 Good morning Good morning Is it on good morning and welcome to the October 18th the meeting of the Santa Cruz County regional transportation Transportation Commission transportation policy workshop. Could we start with a roll call? Commission alternate Gregorio Commission alternate more her Commissioner Johnson Commissioner McPherson Mission a bot or here mission or Leopold here mission of Brown Commission alternate shifrin Commissioner Bartran Bertrand Bertrand here Commissioner Kaufman Gomez present Commissioner low all right. We decided to hold Today's transportation policy workshop in this room rather than the small room at the RTC Because we wanted to make sure to be available for people to provide testimony about today's item There is a closed session, which we do not need this morning and won't be holding a closed session Next we'll move on to oral communications. This is a time to To address the transportation commission about items under our purview you'll have three minutes Good morning commissioners and RTC staff and members of the public. I hope your day is really beautiful so far My name is Jack Nelson and Commissioners I know you absorb a lot of reports and I have one with me here this morning. This is a nine pounder. It's Climate change 2013 the physical science basis This is a report that the intergovernmental panel on climate change issued in 2013 and I've brought it with me Just as a kind of physical manifestation of the profound depth of understanding we have today as human beings of climate change on our planet earth But this is especially timely because a week ago Monday the IPCC issued a special update report on this report and There are a few headline takeaways from that report that came out a week ago Monday. Did you read about it in the Sentinel? Actually, no because the Sentinel hasn't yet covered it but what the scientists of this global community of researchers is telling us is that We've got a problem. We need to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030 If if we would like to not have catastrophic climate change Happening by 2040 They've put a box around how much more carbon We human beings can emit It's it's very limited and then the question becomes well who can emit that? Under a just system of governance who gets to admit that is that the people who've already admitted the most or should it be the People who still need to admit it in order to have water food light a place to live all that so Where does that go There could also be an ounce report of Moral persuasion and and I suppose that's what I'm also attempting to bring to you is that you all have Moral action in your hearts, and I hope that you will find a way to look into what the IPCC is telling us because It's of crucial importance to all of our futures. Thank you. Thank you Good morning Good morning. I'm Brett Garrett I I'll just share a flash of inspiration that I had on Tuesday when I was on the bus going to Watsonville during rush hour And I was thinking wouldn't it be neat if all these cars got out of the way so that the bus could go through So I had this vision of a little flashing yellow light on the front of the bus that shows up in the rear-view mirror that says yield to bus and The bus driver could use this at his discretion when there's a place that the car could pull over and get out of the way and the car there could be like this wave of cars making way for the bus to get through and That would be really cool So I did a Google search for the idea yield for the bus and I found out that many Communities have a yield for the bus law, which is actually different from what I proposed But it could be an addition which is that when the bus is pulled over trying to get back into traffic People have to yield for the bus Which is also a good idea. Anyway, thank you. Thanks Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, McNulty Greenway The new United Nations climate change report or the updated report that Jack mentioned is Incredibly scary. I'm a mother. I have three kids and I'm thinking about their future and I'm quite honestly petrified River Street may not reach Jack Nelson's underwater photo stage during this century But it's quite possible that our mountain communities and maybe even our cities will face Unbearable heat Unstoppable forest fires and endless drought during many of our lifetimes more or less our children's We need to pause and think about what this means for our children and our grandchildren We could pull all of our local resources and build a massive wall around our county to try to keep this change from coming Or we can try to think critically about changes that we can afford to implement Now that could offer climate-friendly options today and Adaptability tomorrow We all love trains, but pouring a ton of money even if we had it Into a massive unmovable transportation infrastructure project that crosses eroding cliffs May not be the wisest plan Buses are far more adaptable bicycle infrastructure is relatively low-cost and can be easily changed Our climate is rapidly changing and our transportation options are rapidly evolving Ryan Evans the CEO of inboard technology spoke about our transportation revolution on June 14th Jump bike scooters the sharing economy these things will change how we get around Joby inboard one-wheel blicks gazelle are already based here If we build a truly safe active transportation network more of these forward-thinking companies may choose to locate in our county Bolstering our local economy and bringing countless job opportunities We need nimble Planning that prioritizes human-powered modes and equal friendly buses now To dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible And we need to keep our thinking open to take advantage of emerging technologies We are clearly a community filled with people who care and want to do the right thing and we can find common ground If we take the time to try our Stars have aligned measure D funds can be matched and we're about to have a new executive director at the helm of this agency and Santa Cruz County is uniquely set to take center stage of this revolution if we just open our eyes Before the opportunity passes us by With some creative thinking and some heroic leadership Santa Cruz County can set the bar for mid-sized communities around the world Hoping to get transportation right It's time to have a positive impact on the future of humanity and we can do it right here. Thank you Thank you Good morning. Good morning. Carrie Pico. So I believe the study. I want the commission talk about the unified quarter study We have an item about that. I Thought this was no this is the oral communications then I have nothing to say, okay Is there anyone else for oral communications about items not on today's agenda? Seeing none. We'll move to see if there's any additions or deletions to the agenda. Mr. Dondaro Yes, mr. Chairman we have two handouts for item 10 Okay Thank you We have one item or two items on our consent agenda Is anybody you will want to make any comment or make a motion I make a move a motion that we can approve the consent agenda Motion by Schifrin seconded by Mike Fierce and All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye any opposed motion carries unanimously then we will move on to our Yeah, yeah, please. Thank you. I don't see any we don't have an item typically for the regular commission meetings We have commissioner reports. I just I just have one comment to make and it's regarding a Sentinel article that came out after our last meeting It incorrectly represented some of the timelines that we're looking here And I want to make sure that it's that we correct that for the record The octo is an October 4th Santa Cruz Sentinel article Santa Cruz County RTC corridor study decision may be December 6th in it. It says that a 90-day shot clock regarding the buy a buyout of the progressive rail contract starts with the staff recommendation and the the actual timeline once we receive Upon completion of the study. There's a 120-day period Within which if we don't make a decision after that 120 days progressive rail has the right to walk away from the agreement That $300,000 buyout that's mentioned in the article is only triggered if we choose not to Not to maintain freight service between mile point zero and mile point seven. So it's very specific And it is misrepresented in the Sentinel article. So I don't see John D here, but anyway, that was it. Thank you So item 10 is the unified corridor study draft step 2 scenario out analysis discussion I know we've we've had a number of community meetings already this week. Mr. Dundare. You want to introduce this item? Yes, thank you Since beginning to work on the unified corridor study in December 2016 Almost two years ago staff and the Commission have conducted 28 meetings workshops Focus group sessions stakeholder group sessions as well as several online surveys And we'll be completed by December 6th of this year Work on the modeling tools was accomplished between 2012 and 2015 and was presented at nine different meetings Staff is answering questions submitted by the public through our extensive outreach process as quickly as possible And posting those answers on the frequently asked questions page on the RTC website Staff is making presentations to all four city councils and the metro board This week and I believe the following two weeks after We would like to remind everyone that the purpose of the study is to help the Commission determine a clear direction for future transportation investments The outcome of this process will provide a big picture perspective to guide current and future commissioners as they shape the evolving transportation system Embedded in the selection of a preferred scenario our forces that will shape the quality of life in this county for decades to come This is especially germane to any effort to improve the housing situation, which I know is getting a lot of attention these days When digesting a work of this magnitude is it's easy to get lost in details The point of the study is to establish a clear policy not to make decisions about design details of future projects and I say this because we've gotten lots of these very detailed type questions at some of our outreach meetings it also Completing the study also fulfills our commitment to the voters as stated in measure D to make a determination about future use of the rail right away Many of the details included our assumptions based on best practices in the industry past work of the RTC and knowledge of local conditions and preferences It should be understood that many of these details are subject to change when a project reaches the design stage What is important to focus on is the outcomes the performance metrics for each scenario So we suggest that it's very useful to ask which metrics are important to you And I'll hand that off to Frederick Frederick vettner our consultant from Kimmelie Horn Good morning. Thank you George. Good morning. So we don't really have a presentation. I think George has made the Statement of where we are. I think this is a Q&A session Just wanted to emphasize the extensive outreach already nine meetings. There's another five coming up you know, so this Wanted to see if you have questions or comments and I'll take the questions try to respond and if I need to Team members will call them to the dais and we'll take it from there and then we also have our Economic consultants is on the phone as well if there's any economic questions Okay, well, thank you I attended the public meeting This past Monday. I thought there was a very good presentation very good Turnout there was some good questions and there was a great community conversation about about the different scenarios So I appreciated the work that you did there Now I'll look to see if members of the Commission have questions Mr. Johnson. Thank you chair So we got a handout just recently With some changes. This is on page 100 of the of the study and the handout Changes Let's just go to scenario a high occupancy vehicle lanes h o v The previous one that has apparently been corrected High occupancy was Five million four hundred thousand. Do you see that top left? Second one down five million four hundred thousand The new one is eight million four hundred thousand. I did a little math because you know What's going on? Okay, so I did a little math and that's a 55 percent difference in terms of costs, okay So my here's my question You know, you had about a year and a half or a year in two months to study this Extensively to come up with reliable information Yet in the last since we've met It's changed 55 percent the increase has gone up from five point four million to eight point four Help me understand why So it was based on comments that we got back about being reflective and being Open about O&M cost and this one specifically relates to highway one Maintenance and all that great six, but that's basically it so That's good point and thanks for pointing that out that there's been a revision to the it's the Operations and maintenance cost estimates and how that's reflected also in the dashboard So the change there looks at the inclusion of the cost associated with maintaining the roadway on highway one To provide more of a comparison against the cost for maintaining other facilities It's also includes the cost for maintaining the buffered bike lanes We do assume that those cost if you do look at the third row Third column They're so for each scenario. There's a cost column There's a funding potential column and then there's a new public investment column So for the third column, you'll see that it's no additional cost that column has not changed Because we do assume that it's funded continues to be funded by Caltrans the cost for maintaining the highway lanes So what transpired for for this new information for you to make this decision to change this figure? Basically the comment that did you include the highway one cost as a cost for RTC? Initially, the thought was it's going to be a Caltrans cost because Caltrans operates and maintains the highway facility But to show it as a true cost reflection That's why we decided to include it afterwards. So it does beg the question and the question is What else wasn't asked what else wasn't included in terms of coming up with reliable information That gives us confidence in this study. I mean if if this can change To millions of dollars in one week What else is out there that we don't know about that's a fair question. Don't you think it's a fair question? And we have lots of questions like that and we're going to prepare responses And if those questions are such that we we think we should include it in the documentation Or is it that we should present it and it then we will surely do that so the next question I would have given the fact that this change so dramatically is Why wouldn't we want a peer review of your work? Yes, that's that's that's a board. That's a council or commission decision fair enough Just to be clear This is the the the difference is really a hundred thousand dollars to what our responsibilities would be not There were some there are some additional numbers, but there's is also additional funding. There was no Proposed funding support from Caltrans before that's it. And so it went from five point four to five point five as part of this and So we had We use You got a better cost estimate, but you also identified a Funding source to pay for that additional cost or most of it. Yep It was just a being more transparent in reflecting the information that the cost for RTC would still be Exactly as it was presented in the first version or close to it. I think I think it was five point four to five point five All right, are there other questions mr. Mulhorn? I think you very much Which Revenue streams or sources did you identify that could be used in support of transit operations bus or rail? Good guys grace to do that. So so that's grace comes up. So what we looked at was basically across the board from federal state Sources anything that we know is available. It's also pretty consistent with regional transportation planning as it stands out there right now and But I'll let grace talk a little more, but that's the big picture of where their funding sources come. Thank you Yes, this the specific specific funding sources, please. Yeah, certainly So there's several different transit projects as you know in the unified corridor study operations, please Specific to it for operation So there's the bus right rapid transit light on so Cal operation costs as well as the passenger rail operation costs Revenue sources, please right? I'm trying to explain that for each of those particular projects new transit revenues fairs Would be generated and how that was distributed was only to those particular projects So if the bus rapid transit on so Cal Generated new transit fairs only the transit fairs Associated with that new project were distributed as a potential revenue for that source in addition the state transportation assistance funds Were applied to as a revenue for operating and distributed across the three different Transit projects depending on the scenario consistent with the RTC policy adopted last December to make some of those funds available as discretionary There was no change in assumption about the existing funding sources that are going to Metro that those could would continue to go to Metro For their existing services, although some of them the Commission could decide some of them could be directed to New transit projects that was not assumed here So the the increase the increase in transit operation revenue comes from fare box revenues correct Okay, thank you Other questions, mr. Schifrin I have a Number of questions and comments, but I prefer to hear from the public before Okay, then I'll just ask Ms. Hoffman Gomez, thank you I'm assuming this is on I'm not hearing any if you don't on it One question that comes up frequently first of all to let the audience know and on record I've met a couple hours with RTC prior to the workshop in Watsonville and I've gone through this extensively with them They know what questions I've sent of them many of which will show up in the FAQ and in the dialogue that I've had with them First hand on the knowledge But what keeps circling back to me in terms of public comments that I would like to make sure can be very well understood is Can you explain What we've done to get to this point for the peer review process because it keeps coming back is like we need a peer review process and I know that we've got extensive reports what you've used from the data from these reports And can you explain what that was in terms of? Necessitating a peer review versus all of the reports and and collective findings that you've done to put this UCIS study together So As we've developed the the materials that are in front of you today is we have internal so just within Kimley Horn Peer view of the numbers and then the second set of peer review was in again with the staff as well So check the back check it and you know things that go back to the RTP projects that goes back to the CIP's So refining the numbers Re-looking them on the cost estimates. We've had various inputs as we started out a year ago We know cost estimates came in for the construction of the of of segment seven it came in higher We use some of those another bit came in new bids for Construction bridges so as more data came available. We refined the numbers continues throughout the process Ginger die car transplant transportation planner RTC staff Part of this process was for the unified Carter study was bringing information together from studies that have already been developed a lot of these Projects that are before you in the various different scenarios are not projects that we're talking about for the first time the majority of them and Very much the unified Carter study is a compilation of information that has been developed from various different plans over The years the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail plan the rail feasibility study the highway one environmental impact Report that is draft right now so in a sense this unified Carter study is a peer review process of information that has already been brought to the Commission and We're bringing this together in a in a compiled document before you to help prioritize our decisions in the future Thank you, and and isn't it also your You've been meeting with the technical our inter-agency technical committee Which is made up of public works directors from all the cities in the county who are also reviewing the document And get you're getting their input on this Correct. Yes, and Metro as well on a lot of the bus and transit service And our partner agencies as well, okay Then I think we'll open it up for our members of the public to speak Let's get a show of hands of how many people want to speak I'm gonna give them three minutes because They're they're dedicated and come here this morning Good morning again. I'm Jack Nelson So given what you just heard about information coming in from other reports I'd like to mention the highway one draft EIR that's cited in this study as one of the sources of information this current study Assumes that some ox lanes auxiliary lanes, excuse me will be built on highway one That's like part of the baseline But what that means is this study doesn't ask the question. Well, will that get us something good for our money and That draft EIR and this study neither of them considers One of the most important factors you should be considering which is induced travel induced travel is the idea that when you In this case add a freeway lane to a congested freeway you will get new trips. You will get diverted trips You'll get longer trips people will choose to use this new resource that you're using public dollars to open up and What happens is? It's like having an interest charge on your loan. It costs you something and the state of California Has issued technical guidance on this April 2018 from the office of planning and research They're telling agencies such as yours and your consultants to include induced travel in your considerations So if there were any peer review coming from the office of planning and research state of California I think they'd say you guys need to go back to the drawing board and include this factor in your considerations because I Respectfully submit that what would happen was those freeway lanes would fade out in their performance And as I mentioned about climate change, we really need to fix greenhouse gas emissions in this county and where are they? They're driven by this paradigm of auto centric development that your commission has The hand on the steering wheel for so my question to you is will you consider induced travel in this Study and that will change your results. Thank you Thank you, and I just want to encourage you wanted to focus on on the actual study and and The issues in the different scenarios therein Morning. Good morning. Chair Leopold fellow commissioners. My name is Mark. I'm a city Miller I'm a professional civil engineer with more than three decades of experience and the board chair of the Friends of the Rail and Trail I Trust each of you has received Reviewed the statement from the Friends of the rail and trail explaining why we think scenario B is the clear winner One of the important results of the UCS is that the rail and trail scenario B is markedly safer Than all other scenarios These UCS predicts the rail and trail scenario B will result in 118 fewer Motor vehicle bicycle and pedestrian collisions every year when compared to the trail only scenario a 114 fewer than the bus heavy scenario C and a hundred and nine fewer than the extravagant scenario E That is about one less collision every three days Not only will our county be safer under the rail and trail scenario B We will save more than $24 million every year as well As reported in yesterday's Santa Cruz Sentinel Santa Cruz County was the first county in the entire state to win the gold beacon award Congratulations that award was granted for our collective commitment To cutting back on greenhouse gas emissions Saving energy and adopting policies that promote environmental sustainability Here again the rail and trail scenario B Shines with the UCS predicting that scenario B will reduce vehicle miles traveled by 230,000 miles every single day 84 million miles every single year When compared to the trail only scenario a Finally when it comes to economic vitality the rail with trail scenario B was the only scenario to score straight a's across every economic performance metric Given our community's commitment to make choices that perform well against the triple bottom line The UCS makes it crystal clear that when it comes to people planet and prosperity The rail and trail scenario B is the superior choice and one thing that's been omitted from the UCS is the integration with the state rail plan which was just adopted last month by the state which envisions Transforming California into the Switzerland of North America Our rail line is part of the state rail plan Can you imagine car free travel throughout California? Thank you Thank you Good morning. Good morning. This is new. This is my second time. This is new for me. So excuse me I Have looked at the different scenarios personally. I like scenario B The houses across the street for me the rail line is behind their houses so and I think that it would be great if the The city of Santa Cruz and all the city in our whole county Adopts scenario B and I think it's great because it includes our special needs community. It includes Elders who no longer can drive. Maybe they're still able-bodied they can still walk but possibly their Licenses have been taken away from them. Maybe from They're blind or they're getting blind Also Millennials we're not talking about millennials. A lot of millennials don't want to drive. They want to take mass transit also Young parents with children and strollers that can roll their strollers right into a light rail or a trolley or tram Whatever we envision for the future and our South County residents they'll be able to use mass transit from going from Watsonville up to Capitola Aptos Santa Cruz are the West side and The lat that the West East corridor is the last corridor that is open that is not highway one and I think it would be great to be inclusive include the trail but let's not forget the rail and let's include all of our Residences, you know resident here in Santa Cruz County and lastly I fill that scenario B Offers for earlier the people I mentioned especially the young poor elderly special needs It offers them dignity Independence and a way for them to have some autonomy. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning Good morning, I'm Brett do it. I'll just I I find myself questioning a lot of the Information in the unified corridor study For example when I'm comparing scenarios B and C the train versus the bus rapid transit One one thing I don't understand is how it is that the the bus rapid transit is running every 15 minutes The train is running every half hour, but you end up with a lot more transit Vehicle miles traveled for the train than the bus rapid transit. I I don't understand that It looks like they're adding a lot of extra bus service to go along with the train to support the train And I I didn't I didn't see that spelled out in the way that the scenarios were We're brought up at the beginning, but when I look at the report I see they've added a lot of extra buses to support the train But nothing to support the bus rapid transit. So I think it's Unfairly biased in favor of the train instead of the bus rapid transit. I also think That in addition to bus rapid transit, we should be looking at another scenario involving personal rapid transit that has not been we're talking about a half billion dollars of Projects and to not do the due diligence of looking in detail at a project that Appears to meet all the goals much better than any of the scenarios Is a concern for me, I mean, I just think we really need to look at this. I'll pass these out to you This is this I I tend to favor the versions of this PRT that are a little bit futuristic But there are systems operating now the one the one in Morgantown West Virginia has been offering operating since the 70s. There's one at the Heathrow Airport this Version of PRT could be built in the next three years in Santa Cruz County if our community decided we wanted to do it And it would pretty much I believe it would pay the operating expenses Just by collecting fares. It's it's so much cheaper to run the greenhouse gases are lower It's safer for all modes It's you show up at the station and it's probably waiting for you instead of having to wait for the train So please give this some consideration. Thank you very much Good morning. Good morning. I'm David van Brink. I live on the west side of Santa Cruz been here for a few decades So for the last year and you know, I guess a lot more the parameters and metrics of this unified corridor analysis have been open and transparent Two of the scenarios including one with passenger rail was eliminated early for the last year and more some people had each you know trivial mundane step of the way like negotiating a parking lot with new leaf or rail custodial operations Some people have said oh no stop stop do nothing until the corridor study is complete Well, now we have the draft of the corridor study and you know, some people are saying oh Oh, no, no, no this these scenarios are all wrong. They've been rigged or whatever and we should start over so I Would just say you know, we have the draft here if it needs revisions. So be it. Let's you know iterate Let's follow the process And let's continue with the process. Let's not be derailed from you know our long-term plans. Thank you Thank you If people could line up otherwise we could shorten the time for people to speak So I actually think this study was well done However, it was done countywide and it lost complete focus on the north south Purpose of the whole study and it's about if you look at your web page. It's north south transportation or travel so When you do that everything's lost and so the cost So it's lost is for example key data such as co2 savings It's 15 to 1 having an HOV versus a train if you do the cat if by that the time delay in your own studies 49 minutes delay if you don't build 49 minutes if you have the auxiliary lanes which we're building or I assume and Then zero minute delay if you have an HOV lane. These are your studies not mine The costs are skewed you I keep hearing about this 41 million dollars This is an example that we have to repay that includes 11 million dollars, which is actually 10.2 I really resent that 10.2 of proposition 116 funds plus the increased cost of what the real estate has appreciated Which is completely false you pay back the 10.2 if the property value went down Are they gonna say oh you have to pay less? No, they're gonna make you pay exactly what you borrowed so I really think that's skewed and Doesn't include parking structures doesn't include the infrastructure that you really need So what I'm saying is you got it's packaged in a way to where it makes it seem like and by the way It's not for the commissioners. It's coming from the office. So I wanted you guys to understand this is coming from them So the HOV It included all the streets that the UCS Study included all the streets from Tampico to Eureka Canyon Okay, Anna Street in Watsonville The train affects only about 3000 people HOV lane affects people's second traffic 30 to 50,000 daily So and that's in each direction by the way and lastly people worry about induced traffic from your own HOV study HOV does not stimulate unplanned growth And let's see if there's anything else. Oh, yeah train times from point a to point B Have never been discussed in this whole thing I early on went through and figured out if I were in Watsonville I would take 10 minutes to get to the the station five minutes to wait I would take 43 minutes to get to my point B Then I would wait five minutes to get onto the bus then I would take the bus another 20 minutes And it adds up to about an hour and a half Whereas it took me about 35 40 minutes to get downtown from Aptos Okay, that's what happened today, and there was a lot of traffic So we tend to think that traffic is really bad, but it's really in small locations And if you want to affect that the the betterment of the majority of people who travel that I Hate to say it lane widening is the way to go and and I'm actually not a fan of all those things either So go ahead. Thank you Good morning Good morning, I'm Sally Arnold. I've lived in the county since 1976 And I've been following with great interest this whole process for about the last 20 years very excited to finally get a Rail trail I'm kind of nervous. I I went through the UCIS Page by page. I had a lot of questions and comments and I'm gonna I know I only have two or three minutes here But I want to hand you I'm gonna make some statements that are sort of like summaries what I saw in the UCI Yes, but I have references to the pages so people can like see like back up my assertions. So So after going through the UCIS It seems clear that option B is the best for our county for safety for efficiency For ecology for economy for expediency Option B is good, but I think it could be made or made better with three changes highway one You know on page 84 table 32 shows that the commute time on highway one Remains essentially the same no matter what we do It looks like you know, you can throw a lot of money at that But you can't really improve the situation because of induced travel that other people have already spoken about So I would forget the ramp metering. I'd forget the auxiliary lanes that money can be better spent elsewhere I think I'm concerned about the mission Street focus It's sound I was unclear for me from reading the study But it seemed like the focus for those improvements had to do with moving cars faster on mission Street now I will say I live off of mission Street. I drive it all the time and true confessions I'm somewhat of a leadfoot myself, but I don't think we can never we're never going to get Mission Street to run at freeway travel times and I think we just need to give it up It's only about two miles. We could just slow it down and make it better for pedestrians and cyclists It's right now. It's a you know, it's a commercial district surrounded by residential neighborhoods But it's really unpleasant to walk on and it's really unsafe to cross and I think trying to make it faster Is not going to improve any of that It's just gonna make it harder for you to get to the businesses because you get afraid to even break to turn into a business Because there's all this traffic coming at 40 miles an hour behind you The and the third thing I think that could be done to make in scenario be better is To run I don't understand why but for some reason scenario E has freight on the tracks, but B does not And it's unclear to me why that choice was made I mean if we're preserved if we bought the ride right of way and we're preserving the tracks Why don't we use them to their top capacity? Especially since the according to the UCIS the it's got economic environmental and safety benefits over trucking So I don't see why we don't do that. I'm also concerned and this leads me into three questions. I have a If we eliminate freight service, does that somehow affect our rail easement? And do we now put ourselves in the position of having to rebuy that easement? I'm not sure about that and Just the thank you and also If we tear up the tracks for A&C, I think that might also affect our rail easement I don't know if that cost was accounted for. Okay. Thank you. Thank you Good morning Good morning commissioner Leopold and other commissioners I'm bud Colligan. The first thing I'd like to say is that I think the study has a lot of good data in it and Particular on pages 99 and 100. I think you'll find a very useful tables for mixing and matching Different investments that we have to consider for our transportation future The benefits are mostly equal across all the scenarios a b c and e So frankly most of the benefits aren't much better than the baseline which is disappointing but true according to the study We just passed measure D and I don't think there's a big appetite for a lot more taxes at this point We're up to the statutory limit with almost all the sales taxes after sales taxes that are currently on the ballot That it will pass in November So I think there's a mix of investments and I just passed out a Paper that we just had completed by Alta planning and design And it shows on highway one I think the bus on shoulder Proposal is the biggest bang for the buck. We're already investing in auxiliary lanes Metro has shown us that bus on shoulder is possible on so kellen freedom across the board the investments that are listed there of BRT light buffered bike and Protected bike lanes and intersection improvements for auto they go across most of the scenarios and they're mostly funded So that would seem to be low-hanging fruit as well And of course on the rail corridor. I Support trail only I Think the biggest innovation that we've had in transportation in Santa Cruz County in the last 10 or 15 years hasn't come from the RTC. It's come from the city of Santa Cruz with jump bikes Unleashing the creativity and individuality to do things quickly and take advantage of technology is what is going to improve Transportation in this county in the next 10 years and it's very inexpensive to do it So that's where I would focus and finally I would say in terms of a peer review We spent about $4,000 a page if you exclude the table of contents on this study That's a lot of money. We shouldn't be rushing to conclude quickly. We should be trying to address the core problems that we have traffic congestion on highway one bikes and Pedestrians cyclists and pedestrians being killed and the maintainability of our infrastructure over time So the Alta paper really addresses those things and it also shows that the trail only solution is really about 98 million Not 219 million as proposed So a peer study is really needed in this area and in other areas where there are major discrepancies of cost in the plan Thank you. Is this the last speaker or there are other people who want to speak? Okay? I just encourage you to line up Good morning. My name is Jack Carroll at Tuesday's RTC meeting I learned that this study used the 2015 rail feasibility study for its train statistics If you remember on page 110 of that study the maximum number of passengers at any time Was predicted to be only 64 people on a train 64 people maximum on the train at any one time That's a ridiculously small number of train passengers and cannot in any way justify The enormous expense of regular passenger train service in Santa Cruz County There is no traffic benefit to taking only 64 people off Santa Cruz roads not necessarily even highway one The current study tells us that a bicycle path would cost 219 million dollars I Learned this is based on Caltrans specifications, but my reading of the Caltrans specifications They allow lots of local flexibility. So some decisions had to be made to come up with that number The pedestrian and bicycle information Center reports an average cost of only four million dollars for a 30 mile bike path That's a very big gap between the two numbers Adding a train will cost four hundred million dollars more That reason represents half the total cost of scenario B Do you think a train provides half the benefits of scenario B? Yes, it'll cost 40 million dollars to return the train money, but that's less than 400 million and People who say never remove the tracks evidently don't know that this plan removes all the tracks plus two-thirds of the ties The tracks get replaced in this plan. That's why it costs so much Please revise this report with a realistic cost for the bike path alone and Incorporate the dismal statistics for a passenger train Remember that you do not have funding in place for this wasteful spending and you cannot expect another measure D to pass When these facts are available Thank you. Thank you. Good morning Good morning Marty DeMair north coast resident I can't improve on the comments of the previous speaker and also mr. Colgan's remarks I've just been frustrated reading this UCIS and Looking at all these estimates and projections and wishing that I could just walked away with a Comparison of say how much is a trail cost? How much is a train cost? The other thing that's been frustrating in the meetings that I've attended is that Actions are taken after the close of public comment And as mr. Schiff reminded me saying that he didn't want to offer his comments till after public comment But then we the public do not get to respond to the changes that May come up as your board processes this and I think that's Troubling for me because there's things that happen After the close of comment that I think are worthy of comment and I would encourage this board if you're going to take significant actions in regards to the study that you reopen public comment so that people can respond To those changes. Thank you. Thank you and just for clarification sake. We're taking no action today This is just that we're receiving comments. I would add there'd be other opportunities for public comment Yes, so that we have a number of sessions scheduled Good morning commissioners. My name is pia cannon from ecology action and given that there's going to be Time for more public comment. My comments are going to be pretty much focused on two areas of the plan So the first area is the capitol bridge Trussell in terms of the plan would have trail with rail. I would request that That would include putting that Trail with rail across the capitol Trussell That area is an urbanized area of the county You know as the study shows it goes segment by segment where there are crashes crashes that involve Pedestrians and encyclists, you know, that's a pretty a fairly high crash area. So you could reduce crashes by putting Pedestrians encyclists on the capitol trust so I know it's an expensive endeavor even it hasn't been priced out, but you know, that's that's the assumption but Given that we're undertaking this rather, you know Expensive project the rail trail that this this part of it seems like it's worthy of being looked at and put in the Current study as you move forward and then the other item also is to deal with bike infrastructure And those are the protected buffered bike lanes on Soquel and freedom corridor we'd request that the Consultants and the study team look at where they would put Protected bike facilities because there's a difference between protected bike lane and a buffeted a buffeted basically is paint on the ground it's it's more of a Distance between car and encyclist rather than a rail or bike lane But it's still just paint on the ground and that Studies have shown that that does not get the net new cyclist who are able to ride But are uncomfortable doing in traffic riding what gets new cyclist riding is having a physical barrier in a protected bike lane So if you know, they could look at what locations along that long quarter from Santa Cruz to Watsonville Soquel freedom Quarter would should have protected bike lanes That would be great because I don't know if the $12 million figure would hold up because my understanding is that they didn't look at The physical barrier separated bike lanes on Soquel and that was also, you know, something in the study that is Design it seemed like to increase safety reduce pedestrian and well reduce bicycle crashes and then also get more people riding their bicycle so there's a big distinction between a physically separated path and a Paint on the pavement. Thank you very much. Thank you Good morning Good morning. Hi, my name is Ron Goodman. I'm not gonna talk about whether or not you should have the Rail the tracks there or not But what I wanted to comment about was after looking through the UCS study I was concerned that the bus rapid transit wasn't fairly evaluated I did talk with the consultants at some of the meetings that we've had over the last few days and they commented that a lot of The concerns I have would come out in an operational study and my concern is that there hasn't been an operational study So I'm just gonna talk about what some of those things are So one bus routes can be optimized for point-to-point service The train doesn't go near the university Cabrera College the hospital the Soquel corridor So it means that you have to have bus connectors Which means you have to have one or two transfers depending on where you're going and buses allow you to scale a lot more easily You can start in a location and as the system grows You can add more buses with more and more point connections as hensher and molly the authors of the most cited study that compare Bus rapid transit to light rail wrote they said blind commitment for light rate light rail train has caused many cities to overlook the potential for more cost-effective bus based systems People have just used the term train to mean good transit and buses to mean bad transit and that this perception is easily overcome So I hope you guys can think about that too BRT is an extension of bus service It allows regular buses to bypass congestion when it's possible You can have buses that use a corridor in one direction when the traffic is bad in that direction and switch the other way Study in France by Steery Davies Gleave found that when they compared bus rapid transit and light rail in their community That bus rapid transit was preferred They have all the studies are here There are acceleration and deceleration benefits, which might sound like a small technical issue But on the west side of Santa Cruz for example if you have a train that's going every 300 feet There's an intersection and so either the train continues at full speed through those intersections Which currently don't have controls or they have to stop and trains take a lot longer to stop than buses buses can be electric which means you can also have very quiet trains and Noise there are a lot of noise concerns that people have. I'm not sure that those concerns are necessarily Critical but certainly electric buses solve that problem buses are very fault tolerant If there's a problem with the train tracks, there needs to be a repair. You've lost your entire system Buses however can just move to a different street. They can go around construction They're about Half the cost I looked online at a number of studies compare the light rail to bus rapid transit cost and their bus rapid transit Is always less or equal to their to that cost? Some more things but looking at the time I'll just close with dr. Edward Glazer professor of economics at Harvard said in his Harvard x-talk 50 years of transportation economics at Harvard can be boiled down to four words bus good train bad I'm actually not against the train, but I really do think in our community We need to give the bus rail bus rapid transit more of a look. Thank you Good morning. Hi gail McNulty as most of you probably know I'm not a transportation expert Um, I don't know much about government. I'm just a mom the horror of former high school teacher and a terribly flawed human being who makes lots of mistakes and Isn't afraid to say I'm sorry when I do so I'm just saying that So I'm from a high school teacher standpoint. I'm grateful to the work that has gone into this study I think that the staff and Kim Lee Horn have fulfilled the assignment at hand. There's a ton of effort I know a ton of time that went into this And I'm grateful for that and definitely a creative an ape for illustrations and creativity there From a climate change standpoint, which she spoke about earlier and also from an equity standpoint I'm afraid that the assignment for this study lacked courage when I look at the When I look at the bar graphs and the colored charts in the document Linda will who's an actually pointed out the same thing at a stakeholder meeting. I was at with her yesterday When we look at the co2 page, I mean they're flat We're aiming to make a difference with the climate here and we're not doing it And the reason we're not doing it is because we're trying to give everybody fair share We we want people driving cars to be happy and we want to give something to transit and we want to give something to bikes But we're balancing it all out and and we're doing that in a way that means we're not making a difference You know Santa Cruz has a proud history of pioneering environmental change We have amazing potential and We need to live up to our reputation. We have the possibility here I mean I as a parent I am scared to hell of what we're doing to this world and there's not a lot of time to fix it And we're not living up to our potential here as a county if we don't take the lead Because we've got businesses located here and more will come and if we do this, right if we look to New York City You know the birthplace of bureaucracy and if they can in 30 days Think of a plan to put in a protected bike lane and realize that plan And if they know their subways are gonna shut down and they can paint the street and put in bus lanes And they can do it by saying you know what we're gonna try this and if it doesn't work We can change it if we can't live up to that potential here There's something really wrong because we have a whole lot of people in this community that care and want to make a difference and our kids Need us to step up and take the lead and we can do it Or we can just shelve this study And we can let it go by and we can just assume that we're a little county and every little county is knocking And what can we do to make a difference? But if every little county in the world does that we're all screwed. Sorry Thank you, and if you missed my op-ed I'm gonna hand out a couple copies of this because it talks thank you Good morning Good morning. My name is Yannica Strauss. I'm the director of bikes Santa Cruz County Bike Santa Cruz County envisions a future where people of all ages and abilities are comfortable using their bikes for daily trips And for the record, we don't already think that we are there but consistent Investment in infrastructure that improves the safety for bicyclists and gets people into transit Improves the community it improves our health. It improves our accessibility and livability And so we encourage you to please look at the scenario that gets the most people on bikes and gets the most people in Transit because that is where our community is going. Thank you. Thank you Please come forward Is there anyone else who wants to speak? Then this will be the last speaker Hello, my name is Sean from I'm an advocate for the special needs and disabled community in Santa Cruz Any scenario any rail scenario would include the needs of the disabled and special needs communities 19 out of a hundred Americans lives with a disability and those communities are growing And most members of those communities do not drive What is 19 out of a hundred of your friends family and neighbors look like? The disabled community needs people movers safe reliable transportation for the same reasons everybody else does Any trail-only scenario is exclusionary and ignores the needs of nearly a fifth of your county We've all been taught since childhood to not stare at disabled people Over a lifetime that community has become invisible to you Even these meetings are by nature exclusionary Most people in that community do not drive and their time is often managed by others and keeping routine is important Some quadriplegics that I know eloquent and as accomplished as they are need to be fed and Helped into bed by the trained staff that they've handpicked to assist them They can't be at a seven o'clock meeting getting here by nine is a huge challenge You have a choice To help people that have been invisible to you for a long time these communities are growing Autism spectrum disorders on the rise Amputations between 20s and 60s have doubled in the US We're gonna see more veterans coming home we need people movers and A rail system will do more for School kids and our elders Then a trail-only will and If you really want to get some feedback if you want to know what's going on South County then address The largest professional organization in Watsonville Pajaro Valley Educators they know more about what's going on in the community than anybody knows They know what's going on with the residents and families and they know what's right for Watsonville Watsonville's of Watsonville has grown up and Should not be treated like the little the little kid in the family anymore Watsonville people know what Watsonville needs Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, we have one more speaker. Is there anyone else? Then going once twice this will be our last speaker right morning commissioners Mono Koenig and And you know my experience as it relates to this study is that I've done Studies for the county before so I think they were more in the order of tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands But I do definitely have some sympathy for our consultants And for you guys in absorbing the report. I did want to point out a few things that seem like glaring shortcomings maybe the first is that just in the At the presentation at live oak elementary on Monday night I found it very hard as a member of the public to really understand what the scenarios were With the whole rainbow color coding thing It wasn't until I saw this key that it sort of started to like become clear to me I talked to another member of other members of the public that had a similar difficulty in understanding exactly what these scenarios mean I think it'd be a lot more transparent if we separate out the the actual modes from the scenarios So I don't know if any of you could tell me the for example a number of people that can move With a bus on shoulder scenario and the cost, you know per transit mile for or per passenger in that scenario It seems you know, I can't compare that to the same cost for someone moved on a train I I can find the max capacity of the proposed rail project So so breaking it out by mode would be a lot clearer and it would allow us to recombine and find the other best combination of modes a few other glaring shortcomings There's The the net present value of each of one of these scenarios It's sort of we assume that a person moved by rail transit 20 years from now is that has the same value as You know a bus system that could be implemented in five years The reality is we have to apply more value to people that are to Modes that can be implemented faster and can move people sooner I mean how many more people could be moved by the year 2035 with a bus system that's implement or a bus on shoulder program Implemented in five years versus a train program implemented 20 years from now That is not accounted for anywhere in this report We also have to look for You know the max capacity of the system. There's a lot of data that shows that a trail that is You know 14 feet wide can move twice as many people at peak hours as one that's eight to 12 feet wide Again, these things are not accounted for In the report. I think that this just shows why it's so necessary that we do a peer review on this study You know a killing horn has done a great job But again, this is a massive piece of work. It really needs a second set of eyes And so I hope that you will move for a peer review. Thank you. Thank you Vaping the end of our public comments. I'll see if mr. Schifrin is ready now to make his comments. He is Thank you First of all, I want to say that I want to appreciate the work that's been done by the consultants on this Trying to use the data that exists if we have tried to fund collecting all new data We'd be spending a huge amount of money and we were already spending a lot of money. So the study isn't perfect I think it's the best projections based on previous studies that were also imperfect and and making projections particularly it's always Tricky because it's impossible to know what the future is going to bring Having said that I have a series of questions that I hope I can go through And the Commission will I was sort of following up on the Commission of Bertrand's Statement last time that he hoped commissioners would dive deeply into the study And so I've read it fairly carefully and have a number of concerns and questions First of all, I would like to ask staff to provide a list of projects for each scenario That are already in the regional transportation plan Because it's a little unclear to me how the what the relationship is going to be between the unified quarter study and the regional transportation plan the other things that I want to Clarify I think it's true, but I would like our executive directed to answer this The the Commission approved the step one scenarios, right? So the scenarios that we are seeing have been approved by the Commission didn't come from staff and they didn't come from the consultant Is that correct? Okay So then let me I will go through this on page by page I see that some commissioners have copies of it of the study others may not But that's how I was able to make sort of sense out of it on page 11 the The Study talks about the highway one EII highway one project EIR and I was a little bit confused It says that the EIR is to disclose the environmental effects of implementing near-term corridor improvements It also looks at the long-term of the effects of long-term improvements although at a programmatic level and I think it's important to be clear that the That the that the EIR is looking at both HOV lanes that a long-term and providing some Analysis of those as well as the short-term ones the other thing that's here is and I need to be reminded It seems to say that it's own the only tier two project that's being looked at is One of the auxiliary the auxiliary lane project of 41st Avenue is that is that the case? I thought it looked at the one from Bay to Park as well Does that mean that we're going to have to do I know that for the Soquel to 41st if this EIR is approved that project can go forward is it saying that further Environmental analysis will need to be done for the two subsequent Auxiliary lanes and if that's the case can we really call them part of the baseline? Sarah's ready to answer that but I do know that those two projects do need a project level Environmental analysis They they have you know, they're in included in the programmatic in the tier one But they are not been they will have to do a tier two each one Misremembering that this but they are are all three in the baseline or is only the one included in the baseline for this study I'll let ginger All three auxiliary lanes are included in the baseline and the reason for that is because they have there is funding available for a measure day so what the projects that we're evaluating in the study are projects that do not have Funding available for them in order to figure out what our priority projects are Okay, only the only differential can I make an exception to that the exception to that is the trail along the rail right of way? That does have funding through measure D But given the question of what trail we felt it was important to evaluate that in all of the scenarios Given the various different types of trail that would be Potentially be implemented Okay, thank you. I have a question a clarifying question, Mr. Schifrin on your first first request That we provide a list of projects already in the regional plan Do you mean ones that are already funded and in the regional plan or just that are You know, I forget whether it's the unconstrained or the constrained but Projects that we think we're going to be able to do over the next 20 or 30 years from the last regional transportation plan So the constrained you want from the constraint? Yes, which ones that are part of these various scenarios are already in the Transportation plan as opposed to those that are not. I'm sure we can do that Jinger. Did you want to add I can take a? Try it given those and then we can come back and verify those are you thinking mostly on the highway? Or you want all the different projects? I You don't need to do it now I don't want to know the thing would be useful to for the Commission to get a list of what's already been Decided to move forward on it may be the Mission Street improvements. It may not it may be the highway one Bridge of a high over the saloon's a river But I just like to know For each of the scenarios, which of the projects are in the RTP and which of the projects aren't in the RTP I think that and to differentiate what's on the constrained list versus the unconstrained as well Most of these projects are in the RTP Well, let's get a list of it. Okay, I'd like to know whether all of them and then on page 21 where it has the auto travel time and speed for State Route 1 I Looking at this is Table 8 looking at the AMP going from Bay Avenue to so called Drive and into so called Drive to Highway 17 it shows 36.5 to miles per hour and 48.81 miles per hour I don't know who you know what I don't have to come in that direction But certainly testimony we've received over time This seems extremely high for what the average speed is during the peak hour I mean when I go the other way at those times that I have to I see cars lined up Barely able to move 10 miles an hour So I'm just concerned about how the accuracy of that Of those projections So the travel time was actually taken from a data set called the NPM RDS or the National Highway Performance Measurement System. It's an FHWA product. It's updated on an annual basis So they actually do directly survey travel time along Roadways on the National Highway System, which SR1 is one So what often happens with travel time? It is a Variable mixture. It's not the same from one day to the next so typically on a congested corridor You'll have some days that are not so bad some days. There'll be a crash or there'll be some kind of other activity Those bad days do typically resonate with people a lot more than the typical day So oftentimes when we report an average travel time, it does seem a little faster What people are expecting to see so we also discuss travel time reliability To show that variability and you can see that those sections do have pretty unreliable travel time So there are definitely days that do not perform at the level shown here on the average Do you want to identify yourself for sorry? Darryl DePonse here with Kim Horton. Yeah, and I ride that segment almost every day and after 41st Avenue It definitely it changes to be before 41st Avenue Okay, well, we certainly sometimes get Testimony about how long The next question I have is on page 35 and it's table 16 screen line throughput and I'm not sure I understand this but it's saying if I'm under if I do understand it that Looking at various modes of Travel through the different sections of the county and am I reading this right that 883 pedestrians start at the San Lorenzo River and 18 of 18 of them every day walk to Rio del Mar Boulevard That seems to be what it's saying As you as the chart the table measures how many people are going through each of the screens So on on on page 34 the page right before that table shows a map of the screen lines and so what a screen line throughput analysis is if so the Number that you are just quoting the pedestrians on San Lorenzo River. So that's screen line number one So the 883 or the number of pedestrians that would cross that screen line during the peak period p.m Believe it's four to six p.m So that what what this really means is that there may be 18 people that are going from State Park Drive to Rio del Mar Boulevard did not necessarily going the whole way Across the screen line at Rio del Mar Boulevard, which is labeled screen line eight The data that was collected there and this is actual data at the various different intersections This is the baseline information. This is not a forecast It shows that there's 18 pedestrians crossing that screen line. There was data collected may be coming from anywhere along the way Okay, I didn't read it correctly on page 75 where it talks about transit vehicle miles traveled as I understand it Only the transit district service is considered in estimating transit vehicle miles traveled Since lift line carries a significant number of riders and their data is readily available shouldn't it be included in the The the calculation of vehicle miles traveled as well or did I miss that as also We did not incorporate that data into this analysis I think the assumption was moving forward that that service would not be impacted by any of the alternatives So it was part of the baseline So in this performance measure, we're looking at transit vehicle miles traveled This is the baseline information that's provided by Metro that they submit to the national transit database And so this is as as Darrell mentioned This is a baseline number when we're forecasting forward for the various different projects We want to have a number similar to compare it to and so adding in for the baseline the lift for some of the lift line numbers would then Diffuse some of these numbers forward because we don't we aren't be going to be looking at lift line necessarily in any of these projects that we're evaluating Not and then that's not to say that there wouldn't be changes necessarily in the future and more funding for its lift line But that is not one of the projects we're evaluating in the study Okay, I guess I get it The next one I have a question on page 84 and that has to do with the differences between the various scenarios and I have the same Concern with a number of the tables and it refers to some of the testimony that we've received about how similar the results of the different scenarios are and I come from a Have some background in social sociology and social methodologies and one of the Issues that comes up is how statistically significant are the differences and what you find and if they're not statistically Significant then what you're seeing you don't know whether the there's really a difference between a particular scenario or whether they occur by chance and That's what statistical significance is kind of looking at it What's the likelihood that that the difference between the various alternatives occurs by chance and I think especially since what we're talking about are Scenarios with lots of all of them having lots of assumptions lots of uncertainty in terms of their projections. I think it would be useful to Understand get some understanding about whether there is a statistically significant difference between them or whether you know It's usually to what they call point oh five when I was in school. I don't know what they're calling it now but I Don't know it may it was of concern to me to see so many of the scenarios looking very very similar in terms of their outcomes and I think some kind of a statistical analysis would be helpful to the Commission So it's a great comment We've heard that comment throughout the public process as well And we acknowledge that you know everything looks like it's one mile or two miles up or down one needs to realize that this is the Daily VMT that you see and if we have a hundred thousand cars on highway one only on a daily basis And we reduce the VMT by one mile per hour and you take the hundred thousand per day You analyze that you take it through 20 years We're talking a billion hours that are saved through just one mile per hour that you drop in so so there is It is statistically significant over the lifespan of the design that you that you Assume for the facilities that you that you develop We we will include in the comments something that's more digestible to explain that that difference Even though it's just a very small percent on VMT how significant it is for travel Across the across the the model that we've analyzed I also want to say that these Kind of differences in lots of other RTPs regional transportation plans or similar studies that we do this is the kind of results that you see You will not and you know unless you build a new freeway that you double up on capacity Is where you're gonna see huge increases in speeds? You can see higher Changes in VMT, but this is a very typical result for the kind of study that we doing here I think that The I don't disagree that the small difference could be great over the Timeline what I'm really asking is a methodological question question, which is What when the outcomes are so close? to what extent are the differences due to The numbers that are there and what to what extent are the differences due to chance that you know if There was if one projections a little bit wrong then scenario B looks even better or scenario B looks worse and that that's really what I'm talking about not whether the particular Differences are important. They may be important, but since they're so close to each of the scenarios in many Points are so close to each other. It seems that Understanding that with a methodologically the the projection can be seen as being potentially valid Has to do with that kind of statistical significance. So that that's really the question that I'm asking Mike Schmidt Kimley Horton associates try to I'll try to try to answer this It's kind of a complicated Question, but I will say part of the challenge is obviously the aggregation of the data So if you look at the ag data in a more disaggregated fashion, the differences are more stark in different locations So and what Frederick said is true if you look at a small differential along across a great area It has a big impact, but the model is based on It is calibrated and validated So there is this statistical test that we do run to make sure that the analysis tool is valid per Cal trans and FHWA standards And you would see that we've make when we make these changes you do see Reactions to those changes so the differentials between the baseline and each of the scenarios are Statistically significant and they are representable and it's very it's much clear when you look at specific locations Like if you look at the highway one and you look for widening you will see okay Well the capacity changes the increase there's an increase in traffic volumes on that which are commensurate with that capacity Tranges as traffic diverts or traffic is rerouted based on changes in origins and destination So the model is sensitive to the types of things that you're asking So if I'm understanding what you're saying, and I'm not sure I am There was consideration of statistical significance in terms of how the different scenarios were put together I think in terms of the output. I don't know that we've I Wouldn't characterize it so much as this the out the outcomes are Perhaps statistically significant as much as the tool is statistically significant and tested to it So I mean I guess I'd have to think through that question because the way we design these tools is to first validate them and calibrate them So we know they're accurate representations of the real world and then we go out and try to forecast into the future So when we do make changes, we do see reactions. I like I said, I think the the issue and the Confusion is more just with the aggregation of the data So it has a an effect of creating a perception that there are very small differences when the differences are more stark than that Well, I think it would be helpful to clarify that in the responses or the final of this study of that because it is confusing I have another methodological concern with this page. I never like graphs that start halfway up the Halfway up the day amount because it it shows Differences that really aren't that great if you start with zero So the graphs in figure 30 show big differences between the scenarios But one starts at 38.5 and goes to 40.5 the other starts at 31.5 and goes to 35 They should both start with zero because if you're at zero then you really see the relative difference if you start Where these start it gives a misleading sense of what the difference are differences are between So I would ask I think this was the only chart where that was done Usually they start with zero, but I think it's just in terms of the public perception of how different are these Scenarios that would be a better that would be a better way to do it Okay on page 90 and following I was frustrated with Figures because there was no legend They show something They're comparing a blue line with two gray lines, but I didn't know what the gray lines were and so I think that needs to be I guess they're about four. I guess there's one for each Scenario so that that needs to be Corrected I'm not going to repeat my comments every time I hope But I'm I had the same comment about statistical significance on page 93 with a Screenline throughput table and then on page 97. I was concerned that the draft unified corridor study UCS only considers federal funding for transit projects on the rail line and The assumption leads to the conclusion that there is going to be minimal Outside funding allocated for rail projects in the later analysis, which obviously means that there's going to be more Local funding that's going to be needed With the recent adoption of the state rail plan as has been meant to mention in public Testimony there may be significant state funding available in the future for Rail projects like a rail a passenger rail project in Santa Cruz I would ask that I know that the rail plan just came out I looked at it briefly and had a hard time making heads or tails of it frankly In terms of what it's actually going to do But I would ask that staff and the consultants take a look at that and if appropriate Revise those figures because they make a big difference in terms of since there's not a whole lot of rail funding at the federal level And there seems to be a real commitment to regional rail in the state rail plan that could really change and that could really change the whole economics of Passenger rail because obviously what ultimately is going to determine the ability to move forward is the potential available ability of outside funding Okay, so thank you All right, so we have details on page 99 This is where the consist this is table 38 the new public investments for capital costs and this is where the problem that I mentioned about the lack of or the limited Federal rail funding comes out, but there's also a Typographical era in the chart. I don't know if it's been brought to your attention by Eagle-eyed members of the public but on scenario e The local rail transit with inter-regional connections. It's listed as 25 Million 800,000. I think given the other numbers is probably about 250 million 800,000 somehow that it Doesn't add up so Recommend that you take another look at that More questions about statistically then I on page 118 I am getting through I appreciate the commission This is the purpose of the meeting is to allow you a chance to ask questions, so and we're not close to lunchtime yet We're not even close to the please The This is Again, I had statistically significant significance concerns But the table which is Table 43 Indicates that scenario B With the rail app option. No H. O V lanes only reduces the amount vehicle miles traveled Small amount It's not this aggregated by the VMT is not this aggregated by project So I wonder I would like to find out what is the effect of rail option by itself on VMT and more importantly Can the impact of? Passenger rail on highway 1 congestion be estimated what assumptions were made about the reduction in VMT with the rail option K page figures 36 table 40s 46 again. I'm concerned about statistical significance Then on page 129 There's a sentence that I Totally confused me It's the last paragraph has a sentence quote the offset ratio of transit vehicle miles Traveled between the baseline and no build estimates is used as a correction to the Signario transit outputs of the model No idea what that means So some You know I'd prefer it in writing because if you tell me what it means here It's going to go in one ear and out the other if you write it down. I may be able to stand But we'll get it in writing That was a serious wonky sentence. There's no doubt Well, I want to say that most of what's in the unified quarter of study is Comprehensible I think at least to me and I thought it provided a lot of useful information and understandable information So what I'm pointing out are the you know pretty Unusual minor concerns where this wasn't the case On page 132 Which is table 48 again the trans transportation course The table provides estimates of the number of person trips by mode under the different scenarios The estimate for the percentage of household train trips under scenario B is point nine percent I'd like to know what the basis is for that estimate And then again, is there a statistically significant difference in the average household transportation course between the scenarios On page 143 The project cost estimates my understanding is that That the estimates of for the total project cost and not the local project cost But I think that should be clarified it isn't doesn't really say that but I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here So the cost estimates would include any local project So if there was an intersection improvement at Funding for them that it's not looking at how much funding is going to come from the outside This is the total product that's this is just a local project Construction needs to be clarified because it was a little confusing to me when I first read the The document Almost on my last page here okay there at the Is the same page? 143 the Document states that the facility may sit maintenance for passenger rail service is assumed to be split between the RTC and the passenger rail service operator I Question what the basis is for this assumption in the past the Commission has made it really clear that the cost of passenger rail will be borne by the operator and We've made that clear with excursion and I think It's been talked about for passenger rail generally, so I'd like a clarification of where that what the basis of The the assumption that they're going to be shared is and Then on page 145 Where it talks about the high occupancy vehicle lanes unlike some of the other Cost estimates that doesn't seem to be a Contingency or a soft cost included in the project if project costs if those are are included that should be stated so It's impossible to know from the chart whether that's the case or not then on page 151 The passenger rail service and the in the scope talks about the Service being only on weekdays, and I'm wondering why there isn't any weekend service projected There was a particular reason why that was not included in the analysis No, no specific reason. I mean that it's a commuter service. So the intent is to Relief congestion with AM with a PM. It doesn't mean that it cannot run over the weekends But the intent here was to analyze weekday travel because that's also You know in the AM and the PM is when the road system is that is busy? Yes It's busy over the weekends, but that's more spread out But that heavy congestion for the commuter service is weak time and PM Thank you for your pointing out the description on table a dash 10 if you do do look at the Operation and maintenance cost. We do have a line item for the weekend and holiday service, but the The the ridership analysis is looking at weekday Add that into the scope. So thank am I missing something it seems to be a typo Here where it talks about where the service will go Stots at the west side Santa Cruz and ends in downtown Santa Cruz. I think it means downtown Watsonville Is where it's going to end and our Watsonville members are happy to In fact, it goes all the way to Pajaro Yes, but I think in terms of what's being said. Thank you. We can correct that Okay On page 158 Could you explain this is the trail next to rail Why they're sort of the general course and then there are separate course for section segments five and seven Which are quite significant and I'm wondering how come those are broken out for just a portion of the Rail trail as opposed to the rest of the rail trail So for the trail next to rail There's a more detailed information about the cost estimates for segment five and segment seven since they're already funded And so we took that information directly The rest of the trail next to rail was estimated using the Caltrans page 11 estimate So that subtracts out those two segments Well, it's a separate line item for those costs, but I just want to be clear that the rest of it doesn't include the whole rail Line correct. Okay. Thank you Then on page 167 I guess this is related to my earlier question about statistical significance This has to do with the traffic or the static model validation tables B1 and B2 and I don't know whether I'm Understanding the table very well at all but as I read it it seems like There are a lot of Situations where the and I if I'm understanding right this is where the model was validated and So let's say for the present root mean square error The daily was supposed to be it was supposed to be less than 40 percent something but many almost all of the Actuals are some of them significantly higher than 40 percent and with B2 All all of the peak hours were significantly higher than what the target was so how does that affect the Validation of the model that was used yet to be clearly We probably should have clarified for this table, but the targets and the daily are what we used to actually test the validity of the model And that's what's required by FHW and Caltrans. It's not uncommon to have greater variation between time periods very am p.m Midday and other stuff. That's an incredibly common outcome But what we actually measure the validity of the model against is daily So as you can see in daily, I believe it meets all the measures Okay, I it's important that that be clarified because somebody reading this we sort of say hey wait Is this a very good model, but right? It's important to it seems to me say what's 172 a Couple of concerns in the fourth paragraph down in the second sec The first second line for a sentence this seems to be a word missing because it just says xxx and so I'm not I'm sorry 172 I know you were rushing to get this out And so it is the only And I don't think it's a big deal But you took your level of service calculator from Something it's it's from the NC HRP report that way. So that should just be corrected in the in the final and then The more substantive concern that I have is that it appears that in comparing the trail only with Rail trail there was an assumption that the Rail trail would have 20 percent less users based on the fact that people had to go off the trail onto the streets at certain points and given that most of the Trips at least the assumption is that they're 3.5 miles or less and that People who are riding the trail the bike lane or Walking are gonna be wanting to get to where they're wanting to get that 20 percent seems like a very high Differential and it becomes important because it then leads to the bike trips on the trail only to be Or on the trail with rail to be about 11% fewer than with the rail trail And the only real differential seems to be based on that assumption So I would ask to for some justification or Reconsideration and some justification of why we're that assumption What justifies that? one fifth fewer trips Simply because the part of it Not even most of it people will have to exit the the rail line under the current Would you like some clarification today on that analysis? Yes So for the trail ridership numbers, there was a pretty detailed analysis performed Which was based on a accepted best practice standard from the NCHRP Which is essentially you take a do a GIS analysis of the populations and the vicinity of the trails and The trails were broken up into one mile segments looked at the population Between the trail and half a mile from half a mile to one mile and one mile to a mile and a half and then Used information that we that is available from the California House all travel survey on the Number of people that ride their bikes now and applied that percentages as well as a multiplier for the future of over Three times the number of people that would be in the buffer to ride the trail Only this only the one mile segments in the vicinity of the capitol attressal area where The current short-term assumption is for the trail to route around the capitol attressal Would be Reduced by that 20% and so given the almost 30 mile or 30 mile plus Length of the trail. It was only the one mile segments around the capitol attressal. We also looked at Ridership going in eastbound and westbound direction for each of those one mile segments based on employment opportunities From census data. So if people are if there's a population near 41st Avenue We looked at if people are going in the eastbound direction over capitol attressal It would only be that portion that would be reduced by that 20% and it was I believe two of the two Two of the one mile segments were affected by that reduction And on each side of the trestle, but that seems to lead to an 11% reduction in the number of riders overall There's an overall so the Trail ridership numbers for trail only it's in the order of about 15,000 bicyclists and 7,000 pedestrians for trail next to rail or trail next to BRT. It's closer to 14,000 bicyclists and I don't know if I'm getting my numbers great. It's just 500 less pedestrians for the trail next to rail Well, I think To be honest, I don't really understand The rationale that you've given for the difference, but so I'd only asked that you Explain it better in the final and then my friend. Thank you that my final point has to do with an issue that one of the members of the public brought up and that is the timing of When are things going to happen? Because I think that that is an important consideration my example is going to be different than the person who testified because the Commission Doesn't have money or in the end of jurisdictions Don't have money to do the vast majority of these projects. There isn't the money to do the rail trail All the way through there isn't money to do the trail only all the way through Both of them depend on Outside funding sources the Commission's gotten some for certain segments, but not for other segments there is a cost that the UCS looks at for the trail only but that's there is a different timeline here the Commission can go through the Process of applying for funds. There's no There's no loss to the Commission by going forward with the rail trail there's a significant loss to the Commission in Removing the tracks and I think looking at the timing issue for these various projects will be important is important in terms of understanding the ability the capacity of Commission to do these various projects for most of them. We don't have the capacity We're hoping we'll get it through measure D funds to various state funds through other kinds of grants But we're not going to be under the gun to do anything very quickly With the trail only that's not the case if the Commission should decide to Adopt a scenario with trail only or to adopt a trail only as an option It's going to have to do things relatively quickly It's kind of making a decision and I think the the UCS needs to recognize that and so I would ask that we get some Information about sort of timing considerations for the various projects What has some funding set aside what doesn't have some funding set aside and What kinds of pressures would be on the Commission to carry out some of these some of these projects? So I want to thank the Commission for letting me go through all of my questions I do appreciate it and I look for I appreciate the responses that I get and I look forward to getting additional The Commission getting additional information in writing. No, I appreciate you sharing the questions. I know some commissioners have met with staff I think Commissioners have mentioned that they've spent time with staff others have asked questions here others are still asking questions. So This is the purpose of it. We're trying to Provide lots of opportunities for both the public and the Commission to ask questions to better understand this important study And the implications there of so I think miss Kaufman Gomez had a question Yes, there's a few things that are for follow-up And I and I agree I I'm not a planner this particular report in itself is not something that it's Relative to me in terms of getting this material and being able to digest the material being able to you know Put it all together in terms of piecing it and it would be very helpful for us to know You know what is funded? What is you know speculative based on the different decisions? So even if it's like if it's green it we know we have the money for it The other part of it too is make sure we know what our measure D because I I'll tell you our voters have said yes to D and the last thing Watsonville wants is to lose any of the D Projects that we've sacrificed quite a bit of our money and resources to go towards with any of these scenarios So I want to make sure that we can carefully watch that and make sure none of them slip off for some of these alternatives Not much has talked about freight I just want to make sure that we had that out there that there's a bit more conversation in the report about freight In case there's some sort of a hybrid option that comes from any of these scenarios here Because we don't want to lose freight for Watsonville. We know that that's a very clear Concern that we do have in our community I'd like to know a little bit more about maybe the cost subsidies I know right now our bus cost subsidies eight dollars and fifty cents per writer And I think that we need to see a little bit more on the the scenarios on this on what that cost may look like And the outreach this has been a concern I know that we we had their presentation in Watsonville I've asked for this to be more in terms of where our public is located for them to come to Because at six o'clock in Watsonville for any of our commuters Even if they can get back to Watsonville by 6 p.m. If they've been on this road for an hour and 20 minutes It's probably the last place that they want to show up they want to get home to their families and That we need to have some more flexibility with getting the this basically a road show out there as well as in English and Spanish. I don't know if your FAQs are bilingual. I think that's necessary I know that we are doing what we possibly can to push it out bilingually in Watsonville when we're getting this information out So there's probably a pocket list of things there that maybe you can share some comments on I'd love to address that comment right now if we heard a lot from the members of the Watsonville community in the last few days about needing a little bit more outreach having the translator having Materials in Spanish and so we have a performance dashboard in progress to be translated into Spanish also working on the frequently asked questions and Also, we're planning a focus group meeting in Watsonville that we will have As much of the Kimley Horn that can make it to that meeting as well as RTC staff It'll be held in Watsonville. We're working towards October 30th Potentially in the afternoon three to five. We still have to work out the details, but that's what we're working towards We heard that possibly students would want to be involved in that discussion as well. So The we heard you and we're trying to be flexible make this happen In the in the last couple of weeks since we met with you on October 4th. I believe there's been I think this is the 10th Presentation on the unified corridor study. We have a number more We met with the scott's valley city council last night. We have the three remaining city councils to meet We're also going to be meeting with Metro So there's a ton of outreach. We're collecting a lot of great information from our community and We're planning to do more and thank you for bringing up the idea of doing more for Watsonville and We will we'll be in touch about when the details of that get ironed out. Yeah, we had the Cabrillo College Chancellor at the Watsonville and To really engage the students and and maybe even having a presentation at Cabrillo campus or UCSC campus would be helpful The Millennials with ridership. I think that they'll have an impact of any of these decisions and To get some of the feedback for those that are probably really I think that our Metro right now with UCSC campus I mean, they're they're so full that There's people waiting for that bus just up in that area So there's an impact that's going to happen with a lot of people that are familiar with this type of ridership and that would be very influential with some suggestions and and Some ideas that may be fresh from what our memories or our mind is on the reports that we get so I Can't encourage it and stress it enough that we need to have that and You know, I don't know exactly where or which group on the 30th of October I know that we have a pretty solid rotary group. I think that in talking to the Chamber that was at our State of the City address last night I think that there is maybe an interest in maybe putting even a luncheon together with with a chamber Maybe there's a mixed chamber or something like that. I mean that may be the business community during the day What we're not getting to are the workers that are on the road getting home And so they're at work and they can't get there during the day and they're not wanting to show up at 6 o'clock either and So we're trying to do what we possibly can to disseminate the information and get it out there and matriculate at the best that we can and And And that's why these road shows are important. This is significant. This isn't a decision that we're making lightly and We don't want to miss an opportunity to get this word out in any capacity for this entire county And that might be a perfect segue to say that our next meeting of the Regional Transportation Commission will be happening in Watsonville on Thursday, November 1st at 9 o'clock in the morning, and then we are also having a special Meeting of the RTC to just talk about this item at 6 o'clock Also in Watsonville on November 15th so it's there's there's a lot of effort to reach out to different parts of the community and the staff Has been spending a lot of time trying to trying to be there in a lot of different ways And when they will continue to work on responding to the questions that were talked about today Continuing to meet with stakeholders and these public sessions that are going to be taking place as well Mr. Schiffer Yes, I'd like to talk about the timing issue because it seems to me given the Amount of meetings that are occurring and the amount of comments that are being presented it's really putting a Tremendous burden on the staff and the consultants to try to get their recommendation to the Commission by November 15th is that so the Commission could make a final decision on December 6th I'm not sure that's realistic And I'm wondering whether it might be more realistic to Expect the recommendation on December 6th after our hearing in Watsonville on the 15th and then considering In December, I mean in January our meeting in January making a final decision I you know, there are many of the comments that you've received and I'm not necessarily referring to mine are substantive and they require some thought time maybe some analysis and I think it just is Asking a lot that if there's going to be a meeting other meetings to do that finally, let me say I do not support having another Group do peer review. I just have been going through another study for another part of the county where the consultant Did an economic analysis it was sent to a peer review And then the consultant just responded to the analysis and said rather peer review people didn't know what they were talking about So it's like as experts will disagree. We hired The consultants we hired It's our job to evaluate the credibility of the work. They came up with We're going to hear from the public some people like it some people don't like it Some people like parts of it some people like don't like parts of it We're gonna have to take all that into consideration and make a decision and I think That should be the end of it Thank You mr. Schiffer and not the chair and vice chair will talk with Our executive director and on our November 1st meeting. We'll have some idea About what's going to be possible by the 15th and what's not so okay. Thank you Mr. Mulhern, thank you just very briefly if if we have updates to the information that are Substantive and vast can we please have them prior to the meeting? I mean prior to the day of the meeting I'm trying to review these in the five minutes before we start the session is challenging Thank you All right, well, let's get everybody in here miss brown Right now I just want to Thank everybody well particularly a commissioner shifrin for all of your very meticulous Comments and questions. I shared many of them so I won't repeat them And I also want to say it would be really helpful to get this information in our hands Earlier because it just seems rude to be reading while we're listening to members of the public and staff discussing Very important matters. Thanks, mr. Botthor I also want to acknowledge mr. Schiffer's effort at a deep dive and he did stimulate on one question And I believe the representative from Kimley on what was going to answer that question on page 129 I'd rather not be in suspense because it was kind of confusing So if you wouldn't mind taking a minute to answer that one question about the the offset ratio, I'd appreciate it Darryl Duponse with Kimley Horn Yeah, so basically what that sentence is just trying to say is that we didn't realize exclusively on the results of the transit output model We reviewed Other characteristics and did some off-model adjustments based on our assumptions with Particularly the bus rapid transit looking at the travel time Another factor is based on what's in the national research in terms of the ridership Elasticities and responses to different things like station designs and for travel time being the most important one Hey, mr. Johnson. Thank you chair Oh, so sorry, mr. Bertrand. No, it's your turn I've called on you mr. Johnson you could you have the floor. Oh, all right. Thank you I would all you know You know, even though I raise questions about this study and so forth. I appreciate the work that went into it I do feel given by Commissioner Schifrin's responses and pertinent questions That this these are the types of questions that should have been and and was pursued by Commissioner Bertrand In terms of like almost like a steering committee along the way So instead of getting a draft or a report That has a massive number of questions and you know, what are the sources of so forth that we could have? Periodically giving some input. This is very staff-centric. Okay Every time nobody came to the commissioners for their input It was always the staff the staff the staff whispering in the ear without really much input from from commissioners You know, I've been on this commission for almost 17 18 years, you know, I might have a little perspective. I'm not saying I'm the smartest guy in the room You mentioned and it was mentioned by staff that you know, this is essentially a peer review based on prior studies those prior studies like You know, it's dust off the Let's dust them off and bring them out because some of them are 10 15 years old And with respect to a peer review I believe we did a peer review when we when we bought the the line for 11 million dollars from the state Because they're useful, right? There's so many moving parts here that it's going to take more than just, you know, a few meetings from the community and then You know us going through this I mean you have 10 or 11 commissioners with lots and lots of questions in terms of Valid is it reliable? What what are the sources of your information? I Do want to address the special needs a couple of people talked about special needs and what a great thing the rail would be I Happen to have a special needs mother She's 95. She does in fact live in Watsonville She's Legally blind. She lives a lives alone And for the past I don't know three or four years She's probably taking 50 trips with a pair of crews and lift line. They do a beautiful job from door to door and Helping her be able to have some some amount of Individuality so she would never take it. I just know it she would never Take a lift line to a train then take a train and then get lift line because it would be it'd be impossible to negotiate I'm really impressed by the people that have come forward and talked about how valid a bus system is, okay, how You know if we look at if we're really looking for solutions and really looking for avoiding costly mistakes a bus system offers probably the The best bang for the buck the less least amount of risk for our taxpayers and Could be integrated with all of these scenarios in a very meaningful way You know With respect to the rail, okay, because people have talked about the trail only and so forth I only you almost only have three words for a rail system and it's the high-speed rail in the state of California Lots of things were promised there. Okay. This is almost a microcosm of that situation You know 10 12 years ago a bond was passed. It was going to cost $25 million now the estimates from 60 to 70 million dollars. It was going to be done by 20 30 or 20 28 It's not going to be done anytime soon. It may not ever happen The funds that coming from private citizens and also quote the federal government Were promised they're not coming so You know part of my reluctance in Jumping on any sort of rail system has entirely to be that I'm not prepared to put the taxpayers at risk For something like that and you know With respect to this study You know, I'll quote Andy. I guess I get it. Okay, but there's so many unanswered questions and they're so complicated I mean Jinger did a beautiful job in explaining something About bicycles and you know the first mile and so forth, but after about the third sentence again I'm not the brightest guy. You lost me. Okay, because this is complicated stuff. Okay, so, you know, I'm looking for solutions I'm looking for Probably and I agree with Commissioner Schifrin, you know, we're not gonna be able to absorb all this by the six It's just not gonna happen. Okay We can pretend it is and and all the answers will all the questions will be answered, but this is complicated You know, we have At risk, you know If if we move forward in such a way Maybe 1.1 to 1.3 billion dollars that we commit ourselves to and we want to do it within the framework of You know a couple of months this this study took you over a year to complete And now all of a sudden we want to rush it and say, okay, we have to have something by December 6th. I think that's just totally unrealistic And you know, there's so much uncertainty that has to be nailed down additional questions. So Let me just say this was presented this study was presented to the to the Public in what eight ten meetings or whatever, but so many questions have been asked that question the Validity of it just on specific things again, I'm not trashing the study. I think it was well done But there there are essential questions that have to be answered But we've forwarded and presented a study that is incomplete to over the past week or two so do we have to go back to the people with this amended study and say well, this is really what what what the study is all about Maybe we do because what we got and you know, I have to say I Like the concept of a dashboard But one of our council members last night said it was just indescribable couldn't get through it didn't understand it And she's she's a she is an alternate on this commission. So You know Reliability validity Statistically insignificant or significant these are all important questions that have to be answered and I think it's just Something that this community and particularly this commission should take very seriously before we commit a Billion dollars towards something want to be sure before we do that. Thank you. Thanks the mr. Bertrand so Whether it took a year or two years to do I'm beginning to appreciate the staff time that went into this I'm learning a little bit about the nuances of trying to make apples oranges and grapefruits and Everything else sort of get on the same table so that you could get a coherent whole and Try to come up with scenarios that you could compare to each other Basically trying to use older studies and make that present So if I could go off topic a little bit chair, oh, please try to say on top, okay, but I will stay on but it's it's an example so as you know in Capitola we have measure L and The reason why I support of putting that on the ballot for Capitola citizens Is because I wanted them to get involved in this discussion. I wanted people in Capitola and broader than Capitola to actually start thinking about all the different issues and nuances of the issues before them Because probably the people in this room are the ones that have been focusing on this the most for Over a period of time right but to think about the general public. I don't think that has actually been there And it's now before them in Capitola for measure L And to some extent it's been a very divisive battle I think I've lost friends over it. I think I've gained friends over it. It's it's very interesting But the main thing to me is I've never seen someone excuse me people in general so engaged in this issue So that being said a lot of people try to talk about Let's have a peer review And I have to admit that idea was floated and it seems very attractive But I'd like to say also that I think a lot of these studies were Innocence peer review these these are studies that were done by Info geeks if you want to call them and I take that as a compliment because I've been an info geek myself and You don't think about trying to sway things as much as you do trying to understand things And I think that's something important for us to understand But I'd like to put out there and I think Commissioner Schiffer and talked about this a little bit our ultimate peer review are the citizens so pausing and allowing the people in this county to have the time sufficient for them to understand these issues and Most everyone on this commission has been saying in their second breath. I'm having problems understanding this I May not be the brightest guy in the room I'm not for sure and it's a difficult issue and one reason why I want to stress this is because it's a critical part of our democratic process To allow the citizens to understand what decision is that they're being faced with It is critical. I understand staff wanting to push something because they think this is what it is They see the path forward and there's a dynamic and it's a constant dynamic That is probably in every single community in this country between people who are tasked with carrying out something That's the staff and the public who has to pay for it and who has to live with it So I accept that we all have our roles in this country and in this democracy So as Commissioner Sifrin suggested, we need some more time. I think others have suggested that also He took the words out of my mouth in terms of one issue And that is timing there hasn't been in my mind an accurate temporal analysis. I brought this up before I Think we need to know what's possible right now D passed because people weren't getting home or they weren't getting to work on time D passed because there was real problems in front of people's Driving habits getting kids to work picking kids up from daycare. I mean it was crazy for me and my wife And we both work both work high intense jobs and trying to pick up the kid You're ten minutes late. You get charged. These are real issues for people and if our highway can't solve Those kinds of problems for people What is it gonna look like when we ask for a scenario to be voted on and There's so little differences between them D goes out about 28 years now or something like that. We have to fund a lot of this stuff To say that we're gonna fund it and everyone's trying to say I don't see much difference between ABC and D, you know the percentages are quite small and I remember Some of the answers that in aggregate out ten years and stuff like that. I totally agree That is absolutely true it adds up over time But when people are in the voting booth and they see such a little difference between the various scenarios I Don't think it's gonna pass. So to me, that's a political reality I'm pretty new to this in terms of politics is it my first major elective position But I also know that the pocketbook Which translates to sustainability because people are going to be thinking Hmm, am I gonna do this or do I want better paid police? Am I gonna do this or do I want my teachers paid so that my education Possibilities for my kids are there Hmm, am I gonna do this? Am I gonna get park and rec so kids have things after school? So they don't get involved in gangs and such Am I gonna do this when I see disparities between Wattsville Scotts Valley Santa Cruz and capital in terms of how the money spent? so I'm starting to try to look at this problem in a way that there's a solution and And so as commissioners shift from brought up Timing temporal analysis important and what's on the books right now and what we can actually pay for right now With the high degree of certainty that funding options are going to be successful in terms of grants I'm almost willing to put on the table for the commissioners to think about that. We need to truncate off the bottom half of some of the options Because it's going to take too long for them to even come to the table to be completed Some of the options and I think I'm not going to go into right now because I think that's for further discussion And some of it is divisive because we're so involved of them, but there's certain things we could do right now and So I'm looking for that table from staff to talks about what the options are right now that are feasible in Terms of what we're ready to do in terms of what we could actually fund without on-do burden to this county So that's someone is going to be shared by the county some it's going to be from various grants and stuff like that Now that may be a hard project to do But I think it's a real one if this commission is going to provide leadership in terms of Getting real solutions to the traffic issues we have in this county. Thank you very much Thank you, mr. McPherson. It'll be brief. I appreciate everything that's been The data and criteria that have been included in this it's been a long haul But I feel like we have to do something, but I'm not convinced That with the information we have that will do anything that's going to alleviate our huge transportation problem That we have in Santa Cruz County. I do agree. This is going to take more time and I accept the criticism that people say that government studies things to death and I Think something that's going to come out of this but right now with the information We have a huge amount of information But I don't feel comfortable in saying this is what's needed and why to alleviate The the quagmire of our transportation network in Santa Cruz County So I do think it'd be good to have let us have more time to look at this and I appreciate mr. Schifrin Getting on you know the snorkel and really going down deep to find out, you know I asked some really good questions. So I appreciate that Thank you Mr. Schiffer you're going to take another bite at the apple I see well I just would I just think it might be helpful to put the study into its larger context We do a regional transportation plan We allocate money periodically to various projects We respond to requests from the various jurisdictions for projects that we have or they have We do a five-year measure D Projection of what projects could be done in five years as I understood what this study was about It was to take a long look at what the differences might be between a number of options Around our corridor between Watsonville and Santa Cruz Looking at the street system looking at the highway system and looking at the rail line What were different options and what might be the result of? Making certain policy decisions for one set of options versus another that was what we asked the consultants to do and The Commission ended up deciding to Pursue a set of five scenarios. Yes, the consultant to really look at what those long-term What the long-term future might look like with under those various scenarios and You know, I think they've done a really good job of trying to do that with the data That's they in staff with the data. That's available. I had questions, but overall I thought the study provided very very Useful information about what might happen Whether any of it's going to happen or not who knows Technologies could change they could change as was brought out in terms of individual transportation They could change in terms of rail transportation in terms of car transportation The the future holds many unknowns My sense of I don't I'm not quite sure what we hope to get out of a decision on this study The Commission really responds to requests from local jurisdictions The Commission has a regional transportation plan, which is really the planning document that has some Legal force to it because we can't get state funding or federal funding or projects that are not in the regional transportation plan This was a study that really let us look at a set of options for the future we I Think and it was also required supposedly by measure D in terms of really looking at the difference between the rail Line trail along the rail and the trail only and I think the study has done that. It's provided us Plenty of information Could we get more sure is that we're not going to get a lot of Comments from people asking for more, but I think it does answer the question that the Commission the other questions that the Commission asked and I I do think we it makes sense to take the time you know take more time to give The public more another opportunity more opportunities to provide their input and give the staff and the consultant An opportunity to respond in terms of public involvement It's overwhelming how many meetings this this process has a lit has Has had I mean it's an enormous number of meetings. So in terms of providing opportunities for the public to Be a part of the process. I think this This process we have gone beyond what is normally done for anything that I remember in terms of In terms of the Getting input input from people so I think from my mind It's him what I'd ask the Commissioners to think about and a couple of Commissioners have raised this is really what do we want to do? When a decision is made what kind of decision are we really going to want to make about this study and It should when whatever we do is done. It should be as informed as it can be but I I think we're providing lots of opportunities Not only for the general public, but it's even we've received today. We've received received another consultants report on Analyzing the the study that was done So the Commission is going to have a lot of information that it can take into consideration when it makes it When we make a final decision Thank you I'll just say that I really appreciate the hard work that has gone into this study Anybody who reads this study knows that it takes some Understanding and I realized the things that I don't know about statistical analysis Because there's a lot, you know in here that I won't pretend that I will Completely grok by the end of this process But the staff has been very helpful in answering questions I thought that the public sessions have been good and well attended And I think that we will continue to have this discussion with the public and with the Commission and we'll make When we're ready to take action this Commission will take action and We'll we'll have to figure out exactly what that's going to be the chair and vice chair will work with our executive director on If we're going to make any changes in the timing But I appreciate Everyone's continued participation and involvement in this document isn't Isn't going to be Something that's going to tell us everything it sort of points us in the right direction Or the direction that we that we want to direct staff to spend time on so I look forward to the continued discussion that we have and we'll be back on November 1st At an RTC meeting to continue that so thank you for being here today. Thank you for the public participation We are adjourned