 Good morning, everybody. I'll call to order the regular meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. It is Thursday, December 7th, 2023, at 9.03 AM. Burke, will you please call the roll? Commissioner Peterson? Here. Commissioner Sandy Brown? Here. Commissioner Johnson? Here. Commissioner Montesino? Here. Commissioner Hernandez? Present. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin? Commissioner Alternate Quinn? Commissioner Koenig? Here. Commissioner McPherson? Commissioner Christian Brown? Here. Commissioner Alternate Pigler? Here. And Commissioner Alternate Collentary Johnson? And Randy Reiter? Here. Have a quorum. And since everyone's here, I guess we don't have any 2449 requests. So moving on, do we have any additions or deletions to the Consent or Regular Agendas today? I believe your mic has just been turned on. But apparently not. There you go. This is much better. Yes. There was a revised agenda that was posted on the commission website that added item 35. We also have a handout for item 21 that was posted. And there was a revised staff report for item 25 and a handout for item 25 that were posted. And you also have in front of you a handout, an additional handout for item 25 that looks like this, which should be in front of you. And those are all the added things. Great. Thank you. Now proceed with oral communications. I see so many of you here this morning. 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 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 if you do have, we'll take comment on items that are on the agenda as well if you cannot stay for those items later. Anyone wish to speak? Yes, please. Push the podium. Check. Brandon, if you could just check your mic as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Chair, first. Metro phase one, it'll be an item for you to vote on today to make sure that they keep their jobs and that we double this. We are here to show you that we are not asking for faith. We are here to prove to you we will get the job done. We are getting the job done. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Freeman. Anyone else wish to address the commission? Hello. My name is Jordan Vesconis. I'm a representative of the admin staff at Santa Cruz Metro. And I just wanted to come up here to tell every the public that this is a very common sense vote for constituents and voters. We have a lot to offer in this package. And this is the most critical time for Metro to show you what we can do. And we've already done so much work to prepare for this. And now that we're so close to the finish line to get started, we just need that final little push with that grant money. And with all the fun, exciting new products and features that we're adding to our service, I think the constituents would be extremely happy with how this goes, assuming this vote passes. Thank you. Mr. Vesconis, what else wish to address this here that's in the audience? Hello, good morning, board. It's good to see you all again. James Sandoval here, International Vice President of Smart Transportation Division, which is the union that represents all these operators. I just want to make it real quick. We have all the pieces to the puzzle to make it happen. Public transit's needed a lot of work for a long time. And we're just about there. So we need you all to help us get across that finish line. So thank you. Yeah. All right, seeing no one else. If you do wish to address this, if you could generally get in the area of podium so that you're ready to speak. Good morning, sir. Good morning, Chair Koenig and commissioners Jim Helmer, Ben Lomond. For years, California communities that have a state highway serving as their main street have been subject to posted speed limits much higher than those on neighboring local streets. That has been and still is the case in Ben Lomond, posted at 25 miles per hour up until the 1990s. The speed limit on state highway nine was raised to 30 after the traffic signal at Mill Street was installed. The reason speeds increased. And by statute, Caltrans had to raise the limit through a process called a engineering speed survey using radar. The law changed in October, 2021 when governor Newsom signed into law AB 43 titled quite clearly traffic safety bill. Caltrans without performing surveys and returned speed limit to 25 miles per hour as it is in Boulder Creek and Felton. Speeds are higher in Ben Lomond even with its sweeping S curves at each end of the business district where I might add both of the 30 mile per hour speed signs have been hit head on by air and drivers on multiple occasions. The law now reads, this is the law now. The prima facie speed limit of 25 miles per hour on state highways located in any business or residence district and would authorize the Department of Transportation Caltrans to change the speed limit on any such highway as prescribed including erecting signs to give notice thereof. Let's get proactive. Let's slow down the traffic on highway nine and I am in communications with Caltrans district five on this. Thank you, Mr. Helmer. If there's no one else here in the audience which to address us, is there anyone online? Harry. Mute. I have a presentation to that pop up and if not, I'll just have to speak without it. It did not. Okay, then I am going to talk about the futility of pursuing a trail next to the tracks. If you look at the design it has miles of retaining walls for the seven miles of actual new trail in sections eight through 11 that's from the boardwalk to State Park Drive. And when I say miles, we're talking about seven miles of trail and four miles of retaining walls. But first let me get to when a trail costs more than a freeway lane, something is very wrong. You need to know that it's costing 21 million per mile. That comes from the CPC. It costs more than double a highway freeway lane which is 10 to 12 million per mile. The smart rail trail up in Marin County is 2.7 million per mile and that's for 21 miles. And all it does is it depletes the fund for doing any trails beyond that. Now I'd like to get to the issue of global warming. The trail, the railroad keeping the tracks there requires the trail to be massive, it requires massive excavation, as I said, four miles of retaining walls, 15 feet into the hillside is where you excavate. So that leads to 22,000 tons of global warming CO2 that's equivalent to 160 car miles. It would take a train 28 years to run just to counter those seven miles of CO2. And knowing that there's much more of the three times of the trail that has similar difficult terrain, it'll be around 100 plus years to run a train to counter the CO2. That means considering that 2060 is the earliest for a commuter train according to the EIR for its segments nine, 10 and 11, that would put our commuter train having to run for until 2160, that's 140 years from now before we even start to reduce carbon. That defeats the 2050 zero emission 1.5 deadline of the Paris Agreement. And basically what I'm saying is it's reckless spending and it leads to global warming, even with a train. So you guys just need to give up on this pushing for something. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Pico. Johanna Lighthill. Good morning, commissioners. Thanks for considering comments this morning. It was just over 10 years ago when the RTC invited the public to workshops to share what they envisioned for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. I think you know how it went. Everybody wanted a wide safe trail separated from cars, kids could ride to school, beautiful path through nature, everything and more, of course, there was some excitement then. The master plan was created, but it was conceptual. And trail designs were to be developed over time on a segment by segment basis. And over the past 10 years, the community has been assured that both rail and trail will fit within the corridor. The public believed this last year when measure D was defeated. Why would anyone opt for just a trail when we can have both rail and trail? And this is still the understanding today. Today, I asked the commission to shift its focus away from the noise of the rail versus trail debate and evaluate on what type of trail is really possible. It's pretty different from the one envisioned. As you just heard from Dr. Pico, there are some significant environmental consequences, tree removal, retaining walls, et cetera. Yet despite these improvements, excuse me, yes, yet despite these improvements, even with the realignment of the tracks, we still can't get a trail wide enough that would provide a safe act of transportation through our community. Federal and state trail planning guides recommend wider paths for safety and explain that paths of the width of the ultimate trail on a path that with significant user conflict is to be expected. Even the rail concept report consultants have hinted about trouble ahead. Their proposal says that the trail might need to be redesigned and possibly reconstructed. So I hope that you'll take this into consideration in the next few months. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Ms. Lighthill. Brett Garrett. Good morning. I am Brett Garrett from Santa Cruz, a longtime advocate for personal rapid transit, PRT. Last week, I attended the Podcar City Conference in San Jose, all about PRT and similar technologies. The mayor of San Jose talked about the PRT system that is coming soon to connect Deeradon Station to the airport in San Jose. Contra Costa County is also making great progress toward its own 28 mile PRT system. And I got to sit in an actual PRT Podcar in San Jose, all of which renewed my commitment to do what I can to help Santa Cruz County make the best possible decisions regarding transit options from Watsonville to Santa Cruz. We can and should do better than conventional rail. One problem with rail is that it's constrained to only the rail corridor. I keep hearing that half of the population in the county is within one mile of the corridor, but that statement needs more context. How many are within one mile walking distance? How many are within a quarter mile walking distance? How will conventional rail serve Cabrio College or downtown Santa Cruz when it takes 15 minutes to walk from these destinations to the rail corridor? PRT could bridge that gap by serving beyond the rail corridor with direct on-demand efficient transportation. And even if the system is restricted to the railroad corridor, PRT can still leave the tracks in place and work better than a conventional train because PRT provides on-demand nonstop service. I am very grateful that Metro is planning free service with 15 minute intervals. That's a big improvement. And conventional rail probably cannot do that here, but PRT could actually do better with on-demand service that gets you to your destination faster. The TCAA gave very misleading results with respect to PRT. I suggest doing what San Jose did, issuing an RFP or RFI for innovative solutions saying, here's what we need, here's what we can pay. They got realistic information and it looks like they're building it. We can do the same here. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Mr. Michael St. Good morning, Chair Koenig, commissioners Michael St. with CFST and Aptos resident. I too attended the Potcar conference with Brett, Garrett Joe Jordan and my wife Elizabeth for this was for me an exploratory venture into another mass transportation possibility for Santa Cruz County. My goal was to learn about costs, funding and actually what this Podcar system could do in regards to passenger movement on an hourly basis and its ability to relieve congestion on highway one. One thing I thought was cool about Podcar or PRT system is passengers have no need to know what the schedule is, what line to catch or transfers to make. You just need to know your destination. This would be easy for our citizens to do especially for the elderly people, this would work very well. The cost to build widely varied from 10 million a mile to 50 million a mile depending on topography of the corridor, land use issues and jurisdictions involved and Podcar size. The funding issues seem to have been solved by the use of a three-piece scenario which means public, private participation with investors taking most of the risk with hopes that they will get a return on their investment. No grant money is required. But it would be beneficial if some grants could happen and they did mention the Justice 40 initiative for disadvantaged communities as a possibility. The thing that I most enthused about was the PRT Podcar system is that the cost of operation and maintenance of the system is covered by the fare box and investors may see a 5% plus rate return on their investment. Meaning no tax measures after system up and running or looking for subsidies to keep the system viable and running for years. It sounds almost too good to be true. The PR system can be up and running in five years. The CEO of Glideways said the Deirdre and DeSantis A airport project will be running in 2028. Thank you for your time and allowing me to speak. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. St. Zen Sawyer. Good morning, Chair Koenig and the board. Thank you for allowing me the time to speak today. My name is Zen Sawyer. I'm the president of Zen Development. We're an affordable housing developer. And I'm partnered with Link Housing who's one of the larger nonprofit affording affordable developers in the state. They have about 9,000 units statewide. And we're working on a site of which we have site control at 41st and Soquel. It's a two and a half acre site. It's what I would describe as a marquee development. So we're looking at about 150 units on the site. And there's one time funding out there right now from the state called CDBGDR for disaster recovery that's a result of the 2020 fires in Santa Cruz. The county has $40 million available to reconstruct affordable housing. And if we don't use that, then it's gonna go into a statewide pool and the county is gonna lose that opportunity. Otherwise the county does not have a lot of funds to build affordable housing. And how this relates to the discussion this morning is that my understanding is there's going to be a vote on whether to fully fund phase two of the re-imagined metro operating funds to increase services to about 15 minutes peak headway on the bus lines along Soquel. And in order for us to get the density we need to develop this site, we really need that phase two to be funded in order for us to qualify for increased density so that a transit stop there can qualify as a major transit stop with 15 minute peak headway of two lines or more. That's what's gonna allow us to get to 150 units and bring about $120 million total development costs project to the local economy. So I'd like you to consider that in your decision this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sawyer. Mr. Brian Peoples. Hi, this is Brian Peoples with TrailNatal. First, I wanna thank Dr. Kerry Pico for his outstanding work to continue to educate us about the cost of building this elevated trail next to the tracks and the environmental destruction that will occur when you do that. And when you're building a 12 foot wide trail that costs three times as much as widening Highway 1, we know we have a problem. I also like to thank Brett and Michael, saying about talking about a realistic alternatives rubber wheels on asphalt. That's what that PRT is all about. And so for our community to continue with this plan to build an expensive substandard trail next to the tracks, when we've been educated by former RTC Executive Director Guy Preston that the fastest way to build the trail, the most eco-friendly way to build the trail and is to rail bank, pull the rails, recycle those rails and ties and build a trail. Now, this two weeks ago, there was another accident on Harbor Bridge, Murray Street. And this accident should not have occurred. There have been a lot of deaths and injuries. And if the trail had existed as proposed by Guy Preston years ago, we won't be having these accidents. So we're asking you to please prioritize opening the coastal trail as a transportation resource, which means rail banking that corridor. It's very critical for our community and we need to stop people getting injured. Harbor Bridge is a very dangerous pass and we can open that corridor today if we move forward with rail banking. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Lowell Horst. Good morning, commissioners. And I'm glad to see our South County folks could make it up to Scott's Valley today. You know, that can be quite a slog. It's pretty congested at times. So I'll make my comments very brief today. I think that, you know, as a South County resident, I just want to support Metro all I can. I see the need with the elderly, with young folks that can't drive and those that can't drive at all. I also want to support the trail. There's lots of people who want to use a trail and lots of access that needs to be opened up along the trail. But let's also not forget about the importance of rail and the possibilities of rail. So while you're doing the freeway, and I think the freeway is really important and the county roads and all, let's support Metro, the trail, the rail and the freeway and the roads. And hey, let's get us moving, okay? That's it for me. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Hurst. Jean Brocklebank. Good morning, commissioners. I hope, well, you are all aware of that horrific crash on the Murray Street Bridge about 10 days ago. We're in an unconscious drunk driver plowed into a couple, a husband and wife, who were walking on the narrow bridge sidewalk, striking the wife and resulting in the husband throwing himself into what he thought would be harbor water, but landed instead on a concrete abutment. Both sustained serious injuries. My husband and I walk across the Murray Street Bridge at least two or three times a week. And we were concerned that people might have thought that we were that husband and wife because they see us walking a lot. I'm asking that the RTC seriously consider prioritizing the building of the segment nine optional first phase of the ultimate trail on the train trestle over the harbor as soon as possible before any other segment nine construction. I'm asking the RTC to agendize this for its January meeting. So you may discuss this and vote on it. We always walk defensively because we see vehicles speeding across the bridge, drivers cutting into the bike lanes, driving distracted by their cell phones and their impatience. Please do whatever the RTC may be able to do to prioritize converting the rail trestle for an interim trail only and prioritize doing that. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Brocklebank. Jack Nelson. Yes, good morning commissioners and staff and members of the public. I'm Jack Nelson. I'm a retired land use planner and environmental planner. And I first learned about the functioning of earth. I'll call them natural systems that operate around our wonderful globe that we live on. When I was an environmental studies student in the late 1980s at UC Santa Cruz this morning, I have an email from somebody on a climate news email list I'm on pointing out a new study that was published by the European Geosciences Union in their publication Earth System Dynamics where they're working on models of our future climate outcomes based on Earth's natural systems, especially looking at glacial and interglacial cycles. This study concludes that just the greenhouse gases that humanity has put into the atmosphere so far have the potential to leave the northern hemisphere ice free for hundreds of thousands of years into the future. That's the direction we're heading. We are changing Earth's climate not just till something like the end of the century which is often discussed but essentially for human conception forever. So how does that relate to the RTC? Well, you make decisions about whether we're going to keep driving fossil fuel burning cars as our dominant system of transportation or whether we're going to have more alternatives. I'm asking you of course to feed the alternatives and help us have a better future than what this study suggests could happen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. And our last speaker, Barry Scott. Good morning commissioners and thank you Chair Koenig for permitting us to speak if we need to do an item on the agenda. I wanted to first thank Mayor Hurst and James Sandoval for their comments, the agenda item later today staff, their revised staff recommendation for expenditures. It makes me very happy to see Metro get practically all the funding they need to really launch their robust improvements is just so exciting. I'm grateful for the restoration of $2 million in funding toward the rail transit concept study which I understand already has close to $10 million in funding and still has a about a $16 million need and I'm not too worried about that. I want to share something that came out of TAMC's meeting yesterday. They made a commitment to take their SB 125 funds and split them evenly between the MST, their bus transit and TAMC's rail programs to the tune of a little more than 25 million each. And so with the funding of Metro this cycle, I look forward to robust funding to match TAMC's effort next this coming here and in future years because we are a region after all. Finally, 2060 was cited by an earlier commenter as the year that rail would begin. No, that is the year if we do an interim trail, the rail project would be put off until 2060. So the details are very important. So anyway, I thank you. Have a great day. Good bye. Thank you, Mr. Scott. We do not have any other speakers. Mr. McPherson. I would just like to say while our drivers and much of our staff are here that I really want to say thank you. I think I know our whole board does for your acceptance and enthusiasm to implementing our 15 minute headway. This is the most ambitious program that we've had in Metro in my 11 years, this board. So I thank you for your support. I know you're enthused about it. We're going to give better service for people in Atticus County. Thank you for your support. Here. All right, well, let's proceed so that we can get to our presentation from Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District, Item 24 in the public hearing at 945. So now we'll proceed with the consent agenda. Any commissioner have comments or questions on the consent agenda? Being none. Any public comment on the consent agenda? All right, then I'll return to the commission for action. Second. Question by commissioner Schifrin, second by commissioner Montecino. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That motion passes unanimously. We will now proceed with Item 20, commissioner reports. Commissioner have anything you'd like to share? I would. Oh, okay. Mr. Johnson. Just on behalf of the city of Scotts Valley, our city council, just want to welcome everybody to our great city. As you can tell, a lot has been happening over the years. I think from where we were 10 or 15 years ago to where we are now, pleased with things that are going on and benefits that the RTC has given Scotts Valley. So again, I just wanted to welcome it. Mr. Johnson. All right, seeing no other commissioner, I'll proceed with item 21, which is the selection of chair for the year 2024. I will report that the chair selection committee consisting of myself, commissioner Sandy Brown, McPherson and Mike Rotkin did meet and voted unanimously to nominate our current chair, our current vice chair, Kristen Brown to be our chair for next year. Yeah, two more years. And for commissioner Felipe Hernandez to be our new vice chair. So, all right, we have a motion from commissioner Schiff and second from commissioner Peggler. Is there any public comment on this item? All right, seeing none. I'll turn to the motion on the floor. This was, I raised my hand. Oh, Mr. Peoples, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. I'm trying people's trail now, you know, I first got involved with this organization over 25 years ago. Trail now was formed over a decade ago. And the reason was because we believe in transportation because it makes our community better. We actually were a political action committee supporting 2016 measure D and we all know what a phenomenal activity. Mr. Peoples, I hope there's something regarding our chair selection in your comment. Yeah, yes, I do. Thank you. I'll shorten it. In the item number 21, you see our comments about the importance of this chair position and the importance that this chair person supports active transportation in opening the coastal corridor as fast as possible. Our expectation is that the capital address will would be open and that that chair person would support that. So we're hopeful that we continue to go down that pathway because it makes sense. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. All right, I'll return to the, you have one more comment from Michael St. Michael St. Mr. St, did you go around chair selection? Thank you, Chair Koenig commissioners. I just wanted to congratulate person as well as fleet they on those positions. I think they'll do a wonderful job. They've been around for a long time and have quite a bit of experience and experiences on board situations. And especially like to thank Manu Koenig. I think you did a wonderful and a very good job this year as chair. It was not really surprising. I knew you when you were an advocate and worked for Greenway. Although I don't agree with a lot of those views. You were also very professional in that manner as well. So thank you all your hard work this year. But it really looked like you made a big effort and did a great job. Thank you. Mr. St. If there's no other comments, I'll turn it to, oh, yes. Manu, I just kind of want to echo that. I don't think anybody does runs a better meeting than Manu, he's professional, prepared. I just want to thank you for a year's worth of solid meeting. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Hernandez. I'd like to also echo some of those comments. I think that you represent a board and you chair a board. I think what you've done is incredible that you've just managed to stay fair and neutral on all sides. So thank you for your professional courtesies, your professional mannerism in running this board, the RTC board. Thank you. Thank you very much. Confident that both of you will serve as excellent chair and vice chair in the coming year. All right, if there's no other comments, will we have a motion for our 2024 chair to be commissioner, Kristen Brown, and our vice chair to be commissioner, Felipe Hernandez. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? That passes unanimously. I look forward to handing you the gavel in 2024. All right, we'll proceed with the director's report. Mr. Luis Mendez, our interim executive director. Yes, morning, Mr. Chair and commissioners. First of all, I say thank you very much, Chair Koenig, for your great service to the Transportation Commission as chair during this 2023 year. You know that you're all commissioners are very busy with a variety of various tasks and boards you serve on and so on. So having you dedicate your time to also serve and the Transportation Commission is extremely helpful to the work that you do and to do it such a professional way, it's great. Thank you very much for your work. Also, I want to congratulate commissioner Brown. We all on staff look forward to working with you as a new chair and also commissioner Hernandez. I also look forward to working with you as our new vice chair. I'm sure you both will do great work. I also want to provide a bit of information on what's happening on the construction on Highway 1 Caltrans did send out press release and forming everyone that there will be overnight closures on Highway 1 at 41st Avenue on December 11th and 12th and that closure will last from 10 p.m. to 4 30 a.m. And it will be necessary to construct the working platform from which the new bicycle and pedestrian bridge at Shanticlea Avenue will be constructed. One lane in the southbound direction may also be closed from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. They will be a detour to Soquel Drive during the closure. And as always, our RTC staff, Caltrans and all of us encourage motorists and advise motorists to be extra alert and drive extra cautiously through the work zone. Also on Tuesday, December 5th, the RTC hosted an open house to receive community input on aesthetic design elements for the Highway 1 auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder project from State Park right to Freedom Boulevard, along with the segment 12 of the Coastal Rail Trail Project. This project does contain a number of highway and rail trail infrastructure assets that are being considered for aesthetic elements. Approximately 70 people attended the open house and provided their input on the proposed aesthetic treatments. And we appreciate everyone for their attendance. For those who were not able to attend the open house, there's still an opportunity to provide input on the aesthetic design elements for the project. The RTC has released a video presentation that details the aesthetic elements being considered in an online survey for community members to provide their input. Links to the video presentation and online survey are on the RTC's website and the survey will be available through the end of December. And also news from California Transportation Commission, Senate Bill SB 1, Psycho 4 grant process will be kicked off on December 14th with the workshop on the guidelines that the CTC has announced. If you recall in 2022, the RTC submitted an application for auxiliary lanes and bus and shoulder on Highway 1 between State Park Drive and Freedom Boulevard along with segment 12 of the coastal rail trail. It also included bicycle, pedestrian, signal and transit improvements on Soquel Drive, transit improvements in Watsonville and electric bus purchases. The application was highly ranked but did not receive funding because the environmental document with the auxiliary lanes project was not yet completed. The environmental document will be completed by the time the applications are due. So staff does plan to submit the application again and staff will be participating at that kickoff workshop on December 14th to make sure that your staff is adequately prepared to submit the most competitive application possible for that project. And you may recall that staff has also been working with the U.S. Department of Transportation Thriving Communities cohort and stakeholders who have joined the Transportation Equity Workgroup to develop a Transportation Equity Action Plan for the RTC. The Transportation Equity Action Plan is funded by a Caltrans and U.S. Department of Transportation Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant. The work includes an equity focused analysis of the existing and planned transportation network and a public outreach toolkit that can be used by the RTC and its partners to more proactively engage and collaborate with equity priority communities. The Equity Workgroup held its first meeting on November 27th. The workgroup includes individuals and representatives of groups that have been historically and or systematically marginalized due to race, income, ability, sexuality or gender identity, immigration status or limited English proficiency. And we appreciate the time that those who applied for the workgroup are putting into that effort. It's very important work that will help to improve how we do transportation in Santa Cruz County. Also our free resources patrol program. I know we don't say much about that service. We have, we partnered with the tow truck company and they're out there on highways one and part of highway one and highway 17 helping motorists to get stranded and working with the California Highway Patrol to make sure that they clear any incidents to keep the traffic moving. And typically between the Christmas and New Year's holiday there's very little activity for them. So they've asked us if they could just not have service during that week so that their drivers can get some time off. And we've done that in the past couple of years and there's been no activity. So that will happen again this year. There will be no FSP service between Christmas and New Year. And also has been the case for a number of years. The RTC office will be closed between December 2023 to January 1st, 2024. Then we'll reopen on January 2nd, 2020. That concludes my record report. Thank you very much, Director Mendez. Their comments or questions from commissioners. They're different. Steve, the couple of public comments regarding the dangers on the Mercy Bridge and the importance of having a rail trail or trail that would allow people to stay off that bridge. And there was information, which I think is misinformation that somehow by going through a rail banking process it would be possible to have that happen right away. I don't think that's the case, but I think it would be helpful maybe to the public get an update on what's happening with rail trail segments eight and nine, which have been approved going from Santa Cruz Wharf to 17th Street, and which we'll be providing an alternative to the sidewalks on the Mercy Bridge. So could you kind of give an update on what the status of that project is? Certainly. Grace Blakesley, senior transportation planner of your staff has been leading that effort at the RTC and she will provide some information on that. Sleevee, of your staff. The Regional Transportation Commission is working closely with the city of Santa Cruz to implement that project. And I see Nathan and Claire who have been taking the lead on that over the last year sitting here in the audience. Right now they are working through their final design and permitting phase of the project and then we'll be looking to go to construction in spring 2025. Thank you. Grace, before you leave, could you say that you give any estimate of the amount of time that would make if the commission abandoned this project and started on a project that would require the removal of the tracks for a interim trail? Well, the environmental phase of that project is complete and the commission's action did allow for the RTC to go forward to approve a project for the ultimate trail configuration or the interim trail. The work that would need to be redone is moving from the schematic plans into final design. So right now they've advanced from 30 to 60% design for the ultimate trail configuration and that would need to be redone for an interim trail design. Does the commission have the legal right to remove the tracks at this time? As discussed at your last meeting, rail banking would need to occur to be able to move forward with the interim trail option. And that requires what? I could, I'd like, yeah. So you are a correct commissioner, a friend of the commission does not have the legal right at the moment to remove the tracks. The commission would have to go to do a abandonment and rail banking process before that could potentially happen, which could be, we do, of course, hear from our legal counsel who RTC has hired to let us know about how rail banking might work, that it could be a process that, you know, not take a very long time, maybe a year to 18 months, but if it is an adverse abandonment and rail banking process, it could take longer if there are, you know, significant, there's significant opposition to the commission doing that. So it's, the timing could be uncertain. Well, and let me just remind commissioners and for those in the public who don't know that there will be significant opposition and I wanna know that from Brown Camp Railroad. We know that from the failure of measure D in the last election where that failed overwhelmingly to approve a project that would have required removal of the tracks. So I think not only does the public has the public express concern about removing the tracks, but it is not something that would happen immediately, which is what some of the testimony is. And in fact, it would at best, and it won't be at best, it will be a big fight. It would be long after the implementation of the currently approved segment eight and nine rail. Thank you, commissioner Schifrin. Any other questions for our executive director? All right, being done. This is a non-action item. Thank you very much. I will proceed with the CalTrans report. Morning, chair, commissioners, Brandi Ryder. I'm the deputy district director for transportation planning and local assistance in CalTrans district five. Just one announcement. We have a community meeting for the Mission Street Pavement Project in Santa Cruz. That is tonight, December 7th, from 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at the police community room, which is located at 155 center street in Santa Cruz. This meeting will highlight the scope of the project and discuss the findings of the environmental document developed for the project. A flyer for the meeting is located in the full agenda packet and has been sent out via press releases by both CalTrans and RTC. I am available to answer any questions of the board should you have any. Ryder, are there comments or questions from commissioners? Commissioner Schifrin? Yes, I have a concern and I've been in contact with CalTrans. This has to do with the segment five project, a rail trail project from Wilder Ranch to Davenport, which has been fully funded and is ready to go out to bid. It's being run by a federal agency from Flapp Grant. It's playing all the major share. There's a local share, but the federal agency has been spearheading this project. It's been going on for several years. It's complicated. It's been six or seven miles and we have been very lucky and successful in getting it fully funded. All of the RTC staff, the federal staff has been working with CalTrans throughout this process. And as of last August, all of the concerns had been addressed. We're expecting that the project would be go out to bid in October at the latest. That's the last minute after CalTrans had all of their comments submitted on the project in terms of project needs and encroachment permit from CalTrans. All of concerns had been stated, all the concerns had been addressed, and then suddenly there were a bunch of new concerns. And what that has meant is that these concerns do not seem to be really significant, although it's unclear what they are, but the CalTrans representative who I heard from said they were unexpected, they will last minute, and they've held up the project. The federal agency is working to resolve those, but in fact, what it's meant that instead of going out to bid, at best everything goes smoothly. Maybe it would be possible to go out to bid in December, probably given that the holidays are coming up, we're going out, it will be necessary to wait until January, if not later, get through these last CalTrans problems. And it just seems to me that it's not, it's just very, very disappointing that a partner that the commission has worked very closely with, that the federal agency has worked very closely with, would wait until the absolute last minute to throw a roadblock in the ability of move this project forward. I would really urge the CalTrans to consider this. It's not a role that I think is a desirable one for CalTrans, issue that permit, let them go out to bid, and if there are concerns that need to be done, they can be dealt with later, because they don't, you know, there's been three years to work out all these problems. So, of course, keep going up, construction gets delayed, you get constant complaints about why trails aren't being built, and it's unfortunate that CalTrans is playing a role makes this not happen in an expeditious fashion. So I would definitely appreciate CalTrans' help on this. I've contacted directly, the studies directly, and I urge you to work with them to try to expedite this process, get this project out to bid so we can start to see progress on. Thank you. Great, and, you know, just to follow up on your comments, we have been working pretty closely with FHWA, the federal agency that's carrying this forward. We did, this is in specifically regards to some safety concerns and the encroachment permit. And so we're addressing those concerns with FHWA. We did give them the option of doing a conditional use permit to allow them to continue to move forward. And after discussing the changes, they would actually prefer to go ahead and delay the permit and include those in the mapping that they have. It's a short delay as outlined by Madeline, our project manager on this project. However, it will be incorporated into the design. They would like to get the permit without conditional use. So we are working through that. And we are expediting that process with our team internally. I understand that, but could I ask why it took the Caltrans after verifying that all their concerns had been met to come up with these new concerns? That's what's surprising to me. I mean, the project hasn't changed. It's the plans have been going through the process and there were three years of opportunity to identify these concerns. So it's very unclear to me why at the last minute, Caltrans staff ended up coming up with brand new concerns that now have to be addressed. It may be reasonable, but why wait until after all their concerns was supposedly taken into consideration? Yeah, as you know, we're a large organization and in this particular situation, there was an oversight internally to address the concerns. And so that was something we do apologize for. It was our traffic safety group was trying to work through the final comments and those comments were overlooked. And so it was an unfortunate delay and we're doing everything we can to amend that with the federal agency. Well, I would certainly appreciate anything that can be done to expedite that process. Thank you. No problem. Thank you for the discussion. Are there other comments? There are questions. Yeah, I just, I would like, I don't know if this is the right place to do it, but I would like this, our staff to address the Caltrans issue of 25 miles per hour in Penelope. This is a serious problem. I just wanted to see if the communication with Caltrans who has been very cooperative most everything I've been in all with. So I would like to see what it would take to reduce that speed limit to 25. And remember to use the correct microphone. Yes, Commissioner McPherson, we will work with Caltrans on how that process could potentially take. Thank you. All right, so you know other comments. Thank you very much for the report, Ms. Ryder. We have comments in the public. All right, we'll take some public comments now. Mr. Brian Peoples. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now just to give a little more background on the North Coast Rail Trail. You know, we worked with the North Coast farmers advocating that those old railroad tracks, the trail be put there. And so what you're seeing now is exactly what's going to happen on the other trail. A lot of private property disputes that are going to occur. And that's why it's taken so long. A lot of people might not know this, but on the North Coast Trail, they only have a temporary permit for the trail. The California Coastal Commission would not give a permanent trail because you were building it next to the tracks. So the North Coast Trail is a great example of the barriers we're going to see with the unconventional approach of building an expensive trail next to the tracks. It's very common to build the trail with the removal of the tracks. And the idea that Roaring Camp, the private company is trying to stop us from using it is outrageous and it's outrageous that we support that. So I just want to give you a little more context. The delay on the North Coast has been a decade long and it's because you've been building the trail next to the tracks, destroying farmland. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peebles. Mr. Michael Sate. Yes, thank you everyone. I have a question for Caltrans or whoever else may be able to answer it. And I appreciate Commissioner Schifrin's comments as well. I went to page 23.8 on the report of what Caltrans costs. My concern is the cost of these things. I believe even on the beginning of your agenda you had something about how they reported that costs have increased 54% from 2.8 billion in 2020, fourth quarter of 2020. And just this last year costs of doing highway projects has gone up 15.5% from last year. I mean, if that happened at my home or if anybody's business did that, they'd be bankrupt. I went through and did the numbers a little bit and you can correct me if these are wrong. Freedom to State Park was estimated at 221 million, 41st to Soquel, 35.2 million. State Park to Bay Porter, 94.1 million costs. So total of $351.4 million. And that's not even, that's today's dollars. I mean, you've got another four or five years of getting this all done. And by that time, you could be close to a half a billion dollars. So my question is how much of this does Santa Cruz County have to absorb and where's the money coming from? I mean, is State of California just gonna absorb it all and increase the costs or the awards that they've given you? And that's pretty much my concern. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Mr. State. Mr. Lowell Horst. Thank you very much. And I want to say kudos to Ms. Ryder and the Caltrans crew for always paying a lot of attention to South County. We're right at the intersection. We're at the crossroads of 152, 129 and Highway 1, three major state highways and Highway 152 Main Street in the city of Watsonville. There's recently been another fatality of pedestrian fatality there on the highway, on Main Street. And so whatever we can do to be good partners with Caltrans municipally and regionally, I think that Caltrans wants to hear from the constituents of the community and try and expedite safety as well as congestion management. So I just wanted to give a shout out to Caltrans and Ms. Ryder for their focus on South County. Thank you very much. Mr. Horst. And the last speaker, Brett Garrett. I found the unmute button. I just want to say very quickly, I did some very quick research and it looks like there are solutions for putting a reasonable walking surface between the tracks as kind of a temporary solution. I don't know about rights of way and how it works legally, but it just seems like for some of the unsafe places where people are, it just seems like people could, you could have a temporary walking path pretty easily. Just something to think about. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. All right, on action item, we appreciate the public comment and discussion. Thank you very much, Ms. Ryder. We do have a public hearing at 9.45 a.m. or I should say no later than 9.45 a.m. And I do believe that item 24 to the presentation from Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District does dovetail nicely with this item. So I'm still gonna take item 24 first. After all, in item 25, more than half of the money being considered for award is recommended for Santa Cruz Metro. So I think it's important that we get the update from Metro and understand what the plans are there. So I'd like to welcome up our Metro CEO, Michael Tree. You hear me okay? Yes, it's that microphone is a little touchy, but we got it. All right, I'll keep my hands off of it. It's, you know, it's great to be here today and I recognize lots of commissioners here at the RTC who serve on the Metro Board. And I'm excited to talk about what's going on at Metro. We have been working literally day and night over the last couple of years to put together what we think will be the most transformational change to happen at Metro and its history. And this upcoming vote that you have on the agenda certainly is the key to providing that transformational change in the very near future. So if we could go to the next slide, I'd be happy to talk about the three goals at Metro. I just wanna really briefly review what our board is intently focused on. We met at a all day workshop and we talked about let's just narrow this down to three things that we can really do better than anyone else in the industry. I mean, the vision of Santa Cruz Metro is to be a world-class transit system and an example to the other transit systems around the nation and even in North America as to a progressive world-class system. So the board's pretty ambitious. Their first goal was to double the ridership in five years and that would get the ridership to seven million rides a year, which is the highest that it's the highest ridership that Metro has seen in its history. So within five years by 2028 get that number up in over seven million. And the second goal was when purchasing new buses, we only wanted to buy buses that didn't have tailpipes, meaning there'd be battery electric buses or hydrogen buses. And here at the local level where those buses run, there would be no air pollution coming from them. And then the third was Metro recognizes it has property at transit centers and other property. And the board set a goal to develop 175 affordable housing units on Metro and the property by the end of the decade. And so I'll briefly go through points two and three a little bit later, but let's jump right into what's most important at Metro and that's serving the public with great connectivity. And so we could go to the next slide. Yesenia, that'd be perfect. So you can see what COVID did to the ridership most recently in Santa Cruz County to double the ridership is an equally profound graph change in the ridership. This is what that graph would look like for us to reach our goal by 2028. And so you can see the ambition that's built into what we're about to show you and go to the next slide. So this is the existing Santa Cruz Metro service. And there's some good and bad on this map. The good is that there's quite a bit of service there. The bad is it's complicated and it has just blue on it. And in the transit world, dark blue is good. That's 30 minutes service, meaning a bus will come to a bus stop every 30 minutes. Light blue is one hour service. So in transit space, you would call this a mediocre bus system, a bus system that's really built for those who have no other options in their transportation. And it's also complicated. I mean, if I were to hand this map to someone in Watsonville and say, show me how you would get from point A to point B, it would be a blank stare. It looks like spaghetti thrown on a map. And so over the years, this is what happens when a transit agency is having public comment and reacting to public comment, you begin to have a system that's complex. And because it's complex, you begin to introduce lots of coverage in different areas which takes down the ability to run a fast, frequent and reliable public transportation service. So if you remember nothing else about my presentation today, you know that if you want a world-class transit system, it needs to be simple. It needs to be fast, frequent and reliable. That's what really jumps the ridership and allows people to feel freedom with their transportation and basically use it as a livable transportation option. So what you don't see on the map that you would definitely see in a world-class transit system is red. And red's usually a color of caution, but in the transit world, red means 15-minute service. And for a real livable system, it's 15-minute all-day service. And so this is what the planning has resulted in in creating a world-class transit system for Santa Cruz County. You see lots of red, which is 15-minute all-day service. You see straightening of routes. And I'm excited to even do some additional adjustments as we move forward in our pilot project. But what's exciting about this is that I'll just give you a couple of examples. If you're living in Capitola and you wanna ride to the down-count area of Santa Cruz or to the University of Santa Cruz, that will now be a one-seat ride, meaning you'll get on the bus and you won't get off the bus until you're at your destination, wherever that may be as you're traveling. As I mentioned, it's 15-minute all-day service. And what's really exciting about this is that every single intersection that you see that has a red line going through it, but we're planning transit signal priority with the public works departments, but whatever jurisdiction that intersection may be in. And so with the transit signal priority, every single trip can save up to nine minutes by not waiting at intersections. The technology borrows a few seconds and extends a green light to allow a bus through, or perhaps advances a red light into a green light to get a bus through as it's approaching. So it's imperceivable to the public, but has a lot of time savings. And that time savings in a ridership modeling application generates a half a million rides per year just with that transit signal priority. And of course, you're probably thinking, well, what does this new metro with wave service, which is what we're calling the 15-minute all-day service, because just like waves in Santa Cruz County, it comes often and it's a powerful way for residents to start enjoying their metro service. But what does a ridership modeling show with a service like this? Well, the ridership modeling shows that you will surpass seven million rides during your pilot project, but we're also unveiling some new announcements in the near future. And if you invite me back in December of 26, I promise you that this service here will be upwards of eight and a half million rides per year, which is over a million rides per year than you have ever carried in the history of Santa Cruz Metro. So there's excitement here. I'll just say a few more things before we move on. This new wave service, it necessitates 64 new employees and you have 30 of them here today who are in training, getting ready to introduce your new wave service in the summer of 2024. And that economic impact of those 64 new jobs is more than $32 million to the regional economy. Couple of other bullet points here that I think are really important. Over a hundred thousand residents will have access to wave service, that 15 minute all day service within a five minute walk. And that's what you want. Lots of people with the ability to very quickly enjoy premium service. And as mentioned, the ridership, the conservative of this is a ridership would increase seven million rides per year during the pilot project. And I think you're gonna be eight and a half million when I come back and we talk about this at the end of the pilot project in December of 26. They have one other page of benefits. The VMT reduction through the ridership increases is right around 9.9 million rides per year. Your emission savings is 40,000 metric tons a year. And the last two were probably just as important as anything else, it's equitable. When the wave service is introduced, it's gonna provide great transportation options for everyone, no matter your economic status, no matter your race, this is gonna be a transportation for everyone. And then finally, with quality transportation service, which is multiple routes serving an area with 15 minute all day service, you now have access to a lot more competitive access to state and federal funding so that you can put your housing where the quality transportation is. And so those of you who sit on city councils and on county commissions, your arena numbers are important, you wanna plan that carefully. And the beauty of the new wave service is it really begs put your housing here and give people an opportunity to have great transportation right outside their front door and be able to have those host of benefits. So I think I just wanted to remind you what the wave service looks like and moving on to the next slide, I just wanted to make sure you're aware of some really fantastic things going on at Metro. And what's really beautiful here about this picture is there's not smog in this picture and that's the way we wanna keep it. The board has worked really hard to put together a portfolio of nine funding sources to recently buy 57 zero emission hydrogen buses. And to compliment that, we have the one right at a time program which allows residents when they ride Metro for every 25 times they ride Metro, $10 is contributed to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the Bay of Life to work on really incredible projects. And you can see as we just flashed through the next couple of slides, the great work by Franz Launting and other select artists who have donated their work to put on Metro buses to highlight the program and highlight really the beauty of the Monterey Bay through your Metro bus system. And so rounding up my presentation, I just wanted to bring you up to speed on where are we with 175 housing units to be planned and built by the end of the decade. This of course is the Pacific Center North project. It's at the on the Santa Cruz property in downtown Santa Cruz. And we have fantastic partners with that the city. Obviously they have taken the lead on this project. We'll be breaking ground as early as February of 2024 for 120 affordable housing units on an adjacent to the Metro property. So that's an exciting project where we're really revamp how Metro functions in the downtown area and have a really standout housing project that's right where it needs to be. And then finally on the next slide is the Watsonville Transit Center. We're going to completely redevelop that property as well. There'll be approximately 70 affordable housing units on the property. And recently the state gave that project seven and a half million dollars and ambag $2 million. And with our partner midpen and bonding opportunities that project is going to basically have a shovel in the ground in the near future as well. And so just my final slide is just bringing to you again some excitement for Metro and where we're going. I'm excited to watch you have the opportunity today to put the icing on the cake for the Metro service called the wave service without the dollar amount that you see in your staff report that won't go and that will be postponed. And I just want you to know we are ready. I think Brandon, our union chair at SMART said at best we have been working towards this for 18 months and we will be ready to go in the summer of 2024 with the wave service. And it's just, there aren't very many communities in the entire world right now who are making advances the way Metro is. So I'm excited to be a part of that. There's absolutely no doubt the greatest asset at Metro is its employees. And I didn't ask anybody to come today but everyone is interested in what's before you because they know it's transformational for everyone. And with that, I'll end my presentation. Thank you very much, CEO Tree. Are there comments or questions from commissioners? Johnson. I had one. Thank you. Thank you for that information. So we have our city council has a representative Metro on a land. And just recently one of her reports said that Metro had had or will be not collecting fairs anymore. And I was kind of dumbfounded because I kept hearing about the shortages of money. I said, I asked her, what kind of business when they're in financial, have financial issues like obviously you're telling us you do stops collecting money from us? Would you give me a rationale why Metro feels like and not really just giving free passes to people that need it, but each and everybody regardless of their economic status. It's a great question and two things go through my mind. With public transit, we really view it as a public utility for the people. It's something that is important to the community to have a balanced transportation. It's something that's important to the community from an equity perspective. It's something important to the community from an environmental perspective and so on. And so it's worthy of having a great transportation system in your community. The fact of the matter is in a transportation system the way it's set up in public transit is that usually local, state and federal resources to have a great transportation pay for about eight or $9 out of every $10 that it takes for the system. In other words, about a dollar is $1 out of 10 or maybe it's $2 out of 10. If you're looking at kind of a general look from the fare box go to maintain $10 of the system cost or 20% is paid for by the fare box. And that's probably on a really high functioning system. So you take the people, many of the people who ride public transit are doing so because they're very limited in options. And so you take the very most economically challenged residents that you have and then you charge them cash every time they walk on a bus. I have a hard time in my career fathoming that with so much of the bus system already paid for that you couldn't reach and a totally new efficiency level with the bus system and a totally new level of equity in your community by going fare free. So that's one consideration in going fare free. The other one's a pretty simple answer and that is because we've got a grant for it. And so we have LC top funding that we have pitched to the state to be able to take the project fare free during the pilot project. And so those are the two answers that I'd give you as far as a reason for fare free. I was the general manager in Missoula, Montana which is a real transit town. You wouldn't think that there'd be a transit town in Montana, but it has the University of Montana in the community. We took the system fare free and the ridership increased 70% on the system. And that includes professors going to the university, business professionals going downtown and students and those who needed that transit system most. So it just shows you your efficiency level of what happens with people loving that system when there are no barriers to enter a bus system. No, I understand. I guess the counter is that economically challenged people that have a car. There are a lot of poor people that have a car that have to pay for their gas. They also never get a pass on the registration fees. I mean, if they own a car, they have to pay registration and Caltrans would agree to that. You know, I owe a lot to transit. My mom was, she passed away at 97, lived in Watsonville and she had a habit even at 90 some years old jumping on a bus and going to Kmart because the medications were free or not free, but that's expensive. And, you know, the kind is shown by the drivers there or her because she was legally blind. Mom stopped doing this, right? And then there was also paratransit. You know, for the longest time we would have to, they lived in Watsonville. It was 23 miles one way. So if they wanted to come for a Sunday dinner, which they did a lot, we had to pick them up. That was like 95 miles, but the paratransit and it took a lot to convince them to use it was a blessing because you could set up an appointment. They could come door-to-door service. And so that was an option. And again, a debt of gratitude to Metro for showing that kindness. One of the things that I think of the challenges of Metro is that you mentioned option. Now, I live in a neighborhood, which is kind of a microcosm of what's happening in the County of Santa Cruz, but there's a grain of America, right? I'm in a grain of Santa Cruz County. My neighborhood, I see it all the time. 30 years ago, everybody had kids. On a Saturday morning, our streets are teeming with playing this, rollerblading, whatever. Now it's deader than anything, right? On a Sunday morning. So, one of the recommendations that you often hear even from committees with this agency is that more money should go to Metro, but private car provides the most freedom for those people in my neighborhood because I never see them taking a bus. Probably almost everywhere because they now can visit their family, wherever that is, they can take trips to get their drugs, they can take trips to visit, go to the store, wherever that might be. So, you use the word options and people have options. And what my experience has been that given the option between driving their car and taking a bus, a lot of people don't take the bus. And I never, I don't use this to embarrass people, but you drove your car, took a bus today. Did you? The question. No, did you take a bus? I did not, cause I needed to go into work first and come here second, but I'll tell you, Commissioner Johnson, I wouldn't take a bus with your current system, it's mediocre. You don't have a world-class system in Santa Cruz County. And I'll tell you what, when you have 15 minute frequency and you have a world-class system, you're going to have a whole new level of people who say, wow, I can take my two car household and now make it into a one car household because that works for me. You're going to take someone who basically is barely making ends meet, which is a whole lot of people in Santa Cruz County. And they're going to say, I can dump that car and I can save on that insurance and I can save on that maintenance and I can afford to live here now in a whole new way, thanks to a world-class system, to a world-class system. So I didn't, so Metro, what's before you today really is a world-class system and even then Metro's desire is not that everybody jumpship on their car and their transportation options for a healthy community, you need great transportation options all the way around and that includes cars. Have you done any sort of peer studies with, for example, of how the leading fares actually translates into, I mean, you know, more ridership, I mean, number one, what example? And, you know, I think goals are fine and you've just explained that if you have a world-class system that somehow, some way, the ridership and the people that are now using their cars, seniors included, will kind of magically transform in just massive amounts of people using buses. You know, you talk about 7 million trips but each year on Scotts Valley Drive alone there are about 7 million trips. So, you know, the trip that you described sounds impressive but at the same time is it a significant impact on all the things that you describe, namely the environment, people actually using and benefiting from a world-class system? I don't know, I mean, there are promises being made here and one of the things, you know, from a prospect of the Regional Transportation Commission we're not an appendage, we are kind of a partner in this county as far as transportation. You have your half-cent sales tax, right? And this agency, when Measure D was passed, granted Metro, I think a full 20% of all proceeds, every part of that half-cent sales tax go to you all, right? So, for the person who is looking for not only, you know, Metro, which again is a fantastic and a needed service in this county, I'm not disputing that. For the people that need roads done, that are isolated when, you know, half a hillside goes away and they can't get out of their house for a month or two and it costs $2 million to renovate that road, that's where these scarce dollars, notwithstanding the need of Metro and all the people here, where scarce dollars are, you know, there is competition. So I'm not disputing the need, whatever, and I'm not my intention, it gives me no pleasure to put a damper on this, but there are real needs everywhere, not just a Metro, and for the safety, convenience, and what you describe, the options that people have. Now, you came down to Scotts Valley Drive today, we did our level best to make sure that by filling cracks that this road that was really redone 20 some years ago will stay intact, it looks like hell, okay? So, you know, we need the money to kind of make it look better. So, you know, I just want to say that, you know, whereas Metro has many buckets, at least two or three buckets where we might just have one local or it might be RTC or what have you, that's consideration too. So, again, I do want to put a damper on your presentation. No problem, thank you, Mr. Johnson. We'll start with Vice Chair Brown, did you want to? Hello? Okay, thank you for that presentation, Michael. As a board member for Metro, I have been incredibly impressed with what has been accomplished in the past couple of years under your leadership. It is truly, as you say, it's truly transformed what has been happening at Metro and what we could be doing at Metro when we have the support. I do just briefly feel the need to respond to some of the comments with respect, Mr. Johnson, because you're correct, there isn't a pass for gas or registration, which is all the more reason, in my opinion, to give those who needed a pass for a transit system that provides them with an alternative to having to pay for that gas and registration costs. And there is discussions in my household right now into going into a one-car household because of the potential bus system improvements that are being discussed today. My husband and I have considered that in the next year we can provide one of the two cars that we have because of the improved bus system. And I want to share also that, yeah, there's a lot of projects with a lot of need and Metro is one of them in the roads and others. And I think it's important to note that SB 125 specifically is for transit systems if I'm not mistaken. So I wanted to share that information first. And then just once again, thank you to all of the staff at Metro to operators, to those who are working to become operators. And again, just Michael's very exciting. I can't wait to see what the next few years bring us. I think that has, this has implications not just for transit and transportation, but as previously mentioned in housing and housing development and what that means for our County as well for job creation and economic prosperity here. So I'm just thankful for what you've shared and I'll save the rest of my comments for our next. Thank you, Vice Chair Brown, Mr. Hernandez. Thank you. So first of all, I wanna commend the Metro, Michael Tree and all the drivers as well for moving forward on all the ambitious goals that you have and moving forward with those and meeting a lot of them. And also something that wasn't mentioned is your guys' ability to move forward and seeking grants. I think that that's really important for things that you just mentioned about the free fair for all programs, but also prior to that, when you guys allowed students to ride for free, I think that was something really important for South County for students to ride for free. I think that one of the things that I'm really impressed is that you guys are also moving beyond transportation into the realm of what cities and counties do and building affordable housing and in essence just creating your own ridership by building transit oriented development. So I'm really impressed when you guys seeking the grants to do that, truly forward thinking everything that you guys are doing. So thank you. I commend you guys and glad all the work you guys are doing. Thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. Mr. Montecino. Yes, you know, I represent the city of Watsonville and for the city of Watsonville, a lot of our communities are transit dependent and what we need to say, this plan calls to not just cater to the transit dependent but to encompass everyone in the community. So it's a game changer for just my community where we don't have to be locked in in the highway all the time. These are the transportation endeavors that we should be taking. These are the rail trails, a nice concept, but I'm not gonna ride a bike from Watsonville to Santa Cruz to get a job. So, and this is a game changer in our community to be able to try to move community from that space. I just had a meeting with the developer that looking at these 15 minute service is gonna provide him the opportunity to find a grant to build another affordable housing project just in the downtown. So it just calls out to the community, calls out to the housing opportunities that we desperately need every city. So I mean, this is what the transportation needs in our community. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Montesino. Mr. Calantara Johnson. Thank you. I'm not normally here. I'm here as an alternate for the Santa Cruz Metro and serve as the current chair of the Metro. I wanna thank you, Mr. Tree, for the presentation and thank all of you for being here and showing your support. Appreciate the questions, Commissioner Johnson. I think they're important ones as we make these decisions. I do wanna just highlight the youth cruise free that Commissioner Hernandez I think spoke to. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I know that we've seen in the short amount of time, less than a year that we've had this pilot project that we have seen increased ridership. So those are good questions. Are there questions that I think we will be able to answer with our small pilot of youth cruise free and what other communities have done. And I'll just say, I have a 15 and a half year old, he has a permit, watch out everyone. But with very little interest in getting in a car. And I think it's an opportunity, we have an opportunity right now to really shift the culture of the next set of car dependent people like myself. I'll admit it, I'm car dependent and haven't consistently ridden the bus since I was in grad school and had to commute over the Highway 17. So we have an opportunity here to shift the culture, shift our operations to be world-class and shift the culture so that the next generation like my 15 and a half year old son isn't that eager to hop in a car. So thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work. Yeah, just to follow up the ridership increase, Chair Koenig is 400% for the youth who have taken advantage of the youth cruise free. Thank you. Mr. Quinn. Terrific presentation, thank you. You have my support today. But there was one thing missing from the presentation that I'm curious about. Mr. Quinn, could you just lean into the microphone a little bit more so the folks don't want to. Yeah, terrific report. Thank you very much. You have my support today. Missing from the presentation though was the question of economic sustainability. Given the expansion of services, given the fact you're going fare free, giving the willingness of taxpayers to pay more taxes and giving how intensely competitive these funds are, are we confident that your plan is gonna have economic sustainability? So that's a really good question and is a three year pilot. And I will tell you that community leaders, including Mayor Fred Keely, have started assembling community leaders and community opinion leaders to basically talk about Metro and talk about how to advance the pilot into a permanent status beyond the three year pilot project. So I think there's a whole portfolio that would go into the ability for Metro to keep it going. I'm a risk taker, but I'm a very calculated risk taker. And I think from a public perspective, guarding the public funds, I think you have a very good chance with an investment from the local community, but also an investment from the state and the federal government to make that pilot become permanent, make it a reality after the three years. Your state and your federal government have really noticed what Santa Cruz County has been up to with the Metro system. And just to give you an example in the last 18 months, there have been $113 million of investment in Metro from the state and the federal government. So it just gives you an idea that they recognize the value of public transit and they wanna reward communities who are thinking beyond just a simple basic system, but they're rewarding communities that wanna make their public transit livable. But yes, it will include additional investments to keep that pilot going, but you have great community leaders working on it behind the scenes who are optimistic. Thank you, Commissioner Quinn. Mr. Schiffrin. Follow up on that and ask about what's the cost of, I think it's very exciting to have a 15-minute system. And it will make a difference. I think it's unclear how much of a difference it will make. I remember when the sales tax was passed in 1978, how many people here do remember that, but it was gonna be transformative. And it was transformative in terms of the ability of people to ride buses that they never had before. It made a big difference. But in terms of long-term ridership, as I understand it, the modal share at this time is about 3% of the rides. Doubling that, which is what you're proposing for two years, will make it 6%. I think it's very desirable. It's an important program, but my guess, my question is, what is it gonna cost to do that? I assume that pilot is being paid from one-time funding, and is that one-time funding for the three years? Is it for the one year? Could you talk a little bit about how much it's gonna cost to do this? Or is it a significant cost? It makes a significant difference, and it certainly would be desirable, but the community already makes a pretty strong contribution to the transit system, and I just like to get a sense of how much more of a contribution is gonna be asked for. Yeah. Well, the pilot project comes right out at $32 million for the three years, and that is exactly the dollar amount that's being recommended by your staff in your next agenda item. So that gives you an order of magnitude as to the incremental increase between what we're providing today and what the cost would be during the pilot and after the pilot. I'd be remiss to say that, again, a healthy community includes lots of different transportation options, and if you looked at the subsidies of your roadways really in detail, you would probably notice that they are probably a lot more than you have even began to envision for public transit in the area, but I would be remiss, Metro is on board with supporting all transportation options, including the car. It's not our job to try and tell people to get out of their car. We wanna provide great options where they feel free and feel excited to get out of their car and provide benefits to the community that we've been talking about. And this, quite frankly, this project is what the state and the feds will wanna see as you contemplate moving forward with rail in the future. This is an early ridership builder exercise for the ridership potential on a passenger rail system. Without this project, I would be a lot less confident that you're gonna move forward with other transportation options in your community that will take significant investment, not only at the local, the state, but the federal level. So the answer to your question though is 32 million over three years and that that would continue beyond. And I think that's where your community leaders figure that between state, federal, and some local investment, they can make that happen. I'm glad you mentioned rail because I really see the potential of rail as a part of the public transit system in the long run. And I think this is a really desirable increase in an important improvement in the short run. But I'm concerned about it undermining the ability of a longer run option that would also be very beneficial to public transit. So I appreciate your answer. I'm getting it's about $12 million a year to run this program. And it's a significant increase in certainly the amount of local, annual local funding that's going on. We'll have a pilot that maybe we'll have some good data on whether it's really achieved the goals that you have. And I think that will be really important in justifying continued funding a little bit over time. So I am supportive of the program. As you know, I'm a little concerned about sort of how it is, how the funding is being distributed at this point. So we'll talk about that at the next item. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Commissioner Peterson. Thank you. It was a great presentation. I just had one quick question for the fair free program. Is that designed to be just for the three years or is your plan to have that be an ongoing aspect of Metro moving forward past the trial? Well, given my past experience with fair free and explosive ridership that happens when you have fair free environment, I think my end goal and the end goal of the board and the community would be to continue fair free if it shows the same type of reaction that I've seen with it in the past. I think Santa Cruz County is very progressive and there are a lot of people who would enjoy great transportation options. And when you take out the hurdle of fumbling for a dollar, trying to find where you left your transit pass, people just say that it's an expression of freedom. Get out and ride and enjoy the system. And so I think the goal of the community would be to keep it, but we're running it as a pilot to make sure that the results can be talked about. And then, you know, we can go from there. Great, thank you. That's very exciting. Yep. You're just in commissioner. I hate to pile on, but I would love to see a sensitivity analysis on ridership versus fair. And I'm in healthcare. We do the same thing, a little barriers to care. And there is a tipping point where people are, but it's not zero. And so I think it's worth doing. If nothing else, just doing the math in your head, 12 million dollars a year and 8 million riders, that's a buck 50 a ride. So I think it'll be important to integrate a air sensitivity analysis. Thank you, commissioner Quinn, commissioner, Andy Brown. Thank you, chair, and thank you, Mr. Tree, for the presentation. It's an incredible vision you have. It's wonderful to see so many people who work for this organization who really believe in the vision. And I don't doubt that you're gonna do great things. And I just wanted to respond very quickly because people are asking this question, do we have, is there peer reviewed material, sensitivity analysis, and Mr. Tree, you mentioned your own experience. There is significant, I just use my search for some of my favorite planning journals that I use. And there's significant material showing, I mean, study after study and aggregate studies of hundreds of transit districts that there is a positive correlation, sometimes very significant, between refairs and increased ridership, almost as close in one of the studies I just looked at as the increased, the headways. So, it depends on the community, but in this, the study aggregates for small and large communities. So I just wanted to share that, that the data seems to really support what you're saying. And Santa Cruz obviously is unique. We all, you know, we are unique, but I think that that experience suggests, you know, positive potential here. Thank you, Commissioner, Andy Brown. I see no other questions. I, well, I actually have a question for you, Michael, which is, when we've talked about the budget for this program at the Metro Board, we were, obviously this whole improvement with the WAVE service will greatly help UCSU students. I have lots of UCSU students that live in District One throughout Live Oak and SoCal and being able to take a direct route up to university will be a huge improvement. And I know that we'd also hope that UCSU will kick in some funding for this expanded service. Is, you know, how much are we dependent on their contributions or not in order to roll out these three, 15 minute headways and be fair for you for the next three years. Yeah, so the university is excited for the new service, the WAVE service. And I would characterize our discussions as optimistic in the potential for the university to help financially towards the changes. We haven't exactly hammered out all of the details yet. It's ongoing. I'll be totally honest with you. What you see as a recommendation in your next agenda item includes money for rail, which we were supportive of, but it is the contingency on the new WAVE, the WAVE service. And so the hope is that the university will replenish the contingency to give us a more comfortable operating budget to work with. Again, I wouldn't wanna throw out a dollar and cents figure that we're working with with the university because of conversations are very fluid, but I'm very optimistic that there'll be a partner on this and that they can replenish the $2 million and perhaps even a little more to just give us some operational flexibility as we move forward during the three-year pilot project. But the core of my question is, we'll be able to move forward with this service, with or without the university's participation. That's correct. It will take a lot of great management to keep the budget dialed in during the three-year pilot. So we can, but we're looking for a robust partnership from the university and I'm not seeing any signs that would indicate they'd wanna do otherwise. Obviously hopeful that they will contribute as well. I'll just add that I'm extremely supportive of this program and it might actually be the effort that I am most excited about in our public sector today, all our public sector projects. First of all, with the Youth Ride Free program, I think I hear from more happy parents about this program than any other policy initiative I've worked on. Folks who come up and say, thank you so much for implementing this service. It has liberated me from having to drive my kids around town. They're just, see a mom, I'm off to the boardwalk or off to my job, off to hang out with my friends. And to this question about, is it worth the $1.50? Is it worth the $2? The response I'm hearing is absolutely yes. I mean, first of all, we see in the data, 400% increase. You can't make those numbers up. And feedback again that I'm hearing is, I used to have to scrounge around for change in the morning for that fare for the bus. And if we couldn't find it, if we were short, I was driving my kids to school or to wherever. And now that it's fare free, I know dependably that they can take the bus every single day. And when we look at what increases ridership, it's people choose the transportation option that is the fastest or the cheapest or the most fun. Thank you, drivers and drivers in training, because you are the fun part as you heard. And this will certainly make it the cheapest option out there. That's really exciting too, because we do need to ultimately compete with the private automobile. And this will definitely make riding the bus the cheapest option. But it'll also, in many cases, make it faster, or if not the fastest option as well, because now you won't have to worry about parking on both ends. And rather than having a system where you're not quite sure when the next bus is coming, you know there's one coming in at least the next 15 minutes on these major routes. And that if you just walk out to the corner, you'll be able to catch one with no change in your pocket and boarding front or back door. I think that's the other thing that wasn't really touched on with the advantages of fare free is that you'll now can board the bus front and back. And that is a significant time saving for everyone and makes this a whole system more dependable. But it's not, it doesn't end there. As was mentioned by Commissioner Montesino, the really transformative part of this is how it unlocks affordable housing. In my very own district, I think one of the most significant sites, 41st and Soquel Drive, when I took office, we were talking about making that into a car dealership. And now, thanks to this project, it could become a 100% affordable housing project. I think that's exactly the kind of transformation that our community needs. And it's made possible by this reimagined Metro project. Furthermore, as was mentioned, we've received $113 million in state and federal investment and we'll soon have the largest fleet of hydrogen buses in the nation. I think we owe it to the state and the whole country to show that we can fill them. Because that is just going to build on the excitement of what this kind of a program can do for every community. So if you can't tell, really excited about this program and let's get on to a vote to fund it. So actually, I do believe we need to take some public comment on this. Commissioner Schifrin. Housing, I'm pretty familiar with that project in downtown Santa Cruz. And I was a little concerned that the slide indicated that it wouldn't be completed until the end of the decade. My understanding is that the housing portion has already received significant funding. I really want to compliment Metro. I mean, I think it's great that after years of walking back and forth between the city and Metro, I think after you got here, it made a difference and there's now a real project and a real plan to implement it. So I'm just wondering why the estimate is for like seven years from now before it's completed. Did you talk a little bit about the timeline? I'd love to see it soon. Yeah, you know what? I should have given a little further detail. So it's to get all 175 units done within the decade. And so the Santa Cruz project led by the city of Santa Cruz is 120 units. It'll break ground in February. It'll probably be done in 18 to 24 months, something in that level of a timeframe. And we'll break ground soon on the Watsonville project. And then actually we have the additional project that Chair Coney had referred to. It's a project that's on the intersection basically of SoCal and Highway One. And we're looking at 60 additional units in planning with that. So all told, there's 240 units in planning. They're all in different stages. And our hope is to get them all done by the end of the decade. But certainly your project like the downtown Santa Cruz project, it's fully funded, it's ready to go. It'll be built as quickly as the city and the partners. Well, thank you for that clarification because I do not understand that you were really talking about three projects or at least two and now three. And I think that's great. So thank you. Yep. Thank you, Mr. Schifrin. All right, it looks like we have a few public comments. And I would ask you to be brief as the next item, I'm sure we'll touch on some of these elements as well. And of course, we'll be appropriate to comment on Metro during item 25, our public hearing since they'll be receiving or are recommended to receive funding. Let's begin with Mr. Peoples. Hi, this is Brian Peoples from Trail Now. Great work, Michael Trees. You're doing phenomenal work. We really support. Let's make Metro great. Love the work you're doing. Just to baseline everybody, we, I am a one car family. But the way we do that is through bike, through an e-bike. And so Mr. Trees, it is a two-way street. I will tell you that you're not being very supportive of our efforts. Your Metro board members on the RTC are preventing the rail banking of the coastal corridor. And they're doing it to support Roaring Camp. And we're, so it's a two-way street. We're asking for you to be more supportive. Guy Preston recommended rail banking years ago. It was really embarrassing the way the board treated him positioning Roaring Camp over him. But again, I really agree with what you're doing. I think it's going to be phenomenal. We got to make Metro great and let's do it. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. First. I just want to offer my quick commendations and kudos to Michael Trees and his entire crew. You know, he didn't get here all by himself and somebody made some pretty good selections. Regarding access and removing barriers, it's a game-changing plan. This is transformational. People need to get to work. People need to get to school. People need to get to their healthcare providers as well. The 15-minute frequency will be a real game changer. And I say, dream big and work hard and build some ridership. And please don't forget about South County. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hurst. Mr. Garrett. Hi, this is Brett Garrett from Santa Cruz. I'll admit to some hesitation about hydrogen, but overall, these are great ideas, fantastic improvements. I have a book recommendation regarding free public transit. The book is called Free Public Transit and Why We Don't Pay to Ride Elevators. The book is a compilation of many case studies by various authors showing what happens in a fair free situation. And gosh, I'm sure the bus drivers will appreciate when they don't have to enforce the payment of bus fares. I also want to make a suggestion regarding the affordable housing projects. There's going to be a lot of people who want to use in these projects. And I hope we can prioritize the people that don't have cars that are living there so that they can use transit. So I suggest to look into whether you can require people to sign an agreement that says, if I live here, I will not own a car. I've heard this has been done successfully in other communities, although I wasn't able to find where I think maybe Massachusetts. Anyway, I really want to congratulate Mr. Tree for making huge improvements to the bus system. I'm obviously an advocate for personal rapid transit, but more frequent service and more direct service brings us a lot closer to the potentials of personal rapid transit. And Mr. Tree is doing that within the constraints of a bus system. So thank you, and I urge RTC members to support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Mr. Sainte. Mr. Sainte. Yeah, the unmute button just came up. Thank you, Chair Koenig. As you know, I've been advocating for about seven years for more money for Metro. I think it's a very, very good program. I want to thank Michael Tree for all his efforts. I'd also like to thank you, Michael, for coming to a campaign for sustainable transportation's conference in August and sort of informing us on this previously. Funding and of course, subsidies and stuff seem to be a real issue with a lot of the mass transit programs people tried to enact. I think there's even could be a combination of PRT and bus service with Metro and maybe even having Metro run both services together. The headways on PRTs are much closer, three to five minutes versus 15. I'm sure that's a workable situation in the long run. Also, if funding is exhausted for the free program for whatever reason, a PRT could continue to operate at the fare box with no additional taxes or looking for subsidies. Great program, CFST supports it and we'd like to see a yes vote on the next subject. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seid. Ms. Faulkner. Thank you, can you hear me? Yeah. Thank you, commissioners and staff. Michael Tree and Metro staff have done a brilliant job in working to bring a world-class public transit system to our community. Our community's goal to bring more housing and Metro's amazing efforts to ensure more people who can work here and stay and live here means that we must take strong steps to reduce traffic as more people need to travel to and from work and school and Metro is doing just that. Giving people real options to get out of their cars is critical in addressing the increase in traffic on our highways and surface streets. As we build more housing, it is increasingly critical. Doing our part in addressing climate change will also be addressed with this world-class bus system. So many more families today, including my own family share or want to share a car in order to save money. And my own family regularly rides the bus. My son is very excited for the service to go fare-free to get to and from work when he doesn't ride his bike to work. Metro realizes how important it is to address equitable access to the many people who cannot afford or do not want to drive a car. Many people have spoken to me, including our seniors who can no longer drive, youth who cannot yet drive and many of our professionals, community members who are committed to getting out of their cars and into public transit, including people like my husband, who has been committed to riding the bus or some form of mass transit for over 25 years. We're very excited to hear about these goals from Metro. And we wanna thank Metro for providing youth ride free, a groundbreaking change for our community. Huge kudos to Michael Tree and the Metro staff and the bus drivers who worked diligently to help provide and do so much for our community so quickly in the last 18 months. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Faulkner. Mr. Sawyer. Good morning. Thank you, Chair Koenig and commissioners. I spoke briefly before head of Zen Development an affordable housing developer partnered with Link Housing and proposing 150 unit affordable housing community at SoCal and 41st. And there's been several references this morning to 15 minute peak headway, increasing the ability to capture state funds and produce affordable housing. I just wanted to reiterate that that's not theoretical. That's immediate results. If this funding gets approved and peak headway goes to 15 minutes, we can build 150 units of affordable housing on that site and capture $40 million of state funds if we do not approve the funding for 15 minute peak headway. It becomes very difficult to do that. So I just wanted to bring to your attention that it's immediate results that we can get with this particular nexus. So I would encourage your approval of the funds. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sawyer. John. It wasn't that long ago that Metro received a good boost in funding and much needed as we talked about today. RTC already knew, Metro already knew. I already had a long list of how Metro was failing the disabled community. So the public was really happy to see that boost in funding because it was seen especially helpful for paracruz. And when the RTC wants to, they'll take that money away. Koenig put a, you know, table the idea, let's take that extra funding and let's put it on road. And we need to know that money is not going to be moved around and taken away from what's meant in part to meet the needs of the disabled community all across Santa Cruz County. This is a, it's one of the most important issues in Santa Cruz County. One out of four Americans identifies as having a disability. One of the supervisors, one of the commissioners talked about, you know, in his neighborhood, part is great, you know, but someone in South County said, please don't forget about South County. Public transit is for everybody. It's not for people who just look like you have a similar experience to you, you know, live a life like you do, it's for everyone. And you're not going to take the needs of the disabled community lightly. Thank you, Sean. Do we have any comments here in the room? Maybe twist it a little bit and check. How about that? All right, it sounds like it's good. I don't got to yell this time. So this is a really interesting thing for me to say, given the history of the last 13 years that I've been working for Metro, for those of you who know me, you already know that public transit is my life besides the paycheck that I require to function in our system, what I really get paid in is the satisfaction of knowing that I'm making a difference for those who need me. That goes for pretty much everyone else here too. That's why we do what we do. It's a really nice feeling to know that I have a CEO now that understands that, that we can stand behind and say everything he just said is correct. I'm not going to deny or have to say anything. There's no asterisk, it's true. When we talk about things for free fares, what pops into my mind immediately is those who need it the most. Yeah, maybe some people can afford to pay for it. That's always going to be the case and I'm very happy for them to be in that situation, but it's not really for them. It's for those who cannot. I spent the majority of my career operating the 35 and the 42 in areas that are not really conducive to walking. They're dangerous roads. The people who drive them drive dangerously and there's a high volume of accidents. That's something that you don't get with our operators. You don't get a high volume of accidents. You get safe, reliable transportation is what we're trying to build. When we went fare free for the students, I cannot tell you how many times I'd gone to SLB high school and watched 100 kids walk down highway nine with no sidewalk. You will not see that today because they're on our bus. That impact was immediate. It removes the barrier. We should be doing that from one side of the county to the other. It should not even be in their mind, man, I have to walk down here in the sketchy area to know 15 minutes from now, someone will come and pick you up and you will be safe. You're investing in safety. You're investing in equity. You're investing in all of these things that you cannot get in a car. We talk about roads, they're important. We talk about the rail, it's important. What wears down a road, use. About 40 people in here brought maybe 35 cars down Scotts Valley Drive this morning. They're brought 70 and one. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Sandoval. So James Sandoval here again, VP for smart transportation. And so by being VP, we represent all the locals across our country. And I've traveled from state to state, experiencing the transit systems that are out there. And I've had it numerous times where if I miss a bus, I know 15 minutes, the next bus is gonna pick me up. And I've been a bus driver here at Metro for over 10 years. And I got this experience first town, how we let our community down time and time after, again, for a long time where if you miss one route, your whole day's ruined. And who knows if you're even gonna get picked up. And that is not a service that anybody could trust. And first impressions are everything when you try something out. So we have a lot of work to do to build that trust back up. And so when I talk about a lot of the issues that come with the system that we currently have, I mean, we let's not neglect the fact that we have traffic every single morning and afternoon that delays everybody almost over an hour. And public transportation needs a lot more focus and energy right now. And going back to the comment of why would a business go and say that we should not collect fares? We're not a business. We're a public agency. We're a public service. And we were run like a business for a really long time. And that's the reason why we are where we're at today because we've treated our system like a business. And our community has suffered for so long, so long. And just one real quick comment about the free fares that we haven't really talked about today. It will prevent the conflict of fare. And operator assaults are at an all time high across the country. And if we could even avoid one situation where a conflict led to a death of one of our operators, that's worth it to me. And so I just wanna say that we have great vision. We have great leadership at Metro. Our CEO has got a great plan. Our Metro Board of Directors have been supporting us. And our union has been working together with everyone here. So this is a product. Reimagine Metro is a product of all of our members at Metro, including our community working together. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sandoval. Hi, my name is Jessica. I live on the west side of Santa Cruz. Thank you, Chair and commissioners. Thank you, Mr. Tree for your presentation. I'm super excited to see this new program from Metro. I moved to Santa Cruz as a 18 year old to go to Cabrillo. I lived in Santa Cruz for a long time without a car, rode the bus, I rode my bike. It was not always easy. And now I advocate for bike infrastructure. I advocate for public transportation infrastructure. And the one thing that is my takeaway from this project is that when you build a system that is only for people who cannot drive, you are building a system that is gonna be inferior. And you're not really gonna meet their needs. And you're also asking people to pay for something who already don't have enough money to have a car, which is sort of like the idea. We all want a car. And if you don't have one, well, then boo-hoo and maybe we'll give you some scraps. But having a system that is big enough and high quality enough that everyone wants to ride it means that you can change the way that everyone lives. You have better quality of life for everyone in the community. Young and old, rich and poor, we're all on the bus together. We're all on the train together. It makes a really dramatic difference for quality of life for everyone. I'm super excited about this project. And I really hope that you support it. I hope that you were supported without any amendments. Leave the 2 million for rail. That is an important starting place to show our commitment to continuing to grow our system and the quality of our system. And more and more people will be getting out of their cars and we'll all be living together and traveling together. Thank you. Thank you, Gress, about it. Hello. My name is Elmer Torres. I've been working for Santa Cruz Metro for the last 25 years. And I never seen anything like it, like the plan that our CEO presented this morning. I mean, they talked about building housing. They talked about rebuilding the downtown Pacific Station, but never happened. I saw plan after plan, Claire, you know this. And so we saw it time after time, but now to see what has been proposed here is exciting. And so I sit in traffic, I would want every day, and I know I've been doing this for probably 20 years now, sitting in that traffic there, and it's getting worse and worse. So I'm very excited about that plan, but I just wanted to say that that service way that we're talking about today without the proper funding is going to be a very ugly tsunami. So before you vote on this, remember that we need the funding to be able to make this happen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Torres. Hello, Council. My name is Kimberly Moon, and I've never seen this type of scene only on TV. So I wanted to be courageous and stand up here and let you know that my name is Kimberly Moon. I just got hired on as a bus operator and started three days ago. So I've been in training for three days. I just have to say that after I say this, I'm either gonna have fame or get fired. So I just moved here from Las Vegas, Nevada. I moved to San Jose in September, September 8th. And I have to share with you, I come from a very dark place. I'm an addict in recovery. I'm an ex-sex worker. I'm an ex-gambler. And I remember the days, I didn't even have a dollar to get on the bus. I'm in recovery now and I just started a new career and not having a dollar to get on the bus when I was in active addiction or not in active addiction because now that I've been clean and sober, not having a dollar to get on the bus has been very humiliating almost to the point where you just wanna give up. And this idea that Metro has is absolutely phenomenal because there's millions out there struggling with addiction, with sickness, poverty. Okay, so I mean, it's just an amazing, amazing, amazing project. I'm so grateful to be a part of. I now, I couldn't, I didn't have a dollar to take the bus. Now I'm driving it. I have a career now. And you know, I'm pretty raw. So I mean, we're gonna get fired. I'm gonna have fame, but all I have to say is that I love Metro. It's a great place to be. They are like family to me. And I really hope that you make the right decision and support us. We need you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Moon. I'd see no one else here in chambers. That was a non-action item. Of course, we will now move on to significant action item, our public hearing. I told you it would be no sooner than 945 a.m. And sure enough, it is 1115, but we are gonna begin adoption of the 2023 consolidated grants program, Senate Bill SB 125, Transit Funding Grants Program and Regional Transportation Improvement Program. I will open the public hearing. And we will begin with a presentation by our transportation planner, Amy Naranjo. All right. Take it away, Amy. Good morning, commissioners, project sponsors and community members. My name's Amy Naranjo. I'm a transportation planner for the RTC. It's my pleasure today to present staff recommendations for awarding $61.3 million to 23 projects located throughout Santa Cruz County. Please note that the staff report has been updated since the original agenda packet was circulated last week. Revised staff recommendations reflected in underline and stride through formatting were incorporated in your agenda packet earlier this week. Next slide, please. So as the state designated RTPA or Regional Transportation Planning Agency for Santa Cruz County, the RTC is responsible for selecting projects to receive funding. The RTC selects projects to receive funds after evaluating applications to ensure that funds are allocated to projects that will provide the greatest benefit to our community. RTC advisory committees review these applications and provide their valuable feedback on the proposed projects to help ensure that the RTC's funding decisions are informed by a diverse range of perspectives. After the advisory committees review the projects, a public hearing is held, which we're at today. This is an opportunity for members of the public to learn more about the proposed projects and to provide their input on the RTC's funding decisions. And depending on the funding source projects that are then programmed or projects that are receiving awarding today are then either programmed in the RTC's Regional Transportation Improvement Program, excuse me, and or included in the RTC's budget. Next. So this summer, the RTC issued a consolidated call for projects for 26.6 million in RTC discretionary funds that includes the 17.4 in regional surface transportation exchange funds, 8.6 million in STIP funds and 629,000 in local partnership program funds. In addition, we issued the call for $34.7 million in one-time formula funds through the SB 125 program. And that includes the 27.6 in TERSIP funds and 7.1 in the zero-emission transportation program. Next slide, please. So the RTC approved the evaluation criteria that was used to evaluate these projects at their August Commission meeting. While all the projects that were submitted for consideration are consistent with the RTC's approved metrics, it is not possible to fully fund every project. The staff recommendation is designed to address a variety of RTC funding priorities, including maintenance of the existing transportation infrastructure, filling gaps in the existing bicycle and pedestrian network, improving safety, reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled and associated emissions, as well as promoting equitable distribution of benefits and promoting a multimodal transportation system. Next, please. So a total of 23 project applications were submitted by sponsors, seeking over $95 million in funding from the discretionary pot and SB 125 transit pot. All projects are recommended for at least partial funding. In the following slides, I'll provide a summary of each project and the proposed recommendation for funding. For projects that are recommended for partial funding, project sponsors may either reduce the project scope and implement a portion of the project or increase local or other funds committed to the project or to work to secure grants for the project. So first, next slide. So the first group we have here are system preservation projects that include complete streets features. We have two projects from Scotts Valley. One is on Mount Herman Road and the other is on Scotts Valley Drive. Both of these projects include pavement repair that's funded through Measure D funds and the recommended funding will implement the design for bike and pedestrian improvements, including ADA curb compliant ramps and studying a lane diet on Scotts Valley Drive. And then the recommendation award is, let's see, I can't read those up here. Let's see, the next set of projects here are the Bay Street and Bay Corridor projects and those are through the city of Santa Cruz. For the Bay Corridor design, it's complete streets designed for the entire corridor between High Street and West Cliff Drive. The design effort includes protected bike lanes on the entire corridor, transit boarding islands, intersection modifications to, and excuse me, and intersection modifications to improve the multimodal roadway safety. The next project there is the Bay Street paving that repaves Bay Street between Mission and Lenox and it installs ADA curb compliant ramps at three intersections. The next set of projects here is Escalona Complete Streets that repaves Escalona between Grandview and Bay and between Walnut and Highland and it installs 50 ADA compliant curb ramps as well as filling in the sidewalk network. Next project there is 41st Ave Pavement Rehab and multimodal improvements. This repaves a portion of 41st Ave. It installs a physical barrier, as noted in the picture there, at the Highway 1 Southbound Onramp, as well as installing audible pedestrian signals, overhead lane selection signage and roadway markings. And then the final project in this grouping here is the Green Valley Road Rehab Project. So this project reconstructs the entire roadway, removes and replaces the existing curb ramps that don't comply with accessibility standards, restrives the roadway to provide striping for bike lanes and retrofits a signalized intersection and includes a high visibility crosswalk. Next slide, please. The next grouping of projects here are essentially solely resistant preservation projects or resurfacing projects. And these are mainly through the counting. We have the first grouping of projects is the Coralitos Corridor resurfacing. It resurfaces 2.4 miles of the Messy Road and 1.8 miles of Coralitos Road. The next project is the Emergency Routes Program and that's on Empire Grade and Bear Creek Road and that resurfaces 3.6 miles on Empire Grade and 4.7 miles on Bear Creek. And then we have the Highway 17 Corridors Project, that one resurfaces 5.2 miles on Branson 40 Drive and 4.5 miles on Soquel San Jose Road. And the recommended funding for this particular project is a continuation of an existing project that the county has. And so we're recommending to add funding from this project to the existing project. The next project is the Inner County Routes Project and that one resurfaces 2.7 miles of roadway on all of Murphy's Crossing. I might be saying this name wrong, but Roggy or Rogee Lane and portions of Lee Road and West Beach Road and Watsonville. All of these are connector routes leading to the highway and to cost country bridges and receive significant amounts of commercial and agricultural traffic on a daily basis. And we also receive a number of letters of support for this particular project, specifically for Murphy's Crossing for the various berry farmers that use that route. And then the final project here we have is the Rio del Mar Resurfacing Project and that one provides resurfacing to nearly all of Rio del Mar just over a mile. And for these particular projects, our advisory committees were asking for the project sponsor to review and where it's feasible and appropriate to incorporate some version of a complete streets element, whether it's shared lane markings on the roadway, it's additional bike safety signage or some kind of components that are included in the county's active transportation plan. Next slide please. We have two other road serving projects that are not rehab projects. And the first one is at Robertson Street in Soquel Drive. This one installs a new intersection and it converts the existing all-way to stop controlled intersection to a signalized intersection. The installation will provide a safer crossing option for pedestrians and less disruptive for traffic. And it includes pedestrian signal crossing, ADA curb ramps and transit signal priority. The next project there is the Bethany Culvert replacement in Santa Cruz. That one replaces a failed bridge and or excuse me, a failed culvert and bridge on West Cliffs Drive. The construction results in a larger cross-section of the roadway, which will then allow for future multimodal infrastructure improvements. Next slide. And then we have a couple of additional bike pedestrian and transit projects. The first one is on Glen Arbor Road in Ben Lohman. This one extends the sidewalk along the northern side of Glen Arbor from highway nine to Pine Street. The sidewalk provides a gap closure connection for residents and children to access destinations in Ben Lohman. The next one is a Green Valley Road multi-use trail. This replaces a dilapidated pedestrian trail with a two mile long pervious two-way multi-use trail between the city of Watsonville and Santa Cruz County unincorporated. The project also upgrades five metro bus stops with shelters and one more with an accessible landing and all upgrades include trash receptacles. And then the final project on this slide here is the Felton SLV Complete Streets project. This project is located on 1.75 miles of highway nine in the San Lorenzo Valley. This project aims to improve safety, enhance bicycles and pedestrian access and connectivity, reduce speeding and address geographic inequities by rectifying under investment in rural regions. The project includes dedicated bicycle facilities, expanded pedestrian facilities, crossing safety improvements and improved transit stop access and amenities. Next slide. Then we have funding as well recommended funding for two additional programs. These are bike and safety pedestrian programs. The first one is the Go Santa Cruz County Bicycle Incentives Program. This provides rebates and or discounted annual membership to the bike share program or rebates for low-income individuals to purchase a regular bicycle or an electric bicycle. The next program there is the Ecology Actions youth safe routes to schools program. And this program provides hands-on school-based bicycle and pedestrian safety education for youth through the walk safe and bike safe programs. This program provides second graders pedestrian safety training and fifth graders with bicycle safety training throughout the county. Next slide. And these are the final sets of projects here that I'm providing a background on. And these are transit projects that are recommended for funding specifically with the SB 125 pot of funds. And so the first project is the Zero Mission Passenger Rail and Trail Project. This project is requesting funds for the project development of the new High Capacity Zero Mission Passenger Rail service and stations on approximately 22 miles of the Santa Cruz branch line. For this recommendation, staff is recommending partial award of two million. And with this staff plan to apply to the state rail assistance program for competitive funds in 2024 to complete the project's environmental documents with the two million in SB 125 and Measure D both serving as matching funds. The next project is the Rapid Corridors Project. This project aims to improve transit service and safety by implementing transit priority infrastructure on routes 71, 69A, 69W and 91X corridors. And this includes improvements such as bus bulbs, bull belts, excuse me, in lane bus stops, separate bikeways, new bus shelters with real-time passenger information and secure bike parking. The recommended funding for this particular project is four million dollars and this funding will help implement the transit signal preemption portion of the project which would make the reimagined Metro service more successful. The remainder of Santa Cruz Metro's Rapid Corridors Project can also be included in the RTC's SB 1 cycle four application that we'll be submitting to the CTC. And lastly, the last project on there to receive the majority of the SB 125 funding is Metro's transit operations for reimagined Metro. The funding will support the implementation of the both recovery and expansion plan in two phases. First, restoring service and second, expanding service. The phase one represents a 16% increase in service relative to today and a restoration to pre-COVID levels. And then phase two will increase service 43% relative today. And this funding will support nearly, or excuse me, between two and three years of service. Next slide. Okay, so recommended funding by mode out of the 26 million in RTC discretionary funds nearly half or 47% is recommended for pavement preservation types of projects while a third or 33% is proposed for bike and pedestrian improvements. Transit projects receive a significantly smaller share only 6% in the discretionary pot. However, when factoring in all funding sources the picture changes dramatically. Transit projects are prioritized in our overall plan and over 57% of the total recommendation to distribute 61 million in available funds. Next slide. So let's see. So this is based on, so this is a funding distribution chart based on funds for the discretionary funds by the project partners. So like I mentioned previously, Santa Cruz Metro is recommended to receive the vast majority of the available SB 125 funds in nearly 94% of that pot. Meanwhile, the RTC discretionary funds are recommended to be distributed as follows. So for county projects, we're recommending 14 million go towards the county which is representing about 53% of the discretionary pot. The city of Santa Cruz projects are taking roughly six million or recommending six million of the pot for their projects and that represents roughly 21% of the discretionary pot and then the remaining funds are divided amongst the other project sponsors. Next slide. Okay, so what happens next? So we're here today at the public hearing. We'll hear input from members of the public and get additional feedback from the board and potentially project sponsors. And then we will make a final award decision and we'll take that award decision then next and we'll submit projects that are recommended for STIP funding to the CTC or the California Transportation Commission by December 15th. And then projects that are receiving SB 125 funding will then be included in our packet that's due to the California State Transportation Agency or CalSTA by December 31st. So that concludes my presentation. You can even go to the next slide, please. And I just have the final list of staff recommendations for your approval today. So when it's to continue holding the public hearing, consider recommendations both from project sponsors, the public and people in the room today. And then finally adopt a resolution that approves our recommendations and moves this process forward. And that is my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions. Also noting that project sponsors are in the room to answer any specific questions about a particular project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ronhoff. Their comments or questions from commissioners. All right, all right. Well, then we'll take public comment. Open us up for public comment. If you have a comment, go ahead, please approach the podium. Chair Connick, members, the commission, Jim Helmer, Ben Lomond. I first wanted to thank the County of Santa Cruz for a very compelling and complete application for pedestrian safety on Glen Arbor Road walkway project. And I would like to also thank the RTC and all of the technical advisory committees that have put together the recommended funding package. I think it's very balanced and well thought out and interconnected. Just a couple of comments. In the North County, particularly San Lorenzo Valley, it's just revolving highway closures. Highway 236 near Big Basin closed for months. Highway nine approaching Saratoga closed for months and just this week announced four more full closures. Bear Creek Road closed for months up on actually State Highway 35. I think it is, it's not Bear Creek Road. Bottom line is all of that traffic is redirected back through Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Felton. And when you actually close highway nine near Highlands for four months, J slide for months, multiple lane closures, et cetera, for utility and tree work. Glen Harbor Road is the de facto highway nine. And I would just like to say that not only is it important but the two blocks stretch of Glen Harbor Road on each end of it is a bus stop. And the other thing is the SLV residents strongly support system preservation on Bear Creek Road, Empire Road just as you did last year on the emergency response routes of Alba Road and Jameson Creek. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Helmer. Good morning, Chair, Commissioners, Claire Galogli with the City of Santa Cruz. I wanted to commend the RTC staff on their revised recommendation. I think it does an excellent job taking in the comments by your various advisory bodies and by the various community groups reflecting a real interest in a balanced program of projects that reflects the varied needs in our community. In speaking with my colleagues at other jurisdictions, we in general share this sentiment. We're pleased to see the revised program of projects that's proposed to you today. Within the city, we're really excited to be able to deliver on some big projects that we're looking forward to improving in our community. And I think overall what you see before you is going to do a great job improving conditions for our traveling public wherever they're trying to go and however they're trying to get there. So thank you very much. Ms. Galogli. Jessica Evans from the City of Santa Cruz, not representing the city, I just live there. I just wanted to commend staff. I think that staff did a great job of working really hard to come up with a recommendation that serves the county really well that is both putting together some important programs that matter for right now and also looking forward and making sure that there's local commitments that will enable us to continue to improve and grow our transportation system going forward. I think it was, it's not always easy. Everybody wants a bite. Everybody wants a piece. But I think that staff really did a good job and I personally just recommend that, you know, you guys just approve it. Honestly, just, you know, push green and move forward, that would be, that's my opinion. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Evans. Good morning. I'm Paula Bradley, a Capitola and District One resident. I support option C, I prefer funding for complete streets projects and that the 8.5 million go for zero emission passenger rail and trail so funds are available to continue with the approved project work plan. Agreed it is critical that we have an improved metro transit system. Our roads suffer from underfunded maintenance and storm damage. The only way to increase bicycling and walking is to invest in making it safer as part of a multimodal transportation system. Last month at the RTC committees, 8.5 million was recommended for the transit and inner city rail capital program. Now option B, today staff recommends option A with only 2 million for rail to leverage more funds. With options B and C, transit would have gotten 75% of the SB 125 funds, rail 25%. Now with option A, transit gets 94%. The staff report discusses applying for uncertain funding for zero emissions rail and trail to recover the funds needed to continue the work plan. Then there's an option D with no funds for rail, which is much worse than 2 million zero. 74% of county voters clearly stated we want rail and trail. I'm concerned about transparency, making decisions contrary to proceeding with the rail and trail plan and maintaining trust among the competing transportation interest groups and the public so that we can continue to work together in good faith. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bradley. Good morning commissioners, alternates and staff. My name is Soledadine Sale. I live in Santa Cruz. In recognition of the season, I just wanted to thank you all for the selfless service and professionalism that you've displayed all year long on our collective behalf. We are honored to have you. I want to express my support for the staff recommendation of $2 million for zero emission passenger rail and trail. Although I support the staff recommendation, I sorely wish it could be closer to the 16.5 million requested. As zero emission passenger rail and trail is by far the most significant and consequential investment in the transportation future of our county we can make. I find Metro's 15 minute fair free wave service to be very exciting. A three year fair free high frequency bus is a bold experiment in supporting public behavioral change for a better future. And finally, given ongoing calls for continued expansion of existing automobile support infrastructure and the diversion of long-term investments in clean and scalable transportation into no progress basic maintenance functions like repaving, I urge the commission to remain mindful of the public's overwhelming support for zero emission passenger rail and adjacent trail as the spine of our county's transit system. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sale. Good morning, Chair Cohn and commissioners. I'm Matt Ferrell. I'm the board chair of Friends of the Rail and Trail. And I just want to, we submitted a letter in support of the revised staff recommendation. I just want to make a few short points. First of all, I want to say that in the world of transportation, we are in a changed universe because for the first time in years, the leader of the Regional Transportation Committee at commission and the transit district and rail advocates are all talking to each other. And that is a huge change in the tone of the conversation. And I want to change those, thank those people for taking that step to engage in that open and free discussion because that's how we will get change. Finally, I want to say that the TERSP program is identified to fund both rail and transit. Those are its highest priorities. And we look forward to working in the coming months and years with the transit district to come up with a collaborative solution to realize the opportunity of rail. So we are strongly in support of the revised recommendation and we appreciate all the work the RTC staff did in the application for the rail project. It was a very professional, well done application but we are going to stand with the revised staff recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Farrell. Good morning. My name is Matt Machado. I'm the director of public works for the County of Santa Cruz and I just want to make three comments and three points. For starters, we fully support the revised staff recommendation. And the second point is we want to thank the RTC staff for such a balanced approach and we know how much work they put into it to get to that balanced approach that for the most part we all can support wholeheartedly. So thank you for that. And my third point is I'd like to thank Metro for their collaboration and partnership and especially Michael Tree for his leadership and his vision. So thanks to all of the partners here and hopefully the commission can make this vote easy on themselves and so I thank you for your continued support as well. Thank you, Director Machado. Hi, everyone. I live in Aptos. Thank you, everyone. And please support the staff recommendation to allocate 2 million to SB125 funds to the rail concept study. This local funding will show the state that Santa Cruz County is committed to the rail project. It will help us compete for the state and federal grant funding the project will need going forward. Friends of the rail and trail was part of the effort to get this 34.7 million dollars in flexible one-time public transportation funding for our county. Rail should be included in the allocations. The first two phases of the rail concept study are fully funded. This is important work that will provide a foundation for the environmental impact report and plans. It is critical to have some resources dedicated in the next steps. A strong Metro will build a strong foundation for the passenger rail project as we move forward. Metro is an essential part of our public transportation system. Let's not forget Watsonville. I live down in Aptos. 30% of Watsonville residents do not own a car. 80% of them work at the boardwalk. And during the Measure D, the no-way green, the greenway vote, 84% of Watsonville voters voted to keep the rail line in force. I also quickly just want to bring up since we're here in Scotts Valley, there's a public letter that was written a few years ago by the seven San Lorenzo Valley fire officials. They opposed forced abandonment of the Felton branch line, the Santa Cruz branch line, and they support Roaring Camp. They needed to keep that freight line open. So because it... Thank you, Ms. Andriana. Hi, my name is Joan. I'm a Santa Cruz resident. And I have been traveling in Europe for the last six weeks, totally dependent on rail and bus. And I am so delighted to hear that Metro wants to implement a world-class bus system in Santa Cruz. I think it's also important that we try to implement a world-class rail system in Santa Cruz. And I think you are right about changing the culture of people taking public transportation. It is cost effective. It is energy effective. It is a wonderful way to travel. My daughter lives in Spain. They are one person, one household car, one car household. And I find that the traffic is minimal. Every place that I was in Switzerland and Italy, there was a designated trail, biking trail, right next to the train. And it was utilized. Some of these trains actually have playgrounds on them. It is just phenomenal. And so I think that of that 34.7 million, I would like to see more allocated to a rail trail moving forward. But certainly I support the staff recommendation of $2 million for rail trail to continue the studies. Thank you. Thank you, John. Seeing no one else here in chambers, is there anyone online? All right, I see we have some folks. We'll begin with Brian Peoples. Hi, this is Brian from Trail Now. Let's be realistic. Southern California is moving their existing rail in lenders by 2035. Their goal is to do that. Our rail corridor goes 20 feet from the Pacific Ocean. Trying to put a train there violates the coastal commission sea level rising requirements. So it's essentially we're investing millions on more design of a train that you can't have. It's like somebody building a house and they're gonna say they're gonna build this huge house but the zoning, it doesn't meet the requirements. So obviously we oppose giving more, wasting more tax dollars on a train that will never arrive. Secondly, we want to prioritize opening the coastal corridor. As we're seeing our roads are very dangerous, we need an alternative route. That coastal corridor needs to be opened and that process is rail banking. That process was recommended by the expert, former ROTC Executive Director Guy Preston who came forward years ago, recommending that you rail bank it like all other communities across the country. And the rail banking process, what it does is it preserves the corridor for future transportation as a future transportation corridor. It doesn't mean that you can't have a transit system in the future. So it's very unacceptable that we put roaring camp over our community and stopping us from opening the corridor. We wish that you would put more of a focus on rail banking and opening the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail as soon as possible, all the way to Watsonville. The only way you're gonna get it to Watsonville is through rail banking. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peebles. Ms. Faulkner. Thank you, commissioners and staff. Our county is faced with serious transportation challenges. Our roads are crumbling, our highway is traffic bound weekdays and weekends. And our surface streets are clogged with aggressive drivers where our kids and seniors no longer feel safe to walk or bike in our community without fear of losing their lives. In December of 2021, after months of collaboration between numerous commissions, funds proposed to go to Metro were taken away at the initiative of the current chair. And in the past three years, the traffic and safety problems on our surface streets have gotten worse, not better. How can we spend our money on transportation in a way that would address equity, our environmental crisis, traffic and facilitate social connection and generate money for our community? The staff's plan helps to address this. When it comes to dollars and cents, public transit investments create huge positive economic ripple effects. The American Public Transportation Association estimates that for every dollar we invest into our public transportation systems, we generate $5 back into our community. Prioritizing public transit and facilitating more bus ridership means more jobs and increased economic vibrancy which results in more money for our community. Metro has been successfully building a world-class busing system for our community with 15-minute headways on major routes from North to South County. Reimagine Metro will provide a clean alternative to driving that provides truly equitable access to jobs, parks, schools while reducing traffic. Equity Transit supports the staff recommendation, prioritizing Metro's world-class bus system with a small amount of funding for rail to be used as leverage to seek further funding and support for our communities. Majority vote on Proposition 116 and Measure D 2022. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms. Faulkner. David Van Brink. Good morning, good morning. Can you hear me okay? We can. Hey, apologies for dialing in. I'm David Van Brink. I live in the city of Santa Cruz. I'm calling in to support the staff recommendation. Everything is trade-offs. Of course, I'm relieved that rail planning continues forward. As a resident on the West side, of course, I'm biased, but the new service levels of Metro are fantastic. The stop at the end of my block, is it a flower in Western, has a red level service. And it's great. I use it multiple times per week. Like many of you, I'm basically the opposite of a captive rider. I just prefer to use public transit when it's available and possible. And on this block, at least it is. So yes, support to the staff recommendation. That's all, thank you. Mr. Van Brink. Nina Call. It seems that you're unmuted, but we can't hear you. All right, well, let's proceed with the next commenter, Mr. Cannon. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Piet Cannon with Ecology Action. I wanna thank the commission for its support of our youth bike safety and walk safety programs that we provide to elementary students throughout the county secrucial program in terms of supporting active transportation. And I also encourage the commission to support full funding for this program as the staff has recommended. And then I also wanted to talk to the RTC's program for e-bike and sending programs. I think providing a financial incentive to purchase an electric bike is a big step in expanding signable transportation that is affordable. There is a e-bike revolution where a more wider group of people can now go further and faster on a bicycle with electric bikes. And so reducing the ownership cost barriers is a big step in terms of making that form of new signable transportation available to folks throughout the county. And especially with a focus on higher financial incentive amounts for those who qualify in terms of being low income. So fully promote that program. And then also embedded in that program is a funding for low income reduced fares for e-bike share programs. The B-Cycle program has started in the city of Santa Cruz in UCSC and it's been wildly successful. And that program will expand out through the county and it would be great when it rolls out there's an option for income qualified folks to be able to access that program at a very reduced price. I think UCSC students pay $12 a year for membership for that whole 12 month use. So if the rates can be as low or in that category for qualified county residents that would make a big difference because e-bike share program is like a public transit program. So thank you very much. Appreciate that. Shannon, here's your unmuted chance, so go ahead. Mr. Nelson. Yes, this is Jack Nelson of Santa Cruz. And so I'm seeing today is a big day for Santa Cruz Metro. I really support the growth of that system. I also support including at least $2 million for the rail, for the rail trail study. And so I'm left wondering how bicycles are doing in this program. I'd like to call your attention to your agenda packet where attachment three or four comments received has a letter from your TC's own bicycle advisory committee. And a key point of their writing is asking you to really work with all these project sponsors to include complete streets in various street and road projects. Complete streets, of course, includes making streets more usable and friendly and safe for bicycles with the ultimate really being barriers or separate pathways for bicycles. I just wanted to say bicycling really is a practical transportation means, for instance, living here on the east side of Santa Cruz. With the last class I took at Cabrillo College, I rode my bike out to Cabrillo College and back and found as a senior was really vitalizing for my health. And it was reliable as to timing. My class started at 6 p.m. And so I couldn't count on what was happening on the bus on highway one, but I could count on my own bicycle to get me there and get me home. It worked really well. And it was truly zero emissions. So as this goes forward, I hope you're approving it. I hope your staff will be looking at those comments from the Bicycle Advisory Committee. And member Rick Hyman has given you very detailed project by project comments on that. Thank you. Mr. Nelson. All right, Sean, we'll give one more chance here. Have a comment. Sean, can you hear us? There you go. From Metro's comments today, they're going forward with their work and their planning, assuming with the intention of working with rail, the downtown specific plan for Watsonville, they're also doing the same thing, including with a housing near the shops, near the station. You don't have to take any comments from anybody in that room to know that rail is important and we want it funded. It has been well funded. How through negotiations it went from 8.5 million to 2 million, 8.5 million to zero, and then to 2 million in just a couple of days. I'd like to hear about that. Why is the RTC trying to defund its own project? Transportation Cafe number nine, an RTC production on their YouTube channel. They were very excited to roll out plans for rail and trail. They had Sandy Leiden on, so anybody can go and find that. And your own data on the Vision Santa Cruz County website tells you that there are more people with disabilities living in the zip codes through which the rail corridor runs than almost all of the rest of the county and that number is rising. Braille is not a liability. It's a positive. It's gonna be a draw for people with property nearby. Thank you, Sean. Gina Galena Cole, we'll give you one more shot here. You're unmuted, go ahead. This goal right there. All right, we still cannot hear you, so. Going on. All right, that's the end of commenters online. I'll return to the commission for a motion and I'll, Mr. Montecino. Yeah, I'd like to move staff recommendations in the community moving forward. Second. Anyway, we have a motion by Commissioner Montecino. I second by Vice Chair Brown for the discussion. Mr. Schifrin. What we've talked about this morning, what we've heard about is need for balance system. And I think that's really important. I think what the question is and the concern that I have is what's the appropriate balance? And I think we have a recommendation that in terms of road funding, that funding should go, that could go for roads is gonna go for roads. I think that is appropriate. The question is, what about the rail and bus funding, the transit funding? Is it the appropriate balance to have $2 million for its rail? And I think it's either 26 or 28 or 30. I'm gonna ask staff what it was, but it's about $28 million that is being proposed for the transit. And I think it's, as we heard from the last presentation, what the transit district wants to do is extremely desirable. We'll make for a much, much better bus system. And I'm very supportive of it. My concern is though that it's a three year program and it can get started with a little bit less money in the first year as far as I'm concerned. And so I wanna talk a little bit about what are the consequences of the staff recommendation in terms of the continuing with the rail feasibility study. As I understand it, and I'm sure staff if not somebody else would correct me, the next phase with the current phase of feasibility, we have the funding for that, that's gonna take maybe 18 months to complete. The next phase, which is the EIR, may cost or the final phases may cost as much as $26 million. We're hoping that we'll get a grant for that with the $2 million, maybe we'll only need $24 million. The grant won't be for 100% and that's really what my concern is because we'll have to come up with 20%. The only place we can come up with that 20% is Measure D. And Measure D funding is quite limited for rail. Much of it is going towards maintenance which we know is a never ending problem. But some of it is going for this rail study. To the extent that we're able to put aside some of this money that's available to us now, this $30 million or whatever it is for the rail study, that's less Measure D money that we're gonna need down the road. And that's gonna make a big difference in terms of one, whether or ever, one, gonna be able to complete that study. And two, if the study turns out to show that rail is feasible, whether that is going to be possible to use some of that money for the construction of passenger rail service. Passenger rail, as others have said, is going to be an incredible boost or significant boost, at least. I don't like it, it's too much high curb over there. A significant boost to public transit. Especially between Watsonville and San Diego. The whole corridor. Being able to afford to provide that service, if it turns out to be feasible and having the funding to allow it to be feasible is, I think, really important. So it's a question of what's the appropriate balance here. My original, I supported, as did ITAC, at their meeting, the original staff recommendation, was to give $8.5 million to the rail study and the rest of it to the Metro. And I think that that would really make a significant difference in terms of one, our ability to get the state grant to do the next phase and to the impact that having to provide the local fairway, as your D rail funding. I've been convinced from the presentation by Metro, the Metro doer manager, that there is a need over the three years to have this $32 million. And the port of it. My sense, though, is that that's gonna take time to get going. There could be other funding sources over the next couple of years, and this is a chance, this is a course of funding that comes along only to regular. So what I would propose as a compromise is that the allocation for the rail study go from $2 million to $4.25 million. So that it would represent half of what was the original staff recommendation. There would still be well over $20 million or Metro pilot, three year pilot project. So I'm gonna, I would like to amend, make a motion to amend the motion or to move the staff recommendation with increase in the funding for rail from $2 million to $4.25 million. All right, and I would say negative, because as you stated in 1978, we had a golden opportunity. And then in measure D, we had a golden opportunity. Now we have a transformative opportunity to transform our community. And by a planning document like you said, we have other avenues. You said Metro has other avenues, Metro has other avenues, we can, but it's a planning document. This is food on the ground. This is for our community. This is transformative. The first time and since 1978, that we're actually gonna put so much service, so much emphasis in providing a world-class system. So not. It's not considered a friendly amendment. I think are you proposing a substitute motion commissioner Schifrin? I guess I'll make it as a substitute motion. Okay, is there a second? I'll second. I'd like to see where others are at here. All right. I would like to respond to commissioner Montecino's response on motion. There's no question that the Metro proposal is worth funding. And it's going to move forward three year program. There are, as we've seen over the years, the funding available for Metro comes in many different forms, state government, federal government, and one of the creative ways that Metro has been able to get funding is the Free Fair program. I think it's a very desirable pilot as well. And Metro has opportunities. In fact, there is very little funding available for rail. It gets 8% of the Measure D money. Metro gets 16%. The Metro is getting $31.4 million a year in just local funding. Sales tax, the Measure D funding, and the vast majority of the TDA money all is going to Metro. And I've always supported that. I just think that this is a time when if we're going to be serious about rail, and I know you as well as the other South County representatives have been very supportive of moving forward with rail, it's going to make a difference in terms of how much this commission owes its commitment to really wanting to take rail seriously by putting some of the money that it could allocate into the rail study. And going from $2 million out of what was originally an $8 and a half million dollar recommendation is not a huge commitment. I think 4.25 million is a much fairer commitment. That's why I offered this substance. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Mr. County, sorry, Johnson. Sorry, do you have a question? I would just like to make one clarification, Mr. Chair. The zero emission passenger rail project, the total cost for doing the full environmental document is $26 million. That does include the concept report, which the commission has already funded of the commission and with measure D money plus grant funds at the RTC Secure Frontership, the total of 9.23 million. So that does leave about $16.8 million for that are needed for that project to have complete funding. And I know there's a lot of numbers that are out there so it's easy to get confused. Thank you for that clarification, Director. Mr. County, sorry, Johnson. Thank you. Yeah, Commissioner Brown said she wanted to see where commissioners were at. I'm not in support of this alternate motion. I'm in support of the original motion made the staff recommendation. We have a really unique opportunity before us right now. We heard from Metro workers here. We heard from the public and we've got boots on the ground, literally. We're ready to go and without the 28 million, we won't be. This is not a moment for us to pit rail against buses. We need each other. Neither modes of transportation will be successful either now or in the future if we don't truly collaborate. And I do believe the staff recommendation and where we have landed with the staff recommendation is true collaboration and gives momentum both for us to the Metro to move forward with what's in the works, ready to go in a couple of weeks with phase one and spring summer with phase two and continue to support rail, which we know from the last election, our community wants to see. I'm committed to that as a Metro board member to see both modes of transportation. So that's where I'm at. Thank you, Commissioner Lantara-Johnson. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, thank you. And I will be against the substitute motion and go support the initial motion. I have a extended comment that I'd like to, it's adjusted now, but first I want to thank the RTC for the recommendations on the roads, especially in my district and the fifth district on my Arbor Road, the Svelton's, Santa Rosa Valley school complex and the Empire grade. Mayor Creek Road and as a board, Metro board member, I'm enthusiastic about the reimagined Metro funding that we've heard about and I look forward to the results of that in the pilot program. And as a county supervisor, I'm equally gratified for the funding to repair the roads. We don't have the roads in order. Nothing else travels very well at all. So that's first things first. I think it's important to, I just saw a recent study results from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. They categorized, there's 3,143 counties in the United States and they had a national landslide risk component of that. And unfortunately, we were number 15 in Santa Cruz County. Being high on that list, not a good thing. We need to pay attention to the road system that we have. So everybody of every motor transportation can take support for that. And I do support the recommendation to set aside the $2 million for passenger rail, but I wish to share my thoughts regarding that project itself. I've supported funding for all of the rail exploratory studies and there's been many of them in reports because I have always believed that we need to preserve the option passenger rail. Just good public policy that we have. But I wanna remind everyone that the RTC has a plan in place regarding passenger rail. I fully support the concept report investment because we need to have the full facts regarding the feasibility to build and operate the passenger rail. And up to this point, both sides of this discussion have argued the facts, if they will, their own facts regarding rail ridership, cost potential, and to pull traffic off of highway one and so on. But the only numbers we have now is that it says they will cost $1.2 billion with a B, but likely that number will be much more in the future. Many rail proponents have indicated to my office that they do not care what the cost will be. It matters if we can realistically fund it, but we do not have the luxury of not caring about the cost of projects and each project we fund really must have a cost benefit ratio analysis to it that shows how it should be prioritized. The concept report will illuminate the reality of the situation so the commission can make an evidence-based decision regarding any next steps in pursuing passenger rail. I will not be in the seat when that decision is made in. I can hear the size of relief already, good job. So I want to encourage all of you to analyze the concept report and make the best decision for our community within the context of all the other critical transportation needs that have been identified today. And lastly, it goes without saying whenever I talk about transportation in Santa Cruz County, I want to thank the voters of Santa Cruz County more than two-thirds of them who supported Measure D that said, yes, we have an issue here and we want to try, we have a problem here and we want to try to correct it and prove it to the best of our ability. There was various segments of that, percentages have been mentioned and each of those people that you could be rail, you could be bike, you could be a bus, you could be a vehicle. They all say it wouldn't have passed without me and you're right, it wouldn't have needed two-thirds and so it's a comprehensive measure that was passed that we have to address with the limited funds we have. I think this report we have, and this suggestion we have is the best way we can address the transportation needs of Santa Cruz County today. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson, sure. Vice Chair Brown. This is a really exciting day in my opinion. There's a lot of really great projects that are for us today that are going to be either fully or partially funded when we're looking at the road repair and improvements, the bicycle, pedestrian projects, the projects that address equity and accessibility, these are just really exciting and the fact that we're here to support these projects today I think needs to be acknowledged. In addition to that, the opportunity to move forward with Metro's Reimagine Metro program in the comments that I made earlier about what this means, not just transportation, but for housing and again, equity here in our county, this is all really exciting. Additionally, the idea that we are bringing forward an additional $2 million to use for serving as a match for additional funding for the zero emission passage of rail and trail project. What I see today is that we heard from interests within the cities, we've heard from interests within the county and county staff, we've heard from Metro, we've heard from Port, we've heard from Ecology Action and their pedestrian and bike education program and RTC staff. And so that is almost every single interest in transit and transportation within our county has stepped forward to speak in favor of the staff recommendation. And to me, that is the best example of what it looks like to convene, collaborate and build consensus, to build good public policy. And that is what really excites me. That is what I really care about is building consensus in order to develop public policy, service of our community in a wide variety of ways. And so that's why I have seconded the motion for the approval of the staff recommended and not support the substitute. Thank you, Vice Chair Brown. Commissioner Sandy Brown next. Mr. Hernandez. Thank you, Chair. So I wanna just make a couple of comments about the decision that is before us and kind of my rationale for seconding Commissioner Schifrin's motion. So and ask a couple of questions as well because I think it's important that the community understand, we are in, it's an exciting day. It's a wonderful day. I absolutely support the Metro vision and I want us to move forward with providing the resources necessary for to test this out, to get moving and see what happens and I do think that it's gonna contribute to a robust transit network and probably will in the long term help us get rail funding. So yes, it's an exciting day and really wonderful things are happening. It's also a really a no win situation for decision makers when there are so many projects that we know are critical. I mean, I have in my head and I'm not gonna give a speech about it but I've talked with folks from County roads. Mr. Wiesner, you're here and you have explained very clearly what the challenges are for our county system and I've also heard those numbers, what happens when we don't do those repairs and there are failures and so I understand that that need is so critical and we don't have enough funding for it. The city projects are obviously as a city of Santa Cruz representative to the Metro or to the RTC, excuse me, I see then those projects. I mean, I know our staff has been working incredibly hard and effectively and strategically to prioritize projects and to make them the best projects we can get the complete streets elements so critical and I could go on and I won't but what I want us to say about the rail funding is I recognize that there is a very, there's an urgency to moving forward now with Metro projects and I 100% support them and I worry that we are going to, we're gonna realize it is a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who have been skeptical of rail and the potential for rail and I'm gonna be real candid here, we have been fighting it out on this body in the public and I have time after time seen commissioners do everything they can to undermine rail and I worry about that and I don't want this decision to be one more contribution to that undermining so I'm very concerned about that and so I guess I'll, and I don't want this to be, I mean it is zero sum today and it doesn't need to be zero sum overall and so I just wanted to ask our RTC staff about the, just to provide a reminder here for us about the timing on the, when you anticipate completion of the concept report, when we are really gonna need that, I think it's approximately 16 million for the environmental review, the staff report has some information about that and so I'm not asking for just a repeat of that but if just a little bit more detail on the timing and what funding will be available to kind of move us potentially available to us, to move us towards getting that fully funded when at the time that it's needed rather than having to take another couple of years and potentially have changes on the commission and the political wind shift, I just worry that we're in such a tenuous position related to moving forward on rail and we have so much support, I don't want that window of opportunity to close so I see as Christensen is here, if you could just talk about that. Can you hear me? All right, I'm Sarah Christensen of your staff and I oversee capital delivery for the RTC and I just wanted to give a little bit of a breakdown of the current funding plan for the rail project which is funded currently by a little bit of measure D rail funds as well as TERSIP competitive funds and we do have a deficit to complete environmental obviously the 16 million or so. So it's really difficult to balance all of the needs of the county because everybody needs funding for all of their important work that they're doing. This process happens every two years. So obviously after today, regardless of what scenario is adopted, we're still gonna be pursuing funding to fully fund the environmental process of the rail project. So there's outside funding opportunities, there's the state rail assistance emerging corridors program, whatever the project does not get funded today, we're gonna turn around and apply for those funds, whatever the deficit is. If we get, say that's 10 million and we only get 5 million, then we're gonna keep looking for that extra 5 million and this process is gonna happen over the next few years and measure D is available, whatever's left at the end will be funded by measure D. However, the measure D rail funds is very limited and if we completely empty out our pockets, we could have challenges with cash flow for all of the infrastructure preservation needs along the 32 mile rail line. And so we have to be cognizant of that and we're also still pending reimbursement by FEMA for the 2017 storms as well as the 2023 storms. So whatever we don't get reimbursed, we have to manage our funding accordingly and be responsible and it likely is gonna come out of measure D but it's likely we'll be back in two years for this process to pursue additional funding for environmental. So I just wanted to provide that perspective and we appreciate all of the partners that staff's been working with to strike a balance and come up with a recommendation that hopefully makes everybody happy and makes your jobs easier. Thank you. Can I just follow up with a quick question? I'm just wondering, so am I hearing, I couldn't hear you say it explicitly. We will, you're anticipating that the RTC would initiate environmental review about two years from now based on the flow of work with the concept report or that's when you expect funding to again. I just want to clarify. The project schedule is about 18 months currently for the concept report that could get pushed out depending on decisions and how things go but the timing would be ripe for this process two years from now and we could, other strategies we could use is interprogram loans and our financing of measure D and that was outlined in the staff report as well. If we don't have sufficient cash flow to do the environmental within the schedule that we want to do. One more follow up question based on what you just said. Those interfund loans would require commission. I believe the commission has already approved interprogram loans to manage cash flow around measure D as it relates to the rail project and the FEMA and all of that so. And that's correct. Yeah, the commission did approve by resolution that the interprogram loans could be used to make sure that we manage the cash flow for the concept report as needed. Thank you. That's a good follow-up. I actually had commission. Yeah, I haven't even said that. Fernand as then commissioner Quinn and then Mr. Shepard. I'm going to support the motion as. Could you lean forward into the microphone a little bit more? I'll do it again. I'm going to support the original motion. I want to follow up on something commissioner McPherson said. As commissioners, we owe it to the public to be data driven. And one of the things that impressed me with Mr. Tree's presentation today, he's committed to certain things. 15 minute turnaround, six to eight million riders. So we have to write that down and hold them accountable. And how we move from here will hinge largely on how you and your impressive team perform on these metrics. And I get worried when I'm called train or bus or whatever, I'm neither, I'm data driven. When I hear the trains going to provide tremendous transportation, I kind of ask myself, what data do we have in hand? The data we have in hand says about a two to 3% reduction in highway one traffic. So if we're going to commission studies, we need to read them, need to honor the data and we need to act accordingly. And so therefore I'm going to support the initial motion. Probably won't be here in three years, but you better all be checking on the 15 minute times. Mr. Hernandez. You know, this was a interesting day, but you know, I have to start off with, you know, I am a rail, a staunch rail supporter. And you know, I have to say that we, you know, I talked to staff and I'm glad that we talked and we still have just under two years to seek rail funding. And I think this 2.1 million seed money is good for matching grants. We could seek the grants that their staff was talking about. I feel that we put Metro on the back burner and the idea was for them to find the grants. And lo and behold, they found the grants to get the vehicles they needed. And I think that we could do the same to find some of this funding for the rail, given that we have two years. I would want to seek, you know, direction, not here, but later on that we direct staff to actually seek this funding in the future for rail. You know, and you know, what I really wanted to say is I want to thank Luis Mendez and all the ROTC staff, you know, for bringing everybody together, right? From County staff, County CDI staff, Steve and Matt, you know, Michael Tree met from Metro, rail folks, Fort folks, all the bike advocates and really putting something together, a good compromise. You know, when people talk about compromise, it's usually like 51% to 60% of what you want. But here we're talking about, you know, 60 to 90% and everyone's happy, you know. In organizing, you always talk about if everybody's unhappy, that's a good compromise. But this is something that we're all happy. So that's an excellent compromise. You know, I'm happy with, you know, Green Valley Road and Coralitos and the Freedom Project and Murphy, Rogie and Lee Road. I'm happy throughout the County that we're getting the bike and pedestrian programming, all the projects in North County that were affected from damage from fire and flood, all the active transportation projects, the bike and pedestrian infrastructure is going along with all the projects that we're getting throughout the County. And of course, you know, the rail projects that we're getting, you know, from, especially the Metro Rapid Corridor Project, the Reimagined Metro, the rail, the zero mission rail trail funding that we're getting, it's an excellent compromise. And so I'm gonna go for the original, the staff recommendation. All right, thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. Mr. Schifrin, did you have one more thing to add? Well, I was gonna ask Sarah a couple of questions about the impact of the amount of money that's being allocated to rail study. As I'm understanding it, and you can correct me, that the remaining money that would be needed to complete the process is $16 million. Is the $2 million going to be reducing that to $14 million? Yeah, so what? With the original recommendation, it would be reduced to about $8 million. With the motion, the substitute motion, it would be reduced to like $12 million. I understand what you're, if I understood what you were saying, staff is gonna be looking for state grants to fill the gap, whatever that gap is, whether it's $14 million, $8 million, $12 million, is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Is it also correct that whatever grant is received from the state will have a 20% match? Not necessarily, so the funding sources we are pursuing do not have the guidelines out, and the guidelines for the program tell you what's required. So if it's 20% or 50% or zero, we don't know yet. We also don't know the total amount that's available statewide. It's gonna be competitive, but typically what we find is the more investment that the locals are willing to make upfront, the more commitment you have going into a grant, higher percentage match is obviously gonna be more competitive than a lower percentage match. So whatever it is, I think normally we're thinking that a minimum is 20%. That's a wise assumption to make, yes. That's a wise assumption, a minimum of 20, yeah. Match is gonna come from Measure D. That, is there any other local funding source? The commission hasn't been very interested in using TDA funding for rail. So would it be coming from Measure D? It depends on, again, the guidelines because the existing funding that's already been committed could potentially serve also as a match because the full environmental and the concept report is 26 and it's somewhat, the concept report is kind of the beginning of environmental of people. We're gonna be building off of that for the... What percentage of match has Measure D provided for the funding we've received so far? Let's see. By my, yeah, I believe that at the moment we have 3.45 million in TURSA funds. And the rest of it is Measure D, correct? So that means that that two thirds of the funding moment is about two thirds. 60% of two thirds. So what you're saying is that Measure D could be 20% of the 16 million overall? Yes, I think we're more than 20% at this point. That's... Commissioner Schiffrin, I am gonna cut you off. I think that we've counted the votes in this room. It does not seem that your substitute motion has the votes. We're gonna call that question in one moment. I think we're all getting a little bit hungry and we do still have a closed session. You're welcome to carry on these questions with staff and you're in private time. I'd just like to make a few short comments. First of all, I think that we did get through this relatively difficult process, fairly conflict free. Someone mentioned don't fit the bus against the train. But the reality is all of our projects are printed against each other all the time, unfortunately. Whether it's county roads, city roads, the bus or the train. And I think that we've managed to come to a resolution here that is relatively conflict free and that everyone can live with and that is something to be celebrated. I also just wanted to say one quick shout out for the light at Robertson Road. This is gonna make a big difference on Soquel Drive. And it's gonna make a difference not only for cars but also the bus. And I think it's a great demonstration of how improving our road system does also improve our transit network and increase emergency response times. And finally, I'll ask a rhetorical question, which is that of course the transit money can be reprogrammed in the future, I believe. If I could just get a nod from staff, I'll take that, yes, all right. And so frankly, I would rather see all of the transit money go towards the metro. We have 30 bus drivers in this room, not 30 train drivers. And so those two million, possibly four million dollars that was sort of in question here, when we fund Reimagined Metro, we're funding it directly into the local economy as soon as possible. Hiring consultants for a train study that's gonna probably go to an outtown consultant and leave our community entirely. Moreover, we're talking about moving people starting next year, not in 2040 or beyond. So we need to respond immediately to the issues at hand. We need to start building transit ridership. And I think the program we have can do that. Again, the transit funds are reprogrammable. So if that concept report comes back lowing and actually demonstrates that rail is better than the bus, I have serious doubts that they will do that. But if it does, we could always look at moving the money from Metro onto the concept report. And by first, I frankly have concerns that we're cutting it a little close with the Reimagined Metro project. So if the concept report comes back and shows that rail, unfortunately, is not possible for various reasons, we could always choose to move that concept report money back to Reimagined Metro. With that, I'm gonna call the question first on the substitute motion as required. The motion, the substitute motion was to program four million dollars for the concept report instead and take two million away from Reimagined Metro. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say no. No. No. Any abstentions? Okay, the motion fails. I'll proceed with the main motion, which is the staff recommendation by Commissioner Montecino and seconded by Vice Chair Brown. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? All right, motion passed unanimously. Thank you everyone for coming today. That brings us to the end of the public hearing, of course, and to the end of the public section of our meeting. County Council, we will now move into closed session. Will there be any reportable actions? Yeah, there may be an actual open session. Sorry. You guys could just, excuse me, please just be a little quiet on the way out and we'll officially close the public session of our meeting. County Council, County Council, do we have, or sorry, RTC Council, do we have any reportable actions coming out of closed session? We may have a reportable action and there's an additional open session item that the commission may take up after the closed session. Okay, very much. And the commission will now move into closed sessions. But just one thing, Mr. Chair, it is possible if members of the public want to make comments in the closed session, they can do that before you go into closed session. Fair, fair point. Okay, so we will now take comments on the items on our closed session agenda, which are public employment relative to the Executive Director, the Interim Executive Director and Conference of Labor Negotiators. Was any member of the public wish to address us on any of those items? Yes. Good afternoon, commissioners. Brianna Goodman of your staff and SAIU Yun, the student for RTC non-management staff known as CORE. We'd like to thank you today for seeking CORE's staff input on your organizational restructuring. We appreciate RTC's negotiators are interested in understanding our concerns and representing us facefully to the board. Thank you for calmly and quietly leaving the road. They're excited, sorry. We look forward to continuing our discussions and working together towards the best outcome for our community. So thank you for hearing us. We appreciate the dialogue. Thank you, Ms. Goodman. Anyone else in chambers that wishes to address us on the closed session items? All right, seeing none, commission will now move in closed session and we'll be back to report on any potential action items. Thank you.