 It's nine a.m. So commissioner Koneg you do have a quorum and we are now live. Thank you. I'm sorry about that later, Bruce. Okay. Good morning. I'll now call to order the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission Transportation Policy Workshop. It is 901 a.m. Thursday, February 17th, 2022. Will you please call the roll? Commissioner Bertrand. Here. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montecino. Here. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner alternates your friend. Here. Commission alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koneg. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Peterson. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. And commissioner Watkin. Hi, Sam. Commissioner Watkin, you on mute? Here. Sorry. Commission alternate Hernandez. He'll be here shortly. Okay. Anybody that I miss and our staff member Grace Flakes, we will be joining us soon. We're having a little bit of technical difficulties here. Now, Hernandez is there for Caput. Is that correct? Yeah. You should say on mute and say you're here. You're just recalled on the roll. He just noted that he would be participating in a minute. Okay. I believe we have a quorum. Thank you. We'll now move to item two, 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. Commission will listen to all communication. But in compliance with state law and may not take action on items that are not on the agenda. And just to be very clear, we have a very short agenda today with really only one regular agenda item. And that agenda item will be the, on the coastal rail trail segments eight through 12. So I would ask that if you do have comments on the coastal rail trail to hold them until item four. If for any reason you do need to leave early and need to make your comment now on the agenda item. If you do need to leave early and need to make your comment now on item four, that would be fine, but we'd ask that you don't speak twice. Both at this time as well as on item four. So with that, we'll open the meeting for public comment. Before you do that. Community TV. I need to get one of our other staff members on. If you could please give me administrative. Access. Thank you. Sorry about that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If it's all right, then we'll proceed with opening the meeting for public comment starting with Brian from trail. Now, you can go ahead and unmute yourself and speak. Be having some technical difficulties here. All right. You are now the co-host clerk. So. Hi, this is Brian technical difficulties fix. Thank you. Brian from trail now. That's great. Thank you very much. Okay. Hi. I'm Brian. Thousands of supporters and followers. With the goal of opening the coastal core tour now for transportation. Myself personally, I've been involved in this organization for over 20 years, the RTC organization, the regional transportation commission. Over the last 10 years, I've actually participated in the, in the RTC meetings. you know there is one good thing about the COVID was the forcing us to the future and given us all this opportunity to do Zooms and as a transportation board I think we all think that's phenomenal. One of the things I wanted to do just to highlight here is the success and recognition of the RTC staff and leadership and the great work they've been doing. You know a great way to share that in their expertise and transportation is to highlight the success that they had in getting state funding for the Congress congested corridor funding from the state. You know Santa Cruz was second only to Los Angeles in getting the amount of funding. That shows and they beat out Marin, San Francisco, San Bernardo, Nampa, Sacramento. It just shows how great work our RTC staff is doing and and really want to recognize their expertise. Guy Preston really does know what he's doing. He is and that's really what the message is here is that you have a great expertise. I think this organization really truly needs to rely on that expertise and make sure that you follow their leadership because Guy knows what he did, what he's doing. He went out and did a phenomenal job getting the money we need for our community. That's all I wanted to say is a great job and please keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. We will limit comments to two minutes per speaker during this period. Thank you. A community to me. Will you please put up the timer? Jack Nelson and unmute Mr. Nelson and he's dropped off so I'll proceed to Barry Scott. Thank you, Chair Conid and just a request and I hope it's being done that CTV is recording PPW workshops for their YouTube channel. I hope that's happening and kind of a general comment to in the form of a request that at some point staff and the director consider generating a statement similar to the May 7th, 2021 statement regarding future rail transit planning. We have a report coming back on the Greenway initiative to the board of supervisors. I think it's due on March 3rd. I'm in possession of mass emails that are going out to registered voters that include what I think is clear misinformation and I would hope that the commission would consider another clarifying statement that might put to rest certain myths that people are under the impression of and including a statement. The Regional Transportation Commission recently voted that the train plan is financially infeasible. I don't believe that ever happened. We have the money from Measure D without new taxes. I understand that that at least $221 million is required for a Greenway and possibly more so I don't think that's supportable and finally it is proven that Santa Cruz County does not have the population ridership forecast for money to support a train. While that's not attributed to the RTC, it seems to be something that falls under the category of remains to be seen. And finally, I thank Mr. Peoples for pointing out that this county got such a huge share of funding compared to its relatively small population and I would like to think that that kind of funding can happen for rail transit as well as highway projects. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Next we have Brett Garrett. Good morning. This is Brett Garrett currently living in Santa Barbara County but still thinking about creative ways to use the rail corridor and actually the rails themselves. As you know for years I have advocated that the best transportation solution for Watsonville to Santa Cruz is personal rapid transit or PRT for short. The system would use small pod cars on a dedicated guideway to provide on-demand transit. This type of system is more efficient than conventional transit using less energy per passenger mile and it can also attain higher ridership because the system is so user friendly. I've always said this kind of system could coexist with the existing rails either by going above or alongside or by choosing a different route but lately I've been thinking wouldn't it be even better to design a PRT system that actually uses the existing rails as a PRT guideway and it turns out this is completely feasible. There's a company in Massachusetts that worked very hard on this for several years. They've got a patented solution called rail pods. It's a PRT system that provides bi-directional travel on railroad tracks just like the ones in Santa Cruz County. It uses very narrow vehicles so that you could have one rail going northbound and one rail going southbound and I think everyone's seen the Segway scooters and unicycles that balance on one wheel. This uses a similar kind of concept gyroscopic forces to stay balanced on one track. This system could serve Watsonville right from the start using the existing railroad tracks so it's probably one third of the cost of any other PRT system. It's fully compatible with freight trains as long as you have separate hours. For example the PRT could be 6 a.m. to midnight and then there could be freight service at night if we ever get to provide freight service. So we should be asking the engineers if this podcar system could run on the existing Capitola trestle. It might be possible because the vehicles for a PRT system are very lightweight. If you're interested in the technology details do a google search for the rail pod patent. The patent describes the system in great detail. Again look for the rail pod patent. So this is just one of several unconventional ways that the existing railroad tracks could be used to improve our transportation system. So I want to recommend keeping the railroad tracks and bridges intact. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Garrett. Next up Lonnie Faulkner. Hi thank you commissioners and staff. I just one comment in December to agenda. I noted that there was a change of the comments due from the public from what was traditionally noon prior to that time to a 9 a.m. on the Wednesday prior for comments that are related and a little bit more cryptic is the addition of a complete change of the Monday to require some sort of language. So my request to do the additional thing that's made publicly known and up for discussion. It was just placed in the agenda and sort of passed by and a lot of the people in the public still think that the time due for comments is noon. I think that that should be retroactively returned back to noon and that we should go forward with noon and not this new complex language that was added in December. Thank you very much. Thank you Ms. Faulkner. Next up Michael St. Chair. Could I ask our staff to give us some information about that last comment? I don't not now but send us some information. I'm not sure what she was talking about. Do we know it? Next up Michael St. Thank you Chair Koenig and good morning commissioners like to direct you to campaign for sustainable transportation dot org. We have a voter's guide to the Greenway ballot initiative on that and it would be some very interesting reading just some excerpts quickly. There has been so much controversy surrounding all of these issues whether it's the highway or the rail trail. It's difficult to imagine building a community consensus around the future of the rail corridor or even the ox lane projects. Yet without a greater degree of consensus around these issues we doubt that there will be transit or a complete trail along the corridor in the foreseeable future. So on in this guide and on these pages we try to look for the common ground in this debate. We find things to appreciate in each of the classroom perspectives. The vision of a people walking and bicycling along the Greenway is beautiful. So is the vision of electric transit allowing people to get around without a vehicle. Our ability to fulfill our community potential depends on our ability to listen to one another. Find the common ground and calmly evaluate pros and cons of various strategies in the context of the bigger vision. One that we hope concludes a community walkable complete neighborhoods connected by transit and safe bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. We conclude that the best way to optimize use of the corridor is through a dialogue process that is inclusive of all voices in the community. We think that dialogue needs to start with a visioning process for a comprehensive transportation policy. We urge the RTC to conduct a community process similar to the Water Supply Advisory Committee that resolves the contentious debate over desalination in Santa Cruz. And again campaign for sustainable transportation.org and you can go through and read the whole ballot initiative voters guide. Thank you for your time commissioners. Have a great day. Thank you Mr. Sain. Next up number 432-002. Talking is permitted for 432-002. We will move on then to Jack Nelson. Okay commissioners hello good morning I think you can hear me this time is that right? We can hear you. Very good. My name is Jack Nelson. I'm a retired environmental planner and land use planner. I worked as a professional here in this county including for the county of Santa Cruz. I was a regular attendee at your commission meetings starting in late 2007 and on through 2019. I faced a life crisis in 2019. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and so when one faces a crisis one has to take serious action. Only talk won't get the job done. Well I made a lot of changes in my life and I'm happy to report back. I am free of prostate cancer and I'm healthy. Well my main mission in speaking to your commission over those years was to bring the climate crisis to the fore before you as a necessary part of transportation planning. Since 2019 the climate crisis has made itself more visible here. In August 2020 the CZU lightning fire was followed or followed and we had 900 homes burned out in this county and yet this climate crisis I don't yet see your commission pointing before you as something we need to make life changing actions on. When I reviewed the draft 2045 RTP and please do see my comments that I submitted. I saw up front lots of green language but the bottom line at the end is you're still building the greenhouse gas emitting machine. You're still proposing to widen highway one. So I have to come back to you commissioners and keep asking you address this crisis please. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Nelson. Seeing no other members of the public they wish to speak so we will close oral communications and proceed to item three additions or deletions to consent and regular agendas. Director Preston are there any additions or deletions? There is a replacement page for the agenda with a different phone number to call in to today's meeting not posted to our website as well as handouts for item four and then regarding the page numbering on item four. Unfortunately the numbering had a five dash on there and not a four dash but the numbering is correct just a note. Okay thank you for the clarification. We have no items on our consent agenda today so we'll proceed to our regular agenda item four coastal rail trail segments eight through twelve Pacific Avenue to Rio del Mar Boulevard project updates. For an update we have our senior transportation engineer Sarah Christensen and transportation planner Grace Plakesley. Miss Christensen take it away. Thank you Commissioner Koenig. I do have a PowerPoint presentation to share here so just give me a second to get that up on the screen and get a thumbs up if you could see it. We got you. Awesome. Great thank you. My name is Sarah Christensen of RTC staff. Today we are going to give an update on the coastal rail trail projects that are under development. I'm joined by Grace Plakesley of our staff as well Rob Tidmore who is with the county of Santa Cruz and Nathan Nguyen from the city of Santa Cruz. So here's our agenda for today's presentation. We'd like to give an update on the phased approach. This is applicable to all segments. I will then give an update on segment 12 and be providing some information about that trail project which is between State Park Drive and Rio del Mar Boulevard. That project is included as part of the Highway 1 improvements. It will be followed by a presentation by Grace Plakesley on segments 10 and 11, 17th Avenue to State Park Drive followed by Nathan Nguyen who will present 8 and 9 from Pacific Avenue to 17th Avenue and then I'm going to close it out with a quick additional discussion about the upcoming grant opportunity for Highway 1 and segment 12 which we briefly talked about at the February 3rd meeting. So here's a map showing the three projects under development between Pacific Avenue and Santa Cruz and Rio del Mar tolling about eight miles of multi-use trail. The trail segments will provide significant improvement for active transportation users. Connecting schools, town centers, including Aptos Village and Capitola Village, the coast, employment centers, and residential neighborhoods. The coastal rail trail projects will greatly improve safety for walkers and bikers and will result in modal shift by making walking and biking more comfortable and attractive. These three projects are, they just began the development during the environmental phase and we wanted to bring some information to this commission to talk about these projects. So now on to a description of our phased approach. So the project development teams for each of the projects developed a phased approach. I'd like to talk a little bit about this approach because it varies slightly from information presented in the past. The phased approach analyzes a single build alternative with the ultimate trail configuration being the trail adjacent to the railroad tracks as shown in this figure. At the bridges under the ultimate trail configuration new trail bridges would be constructed adjacent to the existing railroad bridges. The phased approach includes an optional first phase where all or a portion of the interim trail would be constructed along the existing railroad track alignment by removing the railroad tracks and ties. The environmental analysis will include the removal of the existing railroad tracks, construction of the interim trail, removal of the interim trail, and then reconstruction of the railroad tracks to freight standards, and finally construction of the trail adjacent to the railroad tracks. So the environmental analysis includes all of those steps. The first phase is optional and could only be implemented if the branch line was rail banked. The project could construct the interim trail or skip the first phase and construct the ultimate trail configuration. At the bridges under the optional first phase the existing railroad bridges would be converted to trail bridges by removing the existing railroad tracks and decking system and installation of a new decking system with railings on both sides as shown in this figure here. The approach for this environmental analysis and preliminary engineering is really at the core is that it analyzes the whole of the project. So it analyzes the ultimate trail configuration, the trail next to the railroad track alignment. It includes the interim trail, both the installation of the interim trail and the removal of the interim trail and replacement of the tracks for freight service if the optional first phase is implemented. And this approach is consistent for all three of the trail projects that we're talking about today. Now I'm going to give a quick update on the segment 12 project. This project is along the branch line between State Park Drive and Rio de Mar Boulevard approximately a mile and a quarter of trail. I have a couple of points that I'll be showing sections of as you could see shown in black there on the map. I'm just going to go through a few of the features of this project. First, this project because it's included as part of the Highway 1 project and the Highway 1 project proposes to widen the section of Highway 1 to implement a bus on shoulder and auxiliary lane facility. The two railroad bridges over Highway 1 need to be replaced with longer span bridges. So the first one of which going from north to south is the north Aptos underpass here. The trail then continues south and crosses over Soquel Drive. This actually crosses over Soquel Drive twice. This is the northern crossing over Soquel Drive. It also crosses over Aptos Creek and these are all grade separated bridges over these features here. The trail goes through Aptos Village and then crosses again over Soquel Drive to the south as well as over Valencia Creek and finally again over Highway 1 at the south Aptos underpass. Could you clarify the Valencia Creek and the Soquel Drive south? Is that one bridge over the two things or is it two separate bridges you're talking about? It's a multi-span bridge. Okay so it's the same so they're connected but there's like two bridges that are connected over the separate one over the creek and one over the road. Yes thank you. So because of all of these bridges it creates challenges with the horizontal alignment of the trail. There are some right-of-way constraints which I'm going to briefly show and the challenge here is in order to realign the track in order to say make room for the trail and that would eliminate the need to acquire right-of-way you would be needing to replace railroad bridges which we obviously want to avoid if we can. So this project actually proposes to acquire some right-of-way due to that reason and some of the constrained areas are here between the north Aptos underpass and Soquel Drive north bridges. There's some constraints through Aptos village and also some constraints between the Valencia Creek and south Aptos underpass and the alignment of this trail is proposed to be on the inland side of the tracks for the entire stretch of this segment. So the first section is the northernmost section. You can see my cursor it's this one here so between I'm going to go from north to south here. So this section shows this is actually the least constrained part of the project in terms of the width of the right-of-way and how much room there is for a trail. So this this shows basically the trail being constructed within the existing right-of-way. There are some retaining walls and it is a little bit tight but we're able to build the trail without acquiring right-of-way here. Moving on this is a concept that shows the trail bridge adjacent to the rail bridge at the north and south Aptos underpasses. Here's a figure showing basically the concept of where the trail would be on the inland side of the track. So this is an Aptos village facing north. On the left would be so-called drive. On the right would be the coastal rail trail which is on the inland side of the tracks and this just a note this is a constrained area. In order to build the trail we would need to squeeze down the parking and or reduce the parking on the inland side of the branch line. This is the southernmost section a concept showing the constraints here. So in this segment the railroad tracks are in depressed or cut and in order to build the trail if we were to build the trail at grade with the existing railroad tracks we'd be looking at building a very tall retaining wall. So what what we're looking at this is one of the concepts we're considering here is to actually raise the elevation of the trail up that slope and building maybe two smaller walls instead of say a 20 foot tall retaining wall here. Lastly I'd like to talk about the highway one bridges these bridges are getting a lot of attention and we have developed a very what we believe is a sound engineering approach for these bridges. So here's a concept showing just the existing railroad bridge if the optional first phase is implemented the abutments or the supports of that bridge would be built to accommodate the ultimate trail configuration so the supports would be built kind of overbuilt for the trail in the optional first phase. The abutments would be constructed on the edges of highway one and then a single span trail bridge would be would go over the highway and this would be at both highway bridges. This is showing the ultimate trail configuration and the the approach that we want to communicate is that the abutments that are built as part of the optional first phase could be reused and the trail bridge could be shifted over and the railroad bridge could be built where that optional first phase interim trail previously existed. So building the rail bridge back in its place where it was existing and being able to reuse some of the infrastructure from the optional first phase if it is implemented to basically move it over and they'll be able to use that single span bridge over the highway. So with that I'm going to hand it over to Grace Blakesley and she is going to talk about the coastal rail trail segments 10 and 11. The planning commissioners can you hear me okay? Okay thank you. Thank you. Grace Blakesley back to RTC. I'm going to go ahead and provide an overview and a project update for segments 10 and 11. The county of Santa Cruz is the lead on this project and Rob Tidmore is the county of Santa Cruz. 11 project manager. He is in attendance today and contributed significantly to this to this presentation. I'd like to get started by reviewing the general project alignment and the county of city of capital limits for segments 10 and 11. Segment 10 in green starts at 17th avenue in line oak and ends at 47th avenue for the length of one and a half miles. The proposed trail alignment for the trail next to the railroad track is on the inland side of the tracks from 17th to 47th and ends at Jade Street Park. The project transitions from county of Santa Cruz and incorporated area to the city of Capitola near Thompson Avenue. Segment 11 starts in this slide shown in purple begins at 47th avenue and extends to the north end of Capitola Village. Bicycles and pedestrians can then utilize existing facilities to connect to the trail on the south side of Monterey Avenue south of Capitola Village. Under the optional first phase the existing Capitola trestle would be repurposed as a pedestrian and bike bridge and the trail would extend along the Santa Cruz branch rail line across Soquel Creek to Monterey Avenue. Next slide please. From Monterey Avenue the trail travels along Park Avenue then passes through New Brighton State Beach and the Seatcliffe neighborhood before ending at State Park Drive for a total of 3.2 miles of trail. Next slide. Segments 10 and 11 have a number of challenges that will require engineered structures to address. At this time there are four concepts that are being evaluated and could be utilized for this project. The first is a prefabricated steel trestle pedestrian bridge that could be used over creeks or existing roadway crossings. An example of this type of structure is shown here at Rodale Gulch. This particular location would utilize a 250 long clear span bridge to keep improvements out of the riparian area and limit environmental impacts. Like the Capitola trestle and for other existing railroad bridges under the optional first phase the existing railroad bridges would be repurposed and a separate bicycle and pedestrian bridge next to the rail bridge would be constructed at a later phase. Next slide. At some locations the trail is located within a rail cut where the railroad tracks are located at a lower elevation than the surrounding areas. In these locations you would see removal of some of the hillside and construction of a retaining wall. An example of this condition is shown here at Depot Hill. This concept also provides an example of how the retaining wall can also address drainage along the rail line. Under the interim trail as an optional first phase shorter retaining walls are required in some locations to support the trail. Next slide. In other locations the rail line is located above the surrounding areas and the trail next to the railroad track alignment requires an engineering engineering solution to provide for a trail at the same grade as the railroad tracks. One concept for these areas are viaducts. Viaducts or floating bridges are engineered sections of trails supported by piers and allow the trail to float over the surrounding topography. These will be used in cold-rooted riparian areas where the adjacent grade drops off steeply and a retaining wall system is infeasible, more expensive, or to create additional environmental impacts such as Buregas Creek as shown is this conceptual image. Under the interim optional first phase viaducts would not be needed because the trail would be located on the railroad tracks. Next slide please. The last type of engineering solution is relocation of the railroad tracks where the rail the branch rail line right away is too narrow to fit the trail next to the existing railroad tracks and their existing alignment. An example of this is at jade street park next to 47th avenue in the city of capitol ed. The proposed segment 10 and 11 project considers realignment of the tracks from 17th to 47th avenue to allow for a continuous 12-foot trail. As mentioned earlier the ultimate trail configuration with the trail next to the railroad tracks is currently proposed for segments 10 and 11 does not include any new bicycle and pedestrian bridge over soco creek next to the existing capitol atresl and it's not feasible to cantilever bicycle and pedestrian bridge off the structure. Bicyclists and pedestrians will utilize existing bicycle and pedestrian facilities to travel through capitol village. As reported to the RTC in august 2021 it is feasible to convert convert the capitol atresl to bicycle and pedestrian use provided that required repairs to the wrought iron press and the timber trestles are made. The interim trail as the optional first phase for segment 10 and 11 includes converting the capitol atresl to bicycle and pedestrian use and routes the trail along the trestle. Next slide. This image returns us to the segment 10 and 11 alignment to illustrate the locations where engineering solutions would be constructed for the ultimate trail configuration with the trail next to the railroad tracks. Here it shows with the x's that the track would be realigned from 17th to 47th avenue to maintain a 12-foot trail width and a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge is required at Rodeo Gulch to stand the riparian area. Next slide. Out of Monterey avenue retaining walls greater than six feet would be needed where the rail line is in the cut below the surrounding topography as we saw in a previous image. Retaining walls are also needed in select locations near new Brighton State park and south of Marvis to drive. Viaducts and bridges of different lengths are needed to stand creeks and the new Brighton State beach roadway entrance. Input on design features and engineering solutions and concepts will be stopped from the public and from stakeholders. Next slide. So before I hand it off to Nathan Nguyen from City of Santa Cruz to discuss segments 8 and 9 I wanted to note the progress on design and funding for segments 8 through 11. Segments 8, 9, 10 and 11 will prepare schematic plans for two trail alignments the ultimate trail configuration trail next to the railroad track alignment and the interim trail optional first phase the trail on the railroad track alignment. Public input on these alignments and design concepts will occur this spring in the form of virtual open houses and the schematic plans will also be presented to the RTC advisory committees and the City of Santa Cruz Transportation Commission. Next slide please. I'd also like to briefly review with you the funding for the different phases of these two projects. Environmental and preliminary design is funded through Measure D funds and previously awarded active transportation program funds for the segments 8 and 9 and the land trust of Santa Cruz County. Final design for segments 8 and 9 is funded also through the previously awarded active transportation program cycle 3 funds. Final design for segment 10 and 11 is currently unfunded and the county will be seeking funding for final design through the cycle 6 active transportation program grant application. Both the City of Santa Cruz and the County of Santa Cruz also plan to apply for construction funding which is currently unfunded part of this phase of this project as part of the cycle 6 state active transportation grant program application. Cost estimates for construction are anticipated this spring and will inform the recommended match for these grant opportunities. A greater match typically makes the project more competitive for grant funding. The current five-year Measure D program provides $2 million in funding to serve as a grant match for the City of Santa Cruz and RTC would consider any requests from the county an additional request from the City of Santa Cruz for Measure D funding at their May RTC meeting. That's handed over to Nathan Wynn at the City of Santa Cruz. Good morning. Thank you very grace. Nathan Wynn City of Santa Cruz. I'll be going over segments 8 and 9 with you this morning. So segment 8 begins at Pacific Avenue on the west end and ends at the San Lorenzo River. Segment 9 then begins on the east side of the San Lorenzo River and ends in 17th Avenue. Together segments 8 and 9 is about 2.5 miles long. On segment 9 it is split between the county and the city. Roughly one-third is in the city and two-thirds is in the county jurisdiction. Starting back over on the west end of the project segment 8. Most of the bike and pedestrian facilities in segment 8 is already in place with the existing bikeway that runs along Beach Street and along in front of the boardwalk. The project is going to propose adding enhancements to that bikeway including striping, identifying mixing zones in front of the boardwalk and widening sidewalk. As we move east to the San Lorenzo River, the Trestle Bridge which was completed back in 2019 where we widened the existing pathway from 4 feet to 10 feet. Continuing east from East Cliff we'll be looking at doing a retaining walls and then as we hit Pilkington Creek we'll have to be looking at doing a viaduct solution. The major intersection configuration that we'll be looking at as a part of 8 and 9 will be at Seabright and Murray. The city of San Lorenzo is proposing to add a westbound right turn lane to that intersection to accommodate the capacity issues that we have there currently and then as we continue to move east we'll be looking at adding retaining walls by Murray Street where Bronson Avenue is just east of Seabright Avenue and then additionally over towards Woods Creek. That's when we hit the harbor in which we'll be looking at doing a cantilevered lightweight deck similar to what we did at the San Lorenzo River Trestle Bridge. As we go east of the harbor we start to have some challenges with regards to right away and working with the county team and RTC team we've discussed relocating the tracks in this location moving from the harbor to Leona Creek and this is to accommodate a 12 foot wide trail in this section. At Seabright Avenue there'll be an at-grade crossing which will install some beacons for that and then at Leona Creek there'll be a viaduct as well as this culvert in between Live Oak and El Dorado Avenue and I should also note that from Pacific Avenue to El Dorado Avenue the trail will be on the inland side of the existing rail line. Once we get to El Dorado Avenue we'll move to the coastal side of the tracks at which the trail will connect to Twin Lake State Beach with some nice ADA parking as well as to Simkins Swim Center and then at the very end of segment nine we tie into 17th Avenue. Let's see do you want to go to the next slide? You got it. Thank you so this slide here illustrates the proposed retaining wall underneath the east to five roadway. With our engineering team we feel that we're able to accommodate a 12 foot wide trail that will connect to the existing San Lorenzo River bike pad bridge and then the image to the right as Grace mentioned earlier as a solution for much of 10 and 11 will be a viaduct slash a floating bridge and this image here shows Leona Creek which is in Twin Lakes State Park what the image will look like. Next slide again similar to what Grace mentioned and Sarah mentioned there are some right away constraints so as we mentioned earlier is that the plan will be to relocate some of the tracks in order to accommodate a 12 foot wide multi-use trail and this just image just shows the view looking east at 7th Avenue. Next slide and here's a summary of the structures that we're looking at on segment eight and nine mainly focused on segment nine of course we have some retaining walls and viaducts and then the floating bridge or cantilever bridge at the harbor. Next slide. That's it and I'll be handing it off back now to Sarah to go over the potential funding sources. Thank you Nathan. So just looping back around Grace briefly talked about the funding potential opportunities on the horizon for segments eight through 11 but I'd like to focus in on the upcoming cycle three application which would we're hoping to fund the last segment of highway one as well as segment 12 of the coastal rail trail. So just to recap the Watsonville the Santa Cruz multimodal corridor program proposes multimodal and innovative recording in progress that address all modes as shown here the Soquel Drive project which will be implemented by the county of Santa Cruz. This will be very similar to the cycle two project in that it will include buffered and protected bike lanes transit priority at signals sidewalk gap closures ADA upgrades and crosswalk rapid flushing beacons. The highway one elements include the last sets of auxiliary lanes in the bus and shoulder facility, sound walls and retaining walls and of course the two bicycle pedestrian over crossing bridges that I showed earlier over highway one. This also includes four zero emission buses for Santa Cruz metros cross county route or the 91x to enhance that experience. Finally the coastal rail trail will be a part of our cycle three project. I talked about it at length earlier one and a quarter mile of coastal rail trail. There will be upgrade crossings at each of the five intersections and connections to Aptos Park, Aptos village, Ccliff and Rio del Mar neighborhoods. This is really a transformative project that addresses what we call the Aptos strangler where all three of the multimodal corridors come together. This is a figure sorry to confuse you the north is now facing down in this figure just to keep it interesting. I want to keep you guys on your toes. The cycle three application will be to fund this last remaining phase here phase three. So phase one and phase two have been fully funded by our successful grant application from cycle two in 2020 resulting in the ward of $107.2 million to fund three projects including these two projects along highway one as well as a five mile stretch of multimodal improvements along Soquel Drive. I'd like to talk a little bit about the grant funding opportunity that's coming up. This grant only funds the construction component of the project and local agencies and applicants are expected to invest in pre-construction phases to get projects construction ready. The local investment also needs to include a matching funds for the construction component of the project. A 20% local match is considered the minimum for a competitive application. More local match of course is going to result in a more competitive application. These programs are highly competitive and the capacity is limited. There's $500 million in congestive corridors funds and $170 million in local partnership funds statewide and the county of Santa Cruz we compete against all the other counties in the state for these funds. So it's highly competitive program with limited capacity. So on to some of the cost estimates preliminary cost estimates. We are making these available for the purpose of informing the commission of the magnitude of investment this project will require. Here's a table showing the construction and right of way costs for the trail next to the railroad truck alignment. The right of way costs is going to be shown as higher for this project than say the optional first phase and that is because of the constrained right of way requiring acquisitions in order to build the trail. So the project component is on the left. So construction which is eligible for the grant funding and then right of way underneath that that is actually not considered eligible for the grant application. So the RTC would need to fund that component of the project. So here's a preliminary cost estimate for the optional first phase to build the trail along the railroad track alignment and in contrast to the earlier slide the right of way acquisition is not required and so the right of way costs will be shown as quite a bit lower. There is still some right of way associated with some of the highway one improvements. The construction cost is lower as well due to savings in not needing to build major infrastructure such as retaining walls and new bridges. This is a table showing the staff's developed cycle three project and the various funding amounts that are proposed. So the component is on the left. So pre construction that includes the environmental phase, the final design phase and the right of way phase. We then are showing a construction local match. So as I mentioned earlier 20% is the absolute minimum for a competitive package of projects followed by the construction proposed. So this would be the amount that the application would request from the local partnership program and congestive quarters program from the state. And finally the total amount. The columns include the highway one and segment 12 combined as one single project followed by Soquel Drive as I mentioned the county of Santa Cruz is proposing to implement additional improvements on Soquel Drive similar to those under development now in cycle two and followed by the transit upgrades. So this $5 million is to improve basically includes four zero emission buses and some smart mobility bus benches for some of the transit stops in Watsonville. So that's really going to enhance the user experience and we are partnering with Caltrans County and Metro for this upcoming grant application. So I just want to bring this number to your attention because this is our total local match that's needed about $20 million of this is funded but the total is about 101 million dollars. The proposed cycle three ask or request is 107.4 million and these numbers are all preliminary subject to change of course but this is what staff is really working with right now in terms of just communicating the magnitude of what we're gearing up for. This number the 107.4 million is similar to the amount that we requested in cycle two. This is actually on the higher end of where we want to be for our request any higher could potentially price the project out of being competitive. So I'm going to show a similar slide for the optional first phase. Here's another scenario. This table is identical to the previous table with the exception of the Highland 1 and segment 12 process estimates being adjusted for the optional first phase. The local match amount would be 50.3 million dollars as shown in red here. The scenario includes an identical ask as the previous scenario so the 107.4 million dollars. Either project requires a local match that exceeds the capacity of our current measure D cash flow. For this reason staff will be bringing options to the commission in the future on how to fill that gap. This may include financing to bring funds forward to fully fund our local match to allow us to put forward a competitive application for this year's adjusted corridors and local partnership program grant applications. And with that that concludes our presentation and we're available for questions and discussion. Thank you. Ms. Christensen, Ms. Blakesley and Mr. Wynn for the excellent presentation. Are there questions from commissioners for staff? Yes, Commissioner Rockin. Thank you. Let me also echo your positive comment about the presentation. It's really helpful and clear. It actually answers a lot of questions I've had about sort of cost issues and what the options are for us in terms of how we proceed. I was very clear on segment 12 on if we go with option, if we selected the option one first with the first phase, you know, which builds the trail first and then imagines then taking the trail down in places and rebuilding it and so forth. I was a little less clear on segments 10, 9, 10 and 11, I know it's 10 and 11 are the ones I was looking at in Grace's presentation on whether, what was clear in 12 was, for example, building the abutments for the bridge in such a way that when it got replaced, you wouldn't have to rebuild, you know, tear out the old bridge completely and start from scratch. Since railroad bridges are somewhat modular, you would eventually be able to still use the abutments that you had built for that trail bridge when you replaced it with rail later. I was less clear about that on 10 and 11 segments, you know, to what extent when we build the, if we choose option one to the first phase where we build the trail first and then later move it over, whether it was the plan and the cost estimates that follow based on building the improvements for the trail in such a way that when the trail gets, when the rail gets moved back, you don't have to start from scratch and build a whole new, tear out everything you've built and start from scratch with a new rail bridge or buy a duct or whatever the culvert, whatever the thing is that you're working on. Is my question clear? I'm sorry, it's a little. It is and I'll take this one and then Grace, you can fill in the gaps if I miss anything. But so there's two somewhat unique scenarios happening here. So the highway one, the bridges over highway one need to be replaced because of the highway improvements below. So the longer span bridges are needed regardless of what scenario we go with. So that's unique to segment 12. The segment 10 and 11 conversion of existing railroad bridges to trail bridges. If you recall my presentation about the Capitola Trestle, we talked in depth about how the railroad decking system would be removed and then a new decking system installed and that new decking system installed for the trail would not preclude future rail from coming back. It would, you know, it could be removed and the railroad track decking system could be put back in place at a later date. So under all scenarios, we're not precluding rail from coming back in any way. So that's an important distinction to make. And hopefully that answered your question. And that's true for the Capitola Bridge, but there were a number of other bridges along that route. Is that true for the rest of them as well? The same kind of issue? Yes. The conversion of the conversion of the existing railroad bridges to trail bridges. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Schifrin. Yes, thank you. I have a number of questions. What we're talking about here are two options for the environmental impact report that's going to be or the environmental impact reports that are going to be prepared for these segments. Is that correct? Yes. I see you shaking your head. Yes. Okay. I think it's very confusing. I've talked to some people and I think it's very confusing to talk about these options as a phased approach because if I'm understanding correctly, they're two completely separate options. Both of them would lead to the ultimate configuration. And option number one, which is being called the ultimate configuration, that would be done immediately. And option two, which is being called the interim option, it would be done to be a short-term removal of the tracks and a long-term replacement of the tracks. So in the end, they both would sort of end up in the same place with a trail along the rail line. So I think there is no requirement. This is what my question is. I guess that's my question. Are the ultimate trail configuration and the optional interim phase independent with each being able to be ultimately selected by the commission as the project? If I can feel that question, I wouldn't say that they're completely independent. And the reason why we came up with this approach was actually in response to your comments when we first brought up the interim trail. And that is that we analyzed the whole of the project. So we believe that it makes sense to conduct the environmental analysis together so that the public and decision makers can evaluate the whole of the project under consideration. So as long as the project description clearly and consistently describes all of the components of the project under review, we believe the proposed approach is consistent with sequence requirements requiring a stable project definition. I don't have a problem with that. I think that that's good. And I do support the way the projects, the two options are defined. I just think what's confusing is that members of the public think that there's no way that the commission can approve or what's being recommended is that the commission go with the interim option and then later do the ultimate configuration. And what I want, what I'm trying to understand, that's not my understanding. My understanding is that after the environmental impact report is done on these two alternatives, the commission could choose either one or maybe even another alternative that would be looked at in the EIR. But there's no, the project isn't essentially phase. The project is ultimate configuration or interim configuration. Those are the choices before that will be before the commission. Is that correct? Well, no, because the interim project is truly an interim first phase. And ultimately, the rail tracks would be changing for future brave reactivations. So the ultimate project is really the one build alternative. It's just an optional first phase, which has certain issues associated with it that we're all aware of, rail banking is not going to be something that's easy to do. But that's something that we can clearly define to the public and to the commission so that they can understand the issues that face the feasibility of the optional first phase. There's also issues associated with the ultimate project. And that is the right away that would be required for that project. It may also be a project that may not be feasible if we cannot acquire those rights. So I think if these issues are effectively explained in the environmental document, I think the decision makers and the public can understand. And this is actually a very well thought out approach to make sure that the public can fully understand the two parameters that are moving forward with an ultimate one build alternative with a rail and trial. From my perspective, that doesn't answer my question. As I think it's been made clear, the interim option cannot be built unless the freight easement is abandoned. So assuming that the freight easement isn't abandoned, the commission, I guess this is my question, could move forward with the ultimate configuration at the end of the environmental report. They don't have to, they're not required, the commission isn't going to be required through the sequel process to choose the interim option as the project to move forward with. They could choose the ultimate configuration given all its issues and problems and limitations, but they could choose to say, well, we're going to try to figure out a way to make this happen, because practically we can't do the interim. Whether we want to do it or not, we're not going to be able to rip out the tracks legally. And therefore, we're going to move forward with the ultimate configuration. I just want to make sure that the EIR is being analyzed in a way that would allow the commission to have the ability to make that decision. You're muted, Guy. I think that was an excellent point, Commissioner Shipper, and that's why we made it very clear when this idea was first, first came out that the first phase of the project had to be listed as optional, so that there would be a clear understanding that there would not be a requirement to build the interim phase first. And that would be a decision based on some of those other issues that we brought forward. Well, that's why I think it's very confusing to members of the public who don't want to have the season tracks taken out to talk about it as a phased approach. That's one approach, is to do it in a phased manner. Another approach, which would be allowable once the EIR is done, is to not do it as a phased approach, but to go forward with the ultimate configuration. So I think, I mean, I'm just a little uncomfortable about the language of phasing, since it creates the impression that that's what's being proposed here, but really what's being proposed here with the EIR is two options, ultimate or phased. And at the end of the EIR, when the commission dops the EIR and chooses a project, it could choose either one. And what I'm hearing you say is that that is correct. You mean it again, Guy. Guy, you're muted. I think you make another good point in that the commission needs to ultimately certify this document. You know, the city and the counties also have to certify this document. So this provides the maximum ability to address both projects and clear both projects and then make a decision based on where we're at with respect to the right-of-way requirements, whether it be rail banking or firing additional rights. Okay. I just think it's helpful. I think it will be helpful in going out to the public in making these decisions clear. I just wanted to suggest in the EIR, sounding like the interim option is proposing to totally remove the tracks for each of those segments for a trail. I think it would be desirable to have an alternative in the alternatives analysis in the EIR that looks at what would be necessary if the removal of the tracks was minimal instead of total. I think some of the presentation shows this. For some of the right-of-way, the trail could be built there now adjacent to the tracks. It wouldn't be a problem. For other parts of the right-of-way, it would be a problem. So I think that it would make sense in the EIR to include an analysis of what would be the environmental effects of minimizing the removal of the tracks and only doing it where it would be necessary in order to make the project feasible, workable. So that's just a suggestion. I think the EIR needs to look at potentially feasible alternatives. That's a potentially feasible alternative. Now I have two more detailed questions. One has to do with the bridge over the Yad Harbor. What I heard and city staff can respond was that it's now potentially feasible to cantilever the trail adjacent to the railroad bridge. Did I hear that right? Yes, that's correct. I think in 2018, we did a commission to structural firm to do a feasibility study of the harbor bridge and whether we could cantilever off the existing Boxcar bridge. Based on that feasibility study, we were planning to do a similar cantilever bridge going off the box structure. I believe it's going to be 10-foot wide, similar to what we have at the San Lorenzo River Bridge. So my understanding is that there was a fundamental difference between those two bridges where the railroad bridge over the Yad Harbor was totally metal or steel while the one at over the river had wood and that that was an important difference. I guess the root of my question is, is this approach feasible for other bridges along the right of way? Has that been looked at? Can that be looked at to see whether cantilevering bridge, cantilevering a pass, as is being proposed for the Yad Harbor, as was done with the San Lorenzo River, which had very minimal environmental impacts and was not cheap but not as costly as maybe building a whole new structure I would hope that that could be looked at at other sections as well. And my final question has to do with the slides that showed the bicycle bridges over Highway 1 as a part of segment 12. They looked as massive as the railroad bridges and given some of the ability to have single span bridges or the kinds of bridges that are in the Ryan and Gulch and up at the University campus, it seemed like that might have been a little bit excessive in terms of the amount of concrete that was being shown as being necessary. So I would hope in the later analysis that we'd be that we'd be looking at bridges that would try to minimize their impact and their costs. And I sort of assumed that that's going to happen, but I was a little nervous at the segment 12 bridges because the other bridges for like segment 11 and 12 seemed like they were much easier on the ground. So does that respond to that? Yes. I appreciate your evil eye, Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Those graphics were really preliminary and meant to just show the concept of how the sequencing would work. Actually, I had the same reaction as you did. A trail bridge abutment would not need to be as beefy, if you will, as a railroad bridge abutment. And the reason that it's visually shown that way is because trail bridges going over major state highways have a different requirement for the vertical clearance over the highway. And so we had to, you know, the rail bridge, you know, could be a few feet lower than say the trail bridge. And so showing that alignment kind of change over the highway was really the intent of the graphic, but it did result in, you know, the abutments looking a little bit beefier. They would not be any beefier than they would need to be, if you will. We're trying to get information out as quickly as possible. And we know that we need to do more work on these before we release the draft DIR and provide more detailed presentation. I also wanted to mention about the Harbor Bridge. It's actually a concrete post tension bridge. There's cables that run through the concrete in a parabolic section. And then they're post tension and pulled from both ends to help support a longer span. So they can drill in and that bridge does have enough capacity to cantilever off a bridge, but we have to be very careful as to not hit those tables. So we still need to work closely with City of Crant Santa Cruz to make sure that this concept of cantilevering off is not going to damage the existing bridge. We also have looked at every single bridge crossing where there's an existing rail bridge and analyze the possibility of cantilevering. And for this section of segments eight through 12, the Harbor Bridge was the only bridge that we found that a cantilevered option was actually feasible. Okay. Thank you. Before I stop, I just do want to thank staff for the presentation because it does contain a great deal of very useful information and is very helpful. And I was actually even able to use my print screen and get some of the slides to be able to think about and use in the future. So I do appreciate all the information that's been provided. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Commissioner Bertrand. You're on mute. Okay. I vote that Eustinia be been able to unmute people that are not who are muted. But anyway, I have a couple of questions. Yes, I appreciated the staff presentation. It was great. And I hope that staff is planning a PDF of the presentation, including all graphs and discussion that we just heard so that the public could get that out and discuss it as well. So I have a couple of questions. Well, first I feel I just went through the professor's slide on how to construct bridge abutments and cantilevers and stuff like that. So I think I understand a little bit more about difficulties with bridges. Thank you, guys. And so right now we're in Cape Tolla trying to figure out how to do a section of the rail trail that goes from our parking lot up to the crossing at Monterey Avenue. And I'm a little uncertain what's being planned there. And, you know, if you could elucidate that, it might help us figure out what we might want to do. And, you know, those details, if you get those to Steve Jesper or bring it up right now, but I think Steve would be the best person to have that information if it's available. So the second point was, right now coming on Warf Road, there's a stairway that goes up from Warf Road next to the bridge. And it connects to a walkway that people have been enjoying for, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 years or something like that. And so I'm wondering about the future of that walkway. I realize it's on right away. The other thing is, as the trail, I'm not sure which configuration, but as it goes through there and connects up with the bridge, what would it look like? Is there a slide that could give me some information that would give me a sense of, it's very steep there. There's a lot of homes above the right away. So I could imagine quite a few walls to protect anything that might influence also the houses above there. So I'm very concerned about that. Anyone could answer that. Yeah, I can answer those questions. Thank you. Rob Timmar, Project Manager of the County. I just want to apologize for my lack of clarity. I had jaw surgery a few weeks ago, so I'm not able to enunciate properly. So I want to thank Grace for doing an excellent job on explaining 10-11 to the commission. I'll start with your first question, Commissioner Bertrand, which is regarding the coordination between your parking lot trail from the main parking lot just east of downtown Capitola. We are working closely with Steve and Kailash from Capitola Public Works on that project and coordinating that with the improvements planned for 10-11. They are planning to improve the intersection there at Monterey and if the optional first phase is implemented and it's feasible to provide a connection from the trail to that parking lot area, we will do so as part of the optional first phase. Okay, let me jump in if I may. So this depends on how the commission makes a decision after the EIR is approved. I mean, excuse me, presented and then we have a clear idea of how we want to go and then that would interface with the city. Is that what you're saying? That's correct. The way we're, and this is true for all the projects, the way we're proceeding with our preliminary design is to develop both the optional alignment and the ultimate alignment at an equal level of detail so that the commission, the county, and the city will have all of the information available to them to move forward with the alignment that ultimately selected. Okay, because part of our discussion at city council was perhaps going on RTC right away next to the tracks or going maybe all the way up to Monterey Avenue, so it's a little unclear how we would dovetail into that. So this is a decision which will really depend on, as you say, the EIR and which way the commission goes in the future and then we make that decision. Just want to reiterate. Yeah, that's correct in terms of how it interfaces with the trail project, absolutely. Okay, and I understand what you're going through. I had a broken jaw. I was jumped by about 10 people and ended up with a broken jaw for about eight weeks. It was horrible. So whatever you're going through, I totally understand. Not a fun part of my life. So the part next to the bridge that crosses Capitol, excuse me, Warf Road, and there's a row of houses above there, and especially where the row of houses grade is very steep. So being a capitol city councilman, I'd like to understand what is being proposed. I understand these are ideas that are being proposed and to be evaluated. I just want to get an idea. Correct. So for that particular location under the ultimate trail configuration where the trail is next to the tracks, the trail stops at the mid block crossing on Cliff Drive, just east of the parking lot there. So the trail would not continue along the tracks east or south of that point until you get to Monterey. So there would be no need for retaining walls in that area. Under the optional first phase, you're putting the track, excuse me, you're putting the trail on the track. And again, you would not need any kind of major retaining walls for that alignment. In terms of the connection to the Warf Road stair that you mentioned, that's just on the west end of the start of the Capitol at Tressel. If the optional first phase is implemented and the City and RTC are amenable to it, then a connection there could be made to the trail. Okay, that's very clear. So I think it would stop where this, excuse me, the metal stairway is, one explanation you gave, at least down to the parking lot. Under the ultimate trail configuration, the trail would stop just at the very east end of the existing parking lot where you have the diagonal parking on Cliff Drive. And trail users would utilize that mid block crosswalk there to cross to the coastal side where they'd utilize the existing sidewalk and bike lane there to navigate down to Capitol. Okay, so I want to follow our question now to understand where the trail would end. Would RTC work with us to, because that sidewalk is very close to moving traffic very fast? And you know, if the trail is built as we hope, then the volume is going to greatly increase. Is this proposal going to work with our City Department of Public Works to come up with a safe alignment that protects pedestrians? Right now it's very narrow and it's really quite, well there is a bike lane but it's not clearly marked or anything of that sort. Good, great question. So in general, yes, we are coordinating with Steve and Taylor with this project, so we're keeping safety paramount. However, the any improvements to the on-street bikeway are not proposed as part of the segment 1011 trail project, in part because of the passage of Measure L by Capitol voters several years ago which prohibits trail projects from using trail money to detour the trail around the Capitol at Russell. So we have essentially under the ultimate trail configuration a gap in the trail from the end of the parking lot which I mentioned until you start again at Monterey Avenue. So the existing on-street bike facilities will be utilized. Okay, so we might have to come back for stiff funds or something like that, but thanks for pointing out the Measure L and the consequences of that. I look at this presentation as a list of potentials and issues that we may be dealing with depending on costs, right away issues, and ultimately the will of the people in Santa Cruz, and thanks very much. Any more questions, Mr. Bertrand? Commissioner Ginny Johnson. Thank you, Chair. I do also want to appreciate the staff presentation. I really appreciate the approach of options and because I think, you know, vitriol in our community needs to be tamped down with facts and options and a real fact-based discussion on costs and phases and so forth. So I really appreciate how this has been approached and I really like the idea having walked the corridor with the County Grant, Mr. Tidmore and others, and Mr. Preston and Sarah, where there's some real vegetation management issues on these segments that could have cost us a lot more if you hadn't come up with the floating bridge idea, which is great. We probably still have some issues there, but that's great. That's a cost measure that will help considerably once the Commission looks at all the different options. I would like, I don't need to have an explanation right now, but I think it'd be very helpful to the community that when staff comes back to the Commission with a proposal to apply for SB1, cycle three funds, that there's a very thorough explanation as to the competitiveness. Sarah touched on it. I think that's great. I think we need to continue to talk about the competitiveness of these grants. They're very strictly graded and having lived in that role for many, many years, it's something that continues to belie a good conversation in our community. Competitive grant writing, especially with very large infrastructure grants, this particular cycle wouldn't necessarily apply to other kinds of projects such as passenger rail. That's something I keep hearing mentioned from folks that, oh, well, you could find money for that, but you can't find money for passenger rail. It's very specific, these funding streams, and the criteria and the grading criteria is very specific. We have to care about what things cost, whether or not we're positioned well to grade well, not just our matching funds, 20% being the minimum. I would ask that when staff comes back with that request to say would you please authorize us to apply for SB1, cycle three funds for whatever projects we're going to apply for, a good explanation of the criteria. That's actually a very, very important level of detail, the grading criteria. What can you use these funds for and how do you position yourself and how is our community position compared to the other 58 counties, et cetera, that continues to be lost in the ether? Thank you very much. Great information. I'd ask Sarah for the slide text. I hope she can share them. I hope she can post them on the website. I think it'll be really helpful for the community. Thanks for the time. Thank you, Commissioner Junie Johnson. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Thank you, Chair. Speaking of grants and local match, I think it was touched upon a little bit earlier. And also the whole concept of financing, I would assume that's some sort of bonding that would move forward. And to me, that kind of makes sense that if you can have a match of X amount and even if it has to be financed, and it turns into five times as much as you match, that's a good ROI, I guess, return on investment. So talk a little bit about how we are positioned with measure D funds and what would a local match and I guess bonding look like. Can you do a conditional approval of financing and then, you know, after you get approval from the state or these funds, you know, use those funds, but if you don't get it, can you draw back and not have to finance? I guess that's my question. I'll try to answer that one. We did this in Sonoma County when I worked for the Sonoma County Transportation Authority. We were dealing with Proposition 1A funding at the time. Again, we can only use funding for construction. We were looking at some pretty large grant opportunities and the opportunities for a good rate of return, right on investment like we stated. So we did deal with some bond education with our commission and we're scheduling that coming up over the next few months. So we can understand what sort of capacity we may have in this program, how much money we actually can bring forward. The advantages of course are you're bringing forward, you're building early, you're saving on inflation, you're getting a good grant as a possibility. The negative, of course, is you have to pay back with interest. So you can easily exhaust your funding availability for future projects. But in terms of Highway 1, this is one of our last major projects. So we have another one that we're going to start daylighting coming forward. It was identified in the programmatic EIR. But we are going to do that exercise. What we did in Sonoma was the same sort of thing. We got authorization from our commission that they were in support of bonding. And we started working on cash flow analysis, bonding capacity, and hiring the bond council and disclosure council that's needed. But we didn't actually sell the bonds until after we received the grant award so that we weren't paying interest on money that we couldn't use. So we waited until we saw that the CTC was going to fund the project and then we executed the bond sale, brought the money forward. We actually bonded two or three times in Sonoma refinancing, taking advantage of low interest rates. It's really a great opportunity to try to bring investments to the community sooner. The programs we can look, you know, to bond are primarily the Highway program and then the MDSST program. As long as we have environmental clearance on the projects, that's a requirement. We have to have CEQA in order to be able to bond. Generally, I know that county brought it up a few years ago. Could we also bond for maintenance? You can, but maintenance is ongoing. Big capital projects tend to be more favorable by electives to bond for because you get that immediate benefit to the public. Whereas with maintenance, you have an ongoing need and you've now exhausted all your maintenance money up front. So I hope that answers your question. It's a very compelling argument with respect to doing something now, which is always good. And the inflation argument is also compelling because it's real and somewhat ominous. So thanks for that explanation. And I guess thank you in advance for bringing forth that information in our future RTC meetings. Guy. Thank you, Commissioner Randy Johnson. Commissioner Montecino. Yeah, just want to thank staff for great information. But I have a question on segment eight and nine because I think I've heard around the community that the Harbor Bridge is going to be replaced. So why would we have to calibrate them to join an effort to be with the replacement of the bridge over the Harbor? This is the Otter Bridge is being replaced. The Murray Street Bridge has a seismic retrofit project that's planned to proceed later this year to go into construction, but that's separate from the railroad bridge that goes over the Harbor. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Montecino. Commissioner Hernandez. Yes, I'm muting myself. I wanted to ask, does one of the plans or considerations consider how to build the trail without rail banking? More specifically, is there an option that would not require rail banking? You know, is there a no rail banking approach consideration is what I'm asking. Yes, that's the ultimate trial configuration. Okay, thank you, Commissioner Hernandez. Commissioner Quinn. Thanks again to the staff for a great report. To Commissioner, to Director Preston or Ms. Christensen, the plan is laid out today using what Sarah called an interim trail with the differences in grades, etc. Would that in any way interfere with or preclude ongoing planning for passenger rail? No. Thank you. Sorry, sorry for the short answer. No. Okay, thank you, Commissioner Quinn. Any further questions from commissioners? I have a few myself. There was a couple of segments mentioned where I'll be required to move the tracks in order to proceed with the ultimate trail configuration. I believe one was around 7th Avenue and the other around 41st Avenue. When moving the tracks, would they be replaced with new tracks or simply move the old tracks? I'll speak, I think on behalf of really those two locations, it would be replacement or installation, construction of new tracks adjacent to the trail. Okay, thank you. And then, you know, of course, one of the arguments in favor of the quote unquote greenway plan is that we ultimately need a wider trail. There's certainly some evidence for that. If you look at East Cliff, West Cliff, even the Iran Gulf Trail, where there are conflicts between bikes and pedestrians. So, and looking at the optional interim trail plan, are there options to make it wider in specific sections? You know, does the EIR that we're doing include options to make it somewhat wider in specific locations? Good morning, Commissioner Koenig. As the draft project description is coming forward for to be evaluated for the interim optional phase, we're looking at a 12 to 16 foot trail, so 16 feet where there's no grade or environmental constraints and narrower than 16 feet where there are grade or environmental constraints, like at roadway crossings and at some rail bridges. Okay, so it's basically a range and where possible we would do 16 feet presumably. Yeah, 12 to 16 feet would be the range. Okay, is there any portion of the corridor where it could ever be wider than that? I know that the city and the county are both looking at options for maybe what would be called like a bulb out or rest area to add a feature to the trail, but not. So in those locations, the trail could be the footprint of the trail would be wider, but it's not looking at a wider continuous trail, wider than 16 feet, not looking at a wider than 16 feet continuous trail. But it does not important to note that, you know, we are looking at environmentally clearing the entire corridor right away line to right away line. And we could make adjustments in final design as long as we disclose the environmental impacts. So there, I wouldn't say it's impossible, but there there's a reason why we stuck with a trail of a constant width. There's a lot of environmental impacts out there, potentially for either the interim trail or the ultimate route alternative. And either project is extremely expensive. And we're trying to minimize impacts and control costs as much as possible. But you know, if there's opportunities in the future, we could certainly look at them. You know, the areas that you mentioned along West Cliff and East Cliff get a lot of heavy traffic due to the desirability and use of those trails like Jason to the ocean. The sections, I think that would be more likely to be able to do something like that are not necessarily as heavily as traveled. But there is good reason why to separate pedestrians from bicyclists. It's often brought up in our bicycle and pedestrian committee meetings. So so you do make a valid point, Commissioner Coney. And I'd like to add that these are the basis for the development of some of the schematic plans that are coming forward to the community for public input. So these are the concepts that are being developed, but will also be considering input from the public, which will be happening this spring. Okay, so if I understand correctly, there will be potential to look at different configurations going forward, including potentially options for wider segments or spots where bikes and pedestrians are separated. Yes. And I'm also going to go back to a question that Commissioner Schiffer mentioned earlier. There is also the option of doing what he said as well, and that is building sections of the trail adjacent to the rail line and leaving the rail in place versus sections where you do the interim trail. We did this with our environmental documents for high-speed rail, where we had different alternatives and that you could mix and match. In this situation, I'm disclosing that as a potential. In fact, we can even choose to go to the interim trail on some of the segments and the ultimate trail on some of the other segments. Okay. And then, you know, I guess I'm also struggling with some of the same issues as Commissioner Schiffer as far as understanding how we would select between between these options. So, you know, are we effectively considering these, you know, the ultimate trail on the interim trail as independent, or if we choose the interim trail looking at the environmental impacts, does it necessarily include ultimate trail and reversion or the conversion impacts as part of the environmental impacts of that project? Since there's only one build alternative, which is the ultimate trail, it includes the ultimate trail impacts configuration, whether you exercise the optional trail or not. So, if you remember the discussion about rail banking, you're not, you know, you'll never hear me refer to the interim trail as trail only because that violates the whole concept of rail banking. We are really looking at this with the possibility of bringing the rail back if the interim trial option is exercise to really stay true to the purpose of rail banking and that's to preserve the corridor for future rail reactivation. And Sarah showed one slide. I thought that was helpful and when we share those slides, you can look at it again, but where it described how the environmental analysis would be laid out were the different components of the build alternative. And that may answer your question as well, looking at the ultimate the interim optional phase and then as well as the conversion piece of it from going from interim to ultimate. I could bring that up if that's helpful. Sorry, it's a long presentation, so I'm scrolling through here. If I may jump in, a part of the goal of today's presentation, talking about the EIR review through 8 through 12 is that the city and the county and RTC are taking the same approach between all of our segments. The proposed project will include the ultimate as well as the optional phase. And so at the end of the EIR process, there will be some build alternatives, but the interim trail isn't considered a build alternative. It'll be a part of the proposed project. And that is to allow flexibility for the agencies to approve our EIRs and then elected officials as we move into the design phase, choose which project may be buildable. So whether we can actually build an interim trail or most likely an ultimate trail configuration because that is what we at this point are allowed to build. Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion between the proposed project and choosing a project at the end of the EIR. We're not choosing interim or ultimate at the end of the EIR. Those are considered a part of the proposed project. That's one project. Yeah, and I guess my only concern is that this presentation, I mean, I think it's the first really honest look at just how impactful the quote unquote ultimate trail will be. I mean, some of these giant retaining walls, numerous bridges. And so my concern is that if the only alternative is that, that we do those sorts of impactful projects at some point, then is it possible we come up with a project that's actually not acceptable? We've already seen, for example, with segment 7B that given the impact of those retaining walls on the repairing corridor, the environmental groups opposed it. Are we going to be left with an option that's not or no alternative that is acceptable? So I could respond to that. So there's deliverability risks on both under both scenarios. So obviously under the optional first phase that project can only be implemented if the corridor is rail banked. So that's the deliverability risk for that trail. For the ultimate trail configuration, it requires major infrastructure. That's cost, the higher your project cost, the higher the risk that you may not be able to fund it. It may take additional cycles. You may need to phase your project and to bite sized pieces that are feasible to get funded. So funding is a project risk when you have a higher, if you have a more expensive project, it's going to be more challenging to deliver because we don't have locally, obviously, sufficient capacity to build all of our transportation needs as we all understand. And therefore we're competing for other sources of funds at the state and federal level. Those are highly competitive as well. And so cost is a risk to a project. The other risk, I suppose, is more specific to segment 12 and that is because we are proposing to acquire some right of way. There is some deliverability risk associated with that process. And so there's a little bit of a heightened risk there if we're not able to acquire the right of way or we run into challenges there. It adds risk to the project. Not to say that we can't overcome that risk, but it's something that staff recognizes as we are developing these projects and bringing forward information to the commission. Okay, thank you. I see a couple other hands from my fellow commissioners have come up. So Commissioner Brown. Thank you. This has been a really interesting discussion and the presentation was incredibly helpful. So thank you to staff for putting this together, Sarah, for explaining and all the staff here presenting today for trying to help us understand this and as clearly articulated explanations of what the possibilities are here and what the potential unintended or intended consequences might be. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the money piece of this. And so I just wanted to go back to the comparison for cycle three funding for the ultimate project versus the optional first phase. And maybe I just wasn't tracking well enough when you were talking about it. And so it may be obvious, but I'm just still trying to just get us feel like I'm understand this the from what I what I can tell the two possibilities, you know, the cycle three optional first phase involves lower pre construction and construction costs attributed to the local local match costs. But the other elements are kind of, you know, all the same. And so I guess I'm just wondering if like I'm trying to understand like so what I'm seeing is there's about a I think it's a $50 million difference between the two. And those are shown in the chart as two different line items, very different costs for the for us for local share. And so I'm just I'm just trying to understand, I mean, I got the big picture, you know, that it's cost less to do this, you know, to do the trail project. But like what are what's in that? I mean, what is actually in that in the differential there? And what does that mean for the possibilities if we do a phased approach to, you know, increase the cost for the ultimate project down the road? I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this, like if we do interim if we do this phased approach, it's going to cost there will be costs associated with that. And I'm trying to figure out where that will show up. And so I don't know if that was totally clear, but it's partly because my head is not totally clear on this this piece of it. Sure. And I'll take a stab at I brought up the slide again so that we could see just to give some context. So the pre construction, let's see, I could have the red circle go around. Okay, so this the pre construction would include the additional right of way costs associated with ultimate. So that's the difference there. And then the construction local match, we are proposing to keep the ask the same. So the 107.4 million. We really don't want to go above that. And so the additional costs associated with the ultimate project would be we're proposing to pay for it locally here and not increasing our application requests because that's going to potentially price us out of being competitive. And if you think about this grant program that we're applying for its solutions to congested corridors. It's really for multimodal improvements. And what they see from the lens of the funding program is a trail is being built, right? There's no benefit of having a new trail bridge next to existing rubber tracks versus just a bridge, you know, a converted bridge. So it's going to compete the same. If that makes sense. But it's going to have a higher cost obviously, for the ultimate, because those building of the new bridges over Highway one for freight that doesn't add any spice, if you will, to our application. It doesn't make our application more competitive. It just adds the cost. Right. Yeah. Thank you. That does help. I think I get that part of it. And so maybe I'm just kind of my confusion is because I'm thinking about bigger questions that aren't really addressed in these tables. So I think I got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Brown. Commissioner Bertrand. Thank you very much, Chair. So I share, I think a lot of the concerns that many of us have in Commissioner Brown just sort of touched on it. And that is related to costs. And what's behind all the figures, whether it's acquiring right away, why we need to acquire why away, that was explained in the diagrams. That's one example. But the whole issue of what makes our project competitive compared to other counties across other counties across the state of California. So I try to read all the emails. I think a lot of us do and, you know, because we're commissioners and that's part of our job. And one thing that keeps coming up a lot is, well, how did we come up with these figures to begin with? It's often stated that these figures are too high, might put us out of the running for grants and make it more difficult for the county to support it in whichever way we decide. So when you come out with a fuller report that we could put into a PDF and broadcast to the community, or at least make available to the commissioners, so we understand when we talk to people. I like a better understanding of how costs were arrived at. And I realize that these are estimates. These are construction estimates. You know, you put all the footnotes on it that you want and I would appreciate that. But I think we need to have some way so that when we talk to our constituents, and when we try to make up our minds also, what these costs are actually based on. And, you know, I could come up with what I think you would say, but that's not good enough. You wrote the report. So I'd really like Sarah and all the staff, etc. You know, so I'd appreciate some of that. Definitely. Thank you very much. And another reason why I appreciate it is, you know, we get this pushback from the public. And I think those are legitimate concerns of the public. And, you know, we need to be able to address those concerns so that there's that sense that, you know, we cross the T's and dotted the I's when we put this report together, and people need to have that trust. And I think this would help build that trust between the RTC and the community. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bertrand. Commissioner Montecino. Yeah, I have a question. So, and which I don't know if it's if it's in one of the slides, but under the optional phase, does it have the cost of how or how much is we're going to be to rail bank? So is how much is rail banking going to cost us? We're, you know, lower fees and going through a going through all that process. And even some people have alluded to, you know, providing a, you know, cost about putting a putting a train on top of a, you know, a truck and delivering it to our, you know, our rail growing camp. Yeah. So how is that in the in the slide costs? I'd like to respond to that. So I brought up the optional first phase cost estimate again, just to show the construction, the right of way, and then the total costs again. So if you look at the trail column, we did include some cost here. It's 0.9 million. That's including some contingencies. It includes, you know, the the whole project cost for a right of way. And that would actually include some costs associated with rail banking. So that's that's really where that is captured in the cost estimates. And hopefully that answered your question. It's not I mean, I would say this is an estimate. And I do want to give that disclaimer that, you know, it's subject to change as we go through the process or not. But this is our best guess at, you know, what the total project right of way costs. And that's where the rail banking costs belongs for this project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Montesino. Richard Schifrin. Yes. I'm listening to the discussion and it raised a couple of questions at least one question my mind about the process. It's true is it not that the commission can't make a decision on any project, any of these projects until the EIRs are done and certified. Is that true? Well, the grant application will be due before then. So the schedule of the upcoming grant cycle, which is why we're putting this information out now, is to start the conversation with the commission and and provide this information so that it's understood the magnitude of investment needed that's upcoming. So the grant deadline is later this year. CEQA for segment 12 in the Highway 1 project is scheduled to be complete in the following spring, so early 2023. It's going to be completed before the program adoption by the CTC, which is a requirement of the project to be eligible for the funds. But we need to apply for one of these scenarios. We need to at least understand and make a decision on a grant application local match. That's really what we're getting at here is local funds will be required. It's just a matter of how much, depending on which scenario we go for. But we want to bring this information. That's what I was afraid of. Is the attorney on the call? Is that Steve Madison on the call? My understanding is that it is illegal for a public agency to essentially approve a project before the environmental document is certified. So that's where I had my concern. If the commission needs to approve a project, one of these options before the EIR is done or are done, we've got a legal problem, I think. I asked the attorney to confirm that. So I'm just wondering, I think there may be a couple of options here. One option is we could maybe decide on a local grant and maybe apply sort of as an either or we're doing the first steps rather than making a decision. But there have been a couple of very prominent court cases where decisions by public agencies have been thrown out because they essentially committed to a project before doing the environmental review. And so maybe you can't answer that today, but I think it needs to really be looked at seriously. And I like the strategy of moving forward. I think it's a really good strategy. But I think it may be necessary to sort of move forward with options as opposed to with conclusions and be real clear that the commission is not approving anything by submitting this application. That can be dangerous in itself, but at least it provides a little bit of cover. So anyway, I just wanted to ask that question because it's just becoming clear to me that we may be put in a position that commission may be put in a position of putting a copy for the horse, which I don't think we can literally do. You make a good point, Commissioner Schifrin, and we certainly don't want to approve the project before Seabway is complete. Reiterating what Sarah mentioned regarding the CTC and their program, they allow you to apply for funds prior to the completion of Sequa. They want your Sequa document to be done within six months of program adoption. So that has been happening statewide. It happened in the last round. We applied for funding before the Sequa document for Bay Porter to State Park was completed. It's a little bit more unique, so we want to be careful about how we do it, and I think there may be options moving forward. One of the things Sarah brought up earlier is that really the project benefits are the same whether you select the ultimate project or you select the interim project. You end up with a highway project and you end up with a trail project. The rail is kind of ancillary to the project. It adds cost, but it doesn't necessarily increase benefits. So there may be options that allow us to say, well, if we came up with the extra match, we could do the ultimate project and we're not really doing a bait and switch with the CTC. So we have to be very cognizant of the comments that you made and make sure that we do so in a legally sound manner. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Schifrin. Seeing no other hands from commissioners, I will, I'm sorry, Commissioner Quinn, go ahead. Sorry, you're coming so late, Mr. Koenig. I just want to loop back to what Sarah said and the cost estimates. Based on the email traffic, there's going to be a lot of quibbling about cost estimates, and I'm going to say for Ms. Christensen, I'm sure it was more than quote a guess. I'm sure it was an accurate prediction based on external benchmarking and our expertise as an engineer, and I think we should recognize them as such. And maybe going forward, Director Preston, we could include comparables, what people are spending on other markets to achieve the same thing, to ground the conversation with the public on how much this may cost. Thank you, Commissioner Quinn. All right. Well, now, yes, Commissioner Rockin. Just very quick, I wanted to reinforce what Robert just, Quinn just said. I think we really do have to depend upon the expertise of our staff. I know that in America these days, expertise is under attack, but we have really good staff and they do a really responsible job. And we, the idea that members of the public are going to wing in here with their idea of what a bridge ought to cost or something is probably not our best approach. So thank you for that comment, Robert. You, Commissioner Rockin. Seeing no other hands from commissioners, we'll now open it for public comment. We'll have two minutes. If you'd like to make a comment, please raise your hand, and we'll call on you in order of hands being raised. Our first public speaker will be Kyle Kelly. Man, could you tell us from time to time roughly how many hands you're seeing, just so we have an idea where this is going? Certainly. I see about seven or eight right now then slowly coming up. But if we do see a large number of folks who want to make comments, we'll have to ultimately shorten public speaking time. Let's get started. For the benefit of commissioners, if you click on participants and then click on attendees, you can see everybody whose hands is up. Thanks, Fran. Thanks, Andy. Thank you. All right, Kyle Kelly. Go ahead. Thank you, commissioners and staff. So first, I want to say thank you for the presentation. I'm really enjoying having access to the trail. I'm able to use it to take my kids to Bayview Elementary. It provides us a nice path that is away from cars. I really wish that we were talking more about, I guess, focusing on more pedestrian bike and wheelchair paths in more places because we still have to get to the trail and we have to get to each of the trails to have dedicated areas for biking and walking to keep children safe, to keep the elderly safe. And at the same time, many of us want to get around the county without having to deal with a car. I would like us to fulfill our obligations under Proposition 116 when we purchased the corridor, stick to the state rail plan, and really, really allow us to move forward with rail and trail. I have a hard time believing that if we took a phased approach that we're going to bring the rail back, especially since it's the highway project that is necessitating a replacement of the bridges. We're talking about rail and trail projects, zero greenhouse gas emissions for both electric light rail, people walking, biking, and rolling. Those shouldn't have to use their funds to pay for highway related components, a highway that actually has higher greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2022. We shouldn't be elevating those projects above them or taking funding from zero emissions projects such as rail and trail. So please don't go with this phased approach. Consider all the alternatives within the EIR, but I think there's a serious concern here about how we're going to be using our money and our future for our kids, grandkids. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Mr. Scott. Thank you. Great presentation. I'm so happy that we clarified with Commissioner Hernandez's question that the ultimate plan is a plan that doesn't require rail banking because I'm pretty certain that rail banking is going to be nearly impossible and in any event we should be prepared for that. I wanted to speak to the Capitola question for the trail because in the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network plan on page 461, an alternative that didn't come up today is to build a separate iconic bridge for bikes and pedestrians, which I think would be a fabulous solution even though there's costs associated with it like any other solution. It would be, it could become a real statement for the community of Capitola. It would be a beautiful way to solve this problem and it would avoid this conflict with the rail bridges and need to keep our rail right intact. So I hope that staff will look at that again and a great precedent, a great example of a solution over the same distance, 500 feet, is found in Cleveland with what's called the Wendy Park pedestrian bridge. And that, my final statement would be this, as they say in the world of construction, measure twice cut once and I hope that, and I'm confident that the IR process will consider and that the commissioners will consider the cost of having to build the trail twice. I can't imagine there being any kind of benefit in an environmental review where the environment needs to be disturbed twice, where the neighborhoods need to be disturbed twice or that there's any kind of a financial argument that can be made successfully that says we're going to remove a rail line, we're going to build the trail and then we're going to rebuild the rail line and rebuild the trail. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. Mr. David Dean. Yes, thank you for your time. I would like to also ask that the slides be published. I have a number of questions and concerns, really, so I wrote them all down. I hope I can get to them. But one of the things is that when you're only showing the cycle three funding requests, isn't that hiding a lot of costs? What are the total costs for each option? I mean, even the slide that shows the cost for segment 12 compares the ultimate with only just doing the interim first phase. I don't think that's a fair comparison and we really should see a lot more information about what the cost is because I believe that this interim plan and all its phases is going to be much more expensive than just doing the work without the interim steps. I also believe that acquiring right of way is going to be more difficult and expensive in the future if we go with the this phased approach, but not buying it now, buying it later is going to just make it more difficult. I also would like to know if there is a commitment to potentially getting to the ultimate configuration, even if the interim phased approach is selected. I mean, are we going to be stuck with just the interim rail or interim trail forever if we can't figure out how to fund the rest of it? This is really frustrating because I want to get to the point where my kids and my family can use public rail transit in this county. I was also concerned with segment 11 not building a trail bridge next to the Capitol to Trestle for the ultimate plan. I mean, was that only for cost reasons because there are safety issues. Thank you, Mr. Dean. Mr. Brian Peoples. Hi, it's Brian from Trail. Now, thank you very much. Right away, I'll say that we absolutely support moving forward with the interim trail phenomenal idea. And of course, we need to follow the leadership, the experts, as we said the RTC staff, they know how to get the money at the end of the day comes down to we got to get the money. So we have to have a plan. You know, I'll talk a little bit about the elephant in the room here. Keeping the tracks is not necessary to ensure the corridor is preserved for future rail. That doesn't seem people don't seem to get that. We talk about keeping portions of the tracks. You don't need to do that. Kind of we need to educate the public that removal of the tracks doesn't mean that rail is gone. It kind of feels like everyone gets a trophy we're not willing to really educate the public that we don't need to keep the tracks. And as a matter of fact, we got to pull them out anyways. So let's not go and try to come up with a plan where we only take out portions of the tracks. Actually, the most cost effective way is to remove the tracks from Watsonville to Davenport through a single contract. The tracks are worth $5 million through the it might be more. That was a bid we received up two years ago. And what that would do is that would open up the corridor for other portions of the community. Watsonville would benefit hugely if you said we're going to remove the tracks all the way from Watsonville to Davenport as a single contract. It's the interim trail. We don't need to keep those tracks in there again to preserve it for future rail. And that's really what needs to be communicated because I keep hearing people say, oh, we're going to keep a track. Don't worry. We kept that section of the track. We don't need that. So great work. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Mr. Sain. Yes, thank you, Commissioner Connick. Funding, funding, funding seems to be the big issue. And there are things that weren't even studied that should have been studied. CFST primarily considers a dedicated bus rapid transit system on the corridor highway one as the most feasible and a superior alternative in respect to greenhouse gas reductions as well as vehicle miles traveled. Thus, something that hasn't been studied had to go to litigation. That has not been decided yet, but that is another possibility that may come up in the near future for that study to be done as well. Have you considered other sources of funding for this project? I hear state, local, federal. I hear nothing about private entities that may want to get involved. There was one a few about a year or two ago from Las Gatis that wanted to join ranks with the RTC to do something with 17 Road. Tolls are a possibility, but my favorite is to remove the Ox Lane project. And since we are multimodal, that could go to the rail trail corridor. My understanding that 50 to 60 million would make that freight compliant, thus the capability of running some form of transportation all the way to Watsonville. At this point, some form of rail transit can be initiated as well as a mass transit corridor on highway one, which is dedicated bus lanes with zero emission buses. These are to be a philosophical change made and a commitment to educating our constituents to the necessity of mass transit and not cars. It will have to be done. Why not start now? The president RTC plan is kicking the can down the road with the Ox Lane project. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sain. Mr. Todd Marco. Hi, my name is Todd Marco, and I'm Executive Director of Nicene Rio Gateway in Aptos. Sarah, excellent presentation on segment 12. I especially love the graphical renderings that really helped depict potential design options for this very, very challenging section of the trail. I'm hoping that the existing two span rail bridges over highway one in Aptos can be repurposed in Aptos for active transportation. NRG has identified numerous locations that would benefit substantially from pedestrian bridges. I know this isn't a trivial ask, but rather than disposing or repurposing elsewhere, I'd love to consult further with RTC and others on repurposing these bridges in Aptos. Thank you. Thank you. We currently have 10 additional public speakers. Mr. Jack Nelson. Yes, thank you. And for starters, I'll say I enjoyed seeing slides showing design possibilities for a future rail trail and future completion of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. That's exciting, but I feel conflicted because I'm looking at that segment 12 being kind of a co-project with Widening Highway 1 out there in Aptos. And then I'm looking at slides that show costs and asking the question, where's the money going to come from? Well, I noticed that the heavy hitter on that segment 12 in Highway 1 cost is Widening Highway 1. It's not the trail. So where does money come from? Well, state of California is a big player here. And maybe the commission should be looking more closely at the fact that California has left the RTC in the dust as to our climate future and planning for it. Currently, the California Air Resources Board this year will be revising its scoping plan, climate change scoping plan. And I wouldn't be shocked to see California living up to its talk and putting in that plan something about, if not no more funding for highway capacity expansions, at least no more prioritization for competitive advantage for funding where you're growing vehicle miles travel and greenhouse gases. So the future we need to look ahead. We can't just look at today, but we need to look at conditions in the future both on climate and on what California will be doing with its resources. I don't think it'll be funding highway widening the way it has in the past. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nelson. Hi, can you hear me? We can hear you. Hi, I am a young person living in, I grew up in Santa Cruz. I've been living here my whole life. I hope to live the rest of my life and hopefully one day see completion of rail and freight along the corridor. I want to thank the commissioners and the staff for such a comprehensive presentation today. I want to echo previous speakers speaking in support of the rail to highlight what I think is a common sense issue with the interim plan. It just doesn't make any sense to me, and I apologize also for the background noise. It does not make any sense to me how ripping out existing rail infrastructure, building over it, and then after that ripping out that infrastructure, and then building rail again on top of it, make any sort of practical or financial sense to our community. As we all know, we have a lot of growing transit needs in the community, and widening the highway or speculative future tech like autonomous taxi fleets are not going to cut it. And bike lanes alone are not going to cut it either. We need to focus on the opportunity that the rail corridor gives us. Yeah, so I want to voice my support and urge the commissioners to not go with the interim plan, which seems very wasteful but financed. Thank you, Mr. Silveraway. Mr. Jack Brown. Hi, Jack Brown, resident of Aptos. Thank you. A lot of people have said on both sides of the issue for the very comprehensive presentation. Looking forward to having that published so we can refer to it in the future. Very much in support of the phase interim plan. We need to open this corridor up now. We've got lots of other construction. We've got other things going on. We just need to be able to let this be used. And so I really hope that the public and the commissioners really, really follow the recommendations of staff for once is noted. They're the ones that really know what's going on here. I think there's a lot of false information about rail banking. I mean, one, I'd like to see, you know, has there been any investigation of what's going on in the smart implementation who didn't rail bank? And because they put a trail on the corridor, they're now being sued for it by residents. And the run to that cost will be to Sonoma Marin County and not by the federal government as protected through rail banking. I think that's very important. And also we got to look even locally where rail is coming back in Monterey. The trail is going to be changed so that there can be a train that goes to the customs house Plaza where it's currently either paved over or removed. So and then also in Maryland, the purple line is taking an interim trail out that was part of rail banking. Monterey was pre rail banking to the same sort of concept. Maryland's doing the same thing now too. So rail can come back. Once we have our our act together, we could do it. But until then, let's please support the interim phased approach and move forward to get Santa Cruz moving. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Brown. And currently we have eight more speakers in the queue. If you are interested in making a comment, please raise your hand now. Next we have Tina A. Tina, if you're there, go ahead. Hello. Good morning. How are you? We're great. Thank you. Okay. When describing the interim trail, it appears the interim trail is proposed to be wider than the trail would be under the ultimate rail with trail configuration. Wouldn't it be smart to make the temporary interim trail as narrow as possible to minimize the amount of money and material spent on something that is only temporary that will need to be removed someday? That's my first question. And then also shouldn't it be emphasized the access shouldn't it be emphasized that access is the most important important part of equity? Shouldn't it be emphasized equity access for our large South County population that commutes daily in both directions along Highway 1 traffic be considered and not left out of this equation? Thank you. Thank you, Tina. Next up, Mark from City Miller. Good morning, Chair, commissioners. I have just a few comments. Number one, I'd like to echo Mr. Dean's comments earlier. The cost estimates seem to lack the real costs. They don't include doesn't appear that they include the cost to remove the interim trail, put the tracks back where the interim trail had been, construct the trail alongside the tracks in the restored configuration. So I think that there's a lack of full transparency around costs. I also like to echo Barry's comments about the Capitol Tressel. I don't understand why the ultimate trail configuration was just excluded from consideration by that segment. I do think there's an opportunity and I think that approach is inconsistent with the Monterey based sanctuary scenic trail network master plan that was formally adopted in 2014. I also want to echo Tina's comments that she just made. It appears that the value, the equity valuation, social equity valuation is completely missing from the analysis. The RTC's official policy is to make decisions based on a triple bottom line framework of equity, environment, and cost economy. There's also no mention of the impacts on Roaring Camp's business or the tourism industry in general. Roaring Camp has indicated that rail banking, the interim trail option, would have an adverse impact on their business, ultimately putting them out of business. I think that the 6000 emails that you looked at weeks ago should give you some indication of how serious that is, and also include that in your consideration of project costs. That is a real cost. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miller. City Miller. Just a double check. If you are not currently speaking, please put yourself on mute. We're getting some static. Next up, we have Ms. Judy Giddelson. Good morning, commissioners. I'm Judy Giddelson, a Watsonville resident, and I support the rail passenger rail. I think public transportation is definitely the way to go. And I just want to point out, I think our greatest asset, our greatest asset is the existing trail, the train tracks. I think that's so understated. I think we've got it in place, and I think it's the RTC jobs and the commissioners job, to implement infrastructure that supports that, rather than do a workaround. I think the train travel for Watsonville residents, for Santa Cruz people moving to Los Angeles, I mean, it really expands the world of all of us, and I think it's in place. I think to take advantage of it is a very small cost, and I think all priorities should be placed on that. I do have a question. Is this going to be recorded and replayable? That was one question. And I think to take all resources and put them toward making public transportation is the job of the RTC, to put the trestles in, to better them, and that's Proposition D and Proposition 116 and D, and I think that's your obligation. And I think anything putting into the highway, as one person said, is a fool's whatever that thing is, but I think put it into the train and will be far better off, and the young people will be able to move around in the future, too. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Gilson. Next speaker, Ryan Sarnataro. We've lost Ryan. If you come back, we'll give you another opportunity to speak. Now we have Trink Praxel. Thank you. Trink, you might have accidentally muted yourself, not hear you and you've dropped off. So next up, we'll go to Lonnie Faulkner. Hi. Thank you, commissioners and staff. Someone please mute that it's been really distractive for a number of us out here. Some of us found the recent TVW plans confusing and concerning. Your presentation today was helpful, Sarah. I did find Guy Preston's and other comments made, continued to confuse. And I do support Commissioner Schifrin's comments to follow the KISS principle to help keep it simple going forward. Current plans seem confusing and we would like to see written clarification that the ultimate rail project does not require rail banking. Implementing an interim trail option first is inconsistent with past approved plans, which included community input and requires abandonment and rail banking, which puts our future rail at risk. The interim trail proposal would certainly be far more expensive if all costs are included, cost us more time and have a far greater negative impact on our environment and importantly likely make it infeasible to seek the large pool of federal grant funds coming available starting in 2022 through the Department of Transportation and the FRA for a short period of five years. The trail should continue to be built per the MDSSC approved in 2013 alongside future rail, including the plans to implement rail and trail for the Capitola Bridge crossing. We believe that efforts to fund the newly proposed highway widening from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard, which also requires matching funds from the RTC, would be better served in applying these efforts and funds towards implementing passenger rail for our community. We ask the RTC to honor the majority vote and significant efforts and millions of dollars invested to implement passenger rail based on the Proposition 116 Clean Air and Transportation Act, which led to the purchase of our Santa Cruz branch line specifically for passenger rail. And we also ask the RTC to move quickly forward with completing the important EIR reports and pre-prep work needed to apply for grants. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Faulkner. Mr. Sarnataro through there giving another opportunity to try to speak. Okay, thanks. Yeah, this is Ryan Sarnataro from Live Oak and I wanted to try and clarify something here which is that the interim plan is the least environmentally destructive immediate use of the corridor. The current operation say for instance segment 7B requires a tremendous amount of retaining walls, removing of material, taking down trees. This is you could say necessary if in the long run there's going to be a train running on the corridor but in the interim period when there's no opportunity for a train to run environmental sanity would require us to go with the interim plan. I think that it's important to keep in mind that that the train is by no means assured. As a matter of fact if you're going to lay odds on it I think the chances of Santa Cruz County coming up with a billion dollars to put the train in are quite low. In terms of social equity that cost of putting in the train is going to require some kind of a tax increase. If the tax increase is a sales tax it's regressive. Who's going to get hit the worst? People in Watsonville, people with low income who have a higher percentage of their total income spent on things that are taxable. Also the ridership out of any part of the county is so low compared to our total population that indeed what's going to happen here in terms of social equity is that the many will be subsidizing the rides of the few. So let's try and keep the discussion on what's possible and also let's not confuse our terms here. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Sarnadaro. Next up David loves public transit. Good afternoon everybody. Are we on the air? You are. Okay this is David Van Brink and you know this is all very exciting. Everyone loves the existing trail sections even if they say they don't. Everyone loves it and I'm sure all new progress will continue to be popular and well used no question. Okay two points. One so this is an obvious subtext but let's call it out. One of the hazards of a staged implementation is that it's a vulnerability. As we know there are obstructionists and bad actors whose goal is literally to prevent public transit on the corridor. The staged implementation does expose that vulnerability. Delay is always a good obstruction tactic like the condemned man getting a reprieve by promising to teach a horse to sing. It's not honest but any delay is good and costs keep going up. So that's the first point. Delay is dangerous and point to a minimal trail to reiterate Tina's and I think Mark's remarks. It seems that the stage one design if pursued should be a minimal viable product. The minimal viable trail you know as narrow as allowed eight feet six feet to reduce cost as much as possible. If this is truly a cost reduced and authentically interim project if pursued. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Van Brink. Next up Sally for rail and trail. There am I unmuted? Yes we hear you. Go ahead Sally. You might have muted yourself again. Oh there. Can you hear me now? Yes we hear you now. Okay. What was a very exciting presentation. I just get goosebumps when I see those construction drawings of you know rails and trails together. It's just very exciting for our whole community. I have several questions that could use clarification and I know there's going to be public input processes later and maybe these could be addressed at that time and somehow made very clear to us. So one question is the Aptos segment of the rail and trail I think it's 12 that includes going over the highway. Would that be cheaper without the highway widening? Would I know that other bridges you know bridges were considered for cantilevers but since the highway widening requires removing of those rail bridges was that considered as like what if we don't remove those bridges? What if we don't widen the highway and we cantilever there? Would that reduce the cost of the project? Also would the interim plus the ultimate be more expensive than just going to the ultimate right away? Also the interim requires rail banking and I know somebody answered that question it'll be about $0.9 million in legal fees for the rail banking and I assume that includes trucking locomotives around the county if that's even possible. Does that also include the cost of track removal and then repair and restoration? Also did I understand that the cost of the interim trail on the tracks also would require some more local funding in addition to the thought that the rail plus rail project would require more local funding? Also if construction costs are always going up won't every plan that to construct the ultimate thing at a later time necessarily be more expensive? And lastly did I understand that any project we choose must get CTC approval and if that's so how likely are they to approve any project that includes rail banking? So that's a lot I'd love to learn more. Bye. Thank you Ms. Arnold. Next up CM squared Santa Cruz. I can't hear you yet. Go ahead and unmute yourself. We hear you now but barely. Yeah we really can't understand what you're saying I don't know if you can get closer to your microphone. How is that? Just just fairly intelligible go ahead. How is that? We can hear you. You're now muted though. Okay sorry about that. Everything that I would like to say has already been said by those who are speaking today. Sir we really I'm afraid we cannot understand you. If you'd like to make a comment you can submit it to info at sccrtc.org and we can add that to the written record. So I'm going to move on now. Thank you. Ms. Praxel I see your hand raised but you did already have an opportunity to speak so I'm going to move on to Sean. Go ahead and unmute yourself. As far as available funding just last year and an issue we served part of Santa Cruz County for many years announced that she reminded us rather that up until and including last year she had helped retain more than five billion dollars much of it specifically for improving Caltrans crossings and bridges and just just this month they finished electrifying all of Caltrans and within the last week Bart has added stops and and Sunday service. If anybody doesn't think funding is available they haven't turned on the tv in the last year contact your former congressional representative she will respond to you personally. You know six figure income used to be this mythical destination that once achieved things would fall into place and now it's become a minimum needed just to tread water. Everything's going to cost more in the future you know we're all we're all making do as best we can but some people are spending spending a hundred grand on an electric car and I think if I think defaulting to those individuals needs the county is really not look the county is ignoring what what most individuals in the county need. You know post-war lore too was community colleges that allowed people to enter the middle class but it sounds like individuals on the RTC are willing to disenfranchise the people of Watsonville from safe transit to the areas of Santa Cruz where they could get a college in university education. Thank you Sean. Next up Matt Farrell. Good morning commissioners I just wanted to clarify comments that have been made about section 7B in the city of Santa Cruz that section is set to be under construction this spring and while there were delays in its approval it is now approved and going to soon be out to bid and there was also a comment made about well you didn't really need to preserve to build the trail along section 7B because the rail will never be used well in fact what's happening right now is there's been some extensive discussion about running recreational rail from Santa Cruz to Davenport and for that reason transportation commission staff have developed a plan for the north coast section of the trail that does not require removal of the rail. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Farrell. Next up one call again. Thank you Commissioner Koenig and I'd like to thank the staff for the excellent presentation that they did. I think it has brought a sober reality and clear thinking to this issue that has not existed before. We've already heard that we need $60 million to repair the tracks which we don't have. Now the study today showed we have a $50 million difference between the ultimate plan and the interim trail. I expect that we'll see more of these cost differences in segment 9 and 10 and 11. That's on top of what the TCAA said we would need to actually build the trail which was $465 million for light electric rail and $25 million a year for operating expenses. At some point the commissioners on the RTC have to say show me the money. We don't have the funds for any of this and the dreamy thinking that you continue to hear from train supporters is just not supported by reality. Let's move forward with the interim trail now. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Colligan. As you know other hands raised it was brought to my attention that Ms. Praxel did drop off before she had an opportunity to speak for you so go ahead drink Praxel. Thank you for coming back to me. I appreciate that and I think it's appropriate to speak after the last commenter about funding because that's really what I wanted to bring up is that it has been said multiple times by staff that we really can't look for funding for the rail from other federal and state funding sources as has been referenced that there should be quite a bit of money over the next five years for that that we can't do that until we have an EIR for the rail and I guess my question is now with this ultimate trail approach will we in fact have the EIR that we need to do the funding to apply for rail funding and is it possible then that same kind of application for funding with an expectation that the EIR would be completed within the next few months that has been mentioned that the CTC has would also apply in those kinds of funding situations I'd like to ask that the commissioners ask staff for a full report on all possible funding that could be applied for over the next couple of years and a report on what needs to be done to make sure that we are applying for funding not just for the trail on the highway winding but also for the rail which is the ultimate trail under this phased approach thank you very much thank you miss praxel our last public speaker will be Charles Hicks okay thank you very much yeah this is my name is Charles Hicks and I wanted to just say that I'm in support of the ultimate solution the ultimate rail plus the trail and my comment that I wanted to make is I think we have a problem right now a serious problem last week as an example I tried to go across town at one o'clock in the afternoon and I made the unfortunate mistake of getting on route one which was from Morrissey over was almost totally clogged then when I came back from the west side of town I got in the same situation and I'm thinking this isn't even rush hour this is crazy that we have to put up with this and I was thinking well what other alternatives do we have well I guess I could try to go down Soquel Avenue which is not a very good alternative these days and so I think we've got a problem right now we have to focus on getting this mass transit going and I think that by doing the interim process where we're going to do the trail pave over the tracks and then later go back and tear them up and put the put the rail back in is just a huge waste of money and a huge delay in time I think the commissioners we should stay focused on the ultimate and I think I always think it's important to compromise and I think that a great compromise is a rail and a trail alongside of it thank you very much thank you Mr. Hicks we'll now close public comment and return it to the commission for action there are no recommended actions today other than to receive updates regarding the coastal rail trail projects under development but that said there is still an opportunity for any commissioners who propose an action if they would like any further deliberation yes Commissioner Rotkin you are on mute Mike thanks manu first of all thank you for your sharing today it's been I think you've done an excellent job really appreciate it I do think the one I wasn't clear that the people asked about this and again I'm looking for an action bias I think I just make it a request as a as a member of the commission that the when the staff bring back numbers on this and work on it that we we get there really are three three cost figures I mean I'm talking very broadly one of which is what's it cost to do the interim option now and it was like that's a much that's a lower number than the ultimate proposal obviously then the cost of the ultimate proposal is really important but as a number of people pointed out to understand the ultimate cost how it's different then probably larger and if you did the ultimate together right now starting together but did the interim first and then had to come back to the ultimate so those are three different numbers I mean there are many more numbers total but three different kinds of numbers that I think we need to have in front of us when we make our decisions there's arguments in favor of both I mean you can make an argument if you really want to move ahead quickly with the trail and you should pick the interim there's other reasons to decide one way the other but in terms of cost that it would obviously be cheaper and therefore somewhat easier to move ahead with that now but then you also have to look at what is the ultimate cost how much higher will that be in the end if you go that way so those numbers will I think be very helpful to us so I'm not making a motion here I think staff can just take that under advisement in my my interest here in that and I'm sure I'm not the only one with that interest thank you thank you Commissioner Rodkin Commissioner Burkrand well thank you very much I like to reiterate what many have said and which was recently talked about by Mike and that is to in the next report that the staff is going to do I think they've gotten the message that the board and the community is very concerned about various aspects of how the cost estimates were come up with and you know I'm not going to go into detail right now you know I've done project management I know those things because I've done that for 30 years in my career you have a lot of things behind the figures and people are going to ask those questions some more so deeply than others but my main point the last time I spoke was I think if we do an adequate job of this it helps build public trust in the RTC commission and they have a feeling that you know we are actually trying to adjust the public issues and one of the main ones is cost and I'll leave it at that thank you very much thank you thank you any other comments or discussion by commissioners I'll just add one comment I was something that came up repeatedly you know some confusion I think from members of the public and you know also just so that we're clear for this commission as well you know the value of building an interim trail as opposed to the ultimate trail is consistently questioned and you know I think we have to understand there is a time value to building a trail that we can afford sooner rather than leaving the corridor unused for the next 25 35 however many years it's going to take to actually get the funding together to build the ultimate rail and trail configuration and you know I want a five bedroom house but if I can only afford a two bedroom house today that doesn't mean I should sleep under a cardboard box in the rain for the next 35 years I'm going to get the house I can afford and live as comfortably as I can until I save up enough money to to have my ultimate dream house I think that's exactly the same situation we're looking at here on the corridor you know I'd also say that our ability to apply for a successful ultimate build will most likely be improved if we also have money for the rail seems you know staff made clear our project applications are not going to be competitive unless we can show the value of the rail which means our ability to build it and you know we we also know that in order to do that we're going to need a local funding measure we're going to need a sales tax measure that is the only type of measure that this commission has the authority to put on the ballot and so you know there is absolutely a value to building an interim option and then once we have a local funding measure for rail going back and applying for a project that's more competitive you know I'll say one final thing about social equity you know that I think what we're starting to see the numbers for here is that the our ideal rail project is going to run into the very real way that people move across the county today which is the highway and we are doing everything we can with the highway auxiliary lane project to make that into a sustainable transportation corridor the application for four zero mission electric vehicle buses makes that very clear and so the highway can become our sustainable transportation and transit corridor but we are going to need to address those bridges and most likely it seems we would need to rail bank in order to complete our the highway auxiliary lane project and the bus lane project that we have a sustainable transit corridor on the highway so that's the choice that's going to be needed made and you know I think that it's really important that our south county commissioners understand that because I mean as you know the highway is the main way that your constituents get to and from work every day and so let's not put a fantasy project that we can't afford ahead of a very realistic project that we can anyone else would like to make any comments well I'm going to let your comment go I just agree with what you said but I'm going to let it go for the interest of time thank you thank you mission hurricane seeing no further comments that concludes our meeting today the next meeting of the regional transportation commission will be Thursday March 7th sorry that's the next transportation policy workshop the next RTC meeting is scheduled for Thursday March 3rd 2022 at 9 a.m. we will see you then I'm sorry Commissioner Montecino yeah I just had a question since we I think stayed in the county are no longer doing mass mandates are we still going to continue to do virtual meetings or are we going to be going back to the commission or live meeting we have not decided when we will come back to do hybrid meetings we're not going to go fully live right yet in March we anticipate staying virtual only and we were going to discuss based on see the COVID numbers going whether or not it would be appropriate to do a hybrid meeting in April thank you all right so again we'll see you next Thursday or on Thursday March 3rd 2022 at 9 a.m. this meeting is adjourned