 Good morning everyone Let's call to order the March 7th meeting of the Regional Transportation Commission. Can I have a roll call, please? Commissioner Peterson here commissioner Sandy Brown Here commission alternate dillis here commissioner Montecino Here commissioner Hernandez President commission alternate shifrin Commission alternate Quinn here commission alternate mckeithin Commissioner McPherson Commissioner Kristen brown here commissioner pigler here and commissioner rotkin Commissioner rotkin is absent today. All right. Thank you. We'll move on. Do we have any ab 2449 just cause requests today? Seeing none any additions or deletions to consent or regular agendas Yes commissioners Yesterday we posted a staff report for item 31 and we posted handouts for items for 28 and 29 Great. Thank you. We'll move now to number four review of items to be discussed in closed session Good morning commissioners. There are four items for the closed session this morning The first one is labor negotiations for core and ram Second one is a brief update on the public Employment recruitment for the executive director position The third one relates to the general council and the performance evaluation of public employment And the last one relates to the anticipated litigation matter and we do anticipate Bringing all four before the commission today All right. Great. Do we have any public comment on our closed session items? Any online Seeing none Okay, we will recess to our closed session and return shortly. Thank you And we'll start with a report out from closed session discussions All right. Thank you We're going to go now to item 10, which is oral communications This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the commission on any item Within the jurisdiction of the commission that is not on today's agenda The commission will listen to all communication and in compliance with state law We will not take any action on items that are not on the agenda today We ask that you state your name clearly so that it can be accurately recorded in the minutes And you'll have two minutes to to provide comment today And we'll start with those here in the room Hi, welcome All right, my name is Christopher Perry. I live in the blue and gold star mobile home park on Vlog 119 I have lived there for seven years and four months I'm not the property owner My brother Jim Perry owns my home. He leases the space For it from the property owner management by the blue and gold star mobile park, LLC I am 53 years old and developmentally disabled. I am a client of imagine supported services And I live on social security Income I can work six hours a per week And I work nearby. I get to my heart before my dad died. He helped my brother Before my dad died he helped my brother buy this House so that I would have a nice safe place to live. I like it here. I have a nice neighbor Neighbors I can buy to work or to shop When we bought this home the owner property That the property owner and manager never told us that it was encouraging into segment 10 of the World corridor. We just found out about this a month ago. What has happened to the valley Of our home. We can't afford to sell it and buy another mobile home Well paid To move my home a fee fee forward to get out of the corridor How to just become our responsibility? This problem was created by the property owners I think they should pay the bill move in my home Or making me move is my It's impossible. It would turn my life upside down. What would I do? Where would I go and how would I pay for it? I need more time. I hope the RTP will vote for the interim trail for segment 10 So I can have more time to know what to do. Thank you guys Thank you any questions No, thank you for your comments. Thanks. Hi, welcome Good morning My name is Karen Anderson and I have a mobile home in castle mobile estates One that's been identified with an encroachment My husband and I purchased our home in 1990 And of course, there was no mention of that time Of any encroachment and over the years our residents have had many meetings with a capital city council In regards to the management of the park And then with the subsequent purchase by millennium again There was no issue on any party lines that were mentioned property lines that were mentioned Now with the pending decision of the ultimate trail several of us Trained corridor Find that our lives have been thrown in the chaos of the unknown As well as facing significant financial loss We've been given the ultimatum by the RTC to move our home Uh off the encroachment or it's going to be done for us and we'll be sent the bail for doing so I know there's been a huge learning curve among everyone is what it really means to move a double wide home That's assuming there's a place to move it to which there isn't They're not travel trailers on wheels Once they're in place Join the next time it's moved it's for demolition I can't move my home and I can't sell it new home mobile home owners are now stuck between The RTC and the mobile park owners Uh, we face significant loss of a place to live As well as taking a huge huge financial hit As we're not able to sell I'm advocating for an interim trail to give us more time That we can come up with such a type of plan to make this work. Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome Good morning. My name is Roxanne and I'm actually the neighbor of the woman Karen that just spoke so pretty much What she said is definitely an encroachment on my mobile home as well My concerns are the safety factors. I've seen these uh fences along I I The encroachment would bring my bedroom after I shaved who would have to be off Will be right on the railroad tracks and I'm concerned being right on 38th avenue Where I have seen graffiti. I have seen homeless tents put up I'd like to know if there's going to be any safety factors maintaining this uh railroad That they're going to keep on this side of where my mobile home is And so what I'm concerned about is, you know, my property I mean my mobile home Value has gone down. I can't sell it with an encroachment there So I am asking if we can as well put the entered interim trail along that section so I have more time to see what I'm going to be doing with my mobile home And like she said they are not movable and So and Moving them two feet up. It's not going to solve the problem The house would be destroyed So thank you. Thank you I welcome. Hi Well, my name is Christine McGill. I'm a retired senior citizen living on a fixed income as a widow on my husband's social security I own my mobile home Which is affected by the rtc plans and castle mobile estates I've lived in santa cruz county for 37 years and then moved back october 22 When I bought my mobile home to be near my children and grandchildren I was never advised by castle mobile estates property owner or management the real estate agent or the title company Or the seller that my mobile home Was encroached on the rtc property This matter has affected my mental and physical health. I can't afford The cost to move my home I can't afford to lose my home and I can't sell it under these circumstances This problem should have been identified and addressed by the railroad santa cruz county and the rtc And the property owners years ago You are now upending innocent people's lives The other mobile home owners and I are not responsible parties Low income housing is a priority in keeping people out of homelessness A solution affecting low income housing should be your priority plan moving forward And my big question is Where are we supposed to live when you split our house down the middle and move it That's it. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Bye My name is maria remula and I've lived in santa cruz my whole life And I've lived in castle mobile states for 24 years and the city of capitol I've served in the not-profit sector in santa cruz for many years and my plans were to retire here With the dream of affordable home ownership Um, the previous owner of our park actually Wanted to sell the park and wanted to evict us and we went through that for many years. It was a protracted battle Um, but when I bought my home in 2000, uh, I was never warned about this trail corridor and I had gone to a lawyer I checked it out. I thought everything was secure So in the short term removing the encroachments by june 2026 will be difficult for me to lose my backyard in my shed but a much greater hardship will Be longer term just the unmitigated stress of it all of being in limbo and um, You know ongoing unpredictable changes in costs, which I may and my neighbors may be required to pay for and um So I get it that this is a project that was voted on and the county and rtc is trying to do their job But I also get it that even if I wanted out, I couldn't sell my home under these circumstances I cannot make plans for the future because I'm now stuck perhaps for years before a resolution to these problems are sorted I'm in support of the interim trail. That's a train down the middle Um, because it's the only it's it does the least harm to our community including the precious environment of trees and wildlife surrounding us Thank you Oh, hey, um And the interim trail I'm told will give us some more time to work things out and adjust to these significant changes Coming in our way and basically to exhale. So thank you Thank you Good morning. Welcome Good morning chair and members of the commission jim helmer from ben loman. I'm here again to talk about pedestrian and traffic safety in the ben loman village um assembly bill 43 was written and signed into law in 2021 in part To give caltrans the authority to utilize prima facie speed limit setting in business districts on their state highways Serving main streets of rural communities The state's legislative council digest reads existing law before the bill Establishes prima facie speed limit of 25 miles per hour on any highway other than a state highway the bill Now establishes a prima facie speed limit of 25 miles per hour on state highways as well And gives caltrans the authorization to reset speed limits lower to 25 Um I've been in touch with caltrans for years even the last couple of months The last month caltrans wrote to me They copied ruse's office. They copied county public works and they copied RTC staff and I quote I would need to hear from the county of santa cruz representatives In writing if they are requesting the speed limit be lowered to 25 miles per hour Based upon the cvc section. You're referring to and for what locations The law enforcement would also need to support the language in writing so in closing Caltrans is looking at our county leaders to support us in ben loman I'm requesting the rtc to agenda Agendize this matter for your main meeting and take into consideration Making a written request to caltrans to restore the speed limit in downtown ben loman to 25 miles per hour. Thanks. Thank you Good morning. Good morning My name is a pedro frevoso. I live at 252 heta avenue space 20 in the city capitol We believe in theirs in 2005 when we bought the mobile home. Nobody told us it was encroaching on the uh, the railroad track number 10 uh Basically we got nowhere else to go. I know if you guys are aware if you split a mobile home up you destroy it Nothing else we can do We've been working all my life trying to build something for my family Something to retire a homo. We're almost a near age our retirement age. Where are we going to go? What are we going to do? I mean We've been low by the citizens and they would move there. We've been no trouble for anybody Uh, and now the system is on us. Why? We're not responsible. We weren't aware of what was going on with what the whole nobody told us uh, we shouldn't be Uh Iowa for all this this is going on. I mean, uh, I think the mobile home owner should be the one that are liable for everything that's going on I mean That's what I have to say. Thank you. Thank you Good morning. Welcome. Hi. Thank you. My name is gene brockelbank I do not live in either blue and gold star mobile home park Or which is in the unincorporated county or cast mobile estates, which is in the city of capitol However, I am a an appointee to the county's advisory mobile and manufactured home commission and the residents of these parks Are afraid they're anxious They're astonished. They're shocked And they don't know what to do and I have heard from all of them So I support them 100 and asking first that this commission rethink about building say at least segment 10 and 11 and why not 9 and 12 So we don't have to cut out 1711 trees in those segments Took a reconsider doing the proposed projects. What's called the optional first phase interim trail To give these folks the opportunity to have some extra time which rc rtc staff assured us That doing the optional first phase interim trail Would give them a little bit more time to find out what's going to happen in their lives I know that the board of supervisors is going to hear this on march 26 to look at segment 10 and 11 Eir and certify it And it's too bad that Well, I'm glad to see two supervisors here And staff for the other three supervisors, but no three supervisors. I'm sorry to leave and but I know you're going to hear about this again on march 26. This is a wake up call right now Build the interim trail down the center of the corridor And save trees and save human beings. Thank you. Thank you Hi, welcome Good morning. Thank you. My name is Michael Lewis. I live in live oak I'm here to bring two items to your attention concerning the Uh segments 10 and 11 final eir that was just released I've spent the last two days examining the responses to my comments And I found two flaws in the alternatives analysis that are alarming and uh, not too good Uh representation of what's going on in developing the feir In the description of alternatives alternative one the so-called trail only alternative States that the rails will be permanently renewed removed And the trail built in this place. Well, this of course is not true because there's nothing permanent About building a trail the trail can be removed at any time And but rails replaced for future trail transport any time in the future just as it is with the optional uh interim trail option That calls for exactly that same thing As a result the uh response to it Removed the word permanently from that description, which was good because that makes it more truthful But also they added The sentence for purposes of analysis It's assumed that the rail removal is permanent to provide a meaningful distinction between the optimal interim trail Whereby a removal is temporary So this shows that the alternative one was very cleverly wordsmith to make it appear That this did not that that is precluded any use of uh Rail in the future and this is not true. Secondly the sentence rail banking is not required to implement alternative one is false It was added to that uh sentence alternative one Involves the removal of the rail and therefore rail banking will be necessary So it's time to to put on the emergency brake bring this train to a halt do some repairs before we get to the next station uh to make this a In eir that is not subject to future legal challenges. Thank you. Thank you Any further comments in the room Saying none will go online And we will start uh with johanna lighthill. Hello commissioners My comments also relate to the uh segment 10 and 11 eir It's over 2300 pages and 800 of which Is uh inclusive of responses for uh to comments people have a lot to say on this and I hope you'll consider I just want to touch on one thing That might give us a glimpse of what challenges might lie ahead with planning both rail and trail in the corridor None of the eir's for the trail so far have addressed rail operation and how it might affect safety on the trail But new trail designs bring the attention of the california public utilities commission Since they have jurisdiction over the safety and rail crossings In comments submitted I read that the cpu c mandates immediately closing and removing the stairway at prospect avenue in capitol This is the stairway that connects people from the jewel box area to the village It seems that this has been an informal crossing And cpu c wasn't aware of it The eir says that the county is planning to apply for a formal crossing here But the cpu c explains that permitting any new crossing Requires the closure of an existing crossing and I didn't see any reference to what crossing might be selected for closure I've heard of um I hope you can clarify commissioners. There's another informal crossing in capitol um at cornado and park avenue um from Connects people from cliffwood heights to new brighton and uh, I don't I didn't see any mention of that either So closures or crossings is going to affect a lot of people And how they move within their communities. So I ask the rtc to address this further And to better inform the community of this new immediate challenge and what other challenges might lie ahead Thank you for your consideration Thank you. We'll go next to rebecca downing Uh, good morning commissioners. My name is rebecca downing and for this comment I'm speaking on behalf of the cc cliff improvement association That has represented residents and businesses in cc cliff since 1948 For those of you that were on the commission in 2019 You may remember the seek with improvement association hosted a pedestrian stroll To the newly installed aptos village green who raised awareness about pedestrian safety For those who wish to walk or cycle to aptos village from the surrounding neighborhoods We invited all of the commissioners to join us and we thank commissioner rockin for his participation on that day Not a lot has changed for pedestrians traveling on foot Or bike to aptos village. So we're hosting another stroll on august third Exactly five years since the previous one This time we applied for and received a grant from america walks A national nonprofit that advances safe equitable accessible and enjoyable places to walk By giving people in communities the resources to effectively advocate for change More than 200 organizations applied for one of the 10 grants sponsored by the center for disease control So we are honored to receive it and look forward to using it to bring the aptos community together in the village this august We invite commissioners and staff to mark your calendars for august third We will provide more details about this stroll at future rtc meeting and look forward to having you join us. Thank you Thank you Next we have michael saint Yes, good morning chair brown. Thank you and also commissioners michael saint with cfst and aptos resident Before I start my comments, I'd like to thank supervisor flippie. Hernandez for attending a romero institutes Electric vehicle ride and drive event, which was last sunday at sacred heart church in selenus Supervisor Hernandez was a great addition to our event event. Thank you very much I'd like to comment on eir segment 12 And give you a list of what cfst has come up with as some of its issues The eir feels the eir fails to substantiate claims of safety benefits of the ox lanes Eir does not study bus on shoulder only Project does not meet the project's objectives of safety to reduce congestion or greenhouse gas emissions reduction Or vehem vehicle mile travel reductions Climate change analysis is flawed Reduction in vmt countywide is invalid project conflicts with state climate legislation Insufficient analysis of impacts of fish habitat in affected creeks Loss of over 1,000 trees This eir is very deficient and has high and significant environmental impacts. Thank you for listening Thank you We're going now to terry wood Okay I'm terry wood. I live at light. I live at blue and gold star mobile home park along segment 10 of the rail corridor This is regarding the encroachments The environmental impact report didn't account for a three-foot setback For homes along the corridor in castle estates or the blue and gold star parks With this consideration 82 of these homes will need to be relocated to note There may be some leniency for a couple homes, but not the majority Emergency access is still a necessity A park owners Hcd rtc nor the railroads took any action to ensure proper proper boundary lines For the whole of their ownership. I recognize the park owners are first and foremost responsible for such encroachments Now that there are Now that there is some funding available with a deadline Does the rtc take action to give these residents legal notice to clear these known encroachments When they've when they've had more than a decade to investigate and address this issue By all calculations the ultimate rail trail is economically Unsustaining and is destined to become a burden to the taxpayers in the future I petition and urge the council To ensure to install the optional interim trail until all facets of the project are known worked out Fully funded and accountable also including the running and maintenance Of the of the rail is incontestably self-sustaining. Thank you Thank you Seeing no further hands up online. We will close oral communications. Thank you everyone for your comments today We'll move on to our consent agenda All items appearing on the consent agenda are considered in one motion if no member of the rtc wishes an item to be removed All right. Do we have any um public comment on our consent agenda? Seeing none in person seeing none online. We will Second we have a motion in a second We don't have anyone joining us online from the commission today. So we'll do a voice vote all in favor say I Any opposed any abstentions motion carries unanimously Moving down to our regular agenda item 25 commissioner reports. Do we have any commissioner reports at this end? Seeing none any commissioner reports at this end Yes, go ahead we got to do the tour with caltrans of the pedestrian bike bridge this other last week and uh look at the auxiliar lanes as well And it looks like they're moving forward with the work despite the amount of rain that we've had They're still pretty much on schedule and it's looking good um They mentioned the eves for all event and salinas trying to get folks and communities like watsonville salinas to Purchase eves and it was a good day out there talking to families and people About eves and so just wanted to report that back Thank you Any further commissioner reports? All right, I will just share a briefly uh in the city of capitolah We are working on a quick build traffic calming project at bay avenue. So be prepared in the spring You're going to see a reduction of some lanes some changes in the options at the intersection at knob hill is for Safety reasons to ensure that traffic is moving slower and pedestrians have more opportunity to safely cross So do be aware of that. It's coming this spring Okay, with that we will move on to our director's report Good morning commissioners um Work recently got underway on highway one auxiliarie lanes bus on shoulder project between bay avenue porter street and state park drive This project will also construct a bicycle and pedestrian over crossing at marvis to drive and replace the existing capitol avenue crossing In order to construct the new over crossing a long-term closure of capitol avenue capitol avenue is needed On monday march 11 at 9 am crews will close capitol at the capitol avenue over crossing to prepare for the demolition of the bridge The closure will be the closure will be in effect for about 14 months Additionally a 24 hour full closure of highway one is needed for the demolition of the current over crossing This full closure will take place From saturday march 23rd at 7 p.m. Through sunday march 24th at 7 p.m Between the between the bay avenue porter street and park avenue interchanges Demolition crews will use this 24-hour closure to safely demolish the over crossing and haul of materials away Sarah christensen our senior transportation engineer will provide more information on this project later on our agenda as uh commissioner hernan as mentioned uh We along with commissioner conic and montecino and staff Had the opportunity to tour the highway one auxiliary lane bus on shoulder project between 41st avenue and soquel The project also includes the shanticleer bicycle and pedestrian over crossing We've gotten a close look at the over crossing We're just going to improve regional connectivity for bicycles and pedestrians And this project along with our other phases of the highway one projects Will help transform how people travel throughout our community If uh other commissioners are interested in a tour like this of this project or other projects Please let me know and we'll set something up Lastly later this month commissioner hernan as and i will be attending the civic well policy makers conference Which will include sessions on sustainable funding strategies for infrastructure And lessons on cross jurisdictional governance from transportation Commissioners that concludes my report. I'm happy to answer any questions Thank you questions. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Um, mr The over crossing the pedestrian over crossing the shanticleer will be done I presumably before the highway uh between uh, soquel and count on 41st Is there is it likely that people will be able to use that prior to that the highway portion of that being done That's a fantastic question. Sarah Thank you director wise. Um We have been looking into that we're evaluating whether that's a possibility But um, it's not looking like that's going to be likely because Um, although the structure work will be complete. There's quite a bit more railing lighting another aesthetic feature installations that need to be done and typically At the end of a construction project, there is a closeout period where The the project is accepted by, you know, the owner. So the owner of the bridge is county So county would have to accept the bridge. Um, and I just don't think that the Construction activities are going to work out in a way that we can open it early, unfortunately But it's just around the corner next year so All right, any further questions from commissioners All right, thank you. Do we have any public comment on the director's report? Saying none in the room and no hands raised online We'll go now to our cal trans report Commissioner eads are still on mute Oops, I guess I right they're on the way there. Sorry Good morning chair brown and members of the commission scott eads district five district director I have a few items for you. One is good news from our perspective on winter storm damage. We did receive significant storm events and some level of damage in other parts of the district Notably santa barbara sand loaves is still in monterey counties But so far Knock on wood and fingers crossed We're in good shape in santa cruise and we'll do everything we can to keep the roads open with any future storms I wanted to report out on a report that was just released by calsta. That's the california secretary of transportation agency They released a report on cap die, which is the climate action plan for transportation infrastructure Cap die was adopted in july 2021 and so they just really released a report Noting and reporting out on the progress that's been made and there has been great progress So far for many different transportation related actions that are associated with climate change The cap die lists 34 key action items and of those 25 are already complete and the remaining are on track to be completed by july of this year So great news the reports online There's a lot of key actions there that we that we have been working for some time And then also wanted to announce that safe streets for all funding opportunity is coming up. This is a us dot grant program It's there's 1.1 Million just over 1.1 million dollar or sorry billion dollars in funding available nationwide cities towns counties tribal governments MPOs are all eligible to apply And then there's two different programs within safe streets for all one of them is the implementation grants those are due Applications are due on may 16th And then there is planning and demonstration grant applications, which can it's another portion of the grant program With different deadlines. There's the first would be april fourth There's another one on may 16th and another one on august 29th So just an fyi a lot of information online related to that grant program And then the last thing I wanted to note is that there was some discussion At the december board meeting about the flap funded. This is a federal funding category For a segment of the north coast trail trail that project which there was some Level of discussion around the caltrans comments the project is now moving forward fhwa Has advertised it for construction and they have a bid opening scheduled for the end of march So thanks for working through those final comments with us. We appreciate your patience on that that concludes my report. Happy to take any questions Thank you questions from commissioners Seeing none. We have any public comment on this item? Also seeing none. Thank you so much. We appreciate the report We'll move now to item 28 glideways presentation and I will turn it over louise. Are you getting a start it or Well, just a quick quick introduction and the commission did ask that we request glideways to make a presentation on their Under solution for for transportation that they're working on in partnership with the city of san osa and Also contra costa and I think you know some other locations So uh representatives from glideways are here to make that presentation for you and if you ask any questions that you would like Great. Thank you. Welcome. Great. Thank you louise. Thank you christen I've met some of the board members before but um frame. I haven't met my name is dustin errow I'm vp of business development at glideways Prior to glideways. I was at lyft for about seven years and started a number of different teams there um, I'm an attorney before We going way back. I actually went to ucsc and lived in santa cruz for a number of years So i'm very familiar with the area and excited to talk with you guys today. Well Good morning, everyone. Um, my name is paul jamp card. I'm an architect urban designer. Um, Don't have the same experience that dustin has had in santa cruz or years ago I worked on some of the early concepts for the redevelopment of pacific station It's very nice to see that underway and transforming that part of downtown Um, and also even in a life before that worked on some of the concepts for the master planning at uc santa cruz Um, my experience my role at the company is the director of system design and infrastructure planning And the experience I bring to that in this new kind of technology is a lot of years of experience up in the portland area I'm developing alignments for the max light rail system. So I bring a lot of that sort of real world transit experience to this new technology We're very excited to share with you today. So thank you very much Great, and we've got a brief presentation. I'm going to give a high level glideways overview Uh, we're going to talk about some of our project wins one just over the hill in san jose Another one in the east bay and then a third um in san bernandino county And then all is going to bring it hyper local back to santa cruz. Um, and we're going to talk about how Um, if you put in the commuter rail how we can be a last mile solution to local points of interest like dominican hospital cabrillo college gcsc watsonville airport Um, and potentially if the commuter rail doesn't go in place at certain times, um, we may be able to service that area going from watsonville to santa cruz um while still keeping keeping the rail for freight keeping the trail for people and um, meeting capacity concerns as well as, um As as well as providing a phenomenal user experience so I don't know that the clicker is going It's worked me for Let's see All right, we'll we'll just do the the old-fashioned one next next slide. Thanks Um, so I always like to start off with what glideways is from a high level because it's really simple It's origin to destination without any stops on a dedicated Fixed guideway so the vehicles never interact with pedestrians. They never interact with other cars. This is not an open road solution It's not like wemo. It's not like cruise. It's on a dedicated guideway Uh next slide So when we were first coming up with glideways back in 2016, we wanted to start with the rider experience so the You know, we want to provide a Extraordinary rider experience and so we talked to people. We said, hey, what would it take for you to actually get out of your car and take transit? If you take transit, what would make that experience better for you? And hands down a hundred percent of people said predictable fast transit times They didn't want a trip to take 10 minutes one day 20 minutes another day 30 minutes another day because they got a train got stuck in a tunnel They missed the bus their car got stuck in traffic. Whatever the reason and so That's what we provide. We provide direct origin to destination without any stops in between on a dedicated Guideway so you have predictable transit times our vehicles travel at 30 miles per hour So that's two minutes a mile So if you're going five miles the trip's going to take 10 minutes every single time Not nine minutes not 11 minutes 10 minutes every single time The next thing that people wanted was it to be comfortable and spacious So our vehicles are one to six passengers. If you have a larger group, you can platoon multiple vehicles The rides can be shared or they could be personal rides even if they're shared rides It's still origin to destination without any stops. We batch people together that are going to the same Destination and then there's tons of space for for luggage Sporting equipment bicycles. I'm a surfer myself. You could get probably Eight foot long board maybe even nine foot long board in there. It's really Really spacious and then from an ADA standpoint, not only do we meet ADA standards? We actually exceed ADA standards So a person in a wheelchair can come in they can fully turn around they can ride with two companions We've done tons of user testing at our site We've given about 800 rides at our site in Concord, California. It's a little over an hour away We invite the board to come ride our system experience it Experience it is is believing. I mean, you'll you can ride in it. This isn't vaporware They're awesome and And and so the user experience for people in wheelchairs has been phenomenal People have said we really enjoy the system We can get on and off the vehicles at our leisure Without having to worry about holding up a whole bus or a train full of people Um, based on this user testing we actually redesigned our vehicle in 2024. So just two months ago We released this this is we've got former apple and google and tesla engineers and designers that have built this You'll see the the tires there. There's a There's a cover on them. That's just to prevent water wicking on the on the lidar But what's under there is just rubber tires same as you'd have on a car There's no induction charging or anything. It's just rubber tires on pathway The vehicles they're quiet. They're battery electric zero emissions vehicles Um, and then the inside of the vehicle we designed this to really be an oasis. We want people to get in Um sit back relax feel like they've already arrived at their destination Once once they're in the vehicle you can use wi-fi you can play your own music Adjust the type the lighting the temperature Um, it's really I mean I've written it myself. It's an awesome experience. Um You can ride with your bike as a spot for a bike slot the next slide And then looking at the system and paul's going to go into more detail on this We wanted these to be low impact systems that quietly go through the community So the systems can be the guideways can be at grade They can be elevated or they can be underground or a combination of all three, which is what we're doing in san san jose the next slide And so what we've really done here is we've right size to demand It's really simple smaller vehicles equal smaller infrastructure So with a five and a half foot guideway, we can go single direction with a 15 foot guideway We can go two directions And putting cars on a guideway That's nothing special anybody can do that where our intellectual property comes in and how We can From a capacity standpoint service anywhere from a few hundred people per hour All the way up to 10,000 passengers per hour per direction Is r.i.p. Is for how the vehicles get on and off the guideway and how they can travel it up to sub second headways Without ever having to stop or ever having to slow down And that's what makes us different than literally every other solution that's out there in the world Um, and that's why you know, we've applied for for four rfps so far We've won two and we've been down selected at two others. Um, so we've got you know, great track record there and um One one last point on this I like to think of it like a highway Um, it's really simple just like a highway vehicles are going in two different directions And occasionally they pull off to pick people up and drop people off and that's that's how our system works um next slide So just touching on some of our project wins Uh san jose and our san francisco bay area transit connector. These are going to start build in 2026 Um, and they're going to be live revenue service in 2028. Maybe early 2029 So for the san jose airport to downtown connector, this one's really An interesting project because this is one that they wanted to do for over 20 years But it was going to cost two billion dollars to put a train in And so we came to them. We said, hey, look we can do the 4.5 four mile system We can have nine stations. We can do it for a fraction of the cost Um to put the train in and we can do it right now. It's it's 550 million for the capital expenditure This is one of our more expensive projects because it's mostly elevated. There's going to be some underground But what's really cool about this project? It's a p3 delivery. So Because our capital expenditures are so low and our operating expenditures are so low We were able to attract private financing through plenary group and so And so plenary is funding the vast majority of the project And so not only is it going to not cost two billion dollars for the city to put it in it's they're going to There's going to be a very fractional Subsidy required on the city's part The san francisco barrier transit connector. This is one in east contra costa county It's a 28 mile regional connector connecting four different cities to five heavy rail stations One of the things that all of these These projects having common is they're feeders into into other transit modes So we want to drive ridership. We want to drive traffic to other modes of transportation Um And then lastly San Bernardino county airport connector. This is a 4.2 mile system It's uh mostly underground and it's again connecting to to existing transit to the metro link and then also to the bright line station that's going to vegas So i'm gonna Paul kind of bring it bring it local and then we're open to questions. Very good. Thank you very much Yeah, it was uh, we've really appreciated kind of like coming into the conversation today and you know From the outside we we understood that there's a lot going on with this corridor the entire conversation Had some sense of the sensitivities But it's really good to come down and kind of engage the conversation directly to to appreciate them more fully Next slide, please One of the things that we want to leave you with today First of all is to plant a seed of the that we exist that we're real that we're maturing technology That will be ready for the marketplace is reliable as other modes. We have out there in the marketplace today The other key thing is how we differ. We differ in our size We differ in our operational requirements and we we differ significantly in the impact we have on the corridor and the environment that we operate in So what some of the key things that we've um registered in the community that we hope to address within this Is uh alleviating the congestion highway one We're all aware is a real problem, but the surface streets as well have become problems for people just getting around the community In addition to that the housing situation is a very real one. I live in San Francisco. He's in southern california We're all aware the housing is super sensitive and you know, basically getting out of reach Transportation plays a really key part of making that affordable and actually changing the way we plan and develop housing So we really want to be able to help support transit oriented development in this community The regional climate Kind of priorities of this community are part of its culture We definitely want to be able to reinforce those and carry those forward in this new project Um, and lastly these two elements are really about this as a place We recognize the historical significance and the unique kind of lifestyle here in Santa Cruz and the california coast We think we are a really good fit for that and hopefully we can kind of Convey some of that and what we're presenting today next place So The big picture of course is this connection all the way from Davenport up to coast all the way over to Watsonville But also the much more intense use that you all live with every day here in the Santa Cruz to aptos Um, and there are a number of different ways We could draw a line and make these connections happen the centerpiece of this morning's conversation Of course is the rail line, but the highway one also presents a bit of a corridor that we could explore For application of this technology this morning. We're not making any recommendations We're just trying to kind of outline kind of like the requirements and the opportunities that we might be able to explore if we go forward together so next time This is intended to kind of provide more focus where the real key ridership is as we understand it and the catchment diagrams Going along parallel to the alignments themselves really try to Convey the nature of the catchment that not only a pedestrian walking experience could do every transit planner will look at that But also with the light mobility of cycling and micro mobility can afford So to really get a sense of how much of this community could be served by a system like this Another key point to kind of note with this in contrast maybe to some of the planning of of train options Is the number of stops we can do As Dustin described the vehicles are much smaller our infrastructure is much smaller So the cost of all those capital expenses is significantly less than the bigger modes that are on the table today But we'll also have a lot more opportunity to create access points as we call them We don't even call them stations stations convey something significant in its scale But the access points are really just points where we've got a number of different berths where the vehicles can be accessed by people boarding and exiting the system Next and this is a sense of just how big those vehicles are The cross section required for a single lane as Dustin mentioned is five and a half feet That raised portion in between the two lanes of opposing direction is an egress platform that is accessible from the vehicles directly So there's no dropping two feet to get from a train now to the should something break down We really try to weave that accessibility through the entire system And so that cross section is a mirror 14 or 16 feet if we go outside of the barriers necessary As he mentioned the vehicles require a protected space. So wherever our system goes It's going to be protected by fencing to keep people out to keep critters out And just to basically preserve that operating space to keep it simple and high performance delivering the kind of Point-to-point non-stop experience with the capacities that we want to be able to deliver but This is a An illustration of how we could fit alongside the freight This is not a configuration that would work necessarily in parallel or in tandem with the same space of a light rail It would have much more regular heavy Larger vehicles and more regular use But this preserves that rail line for the intermittent use that the freight might require along the corridor And of course, there would be coordination of timing and things like that Our system is designed to be 24 7 but it can be whatever this community and operating model decides to be The vehicles themselves because they're small Are on demand as well. So this wouldn't be a scheduled 15 20 30 minute kind of regular schedule It would be on demand and that's one of the key features that makes this sort of the desirable option To get people out of their cars giving them the freedom and flexibility to go where they want when they want And so those two diagrams of cross section They're really not proposals. They are just to give you a sense of all the space that we need To kind of fit into this very sensitive highly coveted corridor Um and hopes that you can start to imagine yourself wearing how these might go The last is really how we are hoping to respond to some of those concerns identified Number one get people out of their cars Make more appealing the options that we have of bicycles, micro mobility walking In addition to the transit systems that are already in place We want to be able to enhance the current options on the table so that we can perhaps provide even more housing If we can alleviate the parking requirements for a given location That's better places more units all the options. I think are toward the goal of more housing for the community Again, echoing the priorities and culture of this community We want by running electric on demand small scale We reduce the carbon footprint of the entire system and we make this much more aligned the kind of the culture that Santa Cruz is about And then again the final two They're going to be quiet. They're going to be on demand They could fit within or like the coastal communities that we've got particularly the more sensitive ones further towards Aptos and to the east As well as the very tightly constrained ones. We've got here right in town and then finally The legacy of this as a part of Santa Cruz's history and culture We want to be able to bring more people to it to experience it for the value it provides rather than just hoping one day It'll become something worth doing and that I think that's the bottom line that we want to share with you today We're happy to take any questions in this question you have. Thank you Questions from commissioners Yeah, go ahead So for the last mile options, how's it work? Does it need like a guided pathway for it as well too? Okay Yeah, yeah, so whatever mode you have along the corridor or even any of the large boulevards or things like that We would need to create a new pathway Of course the rail corridor is a gift that you have today But as you can see from the size we would need to kind of create a relatively small Almost like a comparable bicycle path dedicated to our operations to make those extensions to cover your college, etc I'm very interesting now presentation. Uh, we have a lot of On the rail line a lot of cross paths Who would have The right-of-way sort of speak for a stop sign there because there's a number of them between Santa Cruz, watsafo We avoid that question No, and let me answer that's a little glib. Um Effectively imagine a series of pedestrian scale bridges that will allow our vehicles to pass over those crossways those grades There may be some grade modification at those crossings There may be kind of we might change the number of them depending upon Sort of like value and impact to the system and to the community around it All of that is an ongoing process But the measure itself the infrastructure necessary to overcome those is really effectively a pedestrian bridge to allow us to leap over that Or go under it, right or go under it. We can trench and pass underneath to In your project that you are building out in for the San Jose Downtown to the airport Are you using a right-of-way of the county city or you're going through caltrans? Yeah, we're Except for a less than 5% maybe 3% is a taking of a single parcel one little parcel Otherwise, we're making our way through caltrans space city rights away or the public park One of the critical things about the project and it's our ability to go forward is the ability to go through that park They looked at a number of other more, you know, conventional modes light rail trolleys, etc The park just said no the sensitivities of the habitat the open space the population the activities they want to have there We're utterly incompatible with those modes But we were able to kind of come to an understanding about how the scale and our integration with the landscape Makes this more of a complement to their park than it is a negative impact to it Thank you Thank you, it's it's good to hear from you and and see you here. It's something this is something that I've been learning about and hearing about Um, I see mr. Garrett is here in the room as well Advocate. I don't know who's been teaching me Um, I have a question about on the operation side just wondering I can envision how that works with respect to infrastructure development and management, but overall how your operations fit within the public sector transit World in the places where you're where you're developing projects sure, um, well, uh First of all, um, just the fundamentals of the operations the we don't have schedules They're all on demand the vehicles are small scale. They're serviced in a single warehouse facility ideally We call it an msf maintenance servicing charging facility effectively That's relatively small compared to other kind of yards for larger scale things like that And where we connect with transit is really one of coordination and planning So we can put these access points where there's already concentrations of Intermodal stations or other stops key locations And then it becomes just a matter of sitting down with the local transit And we can adjust the size of that fleet to match both the schedule and the capacity goals for the system itself And we can then uh with sort of machine learning the very sophisticated controls we develop to really Synchronize with those surges that might come off of other transit Definitely the case of what's happening in san jose where we've got multiple trains coming into dir dan We've been able to engineer for that so that people don't have, you know, crush loading, you know Backups and things like that So where it's an open very flexible system. We see this as a as a potential feeder for the new transit hub as well So what's uh, um, what's the cost factor like not the project wise but like the Someone i'm going to go use it How much is the cost So it's going to be um comparable to public transit fares. Um, that's that's what we're that's what we're working towards in san jose Um, the rides can be shared or they can be personal um, and so they For the for the personal rides we're pricing those at about two times the fair of what a public ride would cost But if you you know, if you got a party of four or five and that's that's pretty cost effective thank Questions on this end. Yes, go ahead Look, yes, I just wanted to ask um, if you could expand on the p3 delivery And you know, if there is any benefits As to the contributions from local municipalities When a project is p3 delivered compared to those that are not Okay, yeah, no, there's a lot to p3 public private partnerships Dusted had mentioned plenary group plenary north america. They're leading db fom design build finance maintain and operate Developer they deliver turnkey infrastructure projects all around the united states north america And so part of the reason we've engaged them is because they could see in us A capital cost model that they could privately finance As you could well imagine when you can bring private capital to a project because they see that there's profit to be made from that project Things can happen much more quickly on the financing and execution side There's still of course a public process to kind of you know plan and coordinate that with all the other agencies and interests in the Community, but it really does accelerate and simplify the financing side of things To the point where In some situations if capital costs and ridership balance We can have a zero subsidy system both in a cap cost and in ongoing operating costs And you have a concession for the for the developer that makes them whole as well So it really does change the game of how typical transit is being designed and engineered financed and executed Good How do you keep The system running in terms of you know when some vehicles need to slow down other speed up and how do you coordinate all that to have a A central place somewhere that's that's monitoring all that Yeah, there's a there's an operation control center. Um, that's monitoring everything and then and And it's all programmed in um into the system, but Paul Yeah It is it's a system that operates intelligently at two levels at the level as dustin referred sort of the overall comprehensive fleet management system Kind of like maintaining balance throughout the entire fleet, but then the individual vehicles They operate with multi redundant sensors and navigation for autonomous management and navigation through the system And so effectively they're all moving with awareness of each other And then the last sort of envelope that really assures ongoing reliable performance is we sense the entire corridor So if there's an intrusion that could have impact on our vehicles movements, we know ahead of time We can anticipate that we can mitigate against it And therefore we add, you know, triple quadruple levels of redundancy to make sure as he said you can get a 10 minute ride every time and unlike open road where open road solutions like waymo they have to Imagine they have to look at everything around them Whereas we just have to know the the guideway and know, you know, something's coming over the fence. Oh, it's over the fence Okay, cool. We're going to go around it. Um, we simplify the problem. Yeah So that's are you done? That's a nice segue to my question. I think I wanted to follow up on one ass down here um When your guideway when your vehicles in guideways are approaching any kind of crossing and i'm thinking of pedestrian crosswalks Any pedestrians simply stepping into the street? Um, what's the system for? avoiding a collision well Earlier Dustin referred to us like a highway. We're really more like a freeway And the freeway as we all understand doesn't have at great crossings with pedestrians Nobody bicycles on a freeway. We really need to dedicate that small space to our operations So there won't be any at great pedestrians crossing still either go under it or over it We'll go over it or go under it So we just really avoid those at-grade conflicts. So imagining accessing cabrero college Dominican hospitals would be below grade or above grade rather than at grade It could be any of the above and that that's we have the flexibility to assess any given locations The vehicles are small. They can overcome significant grade changes So we can make those transitions and it's going to be a site uh case by case sort of process You'll know we've been working on prt issues for by my notes since my oldest are from 20 2000 Okay, and uh issues of above grade, you know raised Guideways become kind of an issue for visibility impacts on neighborhoods and so forth. Yeah No, we're very aware that this is going to be a new thing A new big thing running through your community The goal of course is to you know diminish the need for the other big spaces We allocate to automobiles for one and two with the lower cap costs We can turn those things into more than just an elevated causeway We've talked about creating covered walkways for the public We can create spaces underneath that for any number of different activities when we are in the air And so it's we're not just stuck by the constraints of extreme kind of budget Control to do only do one thing. We can actually provide this high value service with transportation and have a little bit of resources left to do the important things to make it a Nice thing within the community like paths walking pedestrian paths Yeah Yes, go ahead To additional questions. Um, it's a change like metrics. Um, is there a number of passengers per day that you were looking for? You know for a successful project on the years would be proposing As well as wondering if they're um, if you guys would have any interest or consider leasing space from the rtc Or a local government to privately operate the transportation system And then, um, Lastly, if we were interested in the technology, um, we would be the next steps You want to answer any one of those? Yeah, so um, as far as as far as number of passengers per day I believe you guys are expecting around 6,000. I believe on the on the rail We um did a study with steer for the santa zade project. They estimate that because of how how Well, the vehicles are and how easy they are to to use that there'll be about a 29 to 46 percent increase in ridership. So um The numbers that you guys are expecting. Um, we would absolutely do And then what was the second question? Sorry Oh leasing the space Yes, totally. We're open to I mean, we're small enough and flexible enough We can work with the available real estate real available corridors Because you know, like I said, where that msf facility goes We can kind of like be strategic about that The fleet size and the ridership goals again, that's going to come out of more steps and study And so to your last question the questions you just posed would be a great part of an initial agenda to a follow-up Effectively a study session to sit down and listen to your thoughts about what you've heard today About some of the other goals and challenges that there's corridor development in the regional transportation sort of ambitions Contained and then we will see where and how we can fit and take something forward To kind of give it a little bit more structure. But um, again, as I mentioned at the very beginning What we're trying to do today is find a seat of potential On compatibility and value Yeah, and we we'd love I mean just as a as a follow-up. We'd love to have the board come come to our site It's probably a little over an hour hour and a half way Um, actually ride the veal vehicles We have mayors and city council and people out there almost every single week Uh, trying you know riding the system and experiencing it because we just want you guys to see it and see where it could plug in Yeah, that's actually a really good next step. Yeah, riding it for real is Amazing just to watch people who experience coming in skeptics coming out converted. So Okay additional questions No, okay, I just have a quick question. Um, thank you for the presentation and thank you for being here today I I appreciated the opportunity to meet with you virtually previously and get a presentation from you and I can certainly See the benefits of this as a feeder into transit modes. Um, or perhaps on the freeway or soquel Um, when we met I had asked you if you are looking to be an alternative to passenger rail And you said that that wasn't the case and your slides today. It looks like That um, you should you mentioned freight rail But it looks like there wouldn't be an alternative an opportunity for passenger rail if you're looking to be in the branch Line, so can you just clarify for me? If you're if you are interested in being a feeder into transit modes or an alternative to some of the transit modes that we are already looking at From a high level company strategic We just want to get our place in the minds of people like you who are making these choices We could certainly do the job of providing all the transit all the way through the corridor and the branches as well We don't want to you know undo or presume to kind of ignore all the good work that's going into developing this concept Thank you Any other questions No, okay. Great. Thank you for your presentation gentlemen. Do we have any public comment on this item in the room? Hi, welcome Hi, yeah, I'm Brett Garrett and I want to thank you for scheduling this presentation from wideways I personally see it as a very good prospect as the primary Link between Watsonville and Santa Cruz I think it's a very good example of personal rapid transit which could provide better transportation than the conventional rail proposals that I've seen I've heard People at other meetings have said well, you know, we had the transit corridor alternatives analysis and You know people say we've already studied this and rejected it And I kind of want to debunk the idea that the transit corridor alternatives Was I'm trying to figure out how to say how to say this that it did a good job of analyzing it before rejecting it It did give scores based on various criteria and it gave very low scores for prt But most of those low scores really did not make sense In some cases they were not explained and in other cases the Criteria were written in such a way that prt just got us most scored because of the way it was written For example active transportation The alternatives analysis said this is not friendly to bicycles because the vehicles are very small but There's so many of these vehicles so so the prt could you could Many bicycles could use the system in an hour Almost unlimited compared to a train where it's just the number of bikes that fit in the train maybe twice an hour or something like that Also with regard to feasibility feasibility has increased so much since the alternatives analysis And many other examples So I just want to say that I disagree with the conclusions of the alternatives analysis milestone 2 And please you give serious consideration to personal rapid transit including glideways and other innovative transportation systems. Thank you very much Hi, welcome. All right. Good morning. Thank you so much all of you for your efforts on the rail trail It must be really great to actually see part of it functioning And I'm hoping I live long enough to see a nice green hydrogen powered tram going up and down it And that brings me to the subject of prt It's a great idea for the future for our population growth to have the the rail line accessible for public transportation There's a little bit of a problem though because there's a gap A few years ago the number was 8000 trips a day on highway one to the university from mid county and beyond So the tram is great, but it doesn't get you to the university. It doesn't get those 8000 plus cars to the university Or the people without the cars hopefully So that's where prt comes in We have the levy as you know going from right down by where the tram stop on by the boardwalk would be Going up towards casco and behind there is Empty land and it's scheduled someday. Hopefully not to go into a four lane Pave highway or paved road That's completely unnecessary the river one junction is extremely impacted already as you know prt would be the perfect link to Go from the rail trail up to the university's transit system on the west side of the campus So obviously you're not going to be able to approve that today But I urge you to do it as soon as possible or at least keep it in the back of your mind for when the day arrives We do need a link from the rail trail To one of the major Locations people are commuting to and it could also loop through the downtown transit center. It's only half a block So that would be perfect east to finish your puzzle and continue working on it. I hope thank you very much Thank you additional public comment Hi, welcome thank Thank you. My name is portia and as someone that uses mobility an electric wheelchair to get around and and almost exclusively public transportation I'm always for anything that can load at level it's just so much easier and efficient because it you know The buses are great and the bus drivers are awesome and then Bring down the ramps and so forth. It just takes a lot of time and slows the whole process down um in addition to that I did find this Option kind of interesting about how it's mostly in the It's still guided. So you if you did choose to do it next to a trail or something. I would still feel Significantly safer there than on the sidewalks of say mission street or wherever Thank you. Thank you Good afternoon. Welcome commissioners. My name is matt ferrell. I'm speaking today for friends the rail and trail We have Seen quite a lot of discussion about personal rapid transit solutions in our community and as commissioner pagler mentioned They haven't really proved to be very Feasible with the options that were available in those at those times. I think that uh We don't claim to be experts in this technology or approach, but we have these observations first We really believe it's important that any consideration of this alternative Not only include the rtc But also our transit district Unfortunately in san jose as we understand it there's a difference of opinion between the transit agency and The city of san jose about solutions to the airport connection And I would hope that we don't see that in our community because we've really gotten to place now Where the transit district and the rtc leadership are working together? And I think we need to maintain that unity Secondly, I would say I think we feel more comfortable Exploring this option as a last mile solution The real challenges now in terms of building a rail connection in our community Are two destinations like real college And ucsc and the presenters today Have made that presentation. So um, I won't say any any more about that, but thank you for my time Thank you Any additional comments in the room Saying none. We will go online and we'll start with michael st Good afternoon Uh, good afternoon. Thank you chair brown and thank you glideways for your presentation Um, I know some people will be skeptical about new technology But if we can all keep an open mind that there are other transportation modes That may be more practical and may be better than the older technologies of buses and trains Um, I had a few the highlights I liked about the presentation and think are very Good for transportation in general The idea that the sharebox actually helping cover the costs of operation and maintaining these vehicles Is uh, highly important also the prt proposals Also significantly reduced reliance on public funding, which seems to be a big Problem for most things like trains and buses And in general and in my opinion our goal in this county should be to select a transportation system that alleviates increasing congestion on our highways and arterial roads Glideways has actually suggested this or said they would do this in the contra cost of county project So far santa cruz county Is only offering an alternative train solution And basically not much congestion relief. I think we can do much better I think relieving congestion should be one of the number one goals in our transportation projects I also like to thank commissioner konig And commissioner rotkin for bringing glideways here today And i'm always very thankful to brett garrett for pushing this technology on us and hope we keep going and have an open mind about it And um, i'm to some type of conclusion. I know you're pretty far off with getting something on the rail trail So we have time and there will probably be some more improvement technology wise. Thank you for your time Thank you Go next to brian peoples You should be able to unmute yourself now. All right, we'll come back to you Ben vernazza Okay, I just have a question to throw out for everybody to think about And that is uh, what do we do with the 57 new buses? That we're buying Question mark think about it included in any analysis. Thank you very much Thank you We will return to mr. Peoples Having some technical difficulties perhaps Is it not allowing us to unmute him or is it? Okay, all right. Let's um, let's do this Let's move on to our next item and mr. Peoples once we figure out the technical difficulties We will allow you to provide comment on this item at the next item. All right Bringing it back. We're going to move on to item 29 It's informational update regarding the community's preference between two single span bridge types for the coastal rail trail segment 12 Bicycle and pedestrian bridge over aptos creek and soquel drive Hi, welcome. Hi. Thank you chair brown um In january the rtc staff released a video and a short survey in order to solicit input on the community's preferred Bridge type for the coastal rail trail segment 12 Bicycle and pedestrian bridge and aptos the two options for the tide arch bridge and the stress driven bridge both with similar costs and maintenance the survey had 889 respondents and um 59.95 of the votes were from aptos residents and the rest were throughout the santa cruz county um Tide arch bridge had the most votes with 57.89 percent and the stress ribbon bridge with 42.11 percent votes The project development team recommends moving forward with the tide arch bridge in agreement with the survey results We received two public comments asking to reconsider design choice for various reasons The staff has considered and recommends not changing course at this time due to overall public votes And the votes specifically in aptos being in favor of the tide arch bridge That concludes my staff report Turn myself off there we go, uh, thank you and anna you you might be a new face for some of us in presentations Would you like to introduce yourself? Yes? I am anna call top and I'm a transportation planning intern at the rtc wonderful. Thank you any questions Yeah, go ahead Informational There can we get clarification this is an informational item only thank you All right, uh, no further questions. All right. Thank you so much for your presentation. And is there any public comments on this item? Seeing none in the room Online it looks like we have rebecca downing Yes, good morning again commissioners I submitted a written comment regarding the scope Safety and maintenance for the new pedestrian bridge over aptos creek I hope staff will reconsider These comments before selecting the final design The tide arch bridge design is highly visible from the surrounding neighborhood and maybe out of place in this setting Before making a selection it's important to consider the profile of a bridge that will be in aptos for a long time I don't believe the design renderings fully demonstrate the large presence of an arch bridge If you look at the pictures at the end of my comment, you can see the profiles of the proposed Designs next to a current view From the railroad bridge on historic aptos creek road Bridge, I believe the stress ribbon design more closely matches the current view of the railroad bridge And the original design that was determined to be infeasible The residents of aptos will be traveling through this bridge area more frequently than those living outside of aptos So our opinions should weigh more heavily in the decision And while the survey results showed more than half the responders stated that they were from the aptos zip code The survey is self reporting and there was no limit to the number of times it could be taken I appreciate the time and detailed work by sarah christianson The Consultants and staff Providing us with these two options And I ask for more deliberation and another look at the stress ribbon design before making a final decision. Thank you Thank you Any further comments on this item? Okay seeing none Right. Yes seeing none. Okay. We will bring this back. This was just an informational item. Any further discussion? Okay Yes, go ahead I'm just curious about the um Comment of the survey being open to be taken multiple times. Is there anything that the rtc does to prevent this like uh One per ip address or anything like that Um, I think we've tested it um shannon munn's rpio can confirm but um I think you're only allowed to take it once but Potentially more if you have additional devices, but I defer to shannon if you want to provide any more clarification on that Yeah, that's accurate. Um, you can only take it once per ip address So if somebody wanted to do it on a bunch of different devices they could potentially But if they're on that one device, it's going to pop up saying you've already taken the survey Perfect. Thank you. Thank you Yeah Additional questions or comments Okay, wonderful. We are going to move on now to item 30 Uh highway one state park to bay porter auxiliary lanes and bus on shoulder project construction update Proposed 24 hour closure of highway one for demolition of the capitola over crossing Thank you chair brown. My name is sarah christensen of your staff I lead the highway one program of projects today, uh, we are gonna Give a little bit more detail about um, what director weiss talked about earlier, which is um, one of our larger projects picking up, um, the Project between state park drive and bay porter interchanges. It's about three miles long um, and that project has been Slowly kind of picking up over the winter There's been some clearing and grabbing activities minor activities And all of the major work was deferred until now, um When the weather is better and we um Of a couple large structures As part of this project as you're aware the capitola avenue over crossing is being replaced That's a local roadway over crossing in capitola right on the border of county and city jurisdiction That uh bridge is being closed to the public on monday The uh caltrans team and the instruction contractor are working diligently to prepare for that Uh preparations include placing portable changeable message signs on local roads. Those have been out Um, I believe as of monday of this week Um, so you should see those if you're driving through the area just to get the locals who are actually using those routes familiar and Prepared for this Longer term closure. Uh, this bridge will be closed up to 14 months We're trying very hard to reduce that as much as we can. Um, however, this is a large complex project and Um, it's you know expect 14 months, please Uh, so the capital avenue over crossing demolition is the other part of um The update and that is are supposed to be a 24 hour closure plan for saturday march 23rd 7 p.m. To sunday march 24th 7 p.m. And the um Contractor is going to take that bridge down in its entirety and one Uh 24 hour window So the freeway will be closed for 24 hours. Um, and there is Going to be a detour. Obviously you have to exit at um The earlier interchange so either at park or a bay porter and take um local roads So the signed detour will be a long soquel drive But obviously the locals are going to find their own preferred way to go. So, um Let's see here. What else we included a detour map for the capital avenue longer term Um Detour in our staff report is attachment one Attachment two is our public outreach plan for all of this work the two major closure activities that we are preparing for And this is really just um Meant to be a living document and we're constantly updating it if there's new information or opportunities to Provide additional outreach becomes available We've been working very closely with um the jurisdiction staff. So city of capitol. We're working with the police Folks over there. They're helping us with um getting the word out to schools first responders and um Really like our boots on the ground out there. So we appreciate city staff very much from public works and the police department And um We also request, you know If if the commissioners are you if you guys have news Letters and social media platforms, it would be really helpful to um have Um this information go out uh through those channels as well And then finally the because this is a major regional You know closure And it's on a weekend. We are doing um outreach throughout The surrounding county. So monterey county san bonito county The entire bay area if you have ever driven, you know throughout the bay area and there's closures of say 680 It's on the changeable message sign. So those changeable message signs Starting as soon as today Are going to say, you know highway one and santa cruz closed on this day So um, we're doing as much as we can and working with our local and regional partners throughout You know as far as we can get the word out to um get people prepared for this Um, so that that concludes my staff report and i'm here for questions if you have any Thank you. Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? Yeah, go ahead Yeah, um You mentioned it, but I just want to clarify because chair brown mentioned that there you're also where capitol is working in bay Is it gonna be in The dates say i wrote it down. I'll be a nightmare In coordination, you know Yes, we um plan to Uh discuss that with city staff and figure out the timing of that and then uh adjust accordingly if it's on the detour route we may need to um Change gears a bit, but thanks for the heads up on that. Yeah, thank you brown. Yes Any additional questions? All right, we will bring this to public comment any public comments in the room Seeing none any comments online. I don't see any hands raised All right. Thank you so much. Uh, we'll bring it back. No further comments We will move on Our final item today, thank you so much for that report our final item today item 31 consideration and approval of a legal services agreement with redwood Public law llp for continued general counsel services by steve mattis and his team of transportation agency attorneys through june 30th 2025 an approval of an extension of the legal services agreement with mires navet plc to continue to provide litigation and labor relation services through june 30th 2025 My turn Commissioners this is an action item and my long title really pretty much said it all Mr mattis has been acting as our general counsel through our contract with mires navet. He and his team are Moving to redwood public law This item would uh enter into a contract with redwood public law for those services and also Retain certain services at mires navet that are primary litigation and labor relations Both agreements would go through june at the end of june 2025 staff recommends approval of the item I'll move the agenda. I have to go with the public well any questions No questions. Yeah, we'll do a public comment Seeing none in the room. Do we have any hands raised online? No, okay. We'll bring it back to the commission And I think it's important that we continue the services that we have For the individual services that we need as well. So I'd move the item agenda number 31 next second We have a motion in a second. All right. All in favor say I I any opposed any abstentions Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to uh adjournment our next meeting is scheduled for april 4th at 9 a.m Here in the board of supervisors chambers. Thank you all for participating today. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other Thank you