 Commissioner Lenick morning John Olenek Cal Trans District 5. We can't hear you John Olenek Cal Trans District 5. Can you hear me? Yes? Thank you Commissioner Peterson here Peter Siderson I heard your phone. I'm sorry. It's an identity crisis. You know, it's it's early in the morning. Commissioner Sandy Brown here. Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Montecino here. Commissioner Hernandez here. Commissioner Cummings. Okay. Commissioner alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig here. Commissioner McPherson here. Commissioner Christian Brown here. Commissioner kiddos Carter. Commissioner Rotkin. And Commissioner Hernandez. Do I really call you? Yeah, you did here again. Hey, let's see. Commissioner Peterson is joining us now. Do we have any AB 2449 just cause requests? Anyone online? Okay. And thank you director for Preston. Do we have any changes or additions to the agenda today? No changes to the agenda. We have a few things posted to our website. We have the presentations for items 18 and 19 as well as a handout for item 19. Thank you. We'll now proceed with oral communications. Any member of the public may address the commission on any item within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not already on the agenda. The commission will listen to all communication but in compliance with state law, it 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. Is anyone here in chambers that wishes to address the commission? All right, seeing none. Is there anyone online? I do not see any hands raised. Okay, then we'll proceed with the consent agenda. Any commissioner have any comments or questions on the consent agenda? Seeing none. Any member of the public wish to comment on the consent agenda? Anyone here in chambers? Is there anyone online? There is no one online. All right, I have a motion to consent agenda. Second. Motion from Commissioner Schifrin. Second from Commissioner Brown to adopt the consent agenda. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Passes unanimously by all commissioners present. All right, we will proceed with item 15. Commissioner reports. Any commissioner? Yes, Commissioner Montecino. Yes, I'd just like to report to committee and staff that as we looked at the next year's schedules, our Watsonville chambers are going to be capable of doing the Zoom and virtual virtual components. So we're over again back just to do exact meetings in Watsonville. Fantastic. Looking forward to coming down and seeing your lovely chambers down there. Yeah, just several of us are members of Metro as well. And Metro is just is going to change as of December. It's route structure and it's going to be we're going to get there more often. And within the 15 minute timeframe in a lot of places, it's going to be different. We think the signage and everything is going to be appropriate. It's going to be sufficient to let people know which routes are going where there's going to be some changes. But I think it's I feel very competent. It's going to be a very better system for serving more people in the Metro. And I want to thank all those who members of Metro and especially our CEO, Michael Tree, for putting this forward with John Ergo and some others. Thank you, Commissioner McPherson. Yes, we're definitely on our way to a world class Metro system. Very exciting. All right, then if there's no other commissioner reports, we'll move to the director's report. Thank you, Chair Koenig and commissioners. I have two staffing announcements and a few other items to discuss today. First, one of our transportation planners has been approved for a master's degree in city resiliency. Amanda Marino, who has been a transportation planner for the RTC for the last three and a half years has been accepted to a master's degree program in city resiliency at the International University of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain. Amanda plans to use that education to enhance her skills in the area of climate resiliency and the challenges in transportation. Amanda's proposal is to take one year off from her current position to complete this master's degree and staff has approved that request. To mitigate the impacts on planning work, RTC is recruiting for a temporary planner position for one year while attending the program. Amanda will work remotely for a few hours per week to help with her traffic demand management assignments. Amanda's increased education on climate resiliency will help prepare her to serve and benefit the Santa Cruz County community in a growing area of our work moving forward. Congratulations to Amanda. Although I can't say I look forward to her leaving, we will be happy to have her return with new skills and perspectives on how climate effects our work. We are also just welcomed a new planning intern, Anna Kolfoff. Anna was originally from Michigan and earned a bachelor's of arts in public and nonprofit administration from Grand Valley State University and she is currently pursuing a master's of urban planning at San Jose State University. Anna will work primarily with senior planner Rachel Morocone on the preparation of RTC's transportation equity action plan which is just getting started with funds secured from last year's Caltrans planning grants. I have an announcement regarding emergency storm damage work. You might remember at last month's RTC meeting, the commission authorized the rejection of the single bid we received on the phase two debris removal contract associated with storm damage on the Santa Cruz branch rail line. The rejected bid was 54% over the engineer's estimate. Staff recommended addressing one critical location, a bridge at milepost 8.32 as a standalone project to complete the work prior to the onset of winter rains. New potential for migrating listed and special species during the rainy season. All work must be completed prior to October 15 of this year and under the direction of RTC's on-call biology monitoring consultant. Staff solicited two bids with the lowest bid received from industrial railways for 192,800 which was within 5% of the engineer's estimate. That was a good decision. On September 18, I discussed the bids with Chair Koenig and he concurred with an award of a contract to industrial railways. The contract was subsequently executed and industrial railways commenced the work this past Monday, October 2. Work is anticipated to take about 7 to 10 days. We will get the work done before environmental deadlines. For the remaining 24 phase two debris removal sites, RTC staff assessed that they do not pose an immediate threat to the integrity of the line since the timing and the work windows of the prior two solicitations were significant factors and resulting in the high bids. RTC staff plans to re-scope and re-advertise at a later date. We believe the changes should result in more competition and better bids. This will also give more time for project formulations to be completed by FEMA, which would give RTC reasonable assurance that the work would be reimbursable from state and federal assistance programs. RTC staff will monitor these remaining sites as well as the already completed storm damage repair sites in advance and during the winter rainy season to monitor site conditions and to take any action as may become necessary. Then I'm going to state a little bit more about what Commissioner McPherson stated regarding Metro. Five of you are also Metro Board members and were part of two significant actions that took place on September 22 when the Metro Board authorized the purchase of 57 fuel cell electric buses and what was referred to as phase one of their reimagined Metro program. The purchase of the buses is the largest procurement of hydrogen cell electric buses in the nation and puts Metro in an excellent position of meeting the California Air Resource Board's goal of fully transitioning all bus fleets in the state to zero emission by 2040. This purchase was made possible in part by three significant grants received by Metro, one from the state and two from the federal government. In addition to converting fleet to zero emissions, Metro adopted a proposal to implement what is being referred to as phase one service of the reimagined Metro program. The reimagined Metro program was developed to help Metro increase ridership with a goal of doubling that ridership. To help meet this goal, Metro staff proposed service changes to be implemented in phases. So phase one increases service level by 10%, it increases frequency in areas with higher demand, provides simpler and more direct routes, creates better transfers for shorter wait times and does not require a second fare when you transfer. Phase one will change route numbers and in some cases change the streets which help us service and part of that is related to the upcoming work by the city on the Murray Street Bridge. With the Board of Approval, Metro will implement phase one in December of this year and that's a very ambitious schedule. So Metro is in the process of implementing a comprehensive outreach program as referred to by Commissioner McPherson to notify the public of these phase one changes. If you are an existing rider of Metro, please pay attention as there will be changes that will impact you but likely in a very positive manner but of course you need to be at the right station and looking for the right route. But if you are not a current Metro user, please consider evaluating whether these changes might make Metro a more attractive option for you. As you might be aware, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation is one of the leading causes of global warming and the public does have an option to help make a positive change one ride out of time. Metro is also considering subsequent changes referred to as phases two and three which I understand are still under development. Those phases will further increase service, frequency and change routes. However, implementation for future phases will be subject to additional public outreach, planning and subsequent action by the Metro Board. Those phases are dependent on the availability of funding but Metro plans to seek those funds so the full buildout can be achieved. There is a lot of exciting improvements happening at our transit district. Metro General Manager Mike Tree and I met Tuesday and as always I was amazed by how he uses his vision and strategic thinking to advance regional goals. I'm sure there will be more to follow and RTC will need to continue to show its support and reimagining Metro to better serve our community and that concludes my director's report. Thank you Director Preston. Are there questions from commissioners? Seeing none, any members of the public wish to comment on the executive director's report? Anyone here in chambers? Is there anyone online? There is not. All right then thank you very much Director Preston. We'll now proceed with the Cal Trans Reports by alternate director Olenek. I think that right. Yes, thank you. Good morning John Olenek Cal Trans District 5 here on behalf of Scotty the District Director. Just a few brief comments, a little follow up from a few things from last month as well as Director Preston mentioned. Last month we were able to celebrate the award of a handful of Sustainable Transportation Planning Grants to Senators County and really that was exciting. We do very well in District 5 with getting grants for planning efforts for transportation but I was here today to also announce that the next grant season has come upon us. So the 24 fiscal year 24-25 grant season has opened and we will be holding a district workshop, a virtual workshop on October 12th from 1.30 to 3 and the flyers in the news we have some flyers available we can provide to staff and pass out whoever is needed and so it's another chance for another round of grants. We're excited for the ones we have and we're going to work hard and diligent with you on those but looking ahead for the next year so that is coming up too. Another item I was going to mention last month I got to touch a little on some of the closures and the construction and restoration projects happening from the winter storms in the San Lorenzo Valley area. I got a chance to chat with Commissioner McPherson a few times about it but just as an update since our last time we've talked Highway 236 was able to reopen to one-way reversible traffic not long ago construction for that is anticipated to be completed by Thanksgiving. Along Highway 9 at Jay's wall that area we were performing night work to accommodate the daytime traffic needs but we're going to have to shift to day work to accommodate that work to get done efficiently however there is going to be one-way reversal traffic it won't be closed and we'll make accommodations for people who need to get through and again construction is anticipated for that to be done somewhere around mid-December. Another construction item a full closure has begun hopefully you all saw the press release or saw it through our social media accounts or handles but a full closure has begun on Highway 35 where it overlaps with Bear Creek Road. Access between 17 Highway 17 and San Lorenzo Valley is not possible at this time because of the work being done the geographic challenges the construction state and things like that but there we have our changeable message signs up and we're doing our best to get the word out to the traveling public that hope that work we hope will be done by the end of January and also it's just again you know in addition to cleaning up storms from last year we're also beginning our work for winter preparations for this year so you'll see some activity along the San Lorenzo Valley quarter really probably many areas of Santa Cruz County as that work gets done so we just really appreciate everyone's patience encourage folks to check in with our social media we have our Caltrans quick map app that everyone can download to their phones it's a it's of course a google map base but it gives some very good real-time information on what's happening where what construction is happening what changeable message signs might be on and so just as a reminder for everyone that's available and we're we'll do our best to keep informing you and your staff and the public as things change and it is obviously as you can appreciate very dynamic so thank you for your attention happy to answer any questions uh from the commissioners or the audience thank you alternate commissioner elanik are there comments or questions from commissioners i say thank you chair again i just want to thank uh caltrans mr elanik uh that sort of discussions on this some huge issues and problems up in the valley from previous storms and there are elsewhere in the county too but they're very significant in center rooms of valley and i want to thank him and the caltan crunched true for cooperating with our county and seeing how we can get to this as quickly as possible without interrupting the travel of modes of many people in the center rooms of valley so thank you again caltrans much appreciated thank you commissioner mayperson i was questions from commissioners uh let the record show that commissioner quinn has joined us at approximately nine eighteen um any comments from members of the public anyone here in chambers is there anyone online we don't have anyone online all right then thank you again mr elanik we will now proceed with a presentation on transportation projects in santa cruz county and i want to welcome up assistant director of public works steve wezner good to see you steve here hopefully you know how to use these mics by now yeah i hope so too as well um well it's great to be here this morning good morning chair and commissioners and director prestin or tc staff and members of the public my name is steve wezner i'm assistant director of public works with the county and with me today i have kasey carlson he is our senior operations engineer in charge of all of our pavement management projects throughout the county um and so today we have for you an update on transportation related projects within the unincorporated area of our county a last update we do this every two or three years the last update was i think march 21 so i have a fair amount to share with you this morning i'll try to go quickly um but i'd like to start by congratulating director prestin on his upcoming retirement um his partnership and also thanking him and his staff for his partnership um throughout his tenure here uh in delivering critical projects for our county and all the all the local jurisdictions in our region we can't thank guy enough um he's done great work his staff has done great work we hope to continue that legacy uh moving forward thank you guy the focus of our presentation today um is going to be mostly on projects um that have been funded wholly uh or in part through your commission it's going to consist of a measure d update uh recently completed completed projects uh projects that are currently in construction projects that are under development and we'll touch a little bit on the future needs of our transportation network um hopefully there'll be a little time for q and a at the end as well okay so just a reminder um for all of us here members of the public um measure d critical measure that was passed by the voters of our county in november 2016 um the county receives you can see the pie chart there um the 30 for neighborhood and street projects the county receives approximately about half of that um and currently it's around 3.8 million per year and um and we've delivered a project every single year since we started receiving money in 2018 um and we've been able to resurface you know over 40 miles of county roads uh since then and um and you know it's probably over 20 million dollars worth of investment um that that the taxpayers have made in the county's road system so we're very grateful for that we have a lot of a lot to show just so i'm going to run through these fairly quickly um in 2018 the first project we delivered and we were able to do some work um up off of St. Cal San Jose in the summit area down in the La Selva beach area um out in the Bonnie dune area of our county um we we repaired a critical bridge down in the south county area and casserly um and we started doing some resurfacing work in downtown boulder creek and i will say our approach has been as much as possible to spread this money uh throughout the region we're responsible for 600 miles of roadway throughout the entire unincorporated area of our county so in 2019 um we delivered a project in the live oak area we did some work down in the Rio del Mar beach flats um again we were up in Bonnie dune area doing martin road and we began work down in the downtown ben loman area 2020 we started delivering uh resurfacing projects up in the Thurber area um and started working down in the beach area c cliff area uh and then we started working on lake view road we did half of lake view road that year uh down in the watsomville area um and then we started in downtown felton so you can start to see the pattern here as we're spreading we're we're trying to do is work on the most dense uh downtown areas and neighborhood areas that are the most traveled and we're sort of working our way out and we just kind of sort of spreading the work throughout the county as every every year comes comes forward and let's see and my clicker has stopped working so maybe you can advance the next slide that'd be great okay oh here we go now in 2021 uh we began we began some work up uh this is the merlin way streets area that's blue ball park managing comings uh we did some work down in core elitos we finished up lake view road that year the second half and then we started working again in boulder creek kind of working our way out from the downtown area into 2022 uh we continued on thurber we did a very significant project on on portola um in the pleasure point area uh and again we revisited read del mar real del mar we did a quite a bit of work in the soquel village area and um and then found us back in ben loam and doing more work spreading out from the downtown area and we're very busy this past summer this is uh part of the pavement management project that the county has going on this summer and you can see all the roads that we worked on there in the pleasure point area um see cliff area again uh ocean view area which is kind of just sort of south of liselba um and we were starting to do a lot of work down in south county uh resurfacing all the green valley road part of paulson um and then back up in the downtown felton area um and a little bit of work ocean street extension and then we did all of quail hollow road which is quite critical made a lot of problems with that road this last winter um and there's a large pipeline project actually that the sound and runs valley water district recently did so we came in on the heels of that um okay uh so this is one project that we're actually hoping to be into construction on right now um it's a green valley multi-use path project this is a two-mile uh pedestrian and bicycle path separated from the roadway um we've got a design we've got a plan we want a five million dollar clean california's grant a couple years ago uh we we put this project together very quickly we put it out to bid we have a little bit of measure d money you can see that that are the board of supervisors approved on this project however bids came in about two and a half million dollars over the engineer's estimate and so we are actually looking for more funding for this project we have a very tight deadline on this project by the state we're able to get extended six months but if we're not able to find the gap in funding between now and i would say like this next june uh we run the risk of having to give that five million dollars back and of course we do not want to do that this is a really fantastic project um so we're going to continue to seek funding for that and we're very hopeful that we'll be able to deliver this project next year um and then what we have proposed for next year in 24 so it's kind of nice to have a little visual here of the county and you can kind of see how we're spreading the work out again in the unincorporated area um and so next year you know we anticipate delivering projects up in felton in the scott's valley area that are unincorporated um a little bit of work down in aptos around chow colch um and um and hopefully the rail trail segment eight and nine we have a significant investment for measure d funds of local neighborhood measure d funds going towards that project as well in partnership with the city a city of Santa Cruz i should say um okay a completed project since our last rtc update um again we're really focused on pavement management i will say by and large the funds that come through the commission have become our pavement management program for our arterials and collector roadways these are the big roads roads in our county the ones that carry the most traffic 10 15 000 plus cars a day um so uh in 2020 we were in construction last time i reported to you but this project was completed shortly after that um and you can see we were able to do a lot of work uh you know in the line arbor area this is up in ben loman a lot of the roads that are adjacent to highway 17 and alternate routes to highway 17 and a little bit of work up in some of the you know more rural areas like zany and then empire grade and these are all roads like zany empire grade that connect our communities together and provide critical evacuation routes actually for folks that live up in the mountains and then we are able to completely rebuild all of pioneer and varni down the core lead us area so i know really important south county those roads have been neglected for years to come and what i want you to focus in on here is look how much money your commission is is providing for these projects and that rstp that's tip money that's almost seven million dollars worth worth of funding these projects don't happen without your commission so we're here to say thank you and to continue delivering these projects sometimes it works and sometimes it does okay and also since i last reported um we completed the second phase of the optos village plan uh which is basically a signalized intersection at optos creek road um so we removed the last stop sign uh the year before that phase one which was at trough with trough coast so we only actually have one stop sign left on soquel drive and keep in mind soquel drive is kind of like our highway too right so that's at robertson right so we're very keen on trying to get that that that signalized as well um but we've just about completed all the work in the village um with the phase one and phase two okay i'm going to touch a little bit on project construction i mentioned this one just earlier um in the measure d segment um but we put out a very robust uh pavement management project this this summer uh which included all the funding sources you see there um and again you can take a look at the critical funding that your commission provides um in rstp and in stip funding um and then look the measure d funding that came from our local streets and roads program as well um with a significant you know match coming coming from the local road program and so with this we're able to deliver quite a bit of um resurfacing on san andraeus all the hand road airport boulevard green valley road and and we're starting to rehabilitate planavista drive um in front of landfill there so we're going to continue that work and we're able to get a small segment of it done this summer okay another great project that we that we've completed this summer uh which we're calling the emergency routes project which is basically resurfacing all of alba jameson and jameson creek roads um and a part an portion of empire grade um all of these roads were smacked dab in the middle of the cz u fire and they were heavily impacted by the debris removal operations and um emergency service delivery up there firefighting and so forth um and these roads really needed it needed it really badly so we're really happy to be able to bring this one um you can see kasey's team has been really busy delivering these pavement management projects uh and again most of this funding came through your commission okay so um this is this is probably the single biggest project that through our road department has undertaken in in many decades if ever um it's it's a 25 million dollar plus project we're in construction and this is a this is a great partnership project between us and the rtc so again we thank the rtc for their partnership here while while caltrans and rtc are busy doing work on highway one uh we're out there on soquel drive this is a five and a half mile project goes all the way from the santa cruz city limits to state park drive and then there's a lot of really good elements in this project um it's gonna it's going to really transform the way soquel drive looks and the way it's used and we're providing a lot more safety for bicycles and pedestrians um and we're upgrading all of the signals i think it's like 22 signals involved um with modern detection systems and also bus priority so we'll work with metro on this as well um so we're really helping this like aids and metros 15 minute headway goals for soquel drive um and uh we're happy to be in construction on this one so it's just going and it's going to be you know probably about a year and a half of construction another project that's been like in design for a long time actually i was just talking with my staff the other day i did the original layout on this project in 1999 so took a long time to deliver this one for south county but we did we got a bit out we got it awarded um and we're actually we have a little bit of a supply chain issue with some of the the poles and signal equipment so we think construction is going to start next spring um but but we're going on it um we know there's a lot of other work going on in that area so some ways the delay is good because um because of all the other work in the area um so we're excited to get this one finally built um and improved um there's a lot of schools in this area and it's going to involve a lot of bicycle pedestrian safety as well okay um projects under development so this is kind of interesting we all literally only have one project under development i think what this what this simplifies and is a good example of when we get the money we spend it you know we've been we've been spending the money that has been awarded to the county almost as quickly as we've been getting it and the only reason this project is still in development is because we're waiting for the availability of STIP funds i think it's programmed out like two years now 25 i think yeah 25 so we'll deliver that project in 25 when the STIP you know the STIP programy becomes real um and this is literally only project we have under development that uh your commission has funded okay so with that i'm just going to touch on a couple other things just to give you a little bit of context um not only we're working on all our pavement management all these improvement projects but um as your commission knows we've been we've been hit by a series of storms over the last many years um this year we it was pretty bad um we're busy our teams out there i've got i think we've completed like 40 repairs so far and i have another authority that are in construction today and these are storm damage repairs mostly to our mountainous roads and you can see this year we estimate you know about 140 million dollars worth of damage 200 plus sites so um and it's sort of almost a mini repeat of what we had in 2017 right we got hit really really hard in 2017 we didn't have quite the flooding in 2017 that we had this past season but roads got hit really really hard in 2017 um we're getting close to being done with all those projects but you can see as these layer up as we have to grapple with climate change and more intense storm systems uh our mountainous region really takes it takes a hard hit and but we're busy doing this work in conjunction with everything else we have going on um okay just going to touch a little bit on our future needs here um it's probably no surprise that we're going to continue uh aggressively pursuing storm damage repairs and as much pavement management as we can possibly do um keeping in mind and what's nice is is that when we do pavement management projects it gives us a new clean canvas to paint new lines on the road and start installing modern standards like green bike lanes and um trying to make more room for pedestrians and all of these types of things and so with pavement management comes a lot of other benefits um and the types of safety projects that we're really looking at doing are active transportation projects so we can really improve our bicycle and pedestrian uh network um the last few years we've completed both our active transportation plan and also a complete streets plan around around schools these are both for uh with caltrans planning grants um which is great because it gives us a whole smattering of projects now we can start to aggressively pursue grants for and we're going to do that um and it's you know all in the name of multimodal and you know trying to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint as well um and and with that we're still busy actually on our bridge and culvert replacement programs I say we the county has about 150 bridges it's responsible for in the unincorporated area um we have 12 actively in design right now for full replacements um and the other thing we're doing is we're in the middle of a fairly robust culvert assessment right now to look at we have thousands of culverts out there literally five to six thousand culverts all over the unincorporated area a lot of these installed between 50 and 80 years ago they're all reaching the end of their service life you can see that photo there sort of an example of a rotted out culvert and we have a lot of these that look like this so we're busy assessing them and we're going to be producing a report this year and bringing it to our board to let them know kind of what's sort of the impact of all this is and what our plan is to try and keep up with uh with the failure of these culverts and and like I mentioned earlier on soquel drive we're going to continue to work on our signal signal operational improvements and try to work closely with metro on that too so it meets their goals as well okay I had the last two slides I have here just kind of just to sort of remind everybody um how bad our roads actually are and with all this great work we're doing we still have a lot of needs out there uh we reported to our board of supervisors in 2018 we do a payment survey about every five years we we look at our 600 miles and we kind of do a little state of the pavement if you will um and you know PCI is pavement condition index you know brand new roads 100 totally failed road is zero we reported back in 2018 that our average PCI was 48 and that we were going to need somewhere north of 20 million a year just in pavement management just to keep our PCI even um well we certainly haven't gotten that at the time we estimated we'd be receiving and be able to invest some more around eight million dollars a year with that eight million dollars a year we still fully expected our PCI to drop and you can see that uh on this uh on this graph we really only got about five to six million a year um and we're actively you know putting that that workout on the street just about as fast as we can bring the funds in um and this next slide really just gives you a visual of our county um and this was uh every year or two um the state of California gets together um and all the agencies report their their PCI and so we gathered this data from the 2021 local streets and roads report and you you can kind of see I mean this really I think the pie charts on the right really tell a good story right um in the unincorporated area of our county we've got about 50 percent of the population but the county has about 70 percent of the of the lane miles so we we have the bulk of the roads the public roads um and so obviously you know we think it's really important to invest in our roads right it's it's how we it's how we all get around um and so we want to continue we're going to continue to advocate as strongly as we possibly can for funding to keep our roads in good shape and so with that so you can click the last slide there um you know we want to thank you for for your support um but first I'd like to think I'd like to thank my staff um who really these projects out so Casey does all the payment management um I've got Russell Chen who is our traffic engineer he's working on all the signal and uh pike and head safety improvements Tim Bailey's senior civil engineer in charge of all of our storm damage and bridge projects um and then of course Matt Machado knows here back here um the county's director of community development infrastructure he provides critical experience and guidance on all of our projects he's instrumental in our part on our partnership with your commission um and um and he's very involved with everything we do um and and of course director Preston and his staff especially Rachel Morcone and now Amy Naranjo has been helping us out quite a bit um with providing our local agencies with uh accurate and up-to-date funding information and really keeping us like up-to-date on the current state and federal transportation legislation that's coming through and um and again I'd just really like to thank your commission for um caring about our transportation system and continuing to focus in on the needs of our county um and so with that we'd be happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you very much assistant director Reeser questions from the commission I ask Mr. Johnson. Thank you for that um pretty impressive so when you say advocate for funds where do you expect that money to come from? Well a lot of it comes right through your commission right yeah and um you know on a biannual basis maybe sometimes you know every three years your commission staff puts together the consolidated grant program and uh has all the local agencies um you know submit applications and compete for the funding. So but you're in competition with the cities and everybody else who needs the same exact things that you do right? Correct. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. Mr. Montecino. Yeah I just want to thank you know for the hard work that you got God man and a good presentation of all the projects you've done and you know personally I drive around but professionally I drive around everywhere in the county so I'm seeing all these projects and in in my hemisphere I've seen a lot of projects that yeah you have an advance over over in Watson when I take credit for all of them and the complaints I forward to you know the supervisors you know that's what you do um you know as a current mayor but like I said just a kudos to all the hard work that I've seen a lot of pavement on the ground and frustrations yes but once it gets done you know people are happy with the with the end results so a lot of rooms so just want to thank your staff and I would just thank the supervisor also for pushing through the you know the pavement plan thanks. Thank you Commissioner Montecino. Mr. Schiffen. Yes I also want to thank staff for all the projects that have been moving forward it's particularly exciting for me to see the so-called drive project it's going to make a really big difference to moving around in the county so it's exciting that the county was able to get the money to do that I also wanted to to you know emphasize an issue that I think you raised about the difficulty the county has due to the storm damage that occurs on rural roads and you know the county has had a series of storm damage over the years many of many of those storms have really created major problems on very small but public rural roads where even with FEMA and state assistance there's a local share and just looking at the Board of Supervisors agendas in the last several meetings it's pretty phenomenal how many millions of dollars the county is having to use out of its local roads fund just to repair storm damage in roads that serve relatively small numbers of people and I think that sort of emphasizes the importance of the funding that comes through the commission for the major roads because the county's resources just aren't available to keep the mayor to you know really respond to the needs of the major roads because they have to provide access to the residents in the rural areas so it's an added burden that I think is not an insignificant one in terms of the kind of demands that are made on the limited funds local funds that the county has for its road projects so again thank you thank you commissioner shifrin mr quinn for my apology I didn't wait this morning because it took me 78 minutes to get from Aptos to this building and so that's the preface to my favorite question as we look at the soquel drive improvements our light synchronization robertson intersection and reversible lanes part of the equation to try to fix this problem so yes on the synchronization that guy spoke we have 22 signals that we're providing modern detection the other thing really exciting about this project is we're installing fiber optic and it's going to basically we already have it from child cults to state park drive we're going to tag on to that and we're going from state park drive all the way back to the county building and so you know our project goes to the city limits but we're partnering with the city actually to provide fiber both for them and for the county and we'll have a true traffic management center here in the county building at the end of this project and so we'll be able to look at all the signals here in this office fine tune them know on the reversible lanes that's not something that was considered as part of that of that project and and know on the robertson signal however we are actively pursuing that and that is definitely part of our goals and we hope it'll come on the heels of this project so i'm going to whine is there a reason we can't look at reversible lanes particularly through so-called village during rush hour times we've looked at it a little bit we looked at the concept but we haven't done a full analysis of what that would look like so it's something that basically everything's on the table we'll definitely continue to consider those types of you know traffic management mitigations in but we just haven't looked at it that closely i will say that actually working together director we sir and i put a placeholder for a study of reversible lanes into the 2045 unconstrained project list so it's there certainly you know as an idea but we need to fund it to look at it further i mean and as far as the light on robertson again yeah that is absolutely a priority and in fact you know i think it's something that i would hope this commission would consider funding when we look at regional projects in the near future thank you thank you um i'm just wondering considering the kinds of damage that we saw earlier this year and you wouldn't know it by today's weather but we're anticipating another really what season coming up um do we have any anticipation of what kind of damages we might see this coming season and what we might be doing to prepare for it ahead of time well we're definitely preparing i can tell you um we've actually just got a comprehensive list of all the work both the roads and the drainers crews are doing in the unincorporated areas of our county and they are busy out there clearing ditches repairing as many culverts as we can you know we do expect a wet winter with del nino and so forth um we we expect it we uh but we hope that we don't get it um we've had enough water for the last year um you can't predict exactly where these storms are going to hit and what type of damage they're going to cause and we've seen storms we have microclimates all over santa cruz county throughout throughout the mountains and we've seen storms park themselves just over one region like say the urika canyon region 2009 just got hammered nowhere else in the county got hit and so you can't really expect where these where these things are going to hit our county but um we're definitely preparing for it yeah we should be first yeah thank you mr chair um let's see county supervisor representing center ones of valley i'd thought i'd seen it all until the last atmospheric river storm uh and uh what you have done is phenomenal and to try to get to it as quickly as possible and first and foremost i want to thank the staff and the public works department and all the city agencies who've cooperated in this for um for putting this together to serve as many people as many voters as we can um i i also want to say thank you to the voters of santa cruz county you can't forget that measure d passed by more than two-thirds of the vote uh it made us a self-help county which helped us get grants um it just was it just kind of stacked up that it helped us more than just that vote and also sb one that was uh authored by uh senator jim bell of santa claire county that passed into state that has helped too um and you know caltrans has been very cooperative when you have a highway highway nine be main street of san rosa valley it kind of complicates things but when it doesn't so much when you have a cooperation from the state that we have received too so i just want to say thank you to that um i think more than as much as anything else that we get as uh county supervisors and the rural areas especially and probably in the city uh everybody wants to have their pothole fixed in front of their property yesterday and the the amount of work that needs to be done is enormous but you are getting to it as quickly as possible and and really uh integrating what is are the needs of today for more uh bike and pedestrian uh transportation modes uh it's really impressive of what you've done and i just want to say thank you to all um we're doing as much as we can as a county and i know the cities are too uh but uh what you've done and how you've mapped it out and what where you think are the primary projects uh is really impressive so thank you very much for that thank you thank you commissioner mcpherson yeah uh first of all i'd like to thank uh salva staff at public work cdi for all the work they're doing you know um a lot of our rural roads especially in south county not only serve uh you know people uh a lot of you know our city for example has 57 000 people but just within our rural area in south county we have we serve 35 000 residents out there in that area throughout the throughout the rural area in south county so we also serve a lot of people not just a small amount of people but uh we also have a big economic impact that through those roads that goes through there there's a lot of agriculture uh that that it really uh serves a economic impact in our community for our county not just not just south county but for the entire county uh it provides jobs tax space uh so those rural roads are really important to our local economy as well uh and so i just really want to thank you that that you're providing the attention to these rural roads that have been you know kind of uh i know forgotten in the past so thank you for all the work that you guys are doing thank you commissioner anandas and i just a few questions for you um it isn't director reser so you showed us that terrifying graph of the declining pavement condition index i had 48 burned into my mind as the current pavement condition index is it in fact 41 as was predicted today uh or what's that one of the latest well so this year we're due for our next pavement update and so we're going to be busy uh doing that this year and i anticipate that we'll be able to present to that to your board in 24 um and so i hate to predict exactly you know where we're at right now i do expect it would be at less than 48 based on the science we did five years ago and the work that we've done today um but i'm hoping we attenuated the decline you know better than what we anticipated so we'll see okay fingers crossed yeah um and then you did talk about all the work that you're doing to repair the storm damage sites maybe you didn't really mention how what we're doing or our approach to repairing the damage after these last storms is different than what we did and you know to respond to the 2016-17 storms can you touch on that a little bit sure absolutely um this year we were fortunate that we got approvals to move forward um repairing these as emergency projects um and that is very different in contrast with 2017 in 2017 we were literally only allowed by the by the state and federal funding agencies to pursue six significant projects um during that summer that's why it took us so long to get all the other ones had to do the full linear environmental process they take like several years to develop you know and with other over 200 sites it takes many years to recover from an event like that this year we got approvals both from Caltrans I think just you know the the impact statewide was so great it was recognized both by Caltrans and the federal highway administration that if they don't allow us just to really repair these now that we're going to be in a world of hurt our state will be moving forward so we got approvals to do that and we have been aggressively pursuing that and I cannot tell you how much work is going on out there and you don't see it down here you know by the ocean but the impacts up in the hills are real they're great these roads connect our communities and it's how people get to and from school and work and you know how we get services out to them and so we're really really busy out there and that's why I said we've completed like nearly 40 projects and we have over 30 in construction today and so it's those numbers are huge I've never seen anything like that in my time here at the county yeah it's really amazing and thank you of course trust state and federal partners for for help us move forward quickly with those emergency permits but the downside to this though is that we've got to borrow the money until we get reimbursement from FEMA and Cal OES is that correct yeah there are definitely real cash flow impacts to doing it the way we're doing it but we are again working with both our state and federal partners to get reimbursed as quickly as possible it's a frustrating process but our team is committed to doing it and we have to get this money I mean we our road fund won't survive without without the reimbursements I mean I think that there's a very strong argument that we have to do these repair work too or otherwise we're going to fall behind I mean as absolutely still doing the 2016-17 repairs and could have a wet winter ahead all right I you know I really also appreciate the partnership looking at every time we do a resurfacing project improving the facilities for bikes and pedestrians as well both on Portola Drive and Thurber Drive on my own district we accomplished some great projects recently with better green bike lanes going in but we don't have a vision zero adopted for the county yet right is that I believe we're moving forward that soon now so we became the county became a vision zero agency in August 22 and just right on the heels of that we submitted an application to the federal government for their safe routes for all program which is through the Joe Biden IJL you know the infrastructure bill that went through and we were awarded I think nearly $800,000 to create vision zero action plan so we are just in the final stages of negotiating the contract with the federal government and we plan to bring that to our board here in the next month or so for approval with an RFP to get a consultant on board and I will say that's in partnership with the city of Watsonville and the city of scott's valley and we're really looking forward to kicking that off it's going to be about a two-year process but yes it will bring a vision zero action plan to our county I look forward to seeing that and then finally yeah I think the project on Soquel Drive is really going to be transformative very excited so definitely laying the you know literally building the infrastructure framework that we need I think ultimately to build also then the housing that we need in our community and could you talk a little bit about the you know how much is one of those smart lights cost it was great that we're doing it on the section of Soquel Drive that we're repairing but I mean ultimately wouldn't it be better or good for us to work with the cities who are represented here to put in more of those smart lights so that the bus can you know continue to do the you know get through those lights faster no matter whether they're in the unincorporated area or one of the cities sure yeah it's um you know I don't have an exact estimate for you and I think a lot of it really has to do with what the existing infrastructure is at the signals and so that's what it does painstaking work to go evaluate every single one of those intersections look to see what you know controllers we had out there and what the current detection systems are and so I think the costs actually do vary quite a bit from intersection to intersection based on each one you know but it's a considerable investment and I just don't have any exact numbers I'd be happy to report back to you okay thanks well of course we also look forward to the tour of the traffic management room that once you get that set up here in the next few years all right if there's no further questions from the commission any member of the public wish to comment on this item you know anyone here in chambers is there anyone online I see a few hands we'll begin with Brian people hi this is Brian from trail now Steve great work thank you where our roads we need them fixed so very much appreciate your work you know the 2016 measured D obviously is is a gangbusters for helping our community and just to remind you and the commission is you know when that first came out and the language had a lot of money going towards not in the direction we wanted it so we came out as a pack against it and then Zach friend and Don Lane adjusted the language and we supported in our supporters gave most of the funds to make that measure D pass question for you is metrics do you do any metrics to see how accurate you are on your estimates you know you know and do you compare that to other ones like the city like the city of Santa Cruz how good they're doing I can tell you on segment seven B which is the trail we expected to be a couple million over budget and over scheduled so like to hear more about metrics and then the Green Valley that you showed definitely support moving forward with improving that road and the two million dollars you know easily can be found under segment nine where our community is wasting a lot of money building the trail next to the tracks and actually cutting down a lot clear cutting hundreds of heritage trees so that could be a fun source if we got smart on that and then finally roundabouts like to hear you know why aren't we looking at more roundabouts in the way of utilizing those because they're more efficient than just regular lights again thanks again for your work over thank you mr. people's next up we'll hear from metro director rebecca downing okay okay go ahead there can you hear me we can great good morning uh i have a quick question for steve about the soquel drive project the current speed limit is 35 on soquel drive between ages and the entrance to soquel village but many people exceed this because like you mentioned it's highway two once the safety measures are installed will the speed limit change in this area that was my question thanks thank you director downing we'll take all public comments and then return for some questions uh number ending in 205 go ahead they don't have their hand up sorry all right so we don't have any more hands no all right we do not oh there we go we just got one race disappeared don't have any hands all right um all right fort zoom host thank you this is math arrow i'm here to speak in support of all the hard work that county public works is done and also to thank supervisor mcpherson and former supervisor john leopold for their leadership at the board of supervisors in 2016 to get measure d on the ballot without that and as supervisor mcpherson said we wouldn't have qualified as a self-help county which would which has an impact on all the different efforts in transportation that our region works on and um i think maintaining these facilities across the board is critical to our community's quality of life and uh i know personally i haven't worked in transportation for 30 years that these projects are marathon efforts they're not sprints so thank you again for all your work thank you mr ferrell all right so you know for their hands um director weasner i wonder if you could answer a couple of questions that were raised the first about the speed limit on soquel drive will that change um yeah so um the speed limit is not uh not slated to change as a result of this project however um you know the county is responsible where it has a you know speed limit set to do speed surveys once every seven to ten years we have a regular process we go through and it involves radaring and you know you know coming up with 85th percentile there's a legal process that we go through to set speed limits and soquel drive won't be treated any differently from any other road and certainly if we see an uptick in speeds and we have a reason to go back out there and and do a speed survey earlier than not we would do that as well okay thank you and then the other question uh roundabouts is there any place where we're looking at the phones i know they can be intensive as far as amount of space they use yeah it's i mean we're really excited to try and install as many roundabouts as we can um where we have opportunities and you know we see like portola drive potentially an opportunity where there's currently existing four-way stops and so forth um the biggest constraints on roundabout is right away is like really getting the geometry that you need to put them in and then they're expensive um but we're very much so in favor of roundabouts and we're looking at areas of the county where we can put them in i think the last one we did was uh the twin lakes area uh down there by the harbor um and then we had done one previously uh in the Esplanade area of Rio del Mar um but we're looking for opportunities for sure to put in roundabouts okay thank you i'm very happy i wanted to make a public comment we'll reopen that hey hey driver yeah if you could just make sure to speak into the mic so we'd love to do everything you say yeah is it is it on track pushing the little gray button there's a little button right here on the back of the base yeah thank you thank you um i just like to thank you steve and the group here um and aboard uh to uh allow me to just say a couple comments on uh as i have worked with steve in past on uh some erosion issues and i really appreciate what county has done and uh to try to help little guys like me and uh be that little work and there is a bit more needed so i just like to get some support from commission and from public forks if we can to look a little down the stream and some of those erosion projects that like on my property has been severely eroded and i know with highway widening and i understand it's not all in their hands however i'm just looking for support that we look just a little bit further from discharge or exit ramp on a highway one and also cal drive to where i am greatly affected have had several lands slides the county has done some remedy to it try to create a slow the flow down and reinforce the banks a little bit but just in the other small section of it and it really needs to be carried out towards discharge which is into valencia creek um and so if possible if we can somehow look at that section as you guys negotiate and work with us state cow trans to complete that project as next step is now going to be from state parks drive to freedom boulevard and that's going to add even more erosion because a lot more areas going to be surfaced and it's all just discharged and let go on a private property in this case my property and uh it has a created the landslide in particularly this last year was huge and now i'm a remedy of fixing it um so i like to know if steve somehow can try to push that little forward i really appreciate your effort i'm just looking for help because i alone cannot sustain maintaining the waterways for a uh it's not not just a state water but it's a whole county a whole basin drains into and that's a discharge and it's kind of a long story you don't want to bore you all how it all started and how it all got there but thank you sir yes we will certainly uh follow up with you after the meeting um and see you know how we can you address this issue thank you for coming to see us steve thank you all right anyone else uh wishing to comment all right i'm going to close public comment um return to the commission no action is necessary this was just to receive a presentation so thank you sir carlson thank you for the excellent presentation today that's um and now we'll proceed with item 19 highway one construction update this is an oral report from our senior transportation engineer sarah christensen and junior transportation engineer brian samora welcome thank you chair i'm sarah christensen i've been managing the highway program for many years now and um i'd like to give a proper introduction to brian samora who um joined us back in 2019 as a student intern he got his degree in 2021 and joined us full-time as a junior transportation engineer and um he has been working on the branch line quite a bit but is now getting more involved with highway one and um he's going to give today's construction update for the phase one project so i'm going to hand it over to brian thank you sarah so this is here we go thank you sarah so yeah as sarah mentioned i've been with the rtc for around four years started as an intern i was born and raised in watsonville and i got my degree from sound of the estate and been working with the rtc mostly on um rail preservation and maintenance and getting involved in the highway project as of recent um so yeah i'm excited for the future and to continue my career uh so now we're gonna get into the highway one construction update um next slide please on today's update we're gonna cover highway one construction we're going to cover phase 141 avenue 2 so cal phase two state park to bay porter cover a little bit on our public outreach plan and we'll have time for questions and discussion at the end next slide please so getting started so getting started or he's retaining wall number two retaining wall number two is located on the northbound side of the of highway one next to rdell goch um retaining wall number two is one of the more complex retainables we have at the end of the project as it is a soldier fire soldier power retaining walks um it derives his name from the piles you see on screen being driven vertically incident bagging it um as you can see now they're not just standing piles there as the contractor has added the concrete lagging uh lagging which are precast concrete panels um in the first picture you can see the outside edge of the retaining wall this is the retaining wall facing towards rdell goch and in the two set the second and third picture you could see the process in which the contractor takes installed the lagging next slide please moving on to retaining wall number five um retaining wall number five is also located in the northbound side of the highway um it differs from retaining wall number two as it is a reinforced concrete retaining wall as you could see the contractor has finished most of the retaining wall and has began backfilling up to the retaining wall and grading to match existing roadway levels right please moving on to the pedestrian over crossing retaining walls slash approaches these approaches are being currently built on the northbound and southbound sides of the highway um these approaches are going to be the ramps that connect to the future bridge structure that travels over highway one and the first picture you could see the rebar and a form line is being set up for the concrete to be poured and in the second picture you could see the approach on the southbound side of the highway which has had its foundation poured and as of now the northbound approach has also had its foundation poured in the port and the contractor continues to make progress so slide please so moving on to the pedestrian over crossing the pedestrian the bicyclist and pedestrian over crossing is a major element of this project um this in the screen you could see medium bent five which I'm sure a lot of you have seen if you use a highway frequently um in the first picture you could see the median the band being assault and into its foundation and getting pressed for the concrete to be poured and in the second picture you could see the same band but encapsulated in a casing these casings are used to mold the concrete and are removed after the concrete cures which form the concrete piles next slide please it's a little bit more of the pedestrian over crossing on screen you could see bent two which is located near your socal creek water district and along the socal avenue frontage road um in the picture you could see pile two being installed into its foundation getting prepped for the concrete to be poured as of now um fence two and five have been completed and it's it's expected that fence three four and six and seven will be poured in the coming weeks and if not some of them are being poured at this moment um we also a quick little note we want to let the public know that there's a lot of traffic control going around socal avenue just to be safe watch your speeds their surroundings on safeties are number one priority we just want to reduce the risk of injury or any accidents slide please now i'll hand you over to my colleague sarah for a high wound schedule update thanks brane um so the phase one project started early this year major construction activities were anticipating it to be complete in 2025 dependent on weather um of course if you could scroll down a tiny bit yesenia the phase two project um was awarded in june um and we've been working with the contractor and caltrans to schedule some of the major activities um and uh it sounds like there's going to be some closures and minor construction kind of preparation work uh this year but the majority of the major construction is going to uh likely begin in march of 2024 so can you go the next slide speaking of um public outreach and major construction uh the phase two project includes a replacement of the capitol avenue over crossing this has been in the works for a long time so this should not be a news to you but the capitol avenue will be closed for several months um and i have a map showing the detour route this is not anticipated until 2024 and so we plan to do a very robust outreach process to get the word out about this prior to the demolition of that bridge what we can expect later this month is a little bit of pre-work there's a PG&E overhead line that needs to be relocated um that's going to require full closure of highway one at night uh so we're looking at that at the end of this month we're also looking at coordinating that full closure with the full closure needed for the phase one project um which is to erect some of the formwork for the shanticleer pedestrian over crossing so that um we're definitely um the two projects are talking it's the same contractor so it's easy to coordinate um and you could see a little snapshot of the capitol avenue uh rendering when it will be complete as you're aware we've been doing quite a bit of regional outreach we coordinate quite a bit with county um regarding the buffered bike lane multimodal project that they have under development that just started construction uh to make sure that we don't have any overlapping closures and um we want to reduce the impacts of the traveling public as best as we can and when we do anticipate impacts we want to do a very robust outreach effort uh an exciting new development on this project is that Caltrans um has on their website a live feed of the shanticleer avenue pedestrian over crossing construction so um this presentation is on our website um and if you click the link down at the right corner that will take you to uh live stream of uh bridge construction so that's exciting I think that's all we have right yep that concludes our staff report thank you thank you so much for other questions or comments from commissioners excuse me if um I was out for a minute that will the uh pedestrian bike over crossing be done before the the highwayway portion of the project's done and if so can it be used prior to that being completed typically the bridges are on the what we call the critical path so it's not anticipated that it's going to be done you know um significantly earlier than the rest of the project if it is done um prior you know it could start being used um it all depends on the contractor's schedule and how they're preparing to do the work so um that's a possibility but thank you commissioner McPherson um did I see the table correctly that phase two the highway project would expect to be completed sometime in 2026 correct about yeah about a year later than um the phase one okay thanks other questions all right seeing none anyone in the public wish to comment on this item anyone here in chambers no uh all right we have one question one hand raised online Mr. Peoples go ahead hi it's right people's trail now we support widening highway because it's about uh not necessarily vehicle miles traveled that's the old metric that's a negative metric and actually ambag is looking at a new metric what's called people miles travel and you know and we need to open all three corridors the highway corridor so cal and the coastal trail as soon as possible we included a comment on this subject and it's included in the attachments and what the frustration is is that executive director Guy Preston had recommended years ago that we move forward with opening the coastal trail in a timely cost effective and eco friendly manner when he presented the rail banking recommendation and if we had moved forward with that there would have been an alternative dr quinn probably would have been on time because he could have written his bike so the frustration with our is that the community is with um not looking at what is really needed to open the corridor to support this highway widening so um again i won't be liquid i i thank very much cal trans sarah for the great work you guys are doing on widening the highway but the people are really frustrated because traffic is so bad and it's just going to get worse and i feel real bad for that mother who has to take her kids to uh the school and child care and then she has to go to work and she's late it's like dr quinn was late today and that's going to be for 10 years so there's a lot of frustration that we're not looking at the metrics of people miles travel and we need to open all three corridors and allow people to get going where they need to get to in a timely manner thanks again thank you mr peoples everyone else online all right seeing none i'll close public comment and return to the commission this is just a receiving airport i don't think any action is required enough for their comments thank you very much to both of you excellent report the commission will now move into closed session council is there any reportable action expected out of closed sessions we we do anticipate the likelihood of a reportable action today okay thank you and i will move into closed session i believe we'll just stay in place for commissioners uh thank you and county council do we have any reportable actions out of closed session uh thank you uh chair conig the commission met in closed session and provided direction to their real property negotiators to finalize the purchase and sell agreement for the properties at seven nine nine four and seven nine nine six of cal in the amount of two million dollars which is the amount the commission had previously approved and with the indemnification language that has been identified in the addendum to that um that purchase and sell agreement and that action by the commission was by unanimous vote of the commission all right thank you very much for that report that concludes our meeting today media turned