 Okay, welcome everyone. Welcome to the. Well Thursday, September 3rd, 2029 o'clock meeting of the regional Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. Please call the roll. Okay. Commissioner Bertrand. Here. Commissioner Brown. Commissioner Johnson. Commissioner Kaufman Gomez. You have to unmute yourself here. Commissioner alternate shifrin here. Commissioner alternate Mulher. He's here. Unmute yourself. Patrick, unmute yourself. Okay. There he, it looks like he's having issues. There you go. Commissioner Leopold. Here without a camera, but here. I don't want to look at you. That's for sure. Okay. Commissioner Brown. Here. Commissioner McPherson. Here. Commissioner Bautorf. Here. Commissioner Gonzalez. Here. Commissioner Rockins. Here. And I'm not sure if we have a representative from Caltrans. Did you. Did you call my name? Commissioner Caput. Yeah. This is Scott Eads with Caltrans. Great. Thank you. I Scott. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a completed commission. Very well. Okay. We will go on to item number two. The oral communications. Any member of the public may voice their concerns on any item that is not already on the agenda that. The commission will listen to it, but it cannot take action on items that are not on the agenda. Please raise your hand to address the commission. Raise your hand or dial nine and once recognized state your name clearly for the public. And if you're having trouble, make sure you're using the latest version of zoom. So is there anybody that would like to present, make a presentation for on oral communications? I have Brian peoples. Okay. And then we'd like to limit the comments to three minutes. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. This is Brian peoples with trail now. We are sharing our promotional ad. We did almost a decade ago. Promoting the construction of the Santa Cruz coastal trail. We look at the history of our campaign to get the coastal trail bill. And we see the key points are still. Stamp. They still stand. After a decade. The branch line is costing Santa Cruz taxpayers millions of dollars to maintain. And not helping transit now or anytime soon. The cost of building a trail adjacent to the tracks is not affordable. Segment seven a rail trail already excessively expensive to standard. Rail trail construction. Processes is expected to have another million dollar and change orders. Segment B is not even close to being affordable. Watsonville trail is delayed now because of cost overruns. The north coast rail trail is delayed to 2025 because of costs overruns and project complexities. Delay will likely cost us the grant. We will likely lose the grant money from the federal government. Segment seven B shows us that destroying hundreds of heritage trees. And building multi-story retaining walls is not socially or fiscally viable in Santa Cruz County. After a decade of claiming rail banking is not feasible. RTC staff has acknowledged that rail banking is both legal. And financially feasible for the Santa Cruz coastal trail. It is not practical to believe that all the historic wood trestles. Would be or could be torn down and replaced with concrete bridges to accommodate high volume. Mass transit, fast moving trains. The corridor is 20 feet from the Pacific ocean. Seed level rising mitigation plans will make a train financially and environmentally unfeasible. A smart train in Sonoma demonstrates how speeding trains through our neighborhoods will be a death watch. I can go on and on and on. But basically what we've been arguing for a decade now has come true. But our community really needs a solution today for the coastal corridor and opening it up. We can't afford to keep the corridor closed. Again, taxpayers are paying for this transportation resource and it's not being used. We are asking you to find a solution today for active, using that property for active transportation. No matter what the alternative analysis study shows, it will be decades away. Please. Look for an alternative today. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Peoples. Is there anyone else that would like to address us on our communications? Kelly Arnold. Miss Arnold. Okay. How about Mr. Pico? Carrie Pico. I'm unmuted now. Okay, Miss Arnold. Sorry, I was having technical difficulties. Well, I just want to say, Sally Arnold, board chair, friends of the rail and trail. And I really, I just want to say we're very excited to see all the progress being made on building the trail is happening. And we are getting a trail now and we are excited about that. And I wanted to say that in reviewing the agenda packet, we noticed that there were quite a few letters from across the county expressing support for passenger rail transit in the correspondence log. And when I counted them up, I saw 53 letters in favor of rail transit that had been submitted, which was 93% of all the comments on the topic. 93% of all the comments were in favor of rail. I just want to. Emphasize that. And I want to draw your attention to some. A particular comments that were made by some individuals that. That I thought were particularly pertinent from Kathleen Crachetti. I support rail transit on the corridor. Rail transit is necessary for our county to continue to thrive. Both North and South County are dependent upon one another. And the quality of life for those who must commute to work is greatly diminished by the amount of time we spend in our cars. Help us get out of our cars. From Susan O'Connor Fraser. Rail transit on the corridor is a brilliant idea. Teen's working at the boardwalk. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a safe and easy trip. We have a brilliant idea. Teen's working at the boardwalk. We have a safe and easy trip to work. Trains can easily support people on bikes and people who are disabled. From Val Cole. I'm excited about the future of commuter rail here in Santa Cruz County. It's green, affordable, predictable. Help South County workers. Scales easily. We'll propagate last mile solutions and ties into the state wide rail program. I'm excited, everyone. It has been a long, long trail. The trail is a long track rail rail trail without delay. It's taken away too long already. Let's get this done. From Kyle rack. As an Aptos resident, I support the project to build commuter rail along the coastal quarter. It will make possible. This will make it possible for those who don't drive to have access to the neighboring towns that could cut down on vehicle traffic. I, why could go on, but just, I know you guys are getting closer to picking a locally perturbed for her alternative, and I hope you'll see that there's just great community support for rail and I hope you will listen to the community's voice. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pico, is that right? Is that next in line? Yes. Yes, can you hear me? Yes. Yes, and you have a presentation. What was that? Yes, then you have my PowerPoint presentation. Oh, okay. It's on. Okay. If you can share the screen. Give me one second here. I'm coming back to the issue that I raised the last two meetings. So the last two meetings, I talked about the difficulties of building on a railroad easement. So I would like to revisit this and your legal counsel statement wrote in this within the agenda. There are three statements. Case law has held that a railroad easement cannot, can you go backwards please? A railroad easement cannot, cannot be used for a recreational trail. That means if a railroad easement cannot be used for a railroad trail. That's, we agree. Anyway, statement two, however, and this is the next part, the trail that the RTC has planned is developing a transportation facility involving active transportation uses. I'm coming back. And then statement three is therefore the RTC may not need additional rights on most or any of the railroad easements. Next page. So let's hit the first statement. It's settled law that a railroad easement cannot be used for recreational trail. I just want, I'm just repeating the statement, statement two next, next slide. So statement two, however, the trails that the RTC has planned and is developing is a transportation facility involving active transportation uses. Now, I'm, I want to refer to a court case Tows versus United States. It happened in Clovis Fresno County. And this is what they stated was their plan was phase one would permit use of corridor as a transit way for pedestrians, bicycles and skaters. That's identical to the trail. It would introduce equestrian and trolley buses. If you look at the picture above, this comes from the MBSST, you have horses, you have bicycles, you have pedestrians. So covers phase one and phase two. And phase three would bring light rail. Doesn't that sound identical to what we have going on in this county. Next page. So the ruling that the court gave is the current rail trail. I put the rail trail in their use of a linear park is in short, fundamentally different in kind than a railroad purpose, whether abandoned or not. So the plaintiff's underlying fee interests are now burdened with a new easement. What that means is it doesn't matter if it's active transportation. It doesn't matter if, and then the last part, let's jump to the next one. That city planners hope one day to institute light rail service does not affect the result. So what they're saying is, if you're going to build a trail, it cannot be on the railroad easement. Otherwise, you have to pay for a new easement. Now, I've talked to people and they say so what this has more implications than just saying, oh, we'll get eminent domain and we'll we'll get through the path. If you go through eminent domain, you'll have to show that it's environmentally advantageous to build a trail next to a rail. You'll have people arguing both directions. There's an added cost of the next page. I'm sorry, I'm jumping ahead of myself. Next page. Mr. Pico your time is up. Next page and then people can get it. So it's about it will cost about 50 to $100 million. The cost is skyrocketing out of control. If you jump down to three a it'll bring the cost up to about 430 to $480 million. Okay, so please seriously don't write it off that your legal team knows what they're doing. I'm not trying to be diminutive to them. It's an issue that is that you guys have wrong. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address us on under oral communications. Mr Keith Otto. Yeah, quick sound check and hear me okay. Yes, yes. Great. Thank you. Keith Otto County resident. So I've been puzzled with the number of decisions and other happenings here at the RTC. It's been interesting to dig into some details a bit further and I'll say that findings have been eye opening. Here's one example. A few meetings ago, a Santa Cruz County city shared with the RTC a resolution that their city council had passed advocating for passenger rail. And I'll add that this city has two city council members that are on the RTC. And I thought the resolution was odd and in particular the timing as those same city council members, the same RTC commissioners would have voted at the RTC meeting just prior to continue with the $1 million transit corridor alternatives analysis study to determine if a bus or a train should be used for high capacity public transit in the rail corridor. So they're saying, go forward and continue to spend money on the TCA study. We've already made up our mind and we want to train. All of this is pretty telling as to where we are heading. But the most shocking part is the dialogue that took place at that city council meeting leading up to the vote on the resolution. One of the city council members who's on the RTC told fellow council members and the public funding for passenger rail comes from measure D. The money that's already being designated for that. It's not going to be more taxes. It's not going to be more money. These statements are a fundamental disconnect from the facts. I can't say strongly enough that it's so disappointing to hear incorrect and false statements such as these. It's even more disappointing that they're being made by a member of the RTC. And it's further disappointing that another member of the RTC, another city council member was present would have heard those comments and did not jump in to issue a correction. Wow. Just to be clear, the November 2016 County Measure D expenditure plan for the rail corridor states the measure revenues do not include funding for any new train rail service. We're going to outline details matter facts matter. If we don't pay attention to those there's no way we're going to arrive at anything close to decisions. You know, I've had a hard time understanding decisions made by the RTC. All of this has been illuminating certainly a contributing factor into the decisions being made. A final note, I'll agree with one of the previous speakers who said, listen to the community. Just to remind the commission that you have 10,000 signatures for a trail only solution. Thank you for your time. Thank you for listening this morning. Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to address us under our communications. Ben. Can you hear me. Yes. I'm Ben. I've been a resident of Santa Cruz County since 1967. I also served on the bicycle committee and was going to as a representative to the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Trail Committee meetings. Ah, a sanctuary. A place of refuge and safety. I'm in favor of banking the rail and creating a sanctuary trail. Here's some of the problems with rail. There will be no more easy financing easy money for trained fantasies. Like the LA to San Francisco train, the smart number in Sonoma train, the LA downtown train. It's going to go now to pandemic needs and projects that increase per capita productivity, because that's the answer for full employment and economic progress. So there's no more money for train fantasies. That's the way it's going to be a terrible example is the one that I asked to put up. It's actually your segment 12 from the state park. And that's the one that's going to drive to freedom Boulevard. Because the train's too heavy quote unquote, you say that it will cost $100 million to widen the road and to put two new bridges over the highway. Since that's probably low ball. That's the experience of estimates. It's going to be 200 million, or maybe it's going to be a quarter of a billion dollars. Now, four or five years ago, the Cal Trans came up with an estimate for a double checker for 25 million. Well, that maybe is 50 million now. And by the way, can you, can you imagine a train going through the village now. It's not even a village anymore. It has two stop lights and maybe some more. Now, lastly, one of the only industries in the United States that's running at above 100% manufacturing capacity are a bike scooters and such new vehicles that we've never seen before. More bicycles in my bicycling more than twice as many since last year, because of this three people on my block just bought new e-bikes. So, I must say by ending, I do want to personally thank the Transportation Commission for what you did for me some 20 years ago. At that time, I had had two open heart surgeries. I was 40 pounds overweight. You provided a $300 credit to me for to buy an e-bike, which I did. And along with physical therapy, it allowed me to lose 40 pounds and get back to 155 when I was in flight school in the 50s, and I'm still now flying at 86. So, I'd probably not be here today without your incentive and would not be able to say to you, bank the rail, create a sanctuary trail, a place of refuge and safety, do it now. I can't wait to be 100. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I'm glad we can help. Anybody else in oral communications? Donna Murphy. Ms. Murphy, you're on mute. Donna, you have to unmute yourself. Okay, she lowered her hand. Maybe she doesn't want to speak. Okay. All right. Is there anyone else that would like to address us on our under all communications. Michael St. Good morning commissioners. Michael St. here. I'm, I think I got the time wrong. I just showed up. So, I'm going to read this for the last person. So this worked out. Okay, I guess. Pretty much been racking my brain a little bit this morning about what to talk about to the commission. It's quite apparent you guys are steadfast in your direction towards certain projects, but I think, you know, just to start out, I think 2020 has been a strange year for everybody. The pandemic, of course, has been horrific loss of lives, economic disaster for a lot of our citizens, as well as our entities around the county. But I think I came up with the question. Anything we could do as a society, or even as a commission, getting down to the local level to find a silver lining in these times of upheaval. I think things are up in the air. And I always hear the comment by people that I can't wait till we get things back to normal. And what is the definition of normal. And I kind of look back and look at the traffic we've experienced for many decades around here, especially the last five years. Look at people unsafe bicycle areas to drive and I think for those that have lost their lives and are feeling the impact this myself as well as all citizens including yourselves on this commission try to find a silver lining to do something to make life better, not necessarily go back to normal. And I think it's happening through the cove it as well as wildfires. I'm not seeing the traffic on the highways often. And of course we know people are out of work which helps that issue which is kind of sad but the other things is that I think the staff should look at as well as myself and the community is telecommuting I think is causing part of this relaxation and congestion. People not going to school the kids not going to school as well as the colleges. And just in general people not going anywhere I think we need to build on that would be something we could do to maybe make the sacrifice of loss of life and people's hardships a little bit easier. I'm not a proponent of going back to life as normal. I think I'm okay with some of these zoom meetings it doesn't have to be as crazy as it is now but the idea and what's funny as I came up and I was thinking I your slogan came back to me. Are we are almost done. Complete your comments and that very yeah basically yeah basically I your slogan of let's get Santa Cruz moving again a measure D came up which is what we really need to do so I think this commission needs to look at other programs besides widening highways and trains and things like that. The important parts getting vehicles off the road. And I think you should take some time and effort to do that. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Is there anyone else would like to address us on all communications on transportation issues. Is that it. Hi my name is Heidi Owens. Can you hear me. Yes. Can. Hello. I am running for town council in Los Gatos. And I've heard from the residents here over and over frustrations about the beach traffic. So I'd like to encourage the commission to consider support for a formation of a joint powers authority between Santa Cruz County and Santa Clara County to study the Highway 17 corridor. Looking at technological approaches to address safety as well as capacity. It hasn't been studied for 25 years. And that's my comment. So thank you. Thank you. We have Barry Scott. Hello this is Barry Scott I live in Aptos and I'm calling just to make a general statement or two. I want to thank the RTC commissioners and staff for a great deal of work that I'm seeing being done on streets on the highway the median the rail corridor repairs of the washout. And I also want to speak to the crisis that we're in with COVID and wildfires. I want to encourage everyone to stay the course. And it's easy for people who are passionate about any outcome to use this dynamic as a as maybe an excuse to change directions but I believe that the RTC is on the is on the right path is being deliberate, conservative and careful with studies. I look forward to the outcome of the transportation corridors. Alternatives analysis and I don't think that at the other at the other end of COVID will ever be the same but I don't think either that public transit is going to become obsolete or unnecessary because there are all the talk that I hear from my neighbors about e-bikes and electronic devices that might take over. They'll never replace public transit which is a public good. It's a stimulus. It's like parks and schools. You don't need to buy and ensure your own public transit which is, which is what an e-bike or an e-trike or any of these devices would do. And the most exciting thing we're building the trail. People forget this. We're building the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail. So for all the concern about the need for a sanctuary scenic trail, well, we're doing it. You're doing it. Measure D is paying for it. And I'm just very excited to see the progress in Watsonville on the west side. And I think if we're all patient and we watch what's happened, we're going to see a fabulous trail. And hopefully we'll see some transit on that rail corridor too. So thank you for all you do. That's all. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone else that would like to make comments on our world communications? I don't see any other hands up commission or McPherson. Okay. All right, we will move to the next item. The consent agenda items four through 18. Is there any comments? Anybody would like to pull an item on the consent agenda? Any commissioner? Chair McPherson, I'd like to. Announce some handouts and replacement pages first. Excuse me. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Go ahead. There are handouts for items to 20 and 22. And those are posted on our website. There's also a replacement page. Page three of our agenda is a replacement page that was posted last minute for item nine, which is on the consent calendar. And that was correct. And correctly listed the dollar amount on the agenda as 60,000. It should be $44,425. And that was correct. And the staff report and the resolution. There's also replacement pages for items 22 and 24. And that's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Is there. Anyone on the commission. Is there anyone on the commission. Is there anyone on the commission. Is there anyone on the commission. Additions. Anybody would like to pull an item off of the consent agenda. Is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on an item on the agenda consent agenda. I'll move the consent agenda. We do have a comment. Give me a minute here. Sally Arbel. Thank you. I just want to really quickly say that from friends of the rail and rail corridor, we really appreciate all the, the attention to detail that the staff is putting into making sure that these various contracts happen so that we can clean up that corridor and put it to work. And we just want to acknowledge the work there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Brian people. Yes. Thank you. Is the item number nine. One of the ones we would address on there. Yes. Yes. So I want to remind you that that North coast rail trail has been delayed to 2025. The federal grant in the project. Lead organization is not doing any work on that. And it's very likely you're actually going to lose the grant money in my personal discussions with the federal administrative group. I personally actually work for, for industry that deals with government contracts and the actual financial aspects of it. So it's very likely that money is going to be lost. The reason it's lost is because it's not, it's very likely that money is going to be lost. The reason it's lost is because of the complexity of that project and, and the idea that you're trying to put the trail through the farm land, taking away farmland. And rather than just pulling the tracks up. So I'm not sure why you're going to allocate. Money for continuing to do. You know, the North coast rail trail adds no value and your overall budget is going to get really hurt by the, by the pandemic. So I'd question that. That's all. Thank you. Could I ask the, this is Andy. Could I ask the executive director to respond to that comment? Please. I know there was a lot of us losing federal many at this time. The federal government pushed out the grant. Several years due to cost overruns on other projects, not our project. We fully expect to be able to go to construction in a few years. In fact, the federal team is still working on the project. They were going to be out here. to do a job tour of the location. And the only reason they didn't come was due to the fires. They're pressing forward with the project as quickly as possible. We are as well. And in fact, they're looking for opportunities to advance this project back to the original schedule which would allow it to go to construction next year because some of the other agencies are dealing with strains on their budgets and may not be able to make their match in which case our project would move to the front of the list. They're also looking at possibilities for stimulus funding for our project so it could be constructed next year as well. Thank you. Could I move the consent agenda? I would second. This is Commissioner Leopold. And I just also like to add that it seems more likely that Brian from Trailnever is just trying to find ways to actually not get the trail built instead of actually working with us to actually get the trail built. He's tried to organize farmers to sue us. Now he's contacting funders to try to get us the drop grants. We're working to build the trail. Good to hear the update from the executive director. OK, we have a motion to second to approve the consent agenda. I think we'd better call the roll. That's correct, Mr. Chairman. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Johnson. Who was that we sent in here? I think who was? Commissioner Johnson. Oh, aye. Sorry. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomez. Commissioner Caput. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Aye. Commissioner Alternate Mulher. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Aye. Commissioner Botorf. Aye. Commissioner Gonzalez. Aye. Commissioner Rockin. Aye. That was unanimous. All right, we'll move to item on there. We'll go to the regular agenda. Move to item number 19, a commissioner reports. Are there any oral reports from commissioners? Seeing. Chair. Yes, Ms. Kaufman-Gomez. Yes, thank you. We had a conversation with Monterey County on Monday. Maybe Ginger can share just a little bit about that with regards to the planning stages of their train and the connectivity of the South County of Santa Cruz. Would that be something that we can either report out at a different time or maybe Ginger Diker, who was in the conversation, can share a few words about that? Sure. Before you do that, Commissioner McPherson, just a quick reminder. We do have a 930 public hearing. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Let's go to the 930 public hearing that time, having already arrived. Thank you. We'll go to item that we'll come back to that for a brief comment. That's a good idea. Item number 22, public hearing measure D, five-year program of projects for regional projects and community bridges. Lift line, Rachel Marconi, the senior transportation planner will be addressing us. Hi, Rachel. Good morning, commissioners and members of the public. Before you today is the five-year plans for measure D. And I'm going to do a little PowerPoint in here, so I'm going to try to share my screen after you send me a stop sharing hers. Ian, you'll have to allow Rachel to share. I think it's going to go, yeah. Here we go. Oops, wrong one. Can you guys see my screen? Are you seeing a measure D on it? Yes. Okay, perfect. Versus a tree in the background. So before you today is the five-year plans for measure D. We update these annually. They are required in the measure D ordinance that was approved by voters back in 2016. Just as a quick refresher on measure D, I think most folks know what this is, but for those who might be joining us for the first time at one of our board meetings, measure D is a half-cent sales tax that was approved by over two-thirds of our voters back in 2016. The tax started to be collected in April of 2017 with first payments made from the state to the county and all of the RTC distributed those funds to everyone starting in, I think it was August of 2017. It's a 30-year tax and it on average has been generating about $20 million a year, of course, with the recent economic downturns. That amount has varied and we're not completely sure what the totals are gonna be over the next few years as we enter recovery from COVID shelter-in-place ordinances, but we're on average about $20 million a year. It funds a lot of local priorities and includes extensive taxpayer oversight, including a taxpayer oversight committee, the five-year plans which go out to all of the recipient agencies and give the public an opportunity to provide input on specific uses of the funds as well as independent audits and financial reports. So the extension plan that was approved by voters identified certain categories of funds where the measure D sales tax measures with funds would be distributed. 30% of the funds are for neighborhood or local road projects. The majority of that funding is distributed by formula to our four cities and the County of Santa Cruz here. There's also 20% of the funds are for transit and paratransit for seniors and people with disabilities. 25% of measure funds are for highway corridor projects. 8% of the funds are for the rail corridor and 17% of the funds are designated for by the ordinance for active transportation, the Monterey Basics Racing Network and Rail Trail. So the five-year program, well the measure D program covers 30 years and that expenditure plan gives us some basic guidance on how these funds can be spent. We prepare these five-year plans to show what we're planning on using the funds for in the near term. So this year we are updating the plans to add fiscal year 24, 25 to the five-year plans. And we've also updated how much money was actually spent in prior years. Some of that is based on preliminary unaudited numbers for fiscal year 1920. And then the RTC is specifically required to adopt the five-year plans for the highway projects, the active transportation category in the rail corridor. Also because Community Bridges Lift Line, which receives 4% of the total measure D funds is not a public agency, the RTC serves the purpose of providing the public process for review of that plan. So the 2020 updates that we've made from what was approved by the commission previously have been modified to reflect lower revenue forecasts and economic uncertainties over the next few years. It's also re-spreading some of the funds based on updated project schedules. And when we really, because of the lower revenue forecast, we wanted to refine when we really think we're gonna need to make payments on some of these projects. As I mentioned earlier, we also added fiscal year 24, 25 and focused just on some ongoing costs. We did not add any new projects for these five-year plans. Given the uncertainties right now, we wanna maintain a large reserve on some of these programs or at least some cushion just to make sure that we can adjust as there might be changes in the economic situation and how much sales tax revenue is actually generated. Overall, we did make modifications on several of the programs, especially in the rail and highway categories to reduce some of the funding that was previously designated for projects because we wanna maximize how much federal and state grants we might be able to secure for projects. So in some instances, we reduced the measure D commitment to those projects for now until we really refine what the grant requirements are. So if a grant's requiring a 10% match, we'll come back to the commission and say, hey, let's program 10% of the funds that would be needed to go after that grant. In some instances, a grant might require 50% match and so then we'd come back to the commission also to say, we need to program some more money and make sure we can access those funds. So starting in attachment one exhibit a of your packet is the five-year plan for the active transportation program. It's a spreadsheet and 17% of the funds, as I mentioned earlier are for active transportation. And this is the 32 mile coastal rail trail and 50 plus mile Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail and project overall. It's based on the master plan for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail that was previously approved by the commission. And the goal is to increase options for biking and walking in our County. The five-year plan supports 18 miles of the trail. There's either funding to serve as grant matches. There's funding to do some preliminary environmental review and design and right away on some sections of the trail. And there are funds for ongoing maintenance of the corridor. So on this map here are the sections that include that are receiving some funding. Notably the section of trail between State Park Drive and Real Del Mar is incorporated into the Highway One project in that same section. And so some of the preliminary environmental review is happening through that category instead. 25% of Measure D funds are designated for the Highway Corridors category, which is focused on projects along Highway One as well as congestion and safety projects and traveler assistance programs. So there are auxiliary lanes, bus on shoulders, bicycle and pedestrian crossings over Highway One. There is the Freeway Service Patrol, which is the Roving tow trucks along Highway One and Highway 17 and the Safe On 17 program, which last year the commission doubled the funds there that are going to the California Highway Patrol to increase patrols along Highway 17 with the goal of reducing collisions and speeding. And then the program also includes funding for the Traveler Assistance Transportation Demian Management Program, the Cruise 511 program. And there is a bit of funding last year that the commission approved that is being provided to some of our partner agencies to assist us with outreach to employers and employees and commuters in our county to help them find alternatives ways to get around. And reduce congestion. So as I mentioned earlier, there's Highway Auxiliary Lane and Bus on Shoulder and Bicycle and Pedestrian Crossings. Right now we're wrapping up work on the pre-construction phase of 41st Avenue to so-called Drive Auxiliary Lanes, which will extend Auxiliary Lanes and Bus on Shoulder facilities all the way from Morrissey Boulevard to 41st Avenue. And that also includes the Chanticleer Avenue Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge connecting the ocean side and the hillside of Scanning Highway 1. We hope to be able to start construction on that project next year pending if we receive some grant funding from the state. We also are working on and the five-year plan includes funding for pre-construction phases of the State Park to Park Bay Porter interchange, Auxiliary Lanes and Bus on Shoulders projects. And then we are just starting work earlier this year on the Environmental Review and Preliminary Engineering for the Freedom Boulevard to Rio del Mar to State Park Drive interchange project, which also includes replacement of the two railroad bridges. Notably, the State Park to Bay Porter project also includes the Mar Vista Bicycle and Pedestrian over crossing and that was an action taken by our board earlier this year to combine it into that project in order to accelerate delivery of that project. So just, I have a few little maps just to zoom in on those areas. The stars are where the Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge is located at Chanticleer. And we have the freedom to State Park with the trail project and integrated into it. So 8% of the measure D funds are designated for the rail corridor. The majority of the five-year plan focuses on utilizing those funds to preserve existing railroad infrastructure. So this is maintenance, storm damage repairs, bridge upgrades and analysis. We also have funding in the rail category to analyze transit options along the rail way. This includes the transit corridor alternatives analysis that's currently wrapping up and is expected to be finished in early 2021. There's also $4 million that was previously designated for environmental review of rail transit options. As I mentioned earlier, we've decided to scale back how much money we're programming specifically for some projects right now because we wanna maximize how much money we might be able to secure from other grant programs. Pending what comes out of the TCAA analysis, we will in cost estimates for environmental review and preliminary engineering, we would come back to the commission sometime next year with recommendations on specific amounts to program for environmental review of transit options. If that's the direction the commission is moving. For one of the neighborhood projects that is not for some of the neighborhood project funding by $10 million of the total neighborhood project funds go for the San Lorenzo Valley Highway 9 corridor rather than going out to local jurisdictions. The Highway 9 corridor plan, we've made almost no changes to just reducing some of the funding that was to reflect how much was actually spent on the corridor plan. But other than that right now, we're just recommending holding most of those funds in reserve. Given the fires especially, I think right now we're gonna wanna work closely with the county and Caltrans to determine what kind of recovery might be needed. And some of the priorities that were identified in the corridor plan might shift slightly. Now there is still funding in there designated to serve as match to leverage some funds for access to schools in Felton. That was the highest priority project that was identified by the community fortunately Caltrans has been able to expedite some of the work on that and secure some shop funds which I'm sure Scotty's will report on in a bit. But for right now, we're just really recommending holding steady on that and reevaluating what the needs are over the next few months. Finally for the regional projects, there is the Highway 17 wildlife corridor project which in the measure de-ordinates designated $5 million over the 30 years to fund this project. Unfortunately, that means $166,000 a year which would take 30 years to generate enough money to actually build the project. But fortunately, we do have some capacity within the cash flow model to facilitate a loan from the Highway 1 corridors bucket in order to pay for this project. And so the five year plan for both the Highway and the Highway 17 corridor includes a loan of funds. It's about $3 million upfront in order to expedite delivery of this project in 2021. And Caltrans is just now wrapping up all the design work on that project and expects it to be ready to advertise in the spring. The project also includes a grant from the Land Trust if I'm correct. It does, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County is providing $3 million of the funding for construction. You should be able to note that generosity. Absolutely, this project exists because of the hard work that the Land Trust has done. The next category of projects is the 20% total measure D expenditure plan funds are designated for Santa Cruz Metro and Community Bridges Lifeline to provide transportation services for seniors and people with disabilities. And as I previously mentioned, the commission oversees how the funds for Community Bridges Lifeline are spent. So their new five year plan from Lifeline Community Bridges is to add an additional part-time driver to provide door-to-door services for people with disabilities that need paratransit service. It also includes funding for van driver training, a trainer and training, and their outreach dispatch and scheduling operations that are required to be able to provide that additional service. They also have designated some of their funding to purchase replacement vehicles and they are actively and successfully using measure D to leverage other grants. And then they've also purchased operations facility down in Watsonville. And so they're using measure D funds to pay for that facility. So today the commission is asked to review the five year proposed use of funds for the regional projects in Lifeline to have a public hearing to consider public input. There was just one written comment that we received that was distributed as a handout. We did send notices about the public hearing to our mailing list of nearly 3,000 people who have asked for information on any of these categories of projects as well as general RTC info. It was advertised in the Sentinel and via our social media outlets. Our advisory committees, the BISCOLE interagency technical and elderly and disabled advisory committees all reviewed the five year plans at their August meetings. The ITAC and ENDTAC recommend approval of the five year plans as proposed and the BISCOLE committee specifically recommended all of the proposals for funds that will benefit BISCOLEs. And after that, we would ask that you approve the resolution of approving a five year program of projects and amend the fiscal year 2021 budget. After the commission approves the five year plans and on an ongoing basis, we work on project implementation and construction and using measure D funds to go after grants and really maximize how far we can give our measure D funds to go. Then we do the annual reports and audits at the end of each calendar year and take those to the taxpayer oversight committee for review. And then we're also constantly looking at the 30 year strategic implementation plan and how to get all of the projects that we committed to voters to implement done as quickly as possible. And then we also have our measure D website which is regularly updated with the latest information and is available for the public. So next we'll do the public hearing instructions based on oral communications. It seems like people are pretty well versed in how to use Zoom and to raise their hand but we'll have staff, yes, and you will help facilitate calling on individuals. So you can raise your hand. If you have a laptop, you might have to click that participants button that's at the bottom of center of your page when you kind of juggle your mouse there and then it will give you the option to raise your hand. And then we ask that after you've spoken that you lower your hand. So with that Commissioner McPherson, I'll hand it back to you and I'm happy to answer any questions that board members might have. I might, I just asked the projection for the income or revenue is 19 to $20 million a year from measure D. What's the projection? How much lower did you lower it by 10% or? Sure, yeah. The commission back at your June 29th meeting lowered the revenue forecast. They were 20% lower for 2021 than in 18, 19. We are starting just actually yesterday to receive updates on what the actuals were for fiscal year 19, 20. And I'm happy to report that they are looking a little bit rosier than what we had anticipated at the end of June. And so we will be looking closer at those numbers and bringing possible modifications to the measure D forecast starting with the budget and administration committee later this month. So that will give us a little more cushion if we do need amendments over the next year to adjust the five year plans. Any questions from the commissioners? Mr. Johnson. Thank you, chair. I was curious about the transit analysis given the fact that the more you read that there are gonna be permanent changes in terms of ridership and everything for the next five years probably because of the behavior of people post COVID-19 whereas fewer people are gonna be traveling on transit and so forth. So I'm just curious to whether or not that is being factored in number one into the analysis. Number two, with respect to the animal crossing on highway 17, what is the total cost of that? I heard two years ago that it was gonna be like three or $4 million and a lot of it was coming from the land trust. And now you're telling us that we're gonna borrow from highway one and highway funds for a highway 17 of the amount of $3 million, is that true? So the total cost for the highway 17 wildlife crossing is dependent on what the final design and engineers' estimates are, but we've always known that that was gonna be somewhere in the eight to $12 million range. I don't think we've always known that. I kept hearing $5 million or something like that, but a $12 million, how extensive is it? I always thought that it was essentially just a tunnel or something underneath highway 17 on just one location or is it more? Sure, it's just one location. It's located a little bit north of the Laurel curve. Caltrans did make a presentation a couple of years back on the wildlife crossing and we will be inviting them to come back in the next few months to provide an update on the project. It is essentially though, and I hope I don't mistake this, but essentially what they're gonna be doing is building a bridge. So highway 17 will become a bridge and then the area underneath it is the wildlife crossing. So it does require rebuilding all of the deck along highway 17 at that point. And the cost estimates have always been in this range. I think that the $5 million number that you're thinking about was because when we first developed Measure D back in when folks were working on the Measure D expenditure plan back in 2015, 2016, we always knew the land trust was gonna be raising between two and $3 million for the project and that our Measure D ordinance would need to provide $5 million. I don't think that was clear to the voters. I don't think that was spelled out that we're gonna spend $12 million on one, essentially one bridge, but help me understand a little bit about the transit and transit analysis that is happening. Sure, I'm gonna actually defer to Ginger or Guy to discuss how the TCAA might be integrating information and current trends related to COVID. There's a lot of unknowns. Obviously people are commuting less right now, but there's a lot of uncertainty in terms of what the long-term effects would be. This discussion is going on not just at this commission, but pretty much any transportation commission or authority. Generally what we're hearing is we expect that this impact will be reversed at some point. Long-term, we expect that traffic will come back. We are talking to our consultants to see if there's any adjustments and how things go. I mean, there's a lot of questions on what people are gonna do. Are people buying less cars because they don't need to commute to work as much or are they buying more cars because they wanna be in their own car? If they don't have a car, would they be more reliant on transit afterwards or less reliant? We don't have the answers to all of those questions yet, but we are considering them moving forward. Do you happen to know what the ridership, how far it has gone down, Guy? San Francisco and like- I'm talking about Santa Cruz County. In Santa Cruz County, I've noticed that traffic has come back on Highway 1 between Watsonville and Santa Cruz but it hasn't come back on Highway 101 on the Peninsula, which I found really interesting. Forgive me, I'm talking about transit ridership. Well, again, some of us are members of Metro. It's down over 80%, but we're making some really diligent efforts to get these people back, but there are restrictions on how many people you can allow on the bus because of COVID and so forth. So there's a lot of variables that go into that reduction, but we're just hoping to get them back as quickly as we can. Yeah, thank you. Mr. Rod, did you have a question, Mike? I did. I'm curious if anyone on the staff, Guy, or someone else can give us just a large, a big high-level picture of how much has the COVID loss in funds or projected loss of funds from COVID and perhaps impacts from sales tax from the fire and so forth slowed down our projects. I've been asked this by a number of members of the public. In other words, if you go back to February, we had certain expectations of where we would be on various projects and how they're developing. Some of those depend on funding from the federal level and so forth, but across the whole country, there's money down in all kinds of categories. To what extent right now, I mean, it has to be ballpark, we've slowed down by what's happened here in terms of our expectations of project delivery. So for last fiscal year, we were thinking we were gonna see about a 14, 15% drop in revenue. We only lost about 1.4%. So we're pretty flat. And then the first few sets of receipts that we received this year were higher than projected. So we're a little bit baffled by the numbers right now. We're not exactly sure if it's due to the way fair decision or how the tax authority is distributing funds to us. As part of the self-help county coalition meeting yesterday, we're trying to get representatives from the tax authority to give us some ideas to why the numbers are jumping all over the place. So what we've done as an agency, RTC adjusted the budget at the end of June to represent a 20% drop in expected revenue from 18, 19 numbers. And that was so that all of the local agencies could plan to receive less revenue. We are actually distributing revenue as it comes in based on actual receipts. So they haven't really seen that drop in revenue. As for the regional projects moving forward, we had enough funding even with the 20% drop to deliver our projects as scheduled because of the timing we're early on in our measure. We're doing the pre-construction phases. When we submitted our grant applications, we adjusted our numbers to account for a potential 20% grant. So we wouldn't overextend ourselves. So all of our projects are moving forward exactly per the schedule that we anticipated. And we really have not seen a hit. That's incredibly good news. Thank you very much. Very good. Mr. Mulder. Thank you. I just had a question about the staff report on page three under the discussion of the act as transportation investments. It mentions adding funds for implementation of a remedial action agreement between the RTC and county environmental health. Could someone discuss what that is, the remedial action agreement, what that entails, and what it's for? Luis, do you? I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to defer to Ginger if she wanted to answer, but I can also answer. Ginger, did you want to address that? Sure, I'm happy to. The remedial action agreement is the agreement between our commission and Santa Cruz County Environmental Health Department in order to assure that any contaminants that are found along the rail corridor are addressed to keep public safe from any potential exposure. Okay, so for projects that the RTC is doing in the rail right of way that will be responsible for whatever environmental issues there are with our projects, just the RTC project. That's correct, Commissioner Mulhern. We want to make sure that anyone that's working in within the rail corridor either works with us or works directly with environmental health in order to make sure all potential users and people in the vicinity are kept safe. And so the funds are then sort of distributed throughout all of our projects. So in the attachments, they would just be kind of folded into the overall project budget. That's correct. Thank you. Hey, Ms. Coffman Gomez, I think. I'm just trying to look at who's raising their hand. Thank you. Can you discuss a little bit? You said that there were some reductions, for example, in the rail corridor. So there were reductions because you're gonna maximize other resources. Can you elaborate a little bit more about where we're maximizing other resources or the potential of that? And then if that money is just gonna be a set aside until it's needed to leverage it some way or that it's gonna be invested in other projects as a result of getting other resource funding. Sure thing. If you look on page 22-13 of the packet, there are two primary lines there. The line three, which is the railroad bridge rehabilitation line. Previously we had $2.2 million programmed for railroad bridge rehab and we're reducing that down to 500,000 for some of the pre-construction work that we've been doing. We are looking at different grant opportunities there. And if those require a match, we would come back to the commission at that time to reprogram some of that 2.2 million. Online 5B, there's the preliminary engineering and environmental analysis for transit. This was something that was allowed within the measure D ordinance and specifically identified as the types of analysis that would be reasonable to do with measure D funds. Previously we did have $4 million programmed there and we are reducing it down to zero right now until we have a better assessment of how much that analysis would cost and what different kind of grant opportunities we might have. In total for the rail corridor, we have $5.3 million set aside in reserve that the commission could program in the future. That said, if the commission wanted to program some funding for those categories today, you could, but as staff were recommending not showing those funds right now until we really have a better sense of what the grant opportunities are. Okay, is that into your question? Okay, is there anyone in the commission or any other questions from the commissioners? I'll open it up to the public hearing. I think we have a line of who would like to chat on that. Mr. Peoples. Yes, thank you. Brian Peoples of Trail Now. Trail Now was a supporter of measure D. Actually our supporters gave the most funding to make it pass without our support. It would not have passed. I'm hopeful that the RTC commissioners who did not understand the allocation for rail now understand that rail is not included. I want to talk a little bit about the North Coast. The farmers came to us. They came to us to help facilitate a solution. We helped put together an alternative solution that was reviewed and analyzed as part of the EIR to have it going not through their form. It was decided by the EIR and the commission not to do the alternative. When the farmers continue to fight, the day before they had to sign the non-disclosure statement that say we will not sue, I personally told them you got to go through with it. You got to be a team player. So I want to make sure that it's well understood that Trail Now supports the North Coast trail. That's very important. And so then when I'm talking to find out the logistics or the funding and I hear something else and I come back to this commission and raise that flag, don't shoot the messenger. Don't shoot the messenger, especially being derogatory. I've been involved in this organization for over 20 years personally. I've personally been involved because I believe in transportation. I believe in our community. I've been coming to these commissioners meetings for over 10 years. It's unacceptable that a commissioner, Mr. Leopold would use derogatory statements to our organization, calling us trail never. Seriously, please, let's have a little bit of respect. I've been coming to this and if I'm just telling you what I hear, please don't be derogatory towards me. I believe in our transportation. We support it, measured be and we continue to support it. Thank you very much. Ben? Yes, thank you. This is Barry Scott again. And again, I want to thank the commission. Yeah. This is Ben. Oh, I'm sorry. I would like to refer to segment 12, which you have in your packet, which shows the cost to improve highway one from State Park Drive to Freedom Boulevard has 101,414 dollars and measure D has 14 million. That leaves 87 million. Now, let's double that because we know that the estimate's gonna be low. And so you're short 190 million dollars. And you're gonna do this in five years, doing this five year period when we're going through recovery from an economic downturn and the pandemic. No, that doesn't work. Trail only works and it would work right now over the existing trestles. Thank you. Ms. Donna Murphy. Good morning commissioners. This is not Donna Murphy. This is Mark, Miss C.D. Miller. And I wanted to ask Rachel if she could put back a summary slide from her presentation about the number of miles of the rail trail that are underway. I didn't catch the figure. I'm remembering 15 miles, but I don't remember if that's the right number. Could you put that back please? I'll work on sharing the screen. It's 18 miles is the quick answer though. 18 miles. Thank you. I wanna just acknowledge and thank and offer some generous, much deserved applause to the Regional Transportation Commission for your incredible foresight and commitment to the rail trail. I've been working, as you know, on the rail trail for over 20 years. And it is great to see it actually underway and that we would have more than half of it done in the next five years. The rail trail is a game changer. It will provide a safe level paved surface for everyone to use. And it'll bring about a more equitable, more sustainable, more prosperous future for our community. Thank you. Mr. Scott, Mary Scott. Thank you. I really appreciate the RTC and the five year plan looks great. I wanna echo what Mark and City Miller just said. 18 miles in five years is significant. Changing plans around the highway, over crossings or anything else right now could do nothing or the North Coast for that matter would do nothing but delay things. And I am just very grateful for the way you stay the course but I wanted to speak to ridership. I'm very protective and defensive of transit, public transit. And you know, I'd point out in 2015 the rail feasibility study never carefully studied ridership and it said that next steps upon selecting a specific scenario, next steps would include careful study of ridership and we've never done that. I should point out that not everybody telecommutes, not everybody, the service industry folks are gonna continue to have to drive. So any thought that telecommuting is gonna solve our transit problems is, I think, unsupportable. When you start off as a relatively transit poor region, discussing cuts makes no sense. And it makes even less sense as more and more households are strapped for money. There's less disposable income around and we all know that driving takes up a huge share of a household budget and a much bigger share of a household budget for working class families. So this is a good time to double down on transit and not start looking for cuts. And I thank you. Michael St. Yes, thank you very much. Nice presentation. Also, I know sometimes when I speak up here, you may feel like I don't appreciate all you people but I do. You're doing great work. You all work very hard and going in the right direction. And I'm also glad that you do have the enough funding to continue with the projects. Of course, you know which project I don't like. So I won't bring that up right now. But considering the Oxaline projects, I know you do have further EIRs to do. And I'm just wondering, are you using the new SB743, basically SQL guidelines for the next EIRs on the Oxaline projects, which uses VMT and greenhouse gas emission reductions? Or are you still using the same level of service as we did in the past? And if you are using level of service, how do you rectify that with the new laws that have come out July 1st? Thank you. I do not see any more hands up, Commissioner. Okay, is there anyone could briefly answer the question? I mean, we don't have to answer each of them, but the last question, we will be using VMT. Okay, that's good. Thank you. Okay, there's no one else. There are no written comments that have come in. I move the staff recommendation. I second it, Mike Rockin. Moved by Schifrin, seconded by Rockin that we accept the staff recommendation. Please call the roll. Commissioner Rockin. Hi. Commissioner Gonzales. Hi. Commissioner Batorf. Hi. Commissioner McPherson. Hi. Commissioner Leopold. Hi. Commissioner Alternate Mulherrn. Hi. Commissioner Alternate Schifrin. Hi. Commissioner Caput. Hi. Commissioner Kaufman-Gomas. Yes. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Brown. Hi. Commissioner Bertrand. Hi. That passes with one no. Very good. Okay, we will go back to commissioner reports, item 19. I might just make a brief report on the road. You know, with all the fires, I traveled San Lorenzo Valley the couple of days ago with Sheriff Hart and talked with our public works director in the county, Matt Machado. And there's not much road damage, terrible damages to house. The first estimate that was reported today as structures, there was 340 million. And they're still counting, but there are some serious damages to like Swanton Bridge and so forth that'll have to be addressed in the Bonnie Dune area. But by and large for the roads per se there wasn't a terrific amount of damage done to them during the fire. They held up very well overall, but there are some spots. But any other commissioner reports? You actually had a question, Bruce, from Trina when we ended this item before, just to remind you. You got to remind me. That Trina reminds me of what her question was. Yes, we had a discussion with Monterey County and the rail in the process there. And so I was just thinking it might be helpful if Ginger could provide a bit of a highlight for that meeting to the commissioners. Commissioners, if I might, this is Luis Mendez. It might be a good idea to have something agendized for a future mission meeting. And we can invite someone from the transportation from Monterey County to also provide information. That way you get more complete information about what TAMC is doing. But we're aware of what they're doing, staff's been involved in meetings with them and sharing information, what they're doing, what we're doing. Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea to make, let's do it that way. We'll have, if we could ask them maybe to present a report with us next month, that'd be great. Okay, that works. Thank you. Okay, any other commission reports or questions? The director's report, our report. Mr. Preston. Thank you, Chair McPherson and commissioners. I have a fairly short report today, starting first with the notice preparation of a draft environmental impact report, environmental assessment for the highway one auxiliary lane and bus on shoulder improvements between Freedom Boulevard and State Park Drive and also the coastal rail trail segment 12 project, the schedule to be released on September 17th, 2020. This notice also includes a scoping online open house to see comments from responsible and trustee agencies and interested members of the public regarding significant environmental issues, reasonable alternatives and reasonable mitigation measures to be explored in the draft EIR EA. The proposed improvements include 2.7 miles of auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder improvements on highway one replacement of two RTC owned railroad bridges and those are being replaced because they're not long enough. It has nothing to do with the load rating on the bridges. It's so that the highway can be widened and construction of a 1.25 mile segment of the coastal rail trail as the lead agency for CEQA and under NEPA assignment for HHWA will be accepting comments between September 17th and October 16th. The notice information and how to attend the open house and instructions on how to submit comments will be posted on the RTC website. And of course we'll email all of our interested parties as we always do. I also have a quick update on wildfires and transportation infrastructure. The CZU complex fire has burned more than 85,000 acres destroying over 1,400 structures including 925 single family homes. On August 18th, governor Newsom issued a state of emergency proclamation for hundreds of fires actively burning during extreme weather conditions throughout California. On August 24th, President Trump declared a major disaster exists in the state of California and ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts and areas affected beginning on August 14th and continuing. Federal funding is available to seven counties including Santa Cruz. On August 24th, Caltrans requested that RTC, the county of Santa Cruz, UCSC and our four cities submit our initial damage estimates for the wildfire damage to their federal aid routes. I'm pleased to announce that RTC did not sustain any damage to the rail line. Unfortunately, the county reported the following regarding its transportation infrastructure that there's a huge amount of fire debris on all the roads. Trees are a major concern with them continuing to fall daily. Mount Machado estimates that it'll take months to fully assess and remove the hazardous trees. Swanton Road was the worst hit. There's a complete loss to the bridge over Mill Creek. Significant bridge damage over the Scott Creek and three culverts were lost in the fire. Looking on their assessment still but preliminary damage on all roads include the loss of middle beam guard railings, signs and some asphalt damage. The county has completed all initial roadway assessments and is entering the information into an online GIS mapping. Repair work is beginning this week but the county does not yet have a schedule to finish all repairs. Most roads will be open for initial access within the next week or two except for Swanton Road. Matt's initial assessment that he's gonna submit to Cal OES and this is for roads, water and sewers, about $30 million. So we look to get some federal aid in that area. If you're looking for information on road closures, there's a great website, it's SCC for Santa Cruz County, roadclosure.org and that has all the current status of road closures for the county. With that, I'd like to also welcome Scott Eads from Caltrans who's attending his first RTC meeting here and he may have some additional updates on impacts of the fires on the state highway system and that concludes my director's report. Hey, Mr. Eads, would you like to make a statement or report? I mean, that's coming up next but might as well be right now. Okay, sounds great. Well, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, my name is Scott Eads, I'm here for Tim Govins today and you'll be seeing my face more frequently in the future so I know you're familiar with Eileen Lowe, she retired at the end of July of this year and so I've been appointed to fill her shoes and those are big shoes to fill so I'm looking forward to my new role in working with you folks in the future and your staff, of course. And I just wanna talk a little bit about myself just to give you a little background on who I am. By education, I have an undergraduate degree in city and regional planning and then a master's in civil and environmental engineering. I worked for SLOCOG for a while who is your partner agency in San Luis Obispo County as a regional planner. And then since then I've been at Caltrans for over 20 years now working in traffic operations and project management and then most recently, I have been the corridor manager down in Santa Barbara 101 where we had a major program of projects going through multiple jurisdictions all within the coastal zone. So that's been my passion and my work for the last several years. I also did a stint as the acting deputy district director for transportation planning and local assistance back in 2012. So I have been in this role before for a period of time and looking forward to the future. I do have some additional reports on fires. It sounds like you're already aware of what's open and what's closed. I will say that if you're not all aware of it that Highway 1 is open again north of Santa Cruz which is good news. We still have closures extending on Big Sur Coast on Highway 1 in Monterey County. We are doing everything we can on Route 9 and Route 236. In reality, Route 236, we expect it to be closed for an extended period of time. We're working with park systems and others on that but there's trees down all over the place as Mr. Preston just noted. On Highway 9, we still have closures north of Boulder Creek as well. We do stand ready to work with the county and other jurisdictions on emergency, processing emergency federal funds, anything that can qualify on the federal aid system. So I believe we're already engaging with the county and others and we'll continue to do so to try to help expedite and process those emergency projects on the local street system. We're also initiating emergency projects on our own and we're already out there with crews addressing the damages that have occurred. Also, I wanna highlight a couple of projects. One is on Felton Route 9. We did receive funding that was approved from the California Transportation Commission for a pedestrian access enhancement project between Graham Hill Road and the Renzo Valley Schools Complex. So the focus there is to try to improve the pedestrian experience, improve safety. It's a challenging environment as all of you probably know in terms of the situation there with physical constraints, right-of-way constraints, drainage, driveways, retaining walls and other things. So it's kind of a complex effort but we're going to work through that and our goal is to provide connectivity through that stretch. In terms of a general timeframe, we're looking at construction beginning late 2024. There's a lot of work to do. We're just beginning the environmental phase. So I'm sure we'll be engaging with some of you and the county and others and the community of Felton as these improvements progress. And then another one I wanted to highlight is Watsonville Crosswalk Enhancement at Marchant and Beach on Highway 152. I know this has been an interest of Commissioner Caput in the past and so I just wanted to highlight the fact that we're getting close to construction there and we're expecting to begin construction in October. And that project includes a number of improvements at that intersection including flashing beacons, crosswalk improvements, signs and yield markings to also really focus on the pedestrian experience and safety. And that concludes my report. I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you and welcome. Thank you for the progress on the Highway 9 pedestrian access where there's a terrible fatal accident about a year ago or so. But thank you. In general, I think we're gonna narrow some of the lanes down and have more, there'll be a longer backup but the system could work to get people through that to intersection at Felton, I believe. Is that correct? I mean, in general. At this point in time, my understanding is where we have an initial concept that we identified in order to be able to program projects with, we're beginning the environmental phase so we'll look at a range of different solutions. As I mentioned before, there's a lot of complexities there. We also don't wanna take away all the shoulders and then have a problem with bicyclists. So we're trying to improve pedestrians and sidewalks but also preserve shoulders for bicyclists and for motorists. So yeah, that's one of the things that we are looking at is trade-offs but there's operational implications associated with some of those. So we'll be looking at a range of solutions and coordinating to the degree there's trade-offs with big operational trade-offs, we'll be wanting to make sure we're fully betting that and there's community support and local agency support for doing so. Good, right. Any other questions from commissioners? Yes. We're gonna go to the public, Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chair. First of all, welcome. And I just really wanna thank you for the update on them watching improvements as a city councilman. For the city of Watsonville, that crosswalk has been really one of our number one priorities to have upgraded by Caltrans. So we thank for all the efforts that you guys are pushing this project forward. That's all. Thank you, Mr. Schifrin. Oh, Mr. Caput, let Mr. Caput follow up on that I think. Okay, I wanna welcome you also and thank you for answering my question before I even ask it. That's the crosswalk on 152 on Marchend. And we're looking forward to seeing that done. And you're new, I know, but we'll give you all the credit. Okay, very good. This is different. Yes, I wanted to also welcome on new California's representative and ask a question having to do with fire damage on the north coast of the county. A concern was brought to my attention regarding the Waddell Bluffs and a concern that the trees at the top of the bluff had been extensively damaged as a result of the fire. And the concern was, as you know, that's an area that is already all threatened with part of the bluff coming down and getting onto the highway. And so I'm just wondering whether Caltrans is aware of that problem. And if so, are any efforts occurring to stabilize the top of the bluff to avoid erosion when it starts raining? So I'll answer that question, Mr. Chair, if that works for you. Yes, please. So we are aware of that situation. And it's part of the assessments we're doing on all these areas that have been damaged by fire. We're looking at draining systems and culverts and the fact that we know from experience that after fires, we can end up with erosion problems that can end up with pieces of the highway or the whole highway washed out if we're not taking preventive measures. So that's part of what we're doing now is looking at what preventive measures we can take and we'll be processing those through emergency projects. So I'll make sure and follow up with our maintenance folks. I've heard of that location being discussed and concerns about the erosion there at that location, but I'll follow up just to make sure that they're fully aware of it. Could you also inform Supervisor Coonerty's office of the status once you check it out, please? I'd be happy to. Thank you. Okay, who's next? I've lost my visual, so. This is Mike Rotkin. Okay, go ahead, Mike. First, I want to also welcome Scott. It's good to have you on board. I have a comment on the director's report, which we kind of skipped quickly over into Scott's report. And that was about the two railroad bridges in the Aptos area. And first of all, thanks to Director Preston for his comment about not being about the weight of the train, but about the need to widen the road there. And most importantly, that needs to be widened not just for the auxiliary lane project. It's the one place on the highway one where the bus on shoulder doesn't work unless we widen those bridges. It's not possible to get the buses under them. So those who are interested in public transit issues, it's really an important part of the making the bus on shoulder a viable project. And it will offer the opportunity to widen the pedestrian and bike path on the top of the bridge when it's rebuilt. But that's not the reason we're doing it. The reason we're doing it is for the bus on shoulder and for widening the auxiliary lane. So I wanted to point that out. Thank you, that's it. Commissioner Batara. Thank you for that. I also want to welcome our new representative from Caltrans and glad you're here, Scott. I also want to commend Caltrans for the recent paving project on highway one. Much appreciated from the fish hook up throughout toss. I know that the paving is done. It looks like they're in the phase of completing striking right now. And my question is following that striking, there seems to be a lot of debris that's accumulated on the road is part of your whole process, following all the construction where there'll be a debris cleanup of all the litter and everything on the side of the road. I can attempt to answer that, Mr. Chair. So I'm not familiar with the specific location. However, we typically will do sweeping. The litter removal is a separate activity. And we do have a location for to be able to submit maintenance requests. Commission staffs probably wear that but I can certainly convey that location as well to websites and that way they're logged and tracked if it's trash or litter removal or any kind of debris like that. But I'll check in with our construction folks about what's happening at that specific location. Yeah, just to be specific, it is from Northbound, it's from Park Avenue to Bay Porter. It seems to be the area where most of the debris is if we want to be specific. So thank you for that. Mr. Lowell. Yes, thank you very much. Lowell Hurst City Councilman and RTC alternate for Ms. Kaufman Gomez. I just wanted to thank Scott for his work and Watsonville and his focus on Watsonville. You know, we're very transit dependent on Caltrans and Watsonville due to the Highway 1, 152 and 129 highways bisecting our town. And so we say thank you for your safety. Thank you for helping us out in so many ways. And we look forward to your welcome to participation in Watsonville at all times. Thank you. Thank you. We might have lost our chair. Who's vice chair? Mr. Gonzales, can you move us forward? Oh, we welcome Molly, man. 2020 is really coming with surprises. So we're at the Caltrans report. Is there any further questions or comments? We have a couple of hands up. I can't see them, so. Ben? I would like to remind everybody that Caltrans had a proposal four or five years ago for the double-decker solution and leaving the Trestles that are there now for one heck of a lot less than what you're talking about now. I just want to remind you about that. And I'd like Caltrans to look into that. Why are you switching over? We also have Mr. Peoples. Hi, this is Brian Trail now. Welcome, Scott. Welcome to our Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission. Trail now we're a big advocate for building the Santa Cruz Coastal Trail and widening the highway. We want HOV lanes, toll road, widening highway. That's the solution for and then just want to note, Ben asked about the double-decker. I know that when the prior engineer for RTC looked at widening the highway by Aptos where the two train trestles are, the cost was high because you have to lower the highway in order to get it under the railroad. So if they were pedestrian passes, you wouldn't have to lower the highway. So it was about $65 million in savings by not having to lower the highway. So that's been just a comment on that. And then finally, Scott, our meetings here really aren't that contentious. So just what we had really, we're all friends and so welcome and that's all. Thank you, Brian. Who's next? I don't see any other hands, commissioner. Okay, we're going to go ahead and we're going to close the report on the Caltrans and the next item is closed session. No, we have item 23. Item 23. So the rail vehicle demonstration issue. Oh, okay. Okay. Good morning, commissioners. This is Luis Mendez and the staff. And as you're aware, the Transportation Commission purchased the San Cruz Ranch Rail Line in 2012 to preserve existing rail service, implement recreational rail service, building bicycle and pedestrian path and investigate potential future rail transit service on the railroad right away. The RTC has ensured continuation of freight service, implemented the recreational rail service, began construction of a bicycle and pedestrian path. And that's quite a bit of progress on that. And it's completed a couple of studies and potential additional uses of the right-of-way and it's currently continuing to study transit on the railroad right-of-way in partnership with San Cruz Metro, as you are aware. In September of 2019, the RTC received a presentation from TIGM, which is a company based in Southern California that manufacturers, electric trolleys that were powered with onboard batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. And then in December of 2019, RTC did approve a temporary licensory demonstration of the TIGM vehicle. Unfortunately to a number of things, including COVID-19, that has not been possible yet. So now it seems that the early is that such a demonstration could happen in the spring of 2021. For TIGM, did prepare a video simulation for the real vehicle, might look like going down the track to several locations in San Cruz County. And so we have Mark Johansson and Brad Reed from TIGM that will present that video for you and they can provide more information on plans for having a demonstration in the spring of 2021. So with that, Mark and Brad, you can proceed. All right, how does this sound, hear me? Good. Great, thank you. Well, good morning, commissioners. My name is Mark Johansson. I'm a resident of Aptus. I have a law practice here in Aptus as well. I'm here with Brad Reed, who's a president and CEO of TIGM. So as Luis mentioned last spring, we presented a proposal to demonstrate a streetcar system on the San Cruz branch line, which can achieve high capacity public transit goals along that branch line. The demonstration was approved to the commission at that time, but a lot has happened over the last year and everybody's where. So we were originally planning this in early spring, but we originally, then we had to postpone that to late spring. Mainly due to weather considerations, we were considering a roaring camp schedule to not impede with that at all. And also, since this is going to be a physical demonstration to maximize a space where committee members and innocent parties can actually participate in the physical demonstration. So the pandemic hit. And so we originally thought that we might be able to do this in October. That's back when the pandemic was at the state where we thought we'd all be open by July. Obviously that hasn't happened. And so now we're looking at doing this in spring. Of course, that's all going to be contingent on the pandemic. There's development as you all are aware of. So we haven't set a date, but we'll use the same considerations when we look at the demonstration in terms of how to maximize the public viewing of this type of demonstration as well as roaring camps schedule, which we haven't confirmed yet. So at the prior RTC meeting, we stated the demonstration was to allow the committee members to have a look at this technology using the real experience, which is compatible with the RTC's planning for the Santa Cruz branch line and show how high capacity, quiet zero mission and light weight streetcar system can be fully compatible with other uses along the branch line and trail line, including bicycle and pedestrian traffic condition by the Santa Cruz branch line. So what we want to do, we prepared a short video to show a representation of what the vehicle would look like in local settings. Staff is going to queue that video up. We were concerned a little bit about the quality of this, but after the video is done, we'll give some details on where that can be located as well. So please help me the video. The video quality may not have been as good as we wanted it to be, but you I think get the idea. The video is available at SantaCruiseStreetCar.org. So it's a YouTube video that the folks in the committee can take a look at. So Mr. Reed and I are available to the commissioners now to answer any questions you may have about the demonstration. Is there any questions from any fellow commissioners? I have one, Emilio, Mike. Go ahead, Mike, and then John, Randy. I wanted to ask what kind of capacity for carrying bicycles the trolley might have. If you're going to have several of them, maybe not every, it's not like a train with several different cars, but to what extent can it be adapted so that it's capable of carrying more than one or two bicycles on the back or something? Sure, at this point, I'll introduce Brad. Brad, would you like to address that? Sure. Good morning, everybody. Thanks so much for allowing us to speak a little bit here. Yes, what was shown in the video was our 100 passenger tram. We also have a 200 passenger tram, which is an articulated three-car body vehicle. Both of those trams are customizable with interior and exterior bicycle racks. That's a matter of design. Now, when we get to ridership studies and capacity studies, we can redesign the interiors during the design period to fit as many as 10 to 20 bicycles per car. So that's a big consideration for this alignment. And the main consideration that we're looking at now is that the number one goal of any public transportation system is to get people out of their private automobiles. By giving them a complete end-to-end solution for their travels, creating a communal sense of place that is a connected, walkable, exciting place to be. And this is done by connecting all of the alternate modes of travel into a seamless whole. In the case of the Santa Cruz branch line, this means making every single tram stop a multimodal stop for buses, railcars, and bicycles. These three modes support one another. When we give motorists a viable opportunity to leave their cars at home, all three of these modes of travel will see increased ridership. These modes of travel do not compete with one another. They complement one another. So we fully intend to design the cars to carry as many bicycles as possible. Thanks for that answer. I appreciate it. Yeah. Go ahead, Randy, you're next. Thank you. So you mentioned, and I actually saw it on the screen where it said, affordable. Help me understand affordable. How much would this cost with all the infrastructure and everything else? Can you give me a dollar figure, please? Dollar figures can't be delivered without having a design. So we do design under contract. I can certainly give you figures for the costs of cars. I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about, you know, so the cost of a car is just one aspect of the total amount. Absolutely. So you can't really say this is affordable in a vacuum, saying, well, our cars cost this when the underlying infrastructure might cost 10 times that. So I just want to question the whole concept of affordability because in my mind, if it was affordable, we'd be building it by now, but we don't have the money to do half the things that we promised for Measure D. So I appreciate the fact that you want this to be affordable. I kind of like the look of this, but at the same time, is it realistic? Will it really take people, you know, off the highway? Is it fully integrated with point to point? We're seeing the same promises we're made for the smart train up and we're in and none of those have actually happened. So that's why I'm a little bit skeptical, but that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner. Is any other fellow commissioners have any questions? Chair, this is commissioner Leopold again, sorry for the lack of a video this morning. My camera is not working. I'm not sure whether this is a question for the TGM folks or our staff, but would this be kind of, if we were looking at our transportation corridors, alternative analysis, would this be considered commuter rail or light rail? This would be considered light rail. And is a light rail compatible with freight? You would have to have at least temporal separation. So, I'm sorry, am I, what was it now? It's not me talking, it's someone else talking. You should go on, Guy. Could you repeat that? So, I know Mr. Prince, executive director, could you repeat what he said? So, this would be considered light rail. And regarding compatibility with freight, you would have to have at least temporal separation. So freight would have to run at a different time than these were on the road. So you couldn't have freight and these vehicles intermixed because of crash worthiness. But you could run freight during non-commute hours and run these during commute hours. Got it, thank you. And maybe to the folks who put together the video, it's my understanding that you could have more than one car on this. And the one that you just showed us, how many people would a car that size hold? I was a hundred, John, he told us. And would you be able to add on other cars? Yes, we have a product called the virtual coupler. The 100 passenger cars can be coupled virtually at the push of a button. One driver will control up to three cars in a consist. The same can be done with the 200 passenger car. Two 200 passenger cars can be virtually coupled to provide a 400 passenger car. And this can be done to reduce excessive driver costs, to increase capacity during special events, and what have you to decrease the event of deadheaded empty seats. And these are run on, there's absolutely zero emissions that comes out of this vehicle. Correct, they're battery operated, they operate for 16 hours on battery only. They have a hydrogen fuel cell auxiliary generator on board, which charges the batteries while they're in passenger service. The only emission from the hydrogen fuel cell is pure water. Well, it sounds very interesting. I appreciate seeing the video, it gives me a sense of the scale and how it would move in traffic. And I look forward to seeing more in the demonstration in the spring, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, John. Is there any other fellow commissioner that has any questions or comments? Just to say I'm back, sorry, Abrilio. Thank you. Patrick had a question. I was just getting in the group. I did see the presentation. Mr. Mohler, did you have a question? Yeah, yes, thank you. So based on your other commuter tram projects, can you give us an idea of what the annual cost of operations and maintenance are? Operations and maintenance is 90% man hours. Really depends on the design that what's called the duty cycle of the operation. Utilizing a 15 hour duty cycle, we have done a cost model for operation of both a commuter line and an excursion line, covering the entire 32 miles of the branch line railway. Now, based on the capacity, I have videos available if anyone wants to see them of computer simulations of operations on both of these alignments, utilizing our technology. Because of the unique nature, the unique attractive nature of this particular alignment, we believe that the operations and maintenance costs can be covered by fare box, advertising and sponsorships. I will give you a ballpark figure. It's about $8 million per year for the entire 32 mile line. Utilizing passenger commuter service between Watsonville and West Santa Cruz and an excursion line between Capitola and Davenport, operating 360 days per year at 15 hours per day. Now, that number again is based on factors of an assumed duty cycle. Those numbers can vary greatly depending on the factors used in the cost model. Sure, and thank you very much. And how many examples in the real world that we have of this technology being used daily in a for commuter passengers, your specific technology? Yeah, the technology that you saw in the video is operating now in the city of Doha, Cutter and the Mooshare of downtown Doha tramway system. And that is the first use of this particular car design. Thank you very much. Yeah. Any other questions from commissioners? Questions from the public? Yes, we do have Mr. Lowell. Mr. Lowell. Thank you very much. This is really exciting to see and to hear. And boy, this is a game changer in many respects. So maybe we should get a field trip to Doha and see it firsthand. But seriously, you know, this is very exciting to see and to visualize. So thank you for bringing that video up. Thank you. Thank you. I don't think that the trip would be Mr. Johnson, Scott's family budget. So I don't know what we do. Anybody else or any other public comments? Brian Peeples. Yes, hi, Brian Peeples, trial now. So I want to remind the commission and ask the question actually. Estimate was 45 miles an hour, 60 trains a day from the 2015 study, which was used for the Uniforred Corridor Study and wanted to see if the infrastructure would sustain that and et cetera. But more importantly, I wanted to talk about modeling and what you're doing is what we do as an engineer for my company. And Leon Musk, the Hyperloop. Everybody understand how the Hyperloop modeling works in the sense of why it has high capacity. The high capacity isn't about because of the vehicle. It's about the filling up of the tube at the maximum number of users as possible. It's like fluid dynamics. You don't want bubbles in your water, right? People are the water, right? So essentially what you just demonstrated was the pipe remains empty, 99% of the time it's not being used. And that's the whole problem with that model that you demonstrate it is your capacity is limited to the frequency of the vehicle in the tube use of the corridor. The capacity is limited by the use of the corridor. So 99% of the time the corridor is not being used. So it's very inefficient. And that's actually why the corridor as a trail has a higher capacity of usage. 800 people an hour from the study showed 800 people an hour would be using the corridor. And actually the study showed that if you're doing that number of people using the trail designed for transportation, 800 an hour, which a single highway lane is 2,000 people an hour. So you're doing almost half capacity of the highway. So now if you have that many people using the trail corridor an hour, you will reduce surface street traffic. You will reduce highway one traffic in the core section. And it will, Greg, it will help Watsonville traffic coming from Watsonville to Santa Cruz. So I want to remind you not to look at the actual vehicle. You got to pull yourself out. When you're doing modeling engineering, you're looking at the corridor, maximize the corridor as much as possible. And right now e-bikes, walking, other alternative active transportation, enabling people to use rubber wheeled vehicles, rubber wheeled souls on that corridor is what we need to do. We don't need to dedicate it to a publicly funded small little vessel like what you just demonstrated. But appreciate the time. And actually I think that modeling is good to show our viewers because it will help. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions from public? Michael St. You have to unmute Michael. I did it. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Reed, Mr. Johansson. Great demonstration. I just have one quick question. The infrastructure to basically fuel this train. You mentioned hydrogen and stuff. Is that going to require just one infrastructure area that would have this ability or would we need one or two or three along the corridor? This would require one maintenance facility for the entire 32 mile alignment. Hydrogen is produced in a small electrolysis plant that produces hydrogen from electrolysis of water. Okay, so no bringing in of hydrogen. It would just be all done on site. Correct. Okay, great. Any other questions for the public? Ms. Arnold. Thank you. Sally Arnold, board chair of Friends of the Rail and Trail. Thank you so much for this virtual demonstration. It makes me more excited to when the, finally everything settles down and we can see it in real life on our tracks. I'm impressed by the estimate that some people have of the fitness of our community that some people will be walking 20 miles to work from Watsonville to Santa Cruz instead of taking the freeway. And good on them if they can do it that would not be me for sure but I could definitely see myself riding my bike to a light rail like that and getting my bike on it and then maybe using the bike to go the last mile to my destination. That seems very doable to somebody like me who's only moderately fit. But I'm really excited to see the modern technology. I think this might really put to rest a notion that somehow rail transit has to be some giant 19th century coal-fired locomotive on our tracks. There's so many exciting new options available and I hope that we are able in the future to get demonstrations of lots of different kinds of modern vehicles like this. I think it's going to be very inspiring for people and the idea that it can scale up easily with the virtual coupling and then scale down again when it's not needed is also really exciting and I appreciate the time and effort that you have been putting into trying to show us what the modern options are for our rail corridor. Oh, and one last thing, I think it would be a lot less impactful on the neighborhoods, people who live near the rail corridor to have a quiet rail vehicle of some kind going by every 15 minutes, then a nonstop parade of buses to fully fill the space. So thanks. We have Jack Brown. Mr. Brown. Yeah, I'm you, Mr. Brown. Yeah, sorry, I had to get through the menu button there. I have a real concern with the RTC chasing after the leading edge technology like this. Although they state that at TIGM that Doha is an example of this being put to use, this is something that hasn't been used for more than a couple of years there and Doha's usage is on a 1.3 mile loop and not a 33 mile corridor that we're experiencing here. Another issue I see is that we're in a new normal now just like 9-11 affected a lot of things with security. We're seeing with COVID-19 that we're gonna have a whole new normal on how people are gonna respond to being packed into small vehicles for long periods of time. They have a vehicle like this that currently right now seats 100 with a COVID-19 seating arrangement. We're looking at something that maybe it holds 10, 20 people per car. We currently have over 50,000 people when things were in the prior normal doing the commute from Watsonville to Santa Cruz on highway one. I don't see how 20 people in a car where only three sightings on our corridor can support anything that alleviates traffic or gets people out of their vehicles. We may have a few full cars going from Watsonville where no other community can get on the tram until it gets to downtown Santa Cruz or wherever it's going to be going to to provide anything to the rest of the county. We're really just getting sucked into a fascination with the technology without looking at what is the overall need for the entire Santa Cruz county. And I really hope that the RTC doesn't get sucked into this display and essentially propaganda event for the rail and trail. Whenever this demo is supposed to happen and we get back to looking at real needs to satisfy equitable transportation throughout Santa Cruz County. Thank you. Thank you. Mary Scott. I have a comment on the last person's comment to us. You have to understand that the bus system right now is carrying more people than the last speaker was projecting for vehicle. Our vehicles hold about half of what this one is projected to carry. And we're carrying more than he's saying we would have on it. When we add, which we're doing already on the transit district buses, plastic shields between the rows of seats, it's possible that you could double or triple the number of people you would carry. So I think the speaker's absolutely correct that at least as long as we have COVID concerns which are probably going for at least several, many, many years, even perhaps before you get this thing built. But even if we did, it'll probably have some impact on how many people are willing to pack into a vehicle. But it's going to be a lot more than was rejected. And I think there's a sort of general scare tactics going on that people suggesting that, you know, things will not work. It's still like the incapacity to make things happen. And people of course welcome to make their comments and express their concerns about these kinds of things. But I don't think we should be terrified at the idea that the COVID thing is going to make all public transit disappear or no longer be viable. I think it's a ridiculous point of view to be blunt in my comment. Thank you. Mr. Scott. Okay. Thank you. I've been looking at the TIGM vehicle for some time. And I wanted to point out that in addition to Doha, a different version, a heritage version, which is an old fashioned looking vehicle has been running in Aruba. I don't, Mr. Reed might be able to tell us how many years that's been running. So it's not that new a technology. And it's, the idea of a hydrogen has been proven in a number of different vehicles that, I think three different car manufacturers have a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Interesting to note is that locally, using electricity from Monterey Bay Community Power is going to mean that the hydrogen that's produced is carbon free. This vehicle as a type seems to check off all the boxes. It's a small scale. I think it's narrower than a city bus. It has an 11 inch floor boarding height, just 11 inches off the ground to roll a wheelchair on or off or bicycles. If I understand the documentation, it seats 50 and provides room for another 50 in the shorter vehicle as standees. And with the longer version, you have 100 seats and 100 standees. So the scalability of this seems just terrific, but that video shows really well how the scale of the vehicle fits so well in those communities where there's been so much reasonable concern, Aptos Village. We don't want a big train, locomotive and multiple passenger cars coming through. No, this is a completely different thing. So I hope the RTSate will give it its most sincere consideration. Thank you. Mr. Matt Ferrell? I just wanted to thank Walter and Brad for the presentation and commission for accommodating it as a bicyclist. Bicyclist, I think that having a link commute like this would be an extraordinary opportunity for thousands of people in our community. So I hope that the demonstration moves forward and people can get a firsthand experience of this. Thank you. Ben? Yes, I would like to talk to the traffic between Watsonville and going towards Santa Cruz. I have early in the morning during the commute hours stopped at the rest area and watched the traffic. One third of the traffic are trucks for electricians, plumbers, contractors. They're never gonna take the train. They've gotta go to the job. Another 10 or 20% of the traffic are big trucks and they take up four or five spaces. They're not gonna go on the train. So I think part of the problem can't be solved with what you're talking about. Thank you. There are no other hands race commissioner McPherson. Okay. Well, thank you for the presentation. I think it's been discussed thoroughly and I look forward to looking into this further in the near future. Thank you, Mr. Johansson, Mr. Reed. Appreciate it very much. Very nice presentation. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now we'll go on to item number 24, a project list for the 2045 Santa Cruz kind of regional transportation plan. Amy Naranco. All right, let me start sharing my screen here. Okay, can you see my screen here? Yes. Yes. Excellent. Excellent. Thank you. Good morning commissioners and members of the public. I'm here today to provide an update on the 2045 regional transportation plan that's scheduled for final adoption in June of 2022. So as a refresher, the regional transportation plan or RTP is a state mandated plan that identifies transportation needs in Santa Cruz County over the next 20 plus years. The RTC is responsible for developing, implementing and updating this plan every four years. The last update to the RTP was in 2018. So the RTP consists essentially of three major components. The first component is the policy element. And this defines the transportation goals, the policies and performance targets that are set for our county. And the RTC approved this component in February. The second element is the financial element. And this part estimates the funds that will likely be available for transportation projects over the next 20 year time frame. And this is expected to be completed in the early fall. And third is the action element. And that's what I'm here to discuss today. The action element identifies the transportation needs in the county through a list of projects and programs that are needed to operate, maintain and improve the transportation system. You'll find in the replacement pages of your agenda packet for attachment one that includes a comprehensive list of projects that have been compiled for your input today. Some of the projects that are included in the project list include improvements to highways and local roads, additional bike and pet facilities, improved transit and goods movement and transportation demand management programs, just to name a few. Some of the local agencies have also been involved in this development of the project list and they've identified projects that they've identified through their own planning processes as well as including, as well as there are projects that have been identified by members of RTC advisory committees and members of the public. So projects that were identified by members of the public are provided in attachment two of your agenda packet. There were 91 project ideas that were submitted by the public through the new projects ideas form that's available on the RTC website. Some of these ideas are actually, excuse me, the ideas were solicited via RTC's mailing list to our listservs was provided information on our website blogs as well as information shared about submitting ideas through our social media channels including Facebook, excuse me, Facebook, social, excuse me, Facebook, Twitter and Nextdoor. Most of the projects that were recommended were already on the project list and there were additional comments that were added but it is however helpful to see what the public priorities are. So next steps, once the draft project list is approved staff will begin working with project sponsors to essentially split the project list into two lists. One is the financially constrained list and that will include any projects that could be implemented within foreseeable revenues through the year 2045. And then the other list is the unconstrained project list and that will include projects where additional funding beyond projections would be needed in order to implement. So after the project list is separated into both the constrained and the unconstrained list the projects will then be brought back to project sponsors, to the advisory committee and the public for additional review. And then in February of 2021 staff will come back to the RTC for approval on that constrained project list. The RTC is also working with MBAC on the Metropolitan Transportation Plan and the Sustainable Community Strategy. The MTP SES is the federally mandated long range plan for the Tri-County region of Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Fernando counties. And this project list that's developed for the 2045 RTP will also be included in the 2045 MTP SES. And then once that is completed we'll continue with undergoing a program level environmental review and then production of the draft RTP and then the draft MTP SES. So with that being said, staff recommends that the RTC identify any additional projects or gaps in the transportation system that should be considered as a project in the 2045 RTP and then approve the draft list that's an attachment one and then direct staff to submit this approved project list for inclusion in the 2045 MTP SES. So thank you for your time. I'm happy to take your questions and any input you may have on the project list. And also to note that Heather Adamson from Ambeg is also on the call if you have any specific questions about the MTP SES or the ER. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Any questions from members of the board? Are we being asked to approve this draft project list today at our meeting with a resolution? I don't see a resolution. This is essentially it. Go ahead. It's a preliminary draft list and we'll continue asking for the full list for the constrained project list in February. So this is essentially just approval to look at all of the list here and really identify all of the potential projects that are needed in our county and then the list will be constrained with additional revenues that are available and that'll bring that list to you in February and with that will come a resolution to accept that list. Yeah, okay. So this is an opportunity to add to this list rather than to go to approve it or in some form. Thank you. And commissioner can do that or? Okay, any other comments from commissioners? I have one. Okay, Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah, I'd like to propose that we put on the list the Harkinsloo bridge that'll connect Harkinsloo to the Bonavit to labor camp. You know, I'm just trying to think of how when we're gonna have this come back should we have recommendations from the board Mr. President to submit recommendations for additions, more deletions to the plan or what would be the right way to proceed with this before we have a formal presentation next time? Amy, do you wanna answer that? I'm sorry, I kind of I missed the question here. If there's recommendations for additions to the plan what is the right procedure? Is it to submit them to you or to the commission itself for to be included in the report or how would we go about that best? Yeah, you can submit the recommendations to me and then I will coordinate with the project sponsors and or the local jurisdictions to see if that project should be included in the list and then we can get information moving forward. So if Mr. Gonzalez, I'd like to have him know if it's been accepted or not or in the procedure. Go ahead, Mr. Gonzalez. Yeah, that's actually my question. Is this the appropriate time? It sounds like this is the appropriate time and if we wanted to add a project to the list that this is the moment to do so. Yeah. So that's why I'm recommending that we add this project to the list, the rebuilding of Hartons New Bridge. That'd be brought to, right, if we wanted to do it now. Is there another member of the commission that had a question about this or Mr. Mollern? Thank you. Amy, there's a county project, county P27K. It's the the Spreckles Drive improvements. I see that the project description and scope is just kind of the boilerplate county major collectors projects. But on this particular stretch of major collector, we would like to add pedestrian facilities as well. It just kind of speaks generally about roadway and roadside improvements on various major collectors including bike lanes, transit turnouts, left turn pockets, et cetera. But there's no mention of pedestrian facilities. And on this particular road, we would like to see the inclusion of pedestrian facilities in any project we put in there. We'll be able to add that to the description. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments from the commission? Commissioner Brown. Yeah, I just have a quick question. I think it was answered by our public works deputy director. But on the Santa Cruz list, at the top, there's two items around the coastal rail trail segment seven, Bay to California portions. So I'm just wondering, are those different kind of within that segment seven phase two? Or is that, how does that work out? And I think I sort of understood, but I was told that they're kind of that's listed twice. And so maybe that's gonna be changed. I'm just wondering what you can tell me about that. What was that project again? So for the, it's SC P131 and then the trail 07 SC, they're two within the Santa Cruz city list, our tip list. And they're both for coastal rail trail segment seven phase two between Bay and California. So they're listed, that is listed as bicycle pedestrian pathway parallel to the railroad tracks. And it's listed twice, one under SC P131, and then one just below it. So I'm just wondering, is that two discrete pieces of that project or how that, what's that? No, that was the duplicate there that was unintentionally added. So it's been removed from the replacement pages. Oh, it was in there. Sorry. I should. Yeah. Good Zolls. Yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just wanna make sure that I was clear on the request that I was doing for the new bridge to be built over the Harkinsloo, not the Harkinsloo bridges going over Highway one. I just wanted to make sure that that was understood. And also a question on the public comments for their projects, are we gonna include those or can we do that now as commissioners? Amy, what's the process with you? If the members of the public had recommendations where they would not automatically be included maybe or what's the process right now? Would if somebody from the public wanted something added or taken away, that's gonna take ultimately commission approval. How would you proceed with that? Are you gonna put it in the report if somebody wants something added or? So yeah, so what we generally we've done is if the recommendations have come in and then if it's not already included in the RTP project list or under a project that's already listed, we'll coordinate with that local jurisdictions, public work department or the responsible individuals. And we'll see if that project should either be included in a project that's already listed or if it is an additional project that they would want to then list separately. And then we would list those separately. For the most part right now everything is going in is the full comprehensive list, the wish list of everything that either we want to happen or should happen in the counting. And then as we continue developing that list we can make some adjustments or some modifications to that list. However, any of the projects that are moving forward that going into the constrained, unconstrained should not necessarily have any other major impacts to the county. So we can make some small modifications but we wouldn't be adding any additional larger projects once we get into the constrained and unconstrained list. Okay. If I understand this a bit confusing. I'm gonna have to, that people are gonna make suggestions, you're gonna put all those down on a list and then we are gonna decide in February, I think it was, what to put on the constrained list that we actually think we can fund and make happen. Is that the process we're involved in? So all it takes is a suggestion. It'll put it on the list. Doesn't mean it'll get on the constrained list. That'll be a staff recommendation but then the board will decide whether they like the staff recommendation or not amend it in some way. That's what we're talking about, I believe. Yes, right. That is correct. Is it different? Yeah. I think it's a little bit more than that in that as I understand it, what the commission is doing here if it approves the staff recommendation is approving the preliminary draft project list. That will then be used for the environmental review. So while the commission could ultimately change it and add projects or take them away, any significant changes would have to be looked at in terms of whether it affects the environmental document. And so, I mean, my sense is that these projects are the result of the request from the various jurisdictions that we all represent and the transit district and the commission staff. This would be an appropriate time if there are additional projects that anybody wants to add to the list. I think the commissioners, the commissioners, the commission would have to approve any additions. It would have to be, I think as part of a motion to approve the staff recommendation with an addition of such and such a project. I think we're making a formal, we're being asked to make a formal action, take a formal action here that's gonna lead to the environmental review and the preparation of the final RTP that will come to us for final approval. But I think this is the time to make changes if commissioners really think that changes need to be made. Mr. McPherson, Heather Adamson has been wanting to speak on this. Okay. I am gonna have to leave shortly. And if I do, Mr. Gonzalez, would you take over the meeting again? Thank you. Heather. Okay. This is Heather Adamson with Ambag. I'm the planning director. We've been working really closely with Amy and the rest of the RTP staff on putting together this draft project list for Santa Cruz County as well as the other counties. And to address Commissioner Schifrin's comment about the EIR, Ambag is the lead on the four agency joint EIR. And the list that you're looking at today is as Amy mentioned, is the wish list. And so in the next couple of months, we'll be finalizing the revenue assumptions on how much we can afford and how much Santa Cruz County and RTC can afford for its projects in the RTP. And so that's the list that will come back to you in February with a resolution for approval of the revenue constrained. And at that point, it's the revenue constrained project list from Santa Cruz County that goes for analysis in the EIR. It's not this complete wish list. We clearly identify in both the county level RTP as well as the Ambag MTP SES, what is revenue constrained project and what we can afford and sort of has been identified as the unconstrained. So only the revenue constrained projects are included in the EIR. And so that action will take place next year and then we'll begin developing the EIR in the spring and scheduled to be released at the end of 2021. I hope that clarifies a little bit on that side. Well, that's a helpful clarification for me. So the commission will have a chance to add or delete projects when the theoretically realistic list comes back in February. I've moved the staff recommendation. Okay. We have some comments from the public. Okay, Mr. Gonzalez, if you would take over at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Trina has her hand back, Mr. Gonzalez. I think we left off with the staff recommendation. And then we're going to go. Commissioner Kaufman Gomez has her hand up. Go ahead, Commissioner Gomez. Yes, thank you. To add to them to clarify the bridge between Santa Cruz County and Monterey County for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Trail in terms of trying to get that up on the list a little higher possible. And the other thing that I'm finding is the Southbound Riverside Drive turnoff is getting significantly busy. And as we're developing that intersection, we're backing it up on Highway 1 Southbound. And for us to evaluate that particular intersection for better flow through there. So we don't have any issues at backup one at that location and safety as we'll probably see more pedestrians in the experience in that intersection. So those are a couple that I can think of that I've seen that should be somewhere on that list. Thank you. Would you like to go to the public comment Commissioner Gonzalez? Yeah, I just have one, I guess one more last comment because everybody kind of broke up and froze for me. I have one last question just for clarification. So the comments from the public that they put in will be considered on the wish list? Just a yes or no. Be added to the wish list, that they said. Yeah, they're frozen or unfrozen, one of the two. Luis, did you hear the question? Maybe you can answer your own mute. Commissioner Gonzalez, if I might add. Go ahead, whoever it is. Okay, I'm trying to unmute and the computer is muting me back. I'm sorry, I think I can speak now. But I might, yeah, the comments that we get from the public, as Amy mentioned, we take all those comments into consideration and we work with the local jurisdictions who tend to generally be the project sponsors for most of the projects. And a lot of the things that gets submitted by the public, they're already included in the list or are part of other projects. So we work with them to make sure that that is the case. If that's not the case, you know, the local jurisdictions thinks they are feasible projects to add to the list and the local jurisdiction says, okay, let's add this project, suggest it this way and that way and so on through the list. So yeah, we do take all that input and consider it and work with local jurisdictions to add the projects that are feasible to that. Thank you. Okay, let's go ahead and we're going to open it up to the public comments now. Thank you. We'll start with Mr. Hearst. Thank you very much. Many of these projects listed under the Watsonville list are essential and have been kind of languished for quite some time. They serve a disadvantaged community and it's to high time that we try and focus on this disadvantaged community and help get them moving. And so I want to support all those projects and we need a lot more transportation improvements everywhere but let's also look at some of the most needy as well as the most disadvantaged aspects of our community and try to get them moving too. Thank you. Ben. Mr. Hearst. Any other public comments? Ben. Ben, go ahead Ben. Okay, since you're talking about 2045, I'll be 111 then so I'm not so sure I'll be around but I want to talk to Patrick's point, Spreckles Drive because I know all the potholes, a lot of people don't know them and there's a lot on that street. In fact, I've bicycled by there and once was another bicyclist on the ground and a neighbor, a new neighbor two doors down three months ago hit that and she got wounded very badly. So that's important. Now lastly, I'd like you to consider bus trail. Bus trail, the whole path can be asphalted and both can use them. Just consider it. Thank you very much. I enjoyed the meeting and you're doing a great job. Diversity creates a great and better world. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Any other public comments? Bob. Go ahead, Bob. Bob, you got. Hi, so my comment I want to second Tina Coffin-Comas said about the Monterey County, Santa Cruz County Bridge and I haven't heard on a regional basis. We've been talking about internal traffic within Santa Cruz, but if you improve that bridge and have access to Pajaro, you then have access to the main rail line and Cal train is going to have a stop in Pajaro. So that would give access to the entire peninsula, San Francisco Peninsula and the train track that goes to Los Angeles. So it gives access to all of our population to take another way around to get to Gilroy or get to San Francisco or to LA. So that bridge connects us to the central connection. So when you're talking about regional connectivity, I know it's a tri-county stuff, but it's actually a statewide connection. And that bridge is one of the key links. And in addition to the bigger picture of that kind, we have soccer kids that live in Watsonville and there's a soccer park in Monterey right over that bridge. So to have a nice little pedestrian and bicycle access and improve track over that bridge, it's going to make it a lot easy for our kids to play soccer at that existing facility. So there's lots of reasons to make that a high priority project. And my last name's Colbertson, I didn't put it on there, but thank you for all your time and energy in this meeting. And I appreciate all your commissioners and thanks for listening to my comments. Thank you, Bob. Any other public comments? Mr. Ben has his hand up again. Any other- I'll be brief. Hang on Ben, is there any other, but anybody else besides? There is no other hands up commissioner. Okay, we'll give you Ben. I want to talk about the Watsonville Airport. This is going to become a very important part of our county. We have people moving here who are not going to commute anymore, except they're going to want an airplane or rent an airplane or rent a charter service to get them someplace else. So the opportunities there is tremendous. I especially think there should be more done at the Watsonville High School in getting kids in their junior and senior year familiar with aviation as a career. It's right next to them. Anyway, thank you very much again. Bye-bye. Thank you, Ben. Okay, we're going to go ahead and close public comments. And do we have, are we going to move on a second? Is there no action required on this one, right? Right. So with that, I guess I'll close on- I'm sorry, Ms. Do I have another item? There is a staff recommendation to approve the preliminary list with whatever. Oh yeah, there is staff recommendation to clarify additional projects or gaps. Yeah, whatever's added. So. Okay. So that's a recommendation. I had that recommendation to add the project. I'll move that we add all those comments that we got from either board members or commission members or the public. Anybody second? Second. Is Andy, I second the motion? I, Mike motioned. We have a roll call. Commissioner Watkin. Aye. Commissioner Gonzales. Aye. Commissioner Botorf. Aye. Commissioner McPherson. Commissioner Leopold. Commission alternate Mulherrn. Aye. Commissioner alternate Schiffrin. Aye. Commissioner Caput. Commissioner Kaufman Gomez. Yes. Commissioner Johnson. Aye. Commissioner Brown. Aye. Commissioner Bertrand. Aye. Commissioner Leopold. I think he might have left us. Okay. So that passes with McPherson and Commissioner Leopold have left the meeting. Alrighty. Well, thank you, folks. I think that wraps up our general agenda items. Mike correct? Yes. We'll move on to a closed session. Yes. So we'll see you in about two and a half minutes, the closed session. Mr. Chairperson, if I may, that for the commissioners, the invitation was sent to you in an email from Ian Berry this morning at 8.01. And we will not have a reportable action out of closed session, Mr. Chair. All right, thank you. Stephen, doesn't the chair and yourself have to come back out and tell people nothing happened when that's the case? I think the rest of us don't have to come back, but I think you do. Well, right. We would come back, but I was letting the staff know that we don't have to just pay a reportable action. It was really a job. You're letting me know that I have to come back. All right. We stay on this call, correct? No. Check your email. Oh, I got to check the email. You just want to open, so you just come back to it. That's possible. If you look for an email from Ian Berry at 8.01 this morning, that will be the link for the closed session. Okay, we just want to come back to that one. Okay, thanks. All righty, folks. We'll see you in a bit. You saying, yeah, are you there? I'm here. So all we need to do is adjourn the meeting. Correct. And I would, Yuseni, I would report out, Mr. Vice-Chair, if I may report out that the commission met in closed session and that they provided direction to their negotiators, but there is no reportable action today. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye.