 The title, we're here to talk about changes at the state level that will hopefully help all of us do our work to make complete streets and nice communities and encourage sustainable transportation in the world. You can tell I'm stumbling over my word because I am not a public speaker. I'm a writer. I am Melanie Curry. I edit Street Spa in California, your source for all news and information about sustainable transportation in California. I'm glad you guys are all here. We have an absolutely stunning panel with us today with a lot of very intelligent, genius people who are now working at the state helping us do our work. We have Darwin Musavi, who is working for the California State Transportation Agency, which oversees all of the transportation departments and agencies in California. He recently headed up the project that wrote the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure. I always say investments because I think that's how it should be, which is a really major plan to talk about it. You can kind of guess from the title. Next to Darwin, we have Jeannie Ward-Waller, who used to be the policy director at Cal Bike after throw that in, and now she is the deputy director of sustainability. Do I get that right now? That's the next guy. Jeannie, what are you? Deputy Director of Planning and Modal Programs, which didn't use to exist at Caltrans, by the way. Jeannie is it, and so she's way up there in Caltrans doing our work for us. Mr. Her is Tony Dang, who used to head up California walks and is now the deputy director of sustainability at Caltrans. This is something to celebrate. Our people are in Caltrans, guys. To him is Sergio Ruiz, who works for Caltrans District 4 in the Bay Area. He's been there, bike and ped guy, that's as close as I'm going to be able to get to his title. But he's been doing it for years. He's been doing a really great job on putting together the District Active Transportation Plan. And next to him is Ryan Modesham, and he works for the, well, one of the things he does is he works for the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, and he's going to talk about some of the local consequences and efforts to make what these guys are doing at the state level happen. And then we will have time for questions for everybody, and now I'm getting away from this microphone. Darwin, take it away. Alright, thanks, Melanie, for that introduction. I'm going to try to kind of see my slides, but let's see, sorry to turn my back to the rest of the panel, but good to be here, everyone. I'm Darwin Masavi, I'm the deputy for environmental policy at CalSTA, the state transportation agency. I'm going to give a quick overview of the plan that Melanie mentioned, but then, you know, mainly excited to engage in conversation about what it means for the work that folks on the panel here are doing, and all of you, and bicycling in general in California. Next slide, please. So the Climate Action Plan for Transprediction and Infrastructure was created particularly to tackle our overall dependence on driving in the state of California, and we know through our efforts on climate reduction that the transportation sector makes up over 50% of emissions in the state of California. We know that zero emission vehicles alone won't get us to our climate targets, so we have here at the state, we have pretty ambitious targets, but we will not be able to adopt zero emission vehicles fast enough to really get to the necessary reductions to meet the Air Resources Board's targets for the transportation sector, and so it will really depend on both cleaning up the vehicles that we have, but also reducing our overall dependence on driving in the state to meet those goals. And we also know that we need a registered dependence on driving because of numerous other co-benefits, as you all know, to other modes of transportation such as public health benefits, particularly with active transportation. Next slide. So in order to bring a lot of that work to reality as it relates to transportation infrastructure investments at the state, we took on a two-year effort that started in 2019 and came out of an executive order of the governor passed to put together what we call CAPTI, which is our climate action plan for transportation infrastructure, and that was adopted last July and has since been supported by the California Transportation Commission, and we're now working on on the implementation of that plan. Next slide. Got it. Is that better? All right. So as I mentioned, the plan was born out of an executive order in 1919. That executive order asked us to do the following listed here. Basically asked us to leverage our state transportation spending to help meet our state climate goals, and what that really looks like in a nutshell is increasing investments in walking, biking, and transit infrastructure, and moving away from auto-related investments, and keeping in mind the executive order made clear that we should be thinking about lowering income Californians in particular as we make these investments. Next slide, please. In terms of the scope of the executive order, it particularly covers a suite of what adds up to be about $5 billion of discretionary annual investments, and these are the state transportation programs that make up CAPTI. These are the programs that we're trying to influence. I'm sure a lot of folks here are obviously very familiar with the active transportation program, but there are numerous other programs at the stage that may not be as aligned with some of those climate goals. So we want to make sure we are spending in a way that gets us to our overall objectives. So that's why those are included. And what these programs all have in common is state agencies have some sort of direct discretion in project selection or recommendation of what gets funded in these programs. So there are other programs out there that might be kind of formulaic programs that go straight to local governments, but these are the ones where we have influence over the specific projects. So as I mentioned, CAPTI basically creates a holistic framework and approach for those investments and how we're looking at investing our funds. It also comes with a suite of proposed changes in the form of specific actions to help align planning, programming, and mitigation activities with the framework. And we're doing all of this while keeping in mind that the context and on the ground projects of what this looks like in different communities can be very different. Rural California suburban communities, urban communities at a principal level, we think that all of our strategies apply, but in terms of the actual context and what the solutions look like on the ground, it's going to look really different in different places. Next slide, please. So the framework itself is made up of 10 principles, and I'll try to run through them fairly quickly here to give you a sense of what's kind of guiding our decision making. So if you go to the next slide, the first three here are what I call the what, like what are we actually talking about investing in. So the first one is we want to build towards an integrated statewide rail and transit network and make that a priority for our investments. We want to invest in networks that are safe and accessible by school and pedestrian infrastructure across the state. And then also, you know, driving will continue to be a key part of travel in California. And so we need to make sure we're including investments in light, medium and heavy duty zero emission vehicle infrastructure as part of our broader transportation infrastructure investments to support the adoption of zero emission vehicles. And then there are seven principles in the framework that I think of as the how. So as we invest in those things, you know, how do we do so? What do we think about which to be at front of mind when we make those investments? The first one is to strengthen our commitment to social and racial equity by reducing public health and economic harms and maximizing community benefits. You know, that's that is really trying to both tie in the need for thinking about who are direct investments are benefiting and then making sure that they're actual benefits for those communities, not just in those communities, but tackling some of the burdens of the past that our transportation system may have put onto those communities. Our approach on safety is also one that we're shifting. We need to make sure that when we think about safety, we're really talking about moving towards zero fatalities and severe injuries and not just thinking about collision reduction generally, but that it's really about people safety. As we build our projects, we need to ensure that we're assessing physical climate risk. You know, this is mainly about obviously providing people with more options and reducing greenhouse gases, but the reality is climate change is here and we need to be building infrastructure that's resilient in the face of climate change. The next one, which is a big one for us, is promoting projects that do not increase passenger vehicle travel. So this is really about recognizing the concept of induced travel as a real phenomenon and essentially moving away from highway and roadway expansion projects that have the ability to induce additional driving. We know that we need to make that shift if we're going to get serious about our climate agenda. Thank you for the reminder. Promoting compact infill development while protecting residents and businesses from displacement. Transportation, I think, can play a role in making sure that we're investing in a way that supports a certain development pattern that we need to see here to make biking and walking more viable in the state. And then should we click one more? I'm going to cover that middle one under why they came in reverse order, but the reverse of that infill one, we need to make sure that we also recognize that our transportation projects have an impact on our natural and working lands and that transportation investments can unlock land for development. So we need to be conscious of the types of investments we're making and their impact on those lands as well. And then finally, this effort is mainly about light duty vehicles and people moving around the state, but we play a huge role in the movement of goods as well. And so developing a zero emission freight transportation system as part of our overall investments are really critical. So this overall frame is obviously broader than biking, but it really tries to center active transportation and an approach that's kind of community driven and put safety at the forefront as how we think about our investments moving forward. So as I mentioned, we're working on implementation of the plan that looks like both using the framework as an overarching decision document for all the decisions we make in Cal State related to investments, but also includes kind of specific actions, as I mentioned earlier, and efforts underway to change processes to be able to implement these changes more easily across all of our work. And in particular includes a lot of updates to program guidelines for those various programs that I mentioned earlier and all of that is underway right now. And I'm happy in the Q&A discussion portion to dive into this more and what implementation really looks like, but we are planning on putting out an annual report on implementation out this fall. It'll be our first report since it was adopted on our progress and hope to do that annually as we work to bring these concepts to fruition. And that's all I've got and I'll pass on the mic so Melanie can stop policing me for this thing that I'm doing, but I appreciate you helping me keep me accountable. Thank you, Darwin. Hello everyone, really nice to see you. It feels like a little bit of a homecoming for me to be at the Cal Bike Summit since I used to have to be working while I was at this event, but a real pleasure to see lots of familiar faces and be part of this conversation. I'm going to keep it short because I want to really engage in discussion with you. As Melanie said, Tonya and I are key leadership at Caltrans and Caltrans is probably has one of the biggest roles in implementing the CAPTI plan that Darwin just talked about. I think you all are pretty familiar with Caltrans and who we are, but we are the state DOT, the State Department of Transportation. We are massive 22,000 employees, 12 districts. I sit in headquarters and my role is to help set policy for how we are going to do this work, how we really are going to shift our investments. Tonya and I are going to tag team on this. He's going to talk about what we're doing on the complete street side, but importantly what I want you all to be aware of is we really are taking this mandate seriously. We need to shift how we're investing in our state highway system. Caltrans owns and operates the state highway system. It is massive. 50,000 miles across the state and what we are doing now that I think is really important for you all to be aware of is we are moving away from widening freeways as a serious strategy to invest in moving more people. So what that means instead is there are still massive needs on the system. There's congestion, there are buses delayed, there are obviously huge safety issues, huge barriers to people traveling by active transportation. So we need to focus on managing the system more effectively. So we are taking that mandate. It is spelled out pretty clearly in CAPTI, so if you do have a chance to read that document, I will refer you to page 18, where it talks specifically about this, about how we need to shift away from widening our state highway system and focus on managing and moving more people in goods more efficiently on the system. So that means a whole range of things. We really have to get much more creative than we've been in California in terms of how we do that. It will require things that are hard, politically hard, like pricing the system. And we do need to have some serious conversations about that, but it also requires things like providing transit priority, looking for where, as I said, buses are delayed on our system. How do we get the buses, give the buses priority, move them out of traffic, and make them more attractive as an option so people don't have to drive? So we're doing that work now. We're working with a lot of agencies because of course we can't move unilaterally at Caltrans. We have to work with regional partners, our local partners. We are all invested in a lot of projects, a lot of projects that are in the pipeline now that a lot of money has been invested in, and there's commitments there. But we are having some serious and hard conversations led in the districts with those partners about what can we do differently in those locations. So that's a real-time conversation that's happening now. I encourage you to engage with your Caltrans districts on, hey, what are you doing on these projects that I know you're working on? How can we help? How can we do things differently? How can we make sure active travel is a priority? So I want you to be aware of that, and I will let Tony talk about what we're doing with our complete streets policy specifically. All right. Good morning, everybody. So I've been asked to talk a little bit about our new complete streets policy that was released late last year. And so for those of you who are unaware, the core of the policy really sets a direction for the department that says that all projects that the department funds or oversees will provide comfortable, convenient, and connected facilities for people walking, biking, and taking transit. So I just want to take a moment to underscore what a shift this is for the department. It really flips the scripts in terms of what has been expected in the past and really sets that default expectation for our staff that all projects will be integrating these aspects. Now, I know we've gotten a lot of flak for, you know, you all have had a policy before. What's different about it? But I just want to say that words matter and setting a vision and direction matter. It's about really creating that vision and creating that space for our staff to take the risks that we want them to, to take informed risks that we want them to take to really implement this policy. I think aside from that key operative piece of the policy, there's also a lot of language in the policy that the department has never formally stated before. One piece I want to highlight is that for the first time ever, the department is acknowledging that streets function as community spaces. That's never been said by our department before. And I don't think any other state Department of Transportation has made that recognition in a formal policy before, right? So streets have many more functions than simply moving people. And there's very much a role streets play in creating thriving and resilient communities. Another, some other language I want to pull out from the policy for you all include, you know, we as a department have released an equity statement really recognizing, you know, the role that the transportation system has played in creating and perpetuating systemic harms to underserved communities. And within that, within the complete streets policy, we are acknowledging that. And we were directing our staff to really prioritize complete streets projects to really start the process of undoing that historic and current harm. We have also acknowledged in the project that, you know, we're not perfect. None of us are perfect. And we recognize that some of our internal processes and procedures, you know, may have in the past presented some challenges to our local agency partners to community organizations. And in the policy, we're committed to, you know, identifying what those barriers are and working with you all to get to a solution, like, you know, if these processes are within our sphere of control to change or shift or adapt, we want to work with you all to do that. Because at the end of the day, we as a department do not want to be the reason why a project stops at our limits, right? And I know that that has historically been a very real challenge. And I think on that point, you know, in the policy, we're also, we've also acknowledged the importance of connecting into the local and regional system, right? You know, when it comes to walking, biking and transit, it's all about ensuring that broader, complete connected network. And so, you know, we have directed our staff to really take a hard look at how our projects integrate into the local and regional networks and vice versa. I think, you know, policy is great. I know you all want action. I want action as well. And so I just want to ensure you all that, you know, we are very much committed to taking action. And so as part of the role out of the policy, we've identified a handful of very high priority actions that we are committed to as a department, one of which is the development of new contextual design guidance. So what does that mean? That's a bunch of words, right? So it means that, you know, we're going to work to define what that comfortable, convenient, and connected facilities piece means. And we want to make sure that we define it in a way that is sensitive to the local context, because we know that what is needed in a rural downtown Main Street is going to be looked at and require a very different approach than in an urban downtown setting. We've also committed to and we actually have just rolled out a new process for our highway maintenance projects. So, you know, I think that there's lots of different colors of money within the department. It's very confusing to everybody, myself included. And there's a lot of attention given to shop projects, but that's just one part of funding that we control. And shop projects have a very long project development life cycle. And so one of the biggest shifts with this new policy is we're requiring that our highway maintenance projects, which is a separate stream of funding that have a shorter project development life cycle where they are developed and delivered within one fiscal year. We're set, we have set out processes for our staff to integrate complete streets into those projects as well. So, you know, we are pushing as much as we can with the levers that we have to integrate complete streets at every single opportunity. I think the last thing I'll say before I hand it over to Sergio is that, you know, for the first time ever within this policy, the department has committed to supporting transit. I want to emphasize how important that is because I think a lot of times in these conversations around complete streets, we are very much focused on walking and biking, absolutely important. But transit is also a key critical part of the complete streets conversation. It's a key and critical part of the conversation around combating the climate crisis. And, you know, we fully admit that we as a department have a long ways to go to really beefing up our expertise in terms of how we support and advance transit as a State Department of Transportation. But I think that this policy really sets out a vision and a path for us to really take up that charge. So with that, I'll hand it over to Sergio, who has been tasked with implementing this policy at the ground level. Thank you all. We're going to go back to slide mode, if that's okay. And I might stand over. Yeah. With my excellent technical assistance, we've got you covered. Thank you. Hi, everyone. I'm Sergio Ruiz. I am the complete streets coordinator for Caltrans District 4 in the Bay Area. So our jurisdiction is the nine Bay Area counties, similar jurisdiction as MTC. So I'm not a deputy director, but I have been on the front lines for about close to 14 years at Caltrans working with communities and stakeholders and partners on trying to improve walking and biking in our region. I've also been tasked recently with basically establishing our complete streets program at the district level and creating an office for complete streets. Next slide. So I want to first mention, at the district level, we do a lot of work as well. Not so much policy, because that definitely is more of a Sacramento thing, but we do play a key role in operating the state highway system. One of the major tasks we did back in 2018 was develop our first district bike plan. And this was kind of a first for the state in having a district level plan that looked at bicycle needs and prioritizing them so that when we have future investments, we know where we want to prioritize bike improvements. And it sort of sparked or informed the development of district level active transportation plans for all 12 districts eventually, including our pedestrian plan, which is more recent. Also at the district level, we have a strategic action plan, which is a little more internal facing in terms of like how we can improve our business processes. There were a couple of key priorities that are related to complete streets that we identified. One is improving our ability to be better partners with our stakeholders and local agencies and also basic and making sure that we're engaging with equity priority communities as we develop projects. Also in building out a safe and complete transportation network at the district level. So we see that also as a district priority, which is very much in line with some of the priorities that are laid out for the state. Next slide. So I do want to talk a little bit about like pre complete streets policy update because we have been doing a lot of work in the last few years and trying to maximize and leverage our investments mainly in the shop, because that the shop is our one of our biggest programs that that Caltrans. Okay, so it stands for the state highway operation and protection program. And we use it as a fix it first type program for maintaining and operating our state highways throughout the state. So as you can imagine, it's it's a lot of resources and investment that happens at the state. Just a drop in the bucket. Yeah. So to us, you know, that's one of the biggest opportunities and leveraging our investments to try to make it better for people walking and biking in our communities. So one of the huge lifts that we did back in 2020, right, right before and during the pandemic was infusing additional money into the shop to specifically augment our projects in the pipeline to improve walking and biking. And I wanted to just show off some of the great projects we were able to expand the scopes for for adding protected bike lanes, new crossings. These are mostly all still in development. I think one of the ones that will be developed soonest is on El Camino Rail in Mountain View will be providing protected bike lanes and crossings. And then I would also say pre policy update, one of the we basically were looking for opportunities to to improve projects and incorporate scope for walking and biking. But that was basically it, you know, if the opportunity was there, we would take it and sometimes it works. Sometimes we face challenges. And this new policy really does flip the script, as Tony said, that by default we are now including these elements and there had to be a really good reason to not include it. Next slide. So this is getting a little into the nitty gritty, but one of the key tools that we've developed to to have that be the default is establishing a complete streets decision document for each of the projects that we develop. And this is starting with a 2022 shop cycle. So these are projects that are just now getting programmed. They're starting the development process. So they're still pretty early on. And a lot of these won't be constructed for another in another three or four years. But because we've already started implementing this tool for this cycle, we actually have a good sense of how many bike lanes, how many crosswalks, how many new sidewalks we're able to identify and incorporate into the scopes of these projects. So this is just a list of the ones that we've reported so far for that cycle, which is pretty great. There's just one example here in Cologne, El Camino Real, which if you're not from the region, El Camino Real is a state route 82. It goes through like a dozen different jurisdictions down the peninsula. Right now, there aren't really any segments with bike lanes on it. So there's a huge effort to try to get more continuous and protected bike ways throughout that corridor. So next slide. Another major change that's kind of in line with the new policy update is developing performance measure targets for complete streets, particularly in the shop. And so we're not just looking at the pipeline projects or projects that are being programmed now, but we're looking 10 years out to projects that haven't been programmed yet and trying to identify how many bike improvements, how many crosswalks and sidewalks we can include and trying to get a sense of what the need is and how we can meet those the targets that we set for ourselves. And it's kind of a learning process in that we have interim targets now because it's the first time we've done this as a state. And it's we're still kind of working in the mode where we're looking for those opportunities because we're looking at where the paving projects are and using those to prioritize where we invest in walking biking. Where once we have performance targets that we might have the ability to go out and look at where the priorities are and not just where the paving projects are so that there could be potentially standalone projects to include bikeways and sidewalks and crosswalks. Also at the district level, we're looking at complete streets performance not only in our shop projects, but our bike plan, for example, it's been around for four years already. And so we have four years of information of how we're doing in carrying out or implementing that plan and what programs are actually funding those improvements. So the shop actually is funding about 42% of the improvements that are in development right now from the bike plan, the ATP, which if you're at the earlier panel on the ATP, you'll know it's very oversubscribed. It's actually only a smaller fraction of improvements that were identified in the bike plan that are currently being developed. And then there are a whole host of other programs. A lot of them are working with our partners with local and federal funding sources to help carry that out. Next slide. Also with safety being one of the key priority for Caltrans, we're also doing a better job at leveraging our safety program to improve up bicycling in the region. So we have two key bicycle safety projects in our district. Both of them are on El Camino Real again. It's a theme for today to actually build that class four bikeways and two of the jurisdictions along that corridor. So I'm very excited about those. Next slide. And then the ATP going back to that, you know, as a region, you can question how will we've done compared to other regions, the complainant on the fact that, you know, we have a lot of wealth in the Bay areas. So sometimes it's harder to get all the points that we would need to get those grants. But we do have a lot of great projects on the state highway system that were either mostly or in part funded by the ATP. So I wanted to just showcase some of the ones that we're working on, including one that's actually sponsored by District 4 in the city of Richmond, Central Avenue, under crossing. So that's the first time that we've actually gotten an ATP grant ourselves. And I'll thank Carl in part because it's part of the regional component that MTC helps manage. Next slide. I'm going to ask a question. What's that big U shaped thing? That is a pedestrian bicycle over crossing in East Palo Alto that was just constructed. Also got ATP funds. Actually, if you want to go back again, sorry. So that's top left is Richmond. It's a new under crossing. Central Avenue is the middle one in city of Alameda. We're doing a road diet and separated bikeways along parts of it. Bay trail gap closure along to a little drive in Oakland. The U shaped things in East Palo Alto and then the Vine trail in Napa is this long regional trail network that's spanning the entire county. And a couple of the segments were funded through the ATP. Also exciting and there's actually a panel this afternoon to talk about this is our bike highway study. And this actually came directly from our state bicycle and pedestrian plan. That was one of the strategies that was identified is, you know, what it would take to build out networks of bicycle highways. And these are for longer distance connected facilities to really try to increase bicycling as a mode and really shift the needle. These are not defined at the state level. They're not found anywhere in our streets and highways code. We have a very unique classification of bikeways class one bike paths class two bike lanes and so forth. So at the district level, at least we're kind of evaluating what the best practices are and what it would look like to have like highways in the California or Bay Area contexts. And also coming up with some concepts of what they would look like along different state highway corridors, and then some implementation strategies and how we would work with our partners to try to carry that out. So I definitely advise you to go to that panel if you're if you want to hear more about bike highways. It's a very exciting hot topic. And there's also, I'm sorry, go back. There's a survey that just went live. It's open through April 22nd. Hopefully the sites are available. You can also just search for the study online and there's a link to this survey there. We want to get your feedback on these concepts. And then just real quick, I just wanted to highlight some actions that we're pursuing kind of in the near term. We're establishing a new office of the transit and active transportation to try to do a better job of integrating transit and making sure that transit is part of what we do when we talk about complete streets. We also want to update the bike plan realizing it's four years old. So by next year, it'll have been five years and we want to do an update of that. And we'll work closely with our headquarters counterparts to make sure that it's in line with all the the the district level active transportation plans and the data that's being developed statewide. And then we want to do our very first district for transit plan, which is also I think a first for the state, where we want to look for opportunities to invest in transit supportive infrastructure on the state highway system. So that's in a nutshell. And there's my contact info. So I'll go ahead and pass it along to Ryan, who's going to talk at the local level and efficacy. Hi, and do you have slides? No, no, no, I'll take it. I'm not winging it, I hope. So hi, everyone. My name is Ryan Motashemi. I am a volunteer with here in my capacity as a volunteer with the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition. Specifically, I volunteer with the San Mateo local team. So for those who aren't from around here at San Mateo is a suburban city of around 100,000 folks on the peninsula in the Bay Area. It's one of the communities along El Camino Real that Sergio was talking about. So that's definitely a highway of a lot of importance. And I just wanted to start out by saying that this is truly refreshing to hear as an advocate who has been working on trying to get Caltrans and other jurisdictions to plan for bicycle facilities, pedestrian facilities and transit priorities. So it's like a paradigm shift in how the state is planning. And regardless of what criticisms I may have of Caltrans, I think that this is a yeah, it's a truly, I would say revolutionary change that I hope certainly accelerates in the future. So honestly, give it a round of applause for all these people who are here. Having allies within the department who are interested in these changes is definitely going to be helpful going forward. And I've already seen us having the ability to be able to be more communicative and get more information from folks like Sergio, who is the district for like head coordinator. I don't know if I'm watching your titles, but yeah. And we are looking forward to working with him and other folks on planning for complete streets improvements on El Camino Real, which is the main non freeway north south corridor on the peninsula. It stretches from the southern end of San Francisco through San Mateo County and into Santa Clara County and provides one of the best opportunities for having connected bike ways throughout the three counties and also transit priority on the highest ridership bus line for the for the local agencies, Sam trans, as well as high ridership lines in Santa Clara County. So I'm excited about the complete streets policy and we'll use a shop project actually Sergio mentioned the shop program to kind of highlight how some challenges I had and groups that I work with had working on advocacy for that project and how I think the complete streets program is refreshing and would help overcome some of those challenges for future projects. So in Berlin game, which is a city next to San Mateo that also lies along El Camino Real, there is the highway itself is very, it's a smaller right of way for this highway. The highway width is mostly normally 100 feet wide. But here it's around 44 feet wide. And it has these large eucalyptus trees on either side of it that are treasured by some folks in the community who tend to have more political power or the years of more of the council members. So there's this already there's this balance imbalance in terms of political power between folks who are interested in preserving the status quo of the highway and folks who want improvements at the very least pavement improvements or sidewalk improvements, which couldn't really be done without impacting potentially these tall trees. So Caltrans is now going through this shop project to repave the roadway, which hasn't been repaved, I believe in decades. And also do ADA improvements that are required by law. And the key word here is required by law because oftentimes, if it's not required by law, it's not going to happen. And in the case of the complete streets policy, finally, these improvements are being required by policy and are going to happen, hopefully at some point. But the groups that I was a part of were unhappy that there was no planning in any of the environmental processes for this project, because it has to go through its environmental review that the EIR has to happen in order for the project to be certified. And then later go into final design and construction. And what happened was that we were seeing language in the EIR and the project team saying that because the local government of Berlin game has identified bicycle facilities or transit facilities on this highway as a priority or as any designated facility, we're not, we haven't studied or we are not recommending as an alternative bicycle facilities on this highway. And keep in mind, this is the main highway with many destinations right next to it with cyclists who use it and who would use it if it was actually safe to bike on the roadway. And also, again, it is the highest transit ridership line in throughout the county. So there's this dissonance between like, oh, the local government hasn't planned for it. And there was no pushback from another source due to lack of political power or lack of initiative at the Caltrans level to actually make the change. So there was this headwind that we were going against in advocacy. There were some specific rationalizations made looking into the project, for example, that I hope are also changed, for example, like, apparently, buses cannot stop in a travel lane because it's not ideal according to some traffic engineers because that would require cars to stop behind it. So instead, they would need to do a pullout for buses, which would make the project more expensive, et cetera, et cetera. Whereas if the buses did actually get to stop in a lane of travel, that would actually be better for safety, for pedestrian safety because of the lack of cars being able to swing around in general. And also because of the, and then also the travel time for buses because they don't have to pull back into traffic and wait for the cars. So we saw that kind of language because there was a road diet alternative that said let's do a road diet, but one of the reasons for not going forward with that road diet alternative, which didn't have bike lanes in it, actually, the alternative was ultimately not marked as the preferred alternative because one of the reasons was that buses would need to have a pullout and that was an assumption that was made as opposed to just letting the bus stop in the lane of traffic. Some other language that we saw that I think hopefully is changing as a result of this complete streets policy is that the assumption is made that if you have a parallel route that is planned for bike lanes, that that's enough and it's categorically not enough. Just having a bike lane 500 feet away on a different road does nothing to improve the safety of the road that you're studying. So it's not a complete street and I'm glad that that's kind of changing or hopefully it's changing as part of this policy where we design every street to be a complete street and don't just tell people to use other streets that don't have the destinations that the state highways necessarily do. So it's for primary north-south corridors it is important. So I guess in conclusion I would say that I hope that these contextual design guidelines that are being developed and this leadership from Caltrans extends to pushing back on local processes that don't necessarily take into account complete street plans whether they were developed before this idea of complete streets was super mainstream or whether because there isn't political will to do what is now being considered a basic safety and design standard. So I hope that that happens and I guess in an ideal world would certainly hope that this policy would be retroactively applied to projects that have gone through most of their environmental stages because in reality this plan is looking for future investments but there are a lot of projects in the shop that in other programs that will be going through their final environmental approvals in the next few years and will be constructed and implemented in the mid 2020s and so on that will not be complete streets facilities because they missed the boat and there they they had this environmental approval process mostly done prior to the policy being implemented. So I think it's worth the conversation about what are the tradeoffs of looking at whether or not we can retroactively implement this policy to these projects because there are tradeoffs it could mean extending project timelines and preventing us from working on newer projects. It could mean just delays in the overall primary goal of moving the statewide investment in a more positive direction but at the same time in places like Berlin game this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make this difference and I do sometimes get worried about what would happen if you know bike lanes are not planned for on a facility like this or transit lanes or transit priority are not planned for on a facility like this at this time but that being said I think that what this has opened up and this experience has opened up for me and others is to have that further communication with with folks like Sergio in the department and to understand and plan ahead for other projects like south and Francisco, Colma and Mountain View and other places that Caltrans is planning to be proactive and you know get active transportation and transit improvements baked in earlier on so I am really excited about the direction that everything is going in and we'll always be pushing you know the state to do more thank you. Thank you all this is like really fascinating and I'm sure that there's a lot of questions out there but I'm going to start I have the mic I get the first question so we all know that we're in a hurry we don't have time to full round the IPCC report all the other reports that are along the LAO just came out the legislative analyst office just came out with a California specific report we know this we got to get this done now and I'm hurt I hear a lot of the metaphor about how hard it is to what is it to shift the direction of a ship and yes it does take time but I guess a general question how are we going to make this really great planning effort that's happening at the top translate all the way onto the ground and that means going through that whole hard middle of engineers not just at Caltrans but at cities everywhere who who the decision making process and are trained to think about only car and car throughput and it's impossible for them to think any other way they need their minds changed but that's like we can't we don't have time to change their minds so anything you guys can say about how are we going to make that really difficult shift ASAP so the work that you guys are doing helps us tomorrow or next week or okay next month I'm gonna I'm gonna let G take the brunt of it but I'm gonna start us off but but yeah no problem I got you I just you know in terms of your your the saying about turning the ship you know I think what's what's important to to to think about is we've we've been internally seized out a lot particularly when a lot of these efforts were ground up and a few people trying to literally you know use a little tugboat to pull a giant giant ship but I think what's what's you know important about the policies to Tony's point is that you know now you've got the captain of the ship and people actually steering the ship moving in a different direction and it's about making sure everyone else knows where we're going which I think yes is incredibly challenging but a lot easier than the reverse um and so I think the leadership is is is you know really meaningful yes it takes time there's a lot of education and work to do and the reason I said do you mean Tony can take the brunt of it because I think a lot of people will come down to you know the Caltrans emissions underway and making sure we're we're educating people changing specific guidance and would not not just high-level policy getting into the weeds on on implementation making sure there are champions in various places in the organization that are going to that are going to push the the policy out folks like Sergio you know I think that's what it comes down to I'll let you expand more but I I think it's you know the the since cap I has come out to spend what less than a year I think we've seen already a pretty big shift in terms of responses of of policies and what not better you know I think has moved a lot faster than anything that came you know prior to that over the last five or six years so I think it is it has spent us a ton but what do you expand well I would say I mean having two policy directors that worked in advocacy be promoted to deputy directors within Caltrans is like a pretty good sign the things that Caltrans are changing and you're right Melanie I'm not I'm not going to sugarcoat it we have a workforce of 22,000 people so changing a culture with that many people like you know even if we're saying all the right things at the executive level and every district director is saying the right things and many of them most of them I would say are they are there they're right with us they're supportive they're pushing this you still have to make sure that message gets to all 22,000 and everybody's ready to embrace it I will say and I want to recognize please turn around my colleagues in the back row here raise your hands wave these are Caltrans staff they're awesome they are doing the they're doing the hard work and I'm truly inspired because they're super motivated they are changing Sergio has been a huge leader here in the Bay Area there is a lot of change happening but it's gonna we've got to all move together and the local governments have to come with us we can push we can lead more than we ever have and I think we're poised to do that but we're not gonna do it perfect in one sweep I mean I think the El Camino Real is a good example of that you know we get better each time we learn from that please celebrate when we do good things we'd love hearing that because we're used to being a big punching bag so when we actually hear like hey Caltrans it's something good it feels really good and very empowering for the staff so please appreciate that but engage I mean I'm I have an open door I would love to hear from you all from from advocates out there it really helps us to hear at the state level when and why this change needs to happen and we got to all be pushing in the same direction so I totally agree with you Melanie and whoever writes the streets blog daily updates like the IPCC report is at the top of everyone every day so I appreciate but um but I you know it's there's not an easy answer to that right we're a big state we're very diverse most trips are still driving trips so a lot of people are still very wedded to their car and how they get around and we've got to change that together but I think we're we're I mean Darwin said it well we've got there are a lot of signs that we are right at that opportunity all the pieces are in place to make some really big change so let's do it together yes yeah and I will say it's not just communications and then messaging challenges for our staffer and one thing I'll pull out of the policy is that you know in the past these these decisions are at the project level as you kind of alluded to with the project engineer and with the policy we've shifted that and elevated that decision making to an executive level so that the district directors are the ones who are making that call for a project that may not be able to integrate complete streets facilities as we expected and as Jeannie alluded to our executive team is right there with us and so this is really about kind of ensuring that that policy check occurs with the projects to get at the outcomes that we're expecting cool sergi did you have something to say grab the mic it feels like that question was directed to me because a lot of the issue is at the district level I can safely say that our district executive leadership is fully on board with a new direction they're always saying you know it's not just about automobile delay anymore we really have to prioritize other modes there's still like the middle management and other staff that I think you know us as a district we have to do a better job of training I want to make a lot of our complete streets and strategic planning the training mandatory for a lot of these staff but you know that's something we have to work on internally yes a state law yeah exactly require this so I mean we're we are taking some actions at the district level that I'm hoping helps prevent the issues like saying that in lane traffic stops are just a no-go and just not assuming that anymore and kind of move beyond that but yeah we still have a ways to go for that are we also hoping for retirements everyone who has retired is retired I would never say that okay I know that there's a lot of questions I also have one um online question maybe I'll read that first and then we'll move on to all of you enthusiastic people should have read this before okay this is Chico on a local level Chico Velo has been working to give feedback on projects with Caltrans however we are having some difficulties with some upcoming projects where they have rejected integrating these policies despite these new goals I've got some specifics on a project in Chico coming up where the plan selected does not include bike facilities despite one of the alternatives having included them I mean this is a very common problem that people are having right now we know about these policies but getting people to say oh yeah you're right the Caltrans leadership is telling us to do that it's kind of hard to get a cost so the question is how can we get better support to advocate for these alternatives that include bike facilities I think Jeannie might have partially answered that by saying her door is open call Jeannie call the deputy director for sustainability at Caltrans and they're going to tell you do you guys have anything to add to that to that point I mean elevating the issue is I think you know you don't have to start with Jeannie necessarily but you can work your way up there if you need to and you know the policies are just as good as the accountability you all are part of that accountability and so you know I think making sure that the staff is aware of the policies and then that you're elevating I know shouldn't be on all of you and and we're working to make that not the case but but you know it certainly helps if you all play a role in that and I would just say I think that really highlights the important role of advocates who are on the outside officially yelling that something needs to be done and sometimes people who are in a position to make a decision need those advocates they might totally agree with what you're saying and not have the power or not feel like they have the power to do it but if you are on the outside pushing it helps them get step over that edge so the advocacy role is super well important and can I just say I mean having been an advocate and knowing many of you in the room I'm surprised that I don't hear from advocates more often you know me you know what I care about call me seriously I'm not kidding I mean I may get 100 emails tomorrow and that's okay but but honestly like we need that support and and you know don't doubt that we're not hearing from the constituents that want their roads widened so we need to also hear from the constituents that don't want the road widen and want the bike lane instead so it really is important I can't stress that enough I was a really annoying advocate and Caltrans eventually was like why don't you just come work here so you get that bugging us no no no it's not everybody should be getting more a job at Caltrans some of us need to be on the outside come work at Caltrans that works too okay I'm gonna start with Jason over here I saw some going with his hand first okay thank you and inspiring new information about the urgency that you that Caltrans is finally taking with climate change so I have two questions and I'm just on the fly I'm going to decide which one to ask so about a year ago Buttigieg and Biden started talking about the reparations including removing urban freeways but I didn't hear you talk about that and I was involved in post-freeway removal in Hayes Valley and you know part of the planning around that was that you know by now the remainder of the the vestigial central freeway would have been also removed because it is a traffic disaster it's just a long off ramp into the middle of San Francisco so what are your thoughts on what is the thinking right now at Caltrans about some of these erroneous freeway projects and are we gonna have a glimmer of hope of an Oakland San Francisco and Los Angeles of having so many of you some of these things removed I'm in since I have the mic I'm gonna start I just want to stress along with just the urgency that you're hearing from us and the fact that you all know the climate crisis is really important the federal infrastructure money is gonna flood the state in the next five years so we have got to make sure that is spent in a way that's truly transformative we could spend it all on pavement just repaving the roads and you wouldn't see a transformative benefit I don't think that's what we want so we need to really have a conversation about how should those that money be spent in a way that is transformative in a way that really shows people that their transportation system can look totally different and I think that the opportunity with reconnecting communities and really investing there is key I'm gonna let these two expand on your specific question but I wanted to just hone in on like that federal money that's massive it's gonna flood the state and we got to make sure we spend it in a way that's gonna move the needle great setup for what I'm about to get into and I'll talk about the money generally and then Tony can dig into into what Caltrans is doing about it but you know to that point you know there is a billion dollars out of the federal program for IIJ for the reconnecting communities program the governor's budget here in California Newsome's budget proposes an additional 150 million to create a highway to Boulevard's reconnecting communities program here in the states to help leverage those federal funds so you know we're we're we're certainly moving on those ideas there's money being proposed to get projects in line and out the door there's there's current bill language out there and what that program would look like if you're interested in some of the details it's really about making sure that we're we're building on some of the successes we've seen elsewhere we've really looked at a program like the transformative climate communities program at the strategic growth council folks are familiar with that one in terms of having these projects be as community driven as possible you know this can't be we can't go in and say we're looking to repair arms of the past and do it top down that would be completely different defeat the the purpose and I'll let Tony kind of expand on on what Caltrans is planning specifically yeah I think I'll start by saying that this reconnecting communities program that the state is proposing it has come from capsized so here's an example of how a high-level policy document how we're working to translate it into a funding stream and then translate it into a program to actually make change so with that $150 million we are intending to to set up a brand new program that would fund both the community-based planning that that is really needed for these types of projects as well as capital projects that either convert or cap a highway and really to kind of unlock the potential of that land whether it's for affordable housing whether it's for green space open space park space and so a high level you know we're intending to fund the planning efforts as well as the implementation efforts and I think recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis in the proposed bill language we've also have some ideas around funding early implementation action planning and then implementing things in the near term I think that you know both at the state and federal levels it is very challenging for a variety of reasons to remove cap or otherwise kind of approach these types of projects but we want to see action as soon as possible through these types of programs and we're proactively thinking about that and taking that approach so hold on I want you to use the mic because people online can't hear you I'm Adrienne St. John I'm in the headquarters complete streets office in Caltrans and I just wanted to let you know about one tangible local thing here in Oakland there's an RFP out from Caltrans division transportation planning right now this month for consultants to help develop the vision 980 for removing 980 here through Oakland so I want to let you guys know specifically about that one one thing that didn't come up that I wanted to add is as part of the the the state proposal for the state program a key component is making sure anti-dispress from strategies are integral to the program I think that's going to be you know incredibly important to the success of the program to make sure we're actually serving the communities that we're intending to serve quick add-on yeah I was going to mention the 980 980 RFP as well so that's great because we want to be at the table we know that a lot of these efforts tend to be community driven but we want to make sure that we can actually be part of the conversation and it's aligning with our state priorities but also just in reference to the equity statement and acknowledging that past investments have harmed a lot of communities that alone has given us the the ability to justify adding freeway ramp improvements in our projects where before we would say oh that's a local issue that the locals have to deal with our freeway crossings not Caltrans it's really flipped the conversation in that we need to address these past harms and we have to help be part of that solution in reconnecting the communities use the microphone use the mic Tony I really gotta emphasize though our equity statement is not just about recognizing past harms it's about recognizing past currents and stopping future harm that is our equity statement that is our commitment please just just about yeah just really quickly I think like the freeway removal concept is is very intriguing for sure and also in other on other corridors where perhaps there's not a freeway removal potential in the works but there are still significant harms and impacts that are happening to equity priority communities up and down those quarters for example highway 101 near near where I live though there are projects in the works both good and bad for for those areas for example trying to remove off ramps that funnel high-speed traffic into communities are good projects but then highway widenings bad projects so there's the hope that that investment also channels into influencing how those projects that are currently in the environmental process develop hopefully fast-tracking fast-tracking projects that help improve local street road safety and changing projects that propose to widen highways okay cool we have another question from back okay great so I was thinking that when you're talking about diversity and getting the engineers to take like learn why not simply say that it's mandated because it's about diversity I mean we're talking about mobility justice in the same way that probably people are mandated to go to diversity training about gender or other intersectionalities maybe that could give you the mandate to do it the second thing I was noting that you need to do a lot more studies but why not look internationally I mean Copenhagen eyes has basically solved the problems of streets on an international level when we're talking about global north streets and super highways are implemented in many countries already it's not like a new thing it doesn't seem to me that we need that many more studies and now the third thing and then I'll be finished is zero emission vehicles that language should be changed if anything it's displaced emissions vehicles and I think that Jason's presentation will busily showed us how we okay we were saving maybe the asthma for the kid who lives in in downtown Oakland and that's fabulous but there are people in the rail mining and so forth that are dying and the zero emission a low emission vehicle is a bicycle and his foot traffic and it's super dangerous because the electric car is what the industry wants and what the rich people want and that's exactly going to create it there's no solution we're gonna have to stick with highways if we go in that direction and people just drive more and more with their electric cars so I just language is so important I'm gonna quickly address one of them because I think there were three questions in there but come to the bike highway panel at two thirty because we were going to talk about how we looked at international best practices I know you know in California we have our own highway design manual and statues that we follow but we can learn a lot from other countries and not just in Europe but in South America and elsewhere I mean I totally hear you and all of those are great comments I think the challenge for us and part of the reason why we do studies is not just to like let's do a theoretical study but you actually do have to do a lot of community engagement and I think that's another thing that you are hopefully seeing will hopefully see more from Caltrans you know we have a history of just coming through and bulldozing communities and putting our transportation infrastructure through we cannot do that anymore we are we are not in that era anymore we have to engage and we have to have community driven solutions so that's part of the reason for the studies it's not an excuse I think it actually is a critically important piece of making sure that we get projects right or at least do them significantly better in the future is making sure that we really are creating that space and reaching out and actively involving the community especially communities that have been historically harm bearer system so you can't just look to Europe and say let's just do what they did in Copenhagen you have to go out and work with the community and be really committed to that so that's part of you know why we do those and why it takes a long time but support a lot of what you said and you know we're it's a big state there's a lot of opinions in this state we're we're the government so we have to try to you know bring everybody along with us in terms of where we're going and we are still in a reality where most people drive so you know making those cars at least not have emissions coming out of the tailpipe you're right there are still emissions is a vast improvement from what we have today but it's not you know hopefully giving them better alternatives for how they get around so they don't have to get in that electric car is even better in the future. Hi my name is Shanita Chu I'm from United Seniors of Oakland Alameda County and I just want to say Tony I'm very proud of you I don't know if you remember 10 12 years ago when we started this movement up on the second floor here and I mean look how it's grown it was just like 90 of us up there all scrunched in so I'm proud of you dude. Hi my name is Arnold sure and great to hear about the vision and the new policies that you all have and you mentioned accountability what are some of the ways that you built into your own processes to hold you and your staff accountable towards these new visions and goals and specifically looking towards equity as well. I can start us off there's a lot we could go through but at a high level since we did go over go over a cap die I mean the annual report in particular for that is meant as a key accountability metric where we're going to have to report to to the public and to our stakeholders you know on all those specific actions where we are what's our status we're going to have data in there about about what the total suite of projects are looking like how they're shifting over time and you know I think that is yes it's for a public audience but it is a key internal accountability metric as we put that together to make sure that we're we're at a high level kind of working towards those goals there's a ton more obviously you know in terms of all the specifics under that I don't know if anyone wants to I mean I think in the specific complete streets context another change we've made with with the complete street decision document that we built into the process that we set up for highway maintenance projects is we're having those decisions come to headquarters and you know we want to take a hard look at to see whether our processes are working we acknowledge that these are new processes that were set out that are going to require training and time with our staff and we want to give our we're creating those openings and opportunities for our staff to really implement the vision of the policy and then at headquarters I think we want to take a look and evaluate is this working and if not pivot and change because I think that that's really really critical so you know that is something that we are absolutely committed to do at the headquarters level yeah so I'm working at academia and I'm curious about the role of university and colleges in educating new hires so what is your experience are graduates new hires nowadays differently educated or do you still have a lot of wishes that you would want to broadcast to colleges and universities and like in what areas of cal trans operation are you looking for changes in how the university system in california trains new engineers new managers and and that's kind of my question to you guys well I would say from where I said yes we are seeing a big change with new new folks that are coming out of universities and wanting to work at cal trans it's really exciting it's very inspiring there's a lot of energy for folks coming in at the entry level that are thinking about things differently looking at these issues really differently and I think you know coming in with values like you know wanting to understand community needs thinking about equity you know really having the consciousness of kind of the I think the whole country right now and thinking about things like social justice climate change and and wanting to work on those things so that is hugely exciting for me it's very inspiring as a leader in cal trans to really support and empower folks who want to grow and want to work in government but I I mean I'm trained as an engineer 20 years ago and I found my undergraduate engineering education really lacking in those issues you know it was all technical it was all about just like how do you build projects it was not about what are the implications of those projects especially in the era of climate change so I pursued you know additional education additional training thinking about sustainable development and and what is that bigger charge and I think that's led me to where I am now where I'm much more kind of on the planning side of cal trans thinking about the bigger the sort of systems issues community issues I think all engineers should get that as part of their education that should be part of the basic curriculum and I think it is you know we see it more but it could be a lot stronger because we need folks who aren't just technically trained we call there's like a new type of staff at cal trans and we call a plan engineer like somebody who understands planning and understands the technical engineering side and you know that should be a degree we should have these dual degree programs or you know create a new degree that that students can can get both of the issues so that's my opinion but anybody else want to speak I know there are more questions we'll start over here hi thanks for the panel hopefully this is a softball question but I am one of those students who's a planner and training up at UC Berkeley and I am really interested in getting involved in state government so what would you say is a good uh what should be my next steps in terms of like looking for internships or getting involved in getting that experience that I think it is really needed I'll give you my email perfect Antoni I said I'll give you my email but to build on that I would say you know uh yes again you know we're in this room it's going to email to you after the session but but in addition in addition to that I think you know try to figure out what you're what in particular you're interested in if you can't tell which I wouldn't be surprised because our organizations are large and obscure you know find some work that you think sounds interesting to you figure out who did it contact them and then start learning about the organization I think getting actual contacts you know in organizations will help you know you figure out where your openings are because you know it's different depending on what you want to do and sometimes it may be an internship sometimes there may be a job opening that someone can meet you to but um uh you know talking to the folks that you want to end up doing the job of is always I think really helpful well I mean I'll expand too we are going to be doing a lot of hiring so this is a really good time to be coming in to government I especially with the federal infrastructure dollars I mean we're going to have a lot of projects so we'll have a lot of work to do a lot of plans to do so um so this is a great time to be interested and the process can be daunting the civil service process is like there's like this exam and what's that about and you know it's it's not as bad like once you get into it but talking to you know any of us that that are at Caltrans can you know we can give you tips and that's the best way to really learn and understand the process so it's kind of a joke you know I'll give you my email but but seriously like just having a quick 10 minute conversation will probably be more helpful to you than like going on the website and trying to navigate the process so yeah and I just have to make a comment about that because when I was in grad school one of my professors said very firmly whatever you do do not get a job at Caltrans it will suck your soul and you know what I think she was right but now it's changed and if people who are in grad school now are going to be working no she doesn't she doesn't right you know who it is she does not say that because a lot of her students are now working at Caltrans and making a difference so it is that's so great that people in grad school are going to be moving in that direction because that's gonna save us okay more questions I see hands over here here you go I actually I was in that question that came from Chico online I was involved somewhat in that same process and besides the attitudinal question that that alluded to and that Melanie has talked about ran into a couple of kind of structural issues one was that the point at which public comment was asked for was too late in the game by the point where public comment was asked for the big critical decisions had already been made and we were told oh it's too late to change anything about that that's already decided and then the second kind of thing that is kind of an attitudinal thing is it seems like where a Caltrans highway passes through a city both entities the frontline people in both entities develop an ingrained habit of saying well we can't do anything about that that's a city problem or we can't do anything about that that's a Caltrans problem rather than the two of them ever sitting down and treating something as a joint problem it just seems like that's something that that really needs to be worked on is that idea of okay if the if where the where the city's bikeway doesn't coincide with the Caltrans crossing um maybe you need to get together with the city and work on that together rather than just shrugging your shoulders and saying there's nothing we can do about it well yeah I mean Sergio well like you can add on to it but um for those of you in different districts than not in the Bay Area I would recommend knowing who your complete streets coordinator is um they can help you point you to the right direction ask them about the 10 the shop 10-year plan and the 2024 shop and then they'll give you the list of projects that are um that they're working on now or you could they can actually influence the scope of those projects and I've been we've been working with the bike coalitions in the Bay Area on those projects that are still a little further out but that's really the time because you're right I think by the time it gets to environmental stage um that project has already been programmed for a very specific scope and it's a bit more difficult to try to address it at that point um I think I think you're you're also asking the accountability question which is a really key one and and just to give a sense of like the institutional complexity that we have created on a lot of our main streets you know Caltrans owns the right of way but often we have a maintenance agreement so that the city technically is obligated to maintain the sidewalk so it's our infrastructure but the city is under agreement to maintain it so that those are the kinds of issues where you're being told that's not our jurisdiction by Caltrans because like well the city's responsible for maintaining the sidewalk I think with the complete streets policy you know we are again flipping that script where we're like well let's go back and look at those maintenance agreements and let's talk about like what we need to be engaging with collectively like city and Caltrans sitting down together to really understand the community needs so it's it's a it's a big headache because it is does come down to who's responsible for paying for it and you know if we were suddenly responsible for maintaining every sidewalk on the state highway system like that would be a massive challenge as well um so the district directors don't like me you know saying we should go back and open those maintenance agreements but it is important to like acknowledge we've got to sit down together and address the community needs and it does have to be done often at the planning stage so what Sergio is doing on the plans you know that's critical we we do want to make sure those needs are identified early um because the farther the project gets along you know the more cost to pull it back and try to add that stuff later so but but we got to work with the communities early as to your point I agree. I think Ryan you made a slight gesture and I interpreted that as you want to talk. I guess I was maybe this is hand might be a possibility but like essentially with birth with the project I talked about in Berlin game we had a similar issue where the there was different like a blame game quote unquote going on in the sense of some folks thought that the state was more responsible and then oftentimes the state can feel like if there's not local support for an alternative that it's going to be hard to go forward with that but I would say like following the money is a good idea like like in the sense of understanding who will have power to change a project if there's if if one entity is primarily funding it which I guess is kind of what Jeannie was getting to like if one entity is funding the maintenance it's harder but um if there's like a large ground swallow capital coming in to make an improvement as oftentimes does happen with the shop perhaps it's possible in the future to use that as leverage for um CalTrans which has the authority to make that change to then leverage that to negotiate the maintenance agreement in a way that can push forward you know a complete street improvement which is sometimes harder because like maintaining protected bike lanes is different and more expensive. Okay I have time for one more question I've already chosen my person but Jeannie we're getting questions online what is your email? Jeanniewithworman.word.waller just email Tony actually look up CalTrans staff directory Jeannie Ward-Waller and you will find her email okay so we had a question here um so in the context of more short-term things um is there a space for CalTrans to do quick build projects or fun quick build projects that's my first question my second question is for events um I don't know if you guys are aware of uh Viva Cay and San Jose or other like open streets events um one in one idea of her circling around in some of my circles is an idea of doing a Viva El Camino where we closed down part of the street on El Camino and how a whole lot of that um but I have been told that there's been some challenges with collaborating with CalTrans to actually make that happen um since El Camino is also such a in big car route and I'm curious if you could talk about what could happen to make that make it easier to close down CalTrans streets for events like these as well so quick builds and closing streets I would support it with regard to the idea of quick builds um we don't have any program setup for that although we do have safety yet um we do have safety projects that where there are some without getting too wonky there are ways to expedite those that they don't have to wait in the queue without their shop projects so that they get built faster but it's not the same as quick build per se um and then um I forgot who mentioned the HM program the highway maintenance program those are maintenance projects that get delivered within the one fiscal year typically and we are trying to look for opportunities to include more bike and ped improvements with those because they could be done more quickly than the three to four years it takes to do a payment rehab for example um yes I don't know if someone wants to talk about that but I also just wanted to quickly um the last slide of my slide deck showed um the Niles Canyon Stroll Enroll which is state route 84 um we actually do that every couple years in partnership with the county and so that might serve as a model to do that across a larger jurisdiction because I think that crosses the city of Fremont and unincorporated as well and that's done every two years um maybe not as complicated as El Camino Rail would be but at least it serves as a as something to look toward um does someone else want to speak about the ATP quick build or okay I'll give Lori the microphone so the ATP program has a quick build pilot program as part of the overall program and we're doing a phase two this cycle and last cycle we set aside up to seven million dollars to fund quick build projects unfortunately we did not get very many good applications and it was a very easy application so uh some people will complain about the ATP application process being difficult this was not at all it was a word narrative and um we did not get and we so we ended up funding uh close to five million but we would have funded up to seven million so we're trying it again we fixed a few things one of them is um we're hoping to do more of a quick build delivery process working with Caltrans because um the normal allocation delivery process doesn't work real well for a quick build so we're trying to fix that and being more clear on what a quick build is so we would love to fund quick more quick builds all over and anywhere you know anywhere that's willing to try quick builds I think it's I mean it's low cost it's it's fast I think they're great and so and um I do have to acknowledge Carl because it was MTC that kind of pushed us to fund those in the ATP so yes if you know of any places that need quick builds encourage them to submit an application they are due on June 15th the active transportation program and you can find it find out about it through the california transportation commission's website or Caltrans local assistance uh state programs I think if you google california active transportation program you will find it you guys a non-competitive part of the ATP that's amazing okay I don't mean non-competitive I mean one that you actually have a chance of getting that's okay that's a big deal okay you guys we we overstayed I hope that you all have a wonderful lunch thank you so much this is a great conversation thank you to our panelists you guys are yes