 Hi, everyone. Welcome to our webinar today on SD1, Maximizing Accessibility and Community Benefits. People are just logging in, so we're going to wait about a minute to get started and just let folks get logged in to go to webinar software. So, hold tight for another minute and we'll start the presentation. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the webinar today. This is on SD1, Maximizing Accessibility and Community Benefits. We're really excited to have you join us today, and I'm glad that we were able to get so many people signed up in kind of a short time period. We really wanted to get this information out quickly, so thanks for joining us today. I am Jeannie Ward-Waller. I'm the Policy Director for the California Bicycle Coalition, and I'm going to be your facilitator for the day. So, we're going to go ahead and jump in here. So, here's our agenda for the day. We're going to start off with just an overview of SD1, outline some of the principles that our coalition has developed for investment across all the programs. We'll go into some details of each of the programs that are receiving funding from SD1, and then talk about the process that the state is leading on developing guidelines for those programs. And we'll finally wrap up with some ways that you can get involved if you're not already, and also take questions at the end. So, I'm guessing most of you are familiar with GoToWebinar, but if you're not, just to familiarize you a little bit with what you see, your control panel on the right side of the screen has a question box. Feel free to go ahead and enter questions at any time in that box. We'll be keeping an eye on them as they come in, and we'll try to take questions as we go if we have time. Otherwise, we will try to get to all of them at the end. But feel free to enter those in the question box as you think of them, and we look forward to a lively discussion at the end. Also, just to note, if you have any technical difficulties with the webinar, you can email Linda at calbike.org. She's keeping an eye on her email and can try to help you as we're going to do the presentation. All right. I'm going to just quickly introduce the speakers that you have today. We've got a really great group of panelists. As I already said, I'm Jeannie Ward-Waller with the California Biteschool Coalition. I'm also joined by my colleague, Jared Sanchez, who's also with Cal Bike. Joshua Stark is policy director for Transform. Michelle Parasat, policy advocate with Public Advocates. Kerry Connect is the director of Climate Plan. Veronica Gattibai is the co-director of the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. Eric Greencombe Whitcomb is the senior associate with PolicyLink. And finally, last but not least, is Jack Carr's policy advocate with Coalition for Clean Air. So really excited to have all these speakers today talking about SB1 Advocacy. All right. So let's jump into the overview of Senate Bill 1. Many of you are probably hearing a lot about SB1. If you're not working in depth on it, this bill was passed in April and signed into law by Governor Brown. The gas tax portion will increase on November 1. So there's still a few more months until the bill starts to go into effect. But for many reasons, this is a really significant landmark bill for transportation in California. Firstly, because it's the first time the state has raised the gas tax since the 90s, it also focuses for kind of the first time ever really on primarily fixing, repairing, and maintaining our transportation infrastructure rather than significantly expanding it. It's the first or sort of landmark in the way that it's the most balanced in terms of multimodal investments that we've ever had in California. And also important to note that the bill does include language in kind of the opening section on addressing the highest transportation needs of the state. Some caveats, though, I think from our coalition's perspective, though this is a balanced and more balanced investment than we've ever seen before, the vast majority of the funds are still focused on road investment, and we'll go into more detail about that and show you some charts of what that looks like. Highway expansion is still eligible within several of the programs. So that's a bit of a concern for us. In terms of how the funding is being invested equitably to focus on the highest need communities in the state, there are only a couple of programs that are receiving SD1 funds that actually have a statutory legal requirement to invest or to prioritize those communities, and that's a concern of ours. And then as gas taxes always are, or taxes in general, it's a controversial measure to increase gas taxes. So there's a lot of urgency around this bill within the legislature from transportation agencies and really, you know, for everyone that is advocating around these funds. There's some urgency to show results really quickly from how these funds are being spent. There's actually a repeal measure that we expect to be released today that is collecting signatures to go on the 2018 ballot to repeal the gas tax increase. So that definitely comes with an emergency to start showing results. And because of that, it's really critical to make sure that these funds are delivering benefits across the state. So all communities are seeing some benefit and they're really being implemented in an effective way to improve our transportation system. And with that in mind, I just wanted to share a couple of statistics from polling statewide poll that the California Bicycle Coalition Commission that was done by David Minder Research in the Bay Area. A couple of those data points are really strong support for complete streets across the state. In fact, nearly 80% of California voters think that transportation departments should be changing the way they design and build our streets and roads so that they're safe for everyone and easier for people to get around. Similarly, we saw a really huge support for alternatives to driving. It was nearly half of the voters polled support investments in alternatives such as public transportation, walking and biking as at least an equal or greater priority to investing and improving freeways and roads. So we think this polling shows that there's really great support across the state from voters to be investing these SB1 funds in a way that really are changing our transportation system and making it easier to get around our communities. So with that in mind, I'm just going to pass it over to Jared to talk about the principles that we've developed in our coalition. You there, Jared? Hi, everyone. So as you may know, there's a broad coalition of state-level transportation advocates including the host of this webinar that have been working for several years on the new transportation funding package which eventually became SB1. Comments, testimonies, letters, and more were sent to the legislature, Brown administration, and agencies advocating for key inclusions on social equity, air pollution reduction, climate change impacts, and meeting our state's goals. Out of this, transportation justice has been a key comprehensive component. So with this in mind and now implementation underway, last month we submitted a letter to the California Transportation Commission with a very similar transportation justice platform of 10 guiding principles that we think should shape all projects across all programs. The principles are as follows, and you can kind of follow them on the screen here. The first is, as Jeannie already mentioned, fund the highest transportation needs based on social equity. In SB1, there's intent language that mentions directing investments to the state's highest transportation needs. We suggest that social equity honor this intent with key examples found in the letter that were attached over there. Number two, we believe that undertaking inclusive outreach and engagement with community groups to solicit input for guidelines development across programs is very vital. Number three, reduce air pollution, climate change impacts, and incorporate climate resilience, especially for the state's most vulnerable communities. Number four, and related of course, promote healthy communities and health outcomes. Number five, expand access to workforce training and jobs for individuals with barriers to employment. Number six, develop strong performance measures tied to state goals. SB1 promotes accountability in its name and its CTC should develop performance measures for all of its programs. Number seven, of course, support load shifts to healthier and cleaner transportation options across all programs. Number eight, require complete streets for all road projects, and these are complete streets. Provisions are a key intent in the beginning of the bill of SB1. Number nine, projects should avoid impacts to natural and working lands and enhance regional sustainability. And number 10, planning should advance housing affordability, and both planning and projects should seek to mitigate displacement. So with actual engagement and potential constant reintroduction of these principles and how they can comprehensively tie it together, without it, CPC can easily dismiss this platform of really strong transportation justice. As we learn through the SB1 process, it's important to find champions inside and outside the capital. It's also important to keep in mind that the other strong interests at these workshops and closed door meetings, most particularly regional transportation agencies, have their own principles in mind that either align with ours or sometimes in opposition. It is incumbent on advocates to reinforce the connected links that all rely on each other in order for even individual principles to become successful outcomes. And this is how our approach and how we think must be approached on all SB1 implementation. Awesome. Thanks, Jared. So going from these principles, I just want to give a little bit more detail about where the funding for SB1 is going, and then we'll go into detail on each of these programs. So I know this is a lot. There's a lot of programs in the mix here, but I just want to give you kind of the overview snapshot, and then we'll go into detail about each of the programs and how much money is flowing to each. But this is just kind of a graphical view of how much is going to each of the overall package. And SB1 raises on average about $5.4 billion annually in new funding for transportation. So the breakdown is roughly the state highways and local streets are getting the vast majority of the funding to repair and maintain them. There's also a pretty big new investment in transit and active transportation, and then some additional programs that are focused on a range of different kind of investment, either primarily road investment or multimodal. So just to put a little bit of perspective on this chart, because I know it's a lot to absorb, I've just broken them down here based on the programs that are really focused on repair and maintenance, and that's, again, the state highway repair program, local streets and roads, and then on the transit side, there's transit operating funds. Those should be primarily focused on repair and maintenance versus the rest of the programs which are primarily focused on either kind of new project, capital projects or programs that are supportive of project development and, you know, other types of things like mitigation and workforce. All right, so from there, we're going to go into the program by program discussion. So we'll go into a little bit of detail about each pieces of that pie. So the first and kind of biggest piece, I'll talk about the first few and then I'll pass it off to my co-presenters. The very first one is the SHOP program, and this is that state highway big piece of the pie. It's roughly 1.9 billion in new funds, and all of that goes to Caltrans, because Caltrans is the owner, operator manager of the state highway system. And I just put a little note at the bottom that most of you probably know, which is for those who don't, state highways are, you know, obviously our I-80s, some of our big freeways that flow across our states, also rural roads, rural state highways, but those state highways also are often our main streets and major arterials in our communities, and they carry sort of local surface traffic, people walking and biking or taking the bus, as well as vehicles. So that's important to keep in mind when you're kind of thinking about how these funds can be used and our recommendations. So the objectives of the state highway operation and protection program, or the SHOP, is to first and foremost repair pavement bridges and culverts on our state highways, get them back to a good operating condition, SB1 sets some performance targets for what good conditions are. So the objective with this new money is really to get all of our state highway systems back to sort of this condition of good. And then SB1 also includes some language that these funds should be used for additional things where feasible. So again, the focus is on the repair, but where there are opportunities to make other cost-effective improvements, there are these other objectives. The first is including complete streets elements, particularly bike and pedestrian facilities, using advanced materials that take lower emissions to produce, including technology and communication systems for electric and autonomous vehicles to sort of anticipate where vehicle technology is going, and then finally to include climate adaptation and resiliency in design and repair of these facilities. So the specific recommendations that our coalition has developed are these things. Sorry, one second. Little boxes covering the slides. Okay, so our recommendations are these. We think it's really important that Caltrans do more outreach to consult on these repair projects with local residents and stakeholders, including local agencies, cities and counties, on the development of these products to ensure that when they're going into repair, a state highway that is also a main street in a small town or in a city, they're meeting local needs at the same time as they're fixing the pavement or the culverts or bridges. Improving walk and bike and bus facilities is a key recommendation for us. So that is something that's supported in SB 1, but we think that the guidelines from the CTC should be even stronger and really requiring these facilities everywhere possible. SAFE is, of course, paramount, and that is one of the goals of this program, but we think SAFE should put a priority on vulnerable users, people walking and biking, young folks, elderly folks, people who are going to be more vulnerable in the road space and some key ways to do that is reducing speeds and calming traffic, particularly in our neighborhoods. And then finally, this is another thing, as I mentioned, that there is some supportive language in SB 1, but we want to make sure that there is an inclusion of green infrastructure that helps to mitigate climate impacts and heat island effects and other environmental impacts on these streets as they're being repaired so they're more comfortable for folks to travel by walking and biking. The next program, the next big piece of the pie is the Local Streets and Roads Maintenance Program. This one is similar to the State Highway, the SHOP program, but it's administered by cities and counties. So 1.5 billion per year in new money will come from SB 1 and be distributed to cities and counties by formula to maintain local streets and roads. The objectives are very similar to the ones I just outlined for the SHOP, repairing pavement bridges and drainage on local streets, getting them back to good condition. They're also performance targets for what good conditions mean in SB 1. And the caveat here is that once cities or counties reach that sort of target for good conditions of their local streets, the pavement on their local streets, they can actually use the funding for other things, so other types of transportation capital projects. So that's important to keep in mind when you're trying to figure out how your cities and counties are spending these funds. And then again, those same where feasible inclusions also apply to local streets and roads, so including complete streets elements, advanced materials, communication systems for electric and autonomous vehicles, and climate adaptation also apply to how cities and counties are maintaining local streets and roads. And then these recommendations will look similar from the ones I just outlined, but we are urging cities and counties to really prioritize underserved neighborhoods when they're spending these funds and go to fix those places first. Jared mentioned that there's not an overarching equity priority, but we really want to push that through all of these programs. So this is one place we think that could be done effectively. We want these local agencies to be consulting with their local residents and stakeholders on project development, again, improving walk, bike, and bus facilities during road repair, prioritizing safety of vulnerable users, and including green infrastructure on these projects everywhere possible. So last program that I'm going to talk about, and then I'll pass it on, is the Active Transportation Program. This is the slightly smaller or quite a bit smaller slice of the pie, but it is a big boost to the ATP. It's going to get 100 million more per year that goes through the California Transportation Commission for competitive grants. Some of those grants are doled out by regional agencies, the large MPOs, and the rest is awarded by the Transportation Commission. So 100 million more will roughly double the ATP, which is really exciting. It's going to allow us to do a lot more of these projects around the state. And the objectives, many of you may be familiar with this program. It's really focused on increasing walking and biking, improving safety for people walking and biking, improving public health, and reducing greenhouse gases. There's a statutory requirement in this program to benefit disadvantaged communities, and that comes with a minimum 25% of funds that must be spent to benefit those communities. There's also a priority within the scoring criteria in the program to make sure those communities get a significant portion of these funds. So it has been a fairly effective program in really putting an equity lens on how funds are spent. And then just to clarify how these new funds are being spent, it's been a little bit confusing in how the CTC has kind of announced their process. So I just want to spend a little bit of time clarifying that. The new funds from SB1, this new 100 million a year, for the next two years the funds are going to be spent or awarded right away to projects that have already applied last year for grants under the third cycle of ATP. So there's not an invitation for new projects to apply for funding immediately, but if you had already applied last year, you're now going to be eligible for this additional 200 million in the next year. And then the intent in the next grant cycle, which will open up next year, cycle four is to actually change the process a little bit and make more transformational investments with this new money. So just to show that to you kind of side by side, what the CTC is calling the ATP Augmentation are those first two years, so the first 200 million of SB1 funds. And that is an opportunity for people who applied under cycle three to submit, you know, sort of an updated schedule for their project and be eligible to get SB1 funds right away. And the call for projects for those updated schedules for cycle three applicants is, I believe has already been released, was released on June 30th with the deadline of August 1st. And then the next cycle, the next full open call for projects for ATP will come next year. And that will be for four years of funding, including the SB1 funds and the sort of existing funds under ATP. It'll be about a 440 million call for projects. And that grant cycle cycle will come with some changes to the process. So we're working now with the CTC and Caltrans to try to simplify applications for some of the project types. So it should hopefully be a slightly simpler process next year. And the workshops to kind of develop the guidelines for cycle four will be underway this fall and the call for projects we anticipate being released in spring of 2018. So from there, I'm going to pass it along to Carrie Connect from Climate Plan. Carrie, are you there to talk about local planning grants? Yes. Can you hear me? Yep. Go ahead. Great. Well, I'm excited to be here and excited that so many of you were able to join this webinar. And I'm excited to tell you about the local planning grant funds, because I think planning funds are both very important and often hard to come by. And although this is a small amount of money compared to the large SB1 pot, it's a fairly large amount when considering other planning grant funds. It's about twice as large as when the Strategic Growth Council was handing out planning grants before the AHSC program. So because grants will vary from about 100,000 all the way up to a million, we expect there to be at least about 35 grants given out every year. So there's a fair amount of opportunity for planning grants coming up. The money exists to support strong local and regional planning and became available, we've been told, to support efforts that were highlighted in the regional transportation plan guidelines. I think many of you and many members of our network worked together to improve these based on what's been learned since SB375 passed. But too many of these regional planning improvement suggestions were included as shoulds or as examples of what could happen and not as shalls or requirements. And so this funding specifically states that it is for local planning and for best practices for regional planning that are cited in those guidelines. So this is moving quickly. The early draft will be released late this week for a two-week comment period, and then in August they'll post a revised draft for 30 days and hold two workshops. And then they're planning to release the final guide in early September for applications to be due on October 20th with money released in December. So it's going to move really quickly, and they're planning to do the first two years almost back to back. So that would be $50 million that they're going to be allocating very soon. So next slide, please. So our first recommendation is that half of the funds should be set aside for planning efforts that specifically benefit disadvantaged communities, be they regional or local planning efforts. This set-aside amount is similar to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities grant program, and it's kind of becoming a leading practice for the right target to set. The next recommendation that the cohort that's been working together to review this is recommending that there be transparent criteria for the grant program with scoring aligned to the state's climate, health, equity, and environmental goals. So right now, Caltrans is proposing to build upon an existing grant program, the Sustainable Planning Grant Program. Those grants actually have advantages, and many stakeholders' eyes are fairly simple to apply for. Nonprofits can write the grant and be written in as a sub-applicant to receive funds without going through a whole RFP process. But right now, the goals of that program, they sound about right, but the scoring is not clear. For example, it says 25 possible points for program description. So it's unclear what priorities being given to making sure that projects meet state's climate goals or support environmental protection or equity goals. So we'd like there to be transparent scoring aligned to these goals and a selection committee that includes members of the public. So next, we've heard that they'll be proposing to split the funding about in half. So 12.5 million regional agencies have to local agencies, and that they are going to propose that the half to regional agencies be allocated by a formula basis to support the creation of sustainable community strategies. We instead believe that there should be a competitive selection process that allows competition not just between local agency against local agency, but also between MPOs and localities. And this is because, unfortunately, too many of the partners that we're working with have serious concerns that regional agencies are not being ambitious enough in their planning, especially for disadvantaged communities. And there's also a very great need for local planning funds. And so rather than setting aside a formula and giving half by default to regional agencies, we believe that there should be a competitive process to make sure that the most needed and the most valuable planning gets funded. And then last is that there be strong eligibility thresholds. And this becomes particularly important if any funds are to be given out by formula. The money is designed to go to planning that's beyond business as usual, not just to kind of backfill the regular old planning or kind of model upgrades. So we have a comment letter going in today that actually provides a lot of detail about what those thresholds should be, especially for regional agencies, but also for local agencies. For example, we would recommend that they need to have a housing element that's adopted as a requirement. So please be in touch with me if you'd like to review and consider signing on to that letter, but it needs to happen today. So it's all moving very quickly, and there will be another chance to comment once we officially see the draft guidelines. So with that next slide, and I will talk a little bit about the local partnership program, this is a larger amount of money. It's $200 million, and it is designed to incentivize local agencies or regional agencies to adopt self-help sales taxes, for example, those transportation sales tax funds. So half would go by default by a formula to agencies that have adopted self-help measures, and they felt that that number was important to provide the adequate incentive, and then half would go to the CTC for a competitive program for eligible agencies. Next slide, please. So building upon some of the general recommendations that the coalition came up with that Jared so clearly described earlier, they have not identified the goals of that competitive project, and that was one of their early questions to stakeholders. So our first recommendation is to align the goals and the performance criteria with the state's equity, health, and climate goals to make sure that it's serving the needs of the greatest needs of the most disadvantaged communities, that it's addressing the important air quality and active transportation health benefits that could be offered, and to meet climate goals. I mean, we know that the state is poised, unfortunately, not to meet some of the climate goals that they have set for 2035 around land use and transportation and vehicle mild traveled reduction. And so we would really like to see this money go to helping meet that goal. The next recommendation is that they limit highway expansion and invest in transit, bike, and walk improvements. The original language for this limited the money's use for repair and rehabilitation purposes, but the trailer bill expanded it to include kind of other transportation projects kind of within the same criteria for the general program. And so we think it's going to be really important to watch this to make sure that it doesn't include kind of excessive expansions of capacity that would fuel more driving or environmental destruction and air pollution in communities. And so next is that the funding prioritized providing direct benefits to the residents of the community, as you've heard above, and especially because what can be funded is so broad that should be a really important filter. We expect them to say that inclusion in the sales tax shows that it's a voter community priority, so we're going to have to be prepared to talk about the fact that voters don't get line item veto when they vote on sales tax measures. And then if we've seen in a number of regions, there are a number of sales tax projects that can hurt communities and are really not popular with the broader voting public, but they got funded through that package, so we'll have to be prepared to address that. And then last, that Road Rehab always offers an opportunity to create complete streets, and so we'd like to see that as a requirement as well. So the timing for this is also moving fairly quickly. We expect to see a draft of guidelines on August 16th, 17th, and with final adoption in October. So I look forward to working with all of you to shape these. Thanks. Thanks, Kari. And folks, don't feel like you have to be scribbling down these dates. We will have a slide with some of those key dates at the end. So more to come and more information can be shared on that. So from here, I'm going to pass it over to Josh Stark and transform to talk about congested corridors. Are you there, Josh? Yes, I am. Thank you. And thank you all for joining me. The congested corridors program is a new program that was created with SB1, and the general intention is to provide some targeted funding, the form of $250 million per year that is not indexed to inflation unlike many of the other programs and funding sources. But to target the most congested corridors in the state, as I mentioned here, this is to support more transportation choices in highly traveled corridors. And the language that creates the program actually was fairly positive in that the scoring criteria that's included there includes safety in addition to congestion as well as accessibility, economic development, job creation. It also does not allow the money to be used for expansion of new general-purpose lanes. Those are lanes for any type of vehicle to use. But it is unfortunately silent on expansion of building new lanes for say high occupancy tolling or freight lanes or things like that. So it doesn't completely leave out the possibility of any expansion, but it does begin to limit that expansion for the use of this money. Also projects have to be in a comprehensive corridor plan in an RTP SCS, which we again think is a pretty good standard to set considering how many local projects don't fall into that. So would not therefore be eligible for these dollars. Next slide, please. So our recommendations for the congested corridor program included these. There can be more, and we're open to hearing from folks who are interested in this new program. But focusing on congestion by improving congestion by identifying congestion as person throughput and identifying solutions in increasing person throughput while not increasing vehicle throughput. That is making sure that more people can use the corridor but that more cars aren't necessarily using the corridor. And doing that by identifying those kinds of projects will reduce vehicle miles traveled. So if you're increasing the number of people that can go through a corridor but you're reducing the total number of vehicle miles traveled, it really means you're reducing car trips. And that's what we would like to be looking for. And by reducing car trips, really you are effectively dealing with congestion. Another thing, another recommendation we have is to limit highway expansion, investing in bike walk and transit improvements that are parallel to the corridor. So identifying the corridor, for example, as a three mile stretch rather than just the freeway lanes is a really important component to improving congestion, in particular for the communities that are immediately adjacent to the freeway. Providing direct benefits and access to opportunity to the residents of communities impacted by these corridors is another important component and avoiding displacement and fostering planning for affordable housing are also really important because when we look at the kinds of projects that will reduce VMT, they will provide more access to opportunity within these regions that have been negatively impacted by congestion and not just by traffic times but also by the air quality implications that come with worse traffic. You know, when you improve those, you do set up the unintended consequence of the potential for gentrification and displacement because what you're doing is building, hopefully, you're building those kinds of projects that increase access to opportunity that improve quality of life and these things necessarily drive up real estate prices. And then last, requiring robust public engagement and planning and development of projects. Requiring that the communities who have been impacted by these corridors which for decades have just been used by wealthier folks to pass through communities without having to stop in those communities or deal with those communities. But those communities have borne the burdens of those travel patterns by requiring their participation, those local communities participation. Next slide. You don't have to introduce me. I'm also going to be talking on the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program. Some of you may recognize this program. The acronym is TIRCP, obviously. It is a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a GGRF program. It was created with the creation of the GGRF. It is the only GGRF-created program that I know of that receives non-GGRF funds. So we actually have a precedent set for programs like affordable housing and stable communities to point at and say, look, you're funding these with non-GGRF dollars. And so it's a good start. Let's continue that by funding some more of these good programs. The objectives of TIRCP is to expand transit and rail through capital projects and improve that interconnection to high-speed rail. Obviously, because it is a GGRF program, it is bound by AB 1550 and SB 535 requirements to invest 25% to benefit disadvantaged communities. And it also must reduce greenhouse gases. So these are non-GGRF funds that are going to a program that is bound by some pretty, you know, in the transportation world, some pretty high standards for reducing GHG and providing benefits and being invested directly into disadvantaged communities. Next slide. So our recommendation would be therefore to push these transit agencies to apply for projects that benefit communities and reduce VMT. To make that GHG connection to VMT is really important to maintain that focus so that regions can see more and more that reducing GHG means reducing VMT. Some examples we have include, you know, spending this kind of money on, excuse me, things like rolling stock and zero-emission buses, accessible rail cars, and then also improvements to station areas and integrating tickets, ticketing, and when they do provide integrated ticketing to use those as opportunities to reduce fares at the same time. Awesome. Thank you, Josh. Next, we're going to talk about the transit operations funding and Michelle Parasat is going to lead this one. Michelle, are you there? I am. Thank you, Jeannie. All right. Take it away. So there's $390 million per year slated to go to the STA, the Transit Assistance Program, and these dollars go to local and regional transportation agencies by a formula. That formula is a 50-50 fair box and population. The objectives of this program are to improve and preserve existing transit service. As many of you may know, Article 19 of the California Constitution, that severely limits the kinds of dollars that can go to support transit operations. And so these dollars coming to the STA from SB1 are coming from two different sources. From the Transportation Improvement Fees, it's going to start in January of 2018, and also from the 4% diesel sales tax increase. What's interesting about this money is that advocates can most influence it from the local level. Next slide, please. And so we have some recommendations about... We want to push transit agencies at the local level to focus funding on improving operations and not just capital projects. We think that the Fixed First philosophy should also apply to public transit. During the recession, many transit agencies saw their budget slashed. They cut bus routes and increased fares, and we would like to see these dollars used to repair damaged underwear transit systems during that period, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. BART, for example, had planned a fair increase, but canceled it when they saw the dollars coming from SB1. We also hope that there will be robust community participation at the local level with regional transit agencies so that community members can help decide where these dollars are going to go. Thanks, Michelle. Next, we're going to talk about the Trade Corridor Program, and we have Shraeus Jatkar. Are you there, Shraeus? Yeah. Can you hear me okay? Yep. Go ahead. Great. Hi, everybody. Thanks, everyone, for joining. It looks like a great turnout today. As Jeannie mentioned, my name is Shraeus Jatkar with Coalition for Clean Air, and we're a member of the California Cleaner Freight Coalition, which has a team of organizations that Watchdog, Caltrans, and the other state transportation agencies to make sure they're following through on implementing the state's Sustainable Freight Action Plan that was released last July. So one way we do that is by getting involved in this Trade Corridor Enhancement Program. And as it says here, this program will be overseen by the California Transportation Commission, which will get $300 million per year for competitive grants. And the main program objectives are focused on the real goal here is to move more goods more quickly through California's freight system. And the way this program is being designed, it's primarily going to attempt to do that by focusing on ways to relieve bottlenecks and congestion along major roadways that carry a lot of goods. This is what we call trade corridors, of course. And the reason for this, I think is one that probably we all support, which is to actually reduce environmental air quality and community impacts from freight. And some folks may be aware that the need to reduce emissions from diesel trucks is actually much more urgent and necessary than we thought. We're seeing that there's too much of the truck activity is going at low speeds and that filters that were placed on trucks years ago aren't working as effectively as we had thought. And so there's a real need to make sure that we're reducing congestion and bottlenecks and reducing idling and that that actually will generate air quality improvements. So just want to give a couple of examples or a couple more points to help describe what this program will be for. One thing is to just clarify that the eligible entities are both state and regional agencies, so 40% of this money is going to be for projects nominated by Caltrans or the state, and 60% is for projects that come from regional coalitions that are made up of multiple regional transportation agencies and other entities involved in goods movement like our ports. And in terms of eligible project types, separating rail lines from roadways, what people call rail grade separations, that is one of the state's priorities, so we can expect that of that 40% of the money we'll probably see a lot of applications for rail grade separation projects. There's also going to be some for redesigning highway, local road interchanges, and then the other category, the one that we're most concerned about is for highway or roadway improvements, which we think could really just be for expanding our roadways and highways. And that's really very problematic. Before I explain a little bit more about that on the next slide, I just want to comment that this program is not really... It's part of SB 1, but it's not really about road repair and rehabilitation. This is really money for new construction, although the projects that I described must be on existing roadways that carry a high volume of goods. So it's a little bit different from the overarching idea of SB 1, which is really just trying to put money into repairing our existing infrastructure. This is going to take that much further. Next slide, please. So I wanted to just be clear that SB 1 is actually continuing some funding for infrastructure projects on trade corridors. In the past, funding was available for infrastructure projects, like the ones I mentioned, and there was money set aside for cleaner diesel trucks and buses and freight equipment. Unfortunately, SB 1 makes hundreds of millions of dollars available every year to the Transportation Commission for these trade corridor projects. There's only a small one-time investment in cleaner freight technologies, specifically committed to projects at warehouse and distribution centers. So we think that there's a big need to make sure that we're adjusting these program guidelines and making sure that we're meaningfully going to reduce air pollution and other negative impacts from freight. And so I think what you see listed here under the other recommendations are sort of the specific ways that we want to make sure that that happens. So one of our top priorities is to limit the eligibility for projects that increase or expand highway capacity. We want actually some rules in place that ensure that any of that new capacity is actually going to relieve congestion and that those gains will be sustained over time. Another way to do that is to invest and make sure money isn't available for zero-emission technologies and practices. Language is there right now to do that, but it's too vague to make sure that those kinds of investments will get funded. And when we talk about zero-emission technologies and practices, you see an image here of a catenary system. This is actually being piloted on the Alameda corridor between the ports of LA and Long Beach. These are the types of infrastructure projects that we would like to see that are actually making investments in zero-emission goods movement. A couple other points. We want to make sure that there's a transparent scoring system for project review. There's a lot of good goals that are part of the screening and evaluation process, but we want more clarity and accountability on how this Transportation Commission will value reducing environmental and community impacts when it selects projects for funding. And then lastly, we want to make sure that impacted residents, those who live near those trade corridors, near freight facilities, have input on the project development. So with that, I'll leave it there and just mention that July 17th, next Monday will be the first workshop since SB1 was passed to get into the details of this trade corridor enhancement program. So you'll find my contact info later if you're interested in getting involved or participating in that workshop next Monday. Thanks. Thank you, Shreya. So next, we are going to talk about the workforce development program, and I'm going to pass it off to Erica from Policy Linger. Are you there, Erica? Yes, thank you. So as Jeannie had mentioned earlier, another area of advocacy for us that we've been focused on has been around how are we going to leverage this large amount of investment to increase access to economic opportunity for communities experiencing high levels of unemployment and poverty. As we know, the transportation sector creates a significant number of good jobs, and it represents a really good, viable pathway for folks to gain access to workforce training and development and good careers. And fortunately, SB1 does provide money for this. It provides $5 million annually in competitive funds that local agencies can apply for to support pre-apprenticeship programs. It will be administered by the California Workforce Development Board, and the $5 million overall is not a lot of money, but the good news is that it does specifically call out pre-apprenticeship programs, which are often the access point to rural income communities and people's color to get access into the trades. And it's also important to note that SB1 requires that there be a priority for programs that are providing targeted recruitment and outreach to specifically women, people of color, underrepresented groups, disadvantaged youth, local residents, and formerly incarcerated folks. So that's an opportunity for us to make sure that our training dollars are not only serving our most vulnerable residents, but that we're maximizing access to this pathway for them. And a couple ways to do that is to be engaged in the guidelines development process that the California Workforce Development Board will be administering. We want to make sure that the guidelines and the application include strong guidance and frameworks that direct local agencies to focus on these populations per SB1 and that it lists out the strategies for doing that, such as partnerships with community-based organizations and training entities that have a track record of success in serving individuals with barriers to employment. Apart from just ensuring, though, that our communities have access to these training programs, we have to go beyond that to ensure that, you know, as a result of all of this money being invested, that our most vulnerable folks are accessing actual jobs that are being created in local communities. And this is an area where we will have to push. So our recommendation has been to see policies that mandate that 35% of project work hours are going to individuals facing barriers to employment. And I think you can be advocating for this, both at the state level within the guidelines that the Workforce Development Board is putting out over the training program that they're actually, you know, they should include goals around hiring and encouraging local agencies to use the types of strategies that are going to help us meet that 35% goal, such as project labor agreements with targeted hire commitments, community workforce agreements, and other high-road strategies. I think it's also important, though, to be monitoring this at the local level and engaging with the local agencies as they are starting to fund projects and authorize them to be also pushing them to include these types of priorities when they're, you know, investing in projects and to be encouraging folks to use these types of strategies. And it's important to emphasize in our advocacy around this that this is the way to really maximize the economic benefits of SB1 investments and to strengthen our local economies. If we don't focus on our highest-need individuals and, you know, people who have historically faced the most significant barriers to employment, it's a missed opportunity for us, given the large number of jobs that these investments will be creating over the next 10 years. Thank you. Thanks, Erica. So finally, I'm going to go to Veronica from Leadership Council to talk about or, I guess, sort of loop back to some of our cross-cutting on equity and engagement priorities. Are you there, Veronica? Yes, thanks, Janie. And hi, everyone. Thank you for joining the webinar today. It's really great to see so much engagement on this issue. As you've heard from all the speakers today, equity and, you know, building on equity principles and ensuring strong, meaningful and transparent community engagement is critical. We're talking about a lot of money here and a lot of opportunity to really build upon local grassroots efforts to build healthy, sustainable communities, especially for low-income communities and communities of color that, for far too long, have been neglected from investment and have been excluded from decision-making around transportation and transportation investments that have led to such abandonment by local and state officials. As all of the partners have shared, you know, we want to see priority across all programs for disadvantaged residents and communities. We know that there is precedent set for targeting dollars specifically for disadvantaged communities and the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and the active transportation program and in other local dollars that regional transportation agencies have set through regional transportation plans and sustainable community strategies. You know, this will make sure that, you know, that over the life of 10 years, $54 billion really goes for its benefiting communities that are in dire need. The other sort of cross-cutting theme is public participation. That, you know, we can't understate that enough. It's going to be critical in developing the program guidelines at the state level with the state agencies, but as others have talked about, monitoring local agencies will also be critical and engaging in those processes as criteria is set, as decisions get made about which projects are in line for funding, which projects will be selected. We need to be at the table to make sure that these dollars are spent in equitable and effective ways. Jeanie and others will talk about this in a little bit. There are CTC workshops happening now. Some have already started and some will continue for guideline development. They are moving fast. They're trying to show the impact of these dollars relatively quickly. So the more that we can engage and have a seat at the table, the more we'll be able to secure opportunities in these programs for low-income communities and communities of color. You know, another important point that we can't lose sight of is that, well, this is, you know, $54 billion in transportation projects. These dollars can be used to leverage other investments throughout the state and other investments at the local level so that we can really work towards transforming communities and we can really maximize environmental, economic, and social co-benefits in the communities that we're all working with. For example, you know, leveraging these dollars for affordable housing and protecting against displacement, leveraging these dollars for improved equitable land use planning at the local level, leveraging these dollars to make sure that we're investing in existing communities and that investments in basic infrastructure such as safe drinking water, wastewater services, follow along. The other big piece is that we need to make sure that these dollars do not cause any harm. These dollars must do no harm on lowering communities and communities of color throughout the state. We need to make sure that these investments are actively expanding transit opportunities and active travel in communities that really need it. And finally, you know, across all of these programs is making sure that communities are not cut off from investment, are not cut off from opportunity that we don't see neighborhoods being cut off by major freeway expansions, that we don't see neighborhoods being cut off from opportunity to basic services because there's a new growth area that is now being prioritized and roads are now being built to facilitate those types of development. And, you know, I think with that, that's the biggest sort of point here is making sure we have a seat at the table. Thanks, Veronica. That was awesome. So I'm just going to wrap us up with a few minutes to talk about the sort of process moving forward and how to get engaged. Firstly, just to kind of go over the state guidelines process, many of the speakers mentioned sort of specific upcoming workshops and chances to plug in. There are a lot of dates on this slide. So we'll obviously share this slide out with you. I've also included the links at the bottom to the CTC website where they have their full schedule of workshops and they also have a link to get on their email list for every program that you're interested in. So you get specific updates directly from the CTC about when they're having workshops on specific programs. The other link is to the Caltrans website where they have information about the planning grant program that Cary talked about and that Caltrans is developing guidelines for. So those links have way more information but I tried to summarize some of the key dates here. So on the left are all of the workshop dates for all of these different program guidelines that are currently scheduled. So I'm not sure it's possible that they may add more workshops if necessary but these are the dates now and the locations of those workshops. For the most part, the workshops are either full day or half day. So it's a lot of time and we certainly hope that all of you or to the extent you can and you're interested that you will attend those workshops and get engaged and provide feedback directly to the CTC. We as a group, as a collective, are trying to also stay engaged and attend all of those workshops. So I'll talk about it in a second but if you're not able to attend the workshop directly we want to work with you to still make sure that your voice and your input is being provided to the CTC about these programs. The last set of dates there, that chart or the table is from the CTC website just outlining when they anticipate sort of presenting their draft guidelines and taking input for each of these programs and then when they plan to adopt the guidelines and finally when applications for each of these programs will be due. Again, I think some of these are tentative at this point but this is the plan at this point for the CTC for sort of implementing these programs and getting guidelines adopted. So with all of those dates in mind and I know it's a little bit overwhelming we want to provide some just advice I guess to you on how to get involved in this process and make sure that your voice is heard. The first thing that we have sort of brainstormed and talked about with some grassroots groups as a coalition is doing local meetings in different parts of the state to share our recommendations and this information we presented to you but also to sort of discuss local needs and get feedback from all of you that can be carried back to the CTC. And I just want to give Christopher for climate plan a minute. Christopher, if you want to unmute and just like make an announcement about how people can contact you on this. Okay, sounds good. Thanks, Jeannie. Hi all, I'm Christopher. I'm an engagement coordinator for climate plan. We're really excited to start the next stage of SB1 outreach and support by hosting regional meetings with local partners in the coming weeks. As you've heard today, much of the funding for these programs are going to be generated by formula and we really want to help ensure that locals are well positioned to advocate for local investment. I invite you to get in touch with me if you're interested in partnering with CalBike and climate plan to bring a convening to your region. Finally, if you're in a position to spread the word to local residents and advocates who might not be plugged in directly with this larger statewide network. Also, if you have a local or regional group or forum that's well suited to host an SB1 meeting, please let us know that as well. I'm really looking forward to hearing from folks. Please reach out to me through email at Christopher with a C-H at climateplanca.c-l-i-m-a-t-e-p-l-a-n-c-a.org. Thanks. Awesome. Thanks, Christopher. And just to reiterate on this point, I have spoken with the staff at the CTC, particularly Susan Branson, who's the director over there, and she has acknowledged that this is kind of an overwhelming process and has a lot to plug into. She really appreciates us sort of sharing this information out with our local partners and I'm really helping to kind of expand this process for grassroots folks around the state to provide input to the CTC. So let us know if you want to host the meetings locally or help coordinate. Christopher's email is here on the slide. Also, if you want to get more involved directly in advocacy on the guidelines process, maybe to attend some of these workshops or help to come up with recommendations and draft comment letters to the CTC, please email me, genie at cowbike.org. We have kind of a convening space, coalition space that we talk regularly about all of these programs and workshops, and we'd love to have more folks involved in that process. And then finally, the last tip is, you know, we really encourage you, especially, you know, for groups working locally with communities to reach out to your local transportation agencies, either at the city county or regional level, ask them how funds are being spent. Many of them are going to be, you know, sort of hosting their own local and regional discussions about these programs and about how they plan to spend these dollars. So there should be opportunities for you to plug in locally, and we really encourage you to get involved and influence how those funds are going to be spent at the local and regional level. So with that, we're going to go into taking questions, and I'll just remind you about, you know, putting your questions into that question box in the GoToWebinar control panel, and I think we'll pause here and take some questions. And I'll also just show you everyone's contact information for the speakers today if you want to follow up with anyone directly. Their emails are on the slide. So maybe I'll just ask, Linda or Jared, have we gotten any questions in the question box? Yes. This is Jared. I see one question here. Let me go ahead and just announce it. Please. Sure. Would a highway expansion project be considered a benefit to a disadvantaged community? How is benefit defined? Question. Any speakers want to be able to do that one? I mean, this is Jeannie. I'll just provide my two cents, and I would welcome others to chime in. I think benefit is not particularly well-defined for FB1 and for how it applies in these programs. There certainly are. There is language such as in the trade court enhancement program about reducing air quality impacts, particularly on disadvantaged communities. And so I think there are specific places where benefit is defined in certain ways. The active transportation program has defined it based on Cal and virus screen and median household income census tract. So there are specific programs that have some definitions, and I think as it applies across FB1 and some of these new programs, there's really not defined benefit. So that is a place where there needs to be more advocacy, and we do need to be really specific about what we mean by benefit. Anybody else want to sign in on that? Sure. This is Erica. I will also just add to say that we've consistently advocated that benefit needs to be thought of as, you know, what are the specific mobility and safety needs of low-income folks in these communities? What are they? How are they being addressed through this project? And how did the community actually inform the development of the project? And this is something that we've pushed for a lot in the active transportation program, and we've, you know, have continued to push that in this space as well, and we do need increased advocacy around that because that is not, obviously, that is not how transportation planning and project development has happened and continues not to happen in that way. Awesome. Thank you, Erica. Any other questions? Linda or Jared? Yes. I've got another one here. The question is, can SB1 funds be used toward ongoing funding for rail transit? I think I'll pitch that question to Josh or Michelle if either of you want to take it. Yeah, this is Josh. Yeah, they can be. Most of these funds are being pitched as the kind of fix it first for transit, and they're going around the state saying it ended up being about a billion dollars per year. And yeah, these monies are not limited to just expanding, necessarily expanding. Now, one pot of money, I think, has to go to expanding transit and then can provide operation support for that expanded transit, but the majority of this money, yeah, can just go in to help start to fill the holes that a lot of transit agencies have in their budgets. Michelle, did you have more? No, that's great. Thank you, Josh. Thanks, Josh. What's our next question, Jared? Next question is, what is the opportunity to leverage these funds for safe routes to school projects? Any thoughts on how CTC is leaning with regard to programs like these? Well, this is Jeanie. I guess I'll take that one. The safe routes to school projects have always and will continue to be eligible within the active transportation program. I talked a little bit about how, you know, there's some urgency to get the first two years of the new SD-1 funds out the door quickly, so those will only be eligible to products that already applied in cycle three. So if you have a product that didn't get funded that was sort of, you know, an application under cycle three, you may be able to get funded now, but for any new projects that didn't apply under cycle three, the call for projects will be next year, and the good thing I can say about the next cycle is that we are working with the CTC to separate out the application for certain project types, and specifically non-infrastructure projects, education and encouragement projects will have a separate application, most likely under cycle four, and it will be a little bit simplified compared to the previous application so that if you're just applying for non-infrastructure or if you're just applying for a planning project, you should be able to do a little bit easier application that's more tailored to those project types. So that's one change that should really benefit, say, across the school program in the next cycle of ATP, and then also just, of course, that there's much more funding available because of SD-1 to the active transportation program. There's a much better chance of more projects around the state, good projects getting funded, which is really exciting. In terms of opportunities through other programs, I think most, I would say pretty much all of the other programs, with the exception of the workforce and the planning grant programs, are really focused on infrastructure, so it would be a challenge to try to apply any of those to safe routes to school programmatic work. Great. Next question. In terms of more intentional engagement with disadvantaged communities, is there a space to clarify best practices or expected practices with this money? Just keeping in mind that the questioner suggests that it would be not great to include more ineffective community outreach meetings instead just being more intentional about it. I might put that question to Veronica or Erica. Do other of you want to chime in on that one? Hi, this is Veronica. The question is, is there a space to learn more best practices to engage communities in a way that's meaningful and not sort of a place that creates ineffective practices? Exactly. It's more intentional outreach. Yeah, I think that's why the local organization engagement is so critical. Those of us that are working at the local level, and this coalition and group, there's monthly meetings, so I suggest folks connect with Christopher and Jeanie and Jared at CalBike to join those statewide coalition meetings so that you learn more if you want to engage through those processes so that you can stay up to date on what's happening and what we're all doing to move these opportunities forward. But most importantly is for local organizations to work directly with other partners at the local level that may not be on this call, but also work directly with community residents who know and know what they want, know what the investment should look like, want to make sure that they're at the table that we're engaging with our city, county, and transportation agencies at the local level so that they know that we're watching, that they know that we have prioritized making sure that these dollars are invested equitably. For those of you that are either working in the San Joaquin Valley or in the Eastern Coachella Valley, where we have monthly community meetings in each region to make sure that we're doing outreach and that we're talking to folks regularly on these issues, but the local engagement is going to be key to this. Thanks, Veronica. I have a couple more questions here. Another one is how can nonprofits providing workforce development projects benefit from the workforce development program funds? Do they need to partner with local agencies to receive those funds? Yeah, so the money is going to be allocated through a competitive program, so my understanding is that local agencies will be applying for grants to fund pre-apprenticeship programs, so I would encourage folks to engage with their local agencies when the call for applications is released. I would be engaging with your local agencies to find out who is going to be applying and who is going to be part of that grant. Agencies through SB1 language are directed to recruit and provide outreach specifically to these types of populations, and so we need to make sure that they're doing that and that they're partnering with the right folks who obviously are most effective in serving those populations. The California Workforce Development Board has not announced yet when the guidelines process will begin for this overall program, so as we find out that information, we can definitely let folks know so that you know when to really start engaging with your local agencies and to be monitoring what's happening. Thanks, Erica. Any more questions? I have one more question on this here. It goes, can the Urban Greening Grant program be used in conjunction with SB1 funding? This is Jeannie. I'll try to give an answer on that one, although I don't know if that question specifically come up at all in the CCC process. I think we would certainly encourage locals to leverage all of these state funding opportunities, including those funded outside of SB1, things that are funded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and other existing sources of funding to be leveraged with these funds, absolutely. So we've definitely seen, you know, ATP funds be leveraged with affordable housing, expandable communities, dollars, and, you know, other programs. We definitely encourage that, especially those programs that have an equity priority and a climate lens. So I think there would definitely be some great opportunities for those, and we would absolutely recommend it. But I'm happy to take that question back to the CCC and Caltrans and get a definitive answer on that. Jeannie, I don't see any more questions. All right. Maybe we'll just pause and give you one more minute if you have a burning question. And if not, we can adjourn a few minutes early and give you back 10 minutes of your day. And again, I'll remind you, you know, feel free to reach out to us any of us on these programs and also contact Christopher at Climate Plan if you have, you know, an idea for a local convening to talk about these issues more and really the targeted local benefits that we could achieve with these funds. Any more questions, Jared? Nope. Just a big thank you. And that's it. Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for joining today. This has been really helpful for us to get all this information together and organize our thoughts about these programs and how we can be more effective as advocates around the state. So we appreciate your questions and hope that you'll be in touch and get involved in this process. And thank you again to all the amazing speakers. You all are a wealth of knowledge and wonderful presenters. So thank you for making time to speak today. Thank you, Jeannie, for coordinating all of this and bringing us all together. Sure. All right, everyone. With that, we'll adjourn. Have a good rest of your Monday.