 Hi, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the October 6th meeting of the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. We will begin with a roll call. Commissioner Bertrand. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Here. Commissioner Johnson. Here. Commissioner Montesino. Here. Commissioner Caput. Here. Commissioner Alternate Shifrin. Here. Commissioner Friend. Commissioner Alternate Quinn. Commissioner Koenig. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Present. Commissioner Alternate Collentary Johnson. Present. Commissioner Ari Parker. Here. And Commissioner Rotkin. Are you Commissioner Collentary Johnson? Are you here for Commissioner Rotkin? I am. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. You have a quorum. Thank you. I'm sorry. And I also, we're having a little bit of technological challenges. So we are recording the meeting via Zoom, but we're having some challenges with Community TV. Okay. Thank you for letting us know. So we'll now move on to oral communications. Oral communications is a time for members of the public to address the commission on any item that is not already on the agenda. And the commission will listen to all communications, but in compliance with state law, will not take any action on items not on the agenda. Speakers are requested to state their name clearly, so it can be accurately recorded in the minutes of the meeting. And I don't see any members of the public present in the chambers for oral communications. Are we able to look at participants? Okay. So people can still call in. Well, we're... If you can just give me a minute, we're putting the time right here. Just a moment. And we will provide three minutes for oral communications today. We're getting that set up right now. Okay. So our first callers are Gene Brocklebank and Michael Lewis, or one of you. It looks like you're... There you go. All right, you're up. Good morning. You can hear me, I assume. Yes. This is Gene Brocklebank. I prepared for two minutes. So thank you for the three. I'm here to ask that the Regional Transportation Commission request the city of Santa Cruz to extend the deadline for comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for segments eight and nine. First, the reason I wanted to ask you to request the city to extend it is because it was supposed to be 45 days. But anyone looking at a calendar with eyeballs can see that it is only 43 calendar days that we were given. And really only 42 days since the notice of its availability was not emailed until 4.38 p.m. on Friday. That's the end of day. Oh, are my two minutes, are my three minutes, have I spoken for two and a half minutes or was that set for two? You have, Gene, you have a minute and 30 seconds left. Go for it. Second, because I began the arduous task of reviewing the 966 page document the weekend after its release and have put in hours already. And I can assure you that the complexity as well as the confusion of the EIR contents screams for an extension of at least 10 days to two weeks for submitting comments. I've personally requested this, but I was told that the shortened period was needed because of funding timing constraints. To this, I reply that the identified significant and unmitigable environmental impacts of clear cutting 421 trees in just this two mile section of the corridor is horrendous enough that expediency for funding is not a reason that the, and not what the California Environmental Quality Act was meant to assure. To top it off, alternatives are manipulated. So as to guarantee that a proper environmental superior alternative is not included. So I don't know if your commission has the ability to do this or not, but if you do have the ability, I'm asking you this morning to request on behalf of the public an extension to the review period for submitting comments. Thank you very much. And Michael is now going to speak. I thought you said three minutes, it's set for two. But unfortunately, the timer we have, which we are not able to change is set for two. So we are just providing an additional minute. So I'll let you know. Okay, thank you. And now Michael Lewis would like to speak. We're sharing a computer. Great. Good morning commissioners. My name is Michael Lewis. I'd like to extend Gene's comments about extending this deadline for public comment to the draft EIR. I realize it's not your draft EIR. It's the city of Santa Cruz. But if we are requesting that you use your influence to ask them to extend this deadline. In addition to the problems with the calendar that is not being 45 days, really even 45 days is not sufficient for a thorough analysis and making substantive comments on this very complex and long draft EIR. For one thing, the language of the alternatives, description and analysis are very confusing. That there are two references to the interim trail for two different parts of that. One is an alternative and one is a vague phase one of the project. And that's very difficult to work our way through and understand. Secondly, there are several significant and unmitigatable impacts of this project that need to be researched thoroughly and understood. And most of the people, most of the public are concerned with their own families and their own work. They don't have a lot of time to put into this. It took a lot more than 45 days for professionals working full-time to produce this document. And the public doesn't have the depth of knowledge and the time in order to do that. Finally, the cumulative impact section of this document is extremely long and confusing. There are many, many projects listed in there that have nothing at all to do or any relationship to the rail trail. And they tend to obscure the language in the cumulative impact analysis that relates directly to the other parts of the rail trail that would affect this project. So we're asking you please to use your influence on the city of Santa Cruz to extend the deadline for comments to at least 60 days. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. So I'll just make a quick comment here. Because this is not an item on our agenda today, we are not able as a commission to take action. But as your city of Santa Cruz representative to the RTC, I will follow up with our public work staff and get in touch with you to try to learn a little bit more about the timelines. Okay, thank you very much. Our next caller is Brett Garrett. Good morning. I am Brett Garrett, proposing a new transportation solution for the rail corridor and beyond. And I appreciate, as any of us sharing my slides, I call it the rail corridor automated transit or rail cat for short. This system will provide quiet, efficient transportation using the existing space, taking full advantage of the rail corridor without derailing the possibility of freight operations. This concept is based on small vehicles that actually exist. A company called Blightways is testing them nearby in Contra Costa County and they hope to build a system in San Jose. So why not here in Santa Cruz? Next slide please. I mentioned Blightways specifically because its vehicles are extremely narrow, allowing true bi-directional traffic, including stops, to fit within the existing rail corridor footprint. That is one lane in each direction and a third lane for letting passengers on and off. Just to be clear, the railroad tracks would remain in place available for freight trains to run during the system off hours. The infrastructure could be pavement with railroad tracks just like Chestnut Street in Santa Cruz. The rail cat system can provide 24 hour service except when freight trains need to operate. Next slide please. This is an animation showing how the system can operate in harmony with the existing rail trail. The rail cat vehicles don't need to stop except when picking up or dropping off passengers. You could show up anytime day or night and ride nonstop all the way from Santa Cruz to Watsonville. It's designed to create an easy stress-free commute even if you have a bicycle or a wheelchair. It is also designed to minimize the impact on cars and trucks on the street. My expectation is that rail cat and trail users would have the right of way, but rail cat is to be managed as a system with tiny vehicles clustered together in groups to ensure plenty of opportunities for road users to safely cross the railroad tracks. I don't know why the animation stopped. It should keep going, but there's one on the website, railcat.org that keeps going. Conventional rail has some serious limitations and rail cat solves these problems. The Santa Cruz County rail proposals that I've seen call for just one or two trains per hour which simply isn't frequent enough to convince people to give up their private automobiles. Rail cat would provide on-demand bi-directional service any time of day or night, eliminating any worries about the seven o'clock train trying to get there on time for the seven o'clock train. Furthermore, the conventional train could only have a very limited number of stops because when you add more train stops, it's a compromise making it take longer for the train to reach the destination. But when you add rail cat stops, you just make the system more convenient and more useful. Rail cat can be extended to conserve, to serve Cabrillo College and our existing transit stations and even UCSC. All it would take is a five-foot lane similar to a bike lane. So please take a look at the website railcat.org and I thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Garrett. Our next caller is Brian, I'm trailing out. Nope, wait, sorry. I think everything's moved around a little bit. I think Michael St, you're up next. Okay, thank you. Good morning, commissioners. Michael St with CFST. I'd like to take you on a trip to the future. It is now New Year's Day 2050. The goals set by the 2015 Paris Accords on Climate Change have been achieved. After 200 years of living with environmental impacts of the Industrial Revolution, the trend to global warming has stabilized. Global level of atmospheric CO2 is now 460 parts per million. It is 67% higher than the pre-industrial level at which agriculture and early civilizations of humankind were able to develop and flourish. If we only achieve the Paris Accords climate change goals of zero missions and we continue our present day activities of business as usual and make transportation policy that increases greenhouse gas emissions instead of reducing it, we will leave our children and their children a planet with the following issues. The great coral reefs will be gone. We will have oceans devoid of once vast fish populations. Most old growth forests and rainforests forests will disappear. Sea level rise of approximately two feet. The Arctic ice pack gone. Humans will have taken over nearly all the land needed for a diverse ecosystems. Will our children survive this scenario? They might, they might not. We just do not know. The path we have chosen in this scenario is a risky one from which there may be no turning back. Do not take your RTC positions lightly when you vote on transportation projects. Don't just vote a certain way because you're afraid to be chastised by your peers or vote so your peers will vote with you on your project interests next time. Being pragmatic has its place, but when it comes to preventing a climate catastrophe as described above, your projects that are put forth and your votes must be environmentally focused and climate-driven. We have no time left for business as usual. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. St. Our next caller is Barry Scott. Welcome. Thank you, commissioners. This is Barry Scott in Aptos and thank you for the three minutes. I want to talk to, I want to talk about the FEIR for segments eight and nine. I am so happy and, but not surprised to find that the ultimate trail was found to be the environmentally superior project in 13 out of 14 categories, including trees. Proposed project is shown to require the removal of 381 trees while 404 trees are removed under the optional first phrase that phase the alternate alternative one and alternative two. The only project would be the no-build that would have a lower impact on trees removed, but 13 out of 14. So I hope that we can move forward with the rail trail as it's always intended to have been with the tracks in place. I'm also delighted to see in the consent agenda, repairs moving forward for the Pajaro River Bridge, rail bridge, thank you for taking care of that. And also an item on erosion control, presumably for the Manresa, La Selva area, so badly needed, you know, we own a rail line, a piece of infrastructure, the repairs are critical to ever doing anything with it. You know, if we're studying rail transit, we have to, the first thing to do is to take care of the bridges and the rail line and do that, that preventative maintenance. And so I look forward to hearing and reading about more projects to at least maintain the current state, but really it just needs to be improved to an operational condition. And as promised, I think all along, and with the contractual agreements to bring the entire line up to working condition for minimal freight, so that we can eventually use it for public transit. Along that same vein, my final comment, on Monday's Bicycle Advisory Committee, which I wasn't able to attend, but I was able to review the agenda, there is a proposal for measure D reduction from the rail infrastructure preservation efforts, $2.5 million that is under consideration, reduce programming for bridge inspections, remove programming for pre-construction of rehabilitation of rail bridges, reduce program for future phases of repairs, including drainage culvert replacement and slope stabilization. Moving these funds from the already minimal 8% of measure D is dangerous and I hope you'll consider finding other ways to do this, including pulling funds from the 17% that's for the trail to improve the corridor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott. It looks like we have one more caller on the line, Brian from Trail Now, you are up. Hi everybody, good to see you, Brian here. Hey, I wanted to inform you all, if you don't know, the Amtrak train down in Southern California has been shut down because of coastal erosion and essentially the problem is that train is vibrating the earth there and they can't sustain it and that's why actually in Southern California, Amtrak in the Del Mar down there has allocated $300 million for planning to relocate Amtrak tracks that are on the coastal bluff. And what we're seeing is with the coastal commission, they're not allowing, because of the sea level rising requirements, they're not allowing for infrastructure investments. So for us as a community to believe that we're going to have a train, 60 trains a day, any type of expensive rail system running along that coastal bluff is not realistic. And the issue really comes down to is we're losing out today on using that valuable corridor for active transportation. And it's very disappointing that it's been a decade and it's gonna be decades more before we get to actually use that corridor. And it's not good for our community to not follow the legality of where the state is heading. The state is not gonna allow us to get funds, they're not gonna allow us to build an expensive train. So- Mr. Pupils- We're seeing we are proposing to do demonstration trails. We're working with Supervisor Koenig on it. We are hopeful that we'll be able to do two of them. One in Aptos, we're using the corridor today as a demonstration trail. We'll use private funds as well as the harbor. And so we're hopeful that we can demonstrate the value of using that corridor today for active transportation. So thank you for your time and I'm hopeful that we start following realistic plans and we're here ready to invest in opening that corridor. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Pupils. It looks like we do not have any other hands up for oral communications. So we will now move on to our regular agenda. And let's see, do we have any additions or deletions? No additions to or deletions, Madam Chair, but we do have a handout for item 23 which was posted to our website. Thank you. Okay, we will now consider the consent agenda. This is items four through 18 on today's agenda. All items appearing on the consent agenda are considered to be minor and will be acted upon in one motion if no member of the RTC or the public wishes an item to be removed. Members of the commission may raise questions, seek clarification or add directions to consent agenda items without removing the item as long as no other commissioner objects to the change. So I will ask the commissioners if you have items you'd like to pull or ask questions or comment on. Thank you, Chair. No items I'd like to pull, I just had a question on item nine which is the repairs to Manresa. So if I understand correctly, this is just temporary repair measures. I think it mentioned some tarps and tie downs. And so this is less permanent than the original repairs we'd contemplated. I'm just curious if there's any update on where we stand in discussions with the Coastal Commission around more permanent repairs to this site. So you are correct, Commissioner Koenig. These repairs are fairly minor in nature. They're more immediate protection measures for the existing slope and a clogged culvert which had flooded the tracks and contributed to the erosion on the bluffs. We continue to work with the Coastal Commission to come up with a more long-term plan. We have been having continuous meetings with them and expect to have more information in the following months. Okay, thank you. You know, can I follow up? So we hope to get something back from the Coastal Commission an indication of their viewpoints on this in a couple of months, do you think? I think it's probably going to take longer than that. The commission wants to see an alternatives analysis. They're also very interested in our plans to move forward with passenger rail and trail at that location. So they want quite a bit more information on what the long-term plans would be for the Coastal Bluffs. I do expect that to take more than a couple of months. Thank you. Okay, any other questions or comments from members of the commission? Okay, are there any members of the public who would like to pull an item on our consent agenda or commissioners on the line? I don't see any hands up. Move the consent agenda. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda and we'll take a roll call vote. Commissioner Bertrand. Okay. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montecino. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Aye. Commissioner Parker. Yes. And Commissioner Alternate Colin Tari Johnson. That passes unanimously. All right. We will now move on to our regular agenda and I'll ask members of the commission if you have any oral reports you'd like to share. Okay. I do not see any hands up. So we will move right along to the director's report and I'll turn it over to Mr. Preston. Director Preston. Thank you, Madam Chair. The state's legislative two year session ended on August 31st. The governor has been spending the last month signing and vetoing bills, many of which could impact local transportation projects and programs. Item number seven on today's consent agenda provides a summary of some of the legislation that RTC staff has been following. Major theme of the legislation enacted is associated with aggressive climate measures to transition away from oil, deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy, create prosperous communities and protect California's from extreme effects of climate change. The commission's commitment to sustainable transportation solutions continues to be aligned with the administration's priorities set forth in this last session and expected to continue over the next two years. Our program of projects are therefore well positioned to seek state funding in the coming months and years ahead. One piece of legislation that affects all bodies subject to the Brown Act is AB 2449. AB 2449 will go into effect in January 2023 and will expire in January 2026. Because AB 361 continues to be in effect until January 2024, RTC commission meetings can continue in virtual or hybrid fashion as we are doing here today. As long as the RTC continues to make the required AB 361 findings as we just did as part of item 12 on today's consent calendar. Therefore, AB 2449 is not anticipated to have any impacts to RTC meetings until 2024 unless the declared state of emergency has ended. If come 2024 and AB 2449 is the only new Brown Act legislation, be advised that although it does loosen some Brown Act's physical attendance provisions, it comes with restrictions. A majority of the board members must be physically present and remote participation is only allowed under two specific circumstances, just cause and emergency circumstances. These circumstances are narrowly defined. The legislation imposes teleconferencing requirements and has strict limits on how frequently a board member can claim just cause or emergency circumstances such that most members will need to be present at virtually every meeting or participate remotely from a physical location open to the public. So it looks like we'll have a little more than a year of the status quo. I will keep the commission posted throughout 2023 on any other legislation which modifies physical attendance at meetings so you can plan accordingly. I have an update on upcoming RTC work this fall. Staff will be very busy throughout the fall starting the two planning grants to prepare a climate resiliency plan and an equity plan while we also consider opportunities for the next round of Caltrans planning grants and the current round of Senate bill one grant opportunities. Staff will also be seeking committee input for measure D five year plan amendments for all regional programs with staff recommendations expected at our November meeting. So next month's meeting will be a little bit heavier than this month's commission input on item 23 on today's agenda and committee input at October committee meetings will be valuable as well as information obtained from yesterday's interviews to procure a consultant for a rail and trail project will also help guide staff's recommendations. Assuming negotiations go well, we expect to also have a recommendation in November for a consultant firm to lead the concept report preliminary engineering and environmental work to prepare an EIR for electrical passenger rail and trial project. We are timing this round to measure D five year plan updates with our fall budget amendment which is also scheduled for next month's meeting. Staff is also overseeing work associated with the city's effort to construct segment seven phase two of the rail trial start construction on highway one from Soquel Drive to 41st Avenue bid the highway one project from Bay Port of the state park. We will also be managing the two rail line preservation contracts on the Santa Cruz branch rail line that you just voted on on the consent calendar as well as ongoing planning and project deliver act activities such as the EIRs for the trail projects. Finally, I wanted to inform the commission that the RTC turned 50 years old this year. We are planning an open house celebration likely at RTC's new office sometime this November. This will be an informal opportunity to meet with staff and commissioners discuss accomplishments and goals of the agency moving forward. Staff will have more information on the event as we further develop details. Fellow commissioners, that concludes my director's report and I hand it back to you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Director Preston. Are there any questions for the director? Okay, I will take it out to the public for comments. I see one hand and I'll call on Mark Macidi-Miller. Welcome. Welcome, thank you, Chair. I missed the opportunity to comment on the consent agenda, so I'll just make this brief. My name is Mark Macidi-Miller with the Santa Cruz County Friends of the Rail and Trail. Regarding your item eight, the Pajaro River Rail Bridge Rehabilitation, the Friends of the Rail and Trail want you to know we fully support the expenditure of Measure D 2016 funds as the local match for this $285,000 project. The Friends were stunned by the enormous change from the original bid of $1,709,470 to the current cost of only $285,000. This change represents a savings of over $1.4 million on a $1.7 million project, or if expressed as a percentage, this change represents an 83% reduction in cost. The Friends understand this incredible cost savings was achieved by working closely with and taking full advantage of the many decades of practical experience local rail operators roaring camp offered on this project. The Friends want to encourage the RTC to continue collaborating with roaring camp. The next, excuse me, the next project upon which the RTC should collaborate with roaring camp is the rehabilitation of the Capitola Trestle. If memory serves me correctly, RTC staff estimated the rehabilitation of the Capitola Trestle at something like $20 million. Imagine achieving a similar 83% reduction in the cost of restoring the Capitola Trestle to a serviceable condition. If one does the math, the cost of repairing the Capitola Trestle could be reduced to $3.4 million, a very reasonable cost that is well within Measure D 2016 funds allocated to the rail line maintenance. It seems the most prudent way forward when it comes to rail line maintenance and repair efforts is to take full advantage of roaring camps, practical experience. The Friends of the Rail and Trail trust the RTC will do so. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Macedy Miller for your oral communication. I, let's see, no other questions. I don't see questions from the commission. So I think seeing no other hands up, we will now move on to the Caltrans report. Item 21. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. Brandy Ryder here, Office Chief for Caltrans District 5 and I'll be providing the Caltrans District Director's report today. The first thing I wanted to announce is that tonight Caltrans in partnership with the city of Watsonville and RTC will be hosting a virtual community meeting from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. The link for this meeting can be found on the Caltrans District 5 Twitter and Instapages and the Watsonville Instapage. There are six projects under development in Watsonville over the next 10 years. This meeting will focus specifically on a capital maintenance improvement project that has complete streets elements that would make improvements in Watsonville's downtown core. These improvements are in alignment with the downtown specific plan and some of the improvements under consideration include a class for protected bike lanes from Green Valley Road to Freedom Boulevard along SR 152, a road diet from Freedom Boulevard to Beach Street and bull dials to provide improved access for pedestrians. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to provide information on the projects that are anticipated, the timelines and to gather input from the public. We invite you to participate in this meeting. I believe we've also had RTC staff as well as city staff send out announcements with details on how to access the workshop. If you need more information, we'd be happy to provide it. Secondly, we have an update on our Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant Program. Yesterday, the draft application guidelines were released for comment and will be out for a 30 day public comment period as early as this month with more details on the program coming in future weeks. There are three specific categories. The first category is the Sustainable Communities Grant category which will have $29.5 million available statewide. The Strategic Partnership Planning Program which will have $4.5 million statewide and a new program that was established with SB 198 which is Climate Change Adaptation Planning Program and that will have 50 million. The call for applications is expected this December with a due date of applications anticipated in the winter of 2023. Grant workshops will be hosted by District 5 Caltrans and we will be providing support during the application period. The award announcement for the grant program is expected in spring 2023. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We've been working with your RTC staff and they're well aware of the program. We are willing though to work with local jurisdictions that have questions about the program, feel free to reach out. And then our final, my final announcement for today is to use caution with traveling on the state highway system and entering Caltrans work phones. Unfortunately, about a month ago, we had a staff person who is a maintenance worker out in the field that was hit by a vehicle that came entered into a work phone. And as we enter into the fall season with shorter days, less daylight and changes in weather, we're trying to promote the safety of the travel public and our highway workers is on the forefront of our minds. In California, we've seen a 30% increase of fatalities over the last year on the state highway system and have been observing more incidences within the work zone. We thank everyone for doing their part in avoiding distracted driving. And it's safe to do so. Please move over a lane or slow down when passing vehicles with flashing number lights. With that, this concludes my report and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I see. I'm gonna, Commissioner Hernandez, I saw your hand go first. So I'm gonna, I'll call on you with questions and then shoot it over to Commissioner McPherson. Go for it. Yes, could I get the webinar information emailed to me to the same email as the RTC gets, I get my emails to the RTC, the Hernandez district one. And also the, if I could just shoot that same email and give me all the district five updates from Caltrans as well. Thank you. Commissioner McPherson. Thank you, Madam Chair. On item number 19 on the project update, the wildlife under crossing on Highway 17, I see that the construction timeline is 2023-24 with the favorable construction, whether not so much water favorable, but is that gonna be moved up or what's the timeline for completion of that at this point? It's item number 19. You might not have it. I don't know if you, if there's any change in timeline from 23-24. Yeah, I'm not sure. Let me follow up on that. I don't believe that there's been a change in the timeline. You know, obviously weather can have a change, but let me follow up on that. And that's for the wildlife crossing project on Highway 17 specifically. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Okay. Are there any members of the public who have a comment or questions? I do not see any hands up. Give it a moment. I see a hand up. Okay. So I'll call, now call on Michael St. Thank you, Chair Brown. Yeah, I just caught that one comment. I wanted to respond that Caltrans representative mentioned something about a 30% increase in, was it traffic fatalities or traffic issues and also work zone incidents have also increased? I hope everybody heard that because basically how do we resolve that issue? I mean, as we continue to widen highways and focus on cars, this is going to be a continuing issue. And I hope you all take heed in that and try to take our funding and may I suggest we increase and redirect funding from the automobile to mass transit. And I think that type of report will be something in the past. Just a comment and I hope you've listened to it and vote more for mass transit, not improving cars and helping them get around. Thank you. Thank you. So as the chair, I will say since a member of the public brought it up and I made a big note here about that. Thank you for your report, Ms. Ryder. And the figure of the increase, I believe it's collisions in work zones was striking. So I think it is worth us all reflecting upon that and thinking about ways to, continue to build policy and infrastructure program that address the challenges of cars on ever wider highways and roads as well. So we are certainly aware of it and I think our community and agencies have been working on a lot of strategies around this around vision zero and et cetera. And I just want to highlight it and remind us all to take note. Okay. I think that's all on item 21, CalTrans report. And I'm going to now move us on to item 22. And this is the Central Coast Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy Update. And I want to welcome Amanda Marino-Mayak with Carney from Santa Barbara County Association of Governments and Jim Dankiewicz and Mike Gussin. I'm not, if you're all here, I see you. I see some of you on my screen. Hopefully you're all here to give us an update. And so Jim and Mike from DKS, take it away. Yeah, thank you so much. Good morning. My name is Amanda Marino and I'm a transportation planner for the RTC and the Central Coast Metropolitan Planning Agencies are developing a Central Coast Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy to identify electric vehicle charging infrastructure needs in Central Coast counties, including Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. So this is funded by, through a CalTrans Transportation Planning Grant. And this effort is led by the Santa Barbara County Association of Governments in partnership with San Luis Obispo Council of Governments and the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments. So staff recommends that the Regional Transportation Commission receive a presentation from SBCAG staff and DKS Associates Consulting firm and provide input on the Central Coast Zero Emission Vehicle Strategy. So Mike from DKS Associates, you may go ahead when you're ready. And I think we have a presentation that we sent to Yesenia to put up whenever she's ready or I can also share my screen. Amanda, you can go ahead and share your screen and then you can manage the presentation. If you have it up. Okay. Okay, just a second. Good morning. While she loads the presentation, I just want to introduce myself I'm Mike Yesen with DKS Associates. I'm the project manager on this project helping to identify future charging opportunities within the Central Coast. This is a very exciting project and we are probably, I don't know, halfway through the project or so in the analysis and I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. Obviously there's huge concern in this community about the environment. And so the purpose of this plan largely is to decarbonize transportation by finding zero emission vehicle strategies and also citing. So why don't we go to the next slide? Okay. So this is the agenda. We're going to talk a little bit about sort of who and why and how it's being funded, what we're trying to achieve and then how we're going to implement this. So let's go to the next slide. So I'm going to talk a little bit about starting with who is involved. As was mentioned, SBCAG is leading the effort with Slow Cog and Ambag. We're also in, you know, it's very comprehensive. It's a true regional plan for six counties. So we're also including Ventura County Transportation Agency from Monterey, Santa Cruz County and of course San Benito Council of Governments. On the consultant side, DKS is leading the project effort with support on the transit side from StandTech, from Frontier Energy with regard to fuel cells and Mariposa for public involvement. Next slide. So this has been funded with a generous grant from Caltrans for the majority of the funding. There's also local match contributions from the leading agencies that I mentioned earlier. And, you know, this is part of, you know, you're fortunate in California. I'm based here in Seattle, Washington where we don't have this kind of grant support. So you're very fortunate to have these kinds of opportunities. Next slide. So why are we doing this? Well, there are six main objectives to this project. The first is to assess, excuse me, the existing zero emission vehicle infrastructure with a focus on the unincorporated rural areas between the cities that experience significant inter-regional travel. So the presumption that I believe led Caltrans to fund this project was that there's already a lot of effort in the incorporated areas within the study area to identify opportunities for zero emission vehicle charging and fueling, but not so much in the spaces between the incorporated areas. And as I'll show you in a few slides, that's definitely the case in terms of the actual infrastructure that's on the ground. So again, focus is on rural areas and on inter-regional travel. We also want to identify what the key challenges are. Where are the gaps? What are the barriers to inter-regional travel for motorists? You've probably, many of you, I assume drive electric vehicles, you suffer from range anxiety, there's not enough chargers, how can we address that? And this is not just true for motors, but it's also true for regional transit, which rely on that same charging infrastructure as well as freight or goods movement. The third objective is to identify where the equity issues currently exist for charging. So charging is not, right now, all the chargers that have been deployed or most of the chargers are there thanks to the private sector. And those are done for business reasons, not necessarily to address social equity. The fourth objective is to ensure that the improvements in infrastructure are equitable and accessible to all users, especially for the underserved populations. And then to recommend that these improvements and related investments, policies and implementation strategies to promote zero emission vehicle infrastructure adoption. And last, but not least, to better position these agencies for state and now federal funding for electromobility infrastructure. And between the time the project began and now significant amounts of funding have become available and I'll talk about that in a second. Next slide. So one of the things that has happened since is the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program which was adopted by the federal government which has a total of about $7.5 billion in funding for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. And that's gonna be allocated through the state, through both state allocations and competitive grants. And so that's something that happened again since the project was scoped. So a big focus of this is to position these counties for projects that could be funded through this very large program. It's the largest funding program that we've seen yet and a great opportunity. Also SB1 grant application opportunities through Caltrans. Next slide. So I wanna talk a little bit about the public outreach process. This is a very, again, it's a large geographic region. It's very diverse. And so we've been having a public outreach process which I'll talk about in the next couple of slides. So who are the key stakeholders? Well, again, a lot of different interests that go into zero emission vehicle planning. First of all is agencies such as yourselves, school districts, the public transit agencies that are dependent upon charging infrastructure, then the utilities who are gonna be providing the electrical power just to power these chargers. And then the users of chargers such as a good movement, regional freight providers, marine ports and so forth. And then of course, residents. Most charging as you're probably aware occurs at home but not everyone has access to home charging. So how do we serve the needs of those that do not have at home charging? Major employers workplace charging is probably the number two form of charging. So making sure that major employers are involved. And of course the charging infrastructure industry. So that's primarily the charging networks like EVGO, Tesla, Electrify America, Chargepoint and others. So those are the key stakeholders and we've been doing stakeholder outreach and I'll talk about that in a few slides as well. Next slide. So what have we been asking these stakeholders? Well, there's a number of different questions because we wanna get input from those in the community who know this information. So specifically what infrastructure investments are being planned? So we've done a survey of different agencies of what's been done. Again, the focus primarily has been within the incorporated areas and our focus is on the areas outside those but it's important to have that information for context. What are the incentives that are needed to help bring this forward and to reduce the disincentives? Other than funding support, what else can be done? And then last, any advice regarding more electric vehicle travel that can reduce barriers to electrification transportation? Next slide. So we have a project website and the URL for this website is in the staff report. So take a look at that. I encourage you to go on to this site and explore it. I think it's very useful. It contains a lot of information. This is essentially the contents of that website but we have a lot of information. We have an FAQ to kind of bring everybody up to speed on transportation electrification. There's a survey to get input. There's a schedule of the project itself and then as we develop deliverables such as the existing conditions report we post those to make them accessible to everyone. There's also an interactive mapping tool which has its own URL and the URL for that is also in the staff report. And what this does is allows and I'll show you some slides of this allows access to the information geographically. So if a stakeholder or a member of the public wants to make a recommendations for charger by charger type they can do so on an interactive map then we take that information and incorporate that into our recommendations once we vet them through a process. Also meeting materials and then upcoming events are posted on the website as well. Next slide. So I mentioned the social pinpoint and this is a screen capture of what it looks like. It's basically a large interactive map of the entire study area and then it shows the existing chargers that are there today based on data that we've already provided. And then anyone who goes on there including yourselves can post comments and recommendations. And so this is a very useful way to get a true interaction and we're doing this on a number of other projects throughout the state of California as well. And we find it's a very effective way to especially in a time of increased dependence on the internet to get true interactive information. Next slide. So where are we in the project? Next slide. So we are focusing right now on the actually doing the recommendations but so far what we've done is develop the webpage which I've talked about. So I'm not gonna repeat that. We've been having ongoing meetings with the advisory committee which includes representatives from all the different agencies and the stakeholders. We had a interactive stakeholder workshop and we've also completed the draft existing condition support which we're waiting for feedback from the client, SBCAG. And you'll find that that report is also on the webpage. And I'm gonna show a couple of slides from that to kind of give you a high level of overview of what we found so far. And then of course we've completed the draft regional transit assessment which we're about to post. We just have to finalize that and get that up on the website as well. Next slide. So the existing addition support really focuses on kind of the key corridors which are primarily either designated alternative fuel alternative fuel vehicle corridors. And that's a program from the Federal Highway Administration basically is setting up specific corridors for electric vehicle charging as well as other alternative fuels. And there's been six rounds of designation and we've identified all of the ones that have been designated to date. As part of our project, we may be identifying additional alternative fuel corridors which will then be eligible for future funding under NEVI and similar programs. We've also looked at travel patterns. What are the regional travel patterns that help give guidance as to where EV charging infrastructure and hydrogen fueling infrastructure needs to be located? We have inventoryed the different chargers by type using alternative fuel corridor data as well as a focus again on the study area which is really outside of the urban areas. Let's go to the next slide and I'll show you what this actually looks like. So this is some draft data on very high level summary of all the different chargers throughout the area. This actually I believe is an early round of data. We've since updated this. The correct data is on the existing addition support and it's broken down many different ways to make it as useful as possible. Let's go to the next slide. So this is sort of one summary table. Next slide. And so what our focus really on and again, since the project began, NEVI came out and NEVI has which is the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program really is prioritizing key corridors for chargers. So what the United States is trying to do is develop an entire nationwide network of EV charging infrastructure. So these chargers need to be every 50 miles and there needs to be at least four high power DC fast chargers, meaning 150 kilowatts or higher. Most DC fast chargers that are out there today are about 50 kilowatts. So this is three times faster than existing chargers or many existing chargers. So what it'll do is it'll allow an EV driver to obtain a full or at least an 80% state of charge in about a half an hour from an empty or from a 20% battery. So that means that it essentially is trying to replicate current fueling that we use with gasoline. It takes a little bit more time but basically it allows people to make long distance trips by electric vehicle. So to do that, they need to be close to the freeway typically within a mile of a freeway interchange. And these chargers need to be up 97% of the time which is much higher rate of uptime than current chargers are today. So this is really bringing the United States into the 21st century so we can catch up to perhaps Europe, maybe even China with regard to transportation electrification. Again, the focus of this program and this project is on publicly available chargers not focusing so much on workplace residential but really on chargers that are available to the general public and to the other types of users. Next slide. So this is a map from the existing conditions support showing the existing conditions. The green dots on the map show level two chargers. Level two chargers are typically, in the public chargers that is are for opportunity charging. So again, you're gonna spend anywhere from an hour to four hours charging your vehicle. So these are for relatively long dwell times that make a lot of sense for places where people are gonna spend more time but for inter-regional travel, really the focus is on DC fast chargers and we've identified two different types of DC fast chargers those that are available to all vehicles as well as just the Tesla super chargers. Now Tesla builds chargers strictly for Teslas although now there's an adapter so that other vehicles will be able to use them but really Tesla's built its own charging network. Since Tesla got ahead of the other charging networks there's a lot more of them in most geographies than other types of chargers. So for the purpose of this report we've identified them separately. We'll go to the next slide. So this shows the study area. So again, the focus is on unincorporated areas. The incorporated areas are shown in yellow but the unincorporated areas within a mile buffer of freeway interchanges are illustrated in blue. So these blue locations are the focus of our current efforts to identify future charging sites. And I gotta go through several different counties just to show you the example. Again, if you'd like to explore this in more detail please go to the website and you can download a copy of the existing condition support where all of these maps were pulled from. Next slide. So this is Monterey County as you can see for them and this is true of all of these geographies most chargers are located in urban areas. That's because that's where folks are located that's where services are. And we wanna make sure that the unincorporated areas also get addressed because we wanna make sure that range anxiety doesn't prevent people from adopting electric vehicles especially in a large geography and such as the central coast. Next slide. And again, this is showing in the area of Monterey County the key corridors where those buffers are located and the focus again is on designated alternative fuel corridors. Most of these counties don't have that many major corridors and so those are the ones that we're focusing on. Next slide. So now I'm gonna talk a little bit about where we're going from here. Next slide. So we have, well currently are developing our evaluation of opportunities that is focusing on where to site future charging infrastructure. And this is where you as stakeholders of this project can contribute. Social Pinpoint is the way to do that. So go on, take a look at where your other members of the community have identified charging locations and make similar recommendations or comment on other recommendations. It's very much of an interactive tool. We're looking at different service ranges by different vehicle types. Again, we're not just looking at light duty vehicles but also medium heavy duty and regional transit. We wanna make sure there's sufficient redundancy and coverage so that there's no long queues as have occurred in recent history at Tesla stations in the area. And we wanna make sure that we're looking at the appropriate consideration such as the dwell times of drivers such as amenities near those charging locations. We're also holding focus groups for the different key stakeholders and public workshops. And then by the end of the year or early next year we plan to draft the final, the draft and final Central Coast zero mission vehicle plan. And that will also be posted on the website. Next slide. So that's it for where we're at today. Hopefully this answered some of your questions but probably generated others. And if you do have questions I'm happy to stay and answer them. Great, thank you so much for the presentation. Really interesting. I'll turn to commissioners now on questions and comments. Okay, Commissioner McPherson, we'll start with you. Yeah, thank you for that report. And I'm pleased to see that the stakeholder, one of the stakeholders is the Central Coast Community Energy. The one concern I have with implementation and I understand that this is all not gonna be done overnight but are you gonna measure the stress on the grid, the electrical grid in the process? Like 10% of Californians have electric vehicles and if they have 20% or so forth because we saw in that last heat waiver that we had people stay home, don't charge your cars, et cetera. Is there gonna be an element of the measurement of what we have to do to improve the grid or so people can live life as usual as they're charging their cars, so to speak. I just am curious to see if that's gonna be an element of the study. That is an excellent question and a very appropriate one. The answer is it's not technically part of the scope of work. The reason for that is, and obviously we can't charge vehicles without appropriate amount of electrical capacity, not just at the grid level but at the individual charging site. That really is up to PG&E and to Central Coast Community Energy and any of the electrical distribution networks that are providing that. This is the grid information is something that utilities can't share, both for two reasons. One is for security reasons and the other is because there's so much volatility in electrical demand, so really that's up to them to forecast their loads and determine how that's gonna work. What we can identify is where the charging locations are going to be and what the peak loads are at those sites. So this will serve as an input to the utilities planning process for load forecasting. So that's something that they are gonna have to develop. Obviously we're gonna consider their input and they are, as you identified, they are key stakeholders in this process and independently we are working for them as consultants directly as well on other projects. Commissioner Koenig. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Mr. Uson, for the presentation. It's exciting that we have this opportunity and I'm glad to see how much work you've already done. We have, of course, an infrastructure for fueling cars today with all our gas stations and I'm wondering how much private gas stations, with some combination of carrots and sticks could be encouraged to put in more EV chargers and how you see that fitting into the future equation. I mean, those are policies that we could implement at the local level, county by county and it would be helpful to have some sort of uniform set of recommendations from your working group on how to approach that. First of all, thank you for the recommendation. That's not just a question, that's a recommendation and I think we should incorporate that into our plan. I think we already are. Yes, we are not going to transition from gasoline and diesel overnight to electric. It's gonna take time. And so the, first of all, the petroleum industries, petroleum industry is very much aware of this transition. They recognize that this is both a threat and an opportunity. And so what we're seeing in the industry is many of the petroleum companies are buying EV charging networks. For example, I can't think of the name of the former company now, I think. But anyway, Shell purchased, oh, GreenLots. GreenLots was a major network that provided a lot of the chargers in the study area in fact. That's recently been acquired last six months by Shell Oil and now it's called Shell Recharge Solutions. And so they are basically looking at their existing assets as opportunities to dispense electricity for electric vehicles, not just petroleum products for ice powered vehicles. But I think we're gonna start to see more of that. They recognize that their industry is in transition. So, but I think your question and suggestion is what can we do in addition to provide further incentives and potentially regulations. So I think those are great input that we will address in the plan. Thank you. Hey, I'll take it out to commissioners who are on the line. I see Randy Johnson, commissioner Johnson, you're up. Thank you, chair. So my question is, as we transition to the EV world, are the needs of highways still gonna be there? Are we gonna still need roads? Because if you listen to prior speakers in 50 years, unless we change things, unless we stop widening highways or whatever, it's essentially gonna be doomsday. But from what I understand with respect to EV and what the mandates by the state as we move more towards electrical vehicles, we still are going to need roads. Is that a fair statement or am I wrong? That's a great question. So one of the transitions that my company and many others like it are focusing on right now is the transition overall to shared autonomous, connected and electric vehicles. And vehicles themselves are changing. We're starting to see electric aircraft as well, electric vessels. So one of the things we're seeing overall is transition to electric transportation period. And electric by the way includes fuel cells. So the focus of this project is largely looking in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, but we're really seeing all types of transportation electrify with both batteries as well as fuel cells. I believe personally that surface transportation is here to stay. That means we are going to need roads, but we're gonna see more diversification. We are gonna see aerial transportation in addition. That will also require charging infrastructure. This project is only focused on surface transportation, perhaps five years from now we'll be working on one that's focusing on airborne transportation because that is reality. We are seeing, I'm here, as I mentioned in Seattle last week we had a test flight of a commercial electric airliner basically. So we're starting to see that we're also seeing more autonomous transportation coming into play. Those autonomous vehicles will be electrically powered and they will operate on roads. So hopefully the service transportation will be carbonized, but I don't see any alternative that will replace road transportation. It's going to augment road transportation with other modes, rail as well. Hopefully all of it will be zero carbon. Chair may I ask just one follow up question? Sure. So in one of our shopping centers in Scott's Valley, I think there are 15 or 20 charging stations, which, and it's my understanding, I don't have an electric vehicle. Are those paid and in the future will people in your vision have to pay for the charging that they do on their vehicles or will some of it be free? So chargers don't pay for themselves in general. And one of the challenges that we are addressing is that reality. Right now, most charging, for example, the biggest charging networks in the country are Electrify America and Tesla. Electrify America is funded by Volkswagen through the diesel gate settlement. And so it's essentially a subsidized system. Utilities are subsidizing charging. Tesla is subsidizing its infrastructure to basically serve as an amenity for Tesla buyers. Supermarkets, many of them have installed and other retailers have installed chargers because it draws customers. But and the cost of electricity is relatively small. Level two chargers are not particularly expensive. So there's a real incentive. In California uniquely, many chargers are still free, which frankly as a Washingtonian surprised me because here you don't see a lot of free chargers. I believe in the future as more and more vehicles become electrified, the economics will change and we'll see more charging for charging. But I do suspect that retailers who are very competitive and now also have to compete against online retail will continue to provide amenities including things like charging and various other incentives. Well, thank you for being so well informed. Appreciate it. Well, it's my best guess. Hey, our next up is Commissioner Hernandez. Yeah, my question is, is equity considerations gonna be part of the formula for site selection for dev charging in this project? I'm sorry, did you ask if the, what this? Equity issues, yeah, if equity issues are gonna be part of the consideration for the formula for site selection of dev chargers, EV chargers. Absolutely, thank you for bringing that up. And if you look at the existing condition support, there's a whole section on that. So one of the, and that's actually, it was part of our scope going into the project. And then as I mentioned, Nemi came along during the development of the existing condition support. And so we are using a federal justice 40 as well as Cal and Byro screen as part of our selection prepared. So we wanna make sure, again, a key goal of the project is to address the needs of economically and socially disadvantaged populations who have so far really been left out of the transportation electrification revolution. Most of us think of EVs as luxury vehicles that are very expensive and they are, but going forward as they become more common and more electric vehicles enter the used vehicle market, the price is expected to drop. And I'm guessing within the next five years we're gonna see price parity between electric vehicles and ice vehicles. In fact, we already have seen that with the Ford F-150 pickup truck and at least until Ford raised its prices. So a year ago, you could order an F-150 electric for the same price as the gas equivalent, then suddenly demand spiked. And Ford said, you know, we can make a little bit more on this. So they raised the prices. But it's only a matter of time before these become very much normal. We need to make sure that everybody has access to charging regardless of economic opportunity. Thank you. And, you know, so it's basically looking at census tract then certain census tract is that. To be honest, I'm not sure how the data is aggregated. You know, we're using both the state and the federal data sources. And I'm not personally involved with doing the GIS analysis. I do believe it's at the census tract, but it might be at the T-A-Z. I'm not exactly sure how the data is aggregated. As lucky customers, I got that Ford Lightning because they sold for 46, people are reselling for 120,000 on, yeah, on auction sites. See, if I was so well informed, I would have bought one and done that, but I'm still riding a bicycle. Demonstrating demand. Yes. Okay, any other questions from commissioners? All right, I do have a question I wanted to ask. And I'll say I've looked at the tool, I've been on the social pinpoint site, and it's fascinating. It's really interesting to go in there. And, you know, I started, I went down the rabbit hole and I was in Santa Barbara County, some other counties as well, but it's really worth checking out. And it inspires to make suggestions the way it's set up. So I thank you for your report and I really appreciate this. I do have a question related to how the information from this interactive tool is gonna be used. As you said, your project is really focused on how to get EV charging infrastructure into rural and underserved areas, but the interactive map itself allows you to drop a pin kind of anywhere in the mapped area on the central coast. So I'm just wondering how that information will be utilized, you know, cause I'm tempted to go in and drop, and I see that others have, right? For places where they would like to see infrastructure, which is not within the kind of formulaic pattern there of one mile from the Highway Corridor. So just wondering how that's gonna be used to facilitate planning. Oh, great question. So, you know, planning EV charging infrastructure is as much art as it is science. And we do use as sophisticated tools as we have. We're using big data, but we're also using crowdsourcing and we're trying to balance the two. We're looking at this from a 30,000 feet level. It's a very large geography. We don't have the local knowledge. And so we, you know, I should say that the planners on the team, a lot of them are from the area and I know the area we have, you know, a lot of local knowledge from on the team, but not to the same extent that the community does. And so what we do is we wanna make sure that input from citizens and residents and employees who live, work and commute in this area can really weigh in on this. If someone from the area knows of a particular site that might be appropriate for a particular reason, we wanna have that input. And so we found this to be a very effective tool on projects that we've done. We're working for Madeira County, we're working for San Joaquin County. We're wrapping up a project in the city of Enceladus. And so local knowledge is really useful to us. And so that's how we use that information. So what we wanna do is then if we're kind of comparing different areas and trying to select a site, the first place we're gonna look is social pinpoint to see if anybody from the community has made a suggestion that we can then apply in our recommendations. Thank you. Okay, I will now check and see if there are any members of the public who would like to comment. Actually, I see Director Preston, you have your hand up. I wanted to... Yeah, I just wanted to expand a little bit on the question that you answered. It's really important to do these planning grants. There's been a lot of investment in infrastructure funding for electric vehicles. It was mentioned in our consultants report that there's this program called NEVY or the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Act and Caltrans just submitted a plan on that. And when we do these planning grants, we meet a lot of the requirements that the federal government is gonna be looking for. The funding is gonna be cycled through the state. And having this information already completed will make sure that the central region will be eligible for funding and that a lot of these locations will be looked at. And a lot of the themes that were brought forward by our consultant, such as equity and outreach, they wanna see that we did that. They don't wanna see that it's just blindly being implemented. So it's a very important step in making sure that the central region is not left out of the electric infrastructure funding that is gonna be made available. It is being led more by our MPOs. So that's why AMBAG contributed funding, whereas RTC did not. But we are participating because we have more local knowledge and we have the opportunity to get the word out and make sure that there's participation by the Santa Cruz community. Thank you. All right, we will now take it out to the public. Our first caller is Michael St. Welcome back. Thank you, Chair Brown. Mike, just excellent presentation. I really appreciate all the knowledge that you're giving us today. I've been working, this is my seventh year starting with ecology action as an EV ambassador. And it's a subject that's near and dear to my heart. And EV infrastructure has always been an issue as long and as well as range anxiety. But try to please remember that all of you, 90% of the charging that people do with electric vehicles is done at home. We have our own fueling station. It can either be sitting on the roof as solar or that you're using the incoming electricity from PG and E and 3C energy. After that, of course, you have public charging long distance. The range of these cars are getting better. I have a Tesla Model 3. My wife and I just took a trip of 3,400 miles with our Tesla and we had no issues with charging. We had a weak spot up at Glacier Nationals Park where the nearest supercharger was 140 miles away. But we called ahead of time and reserved a level two charger for a five-hour period and that gave us enough electricity to explore the park. So for me, I have no range anxiety and I'm working on about a car that has 300 miles range but I only use about 220 to 230 of it most of the time. And that's where these cars are nowadays. So a lot of that's being resolved but we do need better infrastructure. Two of the areas I would really suggest on focusing, multi-unit dwellings. That is the question I get all the time at my EV events. I live in an apartment, I live in a condo. How do I charge my car? That needs serious consideration. Also, which is very important is charging at work and that will help with the grid issue. If you put solar in or some type of renewable energy, you can be using the excess solar energy during the day and not even get it on the grid. You'd be charging your cars at work. Those are my two suggestions. I will go through that link and pinpoint some spots but I would really suggest you follow the Tesla Super Network where they've gone and what they've done. You can drive across the United States, Canada and never have any anxiety about it. So trying to do something separate from what Elon's trying to do maybe just reinventing the wheel. I mean, I know he's a little odd but I think he's done a great job and we wouldn't be where we are right now if he hadn't started this sustainable transportation. So good luck and I totally support you over what you're doing. It was a great presentation and I'm gonna leave the meeting now. I got some other things to do but I'm wishing everybody a very pleasant Columbus Day weekend and thanks for all your work. I appreciate it. Have a wonderful day. Thank you, Mr. St. Do we have other members? Yes, we thank you. I see them on my screen here. We have another hand raised and that would be Jacob Boysocki. You're up. Welcome. Am I coming through? Yes. Okay. Hi, this is Jacob Boysocki and so my background is in electronics engineering and I did study physics to do that. I have a doctorate and one of the most important lessons I learned is no free lunch and we're in this very early on. Commissioner McPherson asked about life as usual and how we can make a transition. Obviously we need to get away from gas powered vehicles because of the climate and he brought up infrastructure. Michael St. brought up infrastructure and the infrastructure requirements are substantial. There's another concern. So I read a paper prepared last year from the Geological Survey of Finland by Simon Michaud and he did an estimate, this is sort of back of the envelope of the amount of materials, raw materials, nickel, copper, lithium that are required to do a transition to 100% renewable and he came to the unfortunate conclusion that there are not enough materials in the world to do a transition to everybody using electric vehicles at the same rate that we're using cars today. And then this is the issue. So, we have the question of equity and unfortunately, I don't know what's gonna happen in the future, maybe we'll have some amazing breakthroughs but what it looks like the future is gonna be is that the fabulously wealthy will have access to cars and not everybody else will. And I think the bottom line is, well, electric vehicles are great. We have to have mass transit as the key focus and that will be what ultimately gets us away from traffic is that people just won't be able to afford cars anymore. So life as usual is not gonna be sustainable. I wish it were otherwise, but anyway. So thank you, Mr. Anderson, for your work and please do your best, thank you. Okay, thank you. I believe that concludes our public comment. Bring it back to the commission for any additional comments and do we need to take action? I believe we're just accepting the, yeah. Yeah, I think we're just accepting. So any additional comments? All right, once again, I would incur, I wanna thank Amanda Marino, our RTC transportation planner and Mike for your presentation and look forward to hearing more. Our next item, our next and final item is an update on coastal rail trail maintenance and trail funding. And we have with us Grace Blakesley, senior transportation planner with Guy Preston standing by. Good morning commissioners, Grace Blakesley of your staff. It's really nice to be here with you this morning. It's my first in-person meeting backs. It's nice to see you in person. Today I'm gonna be providing you with some information about maintenance of the coastal rail trail. I'll start by reviewing the status of the various segments. Segment five, which extends from Davenport to Wilder Ranch is approaching 100% design phase one of the project is fully funded. And we expect that phase two will be fully funded through a federal lands access program grant, but we are awaiting the grant award announcement which is expected in November. As you know, segment seven phase one is complete. It was completed in 2020 and segment seven phase two is under construction. And this will complete the trail between Natural Bridges Drive and Beach Street near the wharf. Sand dunes eight and nine are under development and extend from Beach Street to 17th Avenue in the County of Santa Cruz. As mentioned earlier by a member of the public, the draft environmental impact report for these segments is out and public comments are due on November 4th. A public meeting will be held on October 19th at five PM to receive comments on the draft environmental impact report. And the city is seeking state active transportation program funding for construction. We anticipate that the California Transportation Commission recommendations for grant awards will be released sometime this month. Segments 10 and 11 are also under development and extend from 17th Avenue to State Park Drive in the County of Santa Cruz. These segments are also in preliminary design and environmental phase. And we anticipate that the draft environmental impact report for these segments will be released sometime next year. Segment 12 from State Park Drive to Rio del Mar is also under development and the draft environmental impact report is scheduled to be released sometime this winter. Segment 12 is seeking construction funding from the SB1 congested corridors grant program and the RTCs application for grant funding will be submitted this December. Segments 13 through 20, except for segment 18, phase one have not advanced past the planning stage. However, RTC recently released a request for proposals for electric rail transit and coastal rail trail development which would advance these segments. Can you advance it? I tested it earlier, but... Thank you. So, trail maintenance is needed to preserve the trail and to provide for a positive trail user experience. At the May 2022 RTC meeting, the RTC requested additional information about trail maintenance and funding. Currently, RTC has two signed maintenance agreements with local jurisdictions for segments seven and 18. These segments are the ones that are completed or under construction. To help offset the trail maintenance costs for these segments, RTC started programming Measure D active transportation program funds for trail maintenance as part of the Measure D five-year program updates and agreed to split the cost of maintenance with cities that 50-50 up to the programmed amount. Staff endeavors to have these maintenance agreements in place prior to construction and RTC has currently programmed over one million for trail maintenance in the current Measure D five-year plan which includes maintenance for segments seven, 18 as well as segment five. Next slide, please. So, to facilitate the discussion about trail maintenance funding, your staff coordinated with local jurisdictions to identify maintenance needs and costs. The maintenance costs include things such as sweeping, debris removal, vegetation management, fencing repairs, littering graffiti removal, encampment cleanup, inspection and clearing of drainage structures as well as other structural inspections. Maintenance costs are estimated for different periods after the trail is operational. The first five years, five to 10 years after the trail is open and then 11 years after the trail is open. This is done because some aspects of the trail don't require maintenance in the first five years of operations. For example, pavement repairs and trail amenities are not anticipated. Repairs to, excuse me, repairs to the pavement and trail amenities are not anticipated in the first five years of operation but would be expected in subsequent years. Although complete pavement rehabilitation efforts may be needed after the trail is operational sometime between the 10 and 20 or more years, the cost for trail pavement rehab is not included in this maintenance cost estimates because the need for significant rehab will likely not occur until after the expiration of measure D for most of the segments. Also exact trail maintenance costs per mile are going to vary by segment. For example, segment five wilder ranch to Davenport will expect it to require more trail sweeping at farm crossings that don't occur in the other segments and then other segments have more structures than others and those will require additional maintenance as well. Next slide. So trail maintenance, the focus of today's discussion is an eligible expense of measure D active transportation funds. Of course, trail development and construction is also an eligible expense for measure D and RTC has began developing 17 miles of the trails. Quarter maintenance is also another eligible expense for measure D active transportation funds and this provides funding for drainage and vegetation control maintenance and management of the rail right of way. This is work that extends beyond the trail footprint and is expected to continue even after the trail is constructed. Trail oversight and management also is an eligible expensive measure D and includes coordination and planning for the coastal rail trail. The measure D active transportation category is projected to generate $194 million over the 30 year life of the program. 56 million have been programmed in the first 10 years to trail development, construction, quarter and trail maintenance and oversight. This, the program funding does not fully fund the segments that are under development and RTCs and local jurisdictions are working to leverage grant funds to construct these segments. Construction is dependent on the award of these grant funds. Even though, even with grant awards measure D active transportation program to date still exceeds revenue projections for the 10 year period and will require debt financing to maintain current project schedules. And this was discussed by your board in May, 2022. In addition, trail maintenance funding beyond fiscal year 27 still needs to be identified for completed trail segments and for future trail segments. Assuming a 56 million of the measure D active transportation program funds are for corridor maintenance over the life of measure D and RTC maintains their current commitment to trail development. Approximately 81 million will remain for trail maintenance and oversight development of additional segments going forward. The cost of trail maintenance through 2029 when trails segments under development are operational is anticipated to be about $2 million and then $1 million annually every year after that. Next slide, please. To not oversubscribe measure D active transportation funds over the life of measure D, RTC and local jurisdictions will need to be successful in leveraging the state and federal funding for trail development. They will also strategically use measure D funds to advance projects simultaneously. For example, we are doing that with the highway one and segment 12 project as well as coordinating the development of electric passenger rail with the remaining coastal rail trail segments. We also need to seek cost sharing agreements with local jurisdictions for trail maintenance to preserve funding for trail development as well as consider new funding sources for trail maintenance in the long term. Next slide, please. So RTC and local jurisdictions, we discussed options for funding trail maintenance. We looked at funding 100% of the trail maintenance costs with measure D active transportation funds. We looked at splitting trail maintenance costs 50-50 between measure D and local jurisdictions. We looked at splitting trail maintenance costs approximately 80-20% measure D and local jurisdictions by assigning trash receptacle clearing to local jurisdictions, which makes up about 20% of the maintenance costs or funding 100% of trail maintenance with local jurisdictions fund. All local jurisdictions staff express concern in fully funding maintenance with its current resources available for maintaining its various facilities. Nonetheless, the cities of Santa Cruz and Watsonville expressed willingness to meet prior agreements which specifies that they are responsible for maintenance of the trail and RTC shall pay 50% of the cost of maintenance up to the measure D programmed amount. County staff expressed willingness to perform maintenance activities, but they indicated they do not have funding available to pay for all or half of the cost of trail maintenance. They did indicated willingness to fund the cost of trash receptacle clearing services, which is approximately 7,000 of the 32,000 per mile per year. If measure D active transportation funds are programmed to fully fund trail maintenance over the life of measure D, less funding would be available for leveraging construction grants. In the event of a funding shortfall, the commission could consider programming discretionary funding, surface transportation block group program, transportation development act or stiff funding or local jurisdictions could consider programming measure D neighborhood category funding. The local jurisdictions and RTC could also commit to seeking a new funding source to complete trail construction or specifically for trail maintenance. Next slide. So when programming measure D active transportation funds, RTC staff suggests that the RTC consider that yes, trail maintenance is an eligible expense under the measure D active transportation program, that there's limited local jurisdictional funding for trail maintenance, that funding for coastal rail trail development and construction is still needed and utilizing measure D active transportation for trail maintenance will decrease the amount available for trail development. And then finally that trail maintenance needs will extend beyond the measure D sunset year, May 47. Next slide. Today, staff recommends that when programming future measure D active transportation funds and as part of future measure D five year plan updates that the commission continued to advance coastal rail trail projects by strategically investing funds to complete reconstruction activities and to continue to strategically program funds in a way that leverages state and federal grant opportunities. Staff also recommends that RTC direct staff to negotiate maintenance agreements with local jurisdictions and joint responsibilities for seeking funding to require that trail maintenance agreements be in place prior to construction and to annually program funding for trail maintenance as part of measure D updates. That concludes my report. Thank you so much. That was great. Anybody on the commission here in the chambers have questions for Ms. Blakeslee? Anyone in, yes. Okay, Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, maybe this wouldn't be a good question until the full trail is really completed. But is there any way that, again to get to this word measurement about once the trail is built and then to start from the first year and then if how much increase there is in usage of the trail? I mean, we wanna lure people into using it as much as possible. Is there, are we gonna have any kind of a measurement of that type to know how many people or I don't think we're gonna have cameras at every mile but there's something like that. Do we have any kind of a way we can see how many people are using it in comparison year after year? Yes, we would and that's actually a requirement of the active transportation program at the state level to provide counts. We would expect to do something similar to Arana Gulch and they do have cameras that count users annually and we've used that information in the past to make projections about trail use. Commissioner Randy Johnson. Thank you, Chair. So I noticed in both your meetings, the RTC meetings with Watsonville, Santa Cruz, the county of Santa Cruz kind of going over the plans, what the trail means, the future, why highways and so forth. And I just wanna mention, you stated that you felt that we could consider new funding sources and so forth in respect of kind of meeting the fiscal challenges but Scott Fowley is kind of isolated over here and to some degree so is all district five include San Lorenzo Valley. So the benefits of trails and even highways and so forth, we don't quite feel all the benefits so much because we're over here and all the work's been done over there. Yet we do pay our half cent sales tax. And I've mentioned before, cities like Scott's Valley that have low property tax, we kind of try and watch our dollars carefully. We are committed to pay a 30 year half cent sales tax for the receivable for 30 years, I guess started in 2016. But when you start talking about more money going into these projects, you have to understand that if we had a dedicated half cent sales tax that for just Scott's Valley over 30 years, it would be like 45 or $50 million, whereas each year we get a couple hundred, I think we're getting a couple hundred thousand dollars this year for one of our overpasses. So is staff aware, is the RTC aware of what concerns might be in the fifth district including San Lorenzo Valley that all this money and all this activity is going along that corridor, but we're kind of isolated over here. And yet I keep hearing talk about new funding sources and new maybe even taxes. So it makes me a little nervous, that's all. So I just kind of want to bring that to your attention. Hey, thank you. Looks like we do have members of the public who'd like to comment. And so I'll take it out first to Mark Macidi Miller. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you, Chair Brown. My name's Mark Macidi Miller. I'm with the Friends of the Rail and Trail. And the Friends of the Rail and Trail are fully supportive of the RTC's recommendations. We are particularly happy that the RTC will continue to require maintenance agreements be in place prior to advertising for construction bids. Maintenance of this trail will be critically important to people continuing to enjoy it over the years to come. So thank you. And please know we're 100% supportive of finishing the trail as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you. Our next caller is Jean, or are Jean Brocklebank and Michael Lewis. This is Jean Brocklebank. I continue to be dismayed by the piecemeal fashion, the piecemeal way of doing business in studying and slowing, but surely recognizing the enormous environmental impacts of developing this 32-mile corridor. Add to that the piecemeal fashion of procuring and keeping funding mechanisms for maintenance and perpetuity. Our county keeps building infrastructure with, in quotes, free money without a budget for maintenance once the free stuff is done. As an example, maintenance responsibility was given to the county department of parks of the one and a half block section of the redeveloped pedestrian walkway at the harbor portion of Twin Lakes Beach. That maintenance has gone lacking, apparently, because parks does not have the budget to do it justice. Native plantings in the landscaped area have disappeared, now one third of their original volume. Weeds proliferate. The garbage container areas are frequently overflowing. The lids on the bins left open, inviting birds and rats to get at the contents. In short, maintenance matters. Our eyes tell us something is amiss with maintenance all over Santa Cruz County. How can the RTC guarantee ongoing maintenance of the entire corridor of 32 miles when the county cannot maintain its roadway landscaped area, which lose trees every year, trees that are never replaced due to lack of maintenance funding? As you heard today, the RTC will have to find a funding after measure D ends in 23 years. So I, this is just not the way somebody would run their household or a business. And it does bother me. It bothers especially the physically conservative portion of my environmental soul. And thank you so much for considering my comments. Thank you, Ms. Brocklebank. I will now call on Jeff Gaffney, our county parks director is on the line. Welcome, Mr. Gaffney. Thank you so much. And I wanted to thank chair Brown and the fellow commissioners and also just to clarify, Jeff Gaffney and the director for the county parks department. And I also wanted to thank Grace Blakesley and Guy Preston for all their hard work with this and all the RTC staff. I feel like we've worked really hard together to try to come to some mutually agreeable solutions. And we're very supportive. We've been working also with the community department of community development and infrastructure. And I feel like we're all coming to a place where we are really feeling the future is gonna happen and that this trail construction is exciting and going to be a benefit to our entire community. And we also wanna be prepared for that future. So in saying that, I think that Ms. Blakesley hit on some of the points that we were concerned about and some of those things are the cost of maintaining this. I think that's been highlighted already. And so I'll just share that I think we can find some middle ground here. We've come to some agreement internally here both with CDI and parks that we can probably take on 20% of the existing maintenance costs that will go on and going forward. And it is also as commissioner McPherson highlighted going to be a little bit ambiguous as to what will happen moving forward. And so we want to see what five years, seven years, eight, 10 years from now looks like and we know the cost will accelerate as they get further out. So we're in agreement that we can come to some kind of maintenance requirement. County parks would like to see the ability to maintain the entire trail and working with the other jurisdictions because it would provide for more efficient and effective maintenance of the trail. And we think that's more sustainable. And we want to continue to work collaboratively but we do have concerns about doing any kind of future agreements that would limit us currently as it stands. So looking at the first five years sort of ironing out the details and getting past that I think is what we were hoping for. And I'll just kind of wrap up quickly then see my times kind of running short. And I also wanna just say that looking towards the future I know that we may have to figure out other funding sources and what that looks like whether it's a tax measure or some kind of other alternative measure I know that that's something we need to do because the trail will exist beyond 2046 and we will have to do other maintenance. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gaffney. Absolutely a work in progress. Somebody else wants to speak. Yeah, there are either. Oh, that's right. Thank you. There are other attendees whose hands are up. I will now call on Lonnie Faulkner from Equity Transit and just say that was the last hand I see. So if anybody does wanna make a comment please get your hand up. Otherwise, Ms. Faulkner, you'll be our last speaker. Great. Thank you so much to the RTC and to Grace Blake-Slee for that presentation. Absolutely Equity Transit supports an equitable process and we really appreciate the step by step work that RTC has done over the years to bring this trail to life for our county. And of course this provides equitable safe access for an active transit mode right now through segments 12. We're really looking forward to the time when we can actually bring Watsonville into that as well so that people from Watsonville can ride their bikes and do all the things all the way up to the North County alongside the trail, which is an important benefit to the people of Watsonville. I just wanna say also, perhaps I know you are all very thoughtful about alternative ideas and plans to bring funding and wonder if there's been any thoughts of working side by side with the Santa Cruz Mountain Trail Stewardship. We have a lot of trail stewardship in this county and perhaps donations and work by people within the county who have wanted to see this trail for so long might be a way to include the community in participating and having skin in the game in this wonderful trail project. I know we've heard over and over from the group trail now that has wanted this trail for a long time and they can put their money and their time where their mouth is and help contribute as well alongside many of us. I just wanna also mention the 30% increase in accidents and aggressive driving and issues on the roads is absolutely huge. We need to consider access from the roads to the trail. And I would really ask the RTC to consider looking at other countries that are more advanced in their process of safe streets. There are some amazing solutions out there and really, really great projects that I'd like to see included. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Faulkner. I will bring it back to the commission and call on Commissioner Schifrin. Thank you. Just on, you can never tell. Yeah. I wanna thank the staff of the report supportive of the staff recommendations, but I think it's important to remember that measure D is a closed fund. All we have is the money that's gonna come in from sales tax. That's the only way that the mission can use its funds to fund, help fund the highways, help fund, rail, help fund, rail. When that money's gone, that's the end of it. Let's say the tax measure. I'm very concerned with sections between segment 12 and section 18. So 1920, they did well, not that arguable about the South County trails. But what I'm very concerned about is if the commission is having to spend so much of its money or segments of its money on maintenance, it's not gonna be able to complete the trail. And so I'm gonna end up with a trail that goes part of the way there. And it's the South County area that's going to be at the least oil. Another thing that's confusing to me or what bothers me is that all of the jurisdictions have made the rail facilities. They have policies don't greet parking. They have policies don't greet, makes the city's home walkable. From my perspective, the rail trail is a component in the local jurisdiction, bike and pedestrian networks. It should be part of those networks, to sort of look at it as something that doesn't have any, will maybe try to help out is really, I think a denial of what's of the human responsibility to maintain facilities that are serving their population. Well, it's a possibility for the county as a whole, as well as a disadvantage to the county. So, there's nothing that the commission can do to compel the local jurisdiction that the entities take on responsibility for maintenance. But I think it's really important that the commission ask them to, because I'm just very afraid that if we don't, we're not gonna be able to complete the trail. And that would be a terrible thing. One approach that I would suggest as a way of the operational life is to have agreements that the commission would increase it, would take on responsibility to maintenance after the trail is completed, if funds remain uncovaled. Because I think that would make sense, it's supposed to be for the rail trail itself. But I think the first priority needs to be the construction rail. I'm not being able to do that. I think it could be... Thank you. Commissioner Koenig, I'm sorry I skipped you. Thank you, Chair. First off, certainly, second commissioner Schifrin and saying that I think we should find every opportunity we can to complete the trail all the way to Watsonville. That's the true benefit of it will be as a facility that connects and unites our county. I'm also very supportive of the staff recommendations. I think it's excellent that we are considering maintenance in our long-term planning. I did have a question. So you'd asked or you'd mentioned pavement maintenance and trash as components of the cost estimates. I mean, does it also consider potential storm or water damage and vegetation management? What are all the components that went into that budget? Yeah, good question. Thanks for asking it. Yes, vegetation management is included. When you also asked about storm damage, it does include after year five contingency for unexpected events. So that's how that's included in the cost. Okay, that's good to hear. I'd certainly also echo some of the member of the public side, which is maintenance matters. I think a good percentage, I mean, maybe north of 75% of my job is dealing with complaints and concerns that the public have around maintenance of various public facilities. Our roads are possibly the most obvious example where we continually struggle to maintain a road network that is in shape. We're just underfunded as a county. I mean, too, as Commissioner Schifrin also well knows, I mean, the state property tax, I should say the property tax and sales tax formulas are not kind to the county of Santa Cruz. We really get the short end of the stick and that makes it difficult and sometimes even impossible to maintain our facilities to the extent that they should be. And I'll give one small example. I mean, an issue that blew up in my district over the summer was just the tall weeds along Capitola Road. And we had used some of the funds. That's a redevelopment project, all those street trees and beautification there. And we had some money allocated for maintenance, but as inflation rapidly exceeded the cost or should it say the budget that we had available, we were making tough decisions around whether or not we should be grinding down sidewalks to prevent tripping hazards or cutting weeds. We're ultimately gonna have to go back and find a way to increase the overall budget there, but maintenance really does matter, right? And it's, like I said, it's the number one thing that I hear about every day. So I fully support the staff recommendation, which includes budget for ongoing maintenance. In fact, I've moved the staff recommendation. Second. Okay, I believe that we have a motion and a second on the floor. I see other commissioners want to comment. Commissioner Bertrand, you're up. Yeah, I certainly agree. We need to have maintenance agreements before we jump into any project. We're not even yet at the juncture of understanding what the projects are gonna be. We don't clearly know what the costs of many of the segments here, we're still an EIR phase at this point. And jumping into maintenance policies, the intent is good, but tying our hands at this point seems a little ahead of the game from my perspective. I think it's absolutely true that we will not be able to build segments if we're being encumbered by maintenance demands. It's gonna eat away at our budget as we go forward and past 47 is not addressed also. So the elephant in the room for me when I first got started was the fact that we still don't have clear concepts of how much the trail or the rail and filling all our obligations to the public when they voted for D in terms of what it's gonna cost this community. Measure D was just basically a planning vehicle so that we could be able to see what those costs are. And we still don't have those costs removing that direction. One comment from the public was the idea that we're moving piecemeal. And we do have something to the state right now which will give us an overall cost of what the whole system will cost or a large portion of the system. And to me, once we have that concept, excuse me, once we have those figures, then we can plan accordingly to the maintenance issues. I was on a school board once San Lorenzo Valley and maintenance was always an issue because funding wasn't provided. That's why we have all sorts of measures. There's K is coming up right now because we, well, I don't know enough about K but often maintenance is put off and then it goes back to the public which may or may not support it. So I could envision a project to complete and no one wants to use it. I mean, this is possible just with the junk and no one's gonna go walk past Aptos because they're out in the middle of who knows where with who knows what's on the trail and it's not really fun to see it. It is true that many people have talked about how wonderful it would be to ride my bike from here to there. And this is what I envisioned and it's very idealistic if we're not able to maintain it. So I do support the idea that we should have maintenance agreements totally but I don't think we're ready to start moving forward on this. If I understand this whole thing correctly when I read everything until we clearly understand what we're getting into. I wanna see the ER, I wanna see the cost estimates. I wanna get a better idea if this county could actually afford. And it's true, we may be doing piecemeal. We'll be only able to do certain segments in the north part of the county not cause I don't wanna go down to Watsonville but because the further south we go the further the costs go up and the difficulties in the train and the difficulties in the trestle not just capitol but there's many trestles past that. This has been the issue all along. And if you have some comments in that I would really appreciate it but and I appreciate the staff report and I appreciate your effort in putting this together and I totally support staff and whatever they do but I'm trying to put out a perspective that I think needs to be mentioned and I do wanna report, excuse me, support the idea of looking head for maintenance. I think we should move ahead on trying to work with parks with the city of Santa Cruz with any other area that we're going through. And what Andy said is right this is part of a total system in Santa Cruz and when you mentioned that it struck a nerve I mean, that was a good thing to hear actually and it should be a coherent plan. And so that's why I'm gonna vote no cause I don't think we're ready to do this at this point we need to have that coherent plan and I think Andy for bringing that point up we're not there yet. We're far, far, far away from it. We have a lot of people that support the idea in concept of a trail and a rail but we're not there to deliver it yet because we don't yet have identified sources for the money we think we do but we don't even know what amount that money is gonna be. We're trying to get there. Thank you very much. May I reply? Yes, please. Thank you for your comments commissioner Bertrand I just wanted to provide two points to clarification regarding the staff recommendation. For now we are recommending that we do direct us to negotiate maintenance agreements with local jurisdictions before construction and really from a practical perspective the next step we would take is to begin negotiations for maintenance of segment five which is the project that we expect to be constructed next pending the funding award in November. So although it says negotiate maintenance funding agreements with local jurisdictions it's not meant to suggest that we would start to negotiate maintenance agreements for the entire trail at this time. So it would become a step by step. The other piece I wanted to clarify is the staff recommendation is to budget funds for maintenance annually as part or to have the RTC consider budgeting funds programming funds maintenance annually as part of your measure D five year plan. So any agreement that we entered into would not necessarily commit funding indefinitely for the trail maintenance of those segments but would still come back to the it would be subject commission approval with the five year plan update. And I think that considers your comments about trying to deliver the trail as well as the maintenance commitments that need to happen and allows the commission to make a decision as they move forward and have more information. And I don't know if there's anything else. I appreciate your comments. Thank you very much and your reply. And so at first my understanding a little bit better but basically what you're saying is we're going to make agreements as we go. Yes, yes. As before the trail segments are constructed. Yes. Right. And you know, as Bruce mentioned you know we don't know as we go how much the use is just going to cost us as if it's gets more popular and stuff like that. Certainly if we can't afford to build the D segments if I want to call them that much beyond let's say Aptos or Capitol or something like that our costs are going to be very low. And so that will be easier to budget. I suppose that's what you would think. So if I could add a point of clarification to measure D the expenditure plan was very ambitious but it was also very honest with the voters. It didn't promise that the entire trail would be able to be delivered with the funds that were voted on but that we would be able to use the funds to leverage additional fund sources that would be needed to complete the trail system. How we do that is going to be tricky. The trail is an extremely expensive project. The rail line is also an extremely expensive project. We are working very hardly hard to try to deliver as much of the trail as we possibly can and we're prioritizing the sections where our populations are the highest and the use is expected to be the highest. Our cost estimates have been coming in exceedingly higher than originally anticipated but the project benefits that we could deliver are immense and we don't know exactly what the cost is going to be and we won't know before we have the opportunity to build some of these sections. So we are kind of taking a take it as we go approach to developing the trail to show the public that we can complete a good portion of what they were promised and when we do complete that and they see the benefits of it, there may be other opportunities to look at what it's gonna take to complete the trail segments. We want to get these maintenance agreements in place before we start construction but we want the maintenance agreements not to expire and we want the local jurisdictions to take ultimate responsibility of maintaining the trail and that's part of staff's recommendation. It's not to allow these maintenance agreements to expire but it only promises to maintain them or fund a portion of the maintenance for the five year period that we program the funding for. So I think that kind of ties with Andy's commissioner Schifrin's approach that maybe RTC can maintain the trail after it's completed, if funding is available but we don't want to leave the trail segments without a source of maintenance and I know that that's an area of contention with the county, so some input from the commissioners as to what would be acceptable would be helpful because the county has indicated that they would like these maintenance agreements to expire when the funding expires and that would leave the trail with no funding source for maintenance. So it's a tricky kind of situation of do you do nothing now or do you do as much as you can and then leverage the successes that we are given through the opportunities presented to us the gain voter trust to continue to build the system that the community seems to want. Thank you. Commissioner McPherson. Yeah, it's one of the members that put the measure D together to try to and the reason it passes it included all modes of transportation and each and every one of those modes of transportation whether it be a trail or a highway or a train it's gonna cost more than we could have anticipated and understandably so but I think that this is really a good point that Andy and Jock brought up that we wanna have the trail there before that really serves a big part of the population before we start to maintain it and use all the money there but this direct staff to negotiate those agreements and I wanna say thank you to the county and the cities and the staff for getting to this point because that's a big step in itself and I'd like to see what those maintenance agreements really include I'm gonna support this now but I think the point that Andy made needs to be better understood by me for sure so I'm gonna support the motion but I think there's good points have been made about let's build the trail first before we start maintaining some parts of it and I think that there was a good points that were brought up and also I'll support the motion but I think there's more work to do and I appreciate the work that has been done up to now. Thank you. Okay, I think we are ready to take a vote on this. I just wanna make one quick or a couple of quick comments I really agree with the perspective that Commissioner Schiffern shared and others have picked up on here about the making our first priority completion of the trail and but I also wanna say that maintenance is critical it's always underfunded across all agencies for all functions it seems and so this is a really challenging project and a challenging kind of general area for resource revenue generation so I think under the circumstances that you all our staff is doing an amazing job of trying to balance that and trying to navigate how and I believe your goal is to get as much cost sharing as possible and to create opportunities for additional funding in the future and so I absolutely support those efforts and with the intention of rail trail build out being the first priority we know that there maintenance needs that just are urgent and immediate that need to happen and so I recognize you're doing the very best you can under the constrained circumstances so with that I will all for a vote, thanks. Commissioner Bertrand. So I'm gonna change my position. You've answered the questions that I've had and my main effort, my main reason why I'm changing is because we're gonna have these reviews as we go. Okay. And we will construct as we are able to maintain. Right? Yes. I just wanna hear that. I'll say my support. Commissioner Sandy Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Montecino. Yes. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner Hernandez. Are you filling in? Yes. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Commissioner Koenig. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Kristen Brown. Aye. Commissioner Parker. Yes. And Commissioner Alternate Collentary Johnson. Aye. That passes unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to our final item which is announcement of our next meetings. The next hybrid RTC meeting is scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd, 2022 at 9 a.m. See you here or in cyberspace. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Meeting adjourned.