 Let's call the Senate Agreement Transportation Commission meeting for February 7th to order. You're in beautiful Scotts Valley. Can we begin with a roll call? Commissioner Rockett? Here. Commissioner Bartler? Here. Commissioner McPherson? Here. Commissioner Leopold? Commissioner Alternate Mulher? Present. Commissioner Alternate Shipwreck? Here. Commissioner Alternate Recorio? Here. Commissioner Cawson-Gullin? Present. Commissioner Johnson? Here. Commissioner Brown? Here. Commissioner Bertrand? Commissioner Leopold? We'll begin with oral communications. Any member of the public may address the commission on any item within the purview of this discussion. You'll be allowed three minutes to come up and speak. Hi, Brian. People strail now. Just wanted to point out again, Guy, we feel that you made a significant error in moving forward with the contract with the Press of Rail. We're encouraging you to look at the members who are supporting and not supporting that. Bruce, Randy, and think about the members who did support it. They have an ideology against the automobile widening the highway and that trains are the solution. And I'll point to Mike here as the case in point. Sorry, Mike. You know, basically your ideology of the hatred of the car denies other transportation solutions. Denies the allowing that corridor to be used today as a game changer. Not sure who you're representing. You're not representing the Metro. You're not representing the people who could benefit today from that corridor opening up. We need to open it now. The million dollar study showed that five times as many users would use that corridor today versus the train. That's what the study showed. And keeping that corridor closed is wrong. It's a great example of why this board needs to be an elected board. We need more people focused on true focus. John's not here, but I'll just point out that John also has that ideology. Now he's coming out and saying he wants a sky camp. I don't know how a sky camp, how to save our skies, people will react to a sky camp. It's not the direction our community needs to move. John actually made an incorrect statement. We've been talking to the surface transportation board and the CTC. He tried to point out that the CEC, a surface transportation board, is going to take forever. Well, no, John's been taking forever. This organization has owned that property for almost a decade now. And you've done multiple studies and we need the corridor open today. And it's a shame that we've given the way that property to an out-of-state organization. And Guy, you haven't followed through with your commitment to reach out to the community. You've been reaching out to the train supporters, but we've gave you 10,000 signatures for no train. Brian, can someone call us to the commission? Okay. Thank you. So we're looking for more of an outreach for people who don't support the train and we're disappointed with the progress of rail contract. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak during an over-conversation on anything that's not on the agenda? We'll move on. Any additions or deletions to the agenda? The only thing that I need to let you know is that closed session today is not necessary. I'll move us to the consent agenda. These are items that are only dealt with in one vote. Is there anyone from the commission that should pull anything out of the consent agenda? Anybody from the public pull anything? I'd like to speak on the hybrid one update. Sure. Good morning, commissioners. I just want to call your attention to the bus on shoulder study that was completed last summer. According to that study, there could be a bus on shoulder lane, a bus only lane on the southbound direction. It would cost $12.2 million. And that study didn't investigate the northbound direction because it assumed that the bus on shoulder would be part of the auxiliary lanes. But I think that would be a good next step to ask, you know, how much would it cost without the auxiliary lanes? Because as you probably know, the auxiliary lanes were meant to widen the highway to the ultimate width of the HOV project. So that would be four lanes in each direction, HOV lane, two through lanes, and an auxiliary lane. And so it's a much larger payment project that would be needed for a bus only lane. So I also think that it's an advantage to proceed with the bus on shoulder project without doing the auxiliary lanes from the time standpoint. Because there are only funds to do, from Measure D, there are only funds to do the auxiliary lanes down to State Park Drive, right? After that, what do we need? Another tax measure to do the rest. So that could be well into the future, whereas the bus only lane investigated by this feasibility study said, from Santa Cruz to Freedom Boulevard, with a couple of exceptions in between, could be done right away for the $12.2 million. So I'm really looking at the people from Watsonville to notice that the auxiliary lanes are not going to help your commuters. The EIR on the next segment of the auxiliary lane, which is Soquel Avenue to 41st Avenue, concluded that there would be a marginal time savings benefit in the morning commute, and it would actually delay the evening commute. So I don't think it benefits Watsonville folks, and I think it would be much more timely and effective to do bus on shoulder. Thank you. Anyone else? I can just give it a break with that. Second? Motion by Watkins, second by Sheepman. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We'll go to the regular agenda now, begin with the, any commissioner reports on RTC related activities? Mr. Johnson in your hometown. Yeah, well thank you, Chair. I just, on behalf of the citizens of Scottsville, I want to welcome everybody to our lovely city. And as usually is appropriate, I have somebody from staff that wants to talk a little bit about a few of the projects that are going on for two or three minutes, if that's accessible. Absolutely. I'm going to introduce Caleb Bateman, who is our community development director. He'll give us an update on things from the Glenwood Trails to crossing. All right, good morning everyone. Thanks for having me and thank you Commissioner Johnson for allowing us to give this update for you guys. So welcome to the city of Scotts Valley. There's lots of great projects going on here right now, and I'd like to walk you through a couple of them. A lot of them you guys are aware of. They've been done in partnership with the RTC as well. So thank you for your support on a lot of these projects. So the first one Commissioner Johnson mentioned is the Glenwood project. In the north end of the city we have the Glenwood open space area, and we've recently opened that to the public. We've created a trail system there on the west side that connects with the high school. It's about approximately five miles of trails, and it connects with the high school. It's been a great, great amenity for the community. The community's really embraced it and it's utilized it. The Glenwood project also has a phase two component. That's the east side of the preserve. We will be opening up trails there hopefully in the near future. The planning phases are well underway on that project. In that same area, the Glenwood area of the city of Scotts Valley, we're also in a design phase for over a thousand feet of Glenwood Drive improvements beginning at the high school and continuing to the northern border of the city of Scotts Valley. That will be utilizing SB 1 Money for that project. So the next project we have on the go, actually it's a complete project, and this one was a fairly big undertaking for the city and it's been a real benefit as well. This is the intersection improvements that were done at the intersection of Mount Herman Road and Scotts Valley Drive. That included multiple bike lane improvements, pedestrian friendly improvements, improved the intersection timing, and most importantly added a left turn lane that really improves traffic flow through there. But not only did we improve traffic flow through there, we were able to shorten crosswalk distances and improve the timing of the pedestrian experience there as well. That also included some really new stuff for the city of Scotts Valley in that we added the green pedestrian bike boxes at that intersection. It's a very busy intersection so that was a great addition for cyclists in the city of Scotts Valley. Moving on to the heart of Scotts Valley, on Kings Village Road, we've embarked on a sidewalk project there and that's nearing completion. That consists of approximately 700 feet of sidewalk with multiple ADA compliant ramps and the sidewalk is probably the most important thing. That sidewalk will connect Mount Herman Road to the Scotts Valley Transit Center. Very busy corridor, no sidewalks there previously so this is a great addition there. That project also includes a flashing beacon crosswalk for people to get from one side of the shopping center to our post office and back and forth. It's utilized by a lot of school kids as well so again, a great project there and that is almost nearing completion as well. Another flashing beacon project that we did for a crosswalk is on Vine Hill School Road and this is a very important one there too because there's a lot of school kids and activity there on a busy street as well. So another great project for the city of Scotts Valley. And lastly, we are working on resurfacing about 1.5 miles of street on Green Hills Road. It's a somewhat of a rural road but it serves a major commercial or industrial corridor to the city of Scotts Valley. That includes bike lanes, crosswalks, sherros and this project that you believe is complete as of now. So that's another great project and I do believe the RTC was involved in that one as well. On a planning related note, the city of Scotts Valley is updating its general plan right now and over the next several months we're going to be updating our circulation element. We're actually going to be calling it a mobility element now because we're going to be looking at more than just traffic. We're going to be doing bike pedestrian improvements and that process will be hopefully wrapping up in the spring. We'll then be tying in the land use element with that and we'll be moving forward to hearings in the fall. Hopefully adopting an EIR and approving that project by the end of this year. So that's a brief overview of Scotts Valley projects. I'm not sure if I missed anything, Randy, if I didn't, go ahead. Well, thank you for that Taylor. Ten years ago, well first of all, our middle school is located on Bean Creek right down the street and very, very close to Mount Herman at Scotts Valley Drive. And every day you have a massive number of kids who have to traverse over Mount Herman. And ten years ago, there was literally one of the students, eighth grader, who found herself under a truck. And through the grace of God, escaped serious injury. So we planted another flashing beacon, I think, right there as well to protect the students as they come out. Because it's pretty dangerous. I mean, you have even though our speed limit is right around 35, you know, when you have that much activity with kids and so forth and sometimes not paying attention, that was another really great addition. So thanks for that, Taylor. Thank you. Thank you. I have a question about the Glenwood Trail System. Sure. Is there a map available that shows the trail system that's available to the public? And could we get a copy or at least I get a copy? Sure, I can mention that to our public works director and we can work on that. The reserve area at the west side near the high school, that isn't officially open, but it is open. We'll be having a grand opening shortly so that there will be trail information there at that time. I think it's a real accomplishment, including five miles of trails, I think that's a real public improvement. So I personally would like to go and try those trails myself. Absolutely. It would be nice to have a map. Yeah. Thank you. We'll reach out to you. Thank you. Yeah, follow up question. I'm on the board of the Santa Cruz City Manager is also on that board. And I was talking with their staff yesterday. So this question, if you want me to very quickly talk to you. And the question if I didn't know the answer for what uses those trails will be open by pedestrian. Sure. And horses or anything else? Yeah. Actually, I do see Brian Largaev from the Land Trust just walked in. The Land Trust has been a pivotal partner with the city of Scotts Valley in September with the Glen Way Open Space Area there. So if I mis-speak, Brian can correct me on some of the issues out there. But basically the plan that's in place right now, it's a very complicated sector. There's a lot of endangered species, a lot of different things that are going on out there. Wetlands and cattle, which are grazing on the site. So the West Preserve, the Southern Preserve, which is connected to the high school, that is open for pedestrian and mountain bikes. And the East Side will like to just be pedestrian because of the endangered species and stuff. Does that answer your question? Yes. Thank you for those comments. That's important. Commissioner McPherson. And I think we're done with Scotts Valley. I'm sorry. I just wanted to say, for those of you who don't know what the Glen Way Preserve is, it's about 180 acres of open space at the north side of town. It's bifurcated by the Glenwood Rye, kind of mountainy on the west side. And it's a beautiful, beautiful meadow. And you get everything, every kind of animal from coyotes to raccoons to, I don't think there have been mountain life. I think maybe there are. Well, there's nothing mountain life. There are turtles. There's a pond there with turtles and fish. It's definitely a biologically rich area. So in a year or two, I think this will be a really great destination spot for people who want to enjoy trails and open space. So we're pretty proud of the agreement that we made nearly 20 years ago with the developer who built 50 homes there, but donated that land as part of the agreement. And one other thing I think that what we were able to do, it's installed now. There was a Save for Us to school grant that the city got. And we were able to connect various neighborhoods through the southern portion of the Glenwood area there. It's a route for school kids to go through, but also for community to use to interconnect neighborhoods, but not access the Glenwood area as well. So lots of good pedestrian routes. It sounds like a very exciting project and people are all looking forward to appreciate the presentation. Thank you. Commissioner Richardson. Yeah, I just want to mention that I was at Sacramento all day. Money, talking energy, and transportation, housing, which we're going to talk about. I know there's a lot of concern when the governor came out and some legislators mentioned about the need. As we all have throughout California, housing crunch years has been discussed a lot. But the proposal or the idea was that if that local community, cities and counties do not build their adequate numbers of housing, we may take away your SB1 funds, which is about $5 million for Santa Cruz County every year. And of course, SB1 passed the legislature. There was a referendum on Proposition 6, and that was in November. It lost significant margin. The long and short of it is that the aggressive posture that was taken by some, they're stepping back a little. They're getting feedback from the League of California Cities, California State Association of Counties. What are you doing to us? We want to build housing. We're making some efforts to build more housing. But if we don't meet our RENA numbers, the regional housing numbers, you're going to take away our housing and transportation funds. That's nuts. And I think that they're getting a lot of pushback and a lot of concern in every city and county, every local government in the state. There's not a bill, there's a spot bill with the subject matter, but there's not the language in a bill to say what they would do in this regard. So that's comforting right now. But if something comes up, we surely want to keep on top of it. And I know we will in each of our cities and counties and our organizations. But it was frightening to hear what they were saying, taking away really our planning procedures in local government. Really, if you don't do what we say in the state admits that it wants $180,000 and the houses built every year. And they are getting just barely halfway there themselves. $100,000 collectively throughout the state. So it's an issue of housing crunches upon us, but we shouldn't punish transportation to make it work because it will only deepen the problem. But that's where it is at this point. Just to point out to the public that when Bruce referred to the spot bill, that's a placeholder in legislation that sometimes in the last minute somebody dumps a bill on there that shocked it and didn't know what was coming. So I don't know that everybody's aware of that term, but that's what's sitting there. Something that could be used in the last minute. So it's really critical that we do a lot of laundry early on so that doesn't happen. Thank you. Any other commissioner comment? Commissioner comments? Okay, we'll move on to the director's report. Thank you, commissioners. The RTC plans to issue a notice of the availability of the final environmental impact report for the proposed north post trail later today. The proposed project would comprise the majority of the segment five of the larger Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Network for which a master plan was adopted and a programmatic environmental impact report was certified. By issuing the NOA today, RTC will provide a four week review period rather than the minimum 10 day review period. Consideration of the certification of the FERIR is currently scheduled for the RTC's March 7th meeting, which will serve as the public hearing for the final EIR. The final EIR will be available on the RTC website and at the RTC Santa Cruz office. On February 12th, copies should also be available at the downtown Santa Cruz and Watsonville Public Libraries as well as the Davenport Resource Service Center. I'm proud to announce that the north post trail draft EIR has been nominated to receive a merit award from the Association of Environmental Professionals. The awards are expected to be presented during the upcoming AEP conference, which will be in Monterey from March 24th through March 27th. I expect to have more information on this event at the RTC's next meeting on March 7th. The comment period for the mitigated negative declaration for base two of segment seven of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail closed yesterday. Base two of segment seven extends from California Street and Bay Street to Pacific Avenue. The City of Santa Cruz is the lead agency and its planning commission is scheduled to consider the document at its evening meeting on March 7th, which coincidentally is the same date that this commission is expected to conduct the hearing on the north post EIR. So there will be a very busy day for the Monterey Bay Trail on March 7th coming up. Base one of segment seven, same segment that base one of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail from Natural Bridges to California Street and Bay Street across the west side of Santa Cruz is scheduled to be rebid for construction by the city this spring. The project is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Finally, on January 30th, the California Transportation Commission allocated 2.57 million in state transportation improvement program funds to prepare the final plan specifications and estimates, also known as final design for the Highway 1 Auxiliary Lane and the bike pedestrian over-crossing project from St. Hill Drive to 41st Avenue. As previously reported, RTC has hired Mark Thomas and company to complete the final design plans. Design is expected to be completed next year and this project is scheduled to go to construction by the end of 2020 dependent on a full funding plan for the construction base of the project. And there will be submitting applications to the RTC for consideration of construction funding during the next round of SB1 funding. That's all I have for today. Any questions of the director? Okay. Sure, come on up. Right, people, let's trail down. So I want to remind the organization that the farmers on the north coast have been actively reaching out to the RTC staff on addressing a win-win solution for the north coast rail trail. We haven't been reached out to. The farmers have not been reached out to and there's a lot of concerns there. So we're asking that RTC staff really try to make an effort for a developing a win-win. We've reminded you multiple times that we're the first neighbors that you're imposing the new trail on and the farmers are supportive of it. We have the alternative plan, the trail now and the farmers plan. And from the EIR showed that our plan actually had less of an impact. So we're continuing to ask that RTC staff work with the farmers on a win-win solution and we're the first of the neighbors that you're imposing the trail on. So we're really asking for a reach out. It's not happening. I don't know how many times we have to keep asking. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We've got a public hearing at 9.30. Miss Lilly, if you could go ahead and do your presentation. I think you'll probably be able to expedite that. Absolutely. Good morning, chair and commissioners. Just highlighting the obvious, I suppose. Winter storm season is in full swing. Please take extra time to get to your destination. The system is holding up reasonably well considering the deluge that we faced all over the district, including in Santa Barbara. We had some cleanup with some minor debris flows, but nothing we couldn't handle in the day's time. Also just wanted to highlight there's more information for you on our shop projects. We recently shared with your staff our semi-annual list of all the shop program, including what's looking ahead far to the future so that we can do a better job coordinating with you as part of our asset management. And I'll just leave it at that. Miss, you have some questions for me. Any questions? You have a couple more minutes if you want to elaborate. I don't want to catch you short. No, I really don't need to other than to just comment maybe on the highway 9. Really, I've got a hearing coming up. I just want to say how pleased we are to have been able to help sponsor that effort. And it's been a really positive experience for everyone involved. And I was at the open house last night, which is a good event. I look forward to today's hearing. Your staff is doing a fabulous job. Hope for good things. Great. Thank you for that report. Okay, that takes us to item 17. It is a public hearing on draft Highway 9 San Jose Valley Complete Streets Corridor Plan. Staff presentation. Good morning, commissioners. Rachel Murray here, staff. Thank you all for being here today. We do have a public hearing that's been noticed for 9.30 a.m., but we're allowed to start the staff presentation before that. And we'll have the public hearing as soon as we finish the brief staff presentation. So I just want to start out by giving a shout out to Breonna Goodman of our staff. She's a planner with the commission. And we were really hopeful that she would be making this presentation today, but she is now officially on maternity leave. And so I am presenting, but she's here as a member of the sort of public in case some detailed questions come up. But I just want to recognize she did a lot of work on this plan and also is an SLB resident and has just put forward her heart into this, her first baby, the San Lorenzo Valley Highway 9 plan. So why did we prepare this plan? We went after a Caltrans grant, as Miss Lowe mentioned earlier. We were successful in securing a grant to come and pull together a more comprehensive plan for the San Lorenzo Valley with a focus on the Highway 9 and the road that attached to the Highway 9. It's focused on improving mobility for everyone, not just automobiles, but also transit bikes and pedestrians, trucks, emergency vehicles, etc. And it really is a community-based plan. We did a lot of public outreach during the phase. One of the report, Supervisor McPherson had done a lot of work with the community starting in 2013 to gather input on what the priorities need to be for San Lorenzo Valley for addressing some pretty significant transportation challenges up there. And so we really feel like this is a community-based plan that reflects what we've been hearing from the community. It's also meant to be a toolkit for future implementation of projects. It also can be a toolkit for all local jurisdictions. A appendix A of the document is kind of a guidebook to different types of transportation facilities with the state and federal rules. And sometimes the county rules are associated with those different improvements, whether it's where can you do a crosswalk that looks like this or a bike lane that looks like that? How, why do travel lanes need to be? Where is it appropriate to put certain types of lighting? All of that type of information is also in this document. It's utilized not just for the Highway 9 corridor, but for other roads in the county as well. And then finally, the reason why we needed this plan is, well, Measure D, fortunately, includes $10 million designated for Highway 9 through San Lorenzo Valley. It's not enough to do everything that's needed in the Valley. And so we wanted to really make sure that we're using the public's funds as efficiently as possible and also using those Measure D funds to leverage other grants over the years. So hopefully we can, I think Commissioner McPherson suggests quadruple or more of those Measure D funds. So this was a huge team effort. The Regional Transportation Commission was the lead on the project but County Public Works, CalTrans, Santa Cruz Metro, Supervisor McPherson's office and our consultant team of Kimley Horn and Trail People helped develop this plan and did a lot of editing sections of it. And then, of course, as I mentioned before, the SLB community was the most involved, I would say. Over 400 people filled out a survey that we did around the first phase and about 100 people came to public workshops when we first kicked off the project. So as I mentioned before, this study doesn't cover all of Highway 9. It's really focused on the section of Highway 9 and the adjacent streets that are located in San Lorenzo Valley. There was a study done in 2006 that focused on bicycle pedestrian access through the Valley all the way down to the city of Santa Cruz and looked at a range of different routes including Granville Road, the Big Trees Railroad corridor as well as Highway 9. But in that study still exists, it's still valid, but this one really just focused in on what might be possible and needed in the Valley itself. So for folks who aren't familiar with San Lorenzo Valley, there's a lot of challenges there. We have a lot of folks just walking on the shoulders. There's very limited pedestrian facilities outside of the village course. And even within the village course, there are oftentimes some major gaps, folks walking through parking lots or parking spaces to get from place to place access to the schools. There's very few walkways that provide access to the schools in San Lorenzo Valley. In fact, there might be none. There's a side asphalt path near Boulder Creek Elementary, which is helpful, but it's still not fully addressing all the safe routes to schools needs. There's no deleted bicycle lanes through the corridor. It has huge collision rates, folks driving off the side of the road sometimes on a curvy road, head-on collisions, T-bones, all sorts of challenges there. And then there's a few spots with congestion, especially around San Lorenzo Valley School Complex and the Grand Hall Road Highway 9 intersection, as well as there are challenges for everyone who, especially folks who are trying to turn left from side streets onto Highway 9, but they can be sitting there for a very long time waiting to make those turns. It's a narrow roadway, it has sharp curves, we have hill sides. There's a lot of right-of-way challenges within this area. And so putting together a plan that's feasible is also a challenge. You know, there's definitely engineering solutions to all sorts of things if you put enough dollars on it, but we really needed to take into consideration that funds are limited as well. So through discussions with the community during Phase 1, but also looking at what types of criteria exist when we're going after grants, we looked at a variety of goals and objectives for the corridors and looked at projects against these goals and criteria to see that we are achieving improvements for the corridors. So these range from, you know, state goals to reduce vehicle miles traveled, but also community goals to make it easier to walk places, as well as, but the most critical one that came up over and over again is safety. Folks want this corridor to be safer for everyone. These are, there's some corridor-wide project types within the plan, but overall there's 34 project priorities that were identified through the public input, and those are described in chapters two and three of the document. And these projects would apply corridor-wide and they improve transportation safety and mobility for all modes, and it provides a roadmap for implementation later. And at this point I'd like to hand it over to our consultant, Frederick Venture, who's here, and some of you may recognize him from other projects that he's worked on, and today we're just talking about the Highway 9 SLB corridor right now, and so that I'll hand it over to him. Thank you, Rachel. Good morning. Commission members and members of the public. So very exciting, very challenging project. Rachel, I'll just explain to you really the constraints that we have, and every 100 yards of this corridor has constraints on it. It's such a tremendous, challenging corridor in terms of providing that multi-mobile that we've tried to develop. And I think there's a good 40 or 50 projects that's in the back of the appendix that we've focused on and developed some sort of system that can be looked at in that toolkit. It's really a great toolkit for moving forward and implementing the corridor plan. So the focus is on pedestrians. The focus is on bicycles and then transit and then also to a more limited extent of traffic so people already move. So how can we decrease speeds? How can we make it safer for pedestrians or bicycles specifically? A lot of the emphasis went on that. The emphasis also varies between the actual segments between the towns, and that's a lot of the corridor projects or the more system-wide projects that Rachel spoke about. And then in the towns we try to focus it on what is the specific need that the people and the community want to see in the town. So formalizing the town space and the use that's available and the space that's available there for use by the community, so we'll talk through those real quick. So on the pedestrian facilities, number one is just to fix what's there that's not right. So there's sidewalks, there's sidewalks that are just really old, it's not ADA compliant. So that's number one. Number two is fitting in the gaps for sidewalk space. How do we make sure that we close gaps? Because some days you'll see somebody walks on the sidewalk and they're back in the streets and they're on the shoulder, then there's no shoulder. So having consistency that you can feel if you're a pedestrian that you feel safe and that you can actually walk on a sidewalk that's protected and this is within the towns. Next one that's really, really important is so pedestrians need to cross the street and last night again we heard at the community meeting there's mid-block crossings that are just purely J-walk. How can we make it safer for people to cross the road? We have 15 accidents over 10 years at intersections where they are crosswalks right now. So safety plays a huge factor in how we improve it at the intersection. So how are we doing that? You can see at the picture, ladder crosswalks, highlight that, not just doing this, the stripe that goes from left and right, you can see that as well. You can use reflective painting in these, so at night time when the cars light shine on them, they stand out. There's a mid-block crossing that we're recommending and we can use the, it's called the RRFB, it's a rapid flashing device and there's one that's been lowered right now, so it's this one that's on the side of the road and if a pedestrian pushes the button, they go like dessert and lots of light. So they work really, really well, Calc and supports these, so we'll probably see more insulation of those. And then we're also looking at, so as a pedestrian crosses the road, we're also looking at having a, what we call, a median refuge. So the pedestrian only crosses one lane, get to the median and there's a safe space where there will be protection on both sides and then a crossing on the lane. So two states crossing four pedestrians that will improve safety. Having some more signs that will tell them, hey, crossing ahead, those will be bright, so both motorists can see that. Bicycle facilities, so between the villages, that's where the biggest challenges are. You know, to provide anything that really needs great Calc and standards and what sort of the industry is doing out there right now, we need to work out trees or we need to widen bridges or it's just never right away. So what we're recommending is to add a four foot shoulder as maintenance projects are being done to Highway 9 and that four foot shoulder could then be used by bicycles in between the villages. We have a few choke points for traffic that are actually pretty substantial on the corridor. The first one is Great Hill and Highway 9 and we had quite a few nice graphics that were floating around about how to improve it but none of them to go really into traffic congestion resolution did not need significant right away. It's a skew intersection that's got an offset split so everything goes wrong in that intersection for graphics. So what we decided to focus on is really focus on pedestrians' bicycles and then in that same process we lengthen left turn pockets and make sure that there's a bus turnout for the bus stops so that the buses don't block the cars they want to go through the intersection. The other big choking point is actually at the two schools the San Lorenzo Valley Schools. So we have identified what I would call short-term medium improvements. We've had a meeting with the school district and the school representatives to think about the short-term plan and they've actually come up with a great idea but it is going to be extremely expensive and big retaining walls but it is captured in the plan as well as a potential solution moving forward. The number one cause of accidents on Long Highway 9 anywhere along this project with vehicles were involved in speed and last night several of the public members of the community came to us and said how can we reduce speeds? That's going to be one of the primary focus I think from the community and from our disease to how do we get people to comply to those speeds. Unfortunately everybody at speeds lives in San Lorenzo Valley so it's the locals that are the culprits they make up 90% of the books so there's a story to be told and that's usually what we find. So we're thinking the speed limit feedback signs that you get the ones that flash, you get those that work with solar panels and technologies and those that actually you can get camera violations so it takes a picture if you're still violating the speed you don't slow down making the signs visible especially focusing on especially when you enter the towns that people do slow down to the 25 or 30 miles an hour and of course narrowing lanes so in the towns you will see in the concepts that we've prepared the lanes going from 12 feet to 11 feet ITE and industry has proven the one foot reduction on lanes actually so track it down. In between the towns we stay on 12 feet or 14 feet of lanes and that has to do with going around the corners and the bends because people will some trucks get longer so you don't want to narrow otherwise people are going to go on the shoulder. Those are two primary items then you will also see in the towns we've tried to create this character that you're leaving the rural setting of the road that has a shoulder to a road that now has a bike lane on each side of it plus parking but sidewalks so people can feel that I'm leaving the town or I'm getting into the town so the character changes so I got it over my speed as soon as I hit them more but I call it urbanized environment. What we also tried to do is parking you will see parking is very informal all along the corridor some people park diagonals some people park in parallel others park in at a 90 degree angle so what we did in the towns is in a couple of them we have diagonal spaces that we could fit with the bike lane plus sidewalk and some of them we just get the parallel parking but it's going to be a little bit more formalized so again lane, turn lane bike lane, parking, sidewalk the layouts that we have in the plan right now is just a very high planning level layout so there will be lines on the aerial photo of course the aerial photos are not they're not to scale so sometimes it will look like maybe some of the lines go over some of this property so once we get into the engineering design level that detail will be sorted out. Transit will continue to be and I think will become more important in the future for people that commute up and down San Lorenzo Valley so what we focused on was enhancing access number one to bus stops so there's a sidewalk that you can walk to the bus and if you get off the bus you can walk to your house or your business and then the second one is improving amenities at the stops so where we could having a bus pull out area or otherwise having a bench or even a little canopy bus stop we have identified 28 what we call priority improvements that's off that grand list of big old matrix in the back it kept changing so these 28 location based projects and concepts shows us what improvements are anticipated and we've identified specific locations and we have a plan in every town felt and they know we're available to create and then some key locations in between the villages as well and they are also nice plans that clearly identify in colour how and the community really love those at the community meetings it shows you where these facilities would be provided so a very easy step very easy presentation of these multimodal improvements that we've done so in Felton again in the town there are various improvements like I said focusing on pedestrians bicycles and sidewalk there are some crosswalk improvements some center lane improvements the bike lanes, the parking and transit stop improvements also identifying specifically some of the routes to schools or parks and having some continuity in that system the schools that spoke about already there's a very nice graphic some very clear ideas but it's going to be very expensive they do have quite a few problems both on-site and off-site Ben Lowman the same primarily pedestrian improvements bicycle improvements and bike lanes and then again transit facilities as well in Brookdale sidewalk improvements some crosswalks quite a few locations to be identified crosswalk improvements that I explained to you to enhance how we pedestrian cross the road to do it in a safer manner and then Boulder Creek in access to the school and then the pedestrian facilities and multimodal improvements along Highway 9 and some connectivity just immediately block away or some round trip from Highway 9 to the town Thanks Frederick so again all of those location specific projects and maps are in Chapter 3 of the document if it's going to dig in a little deeper there and some longer descriptions of all the different proposals so overall of all of the priorities that floated to the top out of 800 ideas that we got from the community some of them were duplicative but we are to implement all of these projects and so it's going to happen incrementally there's going to be some projects that based on the community input that we've received we asked people to identify their top 5 projects throughout all of the you know 34 project locations and from that that will give the public works department Caltrans and RTC some guidance on where to go after grants for those major improvements but for a lot of them there's going to be some ongoing improvements made incrementally as storm damage repairs happen for instance or other maintenance projects are happening out there or as new state mandates related to water control or ADA improvements come up and so there's some of these projects that aren't going to get done all 100% at one time but maybe a new crosswalk goes in as Caltrans is repaving the roadway some other components of projects will be funded as certain grant applications come forward we were really lucky based on the community input that we received during phase 1 in our analysis of collision locations we were successful just last month or December sorry already in February of securing a highway safety improvement program grant to address pedestrian fatalities and injury collisions at five locations so already we can only look at the locations that had histories of collisions and were also community priorities in that grant application but as new grants come forward we'll also be looking to this plan to secure those funds so just to let you know what we've been doing the draft document is on our website in full it has some appendices as well as the court document we had we released it for public review on the 17th of January we have comments due next Friday we've set up an email address specifically for those comments we've had two open houses and Felton and Boulder Creek that over 100 people attended those two workshops so that was fantastic we have today's public caring which I anticipate we'll hear from some folks but whether folks testified today or they came to the public hearings or they submit comments to us we've already received over 50 comments we also have an online survey that over 150 almost 200 people have already taken so we're collecting input from folks in a lot of different ways and so we're going to take into consideration all of that input and then come back with a final plan later this spring so with that I recommend that the commission open the public caring to receive input from the community and or we can answer questions that you might have beforehand thank you before I open up for questions I did not allow a commission person a chance to speak his office was involved in this I can't tell you how appreciative I am that we're here and this has really become a Highway 9 planned reality and the cooperation that we've received the hard work of our RITC staff is phenomenal the cooperation with CalTrans has been great this is a special circumstance special challenges when you have your state highway being the main street of four communities literally and to make that all work together counting a state level it's going to be quite an achievement we're going to get there I can't tell you especially when you have it's I think the highest number of vehicles per day is about 21,000 between Felt and Ben Bowman heavily traveled and say we have a cliff side on one side and a canyon on the other and a lot of spaces there's some places where it's going to be difficult to put everything we want into the same package throughout that whole stretch but I I think we have to realize too that some of these projects are going to take some time but the major one one of the major ones has been mentioned that the schools where everything from elementary to high school is in one spot and it's like a parking lot when they're dropping kids off and when you're picking them up in the afternoon but we think that could be probably four or five years off but we are in the planning stages and so forth right as we speak so we're on it and if Santa Cruz County wouldn't have approved Measure D with $10 million targeted for highway improvements on Highway 9 we would be here today and it's going to be a multifaceted transportation project that we have as was stated for vehicles, pedestrians, bicycles and our transit system with Metro it's been a long time coming until the people are engaged we've just had another public town hall meeting last night in Boulder Creek people are engaged they really want to see something happen and it's really nice that we've gotten here as was mentioned a separate item we have some flashing beacon lights for people to make crossings along Highway 9 has been allocated for the grant I think just a couple of months ago so I want to thank this commission and everybody who worked on Measure D and this is something that is very, very significant for the people of Santa Cruz Valley and people live there of course but they commute there too a lot of them over Bear Creek Road and not just Highway 17 or getting to 17 so it's highly used as a proof in the number show but it's something that's going to be very much appreciated for years and years to come and I just want to say thank you again to everyone who supported Measure D including this 10 million dollar fund which I do believe is going to our target is to make it grow by at least four or five times that to do the projects that we need and we probably can't do all of them even at that it's a tremendous feeling for people in Santa Cruz Valley that we're going to improve the transportation system and the whole network in the Valley so thank you very much Thank you. Before I open up to the public is there any questions or commissioners that either can we or our staff? Mr. Johnson. I have a question Thank you Chair. So you mentioned there are little down to 28 priority projects. What is the final price that I've done? You know we did not do cost testaments for individual for more than I think nine or ten individual projects but I my quick and dirty back of the envelope estimate is about 200 million dollars worth of improvements. We're at 10 now. We're at 10 and 250,000 from the HSUP grant. So my years always break up when Kimberly Hardin representative mentioned trends will become even more important. What is that declarative statement based on? Frederick, do you want to take that? I mean I could respond to that. The person who said it. So if we go look at the regional travel ban model we will see that there will be continued growth and increased rapid volumes on hiring I. We know from this study that there is very limited capacity to wind the road to accommodate that traffic I think the way in which people will continue to commute in the future if it gets so congested that it becomes bad to stay in your car is to actually take the bus. That's going to be I think that's going to be we will see and also in the models we will see that shift. There's a mode shift from the way from the motor car more to walking, cycling and taking the bus. Any questions? Okay we will go ahead and open up the public hearing please come up and make comments. We have three minutes to talk. Can you go ahead and speak? Go ahead Ms. Strauss. Good morning I'm Ms. Strauss with Lake Santa Cruz County Thank you so much for moving the San Lawrence Valley Highway 9 Complete Streets plan forward. We are thrilled to see some of these projects come to fruition and we understand that there are funding limitations and while there are several projects in this plan that are really really important there are some that float to the top for us we urge you to prioritize bike and pedestrian facilities to the San Lawrence Valley School Campus Connections to the southern and northern neighborhoods does not only increase safety for children who are already biking and walking in the shoulder line but it also creates an opportunity to reduce traffic congestion by allowing parents to choose not to drive their kids to school Additionally, it's a high priority for bike Santa Cruz County to provide safe routes in town centers so we ask you to please prioritize bike lanes and green lanes there and this will be the start of a network of facilities that will get people from point A to point B for bringing these projects forward and we are excited to see them implemented Thank you Thank you Anyone else? The studies quoted for lane width you've chosen to reduce the lane width in the towns by one feet The studies indicate that the highest pedestrian and non-vehicle safety is at 10 feet and not marking the lane and changing the width of the lanes for the corners does not actually reduce speed because the vehicles who are undersized will use the wider lane width and ride faster It quotes the study that says that the narrower lanes are safer and prioritize bicycles and pedestrians over vehicles but the wider lanes are for faster traffic not for 30 mile an hour roads our entire highway is currently has a varied lane width the entire duration and a consistent lane width suggests to put the cab of the vehicle in the correct position on the lane rather than cutting it across which reduces the safety of bicycles also placing parking on the far side of the bike lane reduces the safety of cyclists and reduces the number of parents willing to send their their kids out on bicycles and in our description it shows how in the village you want to put the parking between the bike lane and the sidewalk our sidewalks are not always going to be able to be ADA compliant because of their width and people using mobility devices will use the bike lane and that's fine but it's better if the bike lane is close to the pedestrian access so they can get in and out of the bike lane without going around the parked vehicles Stacy Croft Thank you for your comments Ms. Croft Come on up sir Mr. Chair, members of the commission my name is Jim Helmer 1085 Albarot Ben-Loman if I could I'd like to start off the conversation I had with Deputy Director of Caltrans long before this study started and I think it's important not only for some of the points we've heard but statewide. So this is me in my approach to the Deputy Director I appreciate you looking into these three safety issues regarding the speed radar shots in downtown Ben-Loman it is with irony that the section that is very uncomfortable and has a lot of pedestrian and turning activity with our market, the fire department a sloping grave a curve, offset intersections and now a rapid flashing beacon on a very challenging uncontrolled marked crosswalk that this cannot be studied on its own merits for a speed reduction I know you cannot do anything given the current regulations and guidance in our policies so might I ask if the state law allowed prima facie 25 miles per hour on state highways would that give you more latitude would that give Caltrans more latitude to respond to local requests for setting realistic speeds in local business districts where the main street serves is a state highway her response in regards to your question about prima facie 25 are correct this would make it much easier for us under CVC section 22 352 the 25 mile per hour speed limit for school zones applies to both state highways and local streets however the 25 mile per hour prima facie speed limit for business districts and residential districts and senior citizen facilities and local streets for you that are city council members your public works director or planning directors can work very effectively and efficiently to lower your speed limits to 25 for a state highway we cannot do that we must use the engineering speed survey process which we heard earlier motorists tend to drive quite fast so having them apply to state highways would provide us with more flexibility when it comes to setting speed limits on state highways that travel through cities and communities following that I then communicated with our assembly member and I personally drove to Sacramento and met with secretary Kelly and under secretary Annis and I spoke with director Gordy of Caltrans today nothing has changed so I asked that Santa Cruz County be a leader and help our state by revising the DC so that it does not negatively impact so many California communities that have a state highway as their main street in other words give Caltrans the option of using prima facie 25 to the study if I could a couple comments thank you I want to thank Bruce I want to thank county staff board staff the consultants I want to thank all of you when Bruce took office he met with each community and we set some priorities in Ben Lohman he formed ad hoc pedestrian safety committee and made me the chair for seven years we've advocated for speed reduction and three pedestrian priority projects one on highway 9 and two on local streets connecting to our village one of those on the local street would connect directly to 150 homes the other one would connect to our post office in finalizing this plan here's what we'd like you to do work with the state to get this prima facie 25 law changed for instance highway 9 also goes through Los Gatos last year an elderly man was killed in the crosswalk in downtown Los Gatos that highway is posted 35 in downtown Los Gatos in the last two weeks we've had close to one foot of rain in the center of the valley our roads turned to rivers yes highway 9 in the community is rural and we like it that way but this report does not address the serious need for drainage improvements along the shoulder way removing trees that are obvious hazards to have been identified over and over again and I'm pleased to say that the regional occupational program director at San Lorenzo Valley high school said that if any trees were removed along the highway for safety he would use those trees to make park and library benches out of libraries and parks in the county I'd like to just commend our development fire department board of directors they have written a letter supporting certain repackaging actually some of the development projects and Sean can you raise your hand is here today representing the Denlaman fire board so for in closing I would just like to say let's do some real positive innovator but challenging projects in San Lorenzo Valley to make a difference thank you for those comments here's this letter from the fire department thank you I'm Brian Largay I'm the resident of Felton and while I do collaborate with the city of Santa Cruz in my land trust employee capacity on those Glenwood trails I'm going to be happy to show them to you at some point I'm here as a resident of the valley speaking on behalf of my community thank you commissioners and staff for the honor of providing input today if you haven't walked down highway nine during the rush hour you might give it a try on your way from the high school to Felton you'll have traffic rushing by arms length to your left while your right shoulder brushes against a 15 foot retaining wall if you have to walk it every day as many people in our community do you'll feel small and long-distance and you are there have been over 100 accidents in the stretch of road by the schools over the past 10 years a child making that walk every day will get the impression that whoever created this system doesn't value them very much and the highway nine corridor plan when implemented will change all that it's a wonderful thing it's a truly impressive compilation of projects together they'll make it vastly safer to walk or bike to school it'll make it safer to cross the road to get to the market or visit neighbors they'll give people healthy choices when they go to work or run errands it'll help me to get climate change the big project affixed in things in front of the schools will solve traffic jams that run for miles and slow down thousands of people on their way to work not only is the plan the fantastic the staff who developed it did an amazing job Breonna Goodman worked tirelessly to bring it all together and Rachel Morconi was a terrific project leader transportation can be a very mechanical discipline but the RTC staff who did this job did it with a very human professionalism which was truly impressive so my request my ask of the commission please don't stop now none of the projects are show ready I urge you to commit in the plan to sustain leadership by the RTC to develop the priority projects that top the list and carry them through so they're queued up for construction there's a fair amount of work left to be done only the RTC has the capacity and the interagency network thank you very much has the capacity and networks of interagency collaboration to bring these projects through given the multiple jurisdictions and very complex nature of doing local projects on the state highway the 25,000 residents of the San Francisco Valley asked for very much we are pretty self-reliant we don't complain over trivial things that I'm sure you hear on a routine basis from lots of other stakeholders notably we don't directly benefit from the highway 1 projects or the rail trail projects those are nice but distant amenities as far as we're concerned but we absolutely need sustained RTC leadership to implement your plan for highway 9 the children of the valley, thank you thank you very much, appreciate all those comments anyone else like to speak on this topic okay we're going to go ahead and close the public hearing no action required thank the staff and the RTC and our partners for the production of this really wonderful plan and two quick comments at the beginning the transit district sees the sounds of the valley as an urban center most people think it is rural and has that quality we're not trying to undermine that in any way but we have urban level demands on transit and it's critical that we spend money in the future to make sure that the bus system is adequate to respond to the needs of the people in the valley since a member of the board there's a commitment to making sure that that happens people again, if they're counting people thinking this is a rural place don't imagine that it really has the level of traffic that has that level and it's kind of critical we should make sure that our legislative program includes this idea of the time efficient 25 mile an hour than one of the members of the public really it's not just here but it's critical but it's critical throughout the state if that happened being forced to slow down when you're on your way somewhere from out of town to 25 instead of 35 or 30 miles an hour is not an unreasonable demand on somebody when they're going somewhere the safety level is so much higher when that happens so we really should be pressing the legislation to take that up then I want to speak personally you might think that those of us that don't live in the valley are only interested in this from the distance or something but I'm a bicycle rider I ride my bicycle to the big basin the only way to get there is highway 9 as I get older to think about mortality I'm less likely to take that ride than I used to be although I still do it and you would think that the scariest part would be where there's like no shoulder and there's no room between the cows but frankly I find the most dangerous when I'm going through the various towns in the valley where people are backing out of spaces and then without looking where it's not clear where the parking is exactly where people come the parking is totally haphazard and you don't know what's going on you can't tell it's really scary and I ride it pretty regularly it's just again I know we don't have the money to make the bicycle path all the way along highway 9 the way we should have eventually but in the meantime what we can do in the towns actually is a huge safety factor for those of us riding bicycles in the area the idea that we need to begin to actually work on these projects is what the last speaker suggested I think is really critical for us as an agency Bruce's office has done a lot of work to make this stuff happen but the constituents for these improvements are not just people who live in the valley there are those of us in this county that rent and create bicycles all over and this whole highway 9 corridor is kind of a critical one so I navigate Grand Hill a lot more for the first part of the ride than I used to think highway 9 and I don't recommend people do that they can take Grand Hill instead but once you get to Felton your only choice is to ride along this corridor and improvements really will make a difference in safety and I personally would appreciate these things as they get improved that's where the chance to comment thank you Mr. Bertrand let me start this way and work over where I went so it's been a long time since I've lived in SLD and for me it was the valley and I remember when I first came to the valley I was up both in the town of Bull Creek and there was this little map on the counter and I said what was this little map and I said well a bunch of the residents in the valley put this together and so I picked it up it was only a bug but it really struck me because it was the escape routes escape routes through pipeline people that had identified and one thing I think is missing this plan and maybe I didn't get to see it is the fact that the valley is very vulnerable to multiple things many times I came into the valley at night and went Derrick Creek block I would line up a little scottish block and go through Scotts Valley barely and so you wonder what we need to do to identify a plan that deals with these situations which may be a reality have been reality in certain roads recently there was a fire on Derrick Creek road year and a half ago I think so for the residents that were right near there that's a major problem I looked through this plan but I didn't have enough time so that's maybe my fault but I did not see planning for emergency situations I did look closely at I tried to look closely at the bike improvements and going from I worked at silicon systems I mean high tech trying to ride to silicon systems on a bike and the blind curves I did not want to take those blind curves anymore so some of the mentions were well there's some trees that might have to be removed if we're going to make the bike routes a little bit safer I should be a little closer because some of those curves are really blind and some of the trees that make the hillside a little closer to the road I think should be thought of in terms of pedestrian bike safety one of the last speakers spoke to something that I was particularly taken with when I was in the valley any time I saw improved in the valley I felt really proud I really felt proud that this county decided to do something in the valley to improve our situation I remember one was at Glen Albert bridge there and it was really nice to see that wall come up and the turns that we made better because it was an issue there so any time I saw improved and I felt wow this is great it made me feel much better to be in SLD part of the valley Thanks Yes thank you I think it's a part of FATIA 25 interested me and I think as a commission we really need to have a further discussion maybe as what the priority needs to be going up to the state of the legislative changes that we need we've adopted vision zero we have other things in terms of the safety component that we're trying to adopt in the city limits of Watsonville and it is a huge concern that we have about being able to have the ability to change the speed limits where we know logically people are going in excess of what limits we have to place and the reductions that we need and we're limited on what the legislation tells us that we have the capability of doing and as a commission for the transportation here this should be something that we should be supporting to get up to the state and fighting all of our communities willing to work together on this because it isn't an isolated problem and I think that as as a commission as a body representing this county we should be able to bring that up to the state level for that attention. We have funds from SB 1 and the safety items that were out there and we need to make this one of the priorities for the commission to help make sure communities have the ability to make these changes that they know that they really desperately need we have way too many accidents where statistically for Watsonville is a poor community when it comes to the number of accidents that we've had we've striped everything we still have it and it means that there's a huge education component that we're trying to work with but if I can't move the speed slide because of what the state tells us we're incapable of doing there's a real problem that we have here that we need to address as a whole shovel running projects I think that you'll be getting to that pretty shortly for this and that will be important to you so that then you can prioritize some of the grants that you need for these projects that are here but I'm fully supportive of making sure that all these concerns do get addressed with the adoption of this policy and look forward to working through the commission and the body that's here on getting to the state and getting these things reprioritized so that the community has a better say in the matter thank you I'd like to follow up that I appreciate that for both these comments you know this 25 in the downtown area should we say it just doesn't hit San Jose Valley even though as I said this Highway 9 is Main Street you just mentioned Highway 129 152 affects Wadsville Highway 1 affects Santa Cruz I would like to get some direction get some direction maybe towards that how we might or maybe get to us how to present something at this station to the legislature it could be focused on our county but I'm sure we'd get some help from other counties like Santa Clara who was mentioned over in Las Vegas I would like to get some direction that we put something or urge our representatives to put something like this in place and I would be glad to work on it if the commission would agree that we would put something like this to the legislature what kind of action do we need to give you direction to do that well it's interesting that the next item on our agenda is our legislative agenda our legislative program we can certainly add it to our legislative program to work to get the California vehicle code modified for this purpose I just want to say I'm not sure the gentleman spoke about this issue said that one of the Santa Cruz on the city streets they can do what they want we can't do it because it's a state highway but the problem is bigger than that one thing I never want to wish on any of you is to be a public official while you're raising the speed limit in order to be able to enforce it and they showed up to say we want cars to go slower in order to do that we've got to have a nominative speed that people are actually driving and that means and right now they're driving let's say 35 in the 25 mile an hour zone so if you really want to push it further in the 30 mile zone if you really want to have them slow down the only way to do that is to raise the speed and then make sure that the average speed and you're crazy when you reach that and so this is a much bigger issue than just the state highway but the state legislation kind of critical for all of us because that's what's causing this problem the city of Santa Cruz would lower its speed on a lot of city streets not state highways if we could do it without having to raise the speed first 10 miles an hour to make that happen which again it's not counterintuitive it's too fancy a word to use for what's just insane to find yourself in a public meeting sure bro I just want to say thanks to our staff and to all the people who have participated in this process it's really great to see this attention given to the highway 9 corridor we get a lot of attention to other corridors in the county that has taken up a lot of our time and efforts these past couple of years that I've been on the commission for good reason and so highway 9 seems to be overshadowed a lot in this and I'm just really pleased that the commission is being given now I'm really pleased to see that we may actually get to shovel ready projects around pedestrian safety and you know crosswalks, lighting, striping and really really focus here so and I look forward to working with the community I know this is not the ideal time for the public to turn out for a hearing but I'm really glad to hear that we've had opportunities for public input and I encourage members of the community to be in touch with us for the final this 30 day comment period and I look forward to hearing more about it in the future, thanks Mr. Chair, any comments? OK, Michelle Leopold Thank you Chair first I want to thank the leadership of the Super President of Pearson's office in the RTC for holding these community meetings and I also want to thank the San Lorenzo community for coming out when you have hundreds of people coming out to participate in local decisions you get better decisions and I'm grateful that we have the foresight to put $10 million into this, it's obviously not enough but that's the problem we have in all of our roads the county road system is 600 miles and sometimes my colleagues in cities it's easy to figure out how we would fund that 600 mile road repair but until we had things like Measure D and SB1 we didn't have a chance to do it we're still challenged because we have to pay the bill on the 2017 storm damage repair but once we get through that and assuming we don't have some other crisis to fall us we'll actually have a lot more money to start investing in our local roads and so to make roads safer for pedestrians and bicyclists is critical, I know that's one of the number one issues in my district and I'm glad to see a community-driven plan coming to fruition and us to start to be able to invest in it, to make a difference in the lives of so many people so thank you for everyone who was involved with that and I'm going to be supporting everything we can with this Commissioner Gavir Commissioner Gavir couldn't make an advocate or a supporter of grants like C Francis Schools I'm sure you'd want to convey that he'd support any measure that would improve traffic safety at high schools in San Luis Valley High School or in San Luis Valley Middle School Thank you Commissioner Lover Thank you Just to throw the information into the public discussion now the speed limit is established under the vehicle code by engineering and traffic studies so if this speed limit doesn't match what the engineering and traffic studies say it should be that area is considered speed trap and is unenforceable under the vehicle code so something else to consider in the process is not just we eyeball the traffic coming through town we think it's too fast we're going to load and speed 25 miles per hour there's a regulatory framework that is subject to this Thank you to that point I think it brought up the setting speed limits in cities is a very complicated issue and although we may see there's a need to do that it's something that sometimes our control Yes I wasn't going to say anything because I was in agreement with what everybody else was saying but since everybody said something I feel I should add something maybe in a practical way I think when this comes back it would be helpful to have a work program perhaps or a timeline that sort of set out what the projects along that are upcoming there is ten million dollars, there are grants out there I think it would be helpful in tracking the progress of implementing the plan which is really the hardest part getting money, doing the projects and getting more details in terms of what the timeline is, what the priority projects are and getting a list of how we're moving forward might be helpful to the commission and to the community and sort of getting a sense of when some of the high priority projects are going to happen and what the priority list is that would be my suggestion when this comes back Ms. Lowe, go ahead and weigh in Thank you Mr. Chair and I would just like to highlight the continued value of the partnership in this effort as you witnessed, this is a great partnership in the planning phase it will be as important as we go forward into prioritization and the implementation and even the maintenance of these excuse me, of the new facilities so the there was reference to opportunities that may come up with storm damage restoration or maintenance projects and I would like to say that partnership on those would still be very important there's a similar to not dissimilar to speed zoning and speed law there's laws that influence how money is spent and so on, a lot of the storm damage were prevented from upgrading things so what this plan does is it helps us determine where our priorities are and then when these opportunities come that we're still partnering on the funding and the implementation going forward so I just, I really see this as a model for partnership going forward and I really appreciate the effort here Great, thank you for those comments I'm not going to repeat where everybody has said but I think the one thing that we need to remind people in San Luis Valley is that this commission did take action by supporting measure D and allocating $10 million and I believe from there we can only grow so it's a great project for everybody So with that If you may, I'd like to just reply to three points to Commissioner Shifrin's point on the implementation plan Chapter 4 of the document does include suggestions on ongoing short term midterm and long term improvements we're specifically soliciting public comments on that during the open houses on what folks thought we need to be moved forward or back and I encourage the commissioners also to provide that input by the comment deadline next week if possible if you think things are in the wrong spot that would be helpful Chapter 2 does include reference to emergency and responses it's project number F in the plan so in Chapter 2 you can find that and then on the next item I'll talk a little bit more about the speed limit reduction but we might as well stay right there because our next item will be the state federal and legislative programs I'll put that, go ahead Fantastic, well thank you commissioners again for putting up listening to me growing up here for a little bit longer and again thank you everyone in the community who came out to the public hearing on the San Lorenzo Valley plan So the commission as the regional transportation agency as an agency wanted to keep track of what was happening at the state and federal level that might impact our ability to do our jobs and address the transportation needs of our community does annually adopt a state and federal legislative program this program provides guidance to staff and commissioners when bills are proposed administrative modifications are made, if new funding programs come forward on how to comment on those proposals where we want to take positions of support or opposition to proposals at the state and federal legislative level or administrative level and so it's really helpful for us to have this adopted every year we work with our partners through the California Council of Governments, CALCOG the Central Coast Coalition partners at the League of Cities and California State Association of Colonies, the self-help counties coalition all of our local jurisdictions here that are represented that all of you represent on this board as proposals come forward and so that we can work collectively to address key issues Our legislative proposals for 2019 focus on things that we've seen in the past prior to Senate Bill 1 being passed and measure D being passed a major focus was the fact that the cost to operate, maintain and improve our transportation system exceeds the amount of funding available even with those measures that problem has not been completely resolved and so we continue to include in the legislative program looking at options to address all the funding needs of our transportation system but also make sure that the funding that's there now is not taken away and so that includes funds like Senate Bill 1 our ability to use other funding sources whether it's active transportation program funds transportation development act funds federal programs that are critically important to safety and bridge maintenance on our road system so there's a lot of our both state and federal legislative programs focus on making sure that those funds that we need to operate and maintain our system are not threatened Commissioner McPherson mentioned earlier that in the governor's initial budget proposal for fiscal year 1920 he suggested that, sorry 1920 no 1920 the 2020 19 2019 I somehow woke up at 4 in the morning the dog was being a complete jerk last night I didn't have that I'm working on minimal sleep I'm working on the dog work also so based on that the governor had proposed linking the money that cities and counties get for road local streets and roads to how much housing they're producing everyone in the state is very concerned about that there's an item in our legislative program opposing efforts that would try to link transportation dollars to non-transportation issues and then we also would like to see a lot of streamlining the it costs a lot and it takes a long time to do some transportation projects and we want to look and work with our partners at state agencies and federal agencies to look at how we could expedite the process whether it's the environmental review process or permitting process project development processes and so that's also a key component of our legislative program and then of course we have items in our legislative program that are specifically focused on the regional transportation commission's abilities to do its job to meet the priorities identified by this commission as far as implementing projects, planning efforts but also our concern with any time the state develops a new or the feds develop a new transportation related legislative action that oftentimes those mandates are unfunded and that is a concern because it makes it more challenging for everyone to do their job. So with that I'm just going to focus on a few things specifically that are in the legislative program which starts on page 18-5 of your packet as I mentioned earlier kind of midway down that just above ensure fair distribution of funding is the item that focuses on opposing proposals that could tie transportation fund availability especially highway user tax account the gas tax funds to local jurisdictions to non-transportation and development projects. On the second page of the legislative program we are at the bottom there looking to address some proposals on the active transportation program which some of our larger sister agencies in the state are looking to take more of the funds by formula which would leave less funding available for our local jurisdictions to compete for those funds and so of course we want to make sure that any reforms that are proposed to that program do not diminish our ability to access funds as far as the cap and trade program similar to what you have seen in Santa Cruz Metro's legislative program we're concerned that the California Air Resources Board has put some pretty strict tight lines on converting vehicle fleets and we want to make sure that they do not undo burden on transit agencies and then another new item here is to increase and preserve funding for priority projects in Santa Cruz County we've added to the list that we've had in the past the Soquel Avenue and Freedom Boulevard quarter related to your decisions on the unified quarter investment study. Other projects that were part of that are being on that priority list and then the next item in there is the Transportation Development Act in August Senator Bell and Assemblyman Frazier who chaired the State Assembly and Senate Transportation Committees tasked the California Transit Association with playing together a task force of transit operators, regional agencies and the Governors Administration to get the Transportation Development Act their focus was on the fact that they were getting spot bills from different or not spot bills actual bills from different agencies throughout the state trying to adjust the fare box recovery ratio and the performance measures there the task force has not yet met they're going to start meeting in early March and there are a lot of different ideas about how the Transportation Development Act could be modified or amended and some of those include proposals that could reduce funds for Metro, for Lifeline, for Bike to Work the Community Traffic Safety Coalition the Volunteer Center as well as the Regional Transportation Commission so we're recommending that we oppose any modifications whether it's to the fare box recovery ratio and what counts as revenues or to how the commission designates those funds to projects on the page 18-8 of your packet I just wanted to highlight two more things there on the Active Transportation Facilities kind of midway down there is a new bill proposed by Scott Leader of San Francisco Senate Bill 127 which would mandate that the state-owned roadways address bicycle and pedestrian facilities so that's a bill that we're going to be tracking we of course want to see integration of bicycle and pedestrian improvements wherever possible so I just wanted to highlight that that's a component of that at the bottom of the page on safety and this came up on the last there's an asterisk next to the second to last line there that says support proposals that would allow local jurisdictions to reduce speed limits and I would like to suggest that we modify that to clarify after the word speed limits that it say on local roads and the state route system last year there was a bill approved AB 2363 which established a statewide task force that's going to be convened by July 1st of this year which is a zero traffic fatalities task force and one of the subjects of that task force is looking at this rule that prohibits folks to reduce the speed limit and so an option would be if the commission desires to try to utilize some of our budget to get staff on that committee that would be a way to do it or encourage some of our active community members or commissioners themselves to see if there's a way for us to get on that task force or at least participate in those task force committee needs another option would be for the commission to work with some of our partners to offer a bill and propose that and kind of jump ahead of this task force but I think that the task force is the way that they it's your best chance probably of actually having something go through and not get vetoed so that would be my recommendation it'll take a little bit longer than if you had great success on a bill but as Commissioner Mulhern mentioned there are some challenges to just modifying the speed limit and ensuring that we're not a duly reducing speed limits that are creating other challenges the legislative program on the federal side we are of course very concerned about the shutdown item 13 in your packet talked about some of the impacts that the shutdown had the federal government shutdown some of that's going to trickle out for quite a while there are a lot of people out of work that are now coming back to inboxes that have even larger stacks of paper and they still need to do their due diligence to make sure that permits, resource agency permits aren't issued unduly that funds keep flowing and so we're going to keep monitoring that we're kind of on a temporary review right now but we want to make sure that the funding dollars that we need for all of our different programs keep flowing we're also concerned we had some major storm damage of course that was mentioned earlier especially in 2017 I'm sure there are some that this winter as well and we're concerned that there have been some proposals floated to redirect emergency response funds from emergencies that are more than a year or two old to some other emergency that someone might think is a current emergency and we want to make sure that the funds that were previously promised for whatever kind of emergencies have happened in California stay available for those projects and are not shifted to other things the county of Santa Cruz especially has a huge female list but so does the regional transportation commission we're trying to get reimbursement for some storm damage on the rail line and then finally on the federal program about midway through page 18-12 is reauthorization the federal government reauthorizes the the transportation act every three to five years depending on the cycle the current transportation act the fast act is expires in 2020 there's a chance that there will be continuations of that but federal committees congressional senate committees have started to meet to talk about reauthorization of the bill we want to make sure that whatever bill comes forward meets the needs of our county and does not unduly focus the funds only on the major metropolitan areas for instance and the programs that are essential to our local jurisdictions and transit agency and the regional transportation commission remain in place so with that I'd be happy to answer any questions or turn it over to the commission any questions this is a pretty technical question we're going to start down here thank you let's see there's an item 18-5 it says explore next steps on the ruling and this has to do with the tax on the Dakota versus Wayfair do we have any idea how much of our revenues being lost and what we may be able to cover with something to be implemented on this because I know that this will all be online versus brick and mortar anything like that that we know about you know we actually have a meeting with one of the our taxing authority consultants next really soon and so we'll have a better estimate on those numbers part of the issue around the Wayfair for some of our sister agencies that have large warehouses like big Amazon distribution centers for them you know they have a different perspective of how the tax should be distributed versus you know in our county where we don't have those major distribution centers we want to make sure we're not losing our measure D and other sales tax revenues so we can get back to you on that and then I know that the definition of disadvantaged communities has come up more than once and I don't know how do we use that for calculating purposes and what are we looking to do on changing the language that would affect calculating? So depending on the grant program the definition of disadvantaged community varies so for housing programs it's I would say a little bit more seen than what has been put forward for transportation programs and specifically for the cap and trade program for the cap and trade program we're just at some very I think it's something like 40 different criteria low birth rate comes into effect you know what are pollution levels as well as income and some of your more standard issues that you would consider part of the disadvantaged community the result because of the way our county is which is fantastic that it's very integrated we don't have a lot of pockets of poor census districts completely separated from multi-million dollar houses is that our averages end up in such a way that only one section of Watsonville and that's the section south of 152 kind of bordered by 152 highway 1 and the Pajaro river qualify as disadvantaged in our county what we know we have folks in our county that are very low income transit dependent you know have limited services and need funding and what happens is that we have a harder time competing for a lot of different grants because of that definition and so we're looking to have that definition be something more like what we were successful at achieving for the active transportation program where you can look at income levels you can look at how many students are receiving free or reduced lunches a regional definition that might look at smaller areas than just census so those are some of the issues there and I'll keep it short I encourage people or for us to be participating with the task force I think that it's pretty evident with this commission and we want to really look at the safety of the speeds whether it's the highways or the local streets we definitely have that do we have any federal legislative visits I know that for example Metro goes to DC do we do this as a commission I'm not sure if I might commissioners in past the commission has them that the executive director typically would go to the Washington DC for the transportation research board conference and it's part of that that we visit with the legislative representatives in Washington DC and that typically depends on whether there's something going on that this commission could advocate for to help not just the my first question is technical there's a bunch of asterisks in this report do they need to figure out somewhere because I couldn't find it at the very top of the legislative programs it notes that items that are new or different so other things were carried forward from the prior year okay we do have a lobbyist in DC we actually share a lobbyist I believe we're the transit district two steps that was the case last year and they let us know when they need someone to go there and talk more than they can do just as our lobbyist in DC so that's an important part of our program I think the attachment to your packet is a memo from Chris Julio at Capital Edge thank you chair thank you for putting this together I strongly support this idea of disconnecting housing production with our transportation funding because sometimes we actually need to build the infrastructure to be able to support the housing if we want to go on other things I'm wondering if you have any insight the governor also his budget message talked about removing the vote requirement for enhanced financing infrastructure districts which is sort of redevelopment white and I don't know if you have any sense about that whether that would have legs this year whether it would generate any real money we do have that in the alleged program under 18-6 band the authority of the arts entities to increase taxes and fees um we also have support options right so both of those I think that there is support among some legislators I think that there's also others we want to make sure that we're being really thoughtful when we're increasing fees on different areas whether or not it has legs the governor is bringing it up shows that he would sign a bill if it comes forward my understanding is that the enhanced financing infrastructure districts aren't new fees they're keeping a portion of our taxes similar in the way that redevelopment did not have the same amount of that tax increment financing but keeping our tax dollars here in the community instead of going up there so it actually doesn't cost anything that the question is whether it generates enough money the way the legislation is currently written is you have to get a vote of the people in order to set it up and that's our hurdle I think there's only one of these districts statewide maybe there's two and there would be a good tool especially for us here at the RTC because there's a lot stricter limitations of how you can spend the money and Rhodes is one of those the transportation infrastructure so the idea of being able to keep some of our tax money here and put it into our transportation infrastructure would benefit us all and I'm interested to see if that goes let me follow up with the local jurisdictions and the planning and the public works departments to see where they may have already already identified some of those ZIMs and how it could be helpful to us and you have this item here about the Transportation Development Act and you have the asterisk that tells me something new about it and you talked about it but you say that TDA funds are essential for RTC administration could you remind us a little bit Sure so the Regional Transportation Commission as the Regional Transportation Planning Agency utilizes Transportation Development Act funds for regional planning and coordination the TDA was established in 1971 I believe the focus on providing funding for transit and regional planning for the Regional Transportation Commission we use about $1.1 million a year for administrative and planning purposes to implement the budget and work program that's established by the Regional Transportation Commission so proposals that would either eliminate or reduce those funds would be a significant impact on our budget our overall operating budget is about $4 million a year so if those funds went away we would be seeing about a 25% cut overall and besides the RTC and other jurisdictions continue so in our county the Transportation Commission has rules and regulations a formula for distribution of those funds the TDA Act also establishes what you can use those funds on in our county or statewide the off the top amounts are for administration of the TDA program and regional planning followed by transit paratransit and community transportation service agencies like Lithline in our county we also utilize about $130,000 a year I want to say for the community traffic safety coalition to do bicycle and pedestrian safety and education programs about $60,000 for the bike to work program Lithline's portion I want to say is about $700,000 a year so it's a pretty significant amount of their budget as well and then we provide some money to the Volunteer Center to operate their volunteer driver program which is very important for folks especially if they have out of county medical appointments and of course the Metro gets the larger correct Metro receives about 70% of the total funds and over 85% of the formula funds that are available after what the commission needs for administration I want to talk about that because I realize when we did last week the transit board our legislative agenda or I could say our legislative agenda and we approved language that would have some shifts in here and I think it would be worthwhile to have something where we weren't cannibalizing each other we were working to increase the hole rather than trying to drop Peter to pay for so when it comes time share after the test Questions? So capital is like a federal lobbyist is that the same state level lobbyist or is it the other way? Just to be clear our federal assistant not all lobbyist but they their focus is in Washington DC they're located in Washington DC their connections are in DC they help us out with things like the service transportation board, FEMA other federal agencies as well as legislative issues on the federal level we currently do not have a state legislative assistant contract Commissioner Moore Thank you What is our current authority or raising taxes and fees or rather which taxes and fees are we allowed to raise or lower our fees? I should ask me three years ago and I had it all in the back of my head and sales tax is the main one there have been some spot bills about increasing gas taxes at regional level currently I think that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission over the hill is the only one that has that authority Louise can you remember any other ones? Well something we've worked on in the past is the possibility of having the RTC registration fees that's something that's available to many local agency transportation commissions in the state are not able to the RTC we may not be able to change that but that hasn't happened yet Yeah, that's Senate quality and clean up which is also in our legislative program Alright, Miss Lowell Thank you Mr. Chair In your program on page 188 there's a reference there also to the SHOP program and I would just like to clarify there's commonly a reference to the Owen SHOP and the SHOP stands for the State Highway Operations and Protection Program and for many years we have not been able to fund operational improvements simply as a because of a math problem cash flow safety has always come first and payment bridge and some of these very essential assets so operations has not been something that we're able to get around to funding with SB1 and transitions that we're seeing once we get this backlog cleared we think that there will be more opportunities to fund operational improvements so I just want to clarify that it's not a problem with the law, there's not a legal problem that was just a cash flow problem we are also working very diligently now to experiment with performance driven measures to better determine priorities for operational improvements going forward and I would also mention that with regard to active transportation the state has an active transportation plan and the district is just now kicking off our district 5 active transportation plan which will establish priorities for complete streets and working in partnership as I said one of the challenges there is as the SHOP is driven by meeting performance targets presently a performance target for complete streets so the performance targets are all asset driven so I just kind of make that clarification we'll keep our fingers crossed for additional funding thank you so the unfunded band-based bullet seems to be ubiquitous in most of these kinds of reports that we get out there for legal jurisdiction and I don't see any asterisks or underlines in it so is that to suggest it's there in the event that unfunded band-aids come to us in particular legislation and we our state partners just scour the transportation-related legislation to apprise us for its time thank you okay we'll go ahead and open it up to the public now for the rest of the programs you did good last night last time stimulating the crowd so John Kastrow, Spike Sanchez County again I just wanted to highlight a couple of things that Rachel mentioned which are SB 127 which is the complete streets on our highways and then also to highlight that we also support a representative on the Vision Zero Task Force and then also working to change the disadvantaged communities definition and I actually am a representative on the California Vice School Coalition monthly phone calls in there the state bike lobbyist if you will so I'd love to support our efforts here locally on the state level as much as possible with that, thanks thank you anyone else like to speak on this topic okay we'll bring it back for discussion I will start by moving approval of both the federal and state legislative programs second the point that John the Director of Equal raised about the TDA funding issue the transit district did pass an action that basically said all of the funding should go to the transit district I think that slipped by a bunch of us on the board and slipped by me for sure I'll make that clear since then I'm trying to create a very long discussion which hopefully won't be necessary but both Alex Clifford and I requested him talking about this issue and had to resolve it and at this point there the transit district I think will end up supporting the language that's in the RTC proposal in front of us this morning however the discussions might lead to some other modification which basically come back to us for some modification of our legislative program I think we should try and amend it today I think we should just approve the language in front of us but knowing that that's getting worked out I think we've had a very good relationship so far between Guy Preston and Alex Clifford and I would like to continue that and not have this become some kind of a public battle over funding I don't think we have to go there and so I think approval of this language today will be fine I think we'll ask them to get back to us if they want any modifications but I think whatever comes back will be a joint proposal and a battle going on between two agencies which we should avoid at all costs I just want to clarify about that because to your point and Commissioner Leopold's point the language from two agencies are opposing language and we don't want to get in the middle of that so I think the direction which I think you basically hinted at which we can give to staff is having ongoing conversations with Metro and I would encourage staff to continue those conversations and work towards an agreement where we can complete better understanding of TDA of how it comes from the state how it's distributed and how these two agencies are going to get along without having any problems because we are duly represented on both of these boards so we'll just leave it at that with your motion just some clarification are you going to accept the language about changing the speed limits as was mentioned by Rachel and the idea of a task force that's friendly as well any other discussion from seeing that Chair, this question I support the chair's motion and I think it makes sense that in our community that we have our transportation agencies work well together and should we expect that we're going to see something here or there in the future I wasn't sure exactly how that was I think what my direction was that they're having discussions right now so we're encouraging those on the discussions and for them to work it out I think until we see any other agency that there seems to be a problem I think at this point it's better that we just let the two agencies work this out okay well can I suggest that we just get an update in our next executive director report about this whether it be at the TPW or our regular so we can just keep aware of it I think we can just say at the director's report there will always be an update on this topic until there is some kind of resolution that's how it's done we'll make that part of the motion thank you with that all in favor opposed motion carries unanimously so that brings us to our next meeting we'll be on March 7th at the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors chambers and we are adjourned