 Okay. Good morning. I will now call to order the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. It is 9 a.m. Thursday, March 2nd, 2023, our first in-person meeting since the beginning of the pandemic. Welcome, everybody. It's nice to see your faces in person. Recording in progress. And we'll begin with a roll call. Clerk, whenever you're ready. And whenever we found a seat for Commissioner Pegler. There's there's some seat. I'll get your name. I'll get your name. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montecino. Here. Commissioner Hernandez. Here. Commissioner Cummings. Here. Commissioner Quinn. Here. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner Alternate Virginia Johnson. Here. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Here. Commissioner Alternate Pegler. Here. And Commissioner Rodkin. Here. Commissioner Eats. Are you on? Let's see if we need to. Commissioner Eats is on on there yet. Oh, Commissioner Eats is here. He raised his hand. All right, great. We have a quorum. Are there I don't I think I see everyone here, but is there are there any AB 2449 requests to consider? So just everyone understands this is in the future. If you do have an emergency and want to exercise the remote meeting capabilities under AB 2449, this would be the time when we would recognize that and the I believe the commission has to ultimately vote to accept those those circumstances, right? I'm saying now it's okay. I'll take that as a yes. We have any AB 2449 requests today? Alright, I'm not not seeing any. I assume we'd hear them from someone online. Alright, any additions or deletions to the consent or regular agenda? Yes, thank you, Chair Koenig. There's a replacement page for item 15 and a handout for item 23. Thank you, Executive Director Preston. We'll now proceed to item four, oral communications. Any member of the public may address the commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not already on the agenda. The commission will listen to all communication but in compliance with state law may not take action on items that are not on the agenda. Speakers are requested to state their name clearly so that it can be accurately recorded in the minutes of the meeting. And we'll proceed. Is there anyone here in chambers that wishes to address the commission? Seeing none. Clerk, do we have anyone joining us online? Mr. Peoples. Good morning. Go ahead. Good morning. This is Brian Peoples' trail now. I'd like to say it's really nice seeing you all there. But I'm actually not a big supporter. I'm a little frustrated that and I'm sure you are as well that the government hasn't given you that opportunity to continue to do remote meetings. That is a failure on their part. And it's very frustrating. So with that said, I just have actually a question on the consent agenda. There's two items on there that I wanted to make a comment on. And I'm not sure if the consent agenda is a one item or if those are two items. And not that I'll take up a lot of time speaking to them. I just wanted to understand when I comment to them. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I think you can make comments on the consent agenda now or during the consent agenda. The commission wishes you can make the comments now on the consent calendar items. I was just going to wait till the consent items come in. Sure. We'll call for consent. I'll comment on the consent items when we reach that point. Okay. Thank you. Is there anyone else online? Mr. Michael Pisano. Hi. Thank you very much. I want to thank the staff for the hard work they did to get the $100 million for the grant from the federal government. That was awesome. The thing I was wondering if a cost-benefit analysis can be done in the next month or two to see if it's more beneficial for our community to complete the rail trail in two years opposed to five or 10 years when that $100 million is going to be a lot less money. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pisano. Michael St. Yeah. Thank you, Chair Koenig and good morning commissioners. Nice to see you all lined up for a change. Looks like the past many years ago. I have done my darnest to try and reconcile or somewhat be accepting of the RTC's Oxley and Project. A lot of the people I talked to just say to me, it is what it is. That's one of my least favorite expressions. When I hear that, it gives me a feeling of defeat as well as a laziness in a person who does not want to take action for something they see that's inappropriate. I've come to the conclusion that hearing from the RTC and Caltrans that these Oxley and Projects will improve traffic and safety operations needs a consistent rebuttal from CFST. According to the Unified Core Study, your transportation experts, innovators and transportation series hosted by the RTC, expanding highways in order to reduce congestion is a futile exercise due to increased traffic induced by the expansion. The Caltrans Draft EIR 2015 said that a TSM alternative, which includes the four miles of Ox lanes, would provide very little congestion relief and that there would be more delay in the southbound direction in the evening commute. So in conclusion, as long as the RTC and Caltrans continues their false assertions to the public about future and sustainable congestion relief and safety and leading the public astray by continuing to use the term bus on shoulder, CFST will continue to educate and keep the public informed of these false slogans of congestion and relief and safety that the RTC and Caltrans consistently promote for Oxley and Project. The best outcome for our county and frankly our world is when we have an honestly educated and scientifically informed voter base, not one that has been misled through campaign rhetoric and special interest groups. Thank you for your time. Thank you Mr. Sain. JB. This is Jack Brown from Aptos. Just had a quick question in regards to the proposed railcar storage that's been sitting in Lindo for several months. We had a good set of information at the executive director's report last month and hoping that he comments on it again this time. Again, since we've seen from the last meeting the terrible incident that happened in East Palestine, Ohio and the environmental disaster that followed with that. We, I believe, as a community do not want to be storing railcars for oil refinery and Martinez in our community and hoping this is put to bed once and for all and that Roaring Camp stops selling out our community. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Brown. We do not have any other speaker. Thank you. Then we will proceed with our consent agenda to any member of the commission wish to pull an item from the consent agenda or comment or have questions on items on the consent agenda. All right, seeing none. So remember the public wish to comment on items on the consent agenda. Mr. Brian Peoples. Thank you. This is Brian Peoples from Trail. Now I wanted to comment on two items that you're bringing in the experts from the city and a consultant to deal with imminent domain or dealing with property rights. You know, that's just a heads up to the community that the government is going to come in and start doing imminent domain and looking to take property, which, you know, we understand that there is a need for that when you talk about transportation. You know, one of the things that I want to make sure the public understands is people will say they bought a house next to the freight to the railroad tracks and they should expect it. Well, no, they bought a house next to a freight body that had one train a day. So the idea of having 60 trains a day flying 60 miles an hour 10 feet from your home isn't really realistic. It's really basically moving a highway and creating a highway. If you had a road next to your house and the government came in and said we're going to build a highway next to your road to your house. And that's essentially what's going on when you talk about doing that. One of the things that you'll find is there is an easement like an outpost village where it actually the deed of the property says that you shall not only have freight trains. And that's a big issue. The property owner is aware of it. The RTC didn't understand it because their title company made an error in it. And they're doing a design based off of that error. And they don't understand it. So I urge you to do it. And finally, just as a note, we're reaching out to the population that lives within 300 feet of the corridor. We're not looking to prevent and stop it. We're looking to help. We want you to be successful. We want us to be successful on opening up the coastal corridor. But we also want to reach out and give the community those individuals, you know, somebody else to talk to about this because it's it's scary when the government comes and tries to levy stuff on you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peeples. We do not have any other speakers. Then I'll return it to the commission for action approval the consent agenda. Second motion from Commissioner Rodkins, second from Commissioner Brown. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk. I believe we actually do not need to take roll call votes since there is no commissioner joining us online. Is that correct? All right. All those in favor? Any opposed? That motion passes unanimously. That's for abstentions too, I suppose. Any abstentions? Okay. Seeing none. That motion passes unanimously. All right. We will now proceed with item 19 on a regular agenda. The commissioner reports. Does any commissioner wish to share anything? Seeing none. We'll proceed with item 20, which is commissioner appointments to committees. And I think I'll just provide an oral report on some of the nominations to our standing committees and other committees. So for the budget administration and personnel committee, I'm recommending that we actually remove the second Supervisorial District Representative from that committee just because they had trouble making those meeting times. As we all know, Supervisor Friend has a conflict of interest that prevents him from participating. I believe it's alternate. Commissioner Rob Quinn also has a conflict at that time, which is Thursday afternoon, 1.30. So in order to make it easier for us to have a quorum, I'm stressing that we remove this second Supervisorial District Representative. I'm nominating both Eduardo Montesino and Kristen Brown for that commission or committee as well. We don't necessarily need both of you, but we're welcome to come. If you can make the time, our primary concern is just being able to have a quorum so that when we do show up, we can actually conduct the meetings. Yes, Commissioner Rockin. Have you had a chance to ask them whether they're likely to be able to make those meetings? I don't really have a reason to ask because you have a quorum problem if they regularly can't come. I'm seeing nods from both of you, so if that's the case, again, I'm happy to nominate both of you for the committee. Is there anything you want to add? Yeah, and just to be clear, then the other four Supervisors would also be nominated and that would be Chair Koenig, Commissioner Hernandez, Commissioner Cummings, and Commissioner McPherson. All right, thank you for the clarification. Then for Representative with CALCOG, I'm recommending Commissioner Friend, who has held that position now for some time and established some good representatives or relationships for the Coast Rail Coordinating Committee. I'm recommending Alexander Peterson as our primary and Mike Rockin as the alternate. I believe that's everything. Are there any comments or questions from commissioners? Okay, seeing none. Is there anyone in the public who's to comment on this item? I have no one here in chambers. Is there anyone online? Yes, Commissioner Koenig, we have Brian Peoples. Hey, this is Brian from Trail Nails. What a surprise. I know the meeting is moving really fast, but I wanted to make a comment on the selection of committees. I see Supervisor Cummings is there. Welcome, Supervisor. I don't mean to give you a hard time. I sent you a note on, I don't typically give commissioners a hard time. I'm sure some others think I do, but I try not to. I just want to say welcome. In our note to you, there's a frustration with the community when we only have built 1.2 miles of 32-mile trail over a decade. We're going to clear cut over 400 heritage trees. Excuse me, Mr. Peoples, I just want to make sure your comment is on the topic of these nominations to committees. Yeah, I'll stop. You know, I don't want to burden us with this, but anyways, thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Koenig, for directing me. Appreciate that. Over. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Any other comments online? We do not have any other speakers. All right, then I'll return it to the commission for action. We'll approve of the nominations. Second. All right, Motion from Commissioner Radkin, second from Commissioner Brown to approve the nominations to various committees. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, that motion passes unanimously. We'll now proceed with item 21, the director's report. Exactly. Director Preston, please. Thank you, Chair Koenig and members of the commission and the public. I have a few housekeeping items to discuss. Since our last meeting, there has been one additional appointment to the RTC. Santa Cruz Metro has appointed Watsonville City Council member, Vanessa Kieros Carter, to replace the appointment previously held by Watsonville City Council member, Hari Parker. As mentioned by Commissioner Montesino at our last meeting, the city of Watsonville appointed Watsonville City Council member, Casey Clark as his alternate and the Board of Supervisors has appointed Watsonville City Council member, Maria Arosco as his alternate. And if you have not heard yet, Caltrans District 5 has appointed Scott Eads as their new District 5 director. For the past three years, Scott served as deputy director of planning, local assistance and sustainability, and has often attended our meetings on behalf of Tim Govens. I've worked closely with Scott as part of the Central Coast Coalition, non-advancing various regional planning studies and projects throughout Santa Cruz County. Scott is collaborative and makes great, a really great partner. Congratulations to Scott on his promotion. You're here. With this appointment, Scott has also become RTC's ex-officio commissioner, representing Caltrans on the RTC. Scott is here on Zoom today and will providing a Caltrans report immediately following my report. Now that the state of emergency has been lifted and RTC has resumed regular in-person meetings, RTC has also decided to rotate meeting locations amongst the jurisdictions as we have traditionally done. Next month, the RTC meeting will be in Watsonville and City Council chambers. We will be providing parking passes to commissioners and are working on the details on how to get them to you hopefully in advance of the meeting. Although all voting commissioners must attend in person unless an allowance is made under AB 2449. RTC will attempt to provide remote participation options for members of the public, public agency staff and ex-officio officers. However, it is important to note that if technical difficulties result in the loss of communication for remote participants, the RTC will work to restore the communication. However, the meeting will continue while efforts are being made to restore communication to the remote participants. We value public participation and apologize in advance for any potential disruptions for those who choose to attend by Zoom. I mentioned there is a replacement page for item 15 which is a three-month look ahead schedule. The schedule does not show any TPW meetings through May. These meetings are something we plan, something we do not plan to continue with monthly and wanted to ensure that you can use that time for other purposes. We have also, but we have stopped short of cancelling them for the entire year as we are considering resuming at least some of these meetings once we get started with the rail and trail concept report. But it will be several months before we know exactly when those meetings will be needed. We are still working on getting that contract signed. Caltrans needs to complete their audits and investigations on the contract. Per the replacement page, we do plan to have a budget administration and personnel meeting on Thursday, May 11th at 1.30. And instead of scheduling the BAP meetings as every other month, we now plan to schedule them that will correspond with our budget cycle and they'll be about four meetings per year and we'll have an entire new schedule coming out shortly. I have an update on storm damage repair contracts. Staff is working with Cal OES and FEMA on ensuring eligibility for storm damage repairs beyond the commission authorization that you provided at last month's meeting. I have not yet authorized any additional emergency contracts, but I expect that I will be contacting the chair for authorization later this month for a contract to address at least two locations that we discussed last month. We are receiving an analyzing bit and formal bids while also working with the Army Corps of Engineers for their approval to move forward with emergency contracts. I will be discussing options with Chair Konegg and expect to have more to report out at next month's RTC meeting. Regarding the operator's proposal, regarding car storage on the branch line, since our last meeting, RTC staff had a productive meeting with both progressive rail and roaring camp regarding their proposal to store rail cars on the rail line. They had previously asked RTC to hold back any consideration for car storage due to delays by the Marathon Biofuels Plant seeking to store cars. We discussed the logistics and suitability of different locations on the rail line. RTC staff has communicated a preference for car storage to not be visible from Highway 1. However, those locations would require additional maintenance by the operator. Progressive rail plans to contact Marathon to get a better idea of the volume and timing of storage car needs. Staff will meet again to discuss potential options prior to bringing forward a future potential proposal, but there is no guarantee that the operator will pursue car storage on the rail line. I have an announcement regarding Metro's One Ride at a Time program. The RTC is partnering with Santa Cruz Metro to support the launch of the One Ride at a Time campaign. The campaign goal is to increase transit ridership and establish Metro as an environmentally smart transportation choice for Santa Cruz County while supporting organizations making a difference in our community. To participate, riders must first create an account with the Go Santa Cruz County and log each transit trip taken. For every 25 transit trips log, participants will have the option to donate $10 to either the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Foundation or the Bay of Life Fund. The campaign will run throughout 2023 and 2024 during which Metro will support the initiative with advertising, social media, community events, and will gradually release wrapped buses featuring photos of Monterey Bay from the Bay Life Project. By the end of 2024, around 30 wrapped buses will be traveling throughout Santa Cruz County featuring captivating images of whales, sea otters, mountain lions, redwoods, and more famed wildlife from photographer Fran Slanting. If you haven't seen those buses, there's two on the road today. They're absolutely beautiful. It gives you a whole another perspective of riding transit, which we should all strive to do. Staff will provide more information about the overall Go Santa Cruz County program at the April RTC meeting. Regarding RTC's mega award, there was an event hosted on February 20th by Congressman Panetta in Aptos to announce the $30 million mega grant received by RTC for the Highway 1 bus on-shoulder auxiliary lane project, which includes segment 12 of the rail trail and four new zero-emission buses for Santa Cruz Metro. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the event due to an illness, but RTC and Metro was well-represented by RTC Chair Koenig and RTC also MTC Board Member Koenig and RTC Commissioner Hernandez. I would like to also thank RTC Communications Specialist Shannon Muntz and Engineering Manager Sarah Christensen, who helped prepare and represent RTC at the event. We were represented very well. Congressman Panetta is committed to helping Santa Cruz County to win grants and provide multimodal transportation options to serve his district. RTC methods and strategies of inclusionary, multimodal projects, which serve diverse communities, has proven to be a successful recipe and is consistent with the voter-approved 2016 very multimodal Measure D. We will hear more today from Sarah on the Watsonville Santa Cruz multimodal corridor with Item 23. On today's agenda, this grant helped fund one of many projects that RTC is advancing as part of this program. And with that, I conclude my director's report and hand it back to you, Chair Koenig. Thank you, Executive Director Preston. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Commissioner Quinn. Now, I wonder if you could just walk us through the decision to store rail cars. Ultimately, whose decision is it? So we entered into an administrative coordination and license agreement with Progressive Rail, which includes the allowance of car storage on the rail line. However, it provides the commission with the authorization to decide locations that are acceptable for car storage. So car storage is permitted per our existing agreement, but the RTC commission itself can decide what locations are acceptable. Ensure the location requires significant capital upgrade. Who pays? That would be, you know, subject to our discussions with Progressive Rail. Right now, we believe we've gotten that section of the rail line in the condition that cars could be stored up to mile post 7. They initially requested to store between 3 and 4. 3 and 4 is visible from the highway, which is why I would like them to potentially look at other locations. There is a bridge right at mile post 4 that goes over Harkinsloo. That bridge is not deemed out of service. However, our last inspection report indicated that some additional inspections should take place prior to moving forward with car storage or any cars moving over that bridge. So we did discuss work on that bridge and inspections of that bridge, and that's something that would require additional capital outlay, and is why they wanted additional information from Marathon as to whether or not revenue would be sufficient to help pay for that work. Thank you, Commissioner Quinn. Any other comments or questions? All right, so any other comments or questions from members of the public? Anyone here in chambers? So none? Is there anyone online? Yes, we have JS. JS, you are ready to speak. Actually, I don't have any comments. Sorry. All right, thank you. Mr. Brian Peoples. Yeah, I was at the, Brian, I was at the Panetta app possibility, and I just wanted to thank the staff. I talked to Sarah and she worked all night, I want to say, on building that storyboard or the visuals. So she did. I think Shannon might have helped her as well. But so I just wanted everybody to know the work that she put in was extra effort. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. We do not have any other speakers. All right, then we'll return to the commission. I don't believe any action is necessary. I will just also add my thanks to RTC staff for a great event. Last week, it was a great opportunity to raise awareness for the mega grant that we have received, federal grant, and I'm sure we'll get more information about this on our item 23 coming up soon. So we'll not proceed with item 22, the CalTrans report. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the commission. It's an honor for me to be selected and be here as your new district director. Appreciate the also the ability to be able to attend remotely today. I do look forward to making it there in person for some, at least as some of the future meetings and really looking forward to working in close partnerships with this commission. Executive director Preston and your staff. I have a few updates today. One is just a reminder on the clean California local grant program. We've talked about this in the past. Cycle two call for projects was posted middle of last month on February 14th. There's approximately $100 million available statewide for local beautification projects. And applications are due on April 28th. And there's an online workshop set for March 15th at 10 a.m. More information can be found at, well, I won't give you the website. You can just look up clean California local grant program. And there's a whole website with a ton of details. If you can't find it, please see me and I'm happy to provide it. Also wanted to highlight the CalTrans sustainable transportation planning grants. Again, we've discussed these in the past. There's nearly $85 million available statewide in three different grant categories. Applications are due at 5 p.m. on March 9th. So that one's coming up. There's a smart sheet portal. Again, you can Google CalTrans sustainable transportation planning grants and there's information there. See me if you can't find it. All right. I wanted to talk more about the road closures that are currently happening in Santa Cruz County on the state highways, especially hard hit by the storms this last week. We had hundreds of trees fall within the state highway right away. And just yesterday we authorized an emergency contract. We already have a contractor mobilizing to remove the trees and the related debris and some of the trees that have fallen. We also need to remove the roots and then provide slope stabilization. So all that's been authorized through a single contract for that emergency work and we're going to get out there and get it done as quickly as we can. More specifically to some of the closures on State Route 9, what we call the holiday slide, we still have a full closure there. It's closed between Lower Glen Arbor Road and Holiday Lane. We're working to clear debris and to repair the damages. We have an estimate for one-way reversing traffic. It has been pushed out to March 17th, pending weather and completion of some of the utility work that PG&E needs to get in there and do. And again, we're working to get that open as quickly as we can. Once it's reopened, a temporary signal will be installed for one-way traffic control so that we can continue on working on the retaining wall. Detour remains available on Glen Arbor Road and all businesses in and around Bin Lamont are open or remain open. Okay, moving down to, let's see here, Highway 135. Well, there is still another closure, sorry, another closure, a full closure on Highway 9 from Trussell Pass Road to the junction of State Route 9 and State Route 35 due to downed trees and power lines and recent storm activity. So again, we're getting in there and trying to address that as quickly as we can. On State Route 35, we have a full closure again due to some of the same events and we're out there working with PG&E to clear the road and to get the debris cleaned up. And then on 236, same story, same sort of closure for the same reasons and again, working with our crews and PG&E to get it cleared out as quickly as we can. Happy to take any questions. I'm happy to provide more details. There's a lot there in terms of the closures and the work we're doing. Certainly. Thank you for the report. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Yes. Commissioner Rockin. Just to congratulate Scott on his new position, we appreciate that. You've earned it and we appreciate you in that position. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Rockin. Yeah. Commissioner. Yeah, thank you. And congratulations on being the new director and Supervisor McPherson wanted to thank you for all of your hard work up in the Sellerinza Valley and the Fifth District. Something that most people don't know, but I'll let you know now of all the red tags that occurred because of the recent storms, 90% are in the Fifth District and including course these road impacts. So thank you for getting it cleared as soon as possible. The impacts on the side roads, on the county roads that feed into Highway 9 are pretty severe right now. So we're hoping that you can get them to make the state routes open as soon as possible. So thank you again. Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Any other comments or questions? All right. Seeing none. Thank you, Mr. Eads for the report. We have public. Oh, sorry. Yes. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on this? Sarah Riggler. Hi. Can you hear me? We can. Okay. Good. So I live in Boulder Creek close to Highway 9 and these road closures have severely impacted our daily life. Yesterday, I was... Can you still hear me? Yes. Okay. Yesterday, it took me almost an hour to get back from Santa Cruz with the detour in Ben Lomond on... What is it? It's not Quail Hollow. It's Glen Arbor. So coupled with the fact that there's road closures and mudslides, it's even more dangerous to walk along Highway 9. And I wanted to ask Mr. Eads. Is that how you pronounce your name? I'm not sure. You're on mute, but I wanted to ask him about, because he said it really fast, about the Clean California Grants because I'm interested in getting walkways and bicycle routes on Highway 9 to make it much safer for pedestrians and bicyclists to walk or bicycle along Highway 9 without endangering their lives. So it's even more dangerous now because of the mudslides. It's even more narrow. So I'm done with my comment. I'd like to just find out the specific name of this grant and you said contact you. So I'm ready to write it down. Go ahead, Mr. Chair. It's called the Clean California Grant Program. And actually, let me add a little bit to that. It's a Clean California or Clean CA local grant program. And if you just Google that, it will take you to a Caltrans website with a lot of detail. And it's really focused, this particular grant program is focused on beautification, but it could apply to some ancillary pedestrian improvements, perhaps. So you'll just have to look through the specifications of the grant program. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have JB. Mr. Brown, if you're there. Sorry, just got off of mute. Want to congratulate Scott too on the promotion. Great to have you on board permanently here. Also want to thank Caltrans for all the great work on Highway 17. I'm a hybrid worker who goes over the hill and really appreciate all the work that's been going on to keep that open for us and understand the days of the camp and lots of great resources on figuring out the days I get to work and days I work from home. Another thing I wanted to just bring up to the commissioners around this was a couple days ago, I sent a note to Zach friend about the conditions on Sumner and areas along the rail corridor where there are some trees and some very precarious conditions along there. And sure enough, the next day, a large tree fell across Sumner, blocked traffic. The commuters that unfortunately get off of Highway 1 and come through our neighborhoods, you know, found other alternate routes through whatever source, lots of road rage going on. And so I'm just hoping that the commissioners, you know, that have the ability can coordinate with public works to maybe proactively look at some of the trees that are in precarious conditions. There's a lot of occasions that are like leaning between Sumner and the corridor that probably should be maintained and also encourage their constituents to use the My Santa Cruz County app for those of us in unincorporated areas and whatever the equivalent is for Santa Cruz and Capitola and Watsonville and for the incorporated areas, hopefully so that we can keep these roads clear and also have a lot of focus on these alternate routes that unfortunately people are using. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. We do not have any other speakers. Yes, Commissioner Johnson. Forgive me, I didn't mean to jump in, but you know, just listening to some of the comments with respect to road closures and I think Commissioner Johnson could answer some of my concerns. You know, to me, how many, how many of the roads that are closed are private versus the ones that are public. And it just occurs to me that we are a Transportation Commission, right? And as much as we try and deflect the fact that everything should be clean and everything should be multimodal, there is a place for asphalt every once in a while because probably everybody in this room probably drove their car on it today. And we place the people in the Fifth District in a pretty precarious position by not attending to the needs that are obviously there. So I would just remind the Commission and everybody that we do have a responsibility in some of these situations, not just to kind of let nature take its course and then be reactive, but be proactive every once in a while as far as transportation is concerned, is not a bad idea. Sure. Yeah, we recently asked for the statistics on private roads versus public roads. And as you know, the county maintains 600 miles of public roads. The city of Scotts Valley has its own roads that they maintain. But in comparison to private roads, there are three times as many private roads in our county, countywide as public roads. What you've highlighted is the issue, one of the biggest issues. I can tell you we get daily contact from folks who want removal of precarious trees, especially along the state highways. And that's for and that's for our new District 5 director. And often we have to wait until they do fall down before we address them. And I don't think it's a matter of not wanting to be proactive so much as resources. So when you have a series of storms as we just had, the resources that we have available to us to address everything pretty quickly is just not there. And so it comes in layers and but the proactive aspect is very important. And I would encourage Caltrans to look to be more receptive to removing at-risk trees along the highways. But especially disproportionately, disproportionately the fifth district and the North County where Supervisor Cummings is disproportionately affected by all of these climate change events, they're only going to get worse. My fear is that we're going to have to be in disaster mode all the time. And we've talked about it extensively up here. So yeah, to your point, it's a problem and resources are not as much as they need to be to proactively address. Thank you, Commissioner. You're welcome. Thank you for the discussion. Any other comments or questions from commissioners? All right, seeing none. Thank you very much, Mr. Eads for the report. We'll proceed with item 23, an update on the Watsonville Santa Cruz multimodal corridor program from Senior Transportation Engineer, Chair Christensen. Thank you, Chair. I do have a PowerPoint. I'm just going to wait for it to be brought up. Brian, you can go ahead and share your screen. There you go. Give me one second here and move it. Brian, can you take it off full screen for a second? Take it off full screen for just a second so I can move it to another monitor. Okay, I'm going to just start. I'm Sarah Christensen of your staff. I manage the Watsonville the Santa Cruz multimodal corridor program. And today's update, we have projects on all three quarters within the program. We're going to give an update on projects that are being developed along Soquel Drive, along Highway 1, and along the Santa Cruz branch rail line. How are we doing on PowerPoint? I got some cool graphics I want to show. Happy to wait. I'm sure they are very cool. We are ahead. I don't think we've had such a short meeting in a long time. So I really wanted to. There we go. It's up now. Okay, Brian, go ahead and do full screen. All right. So we'll do the update on projects and a love moment for discussion and questions. Next slide, please. It's a little background about the program. The multimodal corridor program is a result of a very robust planning effort back that finished back in 2019 called the Unified Corridor Investment Study. And this, the UCS, if you remember, it looked at a comprehensive set of multimodal projects along these three routes. Highway 1, the Santa Cruz branch rail line corridor and Soquel Drive and Freedom Boulevard. The program provides high quality transportation choices that promotes transit and active transportation modes, improves safety for all modes, reduces travel times in delay, reduces vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions, which improves air quality and public health, and advances equity by providing low cost transportation alternatives, serving disadvantaged communities in South County and North Monterey County. RTC partners with local jurisdictions, mostly County of Santa Cruz, Caltrans, and the Santa Cruz Metro to implement this program. Next slide. So I'm going to give a quick update on the Soquel Drive projects that are under development. The first is a project that's a little over five miles long, long Soquel Drive that starts at La Fonda Avenue right at the city limit line near Harbor High School and extends all the way to State Park Drive and Aptos. This project upgrades all of the signals. There's about 27 signals that are being upgraded. These signals will be interconnected and smart, so they'll talk to each other and hopefully that means a long green if you take Soquel Drive and hopefully it'll be green all the way. So congestion relief, it also benefits the transit because obviously the buses are in the same congestion as everybody else is. There's also buffered and protected bike lanes proposed the entire length. There's rapid rectangular flashing beacon crossings, which enhances safety of crossing pedestrians and about 100 ADA curb ramps being updated. So this is a big multimodal project, the first phase of the project, and it's really going to transform Soquel Drive in this area. Next slide. Let's see if I could pull this off. All right, so we have ADA curb ramps. This is just a snapshot of Soquel Drive that shows all of the multimodal elements. Here's a rapid rectangular flashing beacon crossings shown there. This is to improve safety for pedestrians crossing Soquel Drive. We have buffered and protected bike lanes, which shows enhanced striping and safety treatments for bicyclists along Soquel Drive. What just happens? Much of a good thing. I know it's too good to be true. Oh well. Okay, here we go. In lane boarding platforms. So this allows the bus to stay in the lane. What happens a lot of times is buses have to pull over to load and unload passengers, and that causes delay to getting back in. Not everybody is polite, and they don't let the buses back in all the time. So that adding up over several miles can really increase the transit travel times. And so in lane bus boarding platforms really helps bus travel times and reliability and prioritizes the bus travel times over other modes really. The project also includes sidewalk gap closures. So there's a lot of areas along Soquel Drive that just haven't gotten around to building the sidewalks yet. So this project will close those gaps. Next, there's other enhancements such as new shelters, real-time displays. You could see that's an example of like the future bike share. We're trying to place those next to all of the transit stops and rail trail and active transportation along these three routes. And then finally, Cape sale of the existing pavement is included as well. That provides a nice fresh surface or canvas for the new paint to go down as well as pavement rehabilitation properties. So next slide. Let me add, it makes a huge difference to bike riders. Absolutely. Soquel Drive, the La Fonda De State Park Drive project, the construction contract is advertised. It's out to bid right now. So they're going to open bids in the next couple of weeks. And construction is scheduled to begin later this year and extend. It's about a year and a half to maybe two years, depending on weather, duration of construction. And then there's another project that the County of Santa Cruz is developing in that south between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard. And that is under development and will be bringing more information as that becomes available. Next slide. Next, I'm going to talk about Highway 1. So we have three projects under development, as shown here. The Phase 1 project is between 41st Avenue and Soquel Drive and includes the Bicycle and Pedestrian Overcrossing at Chanticleer Avenue. Phase 2. Actually, now I'm going to go back to Phase 1. The schedule for this project, it's under construction now and construction is expected to take about two years total. So end of 2024, it should be complete. Phase 2, an additional three miles of auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder facility between the Bay Porter interchange and the State Park Drive interchange. The Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects together are about five miles. And that project is going out to bid next week. So RTC serves as the implementing agency for the pre-construction phases of these projects. And then we hand the reins over to Caltrans and they actually advertise and award and administer the construction contract. So that process has happened. Caltrans will be advertising scheduled to go out next week and opening bids in April and construction beginning late summer, early fall timeframe. The project includes, go back, thank you, new bicycle pedestrian over crossing at Mar Vista, also replacing the Capitola Avenue, over crossing with enhanced better shoulders, bike lanes and sidewalks on that bridge. The Phase 3 project is in the environmental phase. I'm going to talk a little bit more about this project and focus in on it. I brought some visual exhibits with me today for you to take a look at if you're in person here. This project is the last two and a half miles of the bus on shoulder and auxiliary lane facility. It's a transformative project that it includes one and a quarter miles of the coastal rail trail, one of the most challenging segments of rail trail. There's two bicycle and pedestrian over crossings proposed over Highway 1 and then there's also two bicycle and pedestrian over crossings proposed over Soquel Drive. So there's many bridges included in this project. This project was scheduled to release the environmental document which is an environmental impact report, environmental assessment, CEQA and NEPA for public review and comment this month. Next slide. I just wanted to show the bus on shoulder facility and I always want to show off my graphics. So this is a view of up on one of the over crossings. You could see the bus on shoulder operating and heavy congestion. So next slide. I mentioned the EIR, EA being released for public review in March. We are planning a very robust public process for this. We're planning both an in person meeting and a virtual meeting and stay tuned for more information. We'll be posting the environmental document on our website and doing email blasts and social media blasts, that sort of thing to get the word out to get as much public interest and comment as we possibly can. Next slide. Now we're going to talk about the Santa Cruz branch rail line. Next slide. We have the coastal rail trail under development. We have segments eight and nine to the left on your screen. Those are being implemented by the city of Santa Cruz. The project's just finishing up environmental and starting final design scheduled to go to construction I believe 2026 timeframe. Segment 10 and 11 are being implemented by the county of Santa Cruz. They are about six months behind so they're going to be releasing their environmental document this spring and I think construction timeframe is about the same 2026 maybe a little later. And then finally the segment 12 project which is combined with the highway one project we just talked about. We're releasing the environmental document for public review this month and construction scheduled pending availability of funds for 2025. So segments eight through 11 are fully funded. The city and county received active transportation grants, over a hundred million dollars in active transportation grants to fully fund these projects. Thanks for the question at this point. Yes Commissioner Rockin. On 12 I've been asked by members of the public on segment 12 the benefits of those improvements are both through the coastal rail trail corridor and the highway one. Could you say something about who's paying for that? I don't know what it's been which of the two projects is being charged in effect with a cost sail bridge that serves the trail and the highway. So okay so the question is about funding I'm assuming measure defunding. Yes so our measure defunding it's funded by both active transportation and highway corridors program and there's a split based on what are basically like the over crossings over highway one are considered highway one improvements and so that portion of the trail is paid for by the highway corridors program and then the remaining trail that is not over the highway is paid for by the active transportation part. Thank you. Yeah thanks for keeping me on my toes. It is one project though and it has many funding sources we have the measure D both programs we have mega we have state transportation improvement program funds and we're pursuing the Santa Bill one funds as well to fully fund this project. Next slide. As you know the RTC began developing the concept report for zero mission rail transit. The commission approved a contract back in December and we haven't made a whole lot of progress yet but we are getting really close to getting busy with this project. Next slide. Okay questions and discussion that concludes my presentation. Thank you Ms. Christensen. Questions or comments from commissioners? Commissioner Johnson? Thank you for sharing your mic. I had two questions. The first is the anticipated improvements in transit travel time once the improvements on Sarcal and the highway one projects are complete. What was the beginning part of the question? So we have sort of estimated the improved time it takes to get from Watsonville to Santa Cruz once the the highway one projects are complete that's on shoulder as well as the so Cal project is complete. Yeah okay so the we're partnering with Santa Cruz Metro to work with them on potentially creating a true express route on highway one so currently the 91x is the express route it exits the freeway and then it gets back on so there's some delay there right so with the route change and the bus on shoulder improvements it's about between 14 and 17 minutes in each direction in terms of travel time savings and the current time is something like 45 minutes to an hour it's closer to an hour yeah well that's quite an improvement and then I have one last question we are I know we've talked about it many times for segments eight and nine especially with the city because they're designing those segments we and of course the county as well 10 and 11 we are getting maintenance agreements as part of that those negotiations and collaboration we haven't yet entered into maintenance agreements yet we will require a maintenance agreement before we give them a cooperative agreement for construction for the segment eight and nine we should be coming back for commission to look at cooperative agreements for the design phase of the project in May we will consider possibly bringing construction cooperative agreement as well but like I said construction or the ability to start construction and get a right of entry would be dependent upon having a maintenance agreement in place so we could actually agree on the construction cooperative agreement but we wouldn't give them a right of entry to construct until a maintenance agreement is in place they're keeping that in mind as they design it's in it's in our policy yeah and we do bring it up in terms of you know the maintenance and we've kind of come up with a strategy of you know here's here's the fence that divides the trail area from the rail area and everything on the trail side of the fence is going to be included in that maintenance agreement and then the rail would be its own you know responsibility for our tc to continue to maintain great thank you thank you commissioner johnson any other questions from commissioners sir i have two particular questions two vexations on soquel drive four-way stop at robertson street seems kind of out of sync with synchronized lights and it's a huge bottle rank any thoughts about alternate uh traffic control there i'm not positive what's happening there but i could check with wrestle chen who's the county project manager and see what is in store for that intersection in particular do it a little bit i mean i know our long-term plan is to put a light at robertson um however it's not funded within this project so i think the goal is to probably um ask future developments in the area to help fund uh installing a light there vexation two is the lane distribution on northbound soquel when you come to the san jose soquel road in the morning it's a choke point um there's only one lane that goes through you have to turn right or left on the other lanes and i know this is very specific but it is a huge 10-minute choke point uh northbound in the morning on soquel at the fire station i can speak to that as well because i've just discussed this it's right in the middle of my district and i've discussed it at length public works you know we looked at i forget exactly what the term is but um you know some kind of way to make both of those lanes through lanes and alternate um you know which which side turns green so that people could still take a left um it seemed like from the initial analysis that wasn't actually going to beat anything up so i think that's why i did not make it into the redesign plans sure let me show randy jose thank you chair so it strikes me that this is a pretty nice blend for people who are using their cars but also the multimodal particularly on soquel drive uh it looks very impressive and to commission iraqan's point about you know making a difference for bicyclists i mean i think i'm doing pretty good like yesterday riding 10 miles on a bike but when you do it on scott's valley drive which was renovated over 20 years ago you feel relatively safe and i get the impression that this is also going to serve bicyclists and pedestrians in a very nice way so my compliments and i like the blend thank you all right thank you any other yep commission want to see now yeah um under the slides that you had for the the rail trail um there was no update for the the portions in south county is is there an update or do you bring an update sure yeah yes um so i i apologize i kind of ran out of gas on that last slide the zero mission electric passenger rail project includes segments 13 so that's from rio del mar boulevard all the way um to paharo station so segment 20 so 13 through 20 are included and because um the concept report is going to be looking at how electric rail is going to look in watsonville um it you know we talked with city staff and determined that it is probably most wise to wait on further development of um say future phases of segment 18 and potentially 19 until we have more information about how the transit facility is going to look in watsonville because what we don't want to do is have the city go and build a section of trail and then later you know 10 10 years down the road have to rebuild it as part of the future project so we're coordinating right now we're assuming that the future remaining phases of the trail in south county are included in the the rail project well i'm going to push back a little bit so that you're telling me he's going to wait for 10 years for those projects to be so currently that's the trails are included in the electric passenger rail project however if we get to a point where we answer questions and we have an idea of what the configuration is going to be those trail projects can proceed um we just don't want to um design and build something that's going to be a you know either rebuild or a constraint for the future rail projects like i said i'm going to push back because it's like i said for 10 years for us to not get any projects and everyone else to be getting projects and for a delay we're going to have to talk about this stuff um and get meeting together thank you thank you commissioner montecino any other comments for or questions from commissioners all right seeing none i'll take it out to the public does any member of the public wish to comment on this item who's approached the podium good morning chair uh conig and commissioners um matt ferrell here for uh friends of the rail and trail we uh just want to congratulate staff and the commission on moving forward with this multimodal plan especially with uh rail zero emissions rail concept plan and in a full disclosure but for its activities have been around this um particular project we wrote letters of support for um the rtc's application and also uh for the tersep application from santa cruz metro transit and finally we wrote a letter of support for tam see in their application for power station because we think this is a whole regional network and it's very important to support all these agencies that are working to realize the vision that's been adopted so thank you for your time and your work that's for your support thank you mr ferrell right seeing no one else here in chambers is there anyone online yes we have a few um speakers starting with mr brian peoples hi is brian from trail now i'll point out sarah's comment that this section segment 12 is the most difficult and we've only built 1.2 miles and actually the 12 foot wide trail that you've been building has been more expensive than widening the highway so there's some barriers that we're creating in our plans and the other thing that we don't understand or you're at least not accepting is the coastal commission is not going to let you build a new train uh along 20 feet from the ocean like in manresa they're moving the train tracks south inland so you're never going to get that money so i think watson mill representatives should really raise their hand as they did to say wait a minute we're not getting anything we're not getting a trail we're not going to get a train and at the end of the day we should be getting a trail for watson mill you know the farmer and the private property owners from san andraya's road to lee road are not going to let you have a train and trail it's already pulled out as alternate b so don't allow them to fake you out that you're going to ever get a trail and a train so you really really really could have a trail in in our life from watson mill to san accrues if we be realistic in our expectations um so the other thing is is you don't have all the funding for this effort and so you know why are we building four new um bridges in aptos why aren't we using the existing infrastructure let's use the existing infrastructure and then to pay for your train in the future you allocate those funds for that additional bridge don't levy our trail with that additional cost today let's okay if you want to have a train in the future which we know you can't let's levy those costs there because you're going to delay the trail being built and and the evidence is already there look at north coast trail it's been delayed for a decade so i really hopeful that you really be realistic in your expectation on building the trail to watson mill thank you mr peoples our next speaker is michael pisano hi thank you for the presentation great great job a couple questions is between 41st and robertson one side has a sidewalk improvements on the other side doesn't there's a hill there i was wondering if that could be included in the plan to add a sidewalk on the south lane between 41st and robertson and um also the stoplight at robertson i know that's approved just no funding i was wondering if those two funding streams that mr eads from cal trance the clean california grant program and the system will transfer patient program to be help fun adding a sidewalk between 41st and robertson and add a stoplight thank you mr pisano next we have um michael saint mr saint for there go ahead i'm not i'm i'm muted we can hear you now okay thank you thank you chair koney uh yeah sarah excellent presentation um as usual uh but let's just say we agreed to disagree on whether this multimodal project overall decreases vmt and greenhouse gas emissions um if the ox lane project was a true bus on shoulder dedicated lane i would definitely agree with your your first statement on this presentation your own e irs all the way the tsm doesn't even say vmt increases by 29 once the projects are all done um so that's my comment i do have a couple questions under attachment one figure one uh could you please explain the dotted blue line uh that is entitled potential transit routes uh using bus on shoulder slash ox lanes i was a little confused with that if that's a future possibility um the second question uh on your flyer shows a solid white line by that bus picture you showed on outside ox lane does that white line extend uh from off ramp to off ramp or only under the uh overpass bus on shoulder project uh and then also i was wondering there was nothing mentioned about any ramp metering just wondering if ramp metering was going to be part of the project as well and once again thank you so much and i do especially want to thank you on your flyer on page 23-6 you actually put in bus hybrid facility thanks for using the word hybrid i appreciate it have a good day and thanks for the presentation thank you mr sain next we have jack brown hi this is uh jack brown from uh aptos again um thanks again for a great presentation there um one of the big questions i had in the uh rail corridor um and uh controversy in the the environmental impact report is the interim trail with a trail only option is being shown at 26 feet in width no one not even greenway requested a width of 26 feet and i'm questioning why was that wish used um and uh it was this to show a greater tree loss um than a rail and trail option and there as we know we'll lose thousands of heritage mature trees along the corridor for no good reason and we don't have funding for a rail program there and even the street in front of my house is not 26 feet um it seems like it would have made more sense to have something at a 16 foot or you know even the the 12th foot that's been recommended by others but without having fences unsafe steel and cable steel post and cable fences along that route but something that that is safer for for acro transportation to use so that was my question thank you thank you mr brown next we have equity transit hi thank you so much this is lani falkner from equity transit thank you sarah christensen for that great report and i would like to congratulate staff on this multimodal plan and we were honored to be able to support the tersep application um just a couple thoughts in regards to the soquel project as a cyclist this is very exciting to see that um soquel will hopefully be both a corridor for um active bus activity with less traffic as well as safe for cyclists and pedestrians one of the things i think about is uh the safety of cyclists and pedestrians is directly correlated to the speed and so as the lights are being timed we hope that you will also incorporate traffic calming so that the speed of the traffic is maintained at a very safe level this is one of the major issues that as a cyclist experience throughout the county is speed um also want to consider advanced traffic circles that are used in many cities across the country as well as the world i know the cycling dutch cycling embassy brought some of that information and advanced project type of circles that we know work very well um so that might be a nice consideration um also want to consider that one of the lanes on soquel is bus only and if any way to do that as well for the highway um and also would like to request staff to consider seeking 30 engineering design and environmental impact report for passenger rail service as opposed to the 15 percent and again i appreciate your time and available availability to speak thank you miss talkner that was our last speaker all right then i'll turn it return to the commission this is not an action item but it is an opportunity for any last comments or questions um i can address one question that did come up during public comment for mr pizano about a sidewalk and 41st between 41st and robertson on the south side that is a fairly cliffy area um it certainly would love to add sidewalks there but i think you know we did have to acquire right of way just below robertson road between robertson and alton miss um and so made some steps with this project towards the sidewalk there i think the one between 41st and robertson would just be prohibitively expensive at at this point in time although it's certainly something we'll continue to look at in the future um and then i did want to ask uh director preston there was a question really sort of related to um rail trail design um and the way that's being considered my understanding is that in may this commission will review the eir for segments eight and nine potentially and that might be an opportunity for greater discussion on that item yes that is that is correct uh city planning commission is um meeting today to consider that project and there is a possibility that could be appealed to the um the full city council and if it is that would likely occur in april so we're scheduling that to come to the rtc in may okay so we'll we'll have an opportunity to discuss that in greater details i'm sure many folks on this commission would like to uh other comments or questions mr rachan we had a question or a comment from the public about traffic circles um a lot of this route on so kell is pretty constrained physically but did we look at traffic circles or has there been any consideration of that or are there some of these intersections that for which that might be feasible because we have two traffic circles now in santa cruz that are working really well uh make a huge difference in time saving and they're safe and people took people you know a couple weeks to learn how to use them but now it's going really really well so i understand that it's not something you can just plop down on every intersection by any means but what consideration have we had for traffic circles so the county project um that's about to go to construction um they did not look very closely at traffic circles just because of the reasons you mentioned um they held the existing curb lines and avoided um as much right away acquisition as possible just because that turns into a lot of cost and potential delay to your project so not to say um it you know it can't be looked at in the future but it traffic circles do require a significant amount of right away i think we have two lanes in each direction on the main street and takes a big circle around that and spend you know safely and work in pedestrian and bicycle options so that that because that has to be safe as well right so i get that so it would be i mean it would be like entire properties on each corner in order to make that work and there's many intersections so it's so it might be possible that some grant for efficiency or something in the future might be applicable and we might apply for that and make this kind where you have money for that kind of acquisition that could yeah that could be looked at in the future commissioner rodkin um you're correct and that traffic circles require a lot more right away um and i think that's why the county didn't try to include that we we added this the so-called drive improvements to the highway one project which was um well on the way to environmental clearance at the time that we applied for the grant the city of the county was able to move forward with a categorical exemption um from sequa because there was no right away needs on the project if we were to have waited we wouldn't have been able to apply for this grant and actually get this project funded um but you're correct traffic for circles do work quite well when they're placed correctly and and um the public starts to learn how to use them um it would be something that the county could do as a future study but it would be a long lead project and something that would take probably around 10 years to develop on a location like so cal and a lot more cost I appreciate the responses and I will add there is no shortage of traffic circle fans at the DP in the part of public works um with the county and we are going to be doing a plot line study along capitol a road and looking at opportunities to put in traffic circles there any other final comments or questions from commissioners right well again this was just a report item I will you know add some remarks which is this is going to make an incredible difference in terms of transportation through mid county I'm yearly looking forward to the results of these projects and of course transportation and housing go hand in hand and I know as we consider the housing element this year at the board of supervisors will certainly be looking at how these transportation improvements will allow us to add more housing in mid county and hopefully as we do that we can prioritize housing for our working class people and also get more cars off the road and provide people an option to get around via alternatives like the bus which will be running a lot better and bikes which will be in these protected and buffered lanes thanks to staff all right again thank you very much for staff for the comprehensive report so that brings us to our final item which is next meetings next RTC meeting is scheduled for Thursday April 6th 2023 at 9 a.m at the Watsonville City Council chambers again we're all meeting in person now it will be in South County not in this room look at it 275 Main Street room 400 Watsonville California 9507 6 thank you everyone meeting adjourned