs going to include the trail in the design are we talking strictly rail or do we need to specify that here today you don't need to specify that today as part of our project we will look at what the optimal use of the alignment is and whether or not fitting a trail onto a rail bridge designing it for both modes at the same time for new infrastructure for specific is worthwhile when you do a design for a railroad bridge it's obviously a very hefty bridge because of the load rate the loadings adding additional width to add a trail is basically just widening that bridge with the same loading scenario so that is a detraction from that type of scenario we'll look at what the best is sometimes is cheaper or more effective because of various reasons to build two separate bridges because of the loading differences are pretty extreme between the two different types right okay were you going to say something yeah I just want to reiterate the project is and maybe we can bring up that map in the presentation it's the length of the rail line and the extension of the southern section 13th or seconds 13th or 18th of the trail our intent is to deal with both of them and so we're you know there may be situations where they're on the same bridge they're different bridges but if we decide that for some reason we have an existing bridge and that's fine for for freight we're not just going to forget about the trace together yeah I mean even if they're not on the same alignment we recognize that the project is a whole that whole section of the rail and we have to figure out how we do it at these different bridges got it and then I have a separate question just to make sure my understanding is correct part of this reason we're being asked to approve the industry standard of Cooper E80 is that there are state and federal grants to basically connect our rail line to statewide and national networks and those would not be available if we decided to cut costs and have it at a lower rating can you speak to that a little bit thank you for the question the basically we want to set ourselves up for success it's not that we would not be successful in getting those grants we don't actually know but we're trying to keep our options open and by aligning our approach for this project with what's envisioned in the state rail plan it gives us a better shot at obtaining grants from the state as well as the feds and part of that conversation is goes back to what type of service we're going to be providing on the rail line and aligning with the state rail plan at this time requires to be inner city rail connections so our service would be able to provide that and setting ourselves up for success as Sarah said with the Cooper E80 design load for the new infrastructure just keeps all those options on the table so most likely or it's of the opinion that it's a high probability that by cutting costs and having it less than E80 would outweigh the benefit of having E80 because we would have a higher probability of obtaining grants correct additional commissioner questions comments or questions at this time I guess I think this is going to be a necessary project that we have to go through and find out but I just want to make sure following up on this discussion we make clear if we don't have the rail trail the trail right alongside there's a clear definition I'm sure there would be but specifically we really need to know if there's not a trail along with this rail line where is it and how does it accommodate the trail aspect of this rail trail project completely agree sir yes go ahead commissioner Koenig just make sure I understand correctly there's a lot of replace labels on there so basically if we're going to design for a train we've got to get rid of pretty much all the historic timber trestles such as Aptos Creek Capitola trestle and replace them with concrete is that correct we wouldn't have to necessarily replace them with concrete they're steel or concrete but many of those bridges on there would not be supporting passenger rail service as shown on the list okay steel or concrete but timber trestles go which actually I mean Aptos so far we've been looking at trail train concepts with two bridges there we're potentially going to have a different opportunity for segment 12 with the rail trail where we just have one rail and bike pedestrian bridge combined so this project specifically doesn't look at the segment 12 so that's the other project that's being covered by the RTC I could answer this much we are well into final design for that project so in order to go back we'd have to amend our consultant contract and do some rework so we're at this point staying at the course of having two separate bridges okay thanks were there commissioner questions okay I have a couple so I just want to clarify that having a E80 rating is not in conflict with value engineering correct great thank you and then the structures inventory says preliminary across the back so I'm assuming this will return to us at a later date with some updates and additional information yeah as things you refine will come back with updates great thank you and so then I appreciate commissioner Koenig asking this question because I think there is a myth in the community that all of these timber trestles are going to be placed with concrete overpasses and I appreciate that the steel trestles look very similar in a lot of cases to the timber trestles and so I know that with our Aptos bridge we did kind of a design study with the community so will we have similar community outreach in designing these replacements I think we will that'll be in as we go further into the next stage of the projects not during this project concept but they're you know the RTC is very interested in public engagement as is the commission great okay I think that was it for me thank you alright seeing no further questions from the commission we will bring this now to public comment and we'll start with those in the room Mr. People's thank you Brian People's trail now this is actually a phenomenal effort you guys are doing because it really helps us drive our next decision on the ultimate trail versus the interim trip the key thing that we're really not discussed we're talking about destroying all the trestles that's a given but what's really a value at it is the setback requirements we've been telling this commission for years now that there's a setback requirements for fast moving trains can have a 60 mile an hour train and have a trail right eight and a half feet away from it has to be separated and we know that and they actually in his request he's actually for exemptions on that where he talked about Forty First Avenue the other thing that they don't talk about is the barriers the huge barriers that you're going to be required to so that people don't get run over by these trains which is going to violate the coastal act because it's going to prevent people from getting to the trail so this is really good to understand that if we build the ultimate trail it's going to be realigned it's going to be required so we went and spent all this money for this ultimate trail but that ultimate trail based off of what we're hearing today is not the ultimate location it's going in many locations we're going to have to realign it vertical and horizontal alignments and that's what the important message is here is so what this communication is where we should take it where this commission says say this is evidence that we don't know exactly what the configuration of the trail will be so let's build the interim trail today let's build it now go ahead and keep doing your research on the train but this is great now we know that the ultimate trail is not going to be the ultimate trail it's not going to remain in the same spot because you have vertical and horizontal alignments and you have setback requirements that you can't meet currently with a 27 foot wide trail at 40 first avenues and that's the problem but again great work you're doing exactly what we need to do and by all means approve what they're asking thanks thank you hi welcome thank you good morning everyone I'm Judy Giddelson from Watson Bill and I encourage us to approve the staff's report and I think that making it freight allowable and encouraging freight is really a ticket to getting federal and state funding and I also want to say that this report came out today where the Bay Area has made impact on reducing emissions and different than the rest of the country and I think that with the passenger rail and with freight we can really reduce emissions here and I think it's necessary I think the body the job of this body of government is to obtain funding for transportation programs we don't know what's going to happen in the future we could align with the private partnership that could come in and do this project rapidly they're doing it all over the country and so we may as well obtain all the funding and get freight off the runway as much as possible too so I encourage us to approve the staff recommendation thank you thank you hi welcome yes calling this zero emission rail is such a misnomer I mean I spoke with one of the consultants at one of the public meetings over at the live oak range about the idea that if you're going to take out all the mature trees if you're going to put in a huge amount of concrete or steel you've got greenhouse gas emissions embedded in that how long would it ever take if you managed to have an electric train to mitigate that so I called zero emission I think is really off the mark I also wanted to say that it sure appears that staff has from the beginning put their finger on the scale and said this is this is a train only project and we're not going to provide the commissioners with the information that they need in order to actually come to the conclusion that a trail only configuration what was called a interim trail is really the only path forward here and so yeah go ahead and do your estimates in terms of the heavy duty idea that you're actually going to have freight in Santa Cruz when there's no industry here that has freight other than other than our folks up in the mountains there who are looking to spend a few million dollars so that they can get a billion dollars worth of federal and state and local subsidy in order to move a few things around for their own benefit again I think that listening to roaring camp on this issue is really not in our public interest thank you thank you additional public comment in the room hi welcome terry thomas from capitol I have a question because I couldn't read the fine print of your preliminary how many bridges are in this project it was on a slide but I couldn't see so right now is time for public comment to address the commission once public comment is open the commission can ask staff and all those bridges how many can really accommodate the rail and the trail in the same location because that's an assumption that we've all made and apparently it's not true thank you hi welcome hi I would just like to indicate that I believe working with in a roaring camp does have public is good for the public public interest there's a lot of educational value for elementary school age children at worrying camp especially with it but up against the state part so there you go thank you hello welcome yes on the subject to roaring camp there's a whole lot more than providing rides to people downtown to encourage economic growth and tourism in the city of Santa Cruz they deliver firefighting equipment up into the hills and they've many times helped out in disasters such as the fires and such and so roaring camp is very important and to be able to carry heavy equipment through the county I think is an important feature and I think it's something that we should protect and also with our ever increasing you know plans to build tall apartment buildings in the downtown to increase the population density in the city and the county I think we do need to move forward with some sort of mass transit rail transit solution so I really think that we need to keep the wheels rolling get that train moving because we're going to need it and so we need to definitely plan ahead thank you any further comments and chambers saying none will go to zoom and we'll start with Johanna Lighthill before beginning the rail concept report HCR engineering inform the commission in their proposed scope of services back in December of 2022 that there could be some challenges having both rail and trail in the in the corridor additional right of way might be needed parts of the trail might need to be redesigned or even reconstructed today's staff report echoes that it says that revisions may include minor shifts to the vertical and horizontal alignment of both facilities it also states that the project team is developing design criteria quote that minimizes potential throw away costs as much as practicable and end quote commissioners this sounds like critical information you'll need to make sound decisions moving forward I understand the report isn't expected until next early next year but given the time constraints to make important decisions it might make sense to press for information about the most critical issues sooner important considerations include rail setbacks within the corridor and the safety at rail crossings regardless of anyone's opinion about rail or trail it's the commissioners excuse me it's the commission's fiduciary duty to manage measure D funds responsibly the commission has committed eight or nine million dollars towards the rail concept report whose goal is to evaluate the feasibility of these projects together within the corridor I hope that you'll get the important information you need before making the important decisions about what should be constructed and when thank you for your consideration Hi this is Jean Brocklebank speaking I say ditto to Johanna who spoke just before me getting critical information information information information is very important I'm there's one bit of information that I didn't hear today and and I really think that I thank the the consultants for their presentation on the bridges I learned a whole lot and I think commissioners learned a lot too in terms of how it's designed and whether we're going to do a Tesla or a Honda drive a Volkswagen only three days of the year whatever kind of bridge we're going to build I didn't hear anyone refer to the fact that we live in earthquake country and every bit of infrastructure that will bear people or can impact people who live adjacent to that infrastructure should absolutely be built to earthquake standards so going with the freight standard makes sense to me if you're going to build those bridges rebuild those bridges and have a passenger rail or freight on them then let's build them let's build them well earthquakes earthquake country other than that as you may know I think we should be building the interim trail first until we get the information we need about rail thank you thank you commissioners Lonnie Faulkner with equity transit I encourage commissioners to vote yes I'm moving forward approving staff recommendations we understand that conversations around costs are critical I would like to point out that almost every single highway project that certain commissioners have approved here have had huge financial shortfalls prior to approval as is the case with the proposed ox lane project this ox lane project as with most highway widening projects have huge fiscal funding shortfalls and data indicates these projects will have no real relief to traffic members of this commission who prefer to prioritize funding automobile culture continue to approve projects which take away hundreds of millions from alternative transit options that would lower GHGs and provide more equitable access the irony is that the cost to build and maintain highways is far more expensive over time not just in the dollars spent immediately but in severe cost to environment and equity as well there are very different criteria that certain anti rail commissioners choose to use depending on which project they are reviewing when looking at short and long term costs and benefits the activation of our rail line for freight is critically important for being disaster ready in the face of potential emergencies like fire moving freight and materials in and out of Santa Cruz and throughout California exponentially is exponentially more environmentally beneficial compared to trucking and safer especially with the new quiet electric rail logic and science clearly dictate the building to the 80 standard will allow for all possible future scenarios and possible needs and contrary to an earlier statement by a prior gentleman the only reason why we need to remove huge amounts of trees is for a trail rail does not require this so stop talking about the trees with respect to rail it's actually the trail that results in that thank you so much we'll go now to Michael St thank you chair Brown Michael St with CFST Aptos resident I think what's missing here is a failure to think outside the box for other alternatives to the corridor all the issues that we're talking about today cost weight of vehicles etc seem to be resolved with personal rapid transit and I say seem to be because we have yet to study this technology I realize HDR has been tasked to just study the commuter and light rail project and that's fine I'm a fan of PRT transit as an alternative for the corridor the reason low cost to build moves more people by far covers operational and maintenance costs at the fair box and will take approximately five years to build I would like to ask HDR would running very light pod cars have a better chance of saving some of our bridges or trestles or rail infrastructure and also I did ask at the meeting I attended can the RTC if so inclined add a PRT system to your study since we're in the middle of studies would prevent us from doing that in future years thank you for your presentation and everyone have a nice day thank you we'll go next to Barry Scott hello and you hear me hello Scott I was waiting for this I I was around whether the trail would fit with this rail project and want to remind all of the commissioners that the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail project has always been designed to be compatible with the existing freight facility in most cases bridges would be separate from the rail bridges and safe pre-designed dedicated rail pedestrian bicycle bridges would be built next to the rail bridges so I think the concern around will these bridges be able to accommodate a trail or misplace go to the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail project pages and you'll see that that's the case just as with the segment 12 bridges over the highway the pedestrian bridges are separate from the rail bridges it's absolutely the right thing to do to specify an E80 standard because according to the staff it's more competitive for state and federal funding the cost benefit for doing anything less is not worth the risk to fundability and it's consistent with all the promises we've been made whether or not this vote has to take place today or not is another matter but I support an E80 standard regardless and yes the trail will be fine thank you thank you we'll go now to BK BK are you able to unmute yourself alright we will come back to you I seem to have been unmuted again but I don't have anything for this thank you okay we will come back to BK and we will go to Jack Brown Jack Brown I'm a resident of Aptos I'm kind of concerned with the cost assumptions made here that you know let's just get the most expensive version of the of the bridges built because we might have an opportunity to further expand the scope of a rail system with that sort of thinking why don't we think that hey maybe Watsonville will have an international airport one day maybe we should have a track that goes out there as well we have to think sensibly about what we're doing with these bridges mind you we've lost all heavy industry in Santa Cruz times have changed from 150 years ago when these tracks were laid we have no cement plant we don't have Wrigleys we don't have Seagate we do not have the customer base to validate or to justify having a freight level system here roaring camp bless them they're a great amusement park attraction here for the tourists to come and for educating people has no part of these bridges that are there their only thing is to get a unit that they bought for $5,000 stuck in Watsonville after their facility how many millions are we going to get them to get that over here so please consider that I think we should have something more cost efficient and they should go back and sharpen their pencils on this lastly the one of the people who spoke before asked how many bridges it is 33 bridges one of the important aspects here is 26, 27 and 28 is the San Lorenzo Trestle I'm sorry it's the Capitola Trestle and 32 and 33 is the San Lorenzo River Trestle these are iconic structures in our community that are slated for destruction demolition will change the character of our community and I don't think people realize this including you commissioners please think of the historic value of what you are doing thank you thank you we'll go next to I'm going to try BK again BK you are unmuted alright we'll keep trying we'll go now to David and you still have me on speaker like you did Barry I believe you had your hey can you guys hear me okay yeah this is David from La Selva beach I'm going to take issue with this continued framing of a zero emission passenger train and we know this because the extensive amount of concrete that's going to be required just for the trail by our calculations segment 10 and 11 will use 8,000 yards of concrete or the equivalent of 13,000 tons of CO2 and this is just for a partial trail segment I guess we could extrapolate that the trail alone with all its retaining walls and bridges will be well over a hundred thousand tons of CO2 and estimated vehicle miles saved from a train would be 22,000 a day which equates to about a thousand tons of CO2 so we're really looking at spending 150 to 200 years of CO2 and development for the prospects of having a battery operated train that would amitrize in maybe 150 to 200 years so I think it's just extremely disingenuous for staff commissioners and the consultants to be pushing this narrative that we get this for no carbon investment at all and this is how we meet our 2050 CO2 obligations it's just really just insanity and then the other I guess I'll just take issue with vehicle miles traveled as a metric because cars can be parked on the freeway doing zero miles an hour accumulating zero miles traveled but this is emitting vast amounts of CO2 so it's an inverse relationship where CO2 emissions go to infinity as vehicle miles traveled or congestion gets worse so just keep that in mind and appreciate you taking my call thank you thank you we will go next to okay let's see who do we have next we have Rosemary Sarka thank you I'm Rosemary Sarka and I do work with Roaring Camp as I understand it going forward a yes vote simply requires assume two assumptions one being an E80 standard which would provide for possibilities for funding that another standard would not and also would provide for a number of options you might not otherwise have so that seems pretty obvious and then the second assumption is let us go forward and that seems to be a perfectly reasonable suggestion I would also point out that there are a lot of developments now in railroad technology concrete panels and other ways of building bridges which are not quite as intimidating as that list of bridges needing repair and replacement might otherwise indicate rail is the infrastructure of the future we do not need industry to create freight options I would very much recommend a yes vote thank you thank you we'll move to Trink Praxel we lost our screens hi thank you I want to speak about the public discussion about this report and future reports that are coming in over the next few months that this is a very as we all know controversial issue in our community and there is lots of discussion going on about it and when we consider public engagement I hope that the commission and would consider the fact that even though they can't respond within public comment like this to each individual comment I think they do I would like to see the commission take some responsibility for responding to certain comments on either side of this issue that are made that you not fit with the actual facts involved it will help all of us who are discussing it in the public forum to try to set the record straight and keep us online in really discussing the facts and not made up information thank you very much thank you nice to you should be able to unmute yourself now looks like we are having some technical difficulties oh did hand go down yep okay saying no further public comments on zoom no further public comments in the room we will bring it back to the commission second any further discussion yes Yes. I'll just say that I plan to support the recommended actions and the motion. You know, of course there's, this brings a lot of questions. I mean, we're looking at somewhere between 130 to a quarter of a billion dollars worth of breach replacements here may be more, but at the same time we, this commission has already committed to looking into what it would cost to bring passenger rail to this community. Basically what we've heard today is that we're going to plan for passenger rail. It's not, we may as well plan for freight rail as well of course that's the requirement already with the branch line as it is today, not rail banked. So if we've already committed to this and we're going to find, we'll get our answer sometime in about a year. So I mean, of course this might be an answer some people don't like, it's an answer that we can certainly predict as far as some of the costs, but this is what the community wants. And I think that's what we're all here to try to represent. Thank you. Yes, commissioner Reckon. I would just ask the public to have, I know it's not easy on controversial issues like this, but the patients that the commission's trying to express in doing a study that takes time. I mean, we're looking for some, a lot of information to make a really hard decision about a lot of money. And the idea that somehow everything should come to the front, we should know today, everything we're going to know at the end of the year of study is not a reasonable expectation. So it can be frustrating. You want, you know, you want exact information now about what this is going to be or what everything is interactive. You don't know the alignment. It's difficult to figure out, you know, which where the bridge can be or which bridge will work or whatever. And you don't know who you need right away. That costs something and so forth. So again, I just think having a little patience and again, not forever, but that the study that we funded here is one that will bring us very, very useful information and useful information for those of us that, you know, tend to be optimistic about the possibility of rail and those that are more skeptical about its possible future. I think it's kind of critical information and it just cannot come to us in the next month. It's going to take a while. Thank you. Further comments? Yes, go ahead. Commissioner Jones. Chair. So I find it confusing this process. I mean, it took about a minute and a half for commissioners to ask staff, what does the yes vote mean? And what does the no vote mean? Public comments started out with a little bit of historical analysis. A child was killed apparently because of the not enough trails around a goal to wasn't billed and so forth. I'll leave it to the public to see if that was an appropriate analogy or comment. I do know that, you know, we make assumptions all the time and we sometimes look to history for a benefit. So in that regard, I guess historical analysis is appropriate. But when I look at all the other rail projects in let's just say the Bay Area, and I mentioned VTA, I mentioned the smart trains. You can go to, now you can go to Bart. Just go, just Google all these public transportation and so forth. And every one of them is in trouble. Okay, every, but starting out, they were so aspirational that this is going to do X and this is going to do Y. Well, that only works if you have money, if you have a ridership. And I just think, you know, that it's very dubious whether or not this rail project will ever meet the aspirational level that people in the community and people maybe even on this board feel that it's going to. Because what is the old saying? Those who have failed to notice history or condemned to repeat or something like that. So I'm just saying, moving forward kind of blindly and just hopefully and with unrealistic expectations is an expensive process. And with all due respect of saying, we do have to be patient, we've been doing this for a while now. Okay, it's not like, I think is a 2016 that Measure D was fast. And here we are eight years later and I'm seeing on the graph, you know, decisions of implementation at 2032 and what have you. And, you know, this is a transportation agency, right? And we focus so much on this subject, but there are so many needs, so many requirements, so many things that go wanting because we focus so much attention on these two things, a rail and a trail. I know asphalt's a dirty word, but we each drive here. And again, ridership is important. And actually, you know, and I've asked this question before is everybody wants to say that, you know, we need alternate transportation. Well, we only need it if people are going to use it. And I would say the majority of the people in this room did not take Metro today because they took their cars because it was convenient. If I'm wrong, tell me. But for the most part, the benefits of what we're talking about only work if people use them. And again, if history has told us anything and in some ways it even applies to Metro, people say one thing, they do another. And that's all I have to say on the subject. Thank you. Yes, please. Although, yes, I'll just be dismayed if we're doing the same cycle when we come back here and say, what about glideways? And then we do it a year after that and we say, what about bikes? And we do it a year after that and we say, what about segways? I think it would be a better study if we were asking what is the capability, the regional capability of the bridges in addition to the EAD question, but all supported as is. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. Thank you, Chair. So I've been listening to this conversation. I've been listening to the public comment and I've been doing this for going on eight years now and I too, like Commissioner Johnson, am struck by the amount of time that we spend debating this and how much information is still lacking. And in my view, that is a direct result of this commission's failure to provide clear direction over time. We have, and I really am saying this because I wanna thank our staff, I wanna thank the consultants, but also really our staff for bringing this item to us. You get whipsawed and in your point, Sarah, about needing some clarity about what standards this commission wants you to be using and the work you do is just so critical. So I'm pleased to support this today. I'm not gonna wax forth and try to do point-by-point debate about this. I just don't see any percentage in it, although some commissioners do like to do that. I just wanna say thank you for keeping us moving forward in the context of some pretty significant challenges, both external, funding-wise, but internally here with this commission and the politics of this, keep going, you're doing a great job. Yes, please, Commissioner Schiffen. I think it's ironic that members of the commission complain about how long it's taken to move forward with this rail study when it was impossible to get a majority vote before measure D passed last year to move forward with the rail study. The commission was essentially paralyzed because six of its members didn't wanna do a rail study and they needed to hear from 73% of the voters that they wanted to protect the rail line in order to agree that now we're gonna do this rail study. And so it's a little bit disturbing that to hear that there's a criticism that we're kind of moving too slowly when it's really been some of the members of this commission that have made it necessary to move as slowly as we are moving instead of what we could have been doing a year or two before. So I support this recommendation, I made the motion. I think this is a step along the way and we'll just have to see as we go forward whether what the information tells us about what's maybe feasible and what may not be feasible. Thank you. Commissioner Rodkin, did you have an additional comment? I wish I worked self-restraint, I wish I had more self-restraint and sort of just kept some knowledge of the past to myself and didn't burden everybody with it. But the young man who was killed riding down the hill on Santa Renzo Boulevard was high and rode a bicycle with no brakes on it and slammed it in the back of a truck. So he's not a particularly good example of whether we do or don't need a real trail. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no further comments, I think we're ready for a roll call vote. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montecino. Commissioner Hernandez. Yes. Yes. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Kudos Carter. Aye. Commissioner Rodkin. That passes unanimously. Thank you. All right, with that, we will move on to our next item, the 2050 Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Plan, Goals and Policies. I'll just be up there for a bit. Aye, welcome. Good morning, Chair Brown and commissioners. I'm Tommy Travers, RTC planner. It's likely ready to go. So I'll be presenting the draft goals and policies for the Regional Transportation Plan for the next version of that, which will be the 2050 RTP. Next slide, please. So our current 2045 RTP was adopted in 2022 and this version will be finished in 2026. The RTP is our state and federally mandated long range transportation plan and investment strategy. Next slide, please. The RTP has more than three chapters, but we describe the document overall as having three main elements. The policy element is about laying out the community's transportation goals, the RTC policies that correspond to those goals, and the performance targets that help us to measure progress and adjust so that we can achieve those goals. The action element is the project list that is intended to be made up of all the transportation need in the county. So everything needing funding and that list will come directly from the local jurisdictions, as well as other implementing entities, including the RTC, Caltrans, Metro and UCSC. The financial element is the RTP work that will perform we and AMBAG to establish the amount of funds that are expected to be available for which projects from the project list can and should be funded. Next slide, please. The RTP goals can be thought of as the vision for an ideal transportation system. The policies direct us to take actions toward goals achieving the goal, sorry, towards achieving the goals, both as we progress in developing the RTP and in general as we plan, fund, or implement transportation projects. Next slide, please. So after the RTC board approved the work plan for the RTP and the public participation plan, this happened last August. Staff got to work on the policy element. We posed making the goals more distinct from each other, which we think makes them easier to understand and have more meaning. I think that has already played out a bit in some manner in that we have gotten more engagement from the advisory committees and we got more participation in our public survey than in the previous cycle. The key things we heard from advisory committees was general support for what we drafted but also asked to emphasize a VMT reduction that's vehicle miles traveled to emphasize this vision zero, which is safety to flush out equity better and to more clearly state that funding choices should be implementing the goals. The survey was structured around vision and goals and the results made it clear to me that our goals are in alignment with the community. The key emphasis from the input was on sustainable transportation alternatives, transportation safety and a desire for transportation to enhance our community. Next slide, please. So I'm not gonna read through this, don't try to read through this, but my attention here is just to quickly show a little hard to see, but just to quickly show how the old goals on the left were a little complex and two of them covered kind of multiple kind of general topics in my opinion. So the new goals on the right just kind of separate them out while also flushing out a bit the environment and equity topics. Next, I will present each of these goals one at a time, the new goals with a summary of the policies that most closely relate to that goal. The full text of the policies are in attachment to one of the staff report at the agenda packet. Next slide, please. So I'll just kind of read through these, reduce vehicle miles traveled or VMT to in order to establish livable communities that improve people's access to their regular needs. This is about having more viable alternatives to having to drive alone for all trips. Next slide, eliminate transportation related fratalities and serious injuries for all mode. This is essentially vision zero. Next slide, please. Deliver improvements cost effectively and responsive to the needs of all users of the system. This is about the importance of maintaining what we have and maximizing our investments. Next slide, please. Establish a climate resilient transportation system that anticipates, adapts to and mitigates the impacts of climate change. This is about the close relationship between transportation and the environment. Next slide, please. Ensure plans, investments, policies and transportation decisions will reduce disparities for historically and systemically marginalized, underserved and excluded populations. This is about being proactive in to improve conditions for people considered equity priority rather than the status quo. Next slide, please. So here's a condensed schedule. We're here at the second item here, the end of that. The next stage is to adjust the performance targets to make sure that they're still meaningful measure so that they are still meaningful measures for progress to our goals. And along with that, our next step is to work with the local jurisdictions on all their needs for the project list. The financial analysis, which also isn't explicitly written on here, will start this year as well, but that's kind of something more behind the scenes and that's not necessarily something with another public input stage. Then the modeling and environmental analysis that AMBAG is leading will take some time to work through. And so it won't be until late next year before the draft RTP is ready. Next slide, please. So yeah, that's what I have. I noticed that that slide says policies and targets, but I should have said goals and policies. So after any comments or questions, I'm hoping for committee approval of the draft goals and policies today, if you all agree to those, thank you. Thank you. Commissioner, questions. Yes, please. Thank you for your report and good luck on the plan going ahead on the issue of equity, which has become forefront and to understand and weigh in correctly in the recent years, especially. Will this report give us any idea in regard to the rail of how much the fares might be for a Watsonville, the Santa Cruz, Prancer, and or the ridership numbers and how much it alleviates traffic on 17? Will it get into something like that? I mean, the RTP isn't to kind of be our overall guidance as we work on other projects, but I wouldn't say that that would be part of the RTP. So, but if we approve these and we were saying that equity is in a really important goal, then that could be something that kind of speaks to decisions as part of the maybe the Zero Mission Rail project about choosing what appropriate and fair structure it might be. I ask that because I have hearsay and it's troubling to me what it might be, but thank you. Further comments? Yes, please. I wanted to follow up on the equity question and I'm happy to get homework on this. Is there a standard transportation metric for equity? Because in my industry, we look at the demographics of the community. We ask ourselves, does our workforce match our community? We ask ourselves, do our patients, to the patients in our hospitals and our clinics, match our community or are we disadvantaged in people? And we ask ourselves, do our outcomes? So does our hypertension or diabetes control the same in all the demographics or are there demographics who aren't getting the same quality of care? So we have real metrics. What are the transportation metrics that you can educate me on? And not now, I'm happy to do homework. Yeah, and I can maybe mention a few things off my head, but I, and maybe, you know, I don't know if Mitch wants to ask something, but there are, and that can be as a part of an analysis for a major project, a study grant application. There's, there are analysis tools where you can look at like what level, you know, it's a really kind of complex GIS system that'll look at, let's say if you add bus service here, how does that increase the accessibility of, you know, of residents to jobs, to schools? So, and it actually measures that along the transportation network and how does that improve that? That's kind of one example. There's, sometimes there's metrics related to, you know, the negative impacts of transportation. So if, you know, if you're increasing the ADT or the annual daily average, anyway, the average daily vehicles, sorry about that, on a highway or road, are there negative noise impacts to maybe low income and, you know, are they low income communities along that within a certain number of 500 feet or something like that? So those are some examples. We, but that's a good point as far as the targets as, which is a part of the RTP, which I know in past cycles we've included that when we're doing the goals and policies. And so we wanted to really get more impact, sorry, input on the goals and policies. So the targets are next. And I think that's a good point because since now we have, you know, kind of a more, a little more emphasis on equity. I think that some of our targets, we're gonna need to probably have maybe a few more targets or, you know, change the targets related to equity and related to I think specifically the positive and negative benefits to like equity priority and disadvantage areas. And I would just add to that, that the state's made a number of efforts to try to figure out like who are the communities we're talking about. And as, you know, as you all know, we all know what works in Santa Cruz is not necessarily the same thing that works in LA or San Francisco. They have done, you know, a couple of tools like CalEnviroScreen is one that came out of CalEPA, which isn't focused necessarily on transportation. Caltrans has just come out with one and I haven't played around with it yet to know how it is. But one of the things this process gives us is the ability to define what that means for our community. You know, for example, we may have a, we do have a very high housing and transportation costs for people. And so an income that may be very difficult to live on here in Santa Cruz may be perfectly fine to live on in Madera County. And so how do we focus who we want to target is important for part of this process? Additional questions? All right. Yeah, go ahead, please. Commissioner Johnson. So one of my questions is, we've heard about equity and I thought that was a good question that Robert had, but what about efficiency? You know, what about safety or reliability or mitigating commuters and their issues or how about systematic overlays for our streets that basically need that? I mean, those are the really basic things that transportation agencies, I think, try and aspire to. Is there any mention of that? I would say that's the, that's mainly the cost-effectiveness goal. So that, that one, if you look at the policies that are under that, I know it's a lot, we have a lot of policies, but those, there's policies specifically about maintaining what we have so that you're really maximizing what we've already spent to build. Well, that was them, but we're talking about, you're talking about 2030 versus 2050. I thought we were talking about 2050. Well, it's just really like, the goal is to for the next, so I would say that the RTP is about for the next 20 years. It's not like just what we might be at the next year. So it's really should be guiding what we're doing for the next 20 years. So I would say that that, we should be looking at that policy that says, to prioritize maintenance or other things like making roads more efficient, maybe with single synchronization or something like that. Am I missing that? Because I didn't see that in this report. So if I can jump in real quick, goal two specifically speaks to safety and goal three really talks about transportation systems, maintenance and cost effective use of the system, which I think of the things you're getting at. Thank you. Additional questions from commissioners? All right, thank you. Seeing no further questions from commissioners, we'll take this to public comment and we'll start with any public comment here in chambers. Seeing none, we will go to any public comment online. And I see a hand raised for Michael St. Thank you, Chair Powell, Michael St. CFST and Aptos resident. After reading the five goals that were presented today, you have set forth on pages 25 to seven, I thought that these were very, very good goals. And I agree with the presenter there, this RTP is to start today basically and by 2050 have accomplished much of these goals. I'd like to thank staff for all their hard work. I would also like to remind everyone that to attain these goals, we need to start today to change the direction of our RTC projects going on, which is widening highways specifically and they still also have a project possibly happening in 2035, which would further widen the highway. Widening highways actually goes against all the things you mentioned in these goals. The general consensus I picked up reading public comments was a need for different alternatives besides single occupancy vehicles. To back up that statement, let's go to page 2511 for the public comment results. Number one was improved bike, pedestrian and trail. Number two was ad passenger rail. Number three was more public transit. Number four, more law enforcement. That was a total of 330 participants. On the other side of it, maintaining roads and road efficiency, only 30 people. Widening highways, we had just 18 comments. The results, 85% want alternatives, 15% want to keep the old status quo of widening highways and putting down asphalt. To attain our 2050 RTP goals, it seems the public is way ahead of this RTC and how to get there. I hope that public comment is not just a box for you to check off without listening to the public. Please don't let special interest groups dictate your decisions. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no further public. Oh, do we still have a hint? No, okay. Seeing no further public comment, we'll bring it back to the commission. Commissioner Rockin. Move the staff recommendations. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Apologies. I wanted to make a little comment about what the RTP is. We've go through it periodically. And really the only, from my perspective, I appreciate all the work that goes into it. It's a requirement that really is about the projects that get listed in it. Under the funding formulas, if it's not listed in the RTP, it can't be funded. That's the only real function. We can have great goals. We can have great policies. But where this becomes meaningful is what are the projects that are in there that we wanna try to do over the next 20 years and that they will then have the ability to get grants if they're in the plan. If they're not in the plan, sort of like we don't really wanna do them. So it's sort of like, for me, it's like keeping the eye on the ball. We have to go through this process every five or six years. It seems endless that we're preparing this RTP. And really in the end, what's meaningful about it is making sure that the projects that are in there are what everybody wants. And because we all like to get along, it usually includes what everybody wants, whether everybody wants every project or not. Because in the end, the real battles are over the project funding as we see around specific projects, but they all have to be in the plan. So I appreciate the work that goes on. I know that it's a requirement and it's a way for us to sort of think about what's important to us. But really in the end, it's about getting projects in the plan that we wanna have funded. Thank you. You're correct in saying that it seems like we're constantly doing this. The 2045 MTP was approved in June of 2022 at Ambag anyways, and we almost immediately started working on the 2050. So it is an ongoing at all times, which as it should be, because there are always new projects and new plans. Any further comments? All right, let's have a roll call vote. Commissioner Peterson. Aye. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Hernandez. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Kudos, Carter. Aye. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. All right, we will move on to item 26, our fiscal year 24-25 proposed budget. Aye, welcome. Morning. Good morning. Tracy Knew of your RTC staff here to present the fiscal year 24-25 proposed budget and work program for the RTC and the Measure D budget. The Budget Administration and Personnel Committee met on March 14th, 2024 to review the proposed fiscal year 24-25 RTC and Measure D budgets. The budget is developed on the revenue estimates from the Santa Cruz County Auditor Controller for Transportation Development Act revenues, the California State Controller's Office for State Transit Assistance, State of Good Repair and Low-Carbon Transit Operations Program allocations and Hinder-Leider Delamus for Measure D transaction and use tax revenues. The purpose of this budget is to inform the local jurisdictions and claimants of the projected apportionments for use in developing their organization's budgets. During the committee meeting, we discussed the process and timing of approving the allocations, including 986,000 needed to meet the 8% Transportation Development Act Fund balance reserve target. It is estimated that the RTC's cash flow reserve target for fiscal year 24-25 will be met with the carryover reserve from fiscal year 23-24. At the end of the fiscal year, if there are any additional revenues, we will first replenish funds or we'll bring to the commission a recommendation to make sure we meet our reserve targets and then approve additional allocations. Metro will receive the revenue-based State Transit Assistance and State of Good Repair funds. The RTC discretionary share of the State Transit Funds have been programmed by a formula shared to Metro and community bridges. State of Good Repair revenues based on population have not been programmed. Staff expect the guidelines will be released this summer and anticipate returning to the commission in the fall with a recommendation to program these revenues. Hinder-Liter-Delamis is our Measure D consultant. They are projecting positive growth in Measure D revenues over the next five years, which is also included in the five-year projection, ranging from 2.4 to 2.9%. The County's Transportation Development Act revenue growth estimate for fiscal year 24-25 is only 0.57% compared to Hinder-Liter-Delamis estimate for Measure D, which is 1.8% growth for the fiscal year 24-25. The difference between TDA and Measure D revenues is that TDA is a sales tax-based on point of sale within the County and Measure D is a transaction and use tax, which is calculated on place of delivery or when County residents purchase otherwise taxable goods from out of state or out of the County. The fiscal year 24-25 proposed budget for personnel includes salaries and benefits and also additional staffing that is yet to be determined. Step increases and promotions for current staff and assumptions for cost of living adjustments and benefit escalation are also included in the staffing budget. The proposed fiscal year 24-25 budget is balanced and includes the funding to meet the RTC's state and federally mandated responsibilities as well as continue the RTC's priority transportation projects. In May, staff will begin to prepare a budget to carry over unspent funds from fiscal year 23-24 to 24-25 and will bring to the Commission for Approval in June. With that, the budget and administration personnel committee and staff recommend that the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission adopt the resolution approving the fiscal year 24-25 RTC budget and work program and Measure D budget. Accept the Transportation Development Act Revenue and Forecast for fiscal year 24-25 provided by the County Auditor. Accept the Measure D Revenue Forecast for fiscal year 24 through 28 provided by H-Hendry Lider Dolomis and accept the 30-year revenue projection for Measure D. In addition to accepting the five-year revenue estimates for Measure D recipients, which incorporate the H-Hendry Lider Dolomis Forecast and calculate revenue distribution for local jurisdictions with updated data. In addition to the budgets, we're also including a resolution to approve the pay rate schedule effective April 1st, 2024. This pay rate increase has already been approved by memorandum understanding as a requirement of CalPERS. Thank you, Pat. I'll take any questions. Thank you. Questions from commissioners? Seeing no questions, thank you very much. Do we have any public comments on this item? Seeing none in the room, we'll go to Zoom. Seeing none on Zoom. All right, we'll come back to the commission. Yes. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Let me say that this was served by the Budget Administration Committee and unanimously recommended to the commission. Yes, thank you. Further comments? All right, can we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Peterson? Aye. Commissioner Sandy Brown? Aye. Commissioner Randy Johnson? Commissioner Hernandez? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Quinn? Yes. Commissioner Koenig? Aye. Commissioner Rick Fiersen? Aye. Commissioner Kristen Brown? Aye. Commissioner Alternate Kudos Carter? Aye. Commissioner Rotkin? Aye. Passes unanimously. Great, thank you. Okay, so we'll move to 27 review of items to be discussed in closed session. Thank you, Madam Chair. We have three items in closed session today. One is regarding public employment for the Executive Director position. The second item is a closed session regarding existing litigation. And the third item is a real property negotiation item regarding the re-location issues at 7994 and 7996, so Cal, we do anticipate a reportable action at the end of a closed session. Great, thank you. All right, with that, we will recess to closed session and return, hopefully, shortly. I have an appointment. All right, we are gonna return to our open session. We're on item 32, report on items discussed in closed session. Thank you, Madam Chair. The commission had three items in closed session. There was no reportable action on the matter involving the Executive Director recruitment or on the matter involving the existing litigation with regards to the item related to the real property negotiations. The commission, by a 9-0 vote, provided authority to the Executive Director to enter into re-location agreements with tenants at 7994, 7996, so Cal, up to the maximum amount that was specified in closed session and also authorized the Executive Director and the Chair of the commission within their authority to approve expenditures, to approve the individual payment amounts, again, up to the maximum amounts that were identified. And with that, that is the report out of closed session. Thank you. With that, we are at the end of our meeting. Our next RTC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 2nd at 9 a.m. at the Capitola City Council Chambers. Our Transportation Policy Workshop is scheduled for Thursday, April 18th at 9 a.m. at a location yet to be determined. Thank you so much. And with that, we're adjourned. Take care.